Kitabı oku: «The Cattle-Baron's Daughter», sayfa 18

XXV
CHEYNE RELIEVES HIS FEELINGS

A blustering wind moaned outside the lonely building, and the stove snapped and crackled as the chilly draughts swept into the hall at Cedar Range. Jackson Cheyne had arrived on horseback in the creeping dusk an hour or two earlier, after spending most of four nights and days in the slushy snow, and was now resting contentedly in a big hide chair. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that Hetty sat close by, he was feeling pleasantly drowsy when she turned to him.

“You have only told us that you didn’t find the train-wreckers, and you know we are just dying with curiosity,” she said.

Cheyne looked up languidly, wondering whether the half-indifferent inquisitiveness was assumed, as he remembered the anxiety he had seen in Hetty’s face when he first came in. Instead of answering directly, he glanced round the little group sitting about the stove – for Miss Schuyler, and Christopher Allonby and his cousin were there, as well as Hetty.

“One would scarcely fancy you were dying of anything,” he said. “In fact, it would be difficult to imagine any of you looking better. I wonder if you know that with the way that the light falls that dusky panelling forms a most effective background, Miss Schuyler?”

Flora Schuyler laughed. “We are not to be put off. Tell us what you found – and you needn’t have any diffidence: we are quite accustomed to hearing the most astonishing things at Cedar.”

“The trouble is that I didn’t find anything. I spent several most unpleasant hours watching a railroad-trestle in blinding snow, until the cattle-train went by in safety. Nobody seemed to have the slightest wish to meddle with it.”

Without exactly intending it he allowed his eyes to rest on Hetty a moment, and fancied he saw relief in her face. But it was Flora Schuyler who turned to him.

“What did you do then?”

“I and the boys then decided it would be advisable to look for a ranch where we could get food and shelter, and had some difficulty in finding one. In the morning, we made our way back to the depot, and discovered that a gentleman you know had hired a locomotive a little while after the cattle-train started.”

“Larry, of course!” ejaculated Chris Allonby. “I wanted to stake five dollars with Clavering that he would be too smart for him again.”

Cheyne looked at him inquiringly. “I don’t quite understand.”

“No?” and Allonby’s embarrassment was unmistakable. “Well, there is no great reason why you should. I have a habit of talking at random occasionally. There are quite enough sensible people in this country without me just now.”

“Then,” said Cheyne, “I went on to an especially forlorn place called Boynton, and discovered with some difficulty that Mr. Grant, who hired the locomotive, had stopped it at a dangerous curve and picked several men up. He took them on to Boynton, and there they seem to have disappeared, though it was suggested that they had departed for a place unknown, either on the top of, or underneath a fast freight train.”

Chris Allonby chuckled. “Well,” he said, “we haven’t the least use for Larry here, but I am almost proud he was a friend of mine.”

Cheyne glancing round at the others fancied there was a little glow in Hetty’s eyes and a trace of warmer colour in Flora Schuyler’s face. It was only just perceptible to him, but he had less doubt when he saw that Miss Allonby was watching her companion covertly, for he was quite aware that the perceptions of the average young woman were likely to be much keener than his own in such affairs.

“I can’t help fancying you have a clue to what really happened, Miss Torrance,” he said.

“Yes,” said Hetty quietly. “It is quite plain to me that Larry saved the train.”

Cheyne glanced at her sharply, and then turned to Allonby. “It strikes you that way, too?”

“Of course,” said Allonby unguardedly. “It is too bad of Larry. He has beaten us again, though Clavering fixed the thing quite nicely.”

Cheyne’s face grew stern. “I am to understand that you did not warn the engineer or any of the railroad men?”

“No,” said Allonby, with evident embarrassment. “We didn’t. It was necessary to make the thing as ugly for Larry’s friends as we could, and we knew you would be at the bridge. If you had caught them in the act, with the train not far away, it would have looked ever so much better for us – and you.”

He stopped, with an unpleasant feeling that he had blundered. Cheyne’s face had become grimmer. Miss Schuyler’s lips were curled in a little scornful smile, and there was a curious sparkle in Hetty’s eyes.

“I wonder if you quite recognize the depth of Mr. Grant’s iniquity yet?” Flora Schuyler asked.

