CHAPTER XXI
During the following days Harry, with her mind on the mystery of her slaughtered animals, spent all her spare time looking for the recently lost scrub and keeping an eye open for suspicious-looking or stranger cowboys. She was putting up her pony one evening after a fruitless search when footsteps approaching through the twilight made her turn sharply, with every sense on guard. As she did so Joe Biane emerged from the shadows.
"Why, Joe!" she exclaimed. "How you startled me! What do you want?"
Joe laughed awkwardly. "Is Rob to home?"
"No. Did you want anything special?"
"Only to ask him could we borrow the team to-morrow to pack our traps to Shoshone. We're pullin' out."
"Pulling out! For the winter, you mean?"
"No. Quittin'. For good."
"Why, Joe! What on earth for? Why didn't Isita tell me before? What will you do with your stock? And your hay? Where are you going?"
"Aw, anywheres, I guess, to get out of this country. Ain't we starved all summer? And now they tell us we're in for a hard winter. Besides, dad mortgaged everything last year, and now it's been took: the team, wagon, stock everything. Dad's going back East, for all I know."
"Back East! And Isita never said a word of it!"
"She didn't know nothin' about it until yesterday."
"Oh! Well, I'll lend you the team of course. That is, I'll drive you in. What time did you want to start?"
"In the mornin', if it's all the same to you—so's we'll sure catch that night train."
"I see. I'll be over early."
"You needn't go," Joe insisted awkwardly. "I can fetch the team back next day. I ain't goin' out with the folks."
"I'd rather drive myself. It will give me a chance to visit with Isita."
For several minutes she stared after Joe when he had melted into the shadows. Was it really fear of the coming winter that was driving the Bianes away? Slowly she glanced round her. There in the cañon the darkness was deep as a sea, with only here and there, like a pale face, a gleam of rocky butte facing the west. Not a cricket chirped, not a breeze whispered. In profound silence the earth waited; for what?
Without warning, overwhelmingly, like a great sea risen swiftly in the night, homesickness drowned her. How safe it was back there in that New England village!
Suddenly she shook herself. "I'm as bad as the Bianes," she said to herself, with a shaky laugh, "letting myself get scared by what people say. My job's here, snow or no snow."
But the cruelty of having Isita snatched away from her was not so easily ignored; the happy friendship that she had so patiently worked and waited for, torn up like a flower at the very moment of its blossoming!
But Harry was not the sort who, in the clutch of trouble, weeps or sulks or melts into flabby inertness. She finished her tasks for the night, rose an hour earlier than usual the next morning and went briskly about her work. After milking, she turned the calves into the pasture with the cows so that she need not milk that night, left a load of hay on the wagon in the corral so that the stock could feed out of the rack, and scattered plenty of wheat for the chickens. Her lips were set; there was a steady gaze in her eyes that meant unshaken purpose. Some time, somehow, she would have Isita back for "keeps."
With characteristic kindness she filled a basket with the best she had for the travelers' luncheon—a loaf of bread, some butter, a jar of jam, a cake, some home-made cheese—anything that might make the long journey easier for the two women.
If Isita were going back East she would need some clothes. In Harry's trunk there lay some that she had not worn since she had come to Idaho—clothes for all seasons and occasions, useless to her, yet too good to throw away. Harry selected some that she thought suitable and wrapped them in a bundle.
"Why couldn't I have kept her here?" she said to herself almost fiercely. "I'd have clothed and fed her as long as she needed. We'd have been so happy. At least," she consoled herself, "if they're really going East, Isita will have to go to school. She can tell me everything on our drive to Shoshone."
But Biane had other ideas. "They can tell you not'ing. They know not'ing," he interrupted blandly the moment Harry began to ask questions. "I myself decide to quit her-re. Where do we go?" He raised his eyebrows, smiling fatuously. "Aha! Perhaps even to Sout' Amer-rica. A fine cattle country that. Mebbe you hear from us one day. Eh?" He raised a shoulder, turned to walk away, then glanced back with a wise smile that made poor Harry wish she were a man and could say what she thought.
