Jean of the Lazy A Read online

  CHAPTER III

  WHAT A MAN'S GOOD NAME IS WORTH

  You would think that the bare word of a man who has lived uprightly ina community for fifteen years or so would be believed under oath, evenif his whole future did depend upon it. You would think that AleckDouglas could not be convicted of murder just because he had reportedthat a man was shot down in Aleck's house.

  The report of Aleck Douglas' trial is not the main feature of thisstory; it is merely the commencement, one might say. Therefore, I amgoing to be brief as I can and still give you a clear idea of thesituation, and then I am going to skip the next three years and beginwhere the real story begins.

  Aleck's position was dishearteningly simple, and there was nothing muchthat one could do to soften the facts or throw a new light on themurder. Lite watched, wide awake and eager, many a night for thereturn of that prowler, but he never saw or heard a thing that gave himany clue whatever. So the footprints seemed likely to remain themystery they had seemed on the morning when he discovered them. Helaid traps, pretending to ride away from the ranch to town before dark,and returning cautiously by way of the trail down the bluff behind thehouse. But nothing came of it. Lazy A ranch was keeping its secretwell, and by the time the trial was begun, Lite had given up hope. Oncehe believed the house had been visited in the daytime, during hisabsence in town, but he could not be sure of that.

  Jean went to Chinook and stayed there, so that Lite saw her seldom.Carl also was away much of the time, trying by every means he couldthink of to swing public opinion and the evidence in Aleck's favor. Heprevailed upon Rossman, who was Montana's best-known lawyer, to defendthe case, for one thing. He seemed to pin his faith almost wholly uponRossman, and declared to every one that Aleck would never be convicted.It would be, he maintained, impossible to convict him, with Rossmanhandling the case; and he always added the statement that you can'tsend an innocent man to jail, if things are handled right.

  Perhaps he did not, after all, handle things right. For in spite ofRossman, and Aleck's splendid reputation, and the meager evidenceagainst him, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eightyears in Deer Lodge penitentiary.

  Rossman had made a great speech, and had made men in the jury blinkback unshed tears. But he could not shake from them the belief thatAleck Douglas had ridden home and met Johnny Croft, calmly makinghimself at home in the Lazy A kitchen. He could not convince them thatthere had not been a quarrel, and that Aleck had not fired the shot inthe grip of a sudden, overwhelming rage against Croft. By Aleck's ownstatement he had been at the ranch some time before he had started fortown to report the murder. By the word of several witnesses, it hadbeen proven that Croft had left town meaning to collect wages which heclaimed were due him or else he would "get even." His last words to agroup out by the hitching pole in front of the saloon which wasJohnny's hangout, were: "I'm going to get what's coming to me, orthere'll be one fine, large bunch of trouble!" He had not mentionedAleck Douglas by name, it is true; but the fact that he had been foundat the Lazy A was proof enough that he had referred to Aleck when hespoke.

  There is no means of knowing just how far-reaching was the effect ofthat impulsive lie which Lite had told at the inquest. He did notrepeat the blunder at the trial. When the district attorney remindedLite of the statement he had made, Lite had calmly explained that hehad made a mistake; he should have said that he had seen Aleck rideaway from the ranch instead of to it. Beyond that he would not go,question him as they might.

  The judge sentenced Aleck to eight years, and publicly regretted thefact that Aleck had persisted in asserting his innocence; had hepleaded guilty instead, the judge more than hinted, the sentence wouldhave been made as light as the law would permit. It was the stubborndenial of the deed in the face of all reason, he said, that went fartoward weaning from the prisoner what sympathy he would otherwise havecommanded from the public and the court of justice.

  You know how those things go. There was nothing particularly out ofthe ordinary in the case; we read of such things in the paper, and aparagraph or two is considered sufficient space to give so commonplacea happening.

  But there was Lite, loyal to his last breath in the face of his secretbelief that Aleck was probably guilty; loyal and blaming himselfbitterly for hurting Aleck's cause when he had meant only to help.There was Jean, dazed by the magnitude of the catastrophe that hadovertaken them all; clinging to Lite as to the only part of her homethat was left to her, steadfastly refusing to believe that they wouldactually take her dad away to prison, until the very last minute whenshe stood on the crowded depot platform and watched in dry-eyed miserywhile the train slid away and bore him out of her life. These thingsare not put in the papers.

  "Come on, Jean." Lite took her by the arm and swung her away from thecurious crowd which she did not see. "You're my girl now, and I'mgoing to start right in using my authority. I've got Pard here in thestable. You go climb into your riding-clothes, and we'll hit it outathis darned burg where every man and his dog has all gone to eyes andtongues. They make me sick. Come on."

  "Where?" Jean held back a little with vague stubbornness against thethought of taking up life again without her dad. "This--this is thejumping-off place, Lite. There's nothing beyond."

  Lite gripped her arm a little tighter if anything, and led her acrossthe street and down the high sidewalk that bridged a swampy tract atthe edge of town beyond the depot.

