CHAPTER XVIII--THE SHADOW ON BETTY'S PATH
It was still a beautiful summer morning, but its charm was quite lostfor Betty Hunt. Her appreciation of the beautiful in nature wassubmerged by what had so overwhelmed her heart and her thought.
The thing which had been so long hidden in her mind--that secret whichhad changed Betty so desperately at the end of her schooldays--had risento the surface again.
But she had not gone far when something arose that made Betty wish shehad not left Joe Hurley beside the singing river. Her staid old ponybegan to limp.
She was a good rider, but she had not the first idea what to do when ahorse went lame, except to get down and relieve the poor creature of herweight. But she was much too far from Canyon Pass to walk and lead thehobbling pony.
The wise old cow pony made much of the affliction, and when Betty triedto urge it on the limping horse was a pitiful sight indeed. Betty hadnever been taught the proper way to pick up a horse's foot to examine itfor a stone in the frog; but the pony lifted the crippled member in sucha way that the girl managed to get at it. The stone was there, asharp-edged flint wedged into the frog, but the girl had no instrumentwith which to get it out.
Fortuitous circumstances do happen elsewhere besides in bald romance.Unlooked-for help appeared in this moment of Betty's need. She looked upto see Nell Blossom on her cream-colored pony galloping along the wagontrack, coming from the direction of Canyon Pass. The cabaret singerglanced at the dismounted girl, nodded, and would have gone right by,but she chanced to see the pony limp on a yard or two.
"What's the matter with that hoss?" demanded Nell, reining in her ownpony with both skill and promptness.
"Oh, Miss Blossom," cried Betty, "there's a stone in his foot, and Ican't get it out."
"Where's your side partner?" asked Nell, getting slowly down. "That JoeHurley oughtn't to let you tenderfoots out of his sight. Not on the opentrail."
Betty recognized the measure of scorn in this remark, but she was in noposition to resent it. She said as casually as she could:
"Mr. Hurley stayed behind for something. He may not even come back thisway. I really do not know what to do for the poor creature."
"Meanin' Joe, or the hoss?" and the blue eyes danced suddenly withmischief.
"The poor pony."
"Get the stone out," Nell said, picking up the pony's foot.
"It is wedged in tightly--that stone."
Nell drew from the pocket of her abbreviated skirt a jackknife thatwould have delighted the heart of any boy. With an implement in this sheremoved the stone in a twinkling.
"There!" Nell said. "Let him rest here a minute, and he'll be all right.The old four-flusher! He isn't hurt a mite, but he'd like to have youthink so," and she slapped the pony resoundingly.
"I'm awfully much obliged to you, Miss Blossom."
"No need to be. And no need to call me 'Miss.'"
"Oh--well--Nell, if you like it better," Betty rejoined with a mostdisarming smile. "I thank you."
"That's all right," said Nell in her brusque, but not altogetherunfriendly, way. "I say, Miss Hunt!"
Betty interrupted with: "Betty, if you please, Nell."
"Oh! All right," the singer said, the more friendly light sparkling inher eyes again. "What I wanted to ask you is, is that suit you got onreally what they all wear in the East?"
"Yes. Since nearly every one rides astride now, the habit is mademannish."
"Well, I've straddled a hoss ever since I can remember, but I never seenanything but a skirt and bloomers or a divided skirt like this on womenbefore. But I must say them things you wear are plumb fetching."
Betty was amused. But she had reason for feeling kindly toward NellBlossom.
"You could easily cut over that corduroy skirt you wear into a pair ofbreeches like these," she suggested.
"You reckon so?" asked Nell with eagerness. "I'd like that a pile. But Idon't know----"
"I could show you. We could cut a pattern. Has anybody in town a sewingmachine?"
"Sure thing. Mother Tubbs has got one. And I can run up a seam as goodas she can."
"I'll tell you," proposed Betty with real interest. "You ride back tothe hotel with me, and we'll cut the pattern out of a newspaper."
Through such seemingly unimportant incidents as this the trend of greataffairs are sometimes changed. Had Nell ridden on she might have seenthe same fugitive Betty had noticed hiding in the chaparral. But Nellwas easily persuaded to attend the parson's sister to the Wild Rose.
The two girls, who seemed to have so little in common, after all foundmuch, besides the dressmaking plans, in each other to afford theminterest.
