"I hope Isita comes early," said Harry on the morning of the Fourth as
she dried the breakfast dishes. "The nearer dinner time it gets the
more things there are to be done at once."
"I've seen you turn out pretty good feed all by yourself, when a bunch
of people have come in unexpectedly," said Rob, who, in honor of the
holiday, was dawdling about for fully ten minutes instead of hurrying
back to the field. "Those surveyors, now, that lost their way and
stayed overnight. Pretty good grub, I say, was what you gave them."
"This is a different matter," said Harry, trying not to show her
pleasure at Rob's praise. "This is a dinner party, you no savvy?"
"I see. In other words, you want the grub fit to eat off that
hundred-and-sixty-l'even-piece semiporcelain, rose-sprigged,
twelve-dollar-ninety-cents et cetery, et cetery, dinner set that we
bought out of the mail-order catalogue,--how long ago?--and that's been
settin' in the cupboard ever since."
Rob dodged the flapping dishcloth with which Harry chased him outdoors.
"All right!" he called back. "I'm going to tell 'em about that first
pie you tried to make!"
"You'll be sorry if you do," she warned him.
She was still smiling at the remembrance of those first days in the new
country when she saw the calico-clad figure of Isita coming along the
ditch bank.
"It's awfully good of you to help me out to-day!" Harry exclaimed as
the girl came up the path. "I couldn't possibly have done it all alone."
"I wanted to come," Isita answered quickly.
Something unfamiliar in her voice made Harry look closer at her.
Ordinarily Isita's color was a clear, pale olive. Now her cheeks were
flushed, her eyes heavy, and she breathed quickly.
"I don't believe you're well!" Harry exclaimed.
"Sure, I'm well. I hurried up here too fast, that's all," Isita
insisted, and asked what work she should do first.
She was evidently eager to do her very best, and after a little Harry
felt encouraged to bring out the flowered lawn she had wanted to give
Isita. She brought it from her room where it had been lying, freshly
ironed.
"See here," she said. "Wouldn't you like to put this on? It's too small
for me, and yet it's so pretty I can't bear to throw it away. It will
be nice and cool, too, this hot day."
Without a word the other girl took the dress; but, though her lips
were dumb, she looked up at Harry, and over her quiet face came an
expression so vivid, so glowing, that Harry felt as if a dull-covered
book had been unexpectedly flashed open at a splendid picture. The
book was instantly closed again, but that one glimpse satisfied her.
She felt as happy as a child dressing a new doll as she slipped the
dress over Isita's thin shoulders, buttoned it and then stood off to
admire the result. Isita dropped her eyelids shyly and smoothed the
bright lawn with caressing fingers.
"Now, if you'll shell the peas," Harry went on as if nothing unusual
had happened, "I'll freeze the ice cream. Here; slip on this big apron.
You want to look fresh when the company arrives."
She ran down cellar, where the cream was waiting, together with a tub
of ice that Rob had cracked for her; but she had scarcely begun to turn
the freezer when Isita called:
"There's something that looks like comp'ny coming up the road!"
"Not already!" groaned Harry, and rushed up to look.
A mile away a cloud of dust marched forward round a slow-moving light
wagon, and Harry caught glimpses now and then of white-frocked children
on the back seat.
"It's the Robinsons," said Harry with conviction. "They live nearest.
Well, shell peas for all you're worth, and I'll go twirl the freezer.
Be sure to call me when they get to the gate."
And down she dived into the cellar again.
"They're just pullin' up to the gate," came the summons from Isita at
last, "and it is the Robinsons. There's a raft of young ones."
As Harry ran down the path to meet them, Mrs. Robinson, crimpy-headed,
tall, angular, as vividly alive as ever, waved her hand in greeting.
"Bully for you, girlie!" she cried. "You've got the flag up. As I says
to pa as we come round the butte," she went on without a pause as she
clambered from the wagon, shook her skirts, pushed back her hat and
fanned her face with her handkerchief, "and seen that flag floatin' up
top the pole there, I says, 'Well, there's two real Americans in this
country, anyhow.' For a hull lot of us Fourth of July has got to mean a
big feed and sleepin' it off."
"Mother put the flag in my trunk when I was leaving home. She said we'd
need it to remind us of--well, days like this, when we were too busy to
observe them any other way. I'm afraid if she hadn't we'd have had the
big dinner and nothing else."
"That's something to have, these hard times, lemme tell you," put in
Pa Robinson from the rear of the wagon, where he was unloading small
Robinsons. "Too late to look for rain now, and there's no more snow
water to come down into the river. Looks to me like we'd all be glad to
get red beans and side meat next winter."
