The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 12

Clavering made her a little and very graceful inclination. "One would respect such faith as yours."

Miss Schuyler, who was a young woman of some penetration, deftly changed the topic, and Clavering came near to pleasing her, but he did not quite succeed, before he took his departure. Then Hetty glanced inquiringly at her companion.

Flora Schuyler nodded. "I know just what you mean, and I was mistaken."

"Yes?" said Hetty. "Then you like him?"

Miss Schuyler shook her head. "No. I fancied he was clever, and he didn't come up to my expectations. You see, he was too obvious."

"About Larry?"

"Yes. Are you not just a little inconsistent, Hetty?"

Miss Torrance laughed. "I don't know," she said. "I am, of course, quite angry with Larry, but n.o.body else has a right to abuse him."

Flora Schuyler said nothing further, and while she sat in thoughtful silence Clavering walked down the hall with Hetty's maid. He was a well-favoured man, and the girl was vain. She blushed when he looked down on her with a trace of admiration in his smile.

"You like the prairie?" he said.

She admitted that she was pleased with what she had seen of it, and Clavering's a.s.sumed admiration became bolder.

"Well, it's a good country, and different from the East," he said. "There are a good many more dollars to be picked up here, and pretty women are quite scarce. They usually get married right off to a rancher. Now I guess you came out to better yourself. It takes quite a long time to get rich down East."

The girl blushed again, and when she informed him that she had a crippled sister who was a charge on the family, Clavering smiled as he drew on a leather glove.

"You'll find you have struck the right place," he said. "Now I wonder if you could fix a pin or something in this b.u.t.ton shank. It's coming off, you see."

The girl did it, and when he went out found a bill lying on the table where he had been standing. The value of it somewhat astonished her, but after a little deliberation she put it in her pocket.

"If he doesn't ask for it when he comes back I'll know he meant me to keep it," she said.

VIII

THE SHERIFF

Miss Schuyler had conjectured correctly respecting the rifle-shot which announced the arrival of a messenger; a few minutes after the puff of white smoke on the crest of the rise had drifted away, a mounted man rode up to Grant at a gallop. His horse was white with dust and spume, but his spurs were red.

"Railroad district executive sent me on to let you know the Sheriff had lost your man," he said.

"Lost him," said Grant.

"Well," said the horseman, "put it as it pleases you, but, as he had him in the jail, it seems quite likely he let him go."

There was a growl from the teamsters who had cl.u.s.tered round, and Grant's face grew stern. "He was able to hold the two homesteaders Clavering's boys brought him."

"Oh, yes," said the other, "he has them tight enough. You'll remember one of the cattle-boys and a storekeeper got hurt during the trouble, and our men are not going to have much show at the trial Torrance and the Sheriff are fixing up!"

"Then," said Grant wearily, "we'll stop that trial. You will get a fresh horse in my stable and tell your executive I'm going to take our men out of jail, and if it suits them to stand in they can meet us at the trail forks, Thursday, ten at night."

The man nodded. "I'm tolerably played out, but I'll start back right now,"

he said.

He rode off towards the homestead, and Grant turned to the rest. "Jake, you'll take the eastern round; Charley, you'll ride west. Give them the handful of oats at every shanty to show it's urgent. They're to be at Fremont in riding order at nine to-morrow night."

In another ten minutes the men were riding hard across the prairie, and Grant, with a sigh, went on with his ploughing. It would be next year before he could sow, and whether he would ever reap the crop was more than any man in that region would have ventured to predict. He worked however, until the stars were out that night and commenced again when the red sun crept up above the prairie rim the next day; but soon after dusk mounted men rode up one by one to Fremont ranch. They rode good horses, and each carried a Winchester rifle slung behind him when they a.s.sembled, silent and grim, in the big living-room.

"Boys," said Grant quietly, "we have borne a good deal, and tried to keep the law, but it is plain that the cattle-men, who bought it up, have left none for us. Now, the Sheriff, who has the two homesteaders safe, has let the man we sent him go."

