XXI
BURNING MEMORY
As June had slipped by, so did July and August. On Blue Lake ranchlife flowed smoothly. Men were too busy with each day's work to sitinto the nights prophesying trouble ahead. And in truth it seemed thatif Bayne Trevors had ever actively opposed the success of the Sanfordventure he had by now accepted the role of inactivity forced upon himby circumstance. He was with the Western Lumber Company, as directorand district superintendent, seemingly giving all his dynamic force tothe legitimate affairs of the company.
But there were those who placed no faith in the obvious. Bud Lee keptin touch with Rocky Bend and learned that Quinnion had not come back;that no one knew where he had gone. Carson's man, Shorty, was soughtby Emmet Sawyer and his disappearance was like that of a prickedbubble; it seemed that Shorty had no actual physical existence or that,if he had, he had taken it into some other corner of the world.Quinnion's friends had also gone from Rocky Bend, like Quinnion leavingbehind them no sign to show where they had gone.
Knowing Quinnion as he did, and having his own conception of thecharacter of Bayne Trevors, Bud Lee said to himself that too great aquiet portended strife to come. If Quinnion was the man to carry inhis breast the hate that drove him to the murder of Judith's father,then he was the man to remember the humiliation he had suffered atLee's hands, to remember and to strike back when the time was ripe.
Judith had heard of the night in Rocky Bend, a lurid and wonderfullydistorted account from Mrs. Simpson, who had received it in a letterfrom her daughter.
"So that was what Bud Lee did after he kissed me!" mused Judith.
She sent immediately for Carson and forced from him the full story.Dismissing Carson, she remained for a long while alone. Only oneremark had she made to the cattle foreman, and that a little aside fromthe issue occupying his mind:
"Keep your weather eye open for what's in the wind," she told himbriefly. "Behind Quinnion is Trevors, and the year isn't over yet."
The ranch was stocked to its utmost capacity. Carson had boughtanother herd of cattle; Lee had added to his string of horses. The dryseason was on them, herds were moved higher up the slopes into thefresh pastures. Carson, converted now to the silos, was a man with oneidea and that idea ensilage. Again the alfalfa acreage was extended,so that each head of cattle might have its daily auxiliary fodder.Carson now agreed with Judith in the matter of holding back sales forthe high prices which would come at the heels of the lean months.
The man Donley, who had brought to the ranch the pigeons carryingcholera, was tried in Rocky Bend. The evidence, though circumstantial,was strong against him, and the prosecution was pushed hard. But itwas little surprise to any one at the ranch when the trial resulted ina hung jury. The ablest lawyer in the county had defended Donley, andfinally, late in August, secured his acquittal. The man himself didnot have ten dollars in the world; the attorney taking his case was ahigh-priced lawyer. Obviously, to Judith Sanford at least, BayneTrevors was standing back of every play his hirelings made.
Doc Tripp had the hog-cholera in hand. And every day, out with thelive stock whose well-being was his responsibility, he worked as he hadnever worked before, watchful, eager, suspicious. "If they'll dropcholera down on us out of the blue sky," he snapped, "I'd like to knowwhat they won't try."
For the first few days following the dance Bud Lee had within his soulroom but for one emotion: he had held Judith in his arms. He had sethis lips on hers. He went hot and cold with the remembrance. Being aman, he made his man-suppositions of the emotions that rankled in herbreast. He imagined her contempt of a man who by his strength hadforced her lips to wed his; he pictured her scorn, her growing hatred.He told himself that he should go, rid the ranch of his presence, takehis departure without a word with her. For, already, he had fitted herinto his theory of the perfect woman, lifting her high above himselfand above the human world. It was a continued insult for him to remainhere.
But, after careful thought, he remembered what Judith had already toldhim; he was one of the men whom she could trust to do her work for her,one of the men she most needed, a man whom she would need sorely ifBayne Trevors were lying quiet now but to strike harder, expectedly,later.
Judith did not dismiss him, as at first he had been sure she would. Sohe stayed on, remaining away from the ranch headquarters, sleeping whenhe could in the cabin above the lake, spending his days with hishorses, avoiding her but keeping her personality in his soul, herinterests in his heart. When the winter had passed, when she had madeher sales and had the money in hand for the payments upon themortgages, then he would go. Whereat, no doubt, the high gods smiled.
As time passed, there came about a subtle change in the attitude of theoutfit toward Pollock Hampton, whom they had been at the beginningprone to accept as a "city guy." It began to appear that under hislightness there was often a steady purpose; that if he didn't knoweverything about a ranch, he was learning fast; that in his outspokenadmiration of things rough and manly and primal there were certainlasting qualities. Whereas formerly his being thrown from a spiritedmount was almost a daily occurrence, now he rode rather well. Withtanned face and hard hands, he was, as Carson put it, "growing up."
He came to Judith one day serious-faced, thoughtful-eyed.
"Look here, Judith," he began abruptly, "I'm no outsider just lookingon at this game. You're the chief owner and the boss and I'm notkicking at that any longer. Your dad raised you to this sort of thingand you have a way of getting by with it. But, on the other hand, I'mpart owner and you've got to consider me."
