"Act as if nothing happened--if you can." He watched anxiously, while she drew a long breath, pressed her hands hard against her cheeks, closed her lips tightly, and then, with something like composure, went quietly to the door and threw it open. Polycarp was standing very close to it, on the other side. He drew back a step.

"I wondered if I better git another load, now I've got the team hooked up," he began in his rasping, nasal voice, his slitlike eyes peering inquisitively into the room. "h.e.l.lo, Kenneth--I _thought_ that was your horse standin' outside. Or would you rather I cut up a pile? I dunno but what I'll have to go t'town t'-morrerr or next day--mebby I better cut you some wood, hey? If Man ain't likely to be home, mebby--"

"I think, Polycarp, well have a storm soon. So it would be good policy to haul another load, don't you think? I can manage very well with what there is cut until Manley returns; and there are always small branches that I can break easily with the axe. I really think it would be safer to have another load hauled now while we can. Don't you think so?" Val even managed to smile at him. "If my head wasn't so bad," she added deceitfully, "I should be tempted to go along, just for a dose sight of the river. Mr. Burnett is going directly--perhaps I may walk down later on. But you had better not wait--I shouldn't want to keep you working till dark."

Polycarp, eying her and Kent, and the room in all its details, forced his hand into his trousers pocket, brought up his battered plug of tobacco and pried off a piece, which he rolled into his left cheek with his tongue.

"Jest as you say," he surrendered, though it was perfectly plain that he would much prefer to cut wood and so be able to see all that went on, even though he was denied the gratification of hearing what they said. He waited a moment, but Val turned away, and even had the audacity to close the door upon his unfinished reply. He listened for a moment, his head craned forward.

"Purty kinda goings-on!" he mumbled. "Time Man had a flea put in 'is ear, by granny, if he don't want to lose that yeller-eyed wife of hisn." To Polycarp, a closed door--when a man and woman were alone upon the other side--could mean nothing but surrept.i.tious kisses and the like. He went stumbling out and drove away down the coulee, his head turning automatically so that his eyes were constantly upon the house; from his att.i.tude, as Kent saw him through the window Polycarp expected an explosion, at the very least. His outraged virtue vested itself in one more sentence; "Purty blamed nervy, by granny--to go 'n' shut the door right in m' face!"

Inside the room, Val stood for a minute with her back against the door, as if she half feared Polycarp would break in and drag her secret from her.

When she heard him leave the kitchen she drew a long breath, eloquent in itself: when the rattle of the wagon came to them there, she left the door and went slowly across the room until she stood close to Kent. The interruption had steadied them both. Her voice was a constrained calm when she spoke.

[Ill.u.s.tration: To draw the red hot spur across the fresh VP did not take long]

"Well--is there anything I can do? Because I suppose every minute is dangerous."

Kent kept his eyes upon the departing Polycarp.

"There's nothing you can do, no. Maybe I can do something; soon as that granny gossip is outa sight, I'll go and round up that cow and calf--if somebody hasn't beaten me to it."

Val looked at him with a certain timid helplessness.

"Oh! Will you--won't it be against the law if you--if you kill it?" She grew slightly excited again. "Kent, you shall not get into any trouble for--for his sake! If it comes to a choice, why--let him suffer for his crime. You shall not!"

Kent turned his head slowly and gazed down at her. "Don't run away with the idea I'm doing it for him," he told her distinctly. "I love Man Fleetwood like I love a wolf. But if that VP calf catches him up, you'd fight your head over it, G.o.d only knows how long. I know you! You'd think so much about the part you played that you'd wind up by forgetting everything else.

You'd get to thinking of him as a martyr, maybe! No--it's for you. I kinda got you into this, you recollect? If I'd let you see Man drank, that day, you'd never have married him; I know that now. So I'm going to get you out of it. My side of the question can wait."

She stared up at him with a grave understanding.

"But you know what I said--you won't do anything that can make you trouble--won't you tell me, Kent, what you're going to do?"

He had already started to the door, but he stopped and smiled rea.s.suringly.

