It was a clear, cold afternoon, and Hetty, driving back from Allonby's
ranch, sent the team at a gallop down the dip to the Cedar Bridge. The
beaten trail rang beneath the steel shoes of the rocking sleigh, the
birches streamed up blurred together out of the hollow, and Flora Schuyler
felt the wind sting her cheeks like the lash of a whip. The coldness of it
dimmed her eyes, and she had only a hazy and somewhat disconcerting vision
of a streak of snow that rolled back to the horses' feet amidst the
whirling trees. It was wonderfully exhilarating--the rush of the lurching
sleigh, the hammering of the hoofs, and the scream of the wind--but Miss
Schuyler realized that it was also unpleasantly risky as she remembered
the difficult turn before one came to the bridge.
She decided, however, that there was nothing to be gained by pointing this
out to her companion, for Hetty, who sat swaying a little in the driving
seat, had been in a somewhat curious mood since the attack on Cedar Range,
and unusually impatient of advice or remonstrance. Indeed, Flora Schuyler
fancied that it was the restlessness she had manifested once or twice of
late which impelled her to hurl the sleigh down into the hollow at that
reckless pace. So she said nothing, until the streak of snow broke off
close ahead, and there were only trees in front of them. Then, a wild
lurch cut short the protest she made, and she gasped as they swung round
the bend and flashed across the bridge. The trail, however, led steeply
upwards now, and Hetty, laughing, dropped the reins upon the plodding
horses' necks.
"Didn't that remind you of the Chicago Limited?" she said.
"I was wondering," said Miss Schuyler breathlessly, "if you had any reason
for trying to break your neck."
"Well," said Hetty, with a twinkle in her eyes, "I felt I had to do
something a little out of the usual, and it was really safe enough.
Everybody feels that way now and then, and I couldn't well work it off by
quarrelling with you, or going out and talking to the boys as my father
does. I don't know a better cure than a gallop or a switchback in a
sleigh."
"Some folks find it almost as soothing to tell their friends what is
worrying them, and I scarcely think it's more risky," said Miss Schuyler.
Hetty's face became grave. "Well," she said, "one can talk to you, and I
have been worried, Flo. I know that it is quite foolish, but I can't help
it. I came back to see my father through the trouble, and I'm going to;
but while I know that he's ever so much wiser than I am, some of the
things he has to do hurt me. It's our land, and we're going to keep it;
but it's not nice to think of the little children starving in the snow."
This, Miss Schuyler decided, was perfectly correct, so far as it went; but
she also felt tolerably certain that, while it was commendable, Hetty's
loyalty to her father would be strenuously tested, and did not alone
account for her restlessness.
"And there was nothing else?" she said.
"No," said Hetty, a little too decisively. "Of course! Any way, now I have
told you we are not going to worry about these things to-day, and I drove
fast partly because the trail is narrow, and one generally meets somebody
here. Did it ever strike you, Flo, that if there's anyone you know in a
country that has a bridge in it, you will, if you cross it often enough,
meet him there?"
"No," and Miss Schuyler smiled satirically, "it didn't, though one would
fancy it was quite likely. I, however, remember that we met Larry here not
very long ago. That Canadian blanket suit shows you off quite nicely,
Hetty. It is especially adapted to your kind of figure."
Hetty flicked the horses, then pulled them up again, and Miss Schuyler
laughed as a sleigh with two men in it swung out from beneath the trees in
front of them.
"This is, of course, a coincidence," she said.
Hetty coloured. "Don't be foolish, Flo," she said. "How could I know he
was coming?"
Flora Schuyler did not answer, and Hetty was edging her horses to the side
of the trail, in which two sleighs could scarcely pass, when a shout came
down.
"Wait. We'll pull up and lead our team round."
In another minute Grant stepped out of his sleigh, and would have passed
if Hetty had not stopped him. She sat higher than her companion, and
probably knew that the Canadian blanket costume, with its scarlet
trimmings, became her slender figure. The crimson toque also went well
with the clustering dark hair and dark eyes, and there was a brightness in
the latter which was in keeping with the colour the cold wind had brought
into the delicate oval face. The man glanced at her a moment, and then
apparently found that a trace required his attention.
"I am glad we met you, Larry," said the girl. "Flo thanked you the night
you came to Cedar, and I wanted to, but, while you know why I couldn't, I
would not like you to think it was very unkind of me. Whatever my father
does is right, you see."
"Of course," said Grant gravely. "You have to believe it, Hetty."
Hetty's eyes twinkled. "That was very nice of you. Then you must be
wrong."
"Well," said Grant, with a merry laugh, "it is quite likely that I am now
and then. One can only do the best he can, and to be right all the time is
a little too much to expect from any man."
Miss Schuyler, who was talking to Breckenridge, turned and smiled, and
Hetty said, "Then, that makes it a little easier for me to admit that the
folks I belong to go just a little too far occasionally. Larry, I hate to
think of the little children going hungry. Are there many of them?"
Grant's face darkened for a moment. "I'm afraid there are quite a few--and
sick ones, too, lying with about half enough to cover them in
sod-hovels."
Hetty shuddered and her eyes grew pitiful, for since the grim early days
hunger and want had been unknown in the cattle country. "If I want to do
something for them it can't be very wrong," she said. "Larry, you will
take a roll of bills from me, and buy them whatever will make it a little
less hard for them?"
"No," said Grant quietly, "I can't, Hetty. Your father gives you that
money, and we have our own relief machinery."
The girl laid her hand upon his arm appealingly. "I have a little my
mother left me, and it was hers before she married my father. Can't you
understand? I am with my father, and would not lift my finger to help you
and the homestead-boys against him, but it couldn't do anybody any harm if
I sent a few things to hungry children. You have just got to take those
dollars, Larry."
"Then I dare not refuse," said Grant, after thinking a moment. "They need
more than we can give them. But you can't send me the dollars."
"No," said Hetty, "and I have none with me now. But if a responsible man
came to the bluff to-morrow night at eight o'clock, my maid could slip
down with the wallet--you must not come. It would be too dangerous. My
father, and one or two of the rest, are very bitter against you."
"Well," said Grant, smiling gravely, "a responsible man will be there.
There are folks who will bless you, Hetty."
"You must never tell them, or anybody," the girl insisted.
Grant said nothing further, and led his team past; but Hetty noticed the
shadow in his bronzed face and the wistfulness in his eyes. Then, she
shook the reins, and as the horses plodded up the slope Miss Schuyler
fancied that she sighed.
In the meanwhile Grant got into his sleigh, and Breckenridge, who had been
vanquished by Miss Schuyler in an exchange of badinage, found him somewhat
silent during the journey to Fremont ranch. He retired to rest soon after
they reached it, and set out again before daylight the next morning, and
it was late at night when he came back very weary, with his garments stiff
with frost. The great bare room where Breckenridge awaited him was filled
with a fusty heat, and as he came in, partly dazed by the change of
temperature, Grant did not see the other man who sat amidst the
tobacco-smoke beside the glowing stove. He sank into a hide chair limply,
and when Breckenridge glanced at him inquiringly, with numbed fingers
dragged a wallet out of his pocket.
"Yes," he said, "I got the dollars. I don't know that it was quite the
square thing, but with Harper's wife and the Dutchman's children 'most
starving in the hollow, I felt I had to take them."
Breckenridge made a little warning gesture, and the man behind the stove,
reaching forward, picked up a packet that had dropped unnoticed by the
rest when Grant took out the wallet.
"You seem kind of played out, Larry, and I guess you didn't know you
dropped the thing," he said.
Grant blinked at him; for a man who has driven for many hours in the cold
of the Northwest is apt to suffer from unpleasant and somewhat bewildering
sensations when his numbed brain and body first throw off the effect of
the frost.
"No," he said unevenly. "Let me alone a minute. I didn't see you."
The man, who was one of the homesteaders' leaders in another vicinity, sat
still with the packet in his hand until, perhaps without any intention of
reading it, his eyes rested on the address. Then he sat upright suddenly
and stared at Grant.
"Do you know what you have got here, Larry?" he asked.
Grant stretched out his hand and took the packet, then laid it upon the
table with the address downwards.
"It's something that dropped out of the wallet," he said.
The other man laughed a little, but his face was intent. "Oh, yes, that's
quite plain; but if I know the writing it's a letter with something in it
from Torrance to the Sheriff. There's no mistaking the way he makes the
'g.' Turn it over and I'll show you."
Grant laid a brown hand on the packet. "No. Do you generally look at
letters that don't belong to you, Chilton?"
Breckenridge saw that Grant was recovering, and that the contemptuous
manner of his question was intentional, and guessed that his comrade had
intended to sting the other man to resentment, and so lead him from the
point at issue. Chilton coloured, but he persisted.
"Well," he said, "I guess that one belongs to the committee. I didn't mean
to look at the thing, but, now I'm sure of it, I have to do what I can for
the boys who made me their executive. I don't ask you how you got it,
Larry."
"I got it by accident."
Chilton looked astonished, and almost incredulous. "Well, we needn't worry
over that. The question is, what you're going to do with it?"
"I'm going to send it back."
Chilton made a gesture of impatience. "That's what you can't do. As we
know, the cattle-men had a committee at Cedar a day or two ago, and now
here's a packet stuffed with something going to the Sheriff. Doesn't it
strike you yet that it's quite likely there's a roll of dollar bills and a
letter telling him what he has to do inside it?"
"Well?" said Grant, seeing that he must face the issue sooner or later.
"We don't want their dollars, but that letter's worth a pile of them to
us. We could get it printed by a paper farther east, with an article on it
that would raise a howl from everybody. There are one or two of them quite
ready for a chance of getting a slap at the legislature, while there's
more than one man who would be glad to hawk it round the lobbies. Then his
friends would have no more use for the Sheriff, and we might even get a
commission sent down to straighten things up for us."
"The trouble is that we can't make any use of it," said Grant.
"No?" said Chilton, and the men looked at each other steadily.
"No," repeated Grant. "It wasn't meant that I should get it, and I'm going
to send it back."
"Then, while I don't want to make trouble, I'll have to mention the thing
to my committee."
"You'll do just what you believe is right. Any way, we'll have supper now.
It will be ready."