CHAPTER X
THE BROTHERS
The valley of Leaping Creek gaped at Bill Bryant’s feet and the man’s ready delight bubbled over.
“Say,” he demanded of his guide, “and this is where my brother’s ranch is? Gee,” he went on, while Fyles nodded a smiling affirmative, “it surely is the dandiest ditch this side of creation. It makes me want to holler.”
As Fyles offered no further comment they rode on down the hill in silence, while Bill Bryant’s shining eyes drank in the beauties which opened out in every direction.
The police officer, by virtue of his knowledge of the valley, led the way. Nor was he altogether sorry to do so. He felt that the moment for answering questions had passed. Any form of cross-examination now might lead him into imparting information that might hurt this stranger, and he had no desire to be the one to cast a shadow upon his introduction to the country he intended to make his home.
However, beyond this first expression of delight, Bill Bryant made no further attempt at speech. Once more doubt had settled upon his mind, and he was thinking – hard.
Ten minutes later the village came into view. Then it was that Bill was abruptly aroused from his somewhat troubled thought. They were just approaching the site of the new church, and sounds of activity broke the sylvan peace of the valley. But these things were of a lesser interest. A pedestrian, evidently leaving the neighborhood of the new building, was coming toward them along the trail. It was a girl – a girl clad in a smart tailored costume, which caught and held the stranger’s most ardent attention.
She came on, and as they drew abreast of her, just for one brief instant the girl’s smiling gray eyes were raised to the face of the stranger. The smile was probably unconscious, but it was nevertheless pronounced. In a moment, off came Bill’s hat in a respectful salute, and only by the greatest effort could he refrain from a verbal greeting. Then, in another moment, as she passed like a ray of April sun, he had drawn up beside his guide.
“Say,” he cried, with a deep breath of enthusiasm, “did you get that pretty girl?” Then with a burst of impetuosity: “Are they all like that in – this place? If so, I’m surely up to my neck in the valley of Leaping Creek. Who is she? How did she get here? I’ll bet a thousand dollars to a bad nickel this place didn’t raise her.”
The officer’s reply to the volley of questions came with characteristic directness.
“That’s Miss Seton, Miss Helen Seton, sister of the one they call – Kate. They’re sort of farmers, in a small way. Been here five years.”
“Farmers?” Bill’s scorn was tremendous. “Why, that girl might have stepped off Broadway, New York, yesterday. Farmers!”
“Nevertheless they are farmers,” replied Fyles, “and they’ve been farming here five years.”
“Five years! They’ve been here five years, and that girl – with her pretty face and dandy eyes – not married? Say, the boys of this place need seeing to. They ought to be lynched plumb out of hand.”
Fyles smiled as he drew his horse up at the point where the trail merged into the main road of the village.
“Maybe it’s not – their fault,” he said dryly.
But Bill’s indignation was sweeping him on.
“Then I’d like to know whose it is.”
Fyles laughed aloud.
“Maybe she’s particular. Maybe she knows them. They surely do need lynching – most of ’em – but not for that. When you know ’em better you’ll understand.”
He shrugged his shoulders and pointed down the trail, away from the village.
“That’s your way,” he went on, “along west. Just keep right along the trail for nearly half a mile till you come to a cattle track on the right, going up the hill again.”
Then he shifted the direction of his pointing finger to a distant house on the hillside, which stood in full view.
“The track’ll take you to that shanty there, with the veranda facing this way. That’s Charlie Bryant’s place, and, unless I’m mistaken, that’s your brother standing right there on the veranda looking out this way. For a rancher – he don’t seem busy. Guess I’m going right on down to the saloon. I’ll see you again some time. So long.”
The police officer swung his horse round, and set off at a sharp canter before Bill could give expression to any of the dozen questions which leaped to his lips. The truth was Fyles had anticipated them, and wished to avoid them.
Charlie Bryant was standing on the veranda of his little house up on the hillside. He was watching with eyes of anxious longing for the sight of a familiar figure emerging from a house, almost as diminutive as his own, standing across the river on the far side of the valley.
There was never any question as to the longing in his dark eyes when they were turned upon the house of Kate Seton, but the anxiety in them now was less understandable.
It was his almost constant habit to watch for her appearance leaving her home each morning. But to-day she had remained invisible. He wondered why. It was her custom to be abroad early, and here it was long past mid-day, and, so far, there had been no sign of her going.
