CHAPTER IV
THE CHAMPION
Beck was still busy with the horses when Jane appeared, bareheaded and clad in a riding habit. He had separated the unbroken stock from the horses that had been turned loose for the winter and was playing with these last, overcoming the shyness that months on the range had engendered.
As she stopped at the corral he walked toward her, studying her face. There was no trace of confusion or embarrassment and for all he could discern she might have had her mind on horses only since early forenoon. That puzzled him because, though he was far from certain, he had felt that the scene which he had interrupted had caused her distress. Still, he reminded himself, this was not the type of woman he knew. She was completely strange to him; good margin, that, for coming to mistaken conclusions.
"These, ma'am, are the gentle horses," he explained. "I cut 'em out for you. They're some of the best you've got."
"They're rough, of course," she remarked after eyeing the animals a moment and he looked at her sharply because her manner was of one who is familiar with horses, "but nothing here looks particularly good. Are these all you brought in?"
"I cut the rest into the little corral. There's some good ones there, but they ain't gentle."
They walked toward the other enclosure and at their approach the colts gave evidence of alarm.
"Now that brown horse's been ridden some—"
"But what about the sorrel?" she broke in as a shapely head with a white star between the eyes and a flowing forelock tossed back over delicate ears rose above the mass of backs.
"Him, ma'am? He's probably the best colt you own; got the makin's of a fine horse, but he's a bad actor."
Just then the crowding of the horses broke into a milling and the sorrel came into full view. A beautiful beast with white stockings behind, deep chest, high withers, short, straight back.
"He's a beauty!" she declared. "He has bone and leg. He's gaunt now; not enough belly, but I suppose that's because he's been on the range. I like that square hipped sort when you can get its strength without sacrificing looks."
"You're acquainted with horses somewhat, I take it."
"I've ridden some; hunted a little. Can you bring him out?"
Beck entered the corral and roped the horse. For an instant he resisted, head flung back and feet securely planted; then he came out of the bunch on a trot.
"He knows what a rope is. It don't take an intelligent creature, man or beast, long to learn."
The horse stood watching him suspiciously, ready to run if given the opportunity.
"Where shall we try him?" Jane asked.
"In the big corral," he replied and led the sorrel through the gate.
The colt, closely snubbed, stood trembling while the blanket was put on; then flinched and breathed loudly as the weight of the saddle was gently placed on his back. He stepped about and kicked as the cinch was drawn tight and resisted a long time the efforts of the man to slip a bit between his teeth.
Jane stood by watching, her attention divided between admiration of the man and the horse. The former was assured, gentle, positive in every move; the latter alarmed, rebellious but recognized the fact that he was under control.
"Now, if you'll shorten the stirrups I'll try him," she said.
"You'll try him, ma'am? Why, this horse ain't been ridden three times in his life. He'll buck an' buck hard."
"So much more reason why I should try him. We spoke of reputations last night; they can only be formed at the cost of knocks. There are many things I must try to do out here; there are bound to be some that I can't even try but this is not one."
"But you—"
"Must I order you to let me ride him?"
There was no lightness in the question; she meant business, Beck realized. And her bruskness delighted him for when he turned to give the cinch one more hitch—his only reply to her question—he was smiling merrily.
It was not much of a ride as western riding goes. Beck blindfolded the sorrel with the black silk scarf he wore about his neck, helped Jane to mount, saw that she had both stirrups, took the rope cautiously from the trembling bronco's neck and, at her nod, drew off the blind.
For a moment the great colt stood there as if bewildered. Then, with a grunt and a bound, he bowed his back, hung his head and pitched.
"Keep his head up! His head!" warned Beck, watching with intense interest. "Watch him...."
The horse went straight forward for a half dozen jumps. Erect in the saddle, sitting too far back, trusting too much to her stirrups, Jane rode.
The violence of the lunging jerked her head unmercifully but she had her balance.... Until he sunfished, with a wrenching movement that heaved her forward against the fork, dangerously near a fall.
"Grab it all!" called Beck, not remembering that his injunction to hang on was as Greek to her. "He— Look out!"
With a vicious fling of his whole body the sorrel swapped ends and as he came down, head toward the man, the girl shot into the air, turned completely over and struck full on her back.
Beck ran to her, heedless of the horse, which circled at a gallop. She lay very still with her eyes closed; a smudge of dirt was on her white cheek. He knelt beside her.
