CHAPTER 6. A PARTY CALL
The mistress of the Lazy D, just through with her morning visit to thehospital in the bunkhouse, stopped to read the gaudy poster tacked tothe wall. It was embellished with the drawing of a placid rider astridethe embodiment of fury incarnate, under which was the legend: "Stick toYour Saddle."
BIG FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION AT GIMLET BUTTE. ROPING AND BRONCOBUSTING CONTESTS FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD AND BIG PRIZES,Including $1,000 for the Best Rider and the Same for Best Roper. CowPony Races, Ladies' Races and Ladies' Riding Contest, Fireworks, ANDFREE BARBECUE!!!! EVERYBODY COME AND TURN YOUR WOLF LOOSE.
A sudden thud of pounding hoofs, a snatch of ragtime, and her foremanswept up in a cloud of white dust. His pony came from a gallop to aninstant halt, and simultaneously Mac landed beside her, one hand holdingthe wide-brimmed hat he had snatched off in his descent, the otherhitched by a casual thumb to the belt of his chaps.
She laughed. "You really did it very well."
Mac blushed. He was still young enough to take pride in his picturesqueregalia, to prefer the dramatic way of doing a commonplace thing. But,though he liked this girl's trick of laughing at him with a perfectlygrave face out of those dark, long-lashed eyes, he would have likedit better if sometimes they had given back the applause he thought hislittle tricks merited.
"Sho! That's foolishness," he deprecated.
"I suppose they got you to sit for this picture;" and she indicated theposter with a wave of her hand.
"That ain't a real picture," he explained, and when she smiled added,"as of course y'u know. No hawss ever pitched that way--and the saddleain't right. Fact is, it's all wrong."
"How did it come here? It wasn't here last night."
"I reckon Denver brought it from Slauson's. He was ridin' that countryyesterday, and as the boys was out of smokin' he come home that way."
"I suppose you'll all go?"
"I reckon."
"And you'll ride?"
"I aim to sit in."
"At the roping, too?"
"No, m'm. I ain't so much with the rope. It takes a Mexican to snake arope."
"Then I'll be able to borrow only a thousand dollars from you to helpbuy that bunch of young cows we were speaking about," she mocked.
"Only a thousand," he grinned. "And it ain't a cinch I'll win. There arethree or four straightup riders on this range. A fellow come from theHole-in-the-Wall and won out last year."
"And where were you?"
"Oh, I took second prize," he explained, with obvious indifference.
"Well, you had better get first this year. We'll have to show them theLazy D hasn't gone to sleep."
"Sure thing," he agreed.
"Has that buyer from Cheyenne turned up yet?" she asked, reverting tobusiness.
"Not yet. Do y'u want I should make the cut soon as he comes?"
"Don't you think his price is a little low--twenty dollars from brandup?"
"It's a scrub bunch. We want to get rid of them, anyway. But you're thedoctor," he concluded slangily.
She thought a moment. "We'll let him have them, but don't make the cuttill I come back. I'm going to ride over to the Twin Buttes."
His admiring eyes followed her as she went toward the pony that waswaiting saddled with the rein thrown to the ground. She carried herslim, lithe figure with a grace, a lightness, that few women could haverivaled. When she had swung to the saddle, she half-turned in her seatto call an order to the foreman.
"I think, Mac, you had better run up those horses from Eagle Creek. HaveDenver and Missou look after them."
"Sure, ma'am," he said aloud; and to himself: "She's ce'tainly athoroughbred. Does everything well she tackles. I never saw anythinglike it. I'm a Chink if she doesn't run this ranch like she had beenat it forty years. Same thing with her gasoline bronc. That pinto, too.He's got a bad eye for fair, but she makes him eat out of her hand. Ireckon the pinto is like the rest of us--clean mashed." He put his armson the corral fence and grew introspective. "Blamed if I know what it isabout her. 'Course she's a winner on looks, but that ain't it alone. Iguess it's on account of her being such a game little gentleman. Whenshe turns that smile loose on a fellow--well, there's sure sunshine inthe air. And game--why, Ned Bannister ain't gamer himself."
