The Last Straw. Titus Harold

laugh and asked:

      "Herself?"

      "The same, ma'am. I s'pose there are folks who live for money and what it'll bring 'em. Cities must be full of 'em, or there wouldn't be so many cities. Folks do work pretty hard to make money an' pile it up, but I've never seen any of 'em that got to be very successful in other ways. The more money they made the more they seemed to depend on makin' money to attract attention. They don't seem to think that it ain't what a man does that really counts so much as what he is. The same goes for a woman."

      She sat back, brows drawn together.

      "Are you trying to preach to me?" she asked sharply.

      Beck laughed lightly, as though that obvious hurting of her pride delighted him.

      "Not just, ma'am. Preachers hammer away at folks about sin and such. I hadn't thought about you as a sinner; I was just considerin' you and your job; and what you say brought you here.

      "It's none of my business what you want to get out of life. You told me what you wanted and asked me if I didn't like it, and I don't. That's all.

      "It seems to me that everybody who's alive ought to want to get the best out of himself and I don't think you can do it by just tryin' to herd dollars." He divined in her retort what she was withholding. "Sure, I'm only an ordinary cowpuncher, ma'am. I don't seem to care much about any kind of success but I'm afflicted like everybody else: I'm a human being, and every one of us likes to pick on the faults he finds in others that correspond to his own faults....

      "You see, you've got a big chance here. You've got a chance to be somebody. This is one of the biggest outfits in this state. All this country out here has been this outfit's range for years. You ain't got a neighbor in miles because you amount to so much. Away down Coyote Creek, 'most thirty miles, is Riley's ranch, an' close by him is Hewitt's. Off west an' south is Pat Webb's who, far as you're concerned, might better be a good deal further west," dryly.

      "Your uncle an' Riley was the first in here. Why, ma'am, they had to fight Indians to protect their cattle! They made names for 'emselves. They made money, too, or at least your uncle did, but he wasn't respected just because he made money. Men liked him because he did things.

      "Men will like you if you do things, ma'am.... Perhaps you'll like yourself better, too."

      He looked into her eyes and their gazes were for the moment very serious. Jane Hunter was meeting with a new sense of values; Tom Beck had sensed a faint recklessness, a despair, about her and, behind all his mockery and lightness, was a warm heart. Then she terminated the interval of silence by saying rather impatiently:

      "That's all very interesting, but what you said about my needing my brains and my grit is of greater interest. Do you mean that it's just a big job naturally or that there are complications?"

      "Both."

      "How much of both?"

      Beck shoved a hand into his pocket and gave his head a skeptical twist.

      "That remains to be seen. It's a man's job to run this place under favorable conditions. Your uncle, Colonel Hunter, sort of got shiftless in the last years. He let things slide. I don't know about debts and such, but I suspect there are some. There are other things, though. You've got some envious neighbors ... and some that ain't particular how they make their money,"—with just a shade of emphasis on the last.

      "You mean that they steal?"

      "Plenty, ma'am."

      "But how? Who?"

      "I don't know, but it seems to be gettin' quite the custom here to get rich off the HC ... especially since the place changed owners."

      "Why at that particular time?"

      "Since it got noised about that a woman was goin' to own it there's been a lively interest in crime. I told you that your uncle was a man who was respected a lot. Some feared him, too."

      "And they won't respect me because I'm a woman?"

      "That's about it. It's believed, ma'am, that a woman, 'specially an Eastern woman, can't make a go of it out here, so what's the use of givin' her a fair show?"

      He waited for her to speak again but she did not and he added with that experimental manner:

      "So, maybe, if you want to make money, it'd be well to find a buyer. Maybe if you was to take an interest in this ranch and did want to be ... to stay in this country, you couldn't make it go."

      "Do you think that's impossible?"

      He waited a moment before saying:

      "I don't know. You don't make a very good start, ma'am."

      "At least you are deliciously frank!"

      "It pays; it does away with misunderstandings. I wouldn't want you to think—since you've asked me—that I believed you could make a go of this ranch, even if you wanted to."

      That stung her sharply; she drew her breath in with a slight sound and leaned quickly forward as if ready to denounce his skepticism, but she did not speak.

      She only arose impatiently and walked to the mantel.

      "Do you smoke?" she asked, holding out a box of cigarettes.

      "Yes; do you?"

      "Yes."

      In the word was a clear defiance. She struck a match and held it towards him; then lighted her own cigarette.

      Seated again, she stared into the fire, smoking slowly, but as his eyes remained fast on her the color crept upward into her cheeks, higher and brighter until she turned to meet the gaze that was on her and with a bite to the words asked:

      "You don't approve of this, either?"

      "Why, ma'am, I like to smoke."

      "But you stare at me as though I were committing a crime."

      "You see, you're the first good white woman I've ever seen smoke."

      "You—" She checked the question, looked at him and then eyed her cigarette critically.

      "I don't suppose women out here do smoke, do they?"

      "No, ma'am; not much."

      "And you men? You men who drink and smoke don't want the women to enjoy the same privilege?"

      "That appears about it."

      She did not answer. He rose and looked down upon her. One tendril of her golden hair, like silk in texture, caressed her fine-grained cheek, delicately contrasted against its alluring color. He would have liked to press it closer to the skin with his fingers ... quite gently. But he said:

      "I guess you and I don't understand each other very well, and, if we don't, it ain't any use in our talking further. As for advisin' you about your business...."

      Jane blew on her ash.

      "I just tried to show you how to start right, accordin' to my notion, and if it made you mad I'm sorry.

      "After all, it don't make so much difference what other folks think of us. It's what we think of ourselves that counts most, but none of us can get clear away from the other hombre's ideas."

      That twinkle crept back in to his eyes. Her little frame fairly bristled independence and self-sufficiency; it was in the pert set of her head, the poise of her square shoulders, the languid swinging of one small foot.

      "I think that you think a lot of yourself, ma'am. That's more 'n most folks can say."

      She rose as he reached for his hat.

      "I'm glad to have your opinion on the proportions of my job," she said briefly, "and for that I am glad that you came in."

      The oblique rebuke could not be misunderstood.

      "I'm complimented," he replied, and, although she looked frankly and impersonally