CHAPTER XIV
Of all her journeyings about Idaho that ride to Ludlum's was the one that Harry remembered most vividly. The start before dawn, the ponies fresh and eager, the morning star ahead, white and dazzling in the east, the familiar road at that unfamiliar hour so strangely beautiful—above all, the realization that this day was to make her actually the owner of a herd—all filled her with a wonderful, exhilarating joy.
She and Rob were riding fast, scarcely speaking to each other. They had rounded the foot of the butte that separated Harry's land from the Bianes' and were almost in front of the Biane house when, as they galloped along the fence, Rob's horse leaped and gave a snort of fright.
"Take care, there!" Rob called back as he regained his seat.
Instinctively Harry reined in and glanced fearfully over her shoulder. There was nothing much to be seen—only the elder Biane loading something into the wagon that stood in front of the door.
"I wonder whether Joe was hurt worse than they wanted to say," Rob remarked to Harry, and then called out, "Hi, there, Biane; need any help? Joe all right this morning?"
"All right, all right! We need not'ting at all." As Rob halted, the Portuguese started forward and waved his arm with a threatening gesture. "Not'ting is the mattare here! Go on!"
"Polite beggar," Rob commented, laughing as they set spurs to their horses and rode on.
It was nine o'clock when, after crossing the foothills, they sighted, far to the south, the oasis of shadow that indicated the poplar trees of Ludlum's siding. The railway crosses the Snake River there, full forty miles south of Camas Prairie, in the heart of the sand-and-sagebrush desert. When a new irrigation tract was opened, and a rush of settlers came in the siding began to gather a settlement round itself. Their ranches lay below the big ditch along the base of the foothill rise, and their scattered forties and eighties of alfalfa were the first verdure that the travelers from the hills had seen.
As Harry gazed forward along the road winding through the sagebrush toward Ludlum's, she saw in fancy the slow-moving string of cattle that would soon be coming back over that road to her. Her herd! Already she thought of them as hers; for when she had made the second payment in December it would be no time at all until the increase from the herd would pay the rest of the debt.
"Things are getting pretty dry already," Rob remarked, as he gazed at the passing country. "If the irrigation water fails these fellows, and it may easy enough, there was so little snow last winter, they won't get much late hay."
"Why, I think the crops look fine," Harry answered gayly; "and as for us, we have all the water we need. Our springs were never known to fail, now, were they? We've miles of free range that should last into October, and we can certainly buy all the hay we need down on the flat."
"I hope you're right," Rob answered. "Just the same, I'm going to stop at some of the ranches along here and see what they're asking for the first crop of alfalfa."
The next ranch was an eighty-acre square of silk-green, rippling verdure, with a small unpainted frame house at the edge of it, like a raft anchored on the border of turbulent water. Unfortunately, there was only a woman at home, and she explained that the men from that and the next two ranches on the road had gone to put up hay on the Constable place across the river.
"If we can get through with Ludlum in time, I believe I'd better ride across to Constable's," Rob said as they turned the last corner and rode along Ludlum's fence.
Harry assented vaguely. She was absorbed in admiring the splendid ranch before them. The house grounds of the thousand-acre farm lay facing the road; the railway ran along the other side of the place where the new town had been laid out. For half a mile behind the house extended a double row of immense Lombardy poplars, making a windbreak against the violent west winds; and in their shelter were ranged the orchard, garden and the group of barns, sheds, bunk houses, cookhouse and other out-buildings that pertained to an old-time ranch.
Water was running in the irrigation ditches, a windmill whirred with its pleasant sound of industry, miles of alfalfa and pasture shimmered in the morning sunshine, and in other fields cows with young calves were feeding. The scene gave a feeling of long-settled prosperity, of solid wealth that no "bad year," no "dull market," could affect.
"And all this has been done with cattle!" Harry exclaimed, as she looked around her. "How thankful I am I've started a herd!"
"I wonder, though, how he got his start," Rob remarked. "With one cow or with credit?"
"I dare you to ask him," said Harry.
Rob only laughed and swung out of his saddle in front of the door. Several children ran out and surrounded them with friendly curiosity, and a pretty, smiling little woman followed close behind.
"I thought I recognized Mr. Holliday," Mrs. Ludlum said when Rob had introduced his sister. "The minute I laid eyes on him I knew I'd seen him here before."
"No use trying to fool a real Westerner," Rob answered laughing. "Once you're seen in this country you're a marked man."
"Oh, now, I wouldn't call you that, yet. You ain't never done nothing worse, so far's I know, than turn in here once for the night when your team ran away from you, and then offer to pay for your bed and board."
"You'll never forgive that, will you?" said Rob. "Well, this time we've come to carry off several square meals at once without paying—except with promises. In other words, we're here for cattle. Is Mr. Ludlum round?"
"Well, there! He just ain't," said Mrs. Ludlum, who had seated her guests in the big veranda rocking-chairs. "Ludlum's went out to the South Side to look up his hay, but he'll be back for dinner. You'll stay overnight anyhow. Oh, yes, now! It ain't so often you come this way, and we've always wanted to get acquainted with your sister. We've heard how smart she is; teaching school and milking and doing chores like she was born to it."
"Yes, sis keeps the traces stiff pretty well," Rob assured her.
"Our ranch isn't much after seeing this one," Harry said quickly, pleased yet embarrassed by her brother's praise.
"Well, now. Don't let that give you a set-back," said Mrs. Ludlum. "Why, when we come here, twenty-five years ago, we had the same layout as you. Raw sagebrush and no water, except the river. You've got us beat there. Didn't I live in the sheep wagon, too, for a year, until we got ahead enough to build us a shack? All this you see now didn't come in one jump."
Such words were food and drink to Harry. As she listened to the accounts of the Ludlums' trials, mistakes and bad luck, she saw that she and Rob were not the only ones who had made blunders. By dinner time they were exchanging experiences as if they had known one another for years. Harry was almost sorry when Ludlum came in and the topic of conversation changed.
Rob, on the contrary, was glad to see the stockman. "It may save me a trip over to the South Side," he said, "if you can tell me what sort of hay crop they've got over there."
"It's a good crop, all right, but it's about all contracted for."
"Already!" Rob exclaimed. "What's the hurry?"
"Nothing. The sheepmen always buy early, and this year there's some extra cattle in the country, and some of 'em'll have to be fed this winter—those that ain't fat enough to ship by fall."
"From what we've heard of them they won't ever be fat enough," said Rob, and he went on to tell what Garnett had reported.
"I've seen 'em worse than that and come off the range fat," Ludlum said, laughing. "You needn't worry about them taking all the hay."
Nevertheless, Rob decided to ride out. "If we can get this business of ours settled up early," he suggested, "I'll leave Harry here for the night and go over there."
