Bud Lee, horse foreman of the Blue Lake Ranch, sat upon the gate of the
home corral, builded a cigarette with slow brown fingers, and stared
across the broken fields of the upper valley to the rosy glow above the
pine-timbered ridge where the sun was coming up. His customary gravity
was unusually pronounced.
"If a man's got the hunch an egg is bad," he mused, "is that a real
good and sufficient reason why he should go poking his finger inside
the shell? I want to know!"
Tommy Burkitt, the youngest wage-earner of the outfit and a profound
admirer of all that taciturnity, good-humor, and quick capability which
went into the make-up of Bud Lee, approached from the ranch-house on
the knoll. "Hi, Bud!" he called. "Trevors wants you. On the jump."
Lee watched Tommy coming on with that wide, rocking gait of a man used
to much riding and little walking. The deep gravity in the foreman's
eyes was touched with a little twinkle by way of greeting.
Burkitt stopped at the gate, looking up at Lee. "On the jump, Trevors
said," he repeated.
"The hell he did," said Lee pleasantly. "How old are you this morning,
Tommy?"
Burkitt blushed. "Aw, quit it, Bud," he grinned. Involuntarily the
boy's big square hand rose to the tender growth upon lip and chin
which, like the flush in the eastern sky, was but a vague promise of a
greater glory to be.
"A hair for each year," continued the quiet-voiced man. "Ten on one
side, nine on the other."
"Ain't you going to do what Trevors says?" demanded Tommy.
For a moment Lee sat still, his cigarette unlighted, his broad black
hat far back upon his close-cropped hair, his eyes serenely
contemplative upon the pink of the sky above the pines. Then he
slipped from his place and, though each single movement gave an
impression of great leisureliness, it was but a flash of time until he
stood beside Burkitt.
"Stick around a wee bit, laddie," he said gently, a lean brown hand
resting lightly on the boy's square shoulder. "A man can't see what is
on the cards until they're tipped, but it's always a fair gamble that
between dawn and dusk I'll gather up my string of colts and crowd on.
If I do, you'll want to come along?"
He smiled at young Burkitt's eagerness and turned away toward the
ranch-house and Bayne Trevors, thus putting an early end to an
enthusiastic acquiescence. Tommy watched the tall man moving swiftly
away through the brightening dawn.
"They ain't no more men ever foaled like him," meditated Tommy, in an
approval so profound as to be little less than out-and-out devotion.
And, indeed, one might ride up and down the world for many a day and
not find a man who was Bud Lee's superior in "the things that count."
As tall as most, with sufficient shoulders, a slender body,
narrow-hipped, he carried himself as perhaps his forebears walked in a
day when open forests or sheltered caverns housed them, with a lithe
gracefulness born of the perfect play of superb physical development.
His muscles, even in the slightest movement, flowed liquidly; he had
slipped from his place on the corral gate less like a man than like
some great, splendid cat. The skin of hands, face, throat, was very
dark, whether by inheritance or because of long exposure to sun and
wind, it would have been difficult to say. The eyes were dark, very
keen, and yet reminiscently grave. From under their black brows they
had the habit of appearing to be reluctantly withdrawn from some great
distance to come to rest, steady and calm, upon the man with whom he
chanced to be speaking. Such are the serene, dispassionate eyes of one
who for many months of the year goes companionless, save for what
communion he may find in the silent passes of the mountains, in the
wide sweep of the meadow-lands or in the soul of his horse.
The gaunt, sure-footed form was lost to Tommy's eyes; Lee had passed
beyond the clump of wild lilacs whose glistening, heart-shaped leaves
screened the open court about which the ranch-house was built. A
strangely elaborate ranch-house, this one, set here so far apart from
the world of rich residences. There was a score of rooms in the great,
one-story, rambling edifice of rudely squared timbers set in
field-stone and cement, rooms now closed and locked; there were
flower-gardens still cultivated daily by José, the half-breed; a pretty
court with a fountain and many roses, out upon which a dozen doorways
looked; wide verandas with glimpses beyond of fireplaces and long
expanses of polished floor. For, until recently, this had been not
only the headquarters of Blue Lake Ranch, but the home as well of the
chief of its several owners. Luke Sanford, whose own efforts alone had
made him at forty-five a man to be reckoned with, had followed his
fancy here extensively and expensively, allowing himself this one
luxury of his many lean, hard years. Then, six months ago, just as his
ambitions were stepping to fresh heights, just as his hands were
filling with newer, greater endeavor, there had come the mishap in the
mountains and Sanford's tragic death.
Lee passed silently through the courtyard, by the fountain which in the
brightening air was like a chain of silver run through invisible hands,
down the veranda bathed in the perfume of full-blown roses, and so came
to the door at the far end. The door stood open; within was the office
of Bayne Trevors, general manager. Lee entered, his hat still far back
upon his head. The sound of his boots upon the bare floor caused
Trevors to look up quickly.
"Hello, Lee," he said quietly. "Wait a minute, will you?"
Quite a different type from Lee, Bayne Trevors was heavy and square and
hard. His eyes were the glinting gray eyes of a man who is forceful,
dynamic, the sort of man who is a better captain than lieutenant, whose
hands are strong to grasp life by the throat and demand that she stand
and deliver. Only because of his wide and successful experience, of
his initiative, of his way of quick, decisive action mated to a marked
executive ability, had Luke Sanford chosen Bayne Trevors as his
right-hand man in so colossal a venture as the Blue Lake Ranch. Only
because of the same pushing, vigorous personality was he this morning
general manager, with the unlimited authority of a dictator over a
petty principality.
In a moment Trevors lifted his frowning eyes from the table, turning in
his chair to confront Lee, who stood lounging in leisurely manner
against the door-jamb.
