CHAPTER XIII
WHEN AMBITION CAME
Lucy Davison was seldom absent from Justin’s mind; and he was thinking of her as he drove to town to make some purchases for Pearl, who, though married, was still the housekeeper at the ranch. The knowledge that Lucy was to arrive at home in a short time filled him with longing and delight.
As he drove along he could but note the appearance of the valley, and the houses of the new settlers and the old. Sanders had purchased more land, and had moved his dug-out close up to the trail and much nearer to the river. He had been indefatigable in his efforts to induce settlers to come into the valley, and successful to a degree that surprised Justin and the Davisons, Of the newer arrivals several were men of force and intelligence. They had given the valley their approval, and had set to work.
Sanders, it now appeared, had sold his land at Sumner for a considerable sum of money. At Sumner, irrigation was being practiced successfully. He was firm in his belief that Paradise Valley could be irrigated as easily, and would make an agricultural section as rich. Therefore, he and the new farmers, joined by certain of the older ones, among them Sloan Jasper, had built a dam across the stream near Jasper’s and turned the water thus secured into some small canals, from which laterals conveyed it to the places where it was required.
They were working under unfavorable conditions, however; their dam was cheaply and hastily constructed, and the canals and ditches being new sucked up the water almost as fast as it could be turned into them.
Naturally Davison and Fogg were not pleased. The water which the farmers were using decreased the supply in the water-holes, and threatened suffering for the cattle if a dry season came on. They did not accept the theory promulgated by the farmers, that the water would find its way back through the soil into the stream. That the new enterprise troubled the ranchmen gave secret joy to William Sanders, whose bitter and vindictive mind was filled with ineradicable hatred of Davison and all connected with him. To strike a blow at Davison delighted him immeasurably.
Justin had a dusty drive that afternoon, for the land was dry. For several days a strong south wind had been blowing, and the mountain was draping its wide shoulders in misty vapor. These were good portents of rain; and when rain came at that season, after a period of drought, it came usually in a heavy storm.
Ben Davison had set out for the town ahead of Justin, on his pony. Ben had practically ceased to work on the ranch, except at intervals. He was much in the company of Clem Arkwright, and enjoyed certain pleasures of the town, to which Arkwright had introduced him. For one thing, Arkwright played a game of poker that few men could beat. Arkwright was a small politician, and by virtue of that fact held the office of justice-of-the-peace. Arkwright had thrown his political following to Ben’s support, in a recent county convention; and that, with the influence of Davison and Fogg, had given to Ben Davison the nomination to the state legislature.
As the bronchos climbed to the summit of a low divide, giving a long view of the trail, Justin saw Ben, far ahead, nearing the town. It gave him thought. Ben was not only ahead of him on the trail that day, but in other ways.
That summer of patient toil and sturdy thought spent high in the mountains with the sheep had brought to Justin the knowledge that he was now a man. As a man he was beginning to feel that he must do something, must set about the work of making a place and a name for himself in the world. Influenced by the idealist, Clayton, and by his love for Lucy, he had heretofore fed on love and dreams. He still loved, and he still dreamed, but he knew now that to these must be added action and accomplishment.
No one understood Ben Davison’s unworthiness more thoroughly than Justin. Because of the influence of his father and the support given to his candidacy by a tricky politician Ben was apparently on the high road to political preferment and honors. His name was mentioned in the Denver dailies, and his picture was in the county paper.
Philip Davison was pleased, probably Lucy was pleased also, and Justin felt that he really ought to look upon the matter in a kindly and amiable light. Yet, even as he thought so, he felt his heart burning.
“I might have had that nomination, if things had been different!”
That was Justin’s thought. He knew to the core of his being that in every way he was better qualified than Ben Davison to fill that important place. He had not only mental but moral qualities which Ben totally lacked. In addition, the position and the honor appealed to his growing desire to be something and do something. It would give opportunity to talents which he was sure he possessed. Denver represented the great world beyond, where men struggled for the things worth while. Ben Davison would go to Denver, become a member of the legislature, and would have the doors of possibility opened to him, when he had not the ability nor the moral stamina to walk through them when they were opened, and he—Justin—would remain—a cowboy.
When Justin reached the town, which consisted of a double row of frame houses strung along the railroad track, he hitched the bronchos to the pole in front of one of the stores and proceeded to the purchase of the groceries required by the housekeeper. That done he walked to the postoffice for the ranch mail. As he came out with it in his hands and began to look over the county paper, where he saw Ben Davison’s name and political qualifications blazoned, he observed several men converging toward a low building. Over its door was a sign, “Justice of the Peace.”
“Arkwright’s got a trial on to-day,” said one of the men, speaking to him. “You ranchers air gittin’ pugnacious. Borden has brought suit against Sam Turner for the killin’ of them cattle. I s’pose you heard about it?”
Justin’s interest was aroused. He was acquainted with both Arkwright and Borden, and he knew of the killing of the cattle, but he had not heard of the lawsuit. Borden’s ranch lay over beyond the first mesa, along Pine Creek. It had been established since the Davison ranch. Not all the line between the two ranches was fenced, and the open line Justin had ridden for a time with one of Borden’s cowboys.
There were a few settlers along Pine Creek, one of them being Sam Turner, a young farmer from Illinois. Justin remembered Turner well, and Turner’s wife, a timid little woman wholly unfit for the life she was compelled to live in this new country. She had a deathly fear of Borden’s cowboys, a fear that was too often provoked by their actions. They were chiefly Mexicans and half-breeds, a wild lot, much given to drinking, and often when they came riding home from the town in their sprees they came with their bronchos at a dead run, firing their revolvers and yelling like Indians as they swept by Turner’s house. Whenever she saw them coming Mrs. Turner would catch up her little girl in her arms, dart into the house, lock and bar the doors, and pull down the blinds. The cowboys observed this, and it aroused them to even wilder demonstrations; so that now they never passed Turner’s without a fusillade and a demoniacal outburst of yells.
The death of the cattle had come about through no fault of Turner. They had simply broken down a fence during a storm, and getting into Turner’s sorghum had so gorged themselves with the young plants that some of them had died. It did not seem to matter to Borden that Turner’s sorghum had been devoured. In his rage over his loss Turner had threatened violence, and Borden was answering with this suit for damages for the loss of the cattle.
Justin squeezed into the midst of the crowd that already filled the office. Clem Arkwright’s red face showed behind his desk, which was raised on a platform. Justin, still thinking of Lucy and Ben, looked at Arkwright with interest. He did not admire Arkwright himself, but Ben Davison thought highly of him, and that was something. A heap of law books was stacked on Arkwright’s desk. A pair of pettifogging lawyers had been kicking up a legal dust, and one of them, Borden’s lawyer, was still at it. As the lawyer talked, Clem Arkwright took down one of the books and began to examine a decision to which his attention was called.
While Arkwright looked at the decision, the lawyer went right on, pounding the book he held in his hand and shaking his fist now and then at the justice and now and then at Sam Turner and the opposing lawyer. Turner sat with his counsel, and at intervals whispered in his ear. Justin had never attended a trial and he found it interesting. His sympathies were with Turner.
From the claims made by Borden’s lawyer, it appeared that Sam Turner was wholly in the wrong. He should have guarded his crops or fenced his land. He had done neither, and as a result Borden’s cattle had lost their lives and Borden had sustained financial loss. Borden was not required to maintain a fence, nor to employ riders to hold the cattle beyond any certain imaginary line, the lawyer maintained; but he had kept riders so employed, and had built a fence on a part of his range. He had done these things, that his cattle might not become mixed up with cattle belonging to other ranches, and particularly, as it appeared, in pure kindness of heart, that they might not trespass on the farms of such men as the defendant. It was admitted that Turner had a perfect right to live on and cultivate his land; it was his, to do with as he pleased, by virtue of title conveyed to him by the government under the homestead laws. But he was compelled, if he wished to prevent trespass of this kind, to erect and maintain a stock-tight fence, or guard his land in some other substantial way; and having failed to do that, he should be mulcted in damages for the loss sustained by the plaintiff.
Justin was listening with much interest to the argument of Borden’s lawyer, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning about he beheld William Sanders.
“We want to see you outside a minute er two,” said Sanders.
He tried to smile pleasantly, but there was a queer gleam in his little eyes.
“All right,” said Justin, wondering what Sanders could want.
Several farmers and a few of the citizens of the town were awaiting him outside, he discovered, and had sent Sanders in to get him.
“We want to have a talk with you about the election,” said one of them. “We’ll go into that back room over there; we’ve got the privilege of using it awhile.”
Sloan Jasper shambled up, his hands in his pockets.