"Are you hurt, ma'am?" he asked, and when she did not reply raised her head to his knee. Her body was surprisingly light, surprisingly firm, as he held it with an arm beneath her shoulders. He was fumbling with her collar to open it, knuckles against her soft throat, when she opened her eyes and gasped and coughed. She tried to speak but for a moment continued to choke; then smiled and said weakly:
"I didn't ... ride him."
"But you made a fine try!" he said with more enthusiasm than she had seen him display. "And I sure am glad you ain't hurt bad!"
She laughed feebly and he felt her breath on his cheek, for their faces were very close; he felt his heart leap, too, and helped her up, saying words of which he was not conscious.
"I can stand alone," she said after he had steadied her an interval and reluctantly he took his arm from about her. "I'd like to try him again."
"But you're not going to, not to-day. I'm giving you that order,"—with resolution. "I wouldn't want you to be hurt, ma'am. I—"
He checked himself, realizing that he had become very earnest and that she was looking straight into his eyes, reading the concern that was there.
There was talk of that ride in the bunkhouse when the men came in. Jimmy Oliver had seen from a distance and asked Beck for the story. He related the incident rather lightly and ended:
"Tried to keep her off him, but only got orders to take orders. If she breaks her neck tryin' some such tricks, I wouldn't be surprised."
"She appears to have sand, though," Oliver commented, as though he were making a concession.
Others had opinions to pass, briefly, to the point. Those men were not given to accepting readily a stranger and this stranger, being a woman, came to them under an added handicap. Where a man, inept and showing the same courage, might have found himself quietly accepted, Jane's attempt at riding was not received with noticeable warmth. The performance was in her favor, and that was about all that could be said.
A close observer might have noticed that Tom Beck gave attention whenever another spoke of their new boss, as though deeply interested in what the men had to say. Yet when he spoke of her, his manner was rather disparaging.
Mail had come in that afternoon and, a happening without precedent, there were two letters for Two-Bits. The man, who could not write and whose reading was limited to brands, never received mail and before he arrived there was speculation as to the writer of the one letter. Of the other there was no mystery because each man of the outfit had received a similar envelope containing a circular letter from a boot manufacturer.
Two-Bits arrived late, riding slowly toward the corral with his eyes on the ranch house for a possible look at his fair employer.
"Mail for you, Two-Bits," Curtis remarked casually as he entered.
The others concealed their interest while Beck handed the letters to Two-Bits, who stood eyeing them gravely, striving to cover his surprise. This could not be done, though, for his agitated Adam's apple gave him away as he stood with a letter in each hand, looking from one to the other.
"I'll bet two-bits somebody's dead," he said with concern, then walked to the window under a growing sense of importance at his deluge of correspondence.
He opened the letter which they knew contained the solicitation of the maker of boots and all watched him as he stood scowling at it for minutes. He folded the sheet with a sigh and stuffed it, with the other letter, into his chap pocket and walked thoughtfully to his bunk, sitting down heavily, elbows on his knees. He shook his head sorrowfully and made a depreciatory clicking with his tongue.
"Boys, I always knowed that girl'd turn out a bad one! It's awful.... An' her mother a lady!"
For a moment their restraint held and then their laughter cut loose with a roar. Curtis fell face down on his bunk and laughed until his entire length shook. Jimmy Oliver gasped for breath, hands across his stomach, and the others reeled about the floor or leaned against the walls, weak with mirth.
"It ain't nothin' to laugh at!" Two-Bits protested, but when he failed to convince them of the gravity he shammed, he rose and permitted an abashed grin to distort his freckled face, muttered something about feeding his horse and walked out.
It was Saturday evening in a season of light work and the social diversions of Ute Crossing had called HC riders. Hepburn departed early and after their horses had eaten Beck and Two-Bits rode out of the ranch townward bound. Out of sight of the building Two-Bits said:
"Tom, my eyes ain't very good. I'd like to get you to read this here other letter for me."
Beck knew that such confidence was high compliment for Two-Bits was sensitive over his educational shortcomings, so he took the letter and, after glancing down the single page, said:
"This is from the Reverend Azariah Beal."
"Oh, my gosh! That's my brother! What's the matter with him, Tom?"
The other read as follows:
My dear Brother:—God willing, I shall visit you. I have often been impelled to renew our fraternal relationships but my various charges have demanded my sole attention. Now, however, I am on a brief sojourn in the marts of trade and my interests call me in your direction. I expect to arrive shortly after you receive this. May the Almighty guard and bless thee and keep thee safe until our hands meet in the clasp of brotherly love.
"Oh, my gosh!" cried Two-Bits again, Adam's apple leaping and his gray eyes, usually so mild, alight with enthusiasm. "He's comin' to visit me. Gosh, Tom, but he's a smart man! Ain't that elegant language? Say, he's the smartest man in our family an' he's comin' clean from Texas to see me."