McWilliams had climbed lazily to the top board of the fence. He was anenergetic youth, but he liked to do his thinking at his ease. Now, ashis gaze still followed its lodestar, he suddenly slipped from his seatand ran forward, pulling the revolver from its scabbard as he ran. Intohis eyes had crept a tense alertness, the shining watchfulness of thetiger ready for its spring.
The cause of the change in the foreman of the Lazy D was a simple one,and on its face innocent enough. It was merely that a stranger had swungin casually at the gate of the short stable lane, and was due tomeet Miss Messiter in about ten seconds. So far good enough. A dozentravelers dropped in every day, but this particular one happened to beNed Bannister.
From the stable door a shot rang out. Bannister ducked and shoutedgenially: "Try again."
But Helen Messiter whirled her pony as on a half-dollar, and chargeddown on the stable.
"Who fired that shot?" she demanded, her eyes blazing.
The horse-wrangler showed embarrassment. He had found time only to leanthe rifle against the wall.
"I reckon I did, ma'am. Y'u see--"
"Did you get my orders about this feud?" she interrupted crisply.
"Yes, ma'am, but--"
"Then you may call for your time. When I give my men orders I expectthem to obey."
"I wouldn't 'a' shot if I'd knowed y'u was so near him. Y'u was behindthat summer kitchen," he explained lamely.
"You only expect to obey orders when I'm in sight. Is that it?" sheasked hotly, and without waiting for an answer delivered her ultimatum."Well, I won't have it. I run this ranch as long as I am its owner. Doyou understand?"
"Yes, ma'am. I hadn't ought to have did it, but when I seen Bannister itcome over me I owed him a pill for the one he sent me last week down inthe coulee. So I up and grabbed the rifle and let him have it."
"Then you may up and grab your trunk for Medicine Hill. Shorty willdrive you tomorrow."
When she returned to her unexpected guest, Helen found him inconversation with McWilliams. The latter's gun had found again itsholster, but his brown, graceful hand hovered close to its butt.
"Seems like a long time since the Lazy D has been honored by a visitfrom Mr. Bannister," he was saying, with gentle irony.
"That's right. So I have come to make up for lost time," cameBannister's quiet retort.
Miss Messiter did not know much about Wyoming human nature in the raw,but she had learned enough to be sure that the soft courtesy of thesetwo youths covered a stark courage that might leap to life any moment.Wherefore she interposed.
"We'll be pleased to show you over the place, Mr. Bannister. As ithappens, we are close to the hospital. Shall we begin there?"
Her cool, silken defiance earned a smile from the visitor. "All yourcases doing well, ma'am?"
"It's very kind of you to ask. I suppose you take an interest becausethey are YOUR cases, too, in a way of speaking?"
"Mine? Indeed!"
"Yes. If it were not for you I'm afraid our hospital would be empty."
"It must be right pleasant to be nursed by Miss Messiter. I reckon theboys are grateful to me for scattering my lead so promiscuous."
"I heard one say he would like to lam your haid tenderly," murmuredMcWilliams.
"With a two-by-four, I suppose," laughed Bannister.
"Shouldn't wonder. But, looking y'u over casual, it occurs to mehe might get sick of his job befo' he turned y'u loose," McWilliamsadmitted, with a glance of admiration at the clean power showing in theother's supple lines.
Nor could either the foreman or his mistress deny the tribute of theirrespect to the bravado of this scamp who sat so jauntily his seatregardless of what the next moment might bring forth. Three
wounded menwere about the place, all presumably quite willing to get a cleanshot at him in the open. One of them had taken his chance already, andmissed. Their visitor had no warrant for knowing that a second might notany instant try his luck with better success. Yet he looked every inchthe man on horseback, no whit disturbed, not the least conscious ofany danger. Tall, spare, broad shouldered, this berry-brown young man,crowned with close-cropped curls, sat at the gates of the enemy verymuch at his insolent case.
"I came over to pay my party call," he explained.
"It really wasn't necessary. A run in the machine is not a formalfunction."
"Maybe not in Kalamazoo."
"I thought perhaps you had come to get my purse and the sixty-threedollars," she derided.
"No, ma'am; nor yet to get that bunch of cows I was going to rustle fromyou to buy an auto. I came to ask you to go riding with me."
