Heart's Desire, Emerson Hough [first color ebook reader TXT] 📗

quick.'" [Illustration: "'Something has got to be did, and did mighty blame quick.'"]

CHAPTER XXIV THE CONSPIRACY AT HEART'S DESIRE This being the Story of a Sheepherder, Two Warm Personal Friends, and their Love-letter to a Beautiful Queen

When Tom Osby came back to Heart's Desire, he drew Curly to one side, and the two walked over to a shady spot at the side of Whiteman's corral, seating themselves for what was evidently to be an executive session.

Tom Osby continued to stuff tobacco into his pipe with a stubby forefinger, and Curly's hat was pushed back from a forehead wrinkled in deep thought.

"It's a good deal like you say, Tom," he assented; "I know that. Unless we can get Dan Anderson and that girl to some sort of an understandin', the jig's up, and there ain't a-goin' to be no railroad at Heart's Desire. But how're you a-goin' to do that?"

"Well, I done told you what I thought," said Tom Osby. "I'm a married man, been married seven times, or maybe six. There's just two things I understand, and them is horses and women, which I ought to, from associatin' with them constant. Now, I tell you, if I'm any judge of women, that girl thinks a heap of Dan Anderson, no matter what she lets on. It's her that's got the railroad up her sleeve. The old man just thinks she's a tin angel with fresh paint. Why, he's done give her the whole railroad. He don't want it. He's got money now that's sinful. Now, I say, she's got the railroad. Dan Andersen's chances, they go with the railroad. If she could just get him to go with the business chances, that'd about fix things; and I more'n half believe she'd drop into line right free and gentle."

"Well, why don't she say so, then," grumbled Curly, "and stop this foolishness?"

"Now there you go!" replied Tom. "Can't you see that any woman on earth, even a married woman, is four-thirds foolishness and the rest human? With girls it's still worse'n that. If I'm any judge, she's wishin' a certain feller'd come along and shake the tree. But she ain't goin' to fall off until the tree's done shook. Consequently, there she is, still up the tree, and our railroad with her."

"Looks like he ought to make the first break," observed Curly, sagely.

"Of course he ought. But will he, that's the question."

"No, he won't," admitted Curly, pushing his hat still farther back on his head. "He's took his stand, and done what he allowed was right. After that, he ain't built to crawfish. He's passed up the girl, and the railroad, too, and I reckon that settles it."

"And yet he thinks a heap of the girl."

"Natural? Of course he does. How can he help it? That's where the trouble is. I tell you, Tom, these here things is sort of personal. If these two folks is havin' trouble of their own, why, it's their trouble, and it ain't for us to square it, railroad or no railroad."

"When two people is damn fools," commented Tom Osby, gravely, "it's all right for foreign powers to mediate a-plenty."

"But what you goin' to do? She won't bat a eye at him, and he ain't goin' to send for her."

"Oh, yes he is," corrected Tom Osby; and the forefinger, crowding tobacco into his pipe, worked vigorously. "He's got to send for her."

"Looks to me like we can't do nothin'," replied his friend, pessimistically. "I like that girl, too. Say, I'll braid her a nice hair rope and take it down to her. Maybe that'll kind o' square things with her for losin' out with Dan."

"Yes," scoffed Tom Osby, "that's all the brains a fool cow puncher has got. Do you reckon a hair lariat, or a new pair of spurs, is any decent remedy for a girl's wownded affections? No, sir, not none. No, you go on down and take your old hair rope with you, and give it to the girl. That's all right; but you're goin' to take something else along with you at the same time."

"What's that?" "Why, you're goin' to take a letter to her,—a letter from Dan Andersen's death-bed."

"Who—me? Death-bed? Why, he ain't on no death-bed. He's eatin' three squares a day and settin' up readin' novels. Death-bed nothin'!"

"Oh, no," said Tom Osby, "that's where you're mistaken. Dan Anderson is on his death-bed; and he writes his dyin' confession, his message in such cases made and pervided. He sends his last words to his own true love. Says he, 'All is forgiven.' Then she flies to receive his dyin' words. You ain't got no brains, Curly. You ain't got no imagination. Why, if I left all this to you, she'd get here too late for the funeral. You're a specialist, Curly. You can rope and throw a two-thousand-pound steer, but you can't handle a woman that don't weigh over a hundred and twenty-five. Now, you watch your Pa."

Curly sat and looked at him in silence for a few minutes, but at last a light seemed to dawn upon him. "Oh, I see," said he, smiling broadly. "You mean for us to get up a letter for him—write it out and send it, like he done it hisself."

Tom Osby nodded. "Of course—that's the only way. There wouldn't either of them write to the other one. That's the trouble with these here States girls, and them men from the States, too. You have to take care of 'em. You and me has got to be gardeens for these two folks. If we don't, they're goin' to make all kinds of trouble for theirselves and each other."

"Kin you disguise your handwritin' any, Tom?" asked Curly. "I can't. Mine's kind of sot."

"Curly," answered Tom, with scorn, "what you call your brains is only a oroide imitation of a dollar watch. Why, of course we can't write a letter and sign his name to it deliberate. That's forgery, and we'd get into the penitentiary for it. That ain't the way to do.

