THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT by EMILIE BAKER LORING (classic fiction .txt) 📕

The two men faced each other silently. The morning light accentuated the lines on Denbigh's thin, ascetic face, revealed the brooding sorrow in his eyes. After his involuntary halt of surprise Courtlandt sprang forward with outstretched hand.

"Phil, old scout, it's good to see you! But--but what the dickens are you doing here? I know Jim Carey but you're--not----"

"The same. I'm Bill Small, range-rider of the Bear Creek outfit, which extensive outfit consists at present of the owner and yours truly. It has taken some dexterity to keep out of your way, Steve. Your Uncle Nick got me the job. Curious that I should have turned to him in my despair, but--but he was the first person I thought of. I had heard Mother rail about his caustic tongue. I concluded if she thought that, he must have a keen sense of justice and fair-dealing. Mrs. Carey thinks that I dropped from the air or any old place. Jim went away three days ago and left me in charge. We didn't think that this--this--was coming so soon. My first thought when Mrs. Carey called me last evening was to get hold of the nearest woman and--and Mrs. Courtlandt seemed to be it. I went to your ranch, first and they sent me on to the X Y Z."

"I can't make you seem real yet, Phil. I'm dazed with the succession of surprises. Saturday, Beechy, my late sergeant walked in and----"

"Beechy!"

"Say, 'The Devil!' and be done with it, that's what your tone implied. What do you know about Carl Beechy?"

"I've run across him in Slippy Bend. A regular fella with the ladies, isn't he?"

"So that's it! I'll have to admit that Carl is an easy mark with the fair sex, but he's all there when it comes to fighting. I wanted to keep him at the Double O, but he insisted that he must keep his contract with the railroad."

"Oh, he did. You're fond of Beechy, Steve?"

"He saved my life, Phil. I was as sure of the man's loyalty as I was that the sun would rise in the morning."

"Have patience, Steve, you'll get him back. Sadder and wiser, perhaps a bit damaged, but you'll get him back."

"Damaged! What do you mean?"

"Nothing specific. I'm judging from what I've seen the railroads do. I hear Ranlett has left you. Take it from me, you're in luck."

"I'll say you're right. I haven't had a chance to talk it over with Greyson yet; he came back from the East only a few days ago. Uncle Nick relied on his judgment. Good Lord!"--as remembrance of the evening before flashed clear in his mind, "do you know who came with him? Your--your wife."

Denbigh leisurely lighted a cigarette and as leisurely drew a long whiff of it.

"My wife! I haven't a wife. Felice will have her divorce in a few months. Desertion. Mamma Peyton's master-mind directed the campaign. Trust an old-timer like her to know the ropes. Felice didn't love me when she married me; she merely contracted a virulent attack of the war-marriage epidemic. I found that out when you came home. I'm through with women, Steve, that is until I've proved myself a man whose sense of right and justice can't be twisted by them. If I hadn't been weak Mother couldn't have--oh, why go into it? It wasn't her fault; life had been too easy for her; she couldn't bear to be hurt. Well, she has lost me as effectually as though I had been shot to pieces in the Argonne where so many of my friends lie. The effects of gas and shot and shell aren't in it with the intolerable sense of shame which a man, who didn't do his best to get into the war, will carry through the years. God knows, I'm paying for my weakness. Don't mind this outburst, Steve. Forget it! You're the first person I've seen from home. It--it just surged out."

He leaned his head upon his horse's neck. The animal which had been pawing impatiently settled into bronze immobility at his touch. Only his sensitive nostrils quivered. Courtlandt laid a sympathetic hand on Denbigh's shoulder. His voice was unsteady as he protested:

"You're torturing yourself unnecessarily, Phil. The world has almost forgotten----"

"I haven't, Steve, but we'll let it go at that. Don't let Felice know that I am here. When she gets her divorce----"

"But, Phil, can't you and she patch things up? Divorce is a hard thing for a woman to live down."

"Not in our set. Good Lord, man, Felice thinks no more of it than she would of discarding an unbecoming gown. It's in her blood. It's in mine. Her mother had changed husbands once before Felice was born. Mine changed hers when he was young and unsuccessful. She had the money. When the Fates want to hand it to a man good and plenty they marry him to a girl who has slathers more money than he has." Steve's face whitened. "Was that a door closing? Go quick, Steve. If it is Mrs. Courtlandt I don't want her to see me. Don't tell her who I am." He seized his horse by the bridle and vanished into the barn.

Steve met Jerry beside his car. His jaw set in the manner dreaded by his father as he looked at the girl's face. It was white with violet shadows under the wide, strained eyes. Her exquisite frock was torn where she had caught it on a hook. A long angry burn was visible on the wrist which the sleeve of her wrap didn't cover. Her lips quivered traitorously as she saw Steve's eyes on it. She hastily concealed it behind her back with a valiant attempt at a laugh.

