Jerico’s Garrison Finish ebook

Contents

I. THE PROMISE

II. A TRICK FOR A TRICK

III. WITH THE MASK OFF

IV. THE GAMBLER’S INSTINCT

V. OVERTURES TO JERICO

VI. CROOKED RIVALS

VII. ORCHARD’S BARGAIN

VIII. HOGAN EXPOSES HIS CARDS

IX. THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

X. FRIEND TO FRIEND

XI. IN THE THICK OF THE RACE

XII. “FOR YOU AND FOR ME”

I. THE PROMISE

WHEN Sue Hampton looked down to the pale, lithe hands which were folded in her lap, Jim Orchard had his first opportunity to examine her face. He thought her whiter than ever, and thinner, and he disliked the heavy shadows around her eyes. But when she looked up to him, the thick lashes lifting slowly, he forgot the pallor.

That slow trick with the eyes had first won him–that, and a certain wistfulness in her smile. There was nothing direct and commanding about Sue. Most girls a tithe as pretty as she were in the habit of demanding things. They accepted applause and admiration, as a barbarian king accepts tribute from the conquered. It was no more than their due. But it seemed to Jim that Sue Hampton was never quite sure of herself.

She turned her engagement ring absently and waited for Jim to go on.

“Let’s see,” he said, going back with difficulty to the thread of his story. “I left off where…?”

“You and Chalmers had started for the claim.”

“Sue, you don’t seem half glad to see me.”

He went to her, half angry and half impatient, and took her hands. They were limp under his touch, and the limpness baffled him. The absence of resistance in her was always the stone wall which stopped him. Sometimes he grew furious. Sometimes it made him feel like a brute.

“I am glad to see you,” she said in her gentle voice.

“But… confound it… pardon me, Sue! Look up… smile, can’t you?”

She obeyed to the letter; and he at once felt that he had struck a child. He went gloomily back to his chair. “All right,” he said, “go ahead and talk.”

“If you wish me to, Jim.”

“Confound it, Sue, are you ever going to stop being so… so…”

“Well?”

“Oh, I don’t know! Well, I’ll tell you why I came back ahead of time.”

“Ahead of time?”

“In a way. Someone drifted up where I was and told me that Garry Munn was hanging around and getting pretty thick with you.”

There was no answer. That was one of the maddening things about her. She never went out of her way to show her innocence of blame, or to win over the hostile.

“Well,” went on Jim Orchard, growing less and less sure of himself and more and more inclined to bully his way out of the scene, in spite of the fact that he loved her, “well, Sue, is it straight? Has Garry Munn been around a lot?”

“Yes.”

He had come some two hundred miles for the pleasure of seeing her, but chiefly for the joy of a denial of this tale.

“You mean to say that Garry is getting sort of… sort of…?”

She did not help him out either by an indignant denial or laughter. Accordingly his sentence stumbled away to obscurity. “Well,” he said finally, “what do you think of him?”

“I like him a great deal.”

He became seriously alarmed. “You don’t mean to say that he’s turned your head with his fine riding and all that?”

Tomorrow would be the last day of the great rodeo which had packed the little town of Martinville with visitors, and in that rodeo the spectacular name, from first to last, had been that of Garry Munn. In the bucking and roping and shooting contests he had carried away the first prize. The concern of Jim Orchard had some foundation. When he reached Martinville that day, the first thing of which he was told had been the exploits of Garry.

“Sue,” he said suddenly, “what they told me is true!”

She merely watched him in her unemotional way. In her gentleness there was a force that tied his hands. It had always been so. In another moment he was on his knees beside her chair, leaning close to her.

“Honey, have you stopped loving me?”

“No.”

The beat of his heart returned to the normal.

“Then say it.”

“I love you, Jim.” She turned on him those calm eyes which never winced, and which from the first had always looked straight into his heart.

“Just for a minute…,” he said, stammering, and then finished by touching her hands with his lips and returning to his chair. Another girl would have gloried in her triumph, but in the smile of Sue Hampton he saw no pride. How she did it he was never able to learn, but she was continually holding him at arm’s length and wooing him toward her.

“I know you’re the straightest of the straight,” confessed Jim Orchard. “If you changed your mind about me, I’d be the first one to hear of it. Well… where was I?”

“You were telling me about the trip to the mines.”

“Chalmers had the main idea. I staked the party, and we hit it rich!”

He paused. The slight brightening of her face meant more to him than tears or laughter in another woman.

“I didn’t want to see how things would pan out. The second day after we’d made the strike I asked Chalmers if he’d buy my share for five thousand. I didn’t care much about having more than that. Five thousand was the figure you named, wasn’t it? Five thousand before we could safely get married?”

“Yes.”

“Chalmers jumped at the chance, and I beat it with the coin. Five thousand iron boys!”

“That was nearly five months ago?”

His jubilation departed. “You see, honey, on the way back I ran into McGuire. You know Mac?”

“I’ve heard you talk about him.”

“Well, Mac was down and out. Doctor told him he’d have to take a long rest, and he needed a thousand to rest on. Lung trouble, you see? So, what could I do? There was a dying man, you might say, and I had five thousand in my wallet. What would you have done?”

“You gave him the money?” she countered, adroitly enough.

