Judith of Blue Lake Ranch

by Jackson Gregory

  XXII

  PLAYING THE GAME

  Pollock Hampton, Foreman-at-Large, came and went on the ranch, carryingorders, taking always a keen interest in whatever work fell to hand, aninterest of a fresh kind, in that it was born of a growingunderstanding. The men grew to like him; Bud Lee tactfully sought toacquaint him with many ranch matters which would prove of value to him.Carson, however, grown nervous over the new method in stock-raisingstill in its experimental stage, was given to take any suggestion fromHampton in the light of a personal affront.

  "Damn him," he growled deep in his throat when Hampton had ridden outwith word to shift one of the herds into a fresh pasture, an act onwhich Carson had already decided, "some day I'll just take him betweenmy thum' an' finger an' anni-hilate him."

  The greater bulk of the stock had been steadily shifted higher in thehills. The hogs grazed on the slopes at the north of the Lower End;cattle and horses had been pushed eastward to the little valleys in themountains about the lake. Even the plateau, where the old cabin stood,was now stocked with Lee's prize string of horses. Then, one dayHampton came galloping through the herds of shorthorns, seeking Carson.

  "Crowd them down to the Lower End again," he shouted above the din."Cut out the scrawny ones and haze the rest into the pens."

  Carson's steel-blue eyes snapped, his teeth showed like a dog's.

  "Drunk?" he sneered. "What's eating you?"

  "Do as you're told," retorted Hampton hotly. "Those are orders fromheadquarters and it's up to you to obey them. Get me?"

  "If ever I do get you, sonny," grunted Carson, "there won't be enoughof you left for the dawgs to quarrel over. Orders or no orders, Iain't going to do no such fool thing."

  Hampton reined his horse in closer, staring frowningly at the oldcattleman. The purplish color of rage mounted in Carson's tannedcheeks.

  "You'll do what you're told or go get your time," he announced tersely."We've got an order for five hundred beef cows and we're sellingimmediately."

  Carson's jaw dropped.

  "What?" he demanded, not quite believing his ears. "Say that again,will you?"

  "I said it once," retorted Hampton. "Now get busy."

  "Who are we selling to? I ain't heard about it."

  "An oversight, my dear Mr. Carson," laughed Hampton, his own angerrisen. "Quite an oversight that you were not consulted. We areselling to Doan, Rockwell & Haight. Ever heard of them?"

  "Who says we're selling?"

  "I say so. And, if you've got to have all the news, Miss Sanford saysso."

  "She does, does she? Hm-m. First I knew of it. What figger?"

  "Really, does that concern you? If the price suits me and MissSanford, who own the stock, does it in any way affect you? I don'twant to quarrel with you, Carson, and I do appreciate that you are agood man in your way. But just because you have worked here a longtime, don't make the mistake of thinking that you own the ranch."

  With that he whirled his horse, and was gone. Carson, with puckeredbrows, stared after him.

  But orders were orders, and Carson though the heart was sore, barkedout his commands to his herders to turn the cattle back toward thelower fields. He had been converted to the new way, he had grown todream of the fat prices his cow brutes would fetch in the wintermarket, he knew that prices now were rock-bottom low, that Doan,Rockwell & Haight were close buyers who before now had cut the throatof the Blue Lake ranch in sacrifice sales when Bayne Trevors ran theoutfit.

  "We're standing to lose thousan's an' thousan's of dollars," he toldhimself in disgust. "All we've spent on irrigation an' fences an'silos an' ditches, all gone to heck in a han'-basket. Not countingthousan's of more dollars lost in selling at what we can get this timeof year. It makes me sick, damn throwin'-up sick."

  Riding down a long, winding trail, out through a patch of chaparralinto a rocky gorge, Hampton turned east again toward the higherplateau. Taking the roundabout way which led from the far side of thelake and along the flank of the mountain to the table-land, he came toa scattering band of horses and Tommy Burkitt.

  "Where's Lee?" called Hampton.

