The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 19

The lad laughed as they rode on up the trail with Grant and Hetty in front of them, and Muller following.

"No," he said. "To be frank, I came out because my friends in the old one seemed to fancy the same thing of me. When they have no great use for a young man yonder, they generally send him to America. In fact, they send some of them quite a nice cheque quarterly so long as they stay there. You see, we are like the hedgehogs, or your porcupines, if you grow them here, Miss Schuyler."

Flora Schuyler smiled. "You are young, or you wouldn't empty the magazine all at once in answer to a single shot."

"Well," said Breckenridge, "so are you. It is getting dark, but I have a notion that you are something else too. The fact I mentioned explains the liberty."

Flora shook her head. "The dusk is kind. Any way, I know I am years older than you. There are no little girls in this country like the ones you have been accustomed to."

"Now," said Breckenridge, "my sisters and cousins are, I firmly believe, a good deal nicer than those belonging to most other men; but, you see, I have quite a lot of them, and any one so favoured loses a good many illusions."

In the meantime Hetty, who, when she fancied he would not observe it, glanced at him now and then, rode silently beside Grant until he turned to her.

"I have a good deal to thank you for, Hetty, and--for you know I was never clever at saying the right thing--I don't quite know how to begin. Still, in the old times we understood just what each other meant so well that talking wasn't necessary. You know I'm grateful for my liberty and would sooner take it from you than anybody else, don't you?"

Hetty laid a restraint upon herself, for there was a thrill in the man's voice, which awakened a response within her. "Wouldn't it be better to forget those days?" she said. "It is very different now."

"It isn't easy," said Grant, checking a sigh. "I 'most fancied they had come back the night you told me how to get away."

Hetty's horse plunged as she tightened its bridle in a fas.h.i.+on there was no apparent necessity for. "That," she said chillingly, "was quite foolish of you, and it isn't kind to remind folks of the things they had better not have done. Now, you told us the prairie wasn't safe because of some of your friends."

"No," said Grant drily, "I don't think I did. I told you there were some men around I would sooner you didn't fall in with."

"Then they must be your partisans. There isn't a cattle-boy in this country who would be uncivil to a woman."

"I wish I was quite sure. Still, there are men coming in who don't care who is right, and only want to stand in with the men who will give them the most dollars or let them take what they can. We have none to give away."

"Larry," the girl said hotly, "do you mean that we would be glad to pay them?"

"No. But they will most of them quite naturally go over to you, which will make it harder for us to get rid of them. We have no use for men of that kind in this country."

"No?" said the girl scornfully. "Well, I fancied they would have come in quite handy--there was a thing you did."

"You heard of that?"

"Yes," very coldly. "It was a horrible thing."

Grant's voice changed to a curious low tone. "Did you ever see me hurt anything when I could help it in the old days, Hetty?"

"No. One has to be honest; I remember how you once hurt your hand taking a jack-rabbit out of a trap."

"And how you bound it up?"

"Well," said Hetty, "I don't know, after the work you have done with it, that I should care to do that now."

"There are affairs you should never hear of and I don't care to talk about with you," Grant said, very quietly, "but since you have mentioned this one you must listen to me. Just as it is one's duty to give no needless pain to anything, so there is an obligation on him to stop any other man who would do it. Is it wrong to kill a grizzly or a rattlesnake, or merciful to leave them with their meanness to destroy whatever they want?

Now, if you had known a quiet American who did a tolerably dangerous thing because he fancied it was right, and found him shot in the back, and the trail of the man who crept up behind him and killed him for a few dollars, would you have let that man go?"

Hetty ignored the question. "The man was your friend."

"Well," said Grant slowly, "he had done a good deal for me, but that would not have counted for very much with any one when we made our decision."

"No?" And Hetty glanced at him with a little astonishment.

Grant shook his head. "No," he said. "We had to do the square thing--that and nothing more; but if we had let that man go, he would, when the chance was given him, have done what he did again. Well, it was--horrible; but there was no law that would do the work for us in this country then."

Hetty s.h.i.+vered, but had there been light enough Grant would have seen the relief in her face, and as it was his pulse responded to the little quiver in her voice. Why it was she did not know, but the belief in him which she had once cherished suddenly returned to her. In the old days the man she had never thought of as a lover could, at least, do no wrong.

