CHAPTER IV
The Boss of the L.X.
"I like spirit in women and horses," was a favorite aphorism with the Hon. "Hank" T. Spiser; but what he really meant was that he relished breaking it in either.
He had interpreted aright Nan's mannerism of suddenly elevating her chin, the quick sparkle of her eye, and his study of her piqued his interest mightily.
He saw the high spirit concealed beneath her self-effacing dignity, but that which a man like Spiser could not see, or, seeing, understand, was her nearly childlike innocence, her absolute purity of mind.
An habitué of dance-halls, a life-long associate of reckless women, they had come to form the standard by which he judged every woman who was not unequivocally accounted for by a husband.
Even then he considered few, if any, proof against his blandishments if he chose to persist, his unshakable theory being that married women were virtuous only through fear of being found out.
Spiser's ideals were no higher than himself, and Spiser was merely a crafty, masterful brute.
Nan's clear eyes, her air of good breeding, her manner with its mixture of girlish candor and reserve, her conversation and dress, which bore every earmark of education and refinement, conveyed nothing to him beyond the fact that an unusual and uncommonly attractive young woman had arrived within his field of activities ready to walk into a properly constructed web.
She was unprotected, unattached, with no plausible excuse for being there, therefore she must of necessity be one with the women he knew best, though of an unquestionably superior and fascinating type.
It was all quite clear in Mr. Spiser's mind, yet he took the precaution to bring his spinster sister to call when next he came to the hotel for the purpose of advancing his acquaintance with Nan.
Spiser 's sister was a faded, pale-eyed little woman, who had a way of accompanying each utterance with a nervous, deprecatory gesture, as though she had formed the habit through the constant necessity of excuses and explanations.
Beside her forceful brother her personality was nil, and she had a peculiarly helpless fashion of glancing at him after each speech, as though to read his verdict upon it in his eyes.
Spiser exerted himself to the utmost to be agreeable, and Nan was self-reproachful as she thought of her first impression—her unfair prejudice.
Certainly, it was very nice of Mr. Spiser to bring his sister to see her, and Mr. Spiser, aglow with the feeling that he was making a favorable impression, had an inspiration upon which he at once acted.
"Me and my sister," said Mr. Spiser, fumbling with the large gold nugget which dangled as a watch-fob from his waistcoat-pocket, "are plannin' to go out to the ranch and spend a couple of weeks, and we thought it ud be a good chance for you to go along and see somethin' of the country. No better scenery this side of Colorado than right there at the L.X. ranch-house on the Esmeraldas. How'd you like it?"
Miss Spiser stared at her brother, while Fritz Poth, flicking flies from the window of the hotel office where Nan received her callers, gave him a mocking, sidelong glance which might have dampened the enthusiasm with which Nan accepted the invitation had she seen it.
"How very, very nice of you, Miss Spiser!" she cried at once, all eagerness, as she turned to that still dumfounded lady who, within her memory, had not been asked to join her brother on any jaunt for pleasure.
"I—we'd like it v-very much if you will come," she stammered, having been given her cue in a warning glance from his eyes.
"I know of no reason why I cannot," declared Nan, her eyes sparkling. "I've rather exhausted the rides about here and have read all the books and magazines Mr. Poth can borrow for me, so the prospect has looked a little dull. The one promise mother exacted from me was that I would not go prowling about the country unchaperoned, and this quite solves the problem, doesn't it?"
"Hank" Spiser's heavy lids drooped in cynical amusement. They always had some romantic tale of strict and wealthy parents, convent educations, and that sort of thing. He had heard the same a hundred times before, but, if this was a part of her game he had to play up to it, so he agreed heartily.
"It would seem to," he smiled. And continued magnanimously: "There's a corral full of horses to ride, plenty of fresh beef, milk and eggs, and when I'm not there some of the cowpunchers will see that you are kept in firewood and anything else you may need."
"You are too kind!" Nan was like a child in her glowing, unaffected animation. "This is the real Western hospitality of which I've heard. I'm so glad it's not a myth as are so many delightful things when one comes to learn the truth about them."
Fritz Poth gave Spiser a satirical look. Spiser moved uneasily in his chair, but waved his hand deprecatingly and declared:
"Oh, that's nothin'—nothin ' at all. Don't mention it again."
"When shall we go?" Nan asked the question of Miss Spiser, but her brother answered for her:
"You can pull your freight to-morrow if it's agreeable to you."
"Perfectly, if it suits your sister."
Miss Spiser assented doubtfully.
"I'll send a wagon for your trunks and drive you two out myself. Eh—Sis?"
Miss Spiser did not seem particularly responsive to his brotherly jocularity, though she nodded.
"To-morrow momin', then—at ten?"
"I'll be ready—you may count on that!" Nan laughed joyously and the warm, glowing radiance of her face seemed to dazzle Spiser anew.
"Isn't that lovely of Mr. Spiser and his sister?" Nan demanded, her voice bubbling with delight.
Mr. Poth was eying the former's vanishing back with an expression not too friendly.
"Luvely," he responded dryly.
Nan looked at him in surprise.
"Don't the grub suit you here, ma'am?" he inquired with a queer awkwardness of manner. And added enticingly: "I've been thinkin' of sendin' back East and gittin' me a kit of mackerel."
That was it, then—the prospect of losing a boarder was the cause of the genial landlord's lack of enthusiasm over the proposed visit. She hastened to assure him
"I haven't a single complaint. You are all too kind; it's only that I want to see a real ranch—a big one like the L.X., and this seems like such an opportunity."
Mr. Poth said nothing further, but the sour expression of his face did not alter, and Nan felt sorry to have discovered in her amiable landlord this sordid trait.
A Mexican teamster, grumbling at being obliged to rush off at only twelve or fourteen hours' notice, arrived at eleven for Nan's trunk. A few minutes later Spiser himself rattled up in his cart.
"Sorry I'm late," he explained in apparent annoyance, "but I've been hangin' around for Mary and finally come off without her. You and me will go on ahead, because I've got some things out there on the ranch that's got to be tended to and I've arranged for her to start in an hour or so.
"Says she's got to get her house in shape before she'll start. Wonderful housekeeper—got to leave everything 'just so' or she'll be in misery all the time she's gone. Get your hat on and jump in."
Nan hesitated.
"She'll be along right enough—there's her trunk in the wagon."
When Nan turned to go back into the hotel Fritz Poth was staring hard at her with an expression so darkly disapproving that it startled her. She had a half-formed impulse to ask him if there was any reason why she should not go, but ignored it, and went on to her room. His attitude annoyed and vaguely disturbed her but she told herself as she pinned her hat that he was presumptuous; that her movements were certainly not Fritz Poth's affair and she said good-bye to him, with a shade less friendliness in her manner. He responded curtly, glowering from the doorway as they drove off.
Spiser talked of the county and its people on the long drive to the ranch-house on the Esmeraldas in something of the manner of a feudal lord.
That he considered himself all-powerful, omnipotent almost, in this sparsely settled country was obvious from the tone of his conversation. And with some reason, Nan opined, judging from the obsequious salutations of the sullen Mexicans and half-breeds whom they passed, and the unwilling, yet half fearful nods of impecunious homesteaders who pulled to the side of the road to let him go by.
But why, even as manager of the largest ranch in the county, he should receive such consideration, grudging as it evidently was, Nan could not exactly understand.
His manner toward her was respect itself, yet she was conscious that he eyed her covertly when he thought himself unobserved—that not a change of expression escaped him, and that her lightest word had his entire attention.
This interest might have been considered flattering from a man like Spisier, yet Nan did not regard it so. Rather, she felt a growing uneasiness as the miles lengthened between herself and Hopedale, and there was no glimpse of Miss Spiser on the various rises in the road behind them.
Noting her disquietude, which evidenced itself in turning frequently, he assured her that there was no cause for alarm.
"She's always an hour or two after the fair," he declared humorously, "but she'll pike in by dark."
"Supposing she shouldn't; supposing something serious should happen to detain her?" Nan asked nervously.
"Well, what of it? Nothin' or nobody would eat you."
The long road over the mesa dropped abruptly into a gulch, in the bottom of which, where it widened into a small flat, was a cluster of adobe houses with a tiny general merchandise store rising in the center.
"The city of El Oro," explained Spiser; "also my post-office."
He drove to the high platform in front, and called.
A grizzled, deliberate old man came out finally with a handful of mail—the first individual, Nan thought, to make no undue haste when Spiser spoke.
"Miss Galbraith—Mr. MacNeil."
The old man nodded carelessly without looking at her.
"If any mail is forwarded here for her, put it in with mine. She will be my guest for a time."
"There's mail here yet for your last—guest," the old man answered in a tone of ill-concealed contempt, and he added with a touch of malice: "She left so sudden she didn't give me no forwardin' address."
Spiser gave him a furious look but explained glibly enough to Nan: "A lady-friend of my sister's that got homesick."
The old post-master looked up in some surprise as though wondering why Spiser took the trouble to lie. Then for the first time he really looked at Nan.
Nan felt herself coloring under the scrutiny of his quizzical gray eyes, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable without knowing why.
"If you should get—homesick, too, Miss," he said significantly and with a new respect in his voice, "why, don't forget that I'm your nearest neighbor."
Nan looked from one to the other wondering what it all meant.
"You talk too much, MacNeil, for a government official!" Spiser lifted the lines and brought the remnant of a whip down hard on the horse's backs.
"I don't talk enough—for a government official," returned the old man quietly, and he looked at Nan.
"A meddlesome old fool! I've got to get his scalp." Spiser did not feel it incumbent on him to explain that he already had tried, and had learned that the government appeared to think uncommonly well of "Old Man" MacNeil, as he was designated in the conmaunity.
The afternoon's sun was waning when Spiser pulled the tired horses to a standstill on the edge of the mesa and, with the butt of his whip, pointed in real pride to the valley below.
"Ain't that some picture?"
And indeed, after the long, dusty ride of the afternoon, it did look to Nan like 160 acres of paradise. A small stream ran like a silver ribbon along the emerald green of an alfalfa field, while steep bluffs of red sandstone on either side of the valley reflected the glow of the setting sun.
The air which rose from the blossoming, freshly irrigated alfalfa field was cool and sweet, and involuntarily Nan gave an exclamation of delight at the beauty of the peaceful scene below her.
"Only drawback to me is its lonesomeness, but now"—Spiser looked steadily at Nan—"I won't even have that complaint."
The remark recalled her to herself and intensified the growing conviction that she ought not to be there. Her eyebrows contracted in a frown as she scanned the road behind her once more in search of the distant speck which would relieve her anxiety.
The grating of the brake upon the cart-wheel brought a group of cowpunchers to the door of the bunk-house to quite frankly stare as Spiser drove past the door to the square white cottage across the road on the bank of the stream.
"How are you, boys?" he said briefly, and they responded with equal brevity:
"How are you?"
Nowhere did Spiser's appearance seem to evoke enthusiasm. Nan was not thinking of this, but of the startled, even shocked look in Ben Evans's eyes when they rested upon her in recognition. There was no mistaking the surprise and disappointment they held.
Her voice and manner were strained and self-conscious when the cart stopped at the door of the cottage and Spiser raised his arms to help her out, while all the occupants of the bunk-house across the road looked on in silence.
Her trunk, along with a small papier-maché affair of Miss Spiser's, was on the porch. Perhaps in all her life Nan never had known a more uncomfortable moment than when Spiser opened the door of the guest-chamber and told her to make herself entirely at home.
"We'll have the cook bring supper over here," said Spiser as he was going out.
Nan protested hastily:
"But I'd rather—much rather—have supper where the rest of them do!"
Her preference had no weight with him.
"I don't eat with my men when I can avoid it," he returned curtly.
Some subtle change had come over Spiser which Nan was quick to feel—an added assurance, a satisfied manner which conveyed the impression that he was master of a situation entirely to his liking. Her uneasiness increased, as more and more keenly she realized the awkwardness of her position.
The stillness of the musty house added to her nervousness, though she tried to reassure herself with the thought that her fears would seem absurd enough when Miss Spiser arrived.
"You haven't any sand at all," she told her reflection in the mirror, "to get in such a state over the first unusual situation. You!—who were pining for adventure."
"But I haven't been pining for this kind," the pale image answered back.
Shortly Nan heard the cook laying the table, but she did not leave her room until Spiser rapped upon her door and announced supper. Constrained to a degree under the inquisitive eyes of the cook, she took her seat at the table which was laid for two only, Spiser pushing her chair beneath her with a great show of gallantry. He seemed curiously gay and elated, she thought.
Nan looked in annoyance at a wine-glass set conspicuously before her plate. Was it not possible for him to see that her position was sufficiently uncomfortable without that? She turned her glass with a little more vigor than necessary. That sparkle Spiser liked leaped into her eyes.
"What—no wine?"
Nan replied coldly:
"No wine."
The cook glanced at her oddly as he placed platters upon the table.
"I'm sure you'll change your mind," Spiser replied, unruffled. "I always keep a little out here on the ranch for celebrations," he added. "Clarence, fill Miss Galbraith's glass."
This time Nan's eyes flashed unmistakably.
"Positively not," and she lifted her small hand in a decided negative.
Spiser shrugged his shoulders.
"Suit yourself. That'll be all, Clarence, we won't want anything more to-night."
"But your sister," Nan looked at him searchingly, "she will surely be here shortly"
"Oh," he answered carelessly, "Clarence can get her up something if she comes."
