Hope struck him again, a little harder, and Rab kicked again, more
viciously. The trail was much better for kicking than for running, but
Mary Hope would not accept the compromise, and at last Rab yielded to
the extent of loping cautiously down the last steep declivity. When he
reached level ground he laid back his ears and galloped as fast as his
stiffened shoulders would let him. So Mary Hope very nearly achieved a
dashing pace as she neared the corrals of the wicked Lorrigans.
"Well! Yuh traveling, or just goin' somewhere?" A young voice yelled
at her as she went past the stable.
"My horse--is--he rinned away wi' me!" screamed Mary Hope, her
pigtails snapping as Rab slowed up and stopped.
"He rinned away wi' you? When? You musta been purty young for riding
when _that_ horse rinned away!" Lance came toward her, grinning and
slapping his hat against his fringed chaps before he set it upon his
head; an uncommonly handsome head, by the way, with the Lorrigan's
dark eyes and hair and his mother's provocative mouth. "Well, seeing
your horse ain't going to rin no further, you might as well git down
and stay awhile."
"I will not. I didna come to visit, if you please."
Mary Hope's cheeks were hot but confusion could not break her Scotch
spirit.
"Want to borrow something?" Lance stood looking at her with much
enjoyment. A girl in short skirts was fair game for any one's teasing,
especially when she blushed as easily as did Mary Hope. "Want to
borrow a horse that will rin away wi' you."
"Lance, you devil, get out and leave the girl alone. I'm ashamed of
you! Haven't you got any manners at all?--after all the willows and
the good powder I've wasted on you! Get back to that pasture fence
before I take a club to you for such acting!"
Before Belle's wrath Lance retreated, and Mary Hope found the courage
to wrinkle her nose at him when he glanced her way. "He rinned away to
save himself a whupping," she commented, and made sure that he heard
it, and hoped that he would realize that she spoke "Scotchy" just for
his special benefit.
"All right for you, Belle Lorrigan!" Lance called back, retaliating
for Mary Hope's grimace by a kiss thrown brazenly in the expectation
of seeing her face grow redder; which it did immediately. "Careful of
that horse--he might rinned away again!"
"That'll do for you, young man!" Whereupon Belle picked up a small
stone and threw it with such accurate aim that Lance's hat went off.
"Good thing for you that I haven't got a gun on me, or I'd dust your
heels for you!" Then she turned to Mary Hope, who was listening with
titillating horror to the painted Jezebel's unorthodox method of
reproving her offspring. "Get right down, honey, and come in and rest.
And don't mind Lance; he's an awful tease, especially when he likes a
person. Tie your horse to the fence--or turn him in the corral, if
he'll let you catch him again."
"I--I don't believe I could stop. I--I only came by because I--my
horse--" Mary Hope stammered and blushed so red that her freckles were
invisible. After all, it was very hard to tell a lie, she discovered.
"There's something I like about this horse," said Belle, running her
plump white hand down the nose of Rab. "He's neighborly, anyway. He
brought you here against your will, I can see that. And now he's here
he sort of takes it for granted you'll be friendly and stop a while.
Don't you think you ought to be as friendly as your horse, honey?"
"I--I am friendly. I--I always wished I could come and see you. But
mother--mother doesna visit much among the neighbors; she--she's
always busy."
"I don't visit much, myself," said Belle dryly. "But that ain't saying
I can't be friendly. Come on in, and we'll have some lemonade."
Sheer astonishment brought Mary Hope down from her horse. All her life
she had taken it for granted that lemonade was sacred to the Fourth of
July picnics, just as oranges grew for Christmas trees only. She
followed Belle dumbly into the house, and once inside she remained
dumb with awe at what seemed to her to be the highest pinnacle of
grandeur.
There was the piano with a fringed scarf draped upon its top, and
pictures in frames standing upon the scarf in orderly rows. There were
many sheets of music,--and never a hymn book. There were great chairs
with deep upholstery which Mary observed with amazement was not red
plush, nor even blue plush, yet which appealed to her instincts for
beauty. There was no center table with fringed spread and family album
and a Bible and a conch shell. Instead there was a long table before a
window--a table littered with all sorts of things: a box of revolver
cartridges, a rifle laid down in the middle of scattered newspapers,
a bottle of oil, more music, a banjo, a fruit jar that did duty as a
vase for wild flowers, a half-finished, braided quirt and four silver
dollars lying where they had been carelessly flung down. To Mary Hope,
reared in a household where dollars were precious things, that last
item was the most amazing of all. The Lorrigans must be rich,--as rich
as they were wicked. She thrilled anew at her own daring.
Belle brought lemonade, wonderful lemonade, with an egg beaten to
yellow froth and added the last minute. Mary Hope sipped and marveled.
After that, Belle played on the piano and sang songs which Mary Hope
had never heard before and which she thought must be the songs the
angels sang in Heaven, although there was nothing to suggest harps or
hallelujahs. Love songs they were, mostly. The sun slipped around and
shone through a window on Belle's head, so that her yellow hair
glistened like fine threads of gold. Mary Hope watched it dreamily and
wondered how a Jezebel could be so beautiful and so good.
"You'd better run along home now, honey," Belle said at last when she
had finished her eighth song. "I'd love to have you stay all
night--but I reckon there'd be trouble. Your dad ain't any too mild,
I've heard. But I hope you won't wait until your horse runs away with
you again. I want you to come real soon. And come early so you can
stay longer. I'll teach you to play the piano, honey. You ought to
learn, seeing you love it so."
That night Mary Hope dreamed of playing strange, complex compositions
on a piano which Lance Lorrigan had given her. The next morning and
for many days after she still dreamed of playing entrancing strains
upon a piano, and of Lance Lorrigan who had thrown her a kiss. Belle
had said that Lance always teased a person he liked, and in that one
remark lay the stuff of many dreams.
CHAPTER FOUR
A MATTER OF BRANDS
On the grassy expanse known locally as Injun Creek, fifteen hundred
head of cattle were milling restlessly in a close-held herd over which
gray dust hovered and settled and rose again. Toward it other cattle
came lowing, trotting now and then when the riders pressed close,
essaying a retreat when the way seemed clear. From Devil's Tooth they
came, and from Lava Bed way, and from the rough sandstone ridges of
Mill Creek. Two by two the riders, mere moving dots at first against a
monotone of the rangeland, took form as they neared the common center.
Red cattle, black cattle, spotted and dingy white, with bandy-legged,
flat-bodied calves keeping close to their mothers, kicking up their
heels in sheer joy of their new life when the pace slowed a little,
seeking a light lunch whenever the cows stopped to cast a wary glance
back at their pursuer. A dozen brands were represented in that
foregathering: The NL brand of Tom Lorrigan on most, with its various
amendments which differentiated the property of other members of the
family, since all of the Lorrigans owned cattle. There was the NL
Block of Belle Lorrigan, the ANL which was Al's brand, the DNL of Duke
and the LNL which belonged to Lance; monograms all of them, deftly
constructed with the fewest possible lines. There was that invitation
to the unlawful artistry of brand-working, the Eleven which Sleek
Douglas thought quite sufficient to mark his cattle. It was merciful
to the calves, he maintained, and as to thieves, the dishonest would
be punished by law and the Douglas wrath. The Miller brand, a plain
Block, showed now and then upon the rump of some animal. The AJ fled
occasionally before a rider, and there were brands alien to the Black
Rim; brands on cattle that had drifted down from the Snake through the
Lava Creek pass, or over the sage-grown ridges farther north.
His rifle sheathed in a saddle holster under his thigh, his black eyes
roving here and there and letting no small movement of men or animals
escape their seeing glances, Tom Lorrigan rode to the round-up, lord
of the range, steadfast upon the trail of his "million on the hoof" of
which he dreamed. Beside him rode Al, and the two of them were talking
while they rode.
"He ain't safe, I tell you," Al was saying in the tone of reiteration.
"And you needn't ask me how I know. I know it, that's all. Maybe he's
too damn' agreeable or something. Anyway, I know I don't like the way
his eyes set in his head."
"A man that wasn't safe wouldn't dare come into the Black Rim and make
the play he's makin'," Tom contended. "I've had my eye on him ever
since he come. I've checked up what he says at different times--they
tally like the truth. I can't find nothing wrong."
"I've got him set down for a spotter," said Al.
"If he ain't on the level it'll show up sooner or later," Tom
contended. "I've got my eye on him. I dunno what you pin your argument
on, Al, I'll be darned if I do."
"Well, watch out for Cheyenne. That's all. You're pretty keen, all
right, but all a man's got to do to get on your blind side is to blow
in here with his chin on his shoulder and his horse rode to a whisper
and claim to you he's hidin' out. Cheyenne ain't right, I tell yuh.
You take a tip from me and watch him."
"Takes a kid to tell his dad where to head in at!" growled Tom. "How
do you reckon I ever got along before your time. Ever figure that out,
Al?"
"Now, what's eatin' on old Scotty Douglas, do yuh reckon? That's him,
all right. I could tell him on horseback ten mile off. He rides like a
Mormon."
Tom grunted. His boys, he had long ago discovered, were very apt to
find some excuse for changing the subject whenever he mentioned the
past which had not held their arrogant young selves. Tom resented the
attitude of superior wisdom which they were prone to assume. They were
pretty smart kids, but if they thought they were smarter than their
dad they sure had a change of heart coming to them.
"Supposin' it is old Scotty. Do you reckon, Al, I've got you along for
a guide, to point out what my eyes is getting too poor to see? As for
Cheyenne," he reverted angrily to the argument, "as for Cheyenne, when
you've growed to be a man, you'll find it's just as much the mark of a
fool to go along suspecting everybody as it is to bank on everybody.
You think now it's funny to put the Judas brand on every man you don't
know. It ain't. It's a kid's trick. Boys git that way when they begin
to sprout hair under their noses. I been pretty patient with yuh, Al.
You're growing up fast, and you're feeling your oats. I make
allowances, all kinds. But by the humpin' hyenas, don't you start in
telling me where to head in at with my own outfit! If you do, I'll
jest about wear out a willer switch on yuh!"
This to a youth almost old enough to vote was dire insult. Al pulled
up his horse. "Run your own outfit and be darned to yuh!" he cried
hotly, and spurred off in the direction of the ranch.
Tom laughed shortly and rolled a cigarette. "Thinks now it'll bust up
the round-up if he goes," he opined. "Lucky for my kids I ain't as
strict as my old dad was; they wouldn't have any hide left, I
reckon."
Up loped Aleck Douglas then, riding stiff-legged, his bony elbows
jerking awkwardly with the motion of his horse, a rusty black vest
dangling open under his coat which flapped in the wind. That the
Douglas wrath rode with him Tom saw from the corner of his eye and
gave no sign.
"Hello," said Tom casually and drew a match along the stamped fork of
his saddle. "You're quite a stranger." He lighted his cigarette,
holding his reins lightly in one hand while he did so; gave the reins
a gentle flip to one side and sent his horse after a cow and calf that
showed symptoms of "breaking back."
"Mister Lorrigan, 'tis aboot a spotted yearlin' that I've come to
speak with ye. I've found the hide of her in the brush beneath yon
hill, and the brand is cut from it. But I wad swear to the hide wi'out
the brand. 'Twas a yearlin' I ken weel, Mister Lorrigan." He rode
alongside, and his close-set little eyes regarded keenly Tom's face.
"A spotted yearling with the brand cut out, hey? That looks kinda bad.
Have you got the hide with you?"
"I have no got the hide wi' me, but I ken weel whaur it lies, Mister
Lorrigan, and I thinkit so do you."
"Hm-m. You'd ought to of brought it along." Tom's glance went out
toward the herd and the cattle lumbering toward it far and near. "The
range is plumb lousy with spotted yearlings, Scotty. What do you
expect me to do about it?"
The Douglas face worked spasmodically before he spoke. "I expect ye,
Mr. Lorrigan, to pay for yon beastie. I ken weel ye could name the mon
that stickit the knife in her throat. An' she made fine eatin', I have
na doot. But 'tis the law, Mister Lorrigan, that a mon should pay for
the meat he consumes."
"Meaning, of course, that you think I'm feeding Douglas meat to my
outfit. Don't you think you're kinda hasty? I kill a beef about every
three or four days in round-up time. The boys work hard and they eat
hard. And they eat NL beef, Scotty; don't overlook that fact. Hides
ain't worth anything much, but salt's cheap, too. I ain't throwin'
away a dollar when it's no trouble to save it. If you're any curious
at all, you ride over to ranch and count all the green hides you can
find. Belle, she'll show 'em to you. Take a look at the brands, and
figure it out yourself, I don't know how many you'll find, but I'll
gamble you a dozen cows against one that you'll wonder what went with
all the beef that was in them hides. Humpin' hyenas! Ain't I got
cattle enough of my own, without rustlin' off my neighbors?"
"Aye. Ye ha' cattle, Mister Lorrigan; I ken weel ye should no' be put
to it for a wee bit meat--but I ken weel yon spotty yearlin' was
mine. I ken ye've been campin' thereabout--and it wad seem, Mister
Lorrigan, that the salt was no sa plentifu' when the spotty yearlin'
was kilt."
The downright foolhardiness of the Douglas wrath held Tom's
hand,--though of a truth that hand trembled and crept backward. Nor
was Aleck Douglas nearsighted; he saw the movement and his bearded
underlip met his shaven underlip in a straight line.
"Ye do weel to be reachin' for the gun, Mister Lorrigan. I dinna carry
aye weapon save the truth."
Tom flushed. "Blame your oatmeal soul, if I reached for my gun, you
wouldn't be telling me about it!" he exploded. "Carry the truth, do
yuh? You've got to show me where you keep it, then. If you wasn't an
old man--and a darn fool on top of that."
"'Tis no brave to cover shame wi' bitter words, Tam Lorrigan. 'Tis the
way of ye to bluster and bully until the neighbors all are affrighted
to face ye and yere ill deeds."
Toward them clattered two riders hotly pursuing a lean, long-legged
steer with a wide spread of horns and a gift of speed that carried him
forging past the disputants. Tom wheeled mechanically and gave chase,
leaving the Douglas wrath to wax hotter or to cool if it would. It was
a harsh accusation that Aleck Douglas had made, and that he did make
it seemed to prove that he had what he considered very good evidence
that he was right. Tom was well schooled in troubles of that kind. He
did not take the matter so indifferently as Douglas believed.
Duke and Mel Wilson, riding hard, came upon Tom just as he had roped
and thrown the steer in a shallow draw that hid them from the level
where Aleck Douglas waited.
"Hey!" Tom beckoned them close. "Old Douglas says there's a hide in
the willows this side of Squaw Butte, with the brand cut out; a
spotted yearling, and he claims it's his and he can swear to it
without the brand. I don't know a darn thing about it. Nobody does in
this outfit; I'll stake all I've got on that. But he's on the
fight--and a mule's a sheep alongside him when he's got his back up.
He left the hide where he found it. Haze this steer and ride over
there and see what there is to his talk. If you find a hide cached in
the willows, put it outa sight. We don't want any rustling scraps
started on this range; that's bad medicine always. If he can't produce
any hide, he can't start anything but talk--and talk's cheap."
A few moments later they came tearing up out of the draw, the steer
running strong, the three riders still hotly pursuing. Duke and Mel
rushed it on to the herd, and Tom dropped out of the race and came
along across to where Douglas wrath had not cooled but had smoldered
and waited for the wind of opposition to fan it to flame again.
"Well, you still mournin' over your spotty yearlin'?" Tom called. "You
must have more time than you know what to do with to-day. Us, we have
to _work_."
"If it's to the round-up ye're going, then I'll ride wi' ye, Tom
Lorrigan. I'm a fair mon and I wush na ill to my neighbors. But I
canna twiddle the thumbs whilst others fare well on Douglas beef."
"You can ride where you please; it's open range. But if you ride to
the herd I'll show you forty yearlings that I'll bet are dead ringers
for the one that you claim was killed. I never seen that hide neither,
unless maybe when the critter was using it.
"Now, I don't want any trouble with yuh, Scotty. But I tell yuh right
now I can't stand for much more of this talk about beef rustling.
Thief's a pretty hard word to use to a man's face--and get away with
it."
"'Tis a hard mon I'm usin' it tae," the Douglas retorted grimly.
"Braggin' about your nerve, are yuh, Scotty?"
"I have a name, Tam Lorrigan, and 'tisna Scotty." The Douglas face
twisted with anger. "I will no bandy worrds with ye. 'Tis ill I should
descend to the level o' them that deespitefully use me."
"Deespitefully!--why, humpin' hyenas! Ain't I letting yuh _live_? And
do yuh reckon any other man could walk up to me and call me a thief
and live long enough to take it back? Just because you're old, and
such a blamed fool you go around without a gun on yuh, I'm keepin' my
hands off you. I call yuh a coward. You wouldn't a dared to come over
here with a gun on yuh and talk the way you've done. You've got me
hog-tied. You know it. And damn yuh, I'll fight yuh now with the
law--which is the only way a coward will fight.
"You've done a heap of chawin' around about the Lorrigans, Scotty.
Don't think I ain't heard it. Maybe it's your religion to backbite
yore neighbors and say what you wouldn't dare to say to their face
with a gun on you so we'd be equal. I've passed it up. I've considered
the source and let it go. But when you come belly-achin' around about
me stealin' a spotty yearlin'--jest as if there wasn't but one on the
Black Rim range!--why, damn it, _you'll prove it_! Do you get that?
You'll prove it before a jury, or I'll sue yuh for libel and bust yuh.
I don't go much on the law, but by Henry, I'll use it on you!"
The Douglas eyes flickered uncertainly, but the Douglas mouth was
unyielding. "The law can no be cheatit so easy, Tam Lorrigan. I hae no
wush to send ye tae jail--but ye ken weel that wad be the penalty for
killin' yon beastie in the willows. I came to settle the matter fair
between neighbors, and tae warn ye to cease your evil doings on the
range. I wadna see yer woman come tae grief--"
"You can cut out that mercy talk, Scotty. And don't try to bring Belle
into this. If it comes to a showdown, lemme advise you, you'd better
sidestep Belle. The grief would all be yourn, if you and Belle lock
horns, and I'm telling yuh so."
They had reached the nearest margin of the herd. Cheyenne, a nameless
estray from the Wyoming ranges, chanced to be holding herd where the
two rode up. At him Tom looked, suspicion for the moment sharpening
his glance.
"You can ask this man what he knows about any spotted hide over by
Squaw Butte," he invited the Douglas stiffly. "He's practically a
stranger to the outfit--been here about a month. Maybe his word'll be
worth something to yuh--I dunno. You can ask him."
Douglas rode over to Cheyenne and said what he had to say. Tom
meanwhile held the herd and meditated on the petty injustices of
life--perhaps--and wished that a real he-man had come at him the way
Douglas had come. It irked Tom much to be compelled to meet hard words
with tolerant derision. Toleration was not much of a factor in his
life. But since he must be tolerant, he swung his horse to meet the
Douglas when the brief conversation with Cheyenne was over. The
Douglas head was shaking slowly, owning disappointment.
"Well, yuh might as well make the rounds, Scotty. Go on and ask all
the boys. If I asked 'em myself you might think it was a frame-up. And
when you've made the rounds, take a look through the herd. The chances
are that you'll find your spotty yearlin' walking around with her hide
on her. And when you're plumb through, you make tracks away from my
outfit. My patience is strainin' the buttons right now, looking at
your ugly mug. And lemme tell yuh--and you mark it down in your little
red book so yuh won't forget it--after you've peddled your woes to the
hull outfit, you bring in that hide and some proof, or you get down on
them marrow bones and apologize! I'm plumb tired of the way you act."
Aleck Douglas scowled, opened his hard lips to make a bitter answer
and reconsidered. He went off instead to interview the men, perhaps
thinking that adroit questioning might reveal a weak point somewhere
in their denial.
Tom rode over to Cheyenne. "Scotty's got his war clothes on," he
observed carelessly.
"Shore has," Cheyenne grinned. "But that's all right. He didn't make
nothin' off me. I never give him any satisfaction at all."
Tom's brows pulled together. "Well, now, if you know anything about
any hide with the brand cut out, you'd better come through,
Cheyenne."
"I never said I knowed anything about it. I guess mebby that's why I
couldn't give him no satisfaction." Cheyenne still grinned, but he
did not meet Tom's eyes.
"You spoke kinda queer for a man who don't know nothing, Cheyenne. Did
yuh think mebby it wasn't all NL beef you been eating?"
"Why, no. I never meant anything like that at all. I only said--"
"Straight talk don't need no explainin', Cheyenne. The Devil's Tooth
outfit shore likes the taste of its own beef. If any man fails to
agree with that, I want him to speak up right now."
Cheyenne pinched out the fire in his cigarette and flipped the stub
away from him. He did not look at Tom when he said:
"NL beef shore suits me. I don't know about any other brand. I ain't
et none to judge by."
"You bet your life you ain't," snapped Tom, as he turned away. "When
you sample another brand you won't be drawin' wages with this
outfit."
He rode away to the wagon, where a fire was already burning and the
branding irons heating. Cheyenne, with his hat pulled down over his
forehead so that he looked out from under the brim that shaded his
face, watched Tom queerly, a corner of his lips lifted in a half smile
that was not pleasant.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY RIDE AND THEY DO NOT TELL WHERE
Aleck Douglas, having questioned the crew as Tom had suggested, and
having inexorably ridden through the herd--in search of brands that
had been "worked," or for other evidence of the unlawful acquisition
of wealth, rather than in hope of finding his spotted yearling--rode
away with the parting threat that he would "gang to the shuriff and
hae a talk wi' him." Tom had advised him of one or two other
destinations where he hoped the Douglas would arrive without any delay
whatever, and the branding proceeded rather slowly with the crew three
men short.
Duke and Mel Wilson rode in about three o'clock with a few cows and
calves which they had gleaned from some brushy draw to cover their
real errand. By the time they had snatched a hasty meal at the wagon a
mile away, and had caught up fresh horses, the afternoon's work was
nearly over. A little earlier than usual, Tom kicked the branding fire
apart, ordered the herd thrown on water and grazed back to the
bed-ground that had been used during round-up time ever since he could
remember, and rode slowly toward camp, whither the lucky ones not on
herd were speeding.