"I understand." Her voice was very gentle. "There must be a good deal of meanness in me, or I should have known you only did it because you are a white man, and felt you had to. Oh, of course, I know--only it's so much easier to go round another way so you can't see what you don't want to.

Larry, I'm sorry."

Grant's voice quivered. "The only thing you ever do wrong, Hetty, is to forget to think now and then; and by and by you will find somebody who is good enough to think for you."

The girl smiled. "He would have to be very patient, and the trouble is that if he was clever enough to do the thinking he wouldn't have the least belief in me. You are the only man, Larry, who could see people's meannesses and still have faith in them."

"I am a blunderer who has taken up a contract that's too big for him,"

Grant said gravely. "I have never told anyone else, Hetty, but there are times now and then when, knowing the kind of man I am, I get 'most sick with fear. All the poor men in this district are looking to me, and, though I lie awake at night, I can't see how I'm going to help them when one trace of pa.s.sion would let loose anarchy. It's only right they're wanting, that is, most of the Dutchmen and the Americans--but there's the mad red rabble behind them, and the bitter rage of hard men who have been trampled on, to hold in. It's a crus.h.i.+ng weight we who hold the reins have got to carry. Still, we were made only plain farmer men, and I guess we're not going to be saddled with more than we can bear."

He had spoken solemnly from the depths of his nature, and all that was good in the girl responded.

"Larry," she said softly, "while you feel just that I think you can't go wrong. It is what is right we are both wanting, and--though I don't know how--I feel we will get it by and by, and then it will be the best thing for homestead-boys and cattle-barons. When that time comes we will be glad there were white men who took up their load and worried through, and when this trouble's worked out and over there will be nothing to stop us being good friends again."

"Is that quite out of the question now?"

"Yes," said Hetty simply. "I am sorry, but, Larry, can't you understand?

You are leading the homestead-boys, and my father the cattle-barons. First of all I've got to be a dutiful daughter."

"Of course," he agreed. "Well, it can't last for ever, and we can only do the best we can. Other folks had the same trouble when the boys in Sumter fired the starting gun--North and South at each other's throats, and both Americans!"

Hetty decided that she had gone sufficiently far, and turned in her saddle. "What is the Englishman telling you, Flo?" she asked.

Miss Schuyler laughed. "He was almost admitting that the girls in this country are as pretty as those they raise in the one he came from."

"Well," said Breckenridge, "if it was daylight I'd be sure."

Grant fancied that it was not without a purpose his companion checked her horse to let the others come up, and, though it cost him an effort, acquiesced. His laugh was almost as ready as that of the rest as they rode on four abreast, until at last the lights of Cedar Range blinked beside the bluff. Then, they grew suddenly silent again as Muller, who it seemed remembered that he had been taught by the franc tireurs, rode past them with his rifle across his saddle. They pulled up when his figure cut blackly against the sky on the crest of a rise, and Hetty's laugh was scarcely light-hearted.

"You have been very good, and I am sorry I can't ask you to come in," she said. "Still, I don't know that it's all our fault; we are under martial law just now."

Grant took off his hat and wheeled his horse, and when the girls rode forward sat rigid and motionless, watching them until he saw the ray from the open door of Cedar Range. Then, Muller trotted up, and with a little sigh he turned homewards across the prairie.

About the same time Richard Clavering lay smoking, in a big chair in the room where he kept his business books and papers. He wore, among other somewhat unusual things, a velvet jacket, very fine linen, and on one of his long, slim fingers a ring of curious Eastern workmans.h.i.+p. Clavering was a man of somewhat expensive tastes, and his occasional visits to the cities had cost him a good deal, which was partly why an accountant, famous for his knowledge of ranching property, now sat busy at a table. He was a shrewd, direct American, and had already spent several days endeavouring to ascertain the state of Clavering's finances.

"Nearly through?" the rancher asked, with a languidness which the accountant fancied was a.s.sumed.

"I can give you a notion of how you stand, right now," he answered. "You want me to be quite candid?"

"Oh, yes," said Clavering, with a smile of indifference. "I'm in a tight place, Hopkins?"