XV
HETTY'S BOUNTY
It was a clear, cold afternoon, and Hetty, driving back from Allonby'sranch, sent the team at a gallop down the dip to the Cedar Bridge. Thebeaten trail rang beneath the steel shoes of the rocking sleigh, thebirches streamed up blurred together out of the hollow, and Flora Schuylerfelt the wind sting her cheeks like the lash of a whip. The coldness of itdimmed her eyes, and she had only a hazy and somewhat disconcerting visionof a streak of snow that rolled back to the horses' feet amidst thewhirling trees. It was wonderfully exhilarating--the rush of the lurchingsleigh, the hammering of the hoofs, and the scream of the wind--but MissSchuyler realized that it was also unpleasantly risky as she rememberedthe difficult turn before one came to the bridge.
She decided, however, that there was nothing to be gained by pointing thisout to her companion, for Hetty, who sat swaying a little in the drivingseat, had been in a somewhat curious mood since the attack on Cedar Range,and unusually impatient of advice or remonstrance. Indeed, Flora Schuylerfancied that it was the restlessness she had manifested once or twice oflate which impelled her to hurl the sleigh down into the hollow at thatreckless pace. So she said nothing, until the streak of snow broke offclose ahead, and there were only trees in front of them. Then, a wildlurch cut short the protest she made, and she gasped as they swung roundthe bend and flashed across the bridge. The trail, however, led steeplyupwards now, and Hetty, laughing, dropped the reins upon the ploddinghorses' necks.
"Didn't that remind you of the Chicago Limited?" she said.
"I was wondering," said Miss Schuyler breathlessly, "if you had any reasonfor trying to break your neck."
"Well," said Hetty, with a twinkle in her eyes, "I felt I had to dosomething a little out of the usual, and it was really safe enough.Everybody feels that way now and then, and I couldn't well work it off byquarrelling with you, or going out and talking to the boys as my fatherdoes. I don't know a better cure than a gallop or a switchback in asleigh."
"Some folks find it almost as soothing to tell their friends what isworrying them, and I scarcely think it's more risky," said Miss Schuyler.
Hetty's face became grave. "Well," she said, "one can talk to you, and Ihave been worried, Flo. I know that it is quite foolish, but I can't helpit. I came back to see my father through the trouble, and I'm going to;but while I know that he's ever so much wiser than I am, some of thethings he has to do hurt me. It's our land, and we're going to keep it;but it's not nice to think of the little children starving in the snow."
This, Miss Schuyler decided, was perfectly correct, so far as it went; butshe also felt tolerably certain that, while it was commendable, Hetty'sloyalty to her father would be strenuously tested, and did not aloneaccount for her restlessness.
"And there was nothing else?" she said.
"No," said Hetty, a little too decisively. "Of course! Any way, now I havetold you we are not going to worry about these things to-day, and I drovefast partly because the trail is narrow, and one generally meets somebodyhere. Did it ever strike you, Flo, that if there's anyone you know in acountry that has a bridge in it, you will, if you cross it often enough,meet him there?"
"No," and Miss Schuyler smiled satirically, "it didn't, though one wouldfancy it was quite likely. I, however, remember that we met Larry here notvery long ago. That Canadian blanket suit shows you off quite nicely,Hetty. It is especially adapted to your kind of figure."
Hetty flicked the horses, then pulled them up again, and Miss Schuylerlaughed as a sleigh with two men in it swung out from beneath the trees infront of them.
"This is, of course, a coincidence," she said.
Hetty coloured. "Don't be foolish, Flo," she said. "How could I know hewas coming?"
Flora Schuyler did not answer, and Hetty was edging her horses to the sideof the trail, in which two sleighs could scarcely pass, when a shout camedown.
"Wait. We'll pull up and lead our team round."
In another minute Grant stepped out of his sleigh, and would have passedif Hetty had not stopped him. She sat higher than her companion, andprobably knew that the Canadian blanket costume, with its scarlettrimmings, became her slender figure. The crimson toque also went wellwith the clustering dark hair and dark eyes, and there was a brightness inthe latter which was in keeping with the colour the cold wind had broughtinto the delicate oval face. The man glanced at her a moment, and thenapparently found that a trace required his attention.