He wondered was she ill. Helen had long since made her appearance. He knew well enough that the new church building, and the many other small activities of the village, usually claimed Helen’s morning. That was the difference, one of the many differences between the sisters. Helen must always be a looker on at life – the village life. Kate – Kate was part of it.
He sighed, and a look of almost desperate worry crossed his dark, good-looking face. His thoughts seemed to disturb him painfully. Ever since he had heard of Inspector Fyles’s coming to the village a sort of depression had settled like a cloud upon him – a depression he could not shake off. Fyles was the last man he wished to see in Rocky Springs – for several reasons.
He was reluctantly about to turn away, and pass on down to his corrals, which were situated on the slope beside the house. There was work to be done there, some repairs, which he had intended to start early that morning. They had been neglected so long, as were many things to do with his ranch.
With this intention he moved toward the end of the veranda, but his progress was abruptly arrested by the sight of two horsemen in the distance making their way down toward the village. For awhile he only caught odd glimpses of them through the trees, but at last they reached the main road of the village, and halted in full, though somewhat distant, view of his house.
In a moment the identity of one of the men became certain in his mind. In spite of the man’s civilian clothing he recognized the easy poise in the saddle of Inspector Fyles. He had seen him so many times at comparatively close range that he was sure he could not be mistaken.
The sight of the police officer banished all his interest in the identity of the second horseman. A dark look of bitter, anxious resentment crept into his eyes, and all the mildness, all the gentleness vanished out of his expressive features. They had suddenly grown hard and cold. He knew that trouble was knocking at the door of Rocky Springs. He knew that his own peace of mind could never be restored so long as the shadow of Stanley Fyles hovered over the village.
Presently he saw the two horsemen part. Fyles rode on down toward the village while the other turned westwards, but the now hot eyes of the watching man followed only the figure of the unwelcome policeman until it was lost to view beyond the intervening bush.
As the officer disappeared the rancher made a gesture of fierce anger.
“Kate, Kate,” he cried, raising his clenched fists as though about to strike the unconscious horseman, “if I lose you through him, I’ll – I’ll kill him.”
Now he hurried away down to the corrals with the air of a man who is endeavoring to escape from himself. He suddenly realized the necessity of a vent for his feelings.
But his work had yet to suffer a further delay. He had scarcely reached the scene of operations when the sound of galloping hoofs caught and held his attention. He had quite forgotten the second horseman in his bitter interest in the policeman. Now he remembered that he had turned westward, which was in the direction of his ranch. The sounds were rapidly approaching up the track toward him. His eyes grew cold and almost vicious as he thought. Was this another of the police force? The force to which Fyles belonged?
He stood waiting at the head of the trail. And the look in his eyes augured ill for the welcome of the newcomer.
The sounds grew louder. Then he heard a voice, a somewhat familiar voice. It was big, and cheerful, and full of a cordial good humor.
“By Judas! he was a thief, and an outrageous robber, but you can go, my four-footed monument to a blasted rogue’s perfidy. Five hundred good dollars – now, at it for a final spurt.”
Charlie Bryant understood. The man was talking to his horse. Had he needed evidence it came forthwith, for, with a rush, at a headlong gallop, a horseman dashed from amid the bushes and drew up with a jolt almost on top of him.
“Charlie!”
“Bill! Good old – Bill!”
The greetings came simultaneously. The next instant Big Brother Bill flung out of the saddle, and stood wringing his brother’s hand with great force.
“Gee! It’s good to see you, Charlie,” he cried joyously.
“Good? Why, it’s great, and – and I took you for one of the damned p’lice.”
Charlie’s face was wreathed in such a smile of welcome and relief, that all Big Brother Bill’s doubts in that direction were flung pell-mell to the winds.
Charlie caught something of the other’s beaming enthusiasm.
“Why, I’ve been expecting you for days, old boy. Thought maybe you’d changed your mind. Say, where’s your baggage? Coming on behind? You haven’t lost it?” he added anxiously, as Bill’s face suddenly fell.
“I forgot. Say, was there ever such a tom-fool trick?” Bill cried, with a great laugh at his own folly. “Why, I left it checked at Moosemin – without instructions.”
Charlie’s smiling eyes suddenly widened.
