The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 10

There was discussion, but Larry sat still, saying nothing further, with a curious gravity in his face, until a man stood up again.

"We think you're right," he said. "Still, there's a question. What are you going to do if they try again?"

"Strike," said Larry quietly. "I'll go with you to the hanging of the next one."

Nothing more was said, and the men rode away with relief in their faces, though three of them, girt with rifle and bandolier, trotted behind the wagon in which the prisoner sat.

VII

LARRY PROVES INTRACTABLE

It was some little time after her arrival at Cedar Range when Miss Torrance, who took Flora Schuyler with her, rode out across the prairie.

There were a good many things she desired to investigate personally, and, though a somewhat independent young woman, she was glad that the opportunity of informing Torrance of her intention was not afforded her, since he had ridden off somewhere earlier in the day. It also happened that although the days were growing colder she arrayed herself fastidiously in a long, light skirt, which she had not worn since she left Cedar, and which with the white hat that matched it became her better than the conventional riding attire. Miss Schuyler naturally noticed this.

"Is it a garden party we are going to?" she asked.

Hetty laughed. "We may meet some of our neighbours, and after staying with you all that while in New York I don't want to go back on you. I had the thing specially made in Chicago for riding in."

Miss Schuyler was not quite satisfied, but she made no further comment, and there was much to occupy her attention. The bleached plain was bright with suns.h.i.+ne and rolled back into the distance under an arch of cloudless blue, while the crisp, clear air stirred her blood like an elixir. They swept up a rise and down it, the colour mantling in their faces, over the long hollow, and up a slope again, until, as the white gra.s.s rolled behind her, Flora Schuyler yielded to the exhilaration of swift motion, and, flinging off the constraint of the city, rejoiced in the springy rush of the mettlesome beast beneath her. Streaming white levels, the blue of the sliding sky, the kiss of the wind on her hot cheek, and the roar of hoofs, all reacted upon her until she laughed aloud when she hurled her half-wild broncho down a slope.

"This is surely the finest country in the world," she said.

The words were blown behind her, but Hetty caught some of them, and, when at last she drew bridle where a rise ran steep and seamed with badger-holes against the sky, nodded with a little air of pride.

"Oh, yes, and it's ours. All of it," she said. "Worth fighting for, isn't it?"

Flora Schuyler laughed a little, but she shook her head. "It's a pity one couldn't leave that out. You would stay here with your men folk if there was trouble?"

Hetty looked at her with a little flash in her eyes. "Why, of course! It's our country. We made it, and I'd go around in rags and groom the boys'

horses if it would help them to whip out the men who want to take it from us."

Flora Schuyler smiled a trifle drily. "The trouble is that when we fall out, one is apt to find as good Americans as we are, and sometimes the men we like the most, standing in with the opposition. It has happened quite often since the war."

Hetty shook her bridle impatiently. "Then, of course, one would not like them any longer," she said.

Nothing more was said until they crossed the ridge above them, when Hetty pulled her horse up. Across the wide levels before her advanced a line of dusty teams, the sunlight twinkling on the great breaker ploughs they hauled, while the black loam rolled in softly gleaming waves behind them.

They came on with slow precision, and in the forefront rolled a great machine that seamed and rent the prairie into triple furrows.

"What are they doing there? Do they belong to you?" asked Miss Schuyler.

The flush the wind had brought there turned to a deeper crimson in Hetty's usually colourless face. "To us!" she said, and her voice had a thrill of scorn. "They're homesteaders. Ride down. I want to see who's leading them."

She led the way with one little gloved hand clenched on the dainty switch she held; but before she reached the foremost team the man who pulled it up sprang down from the driving-seat of the big machine. A tall wire fence, with a notice attached to it, barred his way. The other ploughs stopped behind him, somebody brought an axe, and Hetty set her lips when the glistening blade whirled high and fell. Thrice it flashed in the sunlight, swung by sinewy arms, and then, as the fence went down, a low, half-articulate cry rose from the waiting men. It was not exultant, but there was in it the suggestion of a steadfast purpose.

Hetty sat still and looked at them, a little sparkle in her dark eyes, and a crimson spot in either cheek, while the laces that hung from her neck across the bodice of the white dress rose and fell. It occurred to Flora Schuyler that she had never seen her companion look half so well, and she waited with strained expectancy for what should follow, realizing, with the dramatic instinct most women have, who the man with the axe must be.

He turned slowly, straightening his back and stood for a moment erect and statuesque, with the blue s.h.i.+rt open at his bronzed neck and the great axe gleaming in his hand; and Hetty gasped. Miss Schuyler's surmise was verified, for it was Larry Grant.

"Larry," said her companion, and her voice had a curious ring, "what are you doing here?"

The man, who appeared to ignore the question, swung off his wide hat.

"Aren't you and Miss Schuyler rather far from home?" he asked.

Flora Schuyler understood him when, glancing round, she noticed the figure of a mounted man forced up against the skyline here and there. Hetty, however, had evidently not seen them.

"I want an answer, please," she said.

"Well," said Larry gravely, "I was cutting down that fence."

"Why were you cutting it down?" persisted Miss Torrance.

"It was in the way."

"Of what?"

Grant turned and pointed to the men, st.u.r.dy toilers starved out of bleak Dakota and axe-men farmers from the forests of Michigan. "Of these, and the rest who are coming by and by," he said. "Still, I don't want to go into that; and you seem angry. You haven't offered to shake hands with me, Hetty."

Miss Torrance sat very still, one hand on the switch, and another on the bridle, looking at him with a little scornful smile on her lips. Then she glanced at the prairie beyond the severed fence.

"That land belongs to my friends," she said.

Grant's face grew a trifle wistful, but his voice was grave. "They have had the use of it, but it belongs to the United States, and other people have the right to farm there now. Still, that needn't make any trouble between you and me."

"No?" said the girl, with a curious hardness in her inflection; but her face softened suddenly. "Larry, while you only talked we didn't mind; but no one fancied you would have done this. Yes, I'm angry with you. I have been home 'most a month, and you never rode over to see me; while now you want to talk politics."

Grant smiled a trifle wearily. "I would sooner talk about anything else; and if you ask him, your father will tell you why I have not been to the range. I don't want to make you angry, Hetty."

"Then you will give up this foolishness and make friends with us again,"

said the girl, very graciously. "It can't come to anything, Larry, and you are one of us. You couldn't want to take away our land and give it to this rabble?"

Hetty was wholly bewitching, as even Flora Schuyler, who fancied she understood the grimness in the man's face, felt just then. He, however, looked away across the prairie, and the movement had its significance to one of the company, who, having less at stake, was the more observant.

When he turned again, however, he seemed to stand very straight.

"I'm afraid I can't," he said.

"No?" said Hetty, still graciously. "Not even when I ask you?"

Grant shook his head. "They have my word, and you wouldn't like me to go back upon what I feel is right," he said.

Hetty laughed. "If you will think a little, you can't help seeing that you are very wrong."

Again the little weary smile crept into Grant's face. "One naturally thinks a good deal before starting in with this kind of thing, and I have to go through. I can't stop now, even to please you. But can't we still be friends?"

For a moment there was astonishment in the girl's face, then it flushed, and as her lips hardened and every line in her slight figure seemed to grow rigid, she reminded Miss Schuyler of the autocrat of Cedar Range.

"You ask me that?" she said. "You, an American, turning Dutchmen and these bush-choppers loose upon the people you belong to. Can't you see what the answer must be?"