The Forfeit

by Ridgwell Cullum

There was no mistaking the suggestion in the man's half-smiling, half-sneering manner. The ranchman understood it only too well. He understood most of the ways and expressions of the men of the prairie. The hot blood surged under his calm exterior. His gray eyes, so accustomed to smiling, snapped dangerously. But his reply came with the same ease which he had displayed most of the time.

"Wal, I don't guess ther's no myst'ry 'bout either of us, which you kind o' seem you'd like to think. Jeff Masters of the 'O——'s' is well enough known to most folks, who got any sort o' knowledge of these parts. An' ther's quite a few folks around here, including Dug McFarlane, li'ble to remember the name of Bud Tristram, of the 'T.T.'s.' But you're sure right in guessin' he's in a hurry to quit. Ther's some places, an' some folks, it ain't good to see a heap of. Ther's fellers with minds like sinks, an' others with natures like rattlers. Neither of them things is as wholesome as a Sunday-school, I allow. Jeff ain't yearnin' to explore no sinks, human or any other. An' I've generally noticed his favorite pastime is killin' rattlers. So it's jest about the only thing to do—quit this saloon, same as I'm goin' to do. But say, 'fore I go I'd jest like to hand you this. Justice is justice, an' we all need to take our dope when it comes our way. But ther' ain't no right on this blamed earth fer any feller to whoop it up at another feller's misdoin's, an' his ultimate undoin'. An' you kin take it how you fancy when I say only the heart of a louse could feel that-a-way—an' that's about the lowest I know how to hand you."

Bud's eyes were shining dangerously. They were squarely looking into the hard face of the saloon-keeper. Not the movement of an eyelid escaped him. He literally seemed to devour the unwholesome picture confronting him. The aggressive chin beard, the continual mastication of the cigar which protruded from the corner of the mouth. There was deadly fury lurking behind Ju's cruel eyes. But the looked-for physical display was withheld, and Bud finally turned and walked slowly out of the bar.

* * * * * *

It was some minutes since a word had passed between the two men. Jeff had nothing to say, and Bud's sympathy was too deep for words. He was waiting for the younger man to fight his battle to its logical end. He knew, only too well, all that Jeff had suffered since the moment of that gruesome discovery in the Cathills valley. It had been no figure of speech when Jeff had described his twin brother as part of himself. The shock the man had received was, to Bud's mind, as though his heart had been torn asunder. Hanged as a cattle thief! Was there anything more dire, more terrible in the imagination of man than to suddenly find that his well-loved brother, twin body of his own, was a cattle thief, possibly a murderer, and had been hanged by his fellow-men? It was a thought to leave the simple Bud staggered. And for the victim of the shock it might well mean the mental breaking point.

Jeff was fighting out his battle with an almost super-human courage. Bud knew that. It was written in every detail of his attitude. In the straining of his blue eyes, in the deep knitting of his fair strong brows, in the painful lines ploughing deeper and deeper about his mouth, and the set of his strong jaws.

No. There was no thought of breaking in upon the boy's black moments of suffering. He must fight his own battle now, once and for all. When victory had been achieved, then perhaps his sympathy might become helpful. But till then nothing but the necessities of their journey must be allowed to intrude between them.

So they rode over the southern trail. The noontide sun scorched the parching earth with a blistering heat, drinking up the last moisture which the tall prairie grass sought to secrete at its attenuated roots. The world about them was unchanged. Every scene was similar in its characteristics to all that which had become their lives. Yet Bud knew that for one of them, at least, the whole of life, and everything pertaining to it, had been completely and terribly distorted.

But the character of Jeffrey Masters was stronger and fiercer than Bud knew. For all his suffering there was no yielding in him. There had been moments when his soul had cried out in agony. There had been moments when the hideousness of his weak brother's fall had driven him to the verge of madness. But with each yielding to suffering had come a rally of passionate force that would not be overborne, and gradually mastery supervened.

Ten miles out of Orrville on the homeward journey Bud received his first intimation that the battle was waning. It came almost as a shock. They had passed a long stretch of flat grass-land, and were breasting an incline. Jeff, on the lead, had reined his horse down to a walk. In a moment they were riding abreast, with Bud's pack pony in between them. Jeff turned his bloodshot eyes upon his friend, then they turned again to the trail.