Ironheart

The advancing dust cloud rose from a little group of horses and men. Some of the latter were riding. Others were afoot.

“Lon’s caught them,” said Betty. “I’m sorry.”

“Not so sorry as they’ll be,” returned the ragged youth grimly.

The foreman swung heavily from his horse. Though he was all muscle and bone, he did not carry his two hundred pounds gracefully.

“We got the birds all right, Miss Betty, even if they were hittin’ the trail right lively,” he called to the girl, an ominous grin on his leathery face. “I guess they’d figured out this wasn’t no healthy climate for them.” He added, with a swift reversion to business, “Where’s yore paw?”

“Not back yet. What’ll he do with them, Lon?” the girl asked, her voice low and troubled.

Distressed in soul, she was looking for comfort. The big foreman gave her none.

“He’ll do a plenty. You don’t need to worry about that. We aim to keep this country safe for our womenfolks.”

“Oh, I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he’d let them go,” she said, almost in a wail.

“He won’t. Clint ain’t that soft.” Forbes stared at the disreputable vagrant standing beside Betty. “What’s he doing here?”

“Dusty dragged him back. That’s all the sense he has.”

Lon spoke just as though the vagrant were not present. “Lucky for him he’s got an alibi this time.”

“Is it necessary to insult him after he protected me?” the girl demanded, eyes flashing. “I’m ashamed of you, Lon.”

He was taken aback. “I reckon it takes more’n that to insult a hobo.”

“Is a man a hobo because he’s looking for work?”

The foreman’s hard gaze took in the man, his white face and soft hands. “What would he do if he found it?” he asked bluntly.

“You’ve no right to say that,” she flung back. “I think it’s hateful the way you’re all acting. I tell you he fought for me—after what Father did to him.”

“Fought for you?” This was news to Lon. His assumption had been that the young fellow had merely entered a formal protest in order to clear himself in case retribution followed. “You mean with his fists?”

“Yes—against the thin-faced one. He thrashed him and put me on my horse and started me home. Then Dusty ropes him and drags him here on the ground and you come and insult him. He must think we’re a grateful lot.”

As they looked at the slim, vital girl confronting him with such passionate and feminine ferocity, the eyes of the foreman softened. All her life she had been a part of his. He had held her on his knee, a crowing baby, while her dimpled fingers clung to his rough coat or explored his unshaven face. He had fished her out of an irrigation ditch when she was three. He had driven her to school when for the first time she started on that great adventure. It had been under his direction that she had learned to ride, to fish, to shoot. He loved her as though she had been flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood. It was a delight to him to be bullied by her and to serve her whims.

“I renig,” he said. “Clint never told me the boy done that. I had it doped out he was just savin’ his own hide. But I’ll take it all back if it’s like you say. Shake, son.”

The tramp did not refuse to grip the big brown hand thrust at him. Nor did he accept the proffered alliance. By a fraction of a second he forestalled the foreman by stooping to knot a broken lace in one of the gaping shoes.

Cig, who had been edging closer, gave Tug a rancorous look. “I ain’t forgettin’ this,” he promised. “I’ll get youse good some day for rappin’ on me.”

“He didn’t tell on you. Some of my men brought him here in the gather like we did you,” Forbes explained.

“Wot’ell youse givin’ me? He rapped. That’s wot he done, the big stiff. An’ I’ll soitainly get him right for it.”

“That kind of talk ain’t helpin’ you any,” the foreman said. “If you got any sense, you’ll shut yore trap an’ take what’s comin’.”

“I’ll take it. Don’t youse worry about that. You’d better kill me while youse are on the job, for I’ll get you, too, sure as I’m a mont’ old.”

Reed drove up in the old car he used for a runabout. He killed the engine, stepped down, and came up to the group by the porch.

“See you rounded ’em up, Lon.”

“Yep. Found ’em in the cottonwoods acrost the track at Wild Horse.”

The ranchman’s dominant eyes found Tug. “Howcome you here?” he asked.

The gay-cat looked at him in sullen, resentful silence. The man’s manner stirred up in the tramp a flare of opposition.

“Dusty brought him here. I want to tell you about that, Dad,” the girl said.

“Later.” He turned to Tug. “I want a talk with you—got a proposition to make you. See you later.”

“Not if I see you first,” the ragged nomad replied insolently. “I never did like bullies.”

The ranchman flushed angrily, but he put a curb on his temper. He could not afford to indulge it since he was so much in this youth’s debt. Abruptly he turned away.

“Bring the other two to the barn,” he ordered Forbes. “We’ll have a settlement there.”

York shuffled forward, in a torment of fear. “See here, mister. I ain’t got a thing to do with this. Honest to Gawd, I ain’t. Ask Tug. Ask the young lady. I got respeck for women, I have. You wouldn’t do dirt to an old ’bo wot never done you no harm, would you, boss?”

His voice was a whine. The big gross man was on the verge of blubbering. He seemed ready to fall on his knees.

“It’s true, Dad. He didn’t touch me,” Betty said in a low voice to her father.

“Stood by, didn’t he? Never lifted a hand for you.”

“Yes, but—”

“You go into the house. Leave him to me,” ordered Reed. “Keep this young man here till I come back.”

Betty knew when words were useless with her father. She turned away and walked to the porch.

The cowpunchers with their prisoners moved toward the barn. York, ululating woe, had to be dragged.

Left alone with the tramp called Tug, Betty turned to him a face of dread. “Let’s go into the house,” she said drearily.

“You’d better go in. I’m taking the road now,” he said in answer.

“But Father wants to see you. If you’ll wait just a little—”

“I have no business with him. I don’t care to see him, now or any time.” His voice was cold and hard. “Thank you for the lemonade, Miss Reed. I’ll say good-bye.”

He did not offer his hand, but as he turned away he bowed.

There was nothing more for Betty to say except “Good-bye.”

In a small voice of distress she murmured it.

Her eyes followed him as far as the road. A sound from the barn drove her into the house, to her room, where she could cover her ears with the palms of her small brown hands.

She did not want to hear any echo of what was taking place there.