Cheyne smiled. “I confess I should very much like to meet the man. You see, my profession prevents my being a partisan, and the cleverness and daring of what he has evidently done appeals to me. He took the chances of his own men turning on him to save them from an affray with us, brought them off, and sent your cattle-train through; and what, it seems to me, was more than all, disregarded the probability of his enemies associating him with the contriving of the outrage.”

“Wouldn’t you have done that?” asked Miss Allonby.

“No,” said the soldier quietly. “I don’t think I should. A man who would do what this one has done would be very likely to take a hand in that kind of thing.”

Again there was an almost embarrassing silence broken by Miss Allonby. “I wonder who could have told him.”

Nobody spoke until Cheyne felt it advisable to break the silence.

“You have no sympathy with Grant, Miss Allonby?”

“No,” said the girl plaintively. “I don’t go quite as far as Mr. Clavering and my cousin do – though Chris generally talks too much – but Larry is a nuisance, and really ought to be crushed. You see, we had everything we wanted before he and the others made the trouble here.”

“That is quite convincing,” Cheyne said, with somewhat suspicious gravity. He looked at the others, and fancied that Hetty would have answered but that Flora Schuyler flashed a warning glance at her.

“One could almost fancy that most of us have too much now,” she said. “Are we better, braver, stronger, or of choicer stuff than those others who have nothing, and only want the little the law would give them? Oh, yes, we are accomplished – very indifferently, some of us – and have been better taught, though one sometimes wonders at the use we make of it; but was that education given us for our virtues, or thrust upon us by the accident that our fathers happened to be rich?”

“You will scarcely approve, Miss Allonby?” said Cheyne.

The girl’s lips curled scornfully. “I never argue with people who talk like that. It would not be any use – and they would never understand me; but everybody knows we were born different from the rabble. It is unfortunate you and Larry couldn’t go up and down the country together, convincing people, Flo.”

Cheyne, seeing the gleam in Miss Schuyler’s eyes, wondered whether there had been malice in the speech, and was not sorry that Torrance and Clavering came in just then.

“I have just come from Newcombe’s and heard that you had failed,” said Torrance. “If you will come along to my room, I should like to hear about it.”

Cheyne smiled as he rose. “I don’t know that failed was quite the correct word. My object was to protect the track, and so far as I could discover, no attempt was made to damage it.”

Torrance glanced at him sharply as they moved away. “Now, we were under the impression that it was the capture of the man responsible for the affair.”

“Then,” said the soldier drily, “I am afraid you were under a misapprehension.”

He passed the next half-hour with Torrance amicably, and it was not until he was returning to the hall with Clavering that he found an opportunity of expressing himself freely. Torrance, he realized, was an old man, and quite incapable of regarding the question except from his own point of view.

“I am just a little astonished you did not consider it advisable to follow the thing up further, when you must have seen what it pointed to,” said Clavering.

“That,” said Cheyne, smiling, “is foolish of you. I would like to explain that I am not a detective or a police officer.”

“You were, at least, sent here to restore tranquillity.”

“Precisely!” said Cheyne. “By the State. To maintain peace, and not further the cattle-men’s schemes. I am, for the present, your leader’s guest; but I have no reason for thinking he believes that in any way constitutes me his ally. In his case I could not use the word accomplice.”

Clavering flashed an observant glance at him. “It should be evident which party is doing the most to bring about tranquillity.”

“It is not,” said Cheyne. “I don’t know that it is my business to go into that question; but one or two of the efforts you have made lately would scarcely impress the fact on me.”

“You are frank, any way,” with a disagreeable laugh.

“No,” said Cheyne, with a twinkle in his eyes, “I’m not sure that I am. We occasionally talk a good deal more plainly in the United States cavalry.”

He passed on to the hall and Clavering went back to Torrance’s room. “We have got to get rid of that man, sir,” he said. “If we don’t, Larry will have him. Allonby had better go and worry the Bureau into sending for another two or three squadrons under a superior officer.”

Torrance sighed heavily. “I’m ’most afraid they are not going to take kindly to any more worrying,” he said. “In fact, now it’s evident how the feeling of the State is going, I have an idea they’d sooner stand in with the homestead boys. Still, we can try it, any way.”

