Ben Blair
by Will Lillibridge · English · Gutenberg #17844 · 521,974 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Ben Blair
Author: Will Lillibridge
Release date: February 24, 2006 [eBook #17844]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17844
Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben,
forgive me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.]
BEN BLAIR
THE STORY OF A PLAINSMAN
By WILL LILLIBRIDGE
Author of "Where the Trail Divides," etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT BY
A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
A. D. 1905
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
_All rights reserved_
Published October 21, 1905
Second Edition October 28, 1905
Third Edition November 29, 1905
Fourth Edition December 9, 1905
Fifth Edition December 14, 1905
Sixth Edition February 28, 1907
* * * * *
_To My Wife_
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. IN RUDE BORDER-LAND 1
II. DESOLATION 9
III. THE BOX R RANCH 23
IV. BEN'S NEW HOME 37
V. THE EXOTICS 44
VI. THE SOIL AND THE SEED 53
VII. THE SANITY OF THE WILD 66
VIII. THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN 74
IX. A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE 83
X. THE DOMINANT ANIMAL 94
XI. LOVE'S AVOWAL 106
XII. A DEFERRED RECKONING 117
XIII. A SHOT IN THE DARK 134
XIV. THE INEXORABLE TRAIL 148
XV. IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW 164
XVI. THE QUICK AND THE DEAD 185
XVII. GLITTER AND TINSEL 193
XVIII. PAINTER AND PICTURE 204
XIX. A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS 217
XX. CLUB CONFIDENCES 230
XXI. LOVE IN CONFLICT 242
XXII. TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT 258
XXIII. THE BACK-FIRE 270
XXIV. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES 287
XXV. OF WHAT AVAIL? 304
XXVI. LOVE'S SURRENDER 318
* * * * *
BEN BLAIR
CHAPTER I
IN RUDE BORDER-LAND
Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick
Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his
establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved
character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation
calls the falling apple, came from afar and near--mainly from afar--the
malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking--instinctively
gregarious--the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the
temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor.
Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful,
strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance;
devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy
at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the
saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking
likewise of constant contact with sun and storm.
By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The
heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had no more elegance than the rude sod
shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at
extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and
liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely
suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a
lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through
which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without.
When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled
with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued;
it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which
new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by
_habitués_ of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to
the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared
whence they had come.
But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points
of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of
prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but
radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust,
penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from
cheap glassware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the
sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an
imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of
bartender Mick, with its stiff unshaven red beard and its single
eye,--merciless as an electric headlight,--its broad flaming scar
leading down from the blank socket of its mate, became less repulsive
under the softened light.
With the coming of Fall frosts, the premonition of Winter, the
frequenters of the place gathered earlier, remained later, emptied more
of the showily labelled bottles behind the bar, and augmented when
possible their well-established reputation for recklessness. About the
soiled tables the fringe of bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes was
more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker-chips lasted longer,
frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning
had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks.
On such a morning, early in November, daylight broadened upon a
characteristic scene. Only one table was in use, and around it sat four
men. One by one the other players had cashed out and left the game. One
of them was snoring in a corner, his head resting upon the sawdust.
Another leaned heavily upon the bar, a half-drained glass before him.
Even the four at the table were not as upon the night before. The hands
which held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were
steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk
eyes were bloodshot.
A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vandyke,
was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces
downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table.
"Pass, damn it!" growled the man at the left.
"Pass," came from the next man.
"Pass," echoed the last of the quartette.
Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth.
"I open it."
The dealer took up the pack lovingly.
"Cards?"
The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in
his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots.
"Give me five."
The point of the Vandyke beard was aimed straight past the speaker.
"Cards?" repeated the dealer.
"Five! Can't you hear?"
The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask
of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the
face of the dealer turned.
"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe
me forty blues, Blair."
The long figure stiffened, the face went pale.
"You--mean--you--" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?"
For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the
player next beyond.
"Cards?" for the third time.
Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors.
"Three."
A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt
throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt;
then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed
an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar.
"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the
immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!"
Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes
in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board
with a mighty crash.
"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of
'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself."
Another pause, momentary but effective.
"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest
change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing
out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."
Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of
poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was
trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.
"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order
drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"
The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged
away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move.
Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked
unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.
"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered
bully, put up that gun!"
Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,--all but the terrible
Cyclopean eye,--and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar,
his face protruding over it.
"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the
furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it
was a woman, you coward!"
For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of
the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good
dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor;
then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand
dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a
mistake, had sized his man correctly.
"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice.
"Make it as easy as you can."
Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.
"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up
to everybody here for a week on your face."
"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant
to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake?
You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy."
"Not a cent."
"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers
and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without
it!"
"Sell something, then, and pay up."
The man thought a moment and shook his head.
"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the
year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next
Winter--"
"You've got a horse outside."
For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost
dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the
odor of whiskey was in the air.
"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?"
"Seventy dollars."
"He's a good horse, worth a hundred."
"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just
to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season."
"You won't give me more?"
"No."
Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had
returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of
chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor.
"Very well, give me forty," he said at last.
"You accept, do you?"
"Yes."
"All right."
Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he
asked.
Slowly the single eye fixed him as before.
"I didn't know you had anything coming."
"Why, you just said forty dollars!"
There was no relenting in Kennedy's face.
"You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues. I'll
settle with him."
Instinctively, as before, Blair's thin hand went to his throat,
clutching at the coarse flannel. He saw he was beaten.
"Well, give me a drink, anyway!"
Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter
upon the bar. Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled
and drained it--and then again.
"A little drop to take along with me," he whined.
Kennedy selected a pint bottle, filled it from the big flask, and
silently proffered it over the board.
Blair took the extended favor, glanced once more about the room, and
stumbled toward the exit. Mick busied himself wiping the soiled bar with
a towel, if possible, even more filthy. At the threshold, his hand upon
the knob, Blair paused, stiffened, grew livid in the face.
"May Satan blister your scoundrel souls, all of you!" he cursed.
Not a man within sound of his voice gave sign that he had heard, as the
opened door returned to its casing with a crash.
CHAPTER II
DESOLATION
Ten miles out on the prairies,--not lands plane as a table, as they are
usually pictured, but rolling like the sea with waves of tremendous
amplitude--stood a rough shack, called by courtesy a house. Like many a
more pretentious domicile, it was of composite construction, although
consisting of but one room. At the base was the native prairie sod,
piled tier upon tier. Above this the superstructure, like the bar of
Mick Kennedy's resort, was of warping cottonwood. Built out from this
single room and forming a part of it was what the designer had called a
woodshed; but as no tree the size of a man's wrist was within ten miles,
or a railroad within fifty, the term was manifestly a misnomer. Wood in
any form it had never contained; instead, it was filled with that
providential fuel of the frontiersman, found superabundantly upon the
ranges,--buffalo chips.
From the main room there was another and much smaller opening into the
sod foundation, and below it,--a dog-kennel. Slightly apart from the
shack stood a twin structure even less assuming, its walls and roof
being wholly built of sod. It was likewise without partition, and was
used as a barn. Hard by was a corral covering perhaps two acres,
enclosed with a barbed-wire fence. These three excrescences upon the
face of nature comprised the "improvements" of the "Big B Ranch."
Within the house the furnishings accorded with their surroundings. Two
folding bunks, similar in conception to the upper berths of a Pullman
car, were built end to end against the wall; when they were raised to
give room, four supports dangled beneath like paralyzed arms. A
home-made table, suggesting those scattered about country picnic
grounds, a few cheap chairs, a row of chests and cupboards variously
remodelled from a common foundation of dry-goods boxes, and a stove,
ingeniously evolved out of the cylinder and head of a portable engine,
comprised the furniture.
The morning sunlight which dimmed the candles of Mick Kennedy's saloon
drifted through the single high-set window of the Big B Ranch-house,
revealing there a very different scene. From beneath the quilts in one
of the folding bunks appeared the faces of a woman and a little boy. At
the opening of the dog-kennel the head of a mottled yellow-and-white
mongrel dog projected into the room, the sensitive muzzle pointing
directly at the occupied bunk. The eyes of woman, child, and beast were
open and moved restlessly about.
"Mamma," and the small boy wriggled beneath the clothes, "Mamma, I'm
hungry."
The white face of the woman turned away, more pallid than before. An
unfamiliar observer would have been at a loss to guess the age of the
owner. In that haggard, non-committal countenance there was nothing to
indicate whether she was twenty-five or forty.
"It is early yet, son. Go to sleep."
The boy closed his eyes dutifully, and for perhaps five minutes there
was silence; then the blue orbs opened wider than before.
"Mamma, I can't go to sleep. I'm hungry!"
"Never mind, Benjamin. The horses, the rabbits, the birds,--all get
hungry sometimes." A hacking cough interrupted her words. "Snuggle close
up to me, little son, and keep warm."
"But, mamma, I want something to eat. Won't you get it for me?"
"I can't, son."
He waited a moment. "Won't you let me help myself, then, mamma?"
The eyes of the mother moistened.
"Mamma," the child repeated, gently shaking his mother's shoulder,
"won't you let me help myself?"
"There's nothing for you to eat, sonny, nothing at all."
The blue child-eyes widened; the serious little face puckered.
"Why ain't there anything to eat, mamma?"
"Because there isn't, bubby."
The reasoning was conclusive, and the child accepted it without further
parley; but soon another interrogation took form in his active brain.
"It's cold, mamma," he announced. "Aren't you going to build a fire?"
Again the mother coughed, and a flush of red appeared upon her cheeks.
"No," she answered with a sigh.
"Why not, mamma?"
There was not the slightest trace of irritation in the answering voice,
although it was clearly an effort to speak.
"I can't get up this morning, little one."
Mysteries were multiplying, but the small Benjamin was equal to the
occasion. With a spring he was out of bed, and in another moment was
stepping gingerly upon the cold bare floor.
"I'm going to build a fire for you, mamma," he announced.
The homely mongrel whined a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and
with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the
woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering
little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity
born of experience, went about the making of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto
unthought-of possibility flashed into the boy's mind, and leaving his
work he came back to the bunk.
"Are you sick, mamma?" he asked.
Instantly the woman's face softened.
"Yes, laddie," she answered gently.
Carefully as a nurse, the small protector replaced the cover at his
mother's back, where his exit had left a gap; then returned to his work.
"You must have it warm here," he said.
Not until the fire in the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did
he return to his patient; then, standing straight before her, he looked
down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it
been less pathetic.
"Are you very sick, mamma?" he said at last, hesitatingly.
"I am dying, little son." She spoke calmly and impersonally, without
even a quickening of the breath. The thin hand, lying on the tattered
cover, did not stir.
"Mamma!" the old-man face of the boy tightened, as, bending over the
bed, he pressed his warm cheek against hers, now growing cold and white.
At the mouth of the kennel two bright eyes were watching curiously.
Their owner wriggled the tip of his muzzle inquiringly, but the action
brought no response. Then the muzzle went into the air, and a whine,
long-drawn and insistent, broke the silence.
The boy rose. There was not a trace of moisture in his eyes, but the
uncannily aged face seemed older than before. He went over to a peg
where his clothes were hanging and took down the frayed garment that
answered as an overcoat. From the bunk there came another cough, quickly
muffled; but he did not turn. Cap followed coat, mittens cap; then,
suddenly remembering, he turned to the stove and scattered fresh chips
upon the glowing embers.
"Good-bye, mamma," said the boy.
The mother had been watching him, although she gave no sign. "Where are
you going, sonny?" she asked.
"To town, mamma. Someone ought to know you're sick."
There was a moment's pause, wherein the mongrel whined impatiently.
"Aren't you going to kiss me first, Benjamin?"
The little lad retraced his steps, until, bending over, his lips touched
those of his mother. As he did so, the hand which had lain upon the
coverlet shifted to his arm detainingly.
"How were you thinking of going, son?"
A look of surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this,
with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother. He
glanced at her gravely.
"I'm going afoot, mamma."
"It's ten miles to town, Benjamin."
"But you and I walked it once together. Don't you remember?"
An expression the lad did not understand flashed over the white face of
Jennie Blair. Well she remembered that other occasion, one of many like
the present, when she and the little lad had gone in company to the
settlement of which Mick Kennedy's place was a part, in search of
someone whom after ten hours' delay they had succeeded in bringing
home,--the remnant and vestige of what was once a man.
"Yes, I know we did, Bennie."
The boy waited a moment longer, then straightened himself.
"I think I'd better be starting now."
But instead of loosening its hold, the hand upon the boy's shoulder
tightened. The eyes of the two met.
"You're not going, sonny. I'm glad you thought of it, but I can't let
you go."
Again there was silence for so long that the waiting dog, impatient of
the delay, whined in soft protest.
"Why not, mamma?"
"Because, Benjamin, it's too late now. Besides, there wouldn't be a
person there who would come out to help me."
The boy's look of perplexity returned.
"Not if they knew you were very sick, mamma?"
"Not if they knew I was dying, my son."
The boy took off hat, mittens, and coat, and returned them to their
places. Never in his short life had he questioned a statement of his
mother's, and such heresy did not occur to him now. Coming back to the
bunk, he laid his cheek caressingly beside hers.
"Is there anything I can do for you, mamma?" he whispered.
"Nothing but what you are doing now, laddie."
Tired of standing, the mongrel dropped within his tracks flat upon his
belly, and, his head resting upon his fore-paws, lay watching intently.
* * * * *
When the door of Mick Kennedy's saloon closed with an emphasis that
shook the very walls, it shut out a being more ferocious, more evil,
than any beast of the jungle. For the time, Blair's alcohol-saturated
brain evolved but one chain of thought, was capable of but one
emotion--hate. Every object in the universe, from its Creator to
himself, fell under the ban. The language of hate is curses; and as he
moved out over the prairie there dripped from his lips continuously,
monotonously, a trickling, blighting stream of malediction. Swaying,
stumbling, unconscious of his physical motions, instinct kept him upon
the trail; a Providence, sometimes kindest to those least worthy,
preserved him from injury.
Half way out he met a solitary Indian astride a faded-looking mustang,
and the current of his wrath was temporarily diverted by a surly "How!"
Even this measure of friendliness was regretted when the big revolver
came out of the rancher's holster like a flash, and, head low on the
neck of the mustang, heels in the little beast's ribs, the aborigine
retreated with a yell, amid a shower of ill-aimed bullets. Long after
the figure on the pony had passed out of range, Blair stood pulling at
the trigger of the empty repeater and cursing louder than before because
it would not "pop."
Two hours later, when it was past noon, an uncertain hand lifted the
wooden latch of the Big B Ranch-house door, and, heralded by an inrush
of cold outside air, Tom Blair, master and dictator, entered his domain.
The passage of time, the physical exercise, and the prairie air, had
somewhat cleared his brain. Just within the room, he paused and looked
about him with surprise. With premonition of impending trouble, the
mongrel bristled the yellow hair of his neck, and, retreating to the
mouth of his kennel, stood guard; but otherwise the scene was to a
detail as it had been in the morning. The woman lay passive within the
bunk. The child by her side, holding her hand, did not turn. The very
atmosphere of the place tingled with an ominous quiet,--a silence such
as one who has lived through a cyclone connects instinctively with a
whirling oncoming black funnel.
The new-comer was first to make a move. Walking over to the centre of
the room, he stopped and looked upon his subjects.
"Well, of all the infernally lazy people I ever saw!" he commented, "you
beat them, Jennie! Get up and cook something to eat; it's way after
noon, and I'm hungry."
The woman said nothing, but the boy slid to his feet, facing the
intruder.
"Mamma's sick and can't get up," he explained as impersonally as to a
stranger. "Besides, there isn't anything to cook. She said so."
The man's brow contracted into a frown.
"Speak when you're spoken to, young upstart!" he snapped. "Out with you,
Jennie! I don't want to be monkeyed with to-day!"
He hung up his coat and cap, and loosened his belt a hole; but no one
else in the room moved.
"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, looking warningly toward the bunk.
"Yes," she replied.
Autocrat under his own roof, the man paused in surprise. Never before
had a command here been disobeyed. He could scarcely believe his own
senses.
"You know what to do, then," he said sharply.
For the first time a touch of color came into the woman's cheeks, and
catching the man's eyes she looked into them unfalteringly.
"Since when did I become your slave, Tom Blair?" she asked slowly.
The words were a challenge, the tone was that of some wild thing,
wounded, cornered, staring death in the face, but defiant to the end.
"Since when did you become my owner, body and soul?"
Any sportsman, any being with a fragment of admiration for even animal
courage, would have held aloof then. It remained for this man, bred amid
high civilization, who had spent years within college halls, to strike
the prostrate. As in the frontier saloon, so now his hand went
involuntarily to his throat, clutched at the binding collar until the
button flew; then, as before, his face went white.
"Since when!" he blazed, "since when! I admire your nerve to ask that
question of me! Since six years ago, when you first began living with
me. Since the day when you and the boy,--and not a preacher within a
hundred miles--" Words, a flood of words, were upon his lips; but
suddenly he stopped. Despite the alcohol still in his brain, despite the
effort he made to continue, the gaze of the woman compelled silence.
"You dare recall that memory, Tom Blair?" The words came more slowly
than before, and with an intensity that burned them into the hearer's
memory. "You dare, knowing what I gave up for your sake!" The eyes
blazed afresh, the dark head was raised on the pillows. "You know that
my son stands listening, and yet you dare throw my coming to you in my
face?"
White to the lips went the scarred visage of the man, but the madness
was upon him.
"I dare?" To his own ears the voice sounded unnatural. "I dare? To be
sure I dare! You came to me of your own free-will. You were not a
child!" His voice rose and the flush returned to his face. "You knew the
price and accepted it deliberately,--deliberately, I say!"
