sighed, as she related the ill success of her errand to the family. "I
didn't dream that Harvey could be so hard."
They soothed her with words of cheer, and Elizabeth sat beside her as
she lay upon the lounge, and bathed her mother's aching temples with
cool water.
"Never mind, mother," she whispered, "I promise to take care of
you--always!"
Soothed by the magnetic touch of the firm young hands, Mrs. Spooner soon
dropped asleep, and Elizabeth looking on the pitifully frail little
form, beheld through tear-blurred eyes a picture of the past--a vision
of the young mother, delicate and burdened with many cares, unselfishly
adopting into her home and heart the abandoned offspring of
strangers--the child of sordid birth and ignoble poverty! A wave of
passionate gratitude swept over the girl as she looked, and again she
breathed a vow to always take care of her foster-mother.
Next day Jonah Bean came galloping up to tell them that the wire of the
dividing fence had been cut in the night, and the Spooner cattle had, as
usual, satisfied their thirst at the water-hole! Grannis's cowboys had
rounded them up and driven them out at dawn, and Grannis himself had
ordered Jonah to come and mend the break, declaring he had made it.
"I ain't cut that fence, neither a-mendin' it," announced Jonah
oracularly. "Stands to reason the cattle got to drink. Providence done
it, 'cordin' to my way o' thinkin'."
"Grannis yelled something over at me, but I'm not worrying over it,"
declared Roy, "it's the meanest thing I ever knew of. I'm certainly not
going to prevent the cattle drinking when somebody else cut the wires."
The cutting of a wire-fence is in all cattle-countries a grave
misdemeanor, punishable by law. Harvey Grannis, when his "spite-fence"
had been cut, was of course in a towering rage, threatening to prosecute
the clipper, when caught, and vowing no less punishment than the
penitentiary if the offence was repeated.
But the next night they were again clipped, and the Spooner herd once
more rejoiced in abundance of water. Harvey Grannis had trusted to the
wire-cutter being frightened away by his loud threats, and had not set a
guard over the fence. Now indeed did he swear vengeance against the
offender--"male or female," he declared fiercely and to further protect
the fence drove a bunch of his own cattle down and camped in the
pasture--he would see that no more water was furnished the Spooner
cattle, or jail the clipper!
It cannot be said that this move increased his popularity with his
neighbors when they came to know its meaning. Indeed his own cowboys
muttered indignantly as they moved about, pitching their tents and
making ready for camp, that it was a sin and shame, and the boss too
pizen mean to live! At the same time they could not help admitting that
it would be much wiser for the Spooner family to move over into his
comfortable house and be taken care of by the wealthy ranchman, than to
try and struggle along combatting poverty and drouth. This knowledge
served to keep them from open revolt, though the means he had taken to
accomplish his purpose moved them to scornful wrath. Brow-beating women
and children didn't agree with the cowboy sense of honor.
With the coming of Grannis's camp to the water-hole pasture the
Spooner's case became desperate. The well at the house had a small
basin which filled slowly, and the little water it furnished must be
saved for drinking and household purposes. Jonah and Roy reluctantly
watered their ponies from it, but the big spring their cattle had
depended on was now only a dry mud-hole. Roy went privately to Grannis
and asked the privilege of hauling water from the big tank. He received
for his pains an accusation of having cut the fence-wires. This in
addition of Grannis's usual name for him of horse thief proved so
unpleasant that he was sorry he went.
"Looks to me like we was at our row's end," remarked Jonah Bean with
gloomy philosophy. "If they's a turnin' p'int I hain't seed it.
Might's well sell out, Mis' Spooner, if you kin find a buyer for the
bunch."
"No, no, Jonah," objected Elizabeth eagerly. "We'll find a way. Can't
you think of something, Roy?" she asked.
Roy's face was sober; he and Jonah had discussed the question, and
neither one could see any other way than to sell the herd before they
perished of drouth.
"Nothing except sell," he said, shaking his head soberly.
"Then _I'll_ find a way!" declared Elizabeth, passionately. "They
shan't be sold--and they shan't starve, either. You and Jonah round up
the bunch and Ruth and I will haul water from Munson's pond--it never
dries up, and I know Mr. Munson won't care."
"O, that will be the very thing! Mother, please let us," begged Ruth,
eager to help.
Really there seemed nothing else to do. Elizabeth's plan though it meant
hard work, was at least feasible--for a time, at least; in the meantime
something unforseen might turn up.
