AT THE FOSS RIVER RANCH
Spring is already upon the prairie. The fur coat has already been
exchanged for the pea-jacket. No longer is the fur cap crushed down upon
the head and drawn over the ears until little more than the oval of the
face is exposed to the elements; it is still worn occasionally, but now
it rests upon the head with the jaunty cant of an ordinary headgear.
The rough coated broncho no longer stands "tucked up" with the cold,
with its hind-quarters towards the wind. Now he stands grazing on the
patches of grass which the melting snow has placed at his disposal. The
cattle, too, hurry to and fro as each day extends their field of fodder.
When spring sets in in the great North-West it is with no show of
reluctance that grim winter yields its claims and makes way for its
gracious and all-conquering foe. Spring is upon everything with all the
characteristic suddenness of the Canadian climate. A week--a little
seven days--and where all before had been cheerless wastes of snow and
ice, we have the promise of summer with us. The snow disappears as with
the sweep of a "chinook" in winter. The brown, saturated grass is tinged
with the bright emerald hue of new-born pasture. The bared trees don
that yellowish tinge which tells of breaking leaves. Rivers begin to
flow. Their icy coatings, melting in the growing warmth of the sun,
quickly returning once more to their natural element.
With the advent of spring comes a rush of duties to those whose interest
are centered in the breeding of cattle. The Foss River Settlement is
already teeming with life. For the settlement is the center of the great
spring "round-up." Here are assembling the "cow-punchers" from all the
outlying ranches, gathering under the command of a captain (generally a
man elected for his vast experience on the prairie) and making their
preparations to scour the prairie east and west, north and south, to the
very limits of the far-reaching plains which spread their rolling
pastures at the eastern base of the Rockies. Every head of cattle which
is found will be brought into the Foss River Settlement and thence will
be distributed to its lawful owners. This is but the beginning of the
work, for the task of branding calves and re-branding cattle whose
brands have become obscured during the long winter months is a process
of no small magnitude for those who number their stocks by tens of
thousands.
At John Allandale's ranch all is orderly bustle. There is no confusion.
Under Jacky's administration the work goes on with a simple directness
which would astonish the uninitiated. There are the corrals to repair
and to be put in order. Sheds and out-buildings to be whitewashed.
Branding apparatus to be set in working order, fencing to be repaired,
preparations for seeding to commence; a thousand and one things to be
seen to; and all of which must be finished before the first "bands" of
cattle are rounded up into the settlement.
It is nearly a month since we saw this daughter of the prairie garbed in
the latest mode, attending the Polo Ball at Calford, and widely
different is her appearance now from what it was at the time of our
introduction to her.
She is returning from an inspection of the wire fencing of the home
pastures. She is riding her favorite horse, Nigger, up the gentle slope
which leads to her uncle's house. There is nothing of the woman of
fashion about her now--and, perhaps, it is a matter not to be regretted.
She sits her horse with the easy grace of a childhood's experience. Her
habit, if such it can be called, is a "dungaree" skirt of a hardly
recognizable blue, so washed out is it, surmounted by a beautifully
beaded buckskin shirt. Loosely encircling her waist, and resting upon
her hips, is a cartridge belt, upon which is slung the holster of a
heavy revolver, a weapon without which she never moves abroad. Her head
is crowned by a Stetson hat, secured in true prairie fashion by a strap
which passes under her hair at the back, while her beautiful hair itself
falls in heavy ringlets over her shoulders, and waves untrammelled in
the fresh spring breeze as her somewhat unruly charger gallops up the
hill towards the ranch.
The great black horse was heading for the stable. Jacky leant over to
one side and swung him sharply towards the house. At the veranda she
pulled him up short. High mettled, headstrong as the animal was, he knew
his mistress. Tricks which he would often attempt to practice upon other
people were useless here--doubtless she had taught him that such was the
case.