The audacity of it took her breath. Of all the outrageous things she hadever heard, this was the cream. An acknowledged outlaw, engaged in feudwith her retainers over that deadly question of the run of the range,he had sauntered over to the ranch where lived a dozen of his enemies,three of them still scarred with his bullets, merely to ask her to goriding with him. The magnificence of his bravado almost obliterated itsimpudence. Of course she would not think of going. The idea! But hereyes glowed with appreciation of his courage, not the less because theconsciousness of it was so conspicuously absent from his manner.
"I think not, Mr. Bannister" and her face almost imperceptiblystiffened. "I don't go riding with strangers, nor with men who shootmy boys. And I'll give you a piece of advice, sir. That is, to burnthe wind back to your home. Otherwise I won't answer for your life. Mypunchers don't love you, and I don't know how long I can keep them fromyou. You're not wanted here any more than you were at the dance theother evening."
McWilliams nodded. "That's right. Y'u better roll your trail, seh; andif y'u take my advice, you'll throw gravel lively. I seen two of theboys cutting acrost that pasture five minutes ago. They looked as ifthey might be haided to cut y'u off, and I allow it may be their nightto howl. Miss Messiter don't want to be responsible for y'u getting leadpoisoning."
"Indeed!" Their visitor looked politely interested. "This solicitude forme is very touching. I observe that both of you are carefully blockingme from the bunkhouse in order to prevent another practice-shot. If Ican't persuade you to join me in a ride, Miss Messiter, I reckon I'llgo while I'm still unpunctured." He bowed, and gathered the reins fordeparture.
"One moment! Mr. McWilliams and I are going with you," the girlannounced.
"Changed your mind? Think you'll take a little pasear, after all?"
"I don't want to be responsible for your killing. We'll see you safe offthe place," she answered curtly.
The foreman fell in on one side of Bannister, his mistress on the other.They rode in close formation, to lessen the chance of an ambuscade.Bannister alone chatted at his debonair ease, ignoring theresponsibility they felt for his safety.
"I got my ride, after all," he presently chuckled. "To be sure, I wasn'texpecting Mr. McWilliams to chaperon us. But that's an added pleasure."
"Would it be an added pleasure to get bumped off to kingdom come?"drawled the foreman, giving a reluctant admiration to his aplomb.
"Thinking of those willing boys of yours again, are you?" laughedBannister. "They're ce'tainly a heap prevalent with their hardware, buttheir hunting don't seem to bring home any meat."
"By the way, how IS your ankle, Mr. Bannister? I forgot to ask." Thisshot from the young woman.
He enjoyed it with internal mirth. "They did happen on the target thattime," he admitted. "Oh, it's getting along fine, but I aim to do mostof my walking on horseback for a while."
They swept past the first dangerous grove of cottonwoods in safety, androunded the boundary fence corner.
"They're in that bunch of pines over there," said the foreman, after asingle sweep of his eyes in that direction.
"Yes, I see they are. You oughtn't to let your boys wear red bandannaswhen they go gunning, Miss Messiter. It's an awful careless habit."
Helen herself could see no sign of life in the group of pines, but sheknew their keen, trained eyes had found what hers could not. Riding withone or another of her cowboys, she had often noticed how infallibly theycould read the country for miles around. A scattered patch on a distanthillside, though it might be a half-hour's ride from them, told them agreat deal more than seemed possible. To her the dark spots sifted onthat slope meant scrub underbrush, if there was any meaning at all inthem. But her riders could tell not only whether they were alive, butcould differentiate between sheep and cattle. Indeed, McWilliams couldnearly always tell whether they were HER cattle or not. He was unable toexplain to her how he did it. By a sort of instinct, she supposed.
The pines were negotiated in safety, and on the part of the men with acarelessness she could not understand. For after they had passedthere was a spot between her shoulder-blades that seemed to tingle inexpectation of a possible bullet boring its way through. But she wouldhave died rather than let them know how she felt.
Perhaps Bannister understood, however, for he remarked casually: "Iwouldn't be ambling past so leisurely if I was riding alone. It makesa heap of difference who your company is, too. Those punchers wouldn'ttake a chance at me now for a million dollars."
"No, they're some haidstrong, but they ain't plumb locoed," agreed Mac.
Fifteen minutes later Helen drew up at the line corner. "We'll partcompany here, Mr. Bannister. I don't think there is any more danger frommy men."
