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The Bad Man

A Novel

By

Charles Hanson Towne

Based on the Play by Porter Emerson Browne

G.P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

The Knickerbocker Press

1921

Copyright, 1921
by
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Printed in the United States of America

HOLBROOK BLINN AS "THE BAD MAN."

To

HOLBROOK BLINN

CONTENTS

THE BAD MAN

CHAPTER I

WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT A YOUNG AMERICAN HAD THE COURAGE TO COME INTO A NEW COUNTRY; HOW FATE PLAYED AGAINST HIM, AND A NEIGHBOR LOOKED LONGINGLY AT HIS RANCH

Looking back now, after so many months of struggle and foreboding, he wondered how he had ever had the high courage to come to this strange country. Had he been a few years older he would not have started forth—he was sure of that now. But the flame of youth was in him, the sure sense that he could conquer where others had miserably failed; and, like all virile young Americans, he had love of adventure, and zest for the unknown was in his blood. The glamour of Arizona lured him; the color of these great hills and mountains he had come to love captivated him from the first. It was as if a siren beckoned, and he had to follow.

For days he had been worried almost to the breaking point. Things had not shaped themselves as he had planned. Event piled upon event, and now disaster—definite disaster—threatened to descend upon him.

All morning, despite the intense heat, he had been about the ranch, appraising this and that, mentally; pottering in the shed; looking at his horses—the few that were left!—smiling at the thought of his wheezing Ford, wondering just when he would clear out altogether.

Not that young Gilbert Jones was a pessimist. And yet he wasn't one of those damnable Pollyanna optimists he so abominated—the kind who went about saying continually that God was in His heaven and all was right with the world. No, indeed! He was just a normal, regular fellow, ready to face a difficult situation when it came about as the natural result of a series of events. He saw the impending catastrophe as the logical finale of many happenings—for some of which he was not in any way responsible.

Who could have foreseen the Great War, for instance? Surely that was not his fault! A pitiful archduke was murdered in a European city. He remembered reading about it, and then instantly dismissing it from his mind as of no consequence. He never connected himself with so remote an event. Yet a few years later he, with many others, was fighting in France—a lieutenant in the United States Army—just because a shot had been fired at a man he had never heard of!

A strange world, he pondered, as he looked out over the blue hills, heavy with heat, and meandering away to God knows where.

Then, surely it was no fault of his if the Government under which he lived made no strenuous effort to stop the Mexican massacres of American citizens all along the border. One firm word, one splendid gesture, and daring raids would have ceased; and there would have been no menace of bandits hereabouts. It would have been a country fit to live in. There would have developed a feeling of permanence and peace, and a young chap could have made his plans for the future with some sense of security and high optimism. Surely they were entitled to protection—these brave boys and stalwart sons of America who fearlessly took up claims, staked all, and strove to make homes in this thrilling section along the borderland. They were not mere adventurers; they were pioneers. They were of the best stuff that America contained—clean-cut, clear-eyed, with level heads and high hearts. Yet their own Government did not think enough of them to offer them the sure protection they were entitled to.

Gilbert looked back on that distant day when he had gone up to Bisbee and purchased four head of cattle, and brought them himself to this ranch he had purchased, happy as only a fool is happy. Within a week they had mysteriously disappeared.

Rumors of Mexican thieves and assassins had come to him, as they had come to all the young land-owners along the line. He recalled how, after one raid, in which a good citizen had been foully murdered in his bed, he had called a meeting of the ranchers in their section, and with one voice they agreed to send a protest to Washington.

They did so. Nothing happened. An aching silence followed. They wrote again; and then one day a pale acknowledgment of their communication came in one of those long and important-looking unstamped envelopes. It seemed very official, very impressive. But mere looks never helped any cause. They were not naïve enough to expect the Secretary of State to come down in person and see to the mending of things. But a platoon of soldiers—a handful of troops—would have worked wonders. Jones always contended that not a shot would have to be fired; no more deaths on either side would be necessary. The mere presence of a few men in uniform would have the desired effect. The bandits, now prowling about, would slink over the invisible border to their own territory, and never be heard of again. Of that he felt confident.

But no! Watchful waiting was the watchword—or the catchword. And the eternal and infernal raids went on.

It was while they were having their community meeting that he had come to know Jasper Hardy and his young daughter Angela, who occupied the next ranch, about a mile and a half south of his. Before that he had been too busy to bother about neighbors. "Red" Giddings, his foreman, had spoken once or twice about "some nice folks down the line," but he hadn't heard much of what he said. There were always a hundred and one odd jobs to be done around the place—something was forever needing attention; and when Uncle Henry wasn't grumbling about something, he was forcing his nephew to play checkers or cribbage or cards with him. And, working so hard all day, he was glad to turn in early at night. Social life, therefore—unless you could call high words with a crabbed invalid a form of social life—didn't come within Gilbert's ken. It was work, work, work, and the desire to make good every moment for him.

But Hardy proved to be an aggressive fighter when the meeting took place, and spoke in sharp tones of the Government's dilatoriness. He had come to Arizona right after his wife's death in the East, and brought his only daughter and a few servants with him. He seemed to have plenty of money, and he was anxious lest the invading Mexicans should get any of it away from him. His holdings, in the eight years since he had come to the border, amounted to several thousand well-cultivated acres; and he looked like a man who, when he set out to get anything, would get it. He had an inordinate desire to grab up some more territory. Tall and thin, and sharp-featured, as well as sharp-tongued, he resembled a hawk. It was difficult to realize the fact that the pert and lovely little Angela—who lived up to her name only once in a while!—was his own flesh and blood. It was as incongruous as though a rose had grown on a beanstalk.

On their very first meeting, Gilbert had not been pleasantly impressed with Hardy. But he soon saw that the man had a certain rugged strength, and there was no doubt he had suffered from the depredations of Mexico's casual visitors, and was ready to protect not only his own interests but those of any newcomers. He seemed to have the spirit of fair-mindedness; and he believed firmly in the possibilities of this magic land, particularly for young men. "It's God's country," he told Gilbert on more than one occasion. "Get into the soil all you can. Dig—and dig deep."

He said this over and over. It ran like a refrain through every conversation he had with anyone. He preached the gospel of labor. And he did work himself; there was no shadow of doubt as to that. He had struck oil himself, and had made a goodly extra pile. Now, unknown to young Jones, he was casting envious eyes on his ranch; and when the war came and Gilbert went overseas in a burst of fine patriotism, and later came other disasters, he was quick to snatch his opportunity.

Why go to Bisbee, he told Jones, to see who would take up his mortgage? What were neighbors for, if not to come in handy in such unpleasant emergencies? And he laughed.

The long and short of it was that Hardy took an option on Gilbert's property, and held it at this very moment. It was better so, thought Gilbert. Better to be foreclosed by a friendly neighbor, who might hesitate to drive one out at the last moment, than under the thumb of some unknown individual way down the valley.

Four years of it—and he had come to this! Well, he'd take his medicine like a man. He had done his best, and no one could do more.

CHAPTER II

WHEREIN, FAR AWAY, ANOTHER MAN HEARS WHISPERS OF THE WEALTH ALONG THE BORDER, AND COMES DOWN TO SEE ABOUT IT

Up North there was a man with a jaw like a rock, and hard, steel-gray eyes. He had his fingers on the pulse of business, and employed agents everywhere to serve his interests. His office in New York, in the heart of the great financial district, was like a telephone exchange—he the central who controlled the wires, put in and drew out the plugs, and played the fascinating game of connecting himself with any "party" he thought worth while. A shrewd, inveterate gambler, he was without scruples. He lived for one purpose: to make money. For one person: Morgan Pell.

There had been whispers concerning his methods. They were often questionable, to say the least; but, like all men who work quietly beneath the surface of the world of business, Pell covered up his tracks with as much genius as he displayed in consummating a big deal. There should be no loose ends if he was ever charged with corruption. Down in his soul he knew he was a coward. He could not face disgrace, any more than he could face the guns of battle. If his pillow was not always a restful one at night; if he tossed more than he should at his age—he was but thirty-eight—no one knew it. His conscience smote him now and then. In his earlier days he had tricked a widow and caused her to be separated from her last penny. Afterwards, he learned she had committed suicide. He shuddered. In fact, he suffered a little for two long years. Then he forgot about her. Life was life, and though it played unfairly with some, to others it gave beds of roses; and after all we were but puppets of fate, and each must take his chances, and not complain if he did not hold the winning hand. There were only so many to go around. A lottery—that's what it was. And just as people left a card table, a few widows and orphans had to clear out of the big gambling-hall of life. It was as plain as day.

To a man like Pell, a wife was a necessity—but only a secondary consideration. Of course he must marry, keep up an expensive ménage, and prove to the world that he was successful even where women were concerned. He must give his wife the proper background, do all the necessary things; furnish the right setting for his jewel. Children? Bah! They were not essential. He had no paternal instinct whatever. Enough that he should support in luxury and affluence the woman he deigned to make his wife, and entertain in his home the people who could and would be of use to him.

Every least act of his life was arranged, specifications written, plans drawn, and blueprints made. One day he decided that he wished a beautiful Italian villa on the north shore of Long Island. He pressed a button, ordered his secretary to get in touch immediately with his architect; and a half-hour later the latter was at his desk ready to talk of the nebulous house. Within twenty-four hours he had arranged everything—not a detail was forgotten.

That is how he did things. He set out to find a wife in the same matter-of-fact manner. He met many women; but Lucia Fennell was the only one who set his pulse beating a little faster. He felt it a shame that he should be so weak. They were at a dinner-party at the country home of a mutual friend.

It was her eyes that held him first. He had never seen quite such eyes—blue, with a curious depth that spoke of many things—the eyes of a girl who, had he been wiser, he would have known had been in love before. This was the type of woman who never loved but once, and then with all her strength beyond her own high dreams of what love should be. But though Pell could appraise men, judge them swiftly and surely, he was a fool where a girl was concerned. He had never spent much time on them. Frankly, they bored him. He liked far better the subtle game of finance. He had no finesse in a world of women, and he would have been the easiest possible prey of an adventuress.

But Lucia was far from that. Of the best family, with old traditions, she moved among the set she wished; but society, so called, did not appeal to her. She preferred people with brains rather than the idle rich; and she had traveled a great deal, and known the world in strange places. She was very young when she met the one man of all men for her. Like all women of great beauty she had known many men who were infatuated with her. Those gifts and attentions which are the rightful dower of every charming girl were hers in abundance; and she received them as a queen might have done from subjects hardly worthy to sit beside her. Then she met—one man.

It was during a trip she had made with her aunt through New England. He was poor. To her, that made no difference. She would have gone with him to the ends of the earth. The flame had touched her heart; she was a victim, like many another; and when her lover, too proud to ask her to share his poverty with her, stayed behind when she went back to New York, and failed to write to her, she almost died of grief. But life had to be faced. One word from her—she, too, was proud,—and there might have been a different story to tell. But with the foolish self-consciousness of lovers, each failed the other in the great moment that would have sealed their destinies.

Lucia determined that this broken affair should not wreck her existence. But she brooded long, in secret, and would go nowhere. Her aunt, with whom she lived, could not rouse her for many months to a sense of the vivid world around her. She would see no one.

Two years later Morgan Pell came into her life, at almost the first dinner she had attended during a long period of time. His impulsiveness, his assurance, his faith in himself and his power to win her, swept her temporarily off her feet. At their second meeting he asked her to become his wife. Why not? She would never love anyone; but she could not go to the altar with him unless she told him the truth. She did not love him. Was he willing to take her, knowing this?

He was. Love meant little to him—though he did not say so. He was just wise enough to keep that secret within himself.

"I'll make you love me," he told her, with all the ardor he could put into his voice. Few women can withstand that age-old phrase.

There followed a time of utter disillusion for her. The great house on the Avenue proved to be but four bleak walls; and when the villa on Long Island was built, she tried to be as enthusiastic as Morgan wanted her to be. He lavished gifts upon her. He brought out gay house-parties for weekends. Lucia did her best to keep her part of a bad bargain. She made herself lovely, and Pell was proud of her physical charms. The jewel was worth the finest settings, and these he supplied, with no thought of the cost. He had someone at the head of his table of whom he was very proud. The world need never know the solemnity of their lives when the curtain was lowered and they were alone together. After all, many marriages were like this. Theirs was by no means an exceptional case; and he experienced a curious secret joy in the fact that he knew other men envied him his wife, and wondered at his power to hold her.

And so the months rolled by, with a trip abroad now and then to relieve the tedium of existence. For a woman to know that she comes to be tolerated only because she is decorative, is a consummating blow. Pell soon reached the point where he told Lucia he had bought her, body and soul. He had determined to win her love. When he saw that he could not, he swiftly forgot the integrity of her part of the bargain, the honesty of her words to him before they were married; and he practised subtle cruelties to tame her and bring her at last to him.

He began to drink too much. Only a certain pride in his business affairs, the desire to keep a level head, a clear brain, kept him from sinking definitely to the gutter. He became irritable with her. Nothing she did pleased him. He found he could not wound her sufficiently when he was sober; so he fortified himself with alcohol, gained courage to speak flat truths, and left her alone for days at a time, thinking such absences were a punishment.

Had he but known it, they were the only bright oases in her monotonous life. She blessed those hours when he mercifully remained away on the pretext of business. What he did gave her little concern.

Once she ventured to talk frankly with him about the wisdom of a legal separation. It was foolish to go on in this way. It was dishonest; it was the only immorality.

He laughed her to scorn. "You're too useful to me, my dear," he sneered. He always added that "my dear" to any statement when he wished to be thoroughly sarcastic.

He was conscious that certain captains of business would not have come so frequently to his home if Lucia had not been there to dispense a supposedly gracious hospitality. Let her go? Lose all this? Not at all! He brutally told her so again and again. And finally she made up her mind, for the sake of peace, that she would merely remain the flower under glass, if that was his desire. Arguments were of no avail. In a sense, she was beaten.

The opera, books, travel, a few good friends—those that Morgan allowed her to keep—these filled her days.

One evening she was particularly surprised when he said to her, casually:

"How would you like a little trip out West? You look peaked. Maybe it would set you up."

"Why—it sounds nice, Morgan," she answered. "Is it business, or—" Her sense of humor made it impossible for her to bring out the word "pleasure."

"Of course it's business," he replied. "Precious little else I get." They were dining alone, at home, and he motioned the butler to refill his glass with champagne.

She wondered at his suggestion. There must be something behind it. But as a matter of fact she was tired of Long Island, and if she could kill a few weeks—maybe a few months—in the West, she would willingly go.

"Sturgis telegraphed me that there was a big possibility of a new vein of oil down on the border," Pell was telling her. "Some important men want to talk things over with me at Bisbee. I want to get started in a day or two. Don't take your maid. It's a rough country, but you'll be all right. Just old clothes. You can ride a lot, so bring your habit. I'll be busy most of the time; but I think you'll like the trip. Never been down that way, have you?"

"No," she said. "And I've always wanted to go."

"Not afraid of bandits?" he laughed, sipping his champagne. "It's right next door to Mexico, you know. Have some swell times down there, they say."

She laughed too. "How exciting," she said. She grew almost jubilant at the prospect of the journey. She knew she would probably be "shown off" to the important men; and that touched her vanity—what little she had left by now.

"They tell me it's God's country, with big chances for everyone. I want to add to our little pile, Lucia," Pell went on. He hoped she would get the significance of the "our."

