"Did you—I feel like a fool for talking like this, but one sometimes clutches at the least glimmer of sympathy and—and understanding, and speaks what should be kept bottled up inside, I suppose. But I've been bottled up for so long—" She struck her free hand suddenly against her lips, as if she would apply physical force to keep them from losing all self-control. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. "Did you ever get to the point, Mr. Cowboy, where you—you dug right down to the bottom of things, and found that you must do something or go mad—and there wasn't a thing you could do? Did you ever?" She did not turn toward him, but kept her eyes to the hills. When he did not answer, however, she swung her head slowly and looked down at him, where he sat almost at her feet.

Kent was leaning forward, studying the gashes he had cut in the sod with his spurs. His brows were knitted close.

"I kinda think I'm getting there pretty fast," he owned gravely when he felt her gaze upon him. "Why?"

"Oh—because you can understand how one must speak sometimes. Ever since I came, you have been—I don't know—different. At first I didn't like you at all; but I could see you were different. Since then—well, you have now and then said something that made me see one could speak to you, and you would understand. So I—" She broke off suddenly and laughed an apology. "Am I boring you dreadfully? One grows so self-centered living alone. If you aren't interested—"

"I am." Kent was obliged to clear his throat to get those two words out. "Go on. Say all you want to say."

She laughed again wearily. "Lately," she confessed nervously, "I've taken to telling my thoughts to the cat. It's perfectly safe, but, after all, it isn't quite satisfying." She stopped again, and stood silent for a moment.

"It's because I am alone, day after day, week in and week out," she went on. "In a way, I don't mind it—under the circumstances I prefer to be alone, really. I mean, I wouldn't want any of my people near me. But one has too much time to think. I tell you this because I feel I ought to let you know that you were right that time; I don't suppose you even remember it! But I do. Once last fall—the first time you came to the ranch—you know, the time I met you at the spring, you seemed to see that this big, lonesome country was a little too much for me. I resented it then. I didn't want any one to tell me what I refused to admit to myself. I was trying so hard to like it—it seemed my only hope, you see. But now I'll tell you you were right.

"Sometimes I feel very wicked about it. Sometimes I don't care. And sometimes I—I feel I shall go crazy if I can't talk to some one. Nobody comes here, except Polycarp Jenks. The only woman I know really well in the country is Arline Hawley. She's good as gold, but—she's intensely practical; you can't tell her your troubles—not unless they're concrete and have to do with your physical well-being. Arline lacks imagination." She laughed again shortly.

"I don't know why I'm taking it for granted you don't," she said. "You think I'm talking pore nonsense, don't you, Mr. Cowboy?" She turned full toward him, and her yellow-brown eyes challenged him, begged him for sympathy and understanding, held him at bay—but most of all they set his blood pounding sullenly in his veins. He got unsteadily to his feet.

"You seem to pass up a lot of things that count, or you wouldn't say that," he reminded her huskily. "That night in town, just after the fire, for instance. And here, that same afternoon. I tried to jolly you out of feeling bad, both those times; but you know I understood. You know damn' well I understood! And you know I was sorry. And if you don't know, I'd do anything on God's green earth—" He turned sharply away from her and stood kicking savagely backward at a clod with his rowel. Then he felt her hand touch his arm, and started. After that he stood perfectly still, except that he quivered like a frightened horse.

"Oh, it doesn't mean much to you—you have your life, and you're a man, and can do things when you want to. But I do so need a friend! Just somebody who understands, to whom I can talk when that is the only thing will keep me sane. You saved my life once, so I feel—no, I don't mean that. It isn't because of anything you did; it's just that I feel I can talk to you more freely than to any one I know. I don't mean whine. I hope I'm not a whiner. If I've blundered, I'm willing to—to take my medicine, as you would say. But if I can feel that somewhere in this big, empty country just one person will always feel kindly toward me, and wish me well, and be sorry for we when I—when I'm miserable, and—" She could not go on. She pressed her lips together tightly, and winked back the tears.

Kent faced about and laid both his hands upon her shoulders. His face was very tender and rather sad, and if she had only understood as well as he did—. But she did not.

"Little woman, listen here," he said. "You're playing hard luck, and I know it; maybe I don't know just how hard—but maybe I can kinda give a guess. If you'll think of me as your friend—your pal, and if you'll always tell yourself that your pal is going to stand by you, no matter what comes, why—all right." He caught his breath.

She smiled up at him, honestly pleased, wholly without guile—and wholly blind. "I'd rather have such a friend, just now, than anything I know, except—. But if your sweetheart should object—could you—"

His fingers gripped her shoulders tighter for just a second, and he let her go. "I guess that part'll be all right," he rejoined in a tone she could not quite fathom. "I never had one in m' life."

"Why, you poor thing!" She stood back and tilted her head at him. "You poor—pal. I'll have to see about that immediately. Every young man wants a sweetheart—at least, all the young men I ever knew wanted one, and—"

"And I'll gamble they all wanted the same one," he hinted wickedly, feeling himself unreasonably happy over something he could not quite put into words, even if he had dared.

"Oh, no. Hardly ever the same one, luckily. Do you know—pal, I've quite forgotten what it was all about—the unburdening of my soul, I mean. After all, I think I must have been just lonesome. The country is just as big, but it isn't quite so—so empty, you see. Aren't you awfully vain, to see how you have peopled it with your friendship?" She clasped her hands behind her and regarded him speculatively. "I hope, Mr. Cowboy, you're in earnest about this," she observed doubtfully. "I hope you have imagination enough to see it isn't silly, because if I suspected you weren't playing fair, and would go away and laugh at me, I'd—scratch—you." She nodded her head slowly at him. "I've always been told that, with tiger eyes, you find the disposition of a tiger. So if you don't mean it, you'd better let me know at once."

Kent brought the color into her cheeks with his steady gaze. "I was just getting scared you didn't mean it," he averred. "If my pal goes back on me—why, Lord help her!"

She took a slow, deep breath. "How is it you men ratify a solemn agreement?" she puzzled. "Oh, yes." With a pretty impulse she held out her right hand, half grave, half playful. "Shake on it, pal!"

Kent took her hand and pressed it as hard as he dared. "You're going to be a dandy little chum," he predicted gamely. "But let me tell you right now, if you ever get up on your stilts with me, there's going to be all kinds of trouble. You call me Kent—that is," he qualified, with a little, unsteady laugh, "when there ain't any one around to get shocked."

"I suppose this isn't quite conventional," she conceded, as if the thought had just then occurred to her. "But, thank goodness, out here there aren't any conventions. Every one lives as every one sees fit. It isn't the best thing for some people," she added drearily. "Some people have to be bolstered up by conventions, or they can't help miring in their own weaknesses. But we don't; and as long as we understand—" She looked to him for confirmation.

"As long as we understand, why, it ain't anybody's business but our own," he declared steadily.

She seemed relieved of some lingering doubt. "That's exactly it. I don't know why I should deny myself a friend, just because that friend happens to be a man, and I happen to be—married. I never did have much patience with the rule that a man must either be perfectly indifferent, or else make love. I'm so glad you—understand. So that's all settled," she finished briskly, "and I find that, as I said, it isn't at all necessary for me to unburden my soul."

They stood quiet for a moment, their thoughts too intangible for speech.

"Come inside, won't you?" she invited at last, coming back to everyday matters. "Of course you're hungry—or you ought to be. You daren't run away from my cooking this time, Mr. Cowboy. Manley will be back soon, I think. I must get some lunch ready."

Kent replied that he would stay outside and smoke, so she left him with a fleeting smile, infinitely friendly and confiding and glad. He turned and looked after her soberly, gave a great sigh, and reached mechanically for his tobacco and papers; thoughtfully rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and held the match until it burned quite down to his thumb and fingers. "Pals!" he said just under his breath, for the mere sound of the word. "All right—pals it is, then."

He smoked slowly, listening to her moving about in the house. Her steps came nearer. He turned to look.

"What was it you wanted to see Manley about?" she asked him from the doorway. "I just happened to wonder what it could be."

"Well, the Wishbone needs men, and sent me over to tell him he can go to work. The wagons are going to start to-morrow. He'll want to gather his cattle up, and of course we know about how he's fixed—for saddle horses and the like. He can work for the outfit and draw wages, and get his cattle thrown back on this range and his calves branded besides. Get paid for doing what he'll have to do anyhow, you see."

"I see." Val pushed back the rebellious lock of hair. "Of course you suggested the idea to the Wishbone. You're always doing something—"

"The outfit is short-handed," he reiterated. "They need him. They ain't straining a point to do Man a favor—don't you ever think it! Well—he's coming," he broke off, and started to the gate.

Manley clattered up, vociferously glad to greet him. Kent, at his urgent invitation, led his horse to the stable and turned him into the corral, unsaddled and unbridled him so that he could eat. Also, he told his errand. Manley interrupted the conversation to produce a bottle of whisky from a cunningly concealed hole in the depleted haystack, and insisted that Kent should take a drink. Kent waved it off, and Manley drew the cork and held the bottle to his own lips.

As he stood there, with his face uplifted while the yellow liquor gurgled down his throat, Kent watched him with a curiously detached interest. So that's how Manley had kept his vow! he was thinking, with an impersonal contempt. Four good swallows—Kent counted them.

"You're hitting it pretty strong, Man, for a fellow that swore off last fall," he commented aloud.

Manley took down the bottle, gave a sigh of pure, animal satisfaction, and pushed the cork in with an unconsciously regretful movement.

