She came to the spring and stopped, watching him eagerly though she pretended to be looking anywhere but at him. And for a moment Howard, marvelling at the spot, let his eyes wander from her. The spring had been cleaned out and rimmed with big flat rocks. About it, as though recently transplanted here, were red and blue flowers. Just at hand close to the clear pool was a delightful shade cast by a freshly constructed shelter. And the shelter itself made him open his eyes.
Willow poles, with the leaves still green on them, had been set in the soft earth. Across them other poles had been placed cunningly woven in and out. Still other branches, criss-crossed above, and piled high with foliage, offered a thick mat of verdure to shield one from the hot rays of the sun. Within the elfin chamber was a rustic seat; everywhere, their roots enwrapped in wet earth, were flowers.
"It"s wonderful!" he told her, and now his enthusiasm had been awakened. "And, of course it"s your own idea and your own work."
"Oh my, no! It was John"s idea and John made it!"
"John?"
"John Carr. He has been a perfect dear. Isn"t he wonderful?"
Yes, Carr was wonderful. But already Howard"s enthusiasm had fled.
"The leaves will wilt pretty soon," he found fault in spite of himself.
He was a little ashamed even while he was speaking. "The flowers will die, and then----"
Helen was already seated within, smiling, looking placid and unconcerned.
"By then," she announced lightly, "I"ll be gone; so it won"t matter."
"Gone?" he demanded sharply. "Where?"
"East. Mr. Carr has gone on ahead. We are to meet him in New York."
He sat down upon a rock just outside her door and made no attempt to hide what was in his heart. He had thought to have lost her when he came to the spot whence the cabin had vanished; he had found her here; he was going to lose her again. . . . Helen"s heart quickened at his look, and she lowered her head, pretending to be occupied exclusively with a thistle that had caught on her skirt, afraid that he would know.
"Why are you going like this?" he asked suddenly.
She appeared to hesitate.
"I ought not to say anything against one of your friends," she said with a great show of ingenuousness. "But, Mrs. Murray----"
Explosively he cut her short. "You know that she is not a friend of mine and that she has never been and never will be a friend of mine.
Why do you say that?"
She shrugged her shoulders and went on smiling at him. That smile began to madden him; it appeared to speak of such an unruffled spirit when his own was in tumult.
"I beg your pardon, I"m sure. I was merely going to say that Mrs.
Murray shows too great an interest in papa. Of course I understand her, and he doesn"t. Dear old pops is a perfect child. She has tricked him once; she seems to think him worth watching; she is unbearable. So I am going to do the very natural thing and take him away from her. Back where he belongs by the way; where we both belong."
"That is not true; you don"t belong anywhere but here." He began speaking slowly, very earnestly and with little show of emotion. But little by little his speech quickened, his voice was raised, his words became vehement. "You belong here. There is no land in the world like this, just as there is no girl like you. Listen to me, Helen! For your sake, for my sake--yes, and for your father"s sake--you must stay.
You were speaking of him; let"s think of him first. He is like a child in that he has kept a pure, simple heart. But he is not without his own sort of wisdom. He knows rocks and strata and geological formation; he found gold once, and that was not just accident. He lost, but he lost without a whimper. He is a good sport. He will find gold again because it is here and he knows how to find it and where to find it."
He paused, and Helen, though with no great show of interest and no slightest indication of being impressed, waited for him to go on.
"The fault in what has occurred is less his than mine. Knowing the sort Sanchia Murray is, I should not have given her the opportunity that day of a long talk alone with him. But," his meaning was plain as he caught and held her eye, "I was in the mood to forget Sanchia Murray and Professor Longstreet and every one else but the girl I was with."
Helen laughed lightly, again pa.s.sing the remark by as a mere compliment of the negligible order.
"Don"t do that, Helen," he said gravely. She saw that a new sort of sternness had entered into his manner. "I have been working, working hard not alone for myself but for you. Desert Valley has always been to me the one spot in the world; you saw it and loved it, and since then there is no money that would buy it from me. If it were really mine! And I have been working night and day to make it mine. So that some day----"
She was not ready for this, and, though her colour warmed, she interrupted swiftly:
"You speak as though there were danger of losing it."
