# The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 18
### CHAPTER XVIII
#### RIDING THE GRAY STALLION

MRS. ELLIS and Principal Jones were in the drawing room, waiting to talk over the day with Hugh and Johnny.
Johnny was apparently more interested in the return of the gray stallion than in any other event.
“If I’d tried to stage anything like that, it sure would have failed,” he said, taking a turn up and down the parlor. “It was the big hit of the day, after your speech, Governor. But, say, Pink is some mad cowman. Everybody has hazed him today. Poor old fat man. Mrs. Morgan and Jessie both have turned against him, and now the Sioux Injun has stolen back the gray stallion!”
“Pink has turned mean,” Principal Jones laid down a report of Hugh’s speech in the evening paper.
“He’s harmless!” grunted Hugh.
“Harmless?” Mrs. Ellis raised her eyebrows. “Strikes me he was the little slide that finally started the whole avalanche. He’ll still bear watching.”
Before Hugh could reply, the doorman announced a visitor and old Charley Whitson came in, accompanied by Charles Grafton, the representative of the Eastern Electric Corporation.
Whitson was exceedingly businesslike. “Just two points, Governor, that I wanted to settle at once. First, that speech of yours today and the reception it got. That means just one thing, sir. You are booked for Washington.”
Hugh rose. “No!” he exclaimed, with all the earnestness at his command.
Whitson smiled. “Yes, Your Excellency!”
“Mr. Whitson!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis, “really I don't see where you come in on that!”
The two old warriors looked at each other appraisingly. “Mrs. Ellis,” smiled Whitson, “I come in on the Children's Code, and also, thanks to the Governor, on the Thumb Butte dam.” He suddenly grew serious. “Madam, I have hungered all my life for Wyoming to produce a national possibility. By God, this state is going to ride into Washington on a Gray Stallion!”
“Mrs. Ellis is the big figure in Wyoming,” Hugh’s voice was arresting. “Don’t mistake some trick of personality of which I seem to be the unfortunate possessor for anything but what it is.”
“Mrs. Ellis could do nothing with the Children’s Code until you came into the running,” said Whitson brusquely.
“I’ve been valuable to Wyoming,” Hugh said, “because of a peculiar set of circumstances. When I’ve settled the problems connected with these, I want to return to private life.”
“You haven’t a chance in the world,” grunted Whitson. “I have come to you tonight to tell you that. And to tell you that I would be glad to whip the Children’s Code through both houses for you. In short, I am asking to climb aboard the bandwagon.”
Suddenly Hugh began to laugh. Mrs. Ellis joined him. Johnny Parnell let out a great roar. A moment later every one in the room was rocking with amusement.
Mrs. Ellis was the first to recover. “If the Governor will permit me,” she said, “I’ll accept your offer, Mr. Whitson.”
“The Governor,” chuckled Hugh, “is only too glad to give up a job he knows nothing about. Mr. Grafton, what can I do for you?”
Grafton, who had been a deeply interested spectator, bowed formally. “Governor, we are going to begin work on the dam at once. Next week we set off the first blast. So much history has been written around Thumb Butte that we want to make a real occasion of beginning the work. We want you to come to Fort Sioux and press the electric button that sets off that first blast.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Hugh said, brusquely, “Where will that first blast be set?”
“In the cave, across the river from the Butte. It’s the picturesque point from which to fire the first shot.”
Silence again, with all eyes on Hugh. He stood, tall and slender, his eyes looking beyond the luxurious room, beyond the city in its holiday trappings, beyond the snow-swept plains to the cave, the cave where Bookie had left the body of Jimmie Duncan, where he had passed the most perfect hours of his working life, where he had taken Miriam into the secret place of his ambitions, the cave that was the burial place of the great triceratops.
A seemingly small and not unusual thing to ask of the Governor of a state. Yet all Hugh’s nature rose in revolt against granting the request. And yet again, so violent was his feeling that he dared not refuse. He had a sudden realization that this moment was the ultimate acid test of the sincerity of his decision made only a week before in the Dinosaur Cave.
He turned his back and walked toward the window. Only Johnny Parnell saw him twist his long hands together in a gesture of inexpressible pain. Johnny scowled fiercely at Grafton, who would have gone on eagerly with his explanation of the engineering problems connected with the opening of the work. Hugh walked to the window, and slowly returned to Grafton His face was deep-lined, but his voice firm.
“Very well, Mr. Grafton. Let Parnell know the details.” Then he turned to Whitson. “Will you excuse me from any further discussion just now, Whitson?”
“Sure! I guess I’ve gone on record clearly enough to offset any other siren calls you may hear tonight. I’ll see you all later at the ball. All set, Grafton?”
Grafton shook hands with Hugh and followed Whitson out of the room. Hugh turned to his three friends.
“Do you all think I must go on and on with this?” waving his hand at the rich trappings of the parlor. “Do you think for a moment that the Gray Stallion, bred in the plains, would be anything but a saddle horse for some one else to ride, in Washington?” He stopped, with a look of bitterness that moved them all.
Mrs. Ellis cleared her throat. She too dared not at this moment temporize. “I think we all agree, Hughie, that your days as a private citizen are over!”
Hugh looked from one to another. “You, too, Johnny?” he asked.
