RUSTLED TO A FINISH.
Reclining on a steamer chair, Ethel Andress sat upon the porch of her
log ranch house and gazed with an anxious expression down the wide
valley toward the United States. From time to time she transferred
her gaze to a scrap of paper, evidently torn from some memorandum
book, which she held in her slender hand. The writing on it was
hurried, but the chirography familiar. The intermittent repetition
of the reading eventually attracted the attention of her uncle, who
sat beside her in a rustic rocking-chair, pretending to be interested
in the latest copy of an Ottawa newspaper that had reached Rafter A.
"Haven't you memorized Fitzrapp's message by this time?" he asked in
a bantering tone. "You've read it through often enough since the
Indian hiked home with it."
For answer, she read the note again, this time aloud:
Band of five, well mounted, have just crossed the ford. Seem to be
making for the two-year-olds. Unquestionably the old rustling
outfit. Season's Greetings and I are going after them and won't
spare lead. Promise our best to land them this time. My love to
you, Ethel.
This disturbing missive had been brought to the ranch house the
evening before by an Indian boy who declared that he had been riding
hard since early afternoon, to the truth of which statement the
drooping ears, limp tail and hard breathing of his pony bore mute
evidence. The messenger had been unable or unwilling to add any
details, except that the white bosses, one of whom was Fitzrapp, had
made smoke riding toward the invaders.
"If Tom was so desperately anxious to land the rustlers, he might
have left off the last five words," remarked the widow.
Her uncle looked his disapproval. "You're peeved again with poor
Fitz? Seems to me you're pretty hard on him lately, considering all
his devotion." And then the handsome old pioneer turned away to
enjoy a smile. He had lived his loves in his day and knew the price
that must be paid by a mere male with aspiration, ambition, and a
pain in his heart.
"There is a time for everything, uncle," was her return. "I'll give
him the high sign when--if ever--I'm ready to hear further on that
love-to-Ethel subject."
Uncle Ivan was too wrought up over the news of a new raid upon his
fair relative's stock for his mind to be troubled long over the
widow's capriciousness. A menacing look came into his eyes as they
followed the creek trail to the south.
"Isn't it just my confounded luck to be laid up here in a
rocking-chair when those mangy coyotes get busy again?" He spoke
this ferociously. "If I hadn't been so plumb stubborn against
'squeezing Lizzie,' I'd have ridden that bronc."
The week before he had gone to Corn Cob Basin to look over the band
of yearlings which had been wintered there under hired herders from
the Indian reservation. He had become disgusted at their clumsy
efforts to break an "outlaw," and, forgetting his years, had taken
the beast in hand. Ethel knew his horror of "pulling leather," which
is range argot for seizing any part of the saddle. From his remark
about "squeezing Lizzie," she understood that he might have saved
himself a fall and the sprained knee which at present disabled him by
laying hold on the saddle horn.
She had a tolerant smile for his equestrian vanity, and replied
sympathetically: "Anyway, you defended your faith once more, and
that's something! The boys ought to give a good account of
themselves in this brush. They seem to have had warning enough."
"If they'll only shoot!" exclaimed the major.
"Aversion to pulling a trigger is one of several things I don't
understand about Tom Fitzrapp," said Ethel thoughtfully. "I wonder
if he's gun shy. I've long been convinced that Season's Greetings is
an old four-flusher, although he looks capable of any atrocity.
They've both had chances at these horse thieves before, but we never
hear of any casualty list. Sometimes I'm afraid that Tom is too
soft-hearted for a real man."
"Men aren't what they used to be, Ethel," the pioneer replied. "Even
the Indians and most half-breeds of to-day are more streaked with
yellow than red. When I was young---- Well, I'm not too old to show
them yet. If the boys come back this time without a scalp, I'm going
down into Montana after the scoundrels myself."
The weeks had passed swiftly since the men of Ethel Andress' outfit
had returned empty-handed from their raid on the Open A. Despite her
hatred of rustlers, the widow had not found it in her heart to grieve
that the evidence of stolen horses was wanting. For one thing, she
was not displeased that Thomas Fitzrapp should occasionally be
disturbed from the pedestal of self-sufficiency upon which she
thought him too prone to climb. Again, as her relative and her ranch
manager had enforced the handicap of her sex by insisting that she
remain at home, a proceeding which she always resented, she was glad
that their sortie had proved a failure.
With a fresh tingling of nerves, she recalled now her surprise when
John Childress had ridden into the yard a few days after the raid,
and gravely saluted her as she sat alone on the porch. She still
felt that her uncle or Fitzrapp might have warned her that the
stranger was expected. But this they had not done, and she had been
forced to make the best of her least becoming frock and a disarray of
the hair that was far from what she would have wished. She had set
down to his credit the fact that he seemed not to notice these
defects in the least, but had spent an hour with her in animated
converse, until the return of the men revealed the real reason behind
his call.
