A MOUNTAIN PORTIA
It was a long ride from the HC to the round-up camp but the sorrel was
not spared. The impulse that sent Jane Hunter through the last hours of
darkness had only accumulated strength before the resistance which had
held it back through those dragging days. She was on her way to her
lover, to explain in a word the situation that had caused the breach
between them; she had fought down the pride of which that resistance
was made and now her every thought, her every want was to make Beck
know that it was humiliation and injured pride rather than infidelity
which had sent him away.
Thought that she had failed to stand self possessed before Bobby
Cole--a burning, shaming thought yesterday--was relegated to an obscure
place in her consciousness. She had fallen short of the poise her lover
would have her retain, but that did not matter ... not now.
Without Beck's love there was nothing for her, she had come to believe
and she experienced a strange, little-girl feeling, fleeing toward the
protecting arms that could comfort and hold her safe from the blackness
that was elsewhere.
She leaned low on the sorrel's neck and called to him and he ran
through the dying night breathing excitedly as her impatience was
communicated to him. Dawn yawned in the east and the mountains took
shape. The road became discernable before her. She drew the excited
horse down to a trot and forced herself to force him to conserve some
of his splendid energy.... Then urged him forward, a moment later, at a
stretching run....
The round-up camp was moving that day. The riders were up and the first
had swung off for the work of the morning before she pulled her horse
to a stop beside the chuck wagon.
"He ain't here, ma'am," Oliver replied to her query for Beck.
"Not here?"--sharply, for she sensed from him that something was wrong.
"No. He left yesterday. He told me to head this ride. He--"
"And where did he go?" she broke in, voice not just steady.
"I don't know, ma'am." The man studied her face intently, seeing the
confusion there, adding it to the evidence he had collected to piece
out a theory. "I thought maybe he said something to you about quitting."
"_Quitting!_ You don't mean that!"
"It looks like it, ma'am. I didn't know just how to take what he said.
It seems like somethin' 's got him worried. He wasn't like himself. You
wouldn't know him.
"He said that future plans for this outfit didn't interest him. He said
he was leavin' and it wasn't likely he'd be back but it wasn't so much
what he said as it was th' way he said it that made me think he was
goin' to drift. We all know he's got some pretty active enemies but it
wasn't like Beck to run away from 'em. Still....
"He left me in charge an' said I was to take orders from you. He ain't
showed up since and Lord knows where he'd go except out of the country."
Out of the country! The words made her hear but vaguely the story of
the ruined Tank and the questions about the work that Oliver put to
her. Out of the country! He had gone, then, thinking that her love had
not been a fast love, that she was wholly unworthy. He had taken his
chance and had lost and that loss had taken from him even the desire to
stay and face the men who would drive him out of the country because he
had defended her!
Later Jane found herself riding homeward, the sorrel at a walk, her
mind numb and heavy. Last night it had been a question of love against
her pride; she had sacrificed the latter only to find that that
sacrifice had been made too late.
She wanted, suddenly, to quit ... to quit trying ... thinking....
She canvased the situation: she was alone, without an understanding
individual upon whom to lean. She was the target for great forces of
evil which sought to undermine her very determination to exist in that
country. A faint wave of resentment made itself felt at that. They
would continue their war and upon a lone woman! She realized her
position more keenly than she had before, when Beck had been shielding
her. Now she stood unprotected. If she were to exist she _must stand
alone!_
Her mind went back to that time when Dick Hilton had told her that she
could not stand alone and her resentment became a degree more
pronounced.
The lethargy, the hopelessness clung but behind it was something else,
a realization that she had not lost utterly. She had lost the love she
had found, but had she failed to gain anything? Yesterday it seemed
that the ripest fruits of experience were hers; she had
position--menaced, but still hers--she had love. Months before she had
abandoned the quest of love, seeking only to stand alone. She might go
back to her outlook of those days, put aside the call of her heart and
seek only for place; she could make that search intelligently now!
She sat at her desk, a spirit of resignation coming as a sort of
comfort. If she had lost love, had she lost all that there was in life?
No, not that! There was something else she had found in these months:
She had found _herself!_
Tom Beck was gone, his love for her was dead, miles were between them,
and she believed she knew him well enough to understand that he had put
her forever behind him. She had lost the true fulfillment of life,
perhaps, but something remained. And the question came: Why not make
the best of it? Why not keep what remains? Why not fight for it? Why
not _stand alone?_
Oh, she had not known the strength that had been born of Beck's
resistance to her wooing! That morning she believed that she could
quit, that she could drift aimlessly, buffeted by vagrant influences,
but now she knew that she could not. A compelling force had been
started within her which would not down, a driving impulse to keep on,
to salvage her self respect, to wrest from life what remained.
And in this she recognized that quality which Beck had planted in her,
which he had nourished and coaxed and made to grow. To keep on would be
rite offered at the shrine of her love for him ... though he was
gone....
For a moment she cried and after that hope was born. He might return;
she might even follow and make him understand. She set that back,
resolutely. Tom Beck was gone from her life, she told herself, but his
influence remained. That could never go; by error she had lost final
achievement: love. By error she had been thrown back upon herself, her
own resources, her own will.
The war that was waged upon her had been a terrifying thing yesterday;
now it was even more horrible for it sought to take from her the last
thing that remained to be desired, and that could not be!