So, with a big hogshead in the ranch wagon they drove five miles to get
water, which their neighbor Mr. Munson kindly let them have.
"I always knew Harvey was a cross-grained old sinner," frankly declared
Mr. Munson. "Wants to starve you out, I hear, so's he c'n make you all
live with him. Well, I don't think much of his plan. But you're plumb
welcome to water--long's you hold out to haul it."
For three days they hauled water, staying but not satisfying the
famishing cattle's thirst; and on one pretext or another Grannis kept
his men in the water-hole pasture. The morning of the third day Ruth
came upon Elizabeth with the wire clippers in her hand and a very queer
look upon her face--a look that caused an awful thought to flash into
the younger sister's mind. Could she--could Elizabeth be the
wire-clipper that Harvey Grannis was waiting to catch--and jail? The
thing was impossible, she argued fiercely; Elizabeth simply couldn't do
such a thing!
Yet somehow all day she felt an uneasy sense that more trouble was
brewing, and that night after their early supper when she could not find
Elizabeth anywhere, terror seized her, and without letting anybody know,
she ran wildly across the pastures by the short cut, to search for her.
It was a wonderful velvet-black summer night, the skies star-sprinkled
and the enemy's camp lighted by a great central cook-fire that could be
seen far in that flat, plains-country. Flickering lanterns moved about
it. Ruth ran on, seeking Elizabeth where the former cuttings had been,
and praying that she would not find her there.
Halfway across she met Roy coming back from a secret survey of Grannis's
camp. With panting breath she gasped out her story. Somebody must find
Elizabeth!
"I will," said Roy quietly, "I think I know where she is. You go back
to the house, Ruth--I'll find her."
He turned back in the direction of the camp and Ruth walked slowly to
the house, meeting her mother and Jonah, who were driving down the
avenue in the phaeton.
"O, mother!" whispered Ruth anxiously. "Where are you going in the dark?
Who are you looking for?"
"Hush!" warned her mother. "I'm not looking for any one. Why do you
ask? I'm going to your Uncle Harvey's camp. I thought you were all in
your rooms--I didn't want Elizabeth to know, and I just can't stand this
any longer. I think, if he's made to see things right, that he'll give
us a key to that gate, as he ought to, and leave us in peace. You run
in the house and go to bed--and don't let Elizabeth know."
"O, goodness gracious! Whatever shall I do?" moaned poor Ruth, as she
watched her mother and Jonah drive away. "Maybe Roy won't be in time,
and while Mother's right there, begging Uncle Harvey to go home they'll
catch Elizabeth and bring her before them all! It would just about kill
mother. I can't stay here--I just can't!"
Forgetful of the Babe left alone in the dark, Ruth darted away on the
trail of Roy and Elizabeth.
Supper was over at the camp when Mrs. Spooner and Jonah reached it. The
cowboys scattered about on the grass, smoked, or played cards or read
old newspapers by the light of the cook-fire. Harvey Grannis sat on a
camp stool before his tent and smoked a pipe which was anything but a
pipe of peace. He was angry with his cowboys who took no pains to
conceal their disapproval of his high-handed proceedings with the
Spooners because they would not yield, but most important of all, he was
angry with himself, because he knew in his heart he was behaving in a
most contemptible way.
The gate towards the road was not locked, nor even shut. Jonah drove
through it and was in the middle of the camp before Grannis noticed his
arrival.
"Can I speak to you privately, Harvey?" asked his sister, as he arose
and came forward to greet her.
"No, ma'am," he answered with emphatic loudness. "Say your
say--Everybody's welcome to hear it. I've done nothing I'm ashamed of."
The indignant blood rushed to Mrs. Spooner's pale face. She had no wish
to make a scene. She pushed aside the rug and stepped quietly from her
phaeton. Jonah held the lines over Shasta, looking straight ahead of
him. The circle of cowboys drew closer, listening curiously, eagerly,
most of them with angry distaste, yet hopeful that the little woman
would speak up to their boss.
And she did. She told him pretty plainly what she thought of his
behavior. She began with the sale of the ranch to John Spooner and the
verbal agreement concerning the use of this tank or water-hole which had
never in the memory of man gone dry. Her voice faltered when she spoke
of her husband's absence and danger, the doubt which Harvey had
expressed of his brother-in-law's ever returning to his family. She
mentioned the conduct of her daughters as highly creditable to them.