"You're too good to me, Morgan," she said, and meant it. "But why do we need any more money? We've got everything now."

"Everything?" he said, significantly; and his eyes became two narrow slits as he looked at her.

She toyed with her salad. She hoped he was not going to get into one of his fiendishly unpleasant moods.

"Well," she ventured, "as much as anyone could reasonably want. This house, the garden, friends—"

"Yes," he sneered, "but not much love." The butler had tactfully withdrawn. "Why don't you love me, Lucia?"

"I do—in a way. Oh, let's don't go into all that again, Morgan. We've had it out so many times. What's the use?"

"Is there anyone else?" he asked. "If I thought there was...." He lifted his glass again.

"You know there isn't," she protested.

He appraised her across the table, beautiful in a blue gown which just matched her eyes, her throat adorned with a string of pearls he had given her on the anniversary of their marriage.

"I don't see how a woman as lovely as you can be so cold," he said. "You could do anything with men."

She tried to smile. "But I don't want to. Women—good women—don't like to play with fire. It's only adventuresses who dare to face danger.... But let's talk about Arizona. How good it will be to get out of this hothouse of the East, and see real people—real flesh-and-blood men and women."

"Yes. The folks down there know more about life in a day than we do in all our pitiful lives. You've got to live close to nature to understand human nature. Simple, isn't it?"

"Very. We're all so false up here. I get so tired of it, Morgan. Maybe down there we'll come to a better understanding of each other. Maybe...."

"That's what I was hoping. So you'd like to go—really?"

"Yes, indeed. It'll be hot, that's all. But I won't mind that. Anything to get away for awhile."

Two days later they had started. The land was green with early summer, in that rich fullness which makes the heart almost sick with ecstasy. The farther west they went, the wilder the country grew; and when they finally dipped down into Arizona, Lucia looked from the train window, her face alight with joy. Such scenic variety she had never dreamed of. One moment they were looking at the wonderful mesas and superb canyons; the next they seemed to pass through dry gullies and great shallow basins. Then there would come long, weary levels of sand that gleamed in the sun; and far away she would behold tremendous buttes. The valleys they passed through were verdant and lovely. Cattle grazed here in a calm peace. It was as if the rest of the world were shut out, and in this quiet land a special blessing had come down. The peace of it, the stillness of it crowded in upon her. She had been to California, but always she had traveled by a northern route, and had missed the wonder of this part of the world. Before their journey was over, she had begged Morgan to take her to the Grand Canyon; and for two days they remained there, drinking in the glory of perhaps the most beautiful spot on the western continent. She could not get enough of it—those colors that sank into her heart and consciousness and made her think she was in paradise. To see the sun rise here—she almost wept that morning when the lord of heaven came over the mountains that towered like huge sentinels, impervious to wind and gale and rain.

"I can't stand such beauty, Morgan," she said at last. "It takes something out of me. We'll have to go on."

She saw the giant cactus in full bloom, a miracle of orange, pink, and crimson; and as they sped south the mountainsides were aflame with juniper and manzanita.

At last they reached the little town of Bisbee, where Morgan was to have a conference with several engineers. Sturgis met them—a fair-haired fellow with a captivating smile. He liked this country, and told Pell he wished he could always be kept here. There was no doubt about the new vein of oil, and new ranches were being opened up rapidly. Only a few miles away was one that promised well; and the young chap on it was in money difficulties. A good chance to step in. There had been rumors that a neighbor had taken up his mortgage; but maybe this was not so. Perhaps they weren't too late. He had telephoned over, and the youngster had agreed that Pell and his wife could come and stay with him and his invalid uncle for awhile. Of course he knew nothing of their intentions. That would never do. They would just lie low. In fact, he, Sturgis, need not accompany them, except to the hotel. The ranch-owner's foreman would fetch them out in a Ford. Not a bad trip at all—only a few miles. It would be better to stop down there. They could comb the country, get acquainted, see how things were, and keep a vigilant eye on everything.

Sturgis had arranged things nicely. "Red" Giddings came over, as planned, and Lucia liked his pleasant face at once. He was full of enthusiasm for the country, loved the outdoor life. "Mr. Jones has had hard luck, though," he said, as they whirled along the road on an afternoon of unbelievable heat.

"Jones!" Lucia said.

"Yes—Gilbert Jones," Giddings replied. "Ever hear of him?"

For an instant Lucia could hardly see the valley that spread around them. But it couldn't be possible! It was a common name; there could easily be two Gilberts—fifty, for that matter. Was this the reason Morgan had asked her to come? Had he discovered the man with whom she had once been in love, and was this to be one of his subtle punishments? He had told her not to bring her maid, and he had been mysterious, she remembered now, as to their exact destination. But Sturgis had made it clear, on the contrary, that he had accidentally learned of Jones's ranch. Maybe that was part of the trick. But what good would come of such a scheme? She and Jones had loved—and parted. Moreover, perhaps she was giving herself needless cause for worry. This might not be the Gilbert Jones of her dreams. And what if Morgan did know? There was nothing to conceal.

"How—long has he been here?" Lucia wanted to know.

"Oh, before the war we agreed to try our fortune together down here," "Red" told her; and the little machine went whirring along. "That's the Hardy ranch," he said, pointing to the left. "Nice folks." His eyes seemed to cling to the low house, and Lucia did not realize it at the time, but he slowed up the car. Presently a young girl came out on the stone terrace and waved to him. She was like a prairie flower. "Red" Giddings became another man in the twinkling of an eye. A flush mounted to his cheeks, and a smile as broad as a fat man's belt all but encircled his countenance. He took one hand from the wheel and waved until they were out of sight down a curve in the road.

"Friend of yours?" said Morgan Pell, smiling.

"You bet! No finer little girl in this territory!" Giddings replied promptly.

They were now in sight of the Jones ranch. "There she is!" "Red" cried. "Pretty, eh?"

The low adobe house, with its gleaming roof, looked like a jewel set in the valley. Far away, seemingly to the very rim of the world, the flat lands stretched; and then beyond, in a golden haze, the stern mountains loomed, almost kissing the sky. The range dwindled away in an endless line, and one could never say where the boundary of Arizona stopped and the unseen border of Mexico began. The two countries simply merged in the mist. It was as if a battalion of petrified soldiers kept eternal guard in the sun, half the line loping over into another camp, but never caring at all. In the still heat of the afternoon, sagebrush lifted its bright face to the heavens; and now and then a lonely bird swooped above the rich ranches and desolate valleys, making a black dot against the sky. A soft wind was blowing now, bringing mercy from the west, and silence brooded like an angel, stretching out its wings as though to shelter a troubled world.

A young man with black hair and tanned skin came out in the yard, hatless. A gray flannel shirt and a flowing tie, high leggings that laced through many brass clips, completed his picturesque costume.

One look—and she knew it was Gilbert—her Gilbert. He recognized her at the same instant, and a curious light came into his dark eyes. She had been thinking, all the way down the road, how she should greet him if indeed he turned out to be that one man in the world. Calmly, yes. She was sure now that Morgan knew and suspected nothing. It was simply a coincidence that they should be coming to the adobe of this old love of hers. The long arm of fate had reached out and snatched her into this ring. She knew that Gilbert could meet the situation as seemingly unconcerned as she. There was nothing at all to fear.

He was their host, and he greeted them as only a good host knows how. Fortunately, Morgan wanted to go directly to his room. He was cross and tired, he said, and he desired to freshen up.

She got out of the car, and "Red" rattled down to the home-made garage a few rods away.

They were alone; and they stood there in the path for a moment, looking into each other's eyes.

"He is my husband," Lucia then found herself saying. "I am now Mrs. Pell."

"What are we going to do?" Gilbert asked. He had the face of a dreamer, she thought. The steel-gray eyes were full of fire and longing. What had these few years done to him?

"We are going to do nothing at all. What is there to do? We shall not be here many days. If you'd rather we went back to Bisbee...."

"Oh, no! That would only make an issue of nothing. He doesn't know anything? You're sure? Oh, Lucia!" He seemed suddenly overcome at their amazing meeting.

She saw that she would have to be the mistress of the situation. "Don't—don't, Gilbert," she begged. "I am just a guest of yours."

"I know—I know," he said, and there was a shade of anguish in his voice. "Forgive me. There shall be absolutely nothing said. Not even a gesture. I promise you that. It is as though we had never known each other."

"Surely we can play a part. It isn't as if we were children," she said, and smiled.

He looked at her—indeed, his eyes had never left her face. Never had she seemed so wonderful to him.

"I'm in bad," he told her. "Got to give the old place up. But what's that to you?" There was a sound behind them. "Here comes Uncle Henry!"

A wheel chair came out of the doorway. In it sat an old man of about sixty. But he did not look much like an invalid. His cheeks were rosy, and his abundant white hair was brushed back from a forehead of fine moulding. His eyes were penetrating—as young as Gilbert's, almost. Ten years before he had become paralyzed in his legs, and now he wheeled himself about, not at all uncomfortable.

"Uncle Henry, this is Mrs. Pell. Come out and meet her," his nephew said.

Lucia felt that she should go to the invalid; but he beat her to it. Quick as a billiard-ball he had reached her side, turning the wheels of his chair with great rapidity.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, and put out a white hand. "How long you goin' to stay?"

"What a question," Gilbert laughed. "As long as she and her husband wish, of course."

"Well, by cricketty ginger!" Henry Smith exclaimed. "Hope you'll give 'em enough to eat!" And before anyone could say another word, he had turned and scooted back into the house.

"Don't mind Uncle Henry," Gilbert said to Lucia. "He's got a heart of gold, but he can be cranky and eccentric sometimes. Maybe he's got one of his moods to-day. I never know. Tomorrow he'll be all right—perhaps. I hope so, anyhow.... But come inside. You must be tired after your trip. Your rooms are upstairs."

He led her into the prettiest low-beamed room she thought she had ever seen. Indian pottery was all about, low settles, a fireplace that conjured up a cozy picture of lonely winter evenings, and an entrancing staircase without a balustrade that led to a dark blue door. On the walls were some beautiful Navajo blankets, and a tiny alcove off to the right seemed to lead to another part of the long low house. The windows were brightly curtained, and all the furniture had a look of endurance and permanence—a manly room, she thought. Yet how ironical this appearance of firmness and stability was, in view of the reason of their visit! He had said he must give the place up. What a wrench it would be for him!

Women seldom like to see a bachelor—particularly a young bachelor—living in such solid comfort. As Lucia went up the stairs, she saw little touches she could give to the place. But she had to confess that the improvements she could suggest were not at all important. If two men could get along so well without feminine society, perhaps one of them didn't miss her much, after all!

CHAPTER III

WHEREIN UNCLE HENRY SPEAKS HIS MIND—AS USUAL

It was high noon, two days later. Gilbert again had been about the ranch looking things over. He had his dreamy moments, but he was far too practical to let the poet in him rule his life. One sensed, by the most cursory glance, that here was a type of virile young American who could not only dream, but make his dreams come true. No idler he! And he had no use for idlers. He had dared to come to this far country, establish himself on a ranch, and seek to win out in the face of overwhelming odds.

How many other young men had staked all on a single game—and lost. That was one of the finest qualities of the Americans who migrated to this vast section of the country. They were always good losers, as well as modest winners. The land was rich in possibilities, as Sturgis had told Pell; and though the hot season lasted interminably and caused one's spirits, as well as one's hopes, to droop, there were enchanting spring days and bright, colorful, dwindling autumns when the air was keen and clear, and life was a song with youth for its eternal theme.

Men with families bore the hardest burdens in their early struggle for success. Gilbert, being single, had less to worry about than many another; but his Uncle Henry was a handicap. For Uncle Henry used his invalid's chair much as a king might use his throne—a vantage place from which to hurl his tyrannous speeches. And there was no come-back. Uncle Henry had reigned too long to be fearful of any retort from any mere subject who walked about on two firm legs. For ten years he had held court, moving his little throne about with sudden jerks. When things did not go entirely his way, he could always withdraw—expertly, swiftly, cleverly. Doorsills were nothing to him. He skimmed them dexterously, as a regiment might storm a hill. Fortunately, he suffered no pain, though sometimes, in a frenzy, he affected a twinge in his body, and caused a helpless look to sweep over his countenance. As a rule, this trick worked beautifully; for who could be cruel to an invalid in pain? Being a bachelor, and having no relative closer than Gilbert, the latter took him under his roof. He really liked the old boy, despite his querulousness.

To-day, Uncle Henry was in one of his temperamental moods. Gilbert, sitting calmly at the little table, writing, in the low main room of the adobe, could hear the chair whirling about, each wheel vocal, and revealing the state of mind of the occupant.

"Gosh! ain't it hot!" finally came from Uncle Henry, his voice a drawl.

Gilbert said nothing. There was nothing to say. Of course it was hot; and he knew Uncle Henry could be depended upon to continue any conversation once begun. Sure enough, it wasn't the weather at all that he was deeply interested in, but the forthcoming midday meal. "Say, ain't we never goin' to eat? I'm as hungry as a bear."

"Dinner ought to be ready now," Gilbert answered patiently, never looking up from his paper.

Uncle Henry was not satisfied. "Then why ain't it," he rasped, giving his chair a twist, "I ain't had nothin' but a rotten cup of coffee since five o'clock this mornin'."

His nephew rose, and went over to the mantel-piece. How often he had heard just that remark! He didn't bother to reply to it. Instead, he merely silenced his uncle with a gesture. Uncle Henry didn't like being silenced. He looked around, as peevish as a spoiled child, and picked at the cloth that rested on his knees. Then he switched his chair within reach of the table, and snatched up a newspaper, much as a boy might grab the brass ring at a merry-go-round. He would read, if he couldn't make his nephew talk; and he buried himself in the printed page. Gilbert, having lighted his pipe, went back to his writing. "Well, what do you know about that!" exclaimed Uncle Henry, his face aglow.

"About what, Uncle?"

"Why, Ezry Pringle's dead."

"Who's Ezry Pringle?" Gilbert asked, feigning an interest he did not feel.

"A friend o' mine. Only seventy years old, too. He was right in the prime of life."

Gilbert smiled. "What's that paper you're reading?"

"The Bangor Daily Commercial, printed at Bangor, Maine. An' that's the only decent town in the whole gol darn world. Wisht I was there now!" He glanced at the alcove that led to another room, as if conscious that Morgan Pell might have heard him. He wanted to say something more to Gilbert, but something told him he had better keep silent. Instead, he read an item from the paper aloud to him. "Listen to this, Gilbert," he said: "'The Elite Fish Market has just received five barrels of soft clams from Eastport. Get there early, feller citizens! They won't last long.' Think o' that, Gilbert? Clams!" He smacked his lips, and even forgot how warm it was. "Clams! An' I ain't even seen one in five long years! Not even a clam!" He turned his chair suddenly, and looked out of the open door, where the country meandered away. "This is a hell of a hole! Why did we ever come down here?" he whined. He swung about again, and faced his nephew. "Say, Gil, do they have clams in France?"

"No; only mussels. Good ones, too."

Uncle Henry looked amazed. "They eat mussels?" he cried.

Gilbert looked up, smiled, and nodded.

"An' I hear they eat frogs, an' hosses, an' cheese with worms in it, too. Say," the old man wanted to know, "what don't they eat over there?... An' speakin' of eatin', ain't we never goin' to have no dinner?"

"I think it'll be ready soon, Uncle. Do be patient. I want to write."

Uncle Henry settled back in his chair, and for a brief interval became absorbed in his newspaper. But not for long could he remain silent. "Where's that Mr. Pell?" he asked.

