Three days later Bud Lee learned that Judith Sanford was, after all,
"just a girl, you know"; that at least for once in her life she had
slipped away to be by herself and to cry. He stopped dead in his
tracks when he came unexpectedly upon her, become suddenly awkward,
embarrassed, a moment uncertain, but yielding swiftly to an impulse to
run for it.
"Come here, Bud Lee!" commanded Judith sharply, dabbing at her eyes.
"I want to talk with you."
He was at the Upper End where he had ridden for half a dozen young
horses which were to be taken down into the meadow for their education.
And here she was, on a bench outside the old cabin, indulging herself
in a hearty cry.
"I--I didn't know you were here," he stammered. "I was going to make
some coffee and have lunch here. I do, sometimes. It's a real fine
day, isn't it, Miss Sanford? Nice and warm and--" His voice trailed
off indistinctly.
"Oh, scat!" cried Judith at him, half laughing, still half crying. She
had wiped her eyes but still two big tears, untouched, trembled on her
cheeks. In spite of him Lee couldn't keep his eyes off of them.
"I'm just crying," Judith told him then, with a sudden assumption of
cool dignity which had in it something of defiance. "I've got a right
to, if I want to, haven't I? What do you look at me like that for?"
"Sure," he answered hastily. "It does you good to cry; I know. Great
thing. All ladies do, sometimes----"
Judith sniffed.
"You know all that there is to be known about '_ladies_,' don't you?
In your vast wisdom all you've got to do is lump 'em in one of your
brilliant generalities. That's the man of you!"
"Maybe I'd better go make the coffee?" he suggested hurriedly. "It's
after twelve. And it'll do you good. A nice hot cup."
"Maybe you had," said Judith icily. "Perhaps I can postpone my
conversation with you until the water boils."
Lee went into the cabin without looking back. Judith, watching him,
saw that he ran his hand across his forehead. She sniffed at him
again. But when Lee had the coffee ready she had washed her face at
the spring, had tucked her tumbled hair back under her hat, and,
looking remarkably cool, came into the cabin. Lee thought of his
meeting with Marcia, of her repeated assurance that she knew she had
violated the conventions.
"You _can_ make coffee," Judith nodded her approval as she sipped at
the black beverage, cooled a little by condensed milk. Lee was busied
with a tin containing potted meat. "Now, have you got over your shock
so that I can talk with you?"
He smiled at her across the little oil-cloth-covered table, and
answered lightly and with his old assurance that he guessed he had
steadied his nerve. Hadn't he told her a cup of coffee would do
wonders?
"Would it go to your head," began the girl abruptly, "if I were to tell
you that I size you up as the best man I've got on my pay-roll?"
"I'd try to keep both feet on the ground," he said gravely, though he
wondered what was coming.
"I'll explain," she continued, her tone impersonally businesslike.
"Next to you, I count on Doc Tripp; next to Tripp, on Carson. They are
good men; they are trustworthy; they understand ranch conditions and
they know what loyalty to the home-range means. But Tripp is just a
veterinarian; simply that and nothing more. His horizon isn't very
wide. Neither is Carson's."
"And mine?" he grinned at her. "Read me my horoscope, Miss Sanford!"
"You have taken the trouble to be something more than just a horse
foreman," she told him quietly. "I don't know what your advantages
have been; if you haven't gone through high school, then at least you
have been ambitious enough to get books, to read, to educate yourself.
You have developed further than Carson; you have broadened more than
Tripp."
"Thanks," he offered dryly.
"Oh, I'm not seeking to intrude into your private affairs, Mr. Bud
Lee!" she cried warmly at his tone. "I have no desire to do so, having
no interest in them. First of all, I want one thing clear: You said
when I first came that you'd stay a few days, long enough for me to get
a man in your place. We have both been rather too busy to think of
your leaving or my seeking a substitute. Now what? The job is yours
as long as you want it--if you'll stay. I don't want you leaving me in
the lurch. Do you want to go? Or do you want to stick?"
What did he want? He had anticipated an interference from the girl in
his management of the duty allotted him and no such interference had
come. She left him unhampered, even as she did Tripp and Carson. He
had his interest in his horses. It was pleasant here. This cabin was
a sort of home to him. Besides, he had the idea that Quinnion and
Shorty might again be heard from--that if Trevors was backing their
play, there would be other threats offered the Blue Lake outfit from
which he had no desire to run. There was such a thing as loyalty to
the home-range, and in the half-year he had worked here it had become a
part of him.
