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Page 52
"I seed him. If I hadn't, he'd busted up the weddin' some," was
his laconic answer.
"Where is he?"
Allen relighted his pipe. When he got the smoke drawing freely,
he gazed at Jack thoughtfully and answered: "He's gone. Back
where he came from--into the desert." Jim puffed slowly and then
added: "Looks like you didn't give Dick a square deal."
Allen liked his son-in-law, and was going to stand by him, but in
Arizona the saying "All's fair in love and war" is not accepted
at its face value.
"I didn't," acknowledged Jack. "I was desperate at the thought
of losing her. She loved me, and had forgotten him--she's happy
with me now."
"I reckon that's right," was Jim's consoling reply.
To clinch his argument and soothe his troublesome conscience,
Jack continued: "She never would have been happy with him."
"That's what I told him," declared Allen. "He knew it, an'
that's why he went away--an' Echo--no matter what comes, she must
never know. She'd never forgive you--an', fer that matter, me,
neither."
Jack looked long out of the window toward the distant mountains--
the barrier behind which Dick was wandering in the great desert,
cut off from the woman he loved by a false friend.
"How I have suffered for that lie!" uttered Jack, in tones full
of anguish. "That's what hurts me most--the thought that I lied
to her. I might have killed him that night," pondered Jack. He
shuddered at the thought that he had been on the point of adding
murder to the lie. He had faced the same temptation which Dick
had yet to overcome.
"Mebbe you did. There's more'n one way of killin' a man,"
suggested Allen.
Jack swung round and faced him. The observation had struck home.
He realized how poignantly Dick must have endured the loss of
Echo and thought of his betrayal by Jack. As he had suffered
mentally so Dick must be suffering in the desert. In
self-justification he returned to his old argument.
"I waited until I was sure he was dead. Six months I waited
after we heard the news. After I had told Echo I loved her and
found that I was loved in return--then came this letter. God!
What a fight I had with myself when I found that he lived--was
thinking of returning home to claim her for his own. I rode out
into the hills and fought it out all alone, like an Indian--then
I resolved to hurry the wedding--to lie to her--and I have been
living that lie every minute, every hour."
Jack leaned heavily on the table. His head sank. His voice
dropped almost to a whisper.
Allen slapped him on the back to cheer him up. Philosophically
he announced: "Well, it's got to be as it is. You'll mebbe
never hear from him again. You mustn't never tell her. I ain't
a-goin' to say nothin' about it--her happiness means everything
to me."
Jack grasped his hand in silent thankfulness.
The two men walked slowly out of the room to the corral.
As Echo galloped across the prairie in the glorious morning air,
the sunshine, the lowing of the cattle on the hills, and the
songs of the birds in the trees along the Sweetwater had banished
all depressing thoughts, and her mind dwelt on her love for Jack
and the pleasantness of the lines in which her life had fallen.
Only one small cloud had appeared on the horizon. Jack had not
shared with her his confidences in the business of the ranch. He
told her he did not want to worry her with such cares. True,
there were times when he was deeply abstracted; but in her
presence his moroseness vanished quickly. Carefully as he had
tried to hide his secret, she had, with a woman's intuition, seen
beneath the surface of things and realized that something was
lacking to complete her happiness.
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