The Free Range Part 16

The regular boarder, for his part, could not but sympathize with this homely, hard-working, lonely woman. One rarely connected Martha Bissell with old Beef Bissell except in an impersonal way, as one would have connected the corral, or the barn, or the brand. In fact, the cowman seemed hardly cognizant of her existence, long since having transferred all the affections his hard life had left him to the daughter he wors.h.i.+ped.

But Martha, as is so often the case with women who grow old slaving for their husbands, had not changed in her devotion to Bissell since the proud day they had eloped on one horse and been married by a "sky pilot" in the nearest cow town.

Mrs. Bissell had come to that dolorous time in a woman's life when she no longer has the power of attracting male attention--which power is not a matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought.

Loving her daughter as she loved her husband, she derived a certain negative happiness from the fact that their exclusive companions.h.i.+p brought them pleasure.

For herself she asked nothing, and, as is the way of the world, she got it.

For Bud Larkin, who had only known her as an angular, uninteresting addendum of the Bar T, she took on a certain pathetic interest, and he went out of his way to talk with her about the glories of Chicago, since her one dissipation seemed to be mental journeys back East.

Larkin was not strictly a prisoner at the Bar T ranch-house, for this had been found impracticable from a number of standpoints. He had the run of the ranch, an old, decrepit cow pony to ride, and could go in any direction he chose under the supervision of a cowboy who carried a Winchester and was known to have impaled flies on cactus spines at thirty yards.

Occasionally Bud and Juliet rode out together, with this man in the rear, and renewed the old friends.h.i.+p that had lain dormant for so long. During one of these rides the girl, after debating the matter with herself, opened on a delicate subject.

"That Caldwell man is a strange-looking fellow, Bud. Who is he?"

Larkin looked at Juliet closely before replying, but could find nothing in her face to indicate any but a natural curiosity.

"He is a Chicago character I used to know," he returned shortly. "But what brought him out here is a puzzle to me."

"You seemed to want to see him pretty badly," said she, a.s.suming a pout.

"I was really jealous of him taking you off the way he did that first night you came."

"That's the first time I have been flattered with your jealousy," Bud returned gayly. "I'll ask him to come again."

And that was the closest she could come to a discussion of Caldwell's connection with Larkin. The fact, although she would not admit it, gave her more concern than it should have, and kept her constantly under a cloud of uneasiness. Bud's evasion of the subject added strength to the fear that there was really something horrible in Bud's past.

It was on one of his rides alone that Bud suddenly came to a very unflattering solution of another problem in regard to Caldwell. Ever since the stampede he had been giving time to the consideration of Smithy's strange actions that night. There was no love lost between the two, that was certain, and why the blackmailer should risk his life to defeat the rustlers and save the man he hated was beyond Bud's comprehension.

But at last he arrived at a solution that removed all his doubts, and this was that Smithy Caldwell had saved him for the same reason that the old lady in the fairy story was told to preserve the goose.

"Kill the goose and there will be no more golden eggs," remarked the fairy sagely, and evidently Caldwell was ready to heed her advice.

It certainly was worth the effort on Smithy's part, and even when Larkin had finally discovered the man's sordid motives he felt a species of admiration for the man's coolness and bravery. He felt, too, that, if he could not get a grip on the blackmailer before another payment was demanded, he could part with the money for the first time with the feeling that Caldwell had partially earned it.

As to Caldwell's presence among the rustlers, that was another matter entirely, and Larkin could not fathom the mystery. How Smithy, a low Chicago tough, whose only knowledge of a horse had been gained by observation, could so quickly become a trusted member of this desperate gang of cattle-thieves he could not conceive. Was there some occult power about the man--some almost hypnotic influence that pa.s.sed his crossed eyes and narrow features in that company?

Larkin gave it up. But he knew that, should he ever again get his full liberty, his sheep safely across the range, and the leisure to pursue rustlers, Mr. Smithy Caldwell of Chicago would be his especial prey. And he grinned with antic.i.p.ation at the glory of that moment when he should have the blackmailer in his power with enough evidence to swing him.

Stelton was the one man of the whole Bar T outfit who had suffered from the boomerang of his evil plans. It had been through him that Larkin was forced to accompany Bissell home after the stampede; and now he pa.s.sed days and nights of misery, watching the progress of Bud's very evident suit. Chained down by his daily round of duties, his time was not his own, and with a green venom eating at his heart he watched the unfettered Bud ride off across the plains with Juliet, laughing, care-free, and apparently happy.

So greatly did this irk Mr. Stelton that his morose melancholy increased to a point where his own cowpunchers entertained fears for his sanity, and made him acquainted with the fact in their well-known tender manner. This did not serve to buoy his spirits, and he cursed himself roundly for the ridiculous position into which he had led himself.