"Inside, I think, lying down," Gilbert replied, nodding toward the alcove, his pen rushing across the page.

Uncle Henry made a grimace. "He makes me sick, that feller."

"Oh, cut that out, Uncle," Gilbert implored; but there was a little note of irritation in his voice. "That's no way to talk of a guest under our roof."

"I won't neither cut nothin' out! An' you make me sick too, you gol darn fool!"

"For the love of Mike, quit your babbling! Sssh!"

"Don't you shush me, gol darn it!" cried Uncle Henry, crumpling the newspaper in his hand and throwing it on the floor. The heat was affecting him. "I've kep' still long enough, an'—"

"Oh, have you?" Gilbert smiled.

"—an' I'm goin' to find out what's what!" Uncle Henry went on, as though he had not been interrupted.

"You act as though I were to blame for what's happened," his nephew said. He saw it would do no good to lose his temper.

"Well, ain't you? Why did you want to go to war in the first place? Why, why?" He pounded the arm of his chair. "That's what started it."

"Well, somebody had to go," Gilbert answered, smiling. "If some of us hadn't taken things in our hands, I don't know what would have become of Democracy!"

Uncle Henry pondered a moment. "Mebbe so. But you didn't have to go." Gilbert had risen to get a match, and his uncle's eye followed him to the mantel-piece. He spoke to the back of his head. "You could have claimed exemption if you'd wanted to, an' you know it."

"Exemption?" Gilbert repeated the word, a little angry at its utterance. This wasn't like Uncle Henry who, with all his peculiarities, had always been a patriot.

"Absolutely! You were the sole support of an invalid uncle." He waited for the truth of this remark to sink in; but Gilbert said nothing. "And on top of that," Uncle Henry went on, rapidly, when his nephew did not speak, "you were engaged in an essential industry—if you can call these rotten steaks you feed us on essential. The bones is softer than the meat." He gave a curious little laugh, thin and high.

Gilbert went back to the table, leaned over, and put one hand affectionately on the old man's shoulder. "Now, Uncle," he said, kindly, "what's the use of going over all this again? You know how I dislike it." He sat down and began to write again. But Uncle Henry had not finished—he had just started.

"What's the use?" he wheezed. "There's lots of use. Here you go an' persuade me to sell the old home and buy this rotten ranch 'way down here in this God-forsaken country. An' just when I, like a darned old fool, take an' do it, along comes the war an' you enlist and leave me here with nothin' but a lot of rotten cows!"

"But I left the foreman and the cook," Gilbert reminded him.

A look of scorn came over Uncle Henry's face, "Yes, 'Red' Giddings—playin' the harmonicky until I go almost crazy! An' a Mexican cook that can't cook nothin' but firecrackers! An' not even them when you want 'em!" He waited for this crowning touch to sink in. Infuriated by Gilbert's indifference, he swung around again in his chair. "Say, ain't we never goin' to have no dinner? I'm hungry!"

"I'm sorry," was all Gilbert said.

Uncle Henry almost resorted to tears—they were in his voice, at any rate. "First you rob me an' then you starve me!" he all but screamed. "An' the best you got to say is you're sorry!"

Jones never looked up, as he continued to write. "I did the best I could, Uncle. You know that, of course."

A remark like that always exasperates the hearer. "If that's yer best, I'd hate to see what yer worst is like," the other flamed. "An' now we're broke, an' they're goin' to foreclose to-day!" he added. "By golly, mebbe they've foreclosed already!"

"No, not till eight o'clock," Gilbert's passionless manner was maddening.

"Eight o'clock to-night?" his uncle cried, and leaned so far out of his chair that he was in danger of falling to the floor.

"Yes," Gilbert said, calmly.

"You're crazy! Don't you know yet that courts don't stay open at night?" He swung about in his frenzy and disgust.

"This court does. Somebody told the judge where he could get a bottle of liquor for eighteen dollars," Gilbert added, and smiled.

"So if we don't get ten thousand dollars there by eight o'clock to-night, we're set out on the bricks without no more home than a prairie dog—not as much!" almost screamed Uncle Henry. "An' yet you say why talk about it?"

"But it isn't getting us anywhere—just to sit around and complain," his nephew tried to pacify him, rising, and starting toward him again; but Uncle Henry didn't want to be so near him, knowing what he was going to say next. Therefore he switched adroitly to the door, and let out, "No, it ain't gettin' us anywhere; but it would if you'd marry Angela Hardy, like I want you to!" He was a little frightened now that he had uttered the words, and he looked anxiously at Gilbert to see their effect. The latter remained as calm as ever. "But I don't love her," was all he said.

Uncle Henry was exasperated now. "What's that got to do with it?" he yelled. "Her father's rich, an' not even he, mean as he is, would foreclose on his own son-in-law. Mebbe he'd even lend you somethin' besides," he added, slyly. He had great faith in these neighbors down the valley.

"I can't do it," Gilbert stated, as if he were discussing going to the nearest town.

"Won't, you mean."

"No. I mean can't—just what I said. It wouldn't be fair to her. I can't pretend to love her when I don't."

"You don't have to," his uncle urged. "She's so crazy about you, she'd marry you anyway." Triumphant knowledge was in his tone.

"What makes you think so?" Gilbert asked, coming close to the old man.

"She told me she would." He got it out bravely.

Young Jones was nearly bowled over. "She told you!" he repeated; and as he said it, passion for the first time came into his voice. There was the sound of hoof beats down the road. But neither of them paid any attention.

"Absolutely," the old man affirmed.

"Absolutely?"

"Absogoshdarnlutely!" Uncle Henry relieved the tension by saying.

Gilbert came over and peered into his uncle's face. "You don't mean you spoke to her about it?" he said.

"Why not?" rather impudently. "Somebody had to do it." And he chuckled. "I know what would become of Hypocricy if a few of you youngsters would be as brave as us old boys!"

"Good Lord!" was all young Jones could say, and he put his hand to his head.

"John Alden spoke for Miles Standish, an' they wasn't even related," Uncle Henry tried to placate the other.

The horse on the road, unknown to the men, had reached the adobe. Lucia Pell, radiant as a prairie flower, appeared at the door. She wore a riding-habit that fit her to perfection, and her hair, tumbled a bit by the soft breeze, fell around her face in a cascade of golden loveliness. Her eyes sparkled. She was the picture of glorious health and youth—a woman born for love and loving. She brought fragrance into the room.

"Hello, Gil!" she said, beating her riding-crop on her boot, and smiling that entrancing smile of hers. She was glad to see her handsome host again after her brisk ride.

"Good morning, Lucia," Gilbert said, hardly daring to look at her.

Uncle Henry didn't mean to be overlooked. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Pell," he said, meaningly.

"Why, it is afternoon, isn't it?" she laughed.

"It's darn near night," Uncle Henry rasped.

"And I'm simply famished. Who wouldn't be, after such a glorious ride!" Lucia said.

"The cook's getting dinner now. Have a good canter, you say?" young Jones inquired.

"I missed you," Lucia answered, unashamed.

Uncle Henry looked disgusted.

"I'm sorry, I had a lot of things to attend to. I'm glad you're back, for I was beginning to be worried about you, Lucia. Bandits! They're around again."

Lucia didn't take him seriously. She hardly remembered that they were so close to the border of Mexico. "Bandits?" she scoffed. "Oh, but they just steal cows and things, don't they?"

"Worse than that." Gilbert was serious, and gave her an appraising glance. "Human life means little in Mexico. They even kill their prisoners in cold blood."

But still Lucia was not alarmed. "If that's true," she smiled, "I won't go without you, if you wish it that way." She looked knowingly at him.

"It isn't what I wish," Jones answered. "Nothing is what I wish."

"Well," Uncle Henry put in, "you're going to get your wish all right." As he spoke, Morgan Pell came through the alcove from his room, and the old invalid steered his chair so that he faced him. Pell looked anything but engaging to-day. There was something about him that repelled—people could never say what it was; but one sensed a latent cruelty in the man. His eyes were shifty, and there were little lines about his mouth that spoke of his days of dissipation. It was hard to associate him with the flower-like Lucia. Here were a man and woman never meant for each other—that was evident immediately; yet he had that old power that seemed to hypnotize her. And she was not the only woman who had fallen beneath his spell. But now, apparently, he did not see her.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Pell," said old Smith to the newcomer.

"How are you?" the latter answered, with no show of interest.

"Have a good nap?" Gilbert inquired; but he really didn't care at all. Pell, however, took his question seriously.

"Couldn't sleep a wink," he said. "This cursed heat, you know. Glad I don't have to live in this part of the world all the time."

Uncle Henry leaned forward in his chair, and his eyes followed Pell expectantly as the latter moved across the low room, a small satchel in his hands. "You ain't leaving, are you?" he asked.

"No," was the laconic reply.

"I was afraid you wasn't," ventured Uncle Henry; and there was an awkward pause. Then, "It's pretty hot," the invalid remarked, delighted that no one had called him to account for his obvious insult. He knew he had all the advantage of a weak woman. His little throne was immune from attack.

"It's always pretty hot till night—then it's pretty cold," Pell said.

"What've you got that bag for?" Uncle Henry pursued. No one was ever more frankly curious than Uncle Henry.

"Company, my dear sir," Pell quickly retorted, not a little annoyed at the question; and he glared at the old man. He had had two days of him, and was getting used to him. Lucia, who had remained silent by the door, saw the cloud on her husband's face, and gave a little, startled "Oh!" It was hardly more than a whisper, but Pell was swift to catch it. He turned on her, and took in her radiant figure.

"So there you are!" he half sneered. "Been riding?"

"Yes; just a little canter."

"Alone?" Pell followed up.

"Yes; why?"

"Oh, nothing—nothing at all." There was a nasal tone in his voice always—a twang that grated on sensitive ears. He turned on Gilbert. "How about dinner?" he asked, almost as though the young fellow were a hotel clerk.

"It isn't ready yet," Jones answered. He disliked the other's tone. After all, he was a guest in his, Gilbert's, house. He hoped their wretched business would soon be settled, and Pell return to New York. He had had his fill of him.

Pell, seemingly oblivious of the bad impression he had made, started toward the door. He had not put the bag down. "Well, call me when dinner is ready, will you? I won't be far away."

"Where are you going?" Lucia ventured.

"Out," was Pell's curt reply; and he almost knocked Uncle Henry's chair aside as he hurried into the yard.

There was an awkward silence at his departure. Everyone felt a little ashamed for him; but Gilbert was determined that Lucia should not read his thoughts. So he said, nonchalantly, "Well, Lucia, how did the pony behave?" just as though Pell had never been in the room.

"Splendidly!" the young wife replied, glad that the atmosphere was cleared once more. "Oh, Gil, it's wonderful here—nothing but sky and the golden desert! What a miracle place!"

"You like it here?" Jones asked, knowing that she did. She had told him so every hour of her visit.

Lucia gave him a rapt look. "Like it, Gil? Um! I love it!" She clasped her hands to her breast; and Jones thought she had never looked lovelier, more desirable. How pink her cheeks were! Yet underneath her beauty there was a wistful sadness. Anyone could see that she was not happy.

"You really love it?" Uncle Henry asked, as though he could not believe he had heard what she said.

Lucia had forgotten his presence for a moment. Now she turned to him and smiled. "Of course. Don't you?"

"It makes me sick!" was the unexpected reply.

Lucia was horrified; and she looked from Smith to Gilbert in utter confusion. "Why, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed.

"Beautiful!" Uncle Henry went on, repeating the word in derision. "What's beautiful about it? That's what I'd like to know."

"The desert," Lucia answered.

"A lot of gol darn sand!" the invalid whined.

"The sky, then!" Lucia affirmed.

But Uncle Henry merely repeated "The sky!" in whole-hearted disgust.

Lucia refused to be downed. "But think of the glorious colors—blue and gold and purple!"

"And no grass nor nothin'," the invalid retorted. "Not even a place to go fishin'. And you call it beau—Say, was you ever in Bangor?"

Gilbert roared with laughter; but Lucia took the old boy seriously. "Bangor?" she repeated, wonderingly.

"Yes. Bangor, Maine. Now there's a place as is beau—Take the town hall, for instance. And the Soldiers' Monument. And the cemetery. They got the swellest cemetery in Bangor you ever—." Gilbert was almost doubling up with laughter; but Uncle Henry went right on: "As for this gol darn place, I wish it was in—An' it wouldn't have fur to go, neither!" he added, emphatically, smiling at his own humor. "I wisht I was back in Maine! There's where I was always so happy!"

By this time Lucia was smiling too. She went over and shook her finger gently in the invalid's face. "You're cross just because you're hungry!"

"I ain't neither!" Smith replied, like a little boy.

"Yes, you are!" Lucia kept on.

"I ain't!"

"Uh, uh!" she teased him, as though she were playing with a baby.

Smith grew peevish. "Gol darn it, I tell you I ain't!" And he gave his chair a rapid twirl.

"Boo!" came from Lucia softly. She laughed, and ran up the tiny stone stairs that led to her room.

"Boo, yourself!" called out Uncle Henry, determined to have the last word, as Lucia disappeared. Then he turned querulously on his nephew, as soon as he was certain she was out of hearing. "Why did you ever invite 'em to stay here in the first place?" he wanted to know. The sound of "Red's" harmonica was heard outside.

"Because there was no decent hotel anywhere near. I couldn't do less than offer them what little hospitality I had, could I, when Sturgis suggested it?"

But his uncle didn't agree with him at all. "You could have done a whole lot less," he decided. "You could have invited 'em to keep on going. Comin' here at a time like this, and not only eatin' us out of house and home, but drinkin' up the last bottle of liquor in the world!" This seemed to him the culminating tragedy. When his nephew said nothing at all, he asked, petulantly, "Well, what are you going to do? That's what I want to know."

"What can I do?"

"Do you mean to say you're going to set here and get throwed out into the street and not even try to do something?"

Gilbert merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, of all the—" his Uncle Henry went on. "It's a darn good thing for you that I'm an invalid! That's all I got to say!" He wheeled about, and aimed at the door that led to the open air. At that instant "Red" Giddings, the husky young foreman, appeared directly in his path, his shock of fiery hair like an aureole about his head. "Git out o' my way!" Uncle Henry yelled. "Gol darn the gol darn luck, anyhow!"

And through years of practice he shot into the yard as straight as an arrow.

CHAPTER IV

WHEREIN "RED" REVEALS HIS HEART, AND MRS. QUINN GIVES HIM GOOD COFFEE AND GOOD ADVICE

"Red" Giddings had been on the ranch with Gilbert since the very beginning. He came from the North with the young man, willing to stake all on this one venture. Like young Jones, he was not afraid. He was an efficient, well-set-up young fellow, with three consuming passions: Arizona, his harmonica, and Angela Hardy. The first saw a lot of "Red"; the second touched his lips frequently; but as for Angela—well, perhaps the poor boy kissed his harmonica so often in order to forget her lips. But if his own music charmed "Red," it failed to have that effect upon others—particularly Uncle Henry, who went into a rage whenever he heard the detested instrument. "Red's" music had no charms to soothe the savage breast of Henry Smith.

But another did like it. Angela once told "Red" in the moonlight—and her father had never forgiven her for her foolishness—that his harmonica never wearied her. That was enough for "Red." Once every day he managed to find some excuse to get over to the Hardy ranch; and always his beloved instrument went along with him in his pocket, and he would approach his lady love's castle like the troubadours of old, his foot tapping on the path while his harmonica, in the place of a lute, made soft sounds. Instantly Angela would poke her pretty head from the window, and pretend that she was a princess in distress, and he her knight who had come to release her from her prison.

