THE RANCHHOUSE BY THE RIVER
Saul Chadron had built himself into that house. It was a solid and
assertive thing of rude importance where it stood in the great plain,
the river lying flat before it in its low banks like a gray thread
through the summer green. There was a bold front to the house, and a
turret with windows, standing like a lighthouse above the sea of
meadows in which his thousand-numbered cattle fed.
As white as a dove it sat there among the cottonwoods at the
riverside. A stream of water led into its gardens to gladden them and
give them life. Years ago, when Chadron's importance was beginning to
feel itself strong upon its legs, and when Nola was a little thing
with light curls blowing about her blue eyes, the house had grown up
under the wand of riches in that barren place.
The post at Fort Shakie had been the nearest neighbor in those days,
and it remained the nearest neighbor still, with the exception of one
usurper and outcast homesteader, Alan Macdonald by name, who had
invaded the land over which Chadron laid his extensive claim. Fifteen
miles up the river from the grand white house Macdonald had strung his
barbed wire and carried in the irrigation ditch to his alfalfa field.
He had chosen the most fertile spot in the vast plain through which
the river swept, and it was in the heart of Saul Chadron's domain.
After the lordly manner of the cattle "barons," as they were called in
the Northwest, Chadron set his bounds by mountains and rivers.
Twenty-five hundred square miles, roughly measured, lay within his
lines, the Alamito Ranch he called it--the Little Cottonwood. He had
no more title to that great sweep of land than the next man who might
come along, and he paid no rental fee to nation nor state for grazing
his herds upon it. But the cattle barons had so apportioned the land
between themselves, and Saul Chadron, and each member of the Drovers'
Association, had the power of their mighty organization to uphold his
hand. That power was incontestable in the Northwest in its day; there
was no higher law.
This Alan Macdonald was an unaccountable man, a man of education, it
was said, which made him doubly dangerous in Saul Chadron's eyes. Saul
himself had come up from the saddle, and he was not strong on letters,
but he had seen the power of learning in lawyers' offices, and he
respected it, and handled it warily, like a loaded gun.
Chadron had sent his cowboys up the river when Macdonald first came,
and tried to "throw a holy scare into him," as he put it. The old
formula did not work in the case of the lean, long-jawed, bony-chinned
man. He was polite, but obdurate, and his quick gray eyes seemed to
read to their inner process of bluff and bluster as through tissue
paper before a lamp. When they had tried to flash their guns on him,
the climax of their play, he had beaten them to it. Two of them were
carried back to the big ranchhouse in blankets, with bullets through
their fleshy parts--not fatal wounds, but effective.
The problem of a fighting "nester" was a new one to the cattlemen of
that country. For twenty years they had kept that state under the
dominion of the steer, and held its rich agricultural and mineral
lands undeveloped. The herbage there, curing in the dry suns of summer
as it stood on the upland plains, provided winter forage for their
herds. There was no need for man to put his hand to the soil and
debase himself to a peasant's level when he might live in a king's
estate by roaming his herds over the untamed land.
Homesteaders who did not know the conditions drifted there on the
westward-mounting wave, only to be hustled rudely away, or to pay the
penalty of refusal with their lives. Reasons were not given, rights
were not pleaded by the lords of many herds. They had the might to
work their will; that was enough.
So it could be understood what indignation mounted in the breast of
tough old Saul Chadron when a pigmy homesteader put his firm feet down
on the ground and refused to move along at his command, and even
fought back to maintain what he claimed to be his rights. It was an
unprecedented stand, a dangerous example. But this nester had held out
for more than two years against his forces, armed by some invisible
strength, it seemed, guarded against ambuscades and surprises by some
cunning sense which led him whole and secure about his nefarious
ways.
Not alone that, but other homesteaders had come and settled near him
across the river on two other big ranches which cornered there against
Chadron's own. These nesters drew courage from Macdonald's example,
and cunning from his counsel, and stood against the warnings,
persecutions, and attempts at forceful dislodgment. The law of might
did not seem to apply to them, and there was no other source equal to
the dignity of the Drovers' Association--at least none to which it
cared to carry its grievances and air them.
So they cut Alan Macdonald's fences, and other homesteaders' fences,
in the night and drove a thousand or two cattle across his fields,
trampling the growing grain and forage into the earth; they persecuted
him in a score of harassing, quick, and hidden blows. But this
homesteader was not to be driven away by ordinary means. Nature seemed
to lend a hand to him, he made crops in spite of the cattlemen, and
was prospering. He had taken root and appeared determined to remain,
and the others were taking deep root with him, and the free, wide
range was coming under the menace of the fence and the lowly plow.
That was the condition of things in those fair autumn days when
Prances Landcraft returned to the post. The Drovers' Association, and
especially the president of it, was being defied in that section,
where probably a hundred homesteaders had settled with their families
of long-backed sons and daughters. They were but a speck on the land
yet, as Chadron had told the smoky stranger when he had engaged him to
try his hand at throwing the "holy scare." But they spread far over
the upland plain, having sought the most favored spots, and they were
a blight and a pest in the eyes of the cattlemen.
Nola had flitted back to the ranchhouse, carrying Frances with her to
bring down the curtain on her summer's festivities there in one last
burst of joy. The event was to be a masquerade, and everybody from the
post was coming, together with the few from Meander who had polish
enough to float them, like new needles in a glass of water, through
frontier society's depths. Some were coming from Cheyenne, also, and
the big house was dressed for them, even to the bank of palms to
conceal the musicians, in the polite way that society has of standing
something in front of what it cannot well dispense with, yet of which
it appears to be ashamed.
It was the afternoon of the festal day, and Nola sighed happily as she
stood with Frances in the ballroom, surveying the perfection of every
detail. Money could do things away off there in that corner of the
world as well as it could do them in Omaha or elsewhere. Saul Chadron
had hothouses in which even oranges and pineapples grew.
Mrs. Chadron was in the living-room, with its big fireplace and homely
things, when they came chattering out of the enchanted place. She was
sitting by the window which gave her a view of the dim gray road where
it came over the grassy swells from Meander and the world, knitting a
large blue sock.
Mrs. Chadron was a cow-woman of the unimproved school. She was a heavy
feeder on solids, and she liked plenty of chili peppers in them, which
combination gave her a waist and a ruddiness of face like a brewer.
But she was a good woman in her fashion, which was narrow, and
intolerant of all things which did not wear hoofs and horns, or live
and grow mighty from the proceeds of them. She never had expanded
mentally to fit the large place that Saul had made for her in the
world of cattle, although her struggle had been both painful and
sincere.
Now she had given it up, and dismissed the troubles of high life from
her fat little head, leaving Nola to stand in the door and do the
honors with credit to the entire family. She had settled down to her
roasts and hot condiments, her knitting and her afternoon naps, as
contentedly as an old cat with a singed back under a kitchen stove.
She had no desire to go back to the winter home in Cheyenne, with its
grandeur, its Chinese cook, and furniture that she was afraid to use.
There was no satisfaction in that place for Mrs. Chadron, beyond the
swelling pride of ownership. For comfort, peace, and a mind at ease,
give her the ranchhouse by the river, where she could set her hand to
a dish if she wanted to, no one thinking it amiss.
"Well, I declare! if here don't come Banjo Gibson," said she, her hand
on the curtain, her red face near the pane like a beacon to welcome
the coming guest. There was pleasure in her voice, and anticipation.
The blue sock slid from her lap to the floor, forgotten.
"Yes, it's Banjo," said Nola. "I wonder where he's been all summer? I
haven't seen him in an age."
"Who is he?" Frances inquired, looking out at the approaching figure,
"The troubadour of the North Platte, I call him," laughed Nola; "the
queerest little traveling musician in a thousand miles. He belongs
back in the days of romance, when men like him went playing from
castle to court--the last one of his kind."
Frances watched him with new interest as he drew up to the big gate,
which was arranged with weights and levers so that a horseman could
open and close it without leaving the saddle. The troubadour rode a
mustang the color of a dry chili pepper, but with none of its spirit.
It came in with drooping head, the reins lying untouched on its neck,
its mane and forelock platted and adorned fantastically with
vari-colored ribbons. Rosettes were on the bridle, a fringe of leather
thongs along the reins.
The musician himself was scarcely less remarkably than the horse. He
looked at that distance--now being at the gate--to be a dry little man
of middle age, with a thirsty look about his throat, which was long,
with a lump in it like an elbow. He was a slender man and short, with
gloves on his hands, a slight sandy mustache on his lip, and wearing a
dun-colored hat tilted a little to one side, showing a waviness almost
curly in his glistening black hair. He carried a violin case behind
his saddle, and a banjo in a green covering slung like a carbine over
his shoulder.
"He'll know where to put his horse," said Mrs. Chadron, getting up
with a new interest in life, "and I'll just go and have Maggie stir
him up a bite to eat and warm the coffee. He's always hungry when he
comes anywhere, poor little man!"
"Can he play that battery of instruments?" Prances asked.
"Wait till you hear him," nodded Nola, a laugh in her merry eyes.
Then they fell to talking of the coming night, and of the trivial
things which are so much to youth, and to watching along the road
toward Meander for the expected guests from Cheyenne, who were to come
up on the afternoon train.
Regaled at length, Banjo Gibson, in the wake of Mrs. Chadron, who
presented him with pride, came into the room where the young ladies
waited with impatience the waning of the daylight hours. Banjo
acknowledged the honor of meeting Miss Landcraft with extravagant
words, which had the flavor of a manual of politeness and a ready
letter-writer in them. He was on more natural terms with Nola, having
known her since childhood, and he called her "Miss Nola," and held her
hand with a tender lingering.
His voice was full and rich, a deep, soft note in it like a rare
instrument in tune. His small feet were shod in the shiningest of
shoes, which he had given a furbishing in the barn, and a flowing
cravat tied in a large bow adorned his low collar. There were stripes
in the musician's shirt like a Persian tent, but it was as clean and
unwrinkled as if he had that moment put it on.
Banjo Gibson--if he had any other christened name, it was unknown to
men--was an original. As Nola had said, he belonged back a few hundred
years, when musical proficiency was not so common as now. The
profession was not crowded in that country, happily, and Banjo
traveled from ranch to ranch carrying cheer and entertainment with him
as he passed.
He had been doing that for years, having worked his way westward from
Nebraska with the big cattle ranches, and his art was his living.
Banjo's arrival at a ranch usually resulted in a dance, for which he
supplied the music, and received such compensation as the generosity
of the host might fix. Banjo never quarreled over such matters. All he
needed was enough to buy cigarettes and shirts.
Banjo seldom played in company with any other musician, owing to
certain limitations, which he raised to distinguishing virtues. He
played by "air," as he said, despising the unproficiency of all such
as had need of looking on a book while they fiddled. Knowing nothing
of transposition, he was obliged to tune his banjo--on those rare
occasions when he stooped to play "second" at a dance--in the key of
each fresh tune. This was hard on the strings, as well as on the
patience of the player, and Banjo liked best to go it single-handed
and alone.
When he heard that musicians were coming from Cheyenne--a day's
journey by train--to play for Nola's ball, his face told that he was
hurt, but his respect of hospitality curbed his words. He knew that
there was one appreciative ear in the mansion by the river that no
amount of "dago fiddlin'" ever would charm and satisfy like his own
voice with the banjo, or his little brown fiddle when it gave out the
old foot-warming tunes. Mrs. Chadron was his champion in all company,
and his friend in all places.
"Well, sakes alive! Banjo, I'm as tickled to see you as if you was one
of my own folks," she declared, her face as warm as if she had just
gorged on the hottest of hot dishes which her Mexican cook, Maggie,
could devise.
"I'm glad to be able to make it around ag'in, thank you, mom," Banjo
assured her, sentiment and soul behind the simple words. "I always
carry a warm place in my heart for Alamito wherever I may stray."
Nola frisked around and took the banjo from its green cover, talking
all the time, pushing and placing chairs, and settling Banjo in a
comfortable place. Then she armed him with the instrument, making
quite a ceremony of it, and asked him to play.
Banjo twanged the instrument into tune, hooked the toe of his left
foot behind the forward leg of his chair, and struck up a song which
he judged would please the young ladies. Of Mrs. Chadron he was sure;
she had laughed over it a hundred times. It was about an adventure
which the bard had shared with his gal in a place designated in
Banjo's uncertain vocabulary as "the big cook-quari-um." It began:
Oh-h-h, I stopped at a big cook-quari-um
Not very long ago,
To see the bass and suckers
And hear the white whale blow.
The chorus of it ran:
Oh-h-h-h, the big sea-line he howled and he growled,
The seal beat time on a drum;
The whale he swallered a den-vereel
In the big cook-quari-um.
From that one Banjo passed to "The Cowboy's Lament," and from tragedy
to love. There could be nothing more moving--if not in one direction,
then in another--than the sentimental expression of Banjo's little
sandy face as he sang:
I know you were once my true-lov-o-o-o,
But such a thing it has an aind;
My love and my transpo'ts are ov-o-o-o,
But you may still be my fraind-d-d.
Sundown was rosy behind the distant mountains, a sea of purple shadows
laved their nearer feet, when Banjo got out his fiddle at Mrs.
Chadron's request and sang her "favorite" along with the moving tones
of that instrument.
Dau-ling I am growing-a o-o-eld,
Seel-vo threads a-mong tho go-o-ld--
As he sang, Nola slipped from the room. He was finishing when she sped
by the window and came sparkling into the room with the announcement
that the guests from far Cheyenne were coming. Frances was up in
excitement; Mrs. Chadron searched the floor for her unfinished sock.
"What was that flashed a-past the winder like a streak a minute ago?"
Banjo inquired.
"Flashed by the window?" Nola repeated, puzzled.
Frances laughed, the two girls stopping in the door, merriment
gleaming from their young faces like rays from iridescent gems.
"Why, that was Nola," Frances told him, curious to learn what the
sentimental eyes of the little musician foretold.
"I thought it was a star from the sky," said Banjo, sighing softly,
like a falling leaf.
As they waited at the gate to welcome the guests, who were cantering
up with a curtain of dust behind them, they laughed over Banjo's
compliment.
"I knew there was something behind those eyes," said Frances.
"No telling how long he's been saving it for a chance to work it off
on somebody," Nola said. "He got it out of a book--the Mexicans all
have them, full of _brindies_, what we call toasts, and silly soft
compliments like that."
"I've seen them, little red books that they give for premiums with the
Mexican papers down in Texas," Frances nodded, "but Banjo didn't get
that out of a book--it was spontaneous."
"I must write it down, and compare it with the next time he gets it
off."
"Give him credit for the way he delivered it, no matter where he got
it," Frances laughed. "Many a more sophisticated man than your desert
troubadour would have broken his neck over that. He's in love with
you, Nola--didn't you hear him sigh?"
"Oh, he has been ever since I was old enough to take notice of it,"
returned Nola, lightly.
"Oh, my luv's like a falling star," paraphrased Frances.
"Not much!" Nola denied, more than half serious. "Venus is ascendant;
you keep your eye on her and see."