It was about the same time that Grant flung himself wearily into a chair in the great bare room at Fremont ranch. His face was haggard, his eyes heavy, for he had spent the greater part of several anxious days and nights endeavouring to curb the headstrong passions of his followers, and riding through leagues of slushy snow.

“Will you hurry Tom up with the supper, while I look through my letters?” he said.

Breckenridge went out, and, when he came back a little while later, found Grant with a strip of paper on his knee.

“More bad news?” he asked.

Grant made no answer, but passed the strip of paper across to him, and Breckenridge’s pulses throbbed fast with anger as he read: “It is quite difficult to sit on both sides of the fence, and the boys have no more use for you. Still, there was a time when you did what you could for us, and that is why I am giving you good advice. Sit tight at Fremont, and don’t go out at nights.”

“The consumed asses!” he said. “You see what he means? They have gone after the herring Clavering drew across the trail.”

The bronze grew darker in Larry’s face, and his voice was hoarse. “Yes – they figure the cattle-men have bought me over. Well, there were points that would have drawn any man’s suspicions – the packet I would not give up to Chilton – and, as you mention, Miss Torrance’s wallet. Still, it hurts.”

Breckenridge saw the veins swell up on his comrade’s forehead and the trembling of his hands. “Don’t worry about them. They are beasts, old man,” he said.

Grant said nothing for at least a minute, and then clenched one lean brown hand. “I felt it would come, and yet it has shaken most of the grit out of me. I did what I could for them – it was not easy – and they have thrown me over. That is hard to bear, but there’s more. No man can tell, now there is no one to hold them in, how far they will go.”

Breckenridge’s answer was to fling a cloth upon the table and lay out the plates. Grant sat very still; his voice had been curiously even, but his set face betrayed what he was feeling, and there was something in his eyes that Breckenridge did not care to see. He also felt that there were troubles too deep for any blundering attempt at sympathy, but the silence grew oppressive, and by and by he turned to his companion again.

“We’ll presume the fellow who wrote that means well,” he said. “What does his warning point to?”

Grant smiled bitterly. “An attempt upon my homestead or my life, and I have given them already rather more than either is worth to me,” he said.

Breckenridge was perfectly sensible that he was not shining in the rôle of comforter; but he felt it would be something accomplished if he could keep his comrade talking. He had discovered that verbal expression is occasionally almost a necessity to the burdened mind, though Larry was not greatly addicted to relief of that description.

“Of course, this campaign has cost you a good deal,” he said.

“Probably five thousand dollars – all that seemed good in life – and every friend I had.”

“After all, Larry, the thing may be no more than a joke or an attempt at bluff. Even admitting that it is not, it probably only expresses the views of a few of the boys.”

Grant shook his head. “No. I believe it is quite genuine. I saw how affairs were going even before I wouldn’t give Chilton the packet; most of the boys were ready to break away then. Well, one could scarcely blame them for not trusting me, and I felt I was laying down my authority when I sent the stock train through.”

“Not blame them!” said Breckenridge, clenching his fist, his eyes blazing. “Where in the wide world would the crazy fools get another man like you? But if you can take it quietly, I ought to, and the question is, what are you going to do?”

“What I can,” said Grant. “Hold the boys clear of trouble where it is possible. There are still one or two who will stand behind me, and what we can’t do may be done for us. When a man is badly wanted in this country he usually comes to the front, and I will be glad to drop out when I see him.”

“Larry,” Breckenridge said slowly, “I am younger than you are, and I haven’t seen as much, but it would be better for me if I had half your optimism. Still, that was not quite what I was asking. If the beasts actually mean to burn your place or attempt your life you are surely not going to give them the opportunity. Can’t we fix up a guard among the few sensible men or send for the cavalry?”

Grant smiled wearily as he shook his head. “No,” he said. “The one thing I can’t do is to lift my hand against the men I brought here in a private quarrel.”

Just then the cook came in with the supper, and, though the pair had eaten nothing since sunrise and ridden through soft snow most of that day, it cost Breckenridge an effort to clear the plate set before him. Grant scarcely touched the food, and it was a relief to both when the meal was over, and Grant’s plate, still half-filled, was taken away. After he had several times lighted a cigar and let it go out again, Breckenridge glanced at him deprecatingly.

“I can’t keep it up any longer, and I know how it is with you, because I feel the thing myself,” he said. “Now, if you want me here, I’ll stay, but I have a notion the poor attempts at talk I’m making are only worrying you.”