Moreover, the Hardys had a wonderful cook—a woman they had brought down from Phœnix. Instead of the firecracker stuff that Uncle Henry so bitterly complained of, she, being an Irish woman, could concoct a stew that would make one's hair curl; and her pastry was succulent and sweet, and literally melted in the mouth. Her coffee—ah! who could make better coffee? And as the meals at the Jones ranch were served sporadically, and "Red" was as healthy as a peasant and had never known the time when he couldn't tuck away some dainty from the kitchen he ingratiated himself with Mrs. Quinn, quite won her heart, too, with his music, and was even known to desert his work for the boon of a bit of pie.

When she was suffering from the heat of the stove, and was ready to throw up her job and return to the bright lights of Phœnix, "Red" invariably came around to the door with music on his lips, his shock of hair blown by the soft wind, looking so boyish that she had to succumb to him, boil another pot of coffee, and lay a place for him at the corner of the table.

"Be off wid yez!" she always began by saying. But the insinuating harmonica was his only reply; and she ended by begging him to come in and play for her while she messed with the pots and pans, and maybe found some batter for a plate of griddle cakes.

On this particular morning, work being useless since things were going so badly for Jones, "Red" slipped up the road and reached the kitchen door just as Mrs. Quinn was washing up.

"Oh, so there ye be, me boy!" was her motherly greeting. "Come in, an' maybe—who knows?—I'll find a cup o' coffee fer ye, though I'm not thinkin' ye deserve it."

"Red" loved the odors from this fragrant kitchen. The stove always gleamed, and when Mrs. Quinn was in good humor she was like a great light moving here and there, dispensing warmth also. She was a monstrous woman; but like many large people, she got about easily and swiftly. Her capable hands were forever fluttering in the flour-barrel or over the dough-board, and her ruddy cheeks and honest gray eyes spoke of health and good nature. She adored Angela; and she really liked "Red" tremendously, and hoped in the end he would win the difficult and fickle girl. But, like Angela, she had moment when she could have shaken him. For "Red" didn't fight hard enough for what he wanted. He was naïve to the point of stupidity at times; and women like aggressive men—even men who are capable of flogging them into submission, deny it as they will. "Red" was gentle and mild, though thoroughly manly. Both Angela and Mrs. Quinn would have liked to see him live up to his fiery hair.

He beamed now at the genial cook's greeting, and took out his harmonica, running over the full scale as a suitable answer.

"Here, sit ye down, 'Red,'" Mrs. Quinn ordered. "But first see that yer feet is wiped off. I don't want to see no dirt along me clean floor."

She was busy with a place for him near the window, happy, as most women are, to serve a handsome young chap, and secretly wishing in her heart that she had him for a son.

The coffee was miraculously brought, and soon the griddle-cakes, gloriously brown, and deftly turned by Mrs. Quinn, were in front of him.

"Gee! you make a feller happy, Mrs. Quinn!" said the appreciative "Red," sitting down, and getting busy, "Won't you come to Bisbee with Angela an' me the next time we go to the movies?"

She gave him a half-scornful look. "An' what would yez want with an old woman like meself taggin' along with yez now?" Mrs. Quinn exclaimed, her arms akimbo. "Ain't ye happy enough with yer Angela, an' no fat funeral like me occupyin' too much room in the Ford? Go along, me lad, an' have a good time with yer colleen! She'd like it better alone with ye, too—be sure o' that!"

"Of course I would!"

They hadn't seen Angela come in. She stood in the doorway like a vision—a morning-glory from which the freshness of the early hours never seemed to depart.

"Oh!" poor "Red" gasped, and leaped to his feet. "Would you, Angela?" He looked at her, drank her beauty in, as though she were the only creature on this earth.

"Certainly!" said Angela, coming over to him. "You're a boob, 'Red,' and if you don't look out, there's a fellow over at Bisbee who—"

"Oh!" the anguished "Red" managed to get out. "Is there, Angy?"

There was—of course there was—and there wasn't. Angela knew just how far to go. Her black eyes danced. "Red" sat down again, after she had shoved him back to his late breakfast. Mrs. Quinn, amused, was busy with some more cakes, though "Red" had scarcely had time to begin the first batch. But she knew his capacity, and she felt he would need sustaining food after Angela's last remark.

"You don't always wave to me like you did the other day when I went by," said "Red," his lips in Mrs. Quinn's golden coffee.

"Why should I?" said Angela. "You don't always have such swell-looking folks with you!"

"Oh, so that's why you waved!" disappointment in his tone.

"Maybe." She was teasing him, but he didn't know it. "Who were they?"

"A Mr. and Mrs. Pell, from New York. They're lookin' over property round here.... But I don't care, Angy. Even if I had to go to Bisbee four times a day and get some good-lookin' folks to bring down the road, I'd do it if you'd wave to me! Oh, why can't you always be nice to me?"

"If I was always nice to you, you wouldn't know how lucky you are!" she countered. "It's good for you to have your bad days—with me."

"Well, maybe you're right. You're 'most always right; but gosh! a feller does like a little encouragement once in a while. You can be so cruel, Angy!"

"Can I? If you think not waving to you is cruelty, you ought to see some of my other forms of torture."

"Ugh! I hope I never do!" He drank again from the cup.

"Say," Angela said, watching him, "you seem to like that coffee a lot more than you like me! That brunette in the cup is my rival!"

He looked at her in blank amazement. He hadn't much sense of humor. He was as literal-minded as a child. "You certainly are the funniest girl, Angy!" he said, "How could coffee be a girl's rival?"

"Easier than a fellow in Bisbee—maybe. Better look out, 'Red,' or I'll sue Mrs. Quinn for alienation of affections!"

"Oh, you wouldn't do that!" said the kindly, honest "Red."

"What a stupid you are, to be sure!" said Angela, and laughed. "There—eat these hot cakes—though how you can on this beastly warm morning is more than I can see—and then play me some tunes. I'm dying to hear some music. This afternoon Dad says he's going over to your ranch. I don't know what for, do you? I do wish people didn't have to lose their property. Why are mortgages, anyhow?"

"Blamed if I know, Angy! Thanks, Mrs. Quinn."

"Sure, an' you're welcome, me boy." Angela had gone out on the step. The old Irishwoman saw her chance. "For the love o' Mike, 'Red,' woo her, an' woo her hard! There is a feller in Bisbee. She's after lovin' ye, but you're too slow—slower'n the molasses I just poured on yer griddle-cakes fer ye!"

"I'll try," said the accommodating "Red." "You're a good friend, Mrs. Quinn. I won't forget you when I own this place!"

"Be off, now! Ye've got some travelin' to do before ye're able to win Angela. Then ye can think of buyin' a ranch."

She literally pushed him from her domain; and he found himself by Angela's side out of doors.

The bright sunlight touched her hair, and they went over to a pergola she had had built, covered with vines. A little fountain tinkled near it, and the heat of the day would not bother them here.

For three delirious hours, "Red" was alone with Angela. One moment she pouted, the next she let him touch her hand.

"You may be going away soon, 'Red.' Will you write to me if you do?"

"Will I?" he cried, "Every day—a postal-card at least. I ain't much at letters.... But I'm not so sure I'm goin', Angy. Something tells me that even if your father does hold the mortgage, it won't be foreclosed. Gil Jones has worked too hard...."

"Dad's awfully hard about holding to a bargain," Angela reminded him. "He's all business. He wasn't that way until after Ma died. I do wish he'd be more human. I've talked to him and talked to him, until I'm tired; but he's getting harder all the time. This is the last day, isn't it?"

"Yes. Jones is awful blue. That's one reason I ought to get back. Maybe he needs some cheerin' up. God knows his Uncle Henry don't give him much."

The sun was now high in the heavens. It was almost noon. "Red" said he would walk. No trouble at all; and what did he care how hot it was? He was used to it. But how he did hate to leave his Angela!

He played his harmonica most of the way home, and he was still running his lips along the instrument when he entered the adobe door, just as Uncle Henry wheeled out of it.

CHAPTER V

WHEREIN GILBERT JONES IS WORRIED, AND LUCIA PELL IS ASKED TO DO AN IMPOSSIBLE THING

Poor "Red" couldn't have encountered the invalid at a less propitious moment; for he was almost knocked down by that crabbed gentleman.

"Certainly wheels a mean chair," he said good-naturedly to Gilbert, as he watched Uncle Henry steer himself out to the gate. "Got his cut-out open, too! Pesky to-day, ain't he? That's one reason I came back." He spread his legs apart, and fanned himself with his hat. He ran his fingers through his thick, violent crop of hair. "A mean Arizona day!" he said. "The walk made me hot."

"I should think it would," Jones replied.

"No grub yet?" "Red" ventured. He was hungry even yet. Twenty-two is always hungry.

"No," said his employer.

"Should have been ready two hours ago. What's the matter? Wish we had Mrs. Quinn over here."

"I don't know what's the matter. I haven't thought much about eating." He was engrossed again in his papers.

But "Red" didn't intend to let the matter drop. "You're too easy on that cook," he said. "Now, if you had a Mrs. Quinn—" He had pulled out a worn tobacco-bag, which was discouragingly flat. He had smoked a lot this morning.

Gilbert was swift to notice the empty pouch, and offered him his.

"Thanks; much obliged," "Red" said, filling his pipe. "But darn that cook, anyhow! If he wasn't leavin', I'd fire him! As if you didn't have enough troubles, without havin' to bother about late meals—an' guests in the house."

But a puff or two on his pipe soothed him, "Red's" bark was always worse than his bite. He was the best-natured chap in the world, and he idolized Gilbert Jones. There was a big packing-case in the middle of the room, and he sat on it, tailor-fashion, as happy as a husky, normal young man can be.

He looked longingly at the unset table; but his thoughts were more of Angela Hardy than of the good meal to come.

"'Red,'" said Gilbert after a brief silence, "I was hoping to be able to pay you off to-day."

"Pay me off?" That would have been heaven! He could have taken Angela to the movies at Bisbee.

"Yes."

"Oh, forget it! You don't owe me nothin'!"

"Only a mere trifle of six months' wages," Gilbert laughed.

"Red" had put his head in one hand, and leaned back on the case, at peace with the world. His left foot beat a little tattoo on the side of the box. Now he sat up straight and looked sharply at Jones.

"What's the use of talking about this?" he wanted to know. "You ain't got it, have you?"

Gilbert paused the fraction of a second. "No," he had to admit, "But that doesn't alter the fact that I owe you money." He went over and stood close to his foreman.

"You're wrong," the younger man said. "It was my own proposition that I come here with you and work, an' you know it. Now what you got to say?"

Gilbert put his arm around "Red's" big shoulder, and playfully pushed him off the box. "You're just a big kid, aren't you, 'Red'?"

"I don't know what I am. But I do know I was only too glad to take the gamble with you. An' I'll take another one right now if you've got one to suggest."

Gilbert pushed the case over on its side. It was empty. There were some Navajo blankets on a little stand by the window. These he now fetched over to the case, first placing them carefully on the floor, spread out in all their rainbow beauty. Their bright patterns glorified the room, as if a lamp had been lighted. He said nothing. "Red" wondered what he was doing with these splendid blankets. He had never seen anything like them on the ranch, though there were others on the walls.

"I'd like to remark," "Red" went on, "that if we ever gets into the cow business again, we ought to get us a nice ranch in Washington, D.C. It don't pay American citizens to go too fur away from home, these days."

Gilbert laughed. Then, "Oh!" he ejaculated, as though remembering something.

"What's the matter?" "Red" asked.

"Haven't you heard? Lopez has broken off the reservation again."

"Lopez!" exclaimed "Red," forgetting his pipe, his dinner, and even Angela for the moment. "The devil he has!"

"Uh—uh! Raided the Diamond Dot last night."

"He won't bother us," "Red" smiled, settling back again. "Nothin' to steal here except the mortgage." He paused, as though in deep thought; but Gilbert, had he known it, was thinking even harder. Lopez, the Mexican bandit, was a dim uncertainty; the mortgage was a stern reality.

"You'll want to be drivin' over to the station later?" "Red" went on, coming to the table, and taking off his spurs.

"Yes," Gilbert answered. He had folded all the blankets neatly, rose, and went over to the window-box to get some strong cord.

"In the gallopin' wash-boiler?" "Red" smiled, "That still belongs to us—I mean, you." He clinked his spurs on the table.

"Us is right, 'Red.' You said you'd been a partner. You have. Some day I'm going to tell you how grateful I am." In his preoccupation, he forgot to tie up the blankets; and, one hand on "Red's" shoulder, he let the cord fall on the table.

"Aw, that's all right," "Red" said. He didn't like to be thanked, and he avoided even the shadow of sentimentality with Jones. After all, they were two young fellows, playing a big game together, taking big chances; and what was the use of talking about it? "What are you going to tell the Pells?" he suddenly asked, glad to get off the immediate subject.

"Pells?"

"Say, I'm goin' to poke that bird in the beak some day!" "Red" declared.

Jones smiled. "What's he done to you?"

"Nothin'. He'd better not. It's the way he treats his wife. She's so darn game, too. I wouldn't treat a horse the way he treats her. Well, what are you goin' to tell them?"

Gilbert stood perfectly still. He was in deep thought. Finally he spoke.

"I'm going to tell them I'm going away—important business."

"East?" "Red" asked. He had seated himself at the table, and picked up Gilbert's pen, and began making curious little scrawls with it on a piece of paper, as a business man sometimes does when he is telephoning.

"No. West," answered Jones. "They're going East."

"What are you going to do?" "Red" was amused rather than alarmed.

"Oh, I'll get a job somewhere. Punch cows—or maybe join the rangers. There's always something a fellow can do."

"An' what about your uncle?"

"I'll put him up in Bisbee till I get a chance to ship him back to Bangor. He likes Bangor, you know!" Gilbert smiled.

"He takes it sort o' hard, don't he?"

"Well, you can't blame the old boy. You see, I got him to sell out everything—everything, and invest in this ranch. Maybe it wasn't the right thing to do; but I thought I was certain to succeed. I meant all for the best, 'Red.' You know that." Who could doubt those gray eyes of Gilbert Jones, that open, frank, boyish face?

"Of course I do." He got up, and walked over to the window. "Your uncle don't like jokin' much, does he? I asked him the other day why he didn't get a chauffeur. Gosh! he got mad!" "Red" laughed at the recollection.

"Uncle Henry's in no joking mood just now. You can't blame him much."

"Red" turned and looked at his employer. He didn't know whether he should ask the next question or not; but he took his courage in his hands.

"He—he wants you to—to marry Angela Hardy, don't he?"

Gilbert looked surprised. "Hardy's daughter?"

"Red" nodded.

"How did you know?" Jones asked.

"Because he ain't talked of nothin' else for six months. You wasn't thinkin' of doin' it, was you?" He hung on Gilbert's answer.

"Hardly!" with a smile.

The relief of "Red"!

"I know, I know!" he cried. "But once she gets her mind set on a thing—"

"You mean you think she wants to marry me? Is that it?" Gilbert asked, not taking the matter very seriously. He was busy at the box again, pulling the top farther back.

"Well, I don't know as I'd say that," "Red" offered; "but I think she thinks she wants to." He was sitting on the edge of the table, swinging one leg. "She's prone to fancies, Angela is. Even I gotter admit that!"

