The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 50

For five minutes Clavering spoke rapidly, in a slightly strained voice, and a dark flush spread across the old man's face and grew deeper on his forehead, from which the veins swelled. It had faded before he finished, and there were paler patches in the cattle-baron's cheeks when he struck the table with his fist.

"Clavering," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "if you are deceiving me you are not going to find a hole in this country that would hide you."

Clavering contrived to meet his gaze, though it was difficult. "I was very unwilling to mention it," he said. "Still, if you will call Miss Torrance's maid, and the man who grooms her horses, you can convince yourself. It would be better if I was not present when you talk to them."

Torrance said nothing, but pointed to the door, and when the maid and man he sent for had gone, sat for five long minutes rigidly still with a set white face and his hands clenched on the table.

"My daughter--playing the traitress--and worse! It is too hard to bear,"

he said.

Then he stood up, shaking the pa.s.sion from him, when Clavering came in, and, holding himself very stiff and square, turned to him.

"I don't know why you have told me--now--and do not want to hear," he said. "Still, by the Lord who made us both, if you try to make use of this knowledge for any purpose, or let a whisper get about, I'll crush you utterly."

"Have I deserved these threats, sir?"

Torrance looked at him steadily. "Did you expect thanks? The man who grooms her horses would tell me nothing--he lied like a gentleman. But they are not threats. You found buying up mortgages--with our dollars--an easy game."

"But--" said Clavering.

Torrance stopped him with a little scornful gesture. "I knew when I took this thing up I would have to let my scruples go, and now--while I wonder whether my hands will ever feel clean again--I'm going through. You are useful to the committee, and I'll have to tolerate you."

Clavering turned away, with pulses throbbing furiously and rage in his heart, though he had known what the cost would be when he staked everything he hoped for on Larry's destruction; while his neighbours noticed a change in Torrance when he once more sat down at the head of the table. He seemed several years older, and his face was very grim.

"I believe I can promise you that Larry will make us no more trouble," he said. "Mr. Clavering has a workable scheme, and it will only need the Sheriff and a few men whom I will choose when I am ready."

n.o.body seemed to consider it advisable to ask questions, and the men dispersed; but as they went down the stairway, Allonby turned to Torrance.

"This thing is getting too big for you and me," he said. "You have not complained, but to-night one could fancy that it's breaking you. Now, I'm not made like you, and when I think of what it has cost me I have got to talk."

Torrance turned, and Allonby s.h.i.+vered as he met his eyes.

"It has cost me what every dollar I ever made could not buy me back," he said, and the damp showed on his forehead as he checked a groan.

XXVIII

LARRY RIDES TO CEDAR

A soft wind swept the prairie, which was now bare of snow. Larry rode down the trail that led through the Cedar Bluff. He was freely sprinkled with mire, for spring had come suddenly, and the frost-bleached sod was soft with the thaw; and when he pulled up on the wooden bridge to wait until Breckenridge, who appeared among the trees, should join him, the river swirled and frothed beneath. It had lately burst its icy chains, and came roaring down, seamed by lines of foam and strewn with great fragments of half-melted snow-cake that burst against the quivering piles.

"Running strong!" said Breckenridge. "Still, the water has not risen much yet, and as I crossed the big rise I saw two of Torrance's cow-boys apparently s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up their courage to try the ford."

"It might be done," said Larry. "We have one horse at Fremont that would take me across. The snow on the ranges is not melting yet, and the ice will be tolerably firm on the deep reaches; but it's scarcely likely that we will want to swim the Cedar now."

"No," said Breckenridge, with a laugh, "the bridge is good enough for me.

By the way, I have a note for you."

"A note!" said Larry, with a slight hardening of his face, for of late each communication that reached him had brought him fresh anxieties.

"Well," said Breckenridge drily, "I scarcely think this one should worry you. From the fas.h.i.+on in which it reached me I have a notion it's from a lady."

There was a little gleam in Larry's eyes when he took the note, and Breckenridge noticed that he was very silent as they rode on. When they reached Fremont he remained a while in the stable, and when at last he entered the house Breckenridge glanced at him questioningly.

"You have something on your mind," he said. "What have you been doing, Larry?"

Grant smiled curiously. "Giving the big bay a rub down. I'm riding to Cedar Range to-night."

"Have you lost your head?" Breckenridge stared at him. "Muller saw the Sheriff riding in this morning, and it's more than likely he is at the Range. You are wanted rather more badly than ever just now, Larry."

Grant's face was quietly resolute as he took out the note and pa.s.sed it to his companion. "I have tried to do my duty by the boys; but I am going to Cedar to-night."

Breckenridge opened the note, which had been written the previous day, and read, "In haste. Come to the bluff beneath the Range--alone--nine to-morrow night."

Then, he stared at the paper in silence until Grant, who watched him almost jealously, took it from him. "Yes," he said, though his face was thoughtful, "of course, you must go. You are quite sure of the writing?"

Grant smiled, as it were, compa.s.sionately. "I would recognize it anywhere!"

"Well," said Breckenridge significantly, "that is perhaps not very astonis.h.i.+ng, though I fancy some folks would find it difficult. The 'In haste' no doubt explains the thing, but it seems to me the last of it does not quite match the heading."

"It is smeared--thrust into the envelope wet," Larry said.

Breckenridge rose, and walked, with no apparent purpose, across the room.

"Larry," he said, "Tom and I will come with you. No--you wait a minute. Of course, I know there are occasions on which one's friends' company is superfluous--distinctly so; but we could pull up and wait behind the bluff--quite a long way off, you know."

"I was told to come alone." Larry turned upon him sharply.

Breckenridge made a gesture of resignation. "Then I'm not going to stay here most of the night by myself. It's doleful. I'll ride over to Muller's now."

"Will it be any livelier there?"

Breckenridge wondered whether Larry had noticed anything unusual in his voice, and managed to laugh. "A little," he said. "The fraulein is pretty enough in the lamplight to warrant one listening to a good deal about Menotti and the franc tireurs. She makes really excellent coffee, too,"

and he slipped out before Grant could ask any more questions.

Darkness was just closing down when the latter rode away. There was very little of the prairie broncho in the big horse beneath him, whose sire had brought the best blood that could be imported into that country, and he had examined every buckle of girth and headstall as he fastened them. He also rode, for lightness, in a thin deerskin jacket which fitted him closely, with a rifle across his saddle, gazing with keen eyes across the shadowy waste when now and then a half-moon came out. Once he also drew bridle and sat still a minute listening, for he fancied he heard the distant beat of hoofs, and then went on with a little laugh at his credulity. The Cedar was roaring in its hollow and the birches moaning in a bluff, but as the damp wind that brought the blood to his cheeks sank, there was stillness save for the sound of the river, and Grant decided that his ears had deceived him.

It behooved him to be cautious, for he knew the bitterness of the cattle-men against him, and the Sheriff's writ still held good; but Hetty had sent for him, and if his enemies had lain in wait in every bluff and hollow he would have gone.

While he rode, troubled by vague apprehensions, which now and then gave place to exultation that set his heart throbbing, Hetty sat with Miss Schuyler in her room at Cedar Range. An occasional murmur of voices reached them faintly from the big hall below where Torrance and some of his neighbours sat with the Sheriff over their cigars and wine, and the girls knew that a few of the most daring hors.e.m.e.n among the cow-boys had their horses saddled ready. Hetty lay in a low chair with a book she was not reading on her knee, and Miss Schuyler, glancing at her now and then over the embroidery she paid almost as little attention to, noticed the weariness in her face and the anxiety in her eyes. She laid down her needle when Torrance's voice came up from below.

"What can they be plotting, Hetty?" she said. "Horses ready, that most unpleasant Sheriff smiling cunningly as he did when I pa.s.sed him talking to Clavering, and the sense of expectancy. It's there. One could hear it in their voices, even if one had not seen their faces, and when I met your father at the head of the stairs he almost frightened me. Of course, he was not theatrical--he never is--but I know that set of his lips and look in his eyes, and have more than a fancy it means trouble for somebody. I suppose he has not told you anything--in fact, he seems to have kept curiously aloof from both of us lately."

Hetty turned towards her with a little spot of colour in her cheek and apprehension in her eyes.

"So you have noticed it, too!" she said very slowly. "Of course, he has been busy and often away, while I know how anxious he must be; but when he is at home he scarcely speaks to me--and then, there is something in his voice that hurts me. I'm 'most afraid he has found out that I have been talking to Larry."