"Sure," Ludlum answered promptly. "We'll go and take a look at the stock on pasture, and you can pick what you like. Yes, come along," he said to his wife, and added, grinning, to the others, "That woman has to have a finger in everything; you'd think she'd raised the whole outfit herself."
"Well, I guess I did raise the start of it!" his wife exclaimed. "I fed a dozen calves by hand until they could eat grass, and it's from them he got his real start of a herd. Come on, Miss Holliday. I'll tell you which ones to pick." And, putting her arm through Harry's she led the way down the path.
It was done at last. Rob and Harry had chosen thirty Durham cows, calves, yearlings and two "coming two's." The price was to be one thousand dollars, one fourth down, one fourth on December 1, when, if all went well, the loan would be renewed. The afternoon was only half gone when they came out of the notary public's office.
"I'll leave you here," Rob said, mounting his horse as the others got into Ludlum's automobile. "Don't forget, sis, if I'm not back to-night, that you are to start on in the morning and meet me up the road near that ranch we stopped at on our way down."
"I've half a mind not to let you go inside a week," Mrs. Ludlum declared as they started back to the house. "Men folks always take it for granted that a woman's got to be home every minute, whether she's needed or not. I'll bet you haven't slept away from home two nights running since you filed on your homestead. Have you, now?"
"Plenty of times," said Harry gayly. "You forget that I taught school on the flat for three winters."
"She caught you that time, Ma," said Ludlum, grinning.
"A lot that worries me! Any one that can catch me is welcome to his pay. My dad tried to make a school-teacher out of me, but he gave it up as a bad job. Said he guessed I'd make a better cow puncher. He'd have been some surprised to know a girl could be smart at both."
The way Mrs. Ludlum's brown eyes beamed at Harry warmed the girl's heart.
"I'd rather ride than teach," Harry declared, "but the only way I could save money to go into cattle was by teaching. You see, Rob insisted that besides the money for the first payment I should have something for running expenses."
"You don't mean to say you saved for that! How much, child?"
"Two hundred and fifty."
"Two hundred fifty! Whoopee! Did you hear that, Ludlum? Why, you don't no more need that than a rattlesnake needs two tails! Instead of saltin' that down, you'd ought to have put it into a decent-sized bunch of beef."
"We thought it safer to save something," said Harry, feeling her cheeks redden.
"There, now. She's mad with me." Mrs. Ludlum's arm went round Harry's waist in a conciliatory hug. "You're the same sort I was myself—full of spunk as an apple is of cider. That's the sort of thing that makes success. I'll bet right now you wanted to put that extra cash into beef, didn't you? Of course! See her smile! And that's what you're going to do. Pa and I'll fix you up all right."
"But two hundred and fifty dollars won't buy many cows," Harry began.
"It won't buy blooded white-face, but you've got a plenty of them. What you need is some scrub stock; the sort we started with. They'll rustle better for feed, stand harder weather and come through where your high-class critters will knock under. You take thirty scrubs at six hundred, pay two hundred fifty cash for 'em and let the other three fifty go on time, and I'll lay you even money they'll make more for you than your 'ristocrats that cost you twice as much. Ain't that right, Pa?"
"What you say goes, I guess," the stockman agreed, with a whimsical glance at Harry as they got out of the car in front of the house. "You always were the boss, you know."
"Sure. I have to be. The men would just mill round in a peck measure till kingdom come if the women didn't drag 'em into the road to success. That's what the girl here is going to show her brother. Show him she can do all the rounding up and cutting out this fall. Then she'll sell off enough to buy her some hay. Pa here'll pick you a good bunch, deary. They're all out on range now, but he'll see you get what's comin' to you."
As Harry listened to this lively mixture of plans for her and praise of her, Rob's decision that they should take only thirty head suddenly lost its finality. These people knew much more than Rob did about the cattle business. Besides, Rob had not put a cent of his own into the white-face; why should she not do as she liked with her own money—put what she had left into thirty more? That, with Rob's bunch, would give them an even hundred.
Abruptly she stopped in the path. "I've decided," she said. "I'm going to take the scrubs. Thirty head. I guess I'll come out all right. Why not?"
Her confidence remained as long as she stayed with the Ludlums. It was only after she had bidden them good-by the next morning that she began to wonder what Rob would say. At first he might disapprove. The likelihood that he would do so grew upon her as she drew near their meeting place; the arguments that had appeared so sound while Mrs. Ludlum talked now sounded very flimsy.
At last she heard the pound of hoofs behind her and, turning, saw Rob.
"I came near not getting here this morning, after all," he began. "Nobody'll sell hay now, or even set a price on it. They're all waiting to see how the second cutting turns out. This pest of outside cattle has sent every one on the stampede for high-priced hay. My, but I'm thankful you've got that two hundred and fifty in reserve! We'll need it, all right."
He looked at her sharply. She was facing him with a smile on her lips, eyes unflinching, but without a word.
"What is it?" he asked quietly. "You haven't heard the bank's busted?"
"No. But I've nothing in it. I bought thirty more cattle, scrubs, at six hundred, and paid down my other two hundred and fifty."
It was told! With the relief, her nervous shakiness vanished, and she rushed into the account of what she had done. She watched Rob's face for the slow smile that would reluctantly acknowledge her good judgment; but it did not come. Instead, Rob stared straight ahead, and deep lines appeared in his face, as if he were very tired. Harry tried to interest him by quoting Mrs. Ludlum, her experience and advice, but Rob answered colorlessly or not at all.
"No doubt it was easy enough twenty-five years ago," he said at last, "but there are too many people in here now that have got something to say about who's going to make all the money in cattle. If the ranchers won't sell their hay, we'll have to do without. That's all."
"I guess we can get all we need on the flat," Harry said quickly. "They aren't short of water up there, thank goodness."
"Yes, plenty of water so far; but don't forget it isn't too late for the June freeze."
The June freeze! Harry had forgotten that yearly menace. Only the year before it had hit the prairie and had wiped out every little "truck patch," blackened every acre of potatoes, and seared thousands of acres of alfalfa. As if the thin fingers of that very June frost had folded round her wrist, Harry felt her warm blood chill.
Fear, however, was not natural to her. The reaction came, and through the following week, while waiting for the new cattle to arrive, her confidence in ultimate victory renewed itself.
Ludlum had told her that he would send the white-face bunch up by riders who would round up the scrubs on the way and bring the whole lot in at once. Daily Harry expected to see them come down the draw. At the same time she was waiting for Rob, who had been gone for several days hunting hay on the flat. By sunset on Saturday she had given up hope of seeing any one that week; but as she was feeding the calves, in the corral, a hostile growl from 'Thello made her turn quickly to see a slow-moving string of cattle wind down the draw.
"My herd!" she exclaimed, and dropped her empty bucket. "They've come."