"I am glad we met you, Larry," said the girl. "Flo thanked you the nightyou came to Cedar, and I wanted to, but, while you know why I couldn't, Iwould not like you to think it was very unkind of me. Whatever my fatherdoes is right, you see."
"Of course," said Grant gravely. "You have to believe it, Hetty."
Hetty's eyes twinkled. "That was very nice of you. Then you must bewrong."
"Well," said Grant, with a merry laugh, "it is quite likely that I am nowand then. One can only do the best he can, and to be right all the time isa little too much to expect from any man."
Miss Schuyler, who was talking to Breckenridge, turned and smiled, andHetty said, "Then, that makes it a little easier for me to admit that thefolks I belong to go just a little too far occasionally. Larry, I hate tothink of the little children going hungry. Are there many of them?"
Grant's face darkened for a moment. "I'm afraid there are quite a few--andsick ones, too, lying with about half enough to cover them insod-hovels."
Hetty shuddered and her eyes grew pitiful, for since the grim early dayshunger and want had been unknown in the cattle country. "If I want to dosomething for them it can't be very wrong," she said. "Larry, you willtake a roll of bills from me, and buy them whatever will make it a littleless hard for them?"
"No," said Grant quietly, "I can't, Hetty. Your father gives you thatmoney, and we have our own relief machinery."
The girl laid her hand upon his arm appealingly. "I have a little mymother left me, and it was hers before she married my father. Can't youunderstand? I am with my father, and would not lift my finger to help youand the homestead-boys against him, but it couldn't do anybody any harm ifI sent a few things to hungry children. You have just got to take thosedollars, Larry."
"Then I dare not refuse," said Grant, after thinking a moment. "They needmore than we can give them. But you can't send me the dollars."
"No," said Hetty, "and I have none with me now. But if a responsible mancame to the bluff to-morrow night at eight o'clock, my maid could slipdown with the wallet--you must not come. It would be too dangerous. Myfather, and one or two of the rest, are very bitter against you."
"Well," said Grant, smiling gravely, "a responsible man will be there.There are folks who will bless you, Hetty."
"You must never tell them, or anybody," the girl insisted.
Grant said nothing further, and led his team past; but Hetty noticed theshadow in his bronzed face and the wistfulness in his eyes. Then, sheshook the reins, and as the horses plodded up the slope Miss Schuylerfancied that she sighed.
In the meanwhile Grant got into his sleigh, and Breckenridge, who had beenvanquished by Miss Schuyler in an exchange of badinage, found him somewhatsilent during the journey to Fremont ranch. He retired to rest soon afterthey reached it, and set out again before daylight the next morning, andit was late at night when he came back very weary, with his garments stiffwith frost. The great bare room where Breckenridge awaited him was filledwith a fusty heat, and as he came in, partly dazed by the change oftemperature, Grant did not see the other man who sat amidst thetobacco-smoke beside the glowing stove. He sank into a hide chair limply,and when Breckenridge glanced at him inquiringly, with numbed fingersdragged a wallet out of his pocket.
"Yes," he said, "I got the dollars. I don't know that it was quite thesquare thing, but with Harper's wife and the Dutchman's children 'moststarving in the hollow, I felt I had to take them."
Breckenridge made a little warning gesture, and the man behind the stove,reaching forward, picked up a pack
et that had dropped unnoticed by therest when Grant took out the wallet.
"You seem kind of played out, Larry, and I guess you didn't know youdropped the thing," he said.
Grant blinked at him; for a man who has driven for many hours in the coldof the Northwest is apt to suffer from unpleasant and somewhat bewilderingsensations when his numbed brain and body first throw off the effect ofthe frost.
"No," he said unevenly. "Let me alone a minute. I didn't see you."
The man, who was one of the homesteaders' leaders in another vicinity, satstill with the packet in his hand until, perhaps without any intention ofreading it, his eyes rested on the address. Then he sat upright suddenlyand stared at Grant.