  "We're taking the long way round," he observed "because I'm going totalk to you like a Dutch uncle for saying things like that. I--had atalk with your dad last night, Jean. He's turned you over to me tolook after till he gets back. I wish he coulda turned the ranch over,along with you, but he couldn't. That's been signed over to Carl,somehow; I didn't go into that with your dad; we didn't have much time.Seems Carl put up the money to pay Rossman,--and other things,--andtook over the ranch to square it. Anyway, I haven't got anything tosay about the business end of the deal. I've got permission to bossyou, though, and I'm sure going to do it to a fare-you-well." He cast asidelong glance down at her. He could not see anything of her faceexcept the droop of her mouth, a bit of her cheek, and her chin thatpromised firmness. Her mouth did not change expression in the slightestdegree until she moved her lips in speech.

  "I don't care. What is there to boss me about? The world has stopped."Her voice was steady, and it was also sullen.

  "Right there is where the need of bossing begins. You can't stay intown any longer. There's nothing here to keep you from going crazy;and the Allens are altogether too sympathetic; nice folks, and theymean well,--but you don't want a bunch like that slopping around,crying all over you and keeping you in mind of things. I'm going towork for Carl, from now on. You're going out there to the BarNothing--" He felt a stiffening of the muscles under his fingers, andanswered calmly the signal of rebellion.

  "Sure, that's the place for you. Your dad and Carl fixed that upbetween them, anyway. That's to be your home; so my saying so is justan extra rope to bring you along peaceable. You're going to stay atthe Bar Nothing. And I'm going to make a top hand outa you, Jean. I'mgoing to teach you to shoot and rope and punch cows and ride, tillthere won't be a girl in the United States to equal you."

  "What for?" Jean still had an air of sullen apathy. "That won't helpdad any."

  "It'll start the world moving again." Lite forced himself tocheerfulness in the face of his own despondency. "You say it'sstopped. It's us that have stopped. We've come to a blind pocket, youmight say, in the trail we've been taking through life. We've got tostart in a new place, that's all. Now, I know you're dead game, Jean;at least I know you used to be, and I'm gambling on school not takingthat outa you. You're maybe thinking about going away off somewhereamong strangers; but that wouldn't do at all. Your dad always countedon keeping you away from town life. I'm just going to ride herd onyou, Jean, and see to it that you go on the way your dad wanted you togo. He can't be on the job, and so I'm what you migh
t call hisforeman. I know how he wants you to grow up; I'm going to make it mybusiness to grow you according to directions."

  He saw a little quirk of her lips, at that, and was vastly encouragedthereby.

  "Has it struck you that you're liable to have your hands full?" sheasked him with a certain drawl that Jean had possessed since she firstlearned to express herself in words.

  "Sure! I'll likely have both hand and my hat full of trouble. Butshe's going to be done according to contract. I reckon I'll wish youwas a bronk before I'm through--"

  "What maddens me so that I could run amuck down this street, shootingeverybody I saw," Jean flared out suddenly, "is the sickening injusticeof it. Dad never did that; you know he never did it." She turned uponhim fiercely. "Do you think he did?" she demanded, her eyes boringinto his.

  "Now, that's a bright question to be asking me, ain't it?" Literebuked. "That's a real bright, sensible question, I must say! Ireckon you ought to be stood in the corner for that,--but I'll let itgo this time. Only don't never spring anything like that again."

  Jean looked ashamed. "I could doubt God Himself, right now," shegritted through her teeth.

  "Well, don't doubt me, unless you want a scrap on your hands," Litewarned. "I'm sure ashamed of you. We'll stop here at the stable andget the horses. You can ride sideways as far as the Allens', and getyour riding-skirt and come on. The sooner you are on top of a horse,the quicker you're going to come outa that state of mind."

  It was pitifully amusing to see Lite Avery attempt to bully anyone,--especially Jean,--who might almost be called Lite's religion.The idea of that long, lank cowpuncher whose shyness was so ingrainedthat it had every outward appearance of being a phlegmatic coldness,assuming the duties of Jean's dad and undertaking to see that she grewup according to directions, would have been funny, if he had not beenso absolutely in earnest.

  His method of comforting her and easing her through the first stage ofblack despair was unorthodox, but it was effective. Because she wastoo absorbed in her own misery to combat him openly, he got her startedtoward the Bar Nothing and away from the friends whose enervating pitywas at that time the worst influence possible. He set the pace, and heset it for speed. The first mile they went at a sharp gallop that wasnot far from a run, and the horses were breathing heavily when hepulled up, well out of sight of the town, and turned to the girl.

  There was color in her cheeks, and the dullness was gone from her eyeswhen she returned his glance inquiringly. The droop of her lips was nolonger the droop of a weak yielding to sorrow, but rather the beginningof a brave facing of the future. Lite managed a grin that did not lookforced.

  "I'll make a real range hand outa you yet," he announced confidently."You remember the roping and shooting science I taught you before youwent off to school? You're going to start right in where you left offand learn all I know and some besides. I'll make a lady of youyet,--darned if I don't."

  At that Jean laughed unexpectedly. Lite drew a long breath of relief.