Part 3 (1/2)
”Echo, I'm so happy that I am frightened.”
”Frightened?” she asked wonderingly.
”Yes, scared--downright scared,” he answered. ”I reckon I'm like an Indian. An Indian doesn't believe it's good medicine to let the G.o.ds know he's big happy. For there's the Thunder Bird--”
”The Thunder Bird?”
”The evil spirit of the storm,” continued Jack. ”When the Thunder Bird hears a fellow saying he's big happy, he sends him bad luck--”
Echo laid her hand softly on the mouth of her sweetheart. ”We won't spoil our happiness, then, by talking about it. We will just feel it--just be it.”
She laid her head upon Jack's knee. He placed his arm lightly but protectingly over her shoulder. They sat in silence listening to the Mexican's song. Finally Jack bent over and whispered gently in her ear:
”Softly, so the Thunder Bird won't hear, Echo; tell me you love me; that you love only me; that you will always love me, no matter what shall happen; that you never loved, until you loved me.”
Echo sat upright, with a start. ”What do you mean?” she exclaimed.
”Of course I love you, and you only, but the future and the past are beyond our control. Unless you know of something that is going to happen which may mar our love, your question is silly, not at all like your Mother Goose nonsense--that was dear. And as for the past, you mean d.i.c.k Lane.”
”Yes, I mean d.i.c.k Lane,” confessed Payson, in a subdued tone. ”I am jealous of him--that is--even of his memory.”
”That is not like Jack Payson. What has come over you? It is the shadow of your Thunder Bird. You know what my feeling was for d.i.c.k Lane, and what it is, for it remains the same, the only difference being that now I know it never was love. Even if it were, he is dead, and I love you, Jack, you alone. Oh, how you shame me by forcing me to speak of such things! I have tried to put poor d.i.c.k out of my mind, for every time I think of him it is with a wicked joy that he is dead, that he cannot come home to claim me as his wife. Oh, Jack, Jack, I didn't think it of you!”
And the girl laid her face within her hands on her lover's knee and burst into a fit of sobbing.
Jack Payson shut his teeth.
”Well, since I have lowered myself so far in your esteem, and since your mind is already sinning against d.i.c.k Lane, we might as well go on and settle this matter. I promise I will not mention it again. I, too, have troubles of the mind. I am as I am, and you ought to know it. I said I was jealous of d.i.c.k Lane's memory. It is more. I am jealous of d.i.c.k Lane himself. If he should return, would you leave me and go with him--as his wife?”
Again she sat upright. By a strong effort she controlled her sobbing.
”The man I admired does not deserve an answer, but the child he has proved himself to be and whom I cannot help loving, shall have it.
Yes, if d.i.c.k Lane returns true to his promise I shall be true to mine.”
She arose and went into the house. Payson rode homeward through the starlight resolved of tormenting doubt only to be consumed by torturing jealousy. He now had no thought of confiding in Jim Allen. He regretted that he had touched so dangerously near the subject of d.i.c.k Lane's return in talking to Bud and Polly. His burning desire was to be safely married to Echo Allen before the inevitable return of her former lover.
”Fool that I was not to ask her one more question: Would she forgive her husband where she would not forgive her lover? What will she think of me when all is discovered, as it surely will be? Well, I must take my chances. Events will decide.”
On his return to Sweet.w.a.ter Ranch he put the place in charge of his new foreman, Sage-brush Charlie, and went out to a hunting-cabin he had built in the Tortilla Mountains. Here he fought the problem over with his conscience--and his selfishness won. He returned, fixed in his decision to suppress d.i.c.k Lane's letter, and to go ahead with the marriage.
CHAPTER IV
The Hold-up
Riding hard into Florence from Sweet.w.a.ter Ranch Bud Lane hunted up Buck McKee at his favorite gambling-joint, and, in a white heat of indignation informed him in detail of everything that had pa.s.sed between Payson and himself. At once McKee inferred that the writer of the letter was none other than d.i.c.k Lane. Realizing that Payson was already informed of his villainy, and that in a very short time d.i.c.k Lane himself would make his appearance on the Sweet.w.a.ter, the half-breed concluded to make a bold move while he yet retained the confidence of Bud.
”Bud,” he said, ”I know the man who is sendin' the money to Payson.
It's d.i.c.k, your brother.”
”But,” stammered Bud, his brain whirling, ”if that's so, you lied about the Apaches killing him you--why you--must have been the renegade, the devil who tortured prospectors.”
”Why, Bud, d.i.c.k never wrote all that dime-novel nonsense about the man who stood by him to--well, not the very last, for d.i.c.k has managed somehow to pull through--probably he was saved by the Rurales that were chasin' the band that rounded us up. No, it's Payson, Jack Payson, that made up that pack of lies, just to keep you away from me, the man that was last with d.i.c.k and so may get on to Jack's game and block it.”