It took only a short time to stow the few boxes and bundles in the wagon. When all was ready, Harry hastened to help Isita into the front seat beside her, before any other arrangement could be suggested. She was determined to have some sort of talk with her friend before they were separated. But she was soon made to realize that Biane controlled his family absolutely. At every attempt she made to talk confidently with Isita, Biane leaned across the back of the seat and broke into their talk with other subjects until she gave up in despair.
The conviction that this abrupt departure was caused by other reasons than those that Joe and his father had offered, grew steadily in her, and the uneasy suspense that she noticed in the whole Biane family strengthened her belief. By the time they reached Shoshone she was so tired, so nervously on edge, that she drove at once to Kinney's Hotel, got out there, and left Biane to take his family on to the station.
"When you've finished with the team," she said to him, "bring them back here to the livery stable. I'll leave orders for feeding them. What time does your train leave?"
"Our train?" he repeated, darting a suspicious glance at her.
"Yes. I want to come down and say good-by to Isita."
"Sur-rely. I was forgetting. We go at ten o'clock." And with his cold smile that showed his teeth and half closed his yellow eyes, the Portuguese drove off. Isita turned to give Harry one entreating look before the dusk hid her.
"If I'd had the least chance to talk to her," Harry said to herself, with a sigh, "we could have fixed up a plan of escape. She could have slipped off the train at the next station, or something. I could see that her mother was nearly scared to death, or she'd have explained this journey to me."
Well, it was too late now to think of what might have been done. Harry could only have faith in Isita's courage and ambition to free herself from this hateful bondage.
In the hotel office she stopped to chat with the clerk, who was an old-time friend of hers and Rob's. "I'm going up to my room to rest now," she said, "but I want to be called in plenty of time to meet that ten-o'clock train going East."
She was so tired that the moment her head touched the pillow she was off to sleep. When some time later there came a pounding on the door, she stumbled up, forgetting where she was.
"It's a girl to see you, Miss Holliday!" the clerk called. "Says its awful pertickler and to come a-hurryin'!"
"Coming, coming!" Harry cried, as she hunted for her shoes under the edge of the bed. "Isita, of course," she told herself. "What can have happened? Has she actually escaped?" Her heart was thumping with suspense and hope as she snatched hat and coat and ran out. Isita was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
Harry saw that Isita's black eyes were actually glassy with fear, and that beads of sweat glistened on her forehead.
"Isita, dear!" she exclaimed. "What is it? Come upstairs and——"
"No! no! Not a moment! Come!" the girl cried in a rasping voice and, catching Harry's arm, pulled her toward the door. "Come. I'll tell you."
Too much astonished to dispute or question, Harry followed her to the street. No one in the office had seen them, and the street was empty. After a frightened glance up and down, Isita looked at Harry and opened her lips to speak. But twice she made an effort before a sound came. At last, hoarsely, came the words, "They're going to steal your team!"
"Steal my team!" Harry almost smiled with relief and stopped short, but Isita clasped her hands imploringly.
"Don't wait," she entreated; "there's not a moment to lose! I ran the second they left me and mother, but they'll be back soon."
"But wait. The horses are here. In Kinney's barn," Harry protested.
"No, they're not. Oh, you don't understand! Please trust me; I'll explain."
Her words came quick and broken, and Harry realized that the girl must have run a great way. No longer questioning or waiting, Harry followed her obediently. Turning down a side street, they came after a while to a place where the pavement ended and an old road curved off. A little beyond this stood a group of old buildings, stone and brick, the deserted roundhouse and shops of a past era. Into one of these Isita led the way, and Harry heard from the darkness the familiar nicker of Rock and Rye.
"All right, boys," she began reassuringly, when a voice said:
"Please be quiet. You might be overheard."
Mrs. Biane stood beside her.
"No, don't ask me! I can't say a word!" she exclaimed in a low voice of distress. "'Sita here'll tell you the hull of it by and by. Only hurry and git off, you two. I want you should take my gurl with you, Miss Holliday. I'll be more grateful to you than I can tell. She can come back to me some day when it's safer, happier. There, deary, I know," she said soothingly as the young girl threw herself, weeping, upon her mother's breast.
For a minute Mrs. Biane held Isita to her; then, with a last kiss, she unlocked her child's arms and put her gently aside.
