AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING
Douglass, ambling around the hotel veranda with little Eulalie astride of his neck, the next morning, bumped into the tenderfoot who had sat beside him in the Alcazar. He grinned sheepishly, for his antics were anything but dignified and he and the child were both shouting at the top of their voices. But there was only appreciation in the younger man's eyes as he reflected "and this is the man who waited smilingly for possible death last night!" Aloud he said genially:
"Good morning, Mr. Douglass. They told me over at the ranch—the C Bar I mean—that I might find you here. At your convenience I would like to have a talk with you."
Douglass looked at him curiously. "The C Bar," he said wonderingly. The young man smiled. "Yes, I own it, as it happens. I am Robert Carter." The cowboy took his extended hand and the young fellow winced involuntarily. Eulalie, after grave deliberation, stuck out her chubby little fist.
"I likes you, I fink," she said with much conviction, and Carter bowed over it with a courtesy that placed him instantly in the good graces of both.
"I am honored!" he said with characteristic gentleness. "You are the first lady I have had the pleasure of meeting here, and your favor is an auspicious omen." He pressed his lips to the grimy fingers.
The child smiled softly. "Youse may tiss my face if you wants."
It is worthy of note that the cowboy watching him saw nothing incongruous in the flush of color that suffused this tenderfoot's face as he availed himself of the ingenuous permission. "Another critter in your brand, Yulie," he thought, "and this one's a thoroughbred!"
They adjourned to the shady side of the veranda and Carter, proffering his cigar case, said without preamble: "You are a college man, Mr. Douglass?" Ken, puffing at the excellent Havana, nodded affirmation.
"Yale '82."
"Princeton '86 myself," said Carter, and after the fashion of hereditary rivals the world over, they solemnly shook hands again. For awhile they smoked in silence, then Carter turned abruptly. "Will you manage the C Bar for me?"
Douglass puffed meditatively for a moment. A thunderbolt from the clear blue above would have surprised him less, but no stoic ever bore a face more immobile than that which he turned toward the owner of the biggest ranch on the Western Slope.
"How about Matlock?"
"He left this morning," said Carter grimly. "See here, Douglass, all I have in this world is invested in the ranch. My family—I have a mother and sister—has no other source of income. The outfit is badly run down and I find it to be in bad flavor with everybody in this section."
Douglass looked at him in surprise. "Why, I thought—"
"So did I," said Carter sententiously, "but I was wrong. I haven't had time to investigate the leak, but about half my fortune has seeped through it and it's got to be stopped. I want a capable man, whom I can trust, to take full charge and put it back on its feet. Will you take the job?"
Ken looked at him with a new understanding; this was a different man from the white-lipped one who had writhed so uncomfortably beside him the night before. There was no indecision in the tense, vibrant voice, and the almost effeminately delicate features were strong with a great determination. The cowboy was suddenly filled with a conviction that Tin Cup had underweighed this tenderfoot.
"Do I get a free hand?" he asked. "I can only work my own way."
Carter nodded shortly. "The actual work will be yours absolutely but I will take care of the outside business end. I have a knack that way—and I need something to keep me busy. So far I've had no time for investigation—came in on the stage yesterday afternoon and put up at Vaughan's, old friends of mine—but will get at the bottom of things to-day. You'll take hold on the first; that will give you a week to clear up your work. You'll start at three thousand a year. And now I'll go back to the ranch and get busy."
They shook hands and Douglass said slowly: "I'll do what I can." And Carter was filled with great satisfaction, for he knew that was a pledge which would see fulfillment.
When he had gone, Ken sat for a long time in silent meditation. "I guess I've arrived!" he confided to the little girl who finally waked him out of this reverie. "Yulie dear, it pays to stay with the game!" And he went in to the congratulations of Blount and his wife, who were overjoyed at his good fortune.
Down at the Alcazar he found the three riders who had deserted Matlock overnight. "I'm taking charge of the C Bar on the first, boys," he said simply, "and I'd like you to stay on with me if you will. There's going to be a clean-up and a new deal. I'll play square, and you're all good hands. What d'ye say?"
The three looked interrogatively at each other and then Reddy McVey, the man who had taken the initiative the night before, said, "I reckon we'll stay."
"That's good! Your pay will go right along without any docking and I want you to go back to the ranch after we've had a drink, and finish up your corral building. And you might tell all the other boys that I won't make any changes—unless I have to. Sabe?"
They grinned their full understanding of the underlying significance of that qualifying clause, and Red assured him that the rest of the outfit would stay. "They're all good boys ef they are a leetle free on the bit," he confided. "An' they've only been obeying orders." Ken nodded his comprehension and the deal was properly ratified.
Over at the post office Williams was frankly exultant. "Best move ever made on the C Bar," he swore. "That tenderfoot has more savvy than I giv' him credit for. He's a sandy cuss, too. I was keepin' cases on him las' night and he shore panned out good. Looks a heap more like his mam than he does like th' ole man; reckon that's why I didn't get onto the brand quicker. There's good leather in your new boss, Ken."
"Kem in yere this mawnin'," continued the loquacious old fellow, "an' says—fust crack outer th' box—'What's th' name o' the feller who sits next to me las' night; the one who was waitin' fer Matlock to make a break?' er words to thet effect. 'How d'ye guess it?' I axes, bein' some took aback—fer I didn't think he was wise ter the play. 'Will ye tell me his name, man!' sez he, kinder impatient; 'I'm in a hurry.' Then I give him your handle an' bymeby he twisted your pedigree outer me, too. Not that he axes me any questions ter speak of, but somehow I slops over without thinkin' an' he listens sharp. 'You're a friend o' hisn?' he says, quiet like. 'Well, I don't wonder none. That's a man!' sez he. 'An he's going to be my manager if I can fix it. I'm Carter, o' ther C Bar!'