"A fellow's got to get something out of life," he defended peevishly. "I've had pretty hard luck—it's enough to drive a fellow to most any kind of relief. Burnt out, last fall—cattle scattered and calves running the range all winter—I haven't got stock enough to stand that sort of a deal, Kent. No telling where I stand now on the cattle question. I did have close to a hundred head—and three of my best geldings are missing—a poor man can't stand luck like that. I'm in debt too—and when you've got an iceberg in the house—when a man's own wife don't stand by him—when he can't get any sympathy from the very one that ought to—but, then, I hope I'm a gentleman; I don't make any kick against her—my domestic affairs are my own affairs. Sure. But when your wife freezes up solid—" He held the bottle up and looked at it. "Best friend I've got," he finished, with a whining note in his voice.

Kent turned away disgusted. Manley had coarsened. He had "slopped down" just when he should have braced up and caught the fighting spirit—the spirit that fights and overcomes obstacles. With a tightening of his chest, he thought of his "pal," tied for life to this whining drunkard. No wonder she felt the need of a friend!

"Well, are you going out with the Wishbone?" he asked tersely, jerking his thoughts back to his errand. "If you are, you'll need to go over there to-night—the wagons start out to-morrow. Maybe you better ride around by Polly's place and have him come over here, once in a while, to look after things. You can't leave your wife alone without somebody to kinda keep an eye out for her, you know. Polycarp ain't going to ride this spring; he's got rheumatism, or some darned thing. But he can chop what wood she'll need, and go to town for her once in a while, and make sure she's all right. You better leave your gentlest horse here for her to use, too. She can't be left afoot out here."

Manley was taking another long swallow from the bottle, but he heard.

"Why, sure—I never thought about that. I guess maybe I had better get Polycarp. But Val could make out all right alone. Why, she's held it down here for a week at a time—last winter, when I'd forgot to come home"—he winked shamelessly—"or a storm would come up so I couldn't get home. Val isn't like some fool women, I'll say that much for her. She don't care whether I'm around or not; fact is, sometimes I think she's better pleased when I'm gone. But you're right—I'll see Polycarp and have him come over once in a while. Sure. Glad you spoke of it. You always had a great head for thinking about other people, Kent. You ought to get married."

"No, thanks," Kent scowled. "I haven't got any grudge against women. The world's full of men ready and willing to give 'em a taste of pure, unadulterated hell."

Manley stared at him stupidly, and then laughed doubtfully, as if he felt certain of having, by his dullness, missed the point of a very good joke.

After that the time was filled with the preparations for Manley's absence. Kent did what he could to help, and Val went calmly about the house, packing the few necessary personal belongings which might be stuffed into a "war bag" and used during round-up. Beyond an occasional glance of friendly understanding, she seemed to have forgotten the compact she had made with Kent.

But when they were ready to ride away, Kent purposely left his gloves lying upon the couch, and remembered them only after Manley was in the saddle. So he went back, and Val followed him into the room. He wanted to say something—he did not quite know what—something that would bring them a little closer together, and keep them so; something that would make her think of him often and kindly. He picked up his gloves and held out his hand to her—and then a diffidence seized his tongue. There was nothing he dared say. All the eloquence, all the tenderness, was in his eyes.

"Well—good-by, pal. Be good to yourself," he said simply.

Val smiled up at him tremulously. "Good-by, my one friend. Don't—don't get hurt!"

Their clasp tightened, their hands dropped apart rather limply. Kent went out and got upon his horse, and rode away beside Manley, and talked of the range and of the round-up and of cattle and a dozen other things which interest men. But all the while one exultant thought kept reiterating itself in his mind: "She never said that much to him! She never said that much to him!"



CHAPTER XVI

MANLEY'S NEW TACTICS

To the east, to the south, to the north went the riders of the Wishbone, gathering the cattle which the fires had driven afar. No rivers stopped them, nor mountains, nor the deep-scarred coulees, nor the plains. It was Manley's first experience in real round-up work, for his own little herd he had managed to keep close at home, and what few strayed afar were turned back, when opportunity afforded, by his neighbors, who wished him well. Now he tasted the pride of ownership to the full, when a VP cow and her calf mingled with the milling Wishbones and Double Diamonds. He was proud of his brand, and proud of the sentiment which had made him choose Val's initials. More than once he explained to his fellows that VP meant Val Peyson, and that he had got it recorded just after he and Val were engaged. He was not sentimental about her now, but he liked to dwell upon the fact that he had been; it showed that he was capable of fine feeling.

More dominant, however, as the weeks passed and the branding went on, became the desire to accumulate property—cattle. The Wishbone brand went scorching through the hair of hundreds of calves, while the VP scared tens. It was not right. He felt, somehow, cheated by fate. He mentally figured the increase of his herd, and it seemed to him that it took a long while, much longer than it should, to gain a respectable number in that manner. He cast about in his mind for some rich acquaintance in the East who might be prevailed upon to lend him capital enough to buy, say, five hundred cows. He began to talk about it occasionally when the boys lay around in the evenings.

"You want to ride with a long rope," suggested Bob Royden, grinning openly at the others. "That's the way to work up in the cow business. Capital nothing! You don't get enough excitement buying cattle; you want to steal 'em. That's what I'd do if I had a brand of my own and all your ambitions to get rich."

"And get sent up," Manley rounded out the situation. "No, thanks." He laughed. "It's a better way to get to the pen than it is to get rich, from all accounts."

Sandy Moran remembered a fellow who worked a brand and kept it up for seven or eight years before they caught him, and he recounted the tale between puffs at his cigarette. "Only they didn't catch him" he finished. "A puncher put him wise to what was in the wind, and he sold out cheap to a tenderfoot and pulled his freight. They never did locate him." Then, with a pointed rock which he picked up beside him, he drew a rude diagram or two in the dirt. "That's how he done it," he explained. "Pretty smooth, too."

So the talk went on, as such things will, idly, without purpose save to pass the time. Shop talk of the range it was. Tales of stealing, of working brands, and of branding unmarked yearlings at weaning time. Of this big cattleman and that, who practically stole whole herds, and thereby took long strides toward wealth. Range scandals grown old; range gossip all of it, of men who had changed a brand or made one, using a cinch ring at a tiny fire in a secluded hollow, or a spur, or a jackknife; who were caught in the act, after the act, or merely suspected of the crime. Of "sweat" brands, blotched brands, brands added to and altered, of trials, of shootings, of hangings, even, and "getaways" spectacular and humorous and pathetic.

Manley, being in a measure a pilgrim, and having no experience to draw upon, and not much imagination, took no part in the talk, except that he listened and was intensely interested. Two months of mingling with men who talked little else had its influence.

That fall, when Manley had his hay up, and his cattle once more ranging close, toward the river and in the broken country bounded upon the west by the fenced-in railroad, three calves bore the VP brand—three husky heifers that never had suckled a VP mother. So had the range gossip, sown by chance in the soil of his greed of gain and his weakening moral fiber, borne fruit.

The deed scared him sober for a month. For a month his color changed and his blood quickened whenever a horseman showed upon the rim of Cold Spring Coulee. For a month he never left the ranch unless business compelled him to do so, and his return was speedy, his eyes anxious until he knew that all was well. After that his confidence returned. He grew more secretive, more self-assured, more at ease with his guilt. He looked the Wishbone men squarely in the eye, and it seldom occurred to him that he was a thief; or if it did, the word was but a synonym for luck, with shrewdness behind. Sometimes he regretted his timidity. Why three calves only? In a deep little coulee next the river—a coulee which the round-up had missed—had been more than three. He might have doubled the number and risked no more than for the three. The longer he dwelt upon that the more inclined he was to feel that he had cheated himself.

That fall there were no fires. It would be long before men grew careless when the grass was ripened and the winds blew hot and dry from out the west. The big prairie which lay high between the river and Hope was dotted with feeding cattle. Wishbones and Double Diamonds, mostly, with here and there a stray.

Manley grew wily, and began to plan far in advance. He rode here and there, quietly keeping his own cattle well down toward the river. There was shelter there, and feed, and the idea was a good one. Just before the river broke up he saw to it that a few of his own cattle, and with them some Wishbone cows and a steer or two, were ranging in a deep, bushy coulee, isolated and easily passed by. He had driven them there, and he left them there. That spring he worked again with the Wishbone.

When the round-up swept the home range, gathering and branding, it chanced that his part of the circle took him and Sandy Moran down that way. It was hot, and they had thirty or forty head of cattle before them when they neared that particular place.

"No need going down into the breaks here," he told Sandy easily. "I've been hazing out everything I came across lately. They were mostly my own, anyway. I believe I've got it pretty well cleaned up along here."

Sandy was not the man to hunt hard riding. He went to the rim of the coulee and looked down for a minute. He saw nothing moving, and took Manley's word for it with no stirring of his easy-going conscience. He said all right, and rode on.



CHAPTER XVII

VAL BECOMES AN AUTHOR

Quite as marked had been the change in Val that year. Every time Kent saw her, he recognized the fact that she was a little different; a little less superior in her attitude, a little more independent in her views of life. Her standards seemed slowly changing, and her way of thinking. He did not see her often, but when he did the mockery of their friendship struck him more keenly, his inward rebellion against circumstances grew more bitter. He wondered how she could be so blind as to think they were just pals, and no more. She did think so. All the little confidences, all the glances, all the smiles, she gave and received frankly, in the name of friendship.

"You know, Kent, this is my ideal of how people should be," she told him once, with a perfectly honest enthusiasm. "I've always dreamed of such a friendship, and I've always believed that some day the right man would come along and make it possible. Not one in a thousand could understand and meet one half-way—"

"They'd be liable to go farther," Kent assented dryly.

"Yes. That's just the trouble. They'd spoil an ideal friendship by falling in love."

"Darned chumps," Kent classed them sweepingly.

"Exactly. Pal, your vocabulary excites my envy. It's so forcible sometimes."

Kent grinned reminiscently. "It sure is, old girl."

"Oh, I don't mean necessarily profane. I wonder what your vocabulary will do to the secret I'm going to tell you." The sweet-peas had reached the desired height and profusion of blossoms, thanks to the pails and pails of water Val had carried and lavished upon them, and she was gathering a handful of the prettiest blooms for him. Her cheeks turned a bit pinker as she spoke, and her hesitation raised a wild hope briefly in Kent's heart.

