Chapter VII

      Jess Tighe Spins a Web

      "Then you left Denver, did you?" asked Charlton suavely.

      Roy laughed. "Yes, then I left Denver and went to college and shouted, 'Rah, rah, rah, Cornell.' In time I became a man and put away childish things. Can I sell you a windmill, Mr. Charlton, warranted to raise more water with less air pressure than any other in the market?"

      "Been selling windmills long?" the rancher asked casually.

      It was his ninth question in fifteen minutes. Beaudry knew that he was being cross-examined and his study of law had taught him that he had better stick to the truth so far as possible. He turned to Miss Rutherford.

      "Your friend is bawling me out," he gayly pretended to whisper. "I never sold a windmill in my life. But I'm on my uppers. I've got a good proposition. This country needs the Dynamo Aermotor and I need the money. So I took the agency. I have learned a fifteen minutes' spiel. It gives seven reasons why Mr. Charlton will miss half the joy of life until he buys a Dynamo. Do you think he is a good prospect, Miss Rutherford?"

      "Dad has been talking windmill," she said. "Sell him one."

      "So has Jess Tighe," Charlton added. He turned to Jeff Rutherford. "Couldn't you take Mr. Street over to see Jess to-morrow morning?"

      Jeff started promptly to decline, but as his friend's eyes met his he changed his mind. "I guess I could, maybe."

      "I don't want to trouble you, Mr. Rutherford," objected Roy.

      Something in the manner of Charlton annoyed Beulah. This young man was her guest. She did not see any reason why Brad should bombard him with questions.

      "If Jeff is too busy I'll take you myself," she told Beaudry.

      "Oh, Jeff won't be too busy. He can take a half-day off," put in his father.

      When Charlton left, Beulah followed him as far as the porch.

      "Do you think Mr. Street is a horse-thief that you ask him so many questions?" she demanded indignantly.

      He looked straight at her. "I don't know what he is, Beulah, but I'm going to find out."

      "Isn't it possible that he is what he says he is?"

      "Sure it's possible, but I don't believe it."

      "Of course, I know you like to think the worst of a man, but when you meet him in my house I'll thank you to treat him properly. I vouch for him."

      "You never met him before this afternoon."

      "That's my business. It ought to be enough for you that he is my guest."

      Charlton filled in the ellipsis. "If it isn't I can stay away, can't I? Well, I'm not going to quarrel with you, Beulah. Good-night."

      As soon as he was out of sight of the ranch, Charlton turned the head of his horse, not toward his own place, but toward that of Jess Tighe.

      Dr. Spindler drove up while Beulah was still on the porch. He examined the bruised ankle, dressed it, and pronounced that all it needed was a rest. No bones were broken, but the ligaments were strained. For several days she must give up riding and walking.

      The ankle pained a good deal during the night, so that its owner slept intermittently. By morning she was no longer suffering, but was far too restless to stay in the house.

      "I'm going to drive Mr. Street over to the Tighe place in the buggy," she announced at breakfast.

      Her brothers exchanged glances.

      "Think you'd better go so far with your bad ankle, honey?" Hal Rutherford, senior, asked.

      "It doesn't make any difference, dad, so long as I don't put my weight on it."

      She had her way, as she usually did. One of the boys hitched up and brought the team to the front of the house. Beaudry took the seat beside Beulah.

      The girl gathered up the reins, nodded good-bye to her father, and drove off.

      It was such a day as comes not more than a dozen times a season even in New Mexico. The pure light from the blue sky and the pine-combed air from the hills were like wine to their young blood. Once when the road climbed a hilltop the long saw-toothed range lifted before them, but mostly they could not see beyond the bastioned ramparts that hemmed in the park or the nearer wooded gulches that ran down from them.

      Beulah had brought her camera. They took pictures of each other. They gathered wild flowers. They talked as eagerly as children. Somehow the bars were down between them. The girl had lost the manner of sullen resentment that had impressed him yesterday. She was gay and happy and vivid. Wild roses bloomed in her cheeks. For this young man belonged to the great world outside in which she was so interested. Other topics than horses and cattle and drinking-bouts were the themes of his talk. He had been to theaters and read books and visited large cities. His coming had enriched life for her.

      The trail took them past a grove of young aspens which blocked the mouth of a small cañon by the thickness of the growth.

      "Do you see any way in?" Beulah asked her companion.

      "No. The trees are like a wall. There is not an open foot by which one could enter."

      "Isn't there?" She laughed. "There's a way in just the same. You see that big rock over to the left. A trail drops down into the aspens back of it. A man lives in the gulch, an ex-convict. His name is Dan Meldrum."

      "I expect he isn't troubled much with visitors."'

      "No. He lives alone. I don't like him. I wish he would move away. He doesn't do the park any good."

      A man was sitting on the porch of the Tighe place as they drove up. Beside him lay a pair of crutches.

      "That is Jess," the girl told Beaudry. "Don't mind if he is gruff or bad-tempered. He is soured."

      But evidently this was not the morning for Tighe to be gruff. He came to meet them on his crutches, a smile on his yellow, sapless face. That smile seemed to Roy more deadly than anger. It did not warm the cold, malignant eyes nor light the mordant face with pleasure. Only the lips and mouth responded mechanically to it.

      "Glad