Lonesome Land Page 3

  CHAPTER III. A LADY IN A TEMPER

  To saddle two horses when the night has grown black and to lead them,unobserved, so short a distance as two hundred yards or so seems a simplething; and for two healthy young people with full use of their wits andtheir legs to steal quietly away to where those horses are waitingwould seem quite as simple. At the same time, to prevent the successfulaccomplishment of these things is not difficult, if one but fullyunderstands the designs of the fugitives.

  Hawley Hotel did a flourishing business that night. The two long tables inthe dining room, usually not more than half filled by those who hungeredand were not over-nice concerning the food they ate, were twice filled tooverflowing. Mrs. Hawley and the "breed" girl held hasty consultations inthe kitchen over the supply, and never was there such a rattling of disheshurriedly cleansed for the next comer.

  Kent managed to find a chair at the first table, and eyed the landladyunobtrusively. But Fred De Garmo sat down opposite, and his eyes werebright and watchful, so that there seemed no possible way of delivering amessage undetected--until, indeed, Mrs. Hawley in desperation resorted tostrategy, and urged Kent unnecessarily to take another slice of bacon.

  "Have some more--it's _side_!" she hissed in his ear, and watched anxiouslyhis face.

  "All right," said Kent, and speared a slice with his fork, although hisplate was already well supplied with bacon. Then, glancing up, he detectedFred in a thoughtful stare which seemed evenly divided between the landladyand himself. Kent was conscious of a passing, mental discomfort, which heput aside as foolish, because De Garmo could not possibly know what Mrs.Hawley meant. To ease his mind still further he glared insolently at Fred,and then at Polycarp Jenks _te-hee_ing a few chairs away. After that hefinished as quickly as possible without exciting remark, and went his way.

  He had not, however, been two minutes in the office before De Garmoentered. From that time on through the whole evening Fred was never fardistant; wherever he went, Kent could not shake him off though De Garmonever seemed to pay any attention to him, and his presence was alwaysapparently accidental.

  "I reckon I'll have to lick that son of a gun yet," sighed Kent, when aglance at the round clock in the hotel office told him that in just twentyminutes it would strike nine; and not a move made toward getting thosehorses saddled and out to the stockyards.

  There was much talk of the wedding, which had taken place quietly in theparlor at the appointed hour, but not a man mentioned a _charivari_. Therewere many who wished openly that Fleetwood would come out and be sociableabout it, but not a hint that they intended to take measures to bring himamong them. He had caused a box of cigars to be placed upon the bar ofevery saloon in town, where men might help themselves at his expense.Evidently he had considered that with the cigars his social obligationswere canceled. They smoked the cigars, and, with the same breath, gossipedof him and his affairs.

  At just fourteen minutes to nine Kent went out, and, without any attemptat concealment, hurried to the Hawley stables. Half a minute behind himtrailed De Garmo, also without subterfuge.

  Half an hour later the bridal couple stole away from the rear of the hotel,and, keeping to the shadows, went stumbling over the uneven ground to thestockyards.

  "Here's the tie pile," Fleetwood announced, in an undertone, when theyreached the place. "You stay here, Val, and I'll look farther along thefence; maybe the horses are down there."

  Valeria did not reply, but stood very straight and dignified in the shadowof the huge pile of rotting railroad ties. He was gone but a moment, andcame anxiously back to her.

  "They're not here," he said, in a low voice. "Don't worry, dear. He'llcome--I know Kent Burnett."

  "Are you sure?" queried Val sweetly. "From what I have seen of thegentleman, your high estimate of him seems quite unauthorized. Aside fromescorting me to the hotel, he has been anything but reliable. Instead oftelling you that I was here, or telling me that you were sick, he wentstraight into a saloon and forgot all about us both. You know that. If hewere your friend, why should he immediately begin carousing, instead of--"

  "He didn't," Fleetwood defended weakly.