The girl sprang, unaided, to the ground and hitched her picket rope to a
tying-post. For a moment she stood on the great veranda which ran down
the whole length of the house front. It was a one-storied,
bungalow-shaped house, built with a high pitch to the roof and entirely
constructed of the finest red pine-wood. Six French windows opened on to
the veranda. The outlook was westerly, and, contrary to the usual
custom, the ranch buildings were not overlooked by it. The corrals and
stables were in the background.
She was about to turn in at one of the windows when she suddenly
observed Nigger's ears cocked, and his head turned away towards the
shimmering peaks of the distant mountains. The movement fixed her
attention instantly. It was the instinct of one who lives in a country
where the eyes and ears of a horse are often keener and more
far-reaching than those of its human masters. The horse was gazing with
statuesque fixedness across a waste of partially-melted snow. A stretch
of ten miles lay flat and smooth as a billiard-table at the foot of the
rise upon which the house was built. And far out across this the beast
was gazing.
Jacky shaded her eyes with her hand and followed the direction of the
horse's gaze. For a moment or two she saw nothing but the dazzling glare
of the snow in the bright spring sunlight. Then her eyes became
accustomed to the brilliancy, and far in the distance, she beheld an
animal peacefully moving along from patch to patch of bare grass,
evidently in search of fodder.
"A horse," she muttered, under her breath. "Whose?"
She could find no answer to her monosyllabic inquiry. She realized at
once that to whomsoever it belonged its owner would never recover it,
for it was grazing on the far side of the great "Muskeg," that mighty
bottomless mire which extends for forty miles north and south and whose
narrowest breadth is a span of ten miles. She was looking across it now,
and innocent enough that level plain of terror appeared at that moment.
And yet it was the curse of the ranching district, for, annually,
hundreds of cattle met an untimely death in its cruel, absorbing bosom.
She turned away for the purpose of fetching a pair of field-glasses. She
was anxious to identify the horse. She passed along the veranda
towards the furthest window. It was the window of her uncle's office.
Just as she was nearing it she heard the sound of voices coming from
within. She paused, and an ominous pucker drew her brows together. Her
beautiful dark face clouded. She had no wish to play the part of an
eavesdropper, but she had recognized the voices of her uncle and
Lablache. She had also heard the mention of her own name. What woman,
or, for that matter, man, can refrain from listening when they hear two
people talking about them. The window was open; Jacky paused--and
listened.
Lablache's thick voice lolled heavily upon the brisk air.
"She is a good girl. But don't you think you are considering her future
from a rather selfish point of view, John?"
"Selfish?" The old man laughed in his hearty manner "Maybe you're right,
though. I never thought of that. You see I'm getting old now. I can't
get around like I used to. Bless me, she's two-an'-twenty.
Three-and-twenty years since my brother Dick--God rest his
soul!--married that half-breed girl, Josie. Yes, I guess you're right,
she's bound to marry soon."
Jacky smiled a curious dark smile. Something told her why Lablache and
her uncle were discussing her future.
"Why, of course she is," said Lablache, "and when that happy event is
accomplished I hope it will not be with any improvident--harum-scarum
man like--like--"
"The Hon. Bunning-Ford I suppose you would say, eh?"
There was a somewhat sharp tone in the old man's voice which Jacky was
not slow to detect.
"Well," went on Lablache, with one of those deep whistling breaths which
made him so like an ancient pug, "since you mention him, for want of a
better specimen of improvidence, his name will do."
"So I thought--so I thought," laughed the old man. But his words rang
strangely. "Most people think," he went on, "that when I die Jacky will
be rich. But she won't."
"No," replied Lablache, emphatically.
There was a world of meaning in his tone.
"However, I guess we can let her hunt around for herself when she wants
a husband. Jacky's a girl with a head. A sight better head than I've got
on my old shoulders. When she chooses a husband, and comes and tells me
of it, she shall have my blessing and anything else I have to give. I'm
not going to interfere with that girl's matrimonial affairs, sir, not
for any one. That child, bless her heart, is like my own child to me. If
she wants the moon, and there's nothing else to stop her having it but
my consent, why, I guess that moon's as good as fenced in with
triple-barbed wire an' registered in her name in the Government Land
Office."
