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  Ranch Romances, September, 27, 1929

  For a Woman

  By H. A. Woodbury

  It’s doggone queer the way a girl, who’s never been in love before, will fall with a crash for a man and believe in him even when the cards are stacked against him, and never even ask for the proof of his innocence.

  WHEN Ginger Marston was sixteen, her side and had observed him studiously. She father had shaken his head over her and was an exceedingly trim young creature, lithe sighed. “It’s high time, you young roughneck, and slender as a young boy, in blue jeans and that you was growin’ up an’ bein’ a lady. Do boots. Her brown eyes twinkled in mischief.

  you know what I heard, to-day?”

  And her sunburned nose wrinkled as she Ginger had cocked her head on one

  twisted her very charming features into a

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  grimace.

  too much sense to fall in love.”

  “I reckon,” she drawled, meeting his

  But her father was right, and Ginger

  gaze stoutly, “that them danged English was wrong. Of course! Although for a time it sparrows has been tellin’ you how I was looked the other way round. That is, Ginger throwin’ rocks at Spud Eastland.”

  broke hearts all over Hopi county, and gave no Her father nodded. “An’ they went on

  sign of being affected, herself, until she met to say that you knocked his brand new Sunday Steve Cheyne.

  Stetson off in the dirt.”

  She had just passed eighteen, and she

  “It was an accident,” said Ginger.

  was riding very slowly out of Mesquite Gulch,

  “Accident!”

  one morning, wearing the new red inlaid boots

  “Yeah. I meant to get him in the jaw.”

  and the fringed leather skirt her father had Her father blinked. Spud was given her for her birthday, when the stranger, something of a local potentate. People might coming in the opposite direction, hailed her.

  accuse him of sharp practice, sometimes, but He sat a chunky little blue roan very

  still he was better off than most neighboring erectly, and she noticed especially the lean ranchers.

  alertness of his bronzed face and the broad

  “He tried to kiss me at the dance the

  expanse of his well built shoulders.

  other Saturday night,” Ginger went on, “and I

  “How much farther to town?” he asked

  slapped his face for him. Told him if he came her.

  near me again, he’d better watch out. Well, he She set up her buckskin beside him,

  thought I was kiddin’, that’s all. An’ I wasn’t.

  and noted in addition the bulges of muscle Why, the old grasshopper’s old enough to be under his frayed blue shirt.

  my father.”

  “’Bout an hour,” she told him. Then

  “There’s worse men in Hopi county,

  she added. “You lookin’ for a job?”

  though,” suggested her father. For the He nodded.

  cowman couldn’t forget his ambitions for the She was never able, afterward, to

  girl.

  decide what had made her so impulsive, that

  “I dare say,” smiled Ginger, “but, I

  morning. Fate, no doubt. At any rate, she had haven’t any use for any of ’em. Men—gosh, smiled at him warmly.

  they give me a pain in the neck. They go

  “Then why don’t you come on back

  gettin’ that fool love light in their eyes, an’

  with me? Dad’ll give you a job.”

  then they’re plumb useless.”

  The stranger did not answer her for

  “Reg’lar man-hater, ain’t you?”

  what seemed an age. She felt his keen blue

  “I am,” said Ginger determinedly.

  eyes taking her in minutely, but in a way she Her father sighed rather softly. And for couldn’t possibly resent. They were rather sad a moment, he regarded the gaudy sweep of eyes for a man so young. He couldn’t have desert and sky.

  been more than twenty-two. There was a

  “Well,” he said finally, “I only hope

  shade of wistfulness in his glance. He looked when you do fall, you’ll fall for the right one.

  at her as if he had beheld beauty which he Your kind loves jest as unreasonably as it could admire in reverence, but which he dared hates, Ginger. A man’ll come along some day, not touch.

  an’ you’ll worship him without askin’ no

  “Thanks,” he said finally. “I—I reckon questions. I—well, girls like you need a I’d better not. I’ll look around in town.”

  guardian angel.”

  Again there was no offence in his

  “Applesauce,” said Ginger. “I’ve got

  manner.

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  3

  After he pushed on, Ginger held her

  ecstasy at the view of the far-flung desert own pony still, and watched him as he jogged valley behind her, and then continued on through the yellow dust. He did not look back.

  down the other side toward the cool trickle of He kept on until he finally disappeared in the Cedar Creek.

  green featheriness of a mesquite clump.

  The brush was thicker, here—the

  Ginger frowned. It was the first time in descent more precipitous. She stumbled onto her life that a man had refused to be utterly the sheer edge of a sharp drop into the canyon enthralled upon mere sight of her. In a before she quite realized where she was. Then, measure she was justifiably annoyed. In a while she was still laboring with her footing, measure, also, she was intrigued. This was she saw the men down below, and the men something a little new in masculine behavior.

  caught sight of her.

