Black Mesa. Zane Grey

that her reaction was somehow sweet to him.

      “I felt it—saw it in your eyes.”

      “What?”

      “That you had been hurt.”

      “Yes, I was pretty badly hurt,” admitted Paul. “It was a bad case, I guess. But thanks to my cowboy pard here, I weathered it, a sadder, a wiser, and surely a better man. I must have been pretty much of a young fool, a conceited ass, and certainly no catch for a beautiful woman who loved society, travel, clothes, jewels.”

      “Probably you’re very lucky to have escaped her,” declared Louise solemnly. Then with a tinge of melancholy, “You and I should be good friends.”

      “Thank you. I’d be pleased, I’m sure. But just why—”

      “Life has gone wrong for me too,” she interrupted bitterly.

      “Indeed. I’m sorry, Louise. I guess I had a suspicion of it. . . . You mean the same way as I?”

      Her voice was low. “No, I’ve never really loved anyone except, of course, my baby—but that’s different. . . . But when I . . .” Abruptly she paused, as if her thoughts were somehow beyond words.

      “You mean—Belmont,” Paul blurted out almost fiercely. “But why did you. . . ?”

      They were suddenly interrupted by Kintell who stepped down from the box to confront them, cool with eyes of gray fire. “Don’t talk so loud, you kids. . . . Louise, me an’ Paul want to stay on heah. Want to turrible bad now we’re acquainted with you an’ see how—how lonely you air. . . . Do you want us as real friends?”

      “Oh, I do. I do,” she whispered, with a catch in her voice. “It’s been different since you came. I don’t know how. But—”

      “Okay,” interrupted the cowboy brightly. “You can trust us. An’ I reckon there’s no sense in yore waitin’ to unburden yoreself, if you’re ever gonna do thet.”

      “Louise, he is right,” interrupted Paul, suddenly ashamed that he had blurted out his question to her.

      “Oh, I can’t tell you anything,” whispered the girl nervously. Somehow she seemed to be a sensitive, young creature caught in a trap.

      Paul took her hand. The instant he yielded to this kindly act he regretted it, yet was keenly affected as she responded with a glad pressure, with quick tears and warm soft flush, all vividly betraying what a stranger she had been to another’s sympathy.

      “I daren’t tell you much,” she replied fearfully. “I don’t remember my parents. I lived with an aunt in Peoria, where I went to school. My aunt died. Then I had to work. Belmont came to visit the people I boarded with. They had a farm near town. They were queer people. Belmont had some hold on them. He took me to Utah with him—promised me work—a home—everything. I was only a child. That was two—nearly three years ago. We lived on a ranch outside of Lund, at a place way off across the big river lost in the canyon country. He kept me closely confined there with this woman he calls Sister to watch me—and married me just before he moved out here to Bitter Seeps.”

      “How could Belmont marry you without your consent?” asked Paul sternly.

      “I was scared to death of him.”

      Kintell turned toward her with a tense face. “Did he make—force any religion on you?”

      “No.”

      “What kind of people did you know?”

      “We didn’t meet many, but of course we saw people, and heard them. But we never got acquainted.”

      “Ah-huh. Has this dame Sister always been with him, since you came?”

      “Yes.”

      “Is she his real sister?”

      “He says so.”

      “How did Sister take yore comin’ to the ranch, first off?”

      “She hated me on sight. She was mean, cruel to me. . . . Beat me until Belmont caught her at it. They quarreled often. She has changed since we came here. Lets me alone.”

      “Lets you alone? Humph! I shore see her watchin’ you. What you mean?” went on Kintell sharply.

      “You ask so many questions. . . . I talk too much. For one thing, she used to make it impossible for any boys or men to get near me, in Belmont’s absence. Now I have perfect freedom. I know she wants men to see me.”

      “But how aboot Belmont?”

      “He pays little attention to me—in the daytime,” went on the girl, somber-eyed. “He works early and late, as you have seen. He leaves me to myself, except . . .”

      “But doesn’t thet—thet hombre love you?” queried the cowboy.

      “Love me!” she echoed scornfully. “He loves only money and drink.”

      Kintell turned to Paul with his characteristic sweeping spread of hands. “Pard, you heahed her. It’s wuss than we feared. . . . An’ if you’re askin’ me what pulled you to Bitter Seeps, I’m shore tellin’ you.”

      Paul did not answer. Somehow he accepted the cowboy’s implication. He felt a sense of shame too that Kintell must seem to Louise more deeply concerned over her than he. The cowboy, however, had been swayed wholly by primal emotions. The delicacy, the danger of the situation had not occurred to him. He did not think. Paul felt deeply for the girl, he had no idea how deeply, but his intelligence prompted him to proceed more slowly. Belmont was a dominating man who would hold on to whatever he possessed. Moreover, Paul sensed a peril in the Texan himself. He was an unknown quantity, a wild product of the ranges, whom no age or law could restrain.

      “Your coming was an answer to my prayers,” murmured Louise, looking up at Paul with eloquent, appealing eyes no man could have resisted. All at once he noticed that the shadow of havoc seemed to be gone. “I prayed for someone to come. . . . If it hadn’t been for Tommy, I—don’t know what I’d have done, even . . .”

      “Hush!” cried Paul, clasping her hand. “What are you saying? We have come, if it means anything to you. We shall stay. . . . Promise me you will not think of such a thing again.”

      She shook her bronze head sadly. “I can’t promise, but perhaps you can give me some hope. . . . Oh, you can!” She released her hand to offer it to the cowboy. “Thank you, Wess. You are wonderful to understand. And I don’t feel forlorn and lost any more.”

      Then she slipped out, looking back, pale, but somehow radiant, and leaving Wess and Paul to stare impotently at each other.

      “Holy mackali!” exploded the cowboy, and sat down limply on the box. “Did it happen to you, pard?”

      “What?” asked Paul shortly.

      “Did you fall fer her?”

      “Don’t be a fool!”

      “Which is to say don’t be a man. See heah, boss, your gray matter may be workin’, but it’s not aboot her, unless you fell like a ton of lead. This ain’t no little deal. It’s as big as this damned range. It’s as Gawd-forsaken an’ turrible as this heah hellhole. . . . Paul, think aboot this little woman an’ her baby if you want me to stay pard of yores. I knowed there was somethin’ deep an’ crooked aboot this heah Belmont.”

      “I am, Wess. God knows, Belmont may be everything you say he is,” rejoined Paul earnestly. “But we can’t go off half cocked. Whether she hates him or not, she is his wife. We have no moral or legal right to interfere. . . . Besides, how do you know she’s telling the truth?”

      “Paul, don’t you know truth when you see it in a woman’s eyes?”

      “Yes, I do. But . . .”

      “An’ didn’t you see some of the hell fade