"Even you?" Gilbert inquired, puzzled.

The question made "Red" a bit nervous. He jumped to the floor, and then sat down in the chair beside the table, pretending to be very much at ease. "Like that traveling man from Saint Looey," he explained. "She thought she cared for him. I tried to tell her different. I had to run him out of town with a gun to prove it. But even then she didn't believe it until that New York surveyor come along."

Gilbert looked up, "And she thought she loved him?"

"Until she met up with that hoss doctor from Albuquerque! An' now there's a new feller in Bisbee!"

Jones was a trifle mystified, "Say, how do you happen to know so much about her affairs, 'Red'?"

How involved he had become! He blushed like a schoolboy; got up, took his pipe out of his mouth and emptied it in the fireplace. "Me?" he said. "Oh, I've knowed her a long time."

Jones was beginning to see the truth, to read the heart of this young rascal. So it was over at the Hardy's that he spent so many hours!

"Oh, so that's it, is it? What's the matter? Does her father object?"

"Oh, no!" "Red" was quick to deny. "I stand all right with him. He's knowed me a long time. It's her."

Gilbert laughed outright; and "Red," humanly embarrassed now that his secret was out, paced the room, his hands behind his back, digging his heel every now and then in the floor. "Aw—" he began.

"Listen, 'Red,'" said Jones, in sympathy with the lad, and hoping to cover up his confusion. "If Hardy comes, keep him out till I'm alone. I don't want any war talk before the Pells."

"I get yer," said "Red," visibly relieved.

"Any stronger cord on the place anywhere?" Gilbert looked around the room. Maybe one of the many Indian jugs contained a string. "Red" and he had a habit of putting any old thing in them.

"There's some down in the hay barn. Want me to get it for you?" "Red" offered.

"No; I'll get it, thanks. You see if you can't prod up the cook a little. I'm hungry now."

And "Red" ran into the kitchen. No sooner had he left the room, than there was a rumble, and Uncle Henry burst in on Gilbert, a smile of triumph on his face.

"I got it!" he all but yelled.

"Got what?" his nephew asked.

"An idea!... Mebbe he'd lend you some."

"Some what? And who?"

"Money, of course! That feller Pell, I mean. He's rich, an' if he knowed that you and his wife was old friends—I betcher he'd lend you some." He paused, breathless, for he had run his sentences into one. Gilbert glared at him, as if he thought he had gone stark mad. But Uncle Henry was not afraid. "You won't ask him?" he inquired.

"Certainly not. What are you raving about, anyhow? Cut out this sort of talk, Uncle. You're getting on my nerves."

The old man simply switched his chair about. He had heard Gilbert in an angry mood before, and he knew that nothing would follow his little burst of wrath. "Oh, you make me tired, you young people," he raged. "I'd ask him if it was me, you can bet I would!"

"You would," was all that Gilbert replied. Sarcasm was in his voice.

"First you won't marry Hardy's daughter and now you won't ask him for money," Uncle Henry pursued the subject.

Gilbert was genuinely angry now. "Oh, keep quiet! I'm sick of your plans."

"Yes, but if you ain't goin' to do nothing, I am!"

His nephew wouldn't trust himself to hear another word. He turned on his heel and left the old man.

Uncle Henry was shaking with excitement. He lifted his hand, smote the arm of his chair, and cried out after the vanishing figure of his nephew, "You make me sick, you gol darn fool!" He was almost in tears. "Gol darn the gol darn luck, anyhow!"

At that moment, Lucia Pell came down the little stairway. She had discarded her riding-habit, and now looked equally lovely in a simple frock of blue.

"What's the matter?" she inquired, seeing at once that something was troubling Uncle Henry.

"What ain't the matter?" the old fellow screamed, but glad of someone to whom he could unburden his overflowing heart. "Gol darn it! By gollies! I got it again!" he cried, seized with another inspiration. He eyed the radiant Lucia, as a miser might appraise a new gold coin. "Mis' Pell," he said, twirling his chair so that he caught a better glimpse of her.

"Yes?" she said, half-way down.

"You and Gil's old friends, ain't you?" The question was as direct as anything could be.

"Yes," was the equally direct answer.

"Want to do him a good turn?" asked the scheming old man.

"Of course. What do you mean?" She was at his side now.

"He's got a chance to make a swell marriage," announced Uncle Henry.

"What?" There was a curious catch in Lucia's voice.

"A rich marriage," Uncle Henry went on, almost smacking his lips over the words.

Lucia went over to the window, so that she would not face the invalid.

"Not as rich as yourn, of course," Uncle Henry pursued; "but rich for him—and he won't do it." He waited for her to say something; but she did not speak. There was a pause. Lucia looked out at the baking valley, and off to the far mountains, and the ticking of the clock could be heard like steady rain in a cistern. Then she went over to the table near the alcove, where a few books were scattered about. She opened one, and pretended to read. All the time Uncle Henry's eyes never left her. And she knew he was searching her thoughts.

"He won't?" she finally said.

"No—the gol darn fool!" the old fellow screamed again.

"Does he—does he love her?" Lucia brought herself to ask.

Quick as a flash Uncle Henry came back: "Sure he does! It's the only thing for him to do. He ain't got no right to be livin' alone. All he don't get skinned out of he gives away. Never gets nothin' to eat. If ever a feller needed a nice, sensible wife to take care of him, it's Gil. I know. Ain't I his uncle?"

"You think she would—make him—a good wife?" Lucia Pell got the words out somehow, never lifting her eyes from the printed page.

"The finest in the world!" Uncle Henry affirmed. "Now, looky here, Mis' Pell: He won't listen to me—funny the way folks are about their relatives. But I was thinkin' that mebbe if you was to ask him—"

Lucia was startled. "I?" she said.

The wheel chair bobbed about. "Yes. You and him bein' old friends that way, mebbe he'd pay some attention to you. Make him see what a gol darn fool he is and give him h——. Give it to him good! It's a wonderful chance. He'll never get another. Darned if I see how he ever got this. But he has. And what we gotter do is to make him take it." He paused; but she said nothing. He waited a moment. Then,—"What do you say? Will you?"

"You—think he should?"

"I know darn well he should!"

Lucia closed the book and put it down. She looked straight at Uncle Henry. "I should think he would see it for himself."

Uncle Henry showed his disgust—not for her, but for his nephew. "Aw, he's always been like this. I remember five or six years ago, he told me then he wouldn't ask no woman to marry him until he got a lot of money. False pride, I call it. What'd the world come to if everybody felt like that?"

"You think it's only pride that's keeping him from it?" Her voice was very low.

"Well, what else could it be, I'd like to know."

"Maybe it's because he hasn't a lot of money. He may be honest in that."

"Well, mebbe you're right. That may be it. What do you say?"

"All right," Lucia Pell said. But she turned away.

Uncle Henry was delighted. "That's the idee! Hooray!" Had he been able to stand, he would have risen and given three rousing cheers. He hadn't been so happy in years. "We'll put it over yet, by heck!"

He hadn't seen his nephew come into the room, with a ball of stout twine in his hands.

"Put what over?" Gilbert asked.

Uncle Henry was taken aback, but he quickly covered his confusion.

"Oh, somethin'. It's a secret." He turned and addressed Lucia Pell. "Don't forget," he admonished, and swiftly wheeled himself out into the yard again.

CHAPTER VI

WHEREIN AN OLD LOVE AWAKENS, PELL REVEALS HIS TRUE COLORS, A MORTGAGE IS ABOUT TO BE FORECLOSED, THE CONTENTS OF A SATCHEL ARE MADE KNOWN, UNCLE HENRY SPRINGS A SENSATION, AND PELL TAKES AN OPTION

Lucia's eyes were following Uncle Henry's heaving chair; for the yard was full of little stones, and the invalid bumped along, not always able to keep on a smooth track. She smiled as she watched him.

"What was he talking about?" Gilbert asked, kneeling on the floor, and folding one rug that had slipped away.

"Oh, nothing," Lucia Pell answered. "You know how old people babble on sometimes about nothing." She turned and looked at him. Still the same handsome Gilbert! "What are you doing?"

"Nothing. You know how young people go on doing nothing. I'm just rolling up these rugs and blankets. I'm going to send them away."

Lucia saw the beautiful pattern of one Navajo as Gilbert held it, unfolded, from the floor. She came over to him.

"You're sending them away—when they're so exquisite?" she asked. "This flaming one—" she picked it up and draped it around her. "Why, it's like the sunset. And you do have such beautiful sunsets here, Gil."

"I got them up especially, in honor of your visit," Jones said; and then he remembered how many times a remark like that must have been made, by many a lover, as if it were quite original, as if no one had ever thought of it before!

But Lucia took him seriously, dropped the wonderful blanket and went over to the door again. "I never grow tired of this view, Gil. It's almost as if God were an artist and had spilt the colors from His palette. And yet not that, quite. The colors are more like jewels. The morning's opals; the noon's pearls; the evening wears rubies in her hair. There's a sort of beauty that makes one ache. It seems to me sometimes as if I couldn't stand it—just the way the Grand Canyon got hold of me. Doesn't it affect you that way—you who have so much poetry in you?"

"Indeed it does, Lucia. I've often watched that sky until I've forgotten all about my cattle—both of them!" He laughed, and reached for the twine. He was always turning their serious moments into a jest. As long as she had been here with her husband, he kept at a distance.

Lucia saw his hand go out. "The string?" she said. "I'll get it." She left the door, and handed him the twine which he had put on the table.

"Thank you," said Gilbert. "Do you mind putting your finger—there? Never mind. I think I can do it, after all."

"Oh, do let me help you," she said. "I'd like to." And she leaned down, knelt beside him, and held her white forefinger on the cord.

How it happened, neither of them ever knew. But a sudden electric thrill ran through their veins. Something hammered in their brains. For a brief instant, their hearts beat as though the whole world must hear. He had touched her finger, and, before he was aware of it, he had dared to lean over and kiss it. Not a word was said—there was no time for words. They did not need speech to understand. It was the old, but ever new experience of the ages: two who loved each other had found out in the twinkling of an eye—and she belonged to another. There was a moment of terrible silence. Then,

"I'm sorry," was all Gilbert could get out.

"But you touched my hand many a time, in the old days," Lucia said.

"That was different. You're married now. Oh, there is a vast change since then. I could not—Forgive me, my dear." He turned away his face. He did not want her to read what was in his eyes. "Shall I send them, or would you rather take them with you?" he asked, hiding behind that commonplace question the emotion he felt. His voice held a note of pain.

Lucia rose. "You mean you want to give these wonderful rugs and blankets to me?—these priceless things."

"More than that. I want you to have them—to remind you—sometimes of—" He broke off, like a frightened lad.

"As though I should ever need reminding! How dull you men can be! But I don't want to take them from you, Gil."

"I'm giving up this ranch," he told her, "I shan't want them any more. Please take them, for my sake." He made a gesture, as though they were the last of his poor possessions.

"I thought you loved it here?" she said.

"I do—in a way."

"Then why are you giving it up?" was the natural question.

He hesitated, not knowing what to answer. "I thought I'd try something else for awhile. I hate to have to tell you this, Lucia; but the fact is, I—I've got to leave to-day. I was going to tell you before, only I was hoping that something might turn up at the last minute, and—well, it hasn't. That's all."

There was nothing she could say; and they stood looking at each other in silence—a silence that was far more eloquent than speech. Gilbert went over and sat on the case, and Lucia finally said:

"Then we won't see each other again?"

He nodded, sorrowfully. Lucia Pell went over to the door and looked out once more. He watched her, covertly—her every gesture held a new meaning for him now. The silence continued. At length she turned back and faced him. He could not stand it, and bent quickly over the rugs and blankets.

"I don't know what to say, Gil." She moved closer to him. "I've had a wonderful time—you know that. I want to thank you for it. You've been awfully kind to us."

"Having you here is all the thanks I want," he answered. He had everything snugly packed now.

"I'm glad we happened to meet again. Though it does seem strange, doesn't it, that we should run across each other after all these years!"

He stood up straight. "All these years! You talk as if you were a hundred!" And he tried to smile.

"I am—nearly," she laughed. "I'm twenty-four, you know."

"Really? It doesn't seem possible!"

"I was eighteen when you went away. And that's nearly six years ago. Time flies, doesn't it?" She smiled at her bromidic remark, and sat down; but he did not reply, "Gil," she said at last. He looked up. "Why didn't you come to see me before I went away?"

"I don't know. I suppose—"

"You went away from Maine without my knowing—without even coming to say good-bye. Was that fair, was that the thing for a man like you to do?"

How he wished she had not brought up these burning memories!

"I was broke, and I—" he managed to explain.

Lucia knew what he must be feeling now. She got up and went over to his side; she did not dare place her hand in his. Never must there be again that electric current between them. "But you're all right now, aren't you, Gil?"

He seemed abstracted, suddenly lost in another world. "Huh?" he uttered. Then, as if coming to himself, "Oh, my, yes! I'm doing splendidly now, Lucia!"

"I'm so glad, Gil. But you haven't answered my question yet."

"About my not coming to say good-bye?"

She nodded.

"It was pride, I suppose," he went on.

"Very foolish pride. And life is so short. You hurt me a great deal."

"I'm sorry. What more can one say? If I—"

"I thought I had done something to offend you," she said, standing very still, and looking far beyond him now, as though viewing their whole unhappy past. "And it's worried me even until this very day. I didn't do anything to offend you, did I, Gil?"

"You? You, Lucia?" he cried. "You couldn't do anything to offend me. Surely you must know that." He said it as a man says such things to the one woman he loves.

"It was only pride?" she was anxious to know again. "Because you were poor! Gil! Did you think so little of me as that?" There was a half-sob in her voice.

"I hoped to pick a fortune off a tree somewhere, and come back and surprise you with it. I was going to buy an automobile—one of those low ones as long as a Pullman car—and fill it with roses, and come dashing up to your front door and take you for a ride through the hills. It was to be autumn. I had even that fixed," he laughed. "Oh, I had everything thought out! And you were going to be so proud of me!... But I couldn't find a fortune-tree anywhere...." He looked away, embarrassed. He hadn't meant to tell her this.

"Gil!" she cried.

"I guess they don't grow any more. At least, not in this part of the country." He rose, a bit wearily, and walked over to the mantel-piece.

"What did you do, Gil?" she asked, her eyes following him.

"Well, I was a time-keeper on a railroad and weigh-boss in a coal mine. After that I punched cows until I got uncle to come here. Then the war started, and—that's all."

Then she asked what a woman always asks.

"Why didn't you ever write to me, Gil?"

"I was waiting for some good news to tell you. I felt you would consider me a failure—a rank failure. I couldn't have stood that. Women don't know how proud men are about that."

"Maybe we don't—and maybe we do, Gil." She went closer to him. "Why don't you marry?" she dared to inquire.

He was startled. "Marry?" he repeated.

"Yes; you need someone to take care of you—someone to look after your daily needs—every man does."

"I guess there's no doubt about that. But it ought to be a guardian in my case; or maybe a keeper." She could see that he was stalling for time, and trying to laugh off a topic that was serious indeed to him.

"We're such old friends, Gil," she said, looking at his handsome face. "I don't like to go—to think of you always, like this—alone."

"I still have uncle," he reminded her.

"Oh, don't joke, Gil! You need a woman—a wife—someone to mother you."

"All those?"

Why couldn't he be serious for a moment? She asked him that.

"I don't dare to, Lucia." His voice was low.

