"I"m afraid not, Grace."
Perhaps she felt a shading of coldness in his denial, for distrust and suspicion were rising in his cautious mind. It did not seem to him a thing that could be asked with any honest purpose, but for what dishonest one he had no conjecture to fit.
"Are you going to turn me down on the first request I ever made of you, Duke?" She watched him keenly as she spoke, making her eyes small, an inflection of sorrowful injury in her tone.
"If there"s anything of my own you want, if there"s anything you can name for me to do, personally, all you"ve got to do is hint at it once."
"It"s easy to say that when there"s nothing else I want!" she said, snapping it at him as sharp as the crack of a little whip.
"If there _was_ anything----"
"There"ll never be anything!"
She got up, flashing him an indignant look. He stood beside her, despising the poverty of his condition which would not allow him to deliver over to her, out of hand, the small matter of five hundred beeves.
She went to her horse, mightily put out and impatient with him, as he could see, threw the reins over her pommel, as if she intended to leave him at once. She delayed mounting, suddenly putting out her hands in supplication, tears springing in her eyes.
"Oh, Duke! If you knew how much it means to me," she said.
"Why don"t you tell me, Grace?"
"Even if you stayed back there on the hills somewhere and watched them you wouldn"t do it, Duke?" she appealed, evading his request.
He shook his head slowly, while the thoughts within it ran like wildfire, seeking the thing that she covered.
"It can"t be done."
"I give you my word, Duke, that if you"ll do it n.o.body will ever lift a hand against this ranch again."
"It"s almost worth it," said he.
She quickened at this, enlarging her guarantee.
"We"ll drop all of the old feud and let Vesta alone. I give you my word for all of them, and I"ll see that they carry it out. You can do Vesta as big a favor as you"ll be doing me, Duke."
"It couldn"t be done without her consent, Grace. If you want to go to her with this same proposal, putting it plainly like you have to me, I think she"ll let you have the cattle, if you can show her any good reason for it."
"Just as if I"d be fool enough to ask her!"
"That"s the only way."
"Duke," said she coaxingly, "wouldn"t it be worth something to you, personally, to have your troubles settled without a fight? I"ll promise you n.o.body will ever lift a hand against you again if you"ll do this for me."
He started, looked at her sternly, approaching her a step.
"What do you know about anything that"s happened to me?" he demanded.
"I don"t know anything about what"s happened, but I know what"s due to happen if it isn"t headed off."
Lambert did some hard thinking for a little while, so hard that it wrenched him to the marrow. If he had had suspicion of her entire innocence in the solicitation of this unusual favor before, it had sprung in a moment into distrust. Such a quick reversion cannot take place in the sentiment without a shock. It seemed to Lambert that something valuable had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him, and that he stood in bewilderment, unable to reach out and retrieve his loss.
"Then there"s no use in discussing it any more," he said, groping back, trying to answer her.
"You"d do it for her!"
"Not for her any quicker than for you."
"I know it looks crooked to you, Duke--I don"t blame you for your suspicions," she said with a frankness that seemed more like herself, he thought. She even seemed to be coming back to him in that approach.
It made him glad.
"Tell me all about it, Grace," he urged.
She came close to him, put her arm about his neck, drew his head down as if to whisper her confidence in his ear. Her breath was on his cheek, his heart was afire in one foolish leap. She put up her lips as if to kiss him, and he, reeling in the ecstasy of his proximity to her radiant body, bent nearer to take what she seemed to offer.
She drew back, her hand interposed before his eager lips, shaking her head, denying him prettily.
"In the morning, I"ll tell you all in the morning when I meet you to drive the cattle over," she said. "Don"t say a word--I"ll not take no for my answer." She turned quickly to her horse and swung lightly into the saddle. From this perch she leaned toward him, her hand on his shoulder, her lips drawing him in their fiery lure again. "In the morning--in the morning--you can kiss me, Duke!"
With that word, that promise, she turned and galloped away.
It was late afternoon, and Lambert had faced back toward the ranchhouse, troubled by all that he could not understand in that morning"s meeting, thrilled and fired by all that was sweet to remember, when he met a man who came riding in the haste of one who had business ahead of him that could not wait. He was riding one of Vesta Philbrook"s horses, a circ.u.mstance that sharpened Lambert"s interest in him at once.
As they closed the distance between them, Lambert keeping his hand in the easy neighborhood of his gun, the man raised his hand, palm forward, in the Indian sign of peace. Lambert saw that he wore a shoulder holster which supported two heavy revolvers. He was a solemn-looking man with a narrow face, a mustache that crowded Taterleg"s for the championship, a buckskin vest with pearl b.u.t.tons. His coat was tied on the saddle at his back.
"I didn"t steal this horse," he explained with a sorrowful grin as he drew up within arm"s length of Lambert, "I requisitioned it. I"m the sheriff."
"Yes, sir?" said Lambert, not quite taking him for granted, no intention of letting him pa.s.s on with that explanation.
"Miss Philbrook said I"d run across you up this way."
The officer produced his badge, his commission, his card, his letterhead, his credentials of undoubted strength. On the proof thus supplied, Lambert shook hands with him.
"I guess everybody else in the county knows me--this is my second term, and I never was taken for a horse thief before," the sheriff said, solemn as a crow, as he put his papers away.
"I"m a stranger in this country, I don"t know anybody, n.o.body knows me, so you"ll not take it as a slight that I didn"t recognize you, Mr.
Sheriff."
"No harm done, Duke, no harm done. Well, I guess you"re a little wider known than you make out. I didn"t bring a man along with me because I knew you were up here at Philbrook"s. Hold up your hand and be sworn."
"What"s the occasion?" Lambert inquired, making no move to comply with the order.
"I"ve got a warrant for this man Kerr over south of here, and I want you to go with me. Kerr"s a bad egg, in a nest of bad eggs. There"s likely to be too much trouble for one man to handle alone. You do solemnly swear to support the const.i.tution of the----"
"Wait a minute, Mr. Sheriff," Lambert demurred; "I don"t know that I want to mix up in----"
"It"s not for you to say what you want to do--that"s my business," the sheriff said sharply. He forthwith deputized Lambert, and gave him a duplicate of the warrant. "You don"t need it, but it"ll clear your mind of all doubt of your power," he explained. "Can we get through this fence?"
"Up here six or seven miles, about opposite Kerr"s place. But I"d like to go on to the house and change horses; I"ve rode this one over forty miles today already."