  Could Ginger have had, at that

  There was a shout. Then a burst of

  moment, some sort of magic X-ray instrument obscenity, and she saw a man fling himself to see into the young man’s breast, she would into a saddle. She struggled to climb back up have discovered that it was nothing new, after the steep slope, away from this camp of desert all. Steve Cheyne’s heart was palpitating just rats, but she realized in a flash that the man as wildly as any other man’s.

  was going to cut her off. Through the brush up If he managed to conceal it, that was

  above, a rider came loping toward her. She his own affair. More secrets than one were looked up to see Steve.

  hidden in that breast.

  The next few moments were a

  In the next two weeks, she saw him at

  revelation in riding and roping and battle. The neither of the Saturday night dances. This broad-shouldered cowboy whose name she did implies, of course, that she looked for him.

  not even know was everywhere at once. He let She thought possibly that he had drifted fly with his rope and yanked the advancing straight through Mesquite Gulch. But he ruffian out of his saddle. Then he charged on hadn’t, as she was to discover.

  down the trail into the camp of the others. He On the third Saturday, she had gone

  shot an automatic out of the hands of one man.

  out to the Bar Diamond soda springs, fifteen The rest put up their hands.

  miles the other side of town in the blue In a moment he had the whole group

  foothills to the North with a group of her high rounded up. Ginger scrambled down to join school friends.

  him in a second.

  It was a hot, lazy, Southwestern

&nb
sp; “Brady fired these punchers a week

  afternoon, and the sun’s rays curled up visibly ago,” he explained, “an’ since then they’ve from the rocky, yucca-covered hillside. Most been stickin’ round, raisin’ hell all over the of the group decided to sit around the springs ranch. Smashin’ water troughs, runnin’ cattle, and chin. Not Ginger. She was more an’ otherwise ventin’ poison. I asked Brady if adventurous.

  I could round ’em up, an’ I been hot on their They had come out by automobile, so

  trail fer two days.”

  that she had no horse, but she determined, He spoke of it all modestly—as if it

  nevertheless, to climb the steep slope at whose were nothing but sheer routine in a puncher’s base they were.

  life! Ginger stared at him with eyes wide with She set out, alone, picking her way up admiration.

  the rocky incline with the nimbleness of a

  “Well, I’m sure glad you happened

  mountain goat. She arrived presently at the along,” she sighed.

  top, sat down for a brief moment to thrill in The two of them exchanged significant

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  4

  glances.

  and Ginger laughed, out under the stars, it was Ginger added in a second, “You’d as if the two of them, just he and she, had been better let me help you into the sheriff’s office laughing together all their lives.

  with them.”

  Just before the evening was over,

  It seemed only natural; after that, that she though, a man on the edge of the crowd called should at last persuade him to attend a to Steve as he was standing alone for a Saturday night dance. But it took a little moment. Only—he didn’t use the name, pleading, even so.

  Steve.

  “You know.” said Ginger, “you act

  “Hey, there, Gyp.” The tone was

  plumb scairt of me.”

  imperious. Steve tried to ignore it, but the man

  “Maybe I am,” he suggested.

  was insistent.

  “Why? I won’t bite you.”

  Steve came over slowly, “Well, what

  “Well—” He met her glance frankly,

  do you want? Trying to shake me down?”

  “it ain’t quite safe fer an’ unbranded cowpoke The man shook his head. He was a

  like me to be exposed to such attractiveness.

  considerably older man, about forty, probably.

  I’m danged impressionable.”

  “Nope,” he said, “you’ve got me wrong, Gyp.

  Ginger saw no sin in that.

  This ain’t blackmail. I jest want to talk to you Neither did Steve, apparently, by the

  after the dance. I’ve got a little proposition.”

  time-the evening got under way. They danced Steve’s face flushed angrily.

  on the torch-lit, open-air pavilion, out under

  “I’m through with jobs like that,” he

  the stars, and they sat out the long said.

  intermissions in the little cottonwood grove, The man smiled. “Going straight?”

  beyond.

  Steve nodded. “Going straight. And I

  Ginger introduced him to her father.

  mean it.”

  The old cowman liked Steve. Brady, Steve’s

  “Well—” The man’s smile became a

  employer, was there, too, and this rancher was shade warmer, “this here’s on the level. It in a genial mood over the afternoon’s exploit.

  won’t hurt you to talk it over, anyway.”

  “Steve, here, come a-driftin’ in outa

  Steve did not answer. As he left the

  nowhere,” grinned Brady. “Couldn’t git it outa man to walk back to Ginger, cold beads of him where he’d been er what he’d done. perspiration were crowding to his forehead.

