JULIET ASSERTS HERSELF
Now that the owner of the Bar T ranch had succeeded again in a match of
wits with Larkin, he put sheep out of his mind and turned his attention to
the more-immediate danger of rustlers. It had been a matter of a couple of
years since the last determined attempt of the cowmen to oust these
poachers by force of arms, and Bissell thought that the time was ripe for
another and, if possible, final expedition.
With Larkin in his power, he had no doubt that the necessary information
could be procured from him in one way or another, and, after talking
matters over with Stelton, dispatched cowboys at top speed to the ranches
in his district, asking that the owners and as many men as they could
spare should come at once to a conference at the Bar T.
Having got them there, it was his intention to sweat Larkin for names and
descriptions, and then let him go. Should the sheepman refuse all
information, then his case could be acted upon by the members of the
association without any further delay.
All these plans Larkin learned from Juliet and her mother, who looked
after most of his wants. The latter, good woman, quite flustered at having
what she termed a "regular boarder," became rather fond of the patient
young man from the East who never failed to listen attentively to her
narrative of the famous trip to St. Paul.
The regular boarder, for his part, could not but sympathize with this
homely, hard-working, lonely woman. One rarely connected Martha Bissell
with old Beef Bissell except in an impersonal way, as one would have
connected the corral, or the barn, or the brand. In fact, the cowman
seemed hardly cognizant of her existence, long since having transferred
all the affections his hard life had left him to the daughter he
worshiped.
But Martha, as is so often the case with women who grow old slaving for
their husbands, had not changed in her devotion to Bissell since the proud
day they had eloped on one horse and been married by a "sky pilot" in the
nearest cow town.
Mrs. Bissell had come to that dolorous time in a woman's life when she no
longer has the power of attracting male attention--which power is not a
matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in
her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought.
Loving her daughter as she loved her husband, she derived a certain
negative happiness from the fact that their exclusive companionship
brought them pleasure.
For herself she asked nothing, and, as is the way of the world, she got
it.
For Bud Larkin, who had only known her as an angular, uninteresting
addendum of the Bar T, she took on a certain pathetic interest, and he
went out of his way to talk with her about the glories of Chicago, since
her one dissipation seemed to be mental journeys back East.
Larkin was not strictly a prisoner at the Bar T ranch-house, for this had
been found impracticable from a number of standpoints. He had the run of
the ranch, an old, decrepit cow pony to ride, and could go in any
direction he chose under the supervision of a cowboy who carried a
Winchester and was known to have impaled flies on cactus spines at thirty
yards.
Occasionally Bud and Juliet rode out together, with this man in the rear,
and renewed the old friendship that had lain dormant for so long. During
one of these rides the girl, after debating the matter with herself,
opened on a delicate subject.
"That Caldwell man is a strange-looking fellow, Bud. Who is he?"
Larkin looked at Juliet closely before replying, but could find nothing in
her face to indicate any but a natural curiosity.
"He is a Chicago character I used to know," he returned shortly. "But what
brought him out here is a puzzle to me."
"You seemed to want to see him pretty badly," said she, assuming a pout.
"I was really jealous of him taking you off the way he did that first
night you came."
"That's the first time I have been flattered with your jealousy," Bud
returned gayly. "I'll ask him to come again."
And that was the closest she could come to a discussion of Caldwell's
connection with Larkin. The fact, although she would not admit it, gave
her more concern than it should have, and kept her constantly under a
cloud of uneasiness. Bud's evasion of the subject added strength to the
fear that there was really something horrible in Bud's past.
It was on one of his rides alone that Bud suddenly came to a very
unflattering solution of another problem in regard to Caldwell. Ever
since the stampede he had been giving time to the consideration of
Smithy's strange actions that night. There was no love lost between the
two, that was certain, and why the blackmailer should risk his life to
defeat the rustlers and save the man he hated was beyond Bud's
comprehension.
But at last he arrived at a solution that removed all his doubts, and this
was that Smithy Caldwell had saved him for the same reason that the old
lady in the fairy story was told to preserve the goose.
