It was some little time after her arrival at Cedar Range when Miss
Torrance, who took Flora Schuyler with her, rode out across the prairie.
There were a good many things she desired to investigate personally, and,
though a somewhat independent young woman, she was glad that the
opportunity of informing Torrance of her intention was not afforded her,
since he had ridden off somewhere earlier in the day. It also happened
that although the days were growing colder she arrayed herself
fastidiously in a long, light skirt, which she had not worn since she left
Cedar, and which with the white hat that matched it became her better than
the conventional riding attire. Miss Schuyler naturally noticed this.
"Is it a garden party we are going to?" she asked.
Hetty laughed. "We may meet some of our neighbours, and after staying with
you all that while in New York I don't want to go back on you. I had the
thing specially made in Chicago for riding in."
Miss Schuyler was not quite satisfied, but she made no further comment,
and there was much to occupy her attention. The bleached plain was bright
with sunshine and rolled back into the distance under an arch of cloudless
blue, while the crisp, clear air stirred her blood like an elixir. They
swept up a rise and down it, the colour mantling in their faces, over the
long hollow, and up a slope again, until, as the white grass rolled behind
her, Flora Schuyler yielded to the exhilaration of swift motion, and,
flinging off the constraint of the city, rejoiced in the springy rush of
the mettlesome beast beneath her. Streaming white levels, the blue of the
sliding sky, the kiss of the wind on her hot cheek, and the roar of hoofs,
all reacted upon her until she laughed aloud when she hurled her half-wild
broncho down a slope.
"This is surely the finest country in the world," she said.
The words were blown behind her, but Hetty caught some of them, and, when
at last she drew bridle where a rise ran steep and seamed with
badger-holes against the sky, nodded with a little air of pride.
"Oh, yes, and it's ours. All of it," she said. "Worth fighting for, isn't
it?"
Flora Schuyler laughed a little, but she shook her head. "It's a pity one
couldn't leave that out. You would stay here with your men folk if there
was trouble?"
Hetty looked at her with a little flash in her eyes. "Why, of course! It's
our country. We made it, and I'd go around in rags and groom the boys'
horses if it would help them to whip out the men who want to take it from
us."
Flora Schuyler smiled a trifle drily. "The trouble is that when we fall
out, one is apt to find as good Americans as we are, and sometimes the men
we like the most, standing in with the opposition. It has happened quite
often since the war."
Hetty shook her bridle impatiently. "Then, of course, one would not like
them any longer," she said.
Nothing more was said until they crossed the ridge above them, when Hetty
pulled her horse up. Across the wide levels before her advanced a line of
dusty teams, the sunlight twinkling on the great breaker ploughs they
hauled, while the black loam rolled in softly gleaming waves behind them.
They came on with slow precision, and in the forefront rolled a great
machine that seamed and rent the prairie into triple furrows.
"What are they doing there? Do they belong to you?" asked Miss Schuyler.
The flush the wind had brought there turned to a deeper crimson in Hetty's
usually colourless face. "To us!" she said, and her voice had a thrill of
scorn. "They're homesteaders. Ride down. I want to see who's leading
them."
She led the way with one little gloved hand clenched on the dainty switch
she held; but before she reached the foremost team the man who pulled it
up sprang down from the driving-seat of the big machine. A tall wire
fence, with a notice attached to it, barred his way. The other ploughs
stopped behind him, somebody brought an axe, and Hetty set her lips when
the glistening blade whirled high and fell. Thrice it flashed in the
sunlight, swung by sinewy arms, and then, as the fence went down, a low,
half-articulate cry rose from the waiting men. It was not exultant, but
there was in it the suggestion of a steadfast purpose.
Hetty sat still and looked at them, a little sparkle in her dark eyes, and
a crimson spot in either cheek, while the laces that hung from her neck
across the bodice of the white dress rose and fell. It occurred to Flora
Schuyler that she had never seen her companion look half so well, and she
waited with strained expectancy for what should follow, realizing, with
the dramatic instinct most women have, who the man with the axe must be.
He turned slowly, straightening his back and stood for a moment erect and
statuesque, with the blue shirt open at his bronzed neck and the great axe
gleaming in his hand; and Hetty gasped. Miss Schuyler's surmise was
verified, for it was Larry Grant.