“Howdy, Justin!” he exclaimed, with an anxious smile. “I’ve been talkin’ round a bit amongst my friends, and what I’ve said about you I don’t take back for any man.”
Somewhat bewildered, Justin accompanied these men into the vacant room they had indicated, back of one of the stores. Here William Sanders established himself at a small table; the doors were closed, the men dropped into seats, and Sanders rapped with his knuckles for order. That queer gleam still shone in his little eyes.
“Gentlemen,” he said, rising, “I’m goin’ to ask Mr. Jasper to set out the object of this meetin’. Me and him talked it up first, I guess; and he understands it as well as I do, and maybe can set it out better.”
Sloan Jasper shambled to his feet, declaring that he was no speaker; and then proceeded to a heated denunciation of the ranchmen and their methods.
“How many times have they tramped me an’ my farm under foot as if we was muck?” he asked. “That trial over there before that scoundrel, Arkwright, is a sample of it. They’ve run the county till they think they own it. But they don’t own me! Justin hyer is a cowboy and can draw cowboy votes. We all think well of him, because we know he can be depended on to do the fair thing by everybody. That’s all we’re askin’—the fair thing; we don’t want to take advantage of anybody, er injure anybody; but we do intend to protect ourselves, and to do it we’ve got to stand together, and stand up fer men who will stand up fer us. There’s certain things that will come before this next legislature in which we’re interested. If Ben Davison sets in it as the representative frum this county he’ll vote ag’inst us every time. Now, there’s a lot o’ men in this town who don’t like him, ner Arkwright; and all over the county it’s the same way. So I say if we’ll stand together, us farmers, as one man, and can git somebody that the cowboys like to run ag’inst Ben Davison, we can beat him out of his boots, fer he ain’t popular, though the newspaper and his friends is tryin’ to make it out that he is. And that’s why we’re hyer—a sort of delegation of the farmers an’ the people of the town who have talked the thing over; an’ we’re goin’ to ask Justin Wingate to make the race fer us ag’inst Ben Davison. If he does it, we’ll take off our coats and work fer him until the sun goes down on the day of election; and so help me God, I believe as truly as I stand hyer, that we can elect him, and give Ben Davison the worst beatin’ he’ll ever git in his life.”
Sloan Jasper sat down with flushed face, amid a round of applause. Before Justin could get upon his feet, William Sanders was speaking. He said he had come to see that Justin was the man they wanted—the man who could make the race and have a chance of winning; and for that reason he favored him, and would do all in his power for him, if he would run.
Justin was confused and gratified. His pulses leaped at the bugle call of a new ambition. He knew how justly unpopular Ben was. It was possible, it even seemed probable, that if he became the candidate of the men who would naturally oppose the ranching interests he could defeat Ben Davison. But would not such an attempt be akin to treachery? He was in the employ of Philip Davison.
“I don’t think I ought to consider such a thing,” he urged, in some confusion, without rising to his feet. “Mr. Davison has treated me well. I want to remain on friendly terms with him and with Ben. I couldn’t do that, if I ran against Ben. I’m obliged to you, just the same, you know, for the compliment and the honor; but, really, I don’t think I ought to consider it.”
He saw these men believed that he and Ben Davison were not on terms of good friendship; on that they based their hope that he would become their candidate. They were not to be dissuaded easily, and they surrounded him, and plied him with appeals and arguments.
“We’ll give you till Thursday to think it over,” they said, still hoping to win him. “We’re going to put some one up against Ben, and you’re the one we want.”
Though Justin did not retreat from his declaration that it was a thing he should not consider, they observed that he did not say he would not consider it. The stirrings of ambition, the flattery of their words, and the gratifying discovery that the world regarded him now as a full-grown man, kept him from saying that.
Just beyond the town, as he proceeded homeward, he was overtaken by Ben Davison, who had ridden hard after him on his pony. Ben’s face was white, his eyes unnaturally bright, and his hand shook on his bridle-rein.
“I’ve been hearing that talk in town,” he began, “and I want to know about it!”
Justin felt the hot blood sing in his ears. With difficulty he crowded down the violent temper that leaped for utterance.
“What did you hear?” he asked.
“That you intend to run against me.”
Justin gave him a look that made the shining eyes shift and turn away.
“Some of the farmers, and others, want you to run,” said Ben.
“Yes, that is true.”
“And do you intend to?”
“I haven’t said that I did.”
“Well, I want to know!”
“What if I decline to answer?”
Ben changed his tone.
“It will make trouble for me, if you run. If you keep out of it I’ve got the thing cinched—they can’t beat me, for I will pull the cowboy vote. You might split that vote. I don’t say I think you could be elected, for I don’t; but it would make me a lot of trouble, and would kick up bad feeling all round.”
“In what way?” said Justin, speaking coldly. He was studying Ben closely; he had never seen his face so white nor his eyes so unnaturally bright.
“Well, with father, for one thing. He wouldn’t like it; he wants me to be elected, and has already spent a lot of money.”
“Ben,” said Justin, speaking slowly, “you have yourself to blame largely for this stirring up of the farmers. You have made them hate you. They will put up some one against you, whether I run or not.”
“They can’t beat me, unless they run some fellow who can swing the cowboy vote, and they know it. That’s why they came to you.”
“Yes; they said it was.”
“You told them you wouldn’t run?”
“I told them I ought not consider it.”
“Well, that’s right; you oughtn’t.”
“But I want you to understand, Ben, that I have just as good a right to run as you have!”
“I don’t think so; not while you’re working for father, and when I’m already in the race.”
Mentally, Justin acknowledged that this was a point well taken.
“You won’t run?” said Ben, anxiously.
Justin hesitated, shifting uneasily on the high spring seat.
“N-o, I hardly think I ought to.”
“Thank you! I wanted to make sure.”
Ben wheeled his pony, and galloped back toward the town.
“Am I easy?” Justin asked himself, as his eyes followed the receding figure. “But, really, it does seem that I oughtn’t to think of such a thing, under the circumstances. Davison would be angry—and I don’t suppose Lucy would be at all pleased.”
He drove on, turning the matter over in his mind, recalling with pleasure the flattery of the farmers, and wondering why Ben Davison’s face looked so unnaturally white and his eyes so bright. He knew that anger alone was not the cause.
CHAPTER XIV
IN THE STORM
The threatened rainstorm broke, bringing early night, as Justin reached home. Lemuel Fogg was at the ranch house with Davison. Fogg’s shining photograph wagon had been brought out and a pair of horses hitched to it.
“Ben isn’t here,” said Davison; “I suppose he’s in town, looking after election matters; so, as soon as you can get those things into the house, I want you to ride along the line fence and see that everything is all right, for we don’t want any cattle breaking out and making trouble with the farmers just now. Fogg and I are going up the trail together in his wagon. He wants to get a photograph. We’ll be near the dam, or a short distance below it, where Jasper’s lateral makes out into his fields. I think you will find us at the bridge there over the lateral, and you can come there and make your report, when you’ve looked at the fence. Report promptly, if there’s any trouble.”
Fogg came out of the house in oil hat and slicker, buttoned to the chin against the storm. He resembled a yellow, overgrown Santa Claus, minus the beard.
“Hello, Justin!” he cried, advancing and extending his hand, as Justin swung a bag of meal to the ground. “We’re in for a good ground-soaker, I guess. The lightning is beginning to play fine. It’s great over there on the mountain. When she gets to going good I’ll try to nail one of the flashes down on a negative. I’ve tried a dozen times and failed; now I’m going to try again.”
Having shaken hands, Fogg ran heavily toward the wine-colored wagon; the rain was beginning to roar, and the interior of the wagon, as he knew, was as tight as a house. Then the shining wagon whirled away, with the rain drops glistening on it, revealed by the lightning, which was already waving fiery swords in the sky.
Justin followed on his cow-pony as quickly as he could, garbed like Fogg in a yellow oil slicker, and galloped along the wire fence that ran here toward the town. It was not a pleasant ride. The gusty rain beat in his face and the wind blew a tempest. The lightning, increasing in frequency, showed the fence intact, as far as the lower end of the deep chasm called the Black Cañon, which cut through the mesa above Jasper’s. There was no need to go farther than this, for he had inspected that portion of the fence earlier in the day.
The storm was in full swing before he reached Jasper’s lateral. He followed it until he came to the tiny bridge that spanned it, and there found the photograph wagon. Sheltered within the wagon, Fogg had trained his camera toward the mountain. There the play of the lightning had become something stupendous. Davison was trying to hold the bronchos and keep them quiet in the beating rain.