“Moosemin? What in the name of all that’s – ?”
“I’ll have to tell you about it later,” Bill broke in hastily. “I’ve had one awful journey. If it hadn’t been for a feller I met on the road I don’t know when I’d have landed here.”
Charlie nodded, and the smile died out of his eyes.
“I saw him. You certainly were traveling in good company.”
Bill nodded, towering like some good-natured St. Bernard over a mild-eyed water spaniel.
“Good company’s a specialty with me. But I didn’t come alongside any of it, since I set out to make here ’cross country from Moosemin on the advice of the only bigger fool than myself I’ve ever met, until I ran into him. Say, Charlie, I s’pose its necessary to have a deal of grass around to run a ranch on?”
Charlie’s eyes lit with the warmest amusement. This great brother of his was the brightest landmark in his memory of the world he had said good-bye to years ago.
“You can’t graze cattle on bare ground,” he replied watchfully. “Why?”
Bill’s shoulders went up to the accompaniment of a chuckle.
“Nothing – only I hate grass. I seem to have gone over as much grass in the last week as a boarding-house spring lamb. But for that feller, I surely guess I’d still be chasing over it, like those ‘strays’ he spends his life rounding-up.”
A quick look of inquiry flashed in the rancher’s eyes.
“Strays?” he inquired.
Bill nodded gravely. “Yes, he’s something in the ranching line. Rounds up ‘strays,’ and herds ’em to their right homes. His name’s Fyles – Stanley Fyles.”
Just for an instant Charlie’s face struggled with the more bitter feelings Fyles’s name inspired. Then he gave way to the appeal of a sort of desperate humor, and broke into an uncontrolled fit of laughter.
Bill looked on wondering, his great blue eyes widely open. Then he caught the infection, and began to laugh, too, but without knowing why.
After some moments, however, Charlie sobered and choked back a final gurgle.
“Oh, dear!” he exclaimed. “You’ve done me a heap of good, Bill. That’s the best laugh I’ve had in weeks. That fellow a rancher? Fyles – Stanley Fyles a – rancher? Well, p’raps you’re right. That’s his job all right – rounding up ‘strays,’ and herding ’em to their right homes. But the ‘strays’ are ‘crooks,’ and their homes the penitentiary. That’s Inspector Stanley Fyles, of the Mounted Police, and just about the smartest man in the force. He’s come out here to start his ranching operations on Rocky Springs, which has the reputation of being the busiest hive of crooks in Western Canada. You’re going to see things hum, Bill – you’ve just got around in time.”
CHAPTER XI
THE UNREGENERATE
Later in the afternoon the two brothers found themselves seated on the veranda talking together, as only devoted relationship will permit after years of separation.
They had just returned from a brief inspection of the little ranch for Bill’s edification. The big man’s enthusiasm had demanded immediate satisfaction. His headlong nature impelled him to the earliest possible digestion of the life he was about to enter. So he had insisted on a tour of inspection.
The inspection was of necessity brief. There was so little to be seen in the way of an outward display of the prosperity his elder brother claimed. In consequence, as it proceeded, the newcomer’s spirits fell. His radiant dreams of a rancher’s life tumbled about his big unfortunate head, and, for the moment, left him staggered.
His first visit was to the barn, where Kid Blaney, his brother’s ranchman, was rubbing down two well saddle-marked cow-ponies, after his morning out on the fences. It was a crazy sort of a shanty, built of sod walls with a still more crazy door frame, and a thatched roof more than a foot thick. It was half a dug-out on the hillside, and suggested as much care as a hog pen. The floor was a mire of accumulations of manure and rotted bedding, and the low roof gave the place a hovelish suggestion such as Bill could never have imagined in the breezy life of a rancher, as he understood it.
There were one or two other buildings of a similar nature. One was used for a few unhealthy looking fowls; another, by the smell and noise that emanated therefrom, housed a number of pigs. Then there was a small grain storehouse. These were the buildings which comprised the ranch. They were just dotted about in the neighborhood of the house, at points most convenient for their primitive construction.
The corrals, further down the slope, offered more hope. There were three of them, all well enough built and roomy. There was one with a branding “pinch,” outside which stood a small hand forge and a number of branding irons. At the sight of these things Bill’s spirit improved.
