He talked on fast and eagerly, making mistakes and correcting himself, not saying half that he wanted to; but he put the idea before them convincingly, and before the discussion ended they had decided to take action toward getting a herd law through for that district.
While the argument was at its hottest, Mrs. Robinson leaned over and whispered hoarsely: "Say, girlie, if you say so, I'll go pick me some of them peas you said I could have. The sun's wearin' west, and fust you know it'll be milkin' time and us havin' to hit the trail."
"Go ahead," urged Harry. "I'll go see where Isita is and start the dishes."
"Is that the Portugee girl you're talking about?" asked Sally Gardner. "I saw her go off across the meadow yonder while you and Mrs. Robinson were fetchin' on the ice cream."
Isita had, in fact, slipped away home without a word to any one.
"Never mind, girlie," Ma Robinson consoled her; "here's four of us women that's been broke to dishwater and the clatter of pans long enough not to shy or balk at 'em. That so, Sally Gardner? Come on, then?"
When, shortly after six o'clock, Harry, Rob and Garnett stood at the corral gate and watched the visitors out of sight, Harry laughed and sighed together.
"I've had the best time in years," she said. "I only wish we lived nearer folks, so I could give a party oftener."
"Looks like you're goin' to have some more comp'ny to-day," Garnett remarked and nodded toward the lane.
Harry turned and saw two riders coming toward the barn. "They're welcome to what there is. There's at least a chicken wing left."
"I'll see what they want," Rob said as he went to meet them.
Garnett and Harry looked after him carelessly, and then went on with their pleasant chatter. But a sudden burst of angry voices from the barn silenced them abruptly. Garnett unconsciously tautened.
"Guess I'd better step down there," he said. "Looks to me like the buckaroos I met huntin' strays. Might be I could set 'em straight."
"I might as well go, too," Harry decided. She had heard her brother say, "Prove it if you can. It's absurd on the face of it."
"Do they think we've been stealing their critters?" she asked in a low voice as they hurried forward, and she thought of the calf she had brought inside to feed. "It's more likely some one has been stealing ours. The last time we went through the herd two were missing, and that was quite a while ago."
"Don't tell them so," Garnett cautioned her; "let them do the talkin'."
At sound of their steps Rob turned to them. "See here, Harry. These fellows say you've shot one of their cows and run in her calf. They say they've had positive information from a fellow who saw you shoot."
Harry turned white. For a second there was no sound except the creaking of a saddle as the ponies breathed. The two vaqueros, one a half-breed Indian, the other the pink-faced man whom Harry had met on the range, stared at her fixedly. Garnett apparently kept his eyes fixed on space, but he missed nothing.
Fear had not blanched Harry's cheeks. Anger had, and the next instant they flushed scarlet. "Who saw me shooting?" she cried. "I haven't had a gun in my hands this summer except to warn poachers off our land."
"Poachers?" the pink-faced rider echoed inquiringly.
"Yes; hunters who come inside our fence to steal sage hen and grouse. They won't stop merely for being asked. You have to fire a rifle over their heads to frighten them. Then they understand that 'no-shooting' signs mean what they say."
Her voice trembled a little, but she held her head defiantly and faced the "cow-puncher" with steady eyes. He merely shook his head and smiled incredulously.
"You shore are brave, ma'am. Tother day you was doggin' off Ludlum's stock like you owned the hull range, and you told me you'd shoot every one of 'em now—that is, if it suited ye; and now you're gunnin' for white men becus they're pickin' up a few birds what ain't yours nohow. I guess you wouldn't find no trouble pluggin' a cow critter if you thought you could rustle her calf."
"Is that so, Harry?" Rob asked quietly. "Did you threaten to shoot Ludlum's stock?"
"I did. After what this rider threatened," she admitted, and related the whole occurrence. "As for bringing in a deserted calf," she added. "I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge I did it. I wasn't going to leave it to starve, no matter whose it was. When you take it back, you might ask Ludlum to return our steers that his scrubs have taken off with them; but when it comes to shooting a cow, his or anybody's, well, I didn't. That's all."
"Looks like you'd have to hunt your critters further on." Garnett's words showed his relief, and Rob's sudden smile told how great his suspense had been; but that relief lasted only a moment.
"I'd like to believe you, ma'am," the "cow-puncher" said brusquely, "but we done seen the cow with our own eyes. Yes. She's layin' out yonder and her hind quarters cut off and the hide clean gone, so we can't prove nothin' by the brand; but I know her turned-down horns and her slit ears. She's got a bullet hole through her neck, too, sure's I'm livin'."
"Say!" Garnett broke in, and his voice was short and hard. "Who's the scissorbill you fellows been listenin' to? Why didn't you bring him along to prove all this?"
"Oh, it's easy enough to fetch him when we want him," Pink-face retorted tranquilly. "You know him, all right. Portugee Joe? Just east of you? Sure."
"Joe Biane!" Harry exclaimed. "Are you going to take his word against mine? You can't know him very well."
"'Tain't a case of knowin' nor trustin'," Pink-face answered. "Not chiefly, is what I mean to say. We ast Joe had he seen any cow critters off by theirselves, alive or dead, that is chiefly; and he said as how he seen you shoot this here one. You was shootin' at some bird hunters inside your fence, and he, that is, Joe now, he was footin' it acrost the scab land and seen you plunk that there cow we're tollin' you about. Yes."
There was a queer silence. Then Pink-face continued: "There ain't no use gassin' here. We got a warrant for the lady's arrest and we might's well be movin' to town is what I would say chiefly. Portugee Joe said he'd be there to witness for us in the morning."
CHAPTER XVIII
Rob refused flatly to let Harry start that evening for Soldier, where the warrant summoned her to appear before the justice of the peace, and the "cow-punchers" finally agreed to sleep at the ranch. After they had taken their saddle blankets out to the haystack for the night, Harry described to Rob and Garnett exactly what had happened to bring about the shooting. It was hard to tell. The more she explained to those two boys sitting silently on the opposite side of the table the more complete did her disgrace seem to her. At the end Rob laughed a little and said:
"Looks like it wouldn't be safe to leave any firearms round after this."
Even Garnett, Harry realized with a sore heart, had nothing to say except a growl about, "Better men have hung than them cheap skates that call theirselves sportsmen. Sportsmen! I'd shoot a few pinheads like them some day myself, and it wouldn't be no accidental shootin', neither."