"Say I, 'th' hell ye are! I knowed ole Bob Carter afore ye was earmarked. You don't look none like him.' But his jaws snaps amazin'. 'My father is daid,' he whips out, 'but I am Robert Carter all the same.' I axes his pardon an' he hikes out on your trail. An' I sez to myself, he's some man, too!"
Douglass going out encountered a lady just entering the store. As he stepped aside to allow her passage-way through the narrow door, their eyes met momentarily and she flushed slightly at the unconscious boldness of his look. Yet, curiously enough, she took no offense thereat, and turned around as old Williams bawled out, "Hey, there! Douglass. Come back yere; I'v got a letter fer you I overlooked yisteday."
Out of the tail of his eye the man saw that the woman was young, dressed quietly yet in exquisite taste, and that she was extremely good to look at. She was evidently a stranger, yet there was something intangibly familiar about her features. It was not until that night that he traced the resemblance to Carter, when he knew immediately that this was the sister of whom his employer had spoken. And although none knew better than he the disparity of their social planes, he dropped off to sleep wishing that her stay on the ranch would be indefinitely prolonged, for, next to a horse he deemed a woman the most creditable and handsome of divine creations, and beauty he adored both in the concrete and abstract. It would be very pleasant and agreeable to come in contact occasionally with this extremely pretty girl; it would ameliorate the coarse, hard routine of his work just as the finding of a cluster of mountain heart's-ease had often before dispelled the gloom of a hard day's ride. His thought of her was purely impersonal as yet. He slept dreamlessly the sleep of healthy, heart-whole youth and when he waked with the dawn he had practically forgotten her existence.
And the woman? Well, after the fashion of woman, she thought more than once of the bronzed young fellow who had looked at her so audaciously. As she asked for her mail old Williams had volunteered some interesting information.
"So you are Bob Carter's leetle gal, the one he used to brag on so much to the boys, eh? Well, durn my pictur', if he didn't have good reason to! You look like your mammy, Miss, and she were the puttiest filly that ever run over this range! An' as good as she were purty! I mind oncet—" and there followed an interminable string of reminiscences very interesting to the girl but of no moment to this story.
"That feller thet jest went out is your brother's new foreman, Ken Douglass, the sandiest galoot an' best cowman on this range," he concluded. "Of course he didn't know who you was or he'd a spoke to you, 'deed he would! Ken's real polite." The girl smiled at his earnest assurance and said gently: "I am quite sure of it."
"Betcher life!" affirmed the old man enthusiastically. "He's too da—er, hem! too much polite to some cattle as doesn't desarve it, accordin' to my way o' thinkin'. Why las' night he actoolly waited for a feller to begin killin' of him before drawin' his own gun! It waz plumb downright keerless o' him, an' some day he'll get it good an' plenty ef he don't watch out!"
Then, seeing the look of white consternation in the girl's face, he shut up like a clam, saying only that Ken could "take a plenty good keer o' hisself, when he wanted to." She went away, wondering what manner of man that could be who had not his own personal welfare constantly in mind, that being proverbially the first law of nature. Her wonder increased when, on casually mentioning her chance encounter with him, Mrs. Vaughan had acquainted her with as much of Douglass's record as was common property. It was so new to her, so abnormal in every particular when compared with her own code of ethics, that she was a little bewildered. She was shocked not a little at Mrs. Vaughan's frank enjoyment of the watering-trough episode and the ensuing bravado of the dare-devil fellow who had deliberately entered the lion's den to intensify the indignity put upon her brother's outfit. Yet somehow the indomitable courage of the man appealed to her strongly; all women love personal valor and this was the most exaggerated example of it that had ever come to her notice. She distinctly disapproved of the motive of it, but she blushed to think how glad she was that he had come safely out of the jaws of death with colors flying.
Strangely enough, she appreciated the Alcazar incident to the full, and at her brother's graphic relation evinced no surprise. She could readily understand this kind of courage and she only commended his tact. "He was master of the situation," she remarked, with an insight into the facts astonishing in one who had never in all her life heard a word spoken in anger; "and it is absurd to think that he was ignorantly exposing himself to inevitable death. He would have shot first in any event—and I think he would have hit." A conclusion so prescient that her brother gasped with astonishment.
"I guess your estimate of him tallies with mine, sis," he said teasingly. "I fell in love with him at first sight."
"How perfectly absurd!" she returned, with a rebuking hauteur, and deftly changing the subject proceeded to regale Mrs. Vaughan with the details of New York's latest operatic sensation. But she relented enough to clasp her soft white arm about her brother's neck just before retiring that night and whisper:
"It was very lovely and noble of him to try and send you out of danger. Oh! Bobbie, what would I have done if—"
Carter kissed her tenderly. "It was the whitest thing I ever saw, Gracie, and I want you to try and help me make it up to him. The man is a gentleman, too, no matter what his past has been. And with your aid we will keep him such. Besides, our fortune is in his hands to all intents and purposes and something tells me we are going to owe him much in the days to come."
It may have been telepathy, and then again it may have only been coincidence; but certain it is that at the very moment Grace Carter knelt beside her little white bed, Ken Douglass sitting on the edge of his bunk took from about his neck a slender gold chain to which was attached a locket, opened it with trembling hands and laid his lips with infinite tenderness and reverence on the mouth of the sweet-faced woman pictured therein.
"Oh! Mother," he prayed, "help me to make good!"