Kitabı oku: «The Free Range», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XXI
JULIE INVESTIGATES
The occasion when nine men with their hands tied behind them arrived at the Bar T ranch, accompanied by six others with Winchesters across their saddle bows, was an extremely happy one for Juliet Bissell. This happiness was not associated, except superficially, with the capture of the rustlers, but had to do especially with the receipt of a certain smeared and blackened journal from a certain tall and generously proportioned young man.
The captives arrived at noon, but it was nearly supper-time before she had finished reading, around, amid, among and between the lines, despite the fact that the lines themselves left very little doubt as to the writer’s meaning.
This was not the same beautiful girl Bud Larkin had left behind him that early morning of his escape. Since that time she had changed. The eyes that had formerly been but the beautiful abode of allurement and half-spoken promises, had taken on a sweet and patient seriousness. The corners of her mouth still turned up as though she were about to smile, but there was a firmer set to them that spoke of suppressed impulses.
She moved with a greater dignity, and for the first time became aware of the real worth of her mother, who until now she had somehow taken for granted. Martha’s consternation and grief at her husband’s sudden and prolonged disappearance, only broken by the visit of Skidmore and his camera, had been really pitiful, and the girl’s eyes were opened to the real value and beauty of an undying love.
Her own misery, after the receipt of the letter brought by Skidmore, she had faced alone, and in her, as in all good and true natures, it had worked a change. It had softened her to the grief of another, and showed her, for the first time, that happiness is only really great when in sharp contrast with pain.
So this long and simple love-letter from Bud, while satisfying the cravings of the lover, stirred up again the misgivings of the doubter. And her cogitations resulted in the admission that Bud must be either one of two things. Either he was absolutely innocent of the imputations contained in the letter that Skidmore brought, or he was one of the most consummate villains at large.
There were grounds for both suppositions, and the girl, after hours of vain struggle, found herself still in the middle ground, but more nervous and anxious than she had ever been.
The arrival of Mike Stelton under guard two days after that of the other rustlers created a sensation. For the girl it was the blow that shattered another illusion, for although she had never cared for the foreman, her belief in his unswerving faithfulness to the Bissell house was absolute. Now to see him the admitted leader of the gang that had steadily impoverished her father was almost unbelievable.
The man who brought Stelton in also brought a hurried scrawl to Juliet from Bud, which read:
Darling:
We are more than half-way up the range. Have recovered 1,500 head of rebranded stock, much of which is Bar T. Stelton is the head of the rustlers and I have the proof. Sorry to foist these criminals on the Bar T, but it was the nearest ranch, and besides, I want them there when your father comes home. Also I want to be able to tell you that I love you, and will love you always. With luck, two days ought to see the end of all these troubles.
Your Bud.
Probably the most miserable man in the whole cow country at this time was Smithy Caldwell. Aside from the fate he feared, his position among the captured rustlers was one of utter torture. The men had discovered that it was through his selfish scheming that Stelton had been betrayed, and they treated him with the cruelty and scorn of rough, savage men.
So, when Stelton appeared, Caldwell fairly cringed. With the strange, unreasoning terror of a coward he feared bodily harm at the hands of the foreman, forgetting that, in all probability, his life was forfeit sooner or later.
His fear was all but realized, for no sooner were Stelton’s hands unbound as he caught sight of Caldwell than he made a leap for him and would have strangled him then and there had not others pulled the two apart.
“There, you whelp!” bellowed Stelton. “That’s a sample of what you’ll get later on. All I ask is to see you kickin’ at the end of a rope, you yellow-bellied traitor!” And Smithy, clutching at his throat, staggered, whimpering, away.
The day after Stelton’s arrival Juliet conceived the idea of questioning the foreman about the letter that she knew Smithy Caldwell had written her. At her request he was brought into the living-room of the ranch house with his hands tied to permit of the guard leaving them together.
Now that all Bud’s prophecies in regard to the man had been fulfilled, she feared him, and one glance at his dark, contorted face as he was led in increased this fear.
