The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 3

The man smiled curiously. "I am afraid it will take me a lifetime," he said.

In another moment he had gone, and Hetty turned, a trifle flushed in face, towards the house across the lawn.

"He took it very well--and I shall never find anyone half so nice again,"

she said.

It was half an hour later, and Miss Torrance had recovered at least her outward serenity, when one of Mrs. Schuyler's neighbours arrived. She brought one or two young women, and a man, with her. The latter she presented to Mrs. Schuyler.

"Mr. Reginald Clavering," she said. "He's from the prairie where Miss Torrance's father lives, and is staying a day or two with us. When I heard he knew Hetty I ventured to bring him over."

Mrs. Schuyler expressed her pleasure, and--for they had gone back to the lighted room now--Hetty presently found herself seated face to face with the stranger. He was a tall, well-favoured man, slender, and lithe in movement, with dark eyes and hair, and a slightly sallow face that suggested that he was from the South. It also seemed fitting that he was immaculately dressed, for there was a curious gracefulness about him that still had in it a trace of insolence. No one would have mistaken him for a Northerner.

"It was only an hour ago I found we were so near, and I insisted upon coming across at once," he said. "You have changed a good deal since you left the prairie."

"Yes," said the girl drily. "Is it very astonis.h.i.+ng? You see, we don't spend half our time on horseback here. You didn't expect to find me a sharp-tongued Amazon still?"

Clavering laughed as he looked at her, but the approval of what he saw was a trifle too evident in his black eyes.

"Well," he said languidly, "you were our Princess then, and there was only one of your subjects' homage you never took kindly to. That was rough on him, because he was at least as devoted as the rest."

"That," said the girl, with a trace of acerbity, "was because he tried to patronize me. Even if I haven't the right to it, I like respect."

Clavering made a little gesture, and the deference in it was at least half sincere. "You command it, and I must try to make amends. Now, don't you want to hear about your father and the Range?"

"No," said Hetty. "I had a talk with Larry to-day."

"In New York?"

"Yes. At the depot. He is going back to-morrow. You seem astonished?"

Clavering appeared thoughtful. "Well, it's Chicago he usually goes to."

"Usually?" said Hetty. "I scarcely remember him leaving Fremont once in three years."

Clavering laughed. "Then he leaves it a good deal more often now. A man must have a little diversion when he lives as we do, and no doubt Larry feels lonely. You are here, and Heloise Durand has gone away."

Hetty understood the implication, for she had some notion how the men who spent months together in the solitude of the prairie amused themselves in the cities. Nor had she and most of her neighbours wholly approved of the liberal views held by Heloise Durand. She had, however, an unquestioning belief in Larry, and none in the man beside her.

"I scarcely think you need have been jealous of him," she said. "Larry wasn't Miss Durand's kind, and he couldn't be lonely. Everybody was fond of him."

Clavering nodded. "Of course! Still, Larry hasn't quite so many friends lately."

"Now," said Hetty with a little flash in her eyes, "when you've told me that you have got to tell the rest. What has he been doing?"

"Ploughing!" said Clavering drily. "I did what I could to restrain him, but n.o.body ever could argue with Larry."

Hetty laughed, though she felt a little dismay. It was then a serious affair to drive the wheat furrow in a cattle country, and the man who did it was apt to be regarded as an iconoclast. Nevertheless, she would not show that she recognized it.

"Well," she said, "that isn't very dreadful. The plough is supreme in the Dakotas and Minnesota now. Sooner or later it has got to find a place in our country."

"Still, that's not going to happen while your father lives."

The girl realized the truth of this, but she shook her head. "We're not here to talk wheat and cattle, and I see Flo Schuyler looking at us," she said. "Go across and make yourself agreeable to the others for the honour of the prairie."

Clavering went; but he had left an unpleasant impression behind him, as he had perhaps intended, while soon after he took his departure Flora Schuyler found her friend alone.

"So you sent Jake away!" she said.

"Yes," said Hetty. "I don't know what made me, but I felt I had to. I almost meant to take him."

Flora Schuyler nodded gravely. "But it wasn't because of that man Clavering?"

"It was not," said Hetty, with a little laugh. "Don't you like him? He is rather a famous man back there on the prairie."

Flora Schuyler shook her head. "No," she said; "he reminded me of that Florentine filigree thing. It's very pretty, and I bought it for silver, but it isn't."

