"Now don't get excited, girl. He ain't alive; but yet folks say we don't
_know_ he's dead. He jest dropped out so far as yore ma is concerned, and
so far as the county is concerned; but some thought you was with him in
the East."
The girl was now aware that her visitor was hoping to gain some further
information, and so curtly answered: "I've never seen my father since that
night the soldiers came and took him away to the fort. And my mother told
me he died down in Texas."
Mrs. Jackson seemed a little disappointed, but she smoothed the dress over
her sharp knees, and continued: "Right there the good old days ended for
yore ma--and for us. The cattle business has been steadily on the
chute--that is, the free-range business. I saw it comin', an' I says to
Jackson, 'Camp on some river-bottom and chuck in the alfalfy,' I says. An'
that's what we did. We got a little bunch o' cattle up in the park--Uncle
Sam's man is lookin' after 'em." She grinned. "Jackson kicked at the fee,
but I says: 'Twenty cents a head is cheap pasture. We're lucky to get any
grass at all, now that everybody's goin' in for sheep. 'Pears like the
sheepmen air gettin' bolder and bolder in this free-range graft, and I'm
a-bettin' on trouble.'" She rose. "Well, I'm glad to 've had a word with
ye; but you hear me: yore ma has got to have doctor's help, or she's
a-goin' to fall down some day soon."
Every word the woman uttered, every tone of her drawling voice, put Lee
Virginia back into the past. She heard again the swift gallop of
hooves, saw once more the long line of armed ranchers, and felt the hush
of fear that lay over the little town on that fateful day. The situation
became clearer in her mind. She recalled vividly the words of
astonishment and hate with which the women had greeted her mother on the
morning when the news came that Edward Wetherford was among the
invading cattle-barons--was, indeed, one of the leaders.
In Philadelphia the Rocky Mountain States were synonyms of picturesque
lawlessness, the theatre of reckless romance, and Virginia Wetherford,
loyal daughter of the West, had defended it; but in the coarse phrase of
this lean rancheress was pictured a land of border warfare as ruthless as
that which marked the Scotland of Rob Roy.
Commonplace as the little town looked at the moment, it had been the scene
of many a desperate encounter, as the girl herself could testify, for she
had seen more than one man killed therein. Some way the hideousness of
these scenes had never shown itself to her--perhaps because she had been a
child at the time, and had thrilled to the delicious excitement of it; but
now, as she imagined it all happening again before her eyes, she shivered
with horror. How monstrous, how impossible those killings now seemed!
Then her mind came back to her mother's ailment. Eliza Wetherford had
never been one to complain, and her groans meant real suffering.
Her mind resolved upon one thing. "She must see a doctor," she decided.
And with this in mind she reentered the café, where Lize was again in
violent altercation with a waitress.
"Mother," called Lee, "I want to see you."
With a parting volley of vituperation, Mrs. Wetherford followed her
daughter back into the lodging-house.
"Mother," the girl began, facing her and speaking firmly, "you must go to
Sulphur City and see a doctor. I'll stay here and look after the
business."
Mrs. Wetherford perceived in her daughter's attitude and voice something
decisive and powerful. She sank into a chair, and regarded her with intent
gaze. "Hett Jackson's been gabblin' to you," she declared. "Hett knows
more fool things that ain't so than any old heffer I know. She said I was
about all in, didn't she? Prophesied I'd fall down and stay? I know her."
Lee Virginia remained firm. "I'm not going by what she said, I've got eyes
of my own. You need help, and if the doctor here can't help you, you must
go to Sulphur or to Kansas City. I can run the boarding-house till you get
back."
Eliza eyed her curiously. "Don't you go to countin' on this 'chivalry of
the West' which story-writers put into books. These men out here will eat
you up if you don't watch out. I wouldn't dare to leave you here alone.
No, what I'll do is sell the place, if I can, and both of us get out."
"But you need a doctor this minute."
"I'll be all right in a little while; I'm always the worst for an hour or
two after I eat. This little squirt of a local doctor gave me some dope to
ease that pain, but I've got my doubts--I don't want any morphine habit in
mine. No, daughter Virginny, it's mighty white of you to offer, but you
don't know what you're up against when you contract to step into my
shoes."
Visions of reforming methods about the house passed through the girl's
mind. "There must be something I can do. Why don't you have the doctor
come down here?"
"I might do that if I get any worse, but I hate to have you stay in the
house another night. It's only fit for these goats of cowboys and women
like Hett Jackson. Did the bugs eat you last night?"