Johnny Parnell answered huskily but with the same sense that the situation must be met squarely. “I agree, I’m afraid, Governor.”
Hugh moved slowly toward the door. “I’ll see you all at dinner,” he said.
But in his room he did not begin at once on his toilet. He paced the floor for some moments. Then he went to the telephone and put in a long-distance call. He had finished dressing when the operator called him to the instrument.
“Is this you, Jessie?”
“Yes, Hughie.”
“Jessie, something that you said in our last talk together has given me courage to ask you to do something for me. Will you come up to Cheyenne as quickly as you can and let me ask you some questions?”
“Yes, Hughie. You are not in trouble, are you?”
“I’m not in trouble, but, Jessie, I’m deeply troubled. I’m not sure that you can help me. I’m very sure that I have no right to bother you.”
“I’ll be along, Hughie. Perhaps I can catch the flyer. I’m in Fort Sioux tonight.”
Hugh heard her receiver click. He hung up his own instrument and went downstairs to join the others.
Six hours later Hugh was standing in the ballroom, listening, with an absent eye, to an eager lady who wanted to be made commissioner of education, when an attendant whispered to him, “Mrs. Stewart is in the little reception room behind you, Governor.”
Hugh abruptly excused himself to the importunate voter and strode into the little room, closing and locking the door behind him. Jessie was standing under the chandelier in her beaver coat and hat, a little pale, violet eyes steady.
“Take off your wraps, Jessie,” said Hugh.
He dropped her coat on a chair, then stood before her. “Jessie, do you know that they want to get me into national politics?”
Jessie nodded.
“And did you know that they were to ask me to touch off the dynamite that next week will destroy the Dinosaur Cave?”
“No!” quickly “I didn’t know that! Of course, it’s impossible.”
“Impossible?” repeated Hugh. “But I’ve consented. I dared not refuse.”
Suddenly Jessie’s wide eyes deepened with tears. “O no! Hughie, not that! You mustn’t demand that of yourself.”
Hugh stared at her as though he would probe to her very soul. But he did not speak, and Jessie went on:
Not that! Give them the Children’s Code. Give them whatever you peculiarly can give them. Then go back to your dinosaurs.”
“That, Jessie!” gasped Hugh “That! from you!”
But Jessie was not heeding him. “You have crucified yourself enough for all of us, Uncle Bookie, mother, Mrs. Ellis, Johnny Parnell. They are an ambitious crowd and they set no limits. They love you, but they have no idea of what it’s costing you. Give them this term, Hughie, then go back to your marvelous past.”
She paused, but Hugh could not phrase what welled up within him. She misinterpreted his silence, and lifted her coat. “If I’ve answered all your questions, Hughie, I’ll be going. I must be back at the ranch tomorrow.”
Hugh took the coat from her and again tossed it to the chair. “Jessie! Jessie! For God’s sake give me truth, utter and absolute. Why, after all the years of contempt for my work, do you answer me so?”
Very white now, Jessie returned his look. “Because,” she replied carefully, “I have suffered for two years as only a woman who can love as I can, is able to suffer. Because, suffering so, I made myself learn where it was I had failed. Part of my way of learning was to get your point of view about your work. Once I got it, I realized how I had tortured you, how I had deliberately turned you to Miriam Page—I tried to take my medicine, standing—You must do for Wyoming whatever you alone can do. At all other times, keep to your own work.”
Again she lifted her coat. Hugh put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
“Wait, Jessie! Do you know that in all my world, you are the only one that would answer me so. And do you know, that in spite of the people who have broken faith with me, I believe that you believe what you say. You always have been an absolutely honest human being.”
“Yes,” said Jessie, slowly, “I have been that, at least.”
“Do you know what your attitude means to me? Look, Jessie, I am down to bedrock. All the superstructure of my life has been swept away. All my old feeling about people, all my old contacts with them, all my old philosophy of life, gone! Bookie, Miriam, Mrs. Ellis, Johnny, with their one unescapable demand on me. A demand to which I responded. But the loneliness of it! The bleakness of it! I can’t stick it, without some one to understand.”
He moistened his lips and went on.
“It was my work that separated us, Jessie. Will you let it be my work that brings us together again? Your faith in it and its import? In all the world, only you. Jessie, I am swept clean. All I have to offer you is my admiration for what you’ve grown to be and my complete trust in you, and my terrible spiritual need of your sympathy. If this seems to you too selfish, let it go. But if in the bigness of your nature, you can take me in, as you would a lonely little boy who—who is trying to adjust himself to his first terrible awakening to what life really is——”
Hugh’s voice broke. Jessie’s eyes deepened to a tenderness that lifted her whole face to extraordinary beauty. For a moment she stood thus.
Then, her very lips white, she slowly shook her head.
“No, Hughie. I learn slowly. But I learn surely. I dare not come back to you caring for you as I do, unless I can believe that love is dawning within you. I had thought that if only you would take me into your arms again, I could win you. I don’t want to win you, I know now, Hughie. I can’t be satisfied with you merely needing me. You must love me.”
“Jessie! Jessie! Do you mean that you shall go on with the application for divorce?”
“It’s fair, isn’t it, Hughie?”
“Fair! Great heavens, yes. I’m not asking fairness of you. That would give me nothing.”