  Mighta thought he’d been a road agent he was The dance was just breaking up.

  so danged secretive. But blamed if he ain’t Ginger asked him as tactfully as she could, won his right to stay here. Them rats he whether he was seeing her home or whether cleaned out this afternoon weren’t jest she had better go back with her father.

  sneakin’ bums. They was desperate killers.”

  “You’d better go with your dad,” he

  Ginger was standing at Steve’s side

  said. Then, suddenly, impulsively, he took her when the man uttered his words of praise, and hand in a brief squeeze. “I’m sayin’ good-by, she gave her cowboy’s hand a tiny, very Ginger, good-by for good.”

  pleased squeeze. Steve returned it, and

  “Good-by?” the girl gasped. “But I

  glanced down into her admiring eyes.

  thought you jest said—”

  “You know,” he said, “it means a lot to

  “That I’d found a home?” He shook

  me if that there’s true. I’ve come a long ways his head sadly. “Nope. Reckon I was jest to find a home.”

  kiddin’ myself. I got to be driftin’ along.”

  After that, he was even more at ease,

  “Where?”

  more natural, the rest of the evening. When he He pointed vaguely off toward the

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  5

  shadowy horizon. “Somewhere in them blue before it made a difference.

  hills. I dunno—”

  He strode over to the hitching-rail and They stood there very close together in flung himself heavily into the saddle. He the pale starlight. Their eyes probed each would stop by the Bar Diamond and pick up other deeply. Ginger thought for a moment his duffle. Then the long, dusty trail again.

  that Steve was going to kiss her. He seemed to The stranger who had called his old

  waver unsteadily. He wanted to, but he didn’t.

  monicker, there at the dance, had followed Steve Cheyne left the dance alone, that him, and now the man hailed him again.

  night, his mind made up. Any sort of

  “Won’t you listen—jest for a second?”

  proposition this stranger was offering him was the man begged.

  not to his liking. He was off that stuff—for Steve frowned. “Make it snappy.”

  good.

  “It’s for a woman,” the man said.

  He had walked out of San Quentin

  “Come on, we’ll slip into this all-night lunch, three months before, not only a free man, but a where we can talk.”

  changed man. He had had three long years to Steve followed. The man ordered

  think and to think deeply. Father O’Hara had cigars and coffee for the two of them, and they been a constant inspiration to him during those put their heads together.

  dark days behind gray walls. All the old,

  “I didn’t spot you, myself,” the man

  vacillating weakness had been seared out of went on. “I’m a lawyer. Jones is my name. I his soul.

  was over at the sheriff’s office to see about For his fault in the old days had never bail for some of those fellows you ran in this been more than weakness. He had been mixed afternoon. One of ’em recognized you from up in a couple of jobs of the Black Mountain San Quentin, and I don’t mind saying he gave Gang, but only as a sort of tagger-along. The me your name hoping to do you dirt. But that others had planned; the others had struck. He isn’t the reason I called you.”

  had accompanied them simply because he had Steve frowned nervously. He was

  lacked the gumption to say no.

  impatient to be on his way. It was only this That side of him was gone, now—

  talk of helping a woman which had led him definitely and forever. He knew it as thus far. He was chivalrous, Steve.

  positively as he knew he was alive. His

  “It’s a matter of some letters,” the man present actions bore it out, the more.

  went on. “My daughter’d like to get ’em back He was leaving Mesquite Gulch and

  before she gets married. And this guy that has t
he temporary hospitality it had granted him,

  ’em threatens to get nasty with ’em.”

  not so much because he feared this stranger

  “He’s blackmailing you, in other

  would expose him as a one-time outlaw and words?”

  ex-convict, as for another more powerful “Holding the

  letters for ten thousand

  reason. Exposure would doubtless soon come, dollars,” said Jones. “Now I’ll pay you a wherever he went. He would be man enough thousand if you can get ’em. You see I’ve got to live it down. He was fleeing out of strength, to go to a man like you. I can’t put the sheriff and not weakness, for he had read Ginger’s onto the job without telling him why. If I tell eyes, and he-had read his own heart.

  him—well, that’s no help to Alice.”

  He must drift before the spark in each Steve studied his man carefully.

  was kindled into an unruly flame. He and the

  “Why don’t you pull the robbery,

  girl were in love. It was impossible, yourself?”

  considering her loveliness. He must vanish Jones laughed nervously. “Suppose I

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  6

  were recognized? I’m pretty well known Steve agreed, silently. Jones arose and around here. Also—well, to tell you the truth, wrung his hand in gratitude. Steve felt a warm I’m scared to death of the job. It’s so outside little shiver go through his body. If his my line.”

  knowledge of evil could at last be turned to Steve thanked him for the implied good—he smiled—then he didn’t mind the tribute to his own courage. Abruptly, he risk he ran.

  stiffened. “It doesn’t interest me,” he said.