Chapter 26. Dave Accepts An Invitation

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_ CHAPTER XXVI. DAVE ACCEPTS AN INVITATION

Crawford and Dave, with their prisoner, lay out in the chaparral for an hour, then made their way back to Malapi by a wide circuit. They did not want to meet Shorty and Doble, for that would result in a pitched battle. They preferred rather to make a report to the sheriff and let him attempt the arrest of the bandits.

Reluctantly, under the pressure of much prodding, Miller repeated his story to Sheriff Applegate. Under the circumstances he was not sorry that he was to be returned to the penitentiary, for he recognized that his life at large would not be safe so long as Shorty and Doble were ranging the hills. Both of them were "bad men," in the usual Western acceptance of the term, and an accomplice who betrayed them would meet short shrift at their hands.

The sheriff gave Crawford a receipt for the gold after they had counted it and found none missing.

The old cattleman rose from the table and reached for his hat.

"Come on, son," he said to Dave. "I'll say we've done a good day's work. Both of us were under a cloud. Now we're clear. We're goin' up to the house to have some supper. Applegate, you'll get both of the confessions of Miller fixed up, won't you? I'll want the one about George Doble's death to take with me to the Governor of Colorado. I'm takin' the train to-morrow."

"I'll have the district attorney fix up the papers," the sheriff promised.

Emerson Crawford hooked an arm under the elbow of Sanders and left the office.

"I'm wonderin' about one thing, boy," he said. "Did Miller kill George Doble accidentally or on purpose?"

"I'm wondering about that myself. You remember that Denver bartender said they had been quarreling a good deal. They were having a row at the very time when I met them at the gate of the corral. It's a ten-to-one shot that Miller took the chance to plug Doble and make me pay for it."

"Looks likely, but we'll never know. Son, you've had a rotten deal handed you."

The younger man's eyes were hard as steel. He clamped his jaw tight, but he made no comment.

"Nobody can give you back the years of yore life you've lost," the cattleman went on. "But we'll get yore record straightened out, anyhow, so that won't stand against you. I know one li'l' girl will be tickled to hear the news. Joy always has stuck out that you were treated shameful."

"I reckon I'll not go up to your house to-night," Dave said in a carefully modulated voice. "I'm dirty and unshaven, and anyhow I'd rather not go to-night."

Crawford refused to accept this excuse. "No, sir. You're comin' with me, by gum! I got soap and water and a razor up at the house, if that's what's troublin' you. We've had a big day and I'm goin' to celebrate by talkin' it all over again. Dad gum my hide, think of it, you solemn-faced old owl! This time last night I was 'most a pauper and you sure were. Both of us were under the charge of havin' killed a man each. To-night we're rich as that fellow Crocus; anyhow I am, an' you're haided that way. And both of us have cleared our names to boot. Ain't you got any red blood in that big body of yore's?"

"I'll drop in to the Delmonico and get a bite, then ride out to the Jackpot."

"You will not!" protested the cattleman. "Looky here, Dave. It's a showdown. Have you got anything against me?"

Dave met him eye to eye. "Not a thing, Mr. Crawford. No man ever had a better friend."

"Anything against Joyce?"

"No, sir."

"Don't hate my boy Keith, do you?"

"How could I?"

"Then what in hell ails you? You're not parlor-shy, are you? Say the word, and we'll eat in the kitchen," grinned Crawford.

"I'm not a society man," said Sanders lamely.

He could not explain that the shadow of the prison walls was a barrier he could not cross; that they rose to bar him from all the joy and happiness of young life.

"Who in Mexico's talkin' about society? I said come up and eat supper with me and Joy and Keith. If you don't come, I'm goin' to be good and sore. I'll not stand for it, you darned old killjoy."

"I'll go," answered the invited man.

He went, not because he wanted to go, but because he could not escape without being an ungracious boor.

Joyce flew to meet her father, eyes eager, hands swift to caress his rough face and wrinkled coat. She bubbled with joy at his return, and when he told her that his news was of the best the long lashes of the brown eyes misted with tears. The young man in the background was struck anew by the matronly tenderness of her relation to her father. She hovered about him as a mother does about her son returned from the wars.

"I've brought company for supper, honey," Emerson told her.

She gave Dave her hand, flushed and smiling. "I've been so worried," she explained. "It's fine to know the news is good. I'll want to hear it all."

"We've got the stolen money back, Joy," exploded her father. "We know who took it--Dug Doble and that cowboy Shorty and Miller."

"But I thought Miller--"

"He escaped. We caught him and brought him back to town with us." Crawford seized the girl by the shoulders. He was as keen as a boy to share his pleasure. "And Joy--better news yet. Miller confessed he killed George Doble. Dave didn't do it at all."

Joyce came to the young man impulsively, hand outstretched. She was glowing with delight, eyes kind and warm and glad. "That's the best yet. Oh, Mr. Sanders, isn't it good?"