"It's nothing. I hoped that it would escape your ruthless managerial eye. I tried to heat water and I'm not used to a kitchen range. In fact, I don't know what I can do that's vitally useful. When--when I go back to civilization I shall take a course in nursing, then I won't be so absolutely useless at a time like this." Her voice was pitched in a key of nervous excitement, and she shivered as she spoke.

"Come here!" Courtlandt's face was as white as the girl's as he picked her up in his arms and put her into the car. He drew her wrap closer about her shoulders and tucked a light robe about her knees. She sat there tense, unresponsive, but as he started the car she suddenly relaxed with a stifled sob and covered her face with her hands. Steve stopped the car. With quiet determination he put his arm about her.

"Cry it out, child," he encouraged tenderly. When the storm broke he wondered if he had been wise in the recommendation. He was frightened at the tempest of sobs which shook the slender body. He tightened his arm. Then after a few moments, "Was it as bad as that, girl?"

She sat up with a start and drew as far away from him as the limited space would permit. He laid his arm across the back of the seat. She pushed the hair from her forehead and looked up at him through drenched eyes.

"Bad!" she controlled a shudder. "Bad only because I was so powerless to help. An angel from heaven wouldn't have looked as good to me as Doc Rand." There was an hysterical note of laughter in her voice as she continued, "He must have thought I had gone suddenly mad for when he opened the door I flew at him and kissed him." She made furtive dabs at her eyes. "Don't think that I'm constitutionally a cry-baby," she laughed up at Courtlandt shamefacedly. He turned away from her quickly, removed his arm from the back of the seat and started the car.

"Now that you've got your grip again we'll go on. I'm famished," he announced prosaically.

"Now that I think of it, so am I," she agreed with gay camaraderie, but her breath came in a little sob as a child's might after crying, "and--and so are they! Look, Steve! Over on that hillside--look!"

She gripped his arm with one hand as she pointed with the other. On the top of a low hill, outlined like shadow pictures against the morning sky, so near that their hanging tongues were plainly visible, were three dark, sinister shapes.

"Coyotes?" the girl whispered as though even at that distance they might hear.

"Timber wolves. See those sheep grazing in the coulée below? They are after them."

"Oh, Steve, can't we do something?"

For answer Courtlandt reached into the pocket of the car and drew his automatic. The shots rang through the morning quiet, the echoes ricochetted back from the hills. The sheep kicked up their heels and scampered off. The wolves stood like creatures of stone for an instant, then slowly, quite without panic, turned and disappeared over the brow of the hill. Jerry shivered.

"Wolves! I thought you were rid of them in this country."

"We are almost. Occasionally the boys bring in reports of the trail of a wolf or a mountain lion. We have a pest of coyotes though, this year. If you want to insult a ranchman or cowboy to fighting mad, call him a coyote; it means the most despicable creature in the animal world. They're cowards. If that bunch of sheep turned and faced a coyote they would terrify him."

"Ranch life is just one problem after another, isn't it?"

"No more than any life which is packed with interest."

"My mistake! Didn't the little boy want his little ranch found fault with? Then he shan't be teased."

As he turned and looked at her she caught her breath, colored richly and apologized. "Don't mind me, Steve. The sudden release from responsibility and the elixir of the morning air have gone to my head. I'll be good, really I will. Did you see the Man of Mystery? I--I somehow have a feeling that he may know something of the missing calves."

"You're wrong. He's all right, he's doing a man's job--he isn't troubling me but--but I wish I knew what Beechy had up his sleeve. What had he said to you before I came in that day in the office?" with quick suspicion. His tone sent the color flying to the girl's hair.

"Why--why--nothing--but----"

"Don't perjure yourself," dryly. "Much as I think of Carl I'm not blind to his ways with women. He couldn't have been unbearably raw or you wouldn't have shaken hands with him, would you? I--didn't like his eyes when he said he had work on the railroad."

"Steve, you are developing nerves; your imagination is running wild. One would think that we were back in the days of armed bandits, when masked men held up trains at the point of a gun. That isn't done now, you know," with gay patronage.

"Perhaps--look up on the hill! The boys are bringing down the horses."

The girl's eyes followed his pointing finger. Nose to tail, close herded by riders, the animals trailed toward the corral after their night of feeding in the hillside pastures. They tossed their manes, they made sportive attempts to escape their keepers.

"How well our boys ride." Steve's pulses responded to that possessive "our."

"They ought to. They are as near old-timers as can be found now. The Double O was Uncle Nick's master-passion. He took up the land when it was the ranchman's paradise, in the years before fence-posts and barbed wire, when cowboys packed guns and drank and gambled away their pay. He adapted himself with amazing success to changing conditions though, and hung on to all the real boys whom he could tempt with pay and the pride of raising thoroughbreds."

As Courtlandt stopped the car in front of the ranch-house, the door was flung open and a girl ran down the steps. Jerry