For his part the very sight of this sweet, quiet girl for whom he had waited so long, and through whose lover he was now doomed, brought a very eruption of rage. His lips parted and bared his teeth, his eyes were bloodshot, and his swarthy face worked with fury.
“Mike, I’m sorry to see you here like this,” said Juliet gently.
“A lot you are!” he sneered brutally. “You’re tickled to death. Hope to see me swing, too, I suppose?”
“Don’t talk like that,” she protested, horrified at the change in the man. “I’m going to try to see what I can do for you, though Heaven knows you don’t deserve much.”
Fury choked him and prevented a reply. At last he managed to articulate.
“What do yuh want of me?” he growled.
“I want you to tell me about a letter that I received a few days ago. It was brought here by a man by the name of Skidmore, who takes pictures.”
At the identification of the letter, Stelton’s eyes glittered and his mouth grinned cruelly.
“What do yuh want to know about it?” he asked.
“First I want to know why you wrote it?”
“I didn’t write it,” he snarled.
“Well, then, why you had Caldwell write it?”
“How do you know I had Caldwell write it?”
His tone was nasty and she could see that he was enjoying the misery he caused her.
But though Juliet was humbled, she was none the less a daughter of her father, and at Stelton’s tone and manner her imperious anger flashed up.
“Look here, Stelton,” she said in a cold, even tone, “please remember who I am and treat me with respect. If you speak to me again as you have this afternoon I will call those men in and have you quirted up against a tree. If you don’t believe me, try it.”
But Stelton was beyond speech. All the blood in him seemed to rush to his head and distend the veins there. He struggled with his bonds so furiously that the girl rose to her feet in alarm. Then she walked to the library table, opened the drawer and took out a long, wooden-handled .45.
With this in her possession she resumed her seat. Presently the foreman, unable to free his hands, ceased his struggles through sheer exhaustion.
“I know you made Caldwell write that letter,” she said, balancing the gun, “and I want to know why you did it?”
Stelton, finding physical intimidation impossible, resorted to mental craft.
“I didn’t want you to love that sheepman,” he replied sullenly.
“Why not?”
“Because all those things about him are true, and I thought I’d let yuh know before yuh broke yore heart.”
She searched his face keenly and had to confess to herself that he spoke with absolute sincerity. Her face slowly paled, and for a moment the room seemed to whirl about her. The world appeared peopled with horrible gargoyles that resembled Stelton and that leered and gibbered at her everywhere.
The foreman saw her wince and grow pallid, and his fury was cooled with the ice of fiendish satisfaction. He could hurt her now.
“Because you say so doesn’t prove it to me,” she managed to say at last, though she scarcely recognized the voice that came from her tremulous lips.
“I can give you proof enough if you want it,” he snapped, suddenly taken with an idea.
“You can?” The words were pitiful, and her voice broke with the stress of her misery.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Get Smithy Caldwell in here. He knew that lover of yore’s when he wasn’t quite such a sheepman. He’ll tell yuh things that’ll make yore hair stand on end.”
In his delight at his plan Stelton could not keep the exultant cruelty out of his voice.
Juliet pounded on the floor with the butt of her weapon (this was the signal agreed upon for the removal of Stelton), and a sheepman almost immediately thrust his head in at the door.
“Yes, ma’am?” he inquired.
“Bring Smithy Caldwell in, please,” she requested, “and tie his hands.”
When the miserable fellow was pushed through the doorway and saw Stelton standing inside he shrank back against the wall and stood looking from one to the other with the quick, white eyes of a trapped animal. The thought came to him that perhaps these two were already deciding his fate, and his weak chin quivered.
“Sit down, Caldwell,” said Juliet, coolly motioning him to one of the rough chairs. He slunk into it obediently.
“I want to ask you about that letter you sent me in which you said several things about Mr. Larkin,” she went on not unkindly, her heart going out to the wretch, so abject was his misery.
“Mike here says that everything in that letter is true, and that you can prove it,” she continued. “Is that so?”
