The Golden Woman: A Story of the Montana Hills

Hitherto these men had been accustomed to the slow process of washing “pay-dirt.” It was not only slow, but unemotional. It had not the power to stir the senses to a pitch of excitement like this veritable Tom Tiddler’s ground, pitchforked into their very laps by one of Nature’s freakish impulses.

With this thought came something very like regret at the apparent richness of the find. Something must be done, and done without delay, to regulate the situation. The place must be arranged in claims, and definite regulations must be laid down and enforced by a council of the majority. He felt instinctively that this would be the only way to avert a state of anarchy too appalling to contemplate. It would be an easy matter now, but a hopeless task to attempt later on. Yes, a big trouble lay in those rushes, which seemed harmless enough at present. And he knew that his must be the work of straightening out the threatened tangle.

But for the moment the fever must be allowed to run riot. It must work itself out with the physical effort of hard muscles. In the calm of rest after labor counsel might be offered and listened to. But not until then.

So that memorable day wore on to its close. The luck had come not in the petty find such as these men had looked for, but in proportions of prodigal generosity such as Nature sometimes loves to bestow upon those whom she has hit the hardest. She had called to her aid those strange powers of which she is mistress and hurled them headlong to do her bidding. She had bestowed her august consent, and lo, the earth was opened, and its wealth poured out at the very feet of those who had so long and so vainly sought it.

CHAPTER X

SOLVING THE RIDDLE

The new owner of the Padre’s farm had quite recovered from the effects of her disastrous journey. Youth and a sound constitution, and the overwhelming ministrations of Mrs. Ransford had done all that was needed to restore her.

She was sitting in an old, much-repaired rocking-chair, in what was obviously the farm’s “best” bedroom. Her trunks, faithfully recovered from the wreck of the cart by the only too willing Buck, stood open on the floor amidst a chaotic setting of their contents, while the old farm-wife herself stood over them, much in the attitude of a faithful and determined watch-dog.

The girl looked on indifferent to the confusion and to the damage being perpetrated before her very eyes. She was lost in thoughts of her own which had nothing to do with such fripperies as lawns, and silks, and suèdes, or any other such feminine excitements. She was struggling with recollection, and endeavoring to conjure it. There was a blank in her life, a blank of some hours, which, try as she would, she could not fill in. It was a blank, as far as she could make out, which terminated in her arrival at the farm borne in the arms of some strange man.

Well might such a thought shut out considerations like the almost certain destruction of a mere wardrobe at the hands of her ignorant but well-meaning helper. It would have been exciting, too, but for her memory of the latter stages of her journey. They were still painful. There was still uncertainty as to what had happened to the teamster and the horses.

At last, however, she abandoned further attempt to solve the riddle unaided, and decided to question her housekeeper.

“Was it the same man who brought those trunks – I mean the same man who – brought me here?” she demanded sharply.

“It surely was,” replied Mrs. Ransford, desisting for a moment from her efforts to bestow a pile of dainty shoes into a night-dress case of elaborate drawn thread work. “An’ a nice mess he’s got things in. Jest look at ’em all tossed about, same as you might toss slap-jacks, as the sayin’ is. It’s a mercy of heaven, an’ no thanks to him, you’ve got a rag fit to wear. It surely ain’t fer me to say it, but it’s real lucky I’m here to put things right for you. Drat them shoes! I don’t guess I’ll ever git ’em all into this bag, miss – ma’m – I mean miss, mum.”

Something of the tragedy of her wardrobe became evident to the girl and she went to the rescue.

“I’m sorry, but they don’t go in there,” she said, feeling that an apology was due for her interference in such well-intended efforts. “That’s – you see, that’s my sleeping-suit case,” she added gently.

“Sleepin’-soot?” A pair of round, wondering eyes stared out through the old woman’s glasses.

The girl pointed at the silk trousers and jacket lying just inside the nearest trunk, and the farm-wife picked them up gingerly, letting them unfold as she did so. Just for one moment she inspected them, then she hurriedly let them drop back into the trunk as though they were some dangerous reptile, and, folding her arms, glared into the girl’s smiling face in comical reproach.

“You sure don’t wear them pants, miss – at night? Not reely?” she exclaimed in horrified tones.

The girl’s smile hardened.