"Before we part there is something I want to say. I hold that a man hasas much right to run sheep on these hills as cows. It's government land,and neither one of us owns it. It's bound to be a case of the survivalof the fittest. If sheep are hardier and more adapted to the country,then cows have got to vamos. That's nature, as it looks to me. Thebuffalo and the antelope have gone, and I guess cows have got to taketheir turn."
Her scornful eyes burned him. "You came to tell me that, did you? Well,I don't believe a word of it. I'll not yield my rights without a fight.You may depend on that."
"Here, too," nodded her foreman. "I'm with my boss clear down the line.And as soon as she lets me turn loose my six-gun, you'll hear it pop,seh."
"I have not a doubt of it, Mr. McWilliams," returned the sheepmanblithely. "In the meantime I was going to say that though most of myinterests are in sheep instead of cattle--"
"I thought most of your interests were in other people's property,"interrupted the young woman.
"It goes into sheep ultimately," he smiled. "Now, what I am trying toget at is this: I'm in debt to you a heap, Miss Messiter, and since I'mnot all yellow cur, I intend to play fair with you. I have ordered mysheep back across the deadline. You can have this range to yourself foryour cattle. The fight's off so far as we personally are concerned."
A hint of deeper color touched her cheeks. Her manner had been cavalierat best; for the most part frankly hostile; and all the time the man wason an errand of good-will. Certainly he had scored at her expense, andshe was ashamed of herself.
"Y'u mean that you're going to respect the deadline? asked Mac insurprise.
"I didn't say quite that," explained the sheepman. "What I said wasthat I meant to keep on my side of it so far as the Lazy D cattle areconcerned. I'll let your range alone."
"But y'u mean to cross it down below where the Bar Double-E cows run?"
Bannister's gay smile touched the sardonic face. "Do you invite thepublic to examine your hand when you sit into a game of poker, Mr.McWilliams?"
"You're dead right. It's none of my business what y'u do so long asy'u keep off our range," admitted the foreman. "And next time theconversation happens on Mr. Bannister, I'll put in my little say-so thathe ain't all black."
"That's very good of you, sir," was the other's ironical retort.
The girl's gauntleted hand offered itself impulsively. "We can't b
efriends under existing circumstances, Mr. Bannister. But that does notalter the fact that I owe you an apology. You came as a peace envoy, andone of my men shot at you. Of course, he did not understand the reasonwhy you came, but that does not matter. I did not know your reasonmyself, and I know I have been very inhospitable."
"Are you shaking hands with Ned Bannister the sheepman or Ned Bannisterthe outlaw?" asked the owner of that name, with a queer little smilethat seemed to mock himself.
"With Ned Bannister the gentleman. If there is another side to him Idon't know it personally."
He flushed underneath the tan, but very plainly with pleasure. "Youropinions are right contrary to Hoyle, ma'am. Aren't you aware that asheepman is the lowest thing that walks? Ask Mr. McWilliams."
"I have known stockmen of that opinion, but--"
The foreman's sentence was never finished. From a clump of bushesa hundred yards away came the crack of a rifle. A bullet sang past,cutting a line that left on one side of it Bannister, on the other MissMessiter and her foreman. Instantly the two men slid from their horseson the farther side, dragged down the young woman behind the coverof the broncos, and arranged the three ponies so as to give her thegreatest protection available. Somehow the weapons that garnished themhad leaped to their hands before their feet touched the ground.
"That coyote isn't one of our men. I'll back that opinion high," saidMcWilliams promptly.
"Who is he?" the girl whispered.
"That's what we're going to find out pretty soon," returned Bannistergrimly. "Chances are it's me he is trying to gather. Now, I'm going tomake a break for that cottonwood. When I go, you better run up a whitehandkerchief and move back from the firing-line. Turn Buck loose whenyou leave. He'll stay around and come when I whistle."
He made a run for it, zigzagging through the sage-brush so swiftly as tooffer the least certain mark possible for a sharpshooter. Yet twice therifle spoke before he reached the cottonwood.
Meanwhile Mac had fastened the handkerchief of his mistress on the endof a switch he had picked up and was edging out of range. His tense,narrowed gaze never left the bush-clump from which the shots were beingpumped, and he was careful during their retreat to remain on the dangerside of the road, in order to cover Helen.