As to Juliet, he hardly dared pa.s.s a civil time of day with her, so terrible a trial had his thwarted desires in regard to her become.

The fourth day after Bud's arrest old Beef Bissell called for his horse and rode away to the Circle Arrow ranch. Old man Speaker had not seen fit to rally to the cowmen's gathering, and Bissell valued his counsel very much; he had, therefore, gone to fetch him.

During the three days of his absence Mike Stelton suffered another of those reverses which are so exasperating because they are brought about by our own ugly spirits.

All the time he had continued to eat at the ranch table, and had been accorded his share of the conversation and attention. Now, with old Bissell out of the way, his status immediately changed. Mrs. Bissell, Juliet, and Bud were the best of friends, and presented a solid front of uniform but uninterested politeness to the foreman against which he was helpless. On the second day, for the first time in ten years, he moved his seat down into the punchers' dining-room and ate with them.

Such a defeat as this could not pa.s.s unnoticed among the punchers, who had never been accorded the pleasure of their gloomy foreman's presence at meal times, and Stelton suffered keenly from the gibes of the men.

Stelton endured all this with seeming calmness, but when Bissell returned the foreman got his revenge. He outlined with full detail and considerable embellishment the constant progress that Larkin was making with Juliet.

Disclaiming any interest of his own in the matter, he explained that the reason for his complaint was the character of Larkin.

"Why, boss, yuh sh.o.r.e wouldn't want a darned sheepman breakin' Julie's heart," he said, "an' him a Eastern dude at that. You should 'a' seen that feller. Yuh no more'n got yore back turned than he carried on with Juliet all the time. It made me plenty mad, too; but what could I do about it? I just moved my grub-pile down with the boys an' thought I'd tell yuh when yuh came home."

A half an hour of this was sufficient to work Bissell up into a furious rage, and, in something the same temper, he sent for Juliet an hour before dinner.

Now, a man who is subjected to choleric outbursts should never send for anything but food an hour before dinner, for the reason that a very trivial thing looks, at that time, big enough to wreck the nation.

Bissell, however, failed to recollect this simple truth, and greeted his daughter with smoldering eyes, that gradually softened, however, the longer he looked at her.

"There is somethin' I want to ask yuh, Prairie Bell," he began. "Yuh won't mind?"

"No, dear," she answered. "What is it?"

"This sheepman Larkin--is it true yuh been courtin' with him while I been away?"

"I've been riding with him a good deal, and I've seen him every day, if that is what you mean. You trust me to be sensible, don't you, father?"

"Yes, Julie, o' course I do; but I'm just thinkin' of yerself--and of me.

Dunno what people'd say if they knowed ol' Bissell's daughter was traipsin' around with a sheepman that stands in with the rustlers. An'

you--I allow it'd break my heart if yuh ever got fond of that rascal. He's a bad lot."

"I can't agree with you in any of those things," said the girl, with just the right mixture of determination and affection in her voice. "To anyone who is fair, it is no disgrace to be a sheepman; Mr. Larkin is not in with the rustlers, as I believe he outlined to you, nor is he a rascal in any way. Lastly, I don't care what people say about whom I ride with. Mr.

Larkin is a gentleman, and that is all I require."

During this speech, which held the middle ground between daring and prudence, independence and acquiescence, civility and impertinence, Bissell's jaw dropped and his eyes opened. He had rarely, if ever, known his daughter to make such an explicit refutal of his inferences. His brow darkened.

"Yuh never stuck up fer a man like that in yore life, Julie," he accused her severely. "That Larkin is a bad one. Mebbe yuh don't know it, but he can't answer for everything in his life. O' course, you can't understand these things, but I'm just tellin' yuh. Now, I'm plumb sorry to have to do it, but I want yuh to tell me yuh won't go out with him any more."

"I don't think you should ask me that, father," said the girl quietly. "I am old enough to choose my own a.s.sociates. I have known Mr. Larkin for years, where you have only known him for days. I love you too much to disgrace you or mother, daddy dear; but you must not ask me to act like a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl."

To Bissell, after dinner, this talk would have served its intended purpose--that of presenting reasonably the reverse side of the argument.

Now, however, it merely stirred him up. He looked sharply at his daughter with his small, piercing eyes.

"Do you defy me?" he thundered, amazed at the girl's temerity. "All I do is try to think up ways of makin' yuh happy, an' now yuh insist on havin'

this scoundrel make love to yuh, whether I want it or not. Answer me this, Julie, are you in love with him?"

"I've never met another man I cared as much for," she returned with calm frankness, looking at him with big, unafraid brown eyes.

"Great Heavens!" cried Bissell, leaping out of his chair and raising his clenched fists above his head. "That I should come to this! Julie, do yuh know what yore sayin'? Do yuh know what yore doin'?"

"Yes, I do; and do you want to know the reason for it?"

"Yes."