The Settling of the Sage Part 21

Within the last week she had heard that Carp, after being let off by Harris, had started up a brand of his own down in Slade's range.

Harris's remarks about Slade's mode of acquiring new brands recurred to her,--that he fostered some small outfit for a few seasons, then bought it out. As the men scattered she commented on this to Harris. The Three Bar foreman nodded.

"Likely the same old move," he said. "I've been trying to get a line on Carp. He started off with a bill of sale from Slade for a hundred head of Three Bar rebrands. But it didn't come direct from Slade at that. Morrow engineered the deal. Said he came into the paper for two years' back pay from Slade; last year and the one before--had figured to start up for himself and was to draw his pay in cows. The paper is dated at the time Morrow quit Slade last year. What can we prove wrong with that? Morrow simply sells the paper to Carp. Of course it's a plant. All Carp has to do is to run Slade's Triangle on the hips of any number of Three Bar she-stock. Like I told you, there's no way to check Slade up on the number of our rebrands. If Carp gets caught it's his own hard luck."

A dozen men from the Halfmoon D swarmed in the door. Mrs. McVey, the owner's wife, stationed herself in one corner with the Three Bar girl while the men gravitated to the bar.

"I'll take Deane in tow for a while," Harris said. "And get him acquainted with folks." He led Deane to the bar and gave him sc.r.a.ps of the history of various neighbors as they arrived.

Harper's men came in, the albino standing half a head taller than any other on the floor, and they mingled with the rest as if their records were the most immaculate of the lot. Two of Slade's foremen arrived with their families. The wife of one was lean and bent, worn from years of drudgery. The other was an ample, red-cheeked woman of great self-confidence, her favorite pose that of planting both hands on her hips, elbows outspread, and nodding vigorously to emphasize her speech.

Bart Epperson, a trapper from far back in the hills, had brought his family to the frolic. Mrs. Epperson was a tiny, meek woman who had but little to say. Her two daughters, in their late teens, had glossy black hair, high cheek bones and faint olive tinge of skin which betrayed a trace of Indian ancestry.

Lafe Brandon came at the head of his tribe. Ma Brandon, white-haired and motherly and respected by all, was possessed of a queer past known to the whole community. Forty years before Lafe Brandon had stopped at a sod hut on the Republican and found a girl wife with both eyes discolored from blows of her heavy-handed spouse. Lafe had left the bearded ruffian unconscious, with a broken nose and three fractured ribs, and had ridden off with the girl. Five sons and a daughter had been born to them. Two years before, Kit Brandon, the daughter, had been wed to a merchant in Coldriver. The traveling parson who married them heard of the parents' queer case, learned that Ma Brandon's former mate was long since dead, and spoke earnestly to the pair. Both were willing to do anything which might prove of future benefit to Kit. The conference resulted in the old couple's standing before the parson and having the marriage service performed for them an hour before a like rite was rendered for the daughter.

Harris laughed as he informed Deane of this bit of history.

"They both considered it rather an unnecessary fuss," he said. "And it's rumored that they had their first quarrel of a lifetime on the way home from the service."

Two of the sons were married and living at the home ranch. They came to the dance with the rest of the family. Lou Brandon's wife, Dolly, was a former dance-hall girl of Coldriver, and Al Brandon's better half, Belle, was the daughter of a Utah cowman.

An extra stage-load rolled in from Coldriver and four couples joined the throng.

"Ex-school-teachers," Harris informed. "They marry them so fast that it's hard to keep one on the job instructing the rising generation in the Coldriver school."

Deane shrank from the thought of the Three Bar girl in such a mixture.

Someway she seemed many shades finer than the rest.

"It couldn't be otherwise," Harris said, when Deane expressed this thought. "She was raised at the knee of one of the finest women in the world. I remember her mother myself--a little; and I've heard my own mother sing the praises of Elizabeth Warren a thousand times."

The albino interrupted them.

"Cal--how come?" he greeted. The three men conversed in the most casual, friendly fas.h.i.+on, as if there had never been a hint of friction between Harris and Harper in the past.

A great voice rose above the buzz of conversation, filling the big room to the very rafters.

"Choose your pardners for the dance!" Waddles bellowed from the makes.h.i.+ft platform at one end of the room. "Go get your ga-a-als!"

Deane moved across to the Three Bar girl. There was a general rush for the side opposite the bar where the ladies had gathered. Couples squared off for the Virginia reel, the shortage of ladies rectified by a handkerchief tied on the arm of many a chap-clad youth to signify that he was, for the moment, a girl. Waddles picked his guitar; two fiddles broke into "Turkey in the Straw" and the dance was on with Waddles calling the turns.