She was a bit puzzled. "Why?"

"Because the minute you begin to take life seriously, it takes you that way, and then—"

"But don't you see what it would mean to you, dear Gil? To have someone always here; to kiss you when you go; to greet you when you come back; to laugh with you when you are glad; and comfort you when things go wrong. To give you the sympathy, the understanding that a man finds only in a woman's heart. Don't you see, Gil?"

"Yes, of course I see," he said, his head bowed a little.

"Then why don't you, Gil? She'd make you very happy—a woman like that. I want you to understand."

"Don't you suppose I do? Don't you suppose I've always understood, ever since—"

"Ever since when, Gil? Then you have known such a woman?"

He moved his head.

"You have!... And you cared for her?"

He nodded again.

"You loved her?" she hurried on.

His voice was hoarse. "Yes." The monosyllable got out somehow.

"You still love her. I know it, I can see it. Who is she, Gil? I want to know."

"Don't you know?" he asked, and looked her straight in the eyes.

Before she could answer, there were footsteps outside, and Pell could be heard whistling. He rushed in now, the bag still clutched in his hand. At once he sensed something strange in their attitude, and he eyed both of them shrewdly, covertly, briefly. Not a word was uttered. He threw the bag on the table, as though he had noticed nothing, and in the most matter-of-fact tone said,

"Say, how about dinner?"

"It isn't ready yet," Gilbert informed him. Lucia took advantage of her husband's question to move over toward the door.

"Why, good God, man, it's nearly three o'clock! We're not on a hunger strike, are we?" And he laughed at his own dull witticism.

"I'll see about it now," Jones promised.

"Haven't got a drink, have you, while we're waiting? Not that I need an appetizer! And it's damned hot, I know, to guzzle whiskey."

"There's nothing good in the place. But I think the cook has some tequila."

"Tequila? What's that, Jones?"

"It's a Mexican drink."

"Has it got a kick in it?" the other wanted to know.

"I never heard anybody complain," Gilbert smiled. "After two or three of 'em, I never saw anybody able to complain!"

He started toward the kitchen.

"What does it taste like?" said Pell, detaining him.

"Oh, sort of like gasoline with bichloride of mercury in it," Jones answered his eager questioner.

"No wood alcohol?" suspiciously. Pell was always looking out for himself.

"Oh, it's safe enough, I assure you. Would you like to try some of it?" Gilbert suggested.

Pell thought a moment—but only a moment. "I'll try anything once, and anything to drink more than once—if I'm alive the second time."

His host smiled. "I'll get you some if there's any left," and went to the kitchen to see. He couldn't help wondering why a man like Morgan Pell, with so many responsibilities, should wish to drink tequila.

Left alone, there was that strange silence between Lucia and her husband which so often occurred nowadays. A barrier was between them, none the less real because it was invisible. She knew his moods so well, and she dreaded the things he might say, all his inhibitions gone, if he drank any of this deadly Mexican stuff. She would have halted Gilbert had she dared; but she knew that any such action on her part would have aroused Pell the more, inflamed him to anger; and, like most women of fine breeding, she dreaded a scene more than anything in the world. All that she said now was merely,

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the satchel he had brought in.

"Order a man around in his own house."

"And why not, I'd like to know?" Pell inquired. "Who's he, anyhow, and what difference does it make?"

Lucia remained perfectly calm. "Well, if you can't see, of course—"

"There's no use your trying to tell me. Is that what you were going to say?" His face showed his rage.

She did not answer. That infuriated him all the more.

"I see what you mean! But I don't agree," Pell pursued. "This Jones person is nothing in my life. And why I should be deprived of my liquor and forced to eat burnt beans three times a day, I can't see." He emitted a sound that might have been designated a laugh.

"But—while we—" Lucia started to argue, and then thought better of it.

"Why doesn't he set his liquor out and see that the meals are right, himself? Then there wouldn't be any need of my saying anything." His tone was brutally frank. He really disliked Jones, and would be glad when they could get back to New York. There was nothing here worth his consideration. Sturgis had been stupid to think so.

"But when we are enjoying his hospitality—"

"Enjoying? Ha! Suffering, I guess you mean!" And Pell's head went back and he gave out a guffaw.

Lucia waited for his false mirth to vanish. Then, "But you seemed very anxious to come here."

"Yes; because I thought he lived in a house, not a—"

The sentence was not completed; for Gilbert came back with a bottle of the deadly tequila in his hand.

"I'm terribly sorry," he apologized, "to have to tell you that dinner will be late."

"You mean later, don't you?" Pell edited the remark.

Gilbert handed him the bottle. "Maybe this will atone for the postponed banquet," he smiled. He got the water-bottle hanging on the peg by the fireplace, and brought that to Pell also. He tried to be as gracious as he could to anyone under his roof.

Pell took a swig out of the bottle—a long one. "Good God!" he exclaimed, his face almost purple, his brow puckered like a dwarf's.

"What's the matter?" Gilbert said. And he handed him the water-bottle.

"It's poison!" Pell cried. And as if he really believed it, and as though water were an antidote, he grabbed the water-bottle and drank from it swiftly and loudly. It was horrible the way he guzzled the liquid down. An animal would have done better.

"The Mexicans like their liquor strong," young Jones explained. "That's what's the matter with the cook."

Lucia was puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Simply that he's been imbibing again. That's why dinner is so late. But we're getting used to it. There is nothing to do but stand it."

"Drunk?" Pell asked.

"Quite," answered Gilbert.

"Well, I don't know as you can blame him," Pell excused. "I'd be drunk too if I had to live here. What are you going to do about it?" He hung the water-bottle in its place on the peg.

"Red's trying to sober him up," Gilbert said.

They had had enough of the cook, Pell decided within himself. Dinner was inevitably late, and that was all there was about it. So he changed the subject abruptly.

"This ranch belongs to you, doesn't it?" he put the question direct to Jones.

"What's that?"

"I asked you," went on Pell, a little disconcerted at having to repeat his question, "if you own this ranch."

"I—er—yes. Why?" Gilbert said.

Pell was quick to notice the other's discomfiture. "I have a friend who thinks he wants to go into the cattle business. He asked me to look him up a place. It's his own money, of course."

"Then I'd advise him not to buy here," said Gilbert, much to Pell's amazement.

"Why?"

"It's too near the border," Jones answered. "The bandits come over and steal all your cattle. It's a rotten situation. I'm sorry I ever came down here."

"That makes it all the better," Pell was shrewd enough to say. "Then he'd lose his money quick, and be satisfied." And he laughed at what he thought a witticism.

Uncle Henry's wheel chair crossed the sill at that moment. His face was full of news. "Hardy's coming!" he informed those in the room.

"A man to see me on a matter of business," Gilbert remembered. "Will you excuse me?" He turned to Pell.

"But I want to talk to you myself," the latter reminded him.

But young Jones had gone to the door. "I'm sorry. This is imperative, and I must see him." He turned definitely as if to go.

"But I was here first," Morgan Pell argued. He hated to be beaten by this stripling.

"I regret that I must insist," Gilbert said. And there was a duel of eyes, as well as of wits, before Jones turned away, easily the victor. After all, it was his own house, his own ranch. His visitor was wise enough to realize that. He walked over to the table and took the tequila bottle up again. "I'll have another drink, if you don't mind," he said, to Gilbert's back.

"Drink?" yelled Uncle Henry from his chair, frantic at the thought of any more of their precious liquor being consumed. It was hard enough to get, even when one had plenty of money.

"Help yourself," said Gilbert, not a little ashamed of the protest in Uncle Henry's voice.

"While I'm waiting," Pell laughed; and, taking the bottle, he went out.

Uncle Henry could scarcely control himself. He switched his chair in his nephew's direction. "Say," he wanted to know, "have you been holding out on me?"

"It's only tequila," Gilbert tried to pacify him.

"I don't care if it's only varnish!" cried Uncle Henry, his voice rising high and shrill. "And you let him go and take the whole bottle!" He pounded the arm of his chair, always his last resort.

Gilbert paid no attention to him. He went over to the table, as though he hadn't said a word, and began looking for a letter in one of the drawers. Almost immediately he laid his hand on it, and, turning to Lucia, said:

"If you'll excuse me?"

"Certainly. I must go and pack anyway." And she started toward the steps that led upstairs.

Gilbert went through the alcove; and no sooner had his broad shoulders disappeared than Uncle Henry turned to Lucia Pell and cried:

"Hey! Wait a minute."

Lucia was astonished. She had one foot on the step, and she turned about to see if Uncle Henry was actually addressing her. There was, obviously, no one else to address; but she thought the cook must have come in when her back was turned. She glared at the invalid, and said nothing.

"Did you ask him?" Uncle Henry went on, paying not the slightest heed to her surprised glance.

"Ask who what?" Lucia asked. She was not a little interested now. She came back into the room.

"Ask him about marryin'—you know. I gotter find out because Hardy's comin'." No speech could have been plainer and balder. "Did you?"

Lucia was nonplussed at the old man's crude directness. "Yes—I mean no. I don't remember."

"Don't remember!" Uncle Henry yelled. "But that's what I left you here for! We had it all framed up! Why didn't you?"

Lucia's head drooped a bit. "We were talking about something else."

The crabbed man was inflamed by this reply. "What was you talkin' about that was so gol darned important that you forgot the only important thing there was to talk about?... Well?" he cried, when she said nothing. "By gollies! I remember now! You was the gal he wouldn't ask to marry him because he didn't have no money!" He did not notice that his nephew had come back from the other room just in time to hear this last remark. He went on relentlessly to Lucia: "And me like a poor boob forgettin' all about it until now!" He suddenly saw Gilbert, and, not a whit abashed, turned on him. "So that's why you won't marry Hardy's daughter! I see it all now! I've been as blind as a hoot-owl!"

There came the sound of a Ford stopping outside, and footsteps approached up the path that led to the adobe.

"It's all right, Lucia," Gilbert said, and she went upstairs, almost weeping. Then he whirled about and glared at his uncle. "It's a good thing—no, I don't know what I'm saying. You're an invalid, or I'd strike you, despite your years, Uncle Henry. For heaven's sake, can't you learn to mind your own business?"

"I ain't got any. You robbed me of it!" the old man flamed back. "Now I'll mind yours for a change. Make a monkey out o' me, will you, gol darn you!"

As he was starting for the door, he bumped directly into Jasper Hardy and his daughter Angela and the ubiquitous "Red." The trio had come over in the Ford.

Hardy, tall and thin, wore a funereal black coat, despite the heat, and a somber dark Stetson hat. He must have been fifty or more. His skin looked bloodless, and his eyes still had that hard, pale look. It was difficult to trust eyes like those. He ambled, rather than walked, and his lean, lanky legs would have made him a fortune on the stage. It was difficult to believe, as everyone always said, that the lovely little Angela, with her bright black eyes and her rose-red cheeks, was the daughter of this sinister man. She was as attractive as a rose;—a typical frontier maiden, romantic, emotional, peppery when occasion demanded—just the kind to take the fancy of an honest soul like "Red." His eyes followed her wherever she went, as ever. She could not sit down or stand up or open her delicate lips but that he stared at her, hoping he could be of some service to her. Sometimes he prayed that some slight accident would befall her in order that he might prove his devotion. If she would only be sent to jail, that he could bring her soup and pass it through the bars of her cell! He dreamed this once, and awakened in a cold perspiration; for Angela (in the dream) realized his worth then; and the Governor pardoned her, and they were married at once and lived happily ever afterward. A Freudian lapse, maybe, and a dream a little too sane, according to the psychologists, to mean anything much; but rich in hidden meanings for poor "Red." Oh, that it would come true! She had been so kind and sweet to him this morning.

Hardy ambled into the room, and looked around in the most casual way. His eye lit upon Uncle Henry first of all, naturally; for he had all but bumped into him.

"How are you, Smith?" he said. "Evenin'."

And Angela piped up, to both uncle and nephew: "Good evening."

Gilbert bowed. "How do you do? Won't you sit down?" And he pulled out a chair for Angela.

"No, thanks," Hardy said; but

"Yes, thanks!" his daughter decided, and popped into a seat. "Red" loved her for it.

Hardy turned to young Jones. "Well?" was all he said. He referred to his state of health—not that he cared how Gilbert felt.

"Anything but," the latter answered.

Jasper Hardy always went right to the point. He disliked equivocation; so he rasped out immediately:

"Have you got the money?"

"No."

Angela, who was tender-hearted, tried to intercede.

"Now, father!" she pleaded. She hated this business.

But Hardy paid not the slightest heed to her. He was a man of action, and women shouldn't interfere—particularly young and pretty girls.

"Then I reckon I'll have to foreclose," he went on relentlessly. "There's nothing else to do." His hands closed tightly, and his hard eyes looked even harder.

"I'm afraid you're right," Gilbert said. "I was afraid it would be inevitable. I couldn't have hoped for anything else."

"I'm sorry," Jasper Hardy announced; but did not mean it.

Gilbert told him so. "Moreover, I know how you got your money," the young man was not afraid to say.

"I know how he got mine, gol darn it!" Uncle Henry cried. Hardy glared at him, seemed to smite him with his eyes.

"I'm not in business for my health," he said coldly.

"Nor for anybody else's," Uncle Henry, unabashed, told him.

Angela feared there was going to be trouble. "Now, daddy, you mustn't—you really mustn't—I feel—"

But her father did not hear her.

"The time's up at eight o'clock," was all he said, and looked sternly at Gilbert, much as a judge who is pronouncing sentence looks at the prisoner at the bar.

"I know it," said Gilbert.

"Now, daddy—" Angela began again.

Hardy was angry at her repeated solicitation. "Will you let me alone? This is my business," he said to her in a firm voice, "Remember that, and don't attempt to put your finger in the pie. This is my business, I tell you."

"Yes, I know daddy; but you needn't be so mean about it."

"I'm a plain man, and I don't believe in beating about the bush. Get that through your head—every one of you, I mean."

"But you might at least be—" his daughter began once more.

"Won't you please keep still?" His rage was mounting; and his brow darkened.

"I only want you to be nice about it, daddy," Angela persisted, sweetly.

"How can anybody be nice about a thing like this?" said the man of iron.

"I know I could be," Angela informed him.

Her father looked at her. "Well, what would you do?"

"Give him his ranch back, of course!"

Jasper Hardy couldn't believe what he had heard, and from his own child. "Well, for the love of heaven!" he cried, and almost burst out laughing.

"We've more ranches now than we know what to do with. Everybody is aware of that."

Here was Uncle Henry's chance. "That's the idea!" he cried. "What do you want it for, anyhow?" But no one paid any attention to him.

"Oh, will you, daddy—for my sake?" Angela pleaded.

Hardy was adamant. "Certainly not! What a stupid request. How did such ideas come into your head?"

"But I don't see why—" the unremitting Angela started to say.

Her father was furious now, and tired of her prattle. He turned to "Red." "Take her out doors, will you?" as though she were a child.

"Red's" face gleamed as if a lantern had been lighted behind it. He turned eagerly to Angela. "Will I!" he cried.

But Angela was scornful. How foolish of "Red" to think her father could dismiss her in this way! She proceeded as though no such suggestion had been made, and addressed her father once more, not in the least perturbed:

"Of course, if you're going to be nasty about it—" Then, sweetly, to Gilbert she continued: "Please don't think too badly of us, Mr. Jones. Father doesn't really mean any harm."

"No more'n a rattlesnake," Uncle Henry leaned out of his chair to whisper in a voice that could be heard by everyone.