When questioned as to pastures and grazing, Charlie led him along a cattle track, through the bush up the slope, to the prairie level above. Here there were three big pastures running into a hundred acres or more, all well fenced, and the wire in perfect order. Bill’s improving spirits received a further fillip. The grazing, Charlie told him, lay behind these limits upon the open plains, over which the newcomer had spent so much time riding.
“You see, Bill,” he said, half apologetically, “I’m only a very small rancher. The land I own is this on which the house stands, and these pastures, and another pasture or two further up the valley. For grazing, I simply rent rights from the Government. It answers well enough, and I only have to keep one regular boy in consequence. Spring and fall I hire extra hands for round-up. It pays me better that way.”
Bill nodded with increasing understanding. His original dreams had received a bad jolt, but he was beginning a readjustment of focus. Besides, his simple mind was already formulating fresh plans, and he began to talk of them with that whole-hearted enthusiasm which seemed to be the foundation of his nature.
“Sure,” he said cordially. “And – and you’ve done a big heap, Charlie. Say, how much did dad start you out with? Five thousand dollars? Yes, I remember, five thousand, and our mother gave you another two thousand five hundred. It was all she had. She’d saved it up in years. It wasn’t much to turn bare land into a money-making proposition, specially when you’d had no experience. But we’re going to alter all that. We’re going to own our grazing, if it can be bought. Yes, sir, we’re going to own a lot more, and I’ve got nearly one hundred thousand dollars to do it with. We’re going to turn these barns into barns, and we’re going to run horses as well as cattle. We’re going to grow wheat, too. That’s the coming game. All the boys say so down East – that is, the real bright boys. We’re just going to get busy, you and me, Charlie. We’re going to have a deed of partnership drawn up all square and legal, and I’m going to blow my stuff in it against what you’ve got already, and what you know. That’s what I’m here for.”
By the aid of his big voice and aggressive bulk Bill strove to conceal his obvious desire to benefit his brother under an exterior of strong business methods. And he felt the result to be all he could desire. He told himself that a man of Charlie’s unbusiness-like nature was quite easy to impress. When it came to a proper understanding of business he was much his brother’s superior.
Charlie, however, was in no way deceived, but such was his regard for this simple-minded creature that his protest was of the mildest.
“Of course we could do a great deal with your money, Bill, but – but it’s all you’ve got, and – ”
His protest was hastily thrust aside.
“See here, Charlie, boy, that’s right up to me,” Bill cried, with a buoyant laugh. “I’m out here to ranch. That’s what I’ve come for, that’s what I’ve worn my skin to the bone for on the most outrageously uncomfortable saddle I’ve ever thrown a leg over. That’s why I took the trouble to keep on chasing up this place when my brain got plumb addled at the sight of so much grass. That’s why I didn’t go back to find the feller – and shoot him – for advising me to get off at Moosemin instead of hitting back on my tracks for the right place to change trains. You see, maybe I haven’t all the horse sense in some things you have, but I’ve got my back teeth into the idea of this ranching racket, and my dollars are going to talk all they know. I tell you, when my mind’s made up, I can’t be budged an inch. It’s no use your trying. I know you, Charlie. You’re scared to death I’ll lose my money – well, I’m ready to lose it, if things go that way. Meanwhile, I’ve a commercial proposition. I’m out to make good, and I’m looking for you to help me.”
Charlie looked into the earnest, good-natured face with eyes that read deep down into the open heart beneath. A great regret lay behind them, a regret which made him hate and despise himself in a way he had never felt before. He was thinking whither his own follies had driven him; he was thinking of his own utter failure as a man, a strong, big-principled man. He was wondering, too, what this kindly soul would think and feel when he realized how little he was changed from the contemptible creature his father had turned out of doors, and when he finally learned of the horrors of degradation his life really concealed.
He had no alternative but to acquiesce before the strong determination of his brother, and though his words were cordial, his fears, his qualms of conscience underlying them, were none the less.
So they came back to the house, and finally foregathered on two uncomfortable, rawhide-seated, home-made chairs, while Bill enlarged upon his plans. It was not until these were completely exhausted that their talk drifted to more personal matters. Then it was that Charlie himself opened up the way, with a bitter reference to the reasons that saved him from completely going under when their father shipped him out to this forlorn spot to regenerate.
