The Ranch at the Wolverine

nd shrank down into the bed of ashes. Billy Louise had spoken to him twice, and he had not answered. She had swept all around him, and he had shifted his feet out of her way, and

deep as his absorption in the books he read so hungrily. He had been at the Wolverine a month, and they were pretty well acquainted by now and inclined to friendliness when Ward threw off his moodiness and his

threw it at Ward, with a little, vexed twist of her lips. She had a fine accuracy of aim-she hit him

cigarette so loosely. In his eyes was the glare which a man turns upon his deadliest enemy, perhaps, but seldom i

manner-and with a little snort of self-disgust dropped back into the chair. He did not stare again into the fire, however; he folded his arms upon the high chairback and laid his face down upon the

ad seen her father angry, discouraged, morose. She had seen men fight. She had soothed her mother's grief, which expressed itself in tears and lamentations. But this hidden hurt, this stoical suffering that she had

th an attack of lumbago. "I-I didn't know. Ward, listen to me! Whatever it is, can't

of coquetry. Her heart ached with pity and a longing to help him. She slid one h

ppose you've got lots of friends who'd stand by you through anything. Anyway, you've got me, and-I understand al

ring, and he was doing it without uttering a word. The plummet dropped straight into the clear, sweet depths of her soul. If it did not

meet some day; and if I do meet him, the chances are I'll kill him. I-didn't-I forgot where I was-" He threw out a hand in a gesture that

re, calico-padded stool, and sat down. She waited,

ook at Billy Louise until he had taken a whiff or two. Then he stared at her for a full minute, and

ked quizzically, but with a tensity behind the lightness of his tone and behin

ng-thought into the future, and answered

ross the name-somewhere-an

es

hings, but mostly you were a road-agent or a robber, and when you weren't holding me or Minervy for ransom, I was generally leading you over some most ungodly trails, saving you from posses and things.

y until she tingle

d drew it again between his teeth, while he frowned at her thoughtfully. "Do you understand all

. This was digging deeper into the agonies of life than she had ever gone before. "What

hat? What d

h was coming fast and uneven. "It doesn't matter-to me-in the least. It-didn't say much. I-can't tell ex

man had to take care of and carry along through life, a dead weight when they weren't worse. I never knew a woman could be a friend-the kind of f

for him, I don't think I did so worse-till old Dame Fortune spotted me in the crowd and proceeded to use me for a football." He leaned an elbow on one knee and stared hard at a burni

say it," she whis

it for you, when I come to it

ay put into words, Ward told her; more, a great deal more, than he would ever tell to any other woman as long as he lived. More perhaps than he would ever tell to any man. And in it all there was no word of love. It was of what lay behind him that he talked. The low, even murmur of his voice was broken by long, brooding silences, when the two stare

ll to stand, but-" He was silent so long after that, and his eyes grew so intent a

t part an

had ever dreamed could be. I can't repeat any of it; w

the horses into the stable and fasten the door. He should have sheltered them two hours before. Billy Louise should long ago have mad

. They played checkers for an hour or so and then went to bed. Billy Louise lay in a waking nightmare because of all the hard things she had heard about life. Ward stared u

t Ward just dying for a game of "rob casino"? Sometimes she simply teased him into retaliation. Frequently she insisted that he repeat the things he had learned by heart, of poetry or humorous prose, for his memory was almost uncanny in its tenacity. She discovered quite early, and by accident, that she had only to shake her

l" as he sometimes pessimistically declared. At thirteen she had mixed him with her dreams and led him by difficult trails to safety from the imaginary enemies that pursued him. At nineteen she unconsciously mixed him with

earned, along with other hard lessons, the art of keeping his thoughts locked safely away, and of using his face as a mask to hide even the doorway to his real self. On

on of seeing him doubled over the saddle-horn in a paroxysm of laughter when she led him to the histo

bout it-at Waterloo when the Duke of Wellington-wasn't it? You needn't laugh as if it couldn't be done. It w

is eyes. "Say, I was some ban

you came riding up that draw over there on a big, black horse named Sultan (You needn't snort; I still think Sultan's a dandy name for a horse!). And you hollered to me to get behind that rock, over there. And I quit at 'Forgive us our debts'-daddy always had so many!-and

larly moody day for Ward, and Billy Louise felt that extra effort was required to rout the memory-dev

neral thing," Ward rep

me of them are kind of sweary ones; but go ahea

Ward's lips twitched, and a flush warmed his cheek-bones at the mere thought of singing it

n I was just a kid, and he was forever bawling out: 'Sa-am

full minutes. "I've always wanted to hear the Chisholm Trail. I know how it was sung from Mexico north on the old cattle-trails, and how ev

all that." Ward

lf, and you must have heard it all, at one time and another; and I don't believe you ever forgot a thing in your life." She caught her breath there, conscience-stric

boys, and lis

y troubles on the

ti

eft off and sang it with the rollicking enthusiasm which only a man who

skipping of certain lines and some hasty revisions, he actually did sing thirty, and Billy Louise was so engrossed that she forgo

the saddle, with his body facing Billy Louise and his foot dangling free of the stirrup, and told her tales of trail-herds, and the cow-camps, and of funny things th

ons with which to fight the memory-devils. She led Ward to remember

ine that stormy night in January. The distrust had left his eyes, and that guarded remoteness was gone from his manner. He thought and he planned as other me

as so keen and so sure in all things else, knew anything of them or of the bright-hued hope they were built upon. Fortune's