It was Nell's strangely sweet voice that pleased Betty most. Even whenthe Western girl said the rudest things, her voice caressed one's ear.And Betty began to realize that Nell's "rudeness" was born of franknessand a certain bashfulness. Most bashful people are abrupt, at timesquite startling, in speech. In another place, among other people, NellBlossom would have betrayed timidity and hesitation. But, as she wouldhave said, she would not have "got far" in Canyon Pass by yielding toany secret shrinking from her associates.
"A girl's got to keep her own end up in a place like this. They all rootfor me and clap me on and off the stage. But I've got to fight my ownbattles," pursued the singer. "Men are like wolves, Betty. The pack willfoller a leader so long as that leader keeps ahead. When the leader goesplumb lame and falls behind, they eat him."
"Oh!"
"I'm popular with the boys. They're strong for me just now. But'twouldn't take much to make 'em turn on me. I know 'em!" she concludedgrimly.
She knew a great many things, it was evident, of which Betty Hunt wasignorant. When the cabaret singer went away with her pattern she leftBetty much to ponder about, which did not fundamentally deal with NellBlossom's problems.
When Nell had gone a grimmer shadow overcame Betty's mind--a shadow thathad lain athwart her path since that bitter season just preceding thedeath of her Aunt Prudence Mason and Betty's withdrawal from boardingschool.
The events of those last weeks at Grandhampton Hall were etched sodeeply upon Betty's memory that they could not be effaced. She believedthat they never would be.
And on this day all had been rubbed raw again by Joe Hurley's outbreak.If he had only not spoken as he had! If things had only gone on betweenBetty and him as they had been going--calmly, quietly; yes, she confessedit now, really pleasantly.
She had come to think of the mining man's attention as an undoubted aidto her placid life. Her rides with him, and their association in otherways, their conversations on various subjects had been of greater momentin establishing her peace of mind than Betty had realized.
She faced that fact--alone in her own room now--with fuller appreciationof what Joe Hurley had come to mean to her.
She was an utterly honest girl. She had faced a terrible andsoul-racking situation before and come to a decision which she had heldto through all the months since she had left school.
Just what did Joe Hurley mean to Betty Hunt?
Her first half-fear of Joe, a real dislike of his presumed character,had melted before a broader understanding of the man and his aims. Joewas her brother's friend and the chief supporter of Hunt's earnest workamong these people. First of all Betty had begun to like Joe because heso generously aided the parson.
Her appreciation of the underlying strata of Joe's character had grownfrom day to day of personal association with him. He was a man who wouldultimately achieve big things. She felt this to be his dominant trait.Yet he had tenderness, generosity, wit, and a measure of "book learning"of which last she eagerly approved.
Under ordinary conditions--Betty Hunt admitted this frankly now--she wouldhave been as strongly attracted by Joe Hurley, once she had got over herfirst doubt of his surface qualities, as by any young man she had everassociated with.
She did not question her own judgment in Joe's case, no matter how farwrong the unsophisticated school girl had b
een to give her heart intothe keeping of another who had seemed a much more charming man!
Andy Wilkenson--sophisticated, smiling, tender, with all the graces ofperson and intellect that any young girl could wish--had set himself towin Betty Hunt. His intentions had been perfectly honorable, in thesense thus used.
Andy had urged marriage--an immediate, if secret, marriage--from the veryfirst. And there was reason for secrecy. Betty wished to finish hercourse at Grandhampton Hall. Aunt Prudence must not know of this great,new thing that had come into Betty's life. Even Ford must not be told.
For, after all, the girl realized that she was very young--much younger,even, it seemed, than Andy Wilkenson. Andy was so much more sensiblethan she!
Betty feared she could not keep her mind sufficiently on her studies tostand well at the end of the semester if she was not utterly sure ofAndy. Once married to him, of course, Andy would be hers entirely! Noother woman could ever mean anything to him if the unsuspicious,broken-down old minister in a neighboring town joined them in holybonds.
Aunt Prudence would forgive her when it was all over and she went homewith her diploma and her marriage certificate in her trunk. It would beabsolutely wicked to disturb poor Aunt Prudence by a letter eitherannouncing the engagement, which was for a very brief term, or hermarriage. For Betty's elderly relative was ill--worse than either Bettyor her brother dreamed of at the time.
The opportunities Betty had to be with Andy were not many. The rules ofthe Hall were very strict. Even her introduction to the young man fromthe West had been clandestine. Unknown to Betty, Wilkenson, learning allhe could about certain girls in her set at the school, had selectedBetty Hunt deliberately as his mark.