Without a sound, the figure in the rough bunk quivered and stiffened;
the hand upon the coverlet was clenched until the nails grew white, then
it relaxed. Slowly, very slowly, the eyelids closed as though in sleep.
Impassive but intent listener, an instinct now sent the boy Benjamin
back to his post.
"Mamma," he said gently. "Mamma!"
There was no answer, nor even a responsive pressure of the hand.
"Mamma!" he repeated more loudly. "Mamma! Mamma!"
Still no answer, only the limp passivity. Then suddenly, although never
before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he
recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this;
she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak
to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization
of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,--one who had
said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her
cheeks,--this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the
meaning of what he had just heard. No human being had suggested to him
that Blair was the cause of his mother's death; but as surely as he
would remember their words as long as he lived, so surely did he
recognize the man's guilt. Suddenly, as powder responds to the spark,
there surged through his tiny body a terrible animal hate for this man,
and, scarcely realizing the action, he rushed at him.
"She's dead and you killed her!" he screamed. "Mamma's dead, dead!" and
the little doubled fists struck at the man's legs again and again.
Oblivious to the onslaught, Tom Blair strode over to the bunk.
"Jennie," he said, not unkindly, "Jennie, what's the matter?"
Again there was no response, and a shade of awe crept into the man's
voice.
"Jennie! Jennie! Answer me!" A hand fell upon the woman's shoulder and
shook it, first gently, then roughly. "Answer me, I say!"
With the motion, the head of the dead shifted upon the pillow and turned
toward the man, and involuntarily he loosened his grasp. He had not
eaten for twenty-four hours, and in sudden weakness he made his way to
one of the rough chairs, and sat down, his face buried in his hands.
Behind him the boy Benjamin, his sudden hot passion over, stood watching
intently,--his face almost uncanny in its lack of childishness.
For a time there was absolute silence, the hush of a death-chamber; then
of a sudden the boy was conscious that the man was looking at him in a
way he had never looked before. Deep down below our consciousness, far
beneath the veneer of civilization, there is an instinct, relic of the
vigilant savage days, that warns us of personal danger. By this instinct
the lad now interpreted the other's gaze, and knew that it meant ill for
him. For some reason which he could not understand, this man, this big
animal, was his mortal enemy; and, in the manner of smaller animals, he
began to consider an avenue of escape.
"Ben," spoke the man, "come here!"
Tom Blair was sober now, and wore a look of determination upon his face
that few had ever seen there before; but to his surprise the boy did not
respond. He waited a moment, and then said sharply:
"Ben, I'm speaking to you. Come here at once!"
For answer there was a tightening of the lad's blue eyes and an added
watchfulness in the incongruously long childish figure; but that was
all.
Another lagging minute passed, wherein the two regarded each other
steadily. The man's eyes dropped first.
"You little devil!" he muttered, and the passion began showing in his
voice. "I believe you knew what I was thinking all the time! Anyway,
you'll know now. You said awhile ago that I was to blame for your mother
being--as she is. You're liable to say that again." A horror greater
than sudden passion was in the deliberate explanation and in the slow
way he rose to his feet. "I'm going to fix you so you can't say it
again, you old-man imp!"
Then a peculiar thing happened. Instead of running away, the boy took a
step forward, and the man paused, scarcely believing his eyes. Another
step forward, and yet another, came the diminutive figure, until almost
within the aggressor's reach; then suddenly, quick as a cat, it veered,
dropped upon all fours to the floor, and head first, scrambling like a
rabbit, disappeared into the open mouth of the dog-kennel.
Too late the man saw the trick, and curses came to his lips,--curses fit
for a fiend, fit for the irresponsible being he was. He himself had
built that kennel. It extended in a curve eight feet into the solid sod
foundation, and to get at the spot where the boy now lay he would have
to tear down the house itself. The temper which had made the man what he
now was, a drunkard and fugitive in a frontier country, took possession
of him wholly, and with it came a madman's cunning; for at a sudden
thought he stopped, and the cursing tongue was silent. Five minutes
later he left the place, closing the door carefully behind him; but
before that time a red jet of flame, like the ravenous tongue of a
famished beast, was lapping at a hastily assembled pile of tinder-dry
furniture in one corner of the shanty.
CHAPTER III
THE BOX R RANCH
Mr. Rankin moved back from a well-discussed table, and, the room being
conveniently small, tilted his chair back against the wall. The
protesting creak of the ill-glued joints under the strain of his
ponderous figure was a signal for all the diners, and five other men
likewise drew away from around the board. Rankin extracted a match and a
stout jack-knife from the miscellaneous collection of useful articles in
his capacious pocket, carefully whittled the bit of wood to a point, and
picked his teeth deliberately. The five "hands," sun-browned, unshaven,
dissimilar in face as in dress, waited in expectation; but the
housekeeper, a shapeless, stolid-looking woman, wife of the foreman,
Graham, went methodically about the work of clearing the table. Rankin
watched her a moment indifferently; then without turning his head, his
eyes shifted in their narrow slits of sockets until they rested upon one
of the cowboys.
"What time was it you saw that smoke, Grannis?" he asked.
The man addressed paused in the operation of rolling a cigarette.
"'Bout an hour ago, I should say. I was just thinking of coming in to
dinner."
The lids met over Rankin's eyes, then the narrow slit opened.
"It was in the no'thwest you say, and seemed to be quite a way off?"
Grannis nodded.
"Yes; I couldn't make out any fire, only the smoke, and that didn't last
long. I thought at first maybe it was a prairie fire, and started to
see; but it was getting thinner before I'd gone a mile, so I turned
round and by the time I got back to the corral there wasn't nothing at
all to see."
Two of the other hands solemnly exchanged a wink.
"Think you must have eaten too many of Ma Graham's pancakes this
morning, and had a blur over your eyes," commented one, slyly. "Prairie
fires don't stop that sudden when the grass is like it is now."
The portly housewife paused in her work to cast a look of scorn upon the
speaker, but Grannis rushed into the breach.
"Don't you believe it. There was a fire all right. Somebody stopped it,
or it stopped itself, that's all."
Tilting his chair forward with an effort, Rankin got to his feet, and,
as usual, his action brought the discussion to an end. The woman
returned to her work; the men put on hats and coats preparatory to going
out of doors. Only the proprietor stood passive a moment absently
drawing down his vest over his portly figure.
"Graham," he said at last, "hitch the mustangs to the light wagon."
"All right."
"And, Graham--"
The man addressed paused.
"Throw in a couple of extra blankets."
"All right."
Out of doors the men took up the conversation where they had left off.
"You better begin to hope the old man finds something that's been afire
up there, Grannis," said the joker of the house. "If he don't, you've
cooked your goose proper."
Grannis was a new-comer, and looked his surprise.
"Why so?" he asked.
"You'll find out why," retorted the other. "Fire here's 'most as
uncommon as rain, and the boss don't like them smoky jokes."
"But I saw smoke, I tell you," reiterated Grannis, defensively; "smoke,
dead sure!"
"All right, if you're certain sure."
"Marcom knows what he's talking about, Grannis," said Graham. "He tried
to ginger things up a bit when he was new here, like you are; found a
litter of coyotes one September--thought they were timber wolves, I
guess, and braced up with his story to the old man." The speaker paused
with a reflective grin.
"Well, what happened?" asked Grannis.
"What happened? The boss sent me dusting about forty miles to get some
hounds. Nearly spoiled a good team to get back inside sixteen hours,
and--they found out Bill here in the next thirty minutes, that was all!"
Once more the story ended in a grin.
"What'd Rankin say?" asked Grannis, with interest.
"How about it, Bill?" suggested Graham.
The big cowboy looked a trifle foolish.
"Oh, he didn't say much; 'tain't his way. He just remarked, sort of
off-hand, that as far as I was concerned the next year had only about
four pay-months in it. That was all."
* * * * *
Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing at once. This was the
motto of the master of the Box R Ranch. In ten minutes' time Rankin's
big shapeless figure, seated in the old buckboard, was moving northwest
at the steady jog-trot typical of prairie travel, and which as the hours
pass by annihilates distance surprisingly. Simply a fat, an abnormally
fat, man, the casual observer would have said. It remained for those who
came in actual contact with him to learn the force beneath the
forbidding exterior,--the relentless bull-dog energy that had made him
dictator of the great ranch, and kept subordinate the restless, roving,
dissolute men-of-fortune he employed,--the deliberate and impartial
judgment which had made his word as near law as it was possible for any
mandate to be among the motley inhabitants within a radius of fifty
miles. Had Rankin chosen he could have attained honor, position, power
in his native Eastern home. No barrier built of convention or of
conservatism could have withstood him. Society reserves her prizes
largely for the man of initiative; and, uncomely block as he was, Rankin
was of the true type. But for some reason, a reason known to none of his
associates, he had chosen to come to the West. Some consideration or
other had caused him to stop at his present abode, and had made him
apparently a fixture in the midst of this unconquered country.
There was no road in the direction Rankin was travelling,--only the
unbroken prairie sod, eaten close by the herds that grazed its every
foot. Even under the direct sunlight the air was sharp. The regular
breath of the mustangs shot out like puffs of steam from the exhaust of
an engine, and the moisture frosted about their flanks and nostrils. But
the big man on the seat did not notice temperature. He had produced a
pipe from the depths beneath the wagon seat, and tobacco from a jar
cunningly fitted into one corner of the box, both without moving from
his place, the seat being hinged and divided in the centre to facilitate
the operation. More a home to him than the ranch-house itself was that
battered buckboard. Here, on an average, he spent eight hours out of the
twenty-four, and that seat-box was a veritable storehouse of articles
used in his daily life. As the jog-trot measured off the miles he
replenished the pipe again and again, leaving behind him the odor of
strong tobacco.
Not until he was within a mile of the "Big B" property, and a rise in
the monotonous roll of the land brought him in range of vision, did
Rankin show that he felt more than ordinary interest in his expedition;
then, shading his eyes, he looked steadily ahead. The sod barn stood in
its usual place; the corral, with its posts set close together,
stretched by its side; but where the house had stood there could not be
distinguished even a mound. The hand on the reins tightened meaningly,
and in sympathy the mustangs moved ahead at a swifter pace, leaving
behind a trail of tobacco-smoke denser than before.
* * * * *
When the little Benjamin Blair, fugitive, had literally taken to the
earth, it was with definite knowledge of the territory he was entering.
He had often explored its depths with childish curiosity, to the
distress of his mother and the disgust of the rightful owner, the
mongrel dog. Retreating to the farther end of the cave, the instinct of
self-preservation set hands and feet to work like the claws of a gopher,
filling with loose dirt the narrow passage through which he had entered.
Panting and perspiring with the effort, choked with the dust he raised,
all but suffocated, he dug until his strength gave out; then, curling up
in his narrow quarters, he lay listening. At first he heard nothing, not
even a sound from the dog; and he wondered at the fact. He could not
believe that Tom Blair would leave him in peace, and he breathlessly
awaited the first tap of an instrument against his retreat. A minute
passed, lengthened to five--to ten--and with the quick impatience of
childhood he started to learn the reason of the delay. His active little
body revolved in its nest. In the darkness a wiry arm scratched at the
recently erected barricade. A head with a tousled mass of hair poked its
way into the opening, crowded forward a foot--two feet, then stopped,
the whole body quivering. He had passed the curve, and of a sudden it
was as though he had opened the door of a furnace and gazed inside.
Instead of the familiar room, a great sheet of flame walled him in.
Instead of silence, a roar as of a hurricane was in his ears. Never in
his life had he seen a great fire, but instantly he understood.
Instantly the instinctive animal terror of fire gripped him; he
retreated to the very depths of the kennel, and burying his small head
in his arms lay still. But not even then, child though he was, did he
utter a cry. The endurance which had made Jennie Blair stare death
impassively in the face was part and parcel of his nature.
For the space of perhaps a minute Ben lay motionless. Louder than before
came to his ears the roar of the fire. Occasionally a hot tongue of
flame intruded mockingly into the mouth of his retreat. The confined air
about him grew close, narcotic. He expected to die, and with the
premonition of death an abnormal activity came to the child-brain.
Whatever knowledge he possessed of death was connected with his mother.
It was she who had given him his vague impression of another life. She
herself, as she lay silent and unresponsive, had been the first concrete
example of it. Inevitably thought of her came to him now,--practical,
material thought, crowding from his brain the blind terror that had been
its predecessor. Where was his mother now? He pictured again the furnace
into which he had gazed from the mouth of the kennel. Though perhaps she
would not feel it, she would be burned--burned to a crisp--destroyed
like the fuel he had tossed into the makeshift stove! Instinctively he
felt the sacrilege, and the desire to do something to prevent it.
Something--yes, but what? He was himself helpless; he must seek outside
aid--but where? Suddenly there occurred to the child-mind a suggestion
applicable to his difficulty, an adequate solution, for it involved
everything he had learned to trust in life. He remembered a Being more
powerful than man, more powerful than fire or cold,--a Being whom his
mother had called God. Believing in Him, it was necessary only to ask
for whatever one wished. For himself, even to save his life, he would
not call upon this Being; but for his mamma! In childish faith he folded
his hands and closed his eyes in the darkness.
"God," he prayed, "please put out this fire and save my mamma from
burning!"
The small hands loosened and the lips parted to hear the first
diminution in the growl of the flame. But it roared on.
"God!" The hands were clasped again, the voice vibrant with pleading.
"God, please put out the fire! Please put it out!"
Silence again within, but without only the steady roaring crackle. Could
it be possible the petition had not been heard? The childish hands met
more tightly than before. The small body fairly writhed.
"God! God!" he implored for the third time. "Listen to me, please! Save
my mamma, my mamma!"
For a moment the little figure lay still. Surely there would be an
answer now. His mamma had said there would be, and whatever his mamma
had told him had always come true. The air about him was so close he
could scarcely breathe; but he did not notice it. Reversing head and
feet, he started out of the kennel. It was certainly time to leave. The
roar he had heard must have been of the wind. Assuredly God had acted
before this. Head first, gasping, he moved on, reached the curve, and
looked out.
Indignation took possession of the little figure. The fingers clinched
until the nails bit deep into the soft palms. The whole body trembled in
impotent anger and outraged self-respect. Upon the face of the small man
was suddenly written the implacable defiance which one sees in carnivora
when wounded and cornered--intensified as an expression can only be
intensified upon a human face--as, almost unconsciously, he returned to
the hollow he had left, and fairly thrust his tousled head into the
kindly earth.
How long he remained there he did not know. The stifling atmosphere of
the place gradually overcame him. Anger, wonder, the multitude of
thoughts crowding his child-brain, slowly faded away; consciousness
lapsed, and he slept.
When he awoke it was with a start and a vague wonder as to his
whereabouts. Then memory returned, and he listened intently. Not a sound
could he distinguish save his own breathing, as he slowly made his way
to the mouth of the kennel. Before him was the opposite sod wall of the
house standing as high as his head; above that, the blue of the sky;
upon what had been the earthen floor, a strewing of ashes; over all,
calm, glorious, the slanting rays of the low afternoon sun. A moment the
boy lay gazing out; then he crawled to his feet, shaking off the dirt as
a dog does. One glance about, and the blue eyes halted. A moisture came
into them, gathered into drops, and then, breaking over the barrier of
the long lashes, tears flowed through the accumulated grime, down the
thin cheeks, leaving a clean pathway behind. That was all, for an
instant; then a look--terrible in a mature person and doubly so in a
child--came over the long face,--an expression partaking of both hate
and vengeance. It mirrored an emotion that in a nature such as that of
Benjamin Blair would never be forgotten. Some day, for some one, there
would be a moment of reckoning; for the child was looking at the
charred, unrecognizable corpse of his mother.
* * * * *
A half-hour later, Rankin, steaming into the yard of the Big B Ranch,
came upon a scene that savored much of a play. It was so dramatic that
the big man paused in contemplation of it. He saw there the sod and
ashes of what had once been a home. The place must have burned like
tinder, for now, but a few hours from the time when Grannis had first
given the alarm, not an atom of smoke ascended. At one end of the
quadrangular space enclosed by the walls stood the makeshift stove,
discolored with the heat, as was the length of pipe by its side. Near by
was a heap of warped iron and tin cooking utensils. At one side, covered
by an old gunny-sack and a boy's tattered coat, was another object the
form of which the observer could not distinguish.
In the middle of the plat, standing a few inches below the surface, was
a small boy, and in his hands a very large spade. He wore a man's
discarded shirt, with sleeves rolled up at the wrist, and neck-band
pinned tight at one side. Obviously, he had been digging, for a small
pile of fresh dirt was heaped at his right. Now, however, he was
motionless, the blue eyes beneath the long lashes observing the
new-comer inquiringly. That was all, save that to the picture was added
the background of the unbroken silence of the prairie.
The man was the first to break the spell. He got out of the wagon
clumsily, walked around the wall, and entered the quadrangle by what had
been the door.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Digging," replied the boy, resuming his work.
"Digging what?"
The boy lifted out a double handful of dirt upon the big spade.
"A grave."
The man glanced about again.
"For some pet?"
The boy shook his head.
"No--sir," the latter word coming as an after-thought. His mother had
taught him that title of respect.
Rankin changed the line of interrogation.
"Where's Tom Blair, young man?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Your mother, then, where is she?"
"My mother is dead."
"Dead?"
The child's blue eyes did not falter.
"I am digging her grave, sir."
For a time Rankin did not speak or stir. Amid the stubbly beard the
great jaws closed, until it seemed the pipe-stem must be broken. His
eyes narrowed, as when, before starting, he had questioned the cowboy
Grannis; then of a sudden he rose and laid a detaining hand upon the
worker's shoulder. He understood at last.
