“Dull,” complained Minter. “Men ain't what they used to be, or else the law is a heap stronger.”
“The men who enforce the law are,” said Vance.
The sheriff absorbed this patent compliment with the blank eye of satisfaction and rubbed his chin.
“But they's been some talk of rustling, pretty recent. I'm waiting for it to grow and get ripe. Then I'll bust it.”
He made an eloquent gesture which Vance followed. He was distinctly pleased with the sheriff. For Minter was wonderfully preserved. His face seemed five years younger than his age. His body seemed even younger— round, smooth, powerful muscles padding his shoulders and stirring down the length of his big arms. And his hands had that peculiar light restlessness of touch which Vance remembered to have seen—in the hands of Terence Colby, alias Hollis!
“And how's things up your way?” continued the sheriff.
“Booming. By the way, how long is it since you've seen the ranch?”
“Never been there. Bear Creek Valley has always been a quiet place since the Cornishes moved in; and they ain't been any call for a gent in my line of business up that way.”
He grinned with satisfaction, and Vance nodded.
“If times are dull, why not drop over? We're having a celebration there in five days. Come and look us over.”
“Maybe I might, and maybe I mightn't,” said the sheriff. “All depends.”
“And bring some friends with you,” insisted Vance.
Then he wisely let the subject drop and went on to a detailed description of the game in the hills around the ranch. That, he knew, would bring the sheriff if anything would. But he mentioned the invitation no more. There were particular reasons why he must not press it on the sheriff any more than on others in Craterville.
The next morning, before traintime, Vance went to the post office and left the article on Black Jack addressed to Terence Colby at the Cornish ranch. The addressing was done on a typewriter, which completely removed any means of identifying the sender. Vance played with Providence in only one way. He was so eager to strike his blow at the last possible moment that he asked the postmaster to hold the letter for three days, which would land it at the ranch on the morning of the birthday. Then he went to the train.
His self-respect was increasing by leaps and bounds. The game was still not won, but, starring with absolutely nothing, in six days he had planted a charge which might send Elizabeth's twenty-four years of labor up in smoke.
He got off the train at Preston, the station nearest the ranch, and took a hired team up the road along Bear Creek Gorge. They debouched out of the Blue Mountains into the valley of the ranch in the early evening, and Vance found himself looking with new eyes on the little kingdom. He felt the happiness, indeed, of one who has lost a great prize and then put himself in a fair way of winning it back.
They dipped into the valley road. Over the tops of the big silver spruces he traced the outline of Sleep Mountain against the southern sky. Who but Vance, or the dwellers in the valley, would be able to duly appreciate such beauty? If there were any wrong in what he had done, this thought consoled him: the ends justified the means.
Now, as they drew closer, through the branches he made out glimpses of the dim, white front of the big house on the hill. That big, cool house with the kingdom spilled out at its feet, the farming lands, the pastures of the hills, and the rich forest of the upper mountains. Certainty came to Vance Cornish. He wanted the ranch so profoundly that the thought of losing it became impossible.
CHAPTER 6
But while he had been working at a distance, things had been going on apace at the ranch, a progress which had now gathered such impetus that he found himself incapable of checking it. The blow fell immediately after dinner that same evening. Terence excused himself early to retire to the mysteries of a new pump-gun. Elizabeth and Vance took their coffee into the library.
The night had turned cool, with a sharp wind driving the chill through every crack; so a few sticks were sending their flames crumbling against the big back log. The lamp glowing in the corner was the only other light, and when they drew their chairs close to the hearth, great tongues of shadows leaped and fell on the wall behind them. Vance looked at his sister with concern. There was a certain complacency about her this evening that told him in advance that she had formed a new plan with which she was well pleased. And he had come to dread her plans.
She always filled him with awe—and never more so than tonight, with her thin, homely face illuminated irregularly and by flashes. He kept watching her from the side, with glances.
“I think I know why you've gone away for these few days,” she said.
“To get used to the new idea,” he admitted with such frankness that she turned to him with unusual sympathy. “It was rather a shock at first.”
“I know it was. And I wasn't diplomatic. There's too much man in me, Vance. Altogether too much, while you—”
She closed her lips suddenly. But he knew perfectly the unspoken words. She was about to suggest that there was too little man in him. He dropped his chin in his hand, partly for comfort and partly to veil the sneer. If she could have followed what he had done in the past six days!
“And you are used to the new idea?”
“You see that I'm back before the time was up and ahead of my promise,” he said.
She nodded. “Which paves the way for another new idea of mine.”
He felt that a blow was coming and nerved himself against the shock of it. But the preparation was merely like tensing one's muscles against a fall. When the shock came, it stunned him.
“Vance, I've decided to adopt Terence!”
His fingertips sank into his cheek, bruising the flesh. What would become of his six days of work? What would become of his cunning and his forethought? All destroyed at a blow. For if she adopted the boy, the very law would keep her from denying him afterward. For a moment it seemed to him that some devil must have forewarned her of his plans.
“You don't approve?” she said at last, anxiously.
He threw himself back in the chair and laughed. All his despair went into that hollow, ringing sound.
“Approve? It's a queer question to ask me. But let it go. I know I couldn't change you.”
“I know that you have a right to advise,” she said gently. “You are my father's son and you have a right to advise on the placing of his name.”
He had to keep fighting against surging desires to throw his rage in her face. But he mastered himself, except for a tremor of his voice.
“When are you going to do it?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Elizabeth, why not wait until after the birthday ceremony?”
“Because I've been haunted by peculiar fears, since our last talk, that something might happen before that time. I've actually lain awake at night and thought about it! And I want to forestall all chances. I want to rivet him to me!”
He could see by her eagerness that her mind had been irrevocably made up, and that nothing could change her. She wanted agreement, not advice. And with consummate bitterness of soul he submitted to his fate.