Читать книгу Jackson Gregory: Collected Works - Jackson Gregory - Страница 47

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THUNDER RIVER ranch house, having echoed with much merry making during the past ten days, now drowsed comfortably upon the iron flank of the mountain, its wide doors closed softly behind the last of the departing guests. Beatrice Corliss had seen her friends go with eyes which she knew were not properly regretful. She had been gay to match their gaiety, she had entertained them after the proverbial open handed Corliss manner, she had borne in upon their eager minds the glittering fact that even "here in the wilderness, apart from their world," a talented and lavish hostess had at her disposal many a novel thrill to give them. Old tales of the sparkle and splendour of Corliss hospitality were to be added to by these folk trooping back to the whirl of the city. They would come again, oh, at any time that Beatrice would have them; perhaps swept hitherwards by the surging summer tide.

But, in going from Beatrice's house, they went swiftly from her thought. She had much to do and was impatient to be doing. So impatient, in fact, that even while giving herself up as hostess during afternoons and evenings, she had reserved both keen interest and energy for the work ahead. During these few days she had formed a new habit, that of rising in the crisp ​early morning while her guests slept, riding out behind Parker through the lifting, thinning shadows or sitting in her office with a cup of coffee at one elbow and her telephone at the other.

Her heart was in Summit City. Already new lumber was being hauled up the mountain road from the nearest logging camp, foundations being laid for a dozen picturesque cottages, an ample wing increasing both space and charm of her "inn." But she wanted to be "in it all"; to spend half of a day in her own town, to watch, to superintend, to hate in her nostrils the smell of fresh cut pine. And now she could do as she wished. It was with a long sigh that she waved the two automobiles out of sight.

"I must be getting old," she told herself brightly. "All that I want is peace and quiet and to get things done! That's what's the matter with you, Beatrice Corliss! You'd rather build a house than go to a ball."

Joe Embry she had not seen since that day when she had left him in Summit City. He had telephoned several times, to say indefinitely once that he was "just looking around" for an investment; another time to tell her that he had looked up the man Flash Truitt of the obnoxious gambling house and was rather confident that the fellow was but an agent for Steele; another time or two "just to be sociable, dear lady." He thought so highly of her good sense in having so splendid a mountain home and in living at it the bigger part of the time, that he was thinking very seriously of emulating her and building somewhere within striking distance of Summit City.

​Of Bill Steele, the impudent, of whom she had heard nothing directly for some days, Beatrice was growing in the way of being forgetful, so filled was her mind with other matters. Two occurrences, however, were to recall him to her vividly.

The first was the arrival of Joe Embry at the ranch house the morning after her friends had gone, bringing news.

"I would have hailed a lesser matter than this eagerly as a good and sufficient excuse for seeing you again," he said, by way of greeting. "It's going to be hard, when I've got a home here somewhere, not to be running in on you all the time."

In spite of her and, so she told herself, without good and sufficient excuse, Beatrice coloured warmly under Embry's eyes. In all the days she had known him he had never come quite so close, whether by word of mouth or steady look, to the border line of love-making.

"What is it" she asked quickly, conscious that he had noted the slight colour rising in her cheeks and angry with herself for it.

"It's Steele again," he told her, shifting his look to his hands which today seemed unusually white and sensitive. "It seems that he and one of his men, the fellow Turk Wilson you discharged recently, have been fighting with three of your men."

Beatrice looked up sharply, wonderingly.

"Tell me about it," she said eagerly. Embry smiled.

"It happened yesterday," he said easily. "By now I imagine news of it has spread all over the country. And I frankly wish that it had not gained so much ​publicity; it is rather likely to make our side of the affair appear … well, ridiculous."

"Tell me," she said again. It isn't a pleasant thing to be made to appear ridiculous … that seemed to be that man Steele's forte …

"Three of your men from the Little Giant mine," continued Embry, "through a somewhat distorted sense of loyalty—I have talked with them all—visited Steele at the Goblet. They had learned that he had displeased you, further that he had both defied you and laughed at you. More than that, it seems that he had done some careless talking, using your name in a way that these three men who take your wage could not stand for."

"Go on," said Beatrice in a strangely quiet voice as Embry paused briefly.

"They went to Steele and in the only way such men know, sought to teach him a lesson. The result was … disastrous. He and Wilson were too much for the three of them, getting the drop on them with their rifles, I imagine. At any rate, the three Little Giant men came back into camp last night with their hands tied behind them and hitched to a long pole so that they could not untie one another, and the men at the mine are laughing about it yet."

