"Like as not he will go straight back to that shameless creature as soon as we are safely out of sight!" she thought, with stiffly-erected head. And as a curious vindication of that strange quantity in women, which, for lack of some better name, we term "intuition," we are truthfully compelled to admit that is just exactly what he did!
CHAPTER XXI
A WIDENING CHASM
Ten days later Brevoort arrived in Denver and the deal was fully consummated. As the possessor of a million, cowpunching lost its charms for Douglass, who resigned his connection with the VN interests.
Brevoort, realizing his own inability to make a success of ranching without expert assistance, made Douglass a very favorable proposition to take over his ranch holdings, which was promptly accepted. Within thirty days he had purchased a fine "bunch" of high-grade cattle, placing the whole "outfit" under the efficient supervision of Punk Wilson, who, reinforced by a trio of Lazy K boys, who transformed their allegiance to Douglass, soon had matters running along swimmingly. The ranch was thereafter known as the Circle D, that being Douglass's private brand.
Immediately upon taking possession of his new property he had made an ineffectual overture towards Grace's conciliation; the girl, stung by jealousy and smarting under a sense of his disloyalty, had scornfully rejected his advances and the breach was wider than ever in consequence. Yet her visit was prolonged far into the autumn, possibly because she was determined not to give a clear field to Constance Brevoort, who had also apparently become a fixture. All relations between the two women had been severed irrevocably, each keeping to her own respective bailiwick. Constance had, with a reluctant regard for the proprieties, established herself at the Blounts, in Tin Cup, and after Grace's contemptuous treatment of Douglass, he spent the major portion of his time in the village. Brevoort, engrossed in his mining schemes, gravitated between Tin Cup and the Roaring Fork, unseeingly.
Over at the C Bar the situation was fast growing intolerable to Grace Carter. Although she would rather have died than admit it even to herself, her love for Douglass only increased with every heart-wrenching report of his recklessly open relations with the object of her deepest hatred, which were constantly sifting down to her through the neighbors' gossip. As their engagement had not been made public, she was spared the irritating commiseration which would otherwise have been her uneviable lot. All knowledge of it was fortunately restricted to Abbie, McVey, Brevoort and his wife; for obvious reasons it gained no further publicity. Therefore Douglass's affair was regarded enviously by the other range men, and it must be confessed, rather indulgently by the range women, who found not a great deal of fault with his conquest of this supercilious "big-bug" who had weaned the hearts of their men away from proper altars of devotion. Old Abbie, alone, was bitterly vituperative of both the man and his condoning admirers.
"Why is it," she indignantly snorted to Mrs. Blount, on the occasion of one of that lady's garrulous visits, "that all wimmen, even r'ally good ones, have a kinda sneakin' likin' foah a rake? Thu worse thu mizzable he-critters be, thu moah yuh giggle at theah nastiness! It's a wondeh to me thet men eveh get married at all any moah. I disremembeh eveh hearin' any she-male talkin' about thu goodness of any r'ally decent man, married er single; but jest let some tur'ble mean-minded cuss get to cuttin' capehs with some fool woman er tother, an' every ole brindle on thu range chaws on thu cud of it like a dogie on May blue-joint; an' as fer thu heifers, every blessed one on 'em purtends to be buffaloed if he crosses theah trail an' skitteh away, lookin' back disap'inted if he don't folleh an' try to raound 'em up. An' bimeby, when he gets good an' plenty tiahed o' hell-ahootin' araound, he jes' ups an' nach'rally takes hes pick o' thu cream o' thu bunch, leavin' thu skim milk fer better men whose shoes he ain't fitten to lick!
"I don't know why," she went on regretfully, calmly ignoring the indignant protest of her scandalized hearer, "an' I reckon Gawd, Hisself, don't know eitheh, but we locoed wimmen allus love bad men a heap better'n we do good ones. I've been seein' it all my life ontil I'm got plumb ashamed o' my sect."