Earliest dawn found the young man seated composedly upon one of the flattened outcroppings of the bill of stone that lay like an island between the outer plain and the sheltered cove. As yet, there was no sign of life within the cove—both the dugout and the cabin of cedar logs were as silent and as void of movement as the rocks behind them. The young man watched first one, then the other, as tireless and vigilant as if he had not been awake for twenty-four hours.
It was the dugout that first started from its night's repose. Before the sun showed itself over the rim of the prairie, long before its rays darted over the distant mountain-crest, the door was thrown away from the casing, and a great uncouth man, strong as a giant, and wild of aspect as a savage, strode forth, gun in hand, his eyes sweeping the landscape in quick flashing glances. Almost instantly he discovered the figure perched on the granite block overlooking his retreat. He raised his gun to his shoulder.
The young man fell sidewise behind the rocks and a bullet clipped the edge of his barricade. Remaining supine, he fastened his handkerchief to the end of his whip and waved it above the rampart. Having thus manifested his peaceful intent, he rose, still holding the flag of truce above his head, and remained motionless. Brick Willock stared at him for a moment in hostile indecision, then strode forward. At the same time, an old man, thin, tall and white-haired, issued from the dugout evidently attracted by the gunshot; and soon after, the cabin door opened, and the girl of the cove looked out inquiringly.
In the meantime the young man slowly descended the hill to the oval valley, while Willock hurried forward to meet him.
"Don't you come no futher!" Willock commanded, threatening with his gun. "Keep your hands above your head until I can ship your cargo."
Obediently he stood while the great whiskered fellow took the weapons from his belt, and dived into his hip pockets.
"That'll do. Now—what do you want?"
"It's hard to put it into a few words," the other complained. "I'd like to have a little talk with you."
"You are one of them fellows that come here to run us out of the country, ain't you? I don't remember seeing you, but I guess you belong to the bunch over on Red River. Well, you see we're still here, meaning to stay. Are your pards outside there, waiting for a message?"
"Nobody knows I'm here, or thought of coming. Let me put that affair in its true light. The boys are all under our boss, and when he lays down the law it isn't for us to argue with him—we carry out orders—"
"Unless there's a Brick Willock involved in them orders," returned the man, with a grim smile.
"But it's our duty to TRY to carry out the orders, whether we like 'em or not. So you won't hold that against me—that little scrimmage of last month, especially as you came out best man."
"I used to have a boss, myself," Willock spoke uncompromisingly. "But when he give me certain orders, one particular night that I recollect, I knocked him on the head and put out for other parts. You must of thought yourself in PRETTY business coming over here to take away the land and all on it, that's belonged to me for nine years, and nobody never having tried to prize me out of it except some trifling Injuns and horse-thieves. Ain't they NO honesty in the world? Hasn't no man his property rights? I guess your boss knowed this wasn't HIS land, didn't he? What's going to become of this country when man isn't satisfied with what is his'n? Well, now you've had a little talk with me, and hoping you've enjoyed it, you can just mosey along. I'll send your weapons after you by a messenger."
The young man cast a despairing glance toward the girl who stood like a statue in her doorway, gravely listening. The man with the bushy white hair had drawn near, but evidently with no thought of interfering.
"Willock," the voice came so eager, so impetuous, that the words were somewhat incoherent, "I've GOT to talk to your daughter—hold on, don't shoot, LISTEN!—that's what I've come for, to see her and—and meet her and hear her voice. I can't help it, can I? It's been two long years since I left home, back East, and in all these two years I've never seen anything like your little girl and—and what harm can it do? I say! Have pity on a fellow, and do him the biggest favor he could enjoy on this earth when it won't cost you a penny, or a turn of your hand. Look here—hold on, don't turn away! I'm just so lonesome, so homesick, so dead KILLED by all these sand-hills and alkali beds and nothing to talk to from one year's end to the next but men and cattle...."
Willock glared at him in silence, fingering the trigger thoughtfully.
"There I've sat, on that hill," he continued, "since two o'clock last night, waiting for daylight so I could ask you to help a miserable wretch that's just starving to death for the sound of a girl's voice, and the sight of a girl's smile. Isn't this square, waiting for you, and telling you the whole truth? I never saw her but once, and that was from this same hill. She didn't know I was watching; it was yesterday. Maybe all I'm saying sounds just crazy to you, and I reckon I am out of my senses, but until I saw her I didn't know how heart-sick I was of the whole business."
