CHAPTER IX

"SOMETHIN'S GONE OUT OF THEM"

As Randerson rode Patches through the break in the canyon wall in the afternoon of a day about a week after his talk with Uncle Jepson in the bunkhouse, he was thinking of the visit he intended to make. He had delayed it long. He had not seen Abe Catherson since taking his new job.

"I reckon he'll think I'm right unneighborly," he said to himself as he rode.

When he reached the nester's cabin, the dog Nig greeted him with vociferous affection, bringing Hagar to the door.

"Oh, it's Rex!" cried the girl delightedly. And then, reproachfully: "Me an' dad allowed you wasn't comin' any more!"

"You an' dad was a heap mistaken, then," he grinned as he dismounted and trailed the reins over the pony's head. "I've had a heap to 'tend to," he added as he stepped on the porch and came to a halt, looking at her.

"Why, I reckon the little kid I used to know ain't here any more!" he said, his eyes alight with admiration, as he critically examined her garments from the distance that separated her from him--a neat house dress of striped gingham, high at the throat, the bottom hem reaching below her shoe-tops; a loose-fitting ap.r.o.n over the dress, drawn tightly at the waist, giving her figure graceful curves. He had never thought of Hagar in connection with beauty; he had been sorry for her, pitying her--she had been a child upon whom he had bestowed much of the unselfish devotion of his heart; indeed, there had been times when it had a.s.sumed a practical turn, and through various ruses much of his wages had been delicately forced upon the nester. It had not always been wisely expended, for he knew that Catherson drank deeply at times.

Now, however, Randerson realized that the years must inevitably make a change in Hagar. That glimpse he had had of her on the Flying W ranchhouse porch had made him think, but her appearance now caused him to think more deeply. It made constraint come into his manner.

"I reckon your dad ain't anywhere around?" he said.

"Dad's huntin' up some cattle this mornin'," she told him. "Shucks," she added, seeing him hesitate, "ain't you comin' in?"

"Why, I've been wonderin'" and he grinned guiltily "whether it'd be exactly proper. You see, there was a time when I busted right in the house without waitin' for an invitation--tickled to get a chance to dawdle a kid on my knee. But I reckon them dawdle-days is over. I wouldn't think of tryin' to dawdle a _woman_ on my knee. But if you think that you're still Hagar Catherson, an' you won't be dead-set on me dawdlin' you--Why, shucks, I reckon I'm talkin' like a fool!" And his face blushed crimson.

Her face was red too, but she seemed to be less conscious of the change in herself than he, though her eyes drooped when he looked at her.

He followed her inside and formally took a chair, sitting on its edge and turning his hat over and over in his hands, looking much at it, as if it were new and he admired it greatly.

But this constraint between them was not the only thing that was new to him. While she talked, he sat and listened, and stole covert glances at her, and tried to convince himself that it was really Hagar that was sitting there before him.

But before long he grew accustomed to the strangeness of the situation, and constraint dropped from him. "Why, I reckon it's all natural," he confided to her. "Folks grow up, don't they? Take you. Yesterday you was a kid, an' I dawdled you on my knee. Today you're a woman, an' it makes me feel some breathless to look at you. But it's all natural. I'd been seein' you so much that I'd forgot that time was makin' a woman of you."

She blushed, and he marveled over it. "She can't see, herself, how she's changed," he told himself. And while they talked he studied her, noting that her color was higher than he had ever seen it, that the frank expression of her eyes had somehow changed--there was a glow in them, deep, abiding, embarra.s.sed. They drooped from his when he tried to hold her gaze. He had always admired the frank directness of them--that told of unconsciousness of s.e.x, of unquestioning trust. Today, it seemed to him, there was subtle knowledge in them. He was puzzled and disappointed.

And when, half an hour later, he took his leave, after telling her that he would come again, to see her "dad," he took her by the shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes. His own searched hers narrowly. It was as in the old days--in his eyes she was still a child.

"I reckon I won't kiss you no more, Hagar," he said. "You ain't a kid no more, an' it wouldn't be square. Seventeen is an awful old age, ain't it?"

And then he mounted and rode down the trail, still puzzled over the lurking, deep glow in her eyes.