"Stop a minute, son," he said. "I want to talk with you."
The lad looked up.
"How did it happen--the fire and your mother's death?"
No answer, only the same strangely scrutinizing look.
Rankin repeated the question a bit curtly.
Ben Blair calmly removed the man's hand from his shoulder and looked him
fairly in the eyes.
"Why do you wish to know, sir?" he asked.
The big man made no answer. Why did he wish to know? What answer could
he give? He paced back and forth across the narrow confines of the four
sod walls. Once he paused, gazing at the little lad questioningly, not
as one looks at a child but as man faces man; then, tramp, tramp, he
paced on again. At last, as suddenly as before, he halted, and glanced
sidewise at the uncompleted grave.
"You're quite sure you want to bury your mother here?" he asked.
The lad nodded silently.
"And alone?"
Again the nod.
"Yes, I heard her say once she wished it so."
Without comment, Rankin removed his coat and took the spade from the
boy's hand.
"I'll help you, then."
For a half-hour he worked steadily, descending lower and lower into the
dry earth; then, pausing, he wiped the perspiration from his face.
"Are you cold, son?" he asked directly.
"Not very, sir." But the lad's teeth were chattering.
"A bit, though?"
"Yes, sir," simply.
"All right, you'll find some blankets out in the wagon, Ben. You'd
better go out and get one and put it around you."
The boy started to obey. "Thank you, sir," he said.
Rankin returned to his work. In the west the sun dropped slowly beneath
the horizon, leaving a wonderful golden light behind. The waiting
horses, too well trained to move from their places, shifted uneasily
amid much creaking of harness. Within the grave the digger's head sunk
lower and lower, while the mound by the side grew higher and higher. The
cold increased. Across the prairie, a multitude of black specks
advanced, grew large, whizzed overhead, then retreated, their wings
cutting the keen air, and silence returned.
Darkness was falling when at last Rankin clambered out to the surface.
"Another blanket, Ben, please."
Without a glance beneath, he wrapped the object under the old gunny-sack
round and round with the rough wool winding-sheet, and, carrying it to
the edge of the grave, himself descended clumsily and placed it gently
at his feet. The pit was deep, and in getting out he slipped back twice;
but he said nothing. Outside, he paused a moment, looking at the boy
gravely.
"Anything you wish to say, Benjamin?"
The lad returned the gaze with equal gravity.
"I don't know of anything, sir."
The man paused a moment longer.
"Nor I, Ben," he said gently.
Again the spade resumed its work; and the impassive earth returned dully
to its former resting-place. Dusk came on, but Rankin did not look about
him until the mound was neatly rounded; then he turned to where he had
left the little boy so bravely erect. But the small figure was not
standing now; instead, it was prone on the ground amid the dust and
ashes.
"Ben!" said Rankin, gently. "Ben!"
No answer.
"Ben!" he repeated.
"Yes, sir."
For a moment a small thin face appeared above the dishevelled figure,
and a great sob shook the little frame. Then the head disappeared again.
"I can't help it, sir," wailed a muffled voice. "She was my mamma!"
CHAPTER IV
BEN'S NEW HOME
Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled
rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was
putting things in readiness for breakfast. Beside the sheet-iron heater
in the front room, her husband, carefully swaddled in a big checked
apron with the strings tied in a bow under his left ear, was busily
engaged in dressing the half-dozen prairie chickens he had trapped that
day. As fast as he removed the feathers he thrust them into the stove,
and the pungent odor mingled with the suggestive tang of the bacon that
had been the foundation of the past supper, and with the odor of
cigarettes with which the other four men were permeating the place.
Graham critically held up to the light the bird upon which he had just
been operating, removed a few scattered feathers, and, with practised
hand, attacked its successor.
"If I were doing this job for myself," he commented, "I'd skin the
beasts. Life is too blamed short to waste it in pulling out feathers!"
Grannis, the new-comer from no one knew where, smiled.
"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to
ask for information, who is if you ain't?"
The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in
sympathy.
"My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?"
Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer.
A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued.
"I reckon you've never been, though," Graham went on, "else you'd never
ask that question."
During the remainder of the evening, Grannis sought no further
information; and to Ma Graham's narrow life a new interest was added.
Ordinarily the cowboys went to their bunks in an adjoining shed almost
directly after supper, but this evening, without giving a reason, they
lingered. The housekeeper finished her work, and, coming into the main
room, took a chair and sat down, her hands folded in her lap. The grouse
dressed, Graham ranged them in a row upon the lean-to table, removed the
apron, and lit his pipe in silence. The cowboys rolled fresh cigarettes
and puffed at them steadily, the four stumps close together glowing in
the dimness of the room. As everywhere upon the prairie, the quiet was
almost a thing to feel.
At last, when the silence had become oppressive, the foreman took the
pipe from his mouth and blew a short puff of smoke.
"Seems like the boss ought to've got back before this," he said with a
sidelong glance at his wife.
Ma Graham nodded corroboration.
"Yes; must have found something wrong, I guess." She refolded her
hands, and once more relapsed into silence.
It was the breaking of the ice, however.
"Where d'ye suppose the trouble could have been, Graham?" It was another
late-comer, Bud Buck, young and narrow of hips, who spoke.
"At Blair's," was the answer. "The Big B is the closest."
"Blair?" The questioner puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. "Guess I
never heard of him."
"Must be a stranger in these parts, then," said Marcom. "Most everybody
knows Tom Blair." He paused to give an all-including glance. "At least
well enough to get a slice of his dough," he finished with a sarcastic
laugh.
"Does he handle the pasteboards?" asked Buck, with interest.
"Tries to," contemptuously.
The curiosity of the youthful Bud was now thoroughly aroused.
"What kind of a fellow is he, anyway?" he went on. "Does he go it alone
up at his ranch?"
At the last question Bill Marcom, discreetly silent, shifted his eyes in
the direction of the foreman, and, following them, Bud surprised a
covert glance between Graham and his wife. It was the latter who finally
answered.
"Not _exactly_."
Buck was not without intuition, and he shifted to safer ground.
"Got much of a herd, has he?"
Marcom rolled a fresh cigarette skilfully, and drew the string of the
tobacco pouch taut with his teeth.
"He did have, one time, but I don't believe he's got many left now.
There's been a bunch lost there every storm I can remember. He don't
keep any punchers to look after 'em, and he's never on hand himself. The
woman and the kid," with a peculiar glance at the stout housekeeper,
"saved 'em part of the time, but mostly they just drifted." The speaker
blew a great cloud of smoke, and the veins at his temples swelled. "It's
a shame, the way he neglects his stock and lets 'em starve and freeze!"
The blood coursed hot in the veins of Bud Buck.
"Why don't somebody step in?"
There was a meaning silence, broken at last by Graham.
"We would've--with a rope--if it hadn't been for the boss. He tried to
help the fellow; went over there lots of times himself--weather colder
than the devil, too, and with the wind and sleet so bad you couldn't see
the team ahead of you--until one time last Winter Blair came home full,
and caught him there." The narrative paused, and the black pipe puffed
reminiscently. "The boss never said much, but I guess they must have had
quite a session. Anyway, Rankin never went again, and from the way he
looked when he got back here, half froze, and the mustangs beat out, I
reckon Blair never knew how close he come to a necktie party that day."
Again silence fell, and remained unbroken until Graham suddenly sprang
to his feet, and with "That's him now! I could tell that old buckboard
if I was in my grave!" hurried on coat and hat and disappeared into the
night. A minute more and the door through which he had passed opened
slowly, and the figure of a small boy, wrapped like an Indian in a big
blanket, stepped timidly inside and stood blinking in the light.
In anticipation of a very different arrival the housekeeper had risen to
her feet, and now in surprise, arms akimbo, she stood looking curiously
at the stranger. In this land at this time the young of every other
animal native thereto was common, but a child, a white child, was a
novelty indeed. Many a cow-puncher, bachelor among bachelors, could
testify that it had been years since he had seen the like. But Ma Graham
was not a bachelor, and in her the maternal instinct, though repressed,
was strong. It was barely an instant before she was at the little lad's
side, unwinding the blanket with deft hands.
"Who be you, anyway, and where'd you come from?" she exclaimed.
The child observed her gravely.
"Benjamin Blair's my name. I came with the man."
The husk was off the lad ere this, and the woman was rubbing his small
hands vigorously.
"Cold, ain't you? Come right over to the fire!" herself leading the way.
"And hungry--I'll bet you're hungrier than a wolf!"
The lad nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
The woman straightened up and looked down at her charge.
"Of course you are. All little boys are hungry." She cast a challenging
glance around the group of interested spectators.
"Fix the fire, one of you, while I get something hot for the kid," she
said, and ambled toward the lean-to.
If the men thought to have their curiosity concerning the youngster
satisfied by word of mouth, however, they were doomed to be
disappointed; for when Rankin himself entered it was as though nothing
out of the ordinary had happened. He hung up his coat methodically, and,
with the boy by his side, partook of the hastily prepared meal
impassively, as was his wont. It could not have escaped him that the
small Benjamin ate and ate until it seemed marvellous that one stomach
could accommodate so much food; but he made no comment, and when at last
the boy succumbed to a final plateful, he tilted back against the wall
for his last smoke for the day. This was the usual signal of dismissal,
and the hands put on their hats and filed silently out.
Without more words the foreman and his wife prepared for the night. The
dishes were cleared away and piled in the lean-to. From either end of
the room bunks, broad as beds, were let down from the wall, and the
blankets that formed their linings were carefully smoothed out. Along
the pole extending across the middle of the room, another set was drawn,
dividing the room in two. Then the two disappeared with a simple
"Good-night."
Rankin and the boy sat alone looking at each other. From across the
blanket partition there came the muffled sound of movement, the impact
of Graham's heavy boots, as they dropped to the floor, and then
silence.
"Better go to bed, Ben," suggested Rankin, with a nod toward the bunk.
The boy at once went through the process of disrobing, and, crawling in
between the blankets, pulled them up about his chin. But the blue eyes
did not close. Instead, they rested steadily upon the man's face. Rankin
returned the look, and then the stubby pipe left his mouth.
"What is it, Ben?"
The boy hesitated. "Am I to--to stay with you?" he asked at last.
"Yes."
For an instant the questioner seemed satisfied; then the peculiar
inquiring look returned.
"Anything else, son?"
The lad hesitated longer than before. Beneath the coverings his body
moved restlessly.
"Yes, sir, I want to know why nobody would come to help my mamma if
she'd sent for them. She said they wouldn't."
The pipe left Rankin's mouth, his great jaws closing with an audible
click.
"You wish to know--what did you say, Ben?"
The boy repeated the question.
For a minute, and then another, Rankin said nothing; then he knocked the
ashes from the bowl of his brier and laid it upon the table.
"Never mind now why they wouldn't, son." He arose heavily and drew off
his coat. "You'll find out for yourself quickly enough--too quickly, my
boy. Now go to sleep."
CHAPTER V
THE EXOTICS
Some men acquire involuntary prominence by being democratic amid
aristocratic surroundings. Others, on the contrary, but with the same
result, continue to live the life to which they were born, even when
placed amid surroundings that make their actions all but grotesque. An
example of this latter class was Scotty Baker, whose ranch, as the wild
goose flies, was thirteen miles west of the Box R.
Scotty was a very English Englishman, with an inborn love of fine
horse-flesh and a guileless nature. Some years before he had fallen into
the hands of a promoter, and had bartered a goodly proportion of his
worldly belongings for a horse-ranch in Dakota, to be taken possession
of immediately. Long indeed was the wail which went up from his home in
Sussex when the fact was made known. Neighbors were fluent in
denunciation, relatives insistent in expostulation; his wife, and in
sympathy their baby daughter, copious in the argument of tears; but the
die was irrevocably cast. Go he would,--not from voluntary stubbornness,
but because he must.
The actual departure of the Bakers was much like the sailing of
Columbus. Probably not one of the friends who saw them off for their
new home expected ever to see the family again. Indians they were
confident were rampant, and frantic for scalps. Should any by a miracle
escape the savages, the tremendous herds of buffalo, running amuck, here
and there, could not fail to trample the survivors into the dust of the
prairie. By comparison, war was a benignant prospect; and sighs mingled
until the sound was as the wailing of winds.
Scotty was very cheerful through it all, very encouraging even in the
face of incontestibly unfavorable evidence, until, with the few remnants
of civilization they had brought with them, the family arrived at the
wind-beaten terminus, a hundred miles from his newly acquired property.
Then for the first time he wilted.
"I've been an ass," he admitted bitterly, as he glanced in impotent
contempt at the handful of weather-stained buildings which on the map
bore the name of a town; "an ass, an egregious, abominable, blethering
ass!"
But, notwithstanding his lack of the practical, Scotty was made of good
stuff. It was not an alternative but a necessity that faced him now, and
he arose right manfully to the occasion. Despite his wife's assertion
that she "never, never would go any farther into this God-forsaken
country," he succeeded in getting her into a lumber-wagon and headed for
what he genially termed "the interior." At last he even succeeded in
making her smile at his efforts to make the disreputable mule pack-team
he had secured move faster than a walk.
Once in possession of his own, however, he returned to his customary
easy manner of life. It took him a very short time to discover that he
had purchased a gold brick. Horses, especially fine horses, were in no
demand there; but this fact did not alter his course in the least. A
horse-ranch he had bought, a horse-ranch he would run, though every man
west of the Mississippi should smile. He enlarged his tiny shack to a
cottage of three rooms; put in floor and ceiling, and papered the walls.
Out of poles and prairie sod he fashioned a serviceable barn, and built
an admirable horse paddock. Last of all he planted in his dooryard, in
artistic irregularity, a wagon-load of small imported trees. The fact
that within six months they all died caused him slight misgiving. He at
least had done what he could to beautify the earth; that he failed was
nature's fault, not his.
Once settled, he began to make acquaintances. Methodically, to the
members of one ranch at a time, he sent invitations to dinner, and upon
the appointed date he confronted his guests with a spectacle which made
them all but doubt their identity, the like of which most of them had
never even seen before. Fancy a cowboy rancher, clad in flannel and
leather, welcomed by a host and hostess in complete evening dress,
ushered into a room which contained a carpet and a piano, and had lace
curtains at the windows; seated later at a table covered with pure linen
and set with real china and cut-glass. The experience was like a dream
to the visitor. Temporarily, as in a dream, the evening would pass
without conscious volition upon the latter's part; and not until later,
when he was at home, would the full significance of the experience
assert itself, and his wonder and admiration find vent in words. Then
indeed would the fame of Scotty Baker, his wife, and little daughter,
be heard in the land.
Early in his career, Scotty began to cultivate the impassive Rankin. He
fairly bombarded the big rancher with courtesies and invitations. No
holiday (and Scotty was an assiduous observer of holidays) was complete
unless Rankin was present to help celebrate. No improvement about the
ranch was definitely undertaken until Rankin had expressed a favorable
opinion concerning the project. Gradually, so gradually that the big man
himself did not realize the change, he fell under Scotty's influence,
and more and more frequently he was to be found headed toward the cosey
Baker cottage. Now, for a year or more, scarcely a Sunday had passed
without one or the other of the men finding it possible to traverse the
thirty miles intervening between them, to spend a few hours in each
other's company.
It was in pursuance of this laudable intention that on the second
morning following Ben Blair's adoption into the Box R Ranch--a
Sunday--the Englishman hitched a team of his best blooded trotters to
the antiquated phaeton, which was the only vehicle he possessed, and
started across country at a lively clip. Thus it came to pass that about
two hours later, having tied his team at the barn and started for the
ranch-house, the visitor saw squarely in his path upon the sunny south
doorstep an object that made him pause and blink his near-sighted eyes.
Under the concentration of his vision, the object resolved itself into a
small boy perched like a frog upon a rock, his fingers locked across his
shins, his chin upon his knees. For an instant the Englishman
hesitated. Courtesy was instinctive with him.
"Can you tell me whether Mr. Rankin is at home?" he asked.
The lad calmly disentangled himself and stood up.
"You mean the big man, sir?"
Again Scotty was guilty of a breach of etiquette. He stared.
"Certainly," he replied at last.
Ben Blair stepped out of the way.
"Yes, sir, he is."
Within the ranch-house Scotty dropped into the nearest chair.
"Tell me, Rankin," he began, "who is the new-comer, and where did you
get him?" A long leg swung comfortably over its mate. "And, by the way,
while you're about it, is he six or sixty? By Jove, I couldn't tell!"
The host looked at his visitor quizzically.
"Ben, I suppose you mean?"
"Ben, or _Tom_, I don't know. I mean the gentleman on the front steps,
the one who didn't know your name," and the Englishman related the
recent conversation.
The corners of Rankin's eyes tightened into an unwonted smile as he
listened, and then contracted until the corner of the large mouth drew
upward in sympathy.
"I'm not surprised, Baker," he admitted, "that you're in doubt about
Ben's age. He's eight; but I'd be uncertain myself if I didn't
absolutely know. As to his not knowing my name--it's just struck me that
I've never introduced myself to the little fellow."
"But how did you come to get him? This isn't a country where one sees
many children roaming around."
"No," the big mouth dropped back into its normal shape; "that's a fact.
He didn't just drop in. I got him by adoption, I suppose; least ways, I
asked him to come and live with me, and he accepted." The speaker turned
to his companion directly. "You knew Jennie Blair, did you?"
Scotty looked interested.
"Knew of her, but never had the pleasure of an acquaintance. I always--"
"Well," interrupted Rankin impassively, "Ben's her son. She died awhile
ago, you remember, and somehow it seemed to break Blair all up. He
wouldn't stay here any longer, and didn't want to take the kid with him,
so I took the youngster in. As far as I know, the arrangement will
stick."