  Burkitt grinned at him by way of greeting, and then pointed across theplateau to a ravine leading to a still higher, smaller, shut-in valley.Hampton galloped on and a quarter of an hour later came up with Lee.The horse foreman was sitting still in his saddle, his eyes takingstock of a fresh bit of pasture into which he planned turning hishorses a little later. It was one of a dozen small meadows on themountain creeks where the canon walls widened out into an oval-shapedvalley, less than a half-mile long, where there was much rich grass.

  "Hello, Hampton," called Lee pleasantly. "What's the word?"

  The perspiration streaming down Hampton's face had in no way dampenedhis ardor.

  "Big doings," he cried warmly. "We're cutting loose, Bud, at last andpiling up the shining ducats! You're to gather up a hundred of themost likely cayuses you've got and shove them down to the Lower End.We're selling pretty heavily to Doan, Rockwell & Haight."

  A new flicker came into Lee's eyes. Then they went hard as polishedagate.

  "I didn't quite get you, Hampton," he said softly. "You say we'reselling a hundred horses? Now?"

  Hampton nodded, understanding nothing of what lay in Lee's heart.

  "On the jump, just as fast as we can get them on the run," he saidtriumphantly. "Judith wanted me to tell you."

  "I see," answered Lee slowly.

  His eyes left Hampton's flushed face and went to the distant cliffs.It was no way of Bud's to hide his eyes from a man, and yet now he didhide them. He did not want Hampton to see what they showed so plainly,in spite of his attempt to master his emotion. He was hurt. Long agohe had offended Judith, and she had waited until now to repay his rudeinsult with this cool little slap in the face. She had not consultedhim, she had not mentioned a sale to him, and now she sent Hampton anddid not even come to him with a word of explanation. It was quite asif she had said:

  "You are just a servant of mine, like the rest, Bud Lee, and I treatyou accordingly."

  Until Judith had come, there had been nothing that this man loved as hedid his work among his horses. He watched them as day after day theygrew into clean-blooded perfection; he appraised their values; he sawpersonally to their education, helping each one of them individually tobecome the true representative of the proudest species of animal life.Had he turned his eye now to the herd down yonder he could have seenthe animal he had selected for a brood-mare next year, thethree-year-old destined to draw all eyes as he stepped daintily amongthe best of the single-footers in Golden Gate Park, the rich red baygelding that he would mate for a splendid carriage team. . . . Oh, heknew them all like human friends, planned the future for each, the saleof each would be no sorrow but rather a triumph of success. And now,to see them lumped and sold to Doan, Rockwell & Haight--even that hurt.But most of all did Judith's treatment of him cut, cut deep.

  "You're a fool, Bud Lee," he told himself softly. "Oh, God, what afool!"

  "The buyers will be here the first thing to-morrow," said Hampton."Judith says we're to have everything ready for them."

  "I'll not keep her waiting," answered Lee quietly. And with a quicktouch of the spur he whirled his horse and left Hampton abruptly, goingstraight to the plateau.

  "Round 'em up, Tommy," he said sharply. "Every damned hoof of them:They go back to the corrals."

  Though quick questions surged up in Tommy's brain, none of them wasasked just yet, for he had seen the look on Lee's face.

  It was early in the afternoon when Hampton carried his messages toCarson and Lee. It was after dark when Lee, his work done, his heartstill sore and heavy, came into the men's bunk-house. It was verystill, though close to a dozen men were in the room. Lee's eyes foundCarson and he guessed the reason for the silence. Carson was in atowering rage that flamed red-hot in his eyes; under the spell of hisdominating emotion, the men sat and stared at him.

  "Well,
what's wrong?" asked Lee coolly from the door.

  "Good goddlemighty!" growled Carson snappishly. "You stan' there an'ask what's the matter. If they's anything that ain't the matter an'you'll spell its name to me I'll put in with you. The whole outfit'sgoing to pot, an' I, for one, don't care how soon it goes."

  "Rather a nice way for a cattle foreman to talk about his ranch, isn'tit?" asked Lee colorlessly.

  "Cattle foreman?" sniffed Carson with further expletives. "Now willyou stan' on your two feet an' explain to me how in blue blazes a mancan be a cattle foreman when there ain't no cattle!"

