FLOYD CARSON was a somewhat phlegmatic young man, but he swore an astonished oath when he saw Billy Louise galloping along the lane that led nowhere except to the womanless abode of Samuel Seabeck. He walked very fast to the stable, which was the first logical stopping-place, and so he met Billy Louise before she had time to dismount, even supposing she intended to do so.
"Hello, Floyd! Is Mr. Seabeck at home?" Billy Louise was not one to waste time in the superfluities of speech when she had anything on her mind.
"Sure. Get off, and I 'll put up your horse. We 're just through eatin', but our grub carpenter will rustle something for yuh, all right."
"No, I can't stop this time. I 'm not hungry, anyway. Just give a yell for Mr. Seabeck, will you? I want to see him a minute."
Floyd eyed her uncertainly, decided that Billy Louise was not in the mood to yield to persuasion, and tactfully hurried off to find Seabeck without shouting for him – lest he bring others also, who were evidently not wanted at all. He took it that Billy Louise felt some diffidence about visiting a strictly bachelor outfit, and he set himself to relieve her of any embarrassment.
Presently Seabeck himself came from the dirt-roofed, rambling cabin which was his home and strode down the path, buttoning his coat as he came. Floyd's face showed for a minute in the doorway before he effaced himself completely, and not another man was in sight anywhere. Billy Louise was grateful to circumstance; she had dreaded this visit, though not for the reason Floyd Carson believed.
"How de do, Miss MacDonald? Pretty nice day, but I 'm afraid it 's a weather-breeder. The wind 's trying to change, I notice."
"Yes, and so I must n't stop. Could you ride part way home with me, Mr. Seabeck? I – want to talk with you about something. And I can't stop a minute. I must get home."
"Why, certainly, I 'll go. If you 'll wait just a minute while I saddle up – or if you 'd rather ride on, I 'll overtake you."
"I 'll ride on, I think. Blue hates standing around, and he 's a little warm, too. You 're awfully good, Mr. Seabeck – "
"Oh, not at all!" Seabeck stubbed his toe on the stable doorsill in his confusion at the praise. "I 'll be right along, soon as I can slap a saddle on." He disappeared, and Billy Louise turned and loped slowly down the lane.
So far, so good. Billy Louise tried to believe that it was all going to be as plain sailing as this fortuitous beginning, but she was aware of a nervous fluttering in her throat while she waited, and she knew that she positively dreaded hearing Seabeck gallop up behind her on the frozen trail. "Why will people do things that make a lot of trouble for others?" she cried out petulantly. And then she heard the steady pluck, pluckety-pluck of Seabeck's horse, and twisted her lips with a whimsical acceptance of the part she had set herself to play. She might smash things, she told herself, but at the worst it would be only a premature smash. "Come, Bill," she adjured herself, pretending it was what Ward would have said, had he looked into her mind. "Be a Bill-the-Conk – and a good one! Shove in your chips and play for all there is in it."
"You must have some lightning method of saddling, Mr. Seabeck," she smiled over her shoulder at him when he came up.
"We learn to do things quick when we've handled cattle a few years," he admitted. He had a diffident manner of receiving compliments which pleased Billy Louise and gave her confidence a needed brace. She was not a skilled coquette; she was too honest and too straightforward for that. Still, nature places certain weapons in the hands of a woman, and instinct shows her how to use them. Seabeck, from his very unaccustomedness to women, seemed to her particularly pliable. Billy Louise took her courage in both hands and went straight to the point.
"Mr. Seabeck, I 've always heard that you're an awfully square man," she said. "Daddy seemed to think that you could be depended on in any kind of a pinch. I hope it 's true. I'm banking a lot on your squareness to-day."
"Why, I don't know about my being any better than my neighbors," he said, with a twinkle of humor in his eyes, which were a bright, unvarying blue "But you can bank on my doing anything I can for you, Miss MacDonald. I think I could be even better than square – to help a plucky little girl who – "
"I don't mean just the ordinary squareness," Billy Louise put in quietly. "I mean bigness, too; a bigness that will make a man be more than square; a bigness that will let him see all around a thing and judge it from a bigger viewpoint than mere justice – "
"Hm-mm – if you could trust me enough to – "
"I'm going to, Mr. Seabeck. I'm going to take it for granted you're bigger than your own squareness. And if you're not – if you're just a selfish, weak, letter-perfect, honest man, I 'll – feel like – thrashing you." Without a doubt that was the Billy of her which spoke.
"I 'll take the thrashing if you think I need it," he promised, looking at her with something more than admiration. "What have you done, Miss MacDonald? If I can help you hide the body – "
"There!" Billy Louise dared to wrinkle her nose at him – and I don't know which of her did it. "I knew you 'd play up like a good sport. But what if it isn't a body? What if – what if you found some of your cattle with – with a big D – run over your brand?" She had a perfectly white line around her mouth and nostrils then, but she faced him squarely.