"If she comes?"
The cook would have given much to have heard Spiser's answer to the sharp interrogation, but he dared not loiter, and already he had heard enough to strengthen Ben Evans's assertion that there was something wrong—that the girl who had been in his mind day and night since he had glimpsed her on the bench under the cottonwood-tree, and Spiser's usual women guests, were not of an ilk.
Nan's appetite was gone. Dismay, apprehension, angry resentment had taken it entirely. She felt that she had been tricked, but for what purpose she, as yet, could not clearly see. She was too accustomed to respect and deference to believe that Spiser or any other person would dare to offer her serious offense.
The unresponsive coolness with which she met his gaiety seemed to disturb Spiser not at all as he ate and drank with keen enjoyment, stopping occasionally to regard her with broad satisfaction.
Finally lighting a cigar, he leaned back in his chair and considered her comfortably.
"Looks pretty good to me to see you settin' there opposite—so sociable and homelike."
Nan's teeth shut together hard.
"Don't you think you'll like it?" He half closed his eyes and looked at her through a cloud of smoke.
"It's detestable!" she cried furiously. "You are detestable! I don't understand why you should have placed me in this position."
"Oh, yes, you do," he contradicted, good-naturedly. "Don't waste your breath telling any pretty little feminine fairy-tales like that. Any woman only half as smart as you are could see I've been crazy about you ever since I first saw you."
Nan flushed hotly.
"Isn't it possible for you to understand the light in which you have placed me?" she demanded. "Are you too utterly dense to realize what an unmanly, dishonorable advantage you have taken of me? I know now that you had no intention of bringing your sister. You lied to me."
"Come, come, little girl, don't make a fuss and spoil a pleasant evening," he urged imperturbably. "You women are all alike; you pretend you don't like a high hand, but you do.
"Haven't you learned yet that when a man's in love he'll do most anything? I'm in love, and I'm the kind that takes what he wants in any way he can get it, in love or business, or politics.
"At this particular moment"—he shoved his chair from the table—"more than anything else in the world I want to kiss those scornful red lips of yours. The more you fight"—his short laugh was not agreeable—"the better I'll like it. I'm a master hand with broncs and women."
"How dare you! How dare you insult me so—in your house—your guest!" Nan's eyes blazed into his as she sprang to her feet at his advance.
"Yours, my dear—yours so long as you will have it."
Let me out! Let me go!" Even with the imperious demand she realized hopelessly that he had no intention of doing either, as he purposely stood between her and the door.
"Where?" He smiled in cynical amusement.
"Somewhere on this ranch there must be a decent man!" she cried furiously.
"My handsome foreman, perhaps?"
"Yes—your foreman, then!" she flashed defiantly.
"My foremen do not interfere in my affairs—new ones are too easy to get. Come, little girl"—his tone took on a conciliatory note—"cut it out, this tragedy business, and let's be friends. You're here. You've got to learn that Henry T. Spiser is boss. Boss of the L.X. outfit—boss of Hopedale County, and boss as much farther as the L.X. brand runs. Be sensible."
He came toward her until his outstretched hands all but touched her shoulders.
Nan struck him a stinging blow across the face.
Spiser turned white with fury.
"Oh, if that's your style"
He grasped her wrist in a grip of steel.
Outside a horse coughed, and then they both heard the unmistakable sound of hoofs on the hard-trodden door-yard.
Nan shrieked: "Some one—please—come!"
The door was pushed open and a moccasined foot thrust in the crack before Spiser could drop the catch.
"What the devil do you want?" he demanded harshly of the intruder.
"What the devil should I want, señor," returned a voice with equanimity, "but a place to stay all night?"
"Mrs. Gallagher!"
"Señor Spiser!"
The piercing black eyes of the apparition that had come out of the night seemed actually to disconcert Spiser with their boring gaze. She was tall, gaunt, and straight as a Lombardy poplar.
Her high cheek bones told of Apache blood, and two tight braids of black hair sprouting from under either ear shone with some ointment, the pungency of which seemed to tear holes in the atmosphere. Her bright-hued garments were neither distinctively Indian, or Mexican, but a little of each.
She was a striking figure as she faced Spiser, passive yet somehow formidable.
"I will keep the señorita company." She stood with her arms folded under her blanket waiting for him to go.
There was nothing else for him to do, so he went with a black look of vengeance, slamming the door behind him.
Nan, now trembling from head to foot, laid both hands upon the woman's shoulders:
"Oh, it was dreadful!" she cried. "God must have sent you!"
The woman shook her head—
"Fritz Poth," she said prosaically.