By Rob's advice Harry gave as brief an account of the affair as possible to the justice of the peace; she emphasized the fact that she had brought two of Ludlum's deserted calves inside to feed, and that, because Ludlum kept no cowboys to look after the herds in their vicinity, there was always a bunch of cattle trailing round the fence, trying to get in.
All that, unfortunately, failed to impress the justice. He eyed the girl with mild, expressionless eyes, sentenced her to pay for the cow, and, with curt humor, advised her next time to "Look before she shot and then not shoot."
Rob, of course, had to pay her fine and costs. He did it without a word, but Harry knew only too well that every one of those forty dollars meant just so much less money for hay when winter came. Garnett left them and returned to the reserve. For the first time since they had known him, Harry felt relieved to have him go. It was hard enough to face the long ride in her brother's company, so desperately did she want to be alone in her depression. Beneath Rob's talk of the other things, she could feel his disappointment in her.
When they reached Robinson's, Rob's voice broke in on these dreary musings. "If you don't mind stopping, I believe I'll go in and see Robinson about that herd law. Old man Saltus says he thinks that we can put it through."
Harry assented wearily. "I'd be glad of a rest."
"Of course!" Rob looked at her quickly. "I ought to have known you were dog-tired. Why not stay overnight?" he urged. "You've had two mighty hard days and need a good rest. I can get along all right."
Mrs. Robinson welcomed them with unfailing hospitality. Almost without their knowing how it was done, their horses had been led away to water, and they themselves were seated on the shady back porch. Mrs. Robinson took it as entirely a matter of course that they should stay to supper.
"You must of went by right smart early this morning." Her voice soared from the kitchen above the clatter of dishes and the surflike hiss of frying pans, while she tacked back and forth from stove to table. "Pa sent Denny over to git Rob to come help with the hayin'; he reckoned he'd begin to cut to-day 'stead of waitin'. And say! Isita has got the spotted fever. You know you said she was poorly yestiddy. How do I know? Becus Denny went on up there huntin' Rob; thought he might of druv Joe's hogs home or some such. Come along in, everybody. She's all set."
Isita sick! For the moment at least that news diverted Harry's thoughts from her own troubles. "Have they had the doctor, do you know?" she asked.
"None of us ain't seen him, if they have."
Harry felt pretty sure that the Bianes had not sent for any assistance. If it had not been for the ride to Soldier, she would probably have gone up to see how Isita was and have insisted on having the doctor at once. The spotted fever was short and sharp, sometimes a matter of hours only.
Like most buoyant people, Harry's spirits went correspondingly low when she was depressed, and now, morbidly self-conscious over one blunder, she felt herself largely to blame for Isita's neglected condition.
"I declare," Mrs. Robinson said suddenly, "you ain't eatin' a thing, girlie. You'd oughten't to of took that long ride this hot weather; and after workin' so hard yestiddy and all. You're clean drilled down. That's right, go along out on the porch and I'll bring your tea to you. It's hot enough in here to fry fat out of an iceberg."
Stammering an excuse, Harry pushed away from the table, furious with herself for the tears that had suddenly blinded her. In another moment, she felt, she would have disgraced herself by sobbing aloud. Mrs. Robinson's sympathy was the one thing that her aching heart could not resist.
Rob had an instinctive idea that under the pressure of kindly solicitude, Harry would relate the whole affair to their neighbor; and he knew that if she did she would get pungent advice and wholesome consolation from that sagacious friend. He rode home after supper, satisfied that Harry would be herself in another twenty-four hours.
It turned out as he hoped. Mrs. Robinson had divined that something more than fatigue had affected the girl. As she was showing Harry to her room she put her hand on the girl's shoulder and said gently, "Yestiddy was just one lick too much for you, wa'n't it, child?"
"It wasn't that. Oh, it wasn't!" Harry began: and then, dropping her face on her hands, she sobbed miserably.
But oh, the relief of having it out! Of telling some one who could and would say exactly what she thought of it all—why Harry's firing a rifle merely in warning had been so reprehensible. That was exactly what Mrs. Robinson did tell her.
"It took the Almighty consid'able time to make dirt enough out of these lava buttes to grow crops on, and you'll learn, if you live in this country, that you've got to have some of the Almighty's patience to wear down these here varmints that call themselves men into the dust ordinary humans are made of. I know how you feel about your sage hens gettin' shot out. Didn't I ride clear to Shoshone once behind a wagonload of them 'sportsmen,' a gun in my fist ready to drop the first guy that lifted his eyebrow? I did.
"They'd cut our fence and druv in onto the wheat and was wadin' round in it like it was wash water. They laughed at me when I ordered 'em out—that is, until they seen I had the drop on 'em. I run 'em all into court in Shoshone and seen 'em pay their fines good and proper. Wasn't that all right, you'll say? Looks so. But them four men has spent their lives, you may say, gettin' even with us. Nothin' you could catch 'em in, just sneaky things; like stealin' our range, cuttin' our fences, runnin' off our stock with theirs in the round-up, scatterin' dope with the salt where our stock would get it. I wisht I had two bits right now for every dollar they lost us. I tell you, you never get nowhere in this country tryin' to bust up a lava butte with a sulphur match."
"But surely we should do something to protect the birds—and ourselves!" Harry protested. "I think it's our duty to fight the poachers. Indeed, I do!"
The old spirit rang in her voice, shone in her eyes, still dim from crying. The comers of Mrs. Robinson's mouth twitched in fellow feeling. She saw that Harry had come to the place every one comes to in the splendid morning ride of youth; the place where the fight is waging between right and wrong, and into which every one in his turn wants to plunge with a shout and a hailstorm of blows.
"You can't never save the birds with bullets," she said, "not if you was to plug every game hog in the land full of lead."
"But what are we to do?" cried Harry. "They laugh at mere words."
"There's one they won't laugh at more than twice: law."
"Law! Isn't there a law against trespassing now, and against shooting out of season?"
"That's right; but once all the folks stand together and show they mean to have sure-enough law, there'll be an end to poachin' and game hogs and all the rest of the pizen-mean lawlessness that makes the rancher's life a burden."
"Just as the herd law would rid us of the big stockmen," added Harry. "With their herds gone off these hills, there would be plenty of feed for all our cattle."
"That's what! It's got to come same's the spring break-up. It'll be some satisfaction to know we give her the first shove, too."