Betty's school fees were paid by an old aunt who was reputed very rich.The aunt was known to be devoted to her. All that she had was sure to beBetty's when Aunt Prudence died. Wilkenson had even gone so far as tolearn much more particularly about the state of Aunt Prudence Mason'shealth than Betty herself knew.
One item only escaped Andy Wilkenson's cunning mind. It was not untilthey had been married and Wilkenson was driving Betty back to the Hallby unfrequented roads late in the afternoon that the small but appallingoversight on his part broke upon his understanding.
"You know, girlie, I haven't got much money. I came East yere"--how Bettyhad loved that drawl then--"to get me a stake. I did a fool thing andthrew away--just threw away--my bank roll out in Crescent City."
"Oh, _money_!" replied Betty with fine scorn. "You can go to work atsomething, Andy, and earn more."
"Ye-as," he agreed in a tone that might have revealed a good deal to amore sophisticated person than the girl who had so recently been BettyHunt, "so I can. But I may not make any good connection before you getout of that school. And then I'd like us to go back West. I'm known outthere. A man can always do better in his own stamping-grounds."
"Oh, the West must be wonderful," murmured Betty, with clasped hands.
"Yep. But no place is wonderful unless you've got a good stake. Now, howabout it, Betty? This old aunt of yours is pretty well fixed, eh?"
The girl was startled. "Wealthy? I think so. Aunt Prudence has been verykind to me."
"She'll keep on being kind to you, I reckon?"
"Of course! The dear soul. You'll just love her, Andy."
"Maybe. But I don't think I'll risk trying her out. Not just yet. She'spretty sick, anyway, isn't she?"
Betty told him that Aunt Prudence was feeble. The girl did not know atthat time how serious the woman's malady was. Only on the day followingdid the telegram come recalling her to Amberly!
"Anyway," Wilkenson observed, after some thought, "you're her heir,Betty." For a second time the girl was startled by his speech. She beganto peer at him now in the dusk in a puzzled fashion.
"What I'm aimin' at," said Wilkenson quite calmly, "is that we'd betterkeep all this quiet until Auntie goes over the divide. No use stirringup possible objections. She'll leave you her money, you say. We'll takethat money and go back West. I know a place I can buy in Crescent Citythat will pay big returns. I will let the pasteboards alone, myself. Ialways get foolish if I deal 'em wild instead of for the house. We'llcut a swath out there, Betty, that'll make 'em sit up and take notice.Sure thing!"
"Andy! What are you talking about?" asked the incredulous girl."Auntie's money---- It's all invested. I know it is. It's tied up."
"Shucks! we can untie it," and Wilkenson laughed. "No banker's knotsmean much to me. And four or five per cent. interest ain't a patch onwhat I'll make for you when we get to going."
"But, Andy," she said weakly, "I know all about Auntie's will. I haveeven read it. She made it years ago when Ford and I were little. And sheis a woman who never changes her mind. Ford has papa's little fortune.Aunt Prudence gives me her property; but I can spend only the incomefrom it until I am thirty."
"What's that?" His tone made her jump. "Thirty?" Then he thought. "Well,shucks, honey," he drawled, "you're a married woman now. That makes youpractically of age in this State, and the courts----"
"It makes no difference, Andy. The will is made that way for that verypurpose," the girl said frankly.
"For what purpose?"
"So that--that my husband cannot touch the principal. Until I am thirty Icannot touch it myself."
An oath--a foul, blistering expression--parted the man's lips. In thedeepening gloom of the evening she could see his face change to a maskof indignant disappointment. She did not shrink from him. She did notplead with him. In that dragging minute, Andy had stopped the car with ajerk, Betty understood everything about this Westerner. And from thatinstant had germinated and grown all the hatred and fear of the West andits people that Betty Hunt had betrayed when first her brother hadsuggested the journey to Canyon Pass.
She had stepped out of the car. She had torn in small pieces the paperthe old minister had given her. She had drawn from her finger the plainband Wilkenson had placed upon it, which she must have hidden in anycase, and thrown it from her into the bushes beside the way.
Then Betty Hunt had commanded Andrew Wilkenson never to speak to heragain--never to try to see, write, or otherwise communicate with her. Shewalked away from him. She heard the roar of the engine after a momentand knew he turned the car and drove away.
And that had been the end of Betty's romance. She had not seen theWesterner again.