Kitabı oku: «By Blow and Kiss», sayfa 12

Ned finished his meal first and went outside, and a few minutes after Steve followed him.

Ned had gone straight to the house, and Ess had come out and strolled across the yard with him at his request.

“I see Steve Knight has had the cursed impudence to come back here,” he blurted out, as soon as they were away from the door.

“Yes,” she said. “I saw him last night.”

“Saw him?” he repeated angrily. “I hope you didn’t speak to the brute.”

“I did,” she said, turning a little pale. “I could not well avoid it without making a scene in front of Aleck Gault. I did not think that necessary or wise.”

It was just then that Steve came from the hut, and he walked straight over to the two. He raised his hat, but took no further notice of Ess. “I’d like to speak to you a moment alone,” he said to Ned.

“I have no wish to speak to you now or any other time,” said Ned, with an insolent stare.

Steve was quivering with rage, still fresh from the encounter at breakfast time, but he kept himself under control.

“I’ve got something to say to you,” he persisted, “and would rather not say it in the presence of a lady. May I ask you to leave us?” he said, turning to Ess.

“If it is anything concerning me or – that night, I would as soon stay and hear it,” she said steadily.

Steve said no more to her, but turned to Ned Gunliffe.

“I’ve just this to say – if I have any more hints or insinuations like I had this morning at breakfast, in front of the men or alone, I’ll give you such an infernal hammering you’ll be sorry for some time to come. Is that plain?”

“Plain talk, but talk is cheap,” sneered Ned. He was not lacking in physical courage, and although he knew quite well that Steve could probably do what he threatened, he showed no signs of backing down.

“And even if I took a hammering from you, it would not save you if I told my story to the rest of the crowd.”

“Tell them,” said Steve. “Tell them, and see what you’ll get from them. You can’t tell the story as it stands, as that would drag a girl’s name into it. But tell them you object to my being here because I’m guilty of the dirtiest, crookedest action a man could be guilty of. And I’ll tell them that what you accuse me of would be all you say, and I’ll tell them, if you like, that you believe you had proof of what you say, and I admit that there is every appearance that I was guilty. And then I’ll tell them that I am not – I’ll give them my word that you are wrong. Who will they believe, Ned Gunliffe?”

Ned was silent, although his lips still curled in a sneer.

Steve laughed shortly. “You know who they’d believe,” he said.

“And if I added my word to his,” Ess put in, quietly scornful, “and told them that I had seen the proof, and was satisfied with it, and that you were guilty?”

Steve turned to her. “They would still believe me. You doubt it? Then try it. There’s your uncle over there. Call him, and put the thing any way you like. I’ll stand by and not say a word till you’ve both finished, and I’ll tell him you are both wrong, and offer my hand and word on it. Try that, and see if he’ll believe me. Tell him the whole thing exactly as it occurred, and every solid fact and suggestion and insinuation you can offer. I’ll go away and leave you both to the telling of it. And when you’ve finished, simply tell him I deny any guilt or the truth of anything to be ashamed of. See who he’ll believe.”

He stopped his torrent of words abruptly, and waited for either of them to answer.

“This is all rather fruitless,” said Ess, desperately, and with doubts shaking her voice even as they were shaking her heart. “It does not matter what he or anyone believes as long as I am satisfied myself.”

“No,” Steve said to her in a voice as cold as tempered steel, “nothing matters – a man’s honour or dishonour, or death or ruin – nothing matters to you as long as you are satisfied. I hope that is a satisfaction to you, and that you’re able to keep it. And you can’t be made answer for your words – but mark me, Ned Gunliffe, you can, and will be made to, if I hear more of them.”

He lifted his hat, and swung on his heel and left them.

“Ned,” said Ess, shakily, “I wonder if there could have been any mistake. Surely he couldn’t speak as he did if he were guilty.”

“Speak?” snarled Ned. “Trust him to know how to speak to make a girl believe him. He’s made you half believe him now, even after what you saw and heard the other night. I don’t want you to listen to a word from him or open your lips to him again.”

“I require no telling to know what is right for me to do, Ned,” she answered, and Ned had to content himself with that.

