“Chuck at the Y.D. to-night, and a bed under the shingles,” shouted
Transley, waving to the procession to be off.
Linder, foreman and head teamster, straightened up from the half load
of new hay in which he had been awaiting the final word, tightened the
lines, made an unique sound in his throat, and the horses pressed their
shoulders into the collars. Linder glanced back to see each wagon or
implement take up the slack with a jerk like the cars of a freight
train; the cushioned rumble of wagon wheels on the soft earth, and the
noisy chatter of the steel teeth of the hay-rakes came up from the rear.
Transley’s “outfit” was under way.
Transley was a contractor; a master of men and of circumstances. Six
weeks before, the suspension of a grading order had left him high and
dry, with a dozen men and as many teams on his hands and hired for the
season. Transley galloped all that night into the foothills; when he
returned next evening he had a contract with the Y.D. to cut all the
hay from the ranch buildings to The Forks. By some deft touch of those
financial strings on which he was one day to become so skilled a player
Transley converted his dump scrapers into mowing machines, and three
days later his outfit was at work in the upper reaches of the Y.D.
The contract had been decidedly profitable. Not an hour of broken
weather had interrupted the operations, and to-day, with two thousand
tons of hay in stack, Transley was moving down to the headquarters of
the Y.D. The trail lay along a broad valley, warded on either side by
ranges of foothills; hills which in any other country would have been
dignified by the name of mountains. From their summits the grey-green
up-tilted limestone protruded, whipped clean of soil by the chinooks of
centuries. Here and there on their northern slopes hung a beard of
scrub timber; sharp gulleys cut into their fastnesses to bring down the
turbulent waters of their snows.
Some miles to the left of the trail lay the bed of the Y.D., fringed
with poplar and cottonwood and occasional dark green splashes of spruce.
Beyond the bed of the Y.D., beyond the foothills that looked down upon
it, hung the mountains themselves, their giant crests pitched like
mighty tents drowsing placidly between earth and heaven. Now their four
o’clock veil of blue-purple mist lay filmed about their shoulders, but
later they would stand out in bold silhouette cutting into the twilight
sky. Everywhere was the soft smell of new-mown hay; everywhere the
silences of the eternal, broken only by the muffled noises of Transley’s
outfit trailing down to the Y.D.
Linder, foreman and head teamster, cushioned his shoulders against his
half load of hay and contemplated the scene with amiable satisfaction.
The hay fields of the foothills had been a pleasant change from the
railway grades of the plains below. Men and horses had fattened and
grown content, and the foreman had reason to know that Transley’s bank
account had profited by the sudden shift in his operations. Linder felt
in his pocket for pipe and matches; then, with a frown, withdrew his
fingers. He himself had laid down the law that there must be no smoking
in the hay fields. A carelessly dropped match might in an hour nullify
all their labor.
Linder’s frown had scarce vanished when hoof-beats pounded by the side
of his wagon, and a rider, throwing himself lightly from his horse,
dropped beside him in the hay.
“Thought I’d ride with you a spell, Lin. That Pete-horse acts like he
was goin’ sore on the off front foot. Chuck at the Y.D. to-night?”
“That’s what Transley says, George, and he knows.”
“Ever et at the Y.D?”
“Nope.”
“Know old Y.D?”
“Only to know his name is good on a cheque, and they say he still throws
a good rope.”
George wriggled to a more comfortable position in the hay. He had a
feeling that he was approaching a delicate subject with consummate
skill. After a considerable silence he continued--
“They say that’s quite a girl old Y.D.’s got.”
“Oh,” said Linder, slowly. The occasion of the soreness in that
Pete-horse’s off front foot was becoming apparent.
“You better stick to Pete,” Linder continued. “Women is most uncertain
critters.”
“Don’t I know it?” chuckled George, poking the foreman’s ribs
companionably with his elbow. “Don’t I know it?” he repeated, as his
mind apparently ran back over some reminiscence that verified Linder’s
remark. It was evident from the pleasant grimaces of George’s face that
whatever he had suffered from the uncertain sex was forgiven.
“Say, Lin,” he resumed after another pause, and this time in a more
confidential tone, “do you s’pose Transley’s got a notion that way?”
“Shouldn’t wonder. Transley always knows what he’s doing, and why. Y.D.
must be worth a million or so, and the girl is all he’s got to leave
it to. Besides all that, no doubt she’s well worth having on her own
account.”
“Well, I’m sorry for the boss,” George replied, with great soberness. “I
alus hate to disappoint the boss.”
“Huh!” said Linder. He knew George Drazk too well for further comment.
