A stranger stood in the doorway of the tent. He was short and heavily
built, with a big, close-shaven head and small, bright eyes. As Harriet
rose and came forward, he smiled reassuringly.
"My brother is not here just now," the girl said. "He has gone after a
load of fence posts. Won't you come in?"
"Thanks. I'll sit down out here. It's cooler, I reckon. So you're
homesteadin', are you? How do you like it?"
He spoke in such a cheery voice and smiled so pleasantly that Harriet's
fears vanished. "To tell the truth, I don't care much for it," she
admitted. "It's so very lonely."
"You're right. Homesteadin's hard for a young lady, 'specially one that
ain't used to this country. You wa'n't raised out here, I judge, ma'am?"
"Oh, no! We come from Connecticut."
"Say! Connecticut! I'll bet you didn't cal'late to hit the hard pan
when you come, neither?" He cocked his head, smiled, and then burst
into a ringing laugh.
Harry laughed, too. "If this is 'hard pan,' I certainly didn't expect
to hit it."
"Yes, sir, and it'll be a heap harder before you've finished provin'
up, too. Summer's fine here in the hills, but when the winter sets in!
You goin' to stick it out the three years?"
"Oh, no! I'm going back. I haven't taken a homestead myself; this is my
brother's. I'm only visiting him."
"What's he goin' to do here, anyhow?"
"Make a ranch, I guess."
"A ranch? Why, it'll take twenty years for him to get the brush off
this and get it all into crops. 'Tain't fit for nothin' but grazing.
You know what he'd ought to have done? Took forty acres down in the
Twin Falls district. There's where they're makin' money. That's the
place for you young folks from back East to get in and make a strike.
You'd have easy sleddin' all the way, and make money, too. But this
here--"
He stopped as if he did not care to say too much, and looked off across
the sagebrush.
Harry had listened, interested at first, and then surprised and
disturbed. Poor Rob! He did not know what he had got into. And oh, how
thankful she was that she, too, had not filed a claim!
At that moment Rob came around the corner of the tent.
"How do!" he said, and stopped.
"This Mr. Holliday?" asked the stranger. "My name's Joyce."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Joyce." Rob sat down on the grass and took off
his hat. "Got any fresh water there, Harry?" he asked.
"Fencing's a big job," he said, as he drained the dipper. "The
ground's getting dry now, too, so I have to work fast."
"Yes. It's a hard proposition all through," answered Joyce. He was
silent a moment, and then began abruptly, "I've been telling your
sister here what you could do over on the south side; how much better
off you would be with forty acres there than with a hundred and sixty
here."
"You an agent for the Twin Falls' tract?" asked Rob, with a smile.
"No, sir. I'm a sheepman; but I've got eighty acres down there, and I
know what it's going to be. A young fellow like you with brains and
spunk could make a fortune there in a few years. Here you'll spend a
lifetime gettin' a living."
He went on to give a glowing account of the farming on the south side
of the Snake River--a tract that an irrigation company had lately
opened.
"See here," he said suddenly, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
exchange forty acres there, all proved up on, only a few payments left,
for your homestead, if you'll commute on it. And I'm offering you the
biggest price you'll ever get for it."
"Why do you offer it if it's so big? Why don't you keep your forty?"
"Well, it's just this way: I've got to have a water hole here for
lambing. I've been coming here on my way to the reserve for twenty
years. Never thought of filing on this land it's so poor, nothing but
the water here but that's what makes it valuable to us stockmen."
"That's what makes it valuable to me. I'm going to run cattle."
Joyce laughed loudly. "My boy, cattle would starve where sheep grow
fat. You'll be flat broke in five years."
"Why haven't you taken it up before?" asked Rob. "It's been here a good
while."
"Well, us stockmen have got so used to having all the wild land we
wanted that we haven't realized until too late that you fellows are
coming in here and taking it all up."
"Then I'm not the only greenhorn from back East who thinks it's good
for something."
"If you'll sell out to me, you'll never regret it."
"If I ever decide to sell out, I'll give you first chance to bid on
it," Rob promised; and that was as much as Joyce could get out of him.
When Joyce was leaving, he turned in his saddle and called:
"Well, so long, Holliday! Mebbe you'll be sorry you didn't close with
me when the sheep begin coming in."
A day or two after Joyce's visit, Harry called the dog--she had
shortened Othello to 'Thello by this time--and went down to the side
of the hundred and sixty where Rob was fencing. Having so little to
occupy her time, she frequently went out to walk in the afternoon, and
joined her brother on her way home; but this was the first time she had
gone down so early, and she found the brush, under the afternoon sun,
a very different place from what it had looked from the shade of the
quaking aspens.
Out in the brush there was no shade; even the largest clumps of sage,
some as high as her head, gave little refuge from the glare of the
sun. The desert, lying silent in the sunshine and heat, seemed to fill
the visible universe, and to absorb all significance from the tiny
human motes that inhabited it. What, Harry asked herself, could Rob do
singlehanded against that inert opponent?