There was an ominous murmur and Grant went on. "The homesteaders, who only wanted to buy food and raised no trouble until they were fired on, will be tried by the cattle-men, and I needn't tell you what kind of chance they'll get. We pledged ourselves to see they had fair play when they came in, and there's only one means of getting it. We are going to take them from the Sheriff, but there will be no fighting. We'll ride in strong enough to leave no use for that. Now, before we start, are you all willing to ride with me?"

Again a hoa.r.s.e murmur answered him, and Grant, glancing down the row of set faces under the big lamps, was satisfied.

"Then we'll have supper," he said quietly. "It may be a long while before any of us gets a meal again."

It was a silent repast. As yet the homesteaders, at least in that district, had met contumely with patience and resisted pa.s.sively each attempt to dislodge them, though it had cost their leader a strenuous effort to restrain the more ardent from the excesses some of their comrades farther east had already committed; but at last the most peaceful of them felt that the time to strike in turn had come. They mounted when supper was over and rode in silence past willow bluff and dusky rise across the desolate waste. The badger heard the jingle of their bridles, and now and then a lonely coyote, startled by the soft drumming of the hoofs, rose with bristling fur and howled; but no cow-boy heard their pa.s.sage, or saw them wind in and out through devious hollows when daylight came. Still, here and there an anxious woman stood, with hazy eyes, in the door of a lonely shanty, wondering whether the man she had sent out to strike for the home he had built her would ever ride back again. For they, too, had their part in the struggle, and it was perhaps the hardest one.

It was late at night when they rode into the wooden town. Here and there a window was flung open; but the night was thick and dark, and there was little to see but the dust that whirled about the dimly flitting forms.

That, however, was nothing unusual, for of late squadrons of stockriders and droves of weary cattle had pa.s.sed into the town; and a long row of shadowy frame houses had been left behind before the fears of any citizen were aroused. It was, perhaps, their silent haste that betrayed the hors.e.m.e.n, for they rode in ordered ranks without a word, as men who have grim business in hand, until a hoa.r.s.e shout went up. Then a pistol flashed in the darkness in front of them, doors were flung open, lights began to blink, and a half-seen horseman came on at a gallop down the shadowy street. He pulled his horse up within a pistol-shot from the homesteaders, and sat still in his saddle staring at them.

"You'll have to get down, boys, or tell me what you want," he said. "You can't ride through here at night without a permit."

There was a little ironical laughter, and somebody asked, "Who's going to stop us?"

"The Sheriff's guard," said the horseman. "Stop right where you are until I bring them."

"Keep clear," said Grant sternly, "or we'll ride over you. Forward, boys!"

There was a jingle of bridles, and the other man wheeled his horse as the heels went home. Quick as he was, the foremost riders were almost upon him, and as he went down the street at a gallop the wooden houses flung back a roar of hoofs. Every door was open now and the citizens peering out. Lights flashed in the windows, and somebody cried, "The rustler boys are coming!"

Other voices took up the cry; hoots of derision mingled with shouts of greeting, but still, without an answer, the men from the prairie rode on, Grant peering into the darkness as he swung in his saddle at the head of them. He saw one or two mounted men wheel their horses, and more on foot spring clear of the hoofs, and then the flash of a rifle beneath the black front of a building. A flagstaff ran up into the night above it, and there were shadowy objects upon the verandah. Grant threw up a hand.

"We're here, boys," he said.

Then it became evident that every man's part had been allotted him, for while the hindmost wheeled their horses, and then sat still, with rifles across their saddles, barring the road by which they had come, the foremost pressed on, until, pulling up, they left a s.p.a.ce behind them and commanded the street in front. The rest dismounted, and while one man stood at the heads of every pair of horses, the rest cl.u.s.tered round Grant in the middle of the open s.p.a.ce. The jail rose dark and silent before them, and for the s.p.a.ce of a moment or two there was an impressive stillness. It was broken by a shout from one of the rearguard.

"There's quite a crowd rolling up. Get through as quick as you can!"

Grant stood forward. "We'll give you half a minute to send somebody out to talk to us, and then we're coming in," he said.

The time was almost up before a voice rose from the building: "Who are you, any way, and what do you want?"

"Homesteaders," was the answer. "We want the Sheriff."

"Well," said somebody, "I'll tell him."