The Rustler of Wind River Part 9

"I haven't the honor"--he began stiffly, seeing that it was an inferior civilian, for all civilians, except the president, were inferior to the colonel.

"Macdonald is my name. I am a rancher in this country; you will have heard of me," the visitor replied.

"Nothing to your credit, young man," said the colonel, tartly. "What do you want?"

"A man's chance," said Macdonald, earnestly. "Will you let me explain?"

Colonel Landcraft stood out of the doorway; Macdonald entered.

"I'll make a light," said the colonel, lowering the window-shades before he struck the match. When he had the flame of the student's lamp on top of his desk regulated to conform to his exactions, the colonel faced about suddenly.

"I am listening, sir."

"At the beginning, sir, I want you to know who I am," said Macdonald, producing papers. "My father, Senator Hampden Macdonald of Maine, now lives in Was.h.i.+ngton. You have heard of him. I am Alan Macdonald, late of the United States consular service. It is unlikely that you ever heard of me in that connection."

"I never heard of you before I came here," said the colonel, unfavorably, unfolding the credentials which the visitor had placed on his desk, and skimming them with cursory eye. Now he looked up from his reading with a sudden little jerk of the head, and stood at severe attention. "And the purpose of this visit, sir?"

"First, to prove to you that the notorious character given me by the cattlemen of this country is slanderous and unwarranted; secondly, to ask you to give me a man's chance, as I have said, in a matter to which I shall come without loss of words. I am a gentleman, and the son of a gentleman; I do not acknowledge any moral or social superiors in this land."

The colonel, drew himself up a notch, and seemed to grow a little at that. He looked hard at the tall, fair-haired, sober-faced man in front of him, as if searching out his points to justify the bold claim upon respectability that he had made. Macdonald was dressed in almost military precision; the colonel could find no fault with that. His riding-breeches told that they had been cut for no other legs, his coat set to his shoulders with gentlemanly ease. Only his rather greasy sombrero, with its weighty leather band, and the bulging revolvers under his coat seemed out of place in the general trimness of his attire.

"Go on, sir," the colonel said.

"I had the honor of meeting Miss Landcraft last night at the masquerade given by Miss Chadron--"

"How was that, sir? Did you have the effrontery to force yourself into a company which despises you, at the risk of your life and the decorum of the a.s.semblage?"

"I was drawn there," Macdonald spoke slowly, meeting the colonel's cold eye with steady gaze, "by a hope that was miraculously realized.

I did risk my life, and I almost lost it. But that is nothing unusual--I risk it every day."

"You saw Miss Landcraft at the ball, danced with her, I suppose, talked with her," nodded the colonel, understandingly. "Macdonald, you are a bold, a foolishly bold, man."

"I saw Miss Landcraft, I danced with her, I talked with her, and I have come to you, sir, after a desperate ride through the night to save my life as the penalty of those few minutes of pleasure, to request the privilege of calling upon Miss Landcraft and paying my court to her. I ask you to give me a man's chance to win her hand."

The audacity of the request almost tied the colonel's sharp old tongue. For a moment he stood with his mouth open, his face red in the gathering storm of his sudden pa.s.sion.

"Sir!" said he, in amazed, unbelieving voice.

"There are my credentials--they will bear investigation," Macdonald said.

"d.a.m.n your credentials, sir! I'll have nothing to do with them, you blackguard, you scoundrel!"

"I ask you to consider--"

"I can consider nothing but the present fact that you are accused of deeds of outlawry and violence, and are an outcast of society, even the crude society of this wild country, sir. No matter who you are or whence you sprung, the evidence in this country is against you. You are a brigand and a thief, sir--this act of barbaric impetuosity in itself condemns you--no civilized man would have the effrontery to force himself into my presence in such a manner and make this insane demand."

"I am exercising a gentleman's prerogative, Colonel Landcraft."

"You are a vulture aspiring to soar among eagles, sir!"

"You have heard only the cattlemen's side of the story, Colonel Landcraft," said Macdonald, with patience and restraint. "You know that every man who attempts to build a fence around his cabin in this country, and strikes a furrow in the ground, is a rustler according to their creed."

"I am aware that there is narrowness, injustice even, on the drovers'

side," the colonel admitted, softening a little, it seemed. "But for all that, even if you were an equal, and an honest man, the road to Miss Landcraft's heart is closed to a.s.sault, no matter how wild and sudden. She is plighted to another man."

"Sir--"

"It is true; she will be married in the Christmas holidays. Go your way now, Macdonald, and dismiss this romantic dream. You build too high on the slight favor of a thoughtless girl. A dance or two is nothing, sir; a whispered word is less. If you were the broad man of the world that you would have me believe, you have known this.

Instead, you come das.h.i.+ng in here like a savage and claim the right to woo her. Preposterous! She is beyond your world, sir. Go back to your wild riding, Macdonald, and try to live an honest man."

Macdonald stood with his head bent, brows gathered in stubborn expression of resistance. Colonel Landcraft could read in his face that there was no surrender, no acknowledgment of defeat, in that wild rider's heart. The old warrior felt a warming of admiration for him, as one brave man feels for another, no matter what differences lie between them. Now Macdonald lifted his face, and there was that deep movement of laughter in his eyes that Frances had found so marvelous on the day of their first meeting.

"Perhaps her heart is untouched, sir, in spite of the barricade that has been raised between it and the world," he said.

The colonel studied him shrewdly a little while before replying.

"Macdonald, you're a strange man, a stubborn man, and a strong one.

There is work for a man like you in this life; why are you wasting it here?"

"If I live six months longer the world beyond these mountains will know," was all that Macdonald said, taking up the papers which he had submitted to the colonel, and placing them again in his pocket.

Colonel Landcraft shook his head doubtfully.

"Running off other men's cattle never will do it, Macdonald."

The door of the colonel's room which gave into the hall of the main entrance opened without the formality of announcement. Frances drew back in quick confusion, speaking her apology from behind the door.

"I ask your pardon, father. I heard voices here and wondered who it could be--I didn't know you had come home."

"Your appearance is opportune, Miss Landcraft," her father told her, with no trace of ill-humor. "Come in. Here is this wild Alan Macdonald come bursting in upon us from his hills."

The colonel indicated him with a wave of the hand, and Macdonald bowed, his heart shrinking when he saw how coldly she returned his greeting from her place at the door.

"He has come riding," the colonel continued, "with a demand on me to be allowed to woo you, and carry you off to his cave among the rocks.

Show him the door, and add your testimony to my a.s.surance--which seems inadequate to satisfy the impetuous gentleman--that his case is hopeless."

The colonel waved them away with that, and turned again, with his jerky suddenness, to his telegrams and letters. The colonel had not meant for Macdonald to pa.s.s out of the door through which he had entered. That was the military portal; the other one, opening into the hall from which Frances came, was the world's door for entering that house. And it was in that direction Colonel Landcraft had waved them when he ordered Frances to take the visitor away.

"This way, Mr. Macdonald, please," said she, politely cold, unfeelingly formal. For all the warmth that he could discover in her voice and eyes, or in her white face, so unaccountably severe and hard, there might never have been a garden with white gravel path, or a hot hasty kiss given in it--and received.

In the hall the gloom of evening was deepened into darkness that made her face indistinct, like the glimmering whiteness of the hydrangea blooms in that past romantic night. She marched straight to the street door and opened it, and he had no strength in his words to lift even a small one up to stay her. He believed that he had taken the man's course and the way of honor in the matter. That it had not been indorsed by her was evident, he believed.

"There was nothing for me to conceal," said he, as the door opened upon the gray twilight and glooming trees along the street; "I came in a man's way, as I thought--"

"You came in a man's way, Mr. Macdonald, to ask the privilege of attempting to win a woman's hand, when you lack the man's strength or the man's courage to defend even the glove that covers it," she said.

Her voice was low; it was accusingly scornful.

Macdonald started. "Then it has come back to you?"