He talked earnestly, leaning forward in his chair. His delicate hands were tightly clasped, as his eyes gazed out across the valley at a spot where Kate Seton’s house stood beyond the river.
Bill sat listening. He wanted Charlie to talk. He wanted to learn all those little things, sometimes even very big things, which can only be read between the lines when the tongue runs on unguardedly. He knew his brother’s many weaknesses, and it was his ardent desire to discover those signs of betterment and strengthening he fondly hoped had taken place in the passing of years.
He lolled back with the luxury of an utterly saddle-weary man. His heavy bent pipe hung loosely from the corner of his mouth. His big blue eyes were steady and earnest.
“Yes,” Charlie went on, after a moment’s thought, “I’m glad, mighty glad, I came here when I did.” He gave a short mirthless laugh. “I doubt if my satisfaction is inspired by any moral scruple,” he added hastily, as the other nodded. “Say, can you understand how I feel when I say I believe all moral scruple has somehow decayed, rotted, died in me? I don’t mean that I don’t want to be decent. I do; but that’s because decency appeals to me from some sort of artistic feelings which have survived the wreck I made of life years ago. No, moral scruples were killed stone dead when I was chasing through Europe hunting Art, searching for it with eyes too young to gaze upon anything more beautiful than a harsh life of strict discipline.
“Now I have to follow inclinations that have somehow got the better of all the best qualities in me. That’s how I’m fixed now. And, queer as it may seem, that’s been my salvation – if you can call it salvation. When I first came here I was ready to drift any old way. I did drift into every muck-hole that appealed to me. I didn’t care. As I said, moral scruples were dead in me. Then this same self-indulgence did me a good turn. The only good turn it’s ever done me.”
The eyes gazing across the valley grew very soft.
“Say, Bill,” he began again, after a brief, reflective pause, “I came here, and – and found a woman. The greatest, the best woman God ever created. She was strong, big-spirited, beautiful. She’d come out here to earn a living with her sister. She’d left the East for no better reason than her big spirit of independence, and a desire to live beyond the narrow confines of convention. Say, I think I went crazy about that woman.”
The man was smiling very softly. All Bill’s senses were alert. His slow brain was groping for the subtle comprehension which he felt was needed for a full understanding.
“That woman came near to saving me – from myself,” Charlie went on, with a tenderness he was unaware of. “And it was through that very weakness of self-indulgence. I love her that bad it’s bigger than anything else in my life. Say, I’d rather have her good opinion, and – and liking – than anything in life. It’s more to me than any of those desires that have always claimed me. But there are times when even her influence isn’t quite big enough. There are times when even she can’t hold me up. There are things back of my head I can’t beat – even through her – at times. That’s why I say she’s come near saving me. Not quite – but near.
“Bill, guess you can’t understand. Guess no one can. I fight, fight, fight. She fights, too. She fights without knowing it, too, because always in my mind is a picture of her handsome face, and eyes of disapproval. That picture wins most times – but not always. Wait till you see Kate, Bill, then you’ll understand. I just love her to death – and that’s all there is to it. She only likes me. She’ll never feel for me same as I do for her. How can she? – I’m – but I guess you know what I am. Everybody who knows me knows that I’m a hopeless drunkard.”
The man’s final admission came without any self-pity or bitterness. It is doubtful if there was any shame in him at the acknowledgment. Bill marveled. He could not understand. He tried to picture himself making such an admission, and to estimate his feelings at it. Shame, unutterable shame, was all he could think of, and his good-natured face flushed with shame for his brother, who had somehow so squandered all his better feelings.
Charlie saw the flush, and the tenderness died out of his eyes. He shook his head.
“Don’t feel that way about it,” he cried bitterly. “I’m not worth it. Besides, I can’t stand it from – you. Only – from Kate. I know what you’re thinking. You’re bound to think that way. You were born with a man’s body – a big, strong man’s body. I was born weak and puny. I was born all wrong. I don’t say it in excuse. I merely state a fact. Look at me beside you, both children of the same parents. I’m like a woman, I can’t even grow the hair of a man on my face. My mother reveled in what she regarded as the artistic beauty of my features, my hands” – he held out his thin hands with their long tapering fingers – “and my love for all those softer things of life that should only be found in female nature. She gloried in those things and fostered them. She did her best, all unknowingly, bless her, to kill the last vestige of manhood in me. And all the time it was crying out, crying out bitterly. It was growing stronger and stronger, as my physique remained undeveloped. Finally it became too great to withstand. Then, when it turned loose, I was without power to check it. My moral strength was not equal to the tide, and all my passions swayed me whithersoever they chose. Again I say this is no excuse; it is merely fact as I see it. I was powerless to resist temptation. The woman who once looses her hold on her moral nature can never recover herself. That is nature – her nature – and, by the curse of fate, it is also mine.”