"Kill the goose and there will be no more golden eggs," remarked the fairy
sagely, and evidently Caldwell was ready to heed her advice.
It certainly was worth the effort on Smithy's part, and even when Larkin
had finally discovered the man's sordid motives he felt a species of
admiration for the man's coolness and bravery. He felt, too, that, if he
could not get a grip on the blackmailer before another payment was
demanded, he could part with the money for the first time with the feeling
that Caldwell had partially earned it.
As to Caldwell's presence among the rustlers, that was another matter
entirely, and Larkin could not fathom the mystery. How Smithy, a low
Chicago tough, whose only knowledge of a horse had been gained by
observation, could so quickly become a trusted member of this desperate
gang of cattle-thieves he could not conceive. Was there some occult power
about the man--some almost hypnotic influence that passed his crossed eyes
and narrow features in that company?
Larkin gave it up. But he knew that, should he ever again get his full
liberty, his sheep safely across the range, and the leisure to pursue
rustlers, Mr. Smithy Caldwell of Chicago would be his especial prey. And
he grinned with anticipation at the glory of that moment when he should
have the blackmailer in his power with enough evidence to swing him.
Stelton was the one man of the whole Bar T outfit who had suffered from
the boomerang of his evil plans. It had been through him that Larkin was
forced to accompany Bissell home after the stampede; and now he passed
days and nights of misery, watching the progress of Bud's very evident
suit. Chained down by his daily round of duties, his time was not his own,
and with a green venom eating at his heart he watched the unfettered Bud
ride off across the plains with Juliet, laughing, care-free, and
apparently happy.
So greatly did this irk Mr. Stelton that his morose melancholy increased
to a point where his own cowpunchers entertained fears for his sanity, and
made him acquainted with the fact in their well-known tender manner. This
did not serve to buoy his spirits, and he cursed himself roundly for the
ridiculous position into which he had led himself.
As to Juliet, he hardly dared pass a civil time of day with her, so
terrible a trial had his thwarted desires in regard to her become.
The fourth day after Bud's arrest old Beef Bissell called for his horse
and rode away to the Circle Arrow ranch. Old man Speaker had not seen fit
to rally to the cowmen's gathering, and Bissell valued his counsel very
much; he had, therefore, gone to fetch him.
During the three days of his absence Mike Stelton suffered another of
those reverses which are so exasperating because they are brought about by
our own ugly spirits.
All the time he had continued to eat at the ranch table, and had been
accorded his share of the conversation and attention. Now, with old
Bissell out of the way, his status immediately changed. Mrs. Bissell,
Juliet, and Bud were the best of friends, and presented a solid front of
uniform but uninterested politeness to the foreman against which he was
helpless. On the second day, for the first time in ten years, he moved his
seat down into the punchers' dining-room and ate with them.
Such a defeat as this could not pass unnoticed among the punchers, who had
never been accorded the pleasure of their gloomy foreman's presence at
meal times, and Stelton suffered keenly from the gibes of the men.
Stelton endured all this with seeming calmness, but when Bissell returned
the foreman got his revenge. He outlined with full detail and considerable
embellishment the constant progress that Larkin was making with Juliet.
Disclaiming any interest of his own in the matter, he explained that the
reason for his complaint was the character of Larkin.
"Why, boss, yuh shore wouldn't want a darned sheepman breakin' Julie's
heart," he said, "an' him a Eastern dude at that. You should 'a' seen that
feller. Yuh no more'n got yore back turned than he carried on with Juliet
all the time. It made me plenty mad, too; but what could I do about it? I
just moved my grub-pile down with the boys an' thought I'd tell yuh when
yuh came home."
A half an hour of this was sufficient to work Bissell up into a furious
rage, and, in something the same temper, he sent for Juliet an hour before
dinner.
Now, a man who is subjected to choleric outbursts should never send for
anything but food an hour before dinner, for the reason that a very
trivial thing looks, at that time, big enough to wreck the nation.
Bissell, however, failed to recollect this simple truth, and greeted his
daughter with smoldering eyes, that gradually softened, however, the
longer he looked at her.
"There is somethin' I want to ask yuh, Prairie Bell," he began. "Yuh won't
mind?"
"No, dear," she answered. "What is it?"
"This sheepman Larkin--is it true yuh been courtin' with him while I been
away?"
"I've been riding with him a good deal, and I've seen him every day, if
that is what you mean. You trust me to be sensible, don't you, father?"
"Yes, Julie, o' course I do; but I'm just thinkin' of yerself--and of me.
Dunno what people'd say if they knowed ol' Bissell's daughter was
traipsin' around with a sheepman that stands in with the rustlers. An'
you--I allow it'd break my heart if yuh ever got fond of that rascal. He's
a bad lot."
"I can't agree with you in any of those things," said the girl, with just
the right mixture of determination and affection in her voice. "To anyone
who is fair, it is no disgrace to be a sheepman; Mr. Larkin is not in with
the rustlers, as I believe he outlined to you, nor is he a rascal in any
way. Lastly, I don't care what people say about whom I ride with. Mr.
Larkin is a gentleman, and that is all I require."
During this speech, which held the middle ground between daring and
prudence, independence and acquiescence, civility and impertinence,
Bissell's jaw dropped and his eyes opened. He had rarely, if ever, known
his daughter to make such an explicit refutal of his inferences. His brow
darkened.
"Yuh never stuck up fer a man like that in yore life, Julie," he accused
her severely. "That Larkin is a bad one. Mebbe yuh don't know it, but he
can't answer for everything in his life. O' course, you can't understand
these things, but I'm just tellin' yuh. Now, I'm plumb sorry to have to do
it, but I want yuh to tell me yuh won't go out with him any more."
"I don't think you should ask me that, father," said the girl quietly. "I
am old enough to choose my own associates. I have known Mr. Larkin for
years, where you have only known him for days. I love you too much to
disgrace you or mother, daddy dear; but you must not ask me to act like a
fifteen-year-old schoolgirl."
To Bissell, after dinner, this talk would have served its intended
purpose--that of presenting reasonably the reverse side of the argument.
Now, however, it merely stirred him up. He looked sharply at his daughter
with his small, piercing eyes.
"Do you defy me?" he thundered, amazed at the girl's temerity. "All I do
is try to think up ways of makin' yuh happy, an' now yuh insist on havin'
this scoundrel make love to yuh, whether I want it or not. Answer me this,
Julie, are you in love with him?"
"I've never met another man I cared as much for," she returned with calm
frankness, looking at him with big, unafraid brown eyes.
"Great Heavens!" cried Bissell, leaping out of his chair and raising his
clenched fists above his head. "That I should come to this! Julie, do yuh
know what yore sayin'? Do yuh know what yore doin'?"
"Yes, I do; and do you want to know the reason for it?"
"Yes."
"Because I think the things that have been done to Mr. Larkin are
contemptible and mean." There was no placidity in those brown eyes now.
They flashed fire. Her face had grown pale, and she, too, had risen to her
feet. "I'm a cowman's daughter, but still I can be reasonable. Our range
is free range, and he has a perfect right to walk his sheep north if he
wants to. And even if he hadn't, there is no excuse for the stampede that
took place the other night.
"And last of all, you have no right to keep Mr. Larkin here against his
will so that he does not know what is happening to the rest of his flocks.
I consider the whole thing a hideous outrage. But that isn't all. You have
talked to me this afternoon in a suspicious manner that you have no right
to use toward me. I am not a child, and shall think and act for myself."
"What do you mean by that? That you will help this scoundrel?"
"Yes, if I think it is the right thing to do."
Bissell started back as though someone had struck him. Then he seemed to
lose his strength and to shrivel up, consumed by the flame of his
bitterness and disappointment. At the sight, the girl's whole heart melted
toward the unhappy man, and she longed to throw her arms around him and
plead for forgiveness. But the same strain that had made her father what
he was, in his hard environment, was dominant in her, and she stood her
ground.
For a minute Bissell looked at her out of dull, hurt eyes. Then he
motioned toward the door.
"Go in," he said gently; "I don't want to see yuh."