She was moved out of her sullen humor by this proposal for giving vent to her pa.s.sion against Vesta Philbrook. It seemed as if he regarded her as a child, and her part in this fence-feud a piece of irresponsible folly. It was so absurd in her eyes that she laughed.
"I suppose you"re in earnest, but if you knew how foolish it sounds!"
"That"s what I"m going to do, anyway. You know I"ll just keep on fixing the fence when you cut it, and this arrangement will save both of us trouble. I"ll put a can or something on one of the posts to mark the spot for you."
"This fence isn"t any joke with us, Mr. Lambert, funny as you seem to think it. It"s more than a fence, it"s a symbol of all that stands between us, all the wrongs we"ve suffered, and the losses, on account of it. I know it makes her rave to cut it, and I expect you"ll have a good deal of fixing to do right along."
She started away, stopped a few rods beyond the fence, came back.
"There"s always a place for a good man over at our ranch," she said.
He watched her braid of hair swinging from side to side as she galloped away, with no regret for his rejected truce of the fence. She would come back to cut it again, and again he would see her. Disloyal as it might be to his employer, he hoped she would not delay the next excursion long.
He had found her. No matter for the conditions under which the discovery had been made, his quest was at an end, his long flights of fancy were done. It was a marvelous thing for him, more wonderful than the realization of his first expectations would have been. This wild spirit of the girl was well in accord with the character he had given her in his imagination. When he watched her away that day at Misery he knew she was the kind of woman who would exact much of a man; as he looked after her anew he realized that she would require more.
The man who found his way to her heart would have to take up her hatreds, champion her feuds, ride in her forays, follow her wild will against her enemies. He would have to sink the refinements of his civilization, in a measure, discard all preconceived ideas of justice and honor. He would have to hate a fence.
The thought made him smile. He was so happy that he had found her that he could have absolved her of a deeper blame than this. He felt, indeed, as if he had come to the end of vast wanderings, a peace as of the cessation of turmoils in his heart. Perhaps this was because of the immensity of the undertaking which so lately had lain before him, its resumption put off from day to day, its proportions increasing with each deferment.
He made no movement to dismount and hook up the cut wires, but sat looking after her as she grew smaller between him and the hill. He was so wrapped in his new and pleasant fancies that he did not hear the approach of a horse on the slope of the rise until its quickened pace as it reached the top brought Vesta Philbrook suddenly into his view.
"Who is that?" she asked, ignoring his salutation in her excitement.
"I think it must be Miss Kerr; she belongs to that family, at least."
"You caught her cutting the fence?"
"Yes, I caught her at it."
"And you let her get away?"
"There wasn"t much else that I could do," he returned, with thoughtful gravity.
Vesta sat in her saddle as rigid and erect as a statue, looking after the disappearing rider. Lambert contrasted the two women in mental comparison, struck by the difference in which rage manifested itself in their bearing. This one seemed as cold as marble; the other had flashed and glowed like hot iron. The cold rigidity before his eyes must be the slow wrath against which men are warned.
The distant rider had reached the top of the hill from which she had spied out the land. Here she pulled up and looked back, turning her horse to face them when she saw that Lambert"s employer had joined him.
A little while she gazed back at them, then waved her hat as in exultant challenge, whirled her horse, and galloped over the hill.
That was the one taunt needed to set off the slow magazine of Vesta Philbrook"s wrath. She cut her horse a sharp blow with her quirt and took up the pursuit so quickly that Lambert could not interpose either objection or entreaty.
Lambert felt like an intruder who had witnessed something not intended for his eyes. He had no thought at that moment of following and attempting to prevent what might turn out a regretful tragedy, but sat there reviling the land that nursed women on such a rough breast as to inspire these savage pa.s.sions of reprisal and revenge.
Vesta was riding a big brown gelding, long-necked, deep-chested, slim of hindquarters as a hound. Unless rough ground came between them she would overhaul that Kerr girl inside of four miles, for her horse lacked the wind for a long race, as the chase across the pasture had shown. In case that Vesta overtook her, what would she do? The answer to that was in Vesta"s eyes when she saw the cut wire, the raider riding free across the range. It was such an answer that it shot through Lambert like a lightning-stroke.
Yet, it was not his quarrel; he could not interfere on one side or the other without drawing down the displeasure of somebody, nor as a neutral without incurring the wrath of both. This view of it did not relieve him of anxiety to know how the matter was going to terminate.
He gave Whetstone the reins and galloped after Vesta, who was already over the hill. As he rode he began to realize as never before the smallness of this fence-cutting feud, the really worthless bone at the bottom of the contention. Here Philbrook had fenced in certain lands which all men agreed he had been cheated in buying, and here uprose those who scorned him for his gullibility, and lay in wait to murder him for shutting them out of his admittedly worthless domain. It was a quarrel beyond reason to a thinking man.
n.o.body could blame Philbrook for defending his rights, but they seemed such worthless possessions to stake one"s life against day by day, year after year. The feud of the fence was like a cancerous infection. It spread to and poisoned all that the wind blew on around the borders of that melancholy ranch.