"What is it?" He had to force the words out.

"I—I hate to tell, but I want you to—to help me."

"Well?" To Kent, at that moment, she was not Manley's wife; she was not any man's wife; she was the girl he loved—loved with the primitive, absorbing passion of the man who lives naturally and does not borrow his morals from his next-door neighbor. His code of ethics was his own, thought out by himself. Val hated her husband, and her husband did not seem to care much for her. They were tied together legally. And a mere legality could not hold back the emotions and the desires of Kent Burnett. With him, it was not a question of morals: it was a question of Val's feeling in the matter.

Val looked up at him, found something strange in his eyes, and immediately looked away again.

"Your eyes are always saying things I can't hear," she observed irrelevantly.

"Are they? Do you want me to act as interpreter?"

"No. I just want you to listen. Have you noticed anything different about me lately, Kent?" She tilted her head, while she passed judgment upon a cluster of speckled blossoms, odd but not particularly pretty.

"What do you mean, anyway? I'm liable to get off wrong if I tell you—"

"Oh, you're so horribly cautious! Have I seemed any more content—any happier lately?"

Kent picked a spray of flowers and puled them ruthlessly to pieces. "Maybe I've kinda hoped so," he said, almost in a whisper.

"Well, I've a new interest in life. I just discovered it by accident, almost—"

Kent lifted his head and looked keenly at her, and his face was a lighter shade of brown than it had been.

"It seems to change everything. Pal, I—I've been writing things."

Kent discovered he had been holding his breath, and let it go in a long sigh.

"Oh!" After a minute he smiled philosophically. "What kinda things?" he drawled.

"Well, verses, but mostly stories. You see," she explained impulsively, "I want to earn some money—of my own. I haven't said much, because I hate whining; but really, things are growing pretty bad—between Manley and me. I hope it isn't my fault. I have tried every way I know to keep my faith in him, and to—to help him. But he's not the same as he was. You know that. And I have a good deal of pride. I can't—oh, it's intolerable having to ask a man for money! Especially when he doesn't want to give you any," she added naively. "At first it wasn't necessary; I had a little of my own, and all my things were new. But one must eventually buy things—for the house, you know, and for one's personal needs—and he seems to resent it dreadfully. I never would have believed that Manley could be stingy—actually stingy; but he is, unfortunately. I hate to speak of his faults, even to you. But I've got to be honest with you. It isn't nice to say that I'm writing, not for any particularly burning desire to express my thoughts, nor for the sentiment of it, but to earn money. It's terribly sordid, isn't it?" She smiled wistfully up at him. "But there seems to be money in it, for those who succeed, and it's work that I can do here. I have oceans of time, and I'm not disturbed!" Her lips curved into bitter lines. "I do so much thinking, I might as well put my brain to some use." With one of her sudden changes of mood, she turned to Kent and clasped both hands upon his arm.

"Now you see, pal, how much our friendship means to me," she said softly. "I couldn't have told this to another living soul! It seems awfully treacherous, saying it even to you—I mean about him. But you're so good—you always understand, don't you, pal?"

"I guess so." Kent forced the words out naturally, and kept his breath even, and his arms from clasping her. He considered that he performed quite a feat of endurance.

"You're modest!" She gave his arm a little shake. "Of course you do. You know I'm not treacherous, really. You know I'd do anything I could for him. But this is something that doesn't concern him at all. He doesn't know it, but that is because he would only sneer. When I have really sold something, and received the money for it, then it won't matter to me who knows. But now it's a solemn secret, just between me and my pal." Her yellow-brown eyes dwelt upon his face.

Kent, stealing a glance at her from under his drooped lids, wondered if she had ever given any time to analyzing herself. He would have given much to know if, down deep in her heart, she really believed in this pal business; if she was really a friend, and no more. She puzzled him a good deal, sometimes.

"Well—if anybody can make good at that business, you sure ought to; you've got brains enough to write a dictionary." He permitted himself the indulgence of saying that much, and he was perfectly sincere. He honestly considered Val the cleverest woman in the world.

She laughed with gratification. "Your sublime confidence, while it is undoubtedly mistaken, is nevertheless appreciated," she told him primly, moving away with her hands full of flowers. "If you've got the nerve, come inside and read some of my stuff; I want to know if it's any good at all."

Presently he was seated upon the couch in the little, pathetically bright front room, and he was knitting his eyebrows over Val's beautifully regular handwriting,—pages and pages of it, so that there seemed no end to the task,—and was trying to give his mind to what he was reading instead of to the author, sitting near him with her hands folded demurely in her lap and her eyes fixed expectantly upon his face, trying to read his decision even as it was forming.

Some verses she had tried on him first. Kent, by using all his determination of character, read them all, every word of them.

"That's sure all right," he said, though, beyond a telling phrase or two,—one line in particular which would stick in his memory:

"Men live and love and die in that lonely land,"—

he had no very clear idea of what it was all about. Certain lines seemed to go bumping along, and one had to mispronounce some of the final words to make them rhyme with others gone before, but it was all right—Val wrote it.

"I think I do better at stories," she ventured modestly. "I wrote one—a little story about university life—and sent it to a magazine. They wrote a lovely letter about it, but it seems that field is overdone, or something. The editor asked me why, living out here in the very heart of the West, I don't try Western stories. I think I shall—and that's why I said I should need your help. I thought we might work together, you know. You've lived here so long, and ought to have some splendid ideas—things that have happened, or that you've heard—and you could tell me, and I'd write them up. Wouldn't you like to collaborate—'go in cahoots' on it?"

"Sure." Kent regarded her thoughtfully. She really was looking brighter and happier, and her enthusiasm was not to be mistaken. Her world had changed. "Anything I can do to help, you know—"

"Of course I know, I think it's perfectly splendid, don't you? We'll divide the money—when there is any, and—"

"Will we?" His tone was noncommittal in the extreme.

"Of course. Now, don't let's quarrel about that till we come to it. I have a good idea of my own, I think, for the first story. A man comes out here and disappears, you know, and after a while his sister comes to find him. She gets into all kinds of trouble—is kidnapped by a gang of robbers, and kept in a cave. When the leader of the gang comes back—he has been away on some depredation—you see, I have only the bare outline of the story yet—and, well, it's her brother! He kills the one who kidnapped her, and she reforms him. Of course, there ought to be some love interest. I think, perhaps, one member of the gang ought to fall in love with her, don't you know? And after a while he wins her—"

"She'll reform him, too, I reckon."

"Oh, yes. She couldn't love a man she couldn't respect—no woman could."

"Oh!" Kent took a minute to apply that personally. It was of value to him, because it was an indication of Val's own code. "Maybe," he suggested tentatively, "she'd get busy and reform the whole bunch."

"Oh, say—that would be great! She's an awfully sweet little thing—perfectly lovely, you know—and they'd all be in love with her, so it wouldn't be improbable. Don't you remember, Kent, you told me once that a man would do anything for a woman, if he cared enough for her?"

"Sure. He would, too." Kent fought back a momentary temptation to prove the truth of it by his own acquiescence in this pal business. He was saved from disaster by a suspicion that Val would not be able to see it from his point of view, and by the fact that he would much rather be pals than nothing.

She would have gone on, talking and planning and discussing, indefinitely. But the sun slid lower and lower, and Kent was not his own master. The time came when he had to go, regardless of his own wishes, or hers.

When he came again, the story was finished, and Val was waiting, with extreme impatience, to read it to him and hear his opinion before she sent it away. Kent was not so impatient to hear it, but he did not tell her so. He had not seen her for a month, and he wanted to talk; not about anything in particular—just talk about little things, and see her eyes light up once in a while, and her lips purse primly when he said something daring, and maybe have her play something on the violin, while he smoked and watched her slim wrist bend and rise and fall with the movement of the bow. He could imagine no single thing more fascinating than that—that, and the way she cuddled the violin under her chin, in the hollow of her neck.

But Val would not play—she had been too busy to practice, all spring and summer; she scarcely ever touched the violin, she said. And she did not want to talk—or if she did, it was plain that she had only one theme. So Kent, perforce, listened to the story. Afterward, he assured her that it was "outa sight." As a matter of fact, half the time he had not heard a word of what she was reading; he had been too busy just looking at her and being glad he was there. He had, however, a dim impression that it was a story with people in it whom one does not try to imagine as ever being alive, and with a West which, beyond its evident scarcity of inhabitants, was not the West he knew anything about. One paragraph of description had caught his attention, because it seemed a fairly accurate picture of the bench land which surrounded Cold Spring Coulee; but it had not seemed to have anything to do with the story itself. Of course, it must be good—Val wrote it. He began to admire her intensely, quite apart from his own personal subjugation.

Val was pleased with his praise. For two solid hours she talked of nothing but that story, and she gave him some fresh chocolate cake and a pitcher of lemonade, and urged him to come again in about three weeks, when she expected to hear from the magazine she thought would be glad to take the story; the one whose editor had suggested that she write of the West.

In the fall, and in the winter, their discussions were frequently hampered by Manley's presence. But Val's enthusiasm, though nipped here and there by unappreciative editors, managed, somehow, to live; or perhaps it had developed into a dogged determination to succeed in spite of everything. She still wrote things, and she still read them to Kent when there was time and opportunity; sometimes he was bold enough to criticize the worst places, and to tell her how she might, in his opinion, remedy them. Occasionally Val would take his advice.

So the months passed. The winds blew and brought storm and heat and sunshine and cloud. Nothing, in that big land, appreciably changed, except the people; and they so imperceptibly that they failed to realize it until afterward.