"I'll stick," he said quietly.
"I'm glad of that," replied Judith. "Oh, you'll have your work cut out
for you, Bud Lee, and, that you may be the better fitted to do it, I
want you to know just what I am up against."
She paused a moment, stirring her coffee with one of Lee's tin spoons,
gathering her thoughts. Then, speaking thoughtfully, she explained:
"It's a gamble, with us bucking the long odds. Dad left me a third
interest, clear, valued, counting stock, at a good deal more than four
hundred thousand dollars. He left me no cash. Dad never had any cash.
Just so soon as he got his hands on it he put it to work. I knew he
had planned taking over another one-third interest, and I went on with
his plans. I mortgaged my share for two hundred thousand dollars,
which I got at five per cent. That means I have to dig up each year,
just interest, ten thousand dollars. That's a pretty big lump, you
know."
"Yes," he admitted slowly. "That's big; mighty big."
"With the money I raised," Judith continued, "I bought out the third
owner, Timothy Gray. He let his holding go for three hundred and fifty
thousand. It was a bargain for me--if I can make a go of it. I still
owe, on the principal, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I owe
on my mortgage two hundred thousand. Total of my indebtedness, three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And that's bigger, Bud Lee."
"Yes. That's bigger figures than I can quite get the hang of."
No wonder she had been crying. Even if everything went smooth on the
Blue Lake she, too, had her work cut out for her.
"Now," she ran on, her voice stirring him with the ringing note in it,
"I can make a go of it--if they will just let me alone! I am playing
close to the table, Lee, close! I have a little money in the bank,
enough to run along for two or three months, that's all. I said that
dad left no cash. I didn't mention his insurance." Her eyes grew
suddenly wet but she did not avert them from Lee's face, going on
quietly: "That was ten thousand dollars. Close to seven thousand had
to go for his current obligations. I have about two thousand to run
on."
"Close hauled," grunted Lee. And to himself, he remarked as he had
remarked once before: "She's got her sand."
Quite naturally Bud Lee thought swiftly of his horses. He had told
Trevors that he wanted to make no sale for at least six months. Given
until then--if Judith could make a go of it without forcing a
sale--he'd show her the way to at least seven or eight thousand, with a
good percentage of clear profit.
"To begin with," Judith's voice interrupted his musings, "I am going to
have trouble with Carson. I admit that he's an exceptionally good
cattle foreman; I admit, too, that he has his limitations. He is of
the old school, and has got to learn something! Already he has his
weather-eye cocked for the lean season; he'll be coming to me in August
or September, telling me I've got to begin selling. That's the way
they all do! And the result is that beef cattle drop and the market
clogs with them. What I am going to do is make Carson start in buying
then. Oh, he'll buck like one of his own red bay steers but he'll buy!"
"We're pretty well stocked up," Lee offered gently. "Turning the hills
over to the hogs makes a difference, too. We're going to be short of
feed long before September is over."
"Short of range feed, yes," she retorted warmly. "But we're going to
put our trust in our silos, Lee, and make them do such work for us as
they have never done before. Then, when other folks are forced to sell
off for what they can get, we'll hold on and buy. We won't sell before
December or January, when the market is up."
He shook his head. Though not of the old school which had produced
Carson, still he put little faith in those tall towers into which
alfalfa and Indian corn were fed to make lush fodder.
"I don't know a whole lot about silos," he admitted.
"Neither does Carson," said Judith. "He looks at such things as silos
and milking-machines and tractors and fences even as the old Indians
must have looked at the inroads of the white men. But, do you know
where he has been these last few days?"
"In San Francisco? Heard him say he was going to take a few days off."
Judith laughed.
"That's Carson for you! He wouldn't admit where he was going. I sent
him down to Davis where the State experimental farm and laboratories
are. He's going to see silo, study silo, think silo until he gets a
new idea into his head. I have ordered a big extension in our
irrigated area, I have begun the construction of two more silos. When
Carson gets back he's going to look around for some more shorthorns at
bargain prices. I have an idea it wouldn't do you any harm either, to
look over what we are doing down at the Lower End."
Again she paused. Then, her eyes suddenly darkening, she told him
what, after all, lay top-most in her mind.
"I have said that if I am given the chance, I can make a go of this.
It's up to you, Bud Lee, to help see that I get that chance. An
attempt was made to spread the lung-worm through my calves. Now it's
the hogs. Do you know what the latest news is from the pens? There's
cholera among them."
