chaparral along with his spring of mountain water and his
hand-reared and manicured fruit trees. Ferguson had solved a
problem. A weakling and an alcoholic, he had run away from the
doctors and the chicken-coop of a city, and soaked up health like
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a thirsty sponge. Well, Daylight pondered, if a sick man whom
the doctors had given up could develop into a healthy farm
laborer, what couldn’t a merely stout man like himself do under
similar circumstances? He caught a vision of his body with all
its youthful excellence returned, and thought of Dede, and sat
down suddenly on the bed, startled by the greatness of the idea
that had come to him.
He did not sit long. His mind, working in its customary way,
like a steel trap, canvassed the idea in all its bearings. It
was big–bigger than anything he had faced before. And he faced
it squarely, picked it up in his two hands and turned it over and
around and looked at it. The simplicity of it delighted him. He
chuckled over it, reached his decision, and began to dress.
Midway in the dressing he stopped in order to use the telephone.
Dede was the first he called up.
“Don’t come to the office this morning,” he said. “I’m coming
out to see you for a moment.” He called up others. He ordered
his motor-car. To Jones he gave instructions for the forwarding
of Bob and Wolf to Glen Ellen. Hegan he surprised by asking him
to look up the deed of the Glen Ellen ranch and make out a new
one in Dede Mason’s name. “Who?” Hegan demanded. “Dede Mason,”
Daylight replied imperturbably the ‘phone must be indistinct this
morning. “D-e-d-e M-a-s o-n. Got it?”
Half an hour later he was flying out to Berkeley. And for the
first time the big red car halted directly before the house.
Dede offered to receive him in the parlor, but he shook his head
and nodded toward her rooms.
“In there,” he said. “No other place would suit.”
As the door closed, his arms went out and around her. Then he
stood with his hands on her shoulders and looking down into her
face.
“Dede, if I tell you, flat and straight, that I’m going up to
live on that ranch at Glen Ellen, that I ain’t taking a cent with
me, that I’m going to scratch for every bite I eat, and that I
ain’t going to play ary a card at the business game again, will
you come along with me?”
She gave a glad little cry, and he nestled her in closely. But
the
next moment she had thrust herself out from him to the old
position at arm’s length.
“I-I don’t understand,” she said breathlessly.
“And you ain’t answered my proposition, though I guess no answer
is necessary. We’re just going to get married right away and
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start. I’ve sent Bob and Wolf along already. When will you be
ready?”
Dede could not forbear to smile. “My, what a hurricane of a man
it is. I’m quite blown away. And you haven’t explained a word
to me.”
Daylight smiled responsively.
“Look here, Dede, this is what card-sharps call a show-down. No
more philandering and frills and long-distance sparring between
you and me. We’re just going to talk straight out in
meeting–the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now you
answer some questions for me, and then I’ll answer yours.”
He paused. “Well, I’ve got only one question after all: Do you
love me enough to marry me?”
“But–” she began.
“No buts,” he broke in sharply. “This is a show-down. When I
say marry, I mean what I told you at first, that we’d go up and
live on the ranch. Do you love me enough for that?”
She looked at him for a moment, then her lids dropped, and all of
her seemed to advertise consent.
“Come on, then, let’s start.” The muscles of his legs tensed
involuntarily as if he were about to lead her to the door. “My
auto’s waiting outside. There’s nothing to delay excepting
getting on your hat.”
He bent over her. “I reckon it’s allowable,” he said, as he
kissed her.
It was a long embrace, and she was the first to speak.
“You haven’t answered my questions. How is this possible? How
can you leave your business? Has anything happened?”
“No, nothing’s happened yet, but it’s going to, blame quick.
I’ve taken your preaching to heart, and I’ve come to the penitent
form. You are my Lord God, and I’m sure going to serve you. The
rest can go to thunder. You were sure right. I’ve been the
slave to my money, and since I can’t serve two masters I’m
letting the money slide. I’d sooner have you than all the money
in the world, that’s all.” Again he held her closely in his
arms. “And I’ve sure got you, Dede. I’ve sure got you.
“And I want to tell you a few more. I’ve taken my last drink.
You’re marrying a whiskey-soak, but your husband won’t be that.
He’s going to grow into another man so quick you won’t know him.
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A couple of months from now, up there in Glen Ellen, you’ll wake
up some morning and find you’ve got a perfect stranger in the
house with you, and you’ll have to get introduced to him all over
again. You’ll say, ‘I’m Mrs. Harnish, who are you?” And I’ll
say, ‘I’m Elam Harnish’s younger brother. I’ve just arrived from
Alaska to attend the funeral.’ ‘What funeral?’ you’ll say. And
I’ll say, ‘Why, the funeral of that good-for-nothing, gambling,
whiskey-drinking Burning Daylight–the man that died of fatty
degeneration of the heart from sitting in night and day at the
business game ‘Yes ma’am,’ I’ll say, ‘he’s sure a gone ‘coon, but
I’ve come to take his place and make you happy. And now, ma’am,
if you’ll allow me, I’ll just meander down to the pasture and
milk the cow while you’re getting breakfast.'”
Again he caught her hand and made as if to start with her for the
door. When she resisted, he bent and kissed her again and again.
“I’m sure hungry for you, little woman,” he murmured “You make
thirty millions look like thirty cents.”
“Do sit down and be sensible,” she urged, her cheeks flushed, the
golden light in her eyes burning more golden than he had ever
seen it before.
But Daylight was bent on having his way, and when he sat down it
was with her beside him and his arm around her.
“‘Yes, ma’am,’ I’ll say, ‘Burning Daylight was a pretty good
cuss, but it’s better that he’s gone. He quit rolling up in his
rabbit-skins and sleeping in the snow, and went to living in a
chicken-coop. He lifted up his legs and quit walking and
working, and took to existing on Martini cocktails and Scotch
whiskey. He thought he loved you, ma’am, and he did his best,
but he loved his cocktails more, and he loved his money more, and
himself more, and ‘most everything else more than he did you.’
And then I’ll say, ‘Ma’am, you just run your eyes over me and see
how different I am. I ain’t got a cocktail thirst, and all the
money I got is a dollar and forty cents and I’ve got to buy a new
ax, the last one being plumb wore out, and I can love you just
about eleven times as much as your first husband did. You see,
ma’am, he went all to fat. And there ain’t ary ounce of fat on
me.’ And I’ll roll up my sleeve and show you, and say, ‘Mrs.
Harnish, after having experience with being married to that old
fat money-bags, do you-all mind marrying a slim young fellow like
me?’ And you’ll just wipe a tear away for poor old Daylight, and
kind of lean toward me with a willing expression in your eye, and
then I’ll blush maybe some, being a young fellow, and put my arm
around you, like that, and then–why, then I’ll up and marry my
brother’s widow, and go out and do the chores while she’s cooking
a bite to eat.”
“But you haven’t answered my questions,” she reproached him, as
she emerged, rosy and radiant, from the embrace that had
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accompanied the culmination of his narrative.
“Now just what do you want to know?” he asked.
“I want to know how all this is possible? How you are able to
leave your business at a time like this? What you meant by
saying that something was going to happen quickly? I–” She
hesitated and blushed. “I answered your question, you know.”
“Let’s go and get married,” he urged, all the whimsicality of his
utterance duplicated in his eyes. “You know I’ve got to make way
for that husky young brother of mine, and I ain’t got long to