"And in the meantime you are going to make that same child work for her
daily bread like any 'hired man,' and keep company with any scoun--"
"Hi, stop there, Lablache! Stop there," thundered "Poker" John, and
Jacky heard a thud as of a fist falling upon the table. "You've taken
the unwarrantable liberty of poking your nose into my affairs, and,
because of our old acquaintance, I have allowed it. But now let me tell
you this is no d----d business of yours. There's no make with Jacky.
What she does, she does of her own accord."
At that moment the girl in question walked abruptly in from the veranda.
She had heard enough.
"Ah, uncle," she said, smiling tenderly up into the old man's face,
"talking of me, I guess. You shouted my name just as I was coming along.
Say, I want the field-glasses. Where are they?"
Then she turned on Lablache as if she had only just become aware of his
presence.
"What, Mr. Lablache, you here? And so early, too. Guess this isn't like
you. How is your store--that temple of wealth and high interest--to get
on without you? How are the 'improvident'--'harum-scarums' to live if
you are not present to minister to their wants--upon the best of
security?" Without waiting for a reply the girl picked up the glasses
she was in search of and darted out, leaving Lablache glaring his
bilious-eyed rage after her.
"Poker" John stood for a moment a picture of blank surprise; then he
burst into a loud guffaw at the discomfited money-lender. Jacky heard
the laugh and smiled. Then she passed out of earshot and concentrated
her attention upon the distant speck of animal life.
The girl stood for some moments surveying the creature as it moved
leisurely along, its nose well down amongst the roots of the tawny
grass, seeking out the tender green shoots of the new-born pasture. Then
she closed her glasses and her thoughts wandered to other matters.
The gorgeous landscape was, for a moment, utterly lost upon her. The
snowy peaks of the Rockies, stretching far as the eye could see away to
the north and south, like some giant fortification set up to defend the
rolling pastures of the prairies from the ceaseless attack of the stormy
Pacific Ocean, were far from her thoughts. Her eyes, it is true, were
resting on the level flat of the muskeg, beyond the grove of slender
pines which lined the approach to the house, but she was not thinking of
that. No, recollection was struggling back through two years of a busy
life, to a time when, for a brief space, she had watched over the
welfare of another than her uncle, when the dark native blood which
flowed plentifully in her veins had asserted itself, and a nature which
was hers had refused to remain buried beneath a superficial European
training. She was thinking of a man who had formed a secret part of her
life for a few short years, when she had allowed her heart to dictate a
course for her actions which no other motive but that of love could have
brought about. She was thinking of Peter Retief, a pretty scoundrel, a
renowned "bad man," a man of wild and reckless daring. He had been the
terror of the countryside. A cattle-thief who feared neither man nor
devil; a man who for twelve months and more had carried, his life in his
hands, the sworn enemy of law and order, but who, in his worst moments,
had never been known to injure a poor man or a woman. The wild blood of
the half-breed that was in her had been stirred, as only a woman's blood
can be, by his reckless dealings, his courage, effrontery, and withal
his wondrous kindliness of disposition. She was thinking of this man
now, this man whom she knew to be numbered amongst the countless victims
of that dreadful mire. And what had conjured this thought? A horse--a
horse peacefully grazing far out across the mire in the direction of the
distant hills which she knew had once been this desperado's home.
Her train of recollection suddenly became broken, and a sigh escaped her
as the sound of her uncle's voice fell upon her ears. She did not move,
however, for she knew that Lablache was with him, and this man she hated
with the fiery hatred only to be found in the half-breeds of any native
race.