She wiped her eyes angrily and repeated aloud:
"That cannot _be!_"
She must fight on alone; fight harder than she ever had fought in her
life before. It was up to her, now, to remain fast in the face of
efforts to dislodge her.
Jane paced the floor nervously, in quick, swinging strides. There was
the burning of hay, the breaking of ditches; there was the shooting
down of Two-Bits, the destruction of Cathedral Tank, there was the
presence in the Hole of the nester and his daughter. At thought of
Bobby a sharp pang shot through her. There was a woman who could
dominate! There, perhaps, was the key to the puzzle.
Beck had intimated that her enemies found a nucleus in the nester's
outfit; the Reverend had been outspoken in his suspicion; she had
confided in Riley that she suspected something of the sort. Cole
himself was a negligible quantity but the girl was not. The catamount
might hold Jane Hunter's fate in her hand ... the hand that had struck
her!
On her desk lay the envelope in which had been Beck's note; beside it
the locket. She paused, picked up the trinket and studied it as it lay
on her small palm. Slowly she lifted it to her lips, clutched it
tightly and then with a catch of breath fastened it about her neck,
where it nestled as though coming home again.
She needed her luck, he had written! Oh yes, she needed her luck!
And even then a rider was speeding across the hills toward her, lashing
his horse, crashing through brush, leaping down timber, clattering over
treacherous ledges to save time: and other men were riding on Jimmy
Oliver's orders, bringing the cow-boys in off their circles, assembling
them in Devil's Hole where a group of men stood silent and sullen....
Oh, she would fight on, desperate in her determination to crowd thought
of a lost love from her life! She welcomed combat for it would be as a
balm to that gaping wound of loss.
Later she saw the rider come into the ranch on his lathered horse. He
flung off at the bunk house and, a moment later, came running toward
her with Curtis at his side.
Alarmed, Jane met them at the door with a query on her lips.
"They want you in the Hole, ma'am," Curtis said.
"What's the trouble?"--for it could be nothing but trouble which would
bring men in such haste and she had a crisp fear that it pertained to
Beck.
"They've got Cole down there with a lot of your calves an' he's put his
brand on 'em. Webb's there, too, an' Hepburn. They're holdin' 'em all
for you to come," the messenger said. He was excited, he breathed
rapidly and added: "Oliver an' Riley agreed you ought to come. It's
your property ... an' it's your fight."
Her fight! Her fight, indeed! Perhaps this was a drawing to a head of
the forces that had been arrayed against her. The man had mentioned
Webb and Hepburn as though he considered their presence of significance.
A pinto, this time, bore her away from the ranch, the man, tense and
silent, riding beside her. She did not speak as they scrambled up the
point and gained high country nor did she look at him as they set into
a gallop again. An indistinct haze was coming in the west with a
looming thunder head protruding from it here and there. The wind in
their faces was hot and fitful. The scarf about her neck fluttered
erratically.
Jane had little attention for the detail of that ride. This was her
fight and she raced to meet it with an eagerness born of necessity to
retain what she might of the happiness she had made hers. And as she
rode Tom Beck, pieces cut from his chaps bound about his feet to
protect them on the long journey by foot, his retrieved canteen over
his shoulder, limped into the camp, heard the cook's vague,
disconnected story of the discovery that had been made in the Hole,
borrowed boots, saddled a horse and rode swiftly across the hills.
* * * * *
The pinto took Jane down the trail in great lunges, for she had no
thought for dangers of the descent. At the foot was one of her men,
Baldy Bowen, sitting ominously on his horse with a rifle across the
horn. He watched her come and before she could speak jerked his head
and said:
"They're waitin' for you, straight across there, ma'am."
She glanced in his direction and set off with renewed speed, winding
through the cedars.
Against the far wall of the Hole was formed a curious group before a
fence of brush and wire that blocked the entrance to a box gulch. HC
riders were there, dismounted, in a silent, unsmiling cluster. Under a
cedar tree sat Cole, the nester, knees drawn up, arms falling limply
over them; more than ever he seemed to be drooping, in spirit as well
as body. He did not glance up; just sat, staring from beneath drooping
lids at the ground. Nearby lounged one of Jane's cowboys, his holster
hitched significantly forward.
Apart from these others stood Hepburn, Webb and Bobby Cole and one
other, curiously out of place in his smart clothes: Dick Hilton. Now
and then one of the four spoke and the others would eye the speaker
closely; then look away, absorbed in a situation that was evidently
beyond words. Sitting grouped on the ground were Webb's riders and
Cole's Mexicans. They talked and laughed lowly among themselves and
from time to time turned rather taunting grins at Jane Hunter's men.
At a short distance stood horses, grazing or dozing; listless, all. But
there was no listlessness among the men. The atmosphere was tense ...
to the breaking point.
A rider came through the brush and stopped his horse. It was Sam McKee.
He looked with widening eyes at the gathering, hesitated, as though to
turn and leave, then approached.
"I seen two men in th' Gap," he said to Webb. "They said...."
He looked about again.
"Well, get down an' set," Webb said cynically.
McKee stared from face to face.
"I guess I'll go on."
"I guess you'll stay here," said Jimmy Oliver firmly. "We've got a
little matter to talk over an' nobody leaves. I guess the boys in th'
Gap probably thought you'd like to hear what was goin' on."
Hilton stepped toward Oliver.
