The religious attitude which Mrs. McKinstry had assumed towards her
husband's weak civilized tendencies was not entirely free from human
rancor. That strong loyal nature which had unsexed itself in the one
idea of duty, now that duty seemed to be no longer appreciated took
refuge in her forgotten womanhood and in the infinitesimally small
arguments, resources, and manoeuvres at its command. She had conceived a
singular jealousy of this daughter who had changed her husband's nature,
and who had supplanted the traditions of the household life; she had
acquired an exaggerated depreciation of those feminine charms which
had never been a factor in her own domestic happiness. She saw in her
husband's desire to mitigate the savage austerities of their habits
only a weak concession to the powers of beauty and adornment--degrading
vanities she had never known in their life-long struggle for frontier
supremacy--that had never brought them victorious out of that struggle.
“Frizzles,” “furblows,” and “fancy fixin's” had never helped them in
their exodus across the plains; had never taken the place of swift eyes,
quick ears, strong hands, and endurance; had never nursed the sick or
bandaged the wounded. When envy or jealousy invades the female heart
after forty it is apt to bring a bitterness which knows no attenuating
compensation in that coquetry, emulation, passionate appeal, or innocent
tenderness, which makes tolerable the jealous caprices of the younger
woman. The struggle for rivalry is felt to be hopeless, the power of
imitation is gone. Of her forgotten womanhood Mrs. McKinstry revived
only a capacity to suffer meanly and inflict mean suffering upon others.
In the ruined castle of her youth, and the falling in of banqueting hall
and bower, the dungeon and torture-chamber appeared to have been left,
or, to use her own metaphor, she had querulously complained to the
parson that, “Accordin' to some folks, she mout hev bin the barren
fig-tree e-lected to bear persimmums.”
Her methods were not entirely different from those employed by her
suffering sisterhood in like emergencies. The unlucky Hiram, “worrited
by stock,” was hardly placated or consoled by learning from her that it
was only the result of his own weakness, acting upon the 'cussedness of
the stock-dispersing Harrisons; the perplexity into which he was thrown
by the news of the new legal claim to his land was not soothed by the
suggestion that it was a trick of that Yankee civilization to which he
was meanly succumbing. She who had always been a rough but devoted nurse
in sickness was now herself overtaken by vague irregular disorders which
involved the greatest care and the absence of all exciting causes.
The attendance of McKinstry and Cressy at a “crazy quilting party” had
brought on “blind chills;” the importation of a melodeon for Cressy to
play on had superinduced an “innerd rash,” and a threatened attack of
“palsy creeps” had only been warded off by the timely postponement of
an evening party suggested by her daughter. The old nomadic instinct,
morbidly excited by her discontent, caused her to lay artful plans for
a further emigration. She knew she had the germs of “mash fever” caught
from the adjacent river; she related mysterious information, gathered
in “class meeting,” of the superior facilities for stock raising on the
higher foot-hills; she resuscitated her dead and gone Missouri relations
in her daily speech, to a manifest invidious comparison with the living;
she revived even the incidents of her early married life with the same
baleful intent. The acquisition of a few “biled shirts” by Hiram for
festive appearances with Cressy painfully reminded her that he had
married her in “hickory;” she further accented the change by herself
appearing in her oldest clothes, on the hypothesis that it was necessary
for some one to keep up the traditions of the past.
Her attitude towards Cressy would have been more decided had she ever
possessed the slightest influence over her, or had even understood her
with the intuitive sympathies of the maternal relations. Yet she went
so far as to even openly regret the breaking off of the match with Seth
Davis, whose family, at least, still retained the habits and traditions
she revered; but she was promptly silenced by her husband informing her
that words “that had to be tuk back” had already passed between him and
Seth's father, and that, according to those same traditions, blood was
more likely to be spilled than mingled. Whether she was only withheld
from attempting a reconciliation herself through lack of tact and
opportunity remains to be seen. For the present she encouraged Masters's
attentions under a new and vague idea that a flirtation which distracted
Cressy from her studies was displeasing to McKinstry and inimical to
his plans. Blindly ignorant of Mr. Ford's possible relations to her
daughter, and suspecting nothing, she felt towards him only a dull
aversion as being the senseless pivot of her troubles. Seeing no one,
and habitually closing her ears to any family allusion to Cressy's
social triumphs, she was unaware of even the popular admiration their
memorable waltz had excited.