CHAPTER XVII

Ess was not able to get away from the Ridge as soon as she had expected. Mr. Sinclair sent word that he would not be over for two or three days, and as not a man could be spared from the work to drive her down, she had no choice but to stay.

The position was embarrassing for her, but Steve saved it being too much so by avoiding her and saying no more than “Good Morning” or “Good Evening” when they met. He quieted Aleck’s grumbles at seeing so little of him by saying that he could not understand why it was, but he was most confoundedly sleepy all day, and spent long hours in his bunk. Aleck thought that possibly he was feeling his wounds more than he would confess, and did not press the point, especially as he could plainly see that there was something decidedly wrong with Steve, and that he was far from being his old careless, happy self.

But Steve was sick enough of his unusual inaction, and he jumped at the chance that Scottie gave him of a day’s work in the hills amongst the cattle.

“I’m terrible short-handed, Steve,” said Scottie, “an’ the beasties will be as wild as deer, I’m thinkin’. So if ye think ye’re fit enough tae tackle them an’ the Whistlin’ Hills, I’ll be real glad o’ yer help.”

“I’m your man, Scottie,” said Steve, briskly. “If my old bones won’t stand another day in the saddle after all this rest, it’s time I knew it, and started looking for a job as a picker-up in the wool sheds or something else I can’t break my tender carcase over. I’m on, Scottie.”

Apparently most of the men were for the job in the Whistling Hills, for the full force turned out next morning.

All the Thunder Ridge men were delighted over the chance of a turn amongst the cattle. They were all stockmen, and sheep work was not at all to their liking, although of course they had to do that when it was wanted.

When Steve rode up from the horse paddock, he found Ess standing in the yard talking to Scottie. Whip Thompson cantered up whooping joyously, and cracking his long stockwhip in a series of Maxim-like reports, his horse prancing, and sidling, and snatching, and reefing at the bit as he came.

“Hi, hi! Walk up, canter up, gallop up!” shouted Whip, “If any o’ you chaps has any little childer ye want whippin’, send ’em along to me, an’ I’ll do the job wi’ promptness an’ despatch. Send ’em along to Whip Thompson at the old address,” and “Crack – crack – crack” went the long whip.

“Whip,” called Ess, “you once promised to let me see some proper whip-play. Come along now.”

“Whip-play!” cried Whip. “Stand still then, Miss. Don’t flinch.” Ess stood still, and a rapid running fire of reports thundered about her ears. The action was so quick that she could hardly follow the flying thong with her eyes, and the loudness of the reports half deafened her. “Stop, please stop,” she called, “my ears are cracking.”

Whip never ceased the play of his arm and wrist, but walked his horse clear of the others and spun a ring of cracks in a wide circle above his head, sitting straight and motionless in his saddle with his arm straight up, and only the wrist moving. Then he flung the thong high in the air, twisted his body round and swung the whip down again in a sharp crack that bit at the ground immediately behind him, and sent a puff of dust jumping in the air. Crack, crack, crack, he went round the circle again, this time just flicking the ground at each crack, the ring of the leaping spurts of dust showing where the lash was falling. Ess clapped and bravoed as the last snap finished the circle and lifted the last puff of dust before the first one had completely floated away.

“That – that’s nothing,” jeered Never-Never Jack. “A school kid c’d do that with a tuppenny toy whip.”

“He could, eh?” grinned Whip, and lifted Never-Never’s hat whirling from his head. “P’raps he c’d do that, too,” and the whip snapped viciously round Jack’s feet, lifting a cloud of dust at every stroke. “P’raps he c’ud cut your corns for you, Mister Bloomin’ Never-Never Jack. Will I cut ’em for you – through the boot an’ all?” “Get out, you lunatic,” cried Jack, uneasily. “None o’ yer games.” “Will I take the pipe from your teeth?” laughed Whip, and the lash snapped a foot from Jack Ever’s face. Jack hastily snatched the pipe from his mouth and held it behind his back.