"Look here," he said, "I'm a disinterested party to all this. There's
no use in my staying here."
"What I said to Sam goes for everybody else, Mister. When we put riders
in the Gap an' at the trails we intended for everybody to hang around.
That goes. Everybody!"
Then he added: "If anybody wants to get out it'll be pretty good
evidence that he's got somethin' to hide. This 's a matter that the
whole country's interested in. You ain't got nothin' to hide, have you?"
The Easterner did not reply; turned back to Bobby with a grimace.
Sound of running hoofs and a quick silence shut down upon the
gathering. The clouds were coming up more rapidly from the west; day
was drawing down into them; the wind on the heights soughed restlessly.
Jane Hunter brought her pinto to an abrupt stop and sat, flushed and
wind-blown, looking about.
"Well?" she said to Jimmy Oliver as he stepped forward.
"We sent for you, ma'am, because we stumbled onto somethin' that looks
bad ... for somebody."
Her eyes ran from face to face. In the expression of her men she read a
curious loyalty, mingled with speculation. They watched her closely as
Oliver spoke, as men look upon a leader, as though waiting for her to
speak that they might act. Still, about them was a reservation, as
though their acceptance of her was conditional, as though they wondered
what she would say or do.
She saw Webb and Hepburn eyeing her craftily; she saw Bobby Cole's gaze
on her, filled with hate and scorn ... and a strange brand of fear. And
she saw Dick Hilton, eyeing her with helpless rage and offended
dignity. The entire assemblage was grimly in earnest.
"Go on," she said lowly and dismounted, standing erect on a rise of
rock that put her head and shoulders above the others.
"Jim Black here,"--indicating a cowboy in white angora chaps--"took
down the trail after a renegade steer this forenoon. He came on this
place and a hot fire and a yearlin' steer of yours whose brand had been
tampered with.
"There's been enough goin' on recent, ma'am, to let everybody know that
something was pretty wrong. Mebby we've run onto the answer today.
That's why we sent for you."
She looked about again and old Riley, moving out from the group slowly,
as a man who feels that the welfare of others may be in his hands might
move, said:
"For twenty years we've lived quite peaceable here, Miss Hunter. Since
spring we've had anything but peace. It ain't a question that concerns
any one of us alone; it affects the whole country. We've got evidence
here of stealin'; we've got a man who, in our minds, ought to be tried
for that crime....
"We sent for you because it happened to be your property. There's
plenty of law in the mountains, but things have happened here that have
put men beyond that law. Parties have resorted to the law of strength,
and not honest strength at that. It's time it was stopped or some of us
ain't goin' to exist....
"I know this ain't a pleasant task for a woman, but it seems like
somethin' you've got to face ... if you're goin' to stay here. I guess
you understand that, ma'am."
Jane's heart leaped in apprehension, she was short of breath, blood
roared in her ears, but she fought to retain at least a show of
composure.
"It seemed there wasn't any way out of it, but to turn the matter over
to you. We'll all tell what we know; we'll see that there's order here.
We agreed you ought to sit as judge on the evidence against this man."
Again a consciousness of those faces upon her; faces of her men,
honest, rugged, brave fellows, looking to her to stand alone! She knew,
then, what that alloy in their loyalty had been. They would follow if
she would lead; there was doubt in their hearts that she _could_
lead, for she was a woman, she was a stranger and not their kind! For
months they had watched her, refusing to judge, but now the time had
come. Now, if she ever was to stand alone, she must rise in her own
strength and be worthy to lead such men!
Then there were those others: Hepburn and Webb and their outlaw
following; perhaps, among them, the man who had shot Two-Bits down when
he was serving her; perhaps the man who had burned her hay, broken her
ditches, run off her horses. The men who would drive her out.
She felt suddenly weak. They were all watching her. This was the hour
in which she must win or lose. It was _she_, not Alf Cole, who was
on trial!
Jane began to speak, rather slowly, but evenly and clearly.
"I want the story from the beginning. Jim Black, will you tell what you
know?"
Thus simply she accepted her responsibility to the country, took up her
final fight for position there.
Black stepped forward, serious, quiet, showing no self consciousness
whatever as the eyes swung upon him. Webb's riders had risen and were
grouped behind their leader.
"Jimmy told you how I happened here. This steer, ma'am, cut across the
flat an' I followed. I heard bawlin' over this way an', naturally, was
surprised. Pulled up my hoss an' rode over. There was a fire in that
gulch, an' it'd just been scattered. A man had been kneelin' down by
it, an' there was one of your yearlin's hog-tied there. Your ear mark
was still on him but your brand had been made from an HC into a THO
by crossin' the H an' closin' the C."
He stooped and with his quirt demonstrated thusly:
[Illustration: HC THO]
"There was other calves in there. I counted sixteen. They was all THO
stuff an' they was all mighty young."
"Did you see any men?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I dragged it for high country, got Jimmy an' told
him."
"Oliver, have someone bring out this yearling," Jane said.
Two men mounted their horses, opened the brush gate, roped the steer
and dragged him, bawling, into the assemblage. Jane stepped down from
her rock and, with a dozen others crowding about, examined the brand.
"That's unmistakable," she said lowly as she straightened. "Part of
that brand healed months ago; the rest is fresh."
She moved back to the rock on which she had stood and rested a hand on
the pinto's withers.