Involuntarily Caldwell looked toward Stelton for orders, as he had always done, and in those beetling brows and threatening eyes saw a menace of personal injury that indicated his course at once.
“No, don’t look at Mike; look at me,” cried Juliet, and Caldwell obediently switched his gaze back. “Are those things true?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Caldwell without hesitation.
“You mean to tell me that he was married before?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where?”
“In Chicago to a woman by the name of Mary. She was a cousin of mine.”
“Oh, God!” The low cry burst from Juliet’s pale lips before she could recover herself, and Stelton lay back in his chair, feeding his unspeakable nature upon the girl’s torture.
“Shall I tell you about it?” Caldwell, seeing his former chief was pleased, now took the initiative.
“Oh, no, no!” she cried frantically. “I don’t want to hear. I never want to hear!”
For a few moments there was silence in the low, bare room while Juliet recovered herself. Then she said:
“And about that other thing in the letter. Why are the officers after Bud?”
“For forgery, ma’am. That is, I mean, they would be after him if they knew everything.” A cunning smirk crossed Smithy’s countenance.
“Why don’t they know everything?” asked the girl.
“Because I haven’t told ’em,” was the reply.
“And so you blackmailed him under threat of telling, did you?”
“Well, he seemed to be willin’,” countered Smithy evasively, “or he wouldn’t have paid.”
“Why did you write me that letter, Caldwell?”
“The boss here told me to,” motioning toward Stelton.
“What reason did he give for telling you?”
Caldwell did not like this question. He turned and twisted in his seat without replying, and shot a quick glance at Stelton, uncertain what reply was expected of him. But he got no help there.
Stelton was relishing the fear and anxiety of his tool and watched to see which way the other’s cowardice would lead him. He was quite unprepared for the answer that came.
“It is a long worm that has no turning,” someone has remarked, and Caldwell had reached his length. The pure cruelty of Stelton’s conduct revolted him, and now, sure that Stelton could do him no harm because of his tied hands, he took a vicious dig at his former leader.
“He wanted to marry you himself,” he said, “and offered me a hundred dollars to write you that letter.”
Stelton sat for a moment open-mouthed at the temerity of his subordinate and then leaped up with a roar like the bellow of a bull.
Juliet pounded hastily on the floor, and the sheepmen appeared just as Stelton fetched Caldwell a kick that sent him half-way across the room.
“Take them both away,” ordered the girl, suddenly feeling faint and ill after the mental and physical struggle of the interview.
When the two had gone she sank back in her chair and faced the awful facts that these men had given her.
“Bud! Bud! My lover!” she cried brokenly to herself. “I want you, I need you now to tell me it is all a lie!”
She remained for several minutes sunk in a kind of torpor. Then, as though she had suddenly arrived at some great decision, she rose slowly, but determinedly, and left the room. Finding one of the men, she ordered her horse saddled and retired to change her clothes.
Her mother came in and asked if she were going riding alone.
“Yes, mother,” replied the girl quietly. “I am going to Bud and find out the truth about him. I cannot live like this any longer. I shall go crazy or kill myself. But I promise you this, that I will find father and bring him home to you.”
The eyes of Martha Bissell clouded with long-suppressed tears.
“God bless you, Juliet,” she said. “I can’t live without him any longer.”
CHAPTER XXII
THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
It was noon and the great column of parched animals and hot, dusty men had come to a halt under their alkali cloud beside a little stream. The foot-weary sheep and cattle, without the usual preliminaries, lay down where they stood, relieved for once from the incessant nipping of the dogs and proddings of the men.
Sims, walking among the sheep with down-drawn brows, noted their condition, how gaunt they were, how dirty and weary, and shook his head in commiseration. Had he but known it he was as gaunt and worn-looking as the weakest of them. Returning to where Larkin had dropped in the shade of the cook-wagon, he said:
“We’ve got to make it to-night if the Old Boy himself is in the way.”
