in my purse. I can’t cook anything except to toast marshmallows––”
“I’ve got a cook,” put in young Tom quickly.
“And the clothes I’ve got would be a joke out here. And the things I came out here to forget I shall never tell you––”
12
“I ain’t interested enough to ask, or to listen if you told me,” said Tom.
“And myself can sing to you and dance to you, and I’m twenty years old by the family Bible––”
“I’m twenty-two––makes it about right,” said Tom.
“And if you should count fifty and ask me again––”
“Ten, twenty, thirty, forty-fifty, will you marry me?” obeyed Tom with much alacrity.
“You might call me Belle. Belle Delavan. Well, I came to Jumpoff because––I meant to jump. Yes, I’ll marry you––and the Lord have mercy on you, Tom Lorrigan, if I live to regret it.”
“Amen. Same to you,” grinned Tom. “It’s an even break, anyway. They don’t claim I’m sprouting wings. They say I’ve got split hoofs in my boots instead of feet, and wear my ears pointed at the top. But––but no girl has got any loop on me. I’ve been straight, as far as women goes. That’s my record up to the present. If you can stand for a little drinkin’ and gamblin’ and shootin’––”
Belle waved aside his self-depreciation. Young Tom was a handsome devil, and his eyes were keen and clear and looked right into her own, which was sufficient evidence of good faith for any woman with warm blood in her body.
“Tom Lorrigan, I’ve eaten just three soda 13 crackers, six marshmallows and one orange since yesterday noon,” said she irrelevantly. “I can’t be emotional when I’m half starved. Is there any place where I can get a piece of bread or something?”
“My Lord! Think of me standing here and not thinkin’ whether you’d had dinner or not! Sure, you can have something to eat.”
He took her by the arm, too penitent to be diffident over the unaccustomed gallantry, and hustled her toward the section house. His mind registered the fact that the bartender, the fireman, the brakeman and the conductor would shortly apologize abjectly for standing outside the saloon gawping at a lady, or they would need the immediate ministrations of a doctor. He hoped the girl had not noticed them.
“They’ll throw some grub together quick, over here,” he explained to the girl. “Everybody eats at the section house. It ain’t much of a place, but there ain’t any other place. And while you’re having dinner I’ll have the operator wire down to Lava for a marriage license to be sent up on the next train. The saloon man is a justice of the peace, and he’ll marry us right away, soon as you eat. And––”
“Without a license? I know it’s always done that way on the stage, but––but this isn’t going to be any stage marriage.”
“Well, but the license will be all made out and 14 on the way, and he’ll take my word for it and go ahead with the ceremony. If I tell him to, he will. It will be all right; I’ll make it all right. And then I can get a team from a ranch back here a ways, and take you right out to Devil’s Tooth. It’s the best way. This ain’t any place for a lady to stay. You’ll be comfortable out at the Devil’s Tooth––it’s clean, anyway.” He looked at her honest-eyed, and smiled again. “Yuh needn’t be afraid uh me. We’re rough enough and tough enough, and we maybe shoot up each other now and again, but we ain’t like city folks; we don’t double-cross women. Not ever.”
She said nothing, and when they had walked four steps farther he added with a sincere wish to set her at ease: “I could take you to some ranch and leave you till the license comes, if you think it wouldn’t be all right to get married now. But the womenfolks would talk your arm off, and you wouldn’t like it. And they’d talk about you when your back was turned. But if Scotty goes ahead and married us, I don’t see why––”
“Oh, I’m not worrying about that. It’s just cutting a corner instead of walking around. I was thinking,” said Belle Delavan, while she dabbed at her lashes as though they were beaded with paint instead of tears and she must be careful not to smear them, “I was just thinking how––how good you are. My God, I never knew they grew men like you, outside of plays and poetry.” 15
“Good!” echoed young Tom Lorrigan, feared of his kind for his badness. His tone was hushed with amazement, all aglow with pleasure. “Good!––my Lord!”
16
CHAPTER TWO
THE LORRIGAN TREE GROWS THRIFTILY
Young Tom Lorrigan had found his mate. Had he known more about life in the big world beyond the Rim, he must have been amazed at his luck. Once a man dropped dead in a poker game when he had staked his last blue chip and drawn a royal flush. In the great game of hearts Tom had drawn a royal flush, but he did not drop dead. Instead, he went right on living, more determined than ever to own a million dollars’ worth of cattle and horses before he died, considerably before he died, because he wanted to enjoy that million with Belle. And because of her he wanted that million to be honest money.
Everything he did now, he did for Belle more than for himself. As a matter of course she became his real reason for living. She was like the sun. He took her for granted, never questioning the blessed warmth of her presence, never stopping to wonder what life would be like if he lost her. She was beautiful, with a beauty that never palled and never paled. She laughed a great deal, 17 and he never could keep laughter from his own lips while he listened. When she sang she put the meadow larks to shame, and afterwards when he rode the range alone Tom would whistle strange, new melodies that the Black Rim country never had heard before,––melodies which Belle had taught him unconsciously with her singing. He did not know that it would have astonished a city dweller to hear the bad man of Black Rim Country whistling Schubert’s “Serenade” while he rode after cattle, or Wagner’s “Prize Song,” or “Creole Sue,” perhaps, since Belle, with absolute impartiality, sang everything that she had ever heard sung. On billboards before eastern theatres Belle Delavan had been called “The Girl with a Thousand Songs.” Audiences had been invited by the stage manager to name any selection they might choose, assured that Belle would sing it from memory. No wonder that her singing never grew stale to Tom Lorrigan!
But mostly she busied herself with little domesticities that somehow never included cooking, and with driving helter-skelter over the range with two horses hitched to a buckboard, following Tom when he rode after cattle. Do you think she should logically have learned to ride? She did try it once on the gentlest horse that Tom owned, which was not too gentle to run away with Belle. She rode that horse just two hundred yards before she jolted so far from the saddle that she could not 18 find it again until some time after, when they had caught the horse and led him to the corral.
“Not any more for me, Tom Lorrigan!” she gasped, flapping her two pretty hands in eloquent disgust when Tom rode up to her. “I wouldn’t
