A MESSAGE BY A STRANGE HAND
What were the feelings of Mr. Mike Stelton that dawn had better be
imagined than described. The first he knew of any calamity was when Mrs.
Bissell, unable to find her husband near the house, shook him frantically
by the shoulder.
"Get up, Mike," she cried into his ear. "Somethin's wrong here. Henry's
nowhere around."
Dazed with sleep, unable to get the proper focus on events, the foreman
blundered stupidly about the place searching cursorily, and cursing the
helplessness of Beef Bissell.
Presently he got awake, however, and perceived that dawn was coming up in
the east. Then he reveled in the delightful anticipation of what was to
occur out under the old cottonwood along the river bank. Mentally he
licked his chops at the prospect of this rare treat. He intended if
possible to make Juliet witness her lover's degradation.
After vainly hunting some valid excuse for Bissell's untimely departure,
Stelton thought he would call the boys, which he did. Then he turned his
attention to the bunk-house, for he knew the cowmen were in a hurry to get
away and would want to be called early.
"All out!" he bawled jovially, thrusting his head in at the door.
Not a sound came in response. Then for the first time Stelton had a
premonition of trouble. He walked into the bunk-house and took quick note
of the ten tumbled but empty bunks. Also of the ten belts and revolvers
that hung on wooden pegs along the wall--the sign of Western etiquette.
In those days, and earlier, if a man rode by at meal-time or evening he
was your guest. He might take dinner with his hat on, and get his knife
and fork mixed, but if he hung up his belt and revolver he was satisfied
that all the amenities had been observed, whether you thought so or not.
The one other unspoken law was that every man's business was his own
business and no questions were allowed. You might be entertaining a real
bad man like Billy the Kid, and you might suspect his identity, but you
never made inquiries, and for three reasons.
The first was, that it was bad plains etiquette; the second, that if you
were mistaken and accused the wrong man, punishment was sure and swift;
and the third was, that if you were right the punishment was still surer
and swifter, for an escaping criminal never left any but mute witnesses
behind him.
Looking at these ten indications of good-will along the bunk-house wall,
Stelton's alarm was once more lulled. Perhaps the men had all gone for a
paddle in the stream before breakfast, he thought. If so, they would take
care of themselves, and turn up when the big bell rang. He couldn't waste
any more time this way.
Now to relieve the man who was guarding Larkin outside the window.
He hurried around the house and came upon the prone figure of a
cow-puncher, rolled close against the house. The man's head was bloody,
his hands were tied behind him, and his neckerchief had been stuffed into
his mouth and held there by another. He was half-dead when Stelton, with a
cry of surprise, bent over him and loosened his bonds.
With a prolonged yell the foreman brought all hands running to him and,
giving the hurt man into the care of a couple of them, ran along the
house to Bud's window. The bent bars showed how the bird had flown.
Stelton was about to give way to his fury when another cry from the rear
of the cook-house told of the discovery of the second watchman's body,
that had lain hidden in the long grass which grew up against the walls.
Then didn't Stelton curse! Never had he been so moved to profane
eloquence, and never did he give such rein to it. He cursed everything in
sight, beginning with the ranch house; and he took that from chimney to
cellar, up and down every line and angle, around the corners and out to
the barn. Then he began on the barn and wound up with the corral. The
cowboys listened in admiration and delight, interjecting words of approval
now and then.
But once having delivered himself of this relief, the foreman's face set
into its customary ugly scowl, and he snapped out orders to saddle the
horses. Presently a man rode up from the river bottoms and told of the
discovery of many hoof tracks there, and the place where they had waited a
long while.
"I've got it!" bawled Stelton, pounding his thigh. "Larkin's men have
been here and carried off all the owners. Oh, won't there be the deuce to
pay?"
Then he picked out the cowboys who had come with their bosses and added:
"Crowd yore grub and ride home like blazes. Get yore punchers an' bring
grub for a week. Then we'll all meet at the junction of the Big Horn and
Gooseberry Creek. If yuh punchers like a good job you'll get yore owners
out o' this. And I'm plumb shore when we get through there won't be a
sheepman left in this part of the State. To-morrer night at Gooseberry!"
Then was such a scene of hurry and bustle and excitement as the Bar T had
seldom witnessed. The parting injunctions were to bring extra horses and
plenty of rope, with the accent on the rope, and a significant look thrown
in.
By seven o'clock, the time that Larkin, bloody, humiliated and suffering,
would already have paid his penalty, there was scarcely a soul at the Bar
T ranch, for the cowboys had disappeared across the plains at a hard
trot.
The Bar T punchers were sent out on the range to scour for tracks of the
fugitives, but, after following them some distance from the river bottom,
gave up in despair when a night herder admitted that the Bar T horses had
been feeding in the vicinity the night before, thus entangling the tracks.
Meantime the cook was preparing food for the punchers to carry, guns were
being oiled and overhauled, knives sharpened, and ropes carefully
examined.
Yet as the men went about their duties there was a kind of dazed, subdued
air in all they did, for it was, indeed, hard to realize that the ranch
owners of nearly a quarter of Wyoming's best range had disappeared into
the empty air apparently without a sound or protest.
The following afternoon the entire Bar T outfit, excepting a couple of
punchers who were incapacitated from former round-up injuries, swept out
of the yard and headed almost directly east across the plain.
Julie and her mother watched them go and waved them farewell, the former
with a clutch of fear at her heart for her lover and the latter in tears
for her husband, thus unconsciously taking opposite sides in the struggle
that they knew must ensue.
It must not be thought that Juliet had turned against her father since
their final difference. After her first outbreak against his narrow views
and unjust treatment of Larkin, the old love that had been paramount all
her life returned, and with it a kind of pity. She knew that in a man of
her father's age his nature could not be made over immediately, if ever;
the habits of a rough lifetime were too firmly ingrained. But at the same
time there was something gone from the sweet and intimate affection that
had formerly characterized their relations.
Lovers or married folk who declare for the efficacy of a quarrel as a
renewer of love are wrong in the last analysis. Loss of control always
entails loss of respect, and fervent "making up" after such an outbreak
cannot efface the picture of anger-distorted features or remove the acid
of bitter words. Thus it was with Juliet and her love for her father.
As to his safety she was not worried, for she knew that Bud would not
allow any harm to come to him as he was in command of the men who had
effected the taking-off. What Larkin's plans were she did not fully
realize, but she knew this sudden _coup_ had been executed to further his
own ends in the imperative matter of getting his sheep north. And of this
she finally convinced her mother, although that lady wept copiously before
the thing was accomplished.
The evening following the departure of Mike Stelton and his punchers was
made notable by the arrival of a man on horseback, who carried across his
saddle a black box, and in thongs at his side a three-legged standard of
yellow wood. His remaining equipment was a square of black cloth.
Without invitation he turned his dejected animal into the Bar T corral and
made himself at home for the evening. At the supper table he revealed his
identity and explained his purpose.
"I'm Ed Skidmore," he announced, "and I take photographs. This thing I've
got is a camera." He had already mounted the instrument on his tripod.
"I've been going around from ranch to ranch and the pictures have been
selling like hot cakes."
Juliet, listening, noted that his conversation was that of a comparatively
well-educated man and that he had none of the characteristic drawl or
accent of the plainsmen. To her a camera was nothing out of the ordinary,
although she had not seen one since her final return West, but her mother
was vastly interested.
In those days photography was not a matter of universal luxury as it is
now, and the enterprising Skidmore was practically the first to introduce
it as a money-maker in the widely scattered ranches of the cow country.
"How do yuh sell 'em?" asked Martha Bissell, fluttering with the
possibilities of the next morning, the time the young man had set for his
operation. Martha had not been "took" since that far-off trip "East" to
St. Paul, when she and Henry had posed for daguerreotypes.
"Five dollars apiece, ma'am," said Skidmore, "and they're cheap at the
price." And they were, since the cost of something universally desired is
dependent on the supply rather than the demand.
After supper Martha retired to her bedroom to overhaul her stock of
"swell" dresses, a stock that had not been disturbed in fifteen years
except for the spring cleaning and airing. This left Skidmore and Juliet
alone. She civilly invited him out on the veranda, seeing he was a man of
some quality.
"I had a queer experience to-day," he remarked after a few commonplaces.
"I was riding to the Bar T from the Circle-Arrow and was about twenty
miles away, rounding a butte, when a man rode out to me from some place of
concealment.
"When he reached me he suddenly pulled his gun and covered me.
"'Where are you goin'?' he said. I told him I was on my way here and why.
He examined my outfit suspiciously and let me go. But first he said:
"'Take this letter to the Bar T and give it to Miss Bissell.'" Skidmore
reached inside his shirt and pulled forth a square envelope, which he
handed to Juliet. "The whole thing was so strange," the photographer went
on, "that I have waited until I could see you alone so that I could tell
you about it."
Juliet, surprised and startled, turned the missive over in her hands,
hopeful that it was a letter from Bud and yet fearful of something that
she could not explain. When Skidmore had finished she excused herself and
went into her room, closing the door behind her.
On the envelope was the simple inscription, "Miss Bissell," written in a
crabbed, angular hand. This satisfied her that the message was not from
Bud, and with trembling fingers she opened it. Inside was an oblong sheet
of paper filled with the same narrow handwriting. Going to the window to
catch the dying light, she read:
Miss:
This is to tell yuh that Mr. Larkin who yuh love is already merried.
It ain't none of my biznis, but I want yuh to no it. An' that ain't
all. The U. s. oficers are looking for him on another charge, tu.
Nobody noes this but me an' yuh, an' nobody will as long as the monie
keeps comin' in. If yuh doant bileeve this, axe him.
Yurs Truly,
A Friend.
In the difficulty of translating the words before her into logical ideas
the full import of the statements made did not penetrate Juliet's mind at
first. When they did she merely smiled a calm, contemptuous smile.
With the usual fatuous faith of a sweetheart, she instantly consigned to
limbo anything whatever derogatory to her beloved. Then in full possession
of herself, she returned to the veranda, where Skidmore was smoking a
cigarette.
"No bad news I hope?" he asked politely, scrutinizing her features.
"Oh, no, thanks," she replied, laughing a little unnaturally. "Not really
bad, just disturbing," and they continued their interrupted conversation.
But that night when she was in bed the crude letters of that missive
appeared before her eyes in lines of fire. Of late the old mystery of
Bud's past life had not been much in her thoughts; love, the obliterator,
had successfully wiped away the last traces of uneasiness that she had
felt, and like all true and good women, she had given him the priceless
treasure of her love, not questioning, not seeking to discern what he
would have shown her had it seemed right in his mind that she should see.
But this scrawled letter to-night brought back with stunning force all the
distress and doubts that had formerly assailed her. She guessed, and
rightly, that Smithy Caldwell was the author of it, but she could not
analyze the motives that had inspired his pen.
She told herself with fatal logic that if all this were a lie, Caldwell
would not dare write it; that Larkin had paid this man five hundred
dollars on another occasion not so far gone; and that it was avowedly a
case of impudent blackmail. She knew, furthermore, that Bud carefully
avoided all references to Caldwell even when she had brought forward the
name, and that in the conversation overheard by Stelton there had been
mention of someone by the name of Mary.
What if this money were going to another woman!
The thought overwhelmed her as she lay there, and she sat up gasping for
breath, but in a moment the eternal defense of the man, inherent in every
woman who loves, came to the rescue, and she told herself vehemently that
Bud was honorable, if nothing else. Then the sentence concerning the
United States officers wanting him on another charge recurred to her, and
she found her defense punctured at the outset. If he were honorable, how
could it be that the officers were after him?
In despair at the quandary, but still clinging to her faith, she fell back
on the unanswerable fact of feminine intuition. Bud _seemed_ good and
true; it was in his eyes, in his voice, in his very manner. He looked at
the world squarely, but with a kind of patient endurance that bespoke some
deep trouble.
Then for the first time the thought came to Juliet that perhaps he was
shielding someone else.
But who? And, if so, why did Caldwell write this letter?
Unable to answer these questions, but confronted by the thought that Bud's
love was the sweetest thing in the world to her, she at last fell asleep
with a smile upon her lips.