Larkin realized the seriousness of the situation. Water and feed were plentiful, but owing to the hurry of the drive the animals were starving on their feet. Less than five miles away was the Gray Bull River, the goal of their march. Once across that and they would be out of the Bar T range and free to continue north, for the next ranch-owner had gone in for sheep himself (one of the first to see the handwriting on the wall), and had gladly granted Larkin’s flocks a passage across his range.
“What I can’t understand is where all those cowpunchers are,” continued Sims. “I’m plenty sure they wouldn’t let us through if we was within a foot of the river, they’re that cussed.”
He had hardly got the words out of his mouth when from ahead of the herd appeared a horseman at a hard gallop, quirting his pony at every few jumps.
Pulling the animal back on its haunches at the cook-wagon, the rider vaulted out of the saddle and was blurting out his story almost before he had touched the ground.
“Up ahead there!” he gasped. “Cow-punchers! Looks like a hundred of ’em. I seen ’em from a butte. I ’low they’ve dug fifty pits and they’ve stuck sharp stakes into the ground pointed this way. They’re ready fer us, an’ don’t yuh ferget it.”
Sims and Larkin looked at each other without speaking. Now it was plain that the punchers had had plenty of reason for not molesting them; they had been preparing a surprise.
“An’ that ain’t all, boss,” went on the rider. “I took a slant through my glasses, and what d’yuh suppose I seen? There, as big as life, was old Beef Bissell an’ Red Tarken, and a lot more o’ them cowmen. How they ever got there I dunno, but it’s worth figurin’ out of a cold winter’s evenin’.”
This information came as a knockdown. The two men questioned their informant closely, unable to credit their ears, but the man described the ranch-owners so accurately that there was no room left for doubt.
“Then what’s become o’ Jimmie Welsh and his nine men?” asked Sims wonderingly.
“Mebbe they’re captured; but I couldn’t see anythin’ of ’em.”
“Nope,” said Bud slowly, “they aren’t captured. They’re dead. I know Jimmie and his men, and I picked them for that job because I knew how they would act. Poor boys! If I get through here alive I’ll put a monument where they died.”
He ceased speaking, and a sudden silence descended on all the company, for the other men had been listening to this report. Each man’s thoughts in that one instant were with Jimmie and his nine men in their last extremity at Welsh’s Butte, although the site of the tragedy was as yet unknown to them.
“What about the lay of the country?” Sims finally asked of the scout.
“Dead ahead is the big ford, but that is what the punchers have protected. I could see that either up or down from the ford the water’s deep, because there ain’t no bottoms there – the bank’s right on top of the river.”
“Where is the next nearest ford?”
“Ten miles northeast, this season of the year,” was the reply.
“Thunderation, boss, what’ll we do?” inquired Sims petulantly.
“Call Lester, and we three will talk it over,” said Bud, a half-formed plan already in his mind.
Presently the three were alone and discussing the situation. Bud proposed his scheme and outlined it clearly. For perhaps a quarter of an hour he talked, interrupted by the eager, enthusiastic exclamations of Lester. When he had finished, Sims lay back on his two elbows and regarded his employer.
“If yuh keep on this-a-way, boss,” he remarked, “I allow we might let yuh herd a few lambs next spring, seein’ yuh will learn the sheep business.”
Bud grinned at the other’s compliment and noted Lester’s enthusiasm. Then they plunged into the details.
“Better ride your horse around by way of the ford ten miles away,” were the instructions as Lester saddled up. “Then you can come at ’em by the rear.”
No word of young Larkin’s intention had passed about the camp, and the sheepmen watched with considerable wonder the departure of the boy, placing it to Bud’s fear of his receiving an injury in the trouble that was almost surely bound to happen that night.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, or thereabouts, Lester, with his outfit strapped on his dejected horse, rode slowly away from the sheepmen’s camp.
Meanwhile, behind the various defenses that had been erected against the coming of Bud Larkin and his animals, the cowmen and their punchers were making ready for their night’s battle. The chief actor in these fevered preparations was Beef Bissell, whose hatred of Larkin was something to frighten babies with at night.