“I had to. And then, instead of going away for his rest, he blew it in one big drunk! Can you beat that, Sue?”

She was looking down at her hands again, and Jim began to show signs of distress.

“Well, I looked at my coin and saw that I was a thousand short. Four thousand was short of the mark, anyway, so I thought I might as well spend a little of it getting over my disappointment about Mac. I started out on a quiet little party. Well, when I woke up the next day, what do you think?”

“The money was gone, I think,” said the girl.

“All except about a hundred,” replied Jim. “But I took that hundred and started to play with it. I’m a pretty good hand at the cards, you know. For three months I played steadily, stopping when I’d won my percentage. The hundred grew like a weed. When I landed six thousand, I thought it was safe to quit. Just about then I met Ferguson. Fergie had a fine claim going. Just finished timbering the shaft and laying in a bunch of machinery. Mortgaged his soul to get the stuff sometime before, and they were pinching in on him. He needed four thousand to save forty. There wasn’t any doubt that he was right. What could I do? What would you have done?”

“You gave him the money?” murmured Sue Hampton.

“I sure did. And then what do you think?”

“He lost it?”

“The mine burned, the shafts caved, and there was Ferguson flat busted, and my four thousand gone. But I took what I had left… and here I am with two thousand, Sue. I would have tried to get a bigger stake, and I would have made it, sure, but this news about Garry had me bothered a lot. I came back to find out how things stood and… Sue… I want you to take the chance. It’s a small start, but with you to manage things we’ll get on fine. Isn’t two thousand enough in a pinch for a marriage?”

He had grown enthusiastic as he talked, but when she did not raise her eyes again the flush went out of his face.

“Jim, how old are you?”

“Thirty-two… thirty-three… never did know exactly which.”

“Twelve years ago you had a whole ranch.”

“Loaded to the head with debts.”

“Not your debts. You came into the ranch without a cent against it. They were your brother’s debts, and you took them over.”

“What would you have done, Sue? Good heavens, there’s such a thing as the family honor, you know! Billy didn’t have any money; I did. What could I do? I had to make his word good, didn’t I?”

“And the debts kept piling up until finally the ranch had to be sold.”

“Ah,” sighed Jim Orchard, remembering.

“For eight years you fought against it. Finally you were beaten. Then you became a manager for another rancher. You had a big salary and a part interest, but the rancher had a younger brother who couldn’t fit into life. You stepped out and let the younger brother buy your interest for a song.”

“What would you have done? It was his own brother. I couldn’t very well break up a family, could I?”

“After that,” went on the gentle voice, “you did a number of things. Among others, you asked me to marry you. How long ago was that?”

“Three years ago last April fifth.”

She smiled at this instant accuracy–the small, wistful smile that always made the heart of Jim Orchard ache.

“And for three years we’ve been waiting to be married. Three years is a long time, Jim.”

This brought him out of his chair. “Yes,” he admitted huskily, “it’s a long time.”

“Don’t stand there like… like a man about to be shot, Jim,” she whispered.

He attempted to laugh. “Go on.”

“I’ve kept on teaching school… and waiting.”

“It’s been hard, and you’re a trump, Sue!”

“But I think it’s no use. You’ll never have enough money. Not that I want money. But, if we marry, I want children… right away… and that means money.”

“You know I’d slave for you and them!”

“I know you would, and after you’d made a lot of money, somebody would come along who needed it more than we did.”

“Never in the world, Sue!”

“You can’t help it.”

“You’d keep me from being a fool.”

“I couldn’t, because I believe in every gift you’ve ever made. What could I do?”

“Then… I’m simply a failure?”

“A glorious failure… yes.”

“And that means?”

“That I’d better give back your ring.”

“Is that final, Sue?”

“Yes.”

“Then I was right. Mind you, I don’t blame you a bit. I know you’re tired out waiting and hoping. And finally, you’ve stopped loving me.”

She went to him with a smile that he was never to forget. “Don’t you see,” she said, “that every failure, which has made it a little more impossible for me to marry you, has made me love you a little more? But when we marry, we put our lives in trust for the children.”

“And you couldn’t trust me like that, of course.”

“No.”

She held out the ring.

“Sue,” he cried in agony, “when a man’s sentenced to die he isn’t killed right away. Give me a chance… a time limit… a week… two days. I’ll get that five thousand.”

“If you wish it, Jim.”

“First… put back that ring!”

“Yes.”

He caught her in his arms in an anguish of love, of despair.

“I’ll get it somehow.”

“But no violence, Jim?” All at once she clung to him. “Promise!”

In the past of Jim Orchard there had been certain scenes of violence never dwelt upon by his friends. There was a battered look about his face which time alone did not account for, or mere mental strain. In cold weather he limped a little with his right leg; and on his body there was a telltale story of scars.

Not that his worst enemies would accuse him of cruelty or malignancy, but when Jim was wronged a fiendish temper possessed him. Some of those tales of Jim Orchard in action with fist, knife, or gun came back to the girl, and now she pleaded with him.

“All right,” he said at length. “I promise! It’s two days, Sue?”

“Yes.”

“One last thing… if any man…”

“Jim!”

“All right. I’ve promised… and I won’t harm him.”

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