By Right of Purchase Part 26

She swept on, her light skirt blown about her, her loosened hair whipping her hot face, while a thud of hoofs broke out behind her. The horse's blood was up, too, so she let him go, stretched out at a flying gallop, up low rise and over long level. The birches flashed by, and the open waste lay in front. While n.o.body riding that pace could find the trail, there was a shallow coulee a league away with stunted birches on the edge of it, which would presently rise for a landmark out of the prairie. Once she glanced over her shoulder. There was only the soft darkness, out of which there came a thumping that seemed to be growing fainter.

She was almost upon the birches when she heard another beat of hoofs in front of her now, and she sent up a breathless cry.

"Charley!" she called, and again in fierce impatience, "Charley!"

For a moment she was conscious of a torturing suspense, and then a man's voice came out of the darkness in answer.

"All right," it said. "I'm coming straight along."

In another few moments a shadowy figure had materialised out of the prairie. She pulled her horse up with a struggle when Leland drew bridle beside her.

"Steady, my dear," he said. "Get your breath and tell me what it is."

Carrie gasped out her news, and the man sat silent a moment or two.

"Urmston's there, and Mrs. Annersly," he said. "I don't think they'll hurt them, but I'd better get on."

Carrie leant out from the saddle, and attempted to touch his bridle as the fidgeting horses pranced side by side.

"No," she said, "you mustn't. I will not have you go. I think they mean to kill you."

Leland appeared to smile. "I guess that contract would be a little too big for them. Still, if Urmston riled them, they might hurt him. The man's a friend of yours."

Carrie laughed somewhat bitterly. "I don't think he will do anything very injudicious. Eveline Annersly's room is just across the house, and she sleeps very soundly."

"They wouldn't hurt her," said Leland, reflectively. "One could count on that. Urmston would be all right, too, if he has sense enough to keep quiet. Now, there are two of Grier's troopers camping in a bluff a league back to watch the trail, and if I could only bring them up before the rustlers go, we ought to get one or two of them. It's 'most worth while trying. You'll ride round with me?"

Nothing more was said when Carrie signified that she was willing, and they rode on again to where the troopers were. Then with these reinforcements they turned back to Prospect, arriving there when dawn was climbing into the sky. There was no sign of the rustlers, but Urmston stood just outside the door.

"They went soon after Mrs. Leland got away," he said. "I feel that I ought to make excuses for leaving the thing to her, though I'm not sure that there was, in view of the circ.u.mstances, any other course open to me."

Leland laughed as he swung himself from the saddle. "That's all right.

You did the sensible thing, and n.o.body's going to blame you," he said.

"If you don't mind rousing Jake, we'll get the troopers breakfast before they go away. You know your way to the stables, boys."

Urmston and the troopers disappeared, and Carrie looked down on her husband, who stood, a shadowy figure, beside her stirrup.

"You," she said, with a little soft laugh, "would have found another course."

Leland said nothing, but stretched his arms up, and, when she slipped from the saddle into them, held her there while he kissed her.

CHAPTER XIX

PRAIRIE HAY

It was the middle of a scorching afternoon when Carrie drew her waggon over a low rise and down the long slope to the dried-up sloo. Urmston, riding beside it, sprinkled white with dust, looked uncomfortably hot, and Eveline Annersly, whose face was unpleasantly flushed, tried in vain to shelter herself beneath her parasol in the jolting waggon.

"I am positively melting, and my head aches," she said. "If I had known how hot it was, you would never have got me here, and, if Mrs. Custer will keep me, I am not going back to Prospect to-night. How does your husband work this weather?"

Carrie laughed as she pulled her team up near the sloo. She, at least, looked delightfully fresh and almost cool in her long white dress and big white hat.

"He would probably tell you it is because he has to," she said. "In any event, he seems to be working rather harder than ever."

"It is one of Charley Leland's strong points that he knows when a thing has to be done," and Eveline Annersly glanced at Urmston with a little smile. "There are men who don't, and never will, though they are sometimes able to s.h.i.+ft the consequences on to the shoulders of other people."

Then she turned, and blinked about her with half-dazed eyes. In front of the waggon a haze of dust floated up against the intense blueness of the sky, and under it a belt of tall, harsh gra.s.s rustled drily in the scant, hot breeze. Everything seemed white and suffused with brightness.

Beyond them, the parched, grey prairie rolled back to the horizon. There was no shade anywhere, nor, so far as the eye could travel, a single speck of green.

"And this is a prairie sloo!" she said. "I had pictured a nice, cool lake where the wild duck swim. Charley is, presumably, haymaking, though I never saw it done this way before."

The dust settled a little, and, with a clas.h.i.+ng tinkle, there came out of it three big teams and lurching machines. The gra.s.s went down before them crackling harshly, and the horses plodded on with tossing heads and whipping tails amidst a cloud of flies. Men followed behind them heaping the hay in piles, and across the mown strip of sloo more men, almost naked, were flinging the last of the mounds into a waggon. There is no need of turning and winnowing in that country. The one thing necessary is to find gra.s.s tall enough to cut, and get it home before the fires do the reaping.

The big machines came nearer with a clash and clatter and gleam of sliding knives, and Leland, swinging his team out from the gra.s.s, got down from his driving-seat.

"Where's my jacket, Tom?" he said to the man on the machine behind his.

"I expect it has gone home. You pitched it into the waggon," said Tom Gallwey, who, swinging off his hat as his team went by, plunged into the dust again.

Leland moved forward with a deprecatory gesture as he stopped beside the waggon. He wore a coa.r.s.e blue s.h.i.+rt and old jean trousers, both of which were smeared with black grease, on which the dust had settled, for one of the mowers had given him trouble that morning. There was dust, too, on his dripping face and bare arms, which were scarred here and there.

Still, the thin attire lent a certain grace to his wiry figure, and he appeared the personification of strength and activity. From another point of view, his appearance was, however, distinctly against him, and Carrie fancied she knew what Urmston was thinking, as he sat still in his saddle, immaculate, save for a sprinkling of dust, in neat boots, straw hat, and tweed. The difference between the men would have had its effect upon her once, but now she looked down at Leland with an understanding smile.

"You have been mowing all the time?" she said.

"Since sun-up," and Leland laughed. "I couldn't give the teams more than an hour's rest, either. We have to clean this sloo up by dark."

Carrie glanced at the great belt of gra.s.s and wondered how it was to be done.

"It looks out of the question, and it's very hot," she said. "Couldn't you stop a little earlier, for once, and ride over to the Range? Mrs.

Custer half expects you at supper."

She evidently wanted him to come, and Leland, who seemed to feel it, glanced back irresolutely at the sloo.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "It's quite a way, and I haven't a horse. The others couldn't get done by dark without me, and we couldn't come back here to-morrow. You'll have to excuse me."

Carrie was displeased, though she would not show it, for she had seen the smile of satisfaction in Urmston's eyes. Appearances, she knew, counted for a good deal with him, as much, in fact, as they had once done with her, and she would sooner he had not been there when the dusty haymaker made it evident that he was unwilling to leave his work, although she had suggested that this would please her.

"I suppose it's necessary?" she said.

Leland appeared to hesitate a moment. "I must get this gra.s.s home to-night, but, if it's not too late, I would like you to drive round and pick me up. It would get me back 'most an hour earlier."

Carrie was sensible, with a little annoyance, that Urmston was watching her. "Well," she said, "I can't exactly promise. It will depend upon when Mrs. Custer lets us go."

Just then a light waggon came jolting down the opposite slope, and its driver pulled his team up when it drew even with them.

"I've some letters for Prospect, and you have saved me 'most a league's ride. That counts on a day like this," he said.