"Hm-mm!" Seabeck gave her a quick, sidewise glance and pulled thoughtfully at the graying whiskers that pointed his chin. "I would have been glad to lend you money, or help you in any way."
"Yes, I know." Billy Louise snapped her reins impatiently. "But what would you do about the – cattle?"
"What could I do? What would you want me to do? I should do whatever would help you. I would – "
"Would you – be as ready to help somebody else? Somebody I – thought a – lot – of?"
Seabeck, evidently, saw light. He cleared his throat and spat gravely into a bush. "I see you don't trust me, after all," he said.
"I do. I 've got to; I mean, I 'd have to whether I did or not. It 's like this, Mr. Seabeck. It is n't the big D brand; of course you knew it could n't be. But it is n't yours, either. Someone was tempted and was weak. They 're sorry now. They want to do the right thing, and it rests with you whether they can do it. You can shut them up in jail if you like; you have a perfect right to do it. Some men would do that and be able to sleep after it, I suppose. But I believe you're bigger than that. I believe you're big enough to see that if a person goes wrong and then sees the mistake and wants to pull back into the straight trail, a man – even the one who has been wronged – would be committing a moral crime to prevent it. To take a person who wants to make a fresh, honest start, and shut that person up amongst criminals and brand him as a criminal, seems to me a worse wrong than to steal a few head of cattle; don't you think so, Mr. Seabeck?"
What Mr. Seabeck thought did not immediately appear in speech. He was pulling a little harder at his whiskers and staring at the ears of his horse.
"That would depend on the person," he said at last. "Some men are born criminals."
"Oh, we are n't talking about that kind of a man. Surely to goodness you don't call Charlie Fox a born criminal, or Marthy Meilke?"
"Charlie Fox! Is that the person you mean, who has been – "
"Yes, it is! And he is horribly sorry, and so is Marthy, and they 'll pay you for the cattle. And if you do anything mean about it, it will simply kill poor old Marthy. You could n't send her to the pen, Mr. Seabeck. Think how she 's worked there in the Cove; and Charlie has worked like a perfect slave; and he was trying to get a start so he – could – get married – "
"Hm-mm!" Rumors had reached Seabeck, thanks to Billy Louise's dropped lashes upon a certain occasion, which caused him to believe he saw further light.
"And if you 're going to be horrid – "
"Will the – lady he wants to marry give him another chance?"
"Don't you think she ought to – if she l-loves him?" Billy Louise studied the skyline upon the side farthest from Seabeck.
"You say he wants to pay for the cattle and – "
"He 'll do anything he can to make amends," said Billy Louise, with conviction. "He 'll take his medicine and go to jail if you insist," she added sorrowfully. "It will ruin his whole life, of course, and break a couple of women's hearts, but – "
"It 's a bad thing, a mighty bad thing, when a man tries to get ahead too fast."
"It 's a good thing when he learns the lesson without having to pay for it with his whole future," Billy Louise amended the statement.
Seabeck smiled a little behind his fingers that kept tugging at his whiskers.
"Did Charlie Fox send Miss Portia – "
"He does n't know I had any intention of coming," Billy Louise assured him quickly and with perfect truth. "They 'll both be awfully surprised when they find it out" – which was also perfectly true – "and when they see you ride up, they 'll think you 've got the sheriff at your back. I have n't a doubt they – "
"There are a few points I 'd like to clear up, if you can help me," Seabeck interrupted. "All this rustling that has been going on for the past year and a half: are Fox and the Meilke woman mixed up in that? I want," he said, "to help the young man – and her. But if they have been operating on a large scale, I 'm afraid – "
"I believe Charlie must have been influenced in some ways by bad acquaintances," Billy Louise answered more steadily than she felt. "But his – rustling – has been of a petty kind. I won't apologize for him, Mr. Seabeck. I think it 's perfectly awful, what he has done. But I think it would be more awful still not to give him a chance. The other rustling is some outside gang, I 'm sure. If Charlie was mixed up with them, it 's very slightly – just enough to damn him utterly if he were arrested and tried. He is n't a natural criminal. He 's just weak. And he 's learned his lesson. It 's up to you, Mr. Seabeck, to say whether he shall have a chance to profit by the lesson. And there 's poor old Marthy in it, too. She just worships Charlie and would do anything – even steal for him."
Seabeck meditated for a mile, and Billy Louise watched him uneasily from the tail of her eye. To tell the plain truth, she was in a panic of fear at what she had done. It had looked so simple and so practicable when she had planned it; and now when the words were out and the knowledge had reached Seabeck and was beyond her control, she could not think of any good reason for telling him.