Another man brought an old felt hat from the hut and flung it to Whip. “Practice on that,” he called, and Whip picked the hat up on the point of the lash and cut it down again. The thing leaped, and danced, and spun, and twirled under the flying whip strokes, and then as it fell again Whip cut at it with the strength of wrist, and arm, and body swing, each blow splitting the stout felt as if it had been slashed with a knife.

“Will ye stan’ still again, Miss?” cried Whip. “I won’t hurt you,” and he flung two sweeping strokes across the front of her skirt, ending each with a sharp crack. Ess heard rather than felt the strokes, so light were they, but she looked down on her dark dress and could see the cross stripes of white dust where the whip had passed from hip to ankle. “Lend me another whip someone,” said Whip. “You Steve, you carry a decent length o’ leather.” Steve flung his whip, and Whip stooped and picked it up with his left hand, his right never ceasing to whirl and crack his own whip. Then for a couple of minutes he gave a display of double-handed work that made Ess’s eyes ache to follow. The two thongs wriggled through the air like flying snakes; they chased each other in hissing circles; they crossed and bit out at the air front and rear, and reversed and repeated; they cracked separately, and together, and then in an alternating running volley like a bursting Chinese cracker.

“Anybody got a tanner or a bob?” said Whip, and when a coin was thrown on the ground, he walked up to it, and then away for a full thirty feet. “One, two, three– ” he cried, and at three his left-hand whip shot out and cracked, and the coin spun twinkling into the air for a dozen feet, “ – an’ go,” cried Whip, and the right-hand thong hissed and cracked, and the spinning coin vanished. “Pure fluke,” jeered Jack Ever. “He couldn’t pick it up so straight in the air an’ cut it away again once in a hundred year.” “Get away you,” shouted Whip, “unless you want both the ears cut off you,” and the lashes sang round and cracked venomously on either side of Jack’s head. “You wi’ the cigareet,” said Whip, “stan’ still till I knock the ash off for you,” and he walked towards the man, measuring the distance with his eye. The cigarette was half smoked, and at the first light crack the ash vanished. “Little boys shouldn’t smoke,” said Whip – and the cigarette stump flicked from the man’s lips.

Whip finished with a thunderous double report, swung the thongs in a sweeping curve, and caught the crackers back in his hands on their short handles.

The men laughed and clapped, and Ess drew a long breath. “It’s wonderful,” she cried. “Thank you, Whip. You really must give me a lesson on how to use one.” Ned Gunliffe had stepped over to her side, and a pang went through Steve as he saw the air of proprietorship with which Ned laid his hand on her arm. “But surely, Miss Lincoln,” Steve drawled, “er – I fancy you can use one already,” and he leaped lightly into his saddle and pulled his horse round without waiting for an answer. “Now, why was I ass enough to say that?” he muttered to himself. “She’s bitter enough now, without my rubbing it in.”

But when they came into the hills and got to work on the cattle, Steve forgot everything else in the wild delight of tearing over the rough ground, heading and turning the mad rushes of the cattle, picking them out of the gullies and sending them flying headlong to join the bellowing mob. His horse was as clever a stockman as he was, and enjoyed the game to the full as much as he did himself. He would wait the most frenzied charge as still as if carved in stone, till the last possible moment, then the great haunches would sink, and with a bound and a rush he would avoid the sweeping horns and whirl round and lay Steve cleverly alongside at just the right distance for the long whip to get in its work. The lightest touch on the rein would bring him round in his own length as if spun on a pivot; the slightest pressure of the knees would send him hurling forward from an easy canter into his hardest gallop.

“Hi! hi!” yelled Whip, as he came thundering past on the heels of a dozen wild-eyed cattle. “This is something like, Steve. This is man’s work, hey?” as Steve raced alongside him. The cattle fled bawling and threw themselves with a crash into the main mob, and the horses behind them propped and wheeled expertly. “Why don’t you learn to ride, you sailor?” shouted Steve, laughing, as Whip lifted a couple of inches in the saddle.

“Hold them there – hold them,” shouted Scottie from the rear, and Steve and Whip fled clattering round to the head of the mob and beat them back as they began to break out of it.