"Oliver, what did you do?" she asked.
"I gathered the boys an' come down here as fast as I could. I saw this
pen an' the calves. I sent men to both trails an' two to the Gap with
orders to shoot to kill anybody that tried to get out. Then I went to
Cole's house.
"Cole swore up an' down that he didn't know anything about it. His gal
was there an' this here party from the east,"--with a rather
contemptuous jerk of his head toward Hilton. "I brought Cole back here
an' the others followed.
"Seems Webb and Hepburn an' their men was in th' Hole. I didn't know
it. Th' gal ... she went to get 'em.
"It's just as well,"--dryly. "This ain't a matter that affects any one
of us. It's for everybody in th' country to consider."
Hepburn stirred uneasily as Jane looked from Oliver to him.
"I think all that's necessary is to talk to Mr. Cole," she said.
The nester looked up slowly and laboriously gained his feet. He
slouched toward the girl.
"I don't know nothin' about it," he said in his whining voice.
Bobby Cole took a quick step forward as he spoke, but Hepburn put out a
detaining hand and muttered a word. She stopped. Her face was
colorless; eyes hard and bright; she breathed quickly and seemed almost
on the verge of tears.
"Who built this pen?" Jane asked.
"I don't know."
"Did you ever see it before?"
"No, I--well, I did _see_ it, but I don't know nothin' about it."
"You've been here all the Spring and didn't know anything about it?"
Her tone was sharp, decisive and the color had mounted in her face. She
leaned slightly forward from the hips.
"No, I don't know nothin' about it," he protested, lifting his
characterless eyes to hers.
"Who brands your cattle?"
"I do."
"No one else?"
"Not another,"--with a slow shaking of the head.
"Can you think of anybody who would put your brand on my cattle?"
"No. Nobody would hev done that."
"But have you looked at this steer?"--indicating the yearling with the
indisputable evidence on his side.
Cole lifted an unsteady hand to scratch his mustache, eyed the animal
furtively and glanced at Hepburn. As their eyes met Hepburn's head
moved in slight, quick negation. Ever so slight, ever so quick, but
Jane Hunter saw and Hepburn saw that she saw and a guilty flush whipped
into his face, spreading clear to the eyes.
"Hasn't someone been working over my brand?" she demanded, forcing Cole
to look at her again.
"I don't know ... I dunno nothin' about it...."
She breathed deeply and moved a step backward.
"How do you suppose these calves come to be here? My calves, with your
brand on them?"
"Them is my calves, ma'am," he protested, weakly, "Them is old brands."
"Oh, all but this yearling belong to you?"
"Yes,"--nodding his head as his confidence rallied. "Them's all mine. I
branded 'em myself."
"And why do you keep them here?"
"Well, there's water an' feed an' I wanted to wean 'em--"
"And a moment ago you said you knew nothing about this pen?"
A flicker of confusion crossed the man's face and again he looked away
toward Hepburn in mute appeal. Hepburn's face reflected a contempt, a
wrath, and for a fraction of time Jane studied it intently, a quick
hope forming in her breast. She lifted a hand to touch, in unconscious
caress, the locket which was at her throat.
"Look at me, Cole!" she cried and her body trembled. Her tone was
compelling, she experienced a sensation of mounting power, felt that
she was dominating and without looking she knew that the men before her
stirred, impressed by her rising confidence. "Look at me and answer my
questions!"
Hesitatingly the man looked back and then dropped his eyes.
"Well, I said I knew it was here."
"You knew more than that. You have been using it. How long ago was it
built?"
"A month--Oh, I dunno--"
"What about a month?" she insisted, gesturing bruskly. "What about a
month?"
"I dunno."
She relaxed a trifle again and eyed the confused, visibly agitated man.
For a breath the place was in utter silence. The gloom deepened; the
wind held off. It was as though the crisis were at hand.... And just
then the man at the foot of the trail across the flat put down his
rifle and said with a short laugh:
"I didn't make you out, Tom."
* * * * *
When Jane spoke again it was in an easier tone.
"How did you happen to come to this country, Cole?"
He looked up, relief showing in his face as she abandoned the other
line of questioning. Hepburn stirred and Webb lifted a hand to hook his
thumb in his belt.
"Why, I heered about this place. Good feed an' water an' a place to
settle. So I just come; that's all."
"How did you hear about it?"
"A feller told me."
"Who?"
"I dunno his name. I--"
"How many cows have you?"
Her voice was suddenly sharp and hard as she cut in on his impotent
evasion and shifted her subject again.
"Why, 'bout twenty."
"And how many calves are with them?"
He seemed to calculate, but she insisted, leaning closer to him:
"How many calves?"
"Why, not more'n half of 'em got calves."
"Sure? Not more than half?"
"Why ... I guess--"
"And you've got sixteen young calves in this pen! How do you account
for that?"
A murmur ran among her men and Cole looked at her with fright in his
eyes.
"I dunno!" he suddenly burst out, voice trembling. "I dunno nothin'
about it. You've all got me here an' are pickin' on me. I didn't steal
anything. I thought they was all mine." And then, in a broken,
repressedly frantic appeal: "I don't want to go to jail again. I don't
know nothin'...."
"Again?" she said, quite gently.
He looked at her and nodded slowly. The little resistance he had
offered her was gone; his limbs trembled and his eyes had that whipped,
abject look that a broken spirited dog will show.