As Mrs. Robinson in her droll way made everything clear to the girl, Harry felt her soul being smoothed out like a piece of crumpled paper. When Mrs. Robinson said good night, she reached out impulsively, put her arms round her and exclaimed, "You're so good to me!"
Her mind was still tranquil when she rode home the next day. It made her feel that, in spite of Ludlum's methods she was going to come out ahead in the end.
Unfortunately, her confidence received a setback the moment she reached home. Rob was just unsaddling and looked as if he had been up all night.
"What's happened?" she inquired quickly. "Aren't you going over to help Robinson?"
"I've got to get things straightened out here first. I don't know what happened last night but something scared the critters up in the hills. They sure were stampeded—such a bellowing and pounding of hoofs when they went down the lane and through the fence you never heard. There wasn't any use getting up. Nothing short of a rifle bullet in each one of their crazy heads would have stopped them. Somebody else must have thought as I did, though, for I heard a shot."
"But Rob! What would any one start shooting up a herd at night for? Could it have been hunters camping up above?"
"More likely somebody with orders to get our critters on the run, and they made a mess of it and scared the other fellow's."
"But there's no one round us that we know of; except Ludlum."
"Did I say there was? All I do say is that I'm going to find out who stampeded our critters and scattered 'em all over the county. Every one of them went out last night. Some of 'em came back this morning, and I rounded up a lot in the hills over east; but there's three or four steers clean gone."
He threw the saddle over the peg and led the tired pony off to water.
For half a minute Harry stared after him, overcome. The chaos of the last two days seemed about to boil up once more and engulf her. No! That it should not. She stiffened resolutely. It was the very time when she needed every bit of calmness that she could muster. Pulling Hike round, she trotted after Rob.
"See here, Bobby," she began briskly, "you must get back to help with Robinson's haying, and I'm going out to hunt those steers. Yes, I am now," as he began objecting. "There's nothing to be done here that can't wait, and I shall thoroughly enjoy getting our critters out of Ludlum's clutches before he's had a chance to ship them to the stockyards."
"Oh, he wouldn't do that! He wouldn't risk getting into trouble. What he can do is to keep them moving until there's not much chance of our finding them again. If we lose our stock we can't pay his loan and he takes your land. That's what he's after. A water hole and green meadow like this is a gold mine to a man with so much stock. Ludlum's strictly 'honest,' but business is business with him, and he's waiting for the chance to close down on us."
"He'll never get the chance, never!" cried Harry.
"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed if you think telling him so will stop him. If you don't want to lose your land, you'd better have the cash handy when our friend comes round this fall to see how things are getting on."
Harry made no answer. She knew that Rob was right. Power, not arguments about right and wrong, was what Ludlum respected. What she must do was to see to it that they lost not another head of stock and that the herd got all the grazing that belonged to it. Then she could sell at a better price and renew the loan without having to sacrifice her entire herd.
"I'll start out this very afternoon," she said once more as Rob was leaving for Robinson's, "and get the census, as you may say, of every critter hereabouts. I'm going over first to see how Isita is; and by the way, Bobby, if any one is going to town while you're over yonder, have them bring back some oranges for Isita, and also telephone in to the doctor. If they haven't sent for him, tell him to come over, anyhow. I'll pay him myself, if they won't."
Rob promised without comment. How like Harry it was to offer to pay the doctor, and quite ignore the fact that she had not a cent in the bank. It amused him, even while he was glad that she could so quickly rise from her depression.
Harry herself realized what she had done only when she was on her way to the Bianes'. "What must Bobby think of me?" she exclaimed. "I forgot, of course, that I hadn't a cent. Never mind. I will pay, as soon as I sell my beef critters. O me! It begins to look as if I'd have to sell them all to pay the four hundred and twenty-two dollars, interest and capital, I'll owe on the stock in December, besides what I'll have to have for hay for them. Well, I've 'til December first to raise the money, and that's nearly four months yet."
All along the two miles of road to the Biane cabin she was on the watch for grazing cattle, hoping to see their curly white-face and red-polled steers among them. All the good feed had been eaten off close by, however, and what stock she did see was up in the narrow draws where there was still a little green. Evidently she was to have plenty of work rounding up those steers. Why, no! She pulled up short. That looked like some of them now.
She had just turned the ridge in the lava beyond which lay Biane's, when she saw below her, feeding on the fine grass round the edge of a pothole, Biane's sorry-looking bunch, and with them a big, curly white-face and two red—polls, theirs of course. She rode over to look at the brand, but as she approached, the cattle moved round to the other side of the water. Harry paused and looked across. She wanted to ride through, but the water was black and sinister. Out in the lava, it was not safe to go where you could not see your footing. She had better wait until she was coming home and then drive the steers with her.
No one, as usual, was visible round the house, but the front window was open and a blanket was fastened up to keep out the light. Isita must be in that room. Harry knocked lightly, then listened. Some one inside was talking. She knocked again and, when no one answered, opened the door and entered.
At first the sudden change from the blaze of sunshine outside to the darkness of the room obscured everything. The voice she had heard was still hurrying on in a low monotone. She turned toward it and, as her eyes grew accustomed to the half light, saw a cot bed and on it, murmuring in the delirium of fever, Isita.
Going swiftly to the bed Harry bent over the unconscious girl. "What do you want, Isita, dear?" she asked gently, then drew back in dismay.
The small face, usually so clear and pale, was swollen out of recognition and disfigured under a veil of crimson flecks; the lips were parched and brown. At the sound of Harry's voice the sick girl moved nervously, was silent an instant, then began to mutter afresh in broken, hurried words.
"Isita, dear! You poor little thing!" Harry exclaimed. "What is it, Isita?"
Perhaps the repetition of her name or the sound of the familiar voice broke through the sick girl's stupor, for she shivered, opened her eyes, reached out an imploring hand and stammered weakly, "Don't kill him! Don't! I can't—Don't let him! She—she—" The words died away into an unintelligible whisper.
One of Harry's arms was round Isita; her cool hand was on the hot forehead, when suddenly there was the sound of a harsh voice at the entrance of the room.
"Say, there! What's doin'?"
It was Mrs. Biane. Almost running she came from the kitchen. "Oh! It's you, Miss Holliday! I couldn't think. Put her down. Quick! It's the spotted fever."
Almost roughly the woman pushed between the bed and Harry.
"I know. That's why I came," Harry explained. "But what is she saying? What does it all mean? What is she afraid of?"