For a minute there was silence. Scotty observed his host shrewdly,
almost sceptically.
"That's all of the story, is it?" he asked at last.
"All, as far as I know."
Scotty continued his observation a moment longer.
"But not all the kid knows, I judge."
The host made no comment, and in a distinctively absent manner the
Englishman removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses upon the tail of
his Sunday frock-coat.
"By the way,"--Scotty returned the glasses to his nose and sprung the
bows over his ears with a snap,--"what day was it that Blair left? Did
it happen to be Friday?"
"Yes, Friday."
"And he doesn't intend ever to return?"
"I believe not."
The visitor's eyes flashed swiftly around the room. The two men were
alone.
"I think, then, I see through it." The voice was lower than before. "One
of my best mares disappeared night before last, and I haven't been able
to get trace of a hoof or hair since."
"What?" Rankin was interested at last.
Scotty repeated the statement, and his host eyed him a full half minute
steadily.
"And you just--tell of it?" he said at last.
The Englishman shifted uneasily in his seat.
"Yes." Forgetting that he had just polished his glasses, he took them
off and went through the process again.
"Yes, I may as well be honest, I've seen a bit of these Westerners about
here, and I don't really agree with their scheme of justice. They're apt
to put two and two together and make eight where you know it's only
four." For the second time he sprung the bows back over his ears. "And
when they find out their beastly mistake--why--oh--it's too late then,
perhaps, for some poor devil!"
For another half minute Rankin hesitated; then he reached over and
grasped the other man by the hand.
"Baker," he said, "you ain't very practical, but you're dead square."
And he shook the hand again.
Of a sudden a twinkle came into the Britisher's eyes and he tore himself
loose with an effort.
"By the way," he said, "I'd like to ask a question for future guidance.
What would you have done if you'd been in my place?"
Rankin stiffened in his seat, and a color almost red surged beneath the
tan of his cheeks; then, as suddenly as his companion had done, he
smiled outright.
"I reckon I'd have done just what you did," he admitted; and the two men
laughed together.
"Seriously, though," said Scotty, after a moment, "and as long as I've
told you anyway, what ought I to do under the circumstances? Should I
let Blair off, do you think?"
For a moment Rankin did not answer; then he faced his questioner
directly, and Scotty knew why the big man's word was so nearly law in
the community.
"Under the circumstances," he repeated, "I'd let him go; for several
reasons. First of all, he's got such a start of you now that you
couldn't catch him, anyway. Then he's a coward by nature, and it'll be a
mighty long time before he ever shows up here again. And last of all,"
the speaker hesitated, "last of all," he repeated slowly, "though I
don't know, I believe you were right when you said the boy could tell
more about it than the rest of us; and if what we suspect is true, I
think by the time he comes back, if he ever does come, Ben will be old
enough to take care of him." Again the speaker paused, and his great
jowl settled down into his shirt-front. "If he doesn't, I can't read
signs when I see 'em."
For a moment the room was silent; then Scotty sprang to his feet as if a
load had been taken off his mind.
"All right," said he, "we'll forget it. And, speaking of forgetting,
I've nearly got myself into trouble already. I have an invitation from
Mrs. Baker for you to take dinner with us to-day. In fact, I was sent on
purpose to bring you. Not a word, not a word!" he continued, at sight of
objections gathering on the other's face; "a lady's invitations are
sacred, you know. Get your coat!"
Rankin arose with an effort and stood facing his visitor.
"You know I'm always glad to visit you, Baker," he said. "I wasn't
thinking of holding off on my own account, but I've got someone else to
consider now, you know. Ben--"
"Certainly, certainly!" Scotty's voice was eloquent of comprehension.
"Throw the kiddie in too. He can play with Flossie; they're about of an
age, and she'll be tickled to death to have him."
Rankin looked at his friend a moment peculiarly. "I know Ben's going
would be all right with you, Baker," he explained at last, "but how
about your wife? Considering--everything--she might object."
The smile left the Englishman's face, and a look of perplexity took its
place.
"By Jove!" he said, "you're right! I never thought of that." He shifted
from one foot to the other uneasily. "But, pshaw! What's the use of
saying anything whatever about the boy's connections? He's nothing but a
youngster,--and, besides, his mother's actions are no fault of his."
Rankin took his top-coat off its peg deliberately.
"All right," he said. "I'll call Ben." At the door he paused, looking
back, the peculiar expression again upon his face. "As you say, the
faults of Ben's mother are not his faults, anyway."
CHAPTER VI
THE SOIL AND THE SEED
Within the Baker home three persons, a woman and two men, were sitting
beside a well-discussed table in the perfect content that follows a good
meal. Strange to say, in this frontier land, the men had cigars, and
their smoke curled slowly toward the ceiling. Intermittently, with the
unconscious attitude of indifference we bestow upon happenings remote
from our lives, they were discussing the month-old news of the world,
which the messenger from town, who supplied at stated intervals the
family wants, had brought the day before.
Out of doors, in the warm sunny plat south of the barn, a small boy and
a still smaller girl were engaged in the fascinating occupation of
becoming acquainted. The little girl was decidedly taking the
initiative.
"How's it come your name is Blair?" she asked, opening fire as soon as
they were alone.
The boy pondered the question. It had never occurred to him before. Why
should he be called Blair? No adequate reason suggested itself.
"I don't know," he admitted.
The little girl wrinkled her forehead in thought.
"It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "Now, my papa's name is Baker, and my
name's Florence Baker. You ought to be Ben Rankin--but you aren't." She
stroked a diminutive nose with a fairy forefinger. "It's funny," she
repeated.
"Oh!" commented Benjamin. He understood now, but explanations were not a
part of his philosophy. "Oh!" and the subject dropped.
"Let's play duck on the rock," suggested Florence.
The boy's hands were deep in the recesses of his pockets.
"I don't know how."
"That's nothing." The small brunette had the air of one to whom
difficulties were unknown. "I'll show you. Papa and I play, and it's
lots of fun--only he beats me." She looked about for available material.
"You get that little box up by the house," she directed, "and we'll have
that for the rock."
Ben did as ordered.
"Now bring two tin cans. You'll find a pile back of the barn."
Once more the boy departed, to return a moment later with a pair of
"selects," each bearing in gaudy illumination a composite picture of the
ingredients of succotash.
"Now watch me," said Florence.
She carried the box about a rod away and planted it firmly on the
ground. "This is the rock," she explained. On the top of the box she
perched one of the cans, open end up. "And this is the duck--my duck. Do
you see?"
The boy had watched the proceedings carefully. "Yes, I see," he said.
Florence came back to the barn. "Now the game is for you to take this
other can and knock my duck off. Then we both run, and if you get your
can on the box ahead of me, I'm _it_, and I'll have to knock off your
duck. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"All right." And the sport was on.
Ben poised his missile and carefully let fly.
"He, he!" tittered Florence. "You missed!"
He retrieved his duck without comment.
"Try again; you've got three chances."
More carefully than before Ben took aim and tossed his can.
"Missed again!" exulted the little brunette. "You've only one more try."
And the brown eyes flashed with mischief.
For the last time Ben stood at position.
"Be careful! you're out if you miss."
Even more slowly than before the boy took aim, swung his arm overhead
clear from the shoulder, and threw with all his might. There was a flash
of gaudy paper through the air, a resounding impact of tin against wood,
and the make-believe duck skipped away as though fearful of danger.
For a moment Florence stood aghast, but only for a moment; then she
stamped a tiny foot imperiously.
"Oh, you naughty boy!" she exclaimed. "You naughty, naughty boy!"
Once more Ben's hands were in his pockets. "Why?" he asked innocently.
"Because you don't play right!"
"You told me to knock the duck off, and I did!"
"But not that way." Florence's small chin was high in the air. "I'm
going in the house."
Ben made no motion to follow her, none to prevent her going.
"I'm sorry," he said simply.
The little girl took two steps decidedly, a third haltingly, a fourth,
then stopped and looked back out of the corner of her eye.
"Are you very sorry?" she asked.
Ben nodded his head gravely.
There was a moment of indecision. "All right," she said, with apparent
reluctance; "but we won't play duck any more. We'll play drop the
handkerchief."
The boy discreetly ignored the change of purpose.
"I don't know how," he admitted once more.
Such deplorable ignorance aroused her sympathy.
"Don't Mr. Rankin, or--or anyone--play with you?" she asked.
Ben shook his head.
"All right, then," she said obligingly, "I'll show you."
With her heel she drew upon the ground a rough circle about ten feet in
diameter.
"You can't cross that place in there," she said.
The boy looked at the bare ground critically. No visible barrier
presented itself to his vision.
"Why not?" he asked.
Florence made a gesture of disapproval. "Because you can't," she
explained. Then, some further reason seeming necessary, she added,
"Perhaps there are red-hot irons or snakes, or something, in there.
Anyway, you can't cross!"
Ben made no comment, and his instructor looked at him a moment
doubtfully.
"Now," she went on, "I stand right here close to the line, and you take
the handkerchief." She produced a dainty little kerchief with a "B"
embroidered in the corner. "Drop it behind me, and get in my place if
you can before I touch you. If you get clear around and catch me before
I notice you--you can kiss me. Do you see?"
Ben could see.
"All right, then." And the little girl stood at attention, very prim,
apparently very watchful, toes touching the line.
The nature of Benjamin Blair was very direct. The first time he passed,
he dropped the handkerchief and proceeded calmly on his journey. His
back toward her, the little girl turned and gave a surreptitious glance
behind; then quickly shifted to her original position, a look of
innocence upon her face. Straight ahead went Ben around the circle--that
contained hot irons, or snakes, or something--back to his
starting-point, touched the small fragment of femininity upon the
shoulder gingerly, as though afraid she would fracture.
"Here's your handkerchief," he said, stooping to recover the bit of
linen. "You're it."
"Oh, dear!" she said, in mock despair; "you dropped it the first time,
didn't you?"
Ben agreed to the statement.
An unaccountable lull followed. In it he caught a curious sidelong
glance from the brown eyes under the drooping lashes.
"I didn't suppose you'd do that the first time," said the little girl.
"Papa never does."
The observation seemed irrelevant to Ben Blair, at least inadequate to
halt the game; but he made no comment.
Again there was a lull.
"Well," suggested Florence, and a tinge of red surged beneath the soft
brown skin.
Ben began to feel uncomfortable. He had a premonition that all was not
well.
"You're _it_, ain't you?" he hesitated at last.
This time, full and fair, the tiny woman looked at him. The color which
before had stood just beneath the skin rose burning to her ears, to the
roots of her hair. Her big brown eyes flashed fire.
"Ben Blair," she flamed, "you're a 'fraid cat!" Tears welled up into her
voice, into her eyes, and she made a motion as if to leave; but the
sudden passion of a spoiled child was too strong upon her, the mystified
face of the other too near, too tempting. With a motion which was all
but involuntary, a tiny brown hand shot out and struck the boy fair on
the mouth. "A 'fraid cat, 'fraid cat, and I hate you!"
Never before in his short life had Benjamin Blair met a girl. The ethics
of sex was a thing unknown to him, but nevertheless some instinct
prevented his returning the insult. Except for the red mark upon his
lips, his face grew very white.
"What am I afraid of?" he asked steadily.
Defiant still, the girl held her ground.
"Afraid of what?" she jeered. "You're afraid of everything! 'Fraid cats
always are!"
"But what?" pressed the boy. "Tell me something I'm afraid of."
Florence glanced about her. The tall roof of the barn caught her vision.
"You wouldn't dare jump off the roof there, for one thing," she
ventured.
Ben looked up. The point mentioned arose at least sixteen feet, and the
earth beneath was frozen like asphalt, but he did not hesitate. At the
north end, a stack of hay piled against the wall formed a sort of
inclined plane, and making a detour he began to climb. Half-way up he
lost his footing and came tumbling to the ground; but still he said
nothing. The next time he was more careful, and reached the ridge-pole
without accident. Below, the little girl, brilliant in her red jacket,
stood watching him; but he never even glanced at her. Instead, he raised
himself to his full height, looked once at the ground beneath, and
jumped.
That instant a wave of contrition swept over Florence. In a sort of
vision she saw the boy lying injured, perhaps dead, upon the frozen
ground,--and all through her fault! She shut her eyes, and clasped her
hands over her face.
A few seconds passed, bringing with them no further sound, and she
slowly opened her fingers. Through them, instead of a prostrate corpse,
she saw the boy standing erect before her. There was a smear of dust
upon his coat and face where he had fallen, and a scratch upon his
cheek, which bled a bit, but otherwise he was apparently unhurt. From
beneath his long lashes as she looked, the blue eyes met hers,
deliberate and unsmiling.
As swiftly as it had come, the mood of contrition passed. In an
indefinite sort of way the girl experienced a sensation of
disappointment,--a feeling of being deprived of something which was her
due. She was only a child, a spoiled child, and her defiance arose anew.
A moment so the children faced each other.
"Do you still think I'm afraid?" asked the boy at last.
Again the hot color flamed beneath the brown skin.
"Pooh!" said the girl, "_that_ was nothing!" She tossed her head in
derision. "Anyone could do that!"
Ben slowly took off his cap, slapped it against his knee to shake off
the dust, and put it back upon his head. The action took only a half
minute, but when the girl looked at him again it hardly seemed he was
the same boy with whom she had just played. His eyes were no longer
blue, but gray. The chin, too, with an odd trick,--one she was destined
to know better in future,--had protruded, had become the dominant
feature of his face, aggressive, almost menacing. Except for the size,
one looking could scarcely have believed Ben's visage was that of a
child.
"What," the boy's hands went back into his pockets, "what wouldn't
anyone do, then?" he asked directly.
At that moment Florence Baker would have been glad to occupy some other
person's shoes. Obviously, the proper thing for her to do was to admit
her fault and clear the atmosphere, but that did not accord with her
disposition, and she looked about for a suggestion. One came promptly,
but at first she did not speak. Then the brown head tossed again.
"Some folks would be afraid to ride one of those colts out there!" She
indicated the pasture near by. "Papa said the other day he'd rather not
be the first to try."
The colts mentioned were a bunch of four-year-olds that Scotty had just
imported from an Eastern breeder. They were absolutely unbroken, but
every ounce thoroughbreds, and full to the ear-tips of what the
Englishman expressively termed "ginger."
To her credit be it said, the small Florence had no idea that her
challenge would be accepted. Implicit trust in her father was one of her
virtues, and the mere suggestion that another would attempt to do what
he would not, was rankest heresy. But the boy Benjamin started for the
barn, and, securing a bridle and a pan of oats, moved toward the gate.
Instinctively Florence took a step after him.
"Really, I didn't mean for you to try," she explained in swift
penitence. "I don't think you're afraid!"
Ben opened and closed the gate silently.
"Please don't do it," pleaded the girl. "You'll be hurt!"
But for all the effect her petition had, she might as well have asked
the sun to cease shining. Nothing could stop that gray-eyed boy. Without
a show of haste he advanced toward the nearest colt, shook the oats in
the pan, and whistled enticingly. Full often in his short life he had
seen the trick done before, and he waited expectantly.
Florence, forgetting her fears, watched with interest. At first the
colt was shy, but gradually, under stimulus of its appetite, it drew
nearer, then ran frisking away, again drew near. Ben held out the pan,
shook it at intervals, displaying its contents to the best advantage.
Colt nature could not resist the appeal. The sleek thoroughbred cast
aside all scruples, came close, and thrust a silken muzzle deep into the
grain.
Still without haste, the boy put on the bridle, holding the pan near the
ground to reach the straps over the ears; then, pausing, looked at the
back far above his head. How he was to get up there would have perplexed
an observer. For a moment it puzzled the boy; then an idea occurred to
him. Once more holding the remnants of the oats near the ground, he
waited until the hungry nose was deep amongst them, the head well
lowered; then, improving his opportunity, he swung one leg over the
sleek neck and awaited developments.
He was not long in suspense. The action was like touching flame to
powder; the resulting explosion was all but simultaneous. With a snort,
the head went high in air, tossing the grain about like seed, and down
the inclined plane of the neck thus formed the long-legged Benjamin slid
to the slippery back. Once there, an instinct told him to grip the
rounding flank with his ankles, and clutch the heavy mane.
And he was none too quick. For a moment the colt paused in pure wonder
at the audacity of the thing; then, with a neigh, half of anger and half
of fear, it sprang away at top speed, circling and recircling, flashing
in and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on its back
meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, then
another, the youngster kept his seat, pulling upon the reins at
intervals, gripping together his small knees until the muscles ached.
Then suddenly the colt, changing its tactics, planted its front feet
firmly into the ground, stopped short, and the small Benjamin shot
overhead, to strike the turf beyond with an impact which fairly drove
the breath from his body. But even then, half unconscious as he was, he
wouldn't let loose of the reins. Not until the now thoroughly aroused
colt had dragged him for rods, did the leather break, leaving the boy
and the bridle in a most disreputable-looking heap upon the earth.
Florence had watched the scene with breathless interest. While Ben was
making his mount, she observed him doubtfully. While he retained his
seat, she clapped her hands in glee. Then, with his downfall, a great
lump came chokingly into her throat, and, without waiting to see the
outcome, she ran sobbing to the house. A moment later she rushed into
the little parlor where her father and Rankin, their cigars finished,
were sitting and chatting.
"Papa," she pleaded, "papa, go quick! Ben's killed!"
"Great Cæsar's ghost!" exclaimed Scotty, springing up nervously, and
holding the little girl at arm's length. "What's the matter?"
"Ben, Ben, I told you! He tried to ride one of the colts, and he's
killed--I know he is!"