Beatrice's face was flaming.

"My men have no business doing a thing like that without orders from me!"

"Since they are men," interceded Embry gravely, "are we really to blame them? They look upon you, Miss Corliss, as loyal peasants may look upon their ​queen. They have erred, yes; but in what a cause! I trust that, whatever you may decide to do, you will not deal with them harshly."

Nor, in the end, did she. She got their names from Embry, called up Hurley and had the man who appeared to be their leader, Johnnie Thorp, sent immediately to the ranch house, where she interviewed him in her office. Thorp, overcome by the elegance into which he came for the first time in a life of the rough conveniences of camp, shifted and blushed and choked over his words and altogether put in a memorably uncomfortable fifteen minutes. But, having already talked with Joe Embry, his report was in all essentials like Embry's, and in the end he left his employer with a secret grin in his eyes. He had been both reprimanded and thanked. And in the future he was to be a shade less impetuous and arduous in the service of the young lady upon whom he was supposed to look with peasant adoration. On his way down the graded road he took from his overalls a twenty-dollar gold piece, glanced at it brightly with one eye, the other being closed in a wink, and told himself that, even as matters stood, it was easy money and Embry was a good scout. Besides, there would be another chance at Bill Steele; Joe Embry had predicted, then promised as much.

"An' besides that," muttered Thorp to himself, "easy money always was lucky money with me; I'll double this tonight at Truitt's. See if I don't."

The second reminder of Bill Steele came to Beatrice a few days later; not that it was needed now, for she ​told herself that if she lived to be a hundred she would never forget the man's impudence or the indignities he had heaped upon her. Steele's "Pole Team" had created widespread interest and had elicited much rude laughter; that that laughter was directed at the three men who had gone forth boastfully and come back helplessly and not at herself did not suggest itself to her. She knew that men talked of it in mine and logging camp and on the range, that news of it went mile after mile up and down, that a merry account of the whole episode appeared in both the White Rock Sentinel and the Junction Independent eliciting humorous editorial comment in the latter, employing her name in both. So when word came to her at last, direct from Steele himself, she was near the verge of hot tears of exasperation.

"To Her Imperial Majesty, Trixie the Great," he wrote In big generous letters reminiscent of the man himself. "From her fellow Monarch, King Bill of Hell's Goblet. Greetings. Let the bells ring in honour of an occasion of tremendous importance in the lives and friendships of the aforementioned royal personages. Let us commemorate with joy and song the keeping of the promise made by the August Bill. The cabin is done! Houp-la, your majesty.

"Your own promise you will keep because noblesse oblige and the Queen, especially when she is the Good Queen Bea, cannot lie. Ave atque vale.

"Bill."

Not only the royal message, but envelope as well, torn across angrily went to the floor to be ground by a savage high heel.

"The … the … fool!" she gasped. "The ​great big fool! I'd sooner visit a pig in a pig pen. I … I … Oh, how I hate you, Bill Steele!"

"Your own promise you will keep because noblesse oblige and the Queen, especially when she is the Good Queen Bea, cannot lie."

The words, torn across and not to be read upon the crumpled paper, stood out as though in burning red letters in her mind. He had made her a promise at which she had scoffed, branding it ridiculous and absurd. She in turn had made another, if not meaning to keep it, then simply for the reason that she had not looked to him to keep his. But he had done so … and now, in his hateful way, reminded her of it.

"I'd see you dead before I lowered myself to come to you and … and cook for you!" she cried passionately, for the instant seeming actually to see the grinning face of Bill Steele.

And then suddenly, because she was Beatrice Corliss whose word men accepted out in the world of affairs as readily as they accepted her signature on paper, her face burning, her bosom grown tumultuous, she whirled and went straight through the house, from the one end where her office was to the other end where was the kitchen. The cook, who could scarcely have been more startled if Beatrice had been a ghost or a boa constrictor or any other sort of unaccustomed visitant here, looked at her with wide eves. Eyes which widened further as Beatrice gave her curt order:

"Show me how to cook! How to cook beans and hot cakes and trout and coffee. You've got to show ​me how to do all of these things by tomorrow or go get yourself another place. Give me an apron. There!" She snatched up one, donned it quickly, reached out her hand for a big iron spoon. "Hurry," she commanded. "Teach me!"