After his unlimited pride in and devotion to his horse, George gave his
heart unreservedly to womankind. He suffered from no cramping niceness
in his devotions; that would have limited the play of his passion; to
him all women were alike--or nearly so. And no number of rebuffs could
convince George that he was unpopular with the objects of his democratic
affections. Such a conclusion was, to him, too absurd to be entertained,
no matter how many experiences might support it. If opportunity offered
he doubtless would propose to Y.D.’s daughter that very night--and get a
boxed ear for his pains.
The Y.D. creek had crossed its valley, shouldering close against the
base of the foothills to the right. Here the current had created a
precipitous cutbank, and to avoid it and the stream the trail wound over
the side of the hill. As they crested a corner the silver ribbon of the
Y.D. was unravelled before them, and half a dozen miles down its
course the ranch buildings lay clustered in a grove of cottonwoods and
evergreens. All the great valley lay warm and pulsating in a flood
of yellow sunshine; the very earth seemed amorous and content in the
embrace of sun and sky. The majesty of the view seized even the unpoetic
souls of Linder and Drazk, and because they had no other means of
expression they swore vaguely and relapsed into silence.
Hoof-beats again sounded by the wagon side. It was Transley.
“Oh, here you are, Drazk. How long do you reckon it would take you to
ride down to the Y.D. on that Pete-horse?” Transley was a leader of men.
Drazk’s eyes sparkled at the subtle compliment to his horse.
“I tell you, Boss,” he said, “if there’s any jackrabbits in the road
they’ll get tramped on.”
“I bet they will,” said Transley, genially. “Well, you just slide down
and tell Y.D. we’re coming in. She’s going to be later than I figured,
but I can’t hurry the work horses. You know that, Drazk.”
“Sure I do, Boss,” said Drazk, springing into his saddle. “Just watch
me lose myself in the dust.” Then, to himself, “Here’s where I beat the
boss to it.”
The sun had fallen behind the mountains, the valley was filled with
shadow, the afterglow, mauve and purple and copper, was playing far up
the sky when Transley’s outfit reached the Y.D. corrals. George Drazk
had opened the gate and waited beside it.
“Y.D. wants you an’ Linder to eat with him at the house,” he said as
Transley halted beside him. “The rest of us eat in the bunk-house.”
There was something strangely modest in Drazk’s manner.
“Had yours handed to you already?” Linder managed to banter in a low
voice as they swung through the gate.
“Hell!” protested Mr. Drazk. “A fellow that ain’t a boss or a foreman
don’t get a look-in. Never even seen her.... Come, you Pete-horse!” It
was evident George had gone back to his first love.
The wagons drew up in the yard, and there was a fine jingle of harness
as the teamsters quickly unhitched. Y.D. himself approached through the
dusk; his large frame and confident bearing were unmistakable even in
that group of confident, vigorous men.
“Glad to see you, Transley,” he said cordially. “You done well out
there. ‘So, Linder! You made a good job of it. Come up to the house--I
reckon the Missus has supper waitin’. We’ll find a room for you up
there, too; it’s different from bein’ under canvas.”
So saying, and turning the welfare of the men and the horses over to
his foreman, the rancher led Transley and Linder along a path through a
grove of cottonwoods, across a footbridge where from underneath came the
babble of water, to “the house,” marked by a yellow light which poured
through the windows and lost itself in the shadow of the trees.
The nucleus of the house was the log cabin where Y.D. and his wife had
lived in their first married years. With the passage of time additions
had been built to every side which offered a point of contact, but the
log cabin still remained the family centre, and into it Transley and
Linder were immediately admitted. The poplar floor had long since worn
thin, save at the knots, and had been covered with edge-grained fir, but
otherwise the cabin stood as it had for twenty years, the white-washed
logs glowing in the light of two bracket lamps and the reflections from
a wood fire which burned merrily in the stove. The skins of a grizzly
bear and a timber wolf lay on the floor, and two moose heads looked down
from opposite ends of the room. On the walls hung other trophies won by
Y.D.’s rifle, along with hand-made bits of harness, lariats, and other
insignia of the ranchman’s trade.
The rancher took his guests’ hats, and motioned each to a seat.
“Mother,” he said, directing his voice into an adjoining room, “here’s
the boys.”
In a moment “Mother” appeared drying her hands. In her appearance were
courage, resourcefulness, energy,--fit mate for the man who had made the
Y.D. known in every big cattle market of the country. As Linder’s eye
caught her and her husband in the same glance his mind involuntarily
leapt to the suggestion of what the offspring of such a pair must be.
The men of the cattle country have a proper appreciation of heredity....
“My wife--Mr. Transley, Mr. Linder,” said the rancher, with a
courtliness which sat strangely on his otherwise rough-and-ready speech.
