The Man on Horseback/Chapter 9

went abroad rather sooner than he had imagined he would at the time he had given his rash promise to Baron Horst von Götz-Wrede.

And it was Bertha Wedekind's fault.

About a week after the German's departure, thinking there was now a clear field and no favors, he decided to ask her once more to be his wife. She had been nice to him the last few days and, being in love and therefore self-centered, there was but one construction he could put on her shifting mood—she was beginning to like him better; rather, she was drifting back into that chummy, simple sympathy, not unmixed by tenderness, that had been between them the year before on the Killicott ranch, before she had had her head turned by the Prussian officers whom she had met at her uncle's house in Berlin.

It was on a Saturday night, and the Country Club was giving its weekly hop. More than one couple, tired of dancing, had sought the seclusion of the great, sweeping veranda that framed the Club building on all sides to catch the breeze that boomed down from far Hay den Lake, laden with the sweetness of wood flowers and the tang of wet pine.

"Let's go out. I want to talk to you," said Tom, and he was so masterful that Bertha took his arm and went without a word.

She sat down on a rocker, and he remained standing in front of her, looming up square and heavy and manly in the drifting moonlight.

"Bertha," he said in a low voice, "a few weeks ago when I was going to tell you that I love you, you did not let me finish. You told me that you …"

"I told you that I would not marry you, nor any other American." She was not looking at him, but studied her tiny, narrow foot, arching the instep.

"You will listen to me now," he went on. "You see, I love you. I am mad about you, just plumb mad. I—why, girl, there isn't a thing in the world I wouldn't do for you. Perhaps I am just a fool, just a silly, superstitious fool. But last year, back on the Killicott, when I looked at you, pretty and dainty and well-educated and the daughter of a rich man, when I looked at myself, just a poor horse wrangler with not a cent in my jeans, nothing but my sixty bucks or so to live on, I used to pray. Yes! I prayed to God to give me money!"

"Tom!"

"Wrong to pray for money, you think? Not a bit of it! For when I prayed for money, I prayed for what's best, what's most strong, most decent in me! My love for you! You see, I'm not altogether a sentimental jackass. I know that even the truest love in the world can't make a go of it on sixty bucks a month, that even the truest love in the world has got to eat and drink and—" smiling and leveling a shameless thumb at her dainty little dance frock of lavender tulle, girdled with a shimmering length of blue and silver brocade, "buy one of those things once in a while. Wait," as she started to rise, "I haven't finished yet. My words are—oh—sort of inadequate. If I had you out on the range now, with the wind in my face and a little pony between my knees, I guess I could speak to you. But here, with these duds on—" ruefully indicating his sober black and white dress suit, "well, I feel cramped and clumsy and very much like a darn fool. But, don't you see …" and, suddenly, the inner worth, the inner passion of the man, shone in his eyes. His words caught the glamor that shone from youth, from love, from courage, from revival of old hopes, raising of new banners, and soared up to something closely resembling a lyric pitch: "I worship you, dear! I adore you like—like a queen! I love you soul and heart and body! Why, girl, I hear your voice at night, and it haunts me in my dreams. I've smelt the open range in springtime when all the little unknown flowers peep up overnight and make the air sweet and soft—and you, your presence, leaves just such a fragrance behind!" He gave a short laugh. "Talk like a poet, don't I? But—you see, dear—I'm just mad about you, just plumb mad!"

"You must fight against it," said Bertha, with all the priggishness of youth.

"Why should I? Haven't I got a right to love you? Can I help that I love you?" and he went on, reckless of speech, until his passion had spent itself.

Bertha gave a little sigh.

"Tom," she said, "I am fond of you. I like you like a …"

"If you say that you like me like a brother I am going to do something reckless! I love you—nor do I love you like a sister. I love you with a real, honest flesh-and-blood love and …"

"Tom!" She looked up and saw the expression in his eyes. Instinctively she lowered her voice. "I am sorry, Tom, very, very sorry. But …" she made a little gesture.

He clenched his fists that the knuckles stretched white.

"It's no go, eh?" he asked. "It's because of that … that German Baron damn him …"

"You must not swear! I won't have it. You—you are rude and ill-bred and …"

"All right, all right!" Tom's temper was fast getting the better of him. "I understand all right. Your head has been turned by those what does your father call them?—those brass-souled, saber-rattling coyotes …"

"Father doesn't know!"

"You bet your life he does! He knew them in his youth. He hasn't got a bit of use for those bragging, swaggering, square-head Dutch officers …"

She rose, fire in her eyes.

"You are insulting me," she cried. "I am a German myself!"

"Don't you believe it! You're a plain, every-day, field-and-garden American just like me, just like your Dad—and that's one of the many reasons why I'm so crazy about you."

"You—you are …" The girl was near to crying. "I hate you, hate you!"

"All right. I guess you've made up your mind to marry one of those jackanapes with their pink-and-green monkey jackets, the lightning conductor spikes on their helmets, their haw-haw manners and the bits of window glass stuck in their eyes. You …" quite suddenly he recollected himself. He bent his head, like a man submitting to the judgment of Fate. "I beg your pardon, Bertha. I lost my temper. God … I love you so …"

"I don't want to see you again … Never!"

"You won't!"

And he was off at a half run. He grabbed coat and hat, jumped into a taxicab, and drove home.

There he took down the telephone receiver, called for Pacific 6589, and startled Johnny Wall, the jolly, plump little Canadian who directed the local fortunes of the Atlantic steamship lines, out of a sound and dreamless sleep.

"Get me a passage, Johnny! Immediately!

"What are you talking about? Are you drunk?"

"I am not. I am mad!"

"You sound like it …" Wall was about to slam down the receiver, when Tom begged him frantically to wait.

"I'm not mad the way you mean. I am quite sober and quite sane."

"Well—what do you want?"

"I want to go to Europe!"

"When?"

"Immediately. Get me a ticket or whatever you call the fool things. And, Johnny, not a word to anybody. I am making a sneak!"

"All right, Tom. I'll fix you up. Come to my office in the morning."

And so, the next afternoon, after a visit to the Old National Bank where he arranged with Donald McLeod, the black-haired Scotch cashier, for transmission of funds, he took train for New York. He did not even say good-by to Martin Wedekind for fear of running into Bertha.

But Wedekind found out about Tom's departure just the same, for Johnny Wall blabbed, and when Tom Graves, who had four days in New York before his steamer sailed, called at the steamship office for his berth, he found there a special delivery letter from Wedekind, wishing him luck on the journey, and enclosing some lines of introduction to his brother, Heinrich, in Berlin.

"I haven't seen Heinrich for years, in fact not since I was a young lad," added Martin Wedekind. "I did not like him then; he was the regular Prussian incarnation of beef and brawn and damn your neighbors' feelings and your neighbors' pet corns. I don't think that thirty-odd years in the army have improved him any. But he is a colonel of cavalry, and since you are going to Europe, you might as well see all the phases of life there. God bless you, my boy!"

Tom boarded the North German Lloyd liner Augsburg at noon, on Saturday.

An hour or two later, the steward handed him a telegram from Spokane.

It read: