Part 33 (1/2)

She wanted but to get away from it all.

Harris pointed as they rode down the slope. The little cabin that old Bill Harris had first erected on the Three Bar, and which had later sheltered the Warrens when they came into possession of the brand, stood solid and unharmed among the blackened ruins which hemmed it in on all sides.

”Look, girl!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

”Look at that little house. The Three Bar was started with that! We have as much as our folks started with--and more. They even had to build that. We'll start where our folks did and grow.”

XVI

Harris sat on a baggage truck and regarded the heap of luggage somberly. Way off in the distance a dark blot of smoke marked the location of the onrus.h.i.+ng train which would take the Three Bar girl away.

”Some day you'll be wanting to come back, old partner,” he predicted hopefully.

Billie shook her head. There is a certain relief which floods the heart when the worst has pa.s.sed. Looking forward and antic.i.p.ating the possible ruin of the Three Bar, she had thought such a contingency would end her interest in life and she had resolutely refused to look beyond it into the future. Now that it was wrecked in reality she found that she looked forward with a faint interest to what the future held in store for her,--that it was the past in which her interest was dead.

”Not dead, girl; only dormant,” Harris said, when she remarked upon this fact. ”Like a seed in frozen ground. In the spring it will come to life and sprout. The Three Bar isn't hurt. We're in better shape than ever before and a clear field out in front; for the country is cleaned up and the law is clamped on top.”

She honestly tried to rouse a spark of interest deep within her, some ray of enthusiasm for the future of the Three Bar. But there was no response. She a.s.sured herself again that the old brand which had meant so much to her meant less than nothing now. That part of her was dead.

The trail of smoke was drawing near and there was a rhythmic clicking along the rails. Harris leaned and kissed her.

”Just once for luck,” he said, and slipped from his seat on the truck as the train roared in. It halted with a screech of brakes and he handed her up the steps.

”Good-by, little fellow,” he said. ”I'll see you next round-up time.”

As the train slid away from the station she looked from her window and saw him riding up the single street on the big paint-horse. The train cleared the edge of the little town and pa.s.sed the cattle chute. A long white line through the sage marked the course of the Coldriver Trail. Three wagons, each drawn by four big mules, moved toward the cl.u.s.ter of buildings which comprised the town, the freighters on their way to haul out materials for the rebuilding of the ranch.

The work was going on but she no longer had a share in it. She was looking ahead and planning a future in which the Three Bar played no part.

Deane was with Judge Colton, her father's old friend, to meet her at the station. The news of the Three Bar fight had preceded her and the press had given it to the world, including her part of it. As they rode toward the Colton home she told the Judge she had come to stay and Deane was content. After the strenuous days she had just pa.s.sed through she needed a long period of rest, he reflected; but the older man smiled when he suggested this.

”What she needs now is action,” he said. ”And no rest at all. If it was me I'd try to wear her down instead of resting her up--keep her busy from first to last. Cal Warren's girl isn't the sit-around type.”

Deane acted on this and no day pa.s.sed without his having planned a part of it to help fill her time. Her interest in the new life was genuine and she was conscious of no active regret at parting from the old. It was so different as to seem part of another world. The people she met, their mode of life, their manner of speech; all were foreign to the customs of the range. And this very dissimilarity kept her interest alive until she grew to feel that she belonged.

All through the fall and early winter she had scarcely an idle hour.

Her days here were almost as fully occupied as they had been before.

And in the late winter, after having visited other school friends who lived farther east, she found herself antic.i.p.ating the return to the Colton home as eagerly as always in the past she had looked forward to seeing the Three Bar after a long period away from it.

The grip of winter was receding and a few of the hardier trees were putting out buds when she returned. Every evening Deane was with her and together they planned the next, as once she and Harris had planned before her fireplace in the old ranch house. For the first time in her life she was glad to be sheltered and pampered as were other girls.

Gliding servants antic.i.p.ated her wishes and carried them out. But with it all there was a growing restlessness within her,--a vague dissatisfaction for which she could not account. She groped for an answer but the a.n.a.lysis could not be expressed or definitely cleared in her mind.

She sat in the Colton library waiting for Deane to come and take her to a lakeside clubhouse for the evening. Tiny leaves showed on the trees and the lawn was a smooth velvet green.

Slade's words of the long ago recurred to her.

”A soft front lawn to range in,” she quoted aloud. The reason for her restlessness came with the words.

Deane planned with her of evenings but the planning was all of play.