All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

92 straight-seeing breed woman gone, so that he could hAve free rein with books and petty cash, the ordering of supplies, the doling of them out to the hands. ‘You count on me to back your play in such a case,” he soothed. ‘Tl count on you,” Barnquist gave him’ heartily. But behind the veil of his inner thoughts he was thinking—“ And after Mal, you! Mebbe your turn ‘ll be fi’st.” ~. CHAPTER XVII. WHAT BERENICE SAW. ERENICE, uneasy, haunted by a sense of the possible injustice she had done to Ed Burlane, too proud to make an excuse for telling him her real feelings, too unskilled in affairs of the heart to know how to make the first advances, spent some miserable days and nights. There were times when she heard the range rider’s even, vibrant voice as he talked with Pa Wickson about the yard of the. Wickson place, and then she had a catch of longing at her heart. And when Ed went by her window, whistling and. even humming with assumed gaiety, she felt his seeming good humor a3 a stab of pain. ‘‘ How can he be so happy-g When I’m not?” she found herself asking, in vain. She quite forgot that she had not let him see that she was not happy, for she kept a brave exterior. So each, bent upen mak- ing the other feel that their disagreement was a trivial MALLET, really suffered inter- nally. Ed went to the jail with tobacco and other things he judged Peters would need. He rendered an accurate account of the state of Twin Springs to the prisoner, and together they discussed the aspects of his case. Public opinion continued well balanced. Barnquist, dropping a word here and there among the younger element, kept the flame of suspicion against Peters burning; the old-timers combated this fire. The inquest yet loomed. MHarvison and Alberstene seemed to have disappeared from the ho- rizon of justice, sundry hold-ups, horse ALL-STORY WEEKLY. thieveries and killings keeping them busy elsewhere. It was while matters were in such poise that Berenice began to ride out in the long sun-hot afternoons, from sheer weariness of mind and soul. Such casual attentions as the youngsters of the town attempted to pay her she put aside with the disdain of the true woman for the attentions of those she has already estimated as of little worth. Beside them all the big range rider bulked, appealing, calm, a man-size man, a man to make a real woman happy. _ Often as she rode she found herself won- dering about old Midnight, and at such times floods of sympathy for Ed would sweep over her. By comparison with the big black stallion she had once ridden so happily, her own saddle pony, that she had brought in from the Springs, seemed stale, vapid. The recollection of the glo- rious, Sweeping gallop she had had on Mid- night’s back was to her a tonic every time she reverted to it in rose-dream thoughts, and its close, when she had ridden up to Burlane, the gold bead of her rosary of past pleasures. Riding out so, Berenice, on the day that Barnquist dismissed Greasewood Kate, passed the buckboard in which was the breed woman. Berenice nodded to her and waved her hand to the Indian’s girl, on the dunnage behind the racketing seat of the bumping vehicle. Maltrane, stonily erect, paid no attention to her, save to sweep her once with his chilly eyes. Past the side trail to Ox Bow the girl let the pony lope. Although she told herself there was nothing planned about her pres- ent trip, really it was the culmination of the others, for far underneath was the thought: “If I could see the woman at the Chaparral Cock! What sort of woman Is she?” It was a girl’s natural jealousy, in cu- rious outworking. She refused to admit to herself that such a woman as the way- side aguardiente seller could compete with her in a fair woman’s war for a man; but she wanted, at the same time, to see the other close at hand—and be sure. But once down the trail a way her na- COmiIclooOo SS C©