Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim Part 18

wrapper--I'll have two dollars to add to the fund. Why, Leslie, I'd pretty nearly sell the dress off my back to raise money to-day!"

"Well, I know I'd do that, with half the reason for it that we have now. Dresses are a bother, anyway"--my habit was too short and too tight, not having kept pace with my growth--"but, all the same, I hate to see you working so hard. You've really grown thin and pale lately,"

I added.

"It won't be for long; I'll soon be through with it now--" Jessie was beginning, when a cheerful voice from the doorway echoed her words:

"No; it won't be for long! That's a comfort, ain't it?"

We both started. We had been so engrossed that we had heard no one approaching, and, even if we had, we could scarcely have been less startled, for the man leaning comfortably against the door-jamb was Jacob Horton. It had been many weeks since he had, to our knowledge, set foot on our premises.

"Good morning, Miss Jessie and Leslie," he began affably. "Nice morning, ain't it? I've been living in this valley going on eight year, and I don't recollect as ever I see a nicer mornin' than this is."

He put one foot upon the door sill--a suggestive att.i.tude--but neither of us invited him to enter. He was not easily daunted, however. The hand that rested against the door-jamb was still bandaged, and, as I made out with a swift glance, a b.u.t.ton was still missing from his coat. It was the coat that he had worn on the night that he had ostensibly salted the cattle in the far pasture. From his point of observation Mr. Horton, turning slightly, threw an admiring glance around. The glance seemed to include the outer prospect as well as the inner.

"This is a sightly place for a house, ain't it?" he remarked. "I do'no--I really do'no but I'd like that knoll t'other side the river just as well, though, and it would be nigher the spring. I'll speak to my wife about it; if she likes this spot better, why, here our house goes up. I shan't object. We can move this contraption that your father built, back for a hen house, or a pig-pen; just as she says. I always try to please my wife."

"When you get ready, perhaps you'll kindly tell us what you are talking about, Mr. Horton," Jessie said, rising from the sewing machine and going toward the door, whither I followed her.

"Tell you? Oh, yes, I forgot. Of course you girls can't be expected to know--young as you be--that you can't hold this claim. This claim was open for re-entry the day that your father was drowned. I wasn't ready to take it up just then; I am ready now. Odd, ain't it? I've been hearin' some talk--my wife told me, in fact--that you girls had laid out to go down to the land office with your witnesses to offer final proof to-morrow; Well, now--he, he! That's a reg'lar joke, for if you'll believe it, to-morrow's the day I've set to go down and file on this claim, 'count of it's being vacant! I don't s'pose, now, that you girls are reely in earnest about trying to keep the place? It would be a sight of trouble to you, even if the law would allow it, which it won't."

"Why not, Mr. Horton?" I asked.

"Why not? Wal', I don't know just why; I didn't make the homestead laws--reasonable laws they be, though; I couldn't 'a' made better ones myself--but I can tell you two girls one big, fundamental clause, so to speak, of the Homestead Act, under which you don't come--yes, two of 'em. First, foremost, and enough to swamp your whole outfit, if there was nothing else, you ain't neither of you of age. Second, not being of age, you ain't neither of you the head of a family."

I looked at Mr. Horton's bandaged hand, and a thrill of genuine delight went through me, as I hastened to dispute one of his fundamental clauses.

"Jessie is the head of a family, Mr. Horton--Ralph and I are her family."

"Maybe! Maybe! I s'pose, no doubt, you regard yourselves in that light. No harm's done, as long as you keep it to yourselves, but you'll find that the law won't recognize you in that way. The law's everlastin' partic'lar about such things. But, again, there's the matter of your both being under age! Now, what a misfortune that is to you--s'posing that you're in earnest about wanting to keep this place, but I reckon you ain't--if you recollect, you two, I've always said that I'd have this place. It may save you some trouble and expense, if I say right here and now, that I mean to have it! I mean to have it!

Don't forget that! But I ain't a hard man--not at all--and I'm willing to make it as easy as I can for you. Why, I could 'a' filed on this any time since your pa died, but I didn't, and why not?"

