THE MILL-WHEEL OF STEERS
Meantime, at the ranch, when Judkins’s news had sent Venters on the
trail of the rustlers, Jane Withersteen led the injured man to her
house and with skilled fingers dressed the gunshot wound in his arm.
“Judkins, what do you think happened to my riders?”
“I—I d rather not say,” he replied.
“Tell me. Whatever you’ll tell me I’ll keep to myself. I’m beginning to
worry about more than the loss of a herd of cattle. Venters hinted
of—but tell me, Judkins.”
“Well, Miss Withersteen, I think as Venters thinks—your riders have
been called in.”
“Judkins!... By whom?”
“You know who handles the reins of your Mormon riders.”
“Do you dare insinuate that my churchmen have ordered in my riders?”
“I ain’t insinuatin’ nothin’, Miss Withersteen,” answered Judkins, with
spirit. “I know what I’m talking about. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that! I’ll not believe it! Would Tull leave my
herds at the mercy of rustlers and wolves just because—because—? No,
no! It’s unbelievable.”
“Yes, thet particular thing’s onheard of around Cottonwoods. But,
beggin’ pardon, Miss Withersteen, there never was any other rich Mormon
woman here on the border, let alone one thet’s taken the bit between
her teeth.”
That was a bold thing for the reserved Judkins to say, but it did not
anger her. This rider’s crude hint of her spirit gave her a glimpse of
what others might think. Humility and obedience had been hers always.
But had she taken the bit between her teeth? Still she wavered. And
then, with quick spurt of warm blood along her veins, she thought of
Black Star when he got the bit fast between his iron jaws and ran wild
in the sage. If she ever started to run! Jane smothered the glow and
burn within her, ashamed of a passion for freedom that opposed her
duty.
“Judkins, go to the village,” she said, “and when you have learned
anything definite about my riders please come to me at once.”
When he had gone Jane resolutely applied her mind to a number of tasks
that of late had been neglected. Her father had trained her in the
management of a hundred employees and the working of gardens and
fields; and to keep record of the movements of cattle and riders. And
beside the many duties she had added to this work was one of extreme
delicacy, such as required all her tact and ingenuity. It was an
unobtrusive, almost secret aid which she rendered to the Gentile
families of the village. Though Jane Withersteen never admitted so to
herself, it amounted to no less than a system of charity. But for her
invention of numberless kinds of employment, for which there was no
actual need, these families of Gentiles, who had failed in a Mormon
community, would have starved.
In aiding these poor people Jane thought she deceived her keen
churchmen, but it was a kind of deceit for which she did not pray to be
forgiven. Equally as difficult was the task of deceiving the Gentiles,
for they were as proud as they were poor. It had been a great grief to
her to discover how these people hated her people; and it had been a
source of great joy that through her they had come to soften in hatred.
At any time this work called for a clearness of mind that precluded
anxiety and worry; but under the present circumstances it required all
her vigor and obstinate tenacity to pin her attention upon her task.
Sunset came, bringing with the end of her labor a patient calmness and
power to wait that had not been hers earlier in the day. She expected
Judkins, but he did not appear. Her house was always quiet; to-night,
however, it seemed unusually so. At supper her women served her with a
silent assiduity; it spoke what their sealed lips could not utter—the
sympathy of Mormon women. Jerd came to her with the key of the great
door of the stone stable, and to make his daily report about the
horses. One of his daily duties was to give Black Star and Night and
the other racers a ten-mile run. This day it had been omitted, and the
boy grew confused in explanations that she had not asked for. She did
inquire if he would return on the morrow, and Jerd, in mingled surprise
and relief, assured her he would always work for her. Jane missed the
rattle and trot, canter and gallop of the incoming riders on the hard
trails. Dusk shaded the grove where she walked; the birds ceased
singing; the wind sighed through the leaves of the cottonwoods, and the
running water murmured down its stone-bedded channel. The glimmering of
the first star was like the peace and beauty of the night. Her faith
welled up in her heart and said that all would soon be right in her
little world. She pictured Venters about his lonely camp-fire sitting
between his faithful dogs. She prayed for his safety, for the success
of his undertaking.
