Hamlin Garland - The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range

“Since when did you start a hospital for Eastern tenderfeet?” he sneered; then his tone changed to one of downright command. “You want to cut this all out, I tell you! I won’t have any more of it! The boys up at the mill are all talkin’ about your interest in this little whelp, and I’m getting the branding-iron from every one I meet. Sam saw you go into the barn with that dude, and that would have been all over the country to-morrow, if I hadn’t told him I’d sew his mouth up if he said a word about it. Of course, I don’t think you mean anything by this coddlin’.”

“Oh, thank you,” she interrupted, with flaming, quick, indignant fury. “That’s mighty nice of you. I went to the barn to show Mr. Norcross where to stall his horse. I didn’t know Sam was here.”

He sneered: “No, I bet you didn’t.”

She fired at this. “Come now! Spit it out! Something nasty is in your mind. Go on! What have I done? What makes you so hot?”

He began to weaken. “I don’t accuse you of anything. I – but I – ”

“Yes you do – in your heart you distrust me – you just as much as said so!”

He was losing his high air of command. “Never mind what I said, Berrie, I – ”

She was blazing now. “But I do mind – I mind a whole lot – I didn’t think it of you,” she added, as she realized his cheapness, his coarseness. “I didn’t suppose you could even think such things of me. I don’t like it,” she repeated, and her tone hardened, “and I guess you’d better pull out of here – for good. If you’ve no more faith in me than that, I want you to go and never come back.”

“You don’t mean that!”

“Yes, I do! You’ve shown this yellow streak before, and I’m tired of it. This is the limit. I’m done with you.”

She stood between tears and benumbing anger now, and he was scared. “Don’t say that, Berrie!” he pleaded, trying to put his arm about her.

“Keep away from me!” She dashed his hands aside. “I hate you. I never want to see you again!” She ran into her own room and slammed the door behind her.

Belden stood for a long time with his back against the wall, the heat of his resentment utterly gone, an empty, aching place in his heart. He called her twice, but she made no answer, and so, at last, he mounted his horse and rode away.

Young Norcross, much as he admired Berrie, was not seeking to exchange her favor for her lover’s enmity, and he rode away with an uneasy feeling of having innocently made trouble for himself, as well as for a fine, true-hearted girl. “What a good friendly talk we were having,” he said, regretfully, “and to think she is to marry that big, scowling brute. How could she turn Landon down for a savage like that?”

He was just leaving the outer gate when Belden came clattering up and reined his horse across the path and called out: “See here, you young skunk, you’re a poor, white-livered tenderfoot, and I can’t bust you as I would a full-grown man, but I reckon you better not ride this trail any more.”

“Why not?” inquired Wayland.

Belden glared. “Because I tell you so. Your sympathy-hunting game has just about run into the ground. You’ve worked this baby dodge about long enough. You’re not so almighty sick as you put up to be, and you’d better hunt some other cure for lonesomeness, or I’ll just about cave your chest in.”

All this was shockingly plain talk for a slender young scholar to listen to, but Norcross remained calm. “I think you’re unnecessarily excited,” he remarked. “I have no desire to make trouble. I’m considering Miss Berea, who is too fine to be worried by us.”

His tone was conciliating, and the cowman, in spite of himself, responded to it. “That’s why I advise you to go. She was all right till you came. Colorado’s a big place, and there are plenty other fine ranges for men of your complaint – why not try Routt County? This is certain, you can’t stay in the same valley with my girl. I serve notice of that.”

“You’re making a prodigious ass of yourself,” observed Wayland, with calm contempt.

“You think so – do you? Well, I’ll make a jack-rabbit out of you if I find you on this ranch again. You’ve worked on my girl in some way till she’s jest about quit me. I don’t see how you did it, you measly little pup, but you surely have turned her against me!” His rage burst into flame as he thought of her last words. “If you were so much as half a man I’d break you in two pieces right now; but you’re not, you’re nothing but a dead-on-the-hoof lunger, and there’s nothing to do but run you out. So take this as your final notice. You straddle a horse and head east and keep a-ridin’, and if I catch you with my girl again, I’ll deal you a whole hatful of misery – now that’s right!”

Thereupon, with a final glance of hate in his face, he whirled his horse and galloped away, leaving Norcross dumb with resentment, intermingled with wonder.

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