"Now look here. Dan Anderson may be lookin' right well for a dyin' man, but he's on his death-bed just the same. That's needful for the purposes of dramatic construction. He's a-layin' there, pale and wore out. His right arm is busted permernent, and it's only a question of time when he cashes in—though he might live a few days if he was plumb shore his own true love was a-hastenin' to his bedside."

"But it was his left arm that got shot," argued Curly; "and it didn't amount to a whole lot at that."

"There's you go," jeered Tom, in answer, "with them imitation brain works of yours. It's his right arm that's busted. Now, him a-layin' there plumb helpless, his thoughts turns to his bride that might 'a' been, but wasn't. With his last dyin' words he greets her. If she would only hasten to his deathbed, he could die in peace. That's what he writes to her. 'Dear Madam,' says he, 'Havin' loved you all my life, I fain would gaze on you onct more. In that case,' says he, 'the clouds certainly would roll away!'"

"That shorely would fetch her," said Curly, admiringly, "but how you goin' to fix it?"

"Why, how? There ain't but one way. The dyin' man has his dear friend Curly, or Tom Osby, or some one, write his last words for him. That ain't counterfeitin'. That's only actin' as his literary amanyensis, and that's plumb legal."

"Things may be legal, and not safe," objected Curly. "Supposin' he finds out?"

"Why, then, we'll be far, far away. This letter has got to be wrote. I can't write it myself, and you can't; but maybe several of us could."

"I ain't in on writin' the letter," Curly decided; "I'll carry it, but my writin' is too sot, and so's my thinker."

"Well, I ain't used my own thinker in this particular way for about twenty years," said Tom Osby, "although I did co'te two of my wives by perlite correspondence, something like this; and I couldn't see but what them wives lasted as good as any."

"It's too bad Dan Anderson ain't in on this play hisself," Curly resumed. "Now if it was us that was layin' dead, and him writin' the letter, he'd have us both alive, and have the girl here by two o'clock to-morrer, and everything 'd be lovely. But us! We don't know any more about this than a pair of candy frogs."

"The fewer there is in on a woman deal the better," said Tom Osby, "and yet it looks like we needed help right now!"

The two sat gazing gloomily down the long street of Heart's Desire, and so intent were they that they did not see the shambling figure of Willie the sheepherder coming up the street. Then Tom Osby's gaze focussed him.

"Now there's that damned sheepherder that broke us up in business," said he. "It was him that got us into this fix. If he hadn't lied like a infernal pirate, and got Dan Anderson to thinkin' that the girl and this lawyer feller Barkley was engaged to each other on the side, why Dan wouldn't have flared up and busted the railroad deal, and let the girl get away, and gone and got hisself shot."

"S'posin' I shoot Willie up just for luck," suggested Curly. "He's got it comin' to him, from the way that Gee-Whiz friend of his throwed lead into our fellers, time we was arguin' with them over them sheep. This country ain't got no use for sheep, nor sheepherders either, specially the kind that makes trouble with railroads, and girls."

"No, hold on a minute," interrupted Tom Osby. "You wait—I've got a idea."

"Well, what is it?"

"Wait a minute. How saith the psalmist? All men is liars; and sheepherders special, natural, eighteen-karat, hand-curled liars—which is just the sort we need right now in our business."

Curly slapped his thigh in sudden understanding. The two sat, still watching Willie as he came rambling aimlessly up the street, staring from side to side in his vacant fashion.

"A sheepherder, as you know, Curly," went on Tom, "has three stages in his game. For a while he's human. In a few years, settin' round on the hills in the sun, a-watchin' them damned woolly baa-baa's of his, he gets right nutty. He sees things. Him a-gettin' so lonesome, and a-readin' high-class New York literature all the time, he gets to thinkin' of the Lady Eyemogene. You might think he's seein' cactus and sheep, but what is really floatin' before him is proud knights, and haughty barons, and royal monarchs, and Lady Eyemogenes.

"It ain't sinful for Willie to lie, like it is for us, because life is one continuous lie to him. He's seen a swimmin' picture of hand-painted palaces, and noble jukes, and stately dames out on the Nogal flats every day for eight years. That ain't lyin'—that's imagination.

"Now this feller's imagination is just about ripe. Usual, at the end of about seven years, a sheepherder goes plumb dotty, and we either have to shoot him, or send him to Leavenworth. Your Gee-Whiz man can maybe take to cow punchin' and prosper, but not Willie. His long suit is imaginin' things, from now on.

"Now, that feller is naturally pinin' to write this here particular letter we've got on our minds. You watch Willie compose."

"Here you, Willie, come over here!" Curly called out.

The herder started in fright. Timid at best, he was all the more so since the raid of the Carrizoso stock men. His legs trembled under him, but he slowly approached in obedience.

"Willie," said Tom Osby, sternly, "I'm some hardened as a sinner my own self, but the kind of way you do pains me. What made you tell that lie about seein' the lady and that lawyer feller makin' love to each other, on the back seat of the buckboard, behind the old man's back?"

"I thought I seen 'em," pleaded Willie. "I—I thought I heard 'em talkin'."

"Oh, sufferin' saints!