The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 6

The girl looked up a moment, noticed the four mounted figures that swung over the crest of a rise, and then went on with her knitting again. Still, there was for a second a little flash in her pale blue eyes.

The hors.e.m.e.n came on, the dust floating in long wisps behind them, until, with a jingle of bridle and stirrup, they pulled up before the building.

Three of them were bronzed and dusty, in weather-stained blue s.h.i.+rts, wide hats, and knee-boots that fitted them like gloves; and there was ironical amus.e.m.e.nt in their faces. Each sat his horse as if he had never known any other seat than the saddle; but the fourth was different from the rest. He wore a jacket of richly embroidered deerskin, and the s.h.i.+rt under it was white; while he sat with one hand in a big leather glove resting on his hip. His face was sallow and his eyes were dark.

"Hallo, Hamburg!" he said, and his voice had a little commanding ring.

"You seem kind of busy."

Muller blinked at him. He had apparently not yet found his spectacles, but he had in the meanwhile come upon his axe, and now stood very straight, with the long haft reaching to his waist.

"Ja," he said. "Mine house I build."

"Well," said the man in the embroidered jacket, "I fancy you're wasting time. Asked anybody's leave to cut that lumber, or put it up?"

"Mine friend," said Muller, smiling, "when it is nod necessary I ask nodings of any man."

"Then," said the horseman drily, as he turned to his companions, "I fancy that's where you're wrong. Boys, we'll take him along in case Torrance would like to see him. I guess you'll have to walk home, Jim."

A man dismounted and led forward his horse with a wrench upon the bridle that sent it plunging. "Get your foot in the stirrup, Hamburg, and I'll hoist you up," he said.

Muller stood motionless, and the horseman in deerskin glancing round in his direction saw his daughter for the first time. He laughed; but there was something in his black eyes that caused the Teuton's fingers to close a trifle upon the haft of the axe.

"You'll have to get down, Charlie, as well as Jim," he said. "Torrance has his notions, or Coyote might have carried Miss Hamburg that far as well.

Sorry to hurry you, Hamburg, but I don't like waiting."

Muller stepped back a pace, and the axe-head flashed as he moved his hand; while, dazzled by the beam it cast, the half-tamed broncho rose with hoofs in the air. Its owner smote it on the nostrils with his fist, and the pair sidled round each other--the man with his arm drawn back, the beast with laid-back ears--for almost a minute before they came to a standstill.

"Mine friend," said Muller, "other day I der pleasure have. I mine house have to build."

"Get up," said the stockrider. "Ever seen anybody fire off a gun?"

Muller laughed softly, and glanced at the leader. "Der rifle," he said drily. "I was at Sedan. To-day it is not convenient that I come."

"Hoist him up!" said the leader, and once more, while the other man moved forward, Muller stepped back; but this time there was an answering flash in his blue eyes as the big axe-head flashed in the sun.

"I guess we'd better hold on," said another man. "Look there, Mr.

Clavering."

He pointed to the bluff, and the leader's face darkened as he gazed, for four men with axes were running down the slope, and they were lean and wiry, with very grim faces. They were also apparently small farmers or lumbermen from the bush of Michigan, and Clavering knew such men usually possessed a terrible proficiency with the keen-edged weapon, and stubbornness was native in them. Two others, one of whom he knew, came behind them. The foremost stopped, and stood silent when the man Clavering recognized signed to them, but not before each had posted himself strategically within reach of a horseman's bridle.

"You might explain, Clavering, what you and your cow-boys are doing here,"

he said.

Clavering laughed. "We are going to take your Teutonic friend up to the Range. He is cutting our fuel timber with n.o.body's permission."

"No," said Grant drily; "he has mine. The bluff is on my run."

"Did you take out timber rights with your lease?" asked Clavering.

"No, I hadn't much use for them. None of my neighbours hold any either.

But the bluff is big enough, and I've no objection to their cutting what billets they want. Still, I can't have them driving out any other friends of mine."

Clavering smiled ironically. "You have been picking up some curious acquaintances, Larry; but don't you think you had better leave this thing to Torrance? The fact is, the cattle-men are not disposed to encourage strangers building houses in their country just now."

"I had a notion it belonged to this State. It's not an unusual one," said Grant.

Clavering shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, it sounds better that way.

Have it so. Still, it will scarcely pay you to make yourself unpopular with us, Larry."

"Well," said Grant drily, "it seems to me I'm tolerably unpopular already.

But that's not quite the point. Take your boys away."

Clavering flung his hand up in half-ironical salutation, but as he was about to wheel his horse a young Englishman whose nationality was plainly stamped upon him seized his bridle.

"Not quite so fast!" he said. "It would be more fitting if you got down and expressed your regrets to the fraulein. You haven't heard Muller's story yet, Larry."

"Let go," said Clavering, raising the switch he held. "Drop my bridle or take care of yourself!"

"Come down," said Breckenridge.

The switch went up and descended hissing upon part of an averted face; but the lad sprang as it fell, and the next moment the horse rose almost upright with two men clinging to it; one of them, whose sallow cheeks were livid now, swaying in the saddle. Then Grant grasped the bridle that fell from the rider's hands, and hurled his comrade backwards, while some of the stockriders pushed their horses nearer, and the axe-men closed in about them.

Hoa.r.s.e cries went up. "Horses back! Pull him off! Give the Britisher a show! Leave them to it!"

It was evident that a blunder would have unpleasant results, for Clavering, with switch raised, had tightened his left hand on the bridle Grant had loosed again, while a wicked smile crept into his eyes, and the lad stood tense and still, with hands clenched in front of him, and a weal on his young face. Grant, however, stepped in between them.

"We've had sufficient fooling, Breckenridge," he said. "Clavering, I'll give you a minute to get your men away, and if you can't do it in that time you'll take the consequences."

Clavering wheeled his horse. "The odds are with you, Larry," he said. "You have made a big blunder, but I guess you know your own business best."

He nodded, including the fraulein, with an easy insolence that yet became him, touched the horse with his heel, and in another moment he and his cow-boys were swinging at a gallop across the prairie. Then, as they dipped behind a rise, those who were left glanced at one another.

Breckenridge was very pale, and one of his hands was bleeding where Clavering's spur had torn it.

"It seems that we have made a beginning," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "It's first blood to them, but this will take a lot of forgetting, and the rest may be different."

Grant made no answer, but turned and looked at Muller, who stood very straight and square, with a curious brightness in his eyes.

"Are you going on with the contract? There is the girl to consider," said Grant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "COME DOWN!"--Page 47.]

"Ja," said the Teuton. "I was in der Vosges, and der girl is also Fraulein Muller."

"Boys," said Grant to the men from Michigan, "you have seen what's in front of you, and you'll probably have to use more than axes before you're through. Still, you have the chance of clearing out right now. I only want willing men behind me."

One of the big axe-men laughed scornfully, and there was a little sardonic grin in the faces of the rest.

"There's more room for us here than there was in Michigan, and now we've got our foot down here we're not going back again," he said. "That's about all there is to it. But when our time comes, the other men aren't going to find us slacker than the Dutchman."

Grant nodded gravely. "Well," he said very simply, "I guess the Lord who made this country will know who's in the right and help them. They'll need it. There's a big fight coming."