Loe raamatut: «The Free Range», lehekülg 6

CHAPTER XI
MADE PRISONER

At three o’clock the next afternoon Beef Bissell felt better than he had for some time, this condition being a result of his vindictive triumph over Bud Larkin, and the fact that that young man was in his hands. He felt that the back of the sheep business had been broken as far as his range and his county were concerned.

I have put the opening of this chapter at three o’clock, because that was the hour at which life began to be manifest at the Bar T ranch after the stirring events of the night before. Bud Larkin himself, worn out with his nights and days of vigil, had gone to sleep on his bed almost in the act of taking his boots off. Vague ideas of escape had coursed through his mind only to be overtaken and killed by the slumber he had evaded for so long.

His window faced southwest, and when he awoke it was to find the dazzling gold of the sun warming his face. For a moment he did not realize where he was, staring thus into the blinding radiance; but memory is only a few seconds sleepier than its master, and shortly everything came back to him.

A sinking sensation came over him as he remembered the wanton slaughter of his sheep, more because of the helpless agony of the poor dumb brutes than because of the monetary loss, although the latter was no trifling consideration, since nearly eight thousand dollars had been wiped out in less than half an hour.

Added to this sickening sensation was one of dull, choking rage that Bissell, a man of wealth and certain prominence in the State, should suggest and pursue a course that the most despised sheep-herder would never countenance. That, Larkin told himself, showed the real man; the rough, crude product of a rough and bitter country.

For the slogan of the earlier West was selfishness.

“All this is mine and don’t you come a-nigh me!” bawled the cowman when the nesters or grangers began to make their appearance.

The cowboy himself was the chief exponent of this philosophy. Restraint was unknown to him – his will was his law, and he tried to make it everyone else’s. When thousands of men have the same idea the result is trouble; hence the practice of cluttering up one’s person with artillery.

The one person for whom the cow-puncher had no respect and for whom the cow country was no fit abiding place was the man who allowed himself to be domineered. For that man convict-labor on a coral road would have been paradise compared to his ordinary existence.

Thus was the West the supreme abode at that time of the selfists or anarchists who have no thought or consideration outside their own narrow motives and desires.

Though Bud Larkin could not have analyzed his feelings in words, perhaps, yet he felt this keenly, and knew that now or never must he take his stand and keep it. He labored under the double handicap, in this country, of having gone in for sheep and having been beaten at it the very first thing. Consequently, if he ever expected to gain any caste, or at least a hearing, he must turn the tables and that as soon as possible.

At the present moment, as he washed his face in the thick white wash-bowl that made the guest-room of the Bar T celebrated for leagues around, he had nothing but the remotest ideas of how this might be done. The fact, in brief, was that his sheep were and would continue piling up in the hills north of the Badwater, ready to enter the hazardous stretch of dry territory that had so nearly been disastrous to his first flock.

Until he should be free and could reconnoiter his chances and resources he would hesitate to order them sent north. And yet they could not stay forever near the Badwater. Neither could they be halted on their march north, because they were crossing the range of Wyoming sheepmen at the time and common plains courtesy demanded that they be removed as fast as possible.

But for the fact that Sims was in personal charge Bud Larkin would have been in utter despair. Such was his confidence in his indolent herdsman that he felt that though ultimate failure attended their efforts no blame could ever be attached to Sims.

Leaving the guest-chamber, Larkin immediately stepped into the dining-room and the gloomy thoughts fled, for there sat Juliet near the window, sewing. She greeted him with a smile and immediately rose.

“Well, Mr. Man, I thought you would never wake up,” she remarked in mock reproof. “I’ve been waiting here since dinner to see that you had something to eat when you came out. You must be wild hungry.”

“I could eat a saddle,” said Larkin.

“Sorry, but the saddles are all out,” she replied with a smile. “However, we have some nice fresh broiled quirts, garnished with rawhide.”

“Bring me a double order,” said Bud, laughing, as he seated himself.

When he was almost through with his meal Juliet remarked:

“Father asked me to say that he would like to have a talk with you on the veranda when you were ready.”

“I’ll go right out,” he answered, thanking her for the trouble she had taken.

He found Bissell seated in one of the big chairs outside, and took the other. Both men rolled a cigarette and then Bissell spoke.

“I owe you a great deal, Larkin, for saving my daughter last night,” he said with genuine emotion in his voice. “Under the circumstances I am sorry for what I did, and wish I had it to do over again.”

“As for the first, I don’t deserve much credit. Juliet really saved her own life by coming to us when I fired the warning shot. As to the sheep, it’s too late to think about them now; we’ll come to another reckoning in that matter later on. I’d hardly expect a horse-thief to do a trick like that.”