On the morning of the day that Uncle Ben had confided to the master
his ingenious plan for settling the boundary disputes, the barking
of McKinstry's yellow dog announced the approach of a stranger to the
ranch. It proved to be Mr. Stacey--not only as dazzlingly arrayed
as when he first rose above Johnny Filgee's horizon, but wearing, in
addition to his jaunty business air, a look of complacent expectation of
the pretty girl whom he had met at the ball. He had not seen her for a
month. It was a happy inspiration of his own that enabled him to present
himself that morning in the twin functions of a victorious Mercury and
Apollo.
McKinstry had to be summoned from an adjacent meadow, while Cressy, in
the mean time, undertook to entertain the gallant stranger. This was
easily done. It was part of her fascinations that, disdaining the
ordinary real or assumed ignorance of the ingenue of her class, she
generally exhibited to her admirers (with perhaps the single exception
of the master) a laughing consciousness of the state of mind into which
her charms had thrown them. She understood their passion if she could
not accept it. This to a bashful rustic community was helpful, but in
the main unsatisfactory; with advances so promptly unmasked, the most
strategic retreat was apt to become an utter rout. Leaning against the
lintel of the door, her curved hand shading the sparkling depths of
her eyes, and the sunlight striking down upon the pretty curves of her
languid figure, she awaited the attack.
“I haven't seen you, Miss Cressy, since we danced together--a month
ago.”
“That was mighty rough papers,” said Cressy, who was purposely
dialectical to strangers, “considering that you trapsed up and down the
lane, past the house, twice yesterday.”
“Then you saw me?” said the young man, with a slightly discomfited
laugh.
“I did. And so did the hound, and so, I reckon, did Joe Masters and the
hired man. And when you pranced back on the home stretch, there was
the hound, Masters, the hired man, and Maw all on your trail, and Paw
bringin' up the rear with a shot-gun. There was about a half a mile of
you altogether.” She removed her hand from her eyes to indicate with a
lazily graceful sweep this somewhat imaginative procession, and laughed.
“You are certainly well guarded,” said Stacey hesitatingly; “and looking
at you, Miss Cressy,” he added boldly, “I don't wonder at it.”
“Well, it IS reckoned that next to Paw's boundaries I'm pretty well
protected from squatters and jumpers.”
Forceful and quaint as her language was, the lazy sweetness of her
intonation, and the delicate refinement of her face, more than atoned
for it. It was unconventional and picturesque as her gestures. So at
least thought Mr. Stacey, and it emboldened him to further gallantry.
“Well, Miss Cressy, as my business with your father to-day was to try to
effect a compromise of his boundary claims, perhaps you might accept my
services in your own behalf.”
“Which means,” responded the young lady pertly, “the same thing to ME
as to Paw. No trespassers but yourself. Thank you, sir.” She twirled
lightly on her heel and dropped him that exaggerated curtsey known to
the school-children as a “cheese.” It permitted in its progress the
glimpse of a pretty little slipper which completed his subjugation.
“Well, if it's only a fair compromise,” he began laughingly.
“Compromise means somebody giving up. Who is it?” she asked.
The infatuated Stacey had reached the point of thinking this repartee if
possible more killing than his own.
“Ha! That's for Miss Cressy to say.”
But the young lady leaning back against the lintel with the comfortable
ease of being irresponsibly diverted, sagely pointed out that that was
the function of the arbitrator.
“Ah well, suppose we begin by giving up Seth Davis, eh? You see that I'm
pretty well posted, Miss Cressy.”
“You alarm me,” said Cressy sweetly. “But I reckon he HAD given up.”
“He was in the running that night at the ball. Looked half savage while
I was dancing with you. Wanted to eat me.”
“Poor Seth! And he used to be SO particular in his food,” said the witty
Cressy.
Mr. Stacey was convulsed. “And there's Mr. Dabney--Uncle Ben,” he
continued, “eh? Very quiet but very sly. A dark horse, eh? Pretends to
take lessons for the sake of being near some one, eh? Would he were a
boy again because somebody else is a girl?”
“I should be frightened of you if you lived here always,” returned
Cressy with invincible naivete; “but perhaps then you wouldn't know so
much.”