"I reckon I ain't no expert on women's eyes," he said as he rode. "But Hagar's--there's somethin' gone out of them."

He could not have reached the break in the canyon leading to the plains above the river, when Willard Masten loped his horse toward the Catherson cabin from an opposite direction.

Hagar was standing on the porch when he came, and her face flooded with color when she saw him. She stood, her eyes drooping with shy embarra.s.sment as Masten dismounted and approached her. And then, as his arm went around her waist, familiarly, he whispered:

"How is my little woman today?"

She straightened and looked up at him, perplexity in her eyes.

"Rex Randerson was just hyeh," she said. "I wanted to tell him about you wantin' me to marry you. But I thought of what you told me, an' I didn't.

Do you sure reckon he'd kill you, if he knowed?"

"He certainly would," declared Masten, earnestly. "No one--not even your father--must know that I come here to see you."

"I reckon I won't tell. But Miss Ruth? Are you sure she don't care for you any more?"

"Well," he lied glibly; "she has broken our engagement. But if she knew that I come here to see you she'd be jealous, you know. So it's better not to tell her. If you do tell her, I'll stop coming," he threatened.

"It's hard to keep from tellin' folks how happy I am," she said. "Once, I was afraid Rex Randerson could see it in my eyes--when he took a-hold of my arms hyeh, an' looked at me."

Masten looked jealously at her. "Looked at you, eh?" he said. "Are you sure he didn't try to do anything else--didn't _do_ anything else? Like kissing you, for instance?"

"I'm certain sure," she replied, looking straight at him. "He used to kiss me. But he says I'm a woman, now, an' it wouldn't be square to kiss me any more." Her eyes had drooped from his.

"An' I reckon that's right, too, ain't it?" She looked up again, not receiving an answer. "Why, how red your face is!" she exclaimed. "I ain't said nothin' to hurt you, have I?"

"No," he said. But he held her tightly to him, her head on his shoulder, so that she might not see the guilt in his eyes.

CHAPTER X

THE LAW OF THE PRIMITIVE

Randerson continued his policy of not forcing himself upon Ruth. He went his way, silent, thoughtful, attending strictly to business. To Ruth, watching him when he least suspected it, it seemed that he had grown more grim and stern-looking since his coming to the Flying W. She saw him, sometimes, laughing quietly with Uncle Jepson; other times she heard him talking gently to Aunt Martha--with an expression that set her to wondering whether he were the same man that she had seen that day with the pistol in hand, shooting the life out of a fellow being. There were times when she wavered in her conviction of his heartlessness.

Since Ruth had announced her decision not to marry Masten until after the fall round-up, she had not seen so much of him. He rode alone, sometimes not even asking her to accompany him. These omissions worked no great hardship on her, for the days had grown hot and the plains dry and dusty, so that there was not so much enjoyment in riding as formerly. Besides, she knew the country rather well now, and had no need to depend upon Masten.

Chavis had severed his connection with the Flying W. He had ridden in to the ranchhouse some weeks ago, found Ruth sitting on the porch, announced that he was "quittin'" and wanted his "time." She did not ask him why he wanted to quit so pleased was she with his decision, but he advanced an explanation while she counted the money due him.

"Things don't suit me here," he said venomously. "Randerson is too fresh." He looked at her impudently. "Besides," he added, "he stands in too well with the boss."

She flushed with indignation. "You wouldn't dare say that to _him_!" she declared.

He reddened darkly. "Meanin' what he done to Pickett, I reckon," he sneered. "Well, Randerson will be gettin' his'n some day, too!"

Ruth remembered this conversation, and on a day about a month later when she had gone riding alone, she saw Randerson at a distance and rode toward him to tell him, for she had meant to, many times.

Evidently Randerson had seen her, too, for he had already altered his pony's course when she wheeled hers. When their ponies came to a halt near each other it was Randerson who spoke first. He looked at her unsmilingly over his pony's head.

"I was ridin' in to the house to see you, ma'am. I thought you ought to know. This mornin' the boys found two cows with their hoofs burned, an'

their calves run off."

"Their hoofs burned!" she exclaimed. "Why, who would be so inhuman as to do that? But I suppose there was a fire somewhere, and it happened that way."