CHAPTER XXII
GALE PERSISTS
When within an hour de Spain joined Nan, tense with suspense andanxiety, at the hospital, she tried hard to read his news in hisface.
"Have you seen him?" she asked eagerly. De Spain nodded. "What does hesay?"
"Nothing very reasonable."
Her face fell. "I knew he wouldn't. Tell me all about it,Henry--everything."
She listened keenly to each word. De Spain gave her a pretty accuraterecital of the interview, and Nan's apprehension grew with her hearingof it.
"I knew it," she repeated with conviction. "I know him better than youknow him. _What_ shall we do?"
De Spain took both her hands. He held them against his breast andstood looking into her eyes. When he regarded her in such a way herdoubts and fears seemed mean and trivial. He spoke only one word, butthere was a world of confidence in his tone: "Stick."
She arched her brows as she returned his gaze, and with a littletroubled laugh drew closer. "Stick, Nan," he repeated. "It will comeout all right."
She paused a moment. "How can you know?"
"I know because it's got to. I talked it all over with my best friendin Medicine Bend, the other day."
"Who, Henry?"
"Whispering Smith. He laughed at your uncle's opposing us. He said ifyour uncle only knew it, it's the best thing that could happen forhim. And he said if all the marriages opposed by old folks had beenstopped, there wouldn't be young folks enough left to milk the cows."
"Henry, what is this report about the Calabasas barns burning?"
"The old Number One barn is gone and some of the old stages. We didn'tlose any horses, and the other barns are all right. Some of ourCalabasas or Gap friends, probably. No matter, we'll get them allrounded up after a while, Nan. Then, some fine day, we're going to getmarried."
De Spain rode that night to Calabasas to look into the story of thefire.
McAlpin, swathed in bandages, made no bones about accusing the commonenemy. No witnesses could be found to throw any more light on theinquiry than the barn boss himself. And de Spain made only a pretenseof a formal investigation. If he had had any doubts about the originof the fire they would have been resolved by an anonymous scrawl, sentthrough the mail, promising more if he didn't get out of the country.
But instead of getting out of the country, de Spain continued as amatter of energetic policy to get into it. He rode the desertsstripped, so to say, for action and walked the streets of Sleepy Catwelcoming every chance to meet men from Music Mountain or the Sinks.It was on Nan that the real hardships of the situation fell, and Nanwho had to bear them alone and almost unaided.
Duke came home a day or two later without a word for Nan concerninghis encounter with de Spain. He was shorter in the grain than ever,crustier to every one than she had ever known him--and toward Nanherself fiercely resentful. Sassoon was in his company a great deal,and Nan knew of old that Sassoon was a bad symptom. Gale, too, cameoften, and the three were much together. In some way, Nan felt thatshe herself was in part the subject of their talks, but no informationconcerning them could she ever get.
One morning she sat on the porch sewing when Gale rode up. He askedfor her uncle. Bonita told him Duke had gone to Calabasas. Galeannounced he was bound for Calabasas himself, and dismounted near Nan,professedly to cinch his saddle. He fussed with the straps for aminute, trying to engage Nan in the interval, without success, inconversation. "Look here, Nan," he said at length, studiously amiable,"don't you think you're pretty hard on me, lately?"
"No, I don't," she answered. "If Uncle Duke didn't make me, I'd neverlook at you, or speak to you--or live in the same mountains withyou."
"I don't think when a fellow cares for you as much as I do, and getsout of patience once in a while, just because he loves a girl the waya red-blooded man can't help loving her, she ought to hold it againsthim forever. Think she ought to, Nan?" he demanded after a pause. Shewas sewing and had kept silence.
"I think," she responded, showing her aversion in every syllable,"before a man begins to talk red-blood rot, he ought to find outwhether the girl cares for him, or just loathes the sight of him."
He regarded her fixedly. Paying no attention to him, but bending inthe sunshine over her sewing, her hand flying with the needle, hermasses of brown hair sweeping back around her pink ears and curling instray ringlets that the wind danced with while she worked, sheinflamed her brawny cousin's ardor afresh. "You used to care for me,Nan. You can't deny that." Her silence was irritating. "Can you?" hedemanded. "Come, put up your work and talk it out. I didn't use tohave to coax you for a word and a smile. What's come over you?"
"Nothing has come over me, Gale. I did use to like you--when I firstcame back from school. You seemed so big and fine then, and were sonice to me. I did like you."