Jessie threw her coat over her arm now and walked firmly to the door. There she stood for a moment, head bowed, Hugh watching her with his whole soul concentrated on the effort to read her mind. But he could not know what force it was within her that caused her to raise her head and, her violet eyes, black with feeling, say to him:
“Let’s end it, Hughie. You don’t know what love is. You never will until you can forget yourself. Perhaps it’s not in you to know the big thing. That’s not strange. It comes to few people.”
She unlocked the door and went away.
Hugh stood as she had left him until a man who wanted to help swing the Children’s Code found him.
That night, when the new Governor of the state went to bed, he might well have been thinking of the really great day he had just experienced. A man of any other temperament than Hugh’s might well have felt that he and not the day were great! But Hugh lay for the long hour before sleep released him, pondering over Jessie’s last statement.
He wondered if she were right.
Surely he once had loved Jessie. Surely the love he had had for Miriam was deep and sincere. Yes, Jessie herself had granted both those facts. What did she mean by great love?
Staring into the darkness, Hugh acknowledged to himself that he did not know.
Perhaps, as Jessie suggested, it was not within him to know. What was the acid test? What was the touch-stone? Self-forgetfulness, Jessie had said.
What was there left to sacrifice? He had stripped himself to the very foundations of his nature, he told himself. For Bookie, for Mrs. Ellis, for Wyoming. But what had he sacrificed for love?
Nothing. Nothing to Jessie. Nothing to Miriam.
Hugh tossed his arms above his head and groaned. Why pursue the struggle? He had nothing left to give. If he was not to know the great thing of which Jessie spoke so surely and so yearningly, he could go on without it, living as best he might from day to day, alone.
Alone. Aye, there was the point that probed deepest. Hugh knew now that he was not of the stuff that could live on alone, stripped of his profession, and of the fulfillment of that racial yearning that had been slowly rousing in him during the year’s struggle with the Children’s Code. He must have one or the other.
Forgetfulness of self, Jessie had said. And here he lay, his whole mind turned passionately inward! Self! Self! God help him, he would forget himself henceforward! And with what infinite pleasure could he leave behind that restless, yearning, flagellating entity he knew as self. He would become absorbed completely in the new duties. With this determination he fell asleep.
A week later Johnny Parnell, smoking a meditative cigarette in the Governor’s private office, while he watched Hugh sign letters, said in what he considered was a confidential tone:
“Governor, what are we going to do with Pink?”
“Pink? What’s he up to now, Johnny?”
“O he’s hanging round Cheyenne, talking. We’ve got to shut his gab, if for no other reason than he’s Jessie’s father. And while I ain’t what you’d call fond of Mrs. Morgan as a model of what the novels call a delectable female, still I’ve got an awful lot of respect for her as a politician. It ain’t right, after the big game she played for us, to let him go on sort of making himself the laughing stock of the state.”
“I agree with you, Johnny. What is the old fool’s idea?”
“I don’t know as he has one, Hughie. He’s drinking a lot and whisky always made him ugly. But he’s got something worse the matter with him than alcohol. I think he’s gone a little loco. Just enough to make him dangerous.”
“Dangerous! Look here, old timer, I’ve known Pink ever since I was born. He isn’t dangerous to any one but himself.”
“He tried to shoot old Red Wolf, didn’t he?”
“Yes, and he certainly got punished for it.” Hugh began to chuckle as he again recalled Fred’s story of the now famous battle of the scalp lock.
Johnny’s guffaw shook the windows, but he sobered quickly to say, “Hughie, we’ve got to hobble him, somehow.”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me just what he’s up to, Johnny.” Hugh rose to light his pipe and lean against the window frame, in the familiar attitude of The Lariat.
“Well, according to all that’s told me, and I’m getting it straight enough, he’s turned chiefly against Jessie. He merely says of you that he’ll get you some day. And I haven’t a doubt in the world that when he gets enough raisin-jack aboard some day, he’ll come up here and take a pot shot at you.”
“O well,” grunted Hugh, “that’s the least of my troubles. I was brought up with so-called bad men. They are all cowards.”
“Yes, they sure are, and a coward’s always dangerous. Because you can’t count on ’em. I’d rather ride a horse that’ll tackle any jump in sight than one that shies at a leaf on the trail. One’s only foolish, the other one will throw you when you least expect it.”
Hugh nodded, then said with an unexpected grimness of tone, “What’s he got against Jessie?”
Johnny’s good-natured face stiffened. “I don’t like to talk about the hound, I hate him so.”
“Hate him! Why, Johnny, you don’t know what hate is. When you consider what that mud puppy has done to me in the last two years, you may begin to realize what I feel toward him. He’s—he’s something unclean in my life.” There was a pause. Then Hugh cleared his throat and repeated, “What’s he got against Jessie?”
“Some of the bums that hang around Mexico Pete’s poolroom gave him a jab about Jessie’s not divorcing you because of your affair with Miriam Page.”
“Affair!” ejaculated Hugh. “Wait a moment, Johnny. That was not an ‘affair’ as one ordinarily uses that phrase.”
Johnny’s eyes widened. He said rather pleadingly: “Look here, Governor, as I look at it, that’s all over and done with. We may have to do a little mopping up because of it, but let’s you and me never discuss the right and wrong of it.”