“Why, yes. Lots of girls wear sleeping-suits nowadays.”

“You don’t say!”

The old woman pursed up her lips in strong disapproval. Then, with a disdainful sniff, she went on —

“Wot gals ain’t comin’ to I don’t know, I’m sure. Wot with silk next their skin an’ them draughty stockin’s, as you might say, things is gettin’ to a pretty pass. Say, I wouldn’t put myself into them pants, no, not if the President o’ the United States was to stand over me an’ wouldn’t let me put on nuthin’ else.”

The girl refrained from reply, but the obvious impossibility of the feat appealed to her sense of humor. However, the solution of her riddle was of prevailing interest, so she returned again to her questioning.

“Did he say how he found me?” she demanded. “Did he tell you any – any particulars of what happened to the cart, and – and the teamster?”

“No, ma’m – miss, beggin’ your pardin, – that he didn’t. I never see sech a fresh feller outside a noospaper office. An’ him the owner of this farm that was, but isn’t, as you might say. You take my word for it he’ll come to a bad end, he sure will. Wot with them wicked eyes of his, an’ that black, Dago-lookin’ hair. I never did see a feller who looked more like a scallawag than him. Makes me shiver to think of him a-carryin’ you in his two arms. Wher’ from sez I —an’ why?”

“Because I couldn’t walk, I expect,” the girl replied easily.

The farm-wife shook a fat, warning finger at her.

“Oh, ma’m – miss – that’s wot he says! You jest wait till you’ve got more experience o’ scallawags like him an’ you’ll sure know. Wot I sez is men’s that full o’ tricks wher’ females is to be deceived it ’ud take ’em a summer vacation sortin’ ’emselves out. Men is shockin’ scallawags,” she finished up, flinging the shoes pell-mell into the open trunk.

A further rescue of her property was necessary and the girl protested.

“Please don’t bother any more with those clothes,” she cried hurriedly. “I’ll see to them myself.” Then, as the woman proceeded to mop her perspiring brow with a pair of silk stockings, she sprang up and thrust a hand-towel toward her. “Use this; you’ll find it more absorbent than – er – silk.”

The old woman thanked her profusely, and made the exchange. And when the operation was completed the relieved girl returned to her seat and went on with her examination.

“What did you say his name was?”

“I didn’t say. An’ he didn’t tell me, neither. Fellers like him ain’t never ready with their names. Maybe he calls himself Moreton Kenyon. Y’ see he was the same as handed the farm over, an’ you tol’ me, back ther’ in Leeson Butte, you’d bo’t Moreton Kenyon’s farm. ‘Moreton Kenyon!’ Sort o’ high-soundin’ name for such a scallawag. I don’t never trust high-soundin’ names. They’re most like whitewash. You allus set that sort o’ stuff on hog-pens an’ sech, as you might say.”

“Perhaps he’s not as bad as you suspect,” the girl suggested kindly. “Lots of good people start by making a bad impression.”

“I don’t know what that means,” cried the other promptly. “But I do know what a scallawag is, an’ that’s him.”

It was useless to seek further information from such a source, so the girl abandoned the attempt, and dismissed the pig-headed housekeeper to her work, work which she felt she was far better suited to than such a delicate operation as the straightening out a wardrobe.

When Mrs. Ransford had taken her unwilling departure, not without several well-meaning protests, the girl bent her own energies to restoring order to her wardrobe. Nor was it an easy task. The masculine manner of the bedroom left much to be desired in those little depositories and cupboards, without which no woman can live in comfort. And during the process of disposing her belongings many mental notes were made for future alterations in the furnishings of her new abode.

It was not a bad room, however. The simplicity and cleanliness of it struck wholesomely upon her. Yes, in spite of what her lieutenant had said about him, Mr. Moreton Kenyon was certainly a man of some refinement. She had never heard that such neatness and cleanliness was the habit amongst small bachelor farmers in the outlands of the West. And this was the man who had carried her – where from?

Again she sat down in the rocker and gave herself up to the puzzlement of those hours of her unconsciousness. The last event that was clear in her mind was the struggle of the teamster to keep his horses head-on for the bank of the flooded river. She remembered the surging waters, she remembered that the bottom of the cart was awash, and that she sat with her feet lifted and resting on the side of the vehicle. She remembered that the horses were swimming before the driver’s flogging whip and blasphemous shoutings. All this was plain enough still. Then came the man’s order to herself. He warned her to get ready to jump, and she had been quick to realize the necessity. In spite of the horses’ wildest struggles the cart was being washed down-stream. Then had come his final shout. And she had jumped on the instant.