"You've been in jail once? For stealing cattle?"
"I didn't steal.... They said I did. They didn't want me around.
They're like all you big outfits; they don't want me ... they don't
want me...."
He lifted one hand in a gesture of hopeless appeal and tears showed in
his eyes. They didn't want him, as she didn't want him! And suddenly an
overwhelming pity surged upward in the girl for this man. It was like
her, like all the Jane Hunters, like all men and women in whose hearts
great strength and great pity is combined. There was no question of his
guilt, but he was helpless before her; his fate was in her hands ...
and back in her mind that other theory was forming; that other hope was
coming to stronger life....
"Cole, did you steal my calves?"
She leaned low and spoke intently; her voice was a mingling of
resolution and warmth that created confidence in his heart. For a
moment he evaded her look; then answered it and a sob came up into his
thin throat and shook it. He looked from her to Hepburn and then to
Webb and read there something that Jane, whose eyes followed his, could
not read; all she could read was threat ... threat, threat!
"Did you steal my calves?" she repeated in a tone even lower.
She saw her men strain forward.
"Oh, I don't want to go to jail!" he said and tears streamed down his
seamed cheeks. "I took 'em ... but I'm a poor man ... a poor man...."
From Bobby came a stifled cry. She started forward again, but this time
it was Hilton who grasped her arm, rather roughly. He drew her back,
hissing a word between his teeth. His eyes glittered.
Riley stepped forward quickly beside Cole. His face was strained; mouth
very grim. Oliver was beside him; breathing quickly.
"What's your verdict, Miss Hunter?" Riley asked. His voice was hoarse.
"You have heard it," she said gently. "You heard it from his lips."
She was not looking at them, but at Bobby Cole, who stood with knuckles
pressed against her lips, fright, misery in her staring eyes. The
strength, the vindictiveness was gone. She was a little girl, then, a
little girl in trouble!
"Then I guess there's nothin' to do, but to go through with this
ourselves." The old cattle man spoke slowly and rather heavily. "Cole,
there's a way of treatin' thieves in this country that's gone out of
fashion in recent years; we ain't had to hang nobody for a long time,
but--"
"Stop!"
It was a clear, ringing cry from Jane that checked Riley, that caused
the man who had grimly picked up his rope to stand holding it
motionless in his hand.
"This is a matter for all of us, but by common consent I was selected
to judge this man. He has admitted his guilt after an opportunity to
protest his innocence. Now you must let me pass sentence...."
"Sentence, ma'am?" Riley asked. "There's only one way. This has been
war: they've warred you, they've threatened to drive you out. It's you
or ... your enemies. This man is your proven enemy. Make an example of
him. He's guilty; nothin' else should be considered!"
"One thing," she said, smiling for the first time that afternoon, a
slow, serious, grave smile, withal a tender smile, as she looked at
Cole, the trembling craven.
"One thing: The quality of mercy!
"Men, do you know that line? 'The quality of mercy is not strained. It
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven'?
"Mercy is the most holy thing in human relations. It is a blessing not
only to the man who receives it, but to the man that gives!"
The first, dissenting stir died. This was no dodging, no evading the
issue. This was something new and her manner caught their interest as
she stood with one outstretched hand appealing frankly for their
attention and understanding.
"This man has stolen from me. You have seen him here. He has shown
himself to be a weakling, a poor, wretched man, who has neither friends
nor respect for himself. He has known trouble before." She looked from
the man before her to Bobby whose strained face was on hers with
amazement, whose breast rose and fell irregularly, in whose eyes stood
tears. "I think that he has known little but trouble; he has been
unfortunate perhaps because he tried to help himself by troubling
others. There is only one thing left in life for him and that is his
liberty.
"He cannot hurt me. He cannot hurt any of us from now on. He knows what
we know of this thing today. He will stand before us all as a man who
has not played the game fairly.
"Do you fear him? Do you young, strong men fear this man?... No, you
don't! No more than I. We have seen him humbled; we have heard him
plead. Giving him his liberty will cost us nothing. I will go so far as
to promise you that he will never steal from us again ... if we do this
for him.... Don't you agree with me?"
She looked from face to face, but as her eyes traveled they were not
for an instant unconscious of other faces ... back there; faces to
which had come relief, relaxation, color, after tensity and pallor;
faces which the next instant were dark and apprehensive, for she said:
"I don't want you to think that I am through ... not now. There has
been stealing, but that has been only a part of the trouble. There have
been other things, things which this man who we know has stolen would
not do. Let us not be satisfied with cutting off the top of this weed
which has poisoned the range; let us try to get to the roots and tear
them out!"
She stood, beautiful in the confidence which, with a sentence, with a
gesture, had checked these men in their determination to administer
justice as it once had been administered in those hills, which had
stilled dissent on their lips, which had switched their reasoning into
a new path. Alone among them she could dominate! Her strength, doubted
an hour ago, over-rode Riley's influence, created by years of prestige
on the range, even made that old cattleman stand back and wait
respectfully, wondering what she had to say. Her color was high, eyes
bright, lips parted slightly in a grave, assured smile, and her one
extended hand, small, white, delicate held them!
"This thievery was only a symptom, only an indication of what has
transpired," she went on. "Just the outward evidence of those desires
and impulses which have turned into chaos the peace of this beautiful
country. Into that we must inquire and there is one more witness I want
to call."