"If you ask me," I said, speaking very quietly, though I was trembling with indignation, "I suppose you didn't file on it because you thought it would be better to let us get a crop in before you did it; then you could steal the crop along with the place."

"Leslie!" Jessie exclaimed, aghast.

But Mr. Horton's thin lips parted in a wolfish smile. "Oh--ho! you're up on the homestead laws to some extent, I see. Crops do go with the land when the claimant forfeits his right to the land that bears them.

Your father, he forfeited his right by getting drownded, and no one has entered the claim since, so I'm about to enter it. As I said before I ain't a hard man, and I'm willing to make it as easy as I can for you, so I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay a fair price for such improvements as your father made. They don't amount to much--"

"But if you should decide to commute the claim, instead of waiting five years to prove up, it would be worth a good deal to you to be able to swear that such and such things had stood on the place so long, which you could not do if we took our improvements away; for we have a right to remove whatever we have built, if we do not keep the claim."

Mr. Horton's narrow eyes rested on me with anything but a friendly expression. "You're posted quite a consid'able; ain't you, Miss Smarty? Pity you didn't know jest a little mite more. Well; we won't quarrel over a little thing like that. I'll pay for the improvements, and you'll jest leave 'em where they are. This house, now, I'll take a look at it; it don't amount to much, that's so, but such as 'tis, I'll look at it."

"You are welcome to do so," Jessie a.s.sured him.

I think it came into her mind, as it certainly did into mine, that he wished to ascertain if the house were not lacking in some one or more of the essential equipments of a homesteader's claim. If he should discover such a lack his task would be all the easier. I ran over a hasty, furtive inventory on my fingers: "Cat, clock, table, chairs, stove--"

The cat was lying comfortably outstretched on the window ledge, her head resting on the open pages of the Bible, that we had both neglected to replace. The clock ticked loudly from its place on the mantel-piece; there was a fire in the stove, and, absorbed in staring, Mr. Horton stumbled over one of the chairs. The result of his inspection did not please him; he scowled at the cat, who resented his glance by springing from the window and hissing spitefully at his legs as she pa.s.sed him on her way out. Her sudden spring drew our visitor's attention to the book on which her head had been resting; the written pages attracted his notice.

"What's that?" he demanded, going nearer, the better to examine them.

"That is our family Bible," Jessie replied, laying her hand upon it reverently. "This"--she looked up at him with a kind of still, pale defiance--"this is the Gordon family record! It has been kept in these pages since the days of our great-great-grandfather, and"--she turned the book so that Mr. Horton's eyes rested on the entry--"it may interest you to know that I am eighteen, of legal age, to-day."

Mr. Horton's jaw dropped, and for a speechless instant he looked the picture of blank amazement, then he rallied.

"Records can lie," he declared, brutally. "You don't look eighteen, Jessie Gordon, and I don't believe you are. It's a likely story, ain't it now, that you should happen to be of age on the very day, almost, that it's a matter of life or death, as one might say, that you should be! No, that's too thin; it won't wash. You've made a little mistake in your entry, that's all. One of them convenient mistakes that folks are apt to make when it's to their interest to do so."

"As there is no man here to kick you out of the house, I suppose you feel at liberty to say whatever comes into your wicked head, and we must bear it!" Jessie said, her voice shaken with anger.

In spite of himself, Mr. Horton winced at that. "I ain't one to take advantage of your being helpless," he declared, virtuously. "You've no call to hint as much. But you know as well as I do that you don't look a day over sixteen, if you do that, and you couldn't make n.o.body--no land agent--believe that you are of age, if you didn't have that record to swear by."

"As we do have it, it will probably answer our purpose."

"Oh, well; maybe 'twill; maybe 'twill!" his glance ranged up and down the window, where lay the book with its irrefutable evidence. Then his eyes fell, and his tones changed to blandness once more. "I must be going," he announced, edging toward the door; "I was pa.s.sing along, and an idee popped into my head. You've been to some expense in helping to find your pa's body--though why you should 'a' been so set on finding it, n.o.body knows; folks is so cur'ous, that way! If it had been my case, I reckon my folks would 'a' had sense enough to leave me where I was--"

"I am sure they would--gladly!" I interposed, quickly.