At this point Harvey, enraged by being reproved when he fully expected
entreaties, broke in.
"Well, those same high-spirited girls of yours have been cutting wires,
ma'am--and wire-cutting is a penitentiary offense. Jake over there, saw
a girl snooping along the fence and bending over working at it, and when
he got down there three wires were clipped in two, and swinging. That's
the way your girls show their high-spirit!"
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. Spooner indignantly. "Neither Ruth
nor Elizabeth would do such a thing. They fully understand that it's a
crime before the law--though surely what you are doing, Harvey, is a
crime before Heaven. Maybe you think I cut the wires?"
"No, no, Jennie," began Harvey, somewhat abashed, yet still thoroughly
angry. "You hold on and I'll catch the minx in the act--we've got three
men hidden down by the fence now--Here they come!"
There was a stir off in the darkness where the fence cutting had been.
Mrs. Spooner put her hand to her heart and gasped, praying silently that
neither of her girls had been driven into reckless reprisals. She had
talked to them about it, again and again as she did to Roy, begging them
to remember that two wrongs never made a right. Then she turned away
and hid her eyes against the phaeton edge.
"Sufferin' Moses!" groaned Jonah Bean.
For Elizabeth Spooner, Ruth Spooner and Roy Lambert were being hustled
into the circle of light by two eager cowboys.
"We caught your wire-clipper, boss," they sniggered jeeringly. "Caught
'er in the act! We'll all stand by you when you fix to send her off to
jail!"
"Elizabeth--my child! How could you?" wailed Mrs. Spooner.
"You see--I told you!" broke in Grannis, speaking loud to cover his
dismay.
"O, I didn't cut the wires," said Elizabeth composedly, adding in her
clear tones, "I didn't--neither did Ruth or Roy. But we got there just
as they caught the wire-clipper, and we came along to see how Uncle
Harvey likes his work. Look, Uncle Harvey!"
And she drew aside to reveal the clipper.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*A Partner of the Sun*
It took Harvey Grannis a long time to live down that scene by the camp
fire; for when Elizabeth drew aside there stood revealed, clinging to
her skirts, a pair of wire-clippers clutched in her free hand--the Babe.
Harvey Grannis stared incredulously for a full minute, and everybody
stared at him. Then he turned away with an inarticulate exclamation that
was like a groan.
"O, Uncle Harvey!" cried the Babe, rushing forward at the sound of his
voice, clasping his knees, bumping him with the wire-clippers, looking
up at him, her face streaming with tears.
"It wasn't this child," he declared fiercely, catching her up in his
arms and glaring across her head at the others. "The rest of you are
puttin' it on her--of if her poor little hands done the work, you all
egged her on and made her do it."
"No, they didn't," declared the child, squirming free and getting to her
feet, her real courage coming to her aid and sweeping away the nervous
fright that had possessed her. "I cut the wire that first night--and
then I cut it the next night, because the cows were thirsty, and I knew
you wouldn't be mad after all--you were just making believe, weren't
you, Uncle Harvey?"
She turned confidentially to him, and the big man looked exceedingly
foolish. The tension of the scene slackened a bit, and one or two of
the cowboys snickered. But Mrs. Spooner's face was stern as she came
forward and took her little girl by the hand.
"You see, Harvey, why I don't want to come and live in your house," she
said clearly and distinctly. "Perhaps you understand now why I'm not
willing that you should have a chance to discipline my girls. Look what
you drive people into!"
Her glance went fleetingly to Roy, and everybody in the cow-camp
remembered how Grannis's ideas of discipline had made a sort of horse
thief out of a very honest lad.
"This child's a minor," began Grannis, sulkily. "She's not to blame.
If you have a mind to let her come and live with me--even part of the
time--I'll give her the key to the gate. What do you say?"
Mrs. Spooner looked at her little girl's face and read the terror and
distaste in it.
"Please, O, _please_ don't, mother!" came the imploring whisper. The
Babe had visions of Queen Berengaria slain and herself set to careering
about on a strange pinto that she could never love--and yet expected to
be thankful for the change!
"I say that you've proved yourself as hard as usual, Harvey," Mrs.
Spooner returned quietly. "I couldn't spare my baby--even if she were
willing to go. Why can't you be contented with the children loving and
respecting you--and staying independently in their own home?"
The defeat was too public. Grannis would not accept it.