His impassive face gave no betrayal of any happiness he might feel in his vindication. Indeed, something almost sardonic in its expression chilled her enthusiasm. More than the passing of years separated them from the days when he had shyly but gayly wiped dishes for her in the kitchen, when he had worshiped her with a boy's uncritical adoration.

Sanders knew it better than she, and cursed the habit of repression that had become a part of him in his prison days. He wanted to give her happy smile for smile. But he could not do it. All that was young and ardent and eager in him was dead. He could not let himself go. Even when emotions flooded his heart, no evidence of it reached his chill eyes and set face.

After he had come back from shaving, he watched her flit about the room while she set the table. She was the competent young mistress of the house. With grave young authority she moved, slenderly graceful. He knew her mind was with the cook in the kitchen, but she found time to order Keith crisply to wash his face and hands, time to gather flowers for the center of the table from the front yard and to keep up a running fire of talk with him and her father. More of the woman than in the days when he had known her, perhaps less of the carefree maiden, she was essentially unchanged, was what he might confidently have expected her to be. Emerson Crawford was the same bluff, hearty Westerner, a friend to tie to in sunshine and in storm. Even little Keith, just escaping from his baby ways, had the same tricks and mannerisms. Nothing was different except himself. He had become arid and hard and bitter, he told himself regretfully.

Keith was his slave, a faithful admirer whose eyes fed upon his hero steadily. He had heard the story of this young man's deeds discussed until Dave had come to take on almost mythical proportions.

He asked a question in an awed voice. "How did you get this Miller to confess?"

The guest exchanged a glance with the host. "We had a talk with him."

"Did you--?"

"Oh, no! We just asked him if he didn't want to tell us all about it, and it seems he did."

"Maybe you touched his better feelin's," suggested Keith, with memories of an hour in Sunday School when his teacher had made a vain appeal to his.

His father laughed. "Maybe we did. I noticed he was near blubberin'. I expect it's 'Adios, Senor Miller.' He's got two years more to serve, and after that he'll have another nice long term to serve for robbin' the stage. All I wish is we'd done the job more thorough and sent some friends of his along with him. Well, that's up to Applegate."

"I'm glad it is," said Joyce emphatically.

"Any news to-day from Jackpot Number Three?" asked the president of that company.

"Bob Hart sent in to get some supplies and had a note left for me at the post-office," Miss Joyce mentioned, a trifle annoyed at herself because a blush insisted on flowing into her cheeks. "He says it's the biggest thing he ever saw, but it's going to be awf'ly hard to control. Where _is_ that note? I must have put it somewhere."

Emerson's eyes flickered mischief. "Oh, well, never mind about the note. That's private property, I reckon."

"I'm sure if I can find it--"

"I'll bet my boots you cayn't, though," he teased.

"Dad! What will Mr. Sanders think? You know that's nonsense. Bob wrote because I asked him to let me know."

"Sure. Why wouldn't the secretary and field superintendent of the Jackpot Company keep the daughter of the president informed? I'll have it read into the minutes of our next board meetin' that it's in his duties to keep you posted."

"Oh, well, if you want to talk foolishness," she pouted.

"There's somethin' else I'm goin' to have put into the minutes of the next meetin', Dave," Crawford went on. "And that's yore election as treasurer of the company. I want officers around me that I can trust, son."

"I don't know anything about finance or about bookkeeping," Dave said.

"You'll learn. We'll have a bookkeeper, of course. I want some one for treasurer that's level-haided and knows how to make a quick turn when he has to, some one that uses the gray stuff in his cocoanut. We'll fix a salary when we get goin'. You and Bob are goin' to have the active management of this concern. Cattle's my line, an' I aim to stick to it. Him and you can talk it over and fix yore duties so's they won't conflict. Burns, of course, will run the actual drillin'. He's an A1 man. Don't let him go."

Dave was profoundly touched. No man could be kinder to his own son, could show more confidence in him, than Emerson Crawford was to one who had no claims upon him.

He murmured a dry "Thank you"; then, feeling this to be inadequate, added, "I'll try to see you don't regret this."

The cattleman was a shrewd judge of men. His action now was not based solely upon humanitarian motives. Here was a keen man, quick-witted, steady, and wholly to be trusted, one certain to push himself to the front. It was good business to make it worth his while to stick to Crawford's enterprises. He said as much to Dave bluntly.

"And you ain't in for any easy time either," he added. "We've got oil. We're flooded with it, so I hear. Seve-re-al thousand dollars' worth a day is runnin' off and seepin' into the desert. Bob Hart and Jed Burns have got the job of puttin' the lid on the pot, but when they do that you've got a bigger job. Looks bigger to me, anyhow. You've got to get rid of that oil--find a market for it, sell it, ship it away to make room for more. Get busy, son." Crawford waved his hand after the manner of one who has shifted a responsibility and does not expect to worry about it. "Moreover an' likewise, we're shy of money to keep operatin' until we can sell the stuff. You'll have to raise scads of mazuma, son. In this oil game dollars sure have got wings. No matter how tight yore pockets are buttoned, they fly right out."