"I'm sorry, John, we can't agree on the point," Lablache was saying in
his wheezy voice, as the two men stood at the other end of the veranda,
"but I'm quite determined Upon the matter myself. The land intersects
mine and cuts me clean off from the railway siding, and I am forced to
take my cattle a circle of nearly fifteen miles to ship them. If he
would only be reasonable and allow a passage I would say nothing. I will
force him to sell."
"If you can," put in the rancher. "I reckon you've got chilled steel to
deal with when you endeavor to 'force' old Joe Norton to sell the finest
wheat land in the country."
At this point in the conversation three men came round from the back of
the house. They were "cow" hands belonging to the ranch. They approached
Jacky with the easy assurance of men who were as much companions as
servants of their mistress. All three, however, touched their
wide-brimmed hats in unmistakable respect. They were clad in buckskin
shirts and leather "chaps," and each had his revolver upon his hip. The
girl lost the rest of the conversation between her uncle and Lablache,
for her attention was turned to the men.
"Well?" she asked shortly, as the men stood before her.
One of the men, a tall, lank specimen of the dark-skinned prairie
half-breed, acted as spokesman.
He ejected a squirt of tobacco juice from his great, dirty mouth before
he spoke. Then with a curious backward jerk of the head he blurted out a
stream of Western jargon.
"Say, missie," he exclaimed in a high-pitched nasal voice, "it ain't no
use in talkin', ye kent put no tenderfoot t' boss the round-up. There's
them all-fired Donoghue lot jest sent right in t' say, 'cause, I s'pose,
they reckon as they're the high muck-i-muck o' this location, that that
tarnation Sim Lory, thar head man, is to cap' the round-up. Why, he
ain't cast a blamed foot on the prairie sence he's been hyar. An' I'll
swear he don't know the horn o' his saddle from a monkey stick. Et ain't
right, missie, an' us fellers t' work under him an' all."
His address came to an abrupt end, and he gave emphasis to his words by
a prolonged expectoration. Jacky, her eyes sparkling with anger, was
quick to reply.
"Look you here, Silas, just go right off and throw your saddle on your
pony--"
"Guess it's right thar, missie," the man interrupted.
"Then sling off as fast as your plug can lay foot to the ground, and
give John Allandale's compliments to Jim Donoghue and say, if they don't
send a capable man, since they've been appointed to find the 'captain,'
he'll complain to the Association and insist on the penalty being
enforced. What, do they take us for a lot of 'gophers'? Sim Lory,
indeed; why, he's not fit to prise weeds with a two tine hay fork."
The men went off hurriedly. Their mistress's swift methods of dealing
with matters pleased them. Silas was more than pleased to be able to get
a "slant" (to use his own expression) at his old enemy, Sim Lory. As the
men departed "Poker" John came and stood beside his niece.
"What's that about Sim Lory, Jacky?"
"They've sent him to run this 'round-up.'"
"And?"
"Oh, I just told them it wouldn't do," indifferently.
Old John smiled.
"In those words?"
"Well, no, uncle," the girl said with a responsive smile. "But they
needed a 'jinning' up. I sent the message in your name."
The old man shook his head, but his indulgent smile remained.
"You'll be getting me into serious trouble with that impetuosity of
yours, Jacky," he said absently. "But there--I daresay you know best."
His words were characteristic of him. He left the entire control of the
ranch to this girl of two-and-twenty, relying implicitly upon her
judgment in all things. It was a strange thing to do, for he was still a
vigorous man. To look at him was to make oneself wonder at the reason.
But the girl accepted the responsibility without question. There was a
subtle sympathy between uncle and niece. Sometimes Jacky would gaze up
into his handsome old face and something in the twitching cheek, the
curiously-shaped mouth, hidden beneath the gray mustache, would cause
her to turn away with a sigh, and, with stimulated resolution, hurl
herself into the arduous labors of managing the ranch. What she read in
that dear, honest face she loved so well she kept locked in her own
secret heart, and never, by word or act, did she allow herself to betray
it. She was absolute mistress of the Foss River Ranch and she knew it.
