The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 25

"No," Flora Schuyler said coldly. "That was one of the pleasant fancies I had to give up a long time ago."

"I would like a definition of the perfected American," said Clavering.

Miss Schuyler yawned. "Can't you tell him, Hetty? I once heard you talk quite eloquently on that subject."

"I'll try," said Hetty. "It's the man who wants to give his country something, and not get the most he can out of it. The one who goes round planting seeds that will grow and bear fruit, even if it is long after he is there to eat it. No country has much use for the man who only wants to reap."

Clavering a.s.sented, but there was a sardonic gleam in his eyes. "Well," he said reflectively, "there was once a man who planted dragon's teeth, and you know what kind of crop they yielded him."

"He knew what he was doing," said Flora Schuyler. "The trouble is that now few men know a dragon's tooth when they see it."

Clavering laughed. "Then the ones who don't should be stopped right off when they go round planting anything."

XV

HETTY'S BOUNTY

It was a clear, cold afternoon, and Hetty, driving back from Allonby's ranch, sent the team at a gallop down the dip to the Cedar Bridge. The beaten trail rang beneath the steel shoes of the rocking sleigh, the birches streamed up blurred together out of the hollow, and Flora Schuyler felt the wind sting her cheeks like the lash of a whip. The coldness of it dimmed her eyes, and she had only a hazy and somewhat disconcerting vision of a streak of snow that rolled back to the horses' feet amidst the whirling trees. It was wonderfully exhilarating--the rush of the lurching sleigh, the hammering of the hoofs, and the scream of the wind--but Miss Schuyler realized that it was also unpleasantly risky as she remembered the difficult turn before one came to the bridge.

She decided, however, that there was nothing to be gained by pointing this out to her companion, for Hetty, who sat swaying a little in the driving seat, had been in a somewhat curious mood since the attack on Cedar Range, and unusually impatient of advice or remonstrance. Indeed, Flora Schuyler fancied that it was the restlessness she had manifested once or twice of late which impelled her to hurl the sleigh down into the hollow at that reckless pace. So she said nothing, until the streak of snow broke off close ahead, and there were only trees in front of them. Then, a wild lurch cut short the protest she made, and she gasped as they swung round the bend and flashed across the bridge. The trail, however, led steeply upwards now, and Hetty, laughing, dropped the reins upon the plodding horses' necks.

"Didn't that remind you of the Chicago Limited?" she said.

"I was wondering," said Miss Schuyler breathlessly, "if you had any reason for trying to break your neck."

"Well," said Hetty, with a twinkle in her eyes, "I felt I had to do something a little out of the usual, and it was really safe enough.

Everybody feels that way now and then, and I couldn't well work it off by quarrelling with you, or going out and talking to the boys as my father does. I don't know a better cure than a gallop or a switchback in a sleigh."

"Some folks find it almost as soothing to tell their friends what is worrying them, and I scarcely think it's more risky," said Miss Schuyler.

Hetty's face became grave. "Well," she said, "one can talk to you, and I have been worried, Flo. I know that it is quite foolish, but I can't help it. I came back to see my father through the trouble, and I'm going to; but while I know that he's ever so much wiser than I am, some of the things he has to do hurt me. It's our land, and we're going to keep it; but it's not nice to think of the little children starving in the snow."

This, Miss Schuyler decided, was perfectly correct, so far as it went; but she also felt tolerably certain that, while it was commendable, Hetty's loyalty to her father would be strenuously tested, and did not alone account for her restlessness.

"And there was nothing else?" she said.

"No," said Hetty, a little too decisively. "Of course! Any way, now I have told you we are not going to worry about these things to-day, and I drove fast partly because the trail is narrow, and one generally meets somebody here. Did it ever strike you, Flo, that if there's anyone you know in a country that has a bridge in it, you will, if you cross it often enough, meet him there?"

"No," and Miss Schuyler smiled satirically, "it didn't, though one would fancy it was quite likely. I, however, remember that we met Larry here not very long ago. That Canadian blanket suit shows you off quite nicely, Hetty. It is especially adapted to your kind of figure."

Hetty flicked the horses, then pulled them up again, and Miss Schuyler laughed as a sleigh with two men in it swung out from beneath the trees in front of them.

"This is, of course, a coincidence," she said.

Hetty coloured. "Don't be foolish, Flo," she said. "How could I know he was coming?"

Flora Schuyler did not answer, and Hetty was edging her horses to the side of the trail, in which two sleighs could scarcely pa.s.s, when a shout came down.

"Wait. We'll pull up and lead our team round."

In another minute Grant stepped out of his sleigh, and would have pa.s.sed if Hetty had not stopped him. She sat higher than her companion, and probably knew that the Canadian blanket costume, with its scarlet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, became her slender figure. The crimson toque also went well with the cl.u.s.tering dark hair and dark eyes, and there was a brightness in the latter which was in keeping with the colour the cold wind had brought into the delicate oval face. The man glanced at her a moment, and then apparently found that a trace required his attention.

"I am glad we met you, Larry," said the girl. "Flo thanked you the night you came to Cedar, and I wanted to, but, while you know why I couldn't, I would not like you to think it was very unkind of me. Whatever my father does is right, you see."

"Of course," said Grant gravely. "You have to believe it, Hetty."

Hetty's eyes twinkled. "That was very nice of you. Then you must be wrong."

"Well," said Grant, with a merry laugh, "it is quite likely that I am now and then. One can only do the best he can, and to be right all the time is a little too much to expect from any man."

Miss Schuyler, who was talking to Breckenridge, turned and smiled, and Hetty said, "Then, that makes it a little easier for me to admit that the folks I belong to go just a little too far occasionally. Larry, I hate to think of the little children going hungry. Are there many of them?"

Grant's face darkened for a moment. "I'm afraid there are quite a few--and sick ones, too, lying with about half enough to cover them in sod-hovels."

Hetty shuddered and her eyes grew pitiful, for since the grim early days hunger and want had been unknown in the cattle country. "If I want to do something for them it can't be very wrong," she said. "Larry, you will take a roll of bills from me, and buy them whatever will make it a little less hard for them?"

"No," said Grant quietly, "I can't, Hetty. Your father gives you that money, and we have our own relief machinery."

The girl laid her hand upon his arm appealingly. "I have a little my mother left me, and it was hers before she married my father. Can't you understand? I am with my father, and would not lift my finger to help you and the homestead-boys against him, but it couldn't do anybody any harm if I sent a few things to hungry children. You have just got to take those dollars, Larry."

"Then I dare not refuse," said Grant, after thinking a moment. "They need more than we can give them. But you can't send me the dollars."

"No," said Hetty, "and I have none with me now. But if a responsible man came to the bluff to-morrow night at eight o'clock, my maid could slip down with the wallet--you must not come. It would be too dangerous. My father, and one or two of the rest, are very bitter against you."

"Well," said Grant, smiling gravely, "a responsible man will be there.

There are folks who will bless you, Hetty."

"You must never tell them, or anybody," the girl insisted.

Grant said nothing further, and led his team past; but Hetty noticed the shadow in his bronzed face and the wistfulness in his eyes. Then, she shook the reins, and as the horses plodded up the slope Miss Schuyler fancied that she sighed.

In the meanwhile Grant got into his sleigh, and Breckenridge, who had been vanquished by Miss Schuyler in an exchange of badinage, found him somewhat silent during the journey to Fremont ranch. He retired to rest soon after they reached it, and set out again before daylight the next morning, and it was late at night when he came back very weary, with his garments stiff with frost. The great bare room where Breckenridge awaited him was filled with a fusty heat, and as he came in, partly dazed by the change of temperature, Grant did not see the other man who sat amidst the tobacco-smoke beside the glowing stove. He sank into a hide chair limply, and when Breckenridge glanced at him inquiringly, with numbed fingers dragged a wallet out of his pocket.

"Yes," he said, "I got the dollars. I don't know that it was quite the square thing, but with Harper's wife and the Dutchman's children 'most starving in the hollow, I felt I had to take them."

Breckenridge made a little warning gesture, and the man behind the stove, reaching forward, picked up a packet that had dropped unnoticed by the rest when Grant took out the wallet.

"You seem kind of played out, Larry, and I guess you didn't know you dropped the thing," he said.

Grant blinked at him; for a man who has driven for many hours in the cold of the Northwest is apt to suffer from unpleasant and somewhat bewildering sensations when his numbed brain and body first throw off the effect of the frost.

"No," he said unevenly. "Let me alone a minute. I didn't see you."

The man, who was one of the homesteaders' leaders in another vicinity, sat still with the packet in his hand until, perhaps without any intention of reading it, his eyes rested on the address. Then he sat upright suddenly and stared at Grant.