Grant smiled, but Breckenridge saw the answer in his face, and went out hastily, which was, under the circumstances, the wisest thing he could do. Then, Grant stretched his arms wearily above his head, and a faint groan escaped him.

“It had to come – but it hurts,” he said.

XXVI
LARRY’S REWARD

Late one night Larry came home to Fremont, wet with rain and splashed with mire, for it was thawing fast and he had ridden far. He sloughed off his outer garments, and turned to Breckenridge, who had been waiting him, with a little, weary smile.

“The dollars are safe, any way, and that is a big load off my mind,” he said. “Gillot has them in his safe, and nobody can touch them without a countersigned order from the executive.”

Breckenridge heaved a sigh of relief, for he knew that Gillot, who had a store in the railroad town, was a determined man, and quite capable of taking care of what had been entrusted him. The dollars in question, which had been raised by levy and sent by sympathizers, had been placed in Larry’s hands to further the homesteaders’ objects in that district as he deemed advisable. He had, however, for reasons Breckenridge was acquainted with, just relinquished the responsibility.

“I think you were wise,” said the lad. “It roused a good deal of feeling when you wouldn’t let Harper and his friends have what they asked for, and the boys were very bitter at the meeting while you were away!”

“Well,” said Grant drily, “I knew what they wanted those dollars for, and if I’d had twice as many I would not have given them one.”

“They could not have done much harm with the few they wanted, and it would have saved you a good deal of unpleasantness. I didn’t like the way the boys were talking, and it was quite plain the men who kept their heads were anxious. In fact, two or three of them offered to come over and sleep here until the dissatisfaction had simmered down.”

“You did not accept their offer?”

“No, but I wish you would.”

Grant shook his head. “It wouldn’t suit me to own up that I was afraid of my friends – and I don’t want to believe there are any of them who would injure me. If there were, I could not draw trigger on them in defence of my own property.”

“Then we will hope for the best,” said Breckenridge, somewhat doubtfully.

Grant, who had had supper somewhere else, presently retired, and Breckenridge, who found the big room dreary without him, followed a little later. It was long before he slept, for he had seen the temper of the more reckless spirits at the meeting he had attended, and he could not shake off the memory of his comrade’s face. Larry had made no protest, but Breckenridge could understand what he was feeling. The ranch was very quiet, but he did not think his comrade slept; in this, however, he was wrong, for, worn out by physical effort and mental strain, Larry had sunk into heavy slumber.

Two or three hours later Breckenridge awakened suddenly. He sat up listening, still a little dazed with sleep, but nothing disturbed the silence of the wooden building, and it was a moment or two before the moan of the wind forced itself on his perceptions. Then, he thought he heard the trampling of a horse and stealthy footsteps in the mire below, and, springing from his bed, ran to the window. The night was dark, but he could dimly see a few shadowy figures moving towards the house. In another minute he slipped into part of his clothing and hastening into Grant’s room shook him roughly.

“Get up! There are men outside.”

Larry was on his feet in a few seconds and struggling into his garments. “Light the lamps downstairs,” he ordered.

Breckenridge stood still, astonished. “That would give them an advantage. They might be the Sheriff’s boys.”

“No,” said Larry, with a laugh that sounded very bitter, “I don’t think they are! Go down, and do what I tell you.”

Breckenridge went, but his fingers shook so that he broke several sulphur matches in his haste before he had lighted one big lamp in the log-built hall. Then, as he turned towards the living room, there was a pounding on the door, and while he stood irresolute Grant, partly dressed, came running down the stairway. Two other men showed dimly behind him, but Breckenridge scarcely saw them, for he sprang through the doorway into the unlighted room, and the next moment fell over a table. Picking himself up with an objurgation, he groped along the wall for the rack where the rifles stood, and was making his way back towards the blink of light with two of them in his hands, when a hoarse voice demanded admission and the door rattled under the blows showered upon it. Then, as he came out into the hall, Grant turned to him.

“Put those rifles down,” he said quietly.

Breckenridge stared at him. “But – ”

“Put them down!” said Grant, with a little impatient gesture; Breckenridge let the weapons fall but he was pleased to see the cook, who now stood at the foot of the stairway, slip softly forward and pick up one of them. Grant was looking at the door and did not see the man move back half-way up the stairs as silently as he came.