CHAPTER XVIII

VAL'S DISCOVERY

With a blood-red sun at his back and a rosy tinge upon all the hills before him, Manley rode slowly down the western rim of Cold Spring Coulee, driving five rebellious calves that had escaped the branding iron in the spring. Though they were not easily driven in any given direction, he was singularly patient with them, and refrained from bellowing epithets and admonitions, as might have been expected. When he was almost down the hill, he saw Val standing in the kitchen door, shading her eyes with her hands that she might watch his approach.

"Open the corral gate!" he shouted to her, in the tone of command. "And stand back where you can head 'em off if they start up the coulee!"

Val replied by doing as she was told; she was not in the habit of wasting words upon Manley; they seemed always to precipitate an unpleasant discussion of some sort, as if he took it for granted she disapproved of all he did or said, and was always upon the defensive.

The calves came on, lumbering awkwardly in a half-hearted gallop, as if they had very little energy left. Their tongues protruded, their mouths dribbled a lathery foam, and their rough, sweaty hides told Val of the long chase—for she was wiser in the ways of the range land than she had been. She stood back, gently waving her ruffled white apron at them, and when they dodged into the corral, rolling eyes at her, she ran up and slammed the gate shut upon them, looped the chain around the post, and dropped the iron hook into a link to fasten it. Manley galloped up, threw himself off his panting horse, and began to unsaddle.

"Get some wood and start a fire, and put the iron in, Val," he told her brusquely.

Val looked at him quickly. "Now? Supper's all ready, Manley. There's no hurry about branding them, is there?" And she added: "Dear me! The round-up must have just skimmed the top off this range last spring. You've had to brand a lot of calves that were missed."

"What the devil is it to you?" he demanded roughly. "I want that fire, madam, and I want it now. I rather think I knew when I want to brand without asking your advice."

Val curved her lips scornfully, shrugged and obeyed She was used to that sort of thing, and she did not mind very much. He had brutalized by degrees, and by degrees she had hardened. He could rouse no feeling now but contempt.

"If you'll kindly wait until I put back the supper," she said coldly. "I suppose in your zeal one need not sacrifice your food; you're still rather particular about that. I observe."

Manley was leading his horse to the stable, and, though he answered something, the words were no more than a surly mumble.

"He's been drinking again," Val decided dispassionately, on the way to the house. "I suppose he carried a bottle in his pocket—and emptied it."

She was not long; there was a penalty of profane reproach attached to delay, however slight, when Manley was in that mood. She had the fire going and the VP iron heating by the time he had stabled and fed his horse, and had driven the calves into the smaller pen. He drove a big, line-backed heifer into a corner, roped and tied her down with surprising dexterity, and turned impatiently.

"Come! Isn't that iron ready yet?"

Val, on the other side of the fence, drew it out and inspected it indifferently.

"It is not, Mr. Fleetwood. If you are in a very great hurry, why not apply your temper to it—and a few choice remarks?"

"Oh, don't try to be sarcastic—it's too pathetic. Kick a little life into that fire."

"Yes, sir—thank you, sir." Val could be rather exasperating when she chose. She always could be sure of making Manley silently furious when she adopted that tone of respectful servility—as employed by butlers and footmen upon the stage. Her mimicry, be it said, was very good.

"'Ere it is, sir——thank you, sir—'ope I 'aven't kept you wyting, sir," she announced, after he had fumed for two minutes inside the corral, and she had cynically hummed her way quite through the hymn which begins "Blest be the tie that binds." She passed the white-hot iron deftly through the rails to him, and fixed the fire for another heating.

Really, she was not thinking of Manley at all, nor of his mood, nor of his brutal coarseness. She was thinking of the rebuilt typewriter, advertised as being exactly as good as a new one, and scandalously cheap, for which she had sold her watch to Arline Hawley to get money to buy. She was counting mentally the days since she had sent the money order, and was thinking it should come that week surely.

She was also planning to seize upon the opportunity afforded by Manley's next absence for a day from the ranch, and drive to Hope on the chance of getting the machine. Only—she wished she could be sure whether Kent would be coming soon. She did not want to miss seeing him; she decided to sound Polycarp Jenks the next time he came. Polycarp would know, of course, whether the Wishbone outfit was in from round-up. Polycarp always knew everything that had been done, or was intended, among the neighbors.

Manley passed the ill-smelling iron back to her, and she put it in the fire, quite mechanically. It was not the first time, nor the second, that she had been called upon to help brand. She could heat an iron as quickly and evenly as most men, though Manley had never troubled to tell her so.

Five times she heated the iron, and heard, with an inward quiver of pity and disgust, the spasmodic blat of the calf in the pen when the VP went searing into the hide on its ribs. She did not see why they must be branded that evening, in particular, but it was as well to have it done with. Also, if Manley meant to wean them, she would have to see that they were fed and watered, she supposed. That would make her trip to town a hurried one, if she went at all; she would have to go and come the same day, and Arline Hawley would scold and beg her to stay, and call her a fool.

"Now, how about that supper?" asked Manley, when they were through, and the air was clearing a little from the smoke and the smell of burned hair.

"I really don't know—I smelled the potatoes burning some time ago. I'll see, however." She brushed her hands with her handkerchief, pushed back the lock of hair that was always falling across her temple, and, because she was really offended by Manley's attitude and tone, she sang softly all the way to the house, merely to conceal from him the fact that he could move her even to irritation. Her best weapon, she had discovered long ago, was absolute indifference—the indifference which overlooked his presence and was deaf to his recriminations.

She completed her preparations for his supper, made sure that nothing was lacking and that the tea was just right, placed his chair in position, filled the water glass beside his plate, set the tea-pot where he could reach it handily, and went into the living room and closed the door between. In the past year, filed as it had been with her literary ambitions and endeavors, she had neglected her music; but she took her violin from the box, hunted the cake of resin, tuned the strings, and, when she heard him come into the kitchen and sit down at the table, seated herself upon the front doorstep and began to play.

There was one bit of music which Manley thoroughly detested. That was the "Traumerei." Therefore, she played the "Traumerei" slowly—as it should, of course, be played—with full value given to all the pensive, long-drawn notes, and with a finale positively creepy in its dreamy wistfulness. Val, as has been stated, could be very exasperating when she chose.

In the kitchen there was the subdued rattle of dishes, unbroken and unhurried. Val went on playing, but she forgot that she had begun in a half-conscious desire to annoy her husband. She stared dreamily at the hill which shut out the world to the east, and yielded to a mood of loneliness; of longing, in the abstract, for all the pleasant things she was missing in this life which she had chosen in her ignorance.

When Manley flung open the inner door, she gave a stifled exclamation; she had forgotten all about Manley.

"By all the big and little gods of Greece!" he swore angrily. "Calves bawling their heads off in the corral, and you squalling that whiny stuff you call music in the house—home's sure a hell of a happy place! I'm going to town. You don't want to leave the place till I come back—I want those calves looked after." He seemed to consider something mentally, and then added:

"If I'm not back before they quit bawling, you can turn 'em down in the river field with the rest. You know when they're weaned and ready to settle down. Don't feed 'em too much hay, like you did that other bunch; just give 'em what they need; you don't have to pile the corral full. And don't keep 'em shut up an hour longer than necessary."

Val nodded her head to show that she heard, and went on playing. There was seldom any pretense of good feeling between them now. She tuned the violin to minor, and poised the bow over the strings, in some doubt as to her memory of a serenade she wanted to try next.

"Shall I have Polycarp take the team and haul up some wood from the river?" she asked carelessly. "We're nearly out again."

"Oh, I don't care—if he happens along." He turned and went out, his mind turning eagerly to the town and what it could give him in the way of pleasure.

Val, still sitting in the doorway, saw him ride away up the grade and disappear over the brow of the hill. The dusk was settling softly upon the land, so that his figure was but a vague shape. She was alone again; she rather liked being alone, now that she had no longer a blind, unreasoning terror of the empty land. She had her thoughts and her work; the presence of Manley was merely an unpleasant interruption to both.

Some time in the night she heard the lowing of a cow somewhere near. She wondered dreamily what it could be doing in the coulee, and went to sleep again. The five calves were all bawling in a chorus of complaint against their forced separation from their mothers, and the deeper, throaty tones of the cow mingled not inharmoniously with the sound.

Range cattle were not permitted in the coulee, and when by chance they found a broken panel in the fence and strayed down there, Val drove them out; afoot, usually, with shouts and badly aimed stones to accelerate their lumbering pace.

After she had eaten her breakfast in the morning she went out to investigate. Beyond the corral, her nose thrust close against the rails, a cow was bawling dismally. Inside, in much the same position, its tail waving a violent signal of its owner's distress, a calf was clamoring hysterically for its mother and its mother's milk.

Val sympathized with them both; but the cow did not belong in the coulee, and she gathered two or three small stones and went around where she could frighten her away from the fence without, however, exposing herself too recklessly to her uncertain temper. Cows at weaning time did sometimes object to being driven from their calves.

"Shoo! Go on away from there!" Val raised a stone and poised it threateningly.

The cow turned and regarded her, wild-eyed. It backed a step or two, evidently uncertain of its next move.

"Go on away!" Val was just on the point of throwing the rock, when she dropped it unheeded to the ground and stared. "Why, you—you—why—the idea!" She turned slowly white. Certain things must filter to the understanding through amazement and disbelief; it took Val a minute or two to grasp the significance of what she saw. By the time she did grasp it, her knees were beading weakly beneath the weight of her body. She put out a groping hand and caught at the corner of the corral to keep herself from falling. And she stared and stared.

"It—oh, surely not!" she whispered, protesting against her understanding. She gave a little sob that had no immediate relation to tears. "Surely—surely—not!" It was of no use; understanding came, and came clearly, pitilessly. Many things—trifles, all of them—to which she had given no thought at the time, or which she had forgotten immediately, came back to her of their own accord; things she tried not to remember.