As she watched him bore one hole after another, driving the post-hole
digger down through the gravel and earth, repeating monotonously the
same motions, never resting, seldom speaking, pausing only to pour a
drink of water down his throat or to wipe the sweat from his face with
his torn sleeve, he seemed to her to have become a helpless automaton
that had been wound up and set going for the amusement of some
invisible spectator.
Harry was discovering that the West was very different from the
picturesque idea she had had of it. Her part in it, too, was not the
picturesque part she had thought to play. Harry saw the West only from
its unromantic exterior; not--as Rob was seeing it--as the foundation
for as great a romance as the world has ever seen: the transforming of
the waste places of the earth into a garden of plenty.
If Rob had only told her of the dreams and plans that inspired
him--but Rob was no talker. Now, as Harry watched him, she felt only
the vague discomfort of pity for his overwhelming task.
The heat made her sick, the glare tortured her eyes; she was afraid of
the lizards and horned toads that darted across the sand about her;
but if she went back to the tent she knew that she would soon become
lonely and homesick. She decided to take a short walk. Looking over her
shoulder toward the foothills, she frowned questioningly.
"Rob, who is that up there?"
"Hey?" Rob straightened himself laboriously and glanced in the
direction in which she pointed.
As yet no sheep had bothered them. One or two flocks had come down from
the foothills on their way across to the reserve, but Rob had warned
them off. Seeing that their favorite bedding ground had been filed on,
the herders had pushed on to the "scab" land.
"Aren't those sheep?" asked Harry.
"They are," Rob said slowly. Resting on his shovel, he gazed up at the
point where the buttes divided to form a deep coulee.
The leaders of the flock had come rather slowly over the crest of the
hill, but now the whole herd came pouring down the glen. The thousand
or more animals bleated crazily as they smelled the water and the deep,
rich grass below them. Two sheep dogs maneuvered them with short, sharp
yelps, glancing back for directions to the sheep herder who stood above
and with his hat signaled to them what to do.
Walking toward the glen, Rob motioned to the sheep herder to come down.
At first the man paid no attention, but when Rob had whistled sharply
two or three times, he slowly began to descend the hill.
"He doesn't want to hear me," Rob said. "You'll see. He'll pretend he
doesn't understand. Those Mexes are a coony lot; pretend to be stupid,
but are sharp as nails when it comes to hanging on to a good grazing
ground."
Watching the sheep flow along, Rob and Harry waited. After a while the
herder came down the glen toward them.
"Say, he's not a Mex at all!" Rob exclaimed. "He's an American! It must
be that herder of Joyce's."
The herder, who was a good-looking, heavily built fellow about twenty
years old, stopped and looked at Rob without speaking. His felt hat was
drawn forward over his eyes. He carried a heavy stick that was thick
and knotted at the end.
"How do!" he said, glancing inquiringly from brother to sister.
"I suppose you know that this land has been filed on?" Rob began. "I'll
have to ask you not to herd your sheep in 'round here."
"Who's filed on it?"
"I have."
"I don't see no fence."
"I've just come on, and haven't got the fence up yet; but it's mine,
just the same."
"Well, I don't know if it is," the young fellow replied insolently.
His eyes were fastened upon 'Thello, who, crouching at Harry's feet,
had been growling at him.
"Where'd you get that pup?" he asked shortly. "He's mine."
"Yours?" Rob's voice was quiet, but his blood was hot. "I don't see any
collar."
An angry glint shot from the herder's eyes. "He's mine, just the same."
"I don't know if he is."
"Well, I'm going to have him!" the man muttered, and made a move toward
the dog.
But Harry was quicker. Sweeping 'Thello into her arms, she stepped back.
"Whoever owned him didn't deserve to!" she cried. "The poor little
thing had been starved and beaten nearly to death when we found him,
and I'm not going to let him go."
The way in which Harry spoke the words, with her head thrown back and
her brown eyes shining, carried a challenge; the sheep herder's fist
tightened on his stick and his face darkened. Then, without a word, he
shrugged his shoulders and moved off.
"Remember," called Rob, "you're to feed on the slopes. I want the
meadows for my own stock, and if you aren't careful, I'll have you
moved outside the two-mile limit."
The fellow stopped, looked back at them, and then answered, "I reckon
you can't do just that. I've filed on the homestead just east of this
here one. My name's Boykin, if you want to look it up." Turning, he
went on.
There was a minute of silence. Then Rob said slowly, "The homestead
east; the land I meant you to take."
Harry could not answer. A queer, surprising shame and regret held her
silent.
She and Rob walked down to the tent without speaking a word. Anything
that Rob might have said would have sounded like a reproach, and of
what use, he thought, would that have been now? Harry longed to have
him speak, nevertheless, to have him say something that would show how
he did feel. She was much relieved when at last he broke the silence.
"Who's that coming?" he said abruptly. "I believe it's Brannan with the
cow and those heifers."
A cloud of dust was puffing along the road toward the ranch, and
through it they saw a man on horseback, with the half-dozen head of
cattle which Rob had bought. When they came nearer Harry recognized the
little man as the same who had spoken to Rob in the hotel at Shoshone.
They hurried across the meadow to the corral; without waiting for them
Dan had opened the gate and begun to drive in the cattle.
Tired, suspicious and frightened, they refused to enter and started
off, each in a different direction, but they had reckoned without the
old "cow puncher." Harry had smiled to herself when first she saw the
wizened old man perched upon his big hay horse; but her amusement gave
way to wonder and admiration when he began to work the "critters" back
toward the corral.
Bellowing and kicking they dodged and ran but Dan, with his dog and his
whip, steered them back and drove them finally through the gateway.
Harry, Rob and Dan looked proudly at the cattle.
"A nice bunch of critters," said Rob.
"They are that," Dan assented gravely. "As good as any I have and I've
the best herd in the valley. Now ye've the last word whin some felly
picks on 'em."
"A good start is half the journey," said Rob, "and I'm obliged to you.
Come up to the tent, Dan. It's hot work riding on a day like this, and
sis will make us some lemonade."
"I see you've the sheep still wid ye." Dan nodded toward the hillside.
"Got 'em for keeps." Rob went on to tell what he had just found out.
"The worst of it is," he said, "that that herder is a mean one, and
Joyce is a mean one, too; so between them I guess I'm in for trouble."
Dan nodded. "Y'are. Niver did ye say truer worrud. Meanness is the cud
thim two niver swallys. But I'll be tellin' ye a thing, lad."
He leaned forward and laid his hand on Rob's knee. "Ye don't want to
let thim think ye're beaten. That Joyce has half a dozen homesteads
a'ready that he's paid his herders to file on, for sure! But kape yer
eyes open, and might be you'd find a way to come up with him yet."
"I'm afraid a tenderfoot like me hasn't much of a show against an
old-timer like him."
"Niver say it. There niver was a rashcal yit that didn't lave wan
footprint at least in the mud, smart as he'd be, and it's mebbe you
that's the lad wit' the eyes to see it. Watch him, Rob, watch him."
Rob shook his head, yet nevertheless he felt a glow of hope in his
heart.
That evening, just before bedtime, Jones returned to the ranch, spread
his quilt on the dry grass under a tree and became one of the family.
He was good company, and Harry would have been glad to have him about,
except that he took so much of Rob's attention. Every morning at
sunrise the two began to work with the colts, breaking them one by one
to bit and bridle, and then to harness and wagon.
As soon as the forenoon grew warm, they shut the colts in the meadow
at the head of the draw. This was a natural pasture lot, watered by a
spring that flowed from the rocks under the next lift in the foothills
and sheltered on all sides by trees. Here the horses were safe and the
boys paid no more attention to them throughout the day. Jones always
rode away through the valley while Rob plowed, went on with his task of
fencing, or did some work in the garden. After supper the boys resumed
their business of breaking the colts.
Twice Jones had ridden away in the evening taking one or more of the
harness-broken horses with him and had returned some days later
without them. Harry supposed that he had sold them. Neither Rob nor
Jones ever talked about the horses in her presence and she had soon
understood that she was not expected to ask questions about them.
One morning Rob asked his sister to put up some lunch for Jones and
himself because they were going down the valley on business.
Harry put up the lunch and stood watching while they mounted and rode
off. Among the string of horses which Jones had brought in were two
well broken to saddle, a black and a sorrel, and to-day the boys each
rode one of them. These two horses had run loose for so long a time
that they were as frisky and spirited as the colts. As the little party
swept away across the wild prairie the girl longed ardently to be with
them. She liked to ride--Rob had been teaching her--and it did seem
hard that she should not be allowed to go along on such trips as these,
simply because she was not considered a proper person to share a secret.
Hurt pride mingled with resentment struggled together in her breast. It
was hard to think that she was still outside Rob's deeper interests.
Her life had, for the moment, lost its zest. She finished tidying up
the tent, then went down to the garden determined to be interested in
her own tasks, for the planting and weeding of the vegetables that Rob,
overwhelmed in the press of work, had been forced to leave to her.
She put in several rows of root vegetables, a second planting of peas
and beans and was trying to feel enthusiastic about planting corn when
a soft crooning call made her turn.
At first nothing living was to be seen. Then a quiver amongst the tall
weeds and grass along the stream caught her eye, and there came into
sight a sage hen leading her brood of five chicks. Advancing sedately,
craning her long neck to keep watch on every side, pausing to strip the
seeds from various weeds, crooning her furtive call to her young, the
mother bird moved upstream toward the cool shade of the cañon. Suddenly
her black, inquiring eye met Harry's friendly but eager stare. For an
instant the hen stood motionless, her gray-brown coloring blending her
confusingly with the sand and sagebrush of the hillside behind her.
Then, with a short, whistling call she dropped low and Harry saw her
and the baby chickens slither off toward the willows.
With a sudden determination to follow and have a closer look at these,
her nearest neighbors, Harry dropped her hoe in the fence corner, shut
'Thello inside the garden so he could not chase the birds, and slipped
quietly up the draw after them.