"Larry," said her companion, and her voice had a curious ring, "what are
you doing here?"
The man, who appeared to ignore the question, swung off his wide hat.
"Aren't you and Miss Schuyler rather far from home?" he asked.
Flora Schuyler understood him when, glancing round, she noticed the figure
of a mounted man forced up against the skyline here and there. Hetty,
however, had evidently not seen them.
"I want an answer, please," she said.
"Well," said Larry gravely, "I was cutting down that fence."
"Why were you cutting it down?" persisted Miss Torrance.
"It was in the way."
"Of what?"
Grant turned and pointed to the men, sturdy toilers starved out of bleak
Dakota and axe-men farmers from the forests of Michigan. "Of these, and
the rest who are coming by and by," he said. "Still, I don't want to go
into that; and you seem angry. You haven't offered to shake hands with me,
Hetty."
Miss Torrance sat very still, one hand on the switch, and another on the
bridle, looking at him with a little scornful smile on her lips. Then she
glanced at the prairie beyond the severed fence.
"That land belongs to my friends," she said.
Grant's face grew a trifle wistful, but his voice was grave. "They have
had the use of it, but it belongs to the United States, and other people
have the right to farm there now. Still, that needn't make any trouble
between you and me."
"No?" said the girl, with a curious hardness in her inflection; but her
face softened suddenly. "Larry, while you only talked we didn't mind; but
no one fancied you would have done this. Yes, I'm angry with you. I have
been home 'most a month, and you never rode over to see me; while now you
want to talk politics."
Grant smiled a trifle wearily. "I would sooner talk about anything else;
and if you ask him, your father will tell you why I have not been to the
range. I don't want to make you angry, Hetty."
"Then you will give up this foolishness and make friends with us again,"
said the girl, very graciously. "It can't come to anything, Larry, and you
are one of us. You couldn't want to take away our land and give it to this
rabble?"
Hetty was wholly bewitching, as even Flora Schuyler, who fancied she
understood the grimness in the man's face, felt just then. He, however,
looked away across the prairie, and the movement had its significance to
one of the company, who, having less at stake, was the more observant.
When he turned again, however, he seemed to stand very straight.
"I'm afraid I can't," he said.
"No?" said Hetty, still graciously. "Not even when I ask you?"
Grant shook his head. "They have my word, and you wouldn't like me to go
back upon what I feel is right," he said.
Hetty laughed. "If you will think a little, you can't help seeing that you
are very wrong."
Again the little weary smile crept into Grant's face. "One naturally
thinks a good deal before starting in with this kind of thing, and I have
to go through. I can't stop now, even to please you. But can't we still be
friends?"
For a moment there was astonishment in the girl's face, then it flushed,
and as her lips hardened and every line in her slight figure seemed to
grow rigid, she reminded Miss Schuyler of the autocrat of Cedar Range.
"You ask me that?" she said. "You, an American, turning Dutchmen and these
bush-choppers loose upon the people you belong to. Can't you see what the
answer must be?"
Grant did apparently, for he mutely bent his head; but there was a shout
just then, and when one of the vedettes on the skyline suddenly moved
forward he seized Miss Torrance's bridle and wheeled her horse.
"Ride back to the Range," he said sharply, "as straight as you can. Tell
your father that you met me. Let your horse go, Miss Schuyler."
As he spoke he brought his hand down upon the beast's flank and it went
forward with a bound. The one Flora Schuyler rode flung up its head, and
in another moment they were sweeping at a gallop across the prairie. A
mile had been left behind before Hetty could pull her half-broken horse
up; but the struggle that taxed every sinew had been beneficial, and she
laughed a trifle breathlessly.
"I'm afraid I lost my temper; and I'm angry yet," she said. "It's the
first time Larry wouldn't do what I asked him, and it was mean of him to
send us off like that, just when one wanted to put on all one's dignity."
Miss Schuyler appeared thoughtful. "I fancy he did it because it was
necessary. Didn't it strike you that you were hurting him? That is a good
man and an honest one, though, of course, he may be mistaken."
"He must be," said Hetty. "Now I used to think ever so much of Larry, and
that is why I got angry with him. It isn't nice to feel one has been
fooled. How can he be good when he wants to take our land from us?"
Flora Schuyler laughed. "You are quite delightful, Hetty, now and then.
You have read a little, and been taught history. Can't you remember any?"
"Oh yes," said Hetty, with a little thoughtful nod. "Still, the men who
made the trouble in those old days were usually buried before anyone was
quite sure whether they were right or not. Try to put yourself in my
place. What would you do?"
There was a somewhat curious look in Miss Schuyler's blue eyes. "I think
if I had known a man like that one as long as you have done, I should
believe in him--whatever he did."
"Well," said Hetty gravely, "if you had, just as long as you could
remember, seen your father and his friends taking no pleasure, but working
every day, and putting most of every dollar they made back into the ranch,
you would find it quite difficult to believe that the man who meant to
take it from them now they were getting old and wanted to rest and enjoy
what they had worked for was doing good."
Flora Schuyler nodded. "Yes," she said, "I would. It's quite an old
trouble. There are two ways of looking at everything, and other folks have
had to worry over them right back to the beginning."
Then she suddenly tightened her grasp on the bridle, for the ringing of a
rifle rose, sharp and portentous, from beyond the rise. The colour faded
in her cheek, and Hetty leaned forward a trifle in her saddle, with lips
slightly parted, as though in strained expectancy. No sound now reached
them from beyond the low, white ridge that hemmed in their vision but a
faint drumming of hoofs. Then Flora Schuyler answered the question in her
companion's eyes.
"I think it was only a warning," she said.
She wheeled her horse and they rode on slowly, hearing nothing further,
until the Range rose from behind the big birch bluff. Torrance had
returned when they reached it, and Hetty found him in his office room.
"I met Larry on the prairie, and of course I talked to him," she said. "I
asked him why he had not been to the Range, and he seemed to think it
would be better if he did not come."
Torrance smiled drily. "Then I guess he showed quite commendable taste as
well as good sense. You are still decided not to go back to New York,
Hetty?"
"Yes," said the girl, with a little resolute nod. "You see, I can't help
being young and just a little good-looking, but I'm Miss Torrance of Cedar
all the time."
Torrance's face was usually grim, but it grew a trifle softer then.
"Hetty," he said, "they taught you a good many things I never heard of at
that Boston school, but I'm not sure you know that all trade and industry
is built upon just this fact: what a man has made and worked hard for is
his own. Would anyone put up houses or raise cattle if he thought his
neighbours could take them from him? Now there's going to be trouble over
that question here, and, though it isn't likely, your father may be beaten
down. He may have to do things that wouldn't seem quite nice to a dainty
young woman, and folks may denounce him; but it's quite plain that if you
stay here you will have to stand in with somebody."
The girl, who was touched by the unusual tenderness in his eyes, sat down
upon the table, and slipped an arm about his neck.
"Who would I stand in with but you?" she said. "We'll whip the rustlers
out of the country, and, whether it sounds nice at the time or not, you
couldn't do anything but the square thing."
Torrance kissed her gravely, but he sighed and his face grew stern again
when she slipped out of the room.
"There will not be many who will come through this trouble with hands
quite clean," he said.
It was during the afternoon, and Torrance had driven off again, when, as
the two girls were sitting in the little room which was set apart for
them, a horseman rode up to the Range, and Flora Schuyler, who was nearest
the window, drew back the curtain.
"That man should sit on horseback always," she said; "he's quite a
picture."
Hetty nodded. "Yes," she said. "Still, you told me you didn't like him.
It's Clavering. Now, I wonder what he put those things on for--he doesn't
wear them very often--and whether he knew my father wasn't here."
Clavering would probably have attracted the attention of most young women
just then, for he had dressed himself in the fashion the prairie
stockriders were addicted to, as he did occasionally, perhaps because he
knew it suited him. He had artistic perceptions, and could adapt himself
harmoniously to his surroundings, and he knew Hetty's appreciation of the
picturesque. His sallow face showed clean cut almost to feminine
refinement under the wide hat, and the blue shirt which clung about him
displayed his slender symmetry. It was, however, not made of flannel, but
apparently of silk, and the embroidered deerskin jacket which showed the
squareness of his shoulders, was not only daintily wrought, but had
evidently cost a good many dollars. His loose trousers and silver spurs
were made in Mexican fashion: but the boldness of the dark eyes, and the
pride that revealed itself in the very pose of the man, redeemed him from
any taint of vanity.
He sat still until a hired man came up, then swung himself from the
saddle, and in another few moments had entered the room with his wide hat
in his hand.
"You find us alone," said Hetty. "Are you astonished?"
"I am content," said Clavering. "Why do you ask me?"
"Well," said Hetty naïvely, "I fancied you must have seen my father on the
prairie, and could have stopped him if you had wanted to."
There was a little flash in Clavering's dark eyes that was very eloquent.
"The fact is, I did. Still, I was afraid he would want to take me along
with him."
Hetty laughed. "I am growing up," she said. "Three years ago you wouldn't
have wasted those speeches on me. Well, you can sit down and talk to
Flora."
Clavering did as he was bidden. "It's a time-honoured question," he said.
"How do you like this country?"
"There's something in its bigness that gets hold of one," said Miss
Schuyler. "One feels free out here on these wide levels in the wind and
sun."
Clavering nodded, and Flora Schuyler fancied from his alertness that he
had been waiting for an opportunity. "It would be wise to enjoy it while
you can," he said. "In another year or two the freedom may be gone, and
the prairie shut off in little squares by wire fences. Then one will be
permitted to ride along a trail between rows of squalid homesteads flanked
by piles of old boots and provision-cans. We will have exchanged the
stockrider for the slouching farmer with a swarm of unkempt children and a
slatternly, scolding wife then."
"You believe that will come about?" asked Miss Schuyler, giving him the
lead she felt he was waiting for.
Clavering looked thoughtful. "It would never come if we stood loyally
together, but--and it is painful to admit it--one or two of our people
seem quite willing to destroy their friends to gain cheap popularity by
truckling to the rabble. Of course, we could spare those men quite well,
but they know our weak points, and can do a good deal of harm by betraying
them."
"Now," said Hetty, with a sparkle in her eyes, "you know quite well that
if some of them are mistaken they will do nothing mean. Can't they have
their notions and be straight men?"
"It is quite difficult to believe it," said Clavering. "I will tell you
what one or two of them did. There was trouble down at Gordon's place
fifty miles west, and his cow-boys whipped off a band of Dutchmen who
wanted to pull his fences down. Well, they came back a night or two later
with a mob of Americans, and laid hands on the homestead. We are proud of
the respect we pay women in this country, Miss Schuyler, but that night
Mrs. Gordon's and her daughters' rooms were broken into, and the girls
turned out on the prairie. It was raining, and I believe they were not
even allowed to provide themselves with suitable clothing. Of course,
nothing of that kind could happen here, or I would not have told you."
Hetty's voice was curiously quiet as she asked, "Was nothing done to
provoke them?"
"Yes," said Clavering, with a dry smile, "Gordon shot one of them; but is
it astonishing? What would you expect of an American if a horde of rabble
who held nothing sacred poured into his house at night? Oh, yes, he shot
one of them, and would have given them the magazine, only that somebody
felled him with an axe. The Dutchman was only grazed, but Gordon is lying
senseless still."
There was an impressive silence, and the man sat still with the veins on
his forehead a trifle swollen and a glow in his eyes. His story was also
accurate, so far as it went; but he had, with a purpose, not told the
whole of it.
"You are sure there were Americans among them?" asked Hetty, very
quietly.
"They were led by Americans. You know one or two of them."
"No," said Hetty, almost fiercely. "I don't know. But Larry wasn't
there?"
Clavering shook his head, but there was a curious incisiveness in his
tone. "Still, we found out that his committee was consulted and
countenanced the affair."
"Then Larry wasn't at the meeting," said Miss Torrance. "He couldn't have
been."
Clavering made her a little and very graceful inclination. "One would
respect such faith as yours."
Miss Schuyler, who was a young woman of some penetration, deftly changed
the topic, and Clavering came near to pleasing her, but he did not quite
succeed, before he took his departure. Then Hetty glanced inquiringly at
her companion.