"Holy buckets!" Genuine apprehension was in the Englishman's voice.
Without waiting for further explanation he shot out of the door, and
ran full tilt to the paddock behind the barn. There he stopped, and
Rankin coming up a moment later, the two men stood side by side watching
the approach of a small figure still some rods away. The boy's face and
hands were marked with bloodstains from numerous scratches; one leg of
his trousers was torn disclosing the skin, and upon that side when he
walked he limped noticeably. All these things the two men observed at a
distance. When he came closer, they were forgotten in the look upon his
small face. The odd trick the boy had of throwing his lower jaw forward
was now emphasized until the lower teeth fairly overshot the upper. In
sympathy, the eyes had tightened, not morosely or cruelly, but with a
fixed determination which was all but uncanny. Scotty shifted a bit
uncomfortably.
"By Jove!" he remarked, with his usual unconscious expletive, "I'd
rather have a tiger-cat on my trail than that youngster, if he was to
look that way. What do you suppose he's got in his cranium now?"
Rankin shook his head. "I don't know. He's beyond me."
Scarcely a minute passed before the boy returned. He had another bridle
in his hand and a fresh pan of oats. As before, he started to pass
without a word, but Rankin halted him. "What's the matter with your
clothes, Ben?" he queried.
The lad looked at his questioner. "Horse threw me, sir."
"And what are you going to do now?"
"Going to try to ride him again, sir."
Rankin paused, his face growing momentarily more severe.
"Ben," he said at last, "did Mr. Baker hire you to break his horses? If
I were you I'd put those things away and ask his pardon."
The boy looked from one man to the other uncertainly. Obviously, this
phase of the matter had not occurred to him. Obviously, too, the point
of view must be correct, for both Rankin and Scotty were solemn as the
grave. The lad shot out toward the pasture a glance that spoke volumes;
then he turned to Baker.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said.
Scotty caught his cue. "Granted--this time," he answered.
A half-hour later, Rankin and Ben, the latter carefully washed, the
rents in his trousers temporarily repaired, were ready to go home. Not
until the very last moment did Florence appear; then, her face a bit
flushed, she came out to the buckboard.
"Good-bye," she said simply. There was a moment's pause; then, with a
deepening color, she turned to Ben Blair. "Come again soon," she added
in a low tone.
CHAPTER VII
THE SANITY OF THE WILD
Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the
constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the
eternal law of necessity,--the necessity of sunburnt, stunted
grass,--the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The
herds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scattered
far and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep under
cover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blighted
grass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almost
beyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it was
independent, care-free, and healthy.
The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palm
of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and
that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the
big artesian well,--a vivid blot of green against the dun background.
The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,--a goodly sized
soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had
grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles about,
except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flanked
the infrequent creeks,--creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes,
reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed a
rough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework was
finished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful as
the cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great cities
where countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled in
desperate competition for daily bread.
So much for the day. With the coming of dusk, a coolness like a
benediction took the place of heat. The south wind gradually died down
with the descending sun, until immediately following the setting it was
absolutely still; now it sprang up anew, and wandered on until the break
of day.
Such an evening in late July found Rankin and Baker stretched out like
boys upon a pile of hay in the latter's yard. The big man had just
arrived; the old buckboard, with its mouse-colored mustangs, stood just
as he had driven it up. Scotty knew him well enough to know that he had
come for a purpose, and he awaited its revelation. Rankin slowly filled
and lit his pipe, drew thereon until the glow from the bowl was
reflected upon his face, and blew a great cloud of smoke out into the
gathering dusk.
"Baker," he asked at last, "what are we going to do for the education of
these youngsters of ours? We can't let them grow up here like savages."
Scotty rolled over on his side, and leaned his head comfortably in his
hand.
"I've thought of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of
two things to do--either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue."
A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately,
however, neither plan seems exactly practical at this time."
Rankin smoked a minute in silence. "How would it do to move into
civilization six months of the year--the Winter six?" he suggested.
Scotty considered for a moment. "Do you mean that seriously?" he asked.
"Yes."
By the sense of feeling alone, the Englishman rolled a cigarette
skilfully. "How about the stock here while we're gone," he said
hesitatingly. "Do you suppose we'd find anything left when we came back
in the Spring?"
Rankin crowded the half-burned tobacco down into the pipe-bowl with his
little finger. "I don't think you got the idea," he explained. "My plan
was for you to go East in the Fall and put the kids in school. I'd stay
here and see that everything ran smoothly while you were gone. Mrs.
Baker has said a dozen times that she wanted a change--for a time,
anyway."
Scotty threw one long leg over the other. "As usual you're right,
Rankin," he said slowly. "The Lord knows Mollie gets restless enough at
times. People were like ants in a hill where she was raised, and that
life was a part of her." He took a last puff at the cigarette, and with
a toss sent the smoking stump spinning like a firefly into the darkness.
"And Flossie can't grow up wild--I know that. I'll talk your suggestion
over with Mollie first, but I think I'd be safe in saying right now
that we'll accept."
For a moment Rankin did not speak; then he knocked the ashes out of his
pipe upon his heel.
"Excuse me if I keep going back to something unpleasant, Baker," he said
slowly, "but in considering the matter there's one thing I don't want
you to forget." Then, after a meaning pause, he went on: "It's the same
reason I had for not introducing Ben in the first place."
Scotty drew out his book of rice-paper again almost involuntarily.
"I'd thought of that this time," he said; then paused to finger a gauzy
sheet absently. "I don't see why I should consider it now,
though--seeing I didn't before."
Rankin said nothing, and conversation lapsed. Irresistibly, but so
gradually as to be all but unconscious, the spirit of the prairie
night--a sensation, a conception of infinite vastness, of unassailable
serenity--stole over and took possession of the men. The ambitious and
manifold artificial needs for which men barter their happiness, their
sense of humanity, even life itself, seemed beyond belief out there
alone with the stars, with the prairie night-wind singing in the ears;
seemed so puny that they elicited only a smile. The lust of show, of
extravagance, follies, wisdoms, man's loves and hates--how their true
proportions stand revealed against the eternal background of
immeasurable distance, in nature's vast scheme!
Scotty cleared his throat. "I used to think, when I first came here,
that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder if
I didn't blunder into the wisest act of my life." The prairie spirit
had taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon me
that such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure of
another's failure, is the only one to live. It is the only life," he
added after a pause.
Rankin said nothing.
Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him to
remain so, and he went on.
"I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, I
believe I'm developing a distaste for money. It's simply another term
for caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies,
has somehow become hateful to me." He looked up into the night.
"I used to think I was happy back in England. I had my home and my
associates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father,
their grandfathers of my grandfather's class. As a small landlord I had
my gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize now
that I could never return to that life again. Looking back, I see its
intolerable narrowness, its petty smugness. By comparison it's like the
relative clearness of the atmosphere there and here. There, perhaps I
could see a few miles: here, I look away over leagues and leagues of
distance. It's symbolic." The voice paused; the face, turned directly
toward his companion's, tried in the half-darkness to read its
expression. "I've been in this prairie country long enough now to
realize that financially I've made a mistake. I can earn a living, and
that's all; but nevertheless I'm happy--happier than I ever realized it
was possible for me to be. I've got enough--more would be a burden to
me. If I have a trouble in the world, it's because I see the inevitable
prospect of money in the future,--money I don't want, for I'm an only
son and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand,
his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along in
life. Some day--it may be five years, it may be fifteen--he will die and
leave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family
dignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I
was born."
Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other's
revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited
in the savings bank against a rainy day.
But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve and
confidence bare.
"You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever I
believe myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to think
about--Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a
woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn't
realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold.
Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie
would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of
life,--the artificial side,--but lived right here, knowing what we
taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time
came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests,
and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her,
cultivate her, fit her for any society." The voice paused, and the
speaker turned his face away.
"God knows,--and He knows also that I love her dearly,--that looking
into the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man."
The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still.
In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near or
far away--no human ear could measure the distance--a prairie owl gave
its weird cry. Then silence fell as before.
Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion.
"I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?"
The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion.
"You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had a
Master's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a big
scale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you left
culture and civilization far behind and came here to choose a life
absolutely different. I have told you why I wish to educate my daughter.
But why, feeling as you must have felt and must still feel, since you're
here, why do you wish to educate this waif boy you've picked up? By all
the standards of convention, he is at the very bottom of the social
scale. Why do you want to do this?"
It was a psychological moment. Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin felt
the other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over his
face; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was too
strong upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidence
was not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowly
and shook the clinging wisps of hay from his clothes.
"For somewhat the same reason as your own," he answered at last. "Ben,
like Flossie, is a child, an odd old child to be sure, but nevertheless
a child. I have no reason to know that when he grows up his beliefs will
be my beliefs. He must see both sides of the coin, and judge for
himself."
The speaker paused, then walked slowly over to the old buckboard. "It's
getting late, and I've got a long drive home." With an effort he mounted
into the seat and picked up the reins. "Good-night."
Scotty hesitated a moment, and then said, "Good-night."
CHAPTER VIII
THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN
Twelve years slipped by. Short as they seemed to those actually living
them, they had brought great material changes. No longer did the ranch
cattle graze at the will of their owners, but, under stress of
competition, they browsed within the confines of miles upon miles of
galvanized fencing. Neighbors, as Rankin said, were near now. There were
four within a radius of twenty miles. To be sure, there was still plenty
of land west of them, beyond the broad muddy Missouri,--open rough land,
gradually rising in elevation, where a traveller could journey for days
and days without seeing a human face. But this was not then a part of
the so-called "cattle ranges." In the parlance of the country, that was
"West,"--a place to hunt in, a refuge for criminals, but as yet giving
no indication of ever becoming of practical use.
The Box R Ranch had evolved along with the others, and always well in
advance. The house now boasted six rooms; the barn and stock-sheds had
at a distance the appearance of a town in themselves; the collection of
haying implements--mowers, loaders, stackers--was almost complete enough
to stock a jobbing house. The herd itself had augmented, despite its
annual reduction, until one artesian well was inadequate to supply
water; and fifteen miles north, at the extreme limit of his home-ranch,
Rankin had sunk another well, making a sort of sub-station of that
point. From it an observer with good eyes could see the outlines of the
modern Big B Ranch property, built on the old site, and ostensibly
operated by a long-legged Yankee, Rob Hoyt by name, but in reality
owned, as had been the remnant of stock Tom Blair left behind him, by
saloon-keeper Mick Kennedy.
The ranch force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a
quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated
droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity,
still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had
finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and
weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still
presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at
the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened,
danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now
remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere,"
who had apparently taken root at last. Regularly on the last day of each
month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment
disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten
hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly
unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience,
apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life
again.
Last of all, Benjamin Blair. Precisely as the boy had given promise, the
youth had developed. He was now mature in size, in poise, in action.
Long of leg, long of arm, long of face, he stood a half head above
Rankin, who had been the tallest man upon the place. Yet he was not
awkward. Physically he was of the type, but magnified, to which all
cowboys belong; and no one would ever call him awkward or uncouth.
There had been less change upon the Baker ranch. Scotty was not an
expansionist. Scarcely a score more horses grazed in his paddock than of
old. The barn, though often repaired, was still of sod and thatch. The
house contained the original number of rooms. The experiment with trees
had never been repeated. If possible, the man himself had altered even
less than his surroundings. Scrupulously fresh-shaven each day,
fortified beyond the compound lenses of his spectacles, a stranger would
have guessed him anywhere from thirty-five to fifty.
Time had not dealt as kindly with Mrs. Baker. She seemed to have aged
enough for both herself and her husband. Notwithstanding the fact that
for the first eight years of the twelve, the family had spent half their
time in the East, she had grown careless of her appearance. True to his
instincts, Scotty still dressed for dinner in his antiquated evening
clothes; but pathetic as was the example, it had long ceased to
stimulate her. The last four years had been dead years with Mollie
Baker. The future held but one promise. She referred to it daily, almost
hourly; and at such times only would a trace of youth and beauty return
to the one-time winsome face. She looked forward and dreamed of an
event after which she would do certain things upon which she had set her
heart; when, as she said, she would begin to live. It seemed to Scotty
ghastly to speak about that event, for it was the death of his father.
The last member of the family had developed with the child's promise,
and at seventeen Florence was beautiful; not with a conventional
prettiness, but with a vital feminine attraction. All that the mother
had been, with her dark, oval face, her mass of walnut-brown hair, her
great dark eyes, her uptilted chin, the daughter was now; but with added
health and an augmented femininity that the mother had never known.
Moreover, she had an independence, a dominance, born perhaps of the wild
prairie influence, that at times made her parents almost gasp. Except in
the minute details of their daily existence, which habit had made
unchangeable, she ruled them absolutely. Even Rankin had become a
secondary factor. Scotty probably would have denied the assertion
emphatically, yet at the bottom of his consciousness he realized that
had she told him to sell everything he possessed for what he could get
and return to old Sussex he would have complied. Considering Mollie's
daily plaint, it was a constant source of wonder to him that the girl
did not do this; but she seemed wholly satisfied with things as they
were. For exercise and excitement she rode almost every horse upon the
place--rode astride like a man. For amusement she read everything she
could lay hands upon, both from the modest Baker library and from the
larger and more creditable collection which Rankin had imported from
the East. This was the first real library that had ever entered the
State, and, subject for speculation, it had uniformly the front
fly-leaves remaining as mere stubs, as though the pages had been torn
out by a hurried hand. What name was it that had been in those hundreds
of volumes? For what reason had it been so carefully removed? The girl
had often speculated thereon, and fitted theory after theory; but never
yet, wilful as she was, had she had the temerity to ask the only person
who could have given explanation,--Rankin himself.
In common with her sisters everywhere, Florence had an instinctive love
of a fad. Realizing this fact, Scotty was not in the least deceived
when, during a lull at the dinner-table one evening late in the Fall,
she broke in with an irrelevant though seemingly innocent remark.
"I saw several big jack-rabbits when I was out riding this morning." The
dark eyes turned upon her father quizzically, humorously. "They seem to
be very plentiful."
"Yes," said Scotty; "they always are in the Fall."
Florence ate for a moment in silence.
"Did you ever think how much sport we could have if we owned a couple of
hounds?" she asked.
Scotty was silent; but Mollie threw up her hands in horror. "You don't
really mean that you want any of those hungry-looking dogs around, do
you, Flossie?" she protested pettishly. "Seems as though you'd be
satisfied with riding the horses tomboy style without going to hunting
rabbits that way."
The daughter's color heightened and the matter dropped; but Scotty knew
the main attack was yet to come. He had learned from experience the
methods of his daughter in attaining an object.
Later in the evening father and daughter were alone beside a well-shaded
lamp in the cosey sitting-room. Mollie had retired early, complaining of
a headache, and carrying with her an air of martyrdom even more
pronounced than usual; so noticeable, in fact, that, absently watching
the door through which she had left, an expression of positive gloom
formed over Scotty's thin face. Two strong young arms fell suddenly
about his neck and abruptly changed his thoughts. A soft warm cheek was
laid against his own.
"Poor old daddy!" whispered a caressing voice.
For a moment Scotty did not move; then, turning, he looked into the
brown eyes. "Why?" he asked.
"Because,"--her voice was low, her answering look was steady,--"because
it won't be but a little while until he'll have to move away--move back
into civilization."
For a moment neither spoke; then, with a last pressure of her cheek
against her father's, the girl crossed the room and took another chair.
Scotty followed her with his eyes.
"Are you against me, too, little girl?" he asked.
Florence reached over to the table, took up an ever-ready strip of
rice-paper, and, rolling a cigarette, tendered it with the air of a
peace-offering.
"No, I'm not against you; but it's got to come. Mamma simply can't
change. She can't find anything here to interest her, and we've got to
take her away--for good."
Scotty slowly struck a sulphur match, waited until the flame had burned
well along the wood, then deliberately lit his cigarette and burned it
to a stump.
"Aren't you happy here, Flossie?" he asked gently.
The girl's hands were folded in her lap, her eyes looked past him
absently.
"Really, for once in my life," she answered seriously, "I spoke quite
unselfishly. I was thinking only of mamma." There was a pause, and a
deeper concentration in the brown eyes. "As for myself, I hardly know.
Yes, I do know. I'm happy now, but I wouldn't be long. The life here is
too narrow; I'd lose interest in it. At last I'd have a frantic desire,
one I couldn't resist, to peep just over the edge of the horizon and
take part in whatever is going on beyond." She smiled. "I might run
away, or marry an Indian, or do something shocking!"
Scotty flicked off a bit of ashes with his little finger.
"Can't you think of anything that would interest you and broaden your
life enough to make it pleasant?" he ventured.
This time mirth shone upon the girl's face, and a laugh sounded in her
voice.
"Papa, papa," she said, "I didn't think that of you! Are you so anxious
to get rid of your daughter?" As swiftly as it had come, the smile
vanished, leaving in its place a softer and warmer color.
"I'm not enough of a hypocrite," she added slowly, "to pretend not to
understand what you mean. Yes, I believe if there is a man in the world
I could care enough for to marry, I could live here or anywhere with him
and be perfectly happy; but that isn't possible. I'm of the wrong
disposition." The soft color in the cheek grew warmer, the brown eyes
sparkled. "I know myself well enough to realize that any man I could
care for wouldn't live out here. He'd be one who did things, and did
them better than others; and to do things he'd have to be where others
are. No, I never could live here."
Scotty dropped the dead cigarette stump into an ash-tray, and brushed a
stray speck of dust from his sleeve.
"In other words, you could never care for such a man as your father," he
remarked quietly.
The girl instantly realized what she had said, and springing up she
threw her arms impulsively about her father's neck.
