“Look here, Arizona,” he muttered in the ear of the fat man, “what you been before you hit Woodville I dunno, and I don’t care.  I figure we come to a place where we’d both best keep our mouths shut.  Eh?”

“Shake,” said Arizona, and they went out the door, almost arm in arm.

19

For Jude Cartwright the world was gone mad, as he spurred down the hills away from Sinclair and the girl.  It was really only the second time in his life that he had been thwarted in an important matter.  To be sure he had been raised roughly among rough men, but among the roughest of them, the repute of his family and the awe of his father’s wide authority had served him as a shield in more ways than Jude himself could realize.  He had grown very much accustomed to having his way.

All things were made smooth for him; and when he reached the age when he began to think of marriage, and was tentatively courting half a dozen girls of the district, unhoped-for great fortune had fairly dropped into his path.

The close acquaintance with old Mervin in that hunting trip had been entirely accidental, and he had been astounded by the marriage contract which Mervin shortly after proposed between the two families.  Ordinarily even Jude Cartwright, with all his self-esteem, would never have aspired to a star so remote as Mervin’s daughter.  The miracle, however, happened.  He saw himself in the way to be the richest man on the range, the possessor of the most lovely wife.

That dream was first pricked by the inexplicable disappearance of the girl on their marriage day.  He had laid that disappearance to foul play.  That she could have left him through any personal aversion never entered his complacent young head.

He went out on the quest after the neighboring district had been combed for his wife, and he had spent the intervening months in a ceaseless search, which grew more and more disheartening.  It was only by chance that he remembered that Mervin had lived for some time in Sour Creek, and only with the faintest hope of finding a clue that he decided to visit that place.  In his heart he was convinced that the girl was dead, but if she were really hiding it was quite possible that she might have remembered the town where her father had made his first success with cattle.

Now the coincidence that had brought him face to face with her, stunned him.  He was still only gradually recovering from it.  It was totally incredible that she should have fled at all.  And it was entirely beyond the range of credence that modest Elizabeth Mervin should have donned the clothes of a man and should be wandering through the hills with a male companion.

But when his wonder died away, he felt little or no pity for his wife.  The pang that he felt was the torture of offended pride.  Indeed, the fact that he had lost his wife meant less to him than that his wife had seen him physically beaten by another man.  He writhed in his saddle at the memory.