William MacLeod Raine

“ Ruth made hers instantly. She took the baby from the front seat, wrapped him close to her in all the blankets she had, and started forward toward a deserted miner’s cabin built in a draw close to the trail.
Half a mile is no distance when the sun is shining and the path is clear. But near and far take on different meanings in a blizzard. Drifts underfoot made the going slow. The pelting wind, heavy with the sting of sleet, beat upon her, sifted through her clothes, and sapped her vitality. More than once her numbed legs doubled under her like the blades of a jackknife. ”

“ She did not understand how anybody could help loving Ruth McCoy. To be elected one of her friends was a rare privilege. Perhaps this unquestioning approval of all she was and did, together with Mrs. Yerby’s need of her, did more to win Ruth than any effort the other woman could have made. She was plentifully endowed with human failings, and flattery of this sort was no doubt incense to her self-esteem.
The women chatted and worked while the youngsters played on the floor. Just before dinner a cow-puncher from the Triangle Dot rode up and trailed into the house with spurs a-jingle. ”

“ The rock upon which the venture had split was Falkner’s uncontrolled venom. But for that first shot and the triumphant shout of vengeance Tait could have been captured and held safely a prisoner. Now they all stood within the shadow of the gallows.
The shock of Gilroy’s death was for the time deadened to McCoy by the obligation that lay on him to look out for the safety of his associates. The cattleman did not deceive himself for an instant. The days when men could ride to lawless murder in Wyoming were past. ”

“ When the baby was safely tucked up in the tent Ruth and Rowan walked to the brow of the hill and watched the murk mist settle down into the mountain cañons and drive the purple glow into the lake. They saw the stars come out one by one until the heavens were full of them. ”

“ Both Haight and Matson told me so. The only question was who would come through first.”
“If that was the only question for you, then it shows just what you are. Did you never hear of such things as honour and decency and fair play? If anybody was entitled to the benefit of State’s evidence it should have been the married men, poor Sam Yerby or Mr. Rogers. They have children dependent on them. Anybody with the least generosity could see that. But you’re selfish to the core. You never think of anybody but yourself.”
“How can you say that when you know that I love you, Ruth?” ”

“ Left to himself, Rowan did not at once return to his magazine. His mind drifted to the girl he was on his way to marry. It was likely these days, whenever he was not busy, to go back to her, magnetized by the lure of her dark-eyed beauty. The softness and fragility of his sweetheart moved him to awe. That her fancy had selected him out of so many admirers was to him still an amazing miracle. He did not know that the mystery back of his silence had captured her imagination just as the poignancy of her piquant charm had laid a spell on his. ”

“ For years she had held a bitter resentment against Falkner, but it could not stand against the thing that had happened. Put to the acid test, the man had sacrificed his chances of escape to save her and the baby. Alone, he could have reached the Yerby ranch and gone through one of the passes before Matson had closed it. With her and the baby as encumbrances he had not dared try the deeper snow of the upper hills. Because of his choice he lay in Rowan’s room, wounded, condemned to a return to Rawlins.
Never in his rough and turbulent life had the man been treated with such gentle consideration. ”

“ Isn’t it strange, dear, that the things we care about become so infinitely a part of all life that touches us? There is no beautiful thing of sound or vision or colour—no poignancy of thought or feeling—that does not become a sign, somehow, for the special gladness—as though, at bottom, all beauty and dearness rested on the same foundation. To-day the wind has blown swift and gray and strong, so that the hills are purple with it, and the marching pines are touched to a low, tremendous murmur. ”

“ At intervals during the morning that sardonic smile lit the wrinkled face. It was an odd swing of the pendulum, she thought, that had reversed the situation. Years ago Norma had run away from her lover with good-for-nothing Joe Tait. Now she was escaping from Tait with McCoy by her side. How far would fate carry the ironic jest? Mrs. Stovall was no Puritan. If Norma could unravel some scattered threads of happiness from the tangled skein of her wretched life, Martha Stovall cared little whether she kept within the code or not. ”

“ Meanwhile a certain diffidence born of reticence sealed his lips. He found it impossible to express the emotion he knew so poignantly. It was of the hill code that a man must not show his naked soul.
On an August morning Ruth, dawdling over breakfast alone, glimpsed through the dining-room window a rider galloping toward the ranch. Since Rowan had been in the saddle and away long before she was awake, the young woman answered the hail from without by going to the door.
The horseman had dismounted, flung the bridle rein to the ground, and was coming up the porch steps when Ruth appeared. ”

“ She had worked hard and steadily, so that when one afternoon Jennings brought back from the post office a letter from Rowan his young mistress decided to ride up into the hills and read it where she could be alone among the pines. An earned holiday is a double delight. As the pinto—one that Rowan himself had gentled for his bride—picked his way into the cañon mouth through blue-spiked larkspur and rabbit bush in golden splashes the girl in the saddle was nearer happy than she had been for many a day. ”

“ Life, which had been so familiar and easy, took on strange and inexplicable phases. She had become a mystery to herself.
A chill wind from the snow peaks swept the mesa. Ruth gathered up her belongings and walked back to the house. She slipped in quietly by the back door, intent on reaching her room unnoticed. As she passed the door of the big lounging room the voice of Tim Flanders boomed out:
“I tell you that if McCoy led that raid there was no intention of killing Tait and Gilroy. I’ve known Mac twenty-five years. He’s white clear through.” ”