“I don’t intend to. I shan’t even mention it to any one but you, but you are my friend. Jessie had no grounds for divorce.” He looked Johnny clearly in the eye.
Johnny returned the look. Then he said, “Well, there ain’t any other man in the world whose word I’d take. But I believe you, old timer. You know, though, don’t you, that I’m the only person in the state that would believe you?”
“Jessie and Mrs. Ellis know,” contradicted Hugh. “Go on with your story, Johnny.”
“Well, when Pink got this jab, he began to clear his skirts by telling a wild story. He said when he found out about Miss Page, he knocked you down and that Jessie interfered and took your side. And he said he tried again and again to get Jessie to leave you, but that she’s hung on your neck no matter what you’ve done to her. That was his first story, the night of the ball. He’s been drunk most of the time since and naturally the story has grown.”
“Grown to what?” asked Hugh grimly.
“I don’t know for sure. I heard so many rumors that I told Fred Allward to have a talk with Mexico Pete. Fred didn’t turn up this morning, but I thought I had enough facts to go ahead on.”
“I should judge so,” agreed Hugh, with a hard gleam in his deep-set eyes. “I suppose you have a suggestion to make.”
“Yes, I have. We can’t kill him, seeing what your position is. We’ll have to buy him. Give him what he wants.”
“I told you that I hated him,” exclaimed Hugh. “I don’t know what he wants, but I wouldn’t give it to him to save his life.”
“But we ain’t talking about your feelings,” said Johnny, laconically, “nor about mine. We’re talking about Jessie.”
Hugh flushed painfully. Self again! Even Johnny felt it. “I guess I deserved that, Johnny,” he said. “Nevertheless, I don’t see what your idea is.”
“I mean you can’t punish him because he’s your father-in-law. Give him his horse ranch. Bribe him.”
“But he has his horse ranch.”
“No, he hasn’t. The Mormons have it. He borrowed from them while he was waiting for these here sure-fire payments from the Eastern Electric Corporation. And as it was a private arrangement between him and Miriam Page, it isn’t ever coming through. Grafton just laughs at him.”
Hugh stared at Johnny for so long that that much-tried cowman was greatly relieved when the Governor’s secretary announced Fred Allward.
To say that Fred strutted would be unfair. But the little miner certainly had adopted an air of conscious power that sat with remarkable effect upon him. He wore a celluloid collar above a blue flannel shirt and a black suit that he had bought in Denver twenty-five years before. It had traveled many miles in his bedding roll, had been worn but a scant dozen times and was still in good condition, as he pointed to Johnny, who complained that the suit lacked a certain style.
“Sorry I missed you, Johnny,” said Fred, after greeting Hugh. “Did you want I should come here and report?”
“Yes, if it’s all right with the Governor,” replied Johnny.
“Yes, let’s get through with it,” exclaimed Hugh.
“I had a talk with Mexico Pete. He says he can keep Pink out of his place, but what’s the use? He’d just hang out somewhere else. And Pete says he is a drawing card because he’s related to the Governor.”
“Did Pete’s story check up with what you had?” asked Johnny.
Fred looked at Hugh. “Well, you see, it’s kind of worse. Those bums at Pete’s, they think it’s fun to roast him, and last night he said Jess, she wasn’t his daughter at all. Belonged to Mrs. Morgan. No daughter of his could follow a man that had done what Hughie’s done.”
“God knows, I wish she wasn’t his daughter!” shouted Johnny, jumping to his feet. “It’s no use. I’ve got to go and kill that hound!”
Hugh put his hand on Johnny’s arm. “Wait, Johnny! Wait!”
“I ain’t going to wait. I love Jessie Morgan in the way a cold-blooded guy like you can’t dream of.”
“She’s my wife, Parnell,” said Hugh sternly, wondering with a sudden deep pang how soon Jessie would begin divorce proceedings against him.
“Lots of good that’s done her! Let go of me, Hughie!” cried Johnny.
“Wait!” thundered Hugh.
Johnny sulkily subsided. “You should let me tend to Pink,” he muttered, “and you should bring Jessie here to live.”
“Don’t you suppose I’ve tried to get her to come?” demanded Hugh.
“And she refused?” Johnny’s sulks turned to surprise.
“Yes, she did.”
“Well, I pass!” groaned Johnny.
“Ought to be like me,” interpolated Fred with his superior air. “Let ’em alone.”
Hugh walked back and forth for a moment. Then he said, “Can Pink be frightened into keeping his mouth shut until I’ve given this matter a few days’ thought? I’m too angry now to make plans. I’ll not bribe him, Johnny.”
“Mrs. Morgan can make him shut up,” suggested Fred.
“Good heavens, Fred! I don’t want her to have a word of this, if we can help it,” exclaimed Hugh.
“All right, if you’re so finicky, I’ll take care of him for a few days. Me and Red Wolf will take him prospecting or some such. How long do you want, Governor?” grunted Fred.
“Only until Saturday. Then deliver him to me here. And the Lord give me strength to keep my hands off him! You fellows will have to get out now and leave me to the rest of my appointments,” and shortly Hugh, with a curious uneasiness in the background of his mind, was immersed in the day’s heavy business.
