"Never, Nan."

"Don't be so sure. I know him better than you do, and when he comes for anybody, he comes all at once. Why, it's funny, Henry. Now that I'm picking up courage, you're losing it!"

He shook his head. "I don't like the way things are going."

"Dearie," she urged, "should I be any safer at home if I were your wife, than I am as your sweetheart. I don't want to start a horrible family war by running away, and that is just what I certainly should do."

De Spain was unconvinced. But apprehension is short-lived in young hearts. The sun shone, the sky spread a speckless blue over desert and mountain, the day was for them together. They did not promise all of it to themselves at once--they filched its sweetness bit by bit, moment by moment, and hour by hour, declaring to each other they must part, and dulling the pain of parting with the anodyne of procrastination. Thus, the whole day went to their castles and dreams. In a retired corner of the cool dining-room at the Mountain House, they lingered together over a long-drawn-out dinner. The better-informed guests by asides indicated their presence to others.

They described them as the hardy couple who had first met in a stiff Frontier Day rifle match, which the girl had won. Her defeated rival--the man now most regarded and feared in the mountain country--was the man with the reticent mouth, mild eyes, curious birthmark, and with the two little, perplexed wrinkles visible most of the time just between his dark eyebrows, the man listening intently to every syllable that fell from the lips of the trimly bloused, active girl opposite him, leaning forward in her eagerness to tell him things. Her jacket hung over the back of her chair, and she herself was referred to by the more fanciful as queen of the outlaw camp at Music Mountain.

They two were seen together that day about town by many, for the story of their courtship was still veiled in mystery and afforded ground for the widest speculation, while that of their difficulties, and such particulars as de Spain's fruitless efforts to conciliate Duke Morgan and Duke's open threats against de Spain's life were widely known. All these details made the movement and the fate of the young couple the object of keenly curious comment.

In the late afternoon the two rode almost the whole length of Main Street together on their way to the river bridge. Every one knew the horseflesh they bestrode--none cleaner-limbed, hardier, or faster in the high country. Those that watched them amble slowly past, laughing and talking, intent only on each other, erect, poised, and motionless, as if moulded to their saddles, often spoke of having seen Nan and her lover that day. It was a long time before they were seen riding down Main Street together again.

CHAPTER XXIII

DE SPAIN WORRIES

They parted that evening under the shadow of Music Mountain. Nan believed she could at least win her Uncle Duke over from any effort of Gale's to coerce her. Her influence over her uncle had never yet failed, and she was firm in the conviction she could gain him to her side, since he had everything to win and nothing to lose by siding against Gale, whom he disliked and distrusted, anyway.

For de Spain there was manifestly nothing to do but doubtfully to let Nan try out her influence. They agreed to meet in Calabasas just as soon as Nan could get away. She hoped, she told him, to bring good news. De Spain arranged his business to wait at Calabasas for her, and was there, after two days, doing little but waiting and listening to McAlpin's stories about the fire and surmises as to strange men that lurked in and about the place. But de Spain, knowing Jeffries was making an independent investigation into the affair, gave no heed to McAlpin's suspicions.

To get away from the barn boss, de Spain took refuge in riding. The season was drawing on toward winter, and rain clouds drifting at intervals down from the mountains made the saddle a less dependable escape from the monotony of Calabasas. Several days pa.s.sed with no sight of Nan and no word from her. De Spain, as the hours and days went by, scanned the horizon with increasing solicitude. When he woke on the sixth morning, he was resolved to send a scout into the Gap to learn what he could of the situation. The long silence, de Spain knew, portended nothing good. And the vexing feature of his predicament was that he had at hand no trustworthy spy to despatch for information; to secure one would be a matter of delay. He was schooled, however, to making use of such material as he had at hand, and when he had made up his mind, he sent to the stable for Bull Page.

The shambling barn man, summoned gruffly by McAlpin, hesitated as he appeared at the office door and seemed to regard the situation with suspicion. He looked at de Spain tentatively, as if ready either for the discharge with which he was daily threatened or for a renewal of his earlier, friendly relations with the man who had been queer enough to make a place for him. De Spain set Bull down before him in the stuffy little office.

"Bull," he began with apparent frankness, "I want to know how you like your job."

Wiping his mouth guardedly with his hand to play for time and as an introduction to a carefully worded reply, Bull parried. "Mr. de Spain, I want to ask you just one fair question."

"Go ahead, Bull."

Bull plunged promptly into the suspicion uppermost in his mind. "Has that slat-eyed, flat-headed, sun-sapped sneak of a Scotchman been complaining of my work? _That_, Mr. de Spain," emphasized Bull, leaning forward, "is what I want to know first--is it a fair question?"

"Bull," returned de Spain with corresponding and ceremonial emphasis, "it is a fair question between man and man. I admit it; it is a fair question. And I answer, no, Bull. McAlpin has had nothing on the face of the desert to do with my sending for you. And I add this because I know you want to hear it: he says he couldn't complain of your work, because you never do any."

"That man," persisted Bull, reinforced by the hearty tone and not clearly catching the drift of the very last words, "drinks more liquor than I do."

"He must be some tank, Bull."

"And I don't hide it, Mr. de Spain."

"You'd have to crawl under Music Mountain to do that. What I want to know is, do you like your job?"

On this point it was impossible to get an expression from Bull. He felt convinced that de Spain was pressing for an answer only as a preliminary to his discharge. "No matter," interposed the latter, cutting Bull's ramblings short, "drop it, Bull. I want you to do something for me, and I'll pay for it."