"It IS kinder lonesome," remarked the other gruffly. He lowered his gun and leaned on it, irresolutely. "You've sure touched me in the right spot, son, for I knows all you mean and more that you ain't even ever dreampt of. But you see, we don't know nothing about your name, your character, if you've got one, nor what you really intends. I like your looks and the way you talk, fine, just fine, but I've saw bobcats that was mighty sleek and handsome when they didn't know I was nigh."
"My name in Wilfred Compton. I—I have a letter or two in my pocket that I got a long time ago; they'd tell something about me but I'd rather not show 'em, as they're private—"
"From your gal, I reckon?" asked Willock more mildly.
"Yes," he answered gloomily.
"Carried 'em as long as a year?"
"Nearly two years."
"Mean to still lug 'em around?"
"Of course I'm going to keep 'em."
"Well, I don't deny THAT'S pretty favorable. Now look here, son, I've been half-crazy from lonesomeness, and I don't believe I've got the heart to send you away. That gal of ours—she's just a kid, you understand.... Now you wouldn't be taking up no idea that she was what you'd classify as a young lady, or anything like that, eh?"
"Of course not—she's fifteen or sixteen, I should think. Upon my honor, Willock, any thought of sentiment or romance is a thousand miles from my mind."
"Yes, just so. But such thoughts travels powerful fast; don't take 'em long to lap over a thousand mile."
"But it's because she IS a young girl, fresh and unartificial as the mountain breezes, that I want to be with her for a little while—yes, get to know her, if I may."
Willock turned to the taciturn old man standing a little behind him. "Bill Atkins, what do you say?"
"I say, fire him and do it quick!" was the instant rejoinder, accompanied by threatening twitchings of the huge white mustache.
Willock was not convinced. "Son, if you sets here till we have had our breakfast, and has held a caucus over you, I'll bring you the verdict in about an hour. If you don't like that, they's nothing to do but put out for your ranch."
"I go on duty at seven," replied the young man composedly, "but I have a friend riding the line that'll stay with it till I come. So I'll wait for your caucus."
"That friend—one of them devils I shot at the other day?"
Wilfred Compton smiled with sudden sunniness. "Yes."
Somewhere beneath the immense whiskers, an answering smile slipped like a breeze, stirring the iron-gray hair. "I kinder believe in you, son! Nobody can't gainsay that you've played the man in this matter. Now, just one thing more. You must swear here before me, with Bill Atkins for an unwilling witness, that should we let you make the acquaintance of our little gal, and should you get to be friends, you two, that the very fust minute it comes to you that she ain't no little gal, but is in the way of being food for love—Bill Atkins, air I making myself plain?"
"You ain't," returned the old man sourly. "You're too complicated for ordinary use."
"Then YOU tell him what I mean."
The old man glared at Wilfred fiercely. "If we decide to grant your request, young man, swear on your honor that the second you find yourself thinking of our little girl as a WOMAN, to be wooed and won, you'll put out, and never stop till you're so far away, you'll be clear out of her world. And not one word to her, not so much as one hint, mind you, as to the reason of your going; it'll just be good-by and farewell!"
"You see," Willock interpolated, "she is nothing a little gal, and we don't want no foolish ideas to the contrary. You takes her for what she is, nothing took from nor added to. In course, she'll be growed up some day, I reckon, though may the good Lord take a good long time finishing up the work He's begun so noble. When she's growed up, when she's a woman, it ain't for us to say how you come and how you go, take from or add to. But while she's a kid, it is different, according."
"You have my word of honor to all these conditions," Wilfred cried lightly. "As a child of the mountains I ask for her acquaintance. If I should ever feel differently about her, I'll go away and stay away until she's a woman. Surely that's enough to promise!"
"There ain't too much to promise, when it comes to the peace and happiness of our little girl," retorted the old man, "but I can't think of any more for you to take oath to."
"Me nuther, Bill," agreed Willock. "Seems to me the young man is bound as firm as humans can do the binding. Now you sit right here, son, don't come a step nigher the house, and we'll go to breakfast; and later you'll know whether or not all this promising has been idle waste of time."
"But I can see how it'll turn out," growled Atkins, "for she is always a-looking for something new, something out of the big world that she don't know nothing about."
"Never mind, Bill, don't give up so quick," Willock reproached him, as they turned away. "She's been having a good look at him all this time, and it may be she have took a distaste to him already."
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