They of the High Trails

Slowly he returned to the door of the shack with vague intent to apologize. Something very sudden and very terrible must have fallen upon the postmaster.

After some hesitation he knocked timidly on the door.

"Have they gone?" the girl asked.

"Yes; I've scared 'em away. They didn't mean no harm, I reckon. I want to know can't I be of some kind of use?"

The door opened cautiously and the girl again appeared. She was very pale and held a pistol in her hand, but her voice was calm. "You're very good," she said, "and I'm much obliged. Who are you?"

"I am Roy Pierce, foreman for McCoy, a cattleman north of here."

"Was it really a band of Indians?"

"Naw. Only a bunch of cow-punchers on a bat."

"You mean cowboys?"

"That's what. It's their little way of havin' fun. I reckon they didn't know you was here. I didn't. Who's sick?"

"My uncle."

"You mean the postmaster?"

"Yes."

"When was he took?"

"Last night. They telegraphed me about six o'clock. I didn't get here till this morning – I mean yesterday morning."

"What's the ail of him?"

"A stroke, I'm afraid. He can't talk, and he's stiff as a stake. Oh, I wish the doctor would come!"

Her anxiety was moving. "I'll try to find him for you."

"I wish you would."

"You aren't all alone?"

"Yes; Mrs. Gilfoyle had to go home to her baby. She said she'd come back, but she hasn't."

Roy's heart swept a wide arc as he stood looking into the pale, awed, lovely face of the girl.

"I'll bring help," he said, and vanished into the darkness, shivering with a sense of guilt. "The poor old cuss! Probably he was sick the very minute I was bullyragging him."

The local doctor had gone down the valley on a serious case, and would not be back till morning, his wife said, thereupon Roy wired to Claywall, the county-seat, for another physician. He also secured the aid of Mrs. James, the landlady of the Palace Hotel, and hastened back to the relief of the girl, whom he found walking the floor of the little kitchen, tremulous with dread.

"I'm afraid he's dying," she said. "His teeth are set and he's unconscious."

Without knowing what to say in way of comfort, the herder passed on into the little office, where the postmaster lay on a low couch with face upturned, in rigid, inflexible pose, his hands clenched, his mouth foam-lined. Roy, unused to sickness and death, experienced both pity and awe as he looked down upon the prostrate form of the man he had expected to punish. And yet these emotions were rendered vague and slight by the burning admiration which the niece had excited in his susceptible and chivalrous heart.

She was tall and very fair, with a face that seemed plain in repose, but which bewitched him when she smiled. Her erect and powerful body was glowing with health, and her lips and eyes were deliciously young and sweet. Her anxious expression passed away as Roy confidently assured her that these seizures were seldom fatal. He didn't know a thing about it, but his tone was convincing.

"I knew a man once who had these fits four or five times a year. Didn't seem to hurt him a bit. One funny thing – he never had 'em while in the saddle. They 'most always come on just after a heavy meal. I reckon the old man must of over-et."

Mrs. James came in soon – all too soon to please him – but he reported to her his message to Claywall. "A doctor will be down on 'the Cannonball' about five o'clock," he added.

"That's very kind and thoughtful of you," said the girl. Then she explained to Mrs. James that Mr. Pierce had just driven off a horrid band of cowboys who were attacking the town.

The landlady snorted with contempt. "I'm so used to boozy cowboys howlin' round, I don't bat an eye when they shoot up the street. They're all a lot of cheap skates, anyway. You want to swat 'em with the mop if they come round; that's the way I do."

Roy was nettled by her tone, for he was now very anxious to pose as a valorous defender of the innocent; but agreed with her that "the boys were just having a little 'whiz' as they started home; they didn't mean no harm."

"Ought I to sit in there?" the girl asked the woman, with a glance toward the inner room.

"No; I don't think you can do any good. I'll just keep an eye on him and let you know if they's any change."

The girl apologized for the looks of the kitchen. "Poor uncle has been so feeble lately he couldn't keep things in order, and I haven't had any chance since I came. If you don't mind, I'll rid things up now; it'll keep my mind occupied."

"Good idea!" exclaimed Roy. "I'll help."

He had been in a good many exciting mix-ups with steers, bears, cayuses, sheriffs' posses, and Indians, but this was easily the most stirring and amazing hour of his life. While his pony slowly slid away up the hill to feed, he, with flapping gun and rattling spurs, swept, polished, and lifted things for Lida – that was her name – Lida Converse.

