CHAPTER XIX
"Your horse don't look very tired," remarked the girl as they rodeeasily up the gulch toward Carter's camp. "When did you start?"
"Left 'bout noon," replied McCullen. "No, he ain't tired; ain't evenwarm, be you, old man? Just jogged along easy all the way an' took mytime. No great rush, anyhow. Cattle 're gittin' pretty well located uphere now--good feed, fresh water, an' everything to attract 'em to theplace. Never saw any stock look better'n that little bunch o' steers islookin'. Market's way up now, an' they ought to be shipped pretty soon."
"Why _don't_ you ship them, then?" asked Hope, leaning forward to brusha hornet from her horse's head.
"Oh, you see," said the man lamely, "them cattle ain't in such all-firedgood fix but what they might be better, an' I reckon your cousin ain'tin any hurry to ship, nohow. Pretty good place to camp up here insummer. Cool--my, but it was blasted hot down at the ranch this mornin',an' the misquitoes like to eat me up! No misquitoes up here to bother,good water, good fishin', good company,--an' who under the sun wouldwant to quit such a camp?"
"I'm willing," said the girl, looking at him with fathomless eyes, "I'mperfectly willing for him to camp here all summer. It's quite convenientto have you all so near. Of course I'm getting used to the grub downthere--some, by this time. Don't think I do not appreciate your beinghere, dear old Jim! But you know I understand, just the same, why youare here! And I think," she added softly, "I couldn't have stood it ifhe hadn't showed that he cared for me just so."
"Cared!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Cared _for you_! Why, Hopie, yourfather worships the ground you walk on! He's a great, good-hearted man,the best in the world, and you mustn't have no hard feelin's agin' himfor any little weaknesses, because the good in him is more'n the good inmost men. There ain't no one that's perfect, but he's better'n most ofus, I reckon. An' he loves you, an' is so proud of you, Hopie!"
"Oh, I know it, I know it!" exclaimed the girl passionately.
"An' your mother's goin' East next month," concluded McCullen. "She'svery anxious to get away."
"My poor father!" said Hope softly. Then more brightly: "I supposeSydney's out with the cattle."
"Them cattle 're gettin' pretty well located," replied McCullen. "Don'tneed much herdin'. No, I seen him there at Harris' as I come along. Hesaid he was goin' to take you an' that little flaxen-haired girl outridin', but concluded, as long as you was busy at the school-house, thathe'd just take the little one--providin' she'd go. He was arguin' thequestion with her when I rode by, an' I reckon he's there talkin' to heryet, er else givin' her a ridin' lesson. He'll make a good horsewomanout o' her yet, if her heart ain't buried too deep up there under therocks."
"Oh, Jim!" rebuked the girl. "It's _dreadful_ to talk like that, and herpoor heart is just _crushed_! It's pitiful!"
"I reckon that's just what Sydney thinks about it," replied Jim, hiseyes twinkling. "You ain't goin' to blame him for bein' sympathetic, beyou, Hopie?"
She laughed, but nervously.
"Louisa's the sweetest thing I ever saw, Jim! She's promised to stay andgo back to the ranch with me in the fall when school is over. Isn't itnice to have a sister like that? But goodness, she wouldn't look atSyd--not in ten years!"
She was so positive in this assertion that it left Jim without anargument. She slowed down her horse to a walk, and he watched her takeO'Hara's letter from her belt and read the lengthy epistle frombeginning to end. Not a change of expression crossed the usual calm ofher face. But for a strange force of beauty and power, by which sheimpressed all with whom she came in contact, her lack of expressionwould have been a defect. This peculiar characteristic was an addedcharm to her strange personality. She was rarely understood by her bestfriends, who generally occupied themselves by wondering what she wasgoing to do next.
It may be that old Jim McCullen, calmly contemplating her from his sideof the narrow trail, wondered too, but he had the advantage of mostpeople, for he knew that whatever she did do would be the nearest thingto her hand. There was nothing variable or fitful about Hope.
She folded her letter and tucked it back in her belt, her only commentbeing, as she spurred her horse into a faster gait: "Larry says he iscoming over here one of these days."