There they were, shuffling the dust into an obscuring cloud and beginning to bellow at the sight of the cows in the barnyard.
"Where do you want 'em?" one of the riders called to the girl, as she hurried to meet them.
"Right there, until we can cut out the calves and bring them inside. Just move them along the fence so I can count them, will you?"
"Oh, you'll be able to count 'em without their millin' round none," the rider answered; "they're tired enough to set for their photos without stirrin' a hair."
Was it only because they were tired that they looked so queer, Harry wondered as she moved about among them. A puzzled look replaced her pleased smile. The Durhams were right enough: big, solid, beefy creatures. But the scrubs—was that the way scrubs always looked? She had seen plenty of them on the range, but never had she noticed that they were like these thirty strange odd-come-shorts: here a cow no bigger than a good-sized calf, but carrying the horns of a Texas steer; over there a Jersey-colored steer with a head as big as a buffalo's; calves of every mixture of breed and of no breed at all. She was still standing studying them when she heard the soft thump of hoofs and the voices of two men, and saw Rob and Garnett riding toward her.
"He roped me a couple of miles back and fetched me along," said the forest ranger, pretending as usual that he was there only through necessity. "Told me you were going to have beef stew and dumplings, and he was afeared he couldn't eat it all himself."
He had dropped from his saddle and come up beside her, stepping stiffly on his high-heeled boots as he looked fixedly down at her.
"Beef stew?" She made an effort at a lively reply. "I guess there are some critters in that bunch that won't be good for much else."
"What did you really expect?" Rob inquired mildly.
"I hoped they'd develop enough beef to pay us to ship them for stew," she retorted. "Of course I knew scrubs weren't like blooded stock, but Ludlum said he'd pick mine out."
"The word scrubs," Rob reminded her as they began to work the calves inside the gate, "is like charity: it covers a multitude of sins. And when you're dealing with the Ludlums—well, what fat there might be in the herd is generally in the fire; as at present."
"What is he talking about?" Harry asked.
"Aw! Nothin' much. Some of the critters that were over the other side of the river have been driven in here on the range and——"
"Those wild, starved things from outside? But they can't! This range belongs to us ranchers." The significance of the thing was coming to her. "What right have outsiders to ship stock in here? We'll drive them into the river! They shan't clean up the grazing."
"I guess you wouldn't want to run 'em into the river," Garnett said reflectively, "not if you're buying cattle from Ludlum on time."
"Ludlum? What has he to do with it?"
"Nothing much," answered Garnett, slowly, "except that about five hundred of the scrubs are his, and if he knew that you were running 'em off he might take it kind of bad."
CHAPTER XV
"Guess I'd better lend a hand," Rob said to himself. He had been repairing an irrigation ditch on the west side of the ranch and for some time had been watching a cloud of dust to the east; it seemed to indicate fresh trouble from Ludlum's hungry horde.
Although scarcely ten days had passed since those scrub cattle had appeared in the hills, the famished animals had already broken fences, trampled growing wheat, horned last season's stacks and broken down banks of the irrigation ditches. And what was worse, if possible, than all that mischief, they were taking a great deal of Rob's time, every moment of which was worth money.
"We're helpless to prevent it, too, I guess!" Rob muttered as he started toward the scene of trouble; "helpless because there's no herd law in these hills. Ludlum's got just as good right to the free range as we have, and, with his mortgage on Harry's land, he can make it mighty bad for us if he finds us dogging his stock off. I'll get even with him for his meanness, though."
He glowered at the scattered bands of cattle that trailed along the fence, seeking an opening into the rich feed inside. How shortsighted he and the other foothill ranchers were not to have demanded a herd law long before!
As the law stood now the "cattle baron" had the advantage. He could run his hundreds of head of stock on the open range from April to September, or take them up into the reserve until that was eaten clean; then after shipping his beef "critters" he could drive the rest down on the South Side to winter on the hay that he had bought from the farmers there. The man with fifty or a hundred head had no chance at all against him. If the big stockman's cattle, grazing unherded, got inside the rancher's fence and bloated on his alfalfa or grain, the stockman could collect heavy damages from the farmer, who had no redress for his damaged crops; it was the farmer's business to keep the stockman's cattle out.
It was a just law for the wilderness, but not at all the law for a region that was going under the fence. The men who were reclaiming the desert, who were turning the north slope of the foothills and the prairie into farms, who were raising grain and hay and building up small herds of cattle and sheep, were now the men to be protected by law. That protection a herd law would give them, for it would forbid stockmen to run their herds into the hills without riders to watch them, and it would make the stockmen liable for damages to fences or crops. That would mean, of course, that the big herds would not be turned into the hills at all; for it was only because they could be left there without herders that they had piled up the profits for their owners.
"Pity sis couldn't have known what Ludlum was planning to do up here himself," Rob went on to himself. "She mightn't have fallen for the old lady's get-rich-easy talk. Not that Mrs. Ludlum meant to gouge Harry. She's square, and thinks he is, too, I guess. Ludlum's sharp, that's all. Drives a hard bargain. If we'd known how many of their scrubs we were going to ride after and feed for nothing, Harry'd have been satisfied with thirty of her own, all right, especially now that the range is going dry."
As he stumbled along under the hot sun he saw Harry coming on horseback. In her khaki jumper, divided skirt and riding boots she looked like a boy of sixteen.
"I'm awfully sorry to ask you to help," she began. "I can't get those critters of Ludlum's out unless ours go, too. My! But I hate them!" She stopped abruptly, with a telltale quiver in her voice, and looked away. Then quickly she braced herself. "If I could once get them outside, I'd take 'em so far they'd never find themselves, let alone find the road back here."
Rob's eyes softened. Poor old girl! She was doing her best, anyhow.
"I guess they won't bother us much more, Harry," he said. "I have decided that I'll put on another wire. They can't jump four."
"Another wire!" she exclaimed. "But, Rob, have you thought of the expense!"
"Not half so expensive as wasting time running them off. Well, let's get busy. If you'll fetch Jeff, I'll change these wet shoes."
Obediently, Harry went up the draw to the corral among the trees where they kept the work horses in summer. Her head ached, and there was a lump in her throat. How considerate of her Rob was! She had added just double to their difficulties, had added to their expenses, yet not one word of reproach did he give her. Instead he was always ready to help whenever she came to him—and that was pretty often. Handling cattle, she realized, was not to be learned by any "fifteen minutes a day" of study.
"Cowboys certainly earn their wages," Harry admitted with a weary sigh, when, after several hours of weary work they had at last got the strangers outside the fence and had driven back inside several of their own cattle that had gone out with the others.
It was six o'clock. They were both choked with dust, thirsty, saddle-sore and tired. Harry, aching from head to foot, longed to get into a bath and put on some clean clothes; instead, she must wash a panful of dishes and cook supper.
