more to divine that she would not stay away from Shelby or from Lee Tate, and therein lay the menace to the future. Nesta must have divined it also, for her head dropped lower and heavier upon the trapper. He put a comforting, sympathizing arm around her, and gritted his teeth to keep silent. She was not proof against both, and the seething emotion within. She burst out crying.
“Oh, Cappy, I wish I were daid!” she sobbed. Her grief grew uncontrollable then. She wept with a wild abandon, as if such passion had been long dammed within her. It frightened the old trapper. When had he seen a woman weep? Nesta clung to him with the grip of one who feared she was slipping into an abyss. Little used as he was to feminine moods, he felt that something dreadful lay behind this unabatable grief. He sensed something he could not explain—that he was the only one to whom she could have betrayed herself.
Chapter Three
CAPPY TANNER roamed the woods next day from dawn till dark, studying the game trails, the beaver dams, the piñon ridges, to find the run of fur-bearing animals so that he could plan a line-up for his traps. He found signs so plentiful that he assured himself of a bountiful season.
Next day he tramped up-country, through Doubtful Canyon, an all-day trip for even a hardy mountaineer like himself. So far as Cappy was concerned, Doubtful was going to have an unfelicitous name this winter. It was a certainty. The magnificent gorge had six beaver dams, one of them backing up a long lake acres in extent, and it seemed alive with beaver. A colony of bears had located high up on the east slope, which was covered with oak thickets. Deer and turkey had descended from the rim in numbers exceeding any he remembered. Round the springs were game tracks so thick that only the big bear sign could be distinguished.
But the beaver alone assured Tanner of a rich harvest. Evidently beaver had migrated from all over the country to this deep black gorge. The cuttings of aspen saplings far outnumbered the sum of all those in the years he had trapped there. It was unprecedented, and the opportunity to make him independent for life. He planned to devote himself solely to beaver-trapping, and to direct Rich Ames and Sam Playford in operations on fox, mink, martin, and other valuable fur-bearing species.
Cappy, in his way, was practical and thorough, so far as trapping was concerned. But always he had been a romancer and a dreamer over plans for the future. Unquestionably this winter’s catch would net him thousands of dollars, and also be a very profitable venture for Rich and Sam. He decided he would locate in the Tonto, somewhere between Doubtful and Mescal Ridge, and go into the cattle business with the boys. The idea grew on him. It was great. Thus indirectly he could bring prosperity to the Ames family, and possibly happiness to Nesta.
Sunset gilded the Mazatzals when he stalked through the grand outlet of Doubtful. First he looked back, and when he saw the lofty walls, cragged and ledged and turreted, shining in the golden light, and the yawning black gulf of timber with which the canyon was choked, he had a sudden stirring inspiration. He would homestead the gateway leading into Doubtful. No hunter or incipient rancher had yet despoiled Doubtful. It was too rough, too wild, too hard to clear and make into a paying proposition. But Cappy saw how he could do it; and right then and there he built a pyramid of rocks to identify his location. At last he had found a home. Only three miles from Mescal Ridge! And in the event that Nesta married Sam—a consummation to which Tanner pledged himself—he would be only a short walk over the ridge, to their homestead.
He sat there on a rock dreaming while the golden flare in the west grew dusky red and died. He was hungry and tired, and a long walk from his cabin. All at once his supreme loneliness struck him. Except for the Ames family he had no friends in all the world. Relatives were long gone and forgotten. He was dependent upon the Ames couplet of twins for what happiness there might be left. He realized then how and why his wandering life could no longer be sufficient.
In the gathering dusk he trudged down the Tonto trail, fighting his doubts, standing loyally by what he hoped and believed, despite the encroachment of sadness. Darkness overtook him on the trail, but he knew it as well as a horse familiar with the country. When he reached the valley under Mescal Ridge a light shone out of the darkness of the flat, and it was the lamp Mrs. Ames always burned, so long as any of her brood were absent. It cheered Tanner. The hounds scented him and bayed till the welkin rang. He stood a moment listening and watching.
“Wal, it’s settled I’ll stick hyar my remainin’ years,” he soliloquized, and there was content in the prospect.
* * * *
Next morning while Cappy applied himself briskly to his chores Rich Ames appeared, hatless, gunless, with a blue flame in his eyes.
“Mornin’, son,” said the trapper, innocently, but he was perturbed.
“Mawnin’—hell!” returned Ames, hotly. “Where you been for two weeks?”
“Why, Rich, it’s only been two days!” rejoined Tanner, suddenly conscious that even two days could brew disaster. “I’ve been plannin’ some lines for my winter trappin’.”
“Yes, you have. . . . You double-crossed me with Nesta an’ then run off an’ hid.”
“Double-crossed you!” ejaculated Tanner, facing about, red under his beard. “No, lad . . . at least not on purpose.”
“You backed her up aboot goin’ to the weddin’.”
“Wal—I saw thet she intended to go an’ I jest agreed. I figgered Nesta was in a queer state of mind. She can’t be drove any more, Rich. If you try thet any more, you’ll lose her.”
“Cap, it’s not a question of losin’ her any more. She’s lost.”
“Aw, Rich, you talk like a boy. What’s up?”
“Nesta’s gone.”
“Where?”
“Lil Snell rode in heah yesterday. She’s rushin’ her weddin’ an’ she said she needed Nesta bad. I wasn’t home an’ mother let Nesta go. When I got back I lit out on their trail, an’ over across the creek a couple of miles I found where they met up with two more horses. Then I was in a hell of a fix. If I’d caught up with them an’ Nesta had met Lee Tate again—Lord only knows what I’d have done. So I came home.”
“You did right. Nesta is not a child like Mescal or Manzi. She’s eighteen years old. If she chooses to meet Lee Tate or any other fellar, what can you do about it?”
“If it’s Tate I can do a hell of a lot,” declared Rich.
“Wal, mebbe it wasn’t. Mebbe it wasn’t nothin’ at all. A weddin’ is sure excuse for girls to be excited. . . . When is Lil Snell’s weddin’ comin’ off?”
“Day after tomorrow at her uncle’s in Shelby. A weddin’, dinner, an’ dance! Shelby will shore be roarin’.”
“Wal, we can go an’ roar a little ourselves, if we want to.”
“Cap, I’ll be there, but I wouldn’t take a drink for anythin’.”
“When’d you see Nesta last?”
“Day before yesterday. In the mawnin’ she went singin’ round the cabin, her cheeks like roses, an’ her eyes went right through you. I was sore an’ let her alone. Then Sam came down. Poor faithful jackass that he is! . . . I had to get away from them, though secretly I was glad she seemed kind to him again. But she wouldn’t let me alone, either. I’m as easy as