"My folks live in Colorado Springs," she explained in answer to his questions. "My mother is not very well, and father is East, so I had to come. Uncle Dan was pretty bad when I got here, only not like he is now. This fit came on after the doctor went away at nine."

"I'm glad your father was East," declared the raider, who was unable to hold to a serious view of the matter, now that he was in the midst of a charming and intimate conversation. "Just think – if he had 'a' come, I'd never have seen you!"

She faced him in surprise and disapproval of his boldness. "You're pretty swift, aren't you?" she said, cuttingly.

"A feller's got to be in this country," he replied, jauntily.

She was prepared to be angry with him, but his candid, humorous, admiring gaze disarmed her. "You've been very nice," she said, "and I feel very grateful; but I guess you better not say any more such things to me – to-night."

"You mustn't forget I chased off them redskins."

"You said they were cowboys."

"Of course I did; I wanted to calm your mind."

She was a little puzzled by his bluffing. "I don't believe there are any Indians over here."

"Well, if they were cowboys, they were a fierce lot."

She considered. "I've told you I feel grateful. What more can I do?"

"A good deal; but, as you say, that can go over till to-morrow. Did I tell you that I had a bunch of cattle of my own?"

"I don't remember of it."

"Well, I have. I'm not one of these crazy cowboys who blows in all his wad on faro and drink – not on your life! I've got some ready chink stacked away in a Claywall bank. Want to see my bank-book?"

She answered, curtly: "Please take that kettle of slop out and empty it. And what time did you say the express was due?"

Roy was absorbed, ecstatic. He virtually forgot all the rest of the world. His herders could ride to the north pole, his pony might starve, the Cannonball Express go over the cliff, the postmaster die, so long as he was left in service to this princess.

"Lord A'mighty! wasn't I in luck?" he repeated to himself. "Suppose I'd 'a' roped her instead of the old man!"

When he returned from listening for the train he found her washing her hands at the end of her task, and the room in such order as it had never known before. The sight of her standing there, flushed and very womanly, rolling down her sleeves, was more than the young fellow could silently observe.

"I hope the old man'll be a long time getting well," he said, abruptly.

"That's a nice thing to say! What do you mean by such a cruel wish?"

"I see my finish when you go away. No more lonely ranch-life for me."

"If you start in on that talk again I will not speak to you," she declared, and she meant it.

"All right, I'll shut up; but I want to tell you I'm a trailer for keeps, and you can't lose me, no matter where you go. From this time on I forget everything in the world but you."

With a look of resolute reproof she rose and joined Mrs. James in the inner room, leaving Roy cowed and a good deal alarmed.

"I reckon I'm a little too swift," he admitted; "but, oh, my soul! she's a peach!"

When the train whistled, Lida came out again. "Will you please go to meet the doctor?" she asked, with no trace of resentment in her manner.

"Sure thing; I was just about starting," he replied, instantly.

While he was gone she asked Mrs. James if she knew the young man, and was much pleased to find that the sharp-tongued landlady had only good words to say of Roy Pierce.

"He's no ordinary cowboy," she explained. "If he makes up to you you needn't shy."

"Who said he was making up to me? I never saw him before."

"I want to know! Well, anybody could see with half an eye that he was naturally rustlin' round you. I thought you'd known each other for years."

This brought tears of mortification to the girl's eyes. "I didn't mean to be taken that way. Of course I couldn't help being grateful, after all he'd done; but I think it's a shame to be so misunderstood. It's mean and low down of him – and poor uncle so sick."

"Now don't make a hill out of an ant-heap," said the old woman, vigorously. "No harm's done. You're a mighty slick girl, and these boys don't see many like you out here in the sage-brush and piñons. Facts are, you're kind o' upsettin' to a feller like Roy. You make him kind o' drunk-like. He don't mean to be sassy."

"Well, I wish you'd tell him not to do anything more for me. I don't want to get any deeper in debt to him."

The Claywall physician came into the little room as silently as a Piute. He was a plump, dark little man of impassive mien, but seemed to know his business. He drove the girl out of the room, but drafted Mrs. James and Roy into service.

"It's merely a case of indigestion," said he; "but it's plenty serious enough. You see, the distended stomach pressing against the heart – "

The girl, sitting in the kitchen and hearing the swift and vigorous movement within, experienced a revulsion to the awe and terror of the midnight. For the second time in her life death had come very close to her, but in this case her terror was shot through with the ruddy sympathy of a handsome, picturesque young cavalier. She could not be really angry with him, though she was genuinely shocked by his reckless disregard of the proprieties; for he came at such a dark and lonely and helpless hour, and his prompt and fearless action in silencing those dreadful cowboys was heroic. Therefore, when the doctor sent Roy out to say that her uncle would live, a part of her relief and joy shone upon the young rancher, who was correspondingly exalted.