"You're dead right," Rob agreed. "A buckaroo earns every cent he gets, and its almost impossible to run cattle without them."
Every word was a blow to Harry's careless faith in herself. She listened in humble silence while Rob went on:
"You can understand why I can't afford to ride cattle for nothing. I've simply got to disk that summer fallow and start work on the dam for the freshet-water reservoir. Every day I spend like this means a big loss, not only to me, but to the ranch as an investment."
"Of course. I can see that," Harry answered quickly, "and I expect to pay you; but I haven't a cent of money now, as you know. I shall sell some steers in the fall, anyhow, and I can pay you then."
"I'd rather you paid me in cattle. After I've hired out harvesting, I ought to have enough cash to buy all the winter hay I'll need for my own stock, and maybe some for yours. I'll go to town to-morrow for that wire. Maybe I can get it on time. That'll give me a little more cash to buy hay with."
Harry wondered what she should do if the scrubs broke in while he was away. While Mrs. Ludlum had been talking, Harry had been ready to believe that she could do anything; now the time had come for her to show what she was actually good for.
As soon as Rob had left the next morning, therefore, she made a circuit outside the fence and ran off all the cattle in sight. To her relief, that kept them away until the afternoon feeding began; then, making a second tour, she dispersed the lines that were headed for the alfalfa.
"If I'd dogged them that way from the first," she thought, "they'd never have got inside at all."
Rob did not get home that night, rather to Harry's satisfaction. "It gives me another day to see what I can do with these critters."
Dawn comes early in the foothills at the end of June. Long before four o'clock the sky was pink, the grouse were whistling in the alfalfa, the morning breeze had begun to flutter the quaking asps, a cool, fresh smell of juicy grass had risen from the earth, and the world of animals had begun to feed.
The cattle were the first to move. Almost before dawn they leave their bedding ground and follow the scent of the nearest pasture. For Ludlum's stock Rob's wheat and alfalfa were the lure.
As they snuffed the sweetness of growing grass, the leaders of the herd broke into hungry bawling, set off at a gallop, and, as they reached the fence, plunged at it and went over.
Harry woke to 'Thello's furious barking. She woke with a start, got to her elbow and peered out. In the dim light she could make out forms moving across the field. With a sigh she climbed out of bed and, still nodding with sleep, dressed and stumbled off to saddle her pony, Hike.
Of the two gates to the alfalfa meadow, one led into the lane at the barn and the other into the east pasture. It was in that pasture that Rob and Harry were holding the new herd until the animals became accustomed to their home. Now, as Harry rode slowly down the lane, she wondered what would be her best plan of action.
If she ran the intruders out over the broken-down fence, they would merely turn round and come in again; but if she took them through the lane, up the draw and across the flat on top of the hills and ran them south a good way, they might continue down that side of the divide. "It would serve Ludlum right," she said to herself, "to have his starved creatures break into his own alfalfa some morning!"
As she rode slowly toward the feeding animals the blood sprang to her temples and she drew a fierce breath. The sight of the starving beasts, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five of them, tearing away greedily at the tender alfalfa, roused in Harry an indescribable ire.
"Miserable beasts!" she exclaimed. "Take 'em out, 'Thello! That's it! Get 'em, boy!"
Obedient to training, the collie had kept close to the pony. Now, at the sound of Harry's voice, he was off—a vicious whirlwind of black fur. As he dashed upon the herd, snapping at heels here, there and everywhere, a stream of yelps rent the air.
Shouting "Hi yi! Hi yi!" Harry set spurs to the pony and came close behind.
Away they all went, steers, cows, calves, dog and girl, plunging, bawling, barking and galloping across the field and into the lane. Once actually in the lane, with the gate shut behind them, Harry felt safe. To be sure, some of the bunch were ugly and tried to turn back; but she was on the lookout for those and, pushing her pony close, gave each laggard a welt with her rawhide whip that sent the sullen one ahead with a jump.
She forgot her annoyance at being routed out early, forgot the time she was wasting, almost forgot the trampled alfalfa. Her sense of mastery blotted out the vexations. This was the work she really loved. Even after they had got up into the hills, the feeling of power stayed with her and helped her to prevent the hungry scrubs from turning back. It was not easy work. Though she was wet with sweat and smothered in dust, she determined to keep after them until they had turned the shoulder of the divide.
She had just given one sulky brute a sounding thwack, when a shout behind her made her wheel in surprise.
"Hey! What's doin' here?"
Over the ridge came a "cow puncher" riding at a lope. "Ain't you herdin' them critters the wrong way, ma'am?" he inquired, with a queer smile.
"Wrong for them, maybe, not for us," Harry answered briefly. To herself she added, "Who are you, anyhow?"
He certainly was the oddest-looking vaquero she had met on the range. He was plump and short, tow-haired and with no visible eyebrows; his skin was burned rose pink, and his pale-blue eyes were scorched by the desert sunlight. He looked like an overgrown fat baby; but a second glance showed her that his scowling eyes and smiling lips were only caused by the "sheepherder's grin" carved on his face by years of riding in blinding sunshine.
"I don't know whose cows you think you're rounding up," the "cow puncher" went on, "but the real owner wouldn't now—want 'em druv off. What I chiefly mean is, not right now."
"I'm sorry to disoblige the real owner," Harry said, with a laugh, "but if you're a friend of his you can tell him that the 'real owner' of a bunch of cattle on the ranch below here claims the grazing on these hills, and that if he—that is to say, Mr. Ludlum—doesn't want his scrubs dogged, he can send a rider up here to keep them where they belong."
As always with Harry, when her temper was up, she smiled, held her nose in the air and eyed her opponent with fine disdain.
The vaquero did not wither perceptibly. His grin merely became sarcastic. "You personally acquainted—that is, you know Ludlum?" he inquired.
"I've made a beginning that way," Harry said.
"Beggin' your pardon," the man went on, "and speakin' like I was givin' a hint, I'd say that if this here owner of these-here scrubs gits on to what you're doin' you're likely to find you ain't got anything of your own to round up this fall. Not that he'd run 'em off; that is, now. And you couldn't find 'em in his herd; no, not if you was to have every blamed critter up before a judge and jury to be sworn to. Like's not Ludlum'd try to help you locate your stock; he's right helpful, mebbe you've noticed? I'm ridin' for him now myself, and I've got my orders to keep these five hundred head in these-here hills—where they kin git to water on the north slope, is what I chiefly mean."
"But all the water on the north slope belongs to us," Harry remarked, trying to control her indignation. "There isn't a spring outside, except where the stream runs beyond our fence, until you get to Robinson's. And before I'll let Ludlum water on my land, or on my brother's, I'll shoot every one of his miserable scrubs. You can tell him so, if you like; tell him I intend to keep right on dogging them off, too. Please repeat every word of this to him. Thank you. Good morning."