"Why didn't you keep on liking me?"
Nan made no answer. Her cousin persisted. "You used to talk aboutthinking the world of me," she said at last; "then I saw you oneFrontier Day, riding around Sleepy Cat with a carriage full ofwomen."
Gale burst into a huge laugh. Nan's face flushed. She bent over herwork. "Oh, that's what's the matter with you, is it?" he demandedjocularly. "You never mentioned _that_ before."
"That isn't the only thing," she continued after a pause.
"Why, that was just some Frontier Day fun, Nan. A man's got to be alittle bit of a sport once in a while, hasn't he?"
"Not if he likes me." She spoke with an ominous distinctness, butunder her breath. He caught her words and laughed again. "Pshaw, Ididn't think you'd get jealous over a little thing like that, Nan.When there's a celebration on in town, everybody's friendly witheverybody else. If you lay a little thing like that up against me,where would the rest of the men get off? Your strawberry-facedMedicine Bend friend is celebrating in town most of the time."
Her face turned white. "What a falsehood!" she exclaimed hotly.Looking at her, satisfied, he laughed whole-heartedly again. She rose,furious. "It's a falsehood," she repeated, "and I know it."
"I suppose," retorted Gale, regarding her jocosely, "you asked himabout it."
He had never seen her so angry. She stamped her foot. "How dare yousay such a thing! One of those women was at the hospital--she is thereyet, and she is going to die there. She told Uncle Duke's nurse themen they knew, and whom they didn't know, at that place. And Henry deSpain, when he heard this miserable creature had been taken to thehospital, and Doctor Torpy said she could never get well, told theSister to take care of her and send the bills to him, because he knewher father and mother in Medicine Bend and went to school with herthere when she was a decent girl. Go and hear what _she_ has to sayabout Henry de Spain, you contemptible falsifier."
Gale laughed sardonically. "That's right. I like to see a girl stickto her friends. De Spain ought to take care of her. Good story."
"And she has other good stories, too, you ought to hear," continuedNan undismayed. "Most of them about you and your fine friends in town.She told the nurse it's _you_ who ought to be paying her bills tillshe dies."
Gale made a disclaiming face and a deprecating gesture. "No, no,Nan--let de Spain take care of his own. Be a sport yourself, girlie,right now." He stepped nearer her. Nan retreated. "Kiss and make up,"he exclaimed with a laugh. But she knew he was angry, and knew what toguard against. Still laughing, he sprang toward her and tried to catchher arm.
"Don't touch me!" she cried, jumping away with her hand in herblouse.
"You little vixen," he exclaimed with an oath, "what have you gotthere?" But he halted at her gesture, and Nan, panting, stood herground.
"Keep away!" she cried.
"Where did you get that knife?" thundered Gale.
"From one who showed me how to use it on a coward!"
He affected amusement and tried to pass the incident off as a joke.But his dissimulation was more dangerous, she knew, than hisbrutality, and he left her the prey to more than one alarm and therenewed resolve never to be taken off her guard
. That night he cameback. He told her uncle, glancing admiringly at Nan as he recountedthe story, how she had stood her ground against him in the morning.
Nor did Nan like the way her uncle acted while he listened--andafterward. He talked a good deal about Gale and the way she wastreating her cousin. When Nan declared she never would have anythingto do with him, her uncle told her with disconcerting bluntness to getall that out of her head, for she was going to marry him. When sheprotested she never would, Duke told her, with many harsh oaths, thatshe should never marry de Spain even if he had to kill him or getkilled to stop it, and that if she had any sense she would get readyto marry her cousin peaceably, adding, that if she didn't have sense,he would see himself it was provided for her.
His threats left Nan aghast. For two days she thought them all over.Then she dressed to go to town. On her way to the barn her uncleintercepted her. "Where you going?"
"To Sleepy Cat," returned Nan, regarding him collectedly.
"No, you're not," he announced bluntly.
Nan looked at him in silence. "I don't want you running to town anymore to meet de Spain," added Duke, without any attempt to soften hisinjunction.
"But I've got to go to town once in a while, whether I meet Henry deSpain or not, Uncle Duke."
"What do you have to go for?"
"Why, for mail, supplies--everything."
"Pardaloe can attend to all that."
