As Lee Bryant reined his horse to a stop before the small ranch house,
a man seated on a stool just within the open doorway rose and came out
to join him. He was a man of thin, stooped body; his sandy hair
streaked with gray formed a fringe about his bald crown; and on his
lined, sunburnt face there rested a shadow of worry that appeared to
be habitual. Bryant dismounted and shook hands with the ranchman.
"Well, how are you making it, Mr. Stevenson?" he greeted. "As I
promised if I should be riding by this way again, I've stopped to say
'howdy.' Doesn't seem a month has passed since I stayed over night
with you? How's Mrs. Stevenson? Hope you're both well."
"Just feeling fair, just fair. Glad you stopped, Bryant," was the
answer. "My wife was wondering only the other day what had become of
you. Bring your horse around to the corral."
They went behind the house, where the young man removed saddle and
bridle from Dick and turned him into the enclosure. Stevenson gathered
an armful of hay from a small heap near by and tossed it over the
fence to the horse, which began to eat eagerly. Lee glanced about,
gave a sharp whistle; from the trail by the creek a bark answered him.
Then an Airedale came racing through the sagebrush, now and again
leaping high to gain a view of his master and finally breaking out
upon the clear ground about the ranch house.
"Mike, you're too inquisitive about other animals' dwellings," Lee
addressed him as he arrived, wet from an immersion in the creek and
panting from his run. "Some day a rattler in a hole you're digging
into will nip you on the nose and you'll wish you'd been more polite.
Come along now and be good."
He walked with Stevenson back to the house, where leaving the dog to
drop in the shade outside they entered. The interior was cool and dim
after the hot, glaring sunshine; and Bryant, having greeted Mrs.
Stevenson, sat down gratefully in a rocking-chair, glad to avail
himself of the room's comfort. Crude as an adobe house is both in
appearance and in construction, it is admirably adapted to the climate
of the arid Southwest; its flat dirt roof and thick walls built of
sun-baked mud bricks, plastered within and smoothly surfaced without,
defying alike the heat of midsummer and the icy blasts of winter and
lasting in that dry clime half a century. This ranch house of the
Stevensons', originally built by some Mexican, as Bryant judged, had
been standing twenty-five or thirty years and was still tight and
staunch.
"Your creek's pretty dry, I see," the young fellow remarked
afteratime, when they had exchanged news.
"By August there won't be any water in it at all," Stevenson said,
"except a little that always runs in the cañon. I'll have to haul it
from there then. You see now why I can't keep stock here."
His wife stopped the needle with which she mended an apron while they
talked, and looked out of a window. On her face was the same tired,
anxious expression that marked her husband's countenance.
"I've barely kept our garden alive," she said, "but it won't be for
much longer."
"That's too bad, Mrs. Stevenson," Lee Bryant replied. "However, one
can't do anything without water. Still, your sheep are doing well, I
suppose; the grass is good on the mountains this summer."
An answer was not immediately forthcoming from the rancher; he sat
staring absently at the backs of his roughened hands, now and again
rubbing one or the other, and enveloped in a gloom that Bryant could
both see and feel. Then all at once Stevenson began to talk, in a
voice querulous and morose.
"We're going to quit here, sell the sheep, and go back East. I was
swindled when I bought this ranch, and I want to get away before I
lose my last cent. Came out to this country five years ago from
Illinois with forty thousand dollars, and now we're going back with
what I can sell my sheep for, maybe twenty-five hundred cash. Menocal
robbed me right at the start, selling me this place for twenty-five
thousand--twenty thousand down and a mortgage for the remaining five
thousand--when the place was just five thousand acres of sagebrush,
with no more water than runs in this creek. I was a tenderfoot all
right! The land agent at Kennard showed it to me in June when the
Perro was booming, and I believed him when he said it ran that way all
the year around. Look at it now! I didn't have sense enough to inquire
and learn about it, being in a hurry to get into the sheep business
and thinking I should be rich in no time. That agent sold it to me for
irrigated land, and a bargain at five dollars an acre. Menocal, who
owned it and deeded it to me, pretends he isn't responsible for what
the man said. Five dollars an acre! It's worth about fifty cents for
winter range, and no more."
"If it could be irrigated, it would be a bargain sure enough at five
dollars," Lee stated. "And there's another water right for the place
you said when I was here before."
"Yes, there is--on paper. Water was appropriated out of the Pinas
River, but that's eight miles north of here, and it would cost a
hundred thousand dollars, if not more, to build a dam and a canal
along the mountain side. No, sir; that appropriation was just some
more of Menocal's tricky work! He jammed it through the land office
thirty years ago and, they say, never did any more to comply with the
law requiring delivery of the water on this ground than to have a man
drive around pouring a bucketful out of a barrel upon each quarter
section."
"Some pretty shady transactions were put across in those early days,"
Bryant commented.
