He took a step towards Ashton. “All right, son, we’ll go. But we’ll leave you half that veal, and we won’t take your hawss. D’you want help in looking for your outfit?”
Ashton shook his downbent head.
“Well, if you want to let the thieves get away with it, that’s your own lookout. You’d better strike back to the railroad.”
“Go away! Leave me!” moaned Ashton.
“Gone to smash––clean busted!” commented Gowan, as he turned about to go to his horse, his spurs jingling gayly.
Knowles followed him, shaking his head. The girl had been gazing at Ashton with an expression that varied from sympathetic commiseration to contemptuous pity. As her adopted father and Gowan mounted, she rode over to them.
“Go on,” she said. “I’ll overtake you as soon as I’ve watered my hawss.”
“You’re not going to speak to that kettle of mush again, Miss Chuckie,” remonstrated Gowan.
“Yes, I am, Kid, and you know you wouldn’t stop me if you could. He needs it. I’m glad you smashed his pistol. A rifle is not so handy.”
Knowles stared over the bushes at the huddled figure 44 on the ground. “Look here, Chuckie, you can’t mean that?”
“Yes,” she insisted. “He is ready to do it right now, unless someone throws him a rope and hauls him out of the slough.”
“Lot of fuss over a tenderfoot you never saw before today,” grumbled Gowan.
“That’s not like you, Kid,” she reproached. “Besides, you don’t want the trouble of digging a grave. It would have to be deep, to keep out the coyotes. Daddy, you’re forgetting the veal.”
“So I am,” agreed the cowman. “Ride on, Kid. You’ll be carrying most weight.”
The puncher reluctantly wheeled his horse and started down the bank of the dry stream. Knowles unfastened the hind quarters of veal from behind the cantle of his saddle, lifted them into a fork of one of the low trees, and rode off after Gowan, folding up his blood-stained slicker.
The girl at once slipped from her pony and walked quietly around to the drooping, despairing man.
“Mr. Ashton,” she softly began, “they have gone. I have stayed to find out if there is anything I can do.”
She paused for him to reply. His shoulders quivered, but he remained silent. She went on soothingly: “You are all unstrung. The shock was too sudden. It must have been a terrible one! Won’t you tell me about it? Perhaps that will make you feel better.” 45
“As if anything could when I am ruined, utterly ruined!” he moaned.
“But how? Please tell me,” she urged.
Slowly he raised his haggard face and looked up at her. There could be no question but that she was full of sincere sympathy and concern for him. Her eyes shone upon him with all the motherly tenderness that any good woman, however young, has in her heart for those who suffer.
“It’s all in this––this letter,” he muttered brokenly. “Expected my remittance in it––Got ruin! ruin!”
“It had been opened,” suggested the girl. “Perhaps those who took your outfit also took your remittance money.”
“No, there wasn’t any––not a cent! My valet had my written instructions to open it and cash the money orders––that weren’t there! He and the guide––they came back. The letter had told them all, all! I was not here. They took the outfit––the money––divided it. Left that note––they had no more use for me. … Ruined! utterly ruined!”
“But if you wish us to run them down?”
“No––good riddance! What they took is less than what I owed them. Ungrateful scoundrels!”
“That’s it!” approved the girl. “Get up your spunk. Cuss, if you like. Rip loose, good and hard. It will ease you off.” 46
“It’s no use,” he groaned, slumping back into his posture of abject dejection.
“Oh, come, now!” she encouraged. “You’re a young, healthy man. What if you have been bucked off this time? There are lots other hawsses in Life’s corral.”
He hung his head lower.
She went on, in an altered tone: “Mr. Ashton, it is evident you have been bred as a gentleman. I wish you to give me your word that you will not put an end to yourself.”
There was a prolonged pause. At last he stirred as if uneasy under her steady gaze. He could not see her eyes, yet he seemed to feel them. Twice he started to speak, but checked himself and hesitated. The third time he muttered a reluctant, “I––will not.”
“Good! I have your word,” she replied. “I must go now. When you’ve shaken yourself together a bit, come down to the ranch. You ride down Dry Fork to the junction, and then three miles up Plum Creek. Daddy’ll be glad to put you up a few days until you can think of what to do to get a new start. Good-by!”
She went back to her horse as lightfooted and graceful as an antelope. But he did not look up after her, nor did he respond to her cordial parting. For a long time after she rode away he continued to crouch as she 47 had left him, motionless, almost torpid with the immensity of his loss.
The sun sank lower and lower. It touched the skyline of High Mesa and dipped below. The shadow of twilight fell upon Dry Fork and the waterhole. The man shivered and, as if afraid that the darkness would rush upon him, hastily opened his clenched hand and smoothed out the crumpled letter.
To his bloodshot eyes, the accusing words seemed to glare up at him in letters of fire:
Sir:
We have been instructed by our client, Mr. George Ashton, to inform you that he has at last learned the full particulars of the manner in which you obtained possession of the plans of Mr. Thomas Blake, C.E., drawn by him for the competition on the then projected Michamac bridge; how you copied said plans and destroyed the originals, and was awarded the construction of said bridge on said copied plans presented by you as of your own device and invention; that you were awarded and did enjoy the office of Resident Engineer of said bridge during a period covering the greater part of the construction thereof, and received the full salary of said office, to and until said Blake took charge of said bridge, which had been imperilled by your incompetence; and said Blake, against your strenuous objections and opposition and at great personal risk, saved said bridge from destruction.
Wherefore, because of the disgrace which you have, by reason of the aforesaid actions and conduct, brought upon his name, and because of various and sundry acts of disobedience, as well as your life of frivolity and 48 dissipation,––our client has instructed us to inform you, that he has cut you off from him absolutely; that he has drawn a new will wherein the amount of your legacy is fixed at the sum of one ($1.00) dollar; that he will no longer make you an allowance in any sum whatever; that he no longer regards you as his son; that any communication addressed to him by you, either directly or indirectly, will not be received or read by him; and