  "No? Then perhaps you can explain his behavior. Why didn't he tell me youwere sick? Why didn't he tell you I came on that train? Can you tell methat, Manley?"

  Manley, for a very good reason, could not; so he put his arms around herand tried to coax her into good humor.

  "Sweetheart, let's not quarrel so soon--why, we're only two hours married!I want you to be happy, and if you'll only be brave and--"

  "Brave!" Mrs. Fleetwood laughed rather contemptuously, for a bride. "Pleaseto understand, Manley, that I'm not frightened in the least. It's you andthat horrid cowboy--_I_ don't see why we need run away, like criminals.Those men don't intend to _murder_ us, do they?" Her mood softened alittle, and she squeezed his arm between her hands. "You dear old silly,I'm not blaming _you_. With your head in such a state, you can't thinkthings out properly, and you let that cowboy influence you against yourbetter judgment. You're afraid I might be annoyed--but, really, Manley,this silly idea of running away annoys me much more than all the noisethose fellows could possibly make. Indeed, I don't think I would mind--itwould give me a glimpse of the real West; and, perhaps, if they grewtoo boisterous, and I spoke to them and asked them not to be quite sorough--and, really, they only mean it as a sort of welcome, in their crudeway. We could invite some of the nicest in to have cake and coffee--ormaybe we might get some ice cream somewhere--and it might turn out a verypleasant little affair. I don't mind meeting them, Manley. The worst ofthem can't be as bad as that--but, of course, if he's your friend, Isuppose I oughtn't to speak too freely my opinion of him!"

  Fleetwood held her closely, patted her cheek absently, and tried to thinkof some effective argument.

  "They'll be drunk, sweetheart," he told her, after a silence.

  "I don't think so," she returned firmly. "I have been watching the streetall the evening. I saw any number of men passing back and forth, and Ididn't see one who staggered. And they were all very quiet, consideringtheir rough ways, which one must expect. Why, Manley, you always wroteabout these Western men being such fine fellows, and so generous andbig-hearted, under their rough exterior. Your letters were full of it--andhow chivalrous they all are toward nice women."

  She laid her head coaxingly against his shoulder. "Let's go back, Manley.I--_want_ to see a _charivari_, dear. It will be fun. I want to write allabout it to the girls. They'll be perfectly wild with envy." She struggledwith her conventional upbringing. "And even if some of them are slightlyunder the influence--of liquor, we needn't _meet_ them. You needn'tintroduce those at all, and I'm sure they will understand."

  "Don't be silly, Val!" Fleetwood did not mean to be rude, but a faintglimmer of her romantic viewpoint--a viewpoint gained chiefly from currentfiction and the stage--came to him and contrasted rather brutally with thereality. He did not know how to make her understand, without incriminatinghimself. His letters had been rather idealistic, he admitted to himself.They had been written unthinkingly, because he wanted her to like this bigland; naturally he had not been too baldly truthful in picturing the placeand the people. He had passed lightly over their faults and thrown thelimelight on their virtues; and so he had aided unwittingly the stage andthe fiction she had read, in giving her a false impression.

  Offended at his words and his tone, she drew away from him and glancedwistfully back toward the town, as if she meditated a haughty return to thehotel. She ended by seating herself upon a projecting tie.

  "Oh, very well, my lord," she retorted, "I shall try and not be silly, butmerely idiotic, as you would have me. You and your friend!" She was veryangry, but she was perfectly well-bred, she hoped. "If I might venture aword," she began again ironically, "it seems to me that your friend hasbeen playing a practical joke upon you. He evidently has no intention ofbringing any fleet steeds to us. No doubt he is at this moment laughingwith his dissolute companions, because we are sitting out here i
n the darklike two silly chickens!"

  "I think he's coming now," Manley said rather stiffly. "Of course, I don'task you to like him; but he's putting himself to a good deal of trouble forus, and--"

  "Wasted effort, so far as I am concerned," Valeria put in, with a chirpyaccent which was exasperating, even to a bridegroom very much in love withhis bride.