“ Rowan stopped at the section where Norma Tait sat. “I’m going forward to the day coach,” he explained. “If there’s anything I can do for you, Norma, now or at any time, I want you to call on me.”
The woman looked at him, a man from his soles up, coffee-brown, lean, steady as a ground-sunk rock. She knew his standing in the countryside. His fellows liked him, trusted him, followed him, for by the grace of Heaven he had been born a leader of men. McCoy was no plaster saint. ”

“ Ruth, terror-stricken, believed the man was working himself up to do murder. She wanted to cry out, to rush forward and beg him to stop. But her throat was parched and her limbs weighted with heavy chains.
“Your wife left you because you are a bully and a drunkard. I had nothing to do with her going,” retorted McCoy.
“You’re a liar—a rotten liar! You got her to run away with you. You took her in your car to Wagon Wheel. You gave her money to buy a ticket. You were seen on the train with her. I swore I’d kill you on sight, and I’m going to do it. Get out of the way, Silcott!” ”

“ He settled himself comfortably on the porch against a pillar. “I want to ask your advice. I’m just a plain cow-puncher and you’re a wise young lady from a city. So you can tell me all about it. I’m getting old and lonesome, and my mind has been running on a girl a heap.”
Her glance took in the slim, wiry youth at her feet. She smiled. “You’d better ask Mrs. Flanders. I’m too young to advise you.”
“No. You’re just the right age. I’ll tell you about her. There never was anybody prettier—not in Wyoming. She’s fresh and sweet, like those wild roses we picked in Bear Creek Cañon. ”

“ She could have told him the truth, that she did not want Larry Silcott to win. But that would have been only part of the truth. She wanted Rowan McCoy to win, wanted it more than she had wished anything for a long time. Yet why? She was not ready to give a candid reason even to herself, far less to him.
Womanlike, she evaded. “Why shouldn’t I want you to win? You’re my friend. I thought——”
He surprised himself almost as much as he did her by his answer. “I’m not yore friend.”
She looked at him, startled at his brusqueness.
“I’m a man that loves you,” he said roughly. ”

“ Instead she told, between tears and smiles, the story of the blizzard and its consequences. The adroit questions of the governor drew the tale of the adventure from her in a simple, dramatic way. No doubt its effect was greater coming from this slender, girlish mother with the dark, wistful eyes and the touch of shyness in her manner. Rowan’s lawyer, an expert with juries, knew when to avoid an anticlimax by getting her out of the room.
Just before leaving his office for the night Governor McDowell called Louise on the telephone. That young woman beamed at what he said, and beckoned Ruth. ”

“ She had expected Silcott to leave the country. It was not to be looked for that a man weak enough to betray his friends would run the risk of living in the neighbourhood of those who had suffered from his treachery. At the two capitalized words she smiled bitterly. They were both a confession and a shield of defense. They admitted fear, and at the same time disarmed the righteous anger of his former neighbours. Ruth conceded the shrewdness of his policy, even while her pluck despised the spirit that had dictated it.
Inevitably she compared him with Rowan. ”

“ Sheep had come bleating across the bad lands to steal the grass from the cattle, regardless of priority of occupancy. It was a question that touched McCoy and his neighbours nearly. They had seen their stock pushed back from one feeding ground after another by herds of woolly invaders. Rowan could name a dozen cattlemen within as many miles who were face to face with ruin. All of them had well-stocked ranches, were heavily in debt, yet stood to make a good thing if they could hold the range even for two years longer. The price of a cattle had begun to go up and was due for a big rise. ”

“ Rowan McCoy had been convicted of first-degree murder. He had no right to pardon him within fifteen months without any new, extenuating evidence.
The governor was a warm-souled Scotch Irishman. Until the past year he had been a bachelor. He was very fond of children. Rowan, junior, walked right into his heart. Children have an infallible instinct that tells them when they are liked. The young boss of the Circle Diamond opened up his mouth in a toothless grin and stretched his dimpled fingers to the governor. ”

“ But the one in the saddle was something more. His perfect poise was no doubt instinctive, born of long experience. His skill had become automatic. Yet back of this she sensed mind, a will that flashed along the reins to the brute beneath. Slowly Tenderfoot answered to its master, acknowledged the dominion of the man.
Its pitching became less violent, its bucking halfhearted. At a signal from one of the judges, McCoy slipped from the saddle. Without an instant’s delay, without a single glance at the storm-tossed grand stand, the rider strode across the arena and disappeared. ”

“ As the sheriff sat by the campfire at the round-up later, it was even more difficult to think of this clean, level-eyed boss of the rodeo as an ambusher by night. The whole record of the man rose up to give the lie to the story that he had ridden out to kill his foe in the dark. While Sam Yerby entertained the boys with one of his trail songs, Matson’s mind was going over the facts he had gathered. ”

“ Silcott broke into a sudden angry oath. “Do? I’d meet Joe Tait halfway. I’d show him whether he can spoil the range for us at his own sweet will. He wants war. By all that’s holy, I’d carry it right into his camp!”
Rowan did not deny to himself the seriousness of the issue as he waited for the coming of the two men. He faced the facts squarely, as he always did. Tait had again declared war. To let the man have his own way meant ruin to the cattle interests on the Fryingpan. ”

“ A man must be held responsible for his actions, even when the result is different from what he anticipates.
Behind his self-containment McCoy was suffering poignantly. He was on his way to say good-bye to the girl wife he loved. It was his conviction that when he emerged from the shadow now closing in upon him Ruth would have passed out of his life. Already she had wearied of what he had to offer. There was no likelihood that she would waste her young years waiting for a man shut up in prison for his misdeeds. Far better for her to cut loose from him as soon as possible. ”