The cow stared at her for a minute, and, when she made no hostile move, turned its attention back to its bereavement. Once again it thrust its moist muzzle between two rails, gave a preliminary, vibrant mmm—mmmmm—m, and then, with a spasmodic heaving of ribs and of flank, burst into a long-drawn baww—aw—aw—aw, which rose rapidly in a tremulous crescendo and died to a throaty rumbling.

Val started nervously, though her eyes were fixed upon the cow and she knew the sound was coming. It served, however, to release her from the spell of horror which had gripped her. She was still white, and when she moved she felt intolerably heavy, so that her feet dragged; but she was no longer dazed. She went slowly around to the gate, reached up wearily and undid the chain fastening, opened the gate slightly, and went in.

Four of the calves were huddled together for mutual comfort in a corner. They were blatting indefatigably. Val went over to where the fifth one still stood beside the fence, as near the cow as it could get, and threw a small stone, that bounced off the calf's rump. The calf jumped and ran aimlessly before her until it reached the half-open gate, when it dodged out, as if it could scarcely believe its own good fortune. Before Val could follow it outside, it was nuzzling rapturously its mother, and the cow was contorting her body so that she could caress her offspring with her tongue, while she rumbled her satisfaction.

Val closed and fastened the gate carefully, and went back to where the cow still lingered. With her lips drawn to a thin, colorless line, she drove her across the coulee and up the hill, the calf gamboling close alongside. When they had gone out of sight, up on the level, Val turned back and went slowly to the house. She stood for a minute staring stupidly at it and at the coulee, went in and gazed around her with that blankness which follows a great mental shock. After a minute she shivered, threw up her hands before her face, and dropped, a pitiful, sorrowing heap of quivering rebellion, upon the couch.



CHAPTER XIX

KENT'S CONFESSION

Polycarp Jenks came ambling into the coulee, rapped perfunctorily upon the door-casing, and entered the kitchen as one who feels perfectly at home, and sure of his welcome; as was not unfitting, considering the fact that he had "chored around" for Val during the last year, and longer.

"Anybody to home?" he called, seeing the front door shut tight.

There was a stir within, and Val, still pale, and with an almost furtive expression in her eyes, opened the door and looked out.

"Oh, it's you, Polycarp," she said lifelessly. "Is there anything—"

"What's the matter? Sick? You look kinda peaked and frazzled out. I met Man las' night, and he told me you needed wood; I thought I'd ride over and see. By granny, you do look bad."

"Just a headache," Val evaded, shrinking back guiltily. "Just do whatever there is to do, Polycarp. I think—I don't believe the chickens have had anything to eat to-day—"

"Them headaches are sure a fright; they're might' nigh as bad as rheumatiz, when they hit you hard. You jest go back and lay down, and I'll look around and see what they is to do. Any idee when Man's comin' back?"

"No." Val brought the word out with an involuntary sharpness.

"No, I reckon not. I hear him and Fred De Garmo come might' near havin' a fight las' night. Blumenthall was tellin' me this mornin'. Fred's quit the Double Diamond, I hear. He's got himself appointed dep'ty stock inspector—and how he managed to git the job is more 'n I can figure out. They say he's all swelled up over it—got his headquarters in town, you know, and seems he got to lordin' it over Man las' night, and I guess if somebody hadn't stopped 'em they'd of been a mix-up, all right. Man wasn't in no shape to fight—he'd been drinkin' pretty—"

"Yes—well, just do whatever there is to do, Polycarp. The horses are in the upper pasture, I think—if you want to haul wood." She closed the door—gently, but with exceeding firmness, and, Polycarp took the hint.

"Women is queer," he muttered, as he left the house. "Now, she knows Man drinks like a fish—and she knows everybody else knows it—but if you so much as mention sech a thing, why—" He waggled his head disapprovingly and proceeded, in his habitually laborious manner, to take a chew of tobacco. "No matter how much they may know a thing is so, if it don't suit 'em you can't never git 'em to stand right up and face it out—seems like, by granny, it comes natural to 'em to make believe things is different. Now, she knows might' well she can't fool me. I've hearn Man swear at her like—"

He reached the corral, and his insatiable curiosity turned his thoughts into a different channel. He inspected the four calves gravely, wondered audibly where Man had found them, and how the round-up came to miss them, and criticized his application of the brand; in the opinion of Polycarp, Manley either burned too deep or not deep enough.

"Time that line-backed heifer scabs off, you can't tell what's on her," he asserted, expectorating solemnly before he turned away to his work.

Prom a window, Val watched him with cold terror. Would he suspect? Or was there anything to suspect? "It's silly—it's perfectly idiotic," she told herself impatiently; "but if he hangs around that corral another minute, I shall scream!" She watched until she saw him mount his horse and ride off toward the upper pasture. Then she went out and began apathetically picking seed pods off her sweet-peas, which the early frosts had spared.

"Head better?" called Polycarp, half an hour later, when he went rattling past the house with the wagon, bound for the river bottom where they got their supply of wood.

"A little," Val answered inattentively, without looking at him.

It was while Polycarp was after the wood, and while she was sitting upon the edge of the porch, listlessly arranging and rearranging a handful of long-stemmed blossoms, that Kent galloped down the hill and up to the gate. She saw him coming and set her teeth hard together. She did not want to see Kent just then; she did not want to see anybody.

Kent, however, wanted to see her. It seemed to him at least a month since he had had a glimpse of her, though it was no more than half that time. He watched her covertly while he came up the path. His mind, all the way over from the Wishbone, had been very clear and very decided. He had a certain thing to tell her, and a certain thing to do; he had thought it all out during the nights when he could not sleep and the days when men called him surly, and there was no going back, no reconsideration of the matter. He had been telling himself that, over and over, ever since the house came into view and he saw her sitting there on the porch. She would probably want to argue, and perhaps she would try to persuade him, but it would be absolutely useless; absolutely.

"Well, hello!" he cried, with more than his usual buoyancy of manner—because he knew he must hurt her later on. "Hello, Madam Authoress. Why this haughty air? This stuckupiness? Shall I get a ladder and climb up where you can hear me say howdy?" He took off his hat and slapped her gently upon the top of her head with it. "Come out of the fog!"

"Oh—I wish you wouldn't!" She glanced up at him so briefly that he caught only a flicker of her yellow-brown eyes, and went on fumbling her flowers. Kent stood and looked down at her for a moment.

"Mad?" he inquired cheerfully. "Say, you look awfully savage. On the dead, you do. What do you care if they sent it back? You had all the fun of writing it—and you know it's a dandy. Please smile. Pretty please!" he wheedled. It was not the first time he had discovered her in a despondent mood, nor the first time he had bantered and badgered her out of her gloom. Presently it dawned upon him that this was more serious; he had never seen her quite so colorless or so completely without spirit.

"Sick, pal?" he asked gently, sitting down beside her.

"No-o—I suppose not." Val bit her lips, as soon as she had spoken, to check their quivering.

"Well, what is it? I wish you'd tell me. I came over here full of something I had to tell you—but I can't, now; not while you're like this." He watched her yearningly.

"Oh, I can't tell you. It's nothing." Val jerked a sweet-pea viciously from its stem, pressed her hand against her mouth, and turned reluctantly toward him. "What was it you came to tell me?"

He watched her narrowly. "I'll gamble you're down in the mouth about something hubby has said or done. You needn't tell me—but I just want to ask you if you think it's worth while? You needn't tell me that, either. You know blamed well it ain't. He can't deal you any more misery than you let him hand out; you want to keep that in mind."

Another blossom was demolished. "What was it you came to tell me?" she repeated steadily, though she did not look at him.

"Oh, nothing much. I'm going to leave the country, is all."

"Kent!" After a minute she forced another word out. "Why?"

Kent regarded her somberly. "You better think twice before you ask me that," he warned; "because I ain't much good at beating all around the bush. If you ask me again, I'll tell you—and I'm liable to tell you without any frills." He drew a hard breath. "So I'd advise you not to ask," he finished, half challengingly.

Val placed a pale lavender blossom against a creamy white one, and held the two up for inspection.

"When are you going?" she asked evenly.

"I don't know exactly—in a day or so. Saturday, maybe."

She hesitated over the flowers in her lap, and selected a pink one, which she tried with the white and the lavender.

"And—why are you going?" she asked him deliberately.

Kent stared at her fixedly. A faint, pink flush was creeping into her cheeks. He watched it deepen, and knew that his silence was filling her with uneasiness. He wondered how much she guessed of what he was going to say, and how much it would mean to her.

"All right—I'll tell you why, fast enough." His tone was grim. "I'm going to leave the country because I can't stay any longer—not while you're in it."

"Why—Kent!" She seemed inexpressibly shocked.

"I don't know," he went on relentlessly, "what you think a man's made of, anyhow. And I don't know what you think of this pal business; I know what I think: It's a mighty good way to drive a man crazy. I've had about all of it I can stand, if you want to know."

"I'm sorry, if you don't—if you can't be friends any longer," she said, and he winced to see how her eyes filled with tears. "But, of course, if you can't—if it bores you—"

Kent seized her arm, a bit roughly, "Have I got to come right out and tell you, in plain English, that I—that it's because I'm so deep in love with you I can't. If you only knew what it's cost me this last year—to play the game and not play it too hard! What do you think a man's made of? Do you think a man can care for a woman, like I care for you, and—Do you think he wants to be just pals? And stand back and watch some drunken brute abuse her—and never—Here!" His voice grew testier. "Don't do that—don't! I didn't want to hurt you—God knows I didn't want to hurt you!" He threw his seem around her shoulders and pulled her toward him.