"I know she's safe with you, Miss Holliday," she said as she tucked Isita into the wagon beside Harry. "You're a good girl and you've been a real friend to her—to me; and you can help her to grow up good. There, go! Don't drive past the station. He's liable to be round there. And hurry!"
She led the way to the road, stared toward the town, listening for a moment, and then walked swiftly away without a backward glance.
New and rude emotions surged through Harry as whipping up the horses, she drove quickly out from the town. Sympathy for Isita, sympathy for that stricken mother, and humbly grateful joy for herself mingled in almost painful force. It relieved her to put her arm round Isita and draw the frail body close against her own.
"After all, they couldn't separate us, could they?" she said.
"Looks not." Isita tried to answer cheerfully, but her voice broke into a sob. "It's so hard to give up mother. She could have stayed. It was them two men made a mess of things."
"But why did they have to rush off so suddenly?" Harry asked. "Haven't they been doing pretty much the same, year after year?"
"Oh, sure, ever since I can remember; but they never got caught before."
"Caught? They seemed to be going off quite freely."
"They wouldn't of been free long. Not—not now since you—you found your hides."
"My hides!" Harry repeated slowly. "You think—they knew—who——"
"You needn't mind saying it." Isita gave a hard, hurt laugh. "Not if they didn't mind doing it. Oh, how often I've prayed you'd come on them driving one of your steers down home or burying a hide in the pothole!"
"But why did they skin them?" Harry asked. "I thought rustlers stole live stock and drove them out of the country."
"They wasn't brave enough, even for that! It was much easier to butcher and haul them out at night to Shoshone. Nobody could trace it that way, without any hide or brand. That's why they didn't want the herd law; with all them cattle grazing in the hills, yours and Ludlum's and stray brands out of other herds, they could pick up one most every day; work a little bunch down our way and, when night come, shoot one. That's what Joe was doing when he was on your land. He seen you wasn't suspicious; your critters were the best of all, big and fat. That's why he killed your cows, too; so's he could steal their calves. Oh, they knew how to do it, all right! It was a regular business."
She stopped abruptly; the hard note in her young voice was like an echo of those cruel days. Harry was silent. How simple it all was now; Joe's mysterious cut; Mrs. Biane's suspicion of strangers or even of friends; Joe's poaching; Isita's terror, and the never-explained stampeding of the herds that night.
With a new, less bitter, accent in her voice, the younger girl went on: "Before, it hadn't seemed so bad to me. But after I knew you, when you were so generous, so kind, things were different. Oh, I wanted to be friends! You never guessed. But, of course, they wouldn't let me. I had to be round home to keep watch. You know. And then they knew I'd have warned you, put you on your guard. You know I would of, don't you?"
"Dear Isita," Harry said, much moved, "of course I know you would have." The realization of what this mere child had suffered made her own loss insignificant. "There's one thing I should like to know, though," she said. "Your father must have made money selling beef to the butcher. Why were you always so poor? You had scarcely enough to eat."
"He gambled it all away as fast as he made it. Mother and I never saw a penny."
"I understand. Well, don't let's think of it any more!" Harry exclaimed. "All that is past and gone. I've lost a few cattle, but I've gained a real friend. I'm satisfied, and I think we're going to have no end of good times together." Her ringing voice, her beaming face, would have reassured the most troubled heart, and in fact, for the first time in many days Isita smiled happily.
There was only one shadow to mar Harry's satisfaction. This was the knowledge that in taking Isita home she was adding another burden of expense to Rob's already heavy load. Of course, if he succeeded in finding a buyer for her herd there would not be the debt to Ludlum to reckon with, and if they did go down to the South Side she could probably find work in the large towns there.
When, after resting for the night at a ranch house, they started on again the next morning, her mind was busy with plans. Even if her herd were sold, they would need more money for part payment on hay to feed Rob's stock. And if she did go to work for wages, it would not be hard to place Isita with some good family who would give her her board in exchange for help with the housework while she went to school. Yes, it seemed that all would arrange itself; that is, if only Rob had managed to sell her herd and to find hay for his own.
