|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 15
"No!" Bud burst forth; "for your guilty conscience's sake. It
would have been to pay for stepping into Dick's place in the
heart of a faithless girl. To hell with your job; I'm through
with you!"
And, leaping on his horse, Bud rode furiously back to rejoin Buck
McKee in Florence.
Jack Payson's purpose was now cinched to suppress Dick Lane's
letter until Echo Allen was irrevocably joined to him in
marriage. He argued with himself that she loved him, Jack
Payson, yet so loyal was she by nature that if Dick Lane returned
before the wedding and claimed her, she would sacrifice her love
to her sense of duty. This would ruin her life, he reasoned, and
he could not permit it. There was honesty in this argument, but
he vitiated it by deferring to act upon the suggestion that
naturally arose with it: Why, then, not take Jim Allen, Echo's
father, to whom her happiness was the chief purpose in life, into
confidence in regard to the matter? There will be time enough to
tell the Colonel before the wedding, he thought. In the meantime
something might happen to Dick,, and he may never return. He is
certain not to get back ahead of his money.
After the time that the note secured by the mortgage fell due,
the young ranchman had already secured two extensions of it for
three months each. He arranged a third, and began negotiating
for the sale of some of his cattle to take up the note at the
time of payment. "I can't take the money from Dick," he thought,
"even if he does owe it to me. And yet if I refuse it, it will
be like buying Echo--'paying for stepping into Dick's place,' as
Bud expressed it. What to do I don't know. Well, events will
decide." And by this favorite reflection of the moral coward,
Jack Payson marked the lowest depths of his degradation.
That afternoon Payson rode to Allen Hacienda to see Echo, and to
sound her upon her feelings to Dick Lane. He wished thoroughly
to convince himself that he, Jack Payson, held complete sway over
her heart. Perhaps he might dare to put her love to the test,
and fulfil the trust his friend had imposed on him, by giving her
Dick's letter.
Payson overtook Polly riding slowly on her way home from
Florence. She barely greeted him. "Has she met Bud, and has he
been slurring me?" he thought. He checked his pacing horse to
the half-trot, half-walk, of Polly's mount, and, ignoring her
incivility, began talking to her.
"'D'yeh see Bud in Florence?"
"Yep. Couldn't help it. Him an' Buck McKee are about the whole
of Florence these days."
"Too bad about Bud consorting with that rustler. I've had to
fire him for it."
"Fire him? Well you ARE a good friend. Talk about men's
loyalty! If women threw men down that easy you all would go to
the bowwows too fast for us to bake dog-biscuit. Now, I've
settled Buck McKee's hash by putting Slim Hoover wise to that
tongue-slittin'. Oh, I'll bring Bud around, all right, all
right, even if men that ought to be his friends go back on him."
"But, Pollykins--"
"Don't you girlie me, Jack Payson. I'm a woman, and I'm goin' to
be a married one, too, in spite of all you do to Bud. Yes,
sirree, bob. I've set out to make a man of him, and I'll marry
him to do it if he ain't a dollar to his name. But money'd make
it lots quicker an' easier. He was savin' up till he run in with
Buck McKee."
A sudden thought struck Payson. Here was a way to dispose of
Dick Lane's money when it came.
"All right, Mrs. Bud Lane to be. Promise not tell Bud, and
through you I'll soon make good to him many times over for the
foreman's wages he's lost. It's money that's coming from an
enterprise that his brother and I were partners in, and Bud shall
Dick's share. He's sore on me now, and I can't tell him.
Besides, he'd gamble it away before he got it to Buck McKee. Bud
isn't strictly ethical in regard to money matters, Polly, and you
must manage the exchequer."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|