"I guess Bannister's right. He don't want us, whoever he is."
And even as he murmured it, the wind of a bullet lifted his hat fromhis head. He picked it up and examined it. The course of the bullet wasmarked by a hole in the wide brim, and two more in the side and crown.
"He ce'tainly ventilated it proper. I reckon, ma'am, we'll make a runfor it. Lie low on the pinto's neck, with your haid on the off side.That's right. Let him out."
A mile and a half farther up the road Mac reined in, and made theIndian peace-sign. Two dejected figures came over the hill and resolvedthemselves into punchers of the Lazy D. Each of them trailed a rifle byhis side.
"You're a fine pair of ring-tailed snorters, ain't y'u?" jeered theforeman. "Got to get gay and go projectin' round on the shoot after y'ugot your orders to stay hitched. Anything to say for yo'selves?"
If they had it was said very silently.
"Now, Miss Messiter is going to pass it up this time, but from now ony'u don't go off on any private massacrees while y'u punch at the LazyD. Git that? This hyer is the last call for supper in the dining-cah. Ify'u miss it, y'u'll feed at some other chuckhouse." Suddenly the drawlof his sarcasm vanished. His voice carried the ring of peremptorycommand. "Jim, y'u go back to the ranch with Miss Messiter, AND KEEPYOUR EYES OPEN. Missou, I need y'u. We're going back. I reckon y'ubetter hang on to the stirrup, for we got to travel some. Adios,senorita!"
He was off at a slow lope on the road he had just come, the other manrunning beside the horse. Presently he stopped, as if the arrangementwere not satisfactory; and the second man swung behind him on the pony.Later, when she turned in her saddle, she saw that they had left theroad and were cutting across the plain, as if to take the sharpshooterin the rear.
Her troubled thoughts stayed with her even after she had reached theranch. She was nervously excited, keyed up to a high pitch; for she knewthat out on the desert, within a mile or two of her, men were stalkingeach other with life or death in the balance as the price of vigilance,skill and an unflawed steel nerve. While she herself had been in danger,she had been mistress of her fear. But now she could do nothing butwait, after ordering out such reinforcements as she could recruitwithout delay; and the inaction told upon her swift, impulsivetemperament. Once, twice, the wind brought to her a faint sound.
She had been pacing the porch, but she stopped, white as a sheet. Behindthose faint explosions might lie a sinister tragedy. Her mind projecteditself into a score of imaginary possibilities. She listened, breathlessin her tensity, but no further echo of that battlefield reached her. Thesun still shone warmly on brown Wyoming. She looked down into a rollingplain that blurred in the distance from knobs and flat spaces into asingle stretch that included a thousand rises and depressions. That rollof country teemed with life, but the steady, inexorable sun beat downon what seemed a shining, primeval waste of space. Yet somewhere inthat space the tragedy was being determined--unless it had been alreadyenacted.
She wanted to scream. The very stillness mocked her. So, too, did theclicking windmill, with its monotonous regularity. Her pony still stoodsaddled in the yard. She knew that her place was at home, and she foughtdown a dozen times the tremendous impulse to mount and fly to the fieldof combat.
She looked at her watch. How slowly the minutes dragged! It could notbe only five minutes since she had looked last time. Again she fell topacing the long west porch, and interrupted herself a dozen times tostop and listen.
"I can bear it no longer," she told herself at last, and in anothermoment was in the saddle plying her pinto with the quirt.
But before she reached the first cottonwoods she saw them coming. Herglasses swept the distant group, and with a shiver she made out thedreadful truth. They were coming slowly, carrying something betweenthem. The girl did not need to be told that the object they werebringing home was their dead or wounded.
A figure on horseback detached itself from the huddle of men andgalloped towards her. He was coming to break the news. But who was thevictim? Bannister or McWilliams she felt sure, by reason of the sinkingheart in her; and then it came home that she would be hard hit if itwere either.
The approaching rider began to take distinct form through her glasses.As he pounded forward she recognized him. It was the man nicknamedDenver. The wind was blowing strongly from her to him, and while he wasstill a hundred yards away she hurled her question.
His answer was lost in the wind sweep, but one word of it she caught.That word was "Mac."