Old "Poker" John, like the morphine "fiend," merely continued to keep up
his reputation and the more fully deserve his sobriquet. His mind, his
character, his whole being was being slowly but surely absorbed in the
lust of gambling.
The girl laid her hand upon the old man's arm.
"Uncle--what was Lablache talking to you about? I mean when I came for
the field-glasses."
"Poker" John was gazing abstractedly into the dense growth of pines
which fringed the house. He pulled himself together, but his eyes had in
them a far-away look.
"Many things," he replied evasively.
"Yes, I know, dear, but," bending her face while she removed one of her
buckskin gauntlets from her hand, "I mean about me. You two
were-discussing me, I know."
She turned her keen gray eyes upon her relative as she finished
speaking. The old man turned away. He felt that those eyes were reading
his very soul. They made him uncomfortable.
"Oh, he said I ought not to let you associate with certain people."
"Why?" The sharp question came with the directness of a pistol-shot.
"Well, he seemed to think that you might think of marrying."
"Ah, and--"
"He seemed to fancy that you, being impetuous, might make a mistake and
fall--"
"In love with the wrong man. Yes, I understand; and from his point of
view, if ever I do marry it will undoubtedly be the wrong man."
And the girl finished up with a mirthless laugh.
They stood for some moments in silence. They were both thinking. The
noise from the corrals behind the house reached them. The steady drip,
drip of the water from the melting snow upon the roof of the house
sounded loudly as it fell on the sodden ground beneath.
"Uncle, did it ever strike you that that greasy money-lender wants to
marry me himself?"
The question startled John Allandale more than anything else could have
done. He turned sharply round and faced his niece.
"Marry you, Jacky?" he repeated. "I never thought of it."
"It isn't to be supposed that you would have done so."
There was the faintest tinge of bitterness in the girl's answer.
"And do you really think that he wants to marry you?"
"I don't know quite. Perhaps I am wrong, uncle, and my imagination has
run away with me. Yes, I sometimes think he wants to marry me."
They both relapsed into silence. Then her uncle spoke again.
"Jacky, what you have just said has made something plain to me which I
could not understand before. He came and gave me--unsolicited, mind--"a
little eagerly, "a detailed account of Bunning-Ford's circumstances,
and--"
"Endeavored to bully you into sending him about his business. Poor old
Bill! And what was his account of him?"
The girl's eyes were glowing with quickly-roused passion, but she kept
them turned from her uncle's face.
"He told me that the boy had heavy mortgages on his land and stock. He
told me that if he were to realize to-morrow there would be little or
nothing for himself. Everything would go to some firm in Calford. In
short, that he has gambled his ranch away."
"And he told this to you, uncle, dear." Then the girl paused and looked
far out across the great muskeg. In her abrupt fashion she turned again
to the old man. "Uncle," she went on, "tell me truly, do you owe
anything to Lablache? Has he any hold upon you?"
There was a world of anxiety in her voice as she spoke. John Allandale
tried to follow her thought before he answered. He seemed to grasp
something of her meaning, for in a moment his eyes took on an expression
of pain. Then his words came slowly, as from one who is not sure of what
he is saying.
"I owe him some--money--yes--but--"
"Poker?"
The question was jerked viciously from the girl's lips.
"Yes."
Jacky turned slowly away until her eyes rested upon the distant, grazing
horse. A strange restlessness seemed to be upon her. She was fidgeting
with the gauntlet which she had just removed. Then slowly her right hand
passed round to her hip, where it rested upon the butt of her revolver.
There was a tight drawnness about her lips and her keen gray eyes looked
as though gazing into space.
"How much?" she said at last, breaking the heavy silence which had
followed upon her uncle's admission. Then before he could answer she
went on deliberately: "But there--I guess it don't cut any figure.
Lablache shall be paid, and I take it his bill of interest won't amount
to more than we can pay if we're put to it. Poor old Bill!"