Once more a hoarse shout rose from outside: “Open that door before we break it in!”

For a moment or two, as if to give point to the warning, the door creaked and rattled as the axe-heads beat upon it, and then the din ceased suddenly, for Grant, who recognized the voice, raised his hand.

“Open it for them,” he said, so loudly that he could be heard outside.

Breckenridge was almost glad to obey. It would have pleased him better to have taken his place, rifle in hand, with the cook on the stairway, but since Grant had evidently determined not to oppose the assailants’ entrance by violence, it was a relief to do anything that would terminate the suspense. Still, his heart throbbed painfully as he seized the bolt, and he glanced round once more in what he felt was futile protest. Grant, who evidently saw what he was thinking in his face, only smiled a little and signed with his hand.

Breckenridge drew the bolt, and sprang backwards as the door swung open. Men with axes and rifles showed up in the light; but while here and there an axe flashed back a twinkling gleam, or a face shone white, the rest was blurred and shadowy, and he could only see hazy figures moving against the blackness of the night. His companion was standing alone in the middle of the hall, motionless and impassive, with nothing in his hands.

“Now,” he said, in a voice that jarred on Breckenridge’s ears, “the door is open. What do you want?”

“We want you,” said one of the men outside.

“Then, I’ll come out and talk to you,” said Grant.

Breckenridge laid a restraining hand upon his arm, but he shook it off, and moving forward stopped just outside the threshold. The lad could not see his face, but he noticed that he stood very straight, with his head thrown back a trifle, and that one or two of those without edged farther into the shadowy crowd. Glancing behind him, he also saw the cook leaning forward on the stairway with the rifle glinting in his hands.

“Well?” said Grant, and his voice rang commandingly.

“We have come for the dollars,” said a man. “We want them, and they’re ours.”

“Then, you must ask your committee for them. They are not in my house.”

“Bluff!” said somebody; and an angry clamour broke out.

“Hand them out,” cried one voice, “before we burn the place for you.”

Larry swung up one hand commandingly, and Breckenridge felt a thrill of pride when, as if in tribute to his comrade’s fearlessness, a sudden silence followed. Larry stood alone, statuesque in poise, with arm stretched out in the face of the hostile crowd, and once more the respect the men had borne him asserted itself.

“You will listen to me, boys, and it may be the last time I shall speak to you,” he said. “You know that right back from the beginning I have done the best I could for you, and now I feel it in me that if you will wait just a little longer the State will do more than I could ever do. Can’t you understand that if you go round destroying railroad-trestles, shooting cattle, and burning ranches, you are only playing into the hand of your enemies, and the very men in the legislature who would, if you kept your patience, make your rights sure to you, will be forced to turn the cavalry loose on you? Can’t you sit tight another month or two, instead of throwing all we have fought for away?”

The silence that followed the speech lasted for a space of seconds, and then, when Breckenridge hoped Grant might still impose prudence upon the crowd, there were murmurs of doubt and suspicion. They grew rapidly louder, and a man stepped out from the rest.

“The trouble is that we don’t believe in you, Larry,” he said. “You were with us solid one time, but that was before the cattle-barons bought you.”

A derisive laugh followed, and when Grant turned a little Breckenridge saw his face. The bronze in it had faded, and left paler patches, that seemed almost grey, while the lad, who knew his comrade’s pride and uprightness, fancied he could guess how that taunt, made openly, had wounded him.

“Well,” he said, very slowly, “I can only hope you will have more confidence in your next leader; but I am on the list of the executive still, and if the house was full of dollars I wouldn’t give you one of them with which to make trouble that you’ll most surely be sorry for. Any way, those I had are safe in a place where, while your committee keep their heads, you will not lay hands on them.”

A shout of disbelief was followed by uproar, through which there broke detached cries: “Pull him down! He has them all the time! Pound them out of him! Burn the place down for a warning to the cattle-men!”

They died away when one of the men, with emphatic gestures, demanded attention. Moving out from the rest, he turned to Grant. “You have rifles and cartridges here, and after all, those are what we want the most. Now – and it’s your last chance – hand them out.”

“No,” said Grant.

The man made a little gesture of resignation. “Boys,” he said, “you will have to go in and take them.”