"Nothing." Mrs. Biane faced Harry defiantly. "The fever's got her. Biane killed one of her lambs the other night. She was comin' down with the fever then, I guess, for it's laid on her mind ever since."
Mrs. Biane was evidently agitated. Leaning over the bed, she smoothed the tossed sheets and straightened the pillow. "You had better come outside," she said to Harry. "Hearin' you talk upsets her. Anyhow, it ain't safe. Like's not you might catch it."
"It's not contagious. The danger is all to the one who has it. What does the doctor say?"
"The doctor? We ain't had him. We don't need him. What can he do?"
"A great deal. He might tell you what Isita should have to eat. Perhaps then you needn't kill her lambs."
"Why not kill them?" The woman turned almost violently. "We ain't a thing to eat else. You kin see the truck patch is dead dry. There ain't no grain to feed the chickens, no hay for the stock. We might's well quit this God-forsaken desert. A man can't make nothin' here; the frost or the drought'll catch him every time."
In the hoarse, whispered outburst there was a strangled sob that sent a thrill down Harry's spine. As she stared into those sunken eyes in which shone suddenly the flame of unendurable miseries, she felt that this strange woman needed pity more than blame.
"Listen, Mrs. Biane," she said with gentle determination; "you must have the doctor. I've already sent for him. It shan't cost you a cent. I had to do it for Isita. People sometimes die of spotted fever, and I couldn't—I'm too fond of her—she's terribly sick. Just listen."
For the voice had suddenly risen to a cry: "Not that one, Joe! Not that one! No—no!"
"She hears you. She's frightened. You'd best go on." Mrs. Biane turned hurriedly to the bed. "Wake up, Isita," she said and laid her hand on her daughter's shoulder.
"Oh, don't do that! You don't want her to die, do you?" Harry exclaimed, hardly knowing what she said.
"She might almost as well—better, too, I guess."
The words came in a despairing sob as Mrs. Biane threw her apron over her face and sank on her knees beside the bed.
"Don't cry!" Harry begged, with her own eyes full of tears. "Isita's going to get well. Don't you worry."
The burden of her own inability to help lay sore on Harry's heart as she rode home. Poverty and sickness and the shadow of famine beyond! She would save Isita, anyhow! Whatever happened, while she herself had bread, the other girl should have half of it.
To her relief the doctor's automobile passed just after she had turned in at the home gate. Knowing that her friend was in his care she could take up her housework and the chores with real interest. Not until the cows began coming in to be milked did she remember the white-face steer.
"What a stupid I am!" she said to herself with sinking heart. "How can I tell Rob and what will he think—that I'm no good, I guess. I can't leave the milking and go, and afterwards it'll be too late. I'll go the first thing in the morning."
But she rode nearly all the next day without getting a glimpse of the steers. Nor, when she stopped to inquire for Isita, could Mrs. Biane give her any information about them. No strange animals had come in with theirs at milking time.
CHAPTER XIX
On Saturday Rob returned from haying. Because of the shortage of water for irrigating, Robinson's hundred acres had cut very much less than usual. Every one, Rob said, was complaining of the way in which the stockmen from outside had "hogged" the grazing.
"So far," Rob told Harry, "every one I've talked with is willing to sign for the herd law. It's too late to do us any good this season, but we'll have it ready by the time the beef barons start coming north next spring. Biane is the only man down this way I haven't talked to. When you go up there with these oranges, I wish you'd find out if he's going to be home this evening and I'll go up then."
Immediately after dinner Harry set out with the oranges. She walked, because Rob's saddle horse had a sore foot and he wanted to use Hike. So far Harry had not missed a day in going to see Isita. The fever had broken, leaving the girl weak and wasted, and now especially was the time when she needed the nourishing and dainty food that Harry took to her.
The exhausting languor that follows the spotted fever made it a painful effort for Isita to move. Yet at sight of Harry in the doorway with her basket on her arm, the girl tried to raise herself on her elbow.
"None of that, Miss," Harry warned her, pretending to look stern, "or I'll go straight back home, and you'll never know whether I had soup or a sermon in this basket."
"It's all one to me," Isita answered, with a faint laugh. "I like whatever you bring; just so's you bring it."
Harry's daily visits had been literally a life-giving happiness to the poor child. Even Mrs. Biane's strange bitterness had softened before Harry's irrepressibly sunny nature. To-day she came in from the kitchen to set a chair beside the bed.
"While you're here, Miss Holliday," she said, "if you don't mind taking charge, I'll go up the road a piece after the hogs. Both the men are away."
"That's all right. I'll be here for a good hour. I've brought a book; if Isita eats her orange nicely, without making a face, I'll read to her."
"Why you're so good to my girl, Miss Holliday, I can't see. You've no reason to be." Mrs. Biane spoke abruptly, as if the words had kept back more than they expressed.
"I think I've the best reason in the world!" Harry exclaimed. "Isita and I are what they call 'side pardners.' And 'side pardners' always stand by each other in trouble."
Mrs. Biane opened her lips to speak, then closed them and went into the kitchen, shutting the door.
Harry pulled her chair close to the bed, took up an orange and spread under Isita's chin the smooth white napkin she had brought. The other girl said not a word, but drew Harry's warm brown hand into her two thin ones and carried it to her lips.
"Silly child!" Harry said, drawing her hand away, but her throat tightened with emotion.
She began in a most businesslike manner to prepare the orange. As she sat there in the quiet, shaded room, something of the deep serenity of the summer day filled her. It was the realization that the other girl understood—was at last her friend.
When Isita had finished the orange, Harry took the chair over to the window, lifted one corner of the blanket that served as curtain and began to read. She had brought The Lady of the Lake, feeling that its simple language and its rhythmic flow would soothe Isita as much as the magic of the tale would delight her. As she read, she knew without really looking that Isita was watching her. By and by, at the end of a long description, Harry glanced over and saw that the sick girl was asleep.
Harry drew a deep breath of relaxation. Her shoulders ached a little from sitting so long. She stood up, thinking she would go outside and walk about; but the loose boards in the floor creaked so loudly that, fearing to wake Isita, she sat down again. It was so dark and still in the room that presently she found herself nodding. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall, then sat up with a jerk. A man's voice directly outside the window was speaking.
"Don't you ranchers make any mistake about this. Once let a fellow like him get control here, and you'll be ruined before you know it."