Mrs. Ellis came in late in the afternoon. She was looking troubled. “Hughie, Charley Whitson has just been with me. I don’t know who is at work, but he is convinced that you are not in full good faith about the Thumb Butte-Children’s Code swap. He acknowledged that the deeds have been drawn for the sale to the Eastern Electric Corporation, but he says the air is full of rumors about our crowd double-crossing them—that you won’t appear to fire the blast at the opening ceremonies on Friday—that the property isn’t yours to deliver and that Jessie is working up some sort of a spectacular injunction proceeding and a lot more things that I told him a man of his experience ought to be ashamed to repeat.”
Hugh laid down his pen in deep exasperation. “How can he be such a fool! There is no way I could double-cross him even if I wanted.”
Mrs. Ellis smiled. “O there are ways, as he very well knows. Only, knowing you, he ought to realize they’ll never be used. The only thing that bothers me is the fear that at the last moment your resolution will fail you and you won’t appear to fire that blast on Friday. Hughie, a whole mountain of political consequences rests on that very simple request of Grafton’s. It’s your final evidence that you and Whitson are doing teamwork. It’s— Oh, it’s all sorts of things that I can’t bother you about.”
“I’ll be there,” said Hugh.
Mrs. Ellis eyed him, then gave a sigh of relief. “Whitson is a fool,” she said, and went out.
Hugh went down to Fort Sioux on Thursday afternoon. He wanted to sleep in The Lariat. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to go quietly to the Dinosaur Cave, if that were possible, and say good-by to it, before the blast was set. And he wanted to see Jessie. But he had resolved not to go near her. For he knew that the desire to see her was based on his craving for her sympathy in this hard circumstance which had been forced upon him.
The ceremonies were set for noon on Friday. Fossil had not been sent to Cheyenne as yet. Hugh gave Thursday afternoon and early evening to his solitary ride up to the cave. A good trail had been worked out clean from the river to the plains above the cave. Men were at work on it still, but the cave was in quiet readiness for the devastating blast. A watchman allowed Hugh to enter.
Hugh was alone in the dim interior for a long hour. When he came out his quiet face gave no indication to the curious eyes of the watchman as to what he may have seen or thought during that period.
“Pretty cold in there, Governor,” he said, as Hugh stood in the door, pulling his beaver cap over his ears.
“Not so cold as it is outdoors,” replied Hugh.
“I suppose you knew them old walls pretty well, Governor. Folks tell lots of stories about how fond you was of that stone bird you got out of here.”
“I was pretty fond of it,” agreed Hugh.
“Kind of tough having to blow her up yourself,” the man spoke, with a sudden sympathy, as he warmed toward the subtle thing in Hugh that drew men.
Hugh smiled at the watchman. “Thanks, old man. But I guess we’ll have to put her through.”
“Sure! We’ll put her through! Twelve o’clock sharp tomorrow.”
“Twelve o’clock,” repeated Hugh, “I’ll be here. Good-by, old man.”
“Good-by, Governor! Kind of tough, by heck!” and he shook his head as Hugh started down the trail.
He slept alone that night in The Lariat, his mind full of half tender, half whimsical memories of Uncle Bookie, forcing himself to forget the many hard hours of his exile within these familiar walls. The river roared its old ferocious song without the window. The little stove showed a sleepless red eye that was the very acme of comfort. And Hugh slept from midnight to early dawn, without a dream.
At dawn Hugh was awakened by a creaking of the rear window. He did not move as the bulky form of Pink Morgan appeared dimly over the sill. He heaved himself awkwardly into the room; swayed for a second, then fell to the floor. Pink was very drunk.
Hugh got up, closed the window and dressed himself while Pink lay watching him, a look of hate growing more and more apparent in his bleared eyes as dawn glorified the room.
When Hugh had finished his toilet, which he did always with a watchful eye on his visitor, he said, “Pink, where are Red Wolf and Fred?”
“Thought you had me, didn’t you?” said Pink, thickly. “I got ’em both, and now I’m going to get you, you blank! Jus’ as soon as my head clears up. I’m drunk God-awful drunk. I’m drunk all the time now. It makes me smart and nervy.”
“So I see,” agreed Hugh. With a sudden deft movement, he jerked the gun out of Pink’s belt and dropped it into his own pocket.
Pink rolled heavily to his knees, then with unexpected quickness he hurled himself up against Hugh and caught him round the neck.
“I’ll get you anyhow, you——” He called Hugh by an unrepeatable name.
Hugh would have killed him had not the thought of Jessie been burning in his mind. He fought a desperate battle with the drunken man, but he did not draw the gun. He was all but exhausted when finally Pink lay again on the floor, this time with a twist of Bookie’s lariat around his ankles and wrists.
Pink glared up at him malevolently. “I’m still drunk,” he said warningly.
Hugh, panting, crouched over him. “I’d kill you, if it wasn’t for Jessie,” he muttered.
“Jessie!” sneered Pink. “You’d ought to been with Jessie last night, like a regular husband. She’s no girl of mine. So I fixed her, too! Cut her telephone wires last night. Told you I was smart when I was drunk. Nervy, too.”
Red spots began to dance before Hugh’s eyes.
“What did you do to Jessie, you hound?” he panted.
