Why not? inquired Wayland.
Belden glared. Because I tell you so. Your sympathy-hunting game has just about run into the ground. Youve worked this baby dodge about long enough. Youre not so almighty sick as you put up to be, and youd better hunt some other cure for lonesomeness, or Ill just about cave your chest in.
All this was shockingly plain talk for a slender young scholar to listen to, but Norcross remained calm. I think youre unnecessarily excited, he remarked. I have no desire to make trouble. Im considering Miss Berea, who is too fine to be worried by us.
His tone was conciliating, and the cowman, in spite of himself, responded to it. Thats why I advise you to go. She was all right till you came. Colorados a big place, and there are plenty other fine ranges for men of your complaint why not try Routt County? This is certain, you cant stay in the same valley with my girl. I serve notice of that.
Youre making a prodigious ass of yourself, observed Wayland, with calm contempt.
You think so do you? Well, Ill make a jack-rabbit out of you if I find you on this ranch again. Youve worked on my girl in some way till shes jest about quit me. I dont see how you did it, you measly little pup, but you surely have turned her against me! His rage burst into flame as he thought of her last words. If you were so much as half a man Id break you in two pieces right now; but youre not, youre nothing but a dead-on-the-hoof lunger, and theres nothing to do but run you out. So take this as your final notice. You straddle a horse and head east and keep a-ridin, and if I catch you with my girl again, Ill deal you a whole hatful of misery now thats right!
Thereupon, with a final glance of hate in his face, he whirled his horse and galloped away, leaving Norcross dumb with resentment, intermingled with wonder.
Truly the West is a dramatic country! Here I am, involved in a lovers wrath, and under sentence of banishment, all within a month! Well, I suppose theres nothing to do but carry out Beldens orders. Hes the boss, he said as he rode on. I wonder just what happened after I left? Something stormy, evidently. She must have given him a sharp rebuff, or he wouldnt have been so furious with me. Perhaps she even broke her engagement with him. I sincerely hope she did. Shes too good for him. Thats the truth.
And so, from point to point, he progressed till with fine indignation he reached a resolution to stay and meet whatever came. I certainly would be a timorous animal if I let myself be scared into flight by that big bonehead, he said at last. I have as much right here as he has, and the law must protect me. It cant be that this country is entirely barbaric.
Nevertheless, he felt very weak and very much depressed as he rode up the street of the little town and dismounted at the hotel. The sidewalks were littered with loafing cowboys and lumber-jacks, and some of them quite openly ridiculed his riding-breeches and his thin legs. Others merely grinned, but in their grins lay something more insulting than words. To them I am a poor thing, he admitted; but as he lifted his eyes to the mighty semicircular wall of the Bear Tooth Range, over which the daily storm was playing, he forgot his small worries. What gorgeous pageantry! What life-giving air! If only civilized men and women possessed this glorious valley, what a place it would be! he exclaimed, and in the heat of his indignant contempt he would have swept the valley clean.
As his eyes caught the flutter of the flag on its staff above the Forest Service building, his heart went out to the men who unselfishly wrought beneath that symbol of federal unity for the good of the future. That is civilized, he said; that is prophetic, and alighted at the door in a glow of confidence.
Nash, who was alone in the office, looked up from his work. Come in, he called, heartily. Come in and report.
Thank you. Id like to do so; and may I use your desk? I have a letter to write.
Make yourself at home. Take any desk you like. The
men are all out on duty.
Youre very kind, replied Wayland, gratefully. There was something reassuring in this greeting, and in the many signs of skill and scientific reading which the place displayed. It was like a bit of Washington in the midst of a careless, slovenly, lawless mountain town, and Norcross took his seat and wrote his letter with a sense of proprietorship.
Im getting up an enthusiasm for the Service just from hearing Alec Belden rave against it, he said a few minutes later, as he looked up from his letter.
Nash grinned. How did you like Meeker?
Hes a good man, but he has his peculiarities. Belden is your real enemy. He is blue with malignity so are most of the cowmen I met up there. I wish I could do something for the Service. Im a thoroughly up-to-date analytical chemist and a passable mining engineer, and my doctor says that for a year at least I must work in the open air. Is there anything in this Forest Service for a weakling like me?