They rode past the camp and on to the flat beyond, where grazed Sydney'stwo hundred head of steers. These they rode around, while Jim reviewedthe news of the ranch and round-up, in which the girl found someinterest, asking numerous questions about the recent shipment of cattle,the tone of the market, the prospect for hay, the number of cattleturned on the range, and many things pertaining to the work of theranch, but never a question concerning the idle New Yorkers who made upher mother's annual house-party. In them she took, as usual, nointerest.
She finally left her old friend and turned her horse's head back towardHarris' still as much perturbed in heart as when McCullen knocked at herschool-house door. She tormented herself with unanswerable questions,arriving always at the same conclusion--that after all it only seemedreasonable to suppose Livingston should be married. It explained hisconduct toward her perfectly. She wondered what the woman, Helene, haddone to deserve such unforgiveness from one who, above all men, was themost tender and thoughtful. She concluded that it must have beensomething dreadful, and, oddly for her, began to feel sorry for him. Shesaw him when she reached the top of the divide, riding half a mile awaytoward his ranch buildings. Then a certain feeling of ownership, ofpride, took possession of her, crowding everything before it. How wellhe sat his horse, in his English fashion, she thought. What a physique,what grace of strength! Then he disappeared from her sight as his horseplunged into the brush of the creek-bottom, and Hope, drawing a longbreath, spurred up her own horse until she was safely out of sight ofranch and ranch-buildings. A bend in the road brought her face to facewith Long Bill and Shorty Smith.
"Hello," said Shorty Smith, drawing rein beside her. "I was a lookin'for you."
"Really," said the girl, stopping beside him and calmly contemplatingboth men.
"Yep," nodded Long Bill politely, "we was huntin' fer you, MissHathaway."
"You see it's like this," explained Shorty Smith; "the old man, he ain'ta-doin' very well. I reckon it's his age. That there wound of his'nwon't heal, so we thought mebby you had some arnica salve er somethingsort o' soothin' to dope him with."
"I haven't the salve, but I might go over there myself if you want ananodyne," replied Hope, unsmiling at the men's blank faces.
"I'm goin' to ride to town to-morrow and I reckoned if you didn't haveno salve you could send in for it."
"Oh, I see!" Hope's exclamation came involuntarily. "What do you want toget for him and how much money do you want for it?"
"Well, you see, he needs considerable. Ain't got nothin' comfortableover there; nothin' to eat, wear--nothin' at all."
"All right," replied the girl in her cool, even tone. "I'll see that heis supplied with everything, but will attend to the matter myself.Good-evening!" She rode past them rapidly, and they, outwitted in theirlittle scheme for whisky-money, rode on their way toward old Peter'sbasin.
Sydney's horse stood outside of Harris'. He left a group of men who werewaiting the call for supper, and came out in the road to meet the girlwhen she rode up.
"I have been waiting for you," he said.
"And I have been over to camp and around the cattle with Jim," shereplied.
"Then come on and ride back up the road with me a ways, I want to seeyou," said Carter, picking up the bridle reins from the ground.
"But Louisa----" she demurred.
"Louisa's all right," he answered. "I've had her out for a ride, and nowshe's gone in the house with that breed girl--Mary, I think she calledher. So you see she's in excellent hands."
Hope turned her horse about and rode away with him silently.
"I want to talk with you, anyway," he said, when they had gone a shortdistance. "I haven't had a chance in a dog's age, you're always sohemmed in lately."
"Well, what
is it?" she questioned.
"There's some rumors going around that I don't exactly understand, Hope.Have you been doing anything since you've been up here to raise acommotion among these breeds?"
She turned to him with a shrug of contempt.
"You'll have to tell me what you're driving at before I can enlightenyou," she replied.
"Wait a minute," he said, "I want to light a cigarette." Thisaccomplished, he continued: "I saw one of the boys from Bill Henry'soutfit yesterday and he told me that he was afraid you were gettingmixed up in some row up here."
"_Who_ said so?" she demanded.
"Well, it was Peterson. You know he'll say what he's got to say, if hedies for it." He waited a moment.
"If it was Peterson, go on. He's a friend, if he is a fool. What did hehave to say about me?" She flecked some dust from her skirt with the endof her reins.
Sydney watched her carefully.
"He didn't say anything, exactly, about you," he replied. "That's whatI'm going to try to find out. He said there had been some kind of arumpus up here when you first came--that shooting at Livingston'scorral, you remember, and that it was rumored there had been somesharp-shooting done, and you had been mixed up in it."
"Who told Peterson?" demanded the girl.