"If only! if only!" The monotonous clip-clop! of the horses feet repeated those significant little words—significant because upon them hinged all that had gone before. If only she had been satisfied with thirty head! If she had not been in such a hurry to own a big herd! If only she had not lost her temper and in doing so shot one of Ludlum's cows! If only she had herded her own cattle more understandingly! As she looked back over the year she saw that from the very start she had done things that meant spending money, had got herself and her brother into predicaments, while Rob had plodded behind straightening out the difficulties, and finding the money to pay for her mistakes.
And now here she was bringing home Isita! Not that she could have refused the responsibility. Rob would not have wanted her to do that. Only somehow, Isita seemed to be the last straw that she was adding to his load. A sudden vision rose up before her of Rob traveling endless miles up and down the South Side hunting for hay, hunting for a buyer of her herd.
CHAPTER XXII
Sunset comes early in the foothills in November, and it was dark by the time the girls reached home. As Harry was opening the big gate at the foot of the lane, Isita exclaimed:
"There's a light at the house!"
"O goody! Then Rob is here." Harry sent a halloo to give word of her arrival. "You go right inside, Isita," she said when they reached the garden gate, "and I'll take the team to the barn."
As she passed the back yard she saw a figure moving there in the dark.
"So you got here first?" she called gayly.
"Time some one was gettin' here," Garnett's voice answered unexpectedly from the hay that he was forking out to the impatient herd.
"Yes. I thought I left you in charge." Rob had come up and was speaking with assumed sternness. "I'd pretty near decided you'd left the country with the Bianes."
"How on earth did you know they'd gone?"
"As we were coming in we met the sheriff going out. He'd been over there with half a dozen warrants for the old man and Joe. Seems they've been stealing sheep and cattle for a good while. That's where our stock went, of course. Garnett told me about finding the hides. Fine neighbors, weren't they? Well, I'm glad we're rid of them."
"Rob," Harry began and stopped. It was hard to tell him. "Rob, they didn't all go. Isita is here."
"Isita here! Well, of all things! Where is she?"
"Up at the house. I wanted to explain to you before you saw her. She's here to stay, you see. I ought not to have kept her without asking you, but there was no time. And it seemed so dreadful to leave her with that father. I know I'm adding another burden to you, but——"
"Yes, it's terrible. I know she'll ruin us; big strapping creature like that. She'll eat as much as two cow-punchers. I'll harness right up again and ship her on the next train."
Harry was relieved that he took it so lightly, but she was still more relieved by the new life in his voice.
"Bobby! What is it? You've had good luck?" she said as they started toward the barn. "You sold my herd." She felt an immense relief and at the same time her heart sank at having to let them go. "Who took them? Did you get enough to pay Ludlum?"
"A thousand." Bob ignored the first question.
"A thousand! But we'll need more than that."
"Of course, I know. But haven't I been making wages haying and harvesting, besides what I had in the bank?"
"But you'll need that and more, too, for hay. Did you get hay?"
"A hundred tons of the finest, and we're going there to feed."
"O Bobby!" she could not go on. She leaned against the end of the stall and stared after him as he poured oats into the mangers for the horses. No matter what went wrong, he always found a way out and pulled her out, too. "If it weren't for you," she began.
"Of course, I know. It's an endless tug of war between us to see which one can get along without the other."
"Say!" cried Garnett, coming across the stable yard toward them. "Can't you folks sandwich those argyments in between the supper food? Little lady up at the house says she has boiled water enough to scald a hog and yet supper ain't real ready neither. Says she's waitin' on the boss for orders."
"Never mind. When I went off yesterday I left things so that five minutes with a frying pan would finish them."
It was a very little more than that before the food was sizzling. The two girls were busy setting the table, when heavy steps thumped across the porch, and some one knocked sharply.
"Come in!" Rob called and moved toward the door, while the three others watched. Every one gave a start of surprise as it was shoved open from without and Ludlum faced them.
Red-faced and scowling with fatigue and annoyance, with his eyes gleaming maliciously upon the cheery scene before him, he stood against the blackness of the night like a messenger of evil.
"Come in, won't you?" Harry said politely. "Sit down." With a mutter the stockman dropped heavily into the nearest chair, took off his hat and mopped his face.
"Dusty riding round here now," said Rob.
"Yep. We need rain."
"I hope it holds off until we've pulled out of here."
"What's that? You're not wintering here? Haven't sold out, have you?" Chagrin was in Ludlum's face and voice as he glanced from Rob to Harry.
"Oh, no," Rob replied, with a smile. "We couldn't get hay enough up here to carry us through, that's all."
"It'll be different next year," Harry said with a note of triumph in her tone.
"Different, eh?" Ludlum sneered. "Because you've got the herd law through, you think you're fixed. I daresay that's the argyment you used to push the thing; told the rest of these rim-rock squatters that, if it wasn't for that confounded 'millionaire cattle trust' that was stealin' the grazing, you'd all get to be millionaires yourselves in no time."
"We told 'em it was the only thing to do to keep from being busted up and driven out entirely by fellows like you and Joyce," said Rob.
"And you think that because you ain't gettin' all you want it gives you the right to drive us out; hog all the free range yourselves. You're kinda mean, too, ain't you?"
"If you hadn't been so grasping in the first place," said Harry, "we shouldn't have had to fight you. We've taken only what we deserve to have."
"And I suppose you think you're going to keep it!" Ludlum sneered. "Why, my little lady, do you think your herd law is going to keep us stockmen, with thousands of critters to feed, out of these hills? Not much. We've grazed here long before you ever come in, and we'll be grazing long after you've dropped back where you come from. You think you can keep tabs on the stock that comes in here! Why, you couldn't begin to. How'll you know whether there's herders with 'em or not?"
"We'll know whether your cattle bother us," Rob warned him; "and if they do break in and spoil our crops, it's you that pay the damages now, not us fellows who have to pay you for your bloated critters. You don't get hurt, you know, unless you break the law. You big fellows are trying to push us off the earth. Maybe this'll show you that you don't own it all yet."
"And I guess," said Ludlum, "the only way to teach you smart Alecks that you can't run everything is to clean you out of this country right now."
"Yes?"
"Yes!" Ludlum shouted, pounding the table with a knotted fist "And according to that idea I've decided not to extend your time on them cattle. You've showed you're a tender-foot at the business, you and the girl there losin' stock right along. You're a joke, and there ain't room for jokes in the beef business. So you just take your little bunch of stuff and run on. The time on your mortgage expires next Monday, December first, and it'll be foreclosed to the minute. See?" He grinned with savage satisfaction.
"Foreclosed?" Rob said calmly. "Of course you mean unless we can pay back your loan."
"Oh, certainly," Ludlum replied with savage irony, "if you can pay me that thousand——"
"One thousand one hundred and fifty-five dollars," Rob said. "I intended to send you a check for the amount as soon as we got to town, but I can give it to you right now. Saves me a stamp, too."
Without glancing at Ludlum, who, smothering in his astonishment and fury, stared motionless, Rob pulled his check book from his hip pocket and wrote the check. He laid it on the table before the stockman.
"Now if you will write a receipt, which Mr. Garnett will witness, everything will be straight between us. You can send me a discharge of the mortgage when you get back to town." Ludlum bent over the check, looked at it hard and muttered under his breath. When Harry silently handed him the pen he took it with a scowl and wrote a receipt. Then he pocketed the check, picked up his hat, glared venomously at the four who were watching him and without another word flung himself through the doorway and slammed the door after him.
"It's mighty good to know, just the same, that you can't make us suffer any longer," Rob said, with a deep bow toward the door.
"I kind of thought a while back there he wasn't going to trouble nobody any more," Garnett said, with a sigh, of relief; "he acted like he'd swallered the torpedo he meant for us, and it wasn't agreein' so well."
"Our supper won't agree with us, either, if it sits on the stove any longer," said Harry. "And now you can tell me all about where we're going this winter and who bought the cattle. Was it a regular stock buyer or a rancher?"
"A rancher."
"And where did you find, the hay? At the ends of the earth, I suppose."
"No. Not so far out. Same fellow that is going to take the cattle sold me the hay. He'll take part pay in work; I'm going to feed the whole outfit together."
"That sounds pretty fine. Is there a shack near by where we can live?"
"Oh, sort of a shack!" Rob admitted reluctantly, while Garnett threw his head back and shook with soundless laughter.
"What's the matter?" Harry inquired. "Is there a house there or not, Garnett?"
"Sure. Didn't he tell you?"