It was Ludlum. She could not mistake that voice. Harry sat rigid, wondering how to get out of the place. Before she could think what to do, Ludlum went on: "Let Holliday put that herd law through, and you'll have all the sheep in southern Idaho cleaning up the feed round you."
"What's the reason they will?" It was Joe Biane who answered, ready as usual to suspect every one and combat all statements. "What's the herd law got to do with lettin' the sheep in? It's to keep critters out."
"Cow critters," Ludlum corrected. "Once you get a herd law in here it'll nullify the two-mile limit that keeps the sheep off now. Holliday didn't tell you that, did he? He's spread the notion that us stockmen are the ranchers' enemies, when the fact is, we're your best friends. You never see one that ain't ready to give you homesteaders a lift, sell you cattle on time. Holliday's sister is buying her a herd on time right now, though mebbe you wouldn't think it from the way she's threatened to shoot up mine. I guess it was them two stampeded the critters here a few nights ago. Nobody but a tenderfoot would 'a' done it. Soon's they've been in this country a month they think it's the proper thing to pull a gun on everything. Why, didn't she go to shootin' at me with a rifle the other day because I'd clumb over their fence to pick up a grouse I'd winged? No, I tell you, Holliday ain't the kind you want to advise you. They ain't neither of 'em the kind anybody wants round. Well, I'll be moving. Let me know any time you want any help."
"Wait, please!"
At the sharp call both men started guiltily. The front door stood open, and Harry was coming down the path straight toward them.
"I heard you, Mr. Ludlum," she said. "Every word. Some of them weren't true."
At the ugly insinuation the stockman's bland face stiffened. "You heard me, eh? Well, then, young lady, you heard what's good for you. A few hard facts."
"Facts!" Harry's eyes snapped scornfully, and she flung up her head. Joe Biane, who had been edging quietly out of notice, understood this sign and halted, grinning expectantly.
"I don't know what you call facts," Harry went on. "It certainly isn't true that you came inside our fence 'merely to pick up a grouse,' as you say. You and another man were shooting on my land, and even when you heard me warn you, you kept on shooting. I had to fetch the rifle to frighten you off."
As Ludlum pretended to laugh, she hurried on:
"And we didn't stampede your cattle. I wasn't at home when it happened, and my brother was waked up in the middle of the night by hearing our own stock bellowing and running wild. When he had rounded them up next day four of our best steers were gone; it would be hard to prove it, but I think they've been stolen."
"Stolen. That's bad, too." Ludlum was apparently at his ease once more, amused and tolerant. "Stealing branded cattle in this country is a kind of risky business. Ain't you putting it pretty strong?"
"Not so strong as I'd like to put it, when I've been told by a buckaroo right in these hills that if I dogged a certain stockman's scrubs off our range I was liable to have all my own cattle disappear; without one chance in a hundred of knowing who'd run them off, too."
"Well. You heard that, did you?" Ludlum spoke in a tone of soft surprise, but his eyes gleamed cruelly. "It's going to be pretty hard for you to make anything on your cattle this year, then, ain't it? Can't even make a payment on your mortgage, mebbe."
"You needn't worry about my not paying you, Mr. Ludlum. If we can't do anything else we can bring the stock inside the fence until yours and these other outsiders' cattle have been rounded up. I'll have enough to sell this fall to pay off something by December. There won't be any danger of losing them next year, when the herd law goes through.
"You tell Joe, here, that you're our best friend, yet you try to set him against us. You tell him the herd law will put an end to the two-mile limit, which isn't so. That's not the kind of friend we're used to, Mr. Ludlum. And if we're not the kind of people you want round here, if you don't like us, why do you come up here? We've got along all right without you."
The moment she said that, she knew that she had made a mistake. Ludlum's eyes narrowed. "Oh," he said slowly, "so you got along all right, did you? Ain't it kind of sudden that you've found that out? Seemed to me you were pretty well pleased to have the old man put up cattle for you on time."
"It was your suggestion that I should buy of you. You weren't doing it because you were a friend. You said it was good business."
"That's right, little lady," Ludlum laughed, "you've hit it. Business it was and business it's to stay. Eh? It'll take more'n losing a bunch of stock to make you knock under, won't it? Well, here's luck to you."
And with a malignant chuckle he kicked spurs into his horse and went up the road at a gallop. As Harry, with throbbing pulse and clenched hands, stared after him she became suddenly aware that Joe Biane was watching her with covert intentness.
"Whatever you do, Joe," she said abruptly, "don't go to outsiders to help you get a start. You see what you're likely to run against."
"Aw! What difference does that make?" Joe mumbled, walking away. "Beat 'em at their own game, I say."
Harry scarcely heard him. She did not know, really, what she had said herself. Her thoughts came rushing down like a river that leaps a precipice and turns to helpless spray. She had spoken as she did to Ludlum on impulse; she had said too much and angered him.
As she went into the house to get her things, Mrs. Biane softly opened the kitchen door. Harry nodded, put her finger on her lips to indicate that Isita still slept, and then quietly went out. The walk home quieted her, and by the time Rob had come in to supper she was able to relate the affair calmly.
Her brother laughed a little. "You shouldn't let that sort of talk disturb you. We know Ludlum is out for himself, same as we are, though our methods are a little different. But I don't believe he can break up the herd law. The other ranchers round here know him a lot better than we do, and his bluff about the sheep isn't going to scare them."
Just to make sure that Ludlum had not turned any of the farmers against the herd law, Rob took time to ride out and talk with them—especially with those who, too busy or too indifferent to go into the matter thoroughly, had not given it very enthusiastic support. It was a discouraging ride; though most of the ranchers were still with Rob, Ludlum had won over enough men to defeat the chance of sending the petition through.
"The farmers up here aren't strong enough yet, or maybe they haven't suffered enough from the outside stockmen to carry any concerted move like the herd law through," he said gloomily to Harry on his return. "They're working so hard to make a living that they don't take time to think how much more easily they could make it. As for us, if I can buy enough hay to take us through the winter, I'll be well enough satisfied."
"Well, I won't!" was Harry's vehement and unexpected reply. "The idea of our all standing weakly aside and letting Ludlum or any one like him come in here next spring with perhaps twice as many scrubs! It's too humiliating. We might as well get out of the cattle business at once. What's the use of buying hay, of getting in any deeper, if we're not sure of our grazing every year? Don't you see? We've got to get it, and we're going to talk to every rancher in these hills once more and make them see what they're up against. Aren't we?"