  In the darkness that muffled the land, save where the yellow flare of lampsin the little town made a misty brightness, came the click of shod hoofs.Another moment and a man, mounted upon a white horse, loomed indistinctbefore them, seeming to take substance from the night. Behind him trailedanother horse, and for the first time in her life Valeria heard the soft,whispering creak of saddle leather, the faint clank of spur chains, and thewhir of a horse mouthing the "cricket" in his bit. Even in her anger, shewas conscious of an answering tingle of blood, because this was life inthe raw--life such as she had dreamed of in the tight swaddlings of a smugcivilization, and had longed for intensely.

  Kent swung down close beside them, his form indistinct but purposeful. "I'mlate, I guess," he remarked, turning to Fleetwood. "Fred got next, somehow,and--I was detained."

  "Where is he?" asked Manley, going up and laying a questioning hand uponthe horse, by that means fully recognizing it as Kent's own.

  "In the oats box," said Kent laconically. He turned to the girl. "Icouldn't get the sidesaddle," he explained apologetically. "I looked whereMrs. Hawley said it was, but I couldn't find it--and I didn't have muchtime. You'll have to ride a stock saddle."

  Valeria drew back a step. "You mean--a man's saddle?" Her voice wascarefully polite.

  "Why, yes." And he added: "The horse is dead gentle--and a sidesaddle's nogood, anyhow. You'll like this better." He spoke, as was evident, purelyfrom a man's viewpoint.

  That viewpoint Mrs. Fleetwood refused to share. "Oh, I couldn't ride aman's saddle," she protested, still politely, and one could imagine how herlips were pursed. "Indeed, I'm not sure that I care to leave town at all."To her the declaration did not seem unreasonable or abrupt but she feltthat Kent was very much shocked. She saw him turn his head and look backtoward the town, as if he half expected a pursuit.

  "I don't reckon the oats box will hold Fred very long," he observedmeditatively. He added reminiscently to Manley: "I had a deuce of a timegetting the cover down and fastened."

  "I'm very sorry," said Valeria, with sweet dignity, "that you gave yourselfso much trouble--"

  "I'm kinda sorry myself," Kent agreed mildly, and Valeria blushed hotly,and was glad he could not see.

  "Come, Val--you can ride this saddle, all right. All the girls out here--"

  "I did not come West to imitate all the girls. Indeed, I could never thinkof such a thing. I couldn't possibly--really, Manley! And, you know, itdoes seem so childish of us to run away--"

  Kent moved restlessly, and felt to see if the cinch was tight.

  Fleetwood took her coaxingly by the arm. "Come, sweetheart, don't bestubborn. You know--"

  "Well, really! If it's a question of obstinacy--You see, I look at thematter in this way: You believe that you are doing what is best for mysake; I don't agree with you--and it does seem as if I should be permittedto judge what I desire." Then her dignity and her sweet calm went downbefore a flash of real, unpolished temper. "You two can take those nastyhorses and ride clear to Dakota, if you want to. I'm going back to thehotel. And I'm going to tell somebody to let that poor fellow out of thatbox. I think you're acting perfectly horrid, both of you, when I don't wantto go!" She actually started back toward the scattered points of light.

  She did not, however, get so faraway that she failed to hear Kent's "Well,I'll be damned!" uttered in a tone of intense disgust.

  "I don't care," she assured herself, because of the thrill of compunctioncaused by that one forcible sentence. She had never before in her lifeheard a man really swear. It affected her very much as would the accidentaltouch of an electric battery. She walked on slowly, stumbling a little andtrying to hear what it was they were saying.

  Then Kent passed her, loping back to the town, the led horse shaking hissaddle so that it rattled the stirrups like castanets as he galloped. "Idon't care," she told herself again very emphatically, because she wasquite sure that she did care--or that she would care if only she permittedherself to be so foolish. Manley overtook her then, and drew her hand underhis arm to lead her. But he seemed quite sullen, and would not say a wordall the way back.