Last night, when she lay curled up by the stove under Ward's wolf-skin coat, this seemed the only possible way out: To tell Seabeck and trust to his kindness and generosity to refrain from pushing the case. To have Charlie Fox give back what he had stolen or pay for it – anything that would satisfy Seabeck's sense of justice – and let him start honestly. She had thought that Seabeck would be merciful, if she told him in the right way; but now, when she stole a glance at his bent, brooding face, she was frightened. He did not look merciful, but stern and angry. She remembered then that stealing cattle is the one crime a cattleman finds it hard to forgive.
Billy Louise might have spared herself some mental anguish if she could have known that Seabeck was brooding over the wonder of a woman's love that pardons and condones a man's sins. He was wishing that such a love as Billy Louise's had come to him, and he was wondering how a man could be tempted to go wrong when such a girl loved him. He was laboring under a misapprehension, of course. Billy Louise had permitted him to misunderstand her interest in the matter. If he had known that she was pleading solely for Marthy – poor, avaricious, gray, old Marthy – perhaps his mercy would have been less tinged with that smoldering resentment which was directed not so much at the wrongdoer, as at fate which had cheated him.
"I 'm glad you came and told me this," he said at last. "Very glad, indeed, Miss MacDonald. Certain steps have been taken to push this – wipe out this rustling and general lawlessness, and if you had not told me, I 'm afraid the mills of justice would have ground your – friends. Of course the law would be merciful to Mrs. Meilke. No jury would send an old woman like that – By the way, that breed they have had working for them – he is in the deal, too, I take it."
"Yes, of course. They had to have someone to help. Marthy can't do any riding." Billy Louise spoke with a dreary apathy that betrayed how the reaction had set in. "She stayed in the Cove, in case anyone came prowling down there. It seems there 's a wire fastened to the gate, and it rings a bell down at the house somewhere when the gate is opened. And besides that she had a dog that would tackle strangers. I don't believe," she went on, after a little silence, "that Marthy would have turned dishonest for herself. She was grasping, and all she cared for was getting ahead. It – sort of grew on her, after the years of trying to dig a bare living out of the ground. I – can understand that; and I can see how she would go to any length almost for – Charlie. But – "
"Well, let 's not think any more about them until we have to." There was a certain crude attempt at soothing her anxieties. "You 've trusted me, Miss MacDonald. I 'll try and not disappoint you in the matter, though, unless they are quite separate from the gang which is being run down, it may be hard to protect them. Do you know – whether – any other cowman has suffered from their – mm-mm – haste to get rich?"
"I don't think there 's anyone but you," Billy Louise replied lifelessly.
"Hm-mm – do you know, Miss MacDonald, whether there was any intimacy between – your friends – and the man we had for stock inspector, Mr. Olney?"
"I – can't say, as to that." Billy Louise, you see, did not know much about details, but the little she did know made her hedge.
"There 's a queer story about Olney. You know he has left the country, don't you? It seems he rode very hurriedly up to the depot at Wilmer to take the train. Just as he stepped on, a fellow who knew him by sight noticed a piece of paper pinned on the back of his coat. He jerked it loose. It was a – m-m – very peculiar document for a man to be wearing on his back." Seabeck pulled at his whiskers, but it was not the pulling which quirked the corners of his lips. "The man said Olney seemed greatly upset over something and had evidently forgotten the paper until he felt it being pulled loose. He said Olney looked back then, and he was the color of a pork-rind. The train was pulling out. The man took the paper over to a saloon and let several others read it. They – mm-mm – decided that it should be placed in the hands of the authorities. Have – m-m – your – friends ever mentioned the matter to you?"
"No," said Billy Louise, and her eyes were wide.
"Hm-mm! We must discover, if we can, Miss MacDonald, whether they are in any way implicated with this man Olney. I believe that this is at present more important than the recovery of any – m-m – cattle of mine which they may have appropriated."
Billy Louise looked at him for a minute. "Mr. Seabeck, you 're awfully dear about this!" she told him. "I have n't been as square as you; and I 've been – Listen here, Mr. Seabeck! I don't love Charlie Fox a bit. I love somebody else, and I 'm going to marry him. He 's so square, I 'd hate to have him think I even let you believe something that was n't true. It 's Marthy I 'm thinking of, Mr. Seabeck. I was afraid you would n't let Charlie off just for her sake, but I thought maybe if you just thought I – wanted you to do it for mine, why, maybe – with two women to be sorry for, you 'd kind of – "
"Hm-mm!" Seabeck sent her a keen, blue, twinkling glance that made Billy Louise turn hot all over with shame and penitence. "Hm-mm!" he said again – if one can call that a saying – and pulled at his graying whiskers. "Hm-mmm!"
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