Bissell’s tanned face turned a deep mahogany hue under the sting of this remark, and his eyes lost the soft look they had held when he spoke of Juliet.

“I’m willing to pay yuh the money loss,” he replied, still anxious to make amends.

“On guarantee, I suppose, that I don’t try to bring the rest of my sheep north.”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible, as you might know.”

“I allow you’re right foolish, Mr. Larkin; better think it over.”

“I did that last night when the sheep went into the river,” said Bud dryly.

“I suppose so, but a night’s sleep sometimes changes a man’s mind.”

“Not mine. The first night I was here I told you that I would bring my sheep north, and I still intend to do it. I am always willing to meet a man half-way; but you wouldn’t meet me. Instead of that you started in to ruin me. I have no objection to that, but you’d better take care that your schemes don’t work two ways.”

Bissell shrugged his shoulders. He still had the upper-hand of the situation, and his temper, in that case, was not hard to control.

“I allow I can look out for myself,” he said.

“No doubt, but you had better look out for me,” was the retort.

“I reckon I’ll manage,” remarked Bissell contemptuously. “But all this isn’t what I wanted to ask you. I’d be some pleased if you’d tell me about them rustlers you were with.”

“Why do you want to know about them?” countered Bud.

“Because they’re ruinin’ the cattle business. I dunno how many head they run off last year, but I do know that profits were cut in half by ’em. You was with ’em long enough to know some of ’em again, I allow?”

“Yes. I would know nearly all of them. What’s left of three is out there near the cottonwoods along Little River, but I don’t believe there’s enough to bury.”

“How is that?” inquired Bissell, who had evidently not heard of Larkin’s narrow escape from death at the rustler’s hands.

Bud told him briefly.

“You shore were lucky,” remarked the cowman with a Westerner’s appreciation of the situation. “Now, I’m the head of the cattlemen’s association in this part of the State, and o’ course it’s our business to clear the country of those devils. You’re just the man we want, because you’ve seen ’em and know who they are. You tell me what yuh know and there’ll be the biggest hangin’ bee this State ever seen.”

As has been said, Bud Larkin had the legitimate owner’s hatred of these thieves who preyed on the work of honest men, and had sworn to help run them out of the country as soon as his own business was finished. Now, in the flash of an eye he saw where he could turn the knowledge he had gained to good account.

“You have rather queer ideas of me, Mr. Bissell,” he said. “First, you fight me until I am nearly ruined, then you expect I will turn around and help you just as though nothing had happened.”

“But in this,” cried the cowman, “you’ve got to help us. This is all outside of a war between the cows and the sheep. This is a matter of right and justice.”

“So is the matter of my sheep. The range is free and you won’t let me use it. Do you call that right or just, either one?”

Bissell choked on his own reply, and grew red with anger. Suddenly, without exactly knowing how, the tables had been turned on him. Now, instead of being the mighty baron with the high hand, he was the seeker for help, and this despised sheepman held the trump cards.

Furthermore, Larkin’s direct question was capable of a damaging reply. Bissell sought desperately for a means of escape from the trap in which he found himself.

“Do you mean, young feller, that you won’t tell me about them rustlers?”

“That’s about it. But I might on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That your cattlemen’s association give the rest of my sheep undisturbed passage north across the range to Montana.”

“By gosh!” yelled the cowman, beside himself, springing out of his chair and glaring at the other with clenched hands on his hips. “That’s your game, is it? Yuh pull our teeth an’ then offer us grub, eh? Why, tan my hide – ” he gagged with wrath and stood speechless, a picture of impotent fury.

Larkin laughed quietly.

“The shoe’s on the other foot, but it doesn’t seem to feel any too good,” he sneered. “Better be reasonable now, hadn’t you?”

“Reasonable? Sure, I’ll be reasonable!” cried the other vindictively, almost suffocated with his emotion. “Let me ask yuh something. Do you absolutely refuse to tell about them rustlers if I don’t do as you want and let your sheep through?”

“Well, not exactly,” replied Bud, grinning. “I’ll tell you this: they’re going to run off a hundred head or so of your stock yet this week for the railroad camps up the State. I think it’s fair to give you warning beforehand.”

“Darn you and your warning! What I want is the names and descriptions of them men. Will yuh give ’em to me?”

“No, not unless we can strike a bargain. You talk about right and justice. Now let’s see a little of it,” answered Larkin.