At this point of her recollections things became confused. She had a hazy memory of floundering in the water, also she remembered a heavy blow on the shoulder. Then some one seemed to seize hold of her. It must have been the teamster, though she did not remember seeing him in the water. How she got out was a mystery to her. Again it must have been the teamster. Then what of him? Mrs. Ransford had not spoken of him. Had he, too, escaped? or had he – she shuddered. For some moments her thoughts depressed her. The thought of a brave man’s life sacrificed for her was too terrible.

But after a while she continued in a lighter strain. It was at this point that the blank began. True, she seemed to have some dim recollection of a rough hut. It seemed to be made of logs. Then, too, she had a dreamy sort of cognizance of a number of men’s voices talking. Then – no, there was nothing more after that. Nothing until she awoke and found herself in bed, with a strange doctor standing over her.

It was all very puzzling, but – she turned toward the window as the afternoon sun fell athwart it and lit the plain interior of her new bedroom, searching the corners and the simple furnishings of the carpetless room.

From where she sat she could see the barns and corrals, and beyond them the heavy-hued pine woods. Then, away out far, far in the distance, the endless white snowcaps of the purpling hills. What a scene to her unaccustomed eyes. The breadth of it. The immensity.

She drew a deep breath and sat up.

She was dressed in a simple white shirt-waist and blue serge skirt, and her masses of red-gold hair were loosely coiled about her well-shaped head. The eager light of interest in her violet eyes lit her beautiful young face, lending it an animation which added a wonderful vitality to her natural beauty. The firm, rich lips were parted eagerly. The wide-open eyes, so deeply intelligent, shone with a lustre of delight there was no mistaking. Her rounded bosom rose and fell rapidly as the glad thought flew through her brain that this – this was her new home, where she was to forget the past and shut out all recollection of that evil shadow which had so long pursued her.

Yes, this was the beginning of her new life. Joan Stanmore was dead, and out of the ashes had arisen Joan Rest, ready to face the world in a spirit of well-doing bachelorhood. Here, here in the wild mountain world, where men were few and apart from her old life, she could face the future with perfect confidence.

She breathed a deep sigh of contentment and lolled back in the rocker, dropping her eyes from the snow-crowned hills to the precious little farm that was all hers. Then, in an instant, she sat up again as the tall figure of a young man appeared round the corner of the barn.

For some moments she followed his movements wonderingly. He walked straight over to the hay corral with long, easy strides. There was none of the slouch of a man idling about him. His whole attitude was full of distinct purpose. She saw him enter the corral and mount the half-cut haystack, and proceed to cut deeper into it. A moment later he pitched the loose hay to the ground, and himself slid down on to it. Then, stooping, he gathered it in his arms and left the corral.

Now she saw his face for the first time. It was dark. Nor could she be certain that his coloring was due to sunburn. His eyes were dark, too, and his hair. He was a good-looking man, she decided, and quite young. But how tall. And what shoulders. She wondered who he was, and what he was doing on her farm.

Then, of a sudden, she remembered she had spoken of a hired man to Mrs. Ransford. Had she – ?

Her reflections were cut short by the sudden appearance of the farm-wife from the house. The old woman trotted hastily across the yard toward the barn, her fat sides shaking as she waddled, and her short, stout arms violently gesticulating. Joan needed nothing more than the good woman’s back view to tell her that the dame was very angry, and that it was the stranger who had inspired her wrath. She waited, smiling, for the dénouement.

It came quickly. It came with the reappearance of the stranger round the corner of the barn. What a splendid specimen of a man, she thought, as she watched the expression of unruffled calm on his strong features. His shirt sleeves were rolled well up above his elbows, and even at that distance she could see the deep furrows in his arms where the rope-like muscles stood out beneath the thin, almost delicate skin.

But her attention was quickly diverted by the clacking of the farm-wife’s tongue. She could hear it where she sat with the window tight shut. And though she could not hear the words it was plain enough from the violence of her gesticulations that she was rating the patient man soundly. So patent was it, so dreadful, that even in her keenest interest Joan found herself wondering if Mr. Ransford were dead, and hoping that, if he were, his decease had occurred in early youth.