She hesitated, then said gently:
"Bobby Cole."
A low murmur again ran through the group and from the clouds above them
came a muttering of thunder.
All turned to look at the girl and so intent were they that they did
not see a horseman ride through the trees and stop and look; and
dismount. Tom Beck walked slowly toward the group, until he could lay a
hand on the hip of Jane Hunter's pinto. Then he stood behind her, eyes
curious.
"Will you come up here and talk to me?" Jane asked.
The other girl remained motionless.
"Well now, Miss Hunter, don't you think--" Hepburn began in mild
protest.
"I think many things, Mr. Hepburn. My purpose is either to justify or
to convince myself that I think wrongly. Will you come ... Bobby?"
Almost mechanically the girl moved forward. Hilton muttered a quick
word to Webb and Webb glanced back nervously. Two of his men moved
closer.
"But we've found out about your calves, Miss Hunter. What else do you
want to know?"
Hepburn's voice was breath-choked though outwardly he maintained
composure.
"It makes damned little difference." It was Riley speaking and his hand
was on his holster. "Hepburn, you and everybody else stand pat until
you're called for."
Hepburn's eyes flared malevolently. He started to speak again, but
closed his lips, as in forebearance. Sam McKee coughed with a dry,
forced sound.
"What is it you want with me?"
Bobby stopped before Jane and eyed her up and down, gaze settling on
the girl's face finally. There was hostility in it; there was hate ...
a degree; but these were softened, subdued, leavened by an outstanding
appreciation. Her lips trembled and, almost thoughtlessly, she put out
a hand to touch her father's, fingers squeezing his in a movement of
affection ... and relief.
For a moment Jane did not speak. Then she began, lowly, rapidly,
flushed but resolute and with a light of friendliness in her eyes.
"I want you to understand me ... without any more delay. You and I came
into this country at about the same time. Where we should have been
friends from the first we have been enemies; it even came to such a
pass that you promised to drive me from the country."
Her voice shook a bit and on the words that old hostility leaped back
into Bobby's face.
"I think that was because you did not understand me. You have thought
that I wished you bad luck from the first and that is not so. Had I
wanted to have vengeance on you, had I wanted to drive you out, I could
have done so this afternoon ... only a moment ago. I am not trying to
impress you with my generosity because I don't feel that I have been
generous. I have tried to be just; that is all. I have tried to do the
thing that would mean the most to all of us....
"But there are things with which you can help me. I am sure. There are
so many things that we have in common. You see, you and I are very much
alike."
That touched the other's curiosity. She was all intent, lips parted,
eyes wondering.
"Alike?" She was incredulous.
Jane nodded.
"The thing that you want most of all is the thing that I want more than
anything else: That is the respect of men."
She paused and Bobby's brows drew together in perplexity.
"The first time I saw you, you were trying to win the respect of the
men in this country with your quirt. Perhaps that helped you. Perhaps
it would have helped me had I been able or inclined to take it that way.
"That doesn't matter. The thing that matters, which gives us something
in common is this: You found that men did not respect you and so did I.
Men showed their disrespect for you by ... well, by saying unpardonable
things. Men have shown their disrespect for me by trying to drive me
out of the country, by burning and stealing and shooting at my men....
"You and I are the only women here. These men,"--with a gesture--"can
not understand what their respect means to us. It is the only thing
worth while in our lives. Isn't that so? No woman can be happy or
satisfied unless she has the respect of men. That is because our
mothers for generations back have been mothers because men respected
them....
"I don't believe from what I know of you that you have ever had much
respect from men. I can appreciate what that means to you, because it
appears that the man who should have respected me the most in the
country where I came from, did not respect me.
"There was one man I used to know who was supposed to give me all the
respect that a man could give a woman: he said that he loved me. That
man,"--there was a quick movement in the group which she
ignored--"followed me west to tell me that he loved me again and when
he found that I could not love him, he showed that he did anything but
respect me. Do you understand how that could hurt? When a man who had
sworn for years that he loved me proved that ... it was something quite
different?"
She paused and Bobby, wide-eyed, said:
"He follered you out here to ... try to get you to marry him?"
Jane nodded.
The other girl turned and her eyes sought out Hilton's face, which was
contorted with raging humiliation.
"Is that _so?_" she asked.
"That's a lie!" he snarled, but looked away.
"Is that _so?_"
Her tone was lowered, but she hissed the question at him. She strained
forward, glaring at him, and averting his face he said again:
"It's a lie."
But the assertion was without conviction, without strength.
Bobby turned back. Her lips were tight and trembling.
"Well?" she said, tears in her eyes again, and her manner proved that
Hilton's denial had fallen far short of being convincing.
"Then there were other factors: As soon as I arrived here things
commenced to go wrong. Because I was a woman, people thought they could
usurp my rights. My horses were stolen; my hay was burned; my ditches
broken. My men were shot at. A note was sent to me, telling me that I'd
better leave the country while I had something left.
"You see, don't you, that that meant that men--it must have been men
who did it--had no respect for me?
"This water down here was fenced. That was your right, but I thought I
could persuade you to help me a little. I think yet that I could have
done so but for your misunderstanding....