Since the gallant battle at Welsh’s Butte, Bissell had changed some of his ideas regarding sheepmen in general; but he had changed none regarding Larkin in particular. It was now a matter of pride and determination, almost of oath with him, to fight this matter of the range to the finish. The other cowmen stood by him out of principle and because of the need of a unified stand by men of their association.
So here in the last ditch, ready to sacrifice men, animals, and money, wrong and knowing it, these beef barons prepared to dispute the last inch of their territory. It should never be said, they had sworn, that sheep had crossed the cattle-range of any of them. On this elevating platform they proposed to make their fight.
To be perfectly just to all concerned, it is only right to add that all who did not choose to remain, either owners or punchers, were perfectly free to withdraw, but in doing so they forfeited their membership in the association. But one man had taken advantage of this – Billy Speaker.
“If there’s any damage to be done, those sheep have already done it. Why don’t yuh let ’em through, yuh ol’ fat-head?” said Speaker to Bissell as, with his cowboys, he threw his leg over the saddle and started homeward.
Despite the havoc to their numbers occasioned by the battle with Jimmie Welsh, all the others stood by. With the cowboys this matter of war and its hazards was a decided improvement over the dangerous monotony of spring round-ups. Moreover, as long as one remained able to collect it, five dollars a day was several pegs better than forty dollars a month and all found.
To-day as the late sun drooped low toward the horizon revolvers and guns were being oiled, and other preparations made for a vigorous campaign. The camp backed directly on the river at the only fordable spot within ten miles, the stream forming the fourth side to a square, the other three sides of which were breastworks of earth and trenches.
A rope stretched from the three cook-wagons served as a coral for the horses, and in it were gathered fully sixty-five animals, waiting impatiently to be hobbled, and turned out to feed. They waited in vain, however, for it was a matter of course that they should stand saddled and ready for instant use.
Directly before the front of these earthworks were the pits and chevaux de frise of sharp stakes that had been reported to Bud. The intention was to stampede the animals if possible, and run them into the pits and upon the stakes while a force of men, protected by the trenches, poured a withering and continuous fire into the on-surging mass. Meanwhile the greater force on horseback would be engaging the sheepmen.
That the cowboys knew the location of the flocks goes without saying, for had they not had spies on the lookout, the telltale pillar of dust that ever floated above the marching thousands would have betrayed their exact position.
The sun had just dropped below the horizon, when a man in the cowpunchers’ camp discerned a weary horse bearing a hump-shouldered rider disconsolately in the direction of the ford. The man, bore strange-looking paraphernalia, and could be classified as neither fish, flesh, nor fowl – that is, cowboy, sheepman, or granger.
Without pausing the man urged his horse into the water at the ford, where it drank deeply. The man flung himself off the saddle and, scooping the water in his hands, imitated the horse’s eagerness. When he had apparently satisfied an inordinate thirst he looked up at the man across the river and said:
“Say, could I git some grub in yore camp?”
“Yuh better move on, pardner. This here’s resky territory,” replied the other, his Winchester swinging idly back and forth across the stranger’s middle.
“I’m hungry enough to take a chance,” was the reply as Lester walked his mount deliberately across the stream. “Besides, I want to do business with yuh.”
Another man, hearing the controversy, came up and ordered the newcomer away. Lester asked him who he was.
“My name’s Bissell,” snorted the man.
Lester advanced the rest of the way to shore his hand outstretched.
“I’m plumb glad to know yuh,” he said. “My name’s Skidmore, an’ I’ve just come from the Bar T. I take pitchers, I do – yessir, the best in the business; an’ if yuh don’t believe me, just look at these.”
From somewhere in his saddle-bags Skidmore whipped out two photographs and handed them to Bissell.
There, looking at him, sat Martha, in some of her long-unused finery, and Juliet, the daughter who had until now been the greatest blessing of his life.
Bissell started back as though he had seen a ghost, so excellent and speaking were the likenesses.
