CHAPTER 2. THE KING OF THE BIG HORN COUNTRY
Two months before this time Helen Messiter had been serenely teaching asecond grade at Kalamazoo, Michigan, notwithstanding the earnest effortsof several youths of that city to induce her to retire to domesticity"What's the use of being a schoolmarm?" had been the burden of theirplaint. "Any spinster can teach kids C-A-T, Cat, but only one inseveral thousand can be the prettiest bride in Kalamazoo." None of them,however, had been able to drive the point sufficiently home, and itis probable that she would have continued to devote herself to YoungAmerica if an uncle she had never seen had not died without a will andleft her a ranch in Wyoming yclept the Lazy D.
When her lawyer proposed to put the ranch on the market Miss Helen had aword to say.
"I think not. I'll go out and see it first, anyhow," she said.
"But really, my dear young lady, it isn't at all necessary. Fact is,I've already had an offer of a hundred thousand dollars for it. Now, Ishould judge that a fair price."
"Very likely," his client interrupted, quietly. "But, you see, I don'tcare to sell."
"Then what in the world are you going to do with it?"
"Run it."
"But, my dear Miss Messiter, it isn't an automobile or any other kind oftoy. You must remember that it takes a business head and a great deal ofexperience to make such an investment pay. I really think--"
"My school ends on the fourteenth of June. I'll get a substitute for thelast two months. I shall start for Wyoming on the eighteenth of April."
The man of law gasped, explained the difficulties again carefully as toa child, found that he was wasting his breath, and wisely gave it up.
Miss Messiter had started on the eighteenth of April, as she hadannounced. When she reached Gimlet Butte, the nearest railroad pointto the Lazy D, she found a group of curious, weatherbeaten individualsgathered round a machine foreign to their experience. It was on a flatcar, and the general opinion ran the gamut from a newfangled sewingmachine to a thresher. Into this guessing contest came its owner withso brisk and businesslike an energy that inside of two hours she wastesting it up and down the wide street of Gimlet Butte, to the wonderand delight of an audience to which each one of the eleven saloons ofthe city had contributed its admiring quota.
Meanwhile the young woman attended strictly to business. She haddisappeared for half an hour with a suit case into the Elk House;and when she returned in a short-skirted corduroy suit, leggings andwide-brimmed gray Stetson hat, all Gimlet Butte took an absorbinginterest in the details of this delightful adventure that had happenedto the town. The population was out _en masse_ to watch her slip downthe road on a trial trip.
Presently "Soapy" Sothern, drifting in on his buckskin from the HoodooPeak country, where for private reasons of his own he had been for thepast month a sojourner, reported that he had seen the prettiest sightin the State climbing under a gasoline bronc with a monkey-wrench inher hand. Where? Right over the hill on the edge of town. The immediatestampede for the cow ponies was averted by a warning chug-chug thatsounded down the road, followed by the appearance of a flashing whirthat made the ponies dance on their hind legs.
"The gasoline bronc lady sure makes a hit with me," announced "Texas,"gravely. "I allow I'll rustle a job with the Lazy D outfit."
"She ce'tainly rides herd on that machine like a champeen," admittedSoapy. "I reckon I'll drift over to the Lazy D with you to look afteryore remains, Tex, when the lightning hits you."
Miss Messiter swung the automobile round in a swift circle, came to anabrupt halt in front of the hotel, and alighted without delay. As shepassed in through the half score of admirers she had won, her dark eyesswept smilingly over assembled Cattleland. She had already met most ofthem at the launching of the machine from the flat car, and had directedtheir perspiring energies as they labored to follow her orders. Now shenodded a recognition with a little ripple of gay laughter.
"I'm delighted to be able to contribute to the entertainment of GimletButte," she said, as she swept in. For this young woman was possessedof Western adaptation. It gave her no conscientious qualms to exchangeconversation fraternal with these genial savages.
The Elk House did not rejoice in a private dining room, and competitionstrenuous ensued as to who should have the pleasure of sitting besidethe guest of honor. To avoid ill feeling, the matter was determined bya game of freeze-out, in which Texas and a mature gentleman named,from his complexion, "Beet" Collins, were the lucky victors. Texasimmediately repaired to the general store, where he purchased a newscarlet bandanna for the occasion; also a cake of soap with which torout the alkali dust that had filtered into every pore of his hands andface from a long ride across the desert.
Came supper and Texas simultaneously, the cow-puncher's face scrubbedto an apple shine. At the last moment Collins defaulted, his nervecompletely gone. Since, however, he was a thrifty soul, he sold hisplace to Soapy for ten dollars, and proceeded to invest the proceeds inan immediate drunk.
During the first ten minutes of supper Miss Messiter did not appear, andthe two guardians who flanked her chair solicitously were the object ofmuch badinage.
"She got one glimpse of that red haid of Tex and the pore lady's took tothe sage," explained Yorky.
"And him scrubbed so shiny fust time since Christmas before the bigblizzard," sighed Doc Rogers.
"Shucks! She ain't scared of no sawed-off, hammered-down runt likeTexas, No, siree! Miss Messiter's on the absent list 'cause she's afraidshe cayn't resist the blandishments of Soapy. Did yo' ever hear aboutSoapy and that Caspar hash slinger?"
"Forget it, Slim," advised Soapy, promptly. He had been engaged in loftyand oblivious conversation with Texas, but he did not intend to allowreminiscences to get under way just now.
At this opportune juncture arrived the mistress of the "gasoline bronc,"neatly clad in a simple white lawn with blue trimmings. She looked likea gleam of sunshine in her fresh, sweet youth; and not even in her ownschool room had she ever found herself the focus of a cleaner, moreunstinted admiration. For the outdoors West takes off its hat reverentlyto women worthy of respect, especially when they are young and friendly.
Helen Messiter had come to Wyoming because the call of adventure, thedesire for experience outside of rutted convention, were stirring herwarm-blooded youth. She had seen enough of life lived in a parlor, andwhen there came knocking at her door a chance to know the big, untamedoutdoors at first hand she had at once embraced it like a lover. Shewas eager for her new life, and she set out skillfully to make thesemen tell her what she wanted to know. To them, of course, it was an oldstory, and whatever of romance it held was unconscious. But since shewanted to talk of the West they were more than ready to please her.
So she listened, and drew them out with adroit questions when it wasnecessary. She made them talk of life on the open range, of rustlers andthose who lived outside the law in the upper Shoshone country, of thedeadly war waging between the cattle and sheep industries.
"Are there any sheep near the Lazy D ranch?" she asked, intenselyinterested in Soapy's tale of how cattle and sheep could no more be gotto mix than oil and water.
For an instant nobody answered her question; then Soapy replied, withwhat seemed elaborate carelessness:
"Ned Bannister runs a bunch of about twelve thousand not more'n fifteenor twenty miles from your place."
"And you say they are spoiling the range?"
"They're ce'tainly spoiling it for cows."
"But can't something be done? If my cows were there first I don't seewhat right he has to bring his sheep there," the girl frowned.
The assembled company attended strictly to supper. The girl, surprisedat the stillness, looked round. "Well?"
"Now you're shouting, ma'am! That's what we say," enthused Texas,spurring to the rescue.
"It doesn't much matter what you say. What do you do?" asked Helen,impatiently. "Do you lie down and let Mr. Bannister and his kind drivetheir sheep over you?"
"Do we
, Soapy?" grinned Texas. Yet it seemed to her his smile was notquite carefree.
"I'm not a cowman myself," explained Soapy to the girl. "Nor do I runsheep. I--"
"Tell Miss Messiter what yore business is, Soapy," advised Yorky fromthe end of the table, with a mouthful of biscuit swelling his cheeks.
Soapy crushed the irrepressible Yorky with a look, but that young manhit back smilingly.
"Soapy, he sells soap, ma'am. He's a sorter city salesman, I reckon."
"I should never have guessed it. Mr. Sothern does not LOOK likea salesman," said the girl, with a glance at his shrewd, hard,expressionless face.
"Yes, ma'am, he's a first-class seller of soap, is Mr. Sothern,"chuckled the cow-puncher, kicking his friends gayly under the table.
"You can see I never sold HIM any, Miss Messiter," came back Soapy,sorrowfully.
All this was Greek to the young lady from Kalamazoo. How was she to knowthat Mr. Sothern had vended his soap in small cubes on street corners,and that he wrapped bank notes of various denominations in the bars,which same were retailed to eager customers for the small sum of fiftycents, after a guarantee that the soap was good? His customers rarelypatronized him twice; and frequently they used bad language becausethe soap wrapping was not as valuable as they had expected. This wasmanifestly unfair, for Mr. Sothern, who made no claims to philanthropy,often warned them that the soap should be bought on its merits, and notwith an eye single to the premium that might or might not accompany thepackage.
"I started to tell you, ma'am, when that infant interrupted, thatthe cowmen don't aim to quit business yet a while. They've drawn adead-line, Miss Messiter."
"A dead-line?"
"Yes, ma'am, beyond which no sheep herder is to run his bunch."
"And if he does?" the girl asked, open eyed.
"He don't do it twict, ma'am. Why don't you pass the fritters to MissMessiter, Slim?"
"And about this Bannister Who is he?"
Her innocent question seemed to ring a bell for silence; seemed to carrywith it some hidden portent that stopped idle conversation as a strikingclock that marks the hour of an execution.