Bull, with a palsied smile and a deep, quavering note of grat.i.tude, put up his shaky hand. "Say what. That's all. I've been paid."

"You know you're a sot, Bull."

Bull nodded. "I know it."

"A disgrace to the Maker whose image you were made in."

Bull started, but seemed, on reflection, to consider this a point on which he need not commit himself.

"Still, I believe there's a man in you yet. Something, at any rate, you couldn't completely kill with whiskey, Bull--what?"

Bull lifted his weak and watery eyes. His whiskey-seamed face brightened into the ghost of a smile. "What I'm going to ask you to do," continued de Spain, "is a man's job. You can get into the Gap without trouble. You are the only man I can put my hand on just now, that can. I want you to ride over this morning and hang out around Duke Morgan's place till you can get a chance to see Miss Nan----"

At the mention of her name, Bull shook his head a moment in affirmative approval. "She's a queen!" he exclaimed with admiring but pungent expletives. "A queen!"

"I think so, Bull. But she is in troublesome circ.u.mstances. You know Nan and I----"

Bull winked in many ways.

"And her Uncle Duke is making us trouble, Bull. I want you to find her, speak with her, and bring word to me as to what the situation is.

That doesn't mean you're to get drunk over there--in fact, I don't think anybody over there would give you a drink----"

"Don't believe they would."

"And you are to ride back here with what you can find out just as quick, after you get into the clear, as a horse will bring you."

Bull pa.s.sed his hand over his mouth with a show of resolution. It indicated that he was pulling himself together. Within half an hour he was on his way to the Gap.

For de Spain hours never dragged as did the hours between his starting and the setting of the sun that night without his return. And the sun set behind Music Mountain in a drift of heavy clouds that brought rain. All evening it fell steadily. At eleven o'clock de Spain had given up hope of seeing his emissary before morning and was sitting alone before the stove in the office when he heard the sound of hoofs.

In another moment Bull Page stood at the door.

He was a sorry sight. Soaked to the skin by the steady downpour; rain dripping intermittently from his frayed hat, his ragged beard, and tattered coat; shaking with the cold as if gripped by an ague, Bull, picking his staggering steps to the fire, and sinking in a heap into a chair, symbolized the uttermost tribute of manhood to the ravages of whiskey. He was not drunk. He had not even been drinking; but his vitality was gone. He tried to speak. It was impossible. His tongue would not frame words, nor his throat utter them. He could only look helplessly at de Spain as de Spain hastily made him stand up on his shaking knees, threw a big blanket around him, sat him down, kicked open the stove drafts, and called to McAlpin for more whiskey to steady the wreck of it crouching over the fire.

McAlpin after considerable and reluctant search produced a bottle, and unwilling, for more reasons than one, to trust it to Bull's uncertain possession, brought a dipper. Bull held the dipper while de Spain poured. McAlpin, behind the stove, hopped first on one foot and then on the other as de Spain recklessly continued to pour. When the liquor half filled the cup, McAlpin put out unmistakable distress signals, but Bull, watching the brown stream, his eyes galvanized at the sight, held fast to the handle and made no sign to stop. "Bull!" thundered the barn boss with an emphatic word. "That is Elpaso's bottle. What are you dreaming of, man? Mr. de Spain, you'll kill him. Don't ye see he can't tell ye to stop?"

Bull, with the last flickering spark of vitality still left within him, looked steadily up and winked at de Spain. McAlpin, outraged, stamped out of the room. Steadying the dipper in both hands, Bull with an effort pa.s.sed one hand at the final moment preliminarily over his mouth, and, raising the bowl, emptied it. The poison electrified him into utterance. "I seen her," he declared, holding his chin well down and in, and speaking in a pardonably proud throat.

"Good, Bull!"

"They've got things tied up for fair over there." He spoke slowly and brokenly. "I never got inside the house till after supper. Toward night I helped Pardaloe put up the stock. He let me into the kitchen after my coaxing for a cup of coffee--he's an ornery, cold-blooded guy, that Pardaloe. Old Duke and Sa.s.soon think the sun rises and sets on the top of his head--funny, ain't it?"

De Spain made no comment. "Whilst I was drinking my coffee----"

"Who gave it to you?"

"Old Bunny, the Mex. Pardaloe goes out to the bunk-house; I sits down to my supper, alone, with Bunny at the stove. All of a sudden who comes a-trippin' in from the front of the house but Nan. I jumped up as strong as I could, but I was too cold and stiff to jump up real strong. She seen me, but didn't pay no attention. I dropped my spoon on the floor. It didn't do no good, neither, so I pushed a hot plate of ham gravy off the table. It hit the dog 'n' he jumped like kingdom come. Old Bunny sails into me, Nan a-watchin', and while Mex was pickin' up and cleanin' up, I sneaks over to the stove and winks at Nan. Say, you oughter seen her look mad at me. She was hot, but I kept a-winkin' and I says to her kind of husky-like: 'Got any letters for Calabasas to-night?' Say, she looked at me as if she'd bore holes into me, but I stood right up and glared back at the little girl. 'Come from there this mornin',' says I, low, 'going back to-night. Some one waiting there for news.'

"By jing! Just as I got the words out o' my mouth who comes a-stalking in but Gale Morgan. The minute he seen me, he lit on me to beat the band--called me everything he could lay his tongue to. I let on I was drunk, but that didn't help. He ordered me off the premises.