"Well, it seems that McCullen laid Long Bill out one evening over atBill Henry's wagon, for something or other, and this old squaw backhere, old Mother White Blanket, happened along in time to view thefallen hero, who, it seems, is her son-in-law. She immediately fell intoa rage and denounced a certain school-ma'am as a deep-dyed villain."
"Villainess," corrected Hope serenely.
"Yes, I believe that was it," continued Sydney. "Anyway, she rated youroundly and said you had been at the bottom of all the trouble, that youhad shot Long Bill through the hand, wounded several others, andmentioned the herder who was killed."
"She lied!" said the girl with sudden whiteness of face. "That was acold-blooded lie about the herder!"
"I know that!" assured her cousin. "You don't suppose I ever thoughtfor a minute you were mixed up in it, Hopie, do you? I only wanted toknow how it happened that all these people are set against you."
"Because they know I'm on to their deviltry," she replied savagely. "I'dlike to have that old squaw right here between my hands, _so_, and hearher bones crackle. How dare they say _I_ shot Louisa's poor, poorsweetheart! Oh, I could exterminate the whole tribe!"
"But that wouldn't be lawful, Hopie," remarked Carter.
She turned to him with a half smile, resting one hand confidingly uponhis arm.
"Syd, dear, I don't care a bit about the whole concern, really, butplease don't mention it to anyone, will you?"
"You mean not to tell Livingston," he smiled.
"I mean not _anyone_. I shouldn't want my father to hear such talk.Neither would you. What wouldn't he do!"
"Of course not," he agreed. "You'd get special summons, immediately, ifnot sooner. But there's something more I wanted to ask you about. Howwas it you happened to shoot old Peter?"
"How did you know?" she asked quickly.
"Now I promised I wouldn't mention the matter," he replied.
She studied for a moment.
"There's only one way you could have heard it," she finally decided insome anger. "That person had no right to tell you."
"It was told with the best intentions, and for your own good, Hope, sothat I could look after you more carefully in the future."
"Look after me!" she retorted. "Well, I guess he found out there was onetime I could look out for myself, didn't he?"
"He seemed to think that more a miracle or an accident than anythingelse, until I told him something about how quick you were with a gun. Hetold me the old man was crazy, and had pulled his gun on you, but thatyou had in some remarkable manner shot it out of his hand, shatteringthe old fellow's arm. I assured him that I would see that the properauthorities took care of old Peter, as soon as he had recoveredsufficiently. Now what'll we do with him, Hope?" She did not reply. Thenhe continued: "I knew in a minute that you'd kept the real facts of thecase from Livingston. But you're not going to keep them from me."
"Now that you know as much as you do, I suppose I've got to tell you oryou'll be getting yourself into trouble, too," she replied. Thenimpulsively, "Sydney, they're a lot of cattle thieves!"
"Why, of course! What did you expect?" he laughed.
"And I actually _caught_ them in the very act of branding calves thatdidn't belong to them!"
The young man's face paled perceptibly.
"You didn't do anything as reckless as that, Hope!" he cried inconsternation. "It's a wonder they didn't kill you outright inself-protection! Didn't you know that you have to be blind to thosethings unless you're backed up by some good men!"
"You talk like a coward!" she exclaimed.
"Not much! You know I'm not that," he replied. "But I talk sense. Now,if they know that you have positive proof of this, you'd better watchthem!"
"They all need watching up here. I believe they're all just the same.And, Syd, I wanted to know the truth for myself, I wanted to _see_."Then she reviewed to him just what had happened at old Peter's.
"I'll have them locked up at once," said Carter decisively. "That's justwhere they belong."
"You won't do anything of the kind, Syd--not at present, anyway, for Irefuse to be witness against them."
"You're foolish, then," he replied, "for they're liable to dosomething."
"If they're quicker than I am, all right," she replied fearlessly. "Butthey are afraid of me now, and I've got them _just where I want them_."
He tried to reason with her, but in vain. She was obstinate in herrefusal to have the men arrested, and though Sydney studied the mattercarefully, he could find no plausible excuse for this foolish decision.
As Hope rode back once more toward Harris' the face of Shorty Smith,insinuatingly leering, as she had seen it at the trout stream, cameagain to torment her. She leaned forward in her saddle, covering herface with her hands, and felt in her whole being the reason of herdecision.