“Did you ask me to dance?” Again she put back the strand of hair. “Forgive me for being so stupid, but I’ve kept post-office to-day, and had a long ride, and I danced with Henderson.”
He drew her arm within his and led the way out through the crowd of dancers to the star-strewn night. She did not speak again, nor did she seem to notice that they had left the room with the dancers. She turned her face towards the lonely valley, where the drama of her brother’s passing had been consummated, and something there was in her look as it turned towards the hills that told Peter.
“Tell me, Judith, ‘what has happened?”
For answer she pointed towards the valley. “They did it last night at the dead cotton-woods. Henderson led them. I could not stay with Alida. I had to come here to dance that no one might suspect.”
Her voice was steady, but low and thrilling. In its deep resonance was the echo of all human sorrow. There was no hint of accusation, yet Peter felt accused. He felt, now when it was too late, that his position had been one of almost pusillanimous negligence. From the beginning he had taken a firm stand against violent measures. He had talked, argued, reasoned, inveighed against violence; no later than a week ago he had ridden across the desert to tell Henderson that the Wetmore outfit would take no part in violence of any sort, and that the cattle outfit that did resort to extreme measures would miss the support of the “W-Square” in any future range business. But it had not been enough. He should have made plain his position in regard to Judith. With her as his future wife the tragedy of the valley would not have been possible.
From the ranch-house came the swell of the fiddles, the rhythmic shuffle of feet, the song of the dancers, dulled by distance. Beside him was Judith, a white spirit, the woman in her dead of grief. And yet, through all the grim horror of the tragedy she remembered the part that had been allotted to her, threw all the weight of her personality on the side of the game she was playing.
“You must be on our side, Peter, and when there is talk of Jim’s absence you must imply that he is East somewhere. You will know how to meet such inquiries better than we women. Henderson will be only too glad. You should have seen the wretch when I held out my hand to him and told him to dance with me. He came, white and shambling; we have nothing to fear from Henderson. Alida has no money to go away with. She and I must stay here and make a beginning for the children, and, Peter, we want you to help us.”
He had no voice to answer her brave words for a minute, and then his sentences came uncertain and halting.
“You must think me a poor sort of friend, Judith, one who has been blind till the eleventh hour and is then found wanting. I feel so guilty to you, to your brother’s wife, to that little child who put out his arms so trustfully to me that night, but I never imagined that things would come to such a pass as this. The smaller cattle outfits have been doing a good deal of blustering, but the more conservative element supposed that they had them in check, and did not for a moment think that they would take the law into their own hands. Believe me, this lawlessness has been in the face of every influence that could be brought to bear, and it shall not go unpunished.”
She spoke to him from the darkness, as the spirit of grief might speak. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that is the justice of the plains. But, Peter, it is but poor justice. What’s done is done, and fresh violence will not give back Alida her husband nor the little ones their father. What we need is friends, one or two loyal souls who, though knowing the hideous truth of this thing, will stand by us in our pitiful falsehood. I have told no one, nor shall I, but you and—Peter, you must not laugh at your fellow-conspirator—Leander.”