"I doubt whether you've chosen the right man," the ex-cowpuncher said, smiling faintly. "The most I ever borrowed in my life was twenty-five dollars."

"You borrow twenty-five thousand the same way, only it's easier if the luck's breakin' right," the cattleman assured him cheerfully. "The easiest thing in the world to get hold of is money--when you've already got lots of it."

"The trouble is we haven't."

"Well, you'll have to learn to look like you knew where it grew on bushes," Emerson told him, grinning.

"I can see you've chosen me for a nice lazy job."

"Anything but that, son. You don't want to make any mistake about this thing. Brad Steelman's goin' to fight like a son-of-a-gun. He'll strike at our credit and at our market and at our means of transportation. He'll fight twenty-four hours of the day, and he's the slickest, crookedest gray wolf that ever skulked over the range."

The foreman of the D Bar Lazy R came in after supper for a conference with his boss. He and Crawford got their heads together in the sitting-room and the young people gravitated out to the porch. Joyce pressed Dave into service to help her water the roses, and Keith hung around in order to be near Dave. Occasionally he asked questions irrelevant to the conversation. These were embarrassing or not as it happened.

Joyce delivered a little lecture on the culture of roses, not because she considered herself an authority, but because her guest's conversation was mostly of the monosyllabic order. He was not awkward or self-conscious; rather a man given to silence.

"Say, Mr. Sanders, how does it feel to be wounded?" Keith blurted out.

"You mustn't ask personal questions, Keith," his sister told him.

"Oh! Well, I already ast this one?" the boy suggested ingenuously.

"Don't know, Keith," answered the young man. "I never was really wounded. If you mean this scratch in the shoulder, I hardly felt it at all till afterward."

"Golly! I'll bet I wouldn't tackle a feller shootin' at me the way that Miller was at you," the youngster commented in naive admiration.

"Bedtime for li'l boys, Keith," his sister reminded him.

"Oh, lemme stay up a while longer," he begged.

Joyce was firm. She had schooled her impulses to resist the little fellow's blandishments, but Dave noticed that she was affectionate even in her refusal.

"I'll come up and say good-night after a while, Keithie," she promised as she kissed him.

To the gaunt-faced man watching them she was the symbol of all most to be desired in woman. She embodied youth, health, charm. She was life's springtime, its promise of fulfillment; yet already an immaculate Madonna in the beauty of her generous soul. He was young enough in his knowledge of her sex to be unaware that nature often gives soft trout-pool eyes of tenderness to coquettes and wonderful hair with the lights and shadows of an autumn-painted valley to giggling fools. Joyce was neither coquette nor fool. She was essential woman in the making, with all the faults and fine brave impulses of her years. Unconsciously, perhaps, she was showing her best side to her guest, as maidens have done to men since Eve first smiled on Adam.

Dave had closed his heart to love. It was to have no room in his life. To his morbid sensibilities the shadow of the prison walls still stretched between him and Joyce. It did not matter that he was innocent, that all his small world would soon know of his vindication. The fact stood. For years he had been shut away from men, a leprous thing labeled "Unclean!" He had dwelt in a place of furtive whisperings, of sinister sounds. His nostrils had inhaled the odor of musty clothes and steamed food. His fingers had touched moisture sweating through the walls, and in his small dark cell he had hunted graybacks. The hopeless squalor of it at times had driven him almost mad. As he saw it now, his guilt was of minor importance. If he had not fired the shot that killed George Doble, that was merely a chance detail. What counted against him was that his soul was marked with the taint of the criminal through association and habit of thought. He could reason with this feeling and temporarily destroy it. He could drag it into the light and laugh it away. But subconsciously it persisted as a horror from which he could not escape. A man cannot touch pitch, even against his own will, and not be defiled.

"You're Keith's hero, you know," the girl told Dave, her face bubbling to unexpected mirth. "He tries to walk and talk like you. He asks the queerest questions. To-day I caught him diving at a pillow on the bed. He was making-believe to be you when you were shot."

Her nearness in the soft, shadowy night shook his self-control. The music of her voice with its drawling intonations played on his heartstrings.

"Think I'll go now," he said abruptly.

"You must come again," she told him. "Keith wants you to teach him how to rope. You won't mind, will you?"

The long lashes lifted innocently from the soft deep eyes, which rested in his for a moment and set clamoring a disturbance in his blood.

"I'll be right busy," he said awkwardly, bluntly.

She drew back within herself. "I'd forgotten how busy you are, Mr. Sanders. Of course we mustn't impose on you," she said, cold and stiff as only offended youth can be.

Striding into the night, Dave cursed the fate that had made him what he was. He had hurt her boorishly by his curt refusal of her friendship. Yet the heart inside him was a wild river of love. _

Read next: Chapter 27. At The Jackpot

Read previous: Chapter 25. Miller Talks

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