All through the room they shuffled and bowed, whirled partners, locked elbows and swung, the shriek of fiddles and sc.r.a.pe of feet punctuated by the caller's boom.

"Grab your gals for the grand right an' left!" the big voice wailed.

"Swing, rattle and roar!" "Clutch all partners for a once and a half!"

"Swing your gals and swing 'em high!" "Prance, scuffle and sc.r.a.pe!"

Slade came in alone as the first dance was ended.

A croupier and lookout, imported from Coldriver for the event, opened Brill's roulette layout in one corner, a game he usually operated himself on the occasions when his patrons chose to try their fortune against the bank. The rattle of chips, the whir of the ivory ball and the professional chant of lookout and croupier sounded between dances.

"Single ought in the green," the croupier droned.

"Single ought in the green," the lookout echoed. "The pea-green shade is the bank's per cent. The house wins and the gamblers lose. Place your bets for another turn."

"She's off," the croupier chanted. "Off again on the giddy whirl. The little ivory ball--she spins!"

"Ten in the black," the croupier called. "Ten in the black," the lookout seconded. "The black pays and the red falls off; the even beats the odd."

The full enjoyment of a novel scene was spoiled for Deane by the sickening realization that the Three Bar girl was part of it, rubbing elbows with the nondescript throng. He looked again at Harper, the rustler chief; at Slade, with his peculiar turtle-like face, Slade the cattle king--the killer. Billie Warren stood between the two Epperson girls whose faces betrayed the taint of Indian blood, an arm about the shoulders of each of them. The sheriff who had said that men must humor womenfolks was leaning against the bar. Deane turned to Harris but found him looking off across the room. He turned his own eyes that way and glimpsed a dark man with an overlong, thin face and a set bleak stare. Morrow had just come in.

Five minutes later Harris stepped out the back door and Deane followed him. At the sound of a footfall behind him Harris whirled on his heel and when he confronted Deane the dim light from the door glinted on something in his hand.

"Sho," Harris deprecated. "I'm getting spooky. I thought it was some one else." He slipped the gun back in its holster. "There's one or two that would like right well to run across me from behind."

"I followed you out to tell you it was decent of you to insist that I stay over a few days," Deane said. "It was a white thing to do, considering that we both want the same thing."

"We both want her to have what's best for her," Harris said. "And I don't know as she could do any better than to take up with you."

"It may sound rather trite--coming after that," Deane said. "But anyway, I'll have to say that I feel the same way about you."

"Then, if we're both right in our estimates, why she can't go very far wrong, either way she turns," Harris said. "So I reckon we're both content."

Harris moved on and motioned Deane to accompany him.

"I thought I glimpsed a man I knew a few minutes back," Harris said.

"I'd like right well to have a talk with him."

They wandered completely round the post and looked in the shadows of the outbuildings but could find no trace of life.

"Likely I was mistaken," Harris said at last. "I saw a face just outside the door. He was more or less on my mind--the party I thought it was. Some one else I expect, and he's gone inside."

They returned to the hall. Morrow stood with two Halfmoon D men at the end of the bar. Harris motioned him aside and Morrow withdrew from the others.

"This is pretty far north for you, Morrow," Harris suggested.

"Is there any one restricting my range?" Morrow demanded. "If there is I'd like to know."

"Then I'll tell you," Harris answered. "The road is open--as long as you keep on the road. Any time you stray a foot off the beaten trail you're on the Three Bar range. I don't figure to get gunned up from the brush more than once by the same man. Every Three Bar boy has orders to shoot you down on sight any time you heave in view anywhere within twenty miles of the Three Bar; so I wouldn't stray off the main-traveled road any time you're going through."

Lanky Evans had detached himself from a group and Morrow looked up to find the tall man standing at his shoulder.

"So you hunt in pairs," Morrow remarked.

"And later in packs," Lanky returned. "Why don't you ever come up and visit us? Every time I'm riding north I keep looking back, expecting to see you come cantering up from the south. Harris been commenting about the little dead-line we've drawn on you?"

"What's the object of all this conversation?" Morrow flared. "If you've got anything to say to me why get it over with."

"Nothing special," Evans said. "I just thought maybe I could goad you into being imprudent enough to come up our way--which I'm sure hoping to observe you north of the line and somewhere within a thousand yards."