With a jab of the spur into Hike's side she was off.
"Of all the hateful, mean, dishonorable creatures!" she whispered to herself. Her eyes were hot with tears; she felt tricked, cheated, helpless. For the moment she did not realize that the "cow-puncher" had perhaps not meant all he said, had merely tried to frighten her.
She raced along, not noticing where she was going, and only came to herself when the pony, which had naturally turned toward home, slackened his gallop at the head of the draw. It was then about eight o'clock by the sun, still and hot, and the cattle flies were intolerable. The vision of the cold, deep spring under the wall of rock brought sudden relief to her vexed heart. Sliding out of the saddle, she took the bridle over her arm and walked across the mountain grass toward the spring.
Suddenly she came upon a grouse hen that had been wounded and had escaped to die, and she realized that the hunters were abroad once more. She kept looking to and fro on either side as she walked, and suddenly a strange sound, almost under her feet, made her jump.
"Well, of all things!" she said slowly.
There lay a month-old heifer calf bleeding from a wound in its leg. The creature made no effort to escape as Harry examined it; only gave a mournful moo! and rolled its eyes.
"You're not one of my calves," she said presently; "at least I think mine are all in the corral. You must be one of Ludlum's; but you can't lie here and die, even if you are his. I'll get you down to the house somehow, and maybe when the cows come in your mother will come with them."
But no strange cow turned up lowing for a lost calf, and when Rob returned he said that the only thing to do was to keep it until some range rider came looking for strays. They cleaned out the wound, which had been made by a shotgun, fed the calf on skimmed milk, and kept it in a dark corner of the barn where the flies would not torment it.
"That's Joe Biane's work," Harry said emphatically. "It shows what may happen to our own calves at any time. He doesn't care what he hits when he's after birds. I think we should speak to the game warden about him."
"The trouble is that we didn't see Joe shoot the calf, so we can't swear he did it. Unless you can do that, you've got no case. It's not worth while, anyhow. You'd only get Joe's ill will, and he'd make us more trouble than we've got already, which would be considerable. Let's put all our time into getting a herd law through. We'll have to have all the ranchers in with us, and that includes the Bianes. So don't rub Joe the wrong way until we've got his vote. Joe is nothing compared with the trouble Ludlum may give us."
"He certainly may," she admitted, thinking of what the pink-faced rider had told her.
She decided to say nothing to Rob about that incident. She reflected that there was no use bothering him with every little matter that came up between her and Ludlum's herders over the question of the grazing.
CHAPTER XVI
For a week after the new wire was put on, Rob and Harry had a respite from fighting off Ludlum's herd. Once a day Harry made a circuit of the place and drove the outside cattle back into the hills; but the rest of the time she and Rob were virtually free from them. It was a great relief, for besides the fact that Rob had turned water on the wheat, which was beginning to look pretty dry, and that the time had come to cut the alfalfa, two of their steers had gone off with the range cattle and had not come back.
Coming up from the barn with the last of the milk, Harry paused to look once more through their cattle which had come down to the fence with the milk cows and which now stood in the draw, nibbling the alfalfa that pushed through the fence. Rob was coming across the meadow, a hip-deep green expanse, and several times he stopped, pulled a blossom, and glanced critically over the field.
The late frost that Rob had dreaded had struck the flat only the week before, and a general lack of water for the second crop would make hay very scarce and high. The foothill ranches, being on the slope, had more or less escaped the frost, and Rob's alfalfa had not been touched. Looking at it now, swaying quietly as the sea at full tide and crested with its foam of purple bloom, it was hard to realize that there were miles of parched foothill range near by, where cattle wandered, searching every mouthful of grass.
"That hay will be just right to cut on the Fourth," he said, when at last he dropped wearily on the porch step.
"On the Fourth! The prairie's supreme holiday! I thought the entire valley went fishing on the Fourth," said Harry.
"I don't believe it will this year. Every one that's got any hay at all will cut it the minute it's ready. Robinson intends to cut a few days later than I do, and he's going to let me have his mower first, so I've got to work anyhow."
"Well, if we've got to work, let's celebrate with a big dinner. How would that appeal to a haying crew? Ice cream, chicken fricassee, cherry pie. I thought so!"
Rob smacked his lips and grinned broadly. "Doesn't sound as if you'd get much fun out of it, though," he said, "cooking for a bunch of haymakers."
"Don't worry. The prospect of company well repays the cookery. I mean to have the women folks, too, and the children."
The dinner party now became their chief interest. First Harry, then Rob, thought of some detail that would contribute to its perfecting, and the two worked like a couple of children building a sand castle. On counting the number of expected guests, they found that they could scarcely seat them all at table at once in the house; but Rob had lumber on hand for extra cattle sheds, and from that he built under the balm trees a table of goodly size and two benches.
The day that Rob went over for the mower Harry cleaned the house. Even if they did dine outside, the house must be flawlessly neat. It was nearly five o'clock when at last Harry scrubbed her way out of the door and down the porch steps. Behind her the cabin twinkled like a new pan, and, when she had shaken out the mop, she stretched her arms and sighed with satisfaction.
Then suddenly she wheeled round and listened. Somewhere down toward the creek a gun had spoken faintly.
Instantly Harry was another creature. Her languor vanished; she drew up, keen and alert; her eyes moved back and forth along the line of willow bushes that screened the stream. For half a minute she watched, scarcely breathing; the immense silence was broken only by the far, faint bell note of a mourning dove. Had she only imagined that other sound? No. There it was again.
Suddenly two figures crept into view, moving cautiously, with shotguns held ready. She put two fingers in her mouth, drew a deep breath, and then a screaming whistle split the evening calm.
The sportsmen heard it. Harry saw them stop and look her way; but, seeing only a girl, they evidently felt safe, for they started forward again, with guns cocked, and when Harry whistled the second time they paid no attention.
"I guess I know what'll make you go!" cried the girl, and she ran into the house. She came out again with the big .32 rifle under her arm and started down the path.
She had gone scarcely a hundred feet when she saw a flock of sage hens rise. At the same instant there was a rattle of shots, and two birds fell. Harry threw the rifle to her shoulder, aimed high and fired. Instantly one of the men jumped back, shook his fist toward her and shouted. She did not catch the words, but it made no difference, anyhow. He knew he had no business inside the fence, for there was a plainly printed sign warning hunters off. She moved forward slowly, expecting to see the sportsmen get over the fence; but just then another covey of birds rose, and simultaneously both men fired.
That was too much. Harry raised the rifle and fired six deliberate shots. She aimed high over the heads and well to either side of the trespassers, so that there was no chance of hitting them. Nevertheless, when an automobile rolled out from the willows and she saw how easily she might have hit the driver, she felt a thrill of horror.