"Say! That's true, too," his wife chimed in. "What's more, pretty near
every truck patch on the flat got froze down that last freeze. I tell
you, I'm glad us folks live up here on the bench; even if they do
laugh at us for campin' on the rim rock."
"It don't look like you had any June freeze up here," said Robinson,
turning to Rob, who had come up from the barn. "I ain't seen no finer
stand of alfalfa on the prairie."
"It would be a long sight better if the cattle that are running loose
in these hills hadn't broken in so often," Rob told him.
"Them scabby critters!" Robinson exclaimed in deep disgust. "I tell you
right now, there's got to be something done to get rid of them scrubs."
"Well, that's certainly so! We've come to the end of our patience."
"It's time!" Mrs. Robinson exclaimed. "I'm to the end of mine long ago,
watchin' you men folks pomper up yours and string it out to the last
breath before you'll git a move on."
"Oh, we know you," said Pa Robinson. "You'd be for pullin' the fuse out
by the tail just as she's goin' off."
"Let them have it out alone," Harry begged Mrs. Robinson. "I want you
to come and look at my wool. I've washed and picked it, but it doesn't
begin to look so nice as yours."
When the older woman had felt the creamy strands that Harry had kept
tied in a sheet, she said, "It ain't the same sort of fleece. Mine's
that long, wavy Merino, and this is Southdown. Goin' to card and quilt
it yourself?"
"I did want to. I wanted to have a quilting bee this fall and have my
quilts made up in the old-time patterns--sun flower or morning star.
Like our grandmothers.' You remember, don't you?"
"Do I! Ain't I seen 'em back home on the spare-room bed? But it seems
we ain't got the time to do that sort of work out here."
"Let's make the time, then. Start the fashion, you and I."
"That's right, girlie. All we need's some one to give us a shove up
the right trail and we'll keep to it. Like you startin' the girls last
winter in that camp-wagon--no, camp-fire club at school. Vashti, she's
a different young one since--quit thinkin' about her hair ribbons
and how to git to the dances downtown every week and took to washin'
the young one's faces and readin' the receipt book instead. And that
reminds me. She sent you up a cake she made herself; red, white and
blue frosting--and a jar of jell. I'll run git 'em out the hack before
the dogs smell 'em." At the door she stopped to call back, "Here comes
Con Gardner and Lance Fitch! Oh, yes! And I forgot to tell you"--her
voice fell--"Zip Miller won't be over. He's got the spotted fever."
"Oh, how dreadful!" Harry turned from a survey of the cooking with
distress in her eyes. The spotted fever was the perpetual menace in the
country where sheep grazed. The worst of it was that no one knew the
exact cause or cure; the sufferers died or recovered without apparent
reason.
"The doctor's went over every day," Mrs. Robinson went on, then broke
off with, "I'll tell you later; you ain't got time now."
Harry slipped off her apron to go to meet the latest guests. "Keep up
the fire, won't you?" she said to Isita in passing. "That chicken is
cooking just right."
"Don't you worry, Miss Harry," was her prompt answer. "I'll watch
everything as careful as can be."
All day, while engaged in the exciting task of having everything ready
at once, in seeing that Mrs. Mosher's baby had its warm milk and nap at
the proper time, in managing so that the dinner should fall between two
loads of hay, Harry found Isita always on hand, alert and responsive.
The younger girl was deeply interested in Harry's way of setting the
table: with eyes full of wonder she gazed at the white tablecloth
spread symmetrically, the bowl of nasturtiums in the center, the fresh
rolls laid inside the neatly folded napkins. When all was complete and
they stood off to take a final view of the table, Isita said quietly,
"That's the way it looks for Thanksgiving, ain't it? Ma's told me about
that big time."
Harry looked at the girl with pity in her eyes. Never to have known
Thanksgiving except through hearing about it!
"You'll go back some day," Harry said. "Every one must eat at least one
Thanksgiving dinner with grandmother and grandfather."
She stopped, for Isita's eyes were fixed upon her with a bright,
far-off gaze, and the girl was breathing quickly through her parted
scarlet lips.
"She can't be well," Harry thought again but before she could speak,
Rob came in to ask how soon dinner would be ready.
"It's ten minutes of one now," he said, as his eyes roved eagerly over
the table, so cool in the shade of the trees. "Is there time to put up
another load before we eat?"
"That depends on how fast you work," she reminded him. "It won't take
up more than ten minutes to dish up."
Rob promptly disappeared toward the corral and they heard him bawling,
"Come on, all you workin' stiffs! She's set!"
At last they were all gathered round the table, and Harry's reward had
begun to come in the form of murmurs of approval from the men, and in
more outspoken compliments from the women.