Stacey simply accepted this as a compliment. “And there's Masters,” he
said insinuatingly.
“Not Joe?” said Cressy with a low laugh, turning her eyes to the door.
“Yes,” said Stacey with a quick, uneasy smile. “Ah! I see we mustn't
drop HIM. Is he out THERE?” he added, trying to follow the direction of
her eyes.
But the young girl kept her face studiously averted. “Is that all?” she
asked after a pause.
“Well--there's that solemn school-master, who cut me out of the waltz
with you--that Mr. Ford.”
Had he been a perfectly cool and impartial observer he would have seen
the slight tremor cross Cressy's soft eyelids even in profile, followed
by that momentary arrest of her whole face, mouth, dimples, and eyes,
which had overtaken it the night the master entered the ball-room. But
he was neither, and it passed quickly and unnoticed. Her usual lithe but
languid play of expression and color came back, and she turned her head
lazily towards the speaker. “There's Paw coming. I suppose you wouldn't
mind giving me a sample of your style of arbitrating with him, before
you try it on me?”
“Certainly not,” said Stacey, by no means displeased at the prospect of
having so pretty and intelligent a witness in the daughter of what he
believed would form an attractive display of his diplomatic skill and
graciousness to the father. “Don't go away. I've got nothing to say Miss
Cressy could not understand and answer.”
The jingling of spurs, and the shadow of McKinstry and his shot-gun
falling at this moment between the speaker and Cressy, spared her
the necessity of a reply. McKinstry cast an uneasy glance around the
apartment, and not seeing Mrs. McKinstry looked relieved, and even the
deep traces of the loss of a valuable steer that morning partly faded
from his Indian-red complexion. He placed his shot-gun carefully in the
corner, took his soft felt hat from his head, folded it and put it in
one of the capacious pockets of his jacket, turned to his daughter, and
laying his maimed hand familiarly on her shoulder, said gravely, without
looking at Stacey, “What might the stranger be wantin', Cress?”
“Perhaps I'd better answer that myself,” said Stacey briskly. “I'm
acting for Benham and Co., of San Francisco, who have bought the Spanish
title to part of this property. I”--
“Stop there!” said McKinstry, in a voice dull but distinct. He took his
hat from his pocket, put it on, walked to the corner and took up his
gun, looked at Stacey for the first time with narcotic eyes that
seemed to drowsily absorb his slight figure, then put the gun back half
contemptuously, and with a wave of his hand towards the door, said:
“We'll settle this yer outside. Cress, you stop in here. There's man's
talk goin' on.”
“But, Paw,” said Cressy, laying her hand languidly on her father's
sleeve without the least change of color or amused expression. “This
gentleman has come over here on a compromise.”
“On a--WHICH?” said McKinstry, glancing scornfully out of the door for
some rare species of mustang vaguely suggested to him in that unfamiliar
word.
“To see if we couldn't come to some fair settlement,” said Stacey. “I've
no objection to going outside with you, but I think we can discuss this
matter here just as well.” His fine feathers had not made him a
coward, although his heart had beaten a little faster at this sudden
recollection of the dangerous reputation of his host.
“Go on,” said McKinstry.
“The plain facts of the case are these,” continued Stacey, with more
confidence. “We have sold a strip of this property covering the land in
dispute between you and Harrison. We are bound to put our purchaser
in peaceable possession. Now to save time we are willing to buy that
possession of any man who can give it. We are told that you can.”
“Well, considerin' that for the last four years I've been fightin' night
and day agin them low-down Harrisons for it, I reckon you've been lied
to,” said McKinstry deliberately. “Why--except the clearing on the north
side, whar I put up a barn, thar ain't an acre of it as hasn't been
shifted first this side and then that as fast ez I druv boundary stakes
and fences, and the Harrisons pulled 'em up agin. Thar ain't more than
fifty acres ez I've hed a clear hold on, and I wouldn't hev had that ef
it hadn't bin for the barn, the raisin' alone o' which cost me a man,
two horses, and this yer little finger.”
“Put us in possession of even that fifty acres, and WE'LL undertake
to hold the rest and eject those Harrisons from it,” returned Stacey
complacently. “You understand that the moment we've made a peaceable
entrance to even a foothold on your side, the Harrisons are only
trespassers, and with the title to back us we can call on the whole
sheriff's posse to put them off. That's the law.”