"I'll bet it's nothing but a barn," Harry declared, whereat both boys tittered again. "If I had time I'd write down to the man and find out what sort of house he's giving us," she added. "By the way, you haven't told me his name."
"Let's see. What was the name of that old skinflint?" Rob asked, scratching his head and turning to Garnett.
"Say! If you can't remember, how do you expect me to?" the forest ranger exclaimed, grinning.
"You two certainly are silly to-night," Harry said loftily. But at the same moment she was thinking how good it was to see Rob his old self once more. And what a thing it was to have a friend like Garnett—so full of fun and yet, underneath it all, as solid as a rock. If his ranch were anywhere near the place they were going to, what good times the four of them could have that winter!
And how near she had come to losing it all;—to giving up and going back East in that first summer of discouragement! In a flash of memory she saw again Chris Garnett's steady eyes as he had looked down at her that day on the train, heard the conviction in his voice as he told her: "You'll stay!"
Was it his standing by them in all their difficulties that had helped his prophetic words come true?
Suddenly, with a strange surprise she felt her cheeks burn and she bent low over her work.
"How soon are we going, Bobby?" she asked abruptly.
"As soon as we can get ready. I suppose there's a week's work to do up here first. Fortunately, Robinson says he'll take the pigs, butcher and cure the meat and make the lard for one third. But we'll have to dig vegetables, haul wood——"
Harry merely smiled, but her turn came in the morning, when Rob found that during his absence she had done virtually everything to get the ranch ready for winter. "Great work, sis," he acknowledged, with a broad smile. "Thanks to you we can get off to-morrow. That kind of help is worth money."
"Good! I'll take my pay in cattle," she answered gleefully.
"Let me choose 'em back for you out of the herd before old skinflint's starved 'em to death," Garnett suggested, whereat Rob exploded into noisy laughter.
Never had Harry seen Rob in such a mood. All through the day she heard him and Garnett talking as they worked and every now and then breaking into peals of laughter.
Harry would not let herself dwell on the loss of her herd. It hurt her to see them file out through the gate for the last time, to realize that she must begin all over again, this time in the slow, plodding way, to gather a bunch of stock. But, after all, she had had a valuable experience and she had saved her land.
She and Rob took turns driving the loaded wagon; for to her the best of the trip was being in the saddle, helping to move the cattle. When Harry was driving Isita rode Hike. So happy was the young girl in her shy way, so naturally did she fit in with the plans and duties and pleasures of the family, that Harry was deeply thankful for the chance that had given this friend to her.
Cattle travel slowly, and it was late on the third day when they got down to the South Side. As they left behind the wild splendor of the Snake River gorge and came into the level richness of the irrigation country beyond, Harry grew silent. She was noticing everything: the magnificent ranches one after another, the haystacks as big as churches, the silos and the orchards, the grain elevators and the handsome houses. They all meant wealth. Yet at the same time she was missing their own mountains, their groves and streams, the wild and solitary beauty that at first had seemed so harsh and unfriendly, but which, by insensible degrees, while the rough homestead had grown into the cherished Homestead Ranch she had learned to love and to think of as "home."
"You ain't likin' it real well, are you?" Garnett said suddenly as he rode beside her.
"That isn't what I was thinking," she answered slowly. "When I looked at this I wondered how I had ever imagined that we could make a herd pay up in the hills."
"But that's exactly the place to make 'em pay. Didn't Ludlum prove it when he tried to sneak your homestead away from you? That's the grandest grazing country in Idaho. But no one ought to winter there. You've got to come down here and feed your stock in this hay country. That's the combination that makes these stockmen so disgustingly rich. Sure."
Harry laughed a little. "It wasn't so much the money," she said slowly. "I wanted to do something worth while, something that counted. Oh, you know: raise the finest beef; have everybody want my calves. I couldn't bear the idea of farm drudgery and housework with nothing to look forward to. Instead of that I made an awful mess of it, and no end of trouble for Rob. And, after all, I've had to come round to his way in the end."
