"I'll do what I can—of course," said Eleanor. "Won't you come in?"
But Lucia had no intention of entering the house; she felt that there was less possibility of detection outside, where the light was subdued and uncertain.
"It won't take long," she said. "I am not certain that I should have bothered you. But I — I heard that you were with him a great deal, and I thought that your influence with him might make him relent."
She bowed her head as though humiliation rested heavily upon it.
"You heard — what?" demanded Eleanor, perplexed. She had advanced a little; she stood, leaning forward slightly, uncertain whether she had heard correctly.
"That you were with him a great deal. I've seen you. Almost every day for the past week, or more. And today I was on the mesa back of the timber, and I saw him holding your hand."
"Rand?" exclaimed Eleanor, the word startled out of her.
"Yes — Rand," said the woman, with savage bitterness. She now looked up, her eyes flashing with a jealous light. And Lucia was not acting now; there was a venomous passion in her heart against this woman who had won Rand.
"You don't know him," she went on, raising her voice and moving her hands with a passionate gesture; "you are with him every day, listening to his pretty speeches, but you don't know him. You can have him, though — I don't want him. All I want is my boy!"
"Your boy?" gasped Eleanor, breathlessly. She was rigid, her hands were clenched; and a great doubt and fear clutched at her heart.
"You don't mean —" she began.
"That's exactly what I mean!" interrupted the other. "Don't tell me that you didn't know it!" she jeered, as she saw Eleanor shrink backward and grasp one of the slender porch columns. "Don't try to play innocent with me, and pretend that you didn't know. I've watched you — and you do know. You know Bud is mine — and Rand's — Rand's! Do you understand?"
Lucia had not meant to be so vehement; on the way over from town she had decided to appeal to the womanly instincts in Eleanor; to instill into the girl through her appeal a bitterness against Rand for deceiving her—for not telling her that he was the father of the boy.
For Lucia knew Rand had not told about the boy — she knew Rand would never tell. And so she was sure of her ground, and her manner now, with the jealousy in her heart, was convincing.
She had convinced Eleanor. The girl held tightly to the porch column, the blackness of the night swathing her — a greater blackness within her — while the coldly glittering stars above her swirled in eccentric circles.
"Wait!" she commanded sharply, interrupting Lucia, who had launched a bitter denunciation of Rand. "It isn't necessary to talk that way. If — if what you say is true, I certainly do not care to — to take Rand from you. Why — why," she went on, uncertainly, her voice quavering from the intense strain she was laboring under — for she was trying to repress her emotions — she did not want the woman to see that she cared — so very much; "I assure you that I didn't know! I shouldn't have gone there if I had! I didn't go there to — to see Rand. He told me — something — about the boy — that he needed instruction — training; and I went over there just to —"
"Bah!" sneered Lucia. She laughed harshly. "So that's the game he played on you, eh? He wanted you to teach Bud. He's a schemer, ha, ha! He's a beau with women — he's well named. It's honey — all honey with him, at first. And then the gall. That's the way he served me! He wouldn't look at me after Bud came. And now he won't even let me see the boy!"
Eleanor was fighting hard for her composure. She did not think to doubt the woman's story, for she had wondered all along about Rand's devotion to the boy; and though she had never questioned the truth of Rand's story about Bud, it did seem strange that Rand should have adopted a nameless boy when there were many older men in the vicinity who could have taken the child in without danger of any damage to their reputations.
But she did think at this minute of Rand's attitude toward the boy; of the dark passions she had seen in Rand's eyes; of the smoldering something about him that seemed to hint of the elemental and the irresponsible. She thought of it all as she stood there, with Lucia's flashing eyes upon her — and she suddenly saw Rand as the woman wanted her to see him — as Lucia had made her see him through the power of suggestion — a smiling hypocrite, a woman-hunter; a cold-hearted sycophant, merciless — a mocker in his triumphs.
She gained control of herself presently, and looked at Lucia with the cold calm of perfect composure.
"Is that all?" she asked. "You want nothing more — that is all you wanted to see me for?"
"I want you to help me get my boy!" declared Lucia. "You can do it — while he still likes you — before he wins you. I don't care what you are to him, or what he thinks of you. I want only my boy. If you will tell him —"
Eleanor laughed mirthlessly. "Getting the boy is your affair," she said coldly. "I can only say this — that I shall never see Rand again, nor shall I ever speak to him — about anything!"
She turned, crossed the porch, and went into the house, standing for a long time just inside the door, pale and shaking. Then, without looking out into the night, she closed the door, took the lamp from the center table near her, and went upstairs, where she sat for many minutes huddled in a chair, in a dumb, agonized silence.
Outside, Lucia, smiling, sneering over her easy victory — and feeling no pangs of pity or remorse — for this was merely a game to her, in which the weak succumbed to the strong—mounted her horse and sent it toward town, there to meet Compton — who had told her he would wait for her — to tell him that victory — for himself and for her — was now within reach.
Chapter XXII. Compton Smiles
COMPTON left Ocate early the next morning and headed his horse into the vast level that stretched southward. Two Bar S men, their thoughts definitely dwelling upon "town" and its attendant pleasures, had ridden in late the night before. Compton had come upon them in the Gilt Edge, and from them he learned that Seddon was with the outfit on a branch of the Canadian.
Another Bar S man arriving in Ocate the morning before had informed Compton that Seddon was spending practically all of his time with the outfit, and it had been upon that information that Compton had acted in sending Lucia Morell to the Bar S ranchhouse, to talk with Eleanor. For Compton had not wanted Seddon to be near when Lucia visited the Bar S.
Compton smiled many times as he rode, for Lucia had told him that Eleanor seemed to be convinced of her entire truthfulness. And Compton had seen in Lucia's dark, flashing eyes a reflection of the conviction of success.
In his talks with Lucia, Compton had discovered that Lucia, Rand, and Seddon himself were the only persons in the country who knew of Seddon's illegitimate intimacy with the dance-hall girl. And therefore there was no other proof of Bud's parentage — and even that proof was not conclusive.
For Seddon would deny responsibility in the matter— he had already denied it through his continued silence. Rand had not divulged the secret; and Compton was convinced he would not divulge it. In fact, Rand would not dare to accuse Seddon—for he had no proof except his own word — and all Ocate suspected Rand himself.
Lucia Morell's word, added to that of one or the other of the two men, would be the deciding factor in the determining of responsibility—and that was the factor upon which Compton depended.
And so, having determined to use Lucia as a lever with which to work himself into Eleanor's good graces, the big man rode confidently southward, to hunt Seddon.
He found the Bar S owner with the outfit, working a little level near a shallow river; and Seddon joined him at a little distance from the men, some of whom waved their