"It's just that he doesn't know any better," Angela went on to Gilbert. "He's really very neighborly when he wants to be."

She rose, and "Red" offered her his arm; but she haughtily rejected it, and went out the door, unaware that the devoted and humble "Red" followed her.

Jasper Hardy was glad she had gone. He could speak freely now. He addressed Jones.

"Packed up yet?" he inquired, sarcastically, as though he meant to intimate that his coming journey would be a pleasant one.

Gilbert could have struck him; but he replied quietly: "I'll just put on my hat and I'll be ready."

But the literal-minded Hardy remarked:

"Them crockery, and the rugs?" pointing to the articles significantly.

"The rugs I'm presenting to a friend of mine. The crockery goes to the cook. He has a family, you know." His irony was lost on the imperturbable Hardy, who merely asked:

"And you ain't got anything more to say, Jones?" He watched him closely.

"Nothing of general interest."

But Uncle Henry wasn't going to let matters end here.

"I've got something to say," he announced like an oracle. "Your daughter wants to marry him!" He imagined this would prove a thunderbolt; but Hardy calmly asked:

"How do you know that?"

"Because she told me, that's how! And if only the gol darn fool would do it like I want him to—" He addressed himself suddenly to his nephew, who now stood on the other side of the table: "Aw, come on. Be a good feller, won't you?"

Again this outlandish interfering on the part of Uncle Henry! Was the old fellow losing his reason? There was no privacy in their affairs—everything was an open book to anyone who came to the adobe. It was getting to be unbearable. Gilbert had controlled himself long enough in the presence of others. He was sick and tired of the old man's meddling.

"Keep still!" he warned him, and shook his finger in his face, "Keep still, I say!" His cheeks were scarlet with rage. The blood pounded in his veins.

The invalid never lost his courage. "You won't marry her?" was what he said.

"How can I, you—you—" Gilbert could scarcely stand it any longer.

"Gol darn, the gol darn—" cried Uncle Henry; and then he swerved on Jasper Hardy: "Maybe you can persuade him," he suggested.

"Persuade him to what?"

"To marry her," Smith brazenly said.

"I don't want him to marry her," the father was honest enough to say.

This had never occurred to Uncle Henry. "What's the matter with him?" he asked, his eyes opening wide in amazement.

"It would take too long to tell you." Hardy considered the argument closed; but Uncle Henry came right back again:

"But he's my nevyer!"

"That's one of my main reasons," Hardy cruelly announced; and the only come-back poor Uncle Henry had was an exasperated, "Oh, is that so!" drawled out peevishly, weakly.

"I want his ranch, not him," Hardy went on. He might have been discussing someone not in the room.

"But he's a fine young feller, if I do say so!" Uncle Henry came to Gilbert's rescue, after the manner of all relatives when an outsider steps in with criticism.

"Only a minute ago I heard you call him a gol darn fool!" Hardy triumphantly reminded him.

"There you are," said Gilbert, addressing his uncle. "That's what you get—"

"Do you think I want my darter to marry a gol darn fool?" Hardy fired back at the old man.

Uncle Henry was flabbergasted, completely done for, for the moment. "Well, what the—" But he could get no farther.

Jasper Hardy looked at Gilbert, "Well, now that's settled."

Uncle Henry butted in once more. "You won't let her?"

"Let her what?" A pair of steely eyes were fixed on the questioner.

"Marry him. Won't you?"

"Of course not. What are you talking about, you old fool?"

Uncle Henry was not to be outdone. He whisked around, facing the door, and called at the top of his voice:

"Angely! Angely!"

From the yard came back, "Yes, I'm coming!" and Hardy's daughter ran in, with "Red" at her heels.

"Did you call me?" she wanted to know, looking at all three.

"Yes; I did," said Uncle Henry. "I wanted to tell you that it ain't no use. They won't neither of 'em do nothin'."

"Who won't?" asked Angela, mystified. She hadn't an idea what the old man was talking about.

"The poor stiffs!" said Uncle Henry.

"Do what?" Angela pursued.

"I asked 'em!" the invalid whined.

The girl grew impatient. "For goodness' sake, asked them what?"

"To marry you, of course!"

Angela thought she must be dreaming.

"You—asked him—to marry me?" She looked about her, bewildered.

"Yes; and he turned you down!"

Surely now this must be a dream! "Red," too, was in a daze, suffering vicariously for his adored one.

"Oh!" cried Angela, when a full realization of what Uncle Henry meant came over her.

Uncle Henry went on: "Like your own payrent—the stony-hearted old reptile!"

"Oh, Gil—" began Angela in tears.

"Go on—you ask 'em!" suggested Uncle Henry.

"Gil—" the girl got out the first syllable of his name, and no more; for her little handkerchief was at her pretty nose.

"I'm sorry," said Gilbert, gallantly, going to her. "Please don't feel badly about it."

"Don't—don't speak to me!" Angela sniffed, and stamped her dainty foot. "Don't look at me! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you all!" Blinded with rage and tears, she crossed the room, and stumbled directly into Uncle Henry's chair, and all but tipped him over. "Red" followed her, solicitously.

"Now, Angela—" he said, and tried to grasp her arm. "Remember, I'm here!"

But all the thanks he got was a wild, "Get out of my way!" and he found himself pushed aside, into a corner. Another of her unsuspected tantrums!

"My God!" ejaculated Uncle Henry, furious at Angela's accident, which so directly concerned himself, "but everybody's unreasonable to-day!" He turned harshly on his nephew. "You make me sick, you! Here am I doing my gol darndest to save the mess you've made, and you won't even—" He broke off, unable, in his wrath, to continue. His eye lit on Hardy. "Look here," he cried, in desperation, "ain't there no way out of this thing? It was my money that bought this ranch, you know. And everybody knows it! The last ten thousand dollars I had in the world!" There was a sob in his voice on the last words.

Hardy looked at him, but with no pity in his gaze. "That's your lookout, Smith. Everybody for himself—that's my motto."

"And you'd throw me, old and sick, a invalid, out into the streets?" Uncle Henry whined. No one could get more pathos into his tones than Uncle Henry when he wanted to do so.

"No; I'd let you wheel yourself out," Jasper Hardy, again the literal-minded Hardy, said. It was one of the meanest remarks that even he had ever made.

"Say, ain't you got no heart at all?" Uncle Henry wanted to know.

"I used to have; but it cost me too much money," was Hardy's explanation and vindication. "Sentiment? Bosh!" And he made a gesture of deep disgust.

Uncle Henry wanted to put a curse on him! "Well, all I hope is that some day you'll go broke and they'll bounce you out into Main Street!" He chuckled in his chair.

"The line forms on the left," the imperturbable Hardy said. "You're the fifth that's had that hope this year. I don't care a rap what you think, old feller! Remember that!"

A shadow appeared on the doorsill; and Morgan Pell came in. His face was harder than ever. It was obvious that he had not thrown away the bottle of tequila until he had consumed the contents. His eye lit on Hardy at once, but he said nothing to him. Instead, he meandered toward Gilbert and observed, insolently enough:

"Look here, you've kept me waiting too long. What does this mean, eh?"

"I'm sorry," Gilbert returned. "I forgot all about you for the moment. Oh," he suddenly remembered that Hardy and Pell were unacquainted, "you two gentlemen ought to know each other. Mr. Pell, shake hands with Mr. Hardy."

Pell gave the other a curt nod. "How are you?" was all he could bring himself to say.

"Pleased to meet you," answered Hardy, and turned away, "Red" and Angela, interested spectators of this foolish proceeding, sat together on the little settee by the window near the door, and smiled at the shillyshallying of two grown men who should have known better. Civilization! A mockery, surely, when two men couldn't be amenable in the presence of others—two men who apparently had no reason for treating each other this way.

Pell suddenly addressed Jones. "I forgot to tell you that we're going this afternoon."

"I'm sorry," said his host.

"And before I go," Pell went on, "there's a matter of business I want to talk over with you. So if this gentleman is through—" he indicated Hardy with his thumb.

"Oh, I'll be through, all right—at eight o'clock to-night!" Jasper Hardy announced, and drew several silver dollars out of his trousers pocket and rattled them about in his hand, significantly.

"What do you mean, eight o'clock?" Pell wondered.

Hardy's eyes pierced him through and through. "When I foreclose the mortgage I hold on this ranch. Understand now?"

"When you foreclose...." Pell repeated the words as if he had not quite comprehended. Then he said to young Jones: "You said this ranch belongs to you?" What was the matter with him? Was his mind clouding? The stuff he had drunk? He put his hand to his forehead.

"It does," Gilbert explained. "You see, it isn't eight o'clock yet." A faint smile came to his lips.

Hardy failed to see the humor of the situation. "It's as good as eight o'clock, as far as he's concerned." And he rattled the silver coins again.

"Oh, is that so?" said Pell, beginning to see daylight. To young Jones he said: "How far is it to town?"

"Twenty miles, I should say."

Pell thought a second, "Is that flivver of yours working, Jones?"

"In a way."

Pell thought harder. "We've got plenty of time," he said, as if to himself. "Five hours! Get your hat," turning to the young man.

Gilbert was confused. "What's the idea?"

"We're going to pay the mortgage, of course. How much is it?"

"Shouldn't you have asked that first—as a good business man?"

"Answer me: how much is it?"

"Ten thousand dollars," came the quick response.

"And your equity?" Pell pursued, businesslike enough now.

"Another ten thousand."

He thought Morgan Pell would be stunned. Instead, he merely said, "I'll give you twenty thousand. That'll pay the mortgage and give you your ten back. You can give me an option while I'm arranging payment. Get me? That'll save time."

"You mean you'll give me twenty thousand dollars for this ranch?" Gilbert said, unable to understand.

"Exactly. Will you take it?"

"You bet your life he'll take it!" cried Uncle Henry, whom everyone had forgotten in the excitement of the moment. He rolled his chair expertly to the table, and peered into his nephew's face, fearing he would make a fool of himself once more. He was trembling with excitement.

"Then that's settled," Pell announced.

Unnoticed, Lucia had come to the top of the stairway, and stood listening to every word. And Hardy, who had been trying his best to get a word in edgewise, finally managed to cry out:

"Wait a minute!"

No one paid any attention to him. Gilbert was in deep meditation. He turned to Pell. "But I don't want to be under any obligation to you," he said.

"You won't," the other affirmed, and anxiety was in his voice. "Well, is it a go?"

"A go?" yelled Uncle Henry, unable to restrain himself. "It's gone!"

Hardy stepped in between Pell and Jones.

"Hold on, there! You can't do this."

Pell looked him squarely in the face, "Why not, I'd like to know."

"You mean you'd do me out of this property at the last minute?" Jasper Hardy asked.

Pell smiled. "That's my specialty!"

Indignation was in every fiber of Hardy's gaunt frame. He was losing his temper, and he was wise enough to know that that would never do. The unforgivable sin was to lose control of oneself. He must hold on to his voice, his movements; but a nest of hornets, under attack, could not have been angrier. "I protest!" he said, as calmly as he could. "Here I been settin' around waitin' for this place for five years! You can't come here an' take it away from me like this! No, sir, I won't have it!"

"Look here," Gilbert stepped in and said. "You're getting your money! What are you boiling about?"

"Red" had been listening attentively. He came close to Gilbert now, and said, "He wants the place. Didn't he just say so?"

"The place?" Gilbert repeated. "What the devil does he want the place for?"

Pell was growing impatient. There was too much quibbling. "We're losing time. Come on, let's get things settled."

Jones, however, was not to be hurried. "But I want to know why he wants this place so much." His suspicions were thoroughly aroused.

No one had observed Uncle Henry, who had silently wheeled his chair about until he got to the table, where Pell had left his satchel long ago. Like a curious old woman he now picked it up, brazenly opened it, and exclaimed:

"Hey! What the Sam Hill!" and backed away; but not until he had dipped his hands into the bag.

"What's the matter?" Gilbert asked, turning.

"It's full o' dirt! Just dirt!" Uncle Henry cried, and glanced about to see the effect of his surprising information.

"Dirt?" Gilbert said, not understanding.

"Yes, look!" And the old man pointed to the bag.

"But whose bag is it?" Gilbert persisted.

Uncle Henry lifted a thin finger and directed it to Pell. "His'n!" he said.

But Gilbert was still in a daze.

"But what in the world could anybody be taking specimens of the soil around here for?" he inquired, and then began to think.

"Just to show the character of the ground, to see what will grow best," Pell hastened to explain.

"But it won't grow nothin'—not even rocks, an' you know it," the occupant of the wheel chair said. Then a new thought came to him, and he shot out, "By golly, I got it! He's an oil man, ain't he?"

Pell, furious, cried, "Oh, shut up! You old busybody!"

"He wants to buy this ranch because there's oil here!" Uncle Henry went on, not dismayed in the least at the other's insult.

"Bah!" Pell scornfully ejaculated.

Gilbert's face was a study. His eyes went from one to another in the room. "Oil?" he said. "Oil?"

"Yes, an' that's why he wants it, too!" cried Uncle Henry, pointing to Hardy this time, "The big skin!"

Pell took up the satchel—the little bag that had caused such a big sensation—and walked over to Uncle Henry's chair.

"Why, you poor old dotard, there's no oil in these specimens. You can smell 'em yourself if you want to," he said. But there was something in his manner of the lady who doth protest too much.

"No, I can't," Uncle Henry was swift to deny. "My smeller's no good." He sniffed comically—as if that proved his point.

"Let him examine them, then," suggested Pell, holding the satchel out to Gilbert, who stood on the other side of the table.

But Gilbert said nothing. It was Uncle Henry who again blurted out:

"That don't prove nothin'. Mebbe he hasn't found the oil yet. But it's here! If it ain't, why should you be fightin' so hard to get this rotten place? Tell me that, will you? Nobody else ever wanted it—except this kindly neighbor of ours!" He glared at Hardy triumphantly.

Pell was silent. Gilbert came to himself.

"Oil!" he said. "Then this ranch, instead of being worth nothing, would be worth hundreds of thousand of dollars—maybe millions!" He had taken the bag from Pell's extended hand, and now turned in dismay and confusion to the window, and put the bag on a chair. What a world it was, and how terrible that every other man seemed to be a predatory animal, ready to spring upon his neighbor and wrest anything he had away from him. What a world, indeed! No wonder young men lost their faith and courage!

"Millions!" The word caught Uncle Henry's fancy and imagination. He rolled it over on his tongue again and again. "Millions!" He babbled it, he played with it. "Millions!"

"Yes!" Gilbert said. "Think of that!" He turned and faced the others once more.

"An' we're goin' to get skinned out of millions! Oh, my Gawd!" The poor old invalid wailed it out, and rocked himself in his chair. How he wished he could rise, step out on the floor and knock Pell and Hardy down! Why didn't his strong and husky young nephew do it? What was the matter with the present generation, anyhow? Wasn't there any red blood in it? If he had only been younger, and strong, able to fight for what he knew to be his rights! But here he was, tied down in a wheel chair, trapped, helpless, impotent.

Pell was getting nervous, "This is nonsense," he said. "There's no oil here."

During all this long harangue, Lucia had quietly come down the stairs, and now stood directly behind her husband.

"And this is why you were so anxious to come here," she said, very low; yet everyone heard her statement. "To dig around, and then, if you found oil, to try to buy this place! Oh, I thought better of you than that, Morgan! What a trick—what a dishonorable trick!" She shuddered away from him. She almost hated him in this revealing moment.