Mr. Horton shot an evil glance in my direction, and went on: "Well, you've been to some expense, and the mines have shut down so's 't that old crackerjack of a n.i.g.g.e.r that hangs 'round your place is out of work. I'm going to pre-empt this place--none o' your slack-twisted homestead rights for me--and I thought it would be neighborly if I was to step in and tell you, Jess, that my wife's wanting a hired girl.

She was speaking of it last night, and the thought came into my head right off, though I didn't mention it to her, that you was going to need a home, and there was your chance. Being so young and inexperienced--for you don't look eighteen, no--I reckon you'd be willing to work without any more wages than jest your board and lodging until you had kind o' got trained into doing things our way."

"I'm afraid that I should never earn any wages at anything--not if I were to live a thousand years, if I had to be trained to do things your way first!" Jessie told him, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

"Oh, that's all right; you'll get over some of your high notions when you get to be a hired girl. You'll prob'ly acquire the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, same's the Bible speaks of, and it's one that you ain't got at present. As for you"--he turned on me savagely, and it was evident that he held me in even less esteem than he did my sister--"you can get out, and that brat"--he glared at Ralph, who had drawn near, and was regarding him with a kind of solemn, impersonal interest--"you can get shet of him easy enough--you can send him to the poor-house."

CHAPTER XX

GUARD MAKES A MISTAKE

Mr. Horton was returning to the charge when I eagerly caught at an opportunity that now presented itself, of speeding his departure. He was standing with his back to the open door, and had not observed, as we did, that his horse--contrary to the usual habit of mountain ponies--was not standing patiently where his master had left him.

Weary of waiting, he was walking away along the homeward road as rapidly as the dangling bridle reins would allow.

"Mr. Horton," I said, "your horse is leaving." A wicked impulse forced me to add: "I am sure you would hate to lose your horse here--as you did a coat b.u.t.ton, one night not so long ago."

It was a reckless speech to make, as I felt when I looked at him. His face turned of a livid pallor; he looked murderous as he stood in his tracks, glaring at me. He was, I am certain, afraid to trust himself to speak, or to remain near me. He bounded out of the house shouting "Whoa! Whoa!" as he ran. Guard was dozing by the doorstep. Mr.

Horton's action and call were so sudden that he sprang up, wide awake, looking eagerly around, under the impression that his services were in requisition. Though nearly full grown he was still a puppy, with many things to learn. The horse, also startled by Mr. Horton's outcry, raised his head, turning it from side to side as he looked back in search of the creature that had made such a direful noise. He quickened his pace into a trot, checked painfully whenever he stepped on the trailing bridle.

An older and wiser dog than Guard, seeing the saddle and the trailing bridle, would have known better than to attempt to practice his "heeling" accomplishments on the animal that wore them. But Guard, eager to air his lately-acquired knowledge, stopped for no such considerations. Pa.s.sing Mr. Horton, who was running after the horse, like a flash, he made a bee-line for that gentleman's mount. Reaching the animal, he crouched and bit one of his heels sharply. As the horse bounded away, he followed, nipping the flying heels and yelping with excitement. Mr. Horton toiled along in their rear and I ran after him--not actuated by any strong desire to come to his a.s.sistance, but in fear of what might happen should he succeed in laying hands on Guard. The very set of his vanis.h.i.+ng shoulders told me that he was purple with rage and fatigue, and I had good cause to fear for the safety of the dog, to whom I called and whistled, imploringly. After a chase of about half a mile, Guard, making a wide detour around Mr.

Horton, came slinking back to me. He was evidently troubled with misgivings as to the propriety of his conduct, and crouched in the dust at my feet, looking up at me with beautiful beseeching eyes. "You did very, very wrong!" I admonished him, earnestly. "You are never--ne-ver--to heel a horse that has a saddle or bridle on. Do you understand?"

Guard hung his head dejectedly, his bright eyes seeming to say that he understood, and would profit by the lesson.

Returning to the house I went in again instead of mounting the waiting horse and getting about my delayed errand.

"Did Mr. Horton catch his horse?" Jessie inquired.