Early the next morning one of Jane’s women brought in word that Judkins
wished to speak to her. She hurried out, and in her surprise to see him
armed with rifle and revolver, she forgot her intention to inquire
about his wound.
“Judkins! Those guns? You never carried guns.”
“It’s high time, Miss Withersteen,” he replied. “Will you come into the
grove? It ain’t jest exactly safe for me to be seen here.”
She walked with him into the shade of the cottonwoods.
“What do you mean?”
“Miss Withersteen, I went to my mother’s house last night. While there,
some one knocked, an’ a man asked for me. I went to the door. He wore a
mask. He said I’d better not ride any more for Jane Withersteen. His
voice was hoarse an’ strange, disguised I reckon, like his face. He
said no more, an’ ran off in the dark.”
“Did you know who he was?” asked Jane, in a low voice.
“Yes.”
Jane did not ask to know; she did not want to know; she feared to know.
All her calmness fled at a single thought.
“Thet’s why I’m packin’ guns,” went on Judkins. “For I’ll never quit
ridin’ for you, Miss Withersteen, till you let me go.”
“Judkins, do you want to leave me?”
“Do I look thet way? Give me a hoss—a fast hoss, an’ send me out on the
sage.”
“Oh, thank you, Judkins! You’re more faithful than my own people. I
ought not accept your loyalty—you might suffer more through it. But
what in the world can I do? My head whirls. The wrong to Venters—the
stolen herd—these masks, threats, this coil in the dark! I can’t
understand! But I feel something dark and terrible closing in around
me.”
“Miss Withersteen, it’s all simple enough,” said Judkins, earnestly.
“Now please listen—an’ beggin’ your pardon—jest turn thet deaf Mormon
ear aside, an’ let me talk clear an’ plain in the other. I went around
to the saloons an’ the stores an’ the loafin’ places yesterday. All
your riders are in. There’s talk of a vigilance band organized to hunt
down rustlers. They call themselves ‘The Riders.’ Thet’s the
report—thet’s the reason given for your riders leavin’ you. Strange
thet only a few riders of other ranchers joined the band! An’ Tull’s
man, Jerry Card—he’s the leader. I seen him en’ his hoss. He ain’t been
to Glaze. I’m not easy to fool on the looks of a hoss thet’s traveled
the sage. Tull an’ Jerry didn’t ride to Glaze!... Well, I met Blake en’
Dorn, both good friends of mine, usually, as far as their Mormon lights
will let ’em go. But these fellers couldn’t fool me, an’ they didn’t
try very hard. I asked them, straight out like a man, why they left you
like thet. I didn’t forget to mention how you nursed Blake’s poor old
mother when she was sick, an’ how good you was to Dorn’s kids. They
looked ashamed, Miss Withersteen. An’ they jest froze up—thet dark set
look thet makes them strange an’ different to me. But I could tell the
difference between thet first natural twinge of conscience an’ the
later look of some secret thing. An’ the difference I caught was thet
they couldn’t help themselves. They hadn’t no say in the matter. They
looked as if their bein’ unfaithful to you was bein’ faithful to a
higher duty. An’ there’s the secret. Why it’s as plain as—as sight of
my gun here.”
“Plain!... My herds to wander in the sage—to be stolen! Jane
Withersteen a poor woman! Her head to be brought low and her spirit
broken!... Why, Judkins, it’s plain enough.”
“Miss Withersteen, let me get what boys I can gather, an’ hold the
white herd. It’s on the slope now, not ten miles out—three thousand
head, an’ all steers. They’re wild, an’ likely to stampede at the pop
of a jack-rabbit’s ears. We’ll camp right with them, en’ try to hold
them.”
“Judkins, I’ll reward you some day for your service, unless all is
taken from me. Get the boys and tell Jerd to give you pick of my
horses, except Black Star and Night. But—do not shed blood for my
cattle nor heedlessly risk your lives.”