"How long since you've seen him?"
"Oh, quite a while. Since I was three years old."
"And how long ago was that?"
"You got me. I heard about him. He's a preacher. My, oh my, but she'll like him. He's smart, like she is."
His manner was high elation and he spoke breathlessly, and while they trotted on he chattered in his high voice, eulogizing the virtues of this brother he had not seen since infancy, regaling the other with long and vague tales of his accomplishments. Pressed for details he could not offer them because his knowledge of the relative had come to him verbally through the devious channels of the cattle country, but this did not shake his conviction that the Reverend Beal was peerless.
Tom's mind was not on the extravagant talk of Two-Bits. Curiously, it persisted in thinking of Jane Hunter.
Two days before he had thought this girl from the east was a rattle-brained piece of inconsequence with her selection of a foreman by the drawing of straws. Now he was not so sure that she did not possess at least several admirable qualities. He had offended her, gently bullied her, only last evening; he had sensed the waning of her own feeling of superiority, had understood that, behind her pique, she took to heart the things he had said, things which he had said not because he thought she should know them but because he wanted to see how she would react to blunt truths.
She wanted something very badly. Not money; that had been a means. Perhaps it was that vague thing, Herself, of which he had spoken. He did not understand, but he liked her determination.... And what was this other stranger, this man, to her?
He put his horse into a lope with a queer misgiving. He was taking this woman seriously! He was saying slighting things about her and yet hoping that other men would speak about her highly! He had never taken many things—particularly women—seriously before and his experience with women had not been meager. It frightened him....
They dismounted before the saloon which adjoined the hotel, eased their cinches and approached the doorway.
In the shadow of the next building two men were talking and Beck eyed the figures closely. One, he knew, was Hepburn, and the other, from the intonation of his cautiously lowered voice, he took to be Pat Webb, the rancher of whom he had spoken to Jane Hunter, telling her that his presence in the country was not an asset for her.
He went inside, rather absorbed. Sam McKee was there, one of Webb's riders, the one on whom Beck had inflicted terrible punishment for cruelty to a horse. McKee looked away, a nasty light playing across his gray eyes, but Beck did not even give him a glance. What was Hepburn doing in close talk with Webb? he asked himself. For years Webb had been under suspicion as a thief and a friend of the lawless. Colonel Hunter had never trusted him, and now the foreman of the HC was talking with him, secretly....
A moment later Hepburn entered and lounged up to the bar and shortly afterwards Webb came in. He was a small man with sharp features and bright, button-like eyes which roved restlessly. His skin was mottled, his lips hard and cruel; his body seemed to be all nerves for he was in constant motion.
Webb ordered a drink and glanced about, eyeing Beck and Two-Bits with a suggestive smile. He drank with a swagger and wiped his lips with a sharp smack, still smiling as though some unpleasant thought amused him.
A man at the far end of the bar moved closer to Hepburn.
"How's the new boss?" he said with a grin, and Hepburn said, in his benevolent manner, that he believed she would do very well.
Others, interested, came closer and more questions followed. Then Webb broke in:
"I shouldn't think that you HC waddies 'uld be in town nights any more,"—his glittering eyes on them rather jubilantly.
The talk stopped, for Webb, unsavory as to reputation, was still a figure in the country and his manner as he spoke was laden with significance.
"How's that, Webb?" Hepburn asked.
"How's that!" the other mocked. "I've seen her, ain't that enough? There's only two reasons why men want to come to this hole nights; one's booze, an' th' other's women. You can carry your booze out home an'—"
He went on with his blackguard inference and when he had ended a laugh went up, a ribald, obscene, barroom laugh. It had reached its height when Tom Beck, whose eyes had been on Hepburn as Webb gave voice to his insult, elbowed the foreman from his way and faced the one who had occasioned that laugh.
There was in his manner a quality which caught attention like nippers.
He stood, forcing Webb to look into his threatening face a quiet instant. Then he spoke:
"That's a lie!"
The bantering smile swept from the other's face and his mouth drew down in a slanting snarl.
"What's a lie?"
"What you said is a lie, Webb, an' you're a liar—"
The smaller man's hand whipped to his holster and Beck, breaking short, closed on him, fingers like steel gripping the ready wrist.
"Don't try that with me, you rat!"
With a steady pull he lifted the resisting hand which gripped the gun away from the man's side while Webb struggled, cursing as he found himself unable to resist that strength.
"Give me that gun!"