“Yes, they asked me to come an’ take one of yuh, Mr. Bissell,” went on the photographer.
“They did?” snapped Beef suspiciously. “How’d they know where I was?”
“Stelton told ’em. I was there when he got home.”
“Oh, yes – Stelton, of course,” apologized the owner. “How d’ye take the blame things? With that contraption yuh’ve got there?”
“Yes, and I think there is still light enough for me to get you!” cried Skidmore, snatching his outfit from the back of his horse and starting hurriedly to set it up.
By this time quite a crowd had gathered, some of whom had never seen a camera in operation, and none of whom had seen such pictures as Skidmore was able to pass around.
Bissell posed with the embarrassed air of a schoolboy saying his first piece, and after that Skidmore was busy arranging his subjects long after it was too dark to make an impression on the plates. Finally, affecting utter weariness, he asked for food, and the best in the camp was laid before him.
“Can’t do any more to-night,” he said when he had finished. “But to-morrow I can take a few; I have about half-a-dozen plates left.”
“I may not look as tidy to-morrow morning as I do now,” remarked one puncher suggestively. “Too bad yuh can’t take pictures at night as well as in the daytime.”
“I can,” announced Skidmore, quite complacently.
“Well, didn’t yuh just tell me,” demanded an irate cowboy who vainly undertook to grasp the science of photography, “that the light actin’ on the plate made the pitcher?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how in the road to hell can yuh take ’em when it’s dark?”
“He rents a star, yuh fool!” volunteered another.
“I make my own light,” explained Skidmore.
“How? With a wood-fire?” asked the curious puncher.
“No. Shall I show yuh?”
“Yes.”
The reply came in a chorus, for the arrival of this man with his strange apparatus had created a stir among his hosts that one cannot conceive in these days of perfect pictures. The cowpunchers were not worrying about attack, for they had outposts on duty who could warn them of the advance of the enemy in plenty of time. The amusement of the camera was a fine thing with which to pass the lagging hours.
“All right,” said Skidmore. “By George,” he cried, “I’ve just the idea! My plates are low, and I’ll take a picture of the whole outfit together.”
“What! Get seventy men on the same thing that’ll only hold one?” cried another puncher, furious that these wonders eluded him. “If yuh’re foolin’ with me, son, I’ll shoot yer contraption into a thousand pieces.”
“Easiest thing in the world,” said the photographer carelessly. “Only I’ll have to ask yuh to move away from the fire; that’ll spoil the plate. I think over here is a good place.” He led the way to a spot directly in front of the horse corral.
Then he caused the lowest row to sit on the ground, the one behind it kneel, and the last stand up, and after peering through his camera made them close up tightly so that all could get into the picture. By the glow from the camp-fire it was a wonderful scene. The light showed broad hats, knotted neckerchiefs, and weather-beaten, grinning faces. It glanced dully from holsters and brightly from guns and buckles.
On a piece of board Skidmore carefully arranged his flashlight powder and took the cap off the lens. Then he ran to the fire and picked up a burning splinter, telling them all to watch it.
“Steady, now!” he commanded. “All quiet.”
He thrust the lighted spill into the powder, and there was a blinding flash, accompanied by a hollow roar like a sudden gust of wind.
The next instant a terrific commotion arose in the corral. There were squeals of terror, and before the men could catch their breath the sixty-five cow ponies had bolted in a mad stampede, overturning the cook-wagons and thundering across the prairie.
The punchers, absolutely sightless for the instant from looking at the flash of the powder, broke into horrible cursing, and ran blindly here and there, colliding with one another and adding to the already great confusion. Their one desire was to lay hands on the wretched photographer, but that desire was never fulfilled.
For Lester Larkin, having shut his eyes during the flash, easily evaded the men and made his way to his horse that had been tethered to a tree near the river. With his instrument under his arm he untied the animal, climbed on his back, and dug in the spurs. A moment later, during the height of the confusion, he was galloping along parallel to the river. A mile and a half from the camp he turned his horse’s head and sped at full speed toward the advancing herds.