"Well, now, not just exactly that," Garnett objected, as he watched the slow-moving line of cattle and tried to gauge the distance to the gate of the ranch ahead of them. "It takes years to build up beef into what you've planned, but you took a start, and there's a heap to that. Your mistakes weren't wasted, either. They kept Rob movin' up front, thinkin' quick, like he'd swallered pepper. Would he go back to raisin' one calf on a bottle? Honest, now? And besides that look here. Didn't you start me sittin' up and takin' notice of how I was lettin' the grass grow under other fellows' feet for them to make hay of while I was wastin' my time makin' it safe for them up in the reserve? Sure, you did. But I'll tell you the rest and some more, too, after we get these critters inside here. Hold 'em back, now, while I open the gate."
"So this is the place," Harry said, when at last the cattle were inside the pasture, the team put up, and the four of them, Rob, Garnett, Isita and herself, were looking at everything. "I suppose the owner is no more a skinflint, as you pretended, than that house is the tumble-down cabin you tried to scare me with."
She pointed to the roomy, well-built white cottage set in a little lawn and fenced away from the farm by a neat paling.
"Now that I've seen the place I'd certainly like to see the owner," she announced to Rob as they walked on towards the house. "I suppose he's here, isn't he, waiting to take over my herd?"
"Here he is," announced Rob, trying hard to keep a serious face as he took Garnett by the arm and led him forward. "Meet Miss Holliday, Mr. Garnett. Shake hands with the gentleman, Miss Holliday."
"Garnett!" Harry cried in astonishment. "You!"
"That's right, give it to him proper, Sis," Rob called back as he went off to look after the horses.
Harry did not even hear him. With her brain in a whirl that was all that she could find to say, but as she put her warm hand into his big clasp her sparkling face told him better than words that the surprise it gave her was not greater than the happiness.
"How ever did it happen, though?" she asked presently. "I thought you had sold all your hay."
"I didn't sell any. Pablo, the renter I had here, sold my share; leastwise gave Biane an option on it. Of course when Biane skipped, the hay come back on my hands. I didn't know that when I left you up yonder and come a-huntin' Rob. But I got a loan from the bank on my place here, enough to pay up Ludlum and get us some hay back from Paplo for a start."
"But how are we going to pay you?" Harry interrupted. "A hundred tons of hay at——"
"Say, now," begged Garnett, "don't you go to figgerin'! When Biane skipped the country, didn't that turn my hundred tons back on me? Well, I guess. And what was I goin' to do with it when I hadn't a critter of my own to feed, chiefly when I knew you folks was wearin' out the roads huntin' hay?—And what's easier and doin' better for us all than for Rob and me to feed together here on my ranch; and you, mebbe, to cook for us once in a while,—and me to take my wages in calves next spring,—or any old time like that; in case you took a notion to feed here next winter,—and me to put mine in with yours, and all of us graze together up to your homestead,—ranch that is, I mean, in summer and—next winter,—next winter,—Aw! What's the use of all this talkin'? It's all right, ain't it?"
Red to his ears, the forest ranger clutched his hat with a hard hand and stared down at the girl beside him, something unsaid held back in a sudden spasm of shyness.
Before Harry could answer the front door opened behind them and Isita, who had been exploring by herself looked out.
"Now that we're home, Miss Harry," she said, "couldn't I set the table for supper? There's a beautiful set of china dishes in the cupboard."
Harry turned to Garnett, the familiar roguish gleam in her face. "If I am going to live here, Mr. Skinflint Garnett," she began lightly, "I'll expect to use those dishes—" her voice trailed off, the bright, brave scarlet swept into her face, then as swiftly fled. Garnett said not a word. His eyes were on hers and in them was a look, a light. She had seen it there before but now she understood what it meant. She tried to take a steady breath, she hunted words,—"those dishes. Shall I start breaking them in now?"
Brave as the words were how her voice shook!
"Say, Harry—" How queer and deep and soft Garnett's voice was. He had thrown down his hat and stood there, shaking yet determined, his fists clenched at his sides. "Harry?... You reckon you could——"
"What, Chris?" The plunge of her heart was like the gallop of a frightened colt.
"—You reckon you could take me with 'em, with them dishes, break me in with 'em for yours?... Little girl?"
Her lips moved but no sound came from them. Yet he read her answer in her eyes and it must have satisfied him because he bent his head to hers and for an instant he held her. Then he took her hand. "Come along. Let's take a look at the winter half of this Homestead Ranch of ours."
THE END