“All right, young feller, you’ve said your say. Now listen to me. I’m a deputy sheriff in this county” – he ripped open his vest and showed the badge pinned to the inside lining – “an’ I hereby arrest yuh for bein’ a party to them rustlers. Yer either a criminal or yuh ain’t, accordin’ to our notions out here, an’ if yuh wun’t help us catch yer friends there ain’t nothin’ more to be said. Now roll that into a cigarette an’ eat it alive if yuh want to.”

He glared defiantly down on Larkin, whose brows had drawn together as he went into executive session with himself.

In five seconds the situation between these men was once more reversed. It was not that Larkin had overreached himself; he simply had encountered a circumstance of which he was unaware. The possibility of Bissell being a deputy sheriff had never occurred to him, and now he sat balked and perplexed, balancing his chances on either hand.

It was not in the man to yield supinely to this new danger. He could not even think of the possibility without shame. He was right, he told himself over and over again, and, listen as he would, he could detect no contradictory reply from the still, small voice we are all credited with possessing.

His mission in life was to get his sheep through. In that circumstance the rustlers were unexpected allies and he hoped they would put burs under the tails of every steer on the range and drive them to the Gulf of Mexico. Once his merinos and angoras were safe across the line Bud would gladly return and help round them up.

The idea that he, clipped, helpless, and harmless as he was, should now turn in and assist his despoilers to better their own fortunes was so maddening that he grinned with fury as he thought of it. No, the thing was impossible!

Bissell had not changed his menacing position during all of Bud Larkin’s ponderings and was waiting patiently for some outbreak from his victim. But at last he could stand it no more.

“Well,” he snarled, “say something! What’s your answer?”

“That bargain goes as she stands,” said Bud, after a moment’s thought. “You help me and I’ll help you. Otherwise you won’t get a word out of me, and you can do whatever you like.”

“You’re under arrest,” snapped Bissell. “Give me your gun!” and he covered Bud with a single swift motion of his hand.

The younger man did as commanded and rose.

“Now go into that room; you’re a prisoner,” ordered Bissell.

CHAPTER XII
JULIET ASSERTS HERSELF

Now that the owner of the Bar T ranch had succeeded again in a match of wits with Larkin, he put sheep out of his mind and turned his attention to the more-immediate danger of rustlers. It had been a matter of a couple of years since the last determined attempt of the cowmen to oust these poachers by force of arms, and Bissell thought that the time was ripe for another and, if possible, final expedition.

With Larkin in his power, he had no doubt that the necessary information could be procured from him in one way or another, and, after talking matters over with Stelton, dispatched cowboys at top speed to the ranches in his district, asking that the owners and as many men as they could spare should come at once to a conference at the Bar T.

Having got them there, it was his intention to sweat Larkin for names and descriptions, and then let him go. Should the sheepman refuse all information, then his case could be acted upon by the members of the association without any further delay.

All these plans Larkin learned from Juliet and her mother, who looked after most of his wants. The latter, good woman, quite flustered at having what she termed a “regular boarder,” became rather fond of the patient young man from the East who never failed to listen attentively to her narrative of the famous trip to St. Paul.

The regular boarder, for his part, could not but sympathize with this homely, hard-working, lonely woman. One rarely connected Martha Bissell with old Beef Bissell except in an impersonal way, as one would have connected the corral, or the barn, or the brand. In fact, the cowman seemed hardly cognizant of her existence, long since having transferred all the affections his hard life had left him to the daughter he worshiped.

But Martha, as is so often the case with women who grow old slaving for their husbands, had not changed in her devotion to Bissell since the proud day they had eloped on one horse and been married by a “sky pilot” in the nearest cow town.

Mrs. Bissell had come to that dolorous time in a woman’s life when she no longer has the power of attracting male attention – which power is not a matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought.

Loving her daughter as she loved her husband, she derived a certain negative happiness from the fact that their exclusive companionship brought them pleasure.

For herself she asked nothing, and, as is the way of the world, she got it.

For Bud Larkin, who had only known her as an angular, uninteresting addendum of the Bar T, she took on a certain pathetic interest, and he went out of his way to talk with her about the glories of Chicago, since her one dissipation seemed to be mental journeys back East.

Larkin was not strictly a prisoner at the Bar T ranch-house, for this had been found impracticable from a number of standpoints. He had the run of the ranch, an old, decrepit cow pony to ride, and could go in any direction he chose under the supervision of a cowboy who carried a Winchester and was known to have impaled flies on cactus spines at thirty yards.

Occasionally Bud and Juliet rode out together, with this man in the rear, and renewed the old friendship that had lain dormant for so long. During one of these rides the girl, after debating the matter with herself, opened on a delicate subject.

“That Caldwell man is a strange-looking fellow, Bud. Who is he?”