“I’ve taken several exposures already,” Fogg announced, when Justin made his appearance and his report. “If those horses can be kept still another minute I’ll try it there just over the dam.”
A blinding flash burned across the sky. It was so vivid that Justin closed his eyes against it. The burst of the thunder, like the explosion of a cannon, was thrown back by the stony walls of the mountain, and rolled away, booming and bellowing in the clouds. The thunder roll was followed shortly by a confused and jarring crash.
“I got that flash all right, I think,” said Fogg, “and there goes the side of the mountain!”
Landslides occurred occasionally on the sides of the mountain, and Fogg thought this was one.
“No,” Davison shouted, “it’s—the dam!”
Another crash was heard, accompanied by a popping of breaking timbers; then, with a roar like a cyclone, the dam went out, sweeping down the swollen stream in a great tangle of logs and splintered timbers. Justin galloped toward the stream.
“Better look out there, Justin,” Fogg bellowed at him. “That will bring the river out on the jump, and you don’t want to get caught by it!”
Justin heard the wagon being driven away from the little bridge. It was an exciting minute, yet he had time to think with regret of what the loss of the dam would mean to the farmers. His reflections were cut short by a scream, followed by a cry for help.
Then in the lightning’s white glare he saw on the ground before him a woman clinging to the prostrate form of a man. Justin galloped wildly, and reaching them leaped down. To his amazement the woman was Lucy Davison and the man was Ben. She had apparently dragged him beyond the reach of the water that splashed and rolled in a wild flood but a few yards away.
“Help me,” she said, without explanation. “He—he is hurt, I think.”
Justin had his arms round Ben instantly, and began to lift him. The rain was falling in sheets, and both Lucy and Ben were drenched. Ben began to help himself, and climbed unsteadily to his feet, with Justin’s assistance. Only in the intervals between the vivid lightning flashes could Justin see either Ben or Lucy.
“I’m—I’m all right!” said Ben, staggering heavily.
“I’m afraid he was hit by one of the timbers of the dam,” Lucy declared.
To Justin she seemed abnormally brave. She took hold of Ben’s arm and assisted in supporting him.
“We must get him to the house—to Jasper’s,” she urged, tremulously.
“The photograph wagon is right over there,” Justin informed her. “We’ll take him to that. If you’ll lead my horse maybe I can carry him.”
“I don’t need to be carried,” said Ben, stubbornly. “I tell you I’m all right. I slipped and fell—that’s all. Take your hands off of me; I can walk.”
Lucy clung to him, and Justin did not release his hold. He hallooed now to Davison and Fogg. They did not hear him in the roar of the storm, but by the glare of the lightning they saw the little group swaying near the margin of the wild stream and drove back to discover the meaning of the strange sight. They shouted questions of surprise, as they came up. Justin had not attempted to voice his bewilderment.
Lucy became the spokesman of the group.
“Uncle Philip, we will explain later,” she said, with emphasis. “The first thing is to get Ben home.”
“Yes, that’s so!” Davison admitted, his anxiety for Ben betrayed in his shaking voice.
Ben was helped into the photograph wagon; where he would not lie down, but insisted on sitting in the driver’s seat. Justin assisted Lucy into the wagon. It was a large wagon, in which Fogg had lived and slept in the old days when he went about taking photographs and selling curios. Justin wished he might climb in there by Lucy’s side, and do something, or say something, that would allay her evident distress. Her voice was unnaturally hard, and her manner singularly abrupt and emphatic. He knew that she was suffering.
And he had not known she was in Paradise Valley! That was the most inexplicable of all—that she should be there and no one on the ranch aware of the fact.
“She must have arrived on the evening train,” was his conclusion.
However, that explained little. How did she and Ben chance to be there by the river? Had they been walking home from the town together—through the storm? Where was Ben’s pony? That might have escaped from him, or he might have left it somewhere; but the other question was not to be answered readily. The whole subject was so cloaked in the mysterious that it seemed to defy analysis.
The storm still raged, with sheets of beating rain, with lightning fire and roll of thunder, as the wagon moved swiftly in the direction of the ranch house along the soaked and gullied trail. And behind it, galloping on his cow-pony, rode Justin, pondering the meaning and the mystery of the things he had seen and heard.
Yet through it all there was a certain sense of joy and gratification. He had been able to serve the woman he loved, and she was here at home. The first long, long separation was ended—she was home again.