Whispering Smith

by Frank H. Spearman

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE CRAWLING STONE RISE

  So sudden was the onset of the river that the trained riders of thebig ranch were taken completely aback, and hundreds of head of Dunningcattle were swept away before they could be removed to points ofsafety. Fresh alarms came with every hour of the day and night, andthe telephones up and down the valley rang incessantly with appealsfrom neighbor to neighbor. Lance Dunning, calling out the reserves ofhis vocabulary, swore tremendously and directed the operations againstthe river. These seemed, indeed, to consist mainly of hard riding andhard language on the part of everybody. Murray Sinclair, although hehad sold his ranch on the Crawling Stone and was concentrating hisholdings on the Frenchman, was everywhere in evidence. He was thefirst at a point of danger and the last to ride away from the slippingacres where the muddy flood undercut; but no defiance seemed todisturb the Crawling Stone, which kept alarmingly at work.

  Above the alfalfa lands on the long bench north of the house theriver, in changing its course many years earlier, had left adepression known as Mud Lake. It had become separated from the mainchannel of the Crawling Stone by a high, narrow barrier in the form ofa bench deposited by the receding waters of some earlier flood, andadded to by sand-storms sweeping among the willows that overspread it.Without an effective head or definite system of work the efforts ofthe men at the Stone Ranch were of no more consequence than if theyhad spent their time in waving blankets at the river. Twenty menriding in together to tell Lance Dunning that the river was washingout the tree claims above Mud Lake made no perceptible difference inthe event. Dicksie, though an inexperienced girl, saw with helplessclearness the futility of it all. The alarms and the continualfailures of the army of able-bodied men directed by Sinclair and hercousin wore on her spirit. The river rose until each succeeding inchbecame a menace to the life and property of the ranch, and in themidst of it came the word that the river was cutting into the willowsand heading for Mud Lake. All knew what that meant. If the CrawlingStone should take its old channel, not alone were the two square milesof alfalfa doomed: it would sweep away every vestige of the longstacks below the corrals, take the barns, and lap the slope in frontof the ranch-house itself.

  Terror seized Dicksie. She telephoned in her distress for Marion,begging her to come up before they should all be swept away; andMarion, turning the shop over to Katie Dancing, got into theranch-wagon that Dicksie had sent and started for the Crawling Stone.The confusion along the river road as the wagon approached the ranchshowed Marion the seriousness of the situation. Settlers driven fromtheir homes in the upper valley formed almost a procession ofmisery-stricken people, making their way on horseback, on foot, and inwagons toward Medicine Bend. With them they were bringing all they hadsaved from the flood--the little bunch of cows, the wagonload of hogs,the household effects, the ponies--as if war or pestilence had struckthe valley.

  At noon Marion arrived. The ranch-house was deserted, and the men wereall at the river. Puss stuck her head out of the kitchen window, andDicksie ran out and threw herself into Marion's arms. Late news fromthe front had been the worst: the cutting above Mud Lake had weakenedthe last barrier that held off the river, and every available man wasfighting the current at that point.

  Marion heard it all while eating a luncheon. Dicksie, beset withanxiety, could not stay in the house. The man that had driven Marionover, saddled horses in the afternoon and the two women rode up aboveMud Lake, now become through rainfall and seepage from the river along, shallow lagoon. For an hour they watched the shovelling andcarrying of sandbags, and rode toward the river to the very edge ofthe disappearing willows, where the bank was melting away before theundercut of the resistless current. They rode away with a commonfeeling--a conviction that the fight was a losing one, and thatanother day would see the ruin complete.

  "Dicksie," exclaimed Marion--they were riding to the house as shespoke--"I'll tell you what we _can_ do!" She hesitated a moment. "Iwill tell you what we _can_ do! Are you plucky?"

  Dicksie looked at Marion pathetically.

  "If you are plucky enough to do it, we can keep the river off yet. Ihave an idea. I will go, but you must come along."

  "Marion, what do you mean? Don't you think I would go anywhere to savethe ranch? I should like to know where you dare go in this countrythat I dare not!"

  "Then ride with me over to the railroad camp by the new bridge. Wewill ask Mr. McCloud to bring some of his men over. He can stop theriver; he knows how."

  Dicksie caught her breath. "Oh, Marion! that would do no good, even ifI could do it. Why, the railroad has been all swept away in the lowervalley."

  "How do you know?"

  "So every one says."

  "Who is every one?"

  "Cousin Lance, Mr. Sinclair--all the men. I heard that a week ago."

  "Dicksie, don't believe it. You don't know these railroad men. Theyunderstand this kind of thing; cattlemen, you know, don't. If you willgo with me we can get help. I feel just as sure that those men cancontrol the river as I do that I am looking at you--that is, ifanybody can. The question is, do you want to make the effort?"

  They talked until they left the horses and entered the house. Whenthey sat down, Dicksie put her hands to her face. "Oh, I wish you hadsaid nothing about it! How _can_ I go to him and ask for helpnow--after Cousin Lance has gone into court about the line andeverything? And of course my name is in it all."

  "Dicksie, don't raise spectres that have nothing to do with the case.If we go to him and ask him for help he will give it to us if he can;if he can't, what harm is done? He has been up and down the river forthree weeks, and he has an army of men camped over by the bridge. Iknow that, because Mr. Smith rode in from there a few days ago."

  "What, Whispering Smith? Oh, if he is there I would not go forworlds!"

  "Pray, why not?"

  "Why, he is such an awful man!"

  "That is absurd, Dicksie."

  Dicksie looked grave. "Marion, no man in this part of the country hasa good word to say for Whispering Smith."

  "Perhaps you have forgotten, Dicksie, that you live in a very roughpart of the country," returned Marion coolly. "No man that he has everhunted down would have anything pleasant to say about him; nor wouldthe friends of such a man be likely to say a good word of him. Thereare many on the range, Dicksie, that have no respect for life or lawor anything else, and they naturally hate a man like WhisperingSmith----"

  "But, Marion, he killed----"

  "I know. He killed a man named Williams a few years ago, while youwere at school--one of the worst men that ever infested this country.Williams Cache is named after that man; he made the most beautifulspot in all these mountains a nest of thieves and murderers. But didyou know that Williams shot down Gordon Smith's only brother, atrainmaster, in cold blood in front of the Wickiup at Medicine Bend?No, you never heard that in this part of the country, did you? Theyhad a cow-thief for sheriff then, and no officer in Medicine Bendwould go after the murderer. He rode in and out of town as if he ownedit, and no one dared say a word, and, mind you, Gordon Smith's brotherhad never seen the man in his life until he walked up and shot himdead. Oh, this was a peaceful country a few years ago! Gordon Smithwas right-of-way man in the mountains then. He buried his brother, andasked the officers what they were going to do about getting themurderer. They laughed at him. He made no protest, except to ask for adeputy United States marshal's commission. When he got it he startedfor Williams Cache after Williams in a buckboard--think of it,Dicksie--and didn't they laugh at him! He did not even know thetrails, and imagine riding two hundred miles in a buckboard to arresta man in the mountains! He was gone six weeks, and came back withWilliams's body strapped to the buckboard behind him. He never toldthe story; all he said when he handed in his commission and went backto his work was that the man was killed in a fair fight. Hate him! Nowonder they hate him--the Williams Cache gang and all their friendson the range! Your cousin thinks it policy to placate that element,hoping that they won't steal your c
attle if you are friendly withthem. I know nothing about that, but I do know something aboutWhispering Smith. It will be a bad day for Williams Cache when theystart him up again. But what has that to do with your trouble? He willnot eat you up if you go to the camp, Dicksie. You are just raisingbogies."

  They had moved to the front porch and Marion was sitting in therocking-chair. Dicksie stood with her back against one of the pillarsand looked at her. As Marion finished Dicksie turned and, with herhand on her forehead, looked in wretchedness of mind out on thevalley. As far, in many directions, as the eye could reach the watersspread yellow in the flood of sunshine across the lowlands. There wasa moment of silence. Dicksie turned her back on the alarming sight."Marion, I can't do it!"

  "Oh, yes, you can if you want to, Dicksie!" Dicksie looked at her withtearless eyes. "It is only a question of being plucky enough,"insisted Marion.

  "Pluck has nothing to do with it!" exclaimed Dicksie in fiery tones."I should like to know why you are always talking about my not havingcourage! This isn't a question of courage. How can I go to a man thatI talked to as I talked to him in your house and ask for help? How canI go to him after my cousin has threatened to kill him, and gone intocourt to prevent his coming on our land? Shouldn't I look beautifulasking help from him?"

  Marion rocked with perfect composure. "No, dear, you would not lookbeautiful asking help, but you would look sensible. It is so easy tobe beautiful and so hard to be sensible."

  "You are just as horrid as you can be, Marion Sinclair!"

  "I know that, too, dear. All I wanted to say is that you would lookvery sensible just now in asking help from Mr. McCloud."

  "I don't care--I won't do it. I will never do it, not if every foot ofthe ranch tumbles into the river. I hope it will! Nobody caresanything about me. I have no friends but thieves and outlaws."

  "Dicksie!" Marion rose.

  "That is what you said."

  "I did not. I am your friend. How dare you call me names?" demandedMarion, taking the petulant girl in her arms. "Don't you think I careanything about you? There are people in this country that you havenever seen who know you and love you almost as much as I do. Don'tlet any silly pride prevent your being sensible, dear." Dicksie burstinto tears. Marion drew her over to the settee, and she had her cryout. When it was over they changed the subject. Dicksie went to herroom. It was a long time before she came down again, but Marion rockedin patience: she was resolved to let Dicksie fight it out herself.

  When Dicksie came down, Marion stood at the foot of the stairs. Theyoung mistress of Crawling Stone Ranch descended step by step veryslowly. "Marion," she said simply, "I will go with you."