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Updated: May 4, 2025
She almost wished that she had told Seabeck about Ward; he would have sent a man over to look after him. But she was selfish, and she wanted Ward to herself; so she had not so much as mentioned his name to Seabeck.
Then I hunted through every inch of that willow jungle and all along the bluff and the river; Miss Louise, I put in three days at it, from sunrise till it was too dark to see. Then I began riding outside. There isn't a trace of them anywhere. I had just bought them from Seabeck, you know.
"And yet," she added bitterly, "she's going to protect him if it takes every cent she's managed to rake together these last thirty years. You heard what she told you. She said she'd kill you if you hurt Charlie. She'd try it, too." "Hmm-mm, yes! My life has been threatened several times to-day." Seabeck looked at her with eyes a-twinkle, and Billy Louise blushed to the crown of her Stetson hat.
And now to have him to know he's just a common thief and to have him go off and leave her Mr. Seabeck, I'd be willing to bet all I've got that Marthy would have forgiven his stealing cattle, if he had just stayed. She'd have done anything on earth for him; and the bigger the sacrifice she made for him, the more she would have loved him; women are like that.
She looks almost neat, these days. And she can't talk about anything but Charlie and how well he's doing. She lets him do most of the managing, I think. And he had some money left to him, this spring, and has put it into cattle. He bought quite a lot of mixed stock from Seabeck and some from Winters and Nelson, Marthy says. I passed some of his cattle coming up."
After that she faced Seabeck with harsh composure and waited for the settlement. "Hm-mm! I have been looking over the cattle," he began, sitting on the edge of a chair and turning his black hat absently round and round by the brim. "You mm-mm you tell me there were seven head of grown stock " "That they shot and throwed in the river, with the brands cut out," interpolated Marthy stolidly.
He realized keenly that he had a tough pull ahead of him, unless someone chanced to ride that way and so discovered his plight; which was so unlikely that he did not build any hopes upon it. He had held himself aloof from the men of the country. He knew the Seabeck riders by sight; he had talked a little with Floyd Carson two or three times, and had met Seabeck himself.
Seabeck at home?" Billy Louise was not one to waste time in the superfluities of speech when she had anything on her mind. "Sure. Get off, and I'll put up your horse. We're just through eatin', but our grub carpenter will rustle something for yuh, all right." "No, I can't stop this time. I'm not hungry, anyway. Just give a yell for Mr. Seabeck, will you? I want to see him a minute."
Last night, when she lay curled up by the stove under Ward's wolf-skin coat, this seemed the only possible way out: To tell Seabeck and trust to his kindness and generosity to refrain from pushing the case. To have Charlie Fox give back what he had stolen or pay for it anything that would satisfy Seabeck's sense of justice and let him start honestly.
She had rather taken it for granted that he would let that subject lie quiet for awhile. Oh, well, he was a cattleman, after all. Marthy did not attempt to rise when Seabeck followed Billy Louise into the sitting-room. She caught up her apron and wiped her eyes and her nose, however, and she also slid Charlie's picture under the cheap cushion.
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