"Nothing so fierce. If I can find 'em, I aim to bar out that VP. Sabe?"

CHAPTER XX

A BLOTCHED BRAND

At the brow of the hill, which was the western rim of the coulee, Kent turned and waved a farewell to Val, watching him wistfully from the kitchen door. She had wanted to go along; she had almost cried to go and help, but Kent would not permit her--and beneath the unpleasantness of denying her anything, there had been a certain primitive joy in feeling himself master of the situation and of her actions; for that one time it was as if she belonged to him. At the last he had accepted the field gla.s.ses, which she insisted upon lending him, and now he was tempted to take them from their worn, leathern case and focus them upon her face, just for the meager satisfaction of one more look at her. But he rode on, oat of sight, for the necessity which drove him forth did not permit much loitering if he would succeed in what he had set out to do.

Personally he would have felt no compunctions whatever about letting the calf go, a walking advertis.e.m.e.nt of Manley's guilt. It seemed to him a sort of grim retribution, and no more than he deserved. He had not exaggerated his sentiments when he intimated plainly to her his hatred of Manley, and he agreed with her that the fellow was making a despicable return for the kindness his neighbors had always shown him. No doubt he had stolen from the Double Diamond as well as the Wishbone.

Once Kent pulled up, half minded to go back and let events shape themselves without any interference from him. But there was Val--women were so queer about such things. It seemed to Kent that, if any man had caused him as much misery as Manley had caused Val, he would not waste much time worrying over him, if he tangled himself up with his own misdeeds. However, Val wanted that bit of evidence covered up; so, while Kent did not approve, he went at the business with his customary thoroughness.

The field gla.s.ses were a great convenience. More than once they saved him the trouble of riding a mile or so to inspect a small bunch of stock.

Nevertheless, he rode for several hours before, just at sundown, he discovered the cow feeding alone with her calf in a shallow depression near the rough country next the river. They were wild, and he ran them out of the hollow and up on high ground before he managed to drop his loop over the calf's head.

"You sure are a dandy-fine sign-post, all right," he observed, and grinned down at the staring VP brand.

"It's a pity you can't be left that way." He glanced cautiously around him at the great, empty prairie. A mile or two away, a lone horseman was loping leisurely along, evidently bound for the Double Diamond.

"Say--this is kinda public," Kent complained to the calf. "Let's you and me go down outa sight for a minute." He started off toward the hollow, dragging the calf, a protesting bundle of stiffened muscles pulling against the rope. The cow, shaking her head in a halfhearted defiance, followed.

Kent kept an uneasy eye upon the horseman, and hoped fervently the fellow was absorbed in meditation and, would not glance in his direction. Once he was almost at the point of turning the calf loose; for barring out brands, even illegal brands, is justly looked upon with disfavor, to say the least.

Down in the hollow, which Kent reached with a sigh of relief, he dismounted and hastily started a little fire on a barren patch of ground beneath a jutting sandstone ledge. The calf, tied helpless, lay near by, and the cow hovered close, uneasy, but lacking courage for a rush.

Kent laid hand upon his saddle, hesitated, and shook his head; he might need it in a hurry, and cinch ring takes time both in the removal and the replacement--and is vitally important withal. His knife he had lost on the last round-up. He scowled at the necessity, lifted his heel, and took off a spur. "And if that darned ginny don't get too blamed curious and cone fogging over this way--" He spoke the phrase aloud, out of the middle of a mental arrangement of the chance he was taking.

To heat the spur red-hot, draw it across the fresh VP again and again, and finally drag it crisscross once or twice to make a.s.surance an absolute certainty, did not take long. Kent was particular about not wasting any seconds. The calf stopped its dismal blatting, and when Kent released it and coiled his rope, it jumped up and ran for its life, the cows ambling solicitously at its heels. Kent kicked the dirt over the fire, eyed it sharply a moment to make sure it was perfectly harmless, mounted in haste, and rode up the sloping side down, which he had come. Just under the top of the slope, he peeked anxiously out over the prairie, ducked precipitately, and went clattering away down the hollow to the farther side; dodged around a spur of rocks, forced his horse down over a wicked jumble of boulders to level land below, and rode as if a hangman's noose were the penalty for delay.

