The Rustler of Wind River Part 20

Mrs. Chadron came back from her investigations in the kitchen in a little while to Frances, who waited alone before the happy little fire in the chimney. She sighed as she resumed her rocking-chair by the window, and crossed her seldom idle hands over her comfortably inelegant front.

"It'll be some little time before supper's ready to set down to," she announced regretfully. "Maggie's makin' stuffed peppers, and they're kind of slow to bake. We can talk."

"Of course," Frances agreed, her mind running on the hope that had brought her to the ranch; the hope of seeing Macdonald, and appealing to him in pity's name for peace.

"That thievin' Macdonald's to blame for Chance, our foreman, losin'

the use of his right hand," Mrs. Chadron said, with asperity. "Did Nola tell you about the fight they had with him?"

"Yes, she told me about it as we came."

"It looks like the devil's harnessed up with that man, he does so much damage without ever gittin' hurt himself. He had a crowd of rustlers up there with him when Chance went up there to trace some stock, and they up and killed three of our cowboys. Ain't it terrible?"

"It is terrible!" Frances shuddered, withholding her opinion on which side the terror lay, together with the blame.

"Then Saul went up there with some more of the men to burn that Macdonald's shack and drive him off of our land, and they run into a bunch of them rustlers that Macdonald he'd fetched over there, and two more of our men was killed. It looks like a body's got to fight night and day for his rights now, since them nesters begun to come in here.

Well, we was here first, and Saul says we'll be here last. But I think it's plumb scan'lous the way them rustlers bunches together and fights. They never was known to do it before, and they wouldn't do it now if it wasn't for that black-hearted thief, Macdonald!"

"Did you ever see him?" Frances asked.

"No, I never did, and don't never want to!"

"I just asked you because he doesn't look like a bad man."

"They say he sneaked in here the night of Nola's dance, but I didn't see him. Oh, what 'm I tellin' you? Course you know _that_--you danced with him!"

"Yes," said Frances, neither sorry nor ashamed.

"But you wasn't to blame, honey," Mrs. Chadron comforted, "you didn't know him from Adamses off ox."

Frances sat leaning forward, looking into the fire. The light of the blaze was on her face, appealingly soft and girlishly sweet. Mrs.

Chadron laid a hand on her hair in motherly caress, moved by a tenderness quite foreign to the vindictive creed which she had p.r.o.nounced against the nesters but a little while before.

"I'm afraid you're starved, honey," she said, in genuine solicitude, thus expressing the nearest human sympathy out of her full-feeding soul.

"I'm hungry, but far from starving," Frances told her, knowing that the confession to an appet.i.te would please her hostess better than a gift. "When do you expect Mr. Chadron home?"

"I don't know, honey, but you don't need to worry; them rustlers can't pa.s.s our men Saul left camped up the valley."

"I wasn't thinking of that; I'm not afraid."

Mrs. Chadron chuckled. "Did I tell you about Nola?" she asked. Then, answering herself, before Frances could more than turn her head inquiringly; "No, of course, I never. It was too funny for anything!"

"What was it?" Frances asked, in girlish eagerness. Mrs. Chadron's smile was reflected in her face as she sat straight, and turned expectantly to her hostess.

"The other evening when she and her father was comin' home from the postoffice over at the agency they run acrosst that sneak Macdonald, afoot in the road, guns so thick on him you couldn't count 'em. Saul asked him what he was skulkin' around down this way for, and the feller he was kind of sa.s.sy about it, and tried to pa.s.s Nola and go on. He had the gall to tip his hat to her, just like she was low enough to notice a brand-burner! Well, she give him a larrup over the face with her whip that cut the hide! He took hold of her bridle to shove her horse out of the way so he could run, I reckon, and she switched him till he squirmed like a puppy-dog! I laughed till I nearly split when Saul told me!"

Mrs. Chadron surrendered again to her keen appreciation of the humor in that situation. Frances felt now that she understood the att.i.tude of the cattlemen toward the homesteaders as she never had even sensed it before. Here was this motherly woman, naturally good at heart and gentle, hardened and blinded by her prejudices until she could discuss murder as a thing desired, and the extirpation of a whole community as a just and righteous deed.

There was no feeling of softness in her breast for the manful strivings of Alan Macdonald to make a home in that land, not so much for himself--for it was plain that he would grace a different world to far better advantage--but for the disinherited of the earth. To Mrs.

Chadron he was a thing apart from her species, a horrible, low, grisly monster, to whom the earth should afford no refuge and man no hiding-place. There was no virtue in Alan Macdonald; his fences had killed his right to human consideration.

In a moment Mrs. Chadron was grave again. She put out her hand in that gentle, motherly way and touched Frances' hair, smoothing it from her forehead, pleased with the irrepressible life of it which sprung it back after the pa.s.sage of her palm like water in a vessel's wake.

"I let on to you a little while ago that I wasn't uneasy, honey," she said, "but I ain't no hand at hidin' the truth. I am uneasy, honey, and on pins, for I don't trust them rustlers. I'm afraid they'll hear that Saul's gone, and come sneakin' down here and burn us out before morning, and do worse, maybe. I don't know why I've got that feelin', but I have, and it's heavy in me, like raw dough."

"I don't believe they'd do anything like that," Frances told her.

"Oh, you don't know 'em like we do, honey, the low-down thieves! They ort to be hunted like wolves and shot, wherever they're found."

"Some of them have wives and children, haven't they?" Frances asked, thinking aloud, as she sat with her chin resting in her hand.

"Oh, I suppose they litter like any other wolves," Mrs. Chadron returned, unfeelingly.

"_Si a tu ventana llega una paloma_," sang Maggie in the kitchen, the snapping of the oven door coming in quite harmoniously as she closed it on the baking peppers. Mrs. Chadron sighed.

"_Tratala con carina que es mi persona_," sounded Maggie, a degree louder. Mrs. Chadron sat upright, with a new interest in life apart from her uneasy forebodings about the rustlers. Maggie was in the dining-room, spreading the cloth. The peppers were coming along.

Somebody burst into the kitchen; uncertain feet came across it; a cry broke Maggie's song short as she jingled the silver in place on the cloth. Banjo Gibson stumbled into the room where the low fire twinkled in the chimney, reeling on his legs, his breath coming in groans.

Maggie was behind him, holding the door open; the light from the big lamp on the dining-table fell on the musician, who weaved there as if he might fall. His hat was off, blood was in his eyes and over his face from a wound at the edge of his hair.

"Nola--Nola!" he gasped.

Mrs. Chadron, already beside him, laid hold of him now and shook him.

"Tell it, you little devil--tell it!" she screamed.

Frances, with gentler hand, drew Banjo from her.

"What's happened to Nola?" she asked.

"The rustlers!" he said, his voice falling away in horror.

"The rustlers!" Mrs. Chadron groaned, her arms lifted above her head.

She ran in wild distraction into the dining-room, now back to the chimney to take down a rifle that hung in its case on a deer p.r.o.ng over the mantel.

"Nola, Nola!" she called, running out into the garden. Her wild voice came back from there in a moment, crying her daughter's name in agony.

Banjo had sunk to the floor, his battered face held in his hands.

"My G.o.d! they took her!" he groaned. "The rustlers, they took her, and I couldn't lift a hand!"

Frances beckoned to Maggie, who had followed her mistress to the kitchen door.

"Give him water; stop the blood," she ordered sharply.

In a moment she had dashed out after Mrs. Chadron, and was running frantically along the garden path toward the river.