"Don't—pal, I'm a brute, I guess, like all the rest of the male humans. I don't mean to be—it's the way I'm made. When a woman means so much to me that I can't think of anything else, day or night, and get to counting days and scheming to see her—why—being friends—like we've been—is like giving a man a teaspoon of milk and water when he's starving to death, and thinking that oughta do. But I shouldn't have let it hurt you. I tried to stand for it, little woman. These were times when I just had to fight myself not to take you up in my arms and carry you of and keep you. You must admit," he argued, smiling rather wanly, "that, considering how I've felt about it, I've done pretty tolerable well up till now. You don't—you never will know how much it's cost. Why, my nerves are getting so raw I can't stand anything any more. That's why I'm going. I don't want to hang around till I do something—foolish."

He took his arm away from her shoulders and moved farther off; he was not sure how far he might trust himself.

"If I thought you cared—or if there was anything I could do for you," he ventured, after a moment, "why, it would be different. But—"

Val lifted her head and turned to him.

"There is something—or there was—or—oh, I can't think any more! I suppose"—doubtfully—"if you feel as you say you do, why—it would be—wicked to stay. But you don't; you must just imagine it."

"Oh, all right," Kent interpolated ironically.

"But if you go away—" She got up and stood before him, breathing unevenly, in little gasps. "Oh, you mustn't go away! Please don't go! I—there's something terrible happened—oh, Kent, I need you! I can't tell you what it is—it's the most horrible thing I ever heard of! You can't imagine anything more horrible, Kent!"

She twisted her fingers together nervously, and the blossoms dropped, one by one, on the ground. "If you go," she pleaded, "I won't have a friend in the country, not a real friend. And—and I never needed a friend as much as I do now, and you mustn't go. I—I can't let you go!" It was like her hysterical fear of being left alone after the fire.

Kent eyed her keenly. He knew there must have been something to put her into this state—something more than his own rebellion. He felt suddenly ashamed of his weakness in giving way—in telling her how it was with him. The faint, far-off chuckle of a wagon came to his ears. He turned impatiently toward the sound. Polycarp was driving up the coulee with a load of wood; already he was nearing the gate which opened into the lower field. Kent stood up, reached out, and caught Val by the hand.

"Come on into the house," he said peremptorily. "Polly's coming, and you don't want him goggling and listening. And I want you," he added, when he had led her inside and closed the door, "to tell me what all this is about. There's something, and I want to know what. If it concerns you, then it concerns me a whole lot, too. And what concerns me I'm going to find out about—what is it?"

Val sat down, got up immediately, and crossed the room aimlessly to sit in another chair. She pressed her palms tightly against both cheeks, drew in her breath as if she were going to speak, and, after all, said nothing. She looked out of the window, pushing back the errant strand of hair.

"I can't—I don't know how to tell you," she began desperately. "It's too horrible."

"Maybe it is—I don't know what you'd call too horrible; I kinda think it wouldn't be what I'd tack those words to. Anyway—what is it?" He went close, and he spoke insistently.

She took a long breath.

"Manley's a thief!" She jerked the words out like as automaton. They were not, evidently, the Words she had meant to speak, for she seemed frightened afterward.

"Oh, that's it!" Kent made a sound which was not far from a snort. "Well, what about it? What's he done? How did you find it out?"

Val straightened in the chair and gazed up at him. Once more her tawny eyes gave him a certain shock, as if he had never before noticed them.

"After all our neighbors have done for him," she cried bitterly; "after giving him hay, when his was burned and he couldn't buy any; after building stables, and corral, and—everything they did—the kindest, best neighbors a man ever had—oh, it's too shameful for utterance! I might forgive it—I might, only for that. The—the ingratitude! It's too despicable—too—"

Kent laid a steadying hand upon her arm.

"Yes—but what is it?" he interrupted.

Val shook off his hand unconsciously, impatient of any touch.

"Oh, the bare deed itself—well, it's rather petty, too—and cheap." Her voice became full of contempt. "It was the calves. He brought home five last night—five that hadn't been branded last spring. Where he found them I don't know—I didn't care enough about it to ask. He had been drinking, I think; I can usually tell—and he often carries a bottle in his pocket, as I happen to know.

"Well, he had me make a fire and heat the iron for him, and he branded them—last night; he was very touchy about it when I asked him what was his hurry. I think now it was a stupid thing for him to do. And—well, in the night, some time, I heard a cow bawling around close, and this morning I went out to drive her away; the fence is always down somewhere—I suppose she found a place to get through. So I went out to drive her away." Her eyes dropped, as if she were making a confession of her own misdeed. She clenched her hands tightly in her lap.

"Well—it was a Wishbone cow." After all, she said it very quietly.

"The devil it was!" Kent had been prepared for something of the sort; but, nevertheless, he started when he heard his own outfit mentioned.

"Yes. It was a Wishbone cow." Her voice was flat and monotonous. "He had stolen her calf. He had it in the corral, and he had branded it with his own brand—with a VP. With my initials!" she wailed suddenly, as if the thought had just struck her, and was intolerably bitter. "She had followed—had been hunting her calf; it was rather a little calf, smaller than the others. And it was crowded up against the fence, trying to get to her. There was no mistaking their relationship. I tried to think he had made a mistake; but it's of no use—I know he didn't. I know he stole that calf. And for all I know, the others, too. Oh, it's perfectly horrible to think of!"

Kent could easily guess her horror of it, and he was sorry for her. But his mind turned instantly to the practical side of it.

"Well—maybe it can be fixed up, if you feel so bad about it. Does Polycarp—did he see the cow hanging around?"

Val shook her head apathetically. "No—he didn't come till just a little while ago. That was this morning. And I drove her out of the coulee—her and her calf. They went off up over the hill."

Kent stood looking down at her rather stupidly.

"You—what? What was it you did?" It seemed to him that something—some vital point of the story—had eluded him.

"I drove them away. I didn't think they ought to be permitted to hang around here." Her lips quivered again. "I—I didn't want to see him—get—into any trouble."

"You drove them away? Both of them?" Kent was frowning at her now.

Val sprang up and faced him, all a-tremble with indignation. "Certainly, both! I'm not a thief, Kent Burnett! When I knew—when there was no possible doubt—why, what, in Heaven's name, could I do? It wasn't Manley's calf. I turned it loose to go back where it belonged."

"With a VP on its ribs!" Kent was staring at her curiously.

"Well, I don't care! Fifty VP's couldn't make the calf Manley's. If anybody came and saw that cow, why—" Val looked at him rafter pityingly, as if she could not quite understand how he could even question her upon that point. "And, after all," she added forlornly, "he's my husband. I couldn't—I had to do what I could to shield him—just for sake of the past, I suppose. Much as I despise him, I can't forget that—that I cared once. It's because I wanted your advice that I—"

"It's a pity you didn't get it sooner, then! Can't you see what you've done? Why, think a minute! A VP calf running with a Wishbone cow—why, it's—you couldn't advertise Man as a rustler any better if you tried. The first fellow that runs onto that cow and calf—well, he won't need to do any guessing—he'll know. It's a ticket to Deer Lodge—that VP calf. Now do you see?" He turned away to the window and stood looking absently at the brown hillside, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

"And there's Fred De Garmo, with his new job, ranging around the country just aching to cinch somebody and show his authority. It's a matter of days almost. He'd like nothing better than to get a whack at Man, even if the Wishbone—"

Outside, they could hear Polycarp throwing the wood off the wagon; knowing him as they did, they knew, it would not be long before he found an excuse for coming into the house. He had more than once evinced a good deal of interest in Kent's visits there, and shown an unmistakable desire to know what they were talking about. They had never paid much attention to him; but now even Val felt a vague uneasiness lest he overhear. She had been sitting, her face buried in her arms, crushed beneath the knowledge of what she had done.

"Don't worry, little woman." Kent went over and passed his hand lightly over her hair. "You did what looked to you to be the right thing—the honest thing. And the chances are he'd get caught before long, anyhow. I don't reckon this is the first time he's done it."

"Oh-h—but to think—to think that I should do it—when I wanted to save him! He—Kent, I despise him—he has killed all the love I ever felt for him—killed it over and over—but if anybody finds that calf, and—and if they—Kent, I shall go crazy if I have to feel that I sent him—to—prison. To think of him—shut up there—and to know that I did it—I can't bear it!" She caught his arm. She pressed her forehead against it. "Kent, isn't there some way to get it back? If I should find it—and—and shoot it—and pay the Wishbone what it's worth—oh, any amount—or shoot the cow—or—" she raised her face imploringly to his—"tell me, pal—or I shall go stark, raving mad!"

Polycarp came into the kitchen, and, from the sound, he was trying to enter as unobtrusively as possible, even to the extent of walking on his toes.

"Go see what that darned old sneak wants," Kent commanded in an undertone. "Act as if nothing happened—if you can." He watched anxiously, while she drew a long breath, pressed her hands hard against her cheeks, closed her lips tightly, and then, with something like composure, went quietly to the door and threw it open. Polycarp was standing very close to it, on the other side. He drew back a step.

"I wondered if I better git another load, now I've got the team hooked up," he began in his rasping, nasal voice, his slitlike eyes peering inquisitively into the room. "Hello, Kenneth—I thought that was your horse standin' outside. Or would you rather I cut up a pile? I dunno but what I'll have to go t'town t'-morrerr or next day—mebby I better cut you some wood, hey? If Man ain't likely to be home, mebby—"

"I think, Polycarp, well have a storm soon. So it would be good policy to haul another load, don't you think? I can manage very well with what there is cut until Manley returns; and there are always small branches that I can break easily with the axe. I really think it would be safer to have another load hauled now while we can. Don't you think so?" Val even managed to smile at him. "If my head wasn't so bad," she added deceitfully, "I should be tempted to go along, just for a dose sight of the river. Mr. Burnett is going directly—perhaps I may walk down later on. But you had better not wait—I shouldn't want to keep you working till dark."

Polycarp, eying her and Kent, and the room in all its details, forced his hand into his trousers pocket, brought up his battered plug of tobacco and pried off a piece, which he rolled into his left cheek with his tongue.