  "So that's it, is it? I didn't know how close you were selling off----"

  "Don't say _me_ selling! Why, I got silage to run my cow brutes allwinter, what with the dry feed in them canons----"

  Lee didn't hear the rest. It had been his intention to come in andsmoke with the boys, and perhaps play a game of whist. Anything tokeep from thinking. But now, moving on impulse, he turned and left theshack, going swiftly up the knoll to the ranch-house.

  Just stepping into the courtyard soft under the moon, tinkling with theplay of the fountains, stirred his heart to quicker beating. He hadnot set foot here for over two months, not since that night which heknew he should forget and yet to whose memory he clung desperately.This was the first time in many a long week that he had gone out of hisway to seek Judith. And now words which Judith herself had spoken tohim one day were now at least a part of the cause sending him to speakwith her. She had said that he was loyal, that she needed loyal men.He still took her wage, he was still a Blue Lake ranch-hand, he stillowed her his loyalty, though it came from a sore heart.

  If she were hard driven in some way which she had not seen fit toconfide to him, if she were forced to make this tremendous sale, if shewere mad or had at last lost her nerve, frightened at the thought ofthe heavy sums of money to be raised at the end of the winter, well,then it still could do no harm for him to speak his mind to her.Hampton had told him the price which the horses were to bring; it waspitifully small and Lee meant to tell her so, to tell her further thathe would guarantee an enormous gain over it if she gave him time. Hewould be doing his part though she called him meddler for his pains.Marcia Langworthy, hidden in a big chair on the veranda, watched himapproach with interest, though Lee was unconscious of her presence. Hehad lifted a hand to rap at the door when she called to him, saying:

  "Good evening, Mr. Mysterious Lee. Have you forgotten me?"

  Though he had pretty well forgotten her, it was not necessary to tellher that he had. He came toward her, putting out his hand.

  "Good evening, Miss Langworthy," he said cordially. "I haven't seenmuch of you this time, have I? Two reasons, you know: busy all day andhalf the night, for one thing, and for another, Hampton has monopolizedyou, hasn't he?"

  Marcia laughed softly.

  "To a man your size the second reason is absurd. . . . Will you sitdown? You see, I am taking it for granted that you come here to seeme. Unless," and her eyes twinkled brightly up at him, "you weresurreptitiously calling on Mrs. Simpson?"

  "I'd love to talk with you," he assured her. "But, as I've justhinted, my work here has got into the habit of running away with meinto the night. I really came up for a word with Miss Sanford."

  "Oh, didn't you know?" asked Marcia. "Judith isn't here."

  "Isn't here?" He frowned. "No, I didn't know. I haven't seen much ofher lately and didn't know her plans. Where is she?"

  "In San Francisco. Her lawyers sent for her, you know. Somethingabout a tangle in her father's business. Funny you hadn't heard; sheleft Saturday night."

  Saturday? This was Tuesday evening. Judith had been away three fulldays. Lee, thinking hurriedly, thought that he saw now the explanationof Judith's ordering a sale like this. Her lawyers had found whatMarcia called a "tangle" in Luke Sanford's affairs; there had been aninsistent call for a large sum of money to straighten it out, andJudith had accepted the only solution.

  Still, it didn't seem like Judith to sell like this at a figure soridiculously low. Doan, Rockwell & Haight were not the only buyers onthe coast. Lee himself could get more for the horses if he had twodays' time to look around; the cattle were worth a great deal more thanthey were being sold for, even with the market down.

  "Did she have an idea what the trouble was before she left?" he askedfinally.

  "Why," said Marcia, "I don't know. You see, she slipped out lateSaturday night after we'd all gone to bed. There was a message for herover the telephone; she got up, dressed, saddled her own horse and rodeinto Rocky Bend alone, just leaving a note for me that she might begone a week or two."

  Just why he experienced a sense of uneasiness even then, Lee did notknow. It was like Judith to act swiftly when need be; to go alone andon the spur of the minute to catch her train; to slip out quietlywithout disturbing her guest.

  "You have heard from her since?" he demanded abruptly.

  "Not a word," said Marcia. "She doesn't like letter-writing and so Ihaven't expected to hear from her."

  Lee chatted with her for a moment, then claiming work still to be done,turned to go back down the knoll. A new thought upon him, he once morecame to Marcia's side.