Although Fitzrapp had hinted as openly as he dared that they could
dispense with her presence, she had sat through the business session,
youthfully thrilled at the thought of a race between these two men.
She had found herself comparing them as they sat on either side of
the desk at which the major was drawing up an agreement for the
contest, and she decided that they would be well matched for a race
of another sort had it not been for the handicap of suspicion under
which the stranger labored.
The business ended, she had been rather pleased at the way in which
he declined her uncle's invitation to have supper with them. His
excuse had been that ranch duties called him, but she had gained and
retained the impression that the refusal was but the outcropping of a
well-bred instinct not to dine at their table while he was under the
slightest suspicion.
In the succeeding weeks she had twice met him on the open range and
exchanged a few words with him, but on neither occasion had the
situation held anything to lend weight to Fitzrapp's continuing
suspicion that he was the real leader of the rustlers. For that
reason she had said nothing about the meetings on returning to the
home ranch. She was quite sure that she was "the master of her
soul," accountable to no man and equally convinced that she would be
very certain of her own heart and mind before she permitted any
change in the state of widowed blessedness.
One of these range meetings with the ranchman of mystery had
possessed an angle which disturbed her in spite of herself. In her
hard riding for exercise and relief from ranch monotony, she had
passed the boundaries of her own range onto that of Sam Gallegher.
Emerging from a coulee she had come suddenly 'upon Childress, and
riding with him was Flame of Fire Weed. Their stirrups brushed and
they were in close converse. Had there been suitable cover at hand
she would have taken refuge and permitted them to pass. As there was
no chance of getting out of sight, she had ridden up and made the
best of it. And she had rather admired that girl of Gallegher's that
day. Flame, she decided, was fast budding into the fullness of her
womanhood, and would soon be able to hold her own in any company.
The way she had kept their brief trail-side conversation angling
around the fact that her "dad" had heard from the commissioner of the
Royal Mounted and that an inspector on special detail would soon be
at work on their troubles had been really a masterpiece of
self-possession and social tact.
Only a week before had occurred the momentous incident of her second
visit to the Open A. One of her women friends from Strathconna was
paying her a visit, and they had started out in the buckboard for a
long prairie drive. They were discussing where they should go when
Childress and his one-section ranch had come to mind. Her story
regarding him had been sufficiently tinted with romance to excite the
curiosity of her visitor, so that the heads of the gray team had been
turned toward the basin. Fancifully, they had pretended that they
were members of a posse running down a band of desperate horse
thieves, and they had worked themselves into quite a gay mood by the
time they sighted his cabin.
Childress was so frankly glad to see them, and so insistent that they
should accept his hospitality to the extent of an improvised
luncheon, that they had left the buckboard and spent a merry hour
over a meal which he served on the top of an empty packing box in the
shadow of the cabin's overhang. A can-opener was responsible for
most of the menu, but two large rainbow trout, caught that very
morning in the near-by stream, served as a delicious _piece de
resistance_. The widow's guest had been quite captivated, and
repeatedly declared on the drive back to the Rafter Ranch that she
could never believe him a horse thief. Indeed, Ethel herself had
reached the decision that she should require absolutely convincing
proof of his guilt before believing.
Just now something in the distance caught the widow's restless eye.
Arising, she went to the porch edge and shaded her face against the
sun, which was sinking, very red, behind the distant Rockies.
"Dust showing down the valley," she reported. "We'll know how they
fared before very long."
Stepping into the house, she returned in a moment with a pair of
field glasses.
"How many riders?" demanded her uncle. "How many riders?" he
repeated querulously, before she was able to give him an answer.
"Only two."
"That means no prisoners," grumbled the pioneer.
"But----" The significant look of her flashing eyes made it
unnecessary to complete the sentence which would not have become her
tender lips.
"Yes, possibly they've killed them," he agreed. "Possibly. But I
doubt it. Men don't seem to have the nerve to shoot to kill out on
the range these days."
It was half an hour before Fitzrapp and the queerly named buster rode
into the yard. The two on the porch waited with such patience as
they could command while saddles and bridles were stripped off and
the soaking wet blankets hung on the fence of the stable corral to
dry. Any departure from this program of horse comfort first would
have been an unheard of violation of ranch tradition.
Presently the arrivals approached the house. Their expressions told
the story, and a single glance was sufficient for the reading. The
Rafter A had been despoiled again. It only remained to learn the
extent of the loss and the details of the raiders' escape.
"It's bad business, little woman," said Fitzrapp, who looked
well-nigh exhausted, sinking into one of the rockers.
Season's Greetings--which undoubtedly was not his real name but the
one he had brought with him to the ranch on a Christmas Eve arrival,
and the only one to which he ever answered--deposited his lean,
undersized frame upon the steps and leaned back against one of the
rough, unturned pillars supporting the porch. His plain features
were marred by a bristly, undecorative mustache. He had one useless
eye that stared straight ahead, while the other, by which he saw,
shifted uncertainly. The widow had spoken advisedly in saying that
he looked capable of most any atrocity. Fortunately for him he
remained in a country where personal appearance counts for very
little.
"How deep did they gouge us?" asked the widow, anxious to know the
worst.
"Without having stopped for an actual count, I'd say in the
neighborhood of seventy-five head," returned Fitzrapp despondently.
"They were fine stock, too. The rustlers got away clean?" The query
was sharply put.
"We were up against a quintette of wicked fighters, Ethel. They
nearly got us and we hadn't a chance against them."
He tossed his flat-brimmed felt hat to the widow. Through the peaked
crown of it a rifle bullet had bored a hole.
"If that had been an inch lower----" he began again, looking up at
her as though hoping to enlist her interest. But the widow, with a
far-away look in her eyes, was gazing out over the valley.
"'Most nigh got me, too," added Greetings, pointing to a bullet mark
in the sleeve of his coat near the shoulder. "I felt that there bird
flit past. You can brand me for a slick-ear if it wa'n't plumb
discouraging."
The major demanded the whole story, and Fitzrapp nodded to his
companion, who looked none too pleased at what he would have termed
"passing the buck."
"Mornin' before yesterday all was lovely on the lower range," he
began, after a preliminary clearing of his throat, an operation that
by no means strengthened his weak voice. "We looks the band over and
decides that the thunder an' lightnin' of Monday night had caused
some strayin'. So we ambles up Crooked Coulee and back through
Feather Bed Meadow, roundin' up a couple of dozen.
"We unlimbers at Breakfast Flat," Greetings continued, "and munches a
bit of grub, when up comes young Scar Face with word that the damned
rustlers are repeatin' on the lower end of the herd. Mr. Fitzrapp
and me climbs into the saddle and sets out hotfoot after 'em and
meets the two bucks we'd left ridin' herd a-breezin' away from it as
if they had pressin' and important business affairs elsewhere.
They'd been told to vamoose, they says, by five angry-lookin' whites,
and as the said whites had the drop on 'em, they hadn't hesitated any
to do no argument."
Greetings paused for a moment to roll one, took a couple of puffs,
and then resumed: "By the time we dusts over the divide and get a
bird's-eye view of said situation, the blotters had cut out what
hawses they wants and were driftin' them, comfortable-like, toward
the ford. When they see us real he-men a-comin', two of 'em drops
back as if to have a conversation party, and t'other three speeds up
the cut-outs. The rear guard opens quite prompt before Fitzrapp and
I knows we're within range, and the duet them rifle bullets sung
wasn't like the music of weddin' bells by a darned sight, was it,
boss?"
"But didn't you return their fire?" demanded MacDonald impatiently.
"Sure we returns their fire!" replied Greetings indignantly. "But
much good that done us. They must 'a' had some new-fangled sort of
irons--long range cannon. They makes the dust fly all around us, but
we couldn't seem to make no impression in their neighborhood. We
tries to go closer, and they takes to shootin' as if we was targets.
Some shootin' it was, too, bet your life!" His comprehensive gesture
took in Fitzrapp's holed sombrero and his own perforated coat sleeve.
"We follows them clean into the night and plumb up to the line. But
to get to the short of it, when daylight comes, there wasn't a sign
of the murderin' devils or of the herd."
"Did the silver stallion show this time?" asked the widow, her manner
noncommittal.
"They left the white beast behind this time," said Fitzrapp, a shade
of impatience in his voice. "Probably he was tired out from
activities elsewhere. But his master wasn't."
"What do you mean?" she asked quickly.
"I'm sure I recognized Childress as one of the two who covered the
flight."
Ethel Andress stared at him in amazement. "You were close enough to
a horse thief to recognize him, and you let him get away?"
"Of course not close enough to see his face, but his general
appearance in the saddle, and--Ethel, it seems to me pretty hard
hearted of you to be so careless of my life after all I've been
through. Is the herd more to you than----"
But the high-tempered young widow had not heard his plea. The
sounding of a door sharply closed interrupted him.
The two who had returned from the fray looked at each other. "In the
hero market, us two would sell pretty cheap, if the widow was the
only bidder," remarked Greetings, with a grin that did not make him
any more seemly. "She don't think we're anything because we ain't
corpses."
"You might have been more thrilling in detailing the encounter,"
complained Fitzrapp.
"Never was no good nohow a-gildin' of lilies," remarked the breed,
unlimbering himself from the steps and crawfishing in the direction
of the bunk house.