TROUBLED WATERS

CHAPTER I

AMONG THE APPLE BLOSSOMS

THE young man drew up his horse at the side of the dusty road and looked across the barbed-wire fence into the orchard beyond. Far distant against the horizon could be seen the blue mountain range of the Big Horns, sharp-toothed, with fields of snow lying in the gulches. But in the valley basin where he rode an untempered sun, too hot for May, beat upon his brown neck and through the gray flannel shirt stretched taut across his flat back.

The trees were clouds of soft blossoms and the green alfalfa beneath looked delightfully cool. Warm and dry from travel as he was, that shadowy paradise of pink and white bloom and lush deep grass called mightily to him. A reader of character might have guessed that handsome Larry Silcott followed the line of least resistance. If his face betrayed no weakness, certainly it showed self-satisfaction, an assured smug acceptance of the fact that he was popular and knew it. Yet his friends, and he had many of them, would have protested that word smug. He was a good fellow, amiable, friendly, anxious to please. At dance and round-up he always had a smile or a laugh ready.

He caught a glimpse of the weathered roof of the ranch house where the rambling road dipped into a draw. Well, it would wait there for him. There were twenty-four hours in every day and seven days in each week. Time was one thing Larry had plenty of. Why not climb the fence and steal a long luxurious nap in the orchard of the Elkhorn Lodge? He looked at his watch—and ten seconds later was trespassing with long strides through the grass.

Larry was Irish by descent. He was five-and-twenty. He had the digestion of an ostrich. For which good reasons and several others he whistled as his quirt whipped the alfalfa tops from the stems. For the young range rider was in love with life, the mere living. Take last night, now. He had flirted outrageously at the Circle O T Ranch dance with Jack Cole’s girl, though he had known she was expecting to be married before winter. Jack was his friend, and he had annoyed him and made him jealous. Larry had excited Kate with the flattery of a new conquest, and he had made the ranchers and their wives smile tolerantly at the way he had “rushed” her. All of this was grist to his mill. He liked to be envied, to be admired, to be thought irresistible. His vanity accepted it as tribute to his attractiveness. Besides, what harm did it do? Kate and Jack would quarrel and make up. This would be a variation to the monotony of their courtship. He had really done them a kindness, though probably Jack would not recognize it as one.

Flinging himself down beneath a tree, he drew a deep breath of content. Roving eyes swept the open pasture adjoining, the blue sky with its westering sun ready to sink behind a crotch of the hills. His blinking lids closed sleepily, and opened again while he nestled closer to the ground and pillowed a dusky head on an arm. He had slept only two hours the night before.