“Look at Darby,” said Whip, delightedly pointing along the hillside. “That cow’s goin’ to prod a hole in ’im for luck.” Darby was bringing down a little cluster of cattle he had collected on one of the spurs, and one brute had turned on him and was making a series of fierce charges. Darby was riding his “Blunderbuss,” a big raking brute of a roan, with a head like a claw-hammer and a mouth as hard as beaten brass, and on the sloping hillside it had hard work to keep clear of the viciously lunging horns. Darby was wrenching at his horse’s head and chopping at the bullock with his whip, lifting the hair at every chop, till at last, as the horse dodged one of its rushes and it swung past, Darby “tailed” it and sent it rolling headlong.

“Get at ’im, Darby,” yelled Whip, and as the brute struggled to its feet Darby “got at ’im,” and the stockwhip fell hissing and stinging till the brute scrambled up and, tail in air, bolted headlong down the slope. But the rest of the cluster had scattered, and Steve put spurs to horse and raced up and along the hillside, the loose stones sliding and trundling down the hill from his track like sparks from a rocket.

“Did ye see that poker?” shouted Darby, as they swept the herd together and headed them down the hill. “Did ye see ’im, Steve?” “No,” said Steve, innocently. “What was he doing?” “Doin’ – the brute,” spluttered Darby, wrathfully. “’E nearly poked my ’orses’ ribs in, and ’e’s tore a hole in my trousies from yonder to yesterday. I’ll ’poke’ ’im,” and he spurred closer and snicked viciously at the discomfited “poker.”

“Take a couple o’ men an’ try along the Whale-back, Steve,” said Scottie later, and Steve called to Jack Ever and Whip Thompson and cantered off.

The Whale-back was a long hill shaped roughly, as its name described, covered with boulders and fallen logs, scored down its sides with dry water courses and, where the tail sank, thinly covered by scattered trees. It was rough and risky going, but the men took it end to end, riding as if it were level as a billiard table. When they came to where the head of the hill fell away in slopes and cliffs too steep for horse or bullock to keep a footing, they turned and began to beat back through the boulders and gullies, picking up a stray bullock here and a couple there, till they were driving thirty to forty of them back towards the slope of the “tail.” The mob went crashing down through the timber, and Jack and Whip drew rein and let them go.

But Steve yelled, and swung his whip, and lifted his horse over a fallen trunk, and went thundering in pursuit at a gallop. “What’s wrong wi’ Steve these days?” said Jack Ever. “You’d think ’e was tryin’ to break ’is blanky neck.” “Never was wot you’d call a cautious or a careful sort o’ rider, but blow me if ’e isn’t madder’n ever,” agreed Whip, dodging round a boulder and taking a deep gully in his stride.

“Look at that now,” ejaculated Whip, as the bullocks plunged into the timber, and Steve drove in hard on their heels.

The cattle were nimble on their feet and agile as deer, and they stormed crashing through the trees at full gallop. Steve rode with his head stooped to avoid the branches that swept over his head, and would have flung him headlong if one had caught him, and his horse leaped and twisted over the logs and between the rocks, in and out of steep-sided holes, and whirled inch-clear past standing trees, all at top speed.

Cattle and horseman burst out of the trees, and as Whip and Jack cleared the timber well behind them, they were careering full tilt down the slope.

“See that,” said Whip, and “Clever work, but useless risky,” commented Jack, as he watched.

The cattle had reached the dip at the foot of the Whale-back’s tail, and when he saw that they were going to scatter and try to break up the steeper slope beyond instead of turning down the hillside to the valley, Steve touched the horse with the spur, surged past them, and wheeled them downhill. The cattle and he poured down together in an avalanche of stones and earth, and the long snarling roar of their slide came back to the two men above, mingled with the steady cracks of the stockwhip.

“He’s mad,” said Whip, “stark crazy,” as he watched horse and man and beasts shoot headlong out into the valley, and turn and gallop down it.

“Where did you boys get to?” said Steve, grinning as the other two cantered in. “Get to?” said Whip. “I know where you dash near got to, an’ that’s a place hotter’n anything roun’ here.”

“You’ll break your silly neck one o’ these days,” grumbled Never-Never.

“And what if?” said Steve, lightly. “What’s a neck more or less, anyway?”