“I been tellin’ her the fine job you boys has made in the hay fields,
an’ I reckon she’s got a bite of supper waitin’ you.”
“Y.D. has been full of your praises,” said the woman. There was a touch
of culture in her manner as she received them, which Y.D.’s hospitality
did not disclose.
She led them into another room, where a table was set for five. Linder
experienced a tang of happy excitement as he noted the number. Linder
allowed himself no foolishness about women, but, as he sometimes sagely
remarked to George Drazk, you never can tell what might happen. He shot
a quick glance at Transley, but the contractor’s face gave no sign. Even
as he looked Linder thought what an able face it was. Transley was not
more than twenty-six, but forcefulness, assertion, ability, stood in
every line of his clean-cut features. He was such a man as to capture at
a blow the heart of old Y.D., perhaps of Y.D.’s daughter.
“Where’s Zen?” demanded the rancher.
“She’ll be here presently,” his wife replied. “We don’t have Mr.
Transley and Mr. Linder every night, you know,” she added, with a smile.
“Dolling up,” thought Linder. “Trust a woman never to miss a bet.”
But at that moment a door opened, and the girl appeared. She did not
burst upon them, as Linder had half expected; she slipped quietly and
gracefully into their presence. She was dressed in black, in a costume
which did not too much conceal the charm of her figure, and the
nut-brown lustre of her face and hair played against the sober
background of her dress with an effect that was almost dazzling.
“My daughter, Zen,” said Y.D. “Mr. Transley, Mr. Linder.”
She shook hands frankly, first with Transley, then with Linder, as
had been the order of the introduction. In her manner was neither the
shyness which sometimes marks the women of remote settlements, nor the
boldness so readily bred of outdoor life. She gave the impression of one
who has herself, and the situation, in hand.
“We’re always glad to have guests at the Y.D.” she was saying. “We live
so far from everywhere.”
Linder thought that a strange peg on which to hang their welcome. But
she was continuing--
“And you have been so successful, haven’t you? You have made quite a hit
with Dad.”
“How about Dad’s daughter?” asked Transley. Transley had a manner of
direct and forceful action. These were his first words to her. Linder
would not have dared be so precipitate.
“Perhaps,” thought Linder to himself, as he turned the incident over in
his mind, “perhaps that is why Transley is boss, and I’m just foreman.”
The young woman’s behavior seemed to support that conclusion. She did
not answer Transley’s question, but she gave no evidence of displeasure.
“You boys must be hungry,” Y.D. was saying. “Pile in.”
The rancher and his wife sat at the ends of the table; Transley on the
side at Y.D.’s right; Linder at Transley’s right. In the better light
Linder noted Y.D.’s face. It was the face of a man of fifty, possibly
sixty. Life in the open plays strange tricks with the appearance. Some
men it ages before their time; others seem to tap a spring of perpetual
youth. Save for the grey moustache and the puckerings about the eyes
Y.D.’s was still a young man’s face. Then, as the rancher turned his
head, Linder noted a long scar, as of a burn, almost grown over in the
right cheek.... Across the table from them sat the girl, impartially
dividing her position between the two.
A Chinese boy served soup, and the rancher set the example by “piling
in” without formality. Eight hours in the open air between meals is a
powerful deterrent of table small-talk. Then followed a huge joint
of beef, from which Y.D. cut generous slices with swift and dexterous
strokes of a great knife, and the Chinese boy added the vegetables from
a side table. As the meat disappeared the call of appetite became less
insistent.
“She’s been a great summer, ain’t she?” said the rancher, laying down
his knife and fork and lifting the carver. “Transley, some more meat?
Pshaw, you ain’t et enough for a chicken. Linder? That’s right, pass
up your plate. Powerful dry, though. That’s only a small bit; here’s
a better slice here. Dry summers gen’rally mean open winters, but you
can’t never tell. Zen, how ‘bout you? Old Y.D.’s been too long on the
job to take chances. Mother? How much did you say, Transley? About two
thousand tons? Not enough. Don’t care if I do,”--helping himself to
another piece of beef.
“I think you’ll find two thousand tons, good hay and good measurement,”
said Transley.
“I’m sure of it,” rejoined his host, generously. “I’m carryin’ more
steers than usual, and’ll maybe run in a bunch of doggies from Manitoba
to boot. I got to have more hay.”
So the meal progressed, the rancher furnishing both the hospitality and
the conversation. Transley occasionally broke in to give assent to
some remark, but his interruption was quite unnecessary. It was Y.D.’s
practice to take assent for granted. Once or twice the women interjected
a lead to a different subject of conversation in which their words would
have carried greater authority, but Y.D. instantly swung it back to the
all-absorbing topic of hay.