“That ar the law?” repeated McKinstry meditatively.
“Yes,” said Stacey. “So,” he continued, with a self-satisfied smile
to Cressy, “far from being hard on you, Mr. McKinstry, we're rather
inclined to put you on velvet. We offer you a fair price for the only
thing you can give us--actual possession; and we help you with your old
grudge against the Harrisons. We not only clear them out, but we pay YOU
for even the part they held adversely to you.”
Mr. McKinstry passed his three whole fingers over his forehead and
eyes as if troubled by a drowsy aching. “Then you don't reckon to hev
anythin' to say to them Harrisons?”
“We don't propose to recognize them in the matter at all,” returned
Stacey.
“Nor allow 'em anythin'?”
“Not a cent! So you see, Mr. McKinstry,” he continued magnanimously, yet
with a mischievous smile to Cressy, “there is nothing in this amicable
discussion that requires to be settled outside.”
“Ain't there?” said McKinstry, in a dull, deliberate voice, raising his
eyes for the second time to Stacey. They were bloodshot, with a heavy,
hanging furtiveness, not unlike one of his own hunted steers. “But I
ain't kam enuff in yer.” He moved to the door with a beckoning of his
fateful hand. “Outside a minit--EF you please.”
Stacey started, shrugged his shoulders, and half defiantly stepped
beyond the threshold. Cressy, unchanged in color or expression, lazily
followed to the door.
“Wot,” said McKinstry, slowly facing Stacey; “wot ef I refoose? Wot ef I
say I don't allow any man, or any bank, or any compromise, to take up
my quo'r'lls? Wot ef I say that low-down and mean as them Harrisons is,
they don't begin to be ez mean, ez low-down, ez underhanded, ez sneakin'
ez that yer compromise? Wot ef I say that ef that's the kind o' hogwash
that law and snivelization offers me for peace and quietness, I'll take
the fightin', and the law-breakin', and the sheriff, and all h-ll for
his posse instead? Wot ef I say that?”
“It will only be my duty to repeat it,” said Stacey, with an affected
carelessness which, however, did not conceal his surprise and his
discomfiture. “It's no affair of mine.”
“Unless,” said Cressy, assuming her old position against the lintel of
the door, and smoothing the worn bear-skin that served as a mat with
the toe of her slipper, “unless you've mixed it up with your other
arbitration, you know.”
“Wot other arbitration?” asked McKinstry suddenly, with murky eyes.
Stacey cast a rapid, half indignant glance at the young girl, who
received it with her hands tucked behind her back, her lovely head bent
submissively forward, and a prolonged little laugh.
“Oh nothing, Paw,” she said, “only a little private foolishness betwixt
me and the gentleman. You'd admire to hear him talk, Paw--about other
things than business. He's just that chipper and gay.”
Nevertheless, as with a muttered “Good-morning” the young fellow turned
away, she quietly brushed past her father, and followed him--with her
hands still penitently behind her, and the rosy palms turned upward--as
far as the gate. Her single long Marguerite braid of hair trailing down
her back nearly to the hem of her skirt, appeared to accent her demure
reserve. At the gate she shaded her eyes with her hand, and glanced
upward.
“It don't seem to be a good day for arbitrating. A trifle early in the
season, ain't it?”
“Good-morning, Miss McKinstry.”
She held out her hand. He took it with an affected ease but cautiously,
as if it had been the velvet paw of a young panther who had scratched
him. After all, what was she but the cub of the untamed beast,
McKinstry? He was well out of it! He was not revengeful--but business
was business, and he had given them the first chance.
As his figure disappeared behind the buckeyes of the lane, Cressy cast a
glance at the declining sun. She re-entered the house, and went directly
to her room. As she passed the window, she could see her father already
remounted galloping towards the tules, as if in search of that riparian
“kam” his late interview had disturbed. A few straggling bits of color
in the sloping meadows were the children coming home from school. She
hastily tied a girlish sun-bonnet under her chin, and slipping out of
the back door, swept like a lissom shadow along the line of fence
until she seemed to melt into the umbrage of the woods that fringed the
distant north boundary.