“What business is it of yours? You ain’t been her husband for years. I fixed it so she won’t hang round your neck no more.”
Hugh jerked out the gun, stood for a moment hesitating while the ugly leer in Pink’s eyes never wavered. Then he dropped the weapon back in his pocket, his jaw long and white. He stooped and trussed Pink up with the lariat till he roared with pain, then jerking on his overcoat and cap, he ran for the hotel. Here he tried vainly to telephone the ranch. His efforts wakened Marten, who was now taking Pink’s place in the management of the hotel.
“How long would it take you to tune up the Dinosaur?” demanded Hugh.
“Two or three hours!” returned Marten.
“Help me saddle Fossil, then. Pink’s over in The Lariat. Tied up. He’s drunk. Attacked me. I’ve got his gun. Told me he’d got Fred and Red Wolf. And last night, he said, he’d got Jessie! I’m going up to the ranch. She was there, as far as you know, last night? And alone?”
“Yes, she phoned me last night about eight. Was O. K. then. But not alone. Li Wing was there. Everybody else is in town for the opening ceremonies. Better let me call some one else and I’ll go with you, Governor.”
“No! I don’t want a word of this to get out if it can be helped. Jessie has been humiliated enough. I’m going up there. You keep Pink in The Lariat. Get Doc Olson at work on him and see if you can get details about Red Wolf and Fred. But let no one else see him.”
“Yes, Governor,” said Marten, his voice troubled.
“You’re sure she didn’t come in last night?” urged Hugh.
“Positive. I was up till after midnight.”
Hugh threw himself into the saddle.
Once more the glory of the winter trail across the plains. It had not snowed for several days and there were many tracks going to and from the ranch. Hugh made no attempt to decipher Pink’s from among them.
The red spots still danced before Hugh’s eyes. If Pink had harmed Jessie! Why, good God, Jessie was his wife! It was to her that the splendor of his boy’s first love had gone. He recalled now with thrilling vividness the madness and the joy of these first few years of his marriage. Jessie!
No one must hurt her. She had been hurt enough. What could Pink have done? Surely, surely, the vague horror that was shaping within him would have no proof in fact. Pink could not, would not have tried to shoot her.
But Pink was drunk, shockingly drunk. His drunkenness had been accumulating for days. He was potentially a madman.
Hugh twisted his gloved hands together.
Jessie! Indolent, care-free, indifferent no longer. Jessie, the strong, the self-denying; Jessie, the great lover. Why, to compare himself or Miriam to the human being Jessie had grown to be was to compare the foothills around Cheyenne to the crest of Big Fang. Hugh knew this now. Now that it might be too late. The horror thickened in his heart.
That was the longest ride Hugh ever had taken, although when he reached the ranch door it was only midmorning, and Fossil’s foreshoulders were trembling from overexertion.
Li Wing came to the door, blinking in the sunshine.
“Where’s Mrs. Stewart, Li Wing?” cried Hugh.
“She went Fort Sioux, last night, ’bout half-past eight.”
“Let me use the telephone, will you?” asked Hugh, throwing himself from his horse.
“Telephone, him blusted. Look all same wiles clut last night.”
“Did you see Mrs. Stewart go, Li Wing?”
The old Chinaman’s face began to pucker with anxiety.
“She came dole, Li Wing in bed. Going in Folt Sioux, she say. That light aftel Li Wing go bed. What mlatta, boss?”
“She’s not in Fort Sioux, Li Wing.” Hugh hesitated. But Li Wing had been Bookie’s cook in the old blessed days. “Her father tackled me this morning. He’s very drunk. He said he’d fixed Mrs. Stewart up here. He said he’d cut the telephone wires.”
The old Chinaman threw up his withered hands.
“Is Magpie in the stable, Li Wing?” asked Hugh.
“Yes! Yes! But him lame. She lide other pony.”
Li Wing shuffled toward the corral, Hugh following. Li Wing stood beside the gate for a moment examining the horses munching alfalfa in the inclosure. “Jack Labbit, he gone!”
“You mean that white mare with the long ears?”
“Yes! Yes! Mlissis she like Jack Labbit.”
Hugh slowly made a wide circle of the corral. On the far side, the south side, of the fence he made a discovery. A single fresh horse track led up to the fence. A little to the right, two horse tracks led back. Hugh returned grimly to the shivering Chinaman.
“You unsaddle Fossil. I’ll take that dapple gray over there and follow those tracks.”
The saddle was transferred with marvelous speed, and Hugh galloped out across the field where the two trails led toward a distant cedar grove. As he neared this grove Hugh saw a white horse emerge from the blue-green background and trot sedately toward him. The saddle was empty. Hugh’s heart thumped heavily against his ribs. He roped Jack Rabbit as he came up. A red scarf of Jessie’s was knotted around one stirrup. Hugh dug the spurs into the dapple gray and, leading Jack Rabbit, lunged on into the grove.
Here there was little snow, but the heavy growth of trees made the going slow, and the tracks of the horses difficult to follow. But there was not far to go. Not ten minutes after he entered the grove, Hugh saw Jessie huddled against a tree trunk.
He threw himself from his horse. “Jessie!”
She smiled up at him. “Where on earth did you come from, Hughie?”