"Where did it come from?" he demanded. "Tripp's been keeping the
health of our stock up right along."
"Where did it come from?" Judith repeated after him. "That's what I
don't know. We've been so careful. But where did the calf sickness
come from? Bayne Trevors imported it."
The inference was clear. He stared at her with frowning eyes.
"I don't see how he could have done it without Tripp's getting on to
it. He hasn't bought any new hogs."
"But you understand now why I wanted to talk to you? If I win out in
the thing I have taken on my shoulders, it is going to be by a close
margin. I've thought it all out. We can't slip up in a single deal!
But, it's up to you to give me a hand. To find out for yourself such
things as where did the cholera come from! And to look out, that the
next time they don't burn us out, when the range is dry. To see that
nothing happens to your horses. To keep your two eyes wide open. To
help me find the man, working with us right now, who is double-crossing
us, who turned Shorty loose, who is watching a chance to do his knife
act again somewhere else. Do you get me, Bud Lee?"
"I get you," replied Lee.
From without, gay voices, calling merrily, interrupted them. Lee went
swiftly to the door while Judith finished her coffee and pulled her
broad hat a little lower to throw its shadow in her eyes.
"Ahoy, there!" It was Pollock Hampton's voice. "We saw your horses
and thought we'd catch you picnicking. Got a fire going, too! Say,
that's bully. Come ahead, Marcia."
Marcia, a long riding-habit gathered in one hand, her cheeks flushed
with her ride, her eyes bright as they rested upon the tall form in the
doorway, came on behind Hampton. As the eyes of the two girls met, a
sudden hot flush flooded Judith's cheeks. She hated herself for it;
she wondered just how red her eyes were.
"Say, Judith," called Hampton, "I'm glad as the dickens we found you.
Sawyer, the sheriff, telephoned just now. Said to tell you he'd
located Quinnion. The funny part of it is that we made a mistake. It
wasn't Quinnion at all that tried to shoot you and Bud up the other
night."
"How's that?" demanded Lee. "Who says it wasn't?"
"Sawyer. Found Quinnion at a sheepman's place thirty or forty miles
north of here. The sheepman swore Quinnion had been with him two
weeks, was with him that night."
"A sheepman _can_ lie," grunted Lee.
Judith's brief moment of confusion passed, she ushered Marcia into the
cabin. True to her promise, Miss Langworthy, though she flashed a
quick look toward Lee, did not speak to him. He found himself flushing
quite as hotly as Judith had done.
"We've just finished our lunch," Judith was saying. "And we've left
you half of our coffee."
"I've been simply dying to see this place!" cried Marcia impetuously.
"I told Pollock that it was a sure sign he didn't love me any more if
he wouldn't bring me. And you and--and one of the men," her eyes on
Judith's, "actually were in here, being shot at! Judith, dear, you are
just the bravest girl in the world. If I'd been here I'd have simply
died. I know I would."
Perhaps she would. At any rate she shuddered delightfully. She found
a bullet-hole in the door and put a pink forefinger into it, giving a
second little shiver. She managed to keep her back full upon Lee.
"Oh, by the way," said Hampton, busy opening the parcel of lunch they
had brought with them, "Marcia's heard all about you, Bud. You said
you wanted to meet Lee, Marcia. Well, here he is, tall and handsome in
a devilish reckless way, looking at the dimple at the back of your
neck. Miss Langworthy, Mr. Lee. Judith, that coffee smells good!"
"You are a naughty little boy, Pollock," said Miss Langworthy coolly.
Nevertheless she turned smiling to Lee and put out her hand to him.
"Mr. Hampton really makes quite a hero of you," she said composedly.
"I think I have seen you--from a distance, you know."
The small whiteness of her hand was swallowed up in the lean brown of
his.
"Hampton's a prevaricator," he said gravely, as he looked down into the
merry blue eyes turned up to him. "But he's a gentleman I have to
thank for the introduction. I am very happy to know you, Miss
Langworthy."
"And now," cried Marcia, slipping her hand out of Lee's and going to a
chair near the table, "do tell me all about that terrible, terrible
night. But do you think we are quite safe here now, Mr. Lee?"
To herself Judith was saying: "Just the type to be Bud Lee's ideal
lady!"
When they left the cabin, an hour later, Judith challenged Hampton to a
ride and so left Marcia and Bud Lee to follow leisurely.