When he reached the river--which he did after many windings and turnings--he got off and washed his spur, scrubbing it diligently with sand in an effort to remove the traces of fire. When the evidence was at least less conspicuous, he put it on his heel and jogged down the river bank quite innocently, inwardly thankful over his escape. He had certainly done nothing wrong; but one sometimes finds it rather awkward to be forced into an explanation of a perfectly righteous deed.

"If I'd been stealing that calf, I'd never have been crazy enough to take such a long chance," he mused, and laughed a little. "I'll bet Fred thought he was due to grab a rustler right in the act--only he was a little bit slow about making up his mind; deputy stock inspectors had oughta think quicker than that--he was just about five minutes too deliberate. I'll gamble he's scratching his head, right now, over that blotched brand, trying to _sabe_ the play--which he won't, not in a thousand years!"

He gave the reins a twitch and began to climb through the dusk to the lighter hilltop, at a point just east of Cold Spring Coulee. At the top he put the spurs to his horse and headed straight as might be for the Wishbone ranch. He would like to have told Val of his success, but he was afraid Manley might be there, or Polycarp; it was wise always to avoid Polycarp Jenks, if one had anything to conceal from his fellows.

CHAPTER XXI

VAL DECIDES

It was the middle of the next forenoon when Manley came riding home, sullen from drink and a losing game of poker, which had kept him all night at the table, and at sunrise sent him forth in the mood which meets a grievance more than half-way. He did not stop at the house, though he saw Val through the open door; he did not trouble to speak to her, even, but rode on to the stable, stopping at the corral to look over the fence at the calves, still bawling sporadically between half-hearted nibblings at the hay which Polycarp had thrown in to them.

Just at first he did not notice anything wrong, but soon a vague disquiet seized him, and he frowned thoughtfully at the little group. Something puzzled him; but his brain, fogged with whisky and loss of sleep, and the reaction from hours of concentration upon the game, could not quite grasp the thing that troubled him. In a moment, however, he gave an inarticulate bellow, wheeled about, and rode back to the house. He threw himself from the horse almost before it stopped, and rushed into the kitchen. Val, ironing one of her ruffled white ap.r.o.ns, looked up quickly, turned rather pale, and then stiffened perceptibly for the conflict that was coming.

"There's only four calves in the corral--and I brought in five. Where's the other one?" He came up and stood quite close to her--so close that Val took a step backward. He did not speak loud, but there was something in his tone, in his look, that drove the little remaining color from her face.

"Manley," she said, with a catch of the breath, "why did you do that horrible thing? What devil possessed you? I--"

"I asked you 'where is that other calf'? Where is it? There's only four. I brought in five." His very calmness was terrifying.

Val threw back her head, and her eyes were--as they frequently became in moments of stress--yellow, inscrutable, like the eyes of a lion in a cage.

"Yes, you brought in five. One of the five, at least, you--stole. You put your brand, Manley Fleetwood, on a calf that did not belong to you; it belonged to the Wishbone, and you know it. I have learned many disagreeable things about you, Manley, in the past two years; yesterday morning I learned that you were a _thief_. Ah-h--I despise you! Stealing from the very men who helped you--the men to whom you owe nothing but grat.i.tude and--and friendship! Have you no manhood whatever? Besides being weak and shiftless, are you a criminal as well? _How_ can you be so utterly lacking in--in common decency, even?" She eyed him as she would look at some strange monster in a museum about which she was rather curious.

"I asked you where that other calf is--and you'd better tell me!" It was the tone which goes well with a knife thrust or a blow. But the contempt in Val's face did not change.

"Well, you'll have to hunt for it if you want it. The cow--a Wishbone cow, mind you!--came and claimed it; I let her have it. No stolen goods can remain on this ranch with my knowledge, Manley Fleetwood. Please remember--"