Rob, in his favorite attitude on the porch floor, with his legs stretched out, his hands behind his head, was silent for a long moment. Then he gave Harry a reflective, questioning look. "Do we dare?" he asked.
"Dare! What do you mean, Rob Holliday? Dare!"
"Exactly what I say," replied Rob. "We sailed into this cattle proposition pretty bumptiously at first, but it looks to me as if we'd got another think coming. We've locked horns with Ludlum already and a false move on our part may finish us. Still, it's your land that's mortgaged. Do you dare?"
Harry stiffened up defiantly. "This isn't a childish 'stunt,'" she answered with dignity. "I've reasoned this all out as coolly as you have. A dozen steers will be enough to pay the principal and interest due December first."
"Will they! Four hundred and twenty-two dollars! And the chances are that beef will go down as feed goes up. And you don't reckon on what the other fellow may do. Ludlum is after your land; never-failing water like ours is a gold mine to a stockman. If we put that herd law through, he'll be so mad he'll move heaven and earth to ruin us. He's got a lot of power in this country and he's hard as nails."
"Then I'll sell every animal in my herd, pay off everything I owe and be free of him. You'll have your cattle, and with them and the range cleared of Ludlum's stuff, we'll soon make up the loss and sail ahead; beat Ludlum to a fare-thee-well."
"So be it then," Rob acquiesced; "but if we're going to push the herd law we'll have to do it now, before harvesting begins. We'll start with Biane. We may find out from him what made the other fellows back out."
But the Portuguese was reticent. On Rob's arguing that the summer grazing was the backbone of the cattle business and that it belonged by rights to the foothill ranchers, Biane shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
"Yes. As you say, us fellows have not any show. We ar-re poor and the poor must always stand back; give the fat man the road. Eh?"
"Not if we'd hang together the way the big men do," Harry answered promptly.
Suddenly she felt a repulsion for that short, swarthy man with his smooth, ingratiating manner, his slow, narrow glance that moved so calculatingly over her and Rob.
"Before this," she went on, "we ranchers have struggled on alone, not worrying about our neighbors' troubles; but now we're up against it, and we must work together or go clean broke."
"Why, look here, Biane," Rob put in earnestly; "you've a bunch of stock yourself, and you've had to buy hay down on the South Side. What good is Ludlum's good will going to do you? Can't you see that your profit is in standing with us? Every acre of grazing we save is money in your pocket."
Biane, chewing a straw, smiled. "I have no ill-feeling for you, Meestore Rob. I like be freendly wit' my neighbors; but so I like keep freendly wit' Ludlum. The range is free. I have no right to drive heem off. Eh?"
"But he is driving us off!" Rob exclaimed. "He talks about keeping it free, and he's taking every spear of grass on it. Isn't he?"
"I get enough," Biane said gently, with a shrug and a smile. "What more I need? If it is hay that you want, I sell you some."
"You? Why, how's that? You'll need all you bought for your own stock, won't you?"
"I spare you some. How much you need?"
"Well, after we've sold our beef this fall, we'll have about seventy head to winter."
"I could let you have feefty ton."
"That's fine. At how much?"
"Oh, twenty-five dollare. Yes."
Rob laughed ironically. "Only twenty-five a ton? How can you let it go so cheap?"
"Hay is now feefteen and——"
"Sure. And may go to fifteen hundred, so I wouldn't think of robbing you. No doubt you can get fifty from some one you don't want to keep friendly with."
"You ar-re mistaken. I rather not to quarrel wit' nobody."
"The hill ranchers may not understand," Rob said as he turned his horse. "Trying to keep in with us and our enemy, too, doesn't look so friendly as you imagine."
As he and Harry, riding home, talked over the visit, Rob said, "There must be something more than sweet neutrality back of all that. How do we know that Ludlum isn't paying that fellow to stand out against the herd law?"
"He can't bribe every one," Harry answered, "and there are enough of us to carry it through, once we all get together."
The evidence that Rob was able to give of Ludlum's dishonesty, and of his outspoken animosity toward Harry and himself, was a strong argument with those farmers who had listened favorably to Ludlum's talk. Rob was able to convince them that unless they wished to be ruined they must protect themselves against such plunderers as Ludlum. The more progressive farmers added their arguments to Rob's with such effect that, when the petition for a herd law came up in the county court, very few among the hill ranchers' names were missing.
"There she is," Rob said, throwing on the table the Camas Prairie Courier, containing the announcement that their district was to go under the herd law. "I'd like to see old Ludlum's mug when he reads that. I bet he'll try to start something even now."
"Let him," Harry answered tranquilly. "This will see his finish up here."
"It may see our finish, too, round December first," Rob said to himself, "that is, if hay goes any higher and cattle any lower."
CHAPTER XX
Now that the herd law was a fact, the next task Rob and Harry had to undertake was getting hay for the winter. Yet it was almost impossible for them to find time to look for it. Every day was crowded with work. The herd law would not take effect until the following spring, and the cattle at present in the hills would remain there until the fall round-up. Until then one or the other of the young people must always ride the fence to look for breaks, to push the range cattle back and to keep their own animals near home in an effort to stop the losses that continued with baffling persistence.
With the patience of an old hand Harry performed that part of the work. Early and late she rode to all the water holes not already gone dry, to all the favorite midday haunts of the herds, constantly hoping to find one or all of the six creatures that had disappeared. She found none of them; and, while she searched, two more steers, a yearling, and a cow and a calf vanished one by one.
Ludlum's "cow-punchers," with growing insolence, came repeatedly inside the fence to look through the milk cows and calves on pasture; and they never lost a chance to make threatening remarks to Harry about rustlers and what they were doing. Harry never repeated their remarks to Rob, for she was anxious to shield him from any additional annoyance.
Slowly she had waked up to the fact that behind her brother's undemonstrative calm there was deep anxiety and worry. Never given to talking much, he now scarcely spoke a word. His appetite vanished; when Harry begged him to eat, he said that he had a headache or that he had not slept very well the night before, which soon began to mean that he was not sleeping well any of the time.
"Poor Bobby is killing himself over the business, and there isn't a thing I can do to help him," she said to herself. "I can't even sell out until this fall, and by that time——"
But she could not say what she thought might happen by that time. The last cutting of hay would soon be made now, and Rob must surely be able to get some then.