Here were these two women riding break-neck and b.l.o.o.d.y-eyed to pull guns and fight after the code of the roughest. Both of them were primed by the acc.u.mulated hatred of their young lives to deeds of violence with no thought of consequences. It was a hard and bitter land that could foster and feed such pa.s.sions in bosoms of so much native excellence; a rough and boisterous land, unworthy the labor that men lavished on it to make therein their refuge and their home.
The pursued was out of sight when Lambert gained the hilltop, the pursuer just disappearing behind a growth of stunted brushwood in the winding dry valley beyond. He pushed after them, his anxiety increasing, hoping that he might overtake Vesta before she came within range of her enemy. Even should he succeed in this, he was at fault for some way of stopping her in her pa.s.sionate design.
He could not disarm her without bringing her wrath down on himself, or attempt to persuade her without rousing her suspicion that he was leagued with her destructive neighbors. On the other hand, the fence-cutting girl would believe that he had wittingly joined in an unequal and unmanly pursuit. A man"s dilemma between the devil and the deep water would be simple compared to his.
All this he considered as he galloped along, leaving the matter of keeping the trail mainly to his horse. He emerged from the hemming brushwood, entering a stretch of hard tableland where the parched gra.s.s was red, the earth so hard that a horse made no hoofprint in pa.s.sing.
Across this he hurried in a ferment of fear that he would come too late, and down a long slope where sage grew again, the earth dry and yielding about its unlovely clumps.
Here he discovered that he had left too much to his horse. The creature had laid a course to suit himself, carrying him off the trail of those whom he sought in such breathless state. He stopped, looking round him to fix his direction, discovering to his deep vexation that Whetstone had veered from the course that he had laid for him into the south, and was heading toward the river.
On again in the right direction, swerving sharply in the hope that he would cut the trail. So for a mile or more, in dusty, headlong race, coming then to the rim of a bowl-like valley and the sound of running shots.
Lambert"s heart contracted in a paroxysm of fear for the lives of both those flaming combatants as he rode precipitately into the little valley. The shooting had ceased when he came into the clear and pulled up to look for Vesta.
The next second the two girls swept into sight. Vesta had not only overtaken her enemy, but had ridden round her and cut off her retreat.
She was driving her back toward the spot where Lambert stood, shooting at her as she fled, with what seemed to him a cruel and deliberate hand.
CHAPTER XIII
"NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD"
Vesta was too far behind the other girl for anything like accurate shooting with a pistol, but Lambert feared that a chance shot might hit, with the most melancholy consequences for both parties concerned. No other plan presenting, he rode down with the intention of placing himself between them.
Now the Kerr girl had her gun out, and had turned, offering battle. She was still a considerable distance beyond him, with what appeared from his situation to be some three or four hundred yards between the combatants, a safe distance for both of them if they would keep it. But Vesta had no intention of making it a long-range duel. She pulled her horse up and reloaded her gun, then spurred ahead, holding her fire.
Lambert saw all this as he swept down between them like an eagle, old Whetstone hardly touching the ground. He cut the line between them not fifty feet from the Kerr girl"s position, as Vesta galloped up.
He held up his hand in an appeal for peace between them. Vesta charged up to him as he shifted to keep in the line of their fire, coming as if she would ride him down and go on to make an end of that chapter of the long-growing feud. The Kerr girl waited, her pistol hand crossed on the other, with the deliberate coolness of one who had no fear of the outcome.
Vesta waved him aside, her face white as ash, and attempted to dash by.
He caught her rein and whirled her horse sharply, bringing her face to face with him, her revolver lifted not a yard from his breast.
For a moment Lambert read in her eyes an intention that made his heart contract. He held his breath, waiting for the shot. A moment; the film of deadly pa.s.sion that obscured her eyes like a smoke cleared, the threatening gun faltered, drooped, was lowered. He twisted in his saddle and commanded the Kerr girl with a swing of the arm to go.
She started her horse in a bound, and again the soul-obscuring curtain of murderous hate fell over Vesta"s eyes. She lifted her gun as Lambert, with a quick movement, clasped her wrist.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Vesta, keep your soul clean!" he said.
His voice was vibrant with a deep earnestness that made him as solemn as a priest. She stared at him with widening eyes, something in his manner and voice that struck to reason through the insulation of her anger. Her fingers relaxed on the weapon; she surrendered it into his hand.
A little while she sat staring after the fleeing girl, held by what thoughts he could not guess. Presently the rider whisked behind a point of sage-dotted hill and was gone. Vesta lifted her hands slowly and pressed them to her eyes, shivering as if struck by a chill. Twice or thrice this convulsive shudder shook her. She bowed her head a little, the sound of a sob behind her pressing hands.
Lambert put her pistol back into the holster which dangled on her thigh from the cartridge-studded belt round her pliant, slender waist.