Judith smiled at him.
"What now, Pollock?" she asked.
"You're the boss," he repeated stoutly. "But I've got a right to benext in authority. Under you, you know. Why, by cripes, I go aroundfeeling as if I had to take orders from Carson or Tripp or any other ofthe foremen!"
"'By cripes' is good!" laughed Judith. "Go ahead."
"That's all," he insisted. "You can tell them, when you get a chance,that I am your little old right-hand man. Suppose," he suggestedvaguely, "that you left the ranch a day or so. Or even longer, sometime. There's got to be some one here who is the head when there isneed for it."
Judith mirthfully acquiesced. Hampton's interest was sufficientlyheavy for him to be entitled to some consideration. Besides, she hadcome to experience a liking for the boy and had seen in him the changefor the better which his new life was working in him. Further, shemeant to make it her business that she did not leave the ranch for aday or so, or an hour or so, when she should be there. Consequently,within a week Pollock Hampton was known humorously from one end to theother of the big ranch as the Foreman-at-Large.
Marcia Langworthy, visiting in southern California, wrote brief, sunnynotes to Hampton, intricate letters to Judith. The mystery of Bud Leeof which she had had a glimpse when the artist, Dick Farris, and Leerecognized each other as old friends had piqued her curiosity in a waywhich allowed that young daughter of Eve no rest until she had made herown investigations. She wrote at length, telling Judith all that shehad learned of Lee. How he had been quite the rage, my dear. Oh,tremendously rich, with great ranch in the South, a wonderful adobehacienda of the old Spanish days, where, like a young king, he hadentertained lavishly. How, believing in his friends, he had losteverything, then had dropped out of the world, content equally to allowthat world to believe him soldiering in France or dead in the trenchesand to take his wage as a common laborer. Wasn't it too romantic foranything?
In due course, following up her letters, Marcia herself came back tothe Blue Lake ranch, Judith's guest now. The major and Mrs. Langworthywere visiting in the East--it seemed that they always visitedsomewhere--and Marcia would stay at the ranch indefinitely. Hamptondrove into Rocky Bend for her and held the girl's breathless admirationall the way home, handling the reins of his young team in a thoroughlyreckless, shivery manner.
"Isn't he splendid?" cried Marcia when she slipped away with Judith
toher room.
Under the bright approval of Marcia's eyes Hampton flushed withpleasure. Could Mrs. Langworthy have seen them together she would havenudged the major and whispered in his ear.
During the two months after the dance, Bud Lee and Judith had seenvirtually nothing of each other. When routine duties or a necessaryreport brought them for a few minutes into each other's society therewas a marked constraint upon them. Never had the man lost the stingingsense of his offense against her; never had Judith condescended to beanything but cool and brief with him. While no open reference was madeto what was past, still the memory of it must lie in each heart, andthough Lee held his eyes level with hers and drank deep of the warmloveliness of her, he told himself angrily that he was beneath hercontempt. The chivalry within him, so great and essential a part ofthe man's nature, was a wounded thing, hurt by his own act. The oldfeeling of camaraderie which had sprung up between them at times wasgone now; they could no longer be "pardners" as they had been thatnight in the old cabin.
He told himself curtly that he did not regret that; that now it wasinevitable that they should be less than strangers since they could notbe more than friends. That the girl was ready to forgive him, that shehad never been as harsh with him as he was himself, that there was agolden, delicious possibility that she should feel as he did--so mad anidea had not come to Bud Lee, horse foreman.
A few days after Marcia's arrival there came to the ranch a letterwhich was addressed:
Pollock Hampton, Esq., General Manager, Blue Lake Ranch.
It was from Doan, Rockwell & Haight, big stock-buyers of Sacramento,submitting an unsolicited order for a surprisingly large shipment ofcattle and horses. The price offered was ridiculously low, even forthis season of low figures due to the fact that many overstockedranches were throwing their beef-cattle and range horses on the market.So low, in fact, that Judith's first surmise when Hampton brought it toher was that the typist taking the company's dictation had made anerror.
Judith tossed the note into the waste-basket. Then she retrieved it tofrown at it wonderingly, and, finally, to file it. It began by havingfor her no significance worthy of speculation. It soon began to puzzleher. Finally, it faintly disturbed her.
Here were two points of interest. First: Doan, Rockwell & Haight wasthe company to which Bayne Trevors, when general manager, had made manya sacrifice sale. Because the Blue Lake had knocked down to thembefore, did they still count confidently upon continued mismanagement?Surely they must know that the management of the ranch had changed.And this brought her to the second point: How did it come about thatthey had addressed, not her, but Pollock Hampton? Was this just atrifle?
Long ago Judith had told herself that she must keep her two eyes wideopen for seeming trifles. In spite of her, though she scoffed at her"nerves," the girl had the uneasy conviction that this offer had beenprompted by Trevors; that Trevors, for purposes of his own, had giveninstructions that the letter be addressed to Hampton; that this was thefirst sign of a fresh campaign directed against her from the dark; thattrouble was again beginning.
Thoughtfully she smoothed out the letter, impaling it on her file.