"Now you must let me hang round till he gets well," he said, forgetful of all other duties.

"That reminds me. You'll need some breakfast," she said, hurriedly; "for here comes the sun." And as she spoke the light of the morning streamed like a golden river into the little room.

"It's me to the wood-pile, then," cried Roy, and his smile was of a piece with the sunshine on the wall.

II

Beside the fallen monarch of the wood the lifting saplings bud and intertwine. So over the stern old postmaster these young people re-enacted the most primitive drama in the world. Indifferent to the jeers of his fellows, Roy devoted himself to the service of "The Badger's Niece," and was still in town when McCoy returned from "the East"; that is to say, from Kansas City.

Lida had ceased to protest against the cowboy's attendance and his love-making, for the good reason that her protests were unavailing. He declined to take offense, and he would not remain silent. A part of his devotion was due, of course, to his sense of guilt, and yet this was only a small part. True, he had sent warnings and dire threats to silence his band of marauders; but he did not feel keenly enough about their possible tale-bearing to carry his warnings in person. "I can't spare the time," he argued, knowing that Lida would be going home in a few days and that his world would then be blank.

"I lose too much of you," he said to her once; "I can't afford to have you out of my sight a minute."

She had grown accustomed to such speeches as these, and seldom replied to them, except to order the speaker about with ever-increasing tyranny. "You're so anxious to work," she remarked, "I'll let you do a-plenty. You'll get sick o' me soon."

"Sick of you! Lord heavens! what'll I do when you leave?"

"You'll go back to your ranch. A fine foreman you must be, fooling round here like a tramp. What does your boss think?"

"Don't know and don't care. Don't care what anybody thinks – but you. You're my only landmark these days. You're my sun, moon, and stars, that's what you are. I set my watch by you."

"You're crazy!" she answered, with laughter.

"Sure thing! Locoed, we call it out here. You've got me locoed – you're my pink poison blossom. There ain't any feed that interests me but you. I'm lonesome as a snake-bit cow when I can't see you."

"Say, do you know Uncle Dan begins to notice you. He asked me to-day what you were hanging round here for, and who you were."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him you were McCoy's hired man just helping me take care of him."

"That's a lie. I'm your hired man. I'm takin' care of you – willing to work for a kiss a day."

"You'll not get even that."

"I'm not getting it – yet."

"You'll never get it."

"Don't be too sure of that. My life-work is collecting my dues. I've got 'em all set down. You owe me a dozen for extra jobs, and a good hug for overtime."

She smiled derisively, and turned the current. "The meals you eat are all of a dollar a day."

"They're worth a bushel of diamonds – when you cook 'em. But let me ask you something – is your old dad as fierce as Uncle Dan?"

She nodded. "You bet he is! He's crusty as old crust. Don't you go up against my daddy with any little bank-book. It's got to be a fat wad, and, mind you, no cloves on your breath, either. He's crabbed on the drink question; that's why he settled in Colorado Springs. No saloons there, you know."

He considered a moment. "Much obliged. Now here's something for you. You're not obliged to hand out soft words and a sweet smile to every doggone Injun that happens to call for mail. Stop it. Why, you'll have all the cow-punchers for fifty miles around calling for letters. That bunch that was in here just now was from Steamboat Springs. Their mail don't come here; it comes by way of Wyoming. They were runnin' a bluff. It makes me hot to have such barefaced swindling going on. I won't stand for it."

"Well, you see, I'm not really deputized to handle the mail, so I must be careful not to make anybody mad – "

"Anybody but me. I don't count."

"Oh, you wouldn't complain, I know that."

"I wouldn't, hey? Sure of that? Well, I'm going to start a petition to have myself made postmaster – "

"Better get Uncle Dan out first," she answered, with a sly smile. "The office won't hold you both."

At the end of a week the old postmaster was able to hobble to the window and sort the mail, but the doctor would not consent to his cooking his own meals.

"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 assault 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 associated 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 glassy 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 hell-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 Saturday 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 pass 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.

As the sun sank, and the dusk began to come on, he grew a little more reckless of being recognized, and, crossing the way, continued to sentinel the gate. He was passing it for the fourth time when Lida came out upon the porch with an older woman. She looked at the stranger curiously, but did not recognize him. She wore a hat, and was plainly about to go for a walk.