By the middle of August the range was stripped of feed. The foothills, browsed over by thousands of sheep and cattle, burned by the dry winds and endless days of bright sunshine, stretched their dreary length of black lava and yellow sandstone buttes, gray sagebrush and trodden dust. Water holes and springs finally succumbed to the long drought, and from all sides the herds came down round the ranches. Trailing along the fences, they disturbed the silent nights with their uneasy bellowings.
About the first of September Rob and Harry brought all their cattle inside, in relays. Their wheat was not going to pay for harvesting it, and it was better to feed it now as pasture and save the alfalfa. They had, intended, of course, to ship their best steers to the stockyards, but the lack of feed had flooded the markets both East and West with half-starved and young creatures; and even fat beef was bringing a ruinously low price.
"Better to hold on as long as we can," Rob decided; "the price should go up as soon as this low grade is cleaned out."
"I should think that with so many hundreds being shipped there would be plenty of hay for all that are left," Harry suggested.
"I haven't found a man who's got more than enough for his own stock—if he has that. Even grain hay is being held for winter feed."
Harry had no answer. Slowly, distinctly, before her unwilling mind rose the vision of the famine winter. Against her wish she recalled the stories to which in the unmeaning time of plenty she and Rob had listened, shudderingly thankful that they had been spared such distress and anguish of mind.
Early in November she had asked Rob a question that she had been pondering. They had finally sold sixteen steers at the ruinous price of thirty dollars a head, and with hay at fifteen dollars it was clear they would not have enough money to pull through. Yet while they were suffering this famine here, down on the South Side a great harvest was being gathered. Why was there no way of getting part of that feed on the prairie? "What's the reason they can't ship baled hay in here?" she said.
"Baled hay? Forty miles by wagon? It couldn't be done. No, the ranchers on this side of the hills have to take their chances, and they know it. If they haven't enough hay, they'll sell half their stock and put the rest on short rations and pull through somehow."
"Why couldn't they drive their cattle down there? Other men bring their stock up here in summer and go back to the South Side for the winter."
"Sure. That's where they live. These fellows here would have to take all their belongings—a raft of children, chickens, pigs—why, they'd rather let their cattle starve."
"Well, we haven't a raft of children to hold us here. If you can't find hay on the prairie, we'll go down on the South Side and buy hay and feed the stock there."
"Don't you know that we'd have to have a house to live in and a well? The stock's got to be watered, and the ditches don't run all winter. You seem to think we can move round anywhere we take a fancy. In the West there aren't any obligingly abandoned farms waiting at the end of shady lanes, with pasture attached. Every house and shed and shack in this country was built for some special bunch of folks, and every acre of pasture is carrying just so much stock, and the rest is desert."
"But you'll go down there and try to find something, won't you?" Harry urged. "Some one is going to get the last hay for sale there, and you may be that one. I'll see to things here."
"Well, seeing as I haven't got any advice of my own to follow, I may as well take yours."
When he set out, two days later, Harry walked down to the big gate with him.
"Now don't hurry back," was her warning as he left her. "You must find hay. It means the beginning of our everlasting fortune if we bring the herd through this winter. And if," she added to herself as he rounded the butte, "if we can't get hay—what then?"
At the end of a week she received a post card from Rob.
"No luck yet. Plenty of feed, but mostly contracted for in big lots; small stacks not for sale. Am going farther on next week, so don't expect me until you see me."
As Harry read this she felt a pang of terror such as she had felt when, as a child playing "I spy" and wildly seeking a hiding place at the last minute, she had heard the warning shout, "Ready or not you shall be caught." Were they going to be caught now? Not only must they get hay, but they must get it before the first big snowstorm should imprison the herd in the hills. Would Rob, down in the Snake River country where the weather was still warm, remember that up in the hills winter was very near?
To Harry, waiting, watching, the suspense became almost unendurable. As November glided away with its pale, clear skies and its short, windless days, the desert grew lonelier, vaster. The forsaken fields, the sear hillsides on which not one of the animals that had fed there was left, even the empty skies where only a single hawk floated—all were dumb witnesses that the harvest was ended.
If Harry had been idle, the suspense would have been worse; but there was plenty for her to do, whether they stayed where they were for the winter or departed. The root vegetables must be dug and stored, the weeds burned, the dry wood hauled down from the grove and stacked, the asparagus bed mulched and the young trees tied in tar paper to keep off rabbits. When she had done all that and had cleaned the house, Harry felt that she could afford to take an afternoon off and go to see Isita. Though the girl had been out of her sick bed for more than three months, she was not yet strong, and for that reason Harry was doubly set on getting her away to school.
She found Isita sitting on an old box in the sunshine, picking wool for a quilt. She was working slowly, steadily, but all too evidently without interest. At sight of Harry her face lighted with pleasure.
"I was so afraid you'd gone for the winter!" she exclaimed. "It's such a long time since you've been up."
"As if I'd go without saying good-by! I don't want to go at all until you're settled down on the flat, going to school. Has your mother persuaded your father?"
Isita's head drooped. "I don't believe he's going to let me go. He wants me to work." She half glanced up and smiled rather wanly. "I can't explain. You wouldn't understand."
"No, I don't understand," Harry answered. "I'd like to ask, too. Is your father here?"
The words were still on her lips when Biane turned the corner of the house at a leisurely walk.
"Good afternoon, miss!" he said. "You wish to speak to me?"
"If you please, Mr. Biane. Isita seems to think that you can't spare her to go to school this winter. I wondered if you realized how much she wanted to go; how much she needed the rest from farm drudgery after being so sick."
"Oh, she's well now, I think. So, 'Sita?" He moved his eyes to Isita and smiled the smile of a drowsy tiger. Involuntarily his daughter straightened, and a spot of color deepened in her cheeks.
"Even if she is well enough to be doing chores," Harry pursued, determined to finish her argument, "she will never be fit for anything better if she doesn't go to school. She could make so much of herself if she were trained."
"Trained?" The Portuguese smiled slowly, with his head on one side. "I train my girl, Miss Holliday; she need no more of that."
Harry shivered. "I'm afraid we don't mean the same sort of training," she said coldly.
Biane gave a profound nod. "I raise my family to make a living. I train them to mind. You onderstand? Books! Chatter! Seenging! Puah! 'Sita likes work. Better than books. Sure!" His glance leaped to his daughter. "Why you not tell miss how much you like to work, eh?" he inquired in a purring tone.