"Jest as you say," he surrendered, though it was perfectly plain that he would much prefer to cut wood and so be able to see all that went on, even though he was denied the gratification of hearing what they said. He waited a moment, but Val turned away, and even had the audacity to close the door upon his unfinished reply. He listened for a moment, his head craned forward.

"Purty kinda goings-on!" he mumbled. "Time Man had a flea put in 'is ear, by granny, if he don't want to lose that yeller-eyed wife of hisn." To Polycarp, a closed door—when a man and woman were alone upon the other side—could mean nothing but surreptitious kisses and the like. He went stumbling out and drove away down the coulee, his head turning automatically so that his eyes were constantly upon the house; from his attitude, as Kent saw him through the window Polycarp expected an explosion, at the very least. His outraged virtue vested itself in one more sentence; "Purty blamed nervy, by granny—to go 'n' shut the door right in m' face!"

Inside the room, Val stood for a minute with her back against the door, as if she half feared Polycarp would break in and drag her secret from her. When she heard him leave the kitchen she drew a long breath, eloquent in itself: when the rattle of the wagon came to them there, she left the door and went slowly across the room until she stood close to Kent. The interruption had steadied them both. Her voice was a constrained calm when she spoke.



"Well—is there anything I can do? Because I suppose every minute is dangerous."

Kent kept his eyes upon the departing Polycarp.

"There's nothing you can do, no. Maybe I can do something; soon as that granny gossip is outa sight, I'll go and round up that cow and calf—if somebody hasn't beaten me to it."

Val looked at him with a certain timid helplessness.

"Oh! Will you—won't it be against the law if you—if you kill it?" She grew slightly excited again. "Kent, you shall not get into any trouble for—for his sake! If it comes to a choice, why—let him suffer for his crime. You shall not!"

Kent turned his head slowly and gazed down at her. "Don't run away with the idea I'm doing it for him," he told her distinctly. "I love Man Fleetwood like I love a wolf. But if that VP calf catches him up, you'd fight your head over it, God only knows how long. I know you! You'd think so much about the part you played that you'd wind up by forgetting everything else. You'd get to thinking of him as a martyr, maybe! No—it's for you. I kinda got you into this, you recollect? If I'd let you see Man drank, that day, you'd never have married him; I know that now. So I'm going to get you out of it. My side of the question can wait."

She stared up at him with a grave understanding.

"But you know what I said—you won't do anything that can make you trouble—won't you tell me, Kent, what you're going to do?"

He had already started to the door, but he stopped and smiled reassuringly.

"Nothing so fierce. If I can find 'em, I aim to bar out that VP. Sabe?"



CHAPTER XX

A BLOTCHED BRAND

At the brow of the hill, which was the western rim of the coulee, Kent turned and waved a farewell to Val, watching him wistfully from the kitchen door. She had wanted to go along; she had almost cried to go and help, but Kent would not permit her—and beneath the unpleasantness of denying her anything, there had been a certain primitive joy in feeling himself master of the situation and of her actions; for that one time it was as if she belonged to him. At the last he had accepted the field glasses, which she insisted upon lending him, and now he was tempted to take them from their worn, leathern case and focus them upon her face, just for the meager satisfaction of one more look at her. But he rode on, oat of sight, for the necessity which drove him forth did not permit much loitering if he would succeed in what he had set out to do.

Personally he would have felt no compunctions whatever about letting the calf go, a walking advertisement of Manley's guilt. It seemed to him a sort of grim retribution, and no more than he deserved. He had not exaggerated his sentiments when he intimated plainly to her his hatred of Manley, and he agreed with her that the fellow was making a despicable return for the kindness his neighbors had always shown him. No doubt he had stolen from the Double Diamond as well as the Wishbone.

Once Kent pulled up, half minded to go back and let events shape themselves without any interference from him. But there was Val—women were so queer about such things. It seemed to Kent that, if any man had caused him as much misery as Manley had caused Val, he would not waste much time worrying over him, if he tangled himself up with his own misdeeds. However, Val wanted that bit of evidence covered up; so, while Kent did not approve, he went at the business with his customary thoroughness.

The field glasses were a great convenience. More than once they saved him the trouble of riding a mile or so to inspect a small bunch of stock. Nevertheless, he rode for several hours before, just at sundown, he discovered the cow feeding alone with her calf in a shallow depression near the rough country next the river. They were wild, and he ran them out of the hollow and up on high ground before he managed to drop his loop over the calf's head.

"You sure are a dandy-fine sign-post, all right," he observed, and grinned down at the staring VP brand.

"It's a pity you can't be left that way." He glanced cautiously around him at the great, empty prairie. A mile or two away, a lone horseman was loping leisurely along, evidently bound for the Double Diamond.

"Say—this is kinda public," Kent complained to the calf. "Let's you and me go down outa sight for a minute." He started off toward the hollow, dragging the calf, a protesting bundle of stiffened muscles pulling against the rope. The cow, shaking her head in a halfhearted defiance, followed. Kent kept an uneasy eye upon the horseman, and hoped fervently the fellow was absorbed in meditation and, would not glance in his direction. Once he was almost at the point of turning the calf loose; for barring out brands, even illegal brands, is justly looked upon with disfavor, to say the least.

Down in the hollow, which Kent reached with a sigh of relief, he dismounted and hastily started a little fire on a barren patch of ground beneath a jutting sandstone ledge. The calf, tied helpless, lay near by, and the cow hovered close, uneasy, but lacking courage for a rush.

Kent laid hand upon his saddle, hesitated, and shook his head; he might need it in a hurry, and cinch ring takes time both in the removal and the replacement—and is vitally important withal. His knife he had lost on the last round-up. He scowled at the necessity, lifted his heel, and took off a spur. "And if that darned ginny don't get too blamed curious and cone fogging over this way—" He spoke the phrase aloud, out of the middle of a mental arrangement of the chance he was taking.

To heat the spur red-hot, draw it across the fresh VP again and again, and finally drag it crisscross once or twice to make assurance an absolute certainty, did not take long. Kent was particular about not wasting any seconds. The calf stopped its dismal blatting, and when Kent released it and coiled his rope, it jumped up and ran for its life, the cows ambling solicitously at its heels. Kent kicked the dirt over the fire, eyed it sharply a moment to make sure it was perfectly harmless, mounted in haste, and rode up the sloping side down, which he had come. Just under the top of the slope, he peeked anxiously out over the prairie, ducked precipitately, and went clattering away down the hollow to the farther side; dodged around a spur of rocks, forced his horse down over a wicked jumble of boulders to level land below, and rode as if a hangman's noose were the penalty for delay.

When he reached the river—which he did after many windings and turnings—he got off and washed his spur, scrubbing it diligently with sand in an effort to remove the traces of fire. When the evidence was at least less conspicuous, he put it on his heel and jogged down the river bank quite innocently, inwardly thankful over his escape. He had certainly done nothing wrong; but one sometimes finds it rather awkward to be forced into an explanation of a perfectly righteous deed.

"If I'd been stealing that calf, I'd never have been crazy enough to take such a long chance," he mused, and laughed a little. "I'll bet Fred thought he was due to grab a rustler right in the act—only he was a little bit slow about making up his mind; deputy stock inspectors had oughta think quicker than that—he was just about five minutes too deliberate. I'll gamble he's scratching his head, right now, over that blotched brand, trying to sabe the play—which he won't, not in a thousand years!"

He gave the reins a twitch and began to climb through the dusk to the lighter hilltop, at a point just east of Cold Spring Coulee. At the top he put the spurs to his horse and headed straight as might be for the Wishbone ranch. He would like to have told Val of his success, but he was afraid Manley might be there, or Polycarp; it was wise always to avoid Polycarp Jenks, if one had anything to conceal from his fellows.



CHAPTER XXI

VAL DECIDES

It was the middle of the next forenoon when Manley came riding home, sullen from drink and a losing game of poker, which had kept him all night at the table, and at sunrise sent him forth in the mood which meets a grievance more than half-way. He did not stop at the house, though he saw Val through the open door; he did not trouble to speak to her, even, but rode on to the stable, stopping at the corral to look over the fence at the calves, still bawling sporadically between half-hearted nibblings at the hay which Polycarp had thrown in to them.

Just at first he did not notice anything wrong, but soon a vague disquiet seized him, and he frowned thoughtfully at the little group. Something puzzled him; but his brain, fogged with whisky and loss of sleep, and the reaction from hours of concentration upon the game, could not quite grasp the thing that troubled him. In a moment, however, he gave an inarticulate bellow, wheeled about, and rode back to the house. He threw himself from the horse almost before it stopped, and rushed into the kitchen. Val, ironing one of her ruffled white aprons, looked up quickly, turned rather pale, and then stiffened perceptibly for the conflict that was coming.

"There's only four calves in the corral—and I brought in five. Where's the other one?" He came up and stood quite close to her—so close that Val took a step backward. He did not speak loud, but there was something in his tone, in his look, that drove the little remaining color from her face.

"Manley," she said, with a catch of the breath, "why did you do that horrible thing? What devil possessed you? I—"

"I asked you 'where is that other calf'? Where is it? There's only four. I brought in five." His very calmness was terrifying.

Val threw back her head, and her eyes were—as they frequently became in moments of stress—yellow, inscrutable, like the eyes of a lion in a cage.

"Yes, you brought in five. One of the five, at least, you—stole. You put your brand, Manley Fleetwood, on a calf that did not belong to you; it belonged to the Wishbone, and you know it. I have learned many disagreeable things about you, Manley, in the past two years; yesterday morning I learned that you were a thief. Ah-h—I despise you! Stealing from the very men who helped you—the men to whom you owe nothing but gratitude and—and friendship! Have you no manhood whatever? Besides being weak and shiftless, are you a criminal as well? How can you be so utterly lacking in—in common decency, even?" She eyed him as she would look at some strange monster in a museum about which she was rather curious.