"Why on earth didn't you send some of these things to the county fair
last fall?" Sally Gardner demanded wonderingly as she tasted one dish
after another.
"Yes! You'd have some of them year-in and year-out blue-ribbon grabbers
askin' you for receipts, all right," said Mrs. Robinson as she reached
for a third helping of salad.
"That's right," echoed Lance Fitch. "'Tain't every lady can teach
school 'n' cook good, too. You could be makin' your sixty a month right
along in summer, cookin' for the hay and harvester crews."
"Sure!" exclaimed Pa Robinson. "What do ye mean, Holliday, by keepin'
this sister of yours hid out in these here hills all summer?"
"How do you expect me to ranch without her to ride the fences for me,
I'd like to know?"
"Better look out, or some fancy cow puncher'll ride off with her for
keeps. Then whar'll you be?"
"He kin do like Kit McCarty done," Lance said; "write to a mail-order
house and tell 'em, they'd send him everything to fit up house with.
Couldn't they send him a wife to keep his house along with the rest of
it?"
"Nothing stirring," declared Rob. "She might be like this company
dinner set that spends most of the year sitting up in the closet,
looking pretty and doing nothing else."
"If he ain't as mean as a Scotchman," began Mrs. Robinson, when a voice
from outside made them all jump.
"What's that about Scotchmen?" it asked. "My mother was Scotch, and
I'm thinkin' of goin' into sheep myself along with all the other canny
Scotch laddies in Idyho, if the cowmen get any meaner."
It was Chris Garnett. He had ridden up unheard and was peering at the
company through the screen of branches.
"Sorry to be late," he said apologetically, when he was seated and the
women were filling his plate. "Some folks'll tell you, 'Them forest
rangers don't have a thing to do but ride to keep from gettin' too
fat, and go fishin'.' Fact is, there's a movin-picture mix-up on the
reserve most of the time. Right now it's these scrubs. Can't keep 'em
out. There's scrappin' every day along of the men that own pastur'
in the reserve and the riders for the Idyho Cattle Comp'ny and the
rustlers that's tryin' to pick up a few head between times."
"It's a cinch somebody's rustling calves," Rob said. "We've lost two
yearlings ourselves."
"I'll rustle a few myself pretty soon," said Lance Fitch, scowling at
the mound of potpie and mashed potatoes submerged in a lava stream of
gravy that he was demolishing. "If these outside capitalists are going
to shove their starved critters in and steal our range, I'll wise 'em
some."
"Now you're talkin'," Pete Mosher broke in eagerly. "Them rich fellers
went into cattle just for a notion; becus beef's goin' up. Us ranchers
live in these hills, and our livin' depends on the grazin' in 'em.
Who's got the best right to it--them capitalists, or us? Hey?"
As he asked it, his sunburned blue eyes darted from one guest to
another. Rob was the first to answer him. "There's one way to get rid
of these scrubs--put the herd law through."
"Herd law!" And now every one talked at once. "In a free range country?
Where'd we be ourselves?" "The stockmen'd fight it while the world
stands." "You'd have the whole of Camas Prairie goin' to law."
"Wait a second," Rob broke in; "let me explain. There's not a section
of land along the north side of these hills that isn't homesteaded,
is there, at least up to where the hills get too steep for cattle
to graze? And if all of us ranchers along here made an agreement not
to fight one another if our cattle made trouble, but to settle it
peaceably, then we could keep the range for ourselves and keep out the
big fellows, Ludlum and the rest that couldn't afford to herd their
stock all summer."
He talked on fast and eagerly, making mistakes and correcting himself,
not saying half that he wanted to; but he put the idea before them
convincingly, and before the discussion ended they had decided to take
action toward getting a herd law through for that district.
While the argument was at its hottest, Mrs. Robinson leaned over and
whispered hoarsely: "Say, girlie, if you say so, I'll go pick me some
of them peas you said I could have. The sun's wearin' west, and fust
you know it'll be milkin' time and us havin' to hit the trail."
"Go ahead," urged Harry. "I'll go see where Isita is and start the
dishes."
"Is that the Portugee girl you're talking about?" asked Sally Gardner.
"I saw her go off across the meadow yonder while you and Mrs. Robinson
were fetchin' on the ice cream."
Isita had, in fact, slipped away home without a word to any one.
"Never mind, girlie," Ma Robinson consoled her; "here's four of us
women that's been broke to dishwater and the clatter of pans long
enough not to shy or balk at 'em. That so, Sally Gardner? Come on,
then?"
When, shortly after six o'clock, Harry, Rob and Garnett stood at the
corral gate and watched the visitors out of sight, Harry laughed and
sighed together.
"I've had the best time in years," she said. "I only wish we lived
nearer folks, so I could give a party oftener."
"Looks like you're goin' to have some more comp'ny to-day," Garnett
remarked and nodded toward the lane.
Harry turned and saw two riders coming toward the barn. "They're
welcome to what there is. There's at least a chicken wing left."
"I'll see what they want," Rob said as he went to meet them.
Garnett and Harry looked after him carelessly, and then went on with
their pleasant chatter. But a sudden burst of angry voices from the
barn silenced them abruptly. Garnett unconsciously tautened.
"Guess I'd better step down there," he said. "Looks to me like the
buckaroos I met huntin' strays. Might be I could set 'em straight."
"I might as well go, too," Harry decided. She had heard her brother
say, "Prove it if you can. It's absurd on the face of it."
"Do they think we've been stealing their critters?" she asked in a low
voice as they hurried forward, and she thought of the calf she had
brought inside to feed. "It's more likely some one has been stealing
ours. The last time we went through the herd two were missing, and that
was quite a while ago."
"Don't tell them so," Garnett cautioned her; "let them do the talkin'."
At sound of their steps Rob turned to them. "See here, Harry. These
fellows say you've shot one of their cows and run in her calf. They say
they've had positive information from a fellow who saw you shoot."
Harry turned white. For a second there was no sound except the
creaking of a saddle as the ponies breathed. The two _vaqueros_, one
a half-breed Indian, the other the pink-faced man whom Harry had met
on the range, stared at her fixedly. Garnett apparently kept his eyes
fixed on space, but he missed nothing.
Fear had not blanched Harry's cheeks. Anger had, and the next instant
they flushed scarlet. "Who saw me shooting?" she cried. "I haven't had
a gun in my hands this summer except to warn poachers off our land."
"Poachers?" the pink-faced rider echoed inquiringly.
"Yes; hunters who come inside our fence to steal sage hen and grouse.
They won't stop merely for being asked. You have to fire a rifle over
their heads to frighten them. Then they understand that 'no-shooting'
signs mean what they say."
Her voice trembled a little, but she held her head defiantly and faced
the "cow-puncher" with steady eyes. He merely shook his head and smiled
incredulously.
"You shore are brave, ma'am. Tother day you was doggin' off Ludlum's
stock like you owned the hull range, and you told me you'd shoot every
one of 'em now--that is, if it suited ye; and now you're gunnin' for
white men becus they're pickin' up a few birds what ain't yours nohow.
I guess you wouldn't find no trouble pluggin' a cow critter if you
thought you could rustle her calf."
"Is that so, Harry?" Rob asked quietly. "Did you threaten to shoot
Ludlum's stock?"
"I did. After what this rider threatened," she admitted, and related
the whole occurrence. "As for bringing in a deserted calf," she added.
"I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge I did it. I wasn't going to leave
it to starve, no matter whose it was. When you take it back, you might
ask Ludlum to return our steers that his scrubs have taken off with
them; but when it comes to shooting a cow, his or anybody's, well, I
didn't. That's all."
"Looks like you'd have to hunt your critters further on." Garnett's
words showed his relief, and Rob's sudden smile told how great his
suspense had been; but that relief lasted only a moment.
"I'd like to believe you, ma'am," the "cow-puncher" said brusquely,
"but we done seen the cow with our own eyes. Yes. She's layin' out
yonder and her hind quarters cut off and the hide clean gone, so we
can't prove nothin' by the brand; but I know her turned-down horns and
her slit ears. She's got a bullet hole through her neck, too, sure's
I'm livin'."
"Say!" Garnett broke in, and his voice was short and hard. "Who's the
scissorbill you fellows been listenin' to? Why didn't you bring him
along to prove all this?"
"Oh, it's easy enough to fetch him when we want him," Pink-face
retorted tranquilly. "You know him, all right. Portugee Joe? Just east
of you? Sure."
"Joe Biane!" Harry exclaimed. "Are you going to take his word against
mine? You can't know him very well."
"'Tain't a case of knowin' nor trustin'," Pink-face answered. "Not
chiefly, is what I mean to say. We ast Joe had he seen any cow critters
off by theirselves, alive or dead, that is chiefly; and he said as how
he seen you shoot this here one. You was shootin' at some bird hunters
inside your fence, and he, that is, Joe now, he was footin' it acrost
the scab land and seen you plunk that there cow we're tollin' you
about. Yes."
There was a queer silence. Then Pink-face continued: "There ain't no
use gassin' here. We got a warrant for the lady's arrest and we might's
well be movin' to town is what I would say chiefly. Portugee Joe said
he'd be there to witness for us in the morning."