"All right," he growled. "That gate's locked from this on--and you can
get along the best way you know how for all of me. It's lucky it wasn't
one of your older girls that played this trick--or one of the men you
employ. You've got off easy."
The Spooner party went home in despair. The Babe showed unexpected
spirit and demanded that, as she had cut the wires, the cattle be
allowed to go in and water that night. They were. Nobody interfered
with Ruth and Elizabeth when they hauled three hogsheads of water the
next morning while Grannis's force was breaking camp and before they had
mended the fence.
But that was the end of everything. There was no news from Cuba, and
Mrs. Spooner began to look about her for some way to dispose of the
cattle. It was the next week, in the midst of her perplexities, that
Harvey Grannis rode up to the ranch to warn them that he intended to
foreclose his mortgage on the place at once.
"I'm doing it for your own good, Jennie," he argued. "I'll still hold
to my offer to give you all a home. Common sense ought to tell you it
will be a sight better to live at the Circle G and have a man to look
after you than to stay here and starve, depending on a jail-bird, an old
fool and a couple of feather-headed girls. When do you think you'll be
ready to move?"
"I must consult my girls first, Harvey," said Mrs. Spooner quietly.
"They are down at the corral--I'll call them at once. I have a dreadful
headache this morning, and when I've explained the situation to them
I'll go and lie down. They can answer your questions as well as I."
Her brother fumed a good deal at this, vowing that he wouldn't be
surprised if she felt called upon to consult old Jonah and the
jail-bird!
"I certainly do intend to consult them," replied his sister mildly.
"Only just now they are out hauling water from Munson's pond. But the
girls'll be here in a minute--I will do as we all think best."
Elizabeth and Ruth felt their hearts sink at sight of their uncle,
certain that his coming meant some new disaster. "He couldn't bring
anything else!" they thought indignantly.
Mrs. Spooner, warning Grannis to silence, explained his proposition to
the girls very clearly and calmly; she wished them to see it as
favorably as possible, for in her heart she could think of nothing
better--there seemed to be no other alternative; it seemed they must
live with Harvey, hard as it would be. When she had finished she went to
lie down.
Ruth looked at Elizabeth for counsel as her mother left the room. If
there was any other way, she was sure that Elizabeth would find it.
"We'll agree to give up the ranch at once," began Elizabeth.
"You'll have to," interrupted Harvey Grannis. "Those are the terms of
the mortgage. I _could_ put you out to-day, but I'll give you time to
pack."
"With the privilege of making our payment when father comes home. Are
you willing to do that, Uncle Harvey?" Elizabeth finished.
Grannis agreed promptly to this, certain now that he would have his own
way with the family.
"Then we'll move next week," decided Elizabeth.
"I'll send my teams over for your things--Monday, say?" asked Grannis,
in high satisfaction.
"O, no," Elizabeth demurred, "there'll be no need to bother you. Jonah
and Roy can move us without any help. Thank you, just the same."
"Jonah and Roy, is it?" snorted Grannis. "Well, I told your mother, and
I tell you, that I won't have that young horse-thief on my place. The
teams will be here Monday. See that you're ready when they come."
"But we aren't going to the Circle G, Uncle Harvey," said Elizabeth,
mildly.
Grannis was in the doorway, he turned, his look of surprise and dismay
was almost comical.
"Where are you going, then? Straight to destruction, I suppose. And
dragging your poor sick mother with you. I want a word with Jennie
about this."
"Mother has allowed me to speak for her," Elizabeth said. "Ruth and I
are going to take care of her. We can--you know we can."
She spoke with assurance, but she had as little idea how the thing was
to be accomplished as Ruth had when she offered to pay Maudie Pratt a
hundred dollars--with only thirty-five cents at home in her pasteboard
box! Perhaps the memory of the triumphant conclusion that matter worked
up to, put confidence in Elizabeth's voice. Anyway, Harvey Grannis went
storming away, informing nobody in particular that his sister's family
were an ungrateful lot, declaring that he had washed his hands of
them--all except little Harvie.
That night when the chores were over and supper ended, the Silver Spur
household gathered on the porch and resolved itself into a committee of
ways and means, with Elizabeth holding the floor.
"I've been thinking of a plan," she said cheerfully. "As Ruth claims,
I've a head on my shoulders--whether there's anything in the head, or
the plan, is for the rest of you to decide."
"I have a great deal of confidence in your ability and common-sense,
daughter," said Mrs. Spooner faintly from her rocker. Her head was
better, but it left her spent and white.
"Your scheme'll be a good one--I'll back it," Roy followed.
"Of course--we'll all back what Elizabeth says," agreed Ruth.
"'Cause Elizabeth _knows_," chimed in the Babe, loyally.
"Well, she ain't so foolish--for a gal," old Jonah put in last.
Elizabeth was fairly overwhelmed by their trust in her. "You see we
can't stay here, and we _won't_ go to the Circle G," she began, flushed
with her family's praise, "of course we may hear from father any day,
but we'd have had to get rid of the cattle--anyhow that bunch Uncle
Harvey shut out from the tank. It seems to me the best thing we can do
is to go into Emerald to live. There isn't a sign of a photographer in
the place; everybody says my work is worth paying for, and Ruth would
have a chance of earning something. Besides, there'd be school for the
Babe, and we'd be near Cousin Hannah."
"Say, don't think you're the only worker in this family hive!" protested
Roy, "I haven't a profession, but I _can_ get a job any day. Mr. Pell's
son Joe has gone away to school, and he needs a clerk in the grocery the
worst kind. I reckon I'll earn money enough to pay rent, and a little
bit over."
"They's jobs a-waitin' for young folks to pick up, but 'tain't easy when
you're gettin' on in years," sighed Jonah, dolefully. "Nothin' _I_ kin
do in town, I reckon. Maybe the Old Soldiers' Home'll take keer o' me."
There was a chorus of indignant protests from the whole family. Jonah
knew they couldn't get along without him! Wherever they went he should
go to--that was settled. The tender-hearted Babe, with her arms around
the old man's neck, cheered him further by adding: "Me'n you'll help
mother, Jonah--she'll need us."
"Bless your heart, honey, if that ain't the gospel truth!" agreed Jonah,
now quite cheerful. "They's a gyarden to make, an' a cow to milk--we
can't get along without one, and wood to chop. Maybe the ole man _will_
earn his salt, after all."
Early the next morning after this decision Elizabeth and Ruth rode into
town to see about getting a house. The only vacant one in the place was
an old adobe, rather dilapidated, but with plenty of room, and enough
ground fenced in to keep a cow, besides having the garden and small
patches they would be obliged to plant for vegetables and cow-feed. It
belonged to Mr. Rouse, the station agent who boarded with Cousin Hannah,
and he was so glad of the chance of getting it occupied that he told the
girls if they would agree to make the necessary repairs, he would let
them have it rent-free for the first six months.
This was joyfully agreed to, and the very next day Jonah and Roy went to
town to see about making the repairs--mending the roof, putting in
window panes, and whitewashing the interior, so that at last it was
converted into a very respectable and comfortable habitation--really
more comfortable than the ranch-house, for the adobe walls were thick,
and would keep out the cold in winter and the heat in summer as well.
During the days that the men worked on the adobe Ruth and Elizabeth were
busy packing up, while the Babe and her mother drove about in the
phaeton, making arrangements for the keeping of the cattle and ponies,
for Mrs. Spooner determined that she would not sell them--it would be
like admitting her husband was dead.
Mr. Munson, a man with a big ranch and a big heart, readily agreed to
graze the cattle, scoffing at the idea of taking a third of the increase
for his share, until Mrs. Spooner declared that, unless he did, she
could not allow him to be burdened with them.
"Then I hope for your sake it won't be long, ma'am," said the rancher
heartily. "No news is good news, I've always heard say, and there's no
tellin' when John may come."
Another neighbor agreed to graze the ponies, and the Babe earnestly
begged that he would be very, very kind to Queen Berengaria, who was a
good pony, if she wasn't so very pretty!
With everybody working like beavers, it was only a few days before the
Spooners closed the doors of the lonely little ranch-house, striving
bravely to think that it would only be for a little while, and took up
their abode in the old adobe in Emerald.
If there had been, just at this time, a voting contest for the most
unpopular man in the district, Harvey Grannis would undoubtedly have won
the prize by a big majority. Everybody was so indignant at his
treatment of the Spooners that they vied with each other in showing
their sympathy and friendship for the family, sending them such loads of
vegetables from their gardens and choice cuts of fresh meat when a beef
was killed, that it was a long time before they had need of anything
else; while Cousin Hannah came over on the first day, laden with trays
of good things for the first meal.