“Not much to you, maybe,” grunted Whip, “but I’d rather keep mine to be hanged with.”

All the stock that were gathered were drifted slowly down the valley till nearly dark, and steadied down and halted while the men lit their fires and made their camp.

It had been a suffocatingly hot day, and now after dark they could hear the faint growl of thunder back in the hills and see the flicker of lightning. The cattle were restless, and for long after the men had finished supper refused to settle and lie down, and continued to move and stir, lowing uneasily. Double guards went on to ride round the mob in case they showed signs of breaking, and the rest of the men sat by the fire with their saddled horses near at hand, and ready in case of a sudden call for quick work.

When Ned Gunliffe finished his turn of guard and came in to the fire, Steve was sitting in the glow of the firelight.

He had his pipe in his mouth and a cake of tobacco in his hand, and was fumbling in his waistcoat pockets for a knife, when Ned saw him pull a twisted piece of paper out and look at it, and absent-mindedly unfold and read it. He sat with the paper in his hand, looking into the fire, till suddenly Ned’s voice roused him.

“Another billet-doux, Steve?” he said, with the faintest suspicion of a sneer.

A scowl flashed over Steve’s face.

“Yes,” he said; “perhaps you’d like to know who it’s from next.”

“Can’t say it interests me,” retorted Ned, and Steve laughed a taunting little laugh.

“No?” he said. “I thought it might. It’s not so long since you showed a decided interest in my affairs, though, and not for the first time.”

He refolded the note and thrust it back in his pocket, and Ned made no reply, although Steve caught the glance of hatred he threw at him.

Towards midnight the cattle quietened down, and in another hour they were nearly all lying down and resting.

“I think we’re safe tae turn in now,” said Scottie. “Those beasts have had a good bucketin’ round, an’ they should lie quiet enough for the rest o’ the nicht. But keep yer horses saddled an’ close handy in case.”

Some of the men were nodding over the fire, but on the word they all rose, and there was a general unstrapping of blankets and preparations for sleep.

Suddenly, and without an instant’s warning, there was a quick rustle from the herd. A rattle of clicking horns ran through them, there was a heaving and stamping, a single loud bellow, a yell from the man on guard, and they were on their feet.

“Quick, lads,” shouted Scottie. “Mount an’ ride roun’ them.”

But it was too late. With a deep sullen roar like prisoned waters bursting their barriers and pouring into the valley, with a shaking thunder of hoofs that set the solid ground quivering, the mob broke in mad stampede.

They were coming straight for the camp, and every man there knew what it meant if they burst on it before they could mount and gallop clear. There were no orders given and none were needed. Each man simply dropped everything and leaped for his horse, and flung himself to the saddle. Steve had been in the act of rolling in his blanket when the first warning came. He flung the blanket from him and ran with the rest. Ned Gunliffe was just ahead of him, and as he passed Steve’s horse to reach his own beyond it, Steve could have sworn he saw Ned’s wrist jerk his whip forward. In the darkness and rush it was a thing he could never be certain of, but certain it was that his horse leaped suddenly and set off at a canter – the horse that Steve had trained to stand still in any turmoil, till his hand was on its neck. He whistled loud and shrill, and his horse stiffened its forelegs and propped and slid a yard, and stood stock still. Steve ran and caught its mane and called to it, and it sprang forward with a bound as he swung to its back.

Steve was boiling with rage, and swore a bitter oath between clenched teeth to settle with Ned Gunliffe for his trick, but meantime he had other things to think of.

The roar of the oncoming mob was close on his heels; he was stretching at full gallop over sticks and stones he could not see till he was on them; black night stretched in front of him, and the pounding hoofs behind.

“Open out – open out. Get on the flanks an’ haud them together,” roared Scottie. But the men were edging out of the track of the mob already. In the darkness, and over country that was risky enough to gallop over in broad daylight, there were too many chances of taking a fall. And where a fall is merely a fall, with a sporting chance of broken bones at ordinary times, there is no chance about it if the fall is in front of a stampeding mob. If man or horse went down, it would be never to rise again, and the flying feet would cut the flesh from the bones and hammer the bones to splinters, and leave a broken, bloody pulp stamped into the dust behind them. So the men swung out and clung to the flanks, and were satisfied to keep themselves on their saddles and their horses on their feet, and to ply the lashes in biting cuts and cracks.