Larkin looked at Juliet closely before replying, but could find nothing in her face to indicate any but a natural curiosity.

“He is a Chicago character I used to know,” he returned shortly. “But what brought him out here is a puzzle to me.”

“You seemed to want to see him pretty badly,” said she, assuming a pout. “I was really jealous of him taking you off the way he did that first night you came.”

“That’s the first time I have been flattered with your jealousy,” Bud returned gayly. “I’ll ask him to come again.”

And that was the closest she could come to a discussion of Caldwell’s connection with Larkin. The fact, although she would not admit it, gave her more concern than it should have, and kept her constantly under a cloud of uneasiness. Bud’s evasion of the subject added strength to the fear that there was really something horrible in Bud’s past.

It was on one of his rides alone that Bud suddenly came to a very unflattering solution of another problem in regard to Caldwell. Ever since the stampede he had been giving time to the consideration of Smithy’s strange actions that night. There was no love lost between the two, that was certain, and why the blackmailer should risk his life to defeat the rustlers and save the man he hated was beyond Bud’s comprehension.

But at last he arrived at a solution that removed all his doubts, and this was that Smithy Caldwell had saved him for the same reason that the old lady in the fairy story was told to preserve the goose.

“Kill the goose and there will be no more golden eggs,” remarked the fairy sagely, and evidently Caldwell was ready to heed her advice.

It certainly was worth the effort on Smithy’s part, and even when Larkin had finally discovered the man’s sordid motives he felt a species of admiration for the man’s coolness and bravery. He felt, too, that, if he could not get a grip on the blackmailer before another payment was demanded, he could part with the money for the first time with the feeling that Caldwell had partially earned it.

As to Caldwell’s presence among the rustlers, that was another matter entirely, and Larkin could not fathom the mystery. How Smithy, a low Chicago tough, whose only knowledge of a horse had been gained by observation, could so quickly become a trusted member of this desperate gang of cattle-thieves he could not conceive. Was there some occult power about the man – some almost hypnotic influence that passed his crossed eyes and narrow features in that company?

Larkin gave it up. But he knew that, should he ever again get his full liberty, his sheep safely across the range, and the leisure to pursue rustlers, Mr. Smithy Caldwell of Chicago would be his especial prey. And he grinned with anticipation at the glory of that moment when he should have the blackmailer in his power with enough evidence to swing him.

Stelton was the one man of the whole Bar T outfit who had suffered from the boomerang of his evil plans. It had been through him that Larkin was forced to accompany Bissell home after the stampede; and now he passed days and nights of misery, watching the progress of Bud’s very evident suit. Chained down by his daily round of duties, his time was not his own, and with a green venom eating at his heart he watched the unfettered Bud ride off across the plains with Juliet, laughing, care-free, and apparently happy.

So greatly did this irk Mr. Stelton that his morose melancholy increased to a point where his own cowpunchers entertained fears for his sanity, and made him acquainted with the fact in their well-known tender manner. This did not serve to buoy his spirits, and he cursed himself roundly for the ridiculous position into which he had led himself.

As to Juliet, he hardly dared pass a civil time of day with her, so terrible a trial had his thwarted desires in regard to her become.

The fourth day after Bud’s arrest old Beef Bissell called for his horse and rode away to the Circle Arrow ranch. Old man Speaker had not seen fit to rally to the cowmen’s gathering, and Bissell valued his counsel very much; he had, therefore, gone to fetch him.

During the three days of his absence Mike Stelton suffered another of those reverses which are so exasperating because they are brought about by our own ugly spirits.

All the time he had continued to eat at the ranch table, and had been accorded his share of the conversation and attention. Now, with old Bissell out of the way, his status immediately changed. Mrs. Bissell, Juliet, and Bud were the best of friends, and presented a solid front of uniform but uninterested politeness to the foreman against which he was helpless. On the second day, for the first time in ten years, he moved his seat down into the punchers’ dining-room and ate with them.

Such a defeat as this could not pass unnoticed among the punchers, who had never been accorded the pleasure of their gloomy foreman’s presence at meal times, and Stelton suffered keenly from the gibes of the men.

Stelton endured all this with seeming calmness, but when Bissell returned the foreman got his revenge. He outlined with full detail and considerable embellishment the constant progress that Larkin was making with Juliet. Disclaiming any interest of his own in the matter, he explained that the reason for his complaint was the character of Larkin.

“Why, boss, yuh shore wouldn’t want a darned sheepman breakin’ Julie’s heart,” he said, “an’ him a Eastern dude at that. You should ’a’ seen that feller. Yuh no more’n got yore back turned than he carried on with Juliet all the time. It made me plenty mad, too; but what could I do about it? I just moved my grub-pile down with the boys an’ thought I’d tell yuh when yuh came home.”