"Dear old daddy!" she said. "There isn't another man in the world like
you! I love you dearly, dearly!" The soft lips touched his cheek again
and again. But for the first time in her life that Florence could
remember, her father did not respond. Instead, he gently freed himself.
"Nevertheless," he said, steadily, "the fact remains. You could never
marry a man like your father,--one who had no desire to be known of men,
but who simply loved you and would do anything in his power to make you
happy. You have said it." Scotty rose slowly, the youthfulness of his
movements gone, the expression of age unconsciously creeping into the
wrinkles at his temples and at the corners of his mouth. "You have hurt
me, Florence."
The girl was at once repentant, but her repentance came too late. She
dropped her face into her hands.
"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she pleaded, but could not say another word. Indeed,
there was nothing to be said.
Scotty moved silently about the room, closed a book he had laid face
downward upon the table, picked up a paper which had fallen to the
floor, and wound the clock for the night. At the doorway to his
sleeping-room he paused.
"You said something at dinner to-night about wanting some hounds,
Florence. I know where I can buy a pair, and I'll see that you have
them." He opened the door slowly, then quietly closed it. "And about our
leaving here. I have always expected to go sometime, but I hoped it
wouldn't be necessary for a while yet." He paused, fingering the knob
absently. "I'm ready, though, whenever you and your mother wish."
This time the door closed behind him, and, alone within the room, the
girl sobbed as though her heart would break.
CHAPTER IX
A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE
Florence got her dogs promptly. They were two big mouse-colored
grayhounds, with tails like rats and protruding ribs. They were named
"Racer" and "Pacer," and were warranted by their late owner to
out-distance any rabbit that ever drew breath. The girl felt that an
event as important as a coursing should be the occasion of a gathering
of the neighboring ranchers; but at the mere suggestion her conventional
mother threw up her hands in horror. It was bad enough for her daughter
to go out alone, but as the one woman among all that lot of cowboys--it
was too much for her to endure. Finally, as a compromise, Florence
agreed to invite only the people of the Box R Ranch to the first event.
So the invitations for a certain day, composed with fitting formality,
were sent, and in due time were ceremoniously accepted.
The chase was scheduled to begin soon after daybreak, and before that
time Rankin and Ben Blair were at the Baker house. They wore their
ordinary clothes of wool and leather, but Scotty appeared in a wonderful
red hunting-coat, which, though a bit moth-eaten in spots, nevertheless
showed glaringly against the brown earth of the ranch-house yard.
With the exception of the dogs, which were kept properly hungry for the
hunt, and Mollie, who had washed her hands of the whole affair, the
party all had breakfast, Scotty himself serving the coffee with the
skill of a head-waiter. Then the old buckboard, carefully oiled and
tightened for the occasion, was gotten out, a team of the fastest,
wiriest mustangs the Box R possessed was attached, and Rankin and Baker
upon the seat, Florence and Ben, well-mounted, trailing behind, the
party sallied forth. In order to avoid fences they had agreed to go ten
miles to the south before beginning operations. There a great tract of
government land, well grazed but untouched by the hand of man, gave all
but unlimited room.
The morning was beautiful and clear beyond the comprehension of city
dwellers, a typical day of prairie Dakota in late Fall. Far out over the
broad expanse, indefinite as to distance, the rising sun seemed resting
upon the very rim of the world. All about, near at hand, stretching into
the horizon, glistening, sparkling, innumerable frost crystals, product
of the past night, gleamed like scattered gems, showing in their
coloring every blended shade of the rainbow. The glory of it all
appealed to the girl, and throwing back her head she drew in deep
breaths of the tonic air.
"I'm going to miss these mornings terribly when I'm gone," she said
soberly.
Ben Blair scrutinized the backs of the two men in the buckboard with
apparent interest.
"I didn't know you intended leaving," he said. "Where are you going?"
Florence regarded her companion from the corner of her eye.
"I'm going away for good," she said.
Ben shifted half around in the saddle and folded back the rim of his big
sombrero.
"For good, you say?"
The girl's brown eyes were cast down demurely. "Yes, for good," she
repeated.
They had been losing ground. Now in silence they galloped ahead, the
regular muffled patter of their horses' feet upon the frozen sod
sounding like the distant rattle of a snare-drum. Once again even with
the buckboard, they lapsed into a walk.
"You haven't told me where you're going," repeated Blair.
The question seemed to be of purest politeness, as a host inquires if
his visitor has rested well; yet for a dozen years they two had lived
nearest neighbors, and had grown to maturity side by side. She concluded
there were some phases of this silent youth which she had not yet
learned.
"We haven't decided where we're going yet," she replied. "Mamma wants to
go to England, but papa and I refuse to leave this country. Then daddy
wants to live in a small town, and I vote for a big one. Just now we're
at deadlock."
A smile started in Ben's blue eyes and spread over his thin face.
"From the way you talk," he said, "I have a suspicion the deadlock won't
last long. If I stretch my imagination a little I can guess pretty close
to the decision."
Florence was sober a moment; then a smile flashed over her face and left
the daintiest of dimples in either cheek.
"Maybe you can," she said.
For the second time they galloped ahead and caught up with the slower
buckboard.
"Florence," Ben threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle and faced
his companion squarely, "I've heard your mother talk, and of course I
understand why she wants to go back among her folks, but you were raised
here. Why do you want to leave?"
The girl hesitated, and ran her fingers through her horse's mane.
"Mamma's been here against her will for a good many years. We ought to
go for her sake."
Ben made a motion of deprecation. "What I want to know is the real
reason,--your own reason," he said.
The warm blood flushed Florence's face. "By what right do you ask that?"
she retorted. "You seem to forget that we've both grown up since we went
to school together."
Ben looked calmly out over the prairie.
"No, I don't forget; and I admit I have no right to ask. But I may ask
as a friend, I am sure. Why do you want to go?"
Again the girl hesitated. Logically she should refuse to answer. To do
otherwise was to admit that her first answer was an evasion; but
something, an influence that always controlled her in Ben's presence,
prevented refusal. Slow of speech, deliberate of movement as he was,
there was about him a force that dominated her, even as she dominated
her parents, and, worst of all--to her inmost self she admitted the
fact--it fascinated her as well. With all her strength she rebelled
against the knowledge and combated the influence, but in vain. Instead
of replying, she chirruped to her horse. "It seems to me," she said,
"it's just as well to begin hunting here as to go further. I'm going on
ahead to ask papa and Mr. Rankin."
With a grave smile, Blair reached over and caught her bridle-rein,
saying carelessly: "Pardon me, but you forget something you were going
to tell me."
The girl's brown cheeks crimsoned anew, but this time there was no
hesitation in her reply.
"Very well, since you insist, I'll answer your question; but don't be
surprised if I offend you." A dainty hand tugged at the loosened button
of her riding-glove. "I'm going away, for one reason, because I want to
be where things move, and where I don't always know what is going to
happen to-morrow." She turned to her companion directly. "But most of
all, I'm going because I want to be among people who have ambitions, who
do things, things worth while. I am tired of just existing, like the
animals, from day to day. I was only a young girl when we were going to
school, but now I know why I liked that life so well. It was because of
the intense activity, the constant movement, the competition, the
evolution. I like it! I want to be a part of it!"
"Thank you for telling me," said Ben, quietly.
But now the girl was in no hurry to hasten on. She forgot that her
explanation was given under protest. It had become a confession.
"Up to the last few years I never thought much about the future--I took
it for granted; but since then it has been different. Unconsciously,
I've become a woman. All the little things that belong to women's lives,
too small to tell, begin to appeal to me. I want to live in a good house
and have good clothes and know people. I want to go to shops and
theatres and concerts; all these things belong to me and I intend to
have them."
"I think I understand," said Ben, slowly. "Yes, I'm sure I understand,"
he repeated.
But the girl did not heed him. "Last of all, there's another reason,"
she went on. "I don't know why I shouldn't speak it, as well as think
it, for it's the greatest of all. I'm a young woman. I won't remain such
long. I don't want to be a spinster. I know I'm not supposed to say
these things, but why not? I want to meet men, men of my own class, my
parents' class, men who know something besides the weight of a steer and
the value of a bronco,--some man I could respect and care for." Again
she turned directly to her companion. "Do you wonder I want to change,
that I want to leave these prairies, much as I like them?"
It was long before Ben Blair spoke. He scarcely stirred in his seat;
then of a sudden, rousing, he threw his leg back over the saddle.
"No," he said slowly, "I don't wonder--looking at things your way. It's
all in the point of view. But perhaps yours is wrong, maybe you don't
think of the other side of that life. There usually is another side to
everything, I've noticed." He glanced ahead. A half-mile on, the
blackboard had stopped, and Scotty was standing up on the seat and
motioning the laggards energetically.
"I think we'd better dust up a little. Your father seems to have struck
something interesting."
Florence seemed inclined to linger, but Scotty's waving cap was
insistent, and they galloped ahead.
They found Rankin sitting upon the wagon seat, smoking impassively as
usual; but the Englishman was upon the ground holding the two hounds by
the collars. Behind the big compound lenses his eyes were twinkling
excitedly, and he was smiling like a boy.
"Look out there!" he exclaimed with a jerk of his head, "over to the
west. We all but missed him! Are you ready?"
They all looked and saw, perhaps thirty rods away, a grayish-white
jack-rabbit, distinct by contrast with the brown earth. The hounds had
also caught sight of the game and pulled lustily at their collars.
Instantly Florence was all excitement. "Of course we're ready! No, wait
a second, until I see about my saddle." She dismounted precipitately.
"Tighten the cinch a bit, won't you, Ben? I don't mind a tumble, but it
might interfere at a critical moment." She put her foot in his extended
hand, and sprang back into her seat. "Now, I'm ready. Come on, Ben! Let
them go, papa! Be in at the finish if you can!" and, a second behind the
hounds, she was away. Simultaneously, the great jack-rabbit, scenting
danger, leaped forward, a ball of animate rubber, bounding farther and
farther as he got under full motion, speeding away toward the blue
distance.
The chase that followed was a thing to live in memory. From the nature
of the land, gently rolling to the horizon without an obstruction the
height of a man's hand, there was no possibility of escape for the
quarry. The outcome was as mathematically certain as a problem in
arithmetic; the only uncertain element was that of time. At first the
jack seemed to be gaining, but gradually the greater endurance of the
hounds began to count, and foot by foot the gap between pursuers and
pursued lessened. In the beginning the rabbit ran in great leaps, as
though glorying in the speed that it would seem no other animal could
equal, but very soon his movements changed; his ears were flattened
tight to his head, and, with every muscle strained to the utmost, he ran
wildly for his life.
Meanwhile, the four hunters were following as best they might. In the
all but soundless atmosphere, the rattle of the old buckboard could be
heard a quarter of a mile. Alternately losing and gaining ground as they
cut off angles and followed the diameter instead of the circumference of
the great circles the rabbit described, the drivers were always within
sight. Closer behind the hounds and following the same course, Florence
rode her thoroughbred like mad, with Ben Blair at her side. The pace was
terrific. The rush of the crisp morning air sang in their ears and cut
keenly at their faces. The tattoo of the horses' feet upon the hard
earth was continuous. Beneath her riding-cap, the girl's hair was
loosened and swept free in the wind. Her color was high, her eyes
sparkled. Never before had the man at her side seen her so fair to gaze
upon; but despite the excitement, despite the rush of action, there was
a jarring note in her beauty. Deep in his nature, ingrained, elemental,
was the love of fair play. Though he was in the chase and a part of it,
his sympathies were far from being with the hounds. That the girl should
favor the strong over the weak was something he could not understand--a
blemish that even her beauty did not excuse.
A quarter-hour passed. The sun rose from the lap of the prairie and
scattered the frost-crystals as though they had been mist. The chase was
near its end. All moved more slowly. A dozen times since they had
started, it seemed as if the hounds must soon catch their prey, that in
another second all would be over; but each time the rabbit had escaped,
had at the last instant shot into the air, while the hounds rushed
harmlessly beneath, and, ere they recovered, had gained a goodly lead
again in a new course. But now that time was past, and he was tired and
weak. It was a straight-away race, with the hounds scarcely twenty feet
behind. Back of the latter, perhaps ten rods, were the riders, still
side by side as at first. Their horses were covered with foam and
blowing steadily, but nevertheless they galloped on gallantly. Bringing
up the rear, just in sight but now out of sound, was the buckboard. Thus
they approached the finish.
Inch by inch the dogs gained upon the rabbit. Standing in his stirrups,
Ben Blair, the seemingly stolid, watched the scene. The twenty feet
lessened to eighteen, to fifteen, and, turning his head, the man looked
at his companion. Beautiful as she was, there now appeared to his eye an
expression of anticipation,--anticipation of the end, anticipation of a
death,--the death of a weaker animal!
A determination which had been only latent became positive with Blair.
He urged on his horse to the uttermost and sprang past his companion.
His right hand went to his hip and lingered there. His voice rang out
above the sound of the horses' feet and of their breathing.
"Hi, there, Racer, Pacer!" he shouted. "Come here!"
There was no response from the hounds; no sign that they had heard him.
They were within ten feet of the rabbit now, and no voice on earth could
have stopped them.
"Pacer! Racer!" shouted Ben. There was a pause, and then the quick bark
of a revolver. A puff of dust arose before the nose of the leading dog.
Again no response, only the steadily lessening distance.
For a second Ben Blair hesitated; but it was for a second only. Florence
watched him, too surprised to speak, and saw what for a moment made her
doubt her own eyes. The hand that held the big revolver was raised,
there was a report, then another, and the two dead hounds went tumbling
over and over with their own momentum upon the brown prairie. Beyond
them the rabbit bounded away into distance and safety.
Without a word Ben Blair drew rein, returned the revolver to its
holster, and came back to where the girl had stopped.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'll pay you for the dogs, if you like."
A pause and a straight glance from out the blue eyes. "I couldn't help
doing what I did."
Having in mind the look he had last seen upon the girl's face, he
expected an explosion of wrath; but he was destined to surprise. There
was silence, instead, while two great tears gathered slowly in her soft
eyes, and brimmed over upon the brown cheeks.
"I don't want you to pay for the dogs; I'm glad they're gone." She
brushed back a straggling lock of hair. "It's a horrid sport, and I'll
never have anything to do with it again." A look that set the youth's
heart bounding shot out sideways from beneath the long lashes. "I'm very
glad you did--what you did."
Just then the noisy old buckboard, with Rankin and Scotty clinging to
the seat, drove up and stopped short, with a protest from every joint of
the ancient vehicle.
CHAPTER X
THE DOMINANT ANIMAL
The chance to sell his stock, ostensibly his reason for delaying
departure, came to Scotty Baker much more quickly than he had
anticipated. Within a week after the hunt--in the very first mail he
received, in fact--came an offer from a Minneapolis firm to take every
scrap of horse-flesh he could spare. With much compunction and a doleful
face he read the letter aloud in the family council.
"That means 'go' for sure, I suppose," he commented at its conclusion.
Involuntarily Florence laughed. "You look as though you'd just got word
that the whole herd had stampeded over a ravine, instead of having had a
wave of good fortune," she bantered. "I believe you'd still back out if
you could."
Scotty's face did not lighten. "I know I would," he admitted.
"We'll not give you the chance, though," broke in Mollie, with the first
indication of enthusiasm she had shown in many a day. "Florence and I
will begin packing right away, and you can carry the things along with
you when you drive the horses to town."
Scotty looked at his wife steadily and caught the trace of excitement in
her manner.
"Yes, that is a good suggestion," he replied slowly. "It's liable to
turn cold any time now, and as long as we're going it may as well be
before Winter sets in." He filled a stubby meerschaum pipe with tobacco,
and put on cap and coat preparatory to going out of doors. "I spoke to
Rankin about the place the other day," he added, "and he says he'll take
it and pay cash whenever I'm ready. I'll drive over and see him this
morning."
Rankin was not at home--so Ma Graham told Scotty when he arrived--and
probably he wouldn't return till afternoon; but Ben was around the barn
somewhere, more than likely out among the broncos. He usually was, when
he had nothing else in particular to do.
Following her direction the Englishman loitered out toward the stock
quarters, looked with interest into the big sheds where the haying
machinery was kept, stopped to listen to the rush of water through the
four-inch pipe of the artesian well, lit his pipe afresh, and moved on
reflectively to the first of the great stock-yards that stretched
beyond. A tight board fence, ten feet high, built as a windbreak on two
sides, obstructed his way; and he started to walk around it. At the end
the windbreak merged into a well-built fence of six wires, and, a
wagon's breadth between, a long row of haystacks, built as a further
protection against the wind. These, together with the wires, formed the
third side of the yard. Leaning on the latter, Scotty looked into the
enclosure, at first carelessly, then with interest. A moment later,
without making his presence known, he stepped back to the hay, and,
selecting a pile of convenient height, sat down in the sunshine to
watch.
What he saw was a tall slim young man, in chaparejos and sombrero, the
inevitable "repeater" at his hip, solitarily engaged in the process of
breaking a bronco. Ordinarily in this cattle-country the first time one
of these wiry little ponies is ridden is on a holiday or a Sunday,
whenever a company of spectators can be secured to assist or to applaud;
but this was not Ben Blair's way. By nature solitary, whenever possible
he did his work as he took his pleasure, unseen of men. At present, as
he went methodically about his business, he had no idea that a person
save Ma Graham was within miles, or that anyone anywhere had the
slightest interest in what he was doing.
"Yard One," as the cowboys designated this corral, was the most used of
any on the ranch. Save for a single stout post set solidly in its
centre, it was entirely clear, and under the feet of hundreds of cattle
had been tramped firm as a pavement. At present it contained a
half-dozen horses, and one of these, a little mustang that was Ben's
particular pride, he was just saddling when Scotty appeared; the others,
a wild-eyed, evil-looking lot, scattering meantime as far as the
boundaries of the corral would permit.