Nor had the man made any attempt at response. She was sure of it, because she had watched his firm lips, and they had not moved. Perhaps he had found retort impossible. It was quite possible, for the other had not paused a moment in her tirade. What a flow. It was colossal, stupendous. Joan felt sorry for the man.

What a patience he had. Nor had his expression once altered. He merely displayed the thoughtful attention that one might bestow, listening to a brilliant conversationalist or an interesting story. It was too ridiculous, and Joan began to laugh.

Then the end came abruptly and without warning. Mrs. Ransford just swung about and trotted furiously back to the house. Her face was flaming, and her fat arms, flourishing like unlimber flails, were pointing every verbal threat she hurled over her shoulder at the spot where the man had stood. Yes, he had vanished again round the corner of the barn, and the poor woman’s best efforts were quite lost upon the warm summer air.

But her purpose was obvious, and Joan prepared herself for a whirlwind visitation. Nor had she long to wait. There was a shuffling of feet out in the passage, and, the next moment, the door of her room was unceremoniously flung open and the indignant woman staggered in.

“Well, of all the impidence, of all the sass, of all the ignorant bums that ever I – !” She exploded, and stood panting under the strain of her furious emotions.

But Joan felt she really must assert herself. This sort of reign of terror must not go on.

“Don’t fluster yourself, Mrs. Ransford,” she said calmly. “I’ll see to the matter myself.”

But she might as well have attempted to stem the tide of the river that had wrecked her journey as stay the irate woman’s tongue.

“But it’s him!” she cried. “Him, that low-down scallawag that carried you in his arms an’ walked right into this yere bedroom an’ laid you on your own virgin bed without no by your leave nor nuthin’. Him, as saw your trunks drownded an’ you all mussed up with water, without raisin’ a hand to help, ’less it was to push you further under – ”

But Joan was equal to no more. She pushed the well-meaning creature on one side and hurried out of the house, while the echoes of the other’s scathing indictment died down behind her.

Joan did not hesitate. It was not her way to hesitate about anything when her mind was made up. And just now she was determined to find out the real story of what had happened to her. She was interested. This man had carried her. He had brought her trunks up. And – yes, she liked the look of him.

But she felt it necessary to approach the matter with becoming dignity. She was not given much to standing on her dignity, but she felt that in her association with the men of these parts she must harden herself to it. All friendships with men were banned. This she was quite decided upon. And she sighed as she passed round the angle of the barn.

Her sigh died at its birth, however, and she was brought to a short and terrified halt. Two prongs of a hayfork gleamed viciously within three inches of her horrified eyes, and, behind them, with eyes no less horrified, stood the dark-haired stranger.

CHAPTER XI

THE SHADOW OF THE PAST

The gleaming prongs of the fork were sharply withdrawn, and a pleasant voice greeted the girl.

“Guess that was a near thing,” it said half-warningly.

Joan had started back, but at the sound of the voice she quickly recovered herself.

“It was,” she agreed. Then as she looked into the smiling eyes of the stranger she began to laugh.

“Another inch an’ more an’ you’d sure have been all mussed up on that pile of barn litter,” he went on, joining in her laugh.

“I s’pose I should,” Joan nodded, her mirth promptly sobering to a broad smile.

She had almost forgotten her purpose so taken up was she in observing this “scallawag,” as Mrs. Ransford had called him. Nor did it take her impressionable nature more than a second to decide that her worthy housekeeper was something in the nature of a thoroughly stupid woman. She liked the look of him. She liked his easy manner. More than all she liked the confident look of his dark eyes and his sunburnt face, so full of strength.

“Hayforks are cussed things anyway,” the man said, flinging the implement aside as though it had offended him.

Joan watched him. She was wondering how best to approach the questions in her mind. Somehow they did not come as easily as she had anticipated. It was one thing to make up her mind beforehand, and another to put her decision into execution. He was certainly not the rough, uncouth man she had expected to find. True, his language was the language of the prairie, and his clothes, yes, they surely belonged to his surroundings, but there was none of the uncleanness about them she had anticipated.

