THE SEÑOR BOSS COMES RIDING
Nola Chadron had been a guest overnight at the post. She had come the
afternoon before, bright as a bubble, and Frances had met her with a
welcome as warm as if there never had been a shadow between them.
Women can do such things so much better than men. Balzac said they
could murder under the cover of a kiss. Perhaps somebody else said it
ahead of him; certainly a great many of us have thought it after.
There is not one out of the whole world of them but is capable of
covering the fire of lies in her heart with the rose leaves of her
smiles.
Nola had come into Frances' room to do her hair, and employ her busy
tongue while she plied the brush. She was a pretty bit of a figure in
her fancily-worked Japanese kimono and red Turkish slippers--harem
slippers, she called them, and thought it deliciously wicked to wear
them--as she sat shaking back her bright hair like a giver of
sunbeams.
Frances, already dressed in her soft light apparel of the morning,
stood at the window watching the activity of the avenue below,
answering encouragingly now and then, laughing at the right time, to
keep the stream of her little guest's words running on. Frances seemed
all softness and warmth, all youth and freshness, as fair as a
camellia in a sunny casement, there at the window with the light
around her. Above that inborn dignity which every line of her body
expressed, there was a domestic tranquillity in her subdued beauty
that moved even irresponsible Nola with an admiration that she could
not put into words.
"Oh, you soldiers!" said Nola, shaking her brush at Frances' placid
back, "you get up so early and you dress so fast that you're always
ahead of everybody else."
Frances turned to her, a smile for her childish complaint.
"You'll get into our soldiering ways in time, Nola. We get up early
and live in a hurry, I suppose, because a soldier's life is
traditionally uncertain, and he wants to make the most of his time."
"And love and ride away," said Nola, feigning a sigh.
"Do they?" asked Frances, not interested, turning to the window
again.
"Of course," said Nola, positively.
"Like the guardsmen of old England,
Or the beaux sabreurs of France--"
that's an old border song, did you ever hear it?"
"No, I never did."
"It's about the Texas rangers, though, and not real soldiers like you
folks. A cavalryman's wife wrote it; I've got it in a book."
"Maybe they do that way in Texas, Nola."
"How?"
"Love and ride away, as you said. I never heard of any of them doing
it, except figuratively, in the regular army."
Nola suspended her brushing and looked at Frances curiously, a deeper
color rising and spreading in her animated face.
"Oh, you little goose!" said she.
"Mostly they hang around and make trouble for people and fools of
themselves," said Frances, in half-thoughtful vein, her back to her
visitor, who had stopped brushing now, and was winding, a comb in her
mouth.
Nola held her quick hand at the half-finished coil of hair while she
looked narrowly at the outline of Frances' form against the window. A
little squint of perplexity was in her eyes, and furrows in her smooth
forehead. Presently she finished the coil with dextrous turn, and held
it with outspread hand while she reached to secure it with the comb.
"I can't make you out sometimes, Frances, you're so funny," she
declared. "I'm afraid to talk to you half the time"--which was in no
part true--"you're so nunnish and severe."
"Oh!" said Frances, fully discounting the declaration.
No wonder that Major King was hard to wean from her, thought Nola,
with all that grace of body and charm of word. Superiority had been
born in Frances Landcraft, not educated into her in expensive schools,
the cattleman's daughter knew. It spoke for itself in the carriage of
her head there against the light of that fair new day, with the
sunshine on the dying cottonwood leaves beyond the windowpane; in the
lifting of her neck, white as King David's tower of shields.
"Well, I _am_ half afraid of you sometimes," Nola persisted. "I draw
my hand back from touching you when you've got one of your soaring
fits on you and walk along like you couldn't see common mortals and
cowmen's daughters."
"Well, everybody isn't like you, Nola; there are some who treat me
like a child."
Frances was thinking of her father and Major King, both of whom had
continued to overlook and ignore her declaration of severance from her
plighted word. The colonel had brushed it aside with rough hand and
sharp word; the major had come penitent and in suppliance. But both of
them were determined to marry her according to schedule, with no
weight to her solemn denial.
"Mothers do that, right along," Nola nodded.
"Here's somebody else up early"--Frances held the curtain aside as she
spoke, and leaned a little to see--"here's your father, just turning
in."
"The señor boss?" said Nola, hurrying to the window.
Saul Chadron was mounting the steps booted and dusty, his revolvers
belted over his coat. "I wonder what's the matter? I hope it isn't
mother--I'll run down and see."
The maid had let Chadron in by the time Nola opened the door of the
room, and there she stood leaning and listening, her little head out
in the hall, as if afraid to run to meet trouble. Chadron's big voice
came up to them.
"It's all right," Nola nodded to Frances, who stood at her elbow, "he
wants to see the colonel."
Frances had heard the cattleman's loud demand for instant audience.
Now the maid was explaining in temporizing tones.
"The colonel he's busy with military matters this early in the day,
sir, and nobody ever disturbs him. He don't see nobody but the
officers. If you'll step in and wait--"
"The officers can wait!" Chadron said, in loud, assertive voice that
made the servant shiver. "Where's he at?"
Frances could see in her lively imagination the frightened maid's
gesture toward the colonel's office door. Now the girl's feet sounded
along the hall in hasty retreat as Chadron laid his hearty knock
against the colonel's panels.
Frances smiled behind her friend's back. The impatient disregard by
civilians of the forms which her father held in such esteem always was
a matter of humor to her. She expected now to hear explosions from
within her father's sacred place, and when the sound failed to reach
her she concluded that some subordinate hand had opened the door to
Chadron's summons.
"I'll hurry"--Nola dashed into her own room, finishing from the
door--"I want to catch him before he goes and find out what's wrong."
Frances went below to see about breakfast for her tardy guest, a
little fluttering of excitement in her own breast. She wondered what
could have brought the cattleman to the post so early--he must have
left long before dawn--and in such haste to see her father, all
buckled about with his arms. She trusted that it might not be that
Alan Macdonald was involved in it, for it was her constant thought to
hope well for that bold young man who had heaved the homesteaders'
world to his shoulders and stood straining, untrusted and uncheered,
under its weight.
True, he had not died in defense of her glove, but she had forgiven
him in her heart for that. A reasonable man would not have imperiled
his life for such a trifle, and a reasonable woman would not have
expected it. There was a great deal more sense in Alan Macdonald
living for his life's purpose than in dying for a foolish little
glove. So she said.
The white gossamer fichu about her throat moved as with a breath in
the agitation of her bosom as she passed down the stairs; her
imperious chin was lowered, and her strong brown eyes were bent like a
nun's before the altar. Worthy or unworthy, her lips moved in a prayer
for Alan Macdonald, strong man in his obscure place; worthy or
unworthy, she wished him well, and her heart yearned after him with a
great tenderness, like a south wind roaming the night in gentle
quest.
Major King, in attendance upon his chief, had opened the door to Saul
Chadron at the colonel's frowning nod. Without waiting for the
password into the mysteries of that chamber, Chadron had entered, his
heavy quirt in hand, gauntlets to his elbows, dusty boots to his
knees. Colonel Landcraft stood at his desk to receive him, his brows
bent in a disfavoring frown.
"I've busted in on you, colonel, because my business is business, not
a mess of reportin' and signin' up on nothing, like your fool army
doin's." Chadron clamped with clicking spurs across the severe bare
floor as he made this announcement, the frown of his displeasure in
having been stopped at the door still dark on his face.
"I'm waiting your pleasure, sir," Colonel Landcraft returned,
stiffly.
"I want twenty-five troopers and a cannon, and somebody that knows how
to use it, and I want 'em right away!"
Chadron gave the order with a hotness about him, and an impatience not
to be denied.
"Sir!" said Colonel Landcraft, throwing his bony shoulders back, his
little blue eyes growing very cold and unfriendly.
"Them damn rustlers of Macdonald's are up and standin' agin us, and I
tell you I want troopers, and I want 'em on the spot!"
Colonel Landcraft swallowed like an eagle gorging a fish. His face
grew red, he clamped his jaw, and held his mouth shut. It took him
some little time to suppress his flooding emotions, and his voice
trembled even when he ventured to trust himself to speak.
"That's a matter for your civil authorities, sir; I have nothing to do
with it at all."
"You ain't got--nothing--?" Chadron's amazement seemed to overcome
him. He stopped, his eyes big, his mouth open; he turned his head from
side to side in dumbfounded way, as if to find another to bear witness
to this incredible thing.
"I tell you they're threatenin' my property, and the property of my
neighbors!" protested Chadron, stunned, it seemed, that he should have
to stop for details and explanations. "We've got millions invested--if
them fellers gobbles up our land we're ruined!"
"Sir, I can sympathize with you in your unfortunate business, but if I
had millions of my own at stake under similar conditions I would be
powerless to employ, on my own initiative, the forces of the United
States army to drive those brigands away."
Chadron looked at him hard, his hat on his head, where it had remained
all the time, his eyes staring in unspeakable surprise.
"The hell you would!" said he.
"You and your neighbors surely can raise enough men to crush the
scoundrels, and hang their leader to a limb," the colonel suggested.
"Call out your men, Chadron, and ride against him. I never took you
for a man to squeal for help in a little affair like this."
"He's got as many as a hundred men organized, maybe twice that"--Chadron
multiplied on the basis of damage that his men had suffered--"and my
men tell me he's drillin' 'em like soldiers."
"I'm not surprised to hear that," nodded the colonel; "that man
Macdonald's got it in him to do that, and fight like the devil, too."
"A gang of 'em killed three of my men a couple of days ago when I sent
'em up there to his shack to investigate a little matter, and
Macdonald shot my foreman up so bad I guess he'll die. I tell you,
man, it's a case for troopers!"
"What has the sheriff and the rest of you done to restore order?"
"I took twenty of my men up there yisterday, and a bunch of Sam
Hatcher's from acrosst the river was to join us and smoke that wolf
out of his hole and hang his damn hide on his cussed bob-wire fence.
But hell! they was ditched in around that shack of his'n, I tell you,
gentlemen, and he peppered us so hard we had to streak out of there. I
left two of my men, and Hatcher's crew couldn't come over to help us,
for them damn rustlers had breastworks throwed up over there and drove
'em away from the river. They've got us shut out from the only ford in
thirty miles."
"Well, I'll be damned!" said the colonel, warming at this warlike
news.
"Macdonald's had the gall to send me notice to keep out of that
country up the river, and to run my cattle out of there, and it's my
own land, by God! I've been grazin' it for eighteen years!"
"It looks like a serious situation," the colonel admitted.
"Serious!" There was scorn for the word and its weakness in Chadron's
stress. "It's hell, I tell you, when a man can't set foot on his own
land!"
"Are they all rustlers up there in the settlement? are there no honest
homesteaders among them who would combine with you against this wild
man and his unlawful followers?" the colonel wanted to know.
"Not a man amongst 'em that ain't cut the brand out of a hide,"
Chadron declared. "They've been nestin' up there under that man
Macdonald for the last two years, and he's the brains of the pack. He
gits his rake-off out of all they run off and sell. Me and the other
cattlemen we've been feedin' and supportin' 'em till the drain's
gittin' more'n we can stand. We've got to put 'em out, like a fire, or
be eat up. We've got to hit 'em, and hit 'em hard."
"It would seem so," the colonel agreed.
"It's a state of war, I tell you, colonel; you're free to use your
troops in a state of war, ain't you? Twenty-five troopers, with a
little small cannon"--Chadron made illustration of the caliber that he
considered adequate for the business with his hands--"to knock 'em out
of their ditches so we could pick 'em off as they scatter, would be
enough; we can handle the rest."
"If there is anything that I can do for you in my private capacity, I
am at your command," offered Colonel Landcraft, with official
emptiness, "but I regret that I am powerless to grant your request for
troops. I couldn't lift a finger in a matter like this without a
department order; you ought to understand that, Chadron."
"Oh, if that's all that's bitin' you, go ahead--I'll take care of the
department," Chadron told him, with the relieved manner of one who had
seen a light.
"Sir!"
If Chadron had proposed treason the colonel could not have compressed
more censure into that word.
"That's all right," Chadron assured him, comfortably; "I've got two
senators and five congressmen back there in Washington that jigger
when I jerk the gee-string. You can cut loose and come into this thing
with a free hand, and go the limit, the department be damned if they
don't like it!"
Colonel Landcraft's face was flaming angrily. He snapped his dry old
eyelids like flints over the steel of his eyes, and stood as straight
as the human body could be drawn, one hand on his sword hilt, the
other pointing a trembling finger at Chadron's face.
"You cattlemen run this state, and one or two others here in the
Northwest, I'm aware of that, Chadron. But there's one thing that you
don't run, and that's the United States army! I don't care a damn how
many congressmen dance to your tune, you're not big enough to move
even one trooper out of my barracks, sir! That's all I've got to say
to you."
Chadron stood a little while, glowering at the colonel. It enraged him
to be blocked in that manner by a small and inconsequential man. This
he felt Colonel Landcraft to be, measured against his own strength and
importance in that country. Himself and the other two big cattlemen in
that section of the state lorded it over an area greater than two or
three of the old states where the slipping heritage of individual
liberty was born. Now here was a colonel in his way; one little old
gray colonel!
"All right," Chadron said at length, charging his words with what he
doubtless meant to be a significant foreboding, measuring Colonel
Landcraft with contemptuous eye. "I can call out an army of my own. I
came to you because we pay you fellers to do what I'm askin' of you,
and because I thought it'd save me time. That's all."
"You came to me because you have magnified your importance in this
country until you believe you're the entire nation," the colonel
replied, very hot and red.
Chadron made no answer to that. He turned toward the military door,
but Colonel Landcraft would not permit his unsanctified feet, great as
they were and free to come and go as they liked in other places, to
pass that way. He frowned at Major King, who had stood by in silence
all the time, like a good soldier, his eyes straight ahead. Major King
touched Chadron's arm.
"This way, sir, if you please," he said.
Chadron started out, wrathfully and noisily. Half-way to the door he
turned, his dark face sneering in contemptuous scorn.
"Yes, you're one hell of a colonel!" he said.
Major King was holding the door open; Chadron swung his big body
around to face it, and passed out. Major King saluted his superior
officer and followed the cattleman into the hall, closing the sacred
door behind him on the wrathful little old soldier standing beside his
desk. King extended his hand, sympathy in gesture and look.
"If I was in command of this post, sir, you'd never have to ask twice
for troops," he said.
Chadron's sudden interest seemed to give him the movement of a little
start. His grip on the young officer's hand tightened as he bent a
searching look into his eyes.
"King, I believe you!" he said.
Nola came pattering down the stairs. Chadron stood with open arms, and
swallowed her in them as she leaped from the bottom tread. Major King
did not wait to see her emerge again, rosy and lip-tempting. There was
unfinished business within the colonel's room.
A few minutes later Nola, excited to her finger-ends, was retailing
the story of the rustlers' uprising to Frances.
"Mother's all worked up over it; she's afraid they'll burn us out and
murder us, but of course we'd clean them up before they'd ever get
_that_ far down the river."
"It looks to me like a very serious situation for everybody
concerned," Frances said. "If your father brings in the men that you
say he's gone to Meander to telegraph for, there's going to be a lot
of killing done on both sides."
"Father says he's going to clean them out for good this time--they've
cost us thousands of dollars in the past three years. Oh, you can't
understand what a low-down bunch of scrubs those rustlers are!"
"Maybe not," Frances said, giving it up with a little sigh.
"I've got to go back to mother this morning, right away, but that
little fuss up the river doesn't need to keep you from going home with
me as you promised, Frances."
"I shouldn't mind, but I don't believe father will want me to go out
into your wild country. I really want to go--I want to look around in
your garden for a glove that I lost there on the night of the ball."
"Oh, why didn't you tell me?" Nola's face seemed to clear of
something, a shadow of perplexity, it seemed, that Frances had seen in
it from time to time since her coming there. She looked frankly and
reprovingly at Frances.
"I didn't miss it until I was leaving, and I didn't want to delay the
rest of them to look for it. It really doesn't matter."
"It's a wonder mother didn't find it; she's always prowling around
among the flowers," said Nola, her eyes fixed in abstracted stare, as
if she was thinking deeply of something apart from what her words
expressed.
What she was considering, indeed, was that her little scheme of
alienation had failed. Major King, she told herself, had not returned
the glove to Frances. For all his lightness in the matter, perhaps he
cared deeply for Frances, and would be more difficult to wean than she
had thought. It would have to be begun anew. That Frances was ignorant
of her treachery, as she now fully believed, made it easier. So the
little lady told herself, surveying the situation in her quick brain,
and deceiving herself completely, as many a shrewder schemer than she,
when self-entangled in the devious plottings of this life.
On the other hand there sat Frances across the table--they were
breakfasting alone, Mrs. Landcraft being a strict militarist, and
always serving the colonel's coffee with her own hand--throwing up a
framework of speculation on her own account. Perhaps if she should go
to the ranch she might be in some manner instrumental in bringing this
needless warfare to a pacific end. Intervention at the right time, in
the proper quarter, might accomplish more than strife and bloodshed
could bring out of that one-sided war.
No matter for the justice of the homesteaders' cause, and the
sincerity of their leader, neither of which she doubted or questioned,
the weight of numbers and resources would be on the side of the
cattlemen. It could result only in the homesteaders being driven from
their insecure holdings after the sacrifice of many lives. If she
could see Macdonald, and appeal to him to put down this foolish, even
though well-intended strife, something might result.
It was an inconsequential turmoil, it seemed to her, there in that
sequestered land, for a man like Alan Macdonald to squander his life
upon. If he stood against the forces which Chadron had gone to summon,
he would be slain, and the abundant promise of his life wasted like
water on the sand.
"I'll go with you, Nola," she said, rising from the table in quick
decision.