"And why not?" was all her husband said. "Hadn't I a right to look for oil here? Suppose it was on the place?"

"You wouldn't have told him if you had found it! You know you wouldn't," his wife shot back at him.

Pell glared at her, fury in the look. "What do you think I am? Crazy?" he argued.

"But that isn't honest!" Lucia fearlessly said. "It's as crooked as it can be! And you know it."

"But it's legal!" Pell fired back. "And what do I care—what does anybody care—so long as it's legal! Ha! the courts would be with me! Moreover, it's the way you get the clothes you wear and the food you eat, and all those jewels that you hang on yourself when you undress and go to the opera!"

As he spoke, angrily, he went over to the chair where Gilbert had left the satchel, seized it and threw it on the floor, as though its contents were a symbol of the money she tossed away.

There was no use replying to a man like Pell. Lucia knew that. He was indignant that she had seen through his treachery. Here he was, a guest of Gilbert Jones, eating at his table day after day, pretending to be his friend, and all the while he had been planning this! And she had seemed to be a part of it all. What must Gilbert think of her? What must everybody think of her?

It was Hardy who broke the tension.

"Say," he wanted to know, "who's this woman, and what's she busting into this for? We've had enough of petticoats around here for one day, it seems to me."

Uncle Henry was swift to inform him. "I'll tell you who she is—she's his wife!" And he pointed to Pell. "But she loves him!" And he pointed to Gilbert.

It was as though a bomb had exploded. Terror came into Gilbert's eyes, and fury into Morgan Pell's.

"What's that?" the latter cried, aghast. As a madman might, he stared at Gilbert for an instant; then his gaze shot in the direction of his wife, standing so calm at the other side of the table.

Young Jones almost made up his mind, in that blinding moment, to choke Uncle Henry once for all, and have it done with. This was the last stroke, the final straw. He could stand it no longer. He stalked over to his uncle, and really intended to lay violent hands on him; but of course he could not. That defenseless old man, that pathetic figure seemed to wilt before his piercing eyes, seemed to shrivel and literally fall to pieces. In hot disgust, Gilbert could only cry out:

"How dare you! How dare you, I say! This is the crowning interference!" He had put his hands behind his back and braced his shoulders, fearing that he would not be responsibile for what he did.

Uncle Henry, seeing that he was safe, came back to the fray.

"Well, you couldn't marry her," indicating Lucia, "an' you wouldn't marry her," pointing to Angela. "I guess I got some right to protect myself, ain't I?"

"Protect yourself!" repeated Gilbert, cynicism in his tone. He turned his back on them all and moved to the window. His very shoulders revealed the mental struggle he was going through.

Morgan Pell's eyes, all this time, had never left his wife. He studied her countenance as a pathologist might that of a person thought to be insane, and Lucia almost gave way under his relentless analysis. "Red," seeing the turn affairs had taken, quietly drew his gun, and Angela, frightened, put her hands over her shell-like ears. If there was one thing she dreaded, it was a shot. She was trembling like a leaf. She closed her eyes. She knew that "Red," in his devotion to Gilbert, would not hesitate to kill Pell.

With an inscrutable expression, Morgan Pell murmured, "H'm!" Then he turned swiftly on Uncle Henry and asked, "You have proof, I suppose?"

"Proof?" cried Uncle Henry.

"Yes."

"My Gawd," the invalid fairly shrieked, "all you gotter do is look at 'em! I been watchin' 'em ever since you came."

At this, Gilbert honestly believed that Uncle Henry had lost his reason. Surely this was the insane delusion of a senile old man; and he said as much to Pell.

"Senile yourself!" cried Uncle Henry, mad through and through, feeling he was immune from any attack. "Gol darn you!"

So there was no shutting Uncle Henry up! Gilbert, in despair, turned to Pell. "You don't believe it! You can't believe it!" he said. "This is madness—"

Pell said not a word; he seemed to be in deep thought. Suddenly his whole manner changed, his voice as well, and he faced Gilbert frankly.

"Certainly I don't believe it. My confidence in my wife is implicit."

The metamorphosis was unbelievable. At least Uncle Henry thought so.

"Well, I always heard that husbands was boobs!" he announced, sarcastically.

Angela at that instant opened her eyes and took her fingers from her ears. Enough time had elapsed, she thought, for the worst to have happened.

"Has it gone off yet?" she naïvely asked.

"Has what gone off?" from Pell.

"Why, the gun, of course!" Angela replied.

"Gun?"

She looked at "Red." "He had one, and I thought maybe he'd shoot you, or maybe you'd shoot Gilbert, or maybe—Aren't you going to shoot him?"

"What for?"

"I thought that was what husbands always did!"

Pell smiled. "Not sensible husbands, my dear." Then he faced Gilbert again. "To go back to where we were: I will admit that there is a possibility of oil in this property. But it is only a possibility." The strain was broken. Everyone looked relieved. Lucia moved for the first time—she had been like a frightened bird under the spell of a serpent. "I'm a business man," Pell went on, suavely. "I'm willing to gamble twenty thousand dollars."

"You will?" cried Uncle Henry. There was no quieting him. His life was one long question-mark.

"It's a fair proposition, and, as far as I can see, your only way out, Jones." He had paid no attention to the old man's interruption. But the latter broke in once more:

"Why don't you lend us the ten thousand and let us gamble?"

Pell was in no wise disconcerted by the query. He replied with another question—always the shrewd man's way out of a difficulty, "Would you, in my place?"

"Sure I would!" came from the wheel chair.

"Oh, you would—"

"Yes, sir!"

Pell had nothing further to say to him, but addressed himself to Gilbert again.

"However, if you don't think that offer fair, I'll give you twenty thousand cash and assume the mortgages."

"Twenty thousand?" Uncle Henry's eyes opened wide.

"Well, what do you say?" Pell wanted to know, still addressing Gilbert. He had no taste for Smith's constant interruptions.

But Hardy broke in, confounded by this talk. He saw himself slipping out of the transactions. "If you think you're going to ..."

Pell paid no heed to what he said. "If I were in your place," he remarked to young Jones, "it wouldn't take me long to decide. You see, from me you get twenty thousand dollars clean. Otherwise, the place goes to him." He nodded toward Hardy. "And you get nothing. It's mighty plain—as plain as the nose on your face. I'm a plain man, and I don't quibble. I've made you a direct offer. Nothing could be fairer. Well?"

Gilbert didn't pause or hesitate a second. "All right. Give him the ten thousand," indicating Hardy.

Morgan Pell was visibly relieved. Things seemed to be going his way, just as he had planned. Sturgis had been right, after all. He rubbed his hands in satisfaction, "And now, to facilitate matters," he said, "if you will give us a ten-day option on the place, at a purchase price of thirty thousand ..." He went to the table, and arranged pen and paper, and motioned Gilbert to be seated and write.

The latter was in the chair at once. "Thank you, no. Twenty," he said, and began to write.

"Twenty?" Pell repeated, and stroked his chin. He must be wary; he must go cautiously with this young fellow. He would see through him if he didn't. "Certainly. Your first offer is the one I take," Gilbert said in a firm voice.

Uncle Henry couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You mean you ain't going to take the other ten?" he cried, in surprise. Gilbert never looked up from his writing. The pen was moving swiftly over the paper. Uncle Henry was on the verge of a nervous breakdown then and there. He looked at Pell, eagerly. "Give it to me! I'll take it!"

But Pell only said: "Mr. Jones is the owner of this property," and watched the young man write.

Angela, like a timid bird, watched the proceedings breathlessly, and moved over close to her big father and put her little hand in his arm, "Isn't there anything we can do, dad?" she inquired.

Hardy pressed her fingers, and said, in a whisper: "But I'm not sure there's oil here. I'm not sure at all."

"But he seems to be," said the shrewd Angela, looking at Morgan Pell with his wily countenance.

"Oh, these New York fellers!" Hardy deprecated. "You never can tell!"

Gilbert rose.

"Finished?" asked Pell.

"Quite." And young Jones handed him the option on the property.

CHAPTER VII

WHEREIN LUCIA SEES TREACHERY BREWING, PELL PROVES HIMSELF A BRUTE, AND AN UNEXPECTED GUEST APPEARS

When Lucia saw Gilbert pass the paper to her husband, she thought she could not stand it. It was not her concern; and yet it was. Vitally, whatever affected young Jones affected her. She could not see him tricked, duped. And she knew that he was being played with, made a fool of. Some ulterior motive lay beneath this seeming generosity. She tried to control herself; but suddenly she found herself speaking.

"No! Don't! I can't—"

But she could get no farther. Something seemed to choke her, and make it impossible for her to continue.

Her husband looked at her in amazement. She turned away, and was silent.

"Thank you," said Pell to Gilbert. Then, to his wife he said: "And now that this is settled, we shall proceed to other business of even more importance. This gentle soul," looking at Uncle Henry, "has said that our friend loves you and that you love him. Is it true?" He was perfectly calm.

Once more he was the crafty, cruel, scheming man; and back into his eyes came that glitter she so feared.

Gilbert, astonished, got to the other side of the table.

"I thought we were through with all that!" he said. "What's the use of harping on it?"

"You were wrong," answered Pell, coldly. "I am a business man, as I told you before. I do one thing at a time." His lids half closed, his hands clenched. He swerved abruptly on his wife. "Well?" he said. "Well?"

"You mean to say," said Gilbert, "that you took seriously what my doddering old uncle said? I told you I thought he was crazy, and you seemed to agree with me. What are you talking about now?"

Morgan Pell's steel-gray eyes fastened themselves on Jones, "I am talking to my wife. I am not ready for you—yet. One thing at a time, you know." He looked again at Lucia. "Well? I am waiting. Answer me: Do you love him?"

Alarm at Pell's manner was rife in the room. What a brute he was, and how terrible was his verbal attack!

Lucia could not trust herself to speak. She knew she would have to reply to her husband's question, and though she knew her answer would be but a monosyllable, she could not get it out.

"Well?" Pell repeated, and the word was like a hammer-blow.

"No!" Lucia managed to say.

The husband now turned on Gilbert. "Do you love her?" he asked with great deliberation, as though he had rehearsed it in his mind for days.

"Certainly not," was the immediate reply.

The silence that followed could have been cut with a knife. Everyone stood as though turned to stone. Surely this denial would be enough. Pell did not move. A menacing expression came over his face. As though there were no one else in the world, he glanced first at his wife and then at Jones, and affirmed with quiet deliberation:

"You're a couple of rotten liars!"

Had he been struck in the face, Gilbert could not have been angrier. He saw it all now—he was in this man's power, utterly. It had been planned craftily, smoothly. And there was no escape for Lucia. God! what he had gotten her in for! He cursed the tongue of Uncle Henry, and mentally he heaped maledictions on his own head for his gross stupidity. So this was how the land lay—this was the path that led to his destruction—ah! not only his, but hers! Angry as he was, he knew it would be futile to do anything but try, even now, to placate this wretched specimen of a man. He had to think quickly. There was not an instant to lose.

"But you said you didn't believe ..." he began; but Pell came mercilessly back at him!

"I didn't—then. The time was inopportune."

Uncle Henry clutched the arms of his chair. "Ooooooh! The dirty bum!" he yelled.

Pell went on, inexorably. "But now that she herself has admitted it, and—"

"Admitted it!" Gilbert cried, his rage now at the boiling point.

"Yes! By everything she has said and done to-day. My dear fellow," with a subtle change of tone, "God knows I am no prude." He smiled a bland smile. "But there are limits to what any husband can endure." His lips became thin and terrible; his eyes were gleaming slits.

Gilbert was aghast. He saw no solution of this painful situation; no safety for Lucia—his thoughts were all of Lucia.

"You don't think that!" he said, "You couldn't possibly think that! Oh, my God!"

Morgan Pell sneered at him. "I know what I would have done, in your place and with your opportunities."

Gilbert found it hard to realize that any husband could say a thing like this in the presence of his wife. It revealed, if anything further were needed to reveal, the cur in the man.

"We're not all as rotten as you are, Pell! Don't forget that!" he cried. "You're a dog—a low-down dog." It was all he could do not to spring upon this craven and pin him to the floor.

"And we're not all as discreet as you!" Pell flung back. "And now, if you don't mind," he added insinuatingly, "I'd like to talk to my wife—alone."

Gilbert was consumed with fear for Lucia. "What?" he cried.

"Have you any objections?" Pell said, curling his lip. The irony in his tone was unmistakable.

Gilbert moved toward the door. "Why—no."

"Thank you," Pell said; and he threw wide the door leading from the alcove so that his host might pass through. He waited for him to do so. Gilbert hesitated for the fraction of a second. He looked at Pell, and then at Lucia, still lovely for all her suffering. There was nothing to say—nothing he could say. He disappeared into the other room, and shut the door behind him. Pell immediately turned to the others. "Well?" he said.

"You mean you want us to get out too?" Uncle Henry asked, indignation in his high voice.

"That's exactly what I do mean," Morgan Pell stated, firmly. "And the sooner the better."

The situation, he felt, was entirely in his hands.

"Oh, very well!" Uncle Henry replied. He pushed his chair toward the door, murmuring as he went, "Thank God I ain't his wife! That's all I got to say!"

Hardy was still standing in the shadows. He looked at "Red." "What's he going to do?" meaning Pell.

"I don't know. I—" the foreman answered. Angela, frightened, followed the husky "Red" through the door; and the husband and wife were left entirely alone.

There was a pregnant silence. Terror came into Lucia's heart. Her brain reeled. She had seen Morgan in a temper before—many times; but never with quite this sinister light in his eyes, this tense, quiet force behind his slightest gesture. What was he going to say to her? She felt like an animal at bay. She determined that she would gain one advantage by making him be the first to speak. But as he approached her slowly, fear seized her. He seemed no longer a man, just a hulking giant—a brutal, frenzied creature; and something quite apart from herself caused her to cry out:

"What are you going to do?" Oddly there flashed into her mind that very line, and she wondered where she had heard it. Yes, even in her terror, her abject fear, she remembered. It was once when, as a child, she had seen a dramatization of "Oliver Twist." Bill Sykes came toward Nancy, just as Morgan was coming toward her now, with leering countenance, and the poor wretch had screamed out: "What are you going to do?" That scene was forever photographed on her brain, and now, from some strange recess, Nancy's pitiful words came back to her.

He did not answer. Another step, and he would be upon her.

"What is it, Morgan? Oh, what is it?" She shrunk back, slowly. If he touched her ...

But he did not lift his hand, as she fully expected him to do. Instead, he uttered only two words. They were a command.

"Kiss me!"

Almost she would rather have felt his blows raining on her head.

"What?" she cried, a new amazement within her.

He glared down at her. His breath was on her cheek.

"You heard," he stated. And he stood stock still.

Frightened beyond believing or seeing, she offered her cheek to him. "But I—" she managed to get out.

Pell saw that she was shrinking away again; she could not bring herself to do as he willed.

"So!" her husband cried, significantly. Now she realized, in a blinding flash, the cruel subtlety behind his test of her. Her head went back; she closed her eyes. And then—how she did it she never knew—she raised her mouth.

"I don't want to kiss you." It was the refinement of cruelty. "I want you to kiss me. Do it!" His hands were behind his back. He stood straight and stiff as an Indian chief.

He watched her least movement. He put his lips very close to her mouth. She struggled in that one mad second, and tried to kiss him. She could not—she could not bring herself to the act.

He laughed sardonically. The devil himself could not have laughed liked that.