"Well, ain't matters just as bad now?" Stevenson asked, quickly. "He
still has the appropriation, or rather I'm supposed to have it with
this ranch. Because Menocal controls the Mexican vote hereabouts,
which is about all the vote there is, why, nobody has ever disturbed
him about that water right. And he's using that water, belonging to
me, to irrigate a lot of bottom farms along the river, for which no
water can be appropriated, the Pinas not carrying enough. I rode over
one day and looked at those farms--all grain and alfalfa. Well, he'll
get this ranch back, anyway. The mortgage he holds on it is due next
week and I can't pay it. Wouldn't even if I had the money. We're going
to pull up stakes and leave."
Bryant silently regarded the other's haggard face and stooped figure,
whose expression and resigned attitude revealed clearly Stevenson's
surrender. He was a man discouraged, disheartened, whipped.
"What's wrong with the sheep?" he questioned, at length.
"Not much that isn't wrong. When I started five years ago, I invested
in three thousand head. One time I had them increased to fifty-five
hundred--three bands. Thought I was doing first rate; and I was then.
But everything began to go against me. It seemed as if I always got
the worst herders; and not having any water to raise alfalfa I had to
buy winter feed, which was expensive; and a lot of them got the scab
and died; and last year I lost nearly all my lambs at lambing time,
the band being caught out in a storm and being in the wrong place.
Just one thing after another, to break my back. Had trouble about the
range, too. When I started them off this spring, they were down to
seven hundred; and I've been losing some right along from one cause or
another. No lambs, either, this spring, except dead ones. I thought I
could hang on till my luck changed, but losing a hundred head two
weeks ago was the last straw. I'm done now."
"What happened, Stevenson?"
"One of Menocal's herders mixed his flock with my six hundred, did it
deliberately, I'm convinced; there were three thousand head of his.
Billy was tending ours--and Billy is only fourteen, you know. I had
come down here for some supplies and when I returned, I found him
crying. The Mexican had separated the sheep and we were a hundred
short, gone with his, and he would pay no attention to Billy, swearing
he had only his own band. And he drove them away. I went to Menocal,
who was very polite, but he said I must be mistaken as his herders
were all honest men; and I've not got my sheep back, and I'm not
likely to. For that band is now thirty miles away somewhere. No use to
go to court--Menocal owns everything and everybody around here. So I'm
quitting."
"The sheep business isn't all roses, that's certain," Lee Bryant
remarked. "It's hard luck that your band ran down just when the price
of mutton and wool is going up. So you're letting the ranch slide?"
"Yes, I can't pay the mortgage; Menocal would foreclose at once if I
tried to stay. Last time I was in town he asked me about paying it off
and when I told him I shouldn't be able to do that, he said he'd have
me deed it back to him to save foreclosure proceedings. And he was
smiling, too. He knew all the time that he'd get the ranch back; and
when he does, he'll sell it to some other sucker."
"Both of us have wished a hundred times that we'd never sold our
Illinois farm to come here," Mrs. Stevenson said, plaintively. "I
don't know what we'll do when we go back, for that matter. Just rent a
place, I guess. Land is so high-priced there that we'll never be able
to buy a farm again."
"Renting there is better than starving here," her husband declared.
"We'll have a better home, too. When we first came to this place, we
planned on building a fine house, but I never had the money loose, and
we've just kept on from year to year living in this 'dobe hole. Good
thing I didn't have the money, however, for we'd lose the house along
with the ranch if we had built. Well, we're going back East, anyhow,
as soon as I sell the sheep. Graham, who has the big ranch on Diamond
Creek, south of where those girls are homesteading, is coming up in a
day or two to look at them, maybe buy them. You can see Graham's big
white house from the Kennard trail."
Bryant nodded. "I know the place, saw it when passing," said he. Then
he went on, "When I was at the ford watering my horse before coming
here, an auto crossed the creek. In the rear seat were a fat Mexican,
whom I took to be Menocal, and a white man with a pointed beard. The
latter perhaps was Graham?"
"Yes, that must have been him. Which way were they driving?"
"South."
"Going to the Graham ranch, I s'pose."
"There was a slim young fellow driving the car--some Mexican blood in
him," Lee stated.
"Menocal's son, Charlie, a half-breed snippet who puts on airs because
his father's rich," Stevenson said, in a disgusted tone. "A white
woman married Menocal, you know."
"In the front seat with the young fellow was a girl, rather pretty,"
Bryant appended.
"That's Louise, I imagine," Mrs. Stevenson said, reflectively. "Yes,
it must have been her. She's Mr. Graham's daughter. A nice girl, too.
That Menocal boy is crazy to marry her, the talk is."
"And is she crazy to marry him?" Lee inquired, amused by this gossip.
"Well, not exactly crazy, I'd say; I don't see how she could be. But
he'll be worth a lot of money some day, and she may overlook
considerable on that account. Menocal's boy has been to college;
besides, the family goes everywhere with white folks. I guess a
Mexican is supposed to be really white, isn't he?"
"Those having pure Spanish blood," the engineer explained. "Nearly all
the ones around here that I've seen have more Indian in them than
anything else, however, with a dash of other races perhaps. From the
glimpse I had of Menocal, I'll venture to say he has Red men among his
ancestors."
"Mexican or Indian or whatever he is, he can squeeze money out of
nothing, like a Jew," Stevenson complained. "Look how much he has made
out of this ranch; look at what he has made out of me! And it's just
that way with everything he holds. The Mexicans all around this
section sell him their stuff cheap and take what he pays, because they
don't know any better and because he's their leader. He has the big
store at Bartolo, which you've seen, and owns the bank there, and has
any number of farms up and down the Pinas River, and runs I don't know
how many bands of sheep; and besides, he elects the county officers,
and fixes the taxes to suit himself, and recommends the water
inspector for this district, and--and--well, what chance has an
ordinary man to get ahead here?"
Lee Bryant let a pause ensue. He rolled a cigarette and struck a light
and carefully got the tobacco to burning.
"You say you're going to let the ranch go back to Menocal," he stated,
abruptly. "You've made up your mind that you won't keep it, anyway.
All right. Now I've a proposition to make you."
Stevenson looked at him with curiosity.
"A proposition? What is it?" he asked.
"It's this: I've a farm of eighty acres in Nebraska that I'll trade
you for it. I could offer you less, but I won't; you have an equity
here of value, and I'm not the kind of man to beat you down to
nothing. If we deal, you shall have something in return for your
interest. This eighty of mine is worth a hundred dollars an
acre--eight thousand; it's mortgaged for five thousand, which leaves
an equity of three thousand; on it are good buildings and it's rented
until next March. You could then take possession. It's a good farm,
and with the money you'll have from the sale of your sheep you can
make a good start on the place, which is in the corn and wheat
section. My equity of three thousand isn't worth, to be sure, anything
like what you paid Menocal for this ranch, but it's something--and all
that I can afford to give."
The rancher stared at Lee as if he could not credit his ears.
"Are you in earnest?" he demanded, at last. "Why I've just told you
there's no water here. A man can't make a living on the place, and the
mortgage is due next week."
"I'll pay off the mortgage; I've enough money saved up to do that."
"But, man, without water----"
"Listen, Stevenson, I know exactly what I'm about," the engineer
interrupted. "This thing's a gamble with me, I admit, but you needn't
do any worrying on that score. I'm going in with my eyes open; I know
the risks and am willing to take them. What about my offer?"
Stevenson, still gazing at his visitor in wonderment, was at a loss;
he rubbed his knuckles doubtfully, hitched about on his chair and knit
his brows, perplexed, hesitating, as was his manner when presented
with any new affair, even with one palpably to his advantage. It was
clear that in this lack of quick decision lay much of the reason for
his failure.
His wife exclaimed in appeal, "Oh, John, if Mr. Bryant really means
it, why don't you say yes? I can't understand why he makes us such a
fine offer, but he is making it. We can start again; we'll be back in
a farming country like what we're used to, even if it isn't in
Illinois; we'll have a farm of our own, a home of our own, and will
not have to rent. Oh, why don't you say yes?"
The rancher looked from his wife to Bryant and back again, pursing his
lips.
"But I don't understand this," he said.
"You heard what he explained," she replied, anxiously. "He expects to
pay off the mortgage and be rid of Mr. Menocal. Perhaps he knows the
sheep business better than you do; you never did learn it well, John,
and you ought never to have stopped farming. You were a good farmer;
you will be again. We can go on this place in Nebraska and raise corn
and wheat and hogs, and I'll have chickens to help clear the debt.
Why, it's a chance for us to be independent again, and have a home,
and neighbours, and attend church, and--and be happy, John!"
"That's so," her husband agreed.
"We are going to leave here anyway," she continued to urge. "We
wouldn't have had anything but the money from the sheep, but now
you'll be getting a farm, too. I'd think you'd jump at Mr. Bryant's
offer."
"But maybe, after all, the ranch is worth more than I thought,"
Stevenson speculated.
His wife sank back in her seat, picked up her sewing, and tried to
resume her task, but her fingers trembled and her lashes were winking
fast. Lee gazed at her sympathetically. Then he lifted his hat from
the floor and stood up.
"Well, there are other places I can trade for," he remarked. "I
thought I was doing you a good turn in proposing the exchange,
especially as you're about to lose your place. I wouldn't be beating
you out of anything, certainly, and as your wife says, you'd really be
getting something for nothing. The mortgage is due next week, you must
remember."
Stevenson's mind, however, was running in another channel.
"I'll tell you how we can deal," he said, with an assumption of
shrewdness. "You pay me the five thousand you plan to pay off the
mortgage with, and get Menocal to renew the loan. Five thousand--why,
my equity is worth more than that! Besides, you've some scheme for
making money out of this ranch."
"What if I have?"
"That makes a difference when it comes to a deal."
"Not with me," the engineer stated, curtly. "If that's your attitude,
we'll drop the matter. Probably you yourself can arrange an extension
of the mortgage or a renewal, if you're minded to remain."
"You know, John, that you can't; Mr. Menocal has already refused,"
Mrs. Stevenson said, in a low voice.
"I ought to have cash in addition to your farm," her husband insisted.
"You get none," Lee replied. "Well, this trade is what I came to see
you about. From the way you talked when I was here last I supposed you
might consider my offer favourably, but I guess we can't do business.
I'll ride on to Bartolo."
At this statement Mrs. Stevenson wiped her eyes, rose and went into
the inner room, closing the door after her. The engineer moved as if
to depart.
"Now, wait a minute," Stevenson exclaimed.
"Well?"
"I'll take--let me figure a minute."
Bryant tossed his hat on the table in disgust and relighted his
cigarette.
"Stevenson, listen," he began. "You're an older man than I am, but
just the same I'm going to say a few things that you need to hear. I
couldn't say them and wouldn't say them before your wife, but now I'm
going to turn loose. You can do as you damn please about trading, take
my offer or leave it; if you refuse, though, you'll lose both ranch
and farm. The trouble with you is that you can't see the difference
between a good proposition and a bad one. That's why you bought this
ranch on say-so. That's why now you're turning down my offer. You
either jump without first looking, or you wait until it's too late.
You don't pay attention strictly to what's immediately under your
hand, but waste your energy wondering if you can't get rich from
something out of your reach. That's what has been the trouble with you
in the sheep business, I imagine. Here when I offer you a farm for a
ranch that's slipping through your fingers, you at once get greedy.
Most of the time you don't know your own mind; you hesitate and
speculate and vacillate and worry. Why, you deserve to lose your ranch
and your sheep and everything else. And your wife suffers for your
faults! You're a failure, and you've dragged her down with you. If
you're not a failure, and a fool, too, go bring her back into this
room and tell her you're going to make this trade, so you two will
have a farm and the home she wants and so her mind will be easy once
more. You've been thinking of only yourself long enough; now begin to
think of her comfort and happiness."
Stevenson came angrily to his feet.
"No man ever talked to me like that before, I'll have you know!" he
cried.
The engineer kept his place, with no change of countenance.
"Well, one has talked to you like that now and I'm the man," he said.
"And I don't retract a word. It's the truth straight from the
shoulder. What are you going to do about it? Why, nothing, just
nothing. Because I've talked cold, hard facts, and you know it."
The momentary fire died from Stevenson's eyes. He shuffled his feet
for a little, looked about the room with the worried aspect he
usually showed, brushed his lips with the back of his hand.
"You're pretty rough----" he began.
"Don't stand there talking; go get your wife," Bryant said, sharply.
Stevenson turned and walked slowly to the closed door. He cleared his
throat, stared at the panels for a moment, and at last pushed it open.
"Come out, Sarah, we're going to trade," he announced.
The woman came forth. About her eyes was a slight redness, but on her
lips there was a tremulous smile.
"I'm glad," she said, "I'm glad, John."
"Yes, I decided it was a good trade to make," her husband assured her.
"No need to think it over longer."
They came to where Bryant stood, unconcealed pleasure showing on Mrs.
Stevenson's face.
"You may like to see these kodak pictures of the farm and its house,"
the young man said, producing an envelope from a pocket. "Take a chair
here by the window, Mrs. Stevenson, where you'll have the light. See,
this one shows the house, with the trees and lilac bushes in front,
and gives you a glimpse of the flower garden. Pretty, don't you
think?"
She readjusted her spectacles. After a time she gazed from the
pictures through the window at the stretch of sagebrush.
"And I'll have neighbours, too," she said, in an unsteady voice. "The
loneliness here was killing me."
Stevenson considered the backs of his hands in awkward silence.
"Neighbours, lots of them," Bryant affirmed.
"I kind of pity you having to stay," she said, looking up at him with
a smile.
The engineer laughed.
"Why, this country suits me right down to the ground," he replied.
"I've been in the West ten years, wouldn't live anywhere else. And I
don't expect to be lonely; Menocal will probably attend to that.
Besides, there are two good-looking young ladies just south of here,
on Sarita Creek."
"That's so," she said, laughing also.
"First thing we hear, you'll be married," Stevenson remarked, with a
quick grin.
"Oh, I'm safe--there are two of them," Bryant returned, clapping the
rancher on the shoulder.