“What did he do to you? Where are you hurt? How did he get away from you?” Hugh was kneeling beside her now, clasping her shoulders.
“It was only a poor old sheep herder with the pneumonia. About five miles up the valley. His boy came after me last night just as I was starting for Fort Sioux. He died at dawn, poor soul. That fool of a Jack Rabbit bolted from a wolverine in here an hour ago and brushed me out of the saddle. My ankle is sprained, so I couldn’t mount again. But where did you come from, Hughie? Why aren’t you at the ceremonies?”
Hugh’s beautiful mouth was quivering. “Jessie! Your father attacked me this morning in The Lariat. He made me think he’d hurt you. Or killed you. And I came as fast as I could. I’ve failed you. So often, Jessie. But this time, I came as fast as I could.”
Jessie looked wonderingly into his tense face. Looked at his quivering lips. Felt the trembling of his hands against her shoulders.
“‘Like a little boy,’” she quoted suddenly. “O Hughie, you came to me before and I turned away from you! God forgive me, I didn’t understand that your love for me would be so ‘like a little boy’s,’ who craves, without understanding.”
She lifted his shaking hands from her shoulders to hold them in her warm grasp. He did not seem to have heard what she said.
“I thought he had killed you, Jessie. If he had hurt as much as a hair of your head, I would have shot him if he were a thousand times your father!”
Jessie, tears brimming her eyes, gently pulled his face down to rest against hers.
But he had not recovered yet from the shock that Pink had given him. After a moment he lifted his head.
“I felt when I thought he’d killed you, things that I’d never felt before, things I hadn’t felt when Uncle Bookie died, or Miriam Page. I’d have shot him and gone to Rawlins. I would have, Jessie. Why, good God, you are my wife!”
“That wouldn’t have brought me back, Hughie, and it would have wrecked your career.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t care what it would do to me. I’ve borne all the rest. That I could not have borne.” He looked at her keenly. “You are in great pain, Jessie?”
“No, I’m not,” said Jessie steadily. “Hughie, what about the opening ceremonies? There will be a lot of trouble for you about this.”
Hugh nodded. “I’ll help you to get on Jack Rabbit, and we’ll start for home.”
“In just a moment! Hughie, Mrs. Ellis is going to be terribly upset over your not being there. It’s going to take a long time for you to live down what they’ll feel was your quitting them on this.”
“I know all that and I’m sorry,” said Hugh. “Jessie!”
He still was kneeling beside her. “Jessie!” looking into her eyes with an expression of puzzled and unutterable longing. “Did you say a moment ago that you’d never turn from me again?”
“Yes, Hughie.”
“Even knowing all my weaknesses and how much bigger you have grown to be than I?”
Jessie smiled, and did not answer him. She still was holding his hands and Hugh, watching her eyes anxiously, saw a look of such tenderness, such loyalty swell up from their violet depths that he dropped his own in very humility.
It was across this magic silence that there sounded a familiar staccato fusillade.
“The Dinosaur!” exclaimed Jessie. “Hughie, you still can get to the ceremonies!”
Hugh breathed deeply and rose, drawing Jessie carefully upward. “Rest against the tree, Jessie, while I bring up your horse.”
"Yes, get me into the saddle, and then hurry as fast as you can to Marten. Li Wing will take care of me.”
Hugh made no response, but when Jessie was mounted he brought the dapple gray in beside her, swung deliberately into his saddle and then said:
"We’ll take you into Fort Sioux to Doc Olson.”
"Listen, Hughie! I don’t need the doctor. Hurry on, dear, please.”
"If you don’t need the doctor, then you are well enough to come to the ceremonies with me.”
The sound of the Dinosaur’s engine, which had ceased, suddenly began again. Jessie spurred her horse and Hugh following, they emerged from the grove just as the Dinosaur came to a pause not a hundred yards away. Marten and Li Wing ran toward them.
"Just a sprained ankle after a fall from my horse,” cried Jessie.
"One of Pink’s lies,” added Hugh, “though he did cut the telephone wires.”
Marten came to a stop, gulped, looked unutterable thoughts, dug out his watch and said, "For the love of heaven, get aboard. We still can make it.”
Hugh nodded. "Li Wing, take the horses home. Marten, help me get my wife aboard. Come, Jessie!”
"Li Wing spliced the wires and telephoned over an hour ago,” Marten explained, as they helped Jessie into the plane. "Doc’s got Pink pretty well drenched out and I took him down to my place. Red Wolf and Fred came in, hell-bent, just before I got the engine going. Seems they wanted to see the ceremonies and were bringing Pink down by sheep wagon from Red Wolf’s camp, where they’d been keeping him. They were driving unbroke mules, some little pets of Red Wolf’s, and they ran away yesterday afternoon. Where or how they dropped Pink they don’t know. I left the three of them to argue it out.”
Jessie looked at Hugh pitifully. “I just don’t know what to do about it, Hughie. I’m ashamed.”
Suddenly Hugh chuckled. “I know what to do.” He turned to Li Wing. “Li Wing, you gallop back to the ranch and telephone to Marten’s house for Pink to meet me at the ceremonies. Understand?”
Li Wing nodded. A moment later the Dinosaur glided out over the field and rose in beautiful flight.