Nan shook her head. "Whether he can or not, I'm not going to be cutoff from going to Sleepy Cat, Uncle Duke--nor from seeing Henry deSpain."
"Meaning to say you won't obey, eh?"
"When I'm going to marry a man it isn't right to forbid me seeinghim."
"You're not going to marry him; you're going to marry Gale, and thequicker you make up your mind to it the better."
"You might better tell me I am going to marry Bull Page--I would marryhim first. I will never marry Gale Morgan in the living world, andI've told you so more than once."
He regarded his niece a moment wrathfully and, without replying,walked back to the house. Nan, upset but resolute, went on to the barnand asked Pardaloe to saddle her pony. Pardaloe shuffled around in anobliging way, but at the end of some evasion admitted he had ordersnot to do it. Nan flamed at the information. She disliked Pardaloeanyway, not for any reason she could assign beyond the fact that hehad once been a chum of Gale's. But she was too high-spirited todispute with him, and returned to the house pink with indignation.Going straight to her uncle, she protested against such tyranny. Dukewas insensible alike to her pleas and her threats.
But next morning Nan was up at three o'clock. She made her way intothe barn before a soul was stirring, and at daybreak was well on herway to Sleepy Cat. She telephoned to de Spain's office from thehospital and went to breakfast. De Spain joined her before she hadfinished, and when they left the dining-room she explained why she haddisappointed him the day before. He heard the story with misgivings.
"I'll tell you how it looks to me, Nan," he said when she had done."You are like a person that's being bound tighter every day byinvisible cords. You don't see them because you are fearless. You aretoo fearless, Nan," he added, with apprehension reflected in theexpression of his face. "I'll tell you what I wish you'd do, and I sayit knowing you won't do it," he concluded.
She made light of his fears, twisting his right hand till it washelpless in her two hands and laughing at him. "How do you know Iwon't do it?"
"Because I've asked you before. This is it: marry me, now, here,to-day, and don't take any more chances out there."
"But, Henry," protested Nan, "I can't marry you now and just run awayfrom poor Uncle Duke. If you will just be patient, I'll bring himaround to our side."
"Never, Nan."
"Don't be so sure. I know him better than you do, and when he comesfor anybody, he comes all at once. Why, it's funny, Henry. Now thatI'm picking up courage, you're losing it!"
He shook his head. "I don't like the way things are going."
"Dearie," she urged, "should I be any safer at home if I were yourwife, than I am as your sweetheart. I don't want to start a horriblefamily war by running away, and that is just what I certainly shoulddo."
De Spain was unconvinced. But apprehension is short-lived in younghearts. The sun shone, the sky spread a speckless blue over desertand mountain, the day was for them together. They did not promiseall of it to themselves at once--they filched its sweetness bitby bit, moment by moment, and hour by hour, declaring to each otherthey must part, and dulling the pain of parting with the anodyneof procrastination. Thus, the whole day went to their castles anddreams. In a retired corner of the cool dining-room at the MountainHouse, they lingered together over a long-drawn-out dinner. Thebetter-informed guests by asides indicated their presence to others.They described them as the hardy couple who had first met in astiff Frontier Day rifle match, which the girl had won. Her defeatedrival--the man now most regarded and feared in the mountaincountry--was the man with the reticent mouth, mild eyes, curiousbirthmark, and with the two little, perplexed wrinkles visible mostof the time just between his dark eyebrows, the man listeningintently to every syllable that fell from the lips of the trimlybloused, active girl opposite him, leaning forward in her eagerness totell him things. Her jacket hung over the back of her chair, and sheherself was referred to by the more fanciful as queen of the outlawcamp at Music Mountain.
They two were seen together that day about town by many, for the storyof their courtship was still veiled in mystery and afforded ground forthe widest speculation, while that of their difficulties, and suchparticulars as de Spain's fruitless efforts to conciliate Duke Morganand Duke's open threats against de Spain's life were widely known. Allthese details made the movement and the fate of the young couple theobject of keenly curious comment.
In the late afternoon the two rode almost the whole length of MainStreet together on their way to the river bridge. Every one knew thehorseflesh they bestrode--none cleaner-limbed, hardier, or faster inthe high country. Those that watched them amble slowly past, laughingand talking, intent only on each other, erect, poised, and motionless,as if moulded to their saddles, often spoke of having seen Nan and herlover that day. It was a long time before they were seen riding downMain Street together again.