"If you _can_ stay another week," he said to Lida, "I think you"d better do it. He isn"t really fit to live alone."
Thereupon she meekly submitted, and continued to keep house in the little kitchen for herself, her uncle, and for Roy, who still came regularly to her table, bringing more than his share of provisions, however. She was a good deal puzzled by the change which had come over him of late. He was less gay, less confident of manner, and he often fell into fits of abstraction.
He was, in fact, under conviction of sin, and felt the need of confessing to Lida his share in the zealous a.s.sault of the cowboys that night. "It"s sure to leak out," he decided, "and I"d better be the first to break the news." But each day found it harder to begin, and only the announcement of her intended departure one morning brought him to the hazard. He was beginning to feel less secure of her, and less indifferent to the gibes of the town jokers, who found in his enslavement much material for caustic remark. They called him the "tired cowboy" and the "trusty."
They were all sitting at supper in the kitchen one night when the old postmaster suddenly said to Roy: "Seems to me I remember you. Did I know you before I was sick?" His memory had been affected by his "stroke,"
and he took up the threads of his immediate past with uncertain fingers.
"I reckon so; leastwise I used to get my mail here," answered Roy, a bit startled.
The old man looked puzzled. "Yes; but it seems a little more special than that. Someway your face is a.s.sociated with trouble in my mind. Did we have any disagreement?"
After the postmaster returned to his chair in the office, Roy said to Lida, "They"re going to throw your uncle out in a few weeks."
"You don"t mean it!"
"Sure thing. He really ain"t fit to be here any more. Don"t you see how kind o" dazed he is? They"re going to get him out on a doctor"s certificate--loss of memory. Now, why don"t you get deputized, and act in his place?"
"Goodness sakes! I don"t want to live here."
"Where do you want to live--on a ranch?"
"Not on your life! Colorado Springs is good enough for me."
"That"s hard on Roy. What could I do to earn a living there?"
"You don"t have to live there, do you?"
"Home is where you are." She had come to the point where she received such remarks in gla.s.sy silence. He looked at her in growing uneasiness, and finally said: "See here, Lida, I"ve got something to tell you. You heard the old man kind o" feelin" around in his old hay-mow of a mind about me? Well, him and me did have a cussin"-out match one day, and he drawed a gun on me, and ordered me out of the office."
"What for?"
"Well, it was this way--I think. He was probably sick, and didn"t feel a little bit like sorting mail when I asked for it. He sure was aggravatin", and I cussed him good and plenty. I reckon I had a clove on my tongue that day, and was irritable, and when he lit onto me, I was hot as a hornet, and went away swearing to get square." He braced himself for the plunge. "That was _my_ gang of cowboys that came h.e.l.l-roaring around the night I met you. They were under my orders to scare your uncle out of his hole, and I was going to rope him."
"Oh!" she gasped, and drew away from him; "that poor, sick old man!"
He hastened to soften the charge. "Of course I didn"t know he was sick, or I wouldn"t "ave done it. He didn"t look sick the day before; besides, I didn"t intend to hurt him--much. I was only fixin" for to scare him up for pullin" a gun on me, that was all."
"That"s the meanest thing I ever heard of--to think of that old man, helpless, and you and a dozen cowboys attacking him!"
"I tell you I didn"t know he was ailin", and there was only six of us."
Her tone hurt as she pointed at him. "And _you_ pretend to be so brave."
"No, I don"t."
"You _did_!"
"No, I didn"t. _You_ said I was brave and kind, but I denied it. I never soberly claimed any credit for driving off that band of outlaws. That"s one reason why I"ve been sticking so close to business here--I felt kind o" conscience-struck."
Her eyes were ablaze now. "Oh, it is! You"ve said a dozen times it was on _my_ account."
"That"s right--about eighty per cent, on yours and twenty per cent, on my own account--I mean the old man"s."
"The idea!" She rose, her face dark with indignation. "Don"t you dare come here another time. I never heard of anything more--more awful. You a rowdy! I"ll never speak to you again. Go away! I despise you."
