Hugh Gaylord had, like all men, experienced some rather violent
surprises in his time. They had been coming exceptionally thick and fast
since he had come to Smoky Land. His changed attitude toward life and
his behavior in regard to the flocks had been amazing experiences in
themselves. He had just experienced a rather violent shock on beholding
the warlike behavior of Spot. The previous night he had been through the
unusual experience of finding the body of a murdered man in a tent. But
he suddenly realized that he was facing the most amazing situation of
all.
Death, after all, in some manner or other comes to all living creatures.
Hugh had no real reason for amazement at that still form in the herder’s
tent. He was ready to confess he didn’t know a great deal about sheep:
possibly Spot’s episode with the coyote would not have so surprised a
more experienced herder. But now he felt as if a number of his
preconceived ideas had been violently knocked out of him, and that is
always dumbfounding. His camp-tender was not a Mexican, nor yet a
laboring man of a certain type, but a girl.
He had seen some thousands of girls in his life, yet he found himself
staring at the slim form on the horse as if he were gazing upon a
miracle of nature. Every experience of the past few days might have been
in some manner expected and he had only reacted because of qualities
within himself; his experiences with Broken Fang and the coyote were
wholly fitting in this wild, mountainous land, but he had never dreamed
but that he had left all womankind a thousand miles behind him. This was
a man’s land, not a place for the tender flesh of girls. This was the
home of savage beasts, a region of dark forests and forbidding peaks,
never a land of gentleness and ease such as women should know. He
realized with a start that evidently his good manners had been left
behind him also, for he was gazing at her in open-mouthed astonishment.
If the girl on the horse had been an Indian squaw, even an aged and
wrinkled frontiersman’s dame, he would have felt that the axis of the
world still stood at the proper angle. But this girl was white, in spite
of her tan and the high color—not put on with a rabbit’s foot—in her
cheeks. She was young, not more than twenty-two at most. And strangest
of all she was pretty past all denial.
Hugh felt as if there must be some mistake. Perhaps in these lonely days
in the hills he had lost the power of discrimination. He hadn’t seen a
girl for endless weeks—centuries they seemed to him—and he had heard
that such isolation affects the point of view. The girl might be white;
by a long chance she might even be young; but by no possible
circumstance had she a right to be pretty. Beauty dwelt in far cities,
in gentle lands and distant, not in these rugged mountains. Yet the
truth of his first observation became ever more apparent.
He steadied himself, closed his mouth, and tried to stand at his ease.
The girl swung down from the horse. That motion, graceful as the leap of
a deer, explained in a measure the mystery. It revealed a suppleness, a
strength and litheness of body such as might stand the test of existence
even on the frontier.
Hugh noted that she was a slender girl, rather tall, that she wore a
soft felt hat over her chestnut hair, and that she had dark eyes under
rather marvelous brows. Hugh was no amateur in regard to women. Now that
he had regained his self-control he made a swift and unerring appraisal;
yet found his amazement deepening at every instant. There was a
freshness, an appeal about her slight figure, suggesting perfect health
and superb physical development rather than weakness, and he was not
blind to the gentleness and breeding in her soft features.
She seemed perfectly composed, wholly at ease. In her simplicity she
found no embarrassment under his frank gaze. “Where’s Dan?” she asked.
Hugh straightened, somewhat startled. He had expected some sort of a
formal greeting, a few words in apology or introduction, not this
straight-out, uncompromising “Where’s Dan?” It seemed to him she acted
somewhat suspicious of him, also.
She had, he observed, a well-bred voice. She spoke in clear, level tones
that pleased his ear. The voice was wholly lacking in affectation, but
it was simply brimming and vibrant with health and high spirits. Hugh
noticed something else, too, and smiled inwardly. He couldn’t remember
ever having been spoken to in just that way before. The level,
impersonal tone implied an insurmountable social barrier between them.
It was a somewhat similar tone, he remembered, to that in which he had
occasionally spoken to a servant. In this case he obviously was the
inferior.
He paused and reflected as to the whereabouts of Dan. The truth came to
him in a moment. Dan of course referred to his predecessor. “He’s dead,”
Hugh answered simply.
For the instant he was frightened. It occurred to him, when the words
had gone too far to recall, that he should have been gentler. He might
have prepared the girl, in some degree, for the shock. He didn’t want
her to faint. But if he had expected any hysteria or excitement he was
doomed to a fresh surprise. She opened her eyes; and it seemed to Hugh
that she closed her lips—in a fine, hard line—just for an instant.
“Dead?” she repeated slowly. “Killed—or did he just die?”
“He was killed,” Hugh answered in the straightforward way of one on a
witness stand. “I found him dead in his tent. He’d been shot. The black
dog was shot too.”
“And who are you?”
Hugh wasn’t exactly accustomed to this straight-out sort of questioning,
but he mustered his faculties and made his answers. “Gaylord—Hugh
Gaylord,” he said simply. “And if you want me to I’ll tell you all I
know of this affair.”
“Perhaps that would be the best plan,” she agreed.
“I came over to the camp—to borrow something. I was with another
chap—an Indian, Pete. We found this poor beggar dead. Pete started with
him into the settlements to-day. It’s a wonder you didn’t meet him on
the trail.”
“He probably took the other fork, heading toward Seven Mile. I came up
from Horse Creek.”
As Hugh didn’t know the two places apart, or what they represented, this
information did not clear matters up for him to any great extent. “He
left me here,” Hugh went on, “and as I didn’t have anything in
particular to do—I took care of the sheep—until you could hire a
regular herder.”
The girl looked puzzled but made no immediate reply. “And you’re not an
experienced herder?”
“No. I’ve never worked—I’ve never worked at it before.”
“Then how did you know what to do?”
“I didn’t know. I let ’em do what they wanted to, and followed along.”
Then the girl laughed,—for the first time. It was a tinkling, musical
sound, inexpressibly girlish, and Hugh laughed boyishly himself. It was
their first real moment of understanding; and it seemed to Hugh that a
new impulse, a curious sense of impending events, a new stir and
vitality had been born in the air. He might have wondered at the
freshness and happiness in his own laugh, as much as in hers. It was an
hour of miracles.
“You couldn’t have done better—and I needn’t tell you that you’ve
probably saved me—and my father—hundreds of dollars. The coyotes and
the wolves would have been busy all night and to-day. I’d be glad enough
to pay you well for this time you’ve spent—and give you a steady job if
you want it.”
She spoke perfectly naturally, and Hugh knew that his torn and soiled
clothes and his unshaven face had done their work. Obviously she never
guessed his true position. He wondered how she explained his presence in
the hills and his reasons for staying with the sheep.
She did have her own theories, but they were far indeed from the truth.
Her mind leaped at once to what seemed to her the most plausible
explanation,—that Hugh was a humble white man, friend of Pete’s,
possibly a laborer out of work, or a hungry wanderer from the East. He
had taken the herder’s place in hopes of securing a permanent position
when the camp-tender returned.
“Before I decide to stay,” Hugh replied steadily, “I’d like to know a
few things.”
“We’ll pay you two dollars a day—and furnish you with supplies,” she
assured him soberly.
Hugh did not smile. After all, the wage was an important consideration.
The girl was evidently a partner with her father in this sheep-raising
venture, and possibly for the sake of economy but probably because of
the acute shortage of labor (Hugh had not forgotten the Indian’s words)
had worked as camp-tender herself. Her perfect health, her strong, lithe
body, a skill with horses and a wholesome scarcity of nonsense in her
disposition had enabled her to fill the position well and in all
probability to enjoy it.
Hugh studied her face with growing interest. In his sphere of life girls
did not drive trains of pack horses into the rugged hills, do a man’s
work in the open, have dealings with uneducated herders, and still laugh
like silver bells.
She wore, he noticed, a rather heavy revolver slung at her hip. Her hand
was small and shapely, but it was also brown and firm. They would make,
Hugh thought, a rather dangerous combination. The eyes, wide apart and
bright, looked unusually healthy and clear, and Hugh imagined that they
could see quite straight over revolver sights. The man understood why
she had been able to ply her occupation in safety. Woe to the herder
that would presume upon their isolation!
“Labor is scarce, I suppose?” Hugh asked. What he was really trying to
find out was how long this position of sheep herder would be thrust upon
him. He had yielded himself to enough folly for one day, and he had no
intention of committing himself to a position as sheep herder for the
rest of his natural life. As soon as they could find a substitute,—but
Hugh didn’t finish the sentence. He suddenly realized that thence on he
had no plans.
The girl looked up, rather sober of face. “_Good_ labor is very scarce,”
she agreed honestly. “But we can’t pay more than two dollars a day. You
see—you’re inexperienced.”
Secretly he thought that she was _bluffing_, that she would pay a much
higher price to retain him as shepherd of the flock. But he didn’t voice
the thought. “Two dollars a day is all right,” he said. “That wasn’t
what I was going to ask you. There’s some other things I want to
know—that I feel I have a right to know. That man was murdered, and the
guide thought it was because of a fight between the sheepmen and
cattlemen. I don’t care to have some one come up here and find me
murdered, too.”
The girl seemed distressed. It was the first time since their meeting
that she seemed to lack words. Then she looked up fearlessly.
“I wish I could tell you differently,” she said. “A sheep woman has no
right to be honest, in these days. The Indian told you the truth. Dan
was murdered, not for personal reasons, but because the cattlemen—a
little, evil group of them—want to destroy this flock of sheep—just
why I’ll tell you later. And that’s the chance you must take.”
“It’s a real chance?”
Again she flinched. “They seem to be willing to go to any lengths to
beat us.”
“But it’s a chance worth taking,” he said with a sudden lightness of
heart. “I’ll keep the job for a while at least.”
He watched her face as he spoke, and he saw the light—as unmistakable
as the dawn that he had seen come over the mountains—grow in her face.
It was reward enough. The joy that he got out of the work itself was
henceforth simply clear profit; for another motive—one that had just
come into his life—justified beyond all question the expenditure of his
time and the chance of death.
He didn’t try to explain the matter to his own satisfaction. He only
knew that he felt a great and resistless desire to help this straight
young mountain girl in her venture, to take sides with her against the
monstrous odds that opposed her. He had committed himself: he noticed
with an inward laugh that the girl had not promised even to attempt to
get another herder to take his place. And he felt vaguely and secretly
glad.
The two of them started to drive the white flocks back to the camp.