"Why--what was the matter?" he inquired sympathetically. "Couldn't you git no appointment?"

"Huh!" growled Hardy. "I guess you know, all right. Look at me!" he exclaimed, in a sudden gust of pa.s.sion and resentment. "Why, d.a.m.n it, man, I'm an inch too short!"

"Well--I'll--be--dogged!" breathed Creede. "I never thought of that!"

"No," rejoined Hardy bitterly, "nor the Old Man, either--not until I stopped growing! Well, he hasn't had a bit of use for me since. That's the size of it. And he didn't take any pains to conceal the fact--most army men don't. There's only one man in the world to them, and that's a soldier; and if you're not a soldier, you're nothing."

He waved a hand as if dismissing himself from the universe, and sank moodily into his seat, while Creede looked him over in silence.

"Rufe," he said quietly, "d'ye remember that time when I picked you to be boss sheep-wrangler, down at Bender? Well, I might as well tell you about that now--'t won't do no harm. The old judge couldn't figure out what it was I see in you to recommend you for the job. Like's not you don't know yourself. _He_ thought I was pickin' you because you was a peaceful guy, and wouldn't fight Black Tex; but that's where he got fooled, and fooled bad! I picked you because I knew dam' well you _would_ fight!"

He leaned far over across the table and his eyes glowed with a fierce light.

"D'ye think I want some little suckin' mamma's-joy of a diplomat on my hands when it comes to a show-down with them sheepmen?" he cried. "No, by G.o.d, I want a _man_, and you're the boy, Rufe; so shake!"

He rose and held out his hand. Hardy took it.

"I wouldn't have sprung this on you, pardner," he continued apologetically, "if I didn't see you so kinder down in the mouth about your old man. But I jest want you to know that they's one man that appreciates you for a plain sc.r.a.pper. And I'll tell you another thing; when the time comes you'll look jest as big over the top of a six-shooter as I do, and stand only half the chanst to git hit. W'y, shucks!" he exclaimed magnanimously, "my size is agin' me at every turn; my horse can't hardly pack me, I eat such a h.e.l.l of a lot, and, well, I never can git a pair of pants to fit me. What's this here letter?"

He picked one up at random, and Hardy ascertained that his tailor some six months previously had moved to a new and more central location, where he would be pleased to welcome all his old customers. But the subject of diminutive size was effectually dismissed and, having cheered up his little friend as best he could, Creede seized the occasion to retire. Lying upon his broad back in his blankets, with Tommy purring comfortably in the hollow of his arm, he smoked out his cigarette in speculative silence, gazing up at the familiar stars whose wheelings mark off the cowboy's night, and then dropped quietly to sleep, leaving his partner to brood over his letters alone.

For a long time he sat there, opening them one by one--the vague and indifferent letters which drift in while one is gone; and at last he stole silently across the dirt floor and brought out the three letters from his bed. There in a moment, if he had been present, Creede might have read him like a book; his lips drawn tight, his eyes big and staring, as he tore open one of the pale blue envelopes with trembling hands. The fragments of a violet, shattered by the long journey, fell before him as he plucked out the note, and its delicate fragrance rose up like incense as he read. He hurried through the missive, as if seeking something which was not there, then his hungry eyes left the unprofitable page and wandered about the empty room, only to come back to those last words: "Always your Friend, Kitty Bonnair."

"Always your friend," he repeated bitterly--"always your friend. Ah, G.o.d!" He sighed wearily and shook his head. For a moment he lapsed into dreams; then, reaching out, he picked up the second letter, postmarked over a year before, and examined it idly. The very hour of its collection was recorded--"Ferry Sta. 1.30 A. M."--and the date he could never forget. Written on that very same day, and yet its message had never reached him!

He could see as in a vision the shrouded form of Kitty Bonnair slipping from her door at midnight to fling a final word after him, not knowing how far he would flee; he could see the lonely mail collector, half obscured in the San Francisco fog, as he scooped the letter from the box with many others and boarded the car for the ferry. It was a last retort, and likely bitter, for he had spoken in anger himself, and Kitty was not a woman to be denied. There was an exaggerated quirk to the square corners of her letters, a brusque shading of the down strokes--undoubtedly Kitty was angry. But for once he had disarmed her--it was a year after, now, and he had read her forgiveness first! Yet it was with a strange sinking of the heart that he opened the blue envelope and stared at the scribbled words:

DEAR FRIEND THAT WAS: My heart is very sore to-night--I had trusted you so--I had depended upon you so--and now you have deliberately broken all your faith and promises. Rufus, I had thought you different from other men--more gentle, more considerate, more capable of a true friendship which I fondly hoped would last forever--but now, oh, I can never forgive you! Just when life was heaviest with disappointments, just when I was leaning upon you most as a true friend and comrade--then you must needs spoil it all. And after I had told you I could never love any one! Have you forgotten all that I told you in the balcony? Have you forgotten all that I have risked for the friendship I held so dear? And then to spoil it all! Oh, I hate you--I hate you!

