During the succeeding week Madeline discovered that a good deal of her sympathy for Stillwell in his hunt for the reckless Stewart had insensibly grown to be sympathy for the cowboy. It was rather a paradox, she thought, that opposed to the continual reports of Stewart’s wildness as he caroused from town to town were the continual expressions of good will and faith and hope universally given out by those near her at the ranch. Stillwell loved the cowboy; Florence was fond of him; Alfred liked and admired him, pitied him; the cowboys swore their regard for him the more he disgraced himself. The Mexicans called him El Gran Capitan. Madeline’s personal opinion of Stewart had not changed in the least since the night it had been formed. But certain attributes of his, not clearly defined in her mind, and the gift of his beautiful horse, his valor with the fighting rebels, and all this strange regard for him, especially that of her brother, made her exceedingly regret the cowboy’s present behavior.
Meanwhile Stillwell was so earnest and zealous that one not familiar with the situation would have believed he was trying to find and reclaim his own son. He made several trips to little stations in the valley, and from these he returned with a gloomy face. Madeline got the details from Alfred. Stewart was going from bad to worse—drunk, disorderly, savage, sure to land in the penitentiary. Then came a report that hurried Stillwell off to Rodeo. He returned on the third day, a crushed man. He had been so bitterly hurt that no one, not even Madeline, could get out of him what had happened. He admitted finding Stewart, failing to influence him; and when the old cattleman got so far he turned purple in the face and talked to himself, as if dazed: “But Gene was drunk. He was drunk, or he couldn’t hev treated old Bill like thet!”
Madeline was stirred with an anger toward the brutal cowboy that was as strong as her sorrow for the loyal old cattleman. And it was when Stillwell gave up that she resolved to take a hand. The persistent faith of Stillwell, his pathetic excuses in the face of what must have been Stewart’s violence, perhaps baseness, actuated her powerfully, gave her new insight into human nature. She honored a faith that remained unshaken. And the strange thought came to her that Stewart must somehow be worthy of such a faith, or he never could have inspired it. Madeline discovered that she wanted to believe that somewhere deep down in the most depraved and sinful wretch upon earth there was some grain of good. She yearned to have the faith in human nature that Stillwell had in Stewart.
She sent Nels, mounted upon his own horse, and leading Majesty, to Rodeo in search of Stewart. Nels had instructions to bring Stewart back to the ranch. In due time Nels returned, leading the roan without a rider.
“Yep, I shore found him,” replied Nels, when questioned. “Found him half sobered up. He’d been in a scrap, an’ somebody hed put him to sleep, I guess. Wal, when he seen thet roan hoss he let out a yell an’ grabbed him round the neck. The hoss knowed him, all right. Then Gene hugged the hoss an’ cried—cried like—I never seen no one who cried like he did. I waited awhile, an’ was jest goin’ to say somethin’ to him when he turned on me red-eyed, mad as fire. ‘Nels,’ he said, ‘I care a hell of a lot fer thet boss, an’ I liked you pretty well, but if you don’t take him away quick I’ll shoot you both.’ Wal, I lit out. I didn’t even git to say howdy to him.”
“Nels, you think it useless—any attempt to see him—persuade him?” asked Madeline.
“I shore do, Miss Hammond,” replied Nels, gravely. “I’ve seen a few sun-blinded an’ locoed an’ snake-poisoned an’ skunk-bitten cow-punchers in my day, but Gene Stewart beats ’em all. He’s shore runnin’ wild fer the divide.”
Madeline dismissed Nels, but before he got out of earshot she heard him speak to Stillwell, who awaited him on the porch.
“Bill, put this in your pipe an’ smoke it—none of them scraps Gene has hed was over a woman! It used to be thet when he was drank he’d scrap over every pretty Greaser girl he’d run across. Thet’s why Pat Hawe thinks Gene plugged the strange vaquero who was with little Bonita thet night last fall. Wal, Gene’s scrappin’ now jest to git shot up hisself, for some reason thet only God Almighty knows.”
Nels’s story of how Stewart wept over his horse influenced Madeline powerfully. Her next move was to persuade Alfred to see if he could not do better with this doggedly bent cowboy. Alfred needed only a word of persuasion, for he said he had considered going to Rodeo of his own accord. He went, and returned alone.