Jane Withersteen rushed to the silence and seclusion of her room, and
there could not longer hold back the bursting of her wrath. She went
stone-blind in the fury of a passion that had never before showed its
power. Lying upon her bed, sightless, voiceless, she was a writhing,
living flame. And she tossed there while her fury burned and burned,
and finally burned itself out.
Then, weak and spent, she lay thinking, not of the oppression that
would break her, but of this new revelation of self. Until the last few
days there had been little in her life to rouse passions. Her
forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who bore no cross and
brooked no hindrance to their will. Her father had inherited that
temper; and at times, like antelope fleeing before fire on the slope,
his people fled from his red rages. Jane Withersteen realized that the
spirit of wrath and war had lain dormant in her. She shrank from black
depths hitherto unsuspected. The one thing in man or woman that she
scorned above all scorn, and which she could not forgive, was hate.
Hate headed a flaming pathway straight to hell. All in a flash, beyond
her control there had been in her a birth of fiery hate. And the man
who had dragged her peaceful and loving spirit to this degradation was
a minister of God’s word, an Elder of her church, the counselor of her
beloved Bishop.
The loss of herds and ranges, even of Amber Spring and the Old Stone
House, no longer concerned Jane Withersteen, she faced the foremost
thought of her life, what she now considered the mightiest problem—the
salvation of her soul.
She knelt by her bedside and prayed; she prayed as she had never prayed
in all her life—prayed to be forgiven for her sin to be immune from
that dark, hot hate; to love Tull as her minister, though she could not
love him as a man; to do her duty by her church and people and those
dependent upon her bounty; to hold reverence of God and womanhood
inviolate.
When Jane Withersteen rose from that storm of wrath and prayer for help
she was serene, calm, sure—a changed woman. She would do her duty as
she saw it, live her life as her own truth guided her. She might never
be able to marry a man of her choice, but she certainly never would
become the wife of Tull. Her churchmen might take her cattle and
horses, ranges and fields, her corrals and stables, the house of
Withersteen and the water that nourished the village of Cottonwoods;
but they could not force her to marry Tull, they could not change her
decision or break her spirit. Once resigned to further loss, and sure
of herself, Jane Withersteen attained a peace of mind that had not been
hers for a year. She forgave Tull, and felt a melancholy regret over
what she knew he considered duty, irrespective of his personal feeling
for her. First of all, Tull, as he was a man, wanted her for himself;
and secondly, he hoped to save her and her riches for his church. She
did not believe that Tull had been actuated solely by his minister’s
zeal to save her soul. She doubted her interpretation of one of his
dark sayings—that if she were lost to him she might as well be lost to
heaven. Jane Withersteen’s common sense took arms against the binding
limits of her religion; and she doubted that her Bishop, whom she had
been taught had direct communication with God—would damn her soul for
refusing to marry a Mormon. As for Tull and his churchmen, when they
had harassed her, perhaps made her poor, they would find her
unchangeable, and then she would get back most of what she had lost. So
she reasoned, true at last to her faith in all men, and in their
ultimate goodness.
The clank of iron hoofs upon the stone courtyard drew her hurriedly
from her retirement. There, beside his horse, stood Lassiter, his dark
apparel and the great black gun-sheaths contrasting singularly with his
gentle smile. Jane’s active mind took up her interest in him and her
half-determined desire to use what charm she had to foil his evident
design in visiting Cottonwoods. If she could mitigate his hatred of
Mormons, or at least keep him from killing more of them, not only would
she be saving her people, but also be leading back this bloodspiller to
some semblance of the human.
“Mornin’, ma’am,” he said, black sombrero in hand.
“Lassiter I’m not an old woman, or even a madam,” she replied, with her
bright smile. “If you can’t say Miss Withersteen—call me Jane.”
“I reckon Jane would be easier. First names are always handy for me.”
“Well, use mine, then. Lassiter, I’m glad to see you. I’m in trouble.”
Then she told him of Judkins’s return, of the driving of the red herd,
of Venters’s departure on Wrangle, and the calling-in of her riders.
“’Pears to me you’re some smilin’ an’ pretty for a woman with so much
trouble,” he remarked.
“Lassiter! Are you paying me compliments? But, seriously I’ve made up
my mind not to be miserable. I’ve lost much, and I’ll lose more.
Nevertheless, I won’t be sour, and I hope I’ll never be unhappy—again.”
Lassiter twisted his hat round and round, as was his way, and took his
time in replying.
“Women are strange to me. I got to back-trailin’ myself from them long
ago. But I’d like a game woman. Might I ask, seein’ as how you take
this trouble, if you’re goin’ to fight?”
“Fight! How? Even if I would, I haven’t a friend except that boy who
doesn’t dare stay in the village.”
“I make bold to say, ma’am—Jane—that there’s another, if you want him.”
“Lassiter!... Thank you. But how can I accept you as a friend? Think!
Why, you’d ride down into the village with those terrible guns and kill
my enemies—who are also my churchmen.”
“I reckon I might be riled up to jest about that,” he replied, dryly.
She held out both hands to him.
“Lassiter! I’ll accept your friendship—be proud of it—return it—if I
may keep you from killing another Mormon.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, bluntly, as the gray lightning
formed in his eyes. “You’re too good a woman to be sacrificed as you’re
goin’ to be.... No, I reckon you an’ me can’t be friends on such
terms.”
In her earnestness she stepped closer to him, repelled yet fascinated
by the sudden transition of his moods. That he would fight for her was
at once horrible and wonderful.
“You came here to kill a man—the man whom Milly Erne—”
“The man who dragged Milly Erne to hell—put it that way!... Jane
Withersteen, yes, that’s why I came here. I’d tell so much to no other
livin’ soul.... There’re things such a woman as you’d never dream of—so
don’t mention her again. Not till you tell me the name of the man!”
“Tell you! I? Never!”
“I reckon you will. An’ I’ll never ask you. I’m a man of strange
beliefs an’ ways of thinkin’, an’ I seem to see into the future an’
feel things hard to explain. The trail I’ve been followin’ for so many
years was twisted en’ tangled, but it’s straightenin’ out now. An’,
Jane Withersteen, you crossed it long ago to ease poor Milly’s agony.
That, whether you want or not, makes Lassiter your friend. But you
cross it now strangely to mean somethin’ to me—God knows what!—unless
by your noble blindness to incite me to greater hatred of Mormon men.”
Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own. In a clash of
wills with this man she would go to the wall. If she were to influence
him it must be wholly through womanly allurement. There was that about
Lassiter which commanded her respect. She had abhorred his name; face
to face with him, she found she feared only his deeds. His mystic
suggestion, his foreshadowing of something that she was to mean to him,
pierced deep into her mind. She believed fate had thrown in her way the
lover or husband of Milly Erne. She believed that through her an evil
man might be reclaimed. His allusion to what he called her blindness
terrified her. Such a mistaken idea of his might unleash the bitter,
fatal mood she sensed in him. At any cost she must placate this man;
she knew the die was cast, and that if Lassiter did not soften to a
woman’s grace and beauty and wiles, then it would be because she could
not make him.
“I reckon you’ll hear no more such talk from me,” Lassiter went on,
presently. “Now, Miss Jane, I rode in to tell you that your herd of
white steers is down on the slope behind them big ridges. An’ I seen
somethin’ goin’ on that’d be mighty interestin’ to you, if you could
see it. Have you a field-glass?”
“Yes, I have two glasses. I’ll get them and ride out with you. Wait,
Lassiter, please,” she said, and hurried within. Sending word to Jerd
to saddle Black Star and fetch him to the court, she then went to her
room and changed to the riding-clothes she always donned when going
into the sage. In this male attire her mirror showed her a jaunty,
handsome rider. If she expected some little need of admiration from
Lassiter, she had no cause for disappointment. The gentle smile that
she liked, which made of him another person, slowly overspread his
face.
“If I didn’t take you for a boy!” he exclaimed. “It’s powerful queer
what difference clothes make. Now I’ve been some scared of your
dignity, like when the other night you was all in white but in this
rig—”
Black Star came pounding into the court, dragging Jerd half off his
feet, and he whistled at Lassiter’s black. But at sight of Jane all his
defiant lines seemed to soften, and with tosses of his beautiful head
he whipped his bridle.
“Down, Black Star, down,” said Jane.
He dropped his head, and, slowly lengthening, he bent one foreleg, then
the other, and sank to his knees. Jane slipped her left foot in the
stirrup, swung lightly into the saddle, and Black Star rose with a
ringing stamp. It was not easy for Jane to hold him to a canter through
the grove, and like the wind he broke when he saw the sage. Jane let
him have a couple of miles of free running on the open trail, and then
she coaxed him in and waited for her companion. Lassiter was not long
in catching up, and presently they were riding side by side. It
reminded her how she used to ride with Venters. Where was he now? She
gazed far down the slope to the curved purple lines of Deception Pass
and involuntarily shut her eyes with a trembling stir of nameless fear.
“We’ll turn off here,” Lassiter said, “en’ take to the sage a mile or
so. The white herd is behind them big ridges.”
“What are you going to show me?” asked Jane. “I’m prepared—don’t be
afraid.”
He smiled as if he meant that bad news came swiftly enough without
being presaged by speech.
When they reached the lee of a rolling ridge Lassiter dismounted,
motioning to her to do likewise. They left the horses standing, bridles
down. Then Lassiter, carrying the field-glasses began to lead the way
up the slow rise of ground. Upon nearing the summit he halted her with
a gesture.
“I reckon we’d see more if we didn’t show ourselves against the sky,”
he said. “I was here less than an hour ago. Then the herd was seven or
eight miles south, an’ if they ain’t bolted yet—”
“Lassiter!... Bolted?”
“That’s what I said. Now let’s see.”
Jane climbed a few more paces behind him and then peeped over the
ridge. Just beyond began a shallow swale that deepened and widened into
a valley and then swung to the left. Following the undulating sweep of
sage, Jane saw the straggling lines and then the great body of the
white herd. She knew enough about steers, even at a distance of four or
five miles, to realize that something was in the wind. Bringing her
field-glass into use, she moved it slowly from left to right, which
action swept the whole herd into range. The stragglers were restless;
the more compactly massed steers were browsing. Jane brought the glass
back to the big sentinels of the herd, and she saw them trot with quick
steps, stop short and toss wide horns, look everywhere, and then trot
in another direction.
“Judkins hasn’t been able to get his boys together yet,” said Jane.
“But he’ll be there soon. I hope not too late. Lassiter, what’s
frightening those big leaders?”
“Nothin’ jest on the minute,” replied Lassiter. “Them steers are
quietin’ down. They’ve been scared, but not bad yet. I reckon the whole
herd has moved a few miles this way since I was here.”
“They didn’t browse that distance—not in less than an hour. Cattle
aren’t sheep.”
“No, they jest run it, en’ that looks bad.”
“Lassiter, what frightened them?” repeated Jane, impatiently.
“Put down your glass. You’ll see at first better with a naked eye. Now
look along them ridges on the other side of the herd, the ridges where
the sun shines bright on the sage.... That’s right. Now look en’ look
hard en’ wait.”
Long-drawn moments of straining sight rewarded Jane with nothing save
the low, purple rim of ridge and the shimmering sage.
“It’s begun again!” whispered Lassiter, and he gripped her arm.
“Watch.... There, did you see that?”
“No, no. Tell me what to look for?”
“A white flash—a kind of pin-point of quick light—a gleam as from sun
shinin’ on somethin’ white.”
Suddenly Jane’s concentrated gaze caught a fleeting glint. Quickly she
brought her glass to bear on the spot. Again the purple sage, magnified
in color and size and wave, for long moments irritated her with its
monotony. Then from out of the sage on the ridge flew up a broad, white
object, flashed in the sunlight and vanished. Like magic it was, and
bewildered Jane.
“What on earth is that?”
[Illustration: “What on earth is that?”]
“I reckon there’s some one behind that ridge throwin’ up a sheet or a
white blanket to reflect the sunshine.”
“Why?” queried Jane, more bewildered than ever.
“To stampede the herd,” replied Lassiter, and his teeth clicked.
“Ah!” She made a fierce, passionate movement, clutched the glass
tightly, shook as with the passing of a spasm, and then dropped her
head. Presently she raised it to greet Lassiter with something like a
smile. “My righteous brethren are at work again,” she said, in scorn.
She had stifled the leap of her wrath, but for perhaps the first time
in her life a bitter derision curled her lips. Lassiter’s cool gray
eyes seemed to pierce her. “I said I was prepared for anything; but
that was hardly true. But why would they—anybody stampede my cattle?”
“That’s a Mormon’s godly way of bringin’ a woman to her knees.”
“Lassiter, I’ll die before I ever bend my knees. I might be led: I
won’t be driven. Do you expect the herd to bolt?”
“I don’t like the looks of them big steers. But you can never tell.
Cattle sometimes stampede as easily as buffalo. Any little flash or
move will start them. A rider gettin’ down an’ walkin’ toward them
sometimes will make them jump an’ fly. Then again nothin’ seems to
scare them. But I reckon that white flare will do the biz. It’s a new
one on me, an’ I’ve seen some ridin’ an’ rustlin’. It jest takes one of
them God-fearin’ Mormons to think of devilish tricks.”
“Lassiter, might not this trick be done by Oldring’s men?” asked Jane,
ever grasping at straws.
“It might be, but it ain’t,” replied Lassiter. “Oldring’s an honest
thief. He don’t skulk behind ridges to scatter your cattle to the four
winds. He rides down on you, an’ if you don’t like it you can throw a
gun.”
Jane bit her tongue to refrain from championing men who at the very
moment were proving to her that they were little and mean compared even
with rustlers.
“Look!... Jane, them leadin’ steers have bolted. They’re drawin’ the
stragglers, an’ that’ll pull the whole herd.”
Jane was not quick enough to catch the details called out by Lassiter,
but she saw the line of cattle lengthening. Then, like a stream of
white bees pouring from a huge swarm, the steers stretched out from the
main body. In a few moments, with astonishing rapidity, the whole herd
got into motion. A faint roar of trampling hoofs came to Jane’s ears,
and gradually swelled; low, rolling clouds of dust began to rise above
the sage.
“It’s a stampede, an’ a hummer,” said Lassiter.
“Oh, Lassiter! The herd’s running with the valley! It leads into the
cañon! There’s a straight jump-off!”
“I reckon they’ll run into it, too. But that’s a good many miles yet.
An’, Jane, this valley swings round almost north before it goes east.
That stampede will pass within a mile of us.”
The long, white, bobbing line of steers streaked swiftly through the
sage, and a funnel-shaped dust-cloud arose at a low angle. A dull
rumbling filled Jane’s ears.
“I’m thinkin’ of millin’ that herd,” said Lassiter. His gray glance
swept up the slope to the west. “There’s some specks an’ dust way off
toward the village. Mebbe that’s Judkins an’ his boys. It ain’t likely
he’ll get here in time to help. You’d better hold Black Star here on
this high ridge.”
He ran to his horse and, throwing off saddle-bags and tightening the
cinches, he leaped astride and galloped straight down across the
valley.
Jane went for Black Star and, leading him to the summit of the ridge,
she mounted and faced the valley with excitement and expectancy. She
had heard of milling stampeded cattle, and knew it was a feat
accomplished by only the most daring riders.
The white herd was now strung out in a line two miles long. The dull
rumble of thousands of hoofs deepened into continuous low thunder, and
as the steers swept swiftly closer the thunder became a heavy roll.
Lassiter crossed in a few moments the level of the valley to the
eastern rise of ground and there waited the coming of the herd.
Presently, as the head of the white line reached a point opposite to
where Jane stood, Lassiter spurred his black into a run.
Jane saw him take a position on the off side of the leaders of the
stampede, and there he rode. It was like a race. They swept on down the
valley, and when the end of the white line neared Lassiter’s first
stand the head had begun to swing round to the west. It swung slowly
and stubbornly, yet surely, and gradually assumed a long, beautiful
curve of moving white. To Jane’s amaze she saw the leaders swinging,
turning till they headed back toward her and up the valley. Out to the
right of these wild plunging steers ran Lassiter’s black, and Jane’s
keen eye appreciated the fleet stride and sure-footedness of the blind
horse. Then it seemed that the herd moved in a great curve, a huge
half-moon with the points of head and tail almost opposite, and a mile
apart. But Lassiter relentlessly crowded the leaders, sheering them to
the left, turning them little by little. And the dust-blinded wild
followers plunged on madly in the tracks of their leaders. This
ever-moving, ever-changing curve of steers rolled toward Jane and when
below her, scarce half a mile, it began to narrow and close into a
circle. Lassiter had ridden parallel with her position, turned toward
her, then aside, and now he was riding directly away from her, all the
time pushing the head of that bobbing line inward.
It was then that Jane, suddenly understanding Lassiter’s feat stared
and gasped at the riding of this intrepid man. His horse was fleet and
tireless, but blind. He had pushed the leaders around and around till
they were about to turn in on the inner side of the end of that line of
steers. The leaders were already running in a circle; the end of the
herd was still running almost straight. But soon they would be
wheeling. Then, when Lassiter had the circle formed, how would he
escape? With Jane Withersteen prayer was as ready as praise; and she
prayed for this man’s safety. A circle of dust began to collect. Dimly,
as through a yellow veil, Jane saw Lassiter press the leaders inward to
close the gap in the sage. She lost sight of him in the dust, again she
thought she saw the black, riderless now, rear and drag himself and
fall. Lassiter had been thrown—lost! Then he reappeared running out of
the dust into the sage. He had escaped, and she breathed again.
Spellbound, Jane Withersteen watched this stupendous millwheel of
steers. Here was the milling of the herd. The white running circle
closed in upon the open space of sage. And the dust circles closed
above into a pall. The ground quaked and the incessant thunder of
pounding hoofs rolled on. Jane felt deafened, yet she thrilled to a new
sound. As the circle of sage lessened the steers began to bawl, and
when it closed entirely there came a great upheaval in the center, and
a terrible thumping of heads and clicking of horns. Bawling, climbing,
goring, the great mass of steers on the inside wrestled in a crashing
din, heaved and groaned under the pressure. Then came a deadlock. The
inner strife ceased, and the hideous roar and crash. Movement went on
in the outer circle, and that, too, gradually stilled. The white herd
had come to a stop, and the pall of yellow dust began to drift away on
the wind.
Jane Withersteen waited on the ridge with full and grateful heart.
Lassiter appeared, making his weary way toward her through the sage.
And up on the slope Judkins rode into sight with his troop of boys. For
the present, at least, the white herd would be looked after.
When Lassiter reached her and laid his hand on Black Star’s mane, Jane
could not find speech.
“Killed—my—hoss,” he panted.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” cried Jane. “Lassiter! I know you can’t replace him,
but I’ll give you any one of my racers—Bells, or Night, even Black
Star.”
“I’ll take a fast hoss, Jane, but not one of your favorites,” he
replied. “Only—will you let me have Black Star now an’ ride him over
there an’ head off them fellers who stampeded the herd?”
He pointed to several moving specks of black and puffs of dust in the
purple sage.
“I can head them off with this hoss, an’ then—”
“Then, Lassiter?”
“They’ll never stampede no more cattle.”
“Oh! No! No!... Lassiter, I won’t let you go!”
But a flush of fire flamed in her cheeks, and her trembling hands shook
Black Star’s bridle, and her eyes fell before Lassiter’s.