SWINGLEY HAS HIS SAY.
The young Texan’s life during the next few days was in striking
contrast with what had gone immediately before. He had a confused
recollection of sinking to rest on a comfortable bed, in a room filled
with the forms of animals--elk, deer, bears and smaller creatures, all
in most lifelike poses. There were even some shaggy buffaloes in a
perfect state of preservation. In small glass cases were groups of
insects, and there were some giant trout on the wall, evidently taken
from near-by lakes, or from the alluring stream which ran close to the
cabin.
Bertram’s recovery, under the ministrations of Uncle Billy and Alma
Caldwell, was rapid. In a few days he was able to walk about the
place. The inflammation left his shoulder and his strength returned
to him, as it always returns to healthy youth in the great outdoors.
The old naturalist proved a delight to Bertram, and he was both expert
and gentle in applying surgical dressings. Alma accounted for his
skill by explaining that he had studied to be a surgeon.
“But he had no real taste for the profession,” said the girl. “What he
wanted was to live close to the heart of nature, to study wild life at
its source. So he moved here, when the rest of the family came, and,
after a few years of ranching, gave up everything else and settled
down in this little place in the mountains, determined to follow out
his ambition.”
The girl had ridden over to Uncle Billy’s place from the Caldwell
ranch, and she was walking about in the bright sunshine, while the
Texan stood in front of the naturalist’s cabin.
“Well, I can testify that if Uncle Billy had turned surgeon he would
have made a success of his calling,” said Bertram, stretching his arms
above his head, in the joy that a strong man feels when convalescent.
“He’s fixed me up more quickly than I would have thought possible.
Your fighting cousin’s bullet, it seems, just nicked the top of a
lung. Luckily it drilled me clean and did not shatter a bone, or I
might have been on Uncle Billy’s hospital list a long time.”
“This was the only place to bring you,” said Alma. “The one practicing
physician and surgeon in this part of the State lives twenty miles
from where you were hurt, and he had taken his rifle and joined the
men who were opposing the invaders. I couldn’t have taken you to any
ranch house without your presence being known elsewhere, on account of
all this excitement. Neighbors are visiting everywhere, and any one
who had sheltered a stranger at this time would have come in for
general suspicion. But, unless somebody deliberately sets out to trail
you, no one will be likely to know you are at this place. It is known
that Uncle Billy is opposed to the taking of human life, and that he
could not be enlisted in this dispute on either side.”
“Well, Swingley and Tom Hoog will soon be on my trail,” observed the
Texan. “I’ll not stay here any longer than I can help, on Uncle
Billy’s account. Also on your account,” he added, “as it is not going
to do you any particular good to have it known that you helped one of
the invaders to safety. People are going to grow more bitter than
ever, now that Swingley and Hoog are dominating things in such
high-handed fashion.”
“High-handed is a mild term for what they are doing,” replied the
girl, her eyes flashing. “They are trying to set up a despotism for
the big-cattle interests. After they shot my stepfather and Nate Day,
at our little ranch house on the Powderhorn, and had burned the cabin
they found the settlers opposing them just the way the farmers opposed
the redcoats at Lexington. Things were made so hot for Swingley and
his men that they had to fortify themselves in a ranch house, several
miles from their objective, the county seat at Wild Horse. They were
besieged two days and would have been captured to the last man, if
United States soldiers hadn’t intervened. The invaders were taken to
Wild Horse under military escort, but it wasn’t ten hours before every
one of them was out under bail.”
“There must be bigger men than Swingley mixed up in it,” observed the
Texan.
“There are, of course--the biggest cattle interests in the West. But
they haven’t shown their hand, and Swingley apparently does just as he
pleases. He has headquarters at Wild Horse, with a big bodyguard of
fighters, led by Tom Hoog, ready to do his bidding. The rest of the
invaders have been scattered among the big-cattle ranches, presumably
as cowboys, but really as fighters. It looks as if the trouble had
only started.”
The girl’s voice was lowered, but took no new intensity of expression
as she continued. “Everybody thought there would be open war in Wild
Horse, when my stepfather and Nate Day were buried,” she said. “But
the ranchmen made such a showing then that even Swingley seemed to
be over-awed for the moment. Wild Horse never was so full of armed
men. But the ranchmen were determined that, if there was trouble,
they would not be the aggressors. They crowded the little church,
where the services were held, and scores of them stood outside.
Everybody was heavily armed. When the funeral procession went through
the streets, with all those grim, determined-looking men, riding so
silent, with their rifles across their saddles, it was terrible!”
The girl bowed her head in her hands. The young Texan wanted to take
her in his arms. For first time it came to him, fully and
undeniably, that he was in love with this slim, dark-haired young
woman whom chance had thrown across his trail. Only the Texan did not
call it chance. He wanted to tell the girl that it was Fate that had
caused their trails to cross and recross. They had seated themselves
on the tiny porch that shaded the front doorway to the cabin. Giant
pine trees crowded in friendly fashion about the few acres which the
naturalist had cleared. Over the tips of the biggest pines could be
seen the white hoods of the mountains. Across the circle of blue sky,
that compassed the clearing, drifted masses of white clouds. From the
forest came the indistinguishable murmur, that went on always, mingled
with the sound of the trout stream, which had first lured Indians and
then white men along its course.
“I’ll be going away from these parts in a few days, Miss
Caldwell--Alma,” said the Texan. “I reckon I might complicate matters
if I stayed here, particularly as I don’t want to bring any trouble on
you or your folks, because I was one of Swingley’s crowd. But I don’t
want to have you forget me. In fact I just don’t intend to let that
happen, because it would be a calamity, as far as I’m concerned. I
might as well tell you that I fell in love with you the first time I
saw you, and I fell deeper in love in Denver, and, since I’ve been
seeing you up here, it’s just been a case of being lost hopelessly.”
The Texan put his hand over the slender fingers that covered the
girl’s face. The girl did not draw her hands away, and he drew them
down slowly. Her eyes, still wet with tears, were wide and startled.
The Texan felt her slender frame tremble. Then her expression changed,
and she pushed his hand away, laughing her musical, rippling laughter.
“What suddenness!” she exclaimed. “And yet we Northerners have
always felt that you Southerners are rather deliberate in all things.”
The Texan smiled as he rose. Something in that first glance, which she
had given him, told him that his cause was not lost.
“Not in love or in war,” he said. “Nobody ever accused us of being
deliberate in those things.”
“Well, apparently there’s too much war in the atmosphere around here,
just now, for any other sentiment to flourish,” retorted the girl.
“Nothing can supplant real love,” said the Texan. “It’s thrived during
centuries of wars. I’ve said my say, and, before I leave this part of
the country, I’m coming for my answer.”
“Well, I answer all civil questions and some impertinent ones,”
replied Alma. “Maybe I’ll answer yours in the latter category. But,
anyway, it’s lucky you’ve put off getting your answer, for here comes
Uncle Billy.”
The tall figure of the naturalist could be seen coming across the
clearing. He seldom rode, and this habit alone would have condemned
him as mildly insane, in a country where men were known to mount their
horses rather than walk across a road. But there was not any part of
the high hills that the naturalist had not covered in his daily
prospecting for whatever treasures the forest might yield. In his
later years he cared nothing about killing wild animals. He had
secured a mounted specimen of every species of game, even to the final
survivors of the wild bison, and now all that interested him was to
observe the wild creatures in their haunts.
“Mr. Bertram says he is going to leave us, now that he considers that
you have cured him, Uncle Billy,” was the girl’s greeting.
Uncle Billy paused, his face showing keen disappointment. Although his
rough clothes hung loosely on his gaunt frame, there was a certain
dignity in his movements that never failed to impress. His gray eyes,
under their shaggy brows, were kindly, as they turned to the Texan.
“I’m sorry,” said the naturalist. “I had hopes that you could finish
writing out those notes for me.”
He alluded to some secretarial work, which Bertram had started during
his illness, the transcription and arrangement of valuable, but
scattered, notes which the naturalist had made.
“I’ll come back and finish that some day, when all this range trouble
is over,” said the Texan. “I think it’s better for me to go before any
one finds where I’ve been hidden. It’ll save trouble for those who
have befriended me.”
Before the naturalist or the girl could answer, the faint sound of
hoofbeats came to the ears of the little group. The sound was
irregular and rapid.
“Somebody’s coming fast,” said the Texan. “It’s more than one in the
saddle, from the sound. I reckon I’m not going to make my get-away
without being seen, after all.”
“Let us hide you,” said the girl.
“It wouldn’t be any use. There’s too much of my truck scattered
around, and there is my horse in the corral.”
“You have no weapons with you.”
“No use anyway,” was the mild answer. “I wouldn’t desecrate Uncle
Billy’s peaceful abode by doing any shooting here, and I don’t believe
any one else will.”
The hoofbeats grew louder, and Alma and the Texan exclaimed in unison,
as two horsemen dashed into the clearing: “Swingley and Tom Hoog!”
The leader of the invaders and his lieutenant came at breakneck speed,
reining their horses up with a sharp jerk beside the waiting group.
Swingley grinned in triumph, as he gazed at the Texan. Hoog, with
perpetual malice written on his long, saturnine features, looked on
impassively from the saddle.
“Well, we didn’t know what your trail was goin’ to bring us to,” said
Swingley, addressing Alma. “We’ve followed it since you left your
ranch, but it’s been worth the trip for us. We didn’t have any idea of
findin’ our fellow invader, Milt Bertram, here. I s’pose Uncle Billy
has been holdin’ you here against your will, ain’t he?” asked the
leader sneeringly.
“I didn’t write out my resignation when I quit your outfit at the
Powderhorn Crossing,” said Bertram, sitting down on the porch and
lighting a cigarette, “but you knew I’d resigned.”
“You hadn’t ought to have done it, boy,” said Swingley. “You ought to
have stayed with us. It didn’t seem to pay you to quit us, for it
looks as if you’d been havin’ a struggle of it.”
“He was shot in the shoulder when he was brought here,” observed Uncle
Billy. “A few more days will find him as good as new.”
Swingley’s face showed genuine astonishment. “Somebody got ahead of
Milt Bertram on the draw! Well I’ll be dashed!” he exclaimed. “I
wouldn’t have believed anybody could have done that, unless it might
be Tom Hoog, here.”
“Or mebbe yourself,” put in Hoog.
“Oh, well, count us as equals,” went on Swingley. “But somebody must
have got Milt from ambush.”
“Well, you know a lot about ambushes,” observed Bertram calmly.
“Especially about throwing blazing straw from iron ambushes, I might
say.”
Bertram was not certain that it had been Swingley who had been behind
the go-devil, who had tossed out the burning straw which had set fire
to the cabin. His chance shot told, for Swingley’s brows darkened.
“That’s no kind of talk from you, Bertram,” he said. “Remember we
count you one of us. If you don’t come with us, some one of these
rustlers will shoot you before you get your horse’s nose turned out of
this country.”
“You know when and where I quit, and add to that knowledge by
telling you why I quit,” pursued the Texan. “It was because I
didn’t intend to be a party to a deliberate murder, such as you and
those with you committed, there at the Powderhorn Crossing.”
Swingley pursed, and Hoog made a motion to draw, but the leader of the
invaders held up a warning hand.
“No shootin’ to-day, Tom,” he said. “This young cub is goin’ to listen
to reason. I know what’s the matter with him. He’s fell in with Nick
Caldwell’s stepdaughter here, and he wants to throw in with the
rustler faction, thinkin’ that that’ll help him along with his love
affair. But listen here, young lady, and you, Uncle Billy, who have
been harborin’ this youngster. It was Milt Bertram who made it
possible for us to burn out Nick Caldwell at the Powderhorn ranch. If
it hadn’t been for Milt, here, we wouldn’t have had the go-devil made,
the thing that made it possible for us to get right up to the cabin. I
believe Nick would have stood us off all day if it hadn’t been for
that thing. Do you deny that you made a go-devil for us, Milt?”
Bertram felt that the girl’s questioning eyes were turned upon him,
but he made no sign.
“See, he don’t dare say no,” said Swingley, “because he’d know he
wasn’t tellin’ the truth. He belonged to us at the start, and he
belongs to us now. You know where to find us, Milt, when you’re well
enough to ride. And I’m advisin’ you to come right back to the
reservation and be a good Indian, if you don’t want trouble. We may
want you to make another go-devil for us.” With a laugh Swingley
turned his horse and dashed away, Hoog following.
Bertram threw away his cigarette and stood up.
“Why didn’t you tell him it wasn’t true?” asked the girl.
“I didn’t think it was necessary,” said the Texan.
“Then I’m to assume that it was true?”
“I can’t help what folks assume.”
The girl turned away and began gathering up her horse’s trailing
reins. “You need never come for that answer,” she said, “and the
sooner you go away from here the better.”
“I’ll come for the answer, and it’s going to be a favorable answer,
too,” replied the Texan. “Furthermore I’ve changed my mind. I’m not
going away, but I’m going to try homesteading on a little land I’ve
got picked out, up the creek. I’m going to settle down and be a
citizen here, and I want you to treat me like a good neighbor.”
The girl did not answer, but, swinging lightly to the saddle, dashed
away from the cabin.
The Texan watched her until she disappeared down the trail that made a
short cut to the Caldwell ranch. Then he said: “We’ll have plenty of
time to finish the job now. Let’s go in and work some more on those
nature notes, Uncle Billy.”