"I knew that you wanted the respect of men. I knew that about all you
had in life was your self respect. I knew that the same man who had
made love to me and who had not meant it, was making love to you and
not meaning it. I called him to see me and tried to talk him out of it,
begged him to go away from you before ... before you had stopped
respecting yourself. You must have mistaken my motive in--"
"You didn't send for him to ask him to take you back? You didn't do
that?"
"I have told you my motive once; that was the truth ... whole truth."
Again Bobby turned and again her accusing, flaring eyes sought Hilton's
distraught face.
"So you lied to me again, did you? That was a lie, was it?" She waited.
"Well, why don't you answer?" she flung at him and stood, directing on
him the hate that she had once shown for Jane Hunter.
But when she wheeled sharply back to confront the mistress of the HC
her eyes were bathed in tears, her head was thrown back, and she threw
her arms wide.
"He did lie to me!" she panted. "He did.... I hated you because I
thought you had friends an' folks that respected you. He lied an' it
made me hate you worse...." She choked with sobs and Jane stepped down
from the rock to put hands on her shoulders.
"Oh, miss, I've acted so bad to you!" Bobby moaned lowly. "I ... I
didn't know, didn't understand. I thought you didn't want anything but
harm to come to us. I stole from you because I hated you.... I ..."
She threw back her head again and the weakness of spiritual distress
dropped from her. Her voice grew full and firm.
"You've treated us like nobody else ever treated us before. You had Alf
tied down to a calf stealin' an' you let him go. You.... You've been
tryin' to do me good all the while I've been tryin' to do you harm.
They've been warrin' on you an' I ... I could have stopped it!"
She wheeled, facing the men, her back to Jane. Her shoulders were drawn
up and she leaned backward. Her face was white, voice shrill. Her eyes
burned.
"Well ... you, Webb, an' Hepburn an' your whole filthy crew ... I'm
done with you at last!"
Thunder boomed sharply. The gloom was so deep that the features of the
men she addressed could scarcely be made out.
"You've tried to double-cross us from the first. You was as guilty as
Alf today but you had it on us. I couldn't make a move without gettin'
in worse.... You, Hilton, if it hadn't been for you, I'd have sent the
bunch of you to hell by tellin' th' straight story when they came for
Alf to-day! I ... I thought you loved me,"--gaspingly. "Ah! I thought
you loved me, an' I'd have let Alf go to jail alone because of it....
"Well, it ain't too late! Listen, all of you! You HC riders, don't let
a man move until I get through!"
Her eyes, quick, alert, intent, ran from face to face before her and
her whole body trembled as though the things that she would tell
clamoured to be out and were held back by great effort until she could
make them coherent.
"Hepburn, you're first!"
The man made one movement aside as if he would evade and Tom Beck's
voice rang out sharply:
"Not a move!"
Jane Hunter wheeled, a stifled word in her throat and watched him
slowly advance. His face was drawn as by great suffering, his eyes
burned as though his heart was wrenched with every beat. His mouth was
set and his jaw thrust forward and the revolver he held close against
his hip was as steady as rock. He moved slowly forward.
"Swing back there, you men,"--and at his gesture the HC riders
deployed, swinging to either side. He stood beside the two girls at the
point of a V, the sides of which were formed by cowboys and beyond the
opening of which the other group drew together as for protection in the
face of this coming storm. Hepburn was foremost and the true scoundrel
now glared through the mask of his benevolence.
"Go on," Beck said quietly.
"You're first," the girl repeated, as though there had been no
interruption.
"You planned to steal the HC blind, as soon as th' old owner died. You
didn't have th' nerve to do it like I'd 've done it. You sent for us,
because you knowed Alf had this brand which 'uld make stealin' easy!"
"You're lying!"
The man's voice was the merest croak, weak and unimpressive.
"You wrote us, sayin' it would be easy pickin'. You said you would
likely be foreman an' that anyhow you'd be workin' for the HC an' was
goin' to help us from the inside.
"When Miss Hunter come an' you saw what she was like you was mighty
glad of it. You thought you could ruin her an' pretend you was trying
to protect her. You was goin' to get half what we got for your share.
"You had Webb run off them eight horses. Th' cat got out of the bag an'
you had to bring 'em back to make good with Beck. I heard you tell Alf
about it the night you started out an' stayed with us. Beck suspected
you, so you shot your own saddle horn to make your story good.
"Beck wasn't satisfied. He was in your way, so you an' Webb framed up a
lie about him an' fixed his gun so it would look bad for him ... an' it
didn't work because Miss Hunter here beat you to it.
"Then you threw in with Webb an' we was all goin' to work together and
drive the HC out in a rush.
"You dynamited Cathedral Tank to spoil that range. Then somebody shot
Two-Bits an' you planned with us not to let her have water, knowin' her
cattle would perish. I was glad enough to keep 'em from water then
because I thought ... I thought she wasn't ... what she is."
She paused, panting, and brushed a quick hand at her tears.
"Webb, you've been stealin' off th' HC for years."
The man took a quick step forward and halted as gun hands jerked rigid.
"You've been waitin' your chance. When Beck made you swallow your words
about Miss Hunter you went hog-wild to get him. You got carin' more
about that than you did about gettin' rich.
"You shot at Beck's bed to kill him when he slept. You broke her
ditches an' fired her hay with your own hands. You wrote that note,
warnin' her to get out. You helped build this pen here an' you helped
steal these calves an' every one of 'em was took away from an HC cow.
