The Rustler of Wind River Part 43

"I know."

"But I don't blame Mr. Macdonald, they deceived him, the rustlers deceived him and told him lies. He didn't belong to this country, he couldn't know at first, or understand. Frances"--she put her hand on her friend's shoulder, and lifted her head as if trying to pierce the dark and look into her eyes--"don't you know how it was with him? He was too much of a man to turn his back on them, even when he found he was on the wrong side. A man like him _must_ have understood it our way."

"What he has done in this country calls for no excuse," returned Frances, loftily.

"In your eyes and mine he wouldn't need any excuse for anything he might do," said Nola, with a sagacity unexpected. "We love him, and we'd love him, right or wrong. Well"--a sigh--"you've got a right to love him, and I haven't. I wouldn't try to make him care for me now if I could, for I'm different; I'm all emptied out."

"It takes more than you've gone through to empty a human life, Nola.

But you have no right to love him; honor and honesty are in the way, friends.h.i.+p not considered at all. You'll spring up in the sun again after a little while, like fresh gra.s.s that's trodden on, just as happy and light-hearted as before. Let me have this one without any more interference--there are plenty in the world that you would stand heart-high to with your bright little head, just as well as Alan Macdonald."

"I can't give him up, the thought of him, and the longing for him, without regret, Frances; I can't!"

"I wouldn't have you do it. I want you to have regret, and pain--not too deep nor too lasting, but some corrective pain. Now, go to sleep."

Frances pressed her back to the pillow, and touched her head with light caress.

"Frances," she whispered, a new gladness dawning in her voice, "I'll go and see those poor people, and try to help them--if they'll let me.

Maybe we _were_ wrong--partly, anyhow."

"That's better," Frances encouraged.

"And I'll try not to care for him, or think about him, even one little bit."

Frances bent and kissed her. Nola's arms clung to her neck a little, holding her while she whispered in her ear.

"For I'm going to be different, I'm going to be good--abso-_lutely_ good!"

CHAPTER XXIV

BANJO FACES INTO THE WEST

"You don't tell me? So the old colonel's got what his heart's been pinin' for many a year. Well, well!"

Mrs. Chadron was beside her window in her favored rocker again, less a.s.sertive of bulk in her black dress, not so florid of face, and with lines of sadness about her mouth and eyes. A fire was snapping in the chimney, for the gray sky was driving a bitter wind, and the first snowflakes of winter were straying down.

Banjo Gibson was before the fire, his ears red, his cheeks redder, just in from a brisk ride over from the post. His instruments lay beside him on the floor, and he was limbering his fingers close to the blaze.

"Yes, he's a brigamadier now," said he.

"Brigadier-General Landcraft," said she, musingly, looking away into the grayness of the day; "well, maybe he deserves it. Fur as I'm concerned, he's welcome to it, and I'm glad for Frances' sake."

"He's vinegar and red pepper, that old man is! Takin' him up both sides and down the middle, as the feller said, I reckon the colonel--or brigamadier, I guess they'll call him now--he's about as good as they make 'em. I always did have a kind of a likin' for that old feller--he's something like me."

"It was nice of you to come over and tell me the news, anyhow, Banjo; you're always as obligin' and thoughtful as you can be."

"It's always been a happiness and a pleasure, mom, and I've come a good many times with news, sad and joyful, to your door. But I reckon it'll be many a long day before I come ridin' to Alamito with news ag'in; many a long, long day."

"What do you mean, Banjo? You ain't goin'--"

"To Californy; startin' from here as soon as my horse blows a spell and eats his last feed at your feed box, mom. I've got to make it to Meander to ketch the mornin' train."

"Oh, Banjo! you don't tell me!" Tears gushed to Mrs. Chadron's eyes, used to so much weeping now, and her lips trembled as she pressed them hard to keep back a sob. "You're the last friend of the old times, the last face outside of this house belongin' to the old days. When you're gone my last friend, the very last one I care about outside of my own, 'll be gone!"

Banjo cleared his throat unsteadily, and looked very hard at the fire for quite a spell before he spoke.

"The best of friends must part," he said.

"Yes, they must part," she admitted, her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, her voice m.u.f.fled behind it.

"But they ain't no use of me stayin' around in this country and pinin'

for what's gone, and starvin' on the edge," said Banjo, briskly.

"Since you've sold out the cattle and the boys is all gone, scattered ever-which-ways and to Texas, and the homesteaders is comin' into this valley as thick as blackbirds, it ain't no place for me. I don't mix with them kind of people, I never did. You've give it all up to 'em, they tell me, but this homestead, mom?"

"All but the homestead," she sighed, her tears checked now, her eyes on the farthest hill, where she had watched the crest many and many a time for Saul to rise over it, riding home from Meander.

"You hadn't ort to let it go," said he, shaking his sad head.

"I couldn't'a'held it, the lawyers and Mr. Macdonald told me that.

It's public land, Banjo, it belongs to them folks, I reckon. But we was here first!" A futile sigh, a regretful sigh, a sigh bitter with old recollections.

"I reckon that's so, down to the bottom of it, but you folks made this country what it was, and by rights it's yourn. Well, I stopped in to say good-bye to the old brigamadier-colonel over at the post as I come through. He tells me Alan and that little girl of hisn that stuck to him and stood up for him through thick and thin 're goin' to be married at Christmas time."

"Then they'll be leavin', too," she said.

"No, they're goin' to build on his ranch up the river and stay here, and that old brigamadier-colonel he's goin' to take up land next to 'em, or has took it up, one of the two, and retire from the army when they're married. He says this country's the breath of his body and he couldn't live outside of it, he's been here so long."

"Well, well!" said she, her face brightening a little at the news.

"How's Alan by now?"

"Up and around--he's goin' to leave us in the morning."

"Frances here?" he asked.

"No, she went over home this morning--I thought maybe you met her--but she's comin' back for him in the morning."

Banjo sat musing a little while. Then--

"Yes, you'll have neighbors, mom, plenty of 'em. A colony of nesters is comin' here, three or four hundred of 'em, they tell me, all ready to go to puttin' up schoolhouses and go to plowin' in the spring. And they're goin' to run that h.e.l.l-snortin' railroad right up this valley.

I reckon it'll cut right along here somewheres a'past your place."

"Yes, changes'll come, Banjo, changes is bound to come," she sighed.

"All over this country, they say, the nesters'll squat now wherever they want to, and n.o.body won't dast to take a shot at 'em to drive 'em off of his gra.s.s. They put so much in the papers about this rustlers'