  "I expect I'd better see Hampton," he said. "Do you know where he is?"

  "Where he has been every night since Judith left," laughed Marcia."He's old Mr. Business Man these days. In the office."

  There Lee found him. Hampton, his hair ruffled, Judith's tablelittered with market reports, and many sheets of paper covered withuntidy figures, looked up at Lee's entrance.

  "Hello, Bud," he said, reaching for cigarette and match. "Goteverything ready for to-morrow?"

  "Why didn't you tell me Miss Sanford had gone away?" was Lee's sharprejoinder. Hampton flushed.

  "Devil take those two eyes of yours, Bud," he said testily. "They'vegot a way of boring through a man until he feels like they werescorching the furniture behind him. Well, I'll tell you. While Judithis away I am running this outfit. And if the men think I'm comingstraight from her with an order they obey it. If they get the notionshe isn't here, they're apt to ask questions. That's why."

  "This sale to Doan, Rockwell & Haight," said Lee quickly. "You didn'tcook that up, did you, Hampton?"

  "Lord, no!" cried Hampton. From its place on a file he took a yellowslip of paper, tossing it to Lee. "She sent me that this morning."

  It was a Western Union telegram, saying briefly:

  POLLOCK HAMPTON, Blue Lake Ranch.

  Am forced to sell heavily. Sending Doan, Rockwell & Haight Wednesdaymorning, one hundred horses; as many beef cattle as Carson can roundup. Accept terms made in their letter to you last week.

  JUDITH SANFORD.

  The date-line upon the message gave the sending point as San Francisco.

  "They wrote _you_ a letter offering to buy?" said Lee thoughtfully, hiseyes rising slowly from the paper in his fingers. "How'd it happenthey didn't write to _her_?"

  "Well, it's a natural enough mistake, isn't it? Knowing that she and Iwere both part-owners, knowing that we were both here, isn't it quiteto be expected that they would write to the man instead of to thewoman? Of course I gave her the letter as soon as I had opened it."

  "Of course," answered Lee.

  But his thoughts were not with his answer. They were with BayneTrevors. He knew that Trevors had long ago sold to these people; heknew, too, that at least two of the heavy shareholders in the WesternLumber Company were interested in Doan, Rockwell & Haight. TomRockwell himself was second vice-president of the lumber company.

  "Have you had any other word from Miss Sanford?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Know who her lawyers are?"

  "No. I don't."

  "Anything in her papers here that would tell us?"

  "No. Her papers are in the safe yonder and it's locked and I don'tknow the combination."

  "Know what hotel she is stopping at in the city?"r />
  "No. Look here, Bud; what are you driving at? I don't get you."

  "No?" answered Lee absently.

  What Bud Lee was thinking was: "Here are too many coincidences!"Little things, each one in itself safe from suspicion. But when hemeditated that the offer had come from this particular firm, that ithad come just a few days before Judith's first departure from theranch, that it had been addressed not to her but to Hampton, so that hemust have the opportunity to read it, that she had been called suddenlyto the city, that that call had come after the house was quiet, itsoccupants in bed, that no letter had come since she had left, that noone knew where to reach her--when he passed all of these things inreview the bitterness in his heart died under them and the firstanxiety sprang up anew, grown almost into fear for her.

  "There's just one thing, Hampton," he said, his eyes hard on the boy'sface. "We don't sell a single hoof in the morning. Not a cow nor ahorse until Judith is here herself."

  Hampton, new in his role of general manager, flushed hotly, his owneyes showing fight.

  "I like you, Lee," he said sharply, his tone that of master to man."And I don't want us to quarrel. But Judith wired me to sell, I'vewired the buyers an acceptance and we do sell in the morning!"

  For a full minute Bud Lee stood stone still, staring into Hampton'sface. Then, tossing the telegram to the table, he turned and went out.His face had gone suddenly white.

  "They've got you somehow, Judith girl," he whispered through tenselips. "But the fight is still to be made. And, by God, there's a dayof squaring accounts coming for a man named Bayne Trevors!"

  He went to the bunk-house, neither seeing Marcia nor hearing her whenshe called after him, and with a word to Carson brought the iratecattle foreman hurriedly outside.