"I asked you where that other calf is—and you'd better tell me!" It was the tone which goes well with a knife thrust or a blow. But the contempt in Val's face did not change.

"Well, you'll have to hunt for it if you want it. The cow—a Wishbone cow, mind you!—came and claimed it; I let her have it. No stolen goods can remain on this ranch with my knowledge, Manley Fleetwood. Please remember—"

"Oh, you turned it out, did you? You turned it out?" He had her by the throat, shaking her as a puppy shakes a purloined shoe. "I could—kill you for that!"

"Manley! Ah-h-h—" It was not pleasant—that gurgling cry, as she straggled to get free.

He had the look of a maniac as he pressed his fingers into her throat and glared down into her purpling face.

With a sudden impulse he cast her limp form violently from him. She struck against a chair, fell from that to the floor, and lay a huddled heap, her crisp, ruffled skirt just giving a glimpse of tiny, half-worn slippers, her yellow hair fallen loose and hiding her face.

He stared down at her, but he felt no remorse—she had jeopardized his liberty, his standing among men. A cold horror caught him when he thought of the calf turned loose on the range, his brand on its ribs. He rushed in a panic from the kitchen, flung himself into the saddle, and went off across the coulee, whipping both sides of his horse. She had not told him—indeed, he had not asked her—which way the cow had gone, but instinctively he rode to the west, the direction from which he had driven the calves. One thought possessed him utterly; he must find that calf.

So he rode here and there, doubling and turning to search every feeding herd he glimpsed, fearing to face the possibility of failure and its inevitable consequence.

The cat with the white spots on its sides—Val called her Mary Arabella, for some whimsical reason—came into the kitchen, looked inquiringly at the huddled figure upon the floor, gave a faint mew, and went slowly up, purring and arching her back; she snuffed a moment at Val's hair, then settled herself in the hollow of Val's arm, and curled down for a nap. The sun, sliding up to midday, shone straight in upon them through the open door.

Polycarp Jenks, riding that way in obedience to some obscure impulse, lifted his hand to give his customary tap-tap before he walked in; saw Val lying there, and almost fell headlong into the room in his haste and perturbation. It looked very much as if he had at last stumbled upon the horrible tragedy which was his one daydream. To be an eyewitness of a murder, and to be able to tell the tale afterward with minute, horrifying detail—that, to Polycarp, would make life really worth living. He shuffled over to Val, pushed aside the mass of yellow hair, turned her head so that he could look into her face, saw at once the bruised marks upon her throat, and stood up very straight.

"Foul play has been done here!" he exclaimed melodramatically, eying the cat sternly. "Murder—that's what it is, by granny—a foul murder!"

The victim of the foul murder stirred slightly. Polycarp started and bent over her again, somewhat disconcerted, perhaps, but more humanly anxious.

"Mis' Fleetwood—Mis' Fleetwood! You hurt? It's Polycarp Jenks talkin' to you!" He hesitated, pushed the cat away, lifted Val with some difficulty, and carried her into the front room and deposited her on the couch. Then he hurried after some water.

"Come might' nigh bein' a murder, by granny—from the marks on 'er neck—come might' nigh, all right!"

He sprinkled water lavishly upon her face, bethought him of a possible whisky flask in the haystack, and ran every step of the way there and back. He found a discarded bottle with a very little left in it, and forced the liquor down her throat.

"That'll fetch ye if anything will—he-he!" he mumbled, tittering from sheer excitement. Beyond a very natural desire to do what he could for her, he was extremely anxious to bring her to her senses, so that he could hear what had happened, and how it had happened.

"Betche Man got jealous of her'n Kenneth—by granny, I betche that's how it come about—hey? Feelin' better, Mis' Fleetwood?"

Val had opened her eyes and was looking at him rather stupidly. There was a bruise upon her head, as well as upon her throat. She had been stunned, and her wits came back slowly. When she recognized Polycarp, she tried ineffectually to sit up.

"I—he—is—he—gone?" Her voice was husky, her speech labored.

"Man, you mean? He's gone, yes. Don't you be afeared—not whilst I'm here, by granny! How came it he done this to ye?"

Val was still staring at him bewilderedly. Polycarp repeated his question three times before the blank look left her eyes.

"I—turned the calf—out—the cow—came and—claimed it—Manley—" She lifted her hand as if it were very, very heavy, and fumbled at her throat. "Manley—when I told him—he was a—thief—" She dropped her hand wearily to her side and closed her eyes, as if the sight of Polycarp's face, so close to hers and so insatiably curious and eager and cunning, was more than she could bear.

"Go away," she commanded, after a minute or two. "I'm—all right. It's nothing. I fell. It was—the heat. Thank you—so much—" She opened her eyes and saw him there still. She looked at him gravely, speculatively. She waved her hand toward the bedroom. "Get me my hand glass—in there on the dresser," she said.

When he had tiptoed in and got it for her, she lifted it up slowly, with both hands, until she could see her throat. There were distinct, telltale marks upon the tender flesh—unmistakable finger prints. She shivered and dropped the glass to the floor. But she stared steadily up at Polycarp, and after a moment she spoke with a certain fierceness.

"Polycarp Jenks, don't ever tell—about those marks. I—I don't want any one to know. When—after a while—I want to think first—perhaps you can help me. Go away now—not away from the ranch, but—let me think. I'm all right—or I will be. Please go."

Polycarp recognized that tone, however it might be hoarsened by bruised muscles and the shock of what she had suffered. He recognized also that look in her eyes; he had always obeyed that look and that tone—he obeyed them now, though with visible reluctance. He sat down in the kitchen to wait, and while he waited he chewed tobacco incessantly, and ruminated upon the mystery which lay behind the few words Val had first spoken, before she realized just what it was she was saying.

After a long, long while—so long that even Polycarp's patience was feeling the strain—Val opened the door and stood leaning weakly against the casing. Her throat was swathed in a piece of white silk.

"I wish, Polycarp, you'd get the team and hitch it to the light rig," she said. "I want to go to town, and I don't feel able to drive. Can you take me in? Can you spare the time?"

"Why, certainly, I c'n take you in, Mis' Fleetwood. I was jest thinkn' it wa'n't safe for you out here—"

"It is perfectly safe," Val interrupted chillingly. "I am going because I Want to see Arline Hawley." She raised her hand to the bandage. "I have a sore throat," she stated, staring hard at him. Then, with one of her impulsive changes, she smiled wistfully.

"You'll be my friend, Polycarp, won't you?" she pleaded. "I can trust you, I know, with my—secret. It is a secret—it must be a secret! I'll tell you the truth, Polycarp. It was Manley—he had been drinking again. He—we had a quarrel—about something. He didn't know what he was doing—he didn't mean to hurt me. But I fell—I struck my head; see, there is a great lump there." She pushed back her hair to show him the place. "So it's a secret—just between you and me, Polycarp Jenks!"

"Why, certainly, Mis' Fleetwood; don't you be the least mite oneasy; I'm your friend—I always have been. A feller ain't to be held responsible when he's drinkin'—by granny, that's a fact, he ain't."

"No," Val agreed laconically, "I suppose not. Let us go, then, as soon as we can, please. I'll stay overnight with Mrs. Hawley, and you can bring me back to-morrow, can't you? And you'll remember not to mention—anything, won't you, Polycarp?"

Polycarp stood very straight and dignified.

"I hope, Mis' Fleetwood, you can always depend on Polycarp Jenks," he replied virtuously. "Your secret is safe with me."

Val smiled—somewhat doubtfully, it is true—and let him go. "Maybe it is—I hope so," she sighed, as she turned away to dress for the trip.

All through that long ride to town, Polycarp talked and talked and talked. He made surmises and waited openly to hear them confirmed or denied; he gave her advice; he told her everything he had ever heard about Manley, or had seen or knew from some other source; everything, that is, save what was good. The sums he had lost at poker, or had borrowed; the debts he owed to the merchants; the reputation he had for "talking big and doing little;" the trouble he had had with this man and that man; and what he did not know for a certainty he guessed at, and so kept the subject alive.

True, Val did not speak at all, except when he asked her how she felt. Then she would reply dully, "Pretty well, thank you, Polycarp." Invariably those were the words she used. Whenever he stole a furtive, sidelong glance at her, she was staring straight ahead at the great, undulating prairie with the brown ribbon, which was the trail, thrown carelessly across to the sky line.

Polycarp suspected that she did not see anything—she just stared with her eyes, while her thoughts were somewhere else. He was not even sure that she heard what he was saying. He thought she must be pretty sick, she was so pale, and she had such wide, purple rings under her eyes. Also, he rather resented her desire to keep her trouble a secret; he favored telling everybody, and organizing a party to go out and run Man Fleetwood out of the country, as the very mildest rebuke which the outraged community could give and remain self-respecting. He even fell silent daring the last three or four miles, while he dwelt longingly upon the keen pleasure there would be in leading such an expedition.

"You'll remember, Polycarp, not to speak of this?" Val urged abruptly when he drew up before the Hawley Hotel. "Not a hint, you know until—until I give you permission. You promised."

"Oh, certainly, Mis' Fleetwood. Certainly. Don't you be a mite oneasy." But the tone of Polycarp was dejected in the extreme.

"And please be ready to drive me back in the morning. I should like to be at the ranch by noon, at the latest." With that she left him and went into the hotel.



CHAPTER XXII

A FRIEND IN NEED

"And so," Val finished, rather apathetically, pushing back the fallen lock of hair, "it has come to that. I can't remain here and keep any shred of self-respect. All my life I've been taught to believe divorce a terrible thing—a crime, almost; now I think it is sometimes a crime not to be divorced. For months I have been coming slowly to a decision, so this is really not as sudden as it may seem to you. It is humiliating to be compelled to borrow money—but I would much rather ask you than any of my own people. My pride is going to suffer enough when I meet them, as it is; I can't let them know just how miserable and sordid a failure—"