CHAPTER XLVII
THE KINGDOM OF JOY
A prince of the Kingdom of Joy rode the Piceance trail on a morning gladwith the song of birds and the rippling of brooks. Knee to knee with himrode his princess, slim and straight, the pink in her soft smooth cheeks,a shy and eager light in the velvet-dark eyes. They were startingtogether on the long, long trail, and the poor young things could visionit only as strewn with sunbathed columbines and goldenrods.
The princess was a bride, had been one for all of twelve hours. It washer present conviction that she lived in a world wonderful, and that themost amazingly radiant thing in it was what had happened to her and BobDillon. She pitied everybody else in the universe. They were so blind!They looked, but they did not see what was so clear to eyes from whichthe veil had been stripped. They went about their humdrum way withoutemotion. Their hearts did not sing exultant paeans that throbbed out ofthem like joy-notes from a meadow-lark's throat. Only those who had comehappily to love's fruition understood the meaning of life. June was notonly happy; she was this morning wise, heiress of that sure wisdom whichcomes only to the young when they discover just why they have been borninto the world.
How many joys there were for those attuned to receive them! Her fingerslaced with Bob's, and from the contact a warm, ecstatic glow flooded boththeir bodies. She looked at his clean brown face, with its line of goldendown above where the razor had traveled, with its tousled, reddish hairfalling into the smiling eyes, and a queer little lump surged into thegirl's throat. Her husband! This boy was the mate heaven had sent her torepay for years of unhappiness.
"My wife!" It was all still so new and unbelievable that Bob's voiceshook a little.
"Are you sorry?" she asked.
Her shy smile teased. She did not ask because she needed information, butbecause she could not hear too often the answer.
"You know whether I am. Oh, June girl, I didn't know it would be likethis," he cried.
"Nor I, Bob."
Their lithe bodies leaned from the saddles. They held each other closewhile their lips met.
They were on their way to Pete Tolliver's to tell him the great news.Soon now the old cabin and its outbuildings would break into view. Theyhad only to climb Twelve-Mile Hill.
Out of a draw to the right a horse moved. Through the brush somethingdragged behind it.
"What's that?" asked June.
"Don't know. Looks kinda queer. It's got some sort of harness on."
They rode to the draw. June gave a small cry of distress.
"Oh, Bob, it's a man."
He dismounted. The horse with the dragging load backed away, but it wastoo tired to show much energy. Bob moved forward, soothing the animalwith gentle sounds. He went slowly, with no sudden gestures. Presently hewas patting the neck of the horse. With his hunting-knife he cut therawhide thongs that served as a harness.
"It's a Ute pony," he said, after he had looked it over carefully. Heknew this because the Indians earmarked their mounts.
June was still in the saddle. Some instinct warned her not to look tooclosely at the load behind that was so horribly twisted.
"Better go back to the road, June," her husband advised. "It's too lateto do anything for this poor fellow."
She did as he said, without another look at the broken body.
When she had gone, Bob went close and turned over the huddled figure.Torn though it was, he recognized the face of Jake Houck. To constructthe main features of the tragedy was not difficult.
While escaping from Bear Cat after the fiasco of the bank robbery, Houckmust have stumbled somehow into the hands of the Ute band still at large.They had passed judgment on him and executed it. No doubt the wretchedman had been tied at the heels of a horse which had been lashed into afrenzied gallop by the Indians in its rear. He had been dragged or kickedto death by the frightened horse.
As Bob looked down into that still, disfigured face, there came to himvividly a sense of the weakness and frailty of human nature. Not longsince this bit of lifeless clay had straddled his world like a Colossus.To the young cowpuncher he had been a superman, terrible in his power andcapacity to do harm. Now all that vanity and egoism had vanished, blownaway as though it had never been.
Where was Jake Houck? What had become of him? The shell that had been hiswas here. But where was the roaring bully that had shaken his fistblasphemously at God and man?
It came to him, with a queer tug at the heartstrings, that Houck had oncebeen a dimpled baby in a mother's arms, a chirruping little fat-leggedfellow who tottered across the floor to her with outstretched fingers.Had that innocent child disappeared forever? Or in that other world towhich Jake had so violently gone would he meet again the better self hisevil life had smothered?
Bob loosened the bandanna from his throat and with it covered the face ofthe outlaw. He straightened the body and folded the hands across thebreast. It was not in his power to obliterate from the face the look ofghastly, rigid terror stamped on it during the last terrible moments.
The young husband went back to his waiting wife. He stood by her stirrupwhile she looked down at him, white-faced.
"Who was it?" she whispered.
"Jake Houck," he told her gravely. "The Utes did it--because he killedBlack Arrow, I reckon."
She shuddered. A cloud had come over the beautiful world.
"We'll go on now," he said gently. "I'll come back later with yourfather."
They rode in silence up the long hill. At the top of it he drew rein andsmiled at his bride.
"You'll not let that spoil the day, will you, June? He had it coming, youknow. Houck had gone bad. If it hadn't been the Utes, it would have beenthe law a little later."
"Yes, but--" She tried to answer his smile, not very successfully. "It'srather--awful, isn't it?"
He nodded. "Let's walk over to the cabin, dear."
She swung down, into his arms. There she found comfort that dissipatedthe cloud from her mind. When she ran into the house to throw her armsaround Pete Tolliver's neck, she was again radiant.
"Guess! Guess what!" she ordered her father.
Pete looked at his daughter and at the bashful, smiling boy.
"I reckon I done guessed, honeybug," he answered, stroking her rebellioushair.
"You're to come and live with us. Isn't he, Bob?"
The young husband nodded sheepishly. He felt that it was a brutal thingto take a daughter from her father. It had not occurred to him before,but old Pete would feel rather out of it now.
Tolliver looked at Bob over the shoulder of his daughter.
"You be good to her or I'll--" His voice broke.
"I sure will," the husband promised.
June laughed. "He's the one ought to worry, Dad. I'm the flyaway on thisteam."
Bob looked at her, gifts in his eyes. "I'm worryin' a heap," he said,smiling.
THE END
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