He stopped and stiffened in his chair, and his eyes turned wild with horror; then he gathered his letters together blindly and crept away to bed. In the morning he arose and went about his work with mouse-like quietness, performing all things thoroughly and well, talking, even laughing, yet with a droop like that of a wounded creature that seeks only to hide and escape.

Creede watched him furtively, hung around the house for a while, then strode out to the pasture and caught up his horse.

"Be back this aft," he said, and rode majestically away up the canon, where he would be out of the way. For men, too, have their instincts and intuitions, and they are even willing to leave alone that which they cannot remedy and do not understand.

As Creede galloped off, leaving the ranch of a sudden lonely and quiet, Tommy poked his head anxiously out through a slit in the canvas bottom of the screen door and began to cry--his poor cracked voice, all broken from calling for help from the coyotes, quavering dismally.

In his most raucous tones he continued this lament for his master until at last Hardy gathered him up and held him to his breast.

"Ah, Kitty, Kitty," he said, and at the caressing note in his voice the black cat began to purr hoa.r.s.ely, raising his scrawny head in the ecstasy of being loved. Thief and reprobate though he was, and sadly given to leaping upon the table and flying spitefully at dogs, even that rough creature felt the need of love; how much more the sensitive and high-bred man, once poet and scholar, now cowboy and sheep-wrangler, but always the unhappy slave of Kitty Bonnair.

The two letters lay charred to ashes among the glowing coals, but their words, even the kindest meant, were seared deep in his heart, fresh hurts upon older scars, and as he sat staring at the gaunt _sahuaros_ on the hilltops he meditated gloomily upon his reply. Then, depositing Tommy on the bed, he sat down at his desk before the iron-barred window and began to write.

DEAR FRIEND THAT WAS: Your two letters came together--the one that you have just sent, and the one written on that same night, which I hope I may some day forget. It was not a very kind letter--I am sorry that I should ever have offended you, but it was not gently done. No friend could ever speak so to another, I am sure. As for the cause, I am a human being, a man like other men, and I am not ashamed. Yet that I should so fail to read your mind I am ashamed.

Perhaps it was my egotism, which made me over-bold, thinking that any woman could love me. But if what I offered was nothing to you, if even for a moment you hated me, it is enough. Now for all this talk of friendship--I am not your friend and never will be; and if, after what has pa.s.sed, you are my friend, I ask but one thing--let me forget. For I will never come back, I will never write, I will never submit. Surely, with all that life offers you, you can spare me the humiliation of being angry with you.

I am now engaged in work which, out of consideration for Judge Ware, I cannot leave; otherwise I would not ask you not to write to me.

Trusting that you will remember me kindly to your mother, I remain, sincerely,

Rufus Hardy.

He signed his name at the bottom, folded the sheet carefully, and thrust the sealed envelope into an inner pocket. Then for the first time, he drew out the third letter and spread its pages before him--a long letter, full of news, yet asking no questions. The tense lines about his lips relaxed as he read, he smiled whimsically as he heard of the queer doings of his old-time friends; how these two had run away and got married in order to escape a church wedding, how Tupper Browne had painted a likeness of Mather in Hades--after the "Dante" of Dore--and had been detected in the act; and then this little note, cued in casually near the end:

Kitty Bonnair has given up art for the present on account of her eyes, and has gone in for physical culture and riding lessons in the park. She dropped in at the last meeting of The Circle, and I told her how curiously father had encountered you at Bender. We all miss you very much at The Circle--in fact, it is not doing so well of late. Kitty has not attended a meeting in months, and I often wonder where we may look for another Poet, Philosopher, and Friend--unless you will come back! Father did not tell me where you had been or what you intended to do, but I hope you have not given up the Muse. To encourage you I will send down a book, now and then, and you may send me a poem. Is it a bargain? Then good-bye.

With best wishes, LUCY WARE.