She stood watching while, the men made a run for the car, scrambled aboard and went swinging out of sight up the road. Then slowly she turned back home. Her knees felt shaky; she drew a long, unsteady breath and, to her surprise, had to sit down on the ground for a moment.
When Rob got home with the mower he brought a general acceptance of the invitation to the Fourth of July dinner. "They fell for it as if they'd been expecting it any time in the last three years," he reported.
"It's just as well, then, that I planned to have Isita come down and help me," Harry answered. She had decided to say nothing about shooting at the hunters. She had realized by this time what a terrible risk she had taken, and she knew it would worry Rob to think that she had been so reckless.
"What on earth do you want Biane's girl here for?" he asked. "I should think Mrs. Robinson could help you out."
"She would, of course; but I want an excuse to talk with Isita and persuade her to go to school this winter."
"But if we're feeding cattle here this winter, you won't be teaching down on the flat."
"Isita can go to school just the same, can't she? Besides, I want to advise her to find a place where she can work for her board while she's going to school. Her mother would send her if she weren't afraid of old Biane."
"Better go slow. If you're too friendly, we'll have their hogs down here in the wheat every day instead of twice a week."
But Harry insisted on having Isita. The one drawback to her life on the ranch had been the lack of girl friends, and her interest in Isita had taken the place of other interests.
As she rode over to the Bianes' two days before the dinner party, she tried to frame a tactful speech in which to offer the other girl a dress to wear; for probably she had nothing suitable, and Harry did not want her to refuse to come, merely because she lacked a dress.
The Biane cabin was still not much more than the "prove-up shack" that the original owner had quitted. It was of unpainted boards with only two half windows to break its blank walls, and seemed scarcely to deserve the name of "home." And still, some one had tried to improve the place. A woven-wire fence enclosed a small garden patch in which, among the cabbages, Harry recognized bachelor's-buttons and poppies grown from seed she had given Isita. Some packing boxes had been fitted together for a chicken house, and an attempt had even been made to fence in a few acres of wheat; but the live stock—Joe's hogs, half a dozen sheep and several thin cows—wandered loose, rather to the detriment of the crops of neighboring ranchers.
As Harry rode up, the morning sunshine was beaming over all; on the chickens scratching in front of the cow shed, on the scarlet poppies beside the path. Yet to Harry the clutch of poverty seemed actually visible. What a place for a young girl to grow up in! Chopping wood, plowing, herding sheep; while the good-for-nothing father and brother went fishing and hunting!
"I'd like to take her to stay with me all winter," Harry thought in sympathetic indignation. "If she had half a chance, she'd make something worth while of herself. How thankful I am for my life!"
No one was visible about the place, and Harry knocked twice before she got any response. Then halting steps came across the room within, the door was unlocked, and Isita's mother stood in the narrow opening.
"Oh! It's Miss Holliday. The hogs down bothering you again? I told that Joe——"
"No, indeed. The hogs haven't bothered us lately. I came to ask Isita to help me with my Fourth of July dinner."
Harry put all the friendly warmth possible into her voice. She remembered that this work-worn woman who faced her there with a sort of defiant anxiety had been a New England farmer's daughter, and that many a time in her girlhood she must have helped with a big company dinner in honor of the national holiday.
But Mrs. Biane merely drew back a little and raised her hand in abrupt refusal. "No, thank you. It's kind of you to ask Isita, but I wouldn't want her to go."
She began to close the door.
"Oh, please don't refuse!" Harry begged. She had no intention of yielding so easily. "It would be doing me a real favor to let her come. It's so hard to do everything alone, and Isita is the only young girl I know well enough to ask to help me."
She used all her eloquence, her most persuasive warmth, but even while she talked she was aware of something in the woman's silence, a sort of dread, that made her unwilling to let Isita go; but at last, won over by Harry's friendliness, Mrs. Biane yielded, saying only that Isita must be home before dark.
"Why didn't her mother want her to come?" Harry asked herself as she rode away. "Why are they so unfriendly? There's something wrong there. No wonder Isita looks scared and unhappy. I wonder where she was. Off herding the sheep, probably. That looks like one of them now—near our fence, as usual."
A glimpse of something white moving in the sagebrush had caught her eye. She rode toward it, and discovered, not a sheep, but a young calf.
"What's happened to these scrub cows?" Harry exclaimed. "I never saw anything like the way they desert their calves. This is the second I've found left to starve. If rustlers were busy, they'd shoot the cows and carry the calves off."
Too young to graze, the calf was gaunt from lack of food and made no effort to escape when Harry began to drive it. Instead, it merely stumbled forward a few steps and stopped.
"Go on," she ordered. "I couldn't let you lie out here and starve, even if Ludlum can. How any man can turn a herd of cattle into the hills and not know or care what happens to them for weeks and months is more than I can comprehend. Come! Move along there."
Thus adjured, and helped by an occasional flick of the rawhide, the calf moved ahead until within sight of the gate. Harry was just about to get down and open it, when the pony gave a jerk and looked sidewise, and Harry had a glimpse of an old felt hat moving behind a ledge of lava that had jutted from the scab land. Riding forward, she came face to face with Joe Biane. He had climbed up through one of the fissures and stood leaning carelessly against the rocks, with his hands behind him. A mischievous smile curled his lips.
"Morning, Joe!" she said. "Will you open the gate for me?"
Joe did not move. Astonished, she waited a moment. Then she noticed that he was hiding his hands. Her lips curved in a comprehending smile.
"You needn't be afraid!" she exclaimed. "I won't look at the birds you're hiding. I realize it's useless to try to protect them from you."
Joe neither answered nor moved. His derisive grin widened; he looked at the calf and inquired, "Lost another critter, have you?"
"Another calf? This isn't ours that I know of. I found it starving outside, and I'm bringing it in to feed it."
"Sure. Of course you want to save it." Joe snickered, and then, to her astonishment, he burst into a rude laugh and moved back among the lava ridges out of sight.
Harry watched him. He had shifted his hands quickly; nevertheless, she had caught a gleam of something. "His shotgun, of course," she decided. She felt oddly irritated by his impudent stare and laughter. What did he mean by saying "of course" she wanted to save the calf?
"It's just his fresh way of talking," Rob said at noon, when she had described the incident to him. "He may think you expect a reward from Ludlum for feeding it. It may be ours, of course, though I don't see where the cow can be. We'll have to wait until to-night when the milk cows come in to see if any of them claim this one. It looks too poor to be ours, I think. Any time Ludlum's riders come looking for strays, we can show them these two and let them decide."
"Don't you think we should round our critters up and count them?" Harry suggested. "It's a long time since we've been over the yearlings and steers, and we may be losing more of them. Those two haven't turned up yet."