"That young idiot wants money again," he growled, his voice as sharp
and quick as his eyes. "As if I didn't have enough to contend with
already!"
"Meaning young Hampton, I take it?" said Lee quietly.
Trevors nodded savagely.
"Telegram. Caught it over the line the last thing last night. We'll
have to sell some horses this time, Lee."
Lee's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "I didn't plan to do any selling
for six months yet," he said, not in expostulation but merely in
explanation. "They're not ready."
"How many three-year-olds have you got in your string in Big Meadow?"
asked Trevors crisply.
"Counting those eleven Red Duke colts?"
"Counting everything. How many?"
"Seventy-three."
The general manager's pencil wrote upon the pad in front of him "73,"
then swiftly multiplied it by 50. Lee saw the result, 3,650 set down
with the dollar sign in front of it. He said nothing.
"What would you say to fifty dollars a head for them?" asked Trevors,
whirling again in his swivel chair. "Three thousand six fifty for the
bunch?"
"I'd say the same," answered Lee deliberately, "that I'd say to a man
that offered me two bits for Daylight or Ladybird. I just naturally
wouldn't say anything at all."
"Who are Daylight and Ladybird?" demanded Trevors.
"They're two of _my_ little horses," said Lee gently, "that no man's
got the money to buy."
Trevors smiled cynically. "What are the seventy-three colts worth
then?"
"Right now, when I'm just ready to break 'em in," said Bud Lee
thoughtfully, "the worst of that string is worth fifty dollars. I'd
say twenty of the herd ought to bring fifty dollars a head; twenty more
ought to bring sixty; ten are worth seventy-five; ten are worth an even
hundred; seven of the Red Duke stock are good for a hundred and a
quarter; the other four Red Dukes and the three Robert the Devils are
worth a hundred and fifty a head. The whole bunch, an easy fifty-seven
hundred little iron men. Which," he continued dryly, "is considerable
more than the thirty-six hundred you're talking about. And, give me
six months, and I'll boost that fifty-seven hundred. Lord, man, that
chestnut out of Black Babe by Hazard, is a real horse! Fifty
dollars----"
He stared hard at Trevors a moment. And then, partially voicing the
thought with which he had grappled upon the corral gate, he added
meditatively: "There's something almighty peculiar about an outfit
that will listen to a man offer fifty bucks on a string like that."
His eyes, cool and steady, met Trevors's in a long look which was
little short of a challenge.
"Just how far does that go, Lee?" asked the manager curtly.
"As far as you like," replied the horse foreman coolly. "Are you going
to sell those three-year-olds for thirty-six hundred?"
"Yes," answered Trevors bluntly, "I am. What are you going to do about
it?"
"Ask for my time, I guess," and although his voice was gentle and even
pleasant, his eyes were hard. "I'll take my own little string and move
on.
"Curse it!" cried Trevors heatedly. "What difference does it make to
you? What business is it of yours how I sell? You draw down your
monthly pay, don't you? I raised you a notch last month without your
asking for it, didn't I?"
"That's so," agreed the foreman equably. "It's a cinch none of the
boys have any kick coming at the wages."
For a moment Trevors sat frowning up at Lee's inscrutable face. Then
he laughed shortly. "Look here, Bud," he said good-humoredly, an
obvious seriousness of purpose under the light tone. "I want to talk
with you before you do anything rash. Sit down." But Lee remained
standing, merely saying, "Shoot."
"I wonder," explained Trevors, "if the boys understand just the size of
the job I've got in my hands? You know that the ranch is a
million-dollar outfit; you know that you can ride fifteen miles without
getting off the home-range; you know that we are doing a dozen
different kinds of farming and stock-raising. But you don't know just
how short the money is! There's that young idiot now, Hampton. He
holds a third interest and I've got to consider what he says, even if
he is a weak-minded, inbred pup that can't do anything but spend an
inheritance like the born fool he is. His share is mortgaged; I've
tried to pay the mortgage off. I've got to keep the interest up.
Interest alone amounts, to three thousand dollars a year. Think of
that! Then there's Luke Sanford dead and his one-third interest left
to another young fool, a girl!"
Trevors's fist came smashing down upon his table. "A girl!" he
repeated savagely. "Worse than young Hampton, by Heaven! Every two
weeks she's writing for a report, eternally butting in, making
suggestions, hampering me until I'm sick of the job."
"That would be Luke's girl, Judith?"
"Yes. Two of the three owners' kids, writing me at every turn. And
the third owner, Timothy Gray, the only sensible one of the lot, has
just up and sold out his share, and I suppose I'll be hearing next that
some superannuated female in an old lady's home has inherited a fortune
and bought him out. Why, do you think I'd hold on to my job here for
ten minutes if it wasn't that my reputation is in making a go of the
thing? And now you, the best man I've got, throw me down!"
"I don't see," said Lee slowly, after a brief pause, "just what good it
does to sell a string of real horses like they were sheep. Half of
that herd is real horse-flesh, I tell you."
"Hampton wants money. And besides, a horse is a horse."
"Is it?" A hard smile touched Lee's lips. "That's just where a man
makes a mistake. Some horses are cows, some are clean spirit. You can
stake your boots on that, Trevors."
"Well," snapped Trevors, "suppose you are right. I've got to raise
three thousand dollars in a hurry. Where will I get it?"
"Who is offering fifty dollars a head for those horses?" asked Lee
abruptly. "It might be the Big Western Lumber Company?"
"Yes."
"Uh-huh. Well, you can kill the rats in your own barn, Trevors. I'll
go look for a job somewhere else."
Bayne Trevors, his lips tightly compressed, his eyes steady, a faint,
angry flush in his cheeks, checked what words were flowing to his
tongue and looked keenly at his foreman. Lee met his regard with cool
unconcern. Then, just as Trevors was about to speak, there came an
interruption.