The Chinese boy served a pudding of some sort, and presently the meal
was ended.
“She’s been a dry summer--powerful dry,” said the rancher, with a wink
at his guests. “Zen, I think there’s a bit of gopher poison in there
yet, ain’t there?”
The girl left the room without remark, returning shortly with a jug and
glasses, which she placed before her father.
“I suppose you wear a man’s size, Transley,” he said, pouring out a big
drink of brown liquor, despite Transley’s deprecating hand. “Linder, how
many fingers? Two? Well, we’ll throw in the thumb. Y.D? If you please,
just a little snifter. All set?”
The rancher rose to his feet, and the company followed his example.
“Here’s ho!--and more hay,” he said, genially.
“Ho!” said Linder.
“The daughter of the Y.D!” said Transley, looking across the table at
the girl. She met his eyes full; then, with a gleam of white teeth, she
raised an empty glass and clinked it against his.
The men drained their glasses and re-seated themselves, but the women
remained standing.
“Perhaps you will excuse us now,” said the rancher’s wife. “You will
wish to talk over business. Y.D. will show you upstairs, and we will
expect you to be with us for breakfast.”
With a bow she left the room, followed by her daughter. Linder had a
sense of being unsatisfied; it was as though a ravishing meal has been
placed before a hungry man, and only its aroma had reached his senses
when it had been taken away. Well, it provoked the appetite--
The rancher re-filled the glasses, but Transley left his untouched, and
Linder did the same. There were business matters to discuss, and it was
no fair contest to discuss business in the course of a drinking bout
with an old stager like Y.D.
“I got to have another thousand tons,” the rancher was saying. “Can’t
take chances on any less, and I want you boys to put it up for me.”
“Suits me,” said Transley, “if you’ll show me where to get the hay.”
“You know the South Y.D?”
“Never been on it.”
“Well, it’s a branch of the Y.D. which runs south-east from The Forks.
Guess it got its name from me, because I built my first cabin at The
Forks. That was about the time you was on a milk diet, Transley, and
us old-timers had all outdoors to play with. You see, the Y.D. is a
cantank’rous stream, like its godfather. At The Forks you’d nat’rally
suppose is where two branches joined, an’ jogged on henceforth in double
harness. Well, that ain’t it at all. This crick has modern ideas, an’
at The Forks it divides itself into two, an’ she hikes for the Gulf o’
Mexico an’ him for Hudson’s Bay. As I was sayin’, I built my first cabin
at The Forks--a sort o’ peek-a-boo cabin it was, where the wolves usta
come an’ look in at nights. Well, I usta look out through the same
holes. I had the advantage o’ usin’ language, an’ I reckon we was about
equal scared. There was no wife or kid in those days.”
The rancher paused, took a long draw on his pipe, and his eyes glowed
with the light of old recollections.
“Well, as I was sayin’,” he continued presently, “folks got to callin’
the stream the Y.D., after me. That’s what you get for bein’ first on
the ground--a monument for ever an ever. This bein’ the main stream got
the name proper, an’ the other branch bein’ smallest an’ running kind
o’ south nat’rally got called the South Y.D. I run stock in both valleys
when I was at The Forks, but not much since I came down here. Well,
there’s maybe a thousand tons o’ hay over in the South Y.D., an’ you
boys better trail over there to-morrow an’ pitch into it--that is, if
you’re satisfied with the price I’m payin’ you.”
“The price is all right,” said Transley, “and we’ll hit the trail at
sun-up. There’ll be no trouble--no confliction of interests, I mean?”
“Whose interests?” demanded the rancher, beligerently. “Ain’t I the
father of the Y.D? Ain’t the whole valley named for me? When it comes to
interests--”
“Of course,” Transley agreed, “but I just wanted to know how things
stood in case we ran up against something. It’s not like the old days,
when a rancher would rather lose twenty-five per cent. of his stock
over winter than bother putting up hay. Hay land is getting to be worth
money, and I just want to know where we stand.”
“Quite proper,” said Y.D., “quite proper. An’ now the matter’s under
discussion, I’ll jus’ show you my hand. There’s a fellow named Landson
down the valley of the South Y.D. that’s been flirtin’ with that hay
meadow for years, but he ain’t got no claim to it. I was first on the
ground an’ I cut it whenever I feel like it an’ I’m goin’ to go on
cuttin’ it. If anybody comes out raisin’ trouble, you just shoo ‘em off,
an’ go on cuttin’ that hay, spite o’ hell an’ high water. Y.D.’ll stand
behind you.”
“Thanks,” said Transley. “That’s what I wanted to know.”