"I know," said Rob, with a sigh. "I've been meaning to; but there's so everlasting much to do. I ought to be working on that fill for the reservoir right now. And yet, if we want the wheat to make anything, I've got to get more water on it before it's too late. We want to save every bit of feed inside, too, so we can't bring all the stock in until they've cleaned up the range. Once haying's over, you bet I'm going to dog off Ludlum's scrubs and give our cattle a fair chance at the range. It's a little too much to have him grab everything outside and hold a mortgage on our land, too."
As Rob, sitting flat on the porch, with his back against the house and his feet out before him, talked of his plans, Harry suddenly noticed two men who were riding toward the gate.
"Now what can they want?" she said as they came inside. "I haven't a thing left to offer them for dinner."
"They're not coming to the house," Rob said. "They're going west. Riders hunting strays, I guess." They watched in silence as the two men rode slowly through the herd, taking note of the cows and calves there; then the riders disappeared round the butte.
"They'll probably go up on top and look through the cattle there and then drop in to supper," Rob suggested as he got up to go to work.
But they did not come. It was not until the Fourth of July that the men appeared again, and then they came on an unexpected errand.
CHAPTER XVII
"I hope Isita comes early," said Harry on the morning of the Fourth as she dried the breakfast dishes. "The nearer dinner time it gets the more things there are to be done at once."
"I've seen you turn out pretty good feed all by yourself, when a bunch of people have come in unexpectedly," said Rob, who, in honor of the holiday, was dawdling about for fully ten minutes instead of hurrying back to the field. "Those surveyors, now, that lost their way and stayed overnight. Pretty good grub, I say, was what you gave them."
"This is a different matter," said Harry, trying not to show her pleasure at Rob's praise. "This is a dinner party, you no savvy?"
"I see. In other words, you want the grub fit to eat off that hundred-and-sixty-l'even-piece semiporcelain, rose-sprigged, twelve-dollar-ninety-cents et cetery, et cetery, dinner set that we bought out of the mail-order catalogue,—how long ago?—and that's been settin' in the cupboard ever since."
Rob dodged the flapping dishcloth with which Harry chased him outdoors. "All right!" he called back. "I'm going to tell 'em about that first pie you tried to make!"
"You'll be sorry if you do," she warned him.
She was still smiling at the remembrance of those first days in the new country when she saw the calico-clad figure of Isita coming along the ditch bank.
"It's awfully good of you to help me out to-day!" Harry exclaimed as the girl came up the path. "I couldn't possibly have done it all alone."
"I wanted to come," Isita answered quickly.
Something unfamiliar in her voice made Harry look closer at her. Ordinarily Isita's color was a clear, pale olive. Now her cheeks were flushed, her eyes heavy, and she breathed quickly.
"I don't believe you're well!" Harry exclaimed.
"Sure, I'm well. I hurried up here too fast, that's all," Isita insisted, and asked what work she should do first.
She was evidently eager to do her very best, and after a little Harry felt encouraged to bring out the flowered lawn she had wanted to give Isita. She brought it from her room where it had been lying, freshly ironed.
"See here," she said. "Wouldn't you like to put this on? It's too small for me, and yet it's so pretty I can't bear to throw it away. It will be nice and cool, too, this hot day."
Without a word the other girl took the dress; but, though her lips were dumb, she looked up at Harry, and over her quiet face came an expression so vivid, so glowing, that Harry felt as if a dull-covered book had been unexpectedly flashed open at a splendid picture. The book was instantly closed again, but that one glimpse satisfied her. She felt as happy as a child dressing a new doll as she slipped the dress over Isita's thin shoulders, buttoned it and then stood off to admire the result. Isita dropped her eyelids shyly and smoothed the bright lawn with caressing fingers.
"Now, if you'll shell the peas," Harry went on as if nothing unusual had happened, "I'll freeze the ice cream. Here; slip on this big apron. You want to look fresh when the company arrives."
She ran down cellar, where the cream was waiting, together with a tub of ice that Rob had cracked for her; but she had scarcely begun to turn the freezer when Isita called:
"There's something that looks like comp'ny coming up the road!"
"Not already!" groaned Harry, and rushed up to look.
A mile away a cloud of dust marched forward round a slow-moving light wagon, and Harry caught glimpses now and then of white-frocked children on the back seat.
"It's the Robinsons," said Harry with conviction. "They live nearest. Well, shell peas for all you're worth, and I'll go twirl the freezer. Be sure to call me when they get to the gate."
And down she dived into the cellar again.
"They're just pullin' up to the gate," came the summons from Isita at last, "and it is the Robinsons. There's a raft of young ones."
As Harry ran down the path to meet them, Mrs. Robinson, crimpy-headed, tall, angular, as vividly alive as ever, waved her hand in greeting.
"Bully for you, girlie!" she cried. "You've got the flag up. As I says to pa as we come round the butte," she went on without a pause as she clambered from the wagon, shook her skirts, pushed back her hat and fanned her face with her handkerchief, "and seen that flag floatin' up top the pole there, I says, 'Well, there's two real Americans in this country, anyhow.' For a hull lot of us Fourth of July has got to mean a big feed and sleepin' it off."
"Mother put the flag in my trunk when I was leaving home. She said we'd need it to remind us of—well, days like this, when we were too busy to observe them any other way. I'm afraid if she hadn't we'd have had the big dinner and nothing else."
"That's something to have, these hard times, lemme tell you," put in Pa Robinson from the rear of the wagon, where he was unloading small Robinsons. "Too late to look for rain now, and there's no more snow water to come down into the river. Looks to me like we'd all be glad to get red beans and side meat next winter."
"Say! That's true, too," his wife chimed in. "What's more, pretty near every truck patch on the flat got froze down that last freeze. I tell you, I'm glad us folks live up here on the bench; even if they do laugh at us for campin' on the rim rock."
"It don't look like you had any June freeze up here," said Robinson, turning to Rob, who had come up from the barn. "I ain't seen no finer stand of alfalfa on the prairie."
"It would be a long sight better if the cattle that are running loose in these hills hadn't broken in so often," Rob told him.
"Them scabby critters!" Robinson exclaimed in deep disgust. "I tell you right now, there's got to be something done to get rid of them scrubs."
"Well, that's certainly so! We've come to the end of our patience."
"It's time!" Mrs. Robinson exclaimed. "I'm to the end of mine long ago, watchin' you men folks pomper up yours and string it out to the last breath before you'll git a move on."
"Oh, we know you," said Pa Robinson. "You'd be for pullin' the fuse out by the tail just as she's goin' off."
"Let them have it out alone," Harry begged Mrs. Robinson. "I want you to come and look at my wool. I've washed and picked it, but it doesn't begin to look so nice as yours."