Grant still stood motionless and unyielding on his threshold, but he had only a moment’s grace, for the men outside surged on again, and one swung a rifle-butt over him. Breckenridge saw his comrade seize it, and had sprung to his side when a rifle flashed on the stairway behind him and a man cried out and fell. The next instant another rifle-butt whirled, and Grant, reeling sideways, went down and was trampled on.

Breckenridge ran towards the rifle still lying in the hall, but before he could reach it there was a roar of voices and a rush of feet, and the men who poured in headlong were upon him. Something hard and heavy smote him in the face, and as he reeled back gasping there was another flash on the stairway. His head struck something, and he was never sure of what happened during the next half-hour.

When, feeling very dizzy, Breckenridge raised himself in the corner where he had been lying, the hall was empty save for two huddled figures in the doorway, and while he blinked at them in a half-dazed fashion, it seemed to him that a red glare, which rose and fell, shone in. He could also smell burning wood, and saw dim wreaths of smoke drive by outside. His hearing was not especially acute just then, but he fancied that men were trampling, and apparently dragging furniture about, all over the building. Then, as his scattered senses came back to him, he rose feebly to his feet, and finding to his astonishment that he still possessed the power of locomotion, walked unevenly towards the motionless objects in the doorway. One of them, as he expected, was Grant, who was lying very white and still, just as he had fallen.

“Larry,” Breckenridge said, and shivered at the sound of his own voice. “Larry!”

But there was no answer, and Breckenridge sat down by Grant’s side with a little groan, for his head swam once more and he felt a horrible coldness creeping over him. How long he sat there, while the smoke that rolled in from outside grew denser, he did not know; but by and by he was dimly conscious that the men were coming down the stairway. They clustered about him, and one of them, stooping over the injured homesteader, signed to his comrades.

“Put him into the wagon, and start off at once,” he said.

Three or four men came out from the rest, and when they shuffled away with their burden, the one who seemed to be leader pointed to Grant as he turned to Breckenridge.

“He would have it, and the thump on the head he got would have put an end to most men,” he said. “Still, I don’t figure you need worry about burying him just yet, and I want a straight answer. Are those dollars in the house?”

Breckenridge sat blinking at him a moment, and then very shakily dragged himself to his feet, and stood before the man, with one hand clenched. His face was white and drawn and there was a red smear on his forehead.

“If you would not believe the man who lies there, will you take my word?” he said unevenly. “He told you they were not.”

“I guess he spoke the truth,” said somebody. “Any way, we can’t find them. Well, what is to be done with him?”

Breckenridge, who was not quite himself, laughed bitterly. “Leave him where he is, and go away. You have done enough,” he said. “He gave you all he had – and I know, as no other man ever will, what it cost him – and this is how you have repaid him.”

Some of the men looked confused, and the leader made a deprecatory gesture. “Any way, we’ll give you a hand to put him where you want.”

Breckenridge waved him back fiercely. “I am alone; but none of you shall lay a hand on him while I can keep you off. If you have left any life in him, the touch of your fingers would hurt him more than anything.”

The other man seemed to have a difficulty in finding an answer, and while he stared at Breckenridge there was a trample of hoofs in the mire outside, and a shout. Breckenridge could not catch its meaning, but the men about him streamed out of the hall and he could hear them mounting in haste. As the rapid beat of hoofs gradually died away, looking up at a sound, he saw the cook bending over his comrade. The man, seeing in his eyes the question he dared not ask, shook his head.

“No, I guess they haven’t killed him,” he said. “Kind of knocked all the senses out of him; and now I’ve let the rest out, we’ll get him to bed.”

“The rest?” Breckenridge asked bewildered.

The man nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I guess I got one or two of the homestead-boys, and then Charley and I lit out through a back window, and slipped round to see why the stockboys weren’t coming. It was quite simple. The blame firebugs had put a man with a rifle at the door of their sleeping shed.”

Three or four other men trooped in somewhat sheepishly, though, as the cook had explained, it was not their fault they had arrived after the fight was over; and while they carried their master upstairs Breckenridge thought he heard another beat of hoofs. He paid no great attention to it, but when Larry had been laid on the bed glanced towards the window at the streaks of flame breaking through the smoke that rolled about a birch-log building.

“What can be done?” he said.