It was a still, hot evening when a somewhat silent company of bronze-faced
men assembled in the big living room of Cedar Range. It was built of birch
trunks, and had once, with its narrow windows and loopholes for rifle
fire, resembled a fortalice; but now cedar panelling covered the logs, and
the great double casements were filled with the finest glass. They were
open wide that evening. Around this room had grown up a straggling wooden
building of dressed lumber with pillars and scroll-work, and, as it stood
then, flanked by its stores and stables, barns and cattle-boys' barracks,
there was no homestead on a hundred leagues of prairie that might compare
with it.
Outside, on the one hand, the prairie rolled away in long billowy rises, a
vast sea of silvery grey, for the grass that had been green a month or two
was turning white again, and here and there a stockrider showed
silhouetted, a dusky mounted figure against the paling flicker of saffron
that still lingered upon the horizon. On the other, a birch bluff dipped
to the Cedar River, which came down faintly chilled with the Rockies' snow
from the pine forests of the foothills. There was a bridge four miles
away, but the river could be forded beneath the Range for a few months
each year. At other seasons it swirled by, frothing in green-stained
flood, swollen by the drainage of snowfield and glacier, and there was no
stockrider at the Range who dared swim his horse across.
Sun and wind had their will with the homestead, for there was little
shelter from icy blizzard and scorching heat at Cedar; but though here and
there the frame-boarding gaped and the roof-shingles were rent, no man
accustomed to that country could fail to notice the signs of careful
management and prosperity. Corrals, barns, and stables were the best of
their kind; and, though the character of all of them was not beyond
exception, in physique and fitness for their work it would have been hard
to match the sinewy men in blue shirts, wide hats, and long boots, then
watering their horses at the ford. They were as daring and irresponsible
swashbucklers as ever rode out on mediæval foray, and, having once sold
their allegiance to Torrance of Cedar, and recognized that he was not to
be trifled with, were ready to do without compunction anything he bade
them.
In the meanwhile Torrance sat at the head of the long table, with
Clavering of Beauregard at his right hand. His face was bronzed and
resolute, and the stamp of command sat plainly upon him. There was grey in
his dark hair, and his eyes were keen and black, with a little glint in
them; but, vigorous as he still seemed, the hand on the table was smooth
and but slightly tinted by the sun, for Torrance was one who, in the
language of that country, did his work, which was usually arduous, with
his gloves on. He was dressed in white shirt and broadcloth, and a diamond
of price gleamed in the front of the former.
His guests were for the most part younger, and Clavering was scarcely half
his age: but when they met in conclave something usually happened, for the
seat of the legislature was far away, and their will considerably more
potent thereabouts than the law of the land. Sheriff, postmaster, railroad
agent, and petty politician carried out their wishes, and as yet no man
had succeeded in living in that region unless he did homage to the
cattle-barons. They were Republicans, admitting in the abstract the rights
of man, so long as no venturesome citizen demanded too much of them; but
they had discovered that in practice liberty is usually the prerogative of
the strong. Still, they had done their nation good service, for they had
found the land a wilderness and covered it with cattle, so that its
commerce fed the railroads and supported busy wooden towns. Some of the
older men had disputed possession with the Indian, and most of them in the
early days, enduring thirst and loneliness and unwearying toil, had held
on stubbornly in the face of ruin by frost and drought and hail. It was
not astonishing that as they had made that land--so they phrased it--they
regarded it as theirs.
There were eight of them present, and for a time they talked of horses and
cattle as they sipped their wine, which was the choicest that France could
send them; and it is also probable that no better cigars ever came from
Cuba than those they smoked. By and by, however, Torrance laid his aside.
"It's time we got down to work," he said. "I sent for ten of you, and
eight have come. One sent valid excuses, and one made no answer."
"Larry Grant," said Clavering. "I guess he was too busy at the depot
bringing a fat Dutchman and a crowd of hard-faced Dakota ploughboys in."
There was a little murmur of astonishment which, had the men been
different, would not have been quite free from consternation, for it was
significant news.
"You're quite sure?" asked Torrance, and his face was stern.
"Well," said Clavering languidly, "I saw him, and bantered him a little on
his prepossessing friends. Asked him why, when he was at it, he didn't go
to Manitoba for Canadians. Larry didn't take it nicely."
"I'm sorry," said one of the older men. "Larry is one of us, and the last
man I'd figure on committing that kind of meanness would be the son of
Fremont Grant. Quite sure it's not a fit of temper? You have not been
worrying him, Torrance?"
Torrance closed one hand. "Grant of Fremont was my best friend, and when
he died I 'most brought the lad up as a son. When he got hold of his
foolish notions it hurt me considerably, and I did what I could to talk
him out of them."
There was a little smile in the faces of some of the men, for Torrance's
draconic fashion of arguing was known to them.
"You put it a little too straight, and he told you something that riled
you," said one.
"He did," said Torrance grimly. "Still, for 'most two years I kept a curb
on my temper. Then one evening I told him he had to choose right then
between his fancies and me. I could have no dealings with any man who
talked as he did."
"Do you remember any of it?" asked another man.
"Yes," said Torrance. "His father's friends were standing in the way of
progress. Land that would feed a thousand families was keeping us in
luxury no American was entitled to. This was going to be the poor man's
country, and the plough was bound to come!"
Clavering laughed softly, and there were traces of ironical amusement in
the faces of the rest. Very similar predictions had more than once been
flung at them, and their possessions were still, they fancied, secure to
them. They, however, became grave again, and it was evident that Larry
Grant had hitherto been esteemed by them.
"If it had been any one else, we could have put our thumb on him right
now," said one. "Still, I don't quite figure it would work with Larry.
There are too many folks who would stand in with him."
There was a little murmur of approbation, and Clavering laughed. "Buy him
off," he said tentatively. "We have laid out a few thousand dollars in
that way before."
Some of the men made gestures of decided negation, and Torrance looked at
the speaker a trifle sternly.
"No, sir," he said. "Larry may be foolish, but he's one of us."
"Then," said somebody, "we've got to give him time. Let it pass. You have
something to tell us, Torrance?"