Beck wrenched the weapon free. The group had drawn back and behind him Sam McKee made a quick movement. Two-Bits, beside him, dropped his hand to his hip and muttered:
"Keep out of this!"
McKee, hate flickering in his face, subsided, without protest, as a craven will.
Tom broke the gun and the cartridges scattered on the floor. He closed it with a snap and sent it spinning down the bar, clear to the far end. His eyes had not left Webb's face.
"You're a liar," he said again quietly. "You're a liar and you're going to tell all the boys here that you're a liar."
"Don't tell me I lie!"—retreating a step as Beck's body swayed toward him.
"You lied," Tom said quietly, though his voice was not just steady. His hands were clenched and he held them slightly before his body as though yearning for opportunity to seize upon and injure the other.
"What is it to you, anyhow, if—"
"It's this to me, Webb: It makes me want to strangle the foul breath in your throat! That's what it is to me an' before these boys I will if you don't swallow your own dirty words just to get their taste.
"I don't want to be a killer, even over such as you are, but you've got me mad. We don't know an' nobody else knows how this girl's goin' to make it in this country, but, by God, Webb, she's goin' to have a fair chance. There ain't going to be any rotten talk that ain't called for an' it ain't called for ... yet.
"I expect I'd get into trouble if I killed you for this. There's just one chance for me to keep out of trouble, and that's for you to say you lied!"
He moved closer as Webb retreated slowly, his spurs ringing ever so slightly, yet their sound was audible in the stillness.
"Say it!" he insisted. "Say it, you whelp!"
Webb's face had gone from red to the color of suet and the blotches stood sharply out against the pallor. His dirty assurance was beaten down and before this man he was frightened ... and enraged at his own fright.
"Mebby I spoke too quick—"
"You lied! Nothin' short of that! Say you lied and say it now.... Quick!"
He half lurched forward, lifting his eager, vengeful hands, when Webb relaxed and gave a short, half laugh and said:
"Have it your own way. I lied, I guess. I didn't mean—"
"That'll do, Webb. You've said all that's necessary."
He stood back and dropped his hands limply to his side, eyeing the other with dying wrath. His gaze then went to Hepburn and clung there a moment, eloquent of contempt and he might as well have said: "You're her foreman. Why didn't you take this up?"
Then he moved to the bar and asked for a drink. Constrained talk arose. Webb sulkily recovered his gun and stood close to Sam McKee, drinking. From the doorway which led into the hotel office Dick Hilton turned back, whistling lowly to himself, a speculative whistle.
Tom Beck rode home alone, hours before he had intended to leave town. Why had he done that? Always he had disliked Webb but why had this thing roused in him such tremendous rage? he asked as he unsaddled.
He laughed softly to himself as though he had done something ridiculous; then he strolled down toward the creek and stood under the cottonwoods a long interval, watching a lighted chamber window.
"You're a queer little yellow-head," he said aloud to that window. "You're the kind that gets men into trouble, but maybe you're ... worth it, a lot of it."
He stood for some time, until his wrath had wholly gone and the mood which sent merriment dancing in his eyes had returned. It had been a day of understanding: he had broken down the barrier of deceit which Hepburn had attempted to build, he had come to understand that there was something strange in the pursuit of Jane Hunter by Dick Hilton, he had understood that in his employer was at least a physical courage which was promising, he had humiliated Webb and given the whole country to understand that there should be no doubting of the new girl's reputation.
Of those incidents the only one now giving him concern was the attitude of the foreman. His suspicion was strong, his evidence wholly inadequate.
Tom stood beside his bunk for a time. He had thrown down his gauntlet; he had taken a chance. He might, from now on, face danger or humiliation but he experienced a relief at knowledge that so far as he was concerned there was no longer anything under cover. He did not fear Hepburn or Webb so far as his own safety went. But there were other things, he told himself.
What was up? Just what game would Hepburn play ... if any? And who was that man from the East? To what was Jane's confusion due that afternoon? Was it only embarrassment? Only?
He dozed off and woke with a start. Again he felt the weight of her body on his arm, again the warmth of her breath on his cheek. He lay there with his heart hammering, then, with a growl, rolled over and went to sleep.
Well he could that night! But other nights were coming when he would ponder the significance of Hilton, when the cloud which he then saw vaguely over Jane Hunter's future would be real and appalling, when he would actually feel her body in his arms, when her warm breath would mingle with her warm tears on his cheek, when he would hope that death might come to him as a tribute to her. Oh, yes, Tom Beck could put it all aside and sleep this night, but there were others coming ... other nights....