It was his general manner, however, that affected her chiefly. How tall and strong he was, and the wonderful sunburn on his clean-cut face and massive arms! Then he had such an air of reserve. No, it was not easy.

Finally, she decided to temporize, and wait for an opening. And in that she knew in her heart she was yielding to weakness.

“My housekeeper tells me it was you who handed the farm over to her?” she said interrogatively.

The man’s eyes began to twinkle again.

“Was that your – housekeeper?” he inquired.

“Yes – Mrs. Ransford.”

Joan felt even less at her ease confronted by those twinkling eyes.

“She’s a – bright woman.”

The man casually picked up a straw and began to chew it.

Joan saw that he was smiling broadly, and resented it. So she threw all the dignity she could summon into her next question.

“Then you must be Mr. Moreton Kenyon!” she said.

The man shook his head.

“Wrong. That’s the ‘Padre,’” he announced curtly.

Joan forgot her resentment in her surprise.

“The ‘Padre’! Why, I thought Mr. Kenyon was a farmer!”

The man nodded.

“So he is. You see folks call him Padre because he’s a real good feller,” he explained. Then he added: “He’s got white hair, too. A whole heap of it. That sort o’ clinched it.”

The dark eyes had become quite serious again. There was even a tender light in them as he searched the girl’s fair face. He was wondering what was yet to come. He was wondering how this interview was to bear on the future. In spite of his easy manner he dreaded lest the threats of Mrs. Ransford were about to be put into execution.

Joan accepted his explanation.

“I see,” she said. Then, after a pause: “Then who are you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m ‘Buck,’” he responded, with a short laugh.

“Buck – who?”

“Jest plain ‘Buck.’” Again came that short laugh.

“Mr. Kenyon’s son?”

The man shook his head, and Joan tried again.

“His nephew?”

Again came that definite shake. Joan persisted, but with growing impatience.

“Perhaps you’re – his partner?” she said, feeling that if he again shook his head she must inevitably shake him.

But she was spared a further trial. Buck had been quick to realize her disappointment. Nor had he any desire to inspire her anger. On the contrary, his one thought was to please and help her.

“You see we’re not related. Ther’s nuthin’ between us but that he’s jest my great big friend,” he explained.

His reward came promptly in the girl’s sunny smile. And the sight of it quickened his pulses and set him longing to hold her again in his arms as he had done only yesterday. Somehow she had taken a place in his thoughts which left him feeling very helpless. He never remembered feeling helpless before. It was as though her coming into his life had robbed him of all his confidence. Yesterday he had found a woman almost in rags. Yesterday she was in trouble, and it had seemed the simplest thing in the world for him to take her in his arms and carry her to the home he knew to be hers. Now – now, all that confidence was gone. Now an indefinable barrier, but none the less real, had been raised between them. It was a barrier he felt powerless to break down. This beautiful girl, with her deep violet eyes and wonderful red-gold hair, clad in her trim costume of lawn and serge, seemed to him like a creature from an undreamed-of world, and as remote from him as if thousands of miles separated them. He sighed as Joan went on with her examination —

“I suppose you have come to fetch some of your big friend’s belongings?” she said pleasantly.

For answer Buck suddenly flung out a protecting arm.

“Say, you’re sure getting mussed with that dirty litter,” he said almost reproachfully. “See, your fixin’s are right agin it. Say – ”

Joan laughed outright at his look of profound concern.

“That doesn’t matter a bit,” she exclaimed. “I must get used to being ‘mussed-up.’ You see, I’m a farmer – now.”

The other’s concern promptly vanished. He loved to hear her laugh.

“You never farmed any?” he asked.

“Never.” Joan shook her head in mock seriousness. “Isn’t it desperate of me? No, I’m straight from a city.”

Buck withdrew his gaze from her face and glanced out at the hills. But it was only for a moment. His eyes came back as though drawn by a magnet.

“Guess you’ll likely find it dull here – after a city,” he said at last. “Y’ see, it’s a heap quiet. It ain’t quiet to me, but then I’ve never been to a city – unless you call Leeson Butte a city. Some folks feel lonesome among these big hills.”

“I don’t think I shall feel lonesome,” Joan said quickly. “The peace and quiet of this big world is all I ask. I left the city to get away from – oh, from the bustle of it all! Yes, I want the rest and quiet of these hills more than anything else in the world.”