The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 17

"Thank G.o.d for your wakefulness!" said he.

She was pa.s.sing out of the reefs of terror, calming as a wind falls at sunset. Mackenzie pressed her arm, drawing her away a little.

"That ammunition--we'd better----"

"Yes," said Joan, and went with him a little farther down the slope.

Mackenzie put his hand to his face where the flames had licked it, and to the back of his head where his scorched hair broke crisply under his palm. Joan looked at him, the aging stamp of waking and worry in her face, exclaiming pityingly when she saw his hurts.

"It served me right; I stumbled into their hands like a blind kitten!"

he said, not sparing himself of scorn.

"It's a cattleman's trick; many an older hand than you has gone that way," she said.

"But if I'd have waked and watched like you, Joan, they wouldn't have got me. I started to watch, but I didn't keep it up like you. When I should have been awake, I was sleeping like a sluggard."

"The cowards!" said Joan.

"I let one of them sneak up behind me, after they'd clubbed two of the dogs to death, and grab me and get my gun! Great G.o.d! I deserve to be burned!"

"Hus.h.!.+" she chided, fearfully. "Hus.h.!.+"

"One of them was Hector Hall--he came after his guns. If I'd been a man, the shadow of a man, I'd made him swallow them the day I took--the time he left them here."

"Matt was with him," said Joan. "You couldn't do anything; no man could do anything, against Matt Hall."

"They handled me like a baby," said he, bitterly, "and I, and I, wanting to be a sheepman! No wonder they think I'm a soft and simple fool up here, that goes on the reputation of a lucky blow!"

"There's a man on a horse," said Joan. "He's coming this way."

The rider broke down the hillside as she spoke, riding near the wreckage of the burning wagon, where he halted a moment, the strong light of the fire on his face: Swan Carlson, hatless, his hair streaming, his great mustache pendant beside his stony mouth. He came on toward them at once. Joan laid her hand on her revolver.

"You got a fire here," said Swan, stopping near them, leaning curiously toward them as if he peered at them through smoke.

"Yes," Mackenzie returned.

"I seen it from over there," said Swan. "I come over to see if you needed any help."

"Thank you, not now. It's gone; nothing can be done."

"I smelt coal oil," said Swan, throwing back his head, sniffing the air like a buck. "Who done it?"

"Some of your neighbors," said Mackenzie.

"I knowed they would," Swan nodded. "Them fellers don't fight like me and you, they don't stand up like a man. When I seen you take that feller by the leg that day and upset him off of his horse and grab his guns off of him, I knowed he'd burn you out."

Joan, forgetting her fear and dislike of Swan Carlson in her interest of what he revealed, drew a little nearer to him.

"Were you around here that day, Swan?" she asked.

"Yes, I saw him upset that feller, little bird," Swan said, leaning again from his saddle, his long neck stretched to peer into her face.

"He's a good man, but he ain't as good a man as me."

Swan was barefooted, just as he had leaped from his bunk in the sheep-wagon to ride to the fire. There was a wild, high pride in his cold, handsome face as he sat up in the saddle as if to show Joan his mighty bulk, and he stretched out his long arms like an eagle on its crag flexing its pinions in the morning sun.

"Did he--did Hector Hall sling a gun on Mr. Mackenzie that time?" she asked, pressing forward eagerly.

"Never mind, Joan--let that go," said Mackenzie, putting his arm before her to stay her, speaking hastily, as if to warn her back from a danger.

"He didn't have time to sling a gun on him," said Swan, great satisfaction in his voice as he recalled the scene. "Your man he's like a cat when he jumps for a feller, but he ain't got the muscle in his back like me."

"There's n.o.body in this country like you, Swan," said Joan, pleased with him, friendly toward him, for his praise of the one he boldly called her man.

"No, I can roll 'em all," Swan said, as gravely as if he would be hung on the testimony. "You ought to have me for your man; then you'd have somebody no feller on this range would burn out."

"You've got a wife, Swan," Joan said, with gentle reproof, but putting the proposal from her as if she considered it a jest.

"I'm tired of that one," Swan confessed, frankly. Then to Mackenzie: "I'll fight you for her." He swung half way out of the saddle, as if to come to the ground and start the contest on the moment, hung there, looking Mackenzie in the face, the light of morning revealing the marks of his recent battle. "Not now, you've had a fight already,"

said Swan, settling back into the saddle. "But when you brace up, then I'll fight you for her. What?"

"Any time," Mackenzie told him, speaking easily, as if humoring the whim of some irresponsible person.

With a sudden start of his horse Swan rode close to Joan, Mackenzie throwing himself between them, catching the bridle, hurling the animal back. Swan did not take notice of the interference, only leaned far over, stretching his long neck, his great mustaches like the tusks of an old walrus, and strained a long look into Joan's face. Then he whirled his horse and galloped away, not turning a glance behind.

Joan watched him go, saying nothing for a little while. Then:

"I think he's joking," she said.

"I suppose he is," Mackenzie agreed, although he had many doubts.

They turned to look at the wagon again, the popping of ammunition having ceased. The woodwork was all on fire; soon it would be reduced to bolts and tires. Joan's spirits seemed to have risen with the broadening of day, in spite of Swan Carlson's visit and his bold jest, if jest he meant it to be. She laughed as she looked at the sheep, huddled below them in att.i.tude of helpless fright.

"Poor little fools!" she said. "Well, I must go back to Charley. Don't tell dad I was over here, please, John. He wouldn't like it if he knew I'd b.u.t.ted in this way--he's scared to death of the Halls."

"I don't see how I'm to keep him from knowing it," Mackenzie said, "and I don't see why he shouldn't know. He'd have been out a cheap herder if it hadn't been for you."

"No, you mustn't tell him, you mustn't let anybody know I was here, John," she said, lifting her eyes to his in an appeal far stronger than words. "It wouldn't do for dad--for anybody--to know I was here.

You don't need to say anything about them tying--doing--_that_."

Joan shuddered again in that chilling, horrified way, turning from him to hide what he believed he had read in her words and face before.

It was not because she feared to have her father know she had come riding to his rescue in the last hours of her troubled night; not because she feared his censure or his anger, or wanted to conceal her deed for reasons of modesty from anyone. Only to spare him the humiliation of having his failure known, Mackenzie understood. That was her purpose, and her sole purpose, in seeking his pledge to secrecy.

It would hurt him to have it go abroad that he had allowed them to sneak into his camp, seize him, disarm him, bind him, and set the fire that was to make ashes of him for the winds to blow away. It would do for him with Tim Sullivan entirely if that should become known, with the additional humiliation of being saved from this shameful death by a woman. No matter how immeasurable his own grat.i.tude, no matter how wide his own pride in her for what she had done, the sheep country never would be able to see it with his eyes. It would be another smirch for him, and such a deep one as to obscure him and his chances there forever.

Joan knew it. In her generosity, her interest for his future, she wanted her part in it to remain unknown.

"You must promise me, John," she said. "I'll never come to take another lesson unless you promise me."