The smile that had been gay grew grim, and men forgot the subject oftheir light, casual talk. It was Sothern that answered her, andshe observed that his voice was grave, his face studiously withoutexpression.
"Mr. Bannister, ma'am, is a sheepman."
"So I understood, but--" Her eyes traveled swiftly round the table, andappraised the sudden sense of responsibility that had fallen on thesereckless, careless frontiersmen. "I am wondering what else he is.Really, he seems to be the bogey man of Gimlet Butte."
There was another instant silence, and again it was Soapy that liftedit. "I expaict you'll like Wyoming, Miss Messiter; leastways I hope youwill. There's a right smart of country here." His gaze went out of theopen door to the vast sea of space that swam in the fine sunset light."Yes, most folks that ain't plumb spoilt with city ways likes it."
"Sure she'll like it. Y'u want to get a good, easy-riding hawss, MissMessiter," advised Slim.
"And a rifle," added Texas, promptly.
It occurred to her that they were all working together to drift theconversation back to a safe topic. She followed the lead given her,but she made up her mind to know what it was about her neighbor,Mr. Bannister, the sheep herder, that needed to be handled with suchwariness and circumspection of speech.
Her chance came half an hour later, when she stood talking to thelandlady on the hotel porch in the mellow twilight that seemed to reston the land like a moonlit aura. For the moment they were alone.
"What is it about this man Bannister that makes men afraid to speak ofhim?" she demanded, with swift impulse.
Her landlady's startled eyes went alertly round to see that they werealone. "Hush, child! You mustn't speak of him like that," warned theolder woman.
"Why mustn't I? That's what I want to know."
"Is isn't healthy."
"What do you mean?"
Again that anxious look flashed round in the dusk. "The Bannister outfitis the worst in the land. Ned Bannister is king of the whole Big Horncountry and beyond that to the Tetons."
"And you mean to tell me that everybody is afraid of him--that men likeMr. Sothern dare not say their soul is their own?" the newcomer asked,contemptuously.
"Not so loud, child. He has spies everywhere That's the trouble. Youdon't know who is in with him. He's got the whole region terrified."
"Is he so bad?"
"He is a devil. Last year he and his hell riders swept down on Topaz andkilled two bartenders just to see them kick, Ned Bannister said. Folksallow they knew too much."
"But the law--the Government? Haven't you a sheriff and officers?"
"Bannister has. He elects the sheriff in this county."
"Aren't there more honest people here than villains?"
"Ten times as many, but the trouble is that the honest folks can't trusteach other. You see, if one of them made a mistake and confided in thewrong man--well, some fine day he would go riding herd and would notturn up at night. Next week, or next month, maybe, one of his partnersmight find a pile of bones in an arroyo.
"Have you ever seen this Bannister?"
"You MUST speak lower when you talk of him, Miss Messiter," the womaninsisted. "Yes, I saw him once; at least I think I did. Mighty few folksknow for sure that they have seen him. He is a mystery, and he travelsunder many names and disguises."
"When was it you think you saw him?"
"Two years ago at Ayr. The bank was looted that night and robbed ofthirty thousand dollars. They roused the cashier from his bed and madehim give the combination. He didn't want to, and Ned Bannister"--hervoice sank to a tremulous whisper--"put red-hot running-irons betweenhis fingers till he weakened. It was a moonlight night--much such anight as this--and after it was done I peeped through the blind of myroom and saw them ride away. He rode in front of them and sang like anangel--did it out of daredeviltry to mock the people of the town thathadn't nerve enough to shoot him. You see, he knew that nobody woulddare hurt him 'count of the revenge of his men."
"What was he like?" the mistress of the Lazy D asked, strangely awed atthis recital of transcendent villainy.
"'Course he was masked, and I didn't see his face. But I'd know himanywhere. He's a long, slim fellow, built like a mountain lion. Youcouldn't look at him and ever forget him. He's one of these graceful,easy men that go so fur with fool women; one of the kind that half shutshis dark, devil eyes and masters them without seeming to try."
"So he's a woman killer, too, is he? Any more outstandinginconsistencies in this versatile Jesse James?"
"He's plumb crazy about music, they say. Has a piano and plays Grigg andChopping, and all that classical kind of music. He went clear down toDenver last year to hear Mrs. Shoeman sing."
Helen smiled, guessing at Schumann-Heink as the singer in question, andGrieg and Chopin as the composers named. Her interest was incrediblyaroused. She had expected the West and its products to exhilarate her,but she had not looked to find so finished a Mephisto among its vaunted"bad men." He was probably overrated; considered a wonder because hisaccomplishments outstepped those of the range. But Helen Messiter hadquite determined on one thing. She was going to meet this redoubtablevillain and make up her mind for herself. Already, before she had beenin Wyoming six hours, this emancipated young woman had decided on that.