Very deliberately Ben mounted the pony, hitched up the legs of his
leather trousers, folded back the brim of the big sombrero, and
critically inspected the ponies before him. One of them, a demoniacal
looking buckskin, appeared more vixenish than the others, and very
promptly the youth made this selection; but to get in touch of the wily
little beast was another matter. Every time the rancher made a move
forward the herd found it convenient likewise to move, and to the limit
of the corral fence. Once clear around the yard the rider humored them;
and Scotty, the spectator, felt sure he must be observed. But Ben never
looked outside the fence.
Starting to make the circle a second time, the rancher spoke a single
word to the little mustang and they moved ahead at a gallop. Instantly
responsive, the herd likewise broke into a lope, maintaining their lead.
Twice, three times, faster and faster, the rider and the riderless
completed the circle, the hard ground ringing with the din, the dust
rising in a filmy cloud; then of a sudden the figure on the mustang
passed from inaction into motion, the left hand on the reins tightened
and turned the pony's head to the side, straight across the diameter of
the circle. Simultaneously the right dropped to the lariat coiled on the
pummel of the saddle, loosed it, and swung the noose at the end freely
in air. On galloped the broncos, unmindful of the trick--on around the
limiting fence, until suddenly they found almost in their midst the
animal, man, whom they so feared, whom they were trying so to escape.
Then for a moment there was scattering, reversal, confusion, a denser
cloud of dust; but for one of their number, the buckskin, it was too
late. Ben Blair rose in his stirrups, the rawhide rope that had been
circling above his sombrero shot out, spread, dropped over the uplifted
yellow head. The little mustang the man rode recognized the song of the
lariat; well he knew what would follow. In anticipation he stopped dead;
his front legs stiffened. There was a shock, a protest of straining
leather which Scotty could hear clear beyond the corral, as, checked
under speed, the buckskin rose on his hind-feet and all but lost his
balance. That instant was Blair's opportunity. He turned his mustang
swiftly and headed straight for the centre-post, dragging the struggling
and half-strangled bronco; he rode around the post, sprang from the
saddle, took a skilful half-hitch in the lariat--and the buckskin was a
prisoner.
Scotty polished his glasses excitedly. He was wondering how the sleek
young men with whom he would soon be mingling in the city would go at a
job like that; and he smiled absently.
To "snub" the bronco up to the post so that he could scarcely turn his
head was an easy matter. To exchange the bridle to the new mount was
also comparatively simple. To adjust the great saddle, with the
unwilling victim struggling like mad, was a more difficult task; but
eventually all these came to pass, and Ben paused a moment to inspect
his handiwork. To a tenderfoot observer it might have seemed that the
battle was about over; but as a matter of fact it had scarcely begun. To
chronicle on paper that a certain person on a certain day rode a certain
bronco for the first time sounds commonplace; but to one who has seen
the deviltry lurking in those wild prairie ponies' eyes, who knows their
dogged fighting disposition, the reality is very different.
Only a moment Ben Blair paused. Almost before Scotty had got his
spectacles back to his nose he saw the long figure spring into the
saddle, observed that the lariat which had held the bronco helpless to
the post had been removed, and knew that the fight was on in earnest.
And emphatically it was on. With his first leap the pony went straight
into the air, to come down with a mighty jolt, stiff-legged; but Ben
Blair sat through it apparently undisturbed. If ever an animal showed
surprise it was the buckskin then. For an instant he paused, looked back
at the motionless rider with eyes that seemed almost green, then
suddenly started away at full speed around the corral as though Satan
himself were in pursuit.
Instantly with the diminutive horse swift anger took the place of
surprise. Scotty, the spectator, could read it in the tightening of the
rippling muscles beneath the skin, in the toss of the sleek head. Fear
had passed long ago, if the little beast had ever really known the
sensation. It was now merely animal against animal, dogged obstinacy
against dogged tenacity, a fight until one or the other gave in, no
quarter asked or accepted.
As before, the bronco was the aggressor. One by one, so swiftly that
they formed a continuous movement, he tried all the tricks which
instinct or ingenuity suggested. He bucked, his hind-quarters in the air
until it seemed he would reverse. He reared up until his front feet were
on the level of a man's head, until Scotty held his breath for fear the
animal would lose his balance backward; but when he resumed the normal
he found the man, ever relentless, firmly in place, impassively awaiting
the next move. He grew more furious with each failure. The sweat oozed
out in drops that became trickling streams beneath the short hair. His
breath came more quickly, whistling through the wide nostrils. A new
light came into the gray-green eyes and flashed from them fiendishly. As
suddenly as he had made his previous attacks he played his last trump.
Like a ball of lead he dropped in his tracks and tried to roll; but the
great saddle prevented, and when he sprang up again, there, as firmly
seated as before, was the hated man upon his back.
Then overpowering and unreasoning anger, the wrath of a frenzied lion in
a cage, of a baited bull in a ring, took possession of the buckskin. He
went through his tricks anew, not methodically as before, but furiously,
desperately. The sweat churned into foam beneath the saddle and between
his legs. He screamed like a demon, until the other broncos retreated in
terror, and Scotty's hair fairly lifted on his head. But one idea
possessed him--to kill this being on his back, this hated thing he could
not move or dislodge. A suggestion of means came to him, and straight as
a line he made for the high board fence. There was no misunderstanding
his purpose.
Then for the first time Ben Blair roused himself. The hand on the rein
tightened, as the lariat had tightened, until the small head with the
dainty ears curled back in a half-circle. Simultaneously the long rowels
of a spur bit deep into the foaming flank, the swish of a quirt sounded
keenly, a voice broke out in one word of command, "Whoa!" and repeated,
"Whoa!"
It was like thunder out of a clear sky, like an unseen blow in the dark.
Within three feet of the fence the bronco stopped and stood trembling in
every muscle, expecting he knew not what.
It was the man's time now--the beginning of the end.
"Get up!" repeated the same authoritative voice, and the hand on the bit
loosened. "Get up!" and rowel and quirt again did their work.
In terror this time the bronco plunged ahead, felt the guiding rein, and
started afresh around the circle of the corral fence. "Get up!" repeated
Ben, and like a streak of yellowish light they spun about the trail.
Round and round they went, the body of the man and horse alike tilted in
at an angle, the other ponies plunging to clear the way. Scotty counted
ten revolutions; then he awaited the end. It was not long in coming. Of
a sudden, as before, directly in front of where he sat, the bridle-reins
tightened, and he heard the one word, "Whoa!" and pony and rider stopped
like figures in clay. For a moment they stood motionless, save for their
labored breathing; then very deliberately Ben Blair dismounted. Not a
movement did the buckskin make, either of offence or to escape; he
merely waited. Still deliberately, the man removed the saddle and
bridle, while not a muscle of the bronco's body stirred. Scotty watched
the scene in fascination. Every trace of anger was out of the pony's
gray-green eyes now, every indication of terror as well. Dozens of
horses the Englishman had seen broken; but one like this--never before.
It was as though in the last few minutes an understanding had come about
between this fierce wild thing and its conqueror; as though, like every
human being with whom he came in contact, the latter had dominated by
the sheer strength of his will. It was all but uncanny.
Slowly Blair laid the bridle beside the saddle, and stepping over to his
late mount he patted the damp neck and gently stroked the silken muzzle.
"I think, old boy, you'll remember me when we meet again," Scotty heard
him say. "Good luck to you meantime," and with a last pat he picked up
his riding paraphernalia and started for the sheds.
Scotty stood up. "Hello," he called.
Ben halted and turned about, looking his surprise.
"Well, in the name of all that's proper!" he ejaculated slowly; "where'd
you drop down from?"
Scotty smiled broadly; frank admiration for the dusty cowboy was in his
gaze.
"I didn't drop down at all; I walked around here about half an hour ago.
You were rather preoccupied at the time and didn't notice me."
Blair came back to the fence and swung over the saddle and bridle. "You
took in the whole show then?" he asked. A trace of color came into his
face, as he vaulted over the rails. "I hope you enjoyed it."
Scotty observed the latest feat, unconscious as its predecessor, with
augmented admiration. "I certainly did," he said, and the subject was
dropped.
The two men walked together toward the ranch-house.
"I came over to see Rankin," remarked the Englishman, "but I'm afraid
I'll have to wait a bit."
"I guess you will," replied Ben. "He went up to the north well this
morning. They're building some sheds up there, and he's superintending
the job. He's as liable to forget about dinner as not. Nothing I can do
for you, is there?"
Scotty thrust his hands into his pockets.
"No, I guess not. I came over to see about selling him my place. We're
going to leave in a few days."
Ben Blair made no comment, and for a moment they walked on in silence;
then an idea suddenly occurred to the Englishman.
"Come to think of it," he said, "there is something you can do for me.
Bill and I have got to drive all the stock over to the station. I'd be a
thousand times obliged if you would help us."
For a half-dozen steps Blair did not answer; then he turned fairly to
his companion.
"You won't be offended if I refuse?" he asked.
"No, certainly not."
"Well, then, I don't want to help you myself, but I'll get Grannis to go
with you. He'll be just as useful."
Ordinarily, despite his assertion to the contrary, Scotty would have
been offended; but he knew this long youth quite too well to
misunderstand.
"Would you mind telling me why you refuse?" he said at last.
Ben shifted the heavy saddle to his other shoulder.
"No, I don't mind," he said bluntly. "I won't help you because I don't
want you to go."
Scotty pondered, and a light dawned on his slow-moving brain. He looked
at Ben sympathetically. "My boy," he said, "I'm sorry for you; by Jove!
I am."
They were even with the horse-barn now, and without a word Ben went in
and hung up the saddle, each stirrup upon a nail. Relieved of his load
he came back, slapping the dust from his clothes with his big gauntlets.
"If it's a fair question," he asked, "why do I merit your sympathy?"
The Englishman's hands went deeper into his pockets.
"Why?" He all but stared. "Because you haven't a ghost of a chance with
Florence. She'd laugh at you!"
Ben's blue eyes were raised to a level with the other's glasses. "She'd
laugh at me, you think?" he asked quietly.
Scotty shifted uneasily. "Well, perhaps not that," he retracted, "but
anyway, you haven't a chance. I like you, Ben, and I'm dead sorry that
she is different. She comes, if I do say it, of a good family, and
you--" of a sudden the Englishman found himself floundering in deep
water.
"And I am--an unknown," Ben finished for him.
At that moment Scotty heartily wished himself elsewhere, but wishing did
not help him. "Yes, to put it baldly, that's the word. It's unfortunate,
damned unfortunate, but true, you know."
Ben's eyes did not leave the other man's face. "You've talked with her,
have you?" he asked.
Scotty fidgeted more than before, and swore silently that in future he
would keep his compassions to himself.
"No, I've never thought it necessary so far; but of course--"
Ben Blair lifted his head. "Don't worry, Mr. Baker, I'll tell her my
pedigree myself. I supposed she already knew--that everybody who had
ever heard of me knew."
Scotty forgot his nervousness. "You'll--tell her yourself, you say?"
"Certainly."
The Englishman said nothing. It seemed to him there was nothing to say.
For a moment there was silence. "Mr. Baker," said Blair at last, "as
long as we've started on this subject I suppose we might as well finish
it up. I love your daughter; that you've guessed. If I can keep her
here, I'll do so. It's my right; and if there's a God who watches over
us, He knows I'll do my best to make her happy. As to my mother, I'll
tell her about that myself--and consider the matter closed."
Again there was silence. As before, there seemed to the Englishman
nothing to say.
Blair turned toward the ranch-house. "I saw Ma Graham motioning for
dinner quite a while ago," he said. "Let's go in and eat."
CHAPTER XI
LOVE'S AVOWAL
A distinct path, in places almost a beaten road, connected the Box R and
the Baker ranches. Along it a tall slim youth was riding a buckskin
pony. He was clean-shaven and clean-shirted; but the shirt was of rough
brown flannel. His leather trousers were creased and baggy at the knees.
At his hip protruded the butt of a big revolver. Upon his head,
seemingly a load in itself, was a broad sombrero; and surrounding it,
beneath a band which at one time had been very gaudy but was now sobered
by sun and rain, were stuck a score or more of matches. Despite the
motion of the horse the youth was steadily smoking a stubby bull-dog
pipe.
The time was morning, early morning; it was Winter, and the sun was
still but a little way up in the sky. The day, although the month was
December, was as warm as September. There had not even been a frost the
previous night. Mother Nature was indulging in one of her many whims,
and seemed smiling broadly at the incongruity.
Though the rider was out thus early, his departure had been by no means
surreptitious. "I'm going over to Baker's, and may not be back before
night," he had said at the breakfast table; and, impassive as usual, the
older man had made no comment, but simply nodded and went about his
work. Likewise there was no subterfuge when the youth arrived at his
destination. "I came to see Florence," he announced to Scotty in the
front yard; then, as he tied the pony, he added: "I spoke to Grannis,
and he said he'd come over and help you. Do you know exactly when you'll
want him?"
"Yes, day after to-morrow. This weather is too good to waste."
Ben turned toward the house. "All right. I'll see that he's over here
bright and early."
The visitor found the interior of the Baker home looking like a corner
in a storage warehouse. Florence, in a big checked apron reaching to her
chin, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, was busily engaged in still
further dismantling the once cosey parlor. Amidst the confusion, and
apparently a part of it, Mrs. Baker wandered aimlessly about. The front
door was wide open, letting in a stream of sunlight.
"Good-morning," said Ben, appearing in the doorway.
Mrs. Baker stopped long enough to nod, and Florence looked up from her
work.
"Good-morning," she replied. A deliberate glance took in the new-comer's
dress from head to foot, and lingered on the exposed revolver hilt. "Are
you hunting Indians or bear?"
Ben Blair returned the look, even more deliberately.
"Bear, I judge from the question. I came in search of you."
There was no answer, and the man came in and sat down on the corner of
a box. "You seem to be very busy," he said.
The girl went on with her packing. "Yes, rather busy," she said
indifferently.
Ben dangled one long leg over the side of the box.
"Are you too busy to take a ride with me? I want to talk with you."
"I'm pretty busy," non-committally.
"Suppose I should ask it as a favor?"
"Suppose I should decline?"
The long leg stopped its swinging. "You wouldn't, though."
The girl's brown eyes flashed. "How do you know I wouldn't?"
Ben stood up and folded his arms. "Because it would be the first favor I
ever asked of you, and you wouldn't refuse that."
They eyed each other a moment.
"Where do you want to go?" temporized Florence.
"Anywhere, so it's with you."
"You don't want to stay long?"
"I'll come back whenever you say."
Florence rolled down her sleeves and sighed with assumed regret. "I
ought to stay here and work."
"I'll help you when we come back, if you like."
"Very well." She said it hesitatingly.
"All right. I'll get your horse ready for you."
Scotty watched them peculiarly, Molly doubtfully, as they rode out of
the ranch yard; but neither made any comment, and they moved away in
silence.
"That's an odd looking pony you've got there," remarked the girl
critically, when they had turned into the half-beaten trail which led
south. "How does it happen you're on him instead of the other?"
Ben patted the smooth neck before him, and the pony twitched his ears
appreciatively.
"Buckskin and I had the misfortune not to meet until lately. We just got
acquainted a few days ago."
The girl glanced at her companion quickly and caught the look upon his
face.
"I believe you're fonder of your horses and cattle and things than you
are of people," she flashed.
The man's hand continued patting the pony's yellow neck.
"More fond than I am of some people, maybe you meant to say."
"Perhaps so," she conceded.
"Yes, I think I am," he admitted. "They're more worthy. They never abuse
a kindness, and never come down to the insult of class distinctions.
They're the same to-day, to-morrow, a year from now. They'll work
themselves to death for you, instead of sacrificing you to their
personal gain. Yes, they make better friends than some people."
Florence smiled as she glanced at her companion.
"Is that what you want to tell me? If it is, seeing I've just made my
choice and decided to return to civilization and mingle with human
beings of whom you have such a poor opinion, I think we may as well go
back. Mamma and I have been racking our brains for two days to find a
place for the china, and I've just thought of one."
Blair was silent a moment; then he said, "I promised to return whenever
you wished, but I've not said what I wanted to say yet."
Florence looked at the speaker with feigned surprise. "Is that so? I'm
very curious to hear!"
Ben returned the look deliberately. "You'd like to hear now what I have
to say?"
The girl's breath came more quickly, but she persisted in her banter. "I
can scarcely wait!"
The line of the youth's big jaw tightened, "I won't keep you in suspense
any longer then. First of all, I want to relate a little personal
history. I was eight years old, as you know, when I was taken into the
Box R ranch. In those eight years, as far as I can remember, not one
person except Mr. Rankin ever called at my mother's home."
Again the girl felt a thrill of anticipation, but the brown eyes opened
archly. "You must have kept a big fierce dog, or--or something."
"No, that was not the reason."
"I can't imagine what it could be, then."
"The explanation is simple. My mother and Tom Blair were never married."
Swiftly the color mounted into Florence's cheeks, and she drew up her
horse with a jerk.
"So that is what you brought me out here to tell me!" she blazed.
Ben drew up likewise, and wheeled his pony facing hers.
"I beg your pardon, but I'm not to blame for the way I told you--of
myself. You forced it. For once in my life at least, Florence, I'm in
dead earnest to-day."
The girl hesitated. Tears of anger, or of something else, came into her
eyes. "I'm going home," she announced briefly, and turned back the way
they had come.
The man silently wheeled his buckskin and for five minutes, ten minutes,
they rode toward home together.