You stole twenty head of horses that nobody knows about.
"You an' Hepburn thought I didn't know a lot of this. Well, I did know!
I knowed you was goin' to double-cross us if the pinch come an' Alf, he
was afraid of it, too!
"I heard you talkin' nights in our place. I watched you ridin' when you
didn't know I was around. I listened an' remembered. I was one of you,
but I didn't trust you. I wanted to steal from Miss Hunter. I wanted to
drive her out because ... because I didn't know anybody could be kind
to me like she's been. I never thought anybody'd do anythin' for me!"
She stopped again to regain control of her surging emotions.
"An' their riders, Miss Hunter"--half turning to look at the other
woman. "They're a bunch of cut-throats. So are our greasers. They ain't
been in on the stealin'. They didn't care about bein' inside, but they
was ready to murder if they had a chance. They--Hepburn an' Webb--they
thought that they was safe because every one of the rest had enough
over him to hang. If one squealed they'd all get caught....
"Even us! Why, we never had any right on this claim. Alf's used his
homestead rights before, under another name. This water don't belong to
us. Not by rights. It's all open range! That's what we was: t' worst
nest of outlaws that ever got together in these hills!"
She choked and Jane, her hands on the other's arms, could feel the
tremors shooting through her lithe frame.
Riley moved a step forward as thunder rolled heavily overhead, as if
this much of the story was enough, but the girl cried out:
"That ain't all! I've got to go through with it! I've finished with the
rest an' now it's you.... Hilton!"
Into the word she put bitter contempt and biting scorn.
"Bah! You liar!" she drawled. "You liar, you sneak, you coward! You
thought none of us could follow your game an' none of us could ...
until now.
"Why, you've been behind this whole thing. It was you called Hepburn to
town an' offered him money to use in his dirty work. You paid for this
fence of ours. You listened an' used your head. You saw things quicker
'n Hepburn an' Webb did, an' you set them two thinkin' an' they never
knew you was doin' it....
"He was th' brains, I tell you!"--with an inclusive gesture to the men
who listened so attentively. "He wanted to drive Miss Hunter out worse
'n anybody. He wanted to kill Tom Beck. He didn't have the nerve to do
it himself ... in a fair fight. He shot at him one day with a rifle but
just as he shot Beck stopped his horse to look at somethin' in his
hands, that locket he always wears an' is always lookin' at, I
guess.... He didn't know I saw that but I did....
"He was always talkin' Sam McKee, there, up to kill Beck. It's likely
McKee shot Two-Bits--"
"He didn't! I didn't do it!"
McKee's voice, an excited cackle, broke in on her but the girl,
ignoring, went on:
"... It was just like he tried to talk Webb an' Hepburn into killin'.
That was his way: makin' other folks do th' things he was scared to do!
"An' he was as slick with me as he was with them, with his lies about
being called here to help Miss Hunter on business! That's why I didn't
think all this out before, that's why I didn't think he was a sneak
until now. He ... he said he wanted to marry ... to marry me...."
She put a palm against her lips, tears spilled over her cheeks as she
turned. For a brief, heartbroken moment she stood looking into Jane
Hunter's face, then bowed her head to the other's shoulder and cried
stormily.
Beside the girls was a quick movement, a man uttering one explosive
word as though it gave vent to an emotion that had been pent deep in
his heart for long and while the black storm clouds seemed to shut down
and muffle every sound, even Bobby Cole's excited sobbing, Tom Beck
cried twice:
"Jane!... Jane!"
Bobby, at that, turned from Jane to her father and the mistress of the
H C faced her foreman. When she had first seen him she betrayed little
except surprise; now she made one movement as though she would throw
herself upon him but again the look in his face checked her.
"You came back to me, Tom," she said.
"Back," he answered.... "But I can't ever come back to ... you...."
It was the miserable self loathing, the shame in his heart, which
spoke, and it was that which made her see him, not as the strong man he
had been but as a broken, penitent, self denying individual ... denying
himself the love that was in her eyes, mingled with the relief at his
return and the joy of triumph which still thrilled her ... that love
which he felt unworthy to claim because he had doubted it!
And then he changed. A movement sharp, decided, in the group, stiffened
him.
"Hold up!" he cried. "Don't one of you move! Jimmy, take two men to the
Gap. Hold everybody in this Hole until we can get the sheriff, this'll
be a clean-up for--"
A blinding flare, a crash of thunder that tore sky and shook earth,
broke in on him. There was a rending of tough timber as the bolt ripped
down a cedar, a snorting of horses. And in that stunning instant Dick
Hilton leaped from the group, vaulted to his saddle and lashing the
horse frantically, made off.
A revolver cracked, a rifle crashed. Hilton disappeared into a deluge
of huge drops that came from the low, scudding clouds. Others got to
their horses and a fusillade of shots sounded like the ripping of
strong cloth. And above it rang Jane Hunter's voice:
"Tom! Oliver! Hold these men. I'll bring the sheriff! You can spare me
and only me!"
With a hoarse cry Riley dropped his revolver and clutched at his
wounded shoulder. Horses with riders and horses running wild circled
the place where a moment before had been a compact group of men, but
now Jane Hunter and Tom Beck stood there alone while from all about
stabs of fire pricked the darkness or were lost as the sky blazed,
while those who shot scarcely knew whether they were defending
themselves from friend or foe.