Isita watched him with fascinated eyes. She was white as tallow. Nevertheless, she smiled, and her dry lips shaped the words: "Yes. I like to work. Truly."
Biane turned back to Harry. "You see? I t'ank you all same for your politeness."
Harry went home heavy-hearted. She was bitterly disappointed in herself that she had failed so miserably in helping her little friend. Her pony fell into a walk. She did not notice it. 'Thello, exploring on either side of the road, veered off into the scab land after a squirrel, and Harry did not miss him. Only at the sound of his excited yelping did she wake and look about her.
"'Thello!" she called. "Here, boy!"
But the clamor only grew more violent, and, after waiting for several moments, Harry turned back to the place where the dog was digging furiously at the bottom of the dry pot hole. Harry's indifference warmed to curiosity as she saw the dog tearing away at something hidden under the crust of the soil that had been mud—something that was weighted down with stones. Curiosity became suddenly amazed conviction that she was at last to know what had become of some, at least, of their lost steers. For there at her feet, plainly visible under the dried clay and stone, lay many hides of cattle. Some were shriveled and rotted beyond identification; some looked fresh. One, with curly white hair still clinging to the skull, Harry could have sworn was the hide of poor Curly Face.
She was down on her knees by now, working away with 'Thello in a flame of determination to make sure of her suspicions, when a voice behind her demanded:
"What you think you're doin'?"
"Finding my lost steers!" she answered triumphantly. "And next I'll find who stole them."
"Oh, you will!" Joe sneered. "How you know they're yours?"
"There are two red polls, out of Rob's bunch. There's the black shorthorn. Oh, I know well enough! And some one killed 'em, skinned 'em, hid the hides. I'll find who did it, too." She laughed rather wildly. It was such a mean, cruel thing for any one to do!
"Three hundred dollars worth of stock we've lost this year!" she cried. "Just wait until Rob hears where I found them! Then we'll see something doing."
Without another glance at the boy who stood watching her in silence, she swung up into the saddle and raced for home. She must write at once to Rob of her discovery.
As she set down on paper the details of her find, her indignation flamed anew. The person who had stolen those animals had perhaps ruined them; for the loss of a dozen creatures might mean just the difference between having enough to pay the money due Ludlum on the 1st of December and not having it. And if she could not make the payment Ludlum would certainly refuse to renew the loan. But she would not think of it. She would find some way to pay him.
When she had finished the letter she threw on her hat and sweater and went out to do the chores. With 'Thello at her heels she raced across the garden to the stock yard. The cattle stood close to the fence, basking in the faint sunshine, waiting their ration of hay. Harry had left the hayrack full, ready for the evening feeding. Now she harnessed the team to it, drove the load on the feeding ground and forked off the hay as she moved slowly forward.
At sight of her the cattle had begun to low, and now they followed the wagon, stopping one after another to feed. Harry knew each one of them: the quiet cows, the solid-built steers, the fat calves and yearlings in their furry winter suits. How big and strong they looked; how well-cared-for—even the scrubs that at first had looked so hopelessly poor! And she might have to sell them all to save her land! Fiercely she jabbed the fork into the flakes of solidly packed hay.
When she had scattered the hay, she fed the chickens and milked. As she was beginning on the last cow, 'Thello, on guard at the corral gate, sprang up with a threatening growl.
"Who's that?" Harry said to him. "If it's a cow-puncher, tear him limb from limb."
"Who you hatin' so hard?" inquired a mild voice and Garnett made a long-legged step over the board fence of the barn yard. "Rob ain't to home?"
"No. He's down on the South Side trying to find hay. I'm surprised you haven't seen him. What are you doing up here at this time of year, anyhow? Your renters have quit, haven't they? I thought you were on your ranch over there for the winter."
"Had to go to Soldier to witness against a rustler."
"Didn't happen to be Ludlum, did it?" Harry asked sardonically.
Garnett grinned, and Harry said quickly, "I guess if you had lost a dozen critters and suddenly had found evidence of their having been killed right near home, you'd hate all cattle men and cow punchers, too."
As they walked to the house together she told Garnett of the increasing trouble they had had with Ludlum's men toward the end of the season, and of her finding the hides.
"You see," she concluded, "it's perfectly plain that Ludlum planned at the start to work things so I'd have to let my land go. That's what he was after. But if he thinks killing my cattle is going to put me out of the game, he'll be disappointed."
"Say, now," Garnett put in, "I wouldn't pull my gun on Ludlum yet awhile. Don't look to me like a stockman would bother himself with such a job. He'd run off a hundred head mebbe into the mountains, but not this. I reckon I'd better ride over there and take a look at those hides. I could mebbe get a line on something."
While Garnett was gone, Harry started the supper fire and set the table; then in a clean blue apron, she waited expectantly for his report.
"I'd never say Ludlum done that job," he announced decisively the moment he returned. "I'd swear to his brand on one hide there at any rate, and mebbe more. There's a good twenty-five skins in the bunch, and you didn't lose more'n a dozen critters all told, did you?"
"Just a dozen," she answered, "one of them only lately. It's hide wasn't there."
"And Ludlum's been gone out of here six weeks?"
"Two months. But if he didn't do it, who did? Who?"
"That's your next job, I reckon, finding out. If one of your critters has turned up missin' this last month, then I'd sure count Ludlum out and smell a fresh trail for the thief. I'd quit frettin' myself right now, anyhow. Rob'll be along soon and mebbe he can fit this puzzle game together."
His kind heart was distressed at the thought of leaving the girl alone with her gloomy thoughts, but he knew that she would scorn the idea of his staying. Being left alone was one of the things that the women of the cattle country took for granted, and Harry, he knew, was not a "quitter."
But when he was leaving he held her hand in his hard grasp a second or two longer than usual, and his blue eyes tried to say more than his tongue ever had. Perhaps Harry understood their meaning, for she tilted her head and smiled.
"Run on, now," she said. "The moon sets early, and you'll be late getting home. If you see Bobby down yonder, tell him to find a buyer for my herd instead of hay for them. Tell him, in fact, that he must sell them. I have worked it out, and I know we haven't money enough to make our payment in December. Now, don't forget."
"You bet! I'll see that they're sold if I have to peddle 'em back to Ludlum himself," promised Garnett as he went off into the twilight. As Harry watched the dusk close round him she felt, for the first time in all her happy, courageous young life, absolutely alone.