It was just noon when the Governor’s airplane came to rest on the plains, above the Dinosaur Cave. A great crowd was gathered around the platform that had been built where two years before Hugh had camped in his quest for the triceratops. Leading Jessie between them, Hugh and Marten slowly moved up the draw that led from the landing-place of the plane to the platform. Johnny Parnell galloped out to meet them.
“For the love of heaven, Governor, where have you been! What do you”—he stared at Hugh in hopeless disgust. “Do you think you can get up on the platform looking as if you’d been out all night? Not shaved, clothes— All kinds of rotten gossip started again about Pink and Jessie and you——”
“O dry up, Johnny!” exclaimed Hugh. “Has Pink turned up?”
“Yes He looks worse than you do.”
“Send him over here. Quickly, Johnny. I’ll explain everything later. Keep the crowd patient for a moment.”
Johnny galloped away and a moment later, as Hugh and Marten eased Jessie against a boulder, Pink shambled through the snow and came to pause before them.
“Pink,” said Hugh, “you’ve been acting like a skunk.”
Pink looked at his son-in-law sullenly. “Who’s got a better right?” he asked. “Everything and everybody’s went back on me.”
“This last escapade of yours smells to heaven. For your wife’s sake and my wife’s sake, we’ve got to stop the talk. And you’ve got to behave yourself, from now on. When these ceremonies are over, you go out to the ranch and see if you can fill in Johnny’s place.”
“You mean Bookie’s ranch?” asked Pink, stupidly. “I’m still kind of drunk, Hughie.”
“You aren’t too drunk to take orders. Both you and Jessie are to come up on the platform with me. We’ll settle this gossip for good and all.”
Jessie stared from Hugh to her father and back again. A slow grin dawned on Marten’s face. Unheeded, he left the group and made his way toward the waiting audience. Pink’s face began to work.
“You mean me on the platform, Hughie?”
“Yes. Take Jessie’s other arm.”
Tears began to roll down Pink’s mottled cheeks. “You mean me, on the platform, with you and Jessie, just like you didn’t hate me and I hadn’t ever done you dirt?”
“Yes! Yes!” impatiently from Hugh. “Hurry, Pink!”
Still the Governor’s father-in-law did not move. “I guess I must be drunker than I think I am, Hughie. It sounds too good to be true.”
“Come, dad!” Jessie held her hand out to her father. “I’ve sprained my ankle. You’ll have to help me.”
Pink sniffled and obeyed.
They were a disheveled trio, but as they mounted the little platform and turned to face the crowd, no one laughed. Leaving Jessie to lean on her father’s shoulder, Hugh stepped forward.
“My wife had an accident,” he said clearly, “which delayed our getting here. Since Johnny Parnell has taken to politics, the horses up on the Dude Ranch have gone wild. One threw Mrs. Stewart early this morning and sprained her ankle. However, it probably won’t happen again because my father-in-law has agreed to go up there and take charge while Johnny is running the state Capitol.”
Laughter that expressed a not inconsiderable amount of wonder swept the crowd. Hugh raised his hand.
“Friends and neighbors,” he said, “I don’t suppose there is one among you that hasn’t some inkling of what it means to me to press the button which will set off the blast in the cave below. I fought a long fight with myself before I reached the point where I can stand here, believing that the Old Sioux Tract, at last, is doing the work that Uncle Bookie would have been glad to have it do.” He paused.
“By golly,” shouted Billy Chamberlain, “Hughie Stewart is a man!”
Such a burst of applause met Billy’s exclamation that Thumb Butte echoed again and again. And Hugh, lips slightly strained, placed his thumb on the electric button which lay on the table before him.
A fearful detonation filled the air.
When the dust had cleared away, the floor of the Dinosaur Cave lay naked to the heavens.
The eagle who lived on the side of Thumb Butte sped in shocked flight into the blue zenith.
Hugh turned to Jessie. “Let’s get back to The Lariat,” he said.
Pink, no longer tearful, chin and chest up, helped Jessie into the automobile which was to take her and Hughie down to Fort Sioux. The crowd pressed close about the machine.
“Do I ride down with you, Hughie?” asked Pink in a loud voice.
“As you please, Pink,” replied Hugh.
Pink scrambled into the seat beside the driver, utterly deaf to the greetings of his old friends.
“I’ll take the wheel, Jimmie,” he said, “if there is any danger of your jarring Jessie’s ankle.”
“You go to the devil,” said Jimmie Heckle, and he started the car carefully downward.
Two hours later Hugh and Jessie unlocked the door of The Lariat. The red eye of the heater bade them welcome. Hugh settled Jessie in a chair, then stood looking down at her.
“You are going back to Cheyenne with me tonight, Jessie?” he asked.
Jessie did not answer this query immediately. “Hughie,” she said abruptly, “you were willing to sacrifice a good deal for me today.”
Hugh’s eyes looked puzzled, but he smiled. “I suppose it’s sacrifice on my part to drag you round the country with a sprained ankle.” Suddenly he knelt beside her chair. “Jessie, do you know what today has taught me? It has taught me that I love you as a man should love his wife, passionately, Jessie,—and Oh! with what admiration and devotion.”
He drew her toward him, and the endless rush of the river seemed to mingle with their close embrace.
THE END