'Drag' Harlan, Charles Alden Seltzer [ebook reader computer TXT] 📗

“So you came at last?”

Barbara had some difficulty in keeping resentment prominent in her voice as she faced John Haydon, for other emotions were clamoring within her—joy because Haydon had come, even though tardily; self-reproach because she saw in Haydon’s eyes a glowing anxiety and sympathy that looked as though they were of recent birth.

There was repressed excitement in Haydon’s manner; it was as though he had only just heard of the girl’s affliction and had ridden hard to come to her.

She was sure of the sincerity in his voice when he grasped her hands tightly and said:

“At last, Barbara! I heard it only this morning, and I have nearly killed my horse getting over here! Look at him!”

The gray horse certainly did have the appearance of having been ridden hard. He stood, his legs braced, his head drooping, his muzzle and chest flecked with foam. Barbara murmured pityingly as she stroked the beast’s neck; and there was quick forgiveness in her eyes when she again looked at Haydon.

Haydon was big—fully as tall as Harlan, and broader. His shoulders bulged the blue flannel shirt he wore; and it was drawn into folds at his slim waist, where a cartridge-studded belt encircled him, sagging at the right hip with the weight of a heavy pistol.

He wore a plain gray silk handkerchief at his throat; it sagged at the front, revealing a muscular development that had excited the envious admiration of men. His hair was coal-black, wavy and abundant—though he wore it short—with design, it seemed, for he must have known that it gave him an alert, virile appearance.

His face, despite the tan upon it, and the little wrinkles brought by the sun and wind, had a clear, healthy color, and his eyes black as his hair, had a keen glint behind which lurked humor of a quality not to be determined at a glance—it was changeable, fleeting, mysterious.

Barbara was silent. The steady courage that had sustained her until this instant threatened to fail her in the presence of this big, sympathetic man who seemed, to her, to embody that romance for which she had always longed. She looked at him, her lips trembling with emotion.

Until now she had had no confidant—no one she could be sure of. And so, with Haydon standing close to her, though not too close—for he had never been able to achieve that intimacy for which he had yearned—she told him what had happened, including details of her father’s death, as related to her by Harlan; finishing by describing the incident with Deveny in Lamo (at which Haydon muttered a threat) and the subsequent coming of Harlan to the Rancho Seco, together with the story of his assumption of authority.

When she concluded Haydon laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

“It’s too bad, Barbara. And on top of it all, Lawson had to play the beast, too, eh? Why didn’t you send someone to me?”

“There was no one to send.” Her voice threatened to break, despite the brave gleam that flashed through the moisture in her eyes. “Lawson had sent the men away; and when they came in Harlan took charge of them. And—besides,” she admitted, dropping her gaze, “I—I thought you ought to—I thought you would——”

He shook her, reprovingly, laughing deeply as he led her through the gateway into the patio, where they sat on a bench for a long time, talking, while the aspect of the patio began to change, becoming again a place of cheerfulness flooded with the soft, radiant light of returning happiness—reflected in her eyes; while the sunlight streaming down into the enclosure took on a brightness that made the girl’s eyes glisten; while the drab and empty days since her father’s death began to slip back into the limbo of memory—the sting and the sorrow of them removed. So does the heart of youth respond to the nearness of romance.

They had been talking for half an hour when Barbara remembered that Haydon had not expressed a desire to meet Harlan.

Haydon’s face lost a little of its color as he replied to her suggestion that they find the man.

But he laughed, rather mirthlessly, she thought.

“I intend to see him, Barbara—but alone. There are several things of importance that I want to say to him—chiefly concerning his conduct toward you.”

He got up. Barbara rose also, and walked with him, outside the gate, where he got on his horse, smiling down at her.

“Harlan was right about your riding out alone. I’d stay as close to the ranchhouse as possible. There’s no telling what Deveny might try to do. But don’t worry. If it wasn’t so soon after—after what has happened—I would—” He smiled, and Barbara knew he meant what he had said to her many times—about there being a parson in Lazette, a hundred miles or so northeastward—and of his eagerness to be present with her while the parson “tied the knot.” His manner had always been jocose, and yet she knew of the earnestness behind it.

Still, she had not yielded to his importunities, because she had not been quite sure that she wanted him. Nor was she certain now, though she liked him better at this moment than she had ever liked him before.

She shook her head negatively, answering his smile; and watched him as he rode around a corner of the ranchhouse toward the corral where, no doubt, he would find Harlan.

Harlan had ridden directly to the bunkhouse door and dismounted. Red Linton said nothing until Harlan seated himself on a bench just outside the bunkhouse door. Then Linton grinned at him.

“There’s a geezer come a-wooin’,” he said.

Harlan glared at the red-haired man—a truculent, savage glare that made Linton stretch his lips until the corners threatened to retreat to his ears. Then Linton assumed a deprecatory manner.

“They ain’t no chance for him, I reckon. He’s been burnin’ up the breeze between here an’ the Star for more’n a year—an’ she ain’t as much as kissed him, I’d swear!”

Harlan did not answer.

“You saw him?” questioned Linton.

“Shut your rank mouth.”

Linton chuckled. “I didn’t know you’d been hit that bad. Howsomever, if you have been, why, there’s no sense of me wastin’ time gassin’ to you. They ain’t nothin’ will cure that complaint but petticoats an’ smiles—the which is mighty dangerous an’ uncertain. I knowed a man once——”

Harlan got up and walked to the bunkhouse. And Linton, grinning, called loudly after him, pretending astonishment.

“Why, he’s gone. Disappeared complete. An’ me tryin’ to jam some sense into his head.”

Grinning, Linton sauntered away, vanishing within the blacksmith-shop.

He had hardly disappeared when Haydon appeared from around a corner of the ranchhouse, at about the instant Harlan, sensing the departure of Linton, came to the door, frowning.

The frown still narrowed Harlan’s eyes when they rested upon the horseman; and his brows were drawn together with unmistakable truculence when Haydon dismounted near the corral fence.

Haydon’s manner had undergone a change. When in the presence of Barbara he had been confident, nonchalant. When he dismounted from his horse and walked toward Harlan there was about him an atmosphere that suggested carefulness. Before Haydon had taken half a dozen steps Harlan was aware that the man knew him—knew of his reputation—and feared him.

Respect was in Haydon’s eyes, in the droop of his shoulders, in his hesitating step. And into Harlan’s eyes came a gleam of that contempt which had always seized him when in the presence of men who feared him.

And yet, had not Harlan possessed the faculty of reading character at a glance; had he not had that uncanny instinct of divining the thoughts of men who meditated violence, he could not have known that Haydon feared him.

For Haydon’s fear was not abject. It was that emotion which counsels caution, which warns of a worthy antagonist, which respects force that is elemental and destroying.

Haydon smiled as he halted within a few paces of Harlan and turned the palms of his hands outward.

“You’re ‘Drag’ Harlan, of Pardo,” he said.

Harlan nodded.

“My name’s Haydon. I own the Star—about fifteen miles west—on Sunset Trail.