A half an hour of this was sufficient to work Bissell up into a furious rage, and, in something the same temper, he sent for Juliet an hour before dinner.

Now, a man who is subjected to choleric outbursts should never send for anything but food an hour before dinner, for the reason that a very trivial thing looks, at that time, big enough to wreck the nation. Bissell, however, failed to recollect this simple truth, and greeted his daughter with smoldering eyes, that gradually softened, however, the longer he looked at her.

“There is somethin’ I want to ask yuh, Prairie Bell,” he began. “Yuh won’t mind?”

“No, dear,” she answered. “What is it?”

“This sheepman Larkin – is it true yuh been courtin’ with him while I been away?”

“I’ve been riding with him a good deal, and I’ve seen him every day, if that is what you mean. You trust me to be sensible, don’t you, father?”

“Yes, Julie, o’ course I do; but I’m just thinkin’ of yerself – and of me. Dunno what people’d say if they knowed ol’ Bissell’s daughter was traipsin’ around with a sheepman that stands in with the rustlers. An’ you – I allow it’d break my heart if yuh ever got fond of that rascal. He’s a bad lot.”

“I can’t agree with you in any of those things,” said the girl, with just the right mixture of determination and affection in her voice. “To anyone who is fair, it is no disgrace to be a sheepman; Mr. Larkin is not in with the rustlers, as I believe he outlined to you, nor is he a rascal in any way. Lastly, I don’t care what people say about whom I ride with. Mr. Larkin is a gentleman, and that is all I require.”

During this speech, which held the middle ground between daring and prudence, independence and acquiescence, civility and impertinence, Bissell’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened. He had rarely, if ever, known his daughter to make such an explicit refutal of his inferences. His brow darkened.

“Yuh never stuck up fer a man like that in yore life, Julie,” he accused her severely. “That Larkin is a bad one. Mebbe yuh don’t know it, but he can’t answer for everything in his life. O’ course, you can’t understand these things, but I’m just tellin’ yuh. Now, I’m plumb sorry to have to do it, but I want yuh to tell me yuh won’t go out with him any more.”

“I don’t think you should ask me that, father,” said the girl quietly. “I am old enough to choose my own associates. I have known Mr. Larkin for years, where you have only known him for days. I love you too much to disgrace you or mother, daddy dear; but you must not ask me to act like a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.”

To Bissell, after dinner, this talk would have served its intended purpose – that of presenting reasonably the reverse side of the argument. Now, however, it merely stirred him up. He looked sharply at his daughter with his small, piercing eyes.

“Do you defy me?” he thundered, amazed at the girl’s temerity. “All I do is try to think up ways of makin’ yuh happy, an’ now yuh insist on havin’ this scoundrel make love to yuh, whether I want it or not. Answer me this, Julie, are you in love with him?”

“I’ve never met another man I cared as much for,” she returned with calm frankness, looking at him with big, unafraid brown eyes.

“Great Heavens!” cried Bissell, leaping out of his chair and raising his clenched fists above his head. “That I should come to this! Julie, do yuh know what yore sayin’? Do yuh know what yore doin’?”

“Yes, I do; and do you want to know the reason for it?”

“Yes.”

“Because I think the things that have been done to Mr. Larkin are contemptible and mean.” There was no placidity in those brown eyes now. They flashed fire. Her face had grown pale, and she, too, had risen to her feet. “I’m a cowman’s daughter, but still I can be reasonable. Our range is free range, and he has a perfect right to walk his sheep north if he wants to. And even if he hadn’t, there is no excuse for the stampede that took place the other night.

“And last of all, you have no right to keep Mr. Larkin here against his will so that he does not know what is happening to the rest of his flocks. I consider the whole thing a hideous outrage. But that isn’t all. You have talked to me this afternoon in a suspicious manner that you have no right to use toward me. I am not a child, and shall think and act for myself.”

“What do you mean by that? That you will help this scoundrel?”

“Yes, if I think it is the right thing to do.”

Bissell started back as though someone had struck him. Then he seemed to lose his strength and to shrivel up, consumed by the flame of his bitterness and disappointment. At the sight, the girl’s whole heart melted toward the unhappy man, and she longed to throw her arms around him and plead for forgiveness. But the same strain that had made her father what he was, in his hard environment, was dominant in her, and she stood her ground.

For a minute Bissell looked at her out of dull, hurt eyes. Then he motioned toward the door.

“Go in,” he said gently; “I don’t want to see yuh.”