It was no use trying to hold or stop the stampede yet – that would come later. All they could do was try to turn the head up the long hill that ran on one flank, and keep the leaders from swinging to the other side, where a maze of gullies and precipitous ridges would have caught and killed the biggest half of them.

The herd breasted a spur and topped the crest, and rolled over and down the other side without slackening their pace for a single breath. They edged downhill towards the valley again, in spite of all the men, and a fusillade of whip-cracks, and a hail of stinging cuts could do. They crashed into a strip of wood, smashing the smaller trees and bushes flat as if a cyclone had uprooted them, and the men opened out and stooped their heads, and tore on with them till they leaped clear of the trees again, and then edged in again and strove with whip and shout to turn the leaders uphill.

They succeeded at last, and as the steepness of the rise told and the pace slackened a little, the horsemen shot to the front, and the long whips came into play, slashing, snapping, and cutting. The leaders flinched and shrank back from those terrible thongs, that cut through hair and hide, and the pace slackened perceptibly again. The men fought desperately to hold them before they topped the crest of the hill. If once they were over that and went off again, there would be no holding them till the night was spent, and the whole drove was scattered and broken, and hundreds of them maimed and crippled and smashed, in the gullies and along the foot of the cliffs.

“Swing them, lads – swing them,” screamed Scottie, his voice hoarse and cracked with shouting. “Haud them tae the left – tae the left,” as the head of the column struggled over the top of the rise. And the men swung the cruel punishing lashes, and screamed, and coo-e-ed, and flung their horses bodily on the face of the mob, and beat it back and drove it in on itself, till it curled back and thrust its head deep into its own centre. The rest was easy. All the men had to do was keep turning the flood back and swinging it round in a curve, till gradually the whole mass was walking or trotting in one solid revolving wheel. It still had to be kept solid, and every now and then a spoke of the wheel would thrust out, and the wheel would check. But the men fell on the spoke, and with hand and tongue hammered it back into the wheel, that moved slower and slower, and finally stopped. It still rippled and heaved restlessly, and threatened to sway and break again, but the movement was always caught and smothered in time.

“Lat them open oot a wee,” called Scottie, and the men rode in a wider circle, and let the jambed mass slacken, and loose, and spread itself, and – the stampede was over.

“Is everybody here, an’ whole?” asked Scottie, riding up to a group of men who had slid down from their panting horses, but stood with a foot ready to lift to the stirrup.

“Where’s Darby – where’s Darby the Bull?” someone asked.

“I fancies I saw that bell-mouthed brute of his charge full belt into a tree,” said Whip. “Well, he’ll have bust that ugly hammer-head of his at last,” said another man. “Hope he hasn’t bust Darby’s as well.”

“Bust the bloomin’ tree more like,” said Never-Never, but just then a faint coo-ee came from far below. Steve lit a match, and held it screened by his outstretched waistcoat, and showing to the valley below, and presently another coo-ee and the answering wink of a match showed the signal was seen. Darby the Bull toiled heavily up the hill to them. “Where you been, Darby?” “Did you stop an’ ’ave a snooze in camp?” “Didn’t you know we was shiftin’?” showered on him. Darby grunted.

“Shiftin’? I think you was shiftin’. Some o’ you shifted in such a hurry you come without yer boots, an’ some more o’ you without jackets. I brought my boots an’ jacket an’ my blanket. Anyone else stop to bring a blanket?”

Nobody else had, and Darby grinned provokingly, although he said no more.

“And there were some,” said Steve Knight, “who ran in such a hurry that a whip was flicking round a bit too promiscuously. One flick caught my horse, I fancy, and started him off and nearly left me there.”

There was a deep silence, which Darby broke.

“Whoever it was should have ’is own whip laid about ’im. That’s what I’d do if it ’ad a bin my ’orse.”

“If I was dead sure it wasn’t an accident, I’d have something more to say,” said Steve; “but I’ll let it slide – meantime.”