"You think he's that kind of man?"

"Yes," said Miss Schuyler. "I wouldn't take him at face value. The silver's all on top. I don't know what is underneath it, and would sooner somebody else found out."

III

THE CATTLE-BARONS

It was a still, hot evening when a somewhat silent company of bronze-faced men a.s.sembled in the big living room of Cedar Range. It was built of birch trunks, and had once, with its narrow windows and loopholes for rifle fire, resembled a fortalice; but now cedar panelling covered the logs, and the great double cas.e.m.e.nts were filled with the finest gla.s.s. They were open wide that evening. Around this room had grown up a straggling wooden building of dressed lumber with pillars and scroll-work, and, as it stood then, flanked by its stores and stables, barns and cattle-boys' barracks, there was no homestead on a hundred leagues of prairie that might compare with it.

Outside, on the one hand, the prairie rolled away in long billowy rises, a vast sea of silvery grey, for the gra.s.s that had been green a month or two was turning white again, and here and there a stockrider showed silhouetted, a dusky mounted figure against the paling flicker of saffron that still lingered upon the horizon. On the other, a birch bluff dipped to the Cedar River, which came down faintly chilled with the Rockies' snow from the pine forests of the foothills. There was a bridge four miles away, but the river could be forded beneath the Range for a few months each year. At other seasons it swirled by, frothing in green-stained flood, swollen by the drainage of snowfield and glacier, and there was no stockrider at the Range who dared swim his horse across.

Sun and wind had their will with the homestead, for there was little shelter from icy blizzard and scorching heat at Cedar; but though here and there the frame-boarding gaped and the roof-s.h.i.+ngles were rent, no man accustomed to that country could fail to notice the signs of careful management and prosperity. Corrals, barns, and stables were the best of their kind; and, though the character of all of them was not beyond exception, in physique and fitness for their work it would have been hard to match the sinewy men in blue s.h.i.+rts, wide hats, and long boots, then watering their horses at the ford. They were as daring and irresponsible swashbucklers as ever rode out on mediaeval foray, and, having once sold their allegiance to Torrance of Cedar, and recognized that he was not to be trifled with, were ready to do without compunction anything he bade them.

In the meanwhile Torrance sat at the head of the long table, with Clavering of Beauregard at his right hand. His face was bronzed and resolute, and the stamp of command sat plainly upon him. There was grey in his dark hair, and his eyes were keen and black, with a little glint in them; but, vigorous as he still seemed, the hand on the table was smooth and but slightly tinted by the sun, for Torrance was one who, in the language of that country, did his work, which was usually arduous, with his gloves on. He was dressed in white s.h.i.+rt and broadcloth, and a diamond of price gleamed in the front of the former.

His guests were for the most part younger, and Clavering was scarcely half his age: but when they met in conclave something usually happened, for the seat of the legislature was far away, and their will considerably more potent thereabouts than the law of the land. Sheriff, postmaster, railroad agent, and petty politician carried out their wishes, and as yet no man had succeeded in living in that region unless he did homage to the cattle-barons. They were Republicans, admitting in the abstract the rights of man, so long as no venturesome citizen demanded too much of them; but they had discovered that in practice liberty is usually the prerogative of the strong. Still, they had done their nation good service, for they had found the land a wilderness and covered it with cattle, so that its commerce fed the railroads and supported busy wooden towns. Some of the older men had disputed possession with the Indian, and most of them in the early days, enduring thirst and loneliness and unwearying toil, had held on stubbornly in the face of ruin by frost and drought and hail. It was not astonis.h.i.+ng that as they had made that land--so they phrased it--they regarded it as theirs.

There were eight of them present, and for a time they talked of horses and cattle as they sipped their wine, which was the choicest that France could send them; and it is also probable that no better cigars ever came from Cuba than those they smoked. By and by, however, Torrance laid his aside.

"It's time we got down to work," he said. "I sent for ten of you, and eight have come. One sent valid excuses, and one made no answer."

"Larry Grant," said Clavering. "I guess he was too busy at the depot bringing a fat Dutchman and a crowd of hard-faced Dakota ploughboys in."

There was a little murmur of astonishment which, had the men been different, would not have been quite free from consternation, for it was significant news.

"You're quite sure?" asked Torrance, and his face was stern.