Her anger and chagrin were genuine, that he felt. There was nothing playful or mocking in her tone at the moment. She saw him as he was, a reckless, vengeful young ruffian, and as such she hated him.
He got upon his feet slowly, and went out without further word of defense.
III
The sun did not rise for Roy Pierce on the day which followed her departure. His interest in Eagle River died and his good resolutions weakened. He went on one long, wild, wilful carouse, and when McCoy rescued him and began to exhort toward a better life, he resigned his job and went back to the home ranch, where his brothers, Claude and Harry, welcomed him with sarcastic comment as "the returning goat."
He tried to make his peace with them by saying, "I"m done with whisky forever."
"Good notion," retorted Claude, who was something of a cynic; "just cut out women _and_ drink, and you"ll be happy."
Roy found it easier to give up drink than to forget Lida. To put away thought of her was like trying to fend the sunlight from his cabin window with his palm. He was entirely and hopelessly enslaved to the memory of her glowing face and smiling eyes. What was there in all his world to console him for the loss of her?
Mrs. Pierce wonderingly persisted in asking what had come over him, that he should be so sad and silent, and Claude finally enlightened her.
"He"s all bent up over a girl--the postmaster"s niece--of Eagle River, who had to quit the country to get shut of him."
The mother"s heart was full of sympathy, and her desire to comfort her stricken son led to shy references to his "trouble" which made him savage. He went about the ranch so grimly, so spiritlessly, that Claude despairingly remarked:
"I wish the Lord that girl _had_ got you. You"re as cheerful to have around as a poisoned hound. Why don"t you go down to the Springs and sit on her porch? That"s about all you"re good for now."
This was a bull"s-eye shot, for Roy"s desire by day and his dream by night was to trail her to her home; but the fear of her scornful greeting, the thought of a cutting query as to the meaning of his call, checked him at the very threshold of departure a dozen times.
He had read of love-lorn people in the _Sat.u.r.day Storyteller_, which found its way into the homes of the ranchers, but he had always sworn or laughed at their sufferings as a part of the play. He felt quite differently about these cases. Love was no longer a theme for jest, an abstraction, a far-off trouble; it had become a hunger more intolerable than any he had ever known, a pain that made all others he had experienced transitory and of no account.
Even Claude admitted the reality of the disease by repeating: "Well, you _have_ got it bad. Your symptoms are about the worst ever. You"re locoed for fair. You"ll be stepping high and wide if you don"t watch out."
In some mysterious way the whole valley now shared in a knowledge of the raid on the post-office, as well as in an understanding of Roy"s "throw-down" by the postmaster"s niece, and the expression of this interest in his affairs at last drove the young rancher to desperation.
He decided to leave the state. "I"m going to Nome," he said to his brothers one day.
"Pious thought," declared Claude. "The climate may freeze this poison out of you. Why, sure--go! You"re no good on earth here."
Roy did not tell him or his mother that he intended to go by way of the Springs, in the wish to catch one last glimpse of his loved one before setting out for the far northland. To speak with her was beyond his hope. No, all he expected was a chance glimpse of her in the street, the gleam of her face in the garden. "Perhaps I may pa.s.s her gate at night, and see her at the window."
IV
The town to him was a maze of bewildering complexity and magnificence, and he wandered about for a day in awkward silence, hesitating to inquire the way to the Converse home. He found it at last, a pretty cottage standing on a broad terrace, amid trees and vines vivid with the autumn hues; and if any thought of asking Lida to exchange it for a shack on a ranch still lingered in his mind, it was instantly wiped out by his first glance at the place.
He walked by on the opposite side of the street, and climbed the mesa back of the house to spy upon it from the rear, hoping to detect his loved one walking about under the pear-trees. But she did not appear.
After an hour or so he came down and paced back and forth with eyes on the gate, unable to leave the street till his soul was fed by one look at her.