For the moment Bill had no answer. He sat with his eyes averted. All his affection for his erring brother was uppermost, all his sympathy and pity. But he dared not display them. All that Charlie had said was true. His whole appearance was effeminate. He was a man without the physical support belonging to his sex. As he said, he was left powerless by nature and upbringing to fight a man’s battle on the plains of moral integrity. His fall had been drink, with its accompanying vices, and Bill realized now, after five years’ absence, how hopeless his brother’s reformation had become. If his love for this woman could not save him, then surely nothing on earth could. For Bill, in his simple fashion, believed that such an appeal was above all in its claims upon any real man.
He groped for something to say, for something that might show Charlie that his affection remained utterly unaltered, but he had no great cleverness, and the right thing refused to come to his aid. As the silence lengthened between them his groping thoughts took their own course, which led him to the name, “Kate,” which the other had used. He remembered he had heard it that day once before.
“Kate?” he inquired lamely. “Kate – who?”
“Kate Seton.”
In an instant Bill’s whole attitude underwent a change. He sat up, and, removing his pipe, dashed the charred ashes from its bowl.
“Why, that’s the sister of – Helen Seton.”
Charlie nodded, his eyes lighting with a sharp question.
“Sure. But – you don’t know – Helen?”
Bill’s face beamed.
“Met her on the trail,” he cried triumphantly. “No end of a pretty girl. Gray eyes and fair hair. Might have been walking on Broadway, New York – from her style. Fyles told me about her.”
“Fyles?”
Charlie’s eyes suddenly darkened with resentment. He rose abruptly from his chair, and began to pace the veranda. Then he halted, and looked coldly down into his brother’s eyes.
“What did he say?” he demanded shortly.
Bill’s eyes answered him with question for question.
“Just told me who Helen was. Said she had a sister – Kate. Said they were farmers – of a sort. Said they’d been here five years. Why?”
Charlie ignored the question.
“That’s all?” he demanded.
“Sure.” Bill nodded.
Then the hardness died out of Charlie’s eyes to be replaced once more by his usual gentle smile.
“I’m glad. You see, I don’t want him – around Kate. Say – ” he hesitated. Then he moved toward the door of the house. “Guess I’ll get supper. I forgot, you must be starving.”
Kate Seton had spent the whole morning at home. The work of her little farm had claimed her. She had been out with her two disreputable boys around the grain, now rapidly turning from its fresh green to that delicate tint of yellow so welcome to the farmer. It was a comparatively anxious time, for the cattle grazing at large upon the prairie loved the sweet flavor of the growing grain, and had no scruples at breaking their way through the carelessly constructed barbed wire fencing, and wrecking all that came within their reach. The fences needed “top railing,” and Kate could not trust the work to her two men without supervision. So she spent the morning in their company.
After the mid-day meal, as soon as Helen had left the house on a journey to Billy Unguin’s drapery store, she sat herself down at a small bureau in their kitchen-parlor and drew a couple of books, suspiciously like account books, from one of its locked drawers, and settled herself for an hour’s work upon them.
The room, though not large, was comfortable. It was full of odd, feminine knick-knacks contrived by Helen’s busy hands. The walls were dotted with a number of unframed water colors, also the work of the younger of the two women. There were three comfortable rockers, so dear to the heart of the women of the country. Besides these, there was a biggish dining table, and, in one corner of the room, beside a china and store cupboard, a square iron cook stove stood out, on which a tin kettle of water was pleasantly simmering.
It was a homely room which had been gradually furnished into its present atmosphere of comfort by two pairs of busy hands, and both Kate and Helen loved it far more, in consequence, than if it had borne the hall-mark of lavish expenditure.
But Kate, as she sat before her bureau, had no thought of these things just now. She was anxious to complete her work before Helen returned. It was always impossible to deal with figures while her sister was in the room. And her figures now needed careful attention.