He explained, plunging into those matters which had absorbed his mind during so many hard hours, telling her how he had paid Carr twelve thousand and five hundred dollars when he had expected to pay only ten thousand, how he had been obliged to ride to San Juan for money, of his success with Engle, of his plans for sales, of cutting down his force of men; all that he had done and all that he hoped to do. She caught something of the spirit of the endeavour and leaned forward tense and listening.
"But surely Mr. Carr, being your best friend, would not have driven you like this?"
Howard did not answer directly. This hesitation, being unusual in him, caught Helen"s attention.
"I imagine John needed the money," he said quietly. "I didn"t say anything to him about being short of cash. By the way, while in San Juan I got this for you. I thought you"d like it."
He unwrapped the bundle. In it were a beautiful Spanish bit, richly silvered and with headstall and reins of cunningly plaited rawhide, and a pair of dainty spurs which winked gaily in the sunshine. Helen"s eyes sparkled as she put out her hand for them. Her rush of thanks he turned aside by saying hastily:
"I"ve got the little horse to go with them. I"d like mighty well to give him to you. I don"t know whether you can accept yet, but I"m rounding up a lot of horses and when we get a rope on Danny I"m going to lend him to you. To keep indefinitely, as long as you"ll have him."
Long ago Helen"s fancies had been ensnared by the big picturesque ranch; long ago her heart had gone out to a fine saddle horse. No longer did she seek to hold her interest in check; she asked him quick questions about everything that he had overlooked telling her and exclaimed with delighted antic.i.p.ation when he suggested that she and her father ride down and watch at the round-up. He"d have Danny ready for her and would have ridden him enough to remind him that his long frisky vacation was at an end.
They were very close together and very happy just then, when a laughing voice broke in upon their dreamings.
"Isn"t he the most adorable lover in the world? But look out for him, my dear child. He nearly broke my heart once. h.e.l.lo, Al! Sorry I couldn"t come up with you. But, you see, I followed as dose as I could!"
They had not heard Sanchia"s horse, and Sanchia had drawn her own deduction from the fact. Helen stiffened perceptibly, drawing slowly back. Howard"s face reddened to his anger.
Chapter XXII
The Professor Dictates
Sanchia was cool and bright and merry. She sat flicking at her gleaming boot with her whip, and laughing. Helen, who had stood very close to a great happiness, now shivered as though the day had turned cloudy and cold. But she was still Helen Longstreet, her pride an essential portion of the fibre of her being. Because she was hurt, because suddenly she hated Sanchia Murray with a hatred which seemed to sear her heart like a hot iron, she commanded her smile and hid all traces of agitation and spoke with serene indifference.
"Mr. Howard was telling me of the work on the ranch. Isn"t it interesting?"
"So interesting," laughed Sanchia, "that no doubt the heartless vagabond forgot to mention that he had just left me and that I had sent word by him that I was coming?"
"I don"t believe you did say anything about it, did you?" Helen"s level regard was for Howard now; the red of anger still flared under his tan and looked as much like guilt as anything else. "Although,"
and again she glanced carelessly toward the trim form on the white mare"s back, "we were speaking of you only a moment ago."
If Sanchia understood that nothing complimentary had been spoken of her she kept the knowledge her own.
"We just had a little visit together in the mining-camp," she said, veiling the look she bestowed upon Howard so that one might make anything he pleased of it. "Alan knows he"d better always run in and see me first when he"s been away for ten days at a stretch; don"t you, Boy?"
For Howard the moment was nothing less than a section of purgatory. He was no fine hand to deal with women; he stood utterly amazed at Sanchia"s words and Sanchia"s att.i.tude. He had not learned the trick of saying to a woman, "You lie." He had a confused sort of impression that the two girls were merely and lightly teasing him. But having eyes that were keen and a brain which, though a plain-dealing man"s, was quick, he understood that somehow there was a stern seriousness under all of this seeming banter. Single-purposed he turned to Helen; bluntly he intended to tell how he had seen Sanchia and how he had left her.
But Helen"s quick perception grasped his purpose, and in an anger which included him as well as herself with Sanchia, she wanted no explanations. It was enough for her that he had seen Sanchia Murray first; that he had come direct from her. She left the new bridle and spurs lying on the ground, pa.s.sed swiftly by him and as she walked on said carelessly: