MADE PRISONER
At three o'clock the next afternoon Beef Bissell felt better than he had
for some time, this condition being a result of his vindictive triumph
over Bud Larkin, and the fact that that young man was in his hands. He
felt that the back of the sheep business had been broken as far as his
range and his county were concerned.
I have put the opening of this chapter at three o'clock, because that was
the hour at which life began to be manifest at the Bar T ranch after the
stirring events of the night before. Bud Larkin himself, worn out with his
nights and days of vigil, had gone to sleep on his bed almost in the act
of taking his boots off. Vague ideas of escape had coursed through his
mind only to be overtaken and killed by the slumber he had evaded for so
long.
His window faced southwest, and when he awoke it was to find the dazzling
gold of the sun warming his face. For a moment he did not realize where
he was, staring thus into the blinding radiance; but memory is only a few
seconds sleepier than its master, and shortly everything came back to
him.
A sinking sensation came over him as he remembered the wanton slaughter of
his sheep, more because of the helpless agony of the poor dumb brutes than
because of the monetary loss, although the latter was no trifling
consideration, since nearly eight thousand dollars had been wiped out in
less than half an hour.
Added to this sickening sensation was one of dull, choking rage that
Bissell, a man of wealth and certain prominence in the State, should
suggest and pursue a course that the most despised sheep-herder would
never countenance. That, Larkin told himself, showed the real man; the
rough, crude product of a rough and bitter country.
For the slogan of the earlier West was selfishness.
"All this is mine and don't you come a-nigh me!" bawled the cowman when
the nesters or grangers began to make their appearance.
The cowboy himself was the chief exponent of this philosophy. Restraint
was unknown to him--his will was his law, and he tried to make it everyone
else's. When thousands of men have the same idea the result is trouble;
hence the practice of cluttering up one's person with artillery.
The one person for whom the cow-puncher had no respect and for whom the
cow country was no fit abiding place was the man who allowed himself to be
domineered. For that man convict-labor on a coral road would have been
paradise compared to his ordinary existence.
Thus was the West the supreme abode at that time of the selfists or
anarchists who have no thought or consideration outside their own narrow
motives and desires.
Though Bud Larkin could not have analyzed his feelings in words, perhaps,
yet he felt this keenly, and knew that now or never must he take his stand
and keep it. He labored under the double handicap, in this country, of
having gone in for sheep and having been beaten at it the very first
thing. Consequently, if he ever expected to gain any caste, or at least a
hearing, he must turn the tables and that as soon as possible.
At the present moment, as he washed his face in the thick white wash-bowl
that made the guest-room of the Bar T celebrated for leagues around, he
had nothing but the remotest ideas of how this might be done. The fact, in
brief, was that his sheep were and would continue piling up in the hills
north of the Badwater, ready to enter the hazardous stretch of dry
territory that had so nearly been disastrous to his first flock.
Until he should be free and could reconnoiter his chances and resources he
would hesitate to order them sent north. And yet they could not stay
forever near the Badwater. Neither could they be halted on their march
north, because they were crossing the range of Wyoming sheepmen at the
time and common plains courtesy demanded that they be removed as fast as
possible.
But for the fact that Sims was in personal charge Bud Larkin would have
been in utter despair. Such was his confidence in his indolent herdsman
that he felt that though ultimate failure attended their efforts no blame
could ever be attached to Sims.
Leaving the guest-chamber, Larkin immediately stepped into the dining-room
and the gloomy thoughts fled, for there sat Juliet near the window,
sewing. She greeted him with a smile and immediately rose.
"Well, Mr. Man, I thought you would never wake up," she remarked in mock
reproof. "I've been waiting here since dinner to see that you had
something to eat when you came out. You must be wild hungry."
"I could eat a saddle," said Larkin.
"Sorry, but the saddles are all out," she replied with a smile. "However,
we have some nice fresh broiled quirts, garnished with rawhide."
"Bring me a double order," said Bud, laughing, as he seated himself.
When he was almost through with his meal Juliet remarked:
"Father asked me to say that he would like to have a talk with you on the
veranda when you were ready."
"I'll go right out," he answered, thanking her for the trouble she had
taken.
He found Bissell seated in one of the big chairs outside, and took the
other. Both men rolled a cigarette and then Bissell spoke.
"I owe you a great deal, Larkin, for saving my daughter last night," he
said with genuine emotion in his voice. "Under the circumstances I am
sorry for what I did, and wish I had it to do over again."
"As for the first, I don't deserve much credit. Juliet really saved her
own life by coming to us when I fired the warning shot. As to the sheep,
it's too late to think about them now; we'll come to another reckoning in
that matter later on. I'd hardly expect a horse-thief to do a trick like
that."
Bissell's tanned face turned a deep mahogany hue under the sting of this
remark, and his eyes lost the soft look they had held when he spoke of
Juliet.
"I'm willing to pay yuh the money loss," he replied, still anxious to make
amends.
"On guarantee, I suppose, that I don't try to bring the rest of my sheep
north."
"Yes."
"That's impossible, as you might know."
"I allow you're right foolish, Mr. Larkin; better think it over."
"I did that last night when the sheep went into the river," said Bud
dryly.
"I suppose so, but a night's sleep sometimes changes a man's mind."
"Not mine. The first night I was here I told you that I would bring my
sheep north, and I still intend to do it. I am always willing to meet a
man half-way; but you wouldn't meet me. Instead of that you started in to
ruin me. I have no objection to that, but you'd better take care that your
schemes don't work two ways."
Bissell shrugged his shoulders. He still had the upper-hand of the
situation, and his temper, in that case, was not hard to control.
"I allow I can look out for myself," he said.
"No doubt, but you had better look out for me," was the retort.
"I reckon I'll manage," remarked Bissell contemptuously. "But all this
isn't what I wanted to ask you. I'd be some pleased if you'd tell me about
them rustlers you were with."
"Why do you want to know about them?" countered Bud.
"Because they're ruinin' the cattle business. I dunno how many head they
run off last year, but I do know that profits were cut in half by 'em. You
was with 'em long enough to know some of 'em again, I allow?"
"Yes. I would know nearly all of them. What's left of three is out there
near the cottonwoods along Little River, but I don't believe there's
enough to bury."
"How is that?" inquired Bissell, who had evidently not heard of Larkin's
narrow escape from death at the rustler's hands.
Bud told him briefly.
"You shore were lucky," remarked the cowman with a Westerner's
appreciation of the situation. "Now, I'm the head of the cattlemen's
association in this part of the State, and o' course it's our business to
clear the country of those devils. You're just the man we want, because
you've seen 'em and know who they are. You tell me what yuh know and
there'll be the biggest hangin' bee this State ever seen."
As has been said, Bud Larkin had the legitimate owner's hatred of these
thieves who preyed on the work of honest men, and had sworn to help run
them out of the country as soon as his own business was finished. Now, in
the flash of an eye he saw where he could turn the knowledge he had gained
to good account.
"You have rather queer ideas of me, Mr. Bissell," he said. "First, you
fight me until I am nearly ruined, then you expect I will turn around and
help you just as though nothing had happened."
"But in this," cried the cowman, "you've got to help us. This is all
outside of a war between the cows and the sheep. This is a matter of right
and justice."
"So is the matter of my sheep. The range is free and you won't let me use
it. Do you call that right or just, either one?"
Bissell choked on his own reply, and grew red with anger. Suddenly,
without exactly knowing how, the tables had been turned on him. Now,
instead of being the mighty baron with the high hand, he was the seeker
for help, and this despised sheepman held the trump cards.
Furthermore, Larkin's direct question was capable of a damaging reply.
Bissell sought desperately for a means of escape from the trap in which he
found himself.
"Do you mean, young feller, that you won't tell me about them rustlers?"
"That's about it. But I might on one condition."
"What's that?"
"That your cattlemen's association give the rest of my sheep undisturbed
passage north across the range to Montana."
"By gosh!" yelled the cowman, beside himself, springing out of his chair
and glaring at the other with clenched hands on his hips. "That's your
game, is it? Yuh pull our teeth an' then offer us grub, eh? Why, tan my
hide--" he gagged with wrath and stood speechless, a picture of impotent
fury.
Larkin laughed quietly.
"The shoe's on the other foot, but it doesn't seem to feel any too good,"
he sneered. "Better be reasonable now, hadn't you?"
"Reasonable? Sure, I'll be reasonable!" cried the other vindictively,
almost suffocated with his emotion. "Let me ask yuh something. Do you
absolutely refuse to tell about them rustlers if I don't do as you want
and let your sheep through?"
"Well, not exactly," replied Bud, grinning. "I'll tell you this: they're
going to run off a hundred head or so of your stock yet this week for the
railroad camps up the State. I think it's fair to give you warning
beforehand."
"Darn you and your warning! What I want is the names and descriptions of
them men. Will yuh give 'em to me?"
"No, not unless we can strike a bargain. You talk about right and justice.
Now let's see a little of it," answered Larkin.
"All right, young feller, you've said your say. Now listen to me. I'm a
deputy sheriff in this county"--he ripped open his vest and showed the
badge pinned to the inside lining--"an' I hereby arrest yuh for bein' a
party to them rustlers. Yer either a criminal or yuh ain't, accordin' to
our notions out here, an' if yuh wun't help us catch yer friends there
ain't nothin' more to be said. Now roll that into a cigarette an' eat it
alive if yuh want to."
He glared defiantly down on Larkin, whose brows had drawn together as he
went into executive session with himself.
In five seconds the situation between these men was once more reversed. It
was not that Larkin had overreached himself; he simply had encountered a
circumstance of which he was unaware. The possibility of Bissell being a
deputy sheriff had never occurred to him, and now he sat balked and
perplexed, balancing his chances on either hand.
It was not in the man to yield supinely to this new danger. He could not
even think of the possibility without shame. He was right, he told himself
over and over again, and, listen as he would, he could detect no
contradictory reply from the still, small voice we are all credited with
possessing.
His mission in life was to get his sheep through. In that circumstance the
rustlers were unexpected allies and he hoped they would put burs under the
tails of every steer on the range and drive them to the Gulf of Mexico.
Once his merinos and angoras were safe across the line Bud would gladly
return and help round them up.
The idea that he, clipped, helpless, and harmless as he was, should now
turn in and assist his despoilers to better their own fortunes was so
maddening that he grinned with fury as he thought of it. No, the thing was
impossible!
Bissell had not changed his menacing position during all of Bud Larkin's
ponderings and was waiting patiently for some outbreak from his victim.
But at last he could stand it no more.
"Well," he snarled, "say something! What's your answer?"
"That bargain goes as she stands," said Bud, after a moment's thought.
"You help me and I'll help you. Otherwise you won't get a word out of me,
and you can do whatever you like."
"You're under arrest," snapped Bissell. "Give me your gun!" and he covered
Bud with a single swift motion of his hand.
The younger man did as commanded and rose.
"Now go into that room; you're a prisoner," ordered Bissell.