When the older woman had felt the creamy strands that Harry had kept tied in a sheet, she said, "It ain't the same sort of fleece. Mine's that long, wavy Merino, and this is Southdown. Goin' to card and quilt it yourself?"
"I did want to. I wanted to have a quilting bee this fall and have my quilts made up in the old-time patterns—sun flower or morning star. Like our grandmothers.' You remember, don't you?"
"Do I! Ain't I seen 'em back home on the spare-room bed? But it seems we ain't got the time to do that sort of work out here."
"Let's make the time, then. Start the fashion, you and I."
"That's right, girlie. All we need's some one to give us a shove up the right trail and we'll keep to it. Like you startin' the girls last winter in that camp-wagon—no, camp-fire club at school. Vashti, she's a different young one since—quit thinkin' about her hair ribbons and how to git to the dances downtown every week and took to washin' the young one's faces and readin' the receipt book instead. And that reminds me. She sent you up a cake she made herself; red, white and blue frosting—and a jar of jell. I'll run git 'em out the hack before the dogs smell 'em." At the door she stopped to call back, "Here comes Con Gardner and Lance Fitch! Oh, yes! And I forgot to tell you"—her voice fell—"Zip Miller won't be over. He's got the spotted fever."
"Oh, how dreadful!" Harry turned from a survey of the cooking with distress in her eyes. The spotted fever was the perpetual menace in the country where sheep grazed. The worst of it was that no one knew the exact cause or cure; the sufferers died or recovered without apparent reason.
"The doctor's went over every day," Mrs. Robinson went on, then broke off with, "I'll tell you later; you ain't got time now."
Harry slipped off her apron to go to meet the latest guests. "Keep up the fire, won't you?" she said to Isita in passing. "That chicken is cooking just right."
"Don't you worry, Miss Harry," was her prompt answer. "I'll watch everything as careful as can be."
All day, while engaged in the exciting task of having everything ready at once, in seeing that Mrs. Mosher's baby had its warm milk and nap at the proper time, in managing so that the dinner should fall between two loads of hay, Harry found Isita always on hand, alert and responsive. The younger girl was deeply interested in Harry's way of setting the table: with eyes full of wonder she gazed at the white tablecloth spread symmetrically, the bowl of nasturtiums in the center, the fresh rolls laid inside the neatly folded napkins. When all was complete and they stood off to take a final view of the table, Isita said quietly, "That's the way it looks for Thanksgiving, ain't it? Ma's told me about that big time."
Harry looked at the girl with pity in her eyes. Never to have known Thanksgiving except through hearing about it!
"You'll go back some day," Harry said. "Every one must eat at least one Thanksgiving dinner with grandmother and grandfather."
She stopped, for Isita's eyes were fixed upon her with a bright, far-off gaze, and the girl was breathing quickly through her parted scarlet lips.
"She can't be well," Harry thought again but before she could speak, Rob came in to ask how soon dinner would be ready.
"It's ten minutes of one now," he said, as his eyes roved eagerly over the table, so cool in the shade of the trees. "Is there time to put up another load before we eat?"
"That depends on how fast you work," she reminded him. "It won't take up more than ten minutes to dish up."
Rob promptly disappeared toward the corral and they heard him bawling, "Come on, all you workin' stiffs! She's set!"
At last they were all gathered round the table, and Harry's reward had begun to come in the form of murmurs of approval from the men, and in more outspoken compliments from the women.
"Why on earth didn't you send some of these things to the county fair last fall?" Sally Gardner demanded wonderingly as she tasted one dish after another.
"Yes! You'd have some of them year-in and year-out blue-ribbon grabbers askin' you for receipts, all right," said Mrs. Robinson as she reached for a third helping of salad.
"That's right," echoed Lance Fitch. "'Tain't every lady can teach school 'n' cook good, too. You could be makin' your sixty a month right along in summer, cookin' for the hay and harvester crews."
"Sure!" exclaimed Pa Robinson. "What do ye mean, Holliday, by keepin' this sister of yours hid out in these here hills all summer?"
"How do you expect me to ranch without her to ride the fences for me, I'd like to know?"
"Better look out, or some fancy cow puncher'll ride off with her for keeps. Then whar'll you be?"
"He kin do like Kit McCarty done," Lance said; "write to a mail-order house and tell 'em, they'd send him everything to fit up house with. Couldn't they send him a wife to keep his house along with the rest of it?"
"Nothing stirring," declared Rob. "She might be like this company dinner set that spends most of the year sitting up in the closet, looking pretty and doing nothing else."
"If he ain't as mean as a Scotchman," began Mrs. Robinson, when a voice from outside made them all jump.
"What's that about Scotchmen?" it asked. "My mother was Scotch, and I'm thinkin' of goin' into sheep myself along with all the other canny Scotch laddies in Idyho, if the cowmen get any meaner."
It was Chris Garnett. He had ridden up unheard and was peering at the company through the screen of branches.
"Sorry to be late," he said apologetically, when he was seated and the women were filling his plate. "Some folks'll tell you, 'Them forest rangers don't have a thing to do but ride to keep from gettin' too fat, and go fishin'.' Fact is, there's a movin-picture mix-up on the reserve most of the time. Right now it's these scrubs. Can't keep 'em out. There's scrappin' every day along of the men that own pastur' in the reserve and the riders for the Idyho Cattle Comp'ny and the rustlers that's tryin' to pick up a few head between times."
"It's a cinch somebody's rustling calves," Rob said. "We've lost two yearlings ourselves."
"I'll rustle a few myself pretty soon," said Lance Fitch, scowling at the mound of potpie and mashed potatoes submerged in a lava stream of gravy that he was demolishing. "If these outside capitalists are going to shove their starved critters in and steal our range, I'll wise 'em some."
"Now you're talkin'," Pete Mosher broke in eagerly. "Them rich fellers went into cattle just for a notion; becus beef's goin' up. Us ranchers live in these hills, and our livin' depends on the grazin' in 'em. Who's got the best right to it—them capitalists, or us? Hey?"
As he asked it, his sunburned blue eyes darted from one guest to another. Rob was the first to answer him. "There's one way to get rid of these scrubs—put the herd law through."
"Herd law!" And now every one talked at once. "In a free range country? Where'd we be ourselves?" "The stockmen'd fight it while the world stands." "You'd have the whole of Camas Prairie goin' to law."
"Wait a second," Rob broke in; "let me explain. There's not a section of land along the north side of these hills that isn't homesteaded, is there, at least up to where the hills get too steep for cattle to graze? And if all of us ranchers along here made an agreement not to fight one another if our cattle made trouble, but to settle it peaceably, then we could keep the range for ourselves and keep out the big fellows, Ludlum and the rest that couldn't afford to herd their stock all summer."