"Florence," said the youth steadily, "I had something more I wished to
say to you; will you listen?"
No answer--only the sound of the solid steps of the thoroughbred and the
daintier tread of the mustang.
"Florence," he repeated, "I asked you a question."
The girl's face was turned away. "Oh, you are cruel!" she said.
Ben touched his pony, advanced, caught the bridle of the girl's horse,
and brought both to a standstill. The girl did not turn her head to look
at him, but she did not resist. Deliberately the man dismounted, loosed
the rolled blanket he carried back of his saddle, spread it upon the
ground, then looked fairly up into her brown eyes.
"Florence," he said, as he held out his hand to assist her to dismount,
"I've something I wish very much to say to you. Won't you listen?"
Florence Baker looked steadily down into the clear blue eyes. Why she
did not refuse she could not have told, could never tell. As well as she
knew her own name she realized what was coming--what it was the man
wished to say to her; but she did not refuse to listen.
"Florence," he said gently, "I'm waiting," and as in a dream she
stepped into the proffered hand, felt herself lowered to the ground,
followed the young man over to the blanket, and sat down. The sun, now
high above them, shone down warmly and approvingly. Scarcely a breath of
air was stirring. Not a sound came from over the prairies. As completely
as though they were the only two people on the earth, they were alone.
The man stretched himself at his companion's feet, where he could look
into her face and catch its every expression.
"Florence Baker," his voice came to her ears like the sound of one
speaking afar off, "Florence Baker, I love you. In all that I'm going to
say, bear this in mind; don't forget it for a moment. To me you will
always be the one woman on earth. Why I haven't told you this before,
why I waited until you were passing from my life before I said it, I
don't know; but now I'm as sure as that I'm looking at you that it is
so." The blue eyes never shifted. Presently one big strong hand reached
over and enfolded within its grasp another tiny resistless hand, which
lay there passive.
"You're getting ready to go away, Florence," he went on, "leaving this
country where you've spent almost your life, changing it for an
uncertainty. Don't do it--not for my sake, but for your own. You know
nothing of the city, its pleasures, its rush, its excitement, its
ambitions. Granted that you've been there, that we've both been there;
but we were only children then and couldn't see beneath the thinnest
surface. Yet there must be something beneath the glitter, something
you've never thought of and cannot realize; something which makes the
life hateful to those who have felt and known it. I don't know what it
is, you don't; but it must be there. If it weren't so, why would men
like your father, like Mr. Rankin, college men, men of wealth, men who
have seen the world, leave the city and come here to stay? They were
born in cities, raised in cities. The city was a part of their life; but
they left it, and are glad." The man clasped the little hand more
tightly, shook it gently. "Florence, are you listening?"
"Yes, I'm listening."
"I repeat then, don't go. You belong here. This life is your life.
Everything that is best for your happiness you will find here. You spoke
the other day of your birthright--to love and to be loved--as though
this could only be realized in a city. Do you think I don't care for you
as much as though my home were in a town?"
Passive, motionless, Florence listened, feeling the subtle sympathy
which ever existed between her and this boy-man drawing them closer
together. His strong magnetism, never before so potent, gripped her
almost like a physical force. His personality, original, masterful,
convincing, fascinated her. For the time the tacit consent of her
position never occurred to her. It seemed but natural and fitting that
he should hold her hand. She had no desire to speak or move, merely to
listen.
"Florence," the voice was very near now, and very low. "Florence, I love
you. I can't have you go away, can't have you pass out of my life. I'll
do anything for you,--live for you, die for you, fight for you, slave
for you,--anything but give you up." Of a sudden his arms were about
her, his lips touched her cheek. "Can't you love me in return? Speak to
me, tell me--for I love you, Florence!"
The girl started, and drew away involuntarily. "Oh, don't, don't! please
don't!" she pleaded. The dream faded, and she awoke to the reality of
her position. The brown head bowed, dropped into her hands. Her whole
body shook. "Oh, what have I done!" she sobbed. "Oh, what have I done!
Oh--oh--oh--"
For a time, neither of them realized nor cared how long, they sat side
by side, though separate now. Warmly and brightly as before, the sun
shone down upon them. A breath of breeze, born of the heated earth,
wandered gently over the land. The big thoroughbred shifted on its feet
and whinnied suggestively.
Gradually the girl's hysterical weeping grew quieter. The sobs came less
frequently, and at last ceased. Ben Blair slowly arose, folded his arms,
and waited. Another minute passed. Florence Baker, the storm over,
glanced up at her companion--at first hesitatingly, then openly and
soberly. She stood up, almost at his side; but he did not turn. Awe,
contrition, strange feelings and emotions flooded her anew. She reached
out her hand and touched him on the arm; at first hesitatingly, then
boldly, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive me. I've hurt you terribly; but I
didn't mean to. I am as I am; I can't help it. I can't promise to do
what you ask--can't say I love you now, or promise to love you in the
future." She looked up into his face. "Won't you forgive me?"
Still the man did not turn. "There's nothing to forgive, Florence," he
said sadly. "I misunderstood it all."
"But there is something for me to say," she went on swiftly. "I knew
from the first what you were going to tell me, and knew I couldn't give
you what you asked; yet I let you think differently. It's all my fault,
Ben, and I'm so sorry!" She gently and timidly stroked the shoulder of
the rough flannel shirt. "I should have stopped you, and told you my
reasons; but they seemed so weak, and somehow I couldn't help listening
to you." There was a hesitating pause. "Would you like to hear my
reasons now?"
"Just as you please." There was no unkindness in the voice--only
resignation and acceptance of the hard fact she had already made known
to him.
Florence hesitated. A catch came into her throat, and she dropped her
head to the broad shoulder as before.
"Ben, Ben!" she almost sobbed, "I can't tell you, after all. It'll only
hurt you again."
He was looking out over the prairies, watching the heat-waves that arose
in fantastic circles, as in Spring. "You can't hurt me again," he said
wearily.
The vague feeling of irreparable loss gripped the girl anew; but this
time she rushed on desperately, in spite of it. "Oh, why couldn't I have
met you somewhere else, under different circumstances?" she wailed. "Why
couldn't your mother have been--different?" She paused, the brown head
raised, the loosened hair tossed back in abandon. "Maybe, as you say,
it's a rainbow I'm seeking. Maybe I'll be sorry; but I can't help it. I
want them all--the things of civilization. I want them all," she
finished abruptly.
Gently the man disengaged himself. "Is that all you wished to say?"
"Yes," hesitatingly, "I guess that's all."
Ben picked up the blanket and returned it to his saddle; then he led the
horse to the girl's side. "Can I help you up?"
His companion nodded. The youth held down his hand, and upon it Florence
mounted to the saddle as she had done many times before. The thought
came to her that it might be the last time.
Not a word did Ben speak as they rode back to the ranch-house; not once
did he look at his companion. At the door he held out his hand.
"Good-bye," he said simply.
"Good-bye," she echoed feebly.
Ben made his adieu to Mrs. Baker, and then rode out to the barn where
Scotty was working. "Good-bye," he repeated. "We'll probably not meet
again before you go." The expression upon the Englishman's face caught
his eye. "Don't," he said. "I'd rather not talk now."
Scotty gripped the extended hand and shook it heartily.
"Good-bye," he said, with misty eyes.
The youth wheeled the buckskin and headed for home. Florence and her
mother were still standing in the doorway watching him, and he lifted
his big sombrero; but he did not glance at them, nor turn his head in
passing.
CHAPTER XII
A DEFERRED RECKONING
Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred
electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by.
Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their
handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth
itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old
cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third
of the available space; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood
now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with
various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the
years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and
glasses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The
continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating
to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before,
and immeasurably filthier under the accumulated grime of a dozen years.
Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one
would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often
replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with
which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor.
Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling
of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming
by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks
were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth.
Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares,
which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of
yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often
drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the
place--crafty, designing, relentless.
Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when
the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered
through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present,
received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an
invitation to join the circle.
Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impassively waiting. "Warmer
out," he advanced.
Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested.
Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye."
Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey glass, set it with another
of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a
fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his
elbows once more upon the bar.
Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over
this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp, and followed the retreat
with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face.
Kennedy whisked the empty glasses through the doubtful contents of a
convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found
the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone.
Bob shifted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but
finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar.
"No, not even a trail."
"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the
other's face.
"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty
miles--Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's,
Rankin's--none of them have seen a sign of a stray."
"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its
bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed.
The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd
been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three
years ago; pretty nearly the same date too--early in January it was, you
remember!"
Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come
around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have."
Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned
his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants
of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into
his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with
rustlers--a method very effective when successful in catching the
offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse--or depend wholly upon his
own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered
little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range.
"Boys,"--his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give
attention,--"boys, line up! It's on the house."
Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its
ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet
dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke.
Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their
diversions. Up they came--Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had
been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd;
Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle;
Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's
face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but
formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate
general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry
little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the
south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers
called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case
might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned
upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew
Kennedy had to say.
Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless.
Silently he placed a glass before each, and starting a bottle of red
liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it
passed on down to the end.
"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete,
they looked at him expectantly.
"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden.
Mick poured out a glass of water and set it on the bar before him; but
not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with.
"All right, boys,"--McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye,
and one and all the others followed the motion,--"all right, boys!
Here's to you, Kennedy!"--mouthing the last word as though it were a hot
pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their
respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical
clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the board. Silence, expectant
silence, returned.
"Boys,"--Mick looked from face to face intimately,--"we've got work
ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on
the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no
one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means."
Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?"
"About nine last evening."
"Sure?"
Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team
out mending fence in the afternoon, and when he was through he turned
them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there."
"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to
face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie
party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before."
Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked
nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared
distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a
circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a
college student.
Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this
process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping
his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement
of his mental machinery.
"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good
start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in
giving him longer. How about it?"
Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I
haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers
Tom Blair?" he digressed.
"I do," said Grover.
"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.
"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.
"I guess we all have," added another.
Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man.
"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it
was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this
side the river right now."
For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root.
"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last.
"So did I, until a month ago--until the last time I was in town stocking
up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it
all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're
suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he
keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the
Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up
appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side--the Big B. That's
how we came to speak of him."
"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around
before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?"
"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's
him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was
held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be
more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that
knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would
they have passed the Broken Kettle or the Lone Buffalo on the west?
Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed
a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows
this country and knows me."
"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke
in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was
water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide
open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot,
but he couldn't take a hoss over."
Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't.
He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and
round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side,
waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf
and passed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys."
They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink
again--"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed
another toast--"to the necktie party--after." The big bottle, empty now,
dinned on the surface of the bar.
"By God! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung,
anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he
left!"
"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben
particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got
grudge enough."
"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly.
Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl, almost like the
cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in
the direction whence it had come.
"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed.
"Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face
congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him!
He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!"
A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have
another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!"
Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a
short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind
the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser
alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of
these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop
Rankin--forget civilization--ignore the slow practices of law and order!
"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the
river!"
Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily
there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his
mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a
straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the
spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of
yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed
a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back
from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer;
until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence
absolute.
It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without
having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up
at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch
before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the
grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of
fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to
an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were
hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights
began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey--a long Southerner with
an imperial--came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand.
But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had
ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and
bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had
chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through
the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word
"rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time
they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for
their long ride to the river.
Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed
themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their
steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew
more and more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo
grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such,
all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a
groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the
man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged
edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder.
There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a
hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own
mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him,
turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late.
Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The
night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely
as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back.
It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached
the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans
before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the
edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each
division separating again into its individual members, until the whole,
like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each
other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but
touched the river itself.
Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety.
They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the
Wyoming border would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier,
they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,--in
our simile the left little finger,--first to catch sight of the surface
of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right.
"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the
others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went
on down the line.
On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders
advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would
disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed
them up--but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still
galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the
surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect
action at any moment,--the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they
sought,--for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.
And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who
was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come
to a full stop. At last the end had arrived--at last; and the rancher
turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when
he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a
thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward
him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups
flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy
himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a
motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west,
lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his
faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in
his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.
It took him but a minute to cover the distance--a minute until, almost
by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form
of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big
revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance.
Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the
river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard
simultaneously a sound he knew so well,--the dull spattering impact of a
bullet,--realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock
as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing
passage of a rifle-ball.
Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but
meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled
back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from
view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching
now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he
went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story.
Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the
ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining
moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand
over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying
before them the mingled ice patches and open running water of the
low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body
of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the
present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their
affair was not with such, but with the quick.
At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death,
only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after
another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues.
"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a
hundred yards out, down stream."
Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object.
"Yes, and another beyond--farther down--amongst that ice-pack! Do you
see?"
"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the
locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now--both of them. Blair's
own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere."
Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face
from which had come the puff of smoke.
"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his
temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch
out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is."
The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long
low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them
the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under
longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other
formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long
deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought
was ice was driftwood.
Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a
rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly
as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the
river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the
horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone,
somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now,
intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching.
In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their
impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of
their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now
well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the
midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was
between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice
would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it
was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and
depart in peace--on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man
could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was
laughing at them now. The curses redoubled.
Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his
rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he
cautioned, and raised it slowly into view.
Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of
blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a
dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat.
As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of
their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting
mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses.
The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river,
under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped
high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into
spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did
they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated
the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being
upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive.
Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon
Stetson's rifle again raise its head.
But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two
minutes--tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit
the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick,
merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded
all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his
feet.
"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he
blazed.
Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate.
"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd
be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done
for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a
show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to
be done now, anyway. We may as well go back."
For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One
and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at
least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat
nature was useless. Another time--yes, there would surely be another
time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would
be different.
"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay
here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry
that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to
cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind
him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden
almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted
behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their
saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of
stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling
at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along
the backward trail.
CHAPTER XIII
A SHOT IN THE DARK
Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the
seventeenth of January--the ranchers did not soon forget the date--a
warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the
morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches
had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change,
the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the
north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow
froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and
grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on,
cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a
myriad of tiny knives.
All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing
storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It
was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very
emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered
bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was
accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their
bunks, to fall asleep almost before they assumed the horizontal. The
other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why
his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they
could have learned one reason that day.
All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became
more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and
through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing
could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great
corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed
together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from
which projected a wilderness of horns.
The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking
many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the
light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown
relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet
stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet
so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a
protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the
previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight
Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they
could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in
stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a
kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable.
Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their
supervision the campaign was rapidly begun. For a few days the stock
must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch
force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle
stockade--a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on
every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the
number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for
the future.
The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used
on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough
several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow
as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only
limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course
of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise,
the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed
due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured.
For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them
eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back
and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they
vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons
were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the
afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a
gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid
contrast against the surrounding white.
The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out
behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one
foot ahead of the other, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he
mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward
the north range. He was late in returning, and, as usual, very taciturn;
but after supper, as he and Ben were smoking in friendly silence by the
kitchen fire, he turned to the younger man.
"Someone stayed at the north range last night," he announced abruptly.
"He slept there and had a fire."
Ben showed no surprise. "I thought so, probably," he replied. "Late this
afternoon I ran across a trail leading in from the west along our
clearing, and headed that way. It was one lone chain of footprints."
Rankin shivered, and replenished the fire. His long drive had chilled
him through and through.
"I suppose you have an idea who made that trail?" he said.
Though each knew that the other had heard the details of Pete's death,
neither had mentioned the incident. To do so had seemed superfluous.
Now, however, each realized the thought in the other's mind, and chose
not to avoid it.
"Yes," answered Ben, simply. "I suppose it was made by Tom Blair."
Never before had Rankin heard Benjamin Blair speak that name. He
stretched back heavily in his chair and lit his pipe afresh.
"Ben," he said, "I'm getting old. I never began to realize the fact
until this Winter; but I sha'n't last many more years." Puff, puff went
two twin clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. "Civilization has some
advantages over the frontier, and this is one of them: it's kinder to
the old."
Never before had Rankin spoken in this way, and the other understood the
strength of his conviction.
"You work too hard," he said soberly, though he felt the inadequacy of
the trite remark. "It's unnecessary. I wish you wouldn't do it."
Rankin threw an outward motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but
when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back
room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into
a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big
free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here
are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and
meantime nature compensates for everything."
There was a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no
digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said
slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He
turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's
been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy
desperate. He'd do anything now. He wouldn't ever come back here
otherwise."
Ben Blair's blue eyes tightened until the lashes were all but parallel.
"Yes," Rankin repeated, "he's crazy desperate to come here at
all--especially so now." A pause, but the eyes did not shift. "God knows
I'm sorry he ever came back. I was glad we found that trail too late to
follow it to-day; but it's only postponing the end. I believe he'll be
here at the ranch to-night. He's got to get a horse--he's got to do
something right away; and I'm going to watch. If he don't come I'll take
up the old trail in the morning."
Once more the pause, more intense than words. "He can't escape again,
unless--unless he gets me first--He must be desperate crazy."
Rankin arose heavily and knocked the ashes out of his pipe preparatory
to bed.
"There are a lot of things I might say now, Ben, but I won't say them.
We're not living in a land of law. We haven't someone always at hand to
shift our responsibility onto. In self-protection, we've got to take
justice more or less into our own hands. One thing I will say, though,
and I hope you'll never forget it. Think twice before you ever take the
life of another human being, Ben; think twice. Be sure your reasons are
mighty good--and then think again. Don't ever act in hot blood, or as
long as you live you'll know remorse." The speaker paused and his breath
came fast. Something more--who knew how much?--trembled on the end of
his tongue. He roused himself with an effort and turned toward his bunk.
"Good-night, Ben. I trust you
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