P. S.--I met your father on the street the other day, and he seemed very much pleased to hear how well you were getting along.

Hardy put the letter down and sighed.

"Now there's a thoroughly nice girl," he said. "I wonder why she doesn't get married." Then, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper, he began to write, describing the beauty of the country; the n.o.ble qualities of his horse, Chapuli, the Gra.s.shopper; the march of the vast army of sheep; Creede, Tommy, and whatnot, with all the pent-up enthusiasm of a year's loneliness. When it was ended he looked at the letter with a smile, wondering whether to send it by freight or express. Six cents in stamps was the final solution of the problem, and as his pocketbook contained only four he stuck them on and awaited his partner's return.

"Say, Jeff," he called, as Creede came in from the pasture, "have you got any stamps?"

"Any which?" inquired Creede suspiciously.

"Any postage stamps--to put on letters."

"Huh!" exclaimed Creede. "You must think I've got a girl--or important business in the States. No, I'll tell you. The only stamp I've got is in a gla.s.s frame, hung up on the wall--picture of George Washington, you know. Haven't you never seen it? W'y, it's right there in the parler--jest above the pianney--and a jim-dandy piece of steel engraving she is, too." He grinned broadly as he concluded this running fire of jest, but his partner remained serious to the end.

"Well," he said, "I guess I'll go down to Moroni in the morning, then."

"What ye goin' down there for?" demanded Creede incredulously.

"Why, to buy a stamp, of course," replied Hardy, "it's only forty miles, isn't it?" And early in the morning, true to his word, he saddled up Chapuli and struck out down the river.

From the doorway Creede watched him curiously, his lips parted in a dubious smile.

"There's something funny goin' on here, ladies," he observed sagely, "something funny--and I'm dogged if I savvy what it is." He stooped and scooped up Tommy in one giant paw. "Well, Tom, Old Socks," he said, holding him up where he could sniff delicately at the rafters, "you've got a pretty good nose, how about it, now--can you smell a rat?" But even Tommy could not explain why a man should ride forty miles in order to buy a stamp.

CHAPTER IX

MORONI

The Mormon settlement of Moroni proved to belong to that large cla.s.s of Western "cities" known as "string-towns"--a long line of stores on either side of a main street, brick where fires have swept away the shacks, and wood with false fronts where dynamite or a change of wind has checked the conflagration; a miscellaneous conglomeration of saloons, restaurants, general stores, and livery stables, all very satisfying to the material wants of man, but in the ensemble not over-pleasing to the eye.

At first glance, Moroni might have been Reno, Nevada; or Gilroy, California; or Deming, New Mexico; or even Bender--except for the railroad. A second glance, however, disclosed a smaller number of disconsolate cow ponies standing in front of the saloons and a larger number of family rigs tied to the horse rack in front of Swope's Store; there was also a t.i.thing house with many doors, a brick church, and women and children galore. And for twenty miles around there was nothing but flowing ca.n.a.ls and irrigated fields waving with wheat and alfalfa, all so green and prosperous that a stranger from the back country was likely to develop a strong leaning toward the faith before he reached town and noticed the t.i.thing house.

As for Hardy, his eyes, so long accustomed to the green lawns and trees of Berkeley, turned almost wistful as he gazed away across the rich fields, dotted with c.o.c.ks of hay or resounding to the whirr of the mower; but for the sweating Latter Day Saints who labored in the fields, he had nothing but the pitying contempt of the cowboy. It was a fine large country, to be sure, and produced a lot of very necessary horse feed, but Chapuli shied when his feet struck the freshly sprinkled street, and somehow his master felt equally ill at ease.

Having purchased his stamp and eaten supper, he was wandering aimlessly up and down the street--that being the only pleasure and recourse of an Arizona town outside the doors of a saloon--when in the medley of heterogeneous sounds he heard a familiar voice boom out and as abruptly stop. It was evening and the stores were closed, but various citizens still sat along the edge of the sidewalk, smoking and talking in the semi-darkness. Hardy paused and listened a moment. The voice which he had heard was that of no ordinary man; it was deep and resonant, with a rough, overbearing note almost military in its brusqueness; but it had ceased and another voice, low and protesting, had taken its place. In the gloom he could just make out the forms of the two men, sitting on their heels against the wall and engaged in a one-sided argument. The man with the Southern drawl was doing all the talking, but as Hardy pa.s.sed by, the other cut in on him again.

"Well," he demanded in masterful tones, "what ye goin' to do about it?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he exclaimed: