The Trail of Conflict Part 16

For answer Courtlandt reached into the pocket of the car and drew his automatic. The shots rang through the morning quiet, the echoes ricochetted back from the hills. The sheep kicked up their heels and scampered off. The wolves stood like creatures of stone for an instant, then slowly, quite without panic, turned and disappeared over the brow of the hill. Jerry s.h.i.+vered.

"Wolves! I thought you were rid of them in this country."

"We are almost. Occasionally the boys bring in reports of the trail of a wolf or a mountain lion. We have a pest of coyotes though, this year. If you want to insult a ranchman or cowboy to fighting mad, call him a coyote; it means the most despicable creature in the animal world.

They're cowards. If that bunch of sheep turned and faced a coyote they would terrify him."

"Ranch life is just one problem after another, isn't it?"

"No more than any life which is packed with interest."

"My mistake! Didn't the little boy want his little ranch found fault with? Then he shan't be teased."

As he turned and looked at her she caught her breath, colored richly and apologized. "Don't mind me, Steve. The sudden release from responsibility and the elixir of the morning air have gone to my head.

I'll be good, really I will. Did you see the Man of Mystery? I--I somehow have a feeling that he may know something of the missing calves."

"You're wrong. He's all right, he's doing a man's job--_he_ isn't troubling me but--but I wish I knew what Beechy had up his sleeve. What had he said to you before I came in that day in the office?" with quick suspicion. His tone sent the color flying to the girl's hair.

"Why--why--nothing--but----"

"Don't perjure yourself," dryly. "Much as I think of Carl I'm not blind to his ways with women. He couldn't have been unbearably raw or you wouldn't have shaken hands with him, would you? I--didn't like his eyes when he said he had work on the railroad."

"Steve, you are developing nerves; your imagination is running wild. One would think that we were back in the days of armed bandits, when masked men held up trains at the point of a gun. That isn't done now, you know," with gay patronage.

"Perhaps--look up on the hill! The boys are bringing down the horses."

The girl's eyes followed his pointing finger. Nose to tail, close herded by riders, the animals trailed toward the corral after their night of feeding in the hillside pastures. They tossed their manes, they made sportive attempts to escape their keepers.

"How well our boys ride." Steve's pulses responded to that possessive "our."

"They ought to. They are as near old-timers as can be found now. The Double O was Uncle Nick's master-pa.s.sion. He took up the land when it was the ranchman's paradise, in the years before fence-posts and barbed wire, when cowboys packed guns and drank and gambled away their pay. He adapted himself with amazing success to changing conditions though, and hung on to all the real boys whom he could tempt with pay and the pride of raising thoroughbreds."

As Courtlandt stopped the car in front of the ranch-house, the door was flung open and a girl ran down the steps. Jerry stared incredulously.

"Peggy! Peggy!" she was out of the car in a flash and had her sister in her arms. Steve heard one more m.u.f.fled "Peggy!" before the two entered the house. The surprise following so close upon her night's vigil might be too much for Jerry, he feared. When Peg had written him and begged him to keep her coming a surprise he had weakly consented. He had intended to meet her train but had had to delegate Tommy to take his place.

Jerry had quite recovered her poise when she appeared for breakfast in the court. If there was a trace of _vibrato_ in her voice only Courtlandt noticed it. She and Peg had stopped talking long enough to get two hours' sleep. Overhead the sky spread like a Della Robbia glaze, the atmosphere was so clear that the snow-tipped mountains seemed reachable. A tractor in a distant field sounded but a few feet away. The air was sweet with the fragrance of roses, the fountain tinkled musically. Benito, yellow eyes blinking, his gay plumage ruffled till he looked like an animated feather-duster, sidled round and round the rim of the basin.

Peggy regarded her sister with elfish, hazel eyes as she took her seat at the table.

"Ye G.o.ds, Jerry, but I'm glad to see you clothed and in your right mind.

That green skirt and sweater is a little bit of all right and I'm crazy about your frills; they make me think of the soap-suds you see in the demonstration electric washers, they're so--so fleecy. When you drove up in that vampish gold gown this morning I thought it must be the custom of the country to breakfast in evening clothes and I could have wept.

I'd been disillusioned enough. I thought that every honest-to-goodness he-man on a ranch wore chaps and tore about with his six-shooter 'spittin' death and d.a.m.nation,' but the man who brought out my trunks evidently has a pa.s.sion for overalls, and Mr. Benson met me at the train looking like a model of the Well-Dressed Man."

Her sister laughed.

"You've been reading Zane Gray et als. Please understand that we are ultra civilized on this ranch after six o'clock."

"Then you'll eat up my news. That smitten salesman of yours at Tiffany's told me before I left New York that he was on the trail of the Alexandrite ring you'd been wanting. It belonged to one of the late royalties. He says that it is a wonder, beautifully set and only two thousand dollars! You'd better write him about it. Of course he can't hold it indefinitely."

"Two thousand dollars!" Jerry regretted the shocked exclamation as soon as it left her lips. She glanced furtively at Steve. His eyes, clear and clean and s.h.i.+ning from his out-of-door life, disconcertingly direct, met hers. She looked away hastily. "I'm--I'm not buying jewels now, Peg."

"You're not! Growing miserly in your old age, Geraldine?" with patronizing surprise. "You've been talking of that Alexandrite for----"

"Will you ride the range with your ancient brother-in-law this morning, Peg-o'-my-heart?" broke in Courtlandt. "We'll have lunch at Upper Farm."

"I'll say I'd love it. Will you come, Jerry?"

"No, I have work to do. Behold your erstwhile humble sister the private secretary of the owner of Double O ranch," with laughing empress.e.m.e.nt.

"Don't work. Sleep, or ride with Peg," cut in Steve sharply. "Remember you were out all night."

"O King Live Forever!" mocked Geraldine gayly. "Just as though I hadn't danced all night many a time and ridden in the park all morning. I shall----"

"Pete Glellish tlell you dat Ranlett make bad pidgin in Lower Flield,"

interrupted Ming Soy's soft voice at Courtlandt's elbow. "He say, 'Hully--hully--hully!'"

Steve sprang from his chair and caromed into Tommy Benson who had just entered the court and stood beaming upon Peggy Glamorgan.

"What, down already, Miss Peg? Methinks

"'This morning, like the spirit of a youth That means to be of note, begins betimes.'

Why the gla.s.sy-eye and furrowed-brow effect, Steve? I hope that you've left me a taste of the honey, Miss Glamorgan?" he reproached as he took his place at the table beside the girl.

"As soon as you've had a bite, Tommy, join me at Lower Field. Bring Peg along. Jerry," Steve Courtlandt's voice was peremptory, "remember, no work in the office and if you don't go with Peg and Tommy stay in sight of the ranch-house if you ride. Don't expect me until you see me. I may not be at home to-night."

He didn't wait for her answer. In his own room he picked up a Colt 45, spun the cylinder, slipped a box of cartridges into his pocket and hurried to the side door. Gerrish, mounted on the big sorrel, held Blue Devil by the bridle. Both horses were prancing nervously, for the parrot, who had climbed to the gutter under the roof, was clucking and calling:

"Gid-dap! Go-long!"

"That bird ought to be shot," Steve growled as with some difficulty he mounted. "What's to pay now, Pete, Ranlett?"

"You've got your rope on the right pair of horns this time, Chief. The fences of Lower Field have been cut."

"Toward the railroad?"

"By cripes, no. Toward the mountains. If 't been the railroad side we might have stood a chance of corralling the Shorthorns, but if they once get into the mountains--Lord-ee, I believe yer uncle'll rise out of his grave an' go after 'em. Them critters was the pride of his life. Ranlett was a low-down dawg to turn a trick like this. Say, do you know anything about thet range-rider at Bear Creek?"

"Why--why--I've spoken to him. You don't suspect him of being in this deal, do you?"

"I ain't suspectin' nothin', but after I'd saw him twice talkin' to Ranlett I sort of got his number."

"You've got it wrong, then, Pete. I happen to know that the man is white clear through."

"Well, I ain't shootin' off my mouth careless when I say that the range-rider's got somethin' up his sleeve. It's my best bet there's going to be fifty-seven varieties of h.e.l.l blowin' up round this ranch before we get through. If you ask me, I'll say that the crime-wave that's been lappin' the coast has swashed out here in a flood."

"But, Pete, it's impossible for rustlers to get away with their old stuff now."

"You're shoutin', Chief, it sure is, but--they'll find some new ways. I got it doped out your way too, but if it ain't rustlin', what fool thing is that coyote Ranlett up to?"