"Do you know what you have got here, Larry?" he asked.
Grant stretched out his hand and took the packet, then laid it upon thetable with the address downwards.
"It's something that dropped out of the wallet," he said.
The other man laughed a little, but his face was intent. "Oh, yes, that'squite plain; but if I know the writing it's a letter with something in itfrom Torrance to the Sheriff. There's no mistaking the way he makes the'g.' Turn it over and I'll show you."
Grant laid a brown hand on the packet. "No. Do you generally look atletters that don't belong to you, Chilton?"
Breckenridge saw that Grant was recovering, and that the contemptuousmanner of his question was intentional, and guessed that his comrade hadintended to sting the other man to resentment, and so lead him from thepoint at issue. Chilton coloured, but he persisted.
"Well," he said, "I guess that one belongs to the committee. I didn't meanto look at the thing, but, now I'm sure of it, I have to do what I can forthe boys who made me their executive. I don't ask you how you got it,Larry."
"I got it by accident."
Chilton looked astonished, and almost incredulous. "Well, we needn't worryover that. The question is, what you're going to do with it?"
"I'm going to send it back."
Chilton made a gesture of impatience. "That's what you can't do. As weknow, the cattle-men had a committee at Cedar a day or two ago, and nowhere's a packet stuffed with something going to the Sheriff. Doesn't itstrike you yet that it's quite likely there's a roll of dollar bills and aletter telling him what he has to do inside it?"
"Well?" said Grant, seeing that he must face the issue sooner or later.
"We don't want their dollars, but that letter's worth a pile of them tous. We could get it printed by a paper farther east, with an article on itthat would raise a howl from everybody. There are one or two of them quiteready for a chance of getting a slap at the legislature, while there'smore than one man who would be glad to hawk it round the lobbies. Then hisfriends would have no more use for the Sheriff, and we might even get acommission sent down to straighten things up for us."
"The trouble is that we can't make any use of it," said Grant.
"No?" said Chilton, and the men looked at each other steadily.
"No," repeated Grant. "It wasn't meant that I should get it, and I'm goingto send it back."
"Then, while I don't want to make trouble, I'll have to mention the thingto my committee."
"You'll do just what you believe is right. Any way, we'll have supper now.It will be ready."
Chilton stood still a moment. "You are quite straight with us in this?"
"Yes," said Grant, "but I'm not going to give you that letter. Are youcoming in to supper? It really wouldn't commit you to anything."
"I am," said Chilton simply. "I have known you quite a long while, andyour assurance is good enough for me; but you would have found itdifficult to make other folks believe you."
They sat down at table, and Larry smiled as he said, "It's the first timeI have seen your scruples spoil your appetite, Chilton, but I had a notionthat you were not quite sure about taking any supper from me."
"Well," laughed Chilton, "that just shows how foolish a man can be,because the supper's already right here inside me. When I came inBreckenridge got it for me. Still, I have driven a long way, and I canworry through another."
He made a very creditable attempt, and when he had been shown to his roomGrant glanced at Breckenridge.
"You know how I got the letter?"
"Yes," said Breckenridge. "Miss Torrance must have inadvertently slippedit into the wallet. You couldn't have done anything else, Larry; but theaffair is delicate and will want some handling. How are you going to getthe packet back?"
"Take it myself," Grant said quietly.
It was ten o'clock the next night, and Hetty Torrance and Miss Schuylersat talking in their little sitting-room. Torrance was away, but hismarried foreman, who had seen service in New Mexico, and his wife, sleptin the house, and Cedar Range was strongly guarded. Now and then, thebitter wind set the door rattling, and there was a snapping in the stove;but when the gusts passed the ranch seemed very still, and Miss Schuylercould hear the light tread of the armed cow-boy who, perhaps to keephimself warm, paced up and down the hall below. There was another at awindow in the corridor, and one or two more on guard in the stores andstables.
"Wasn't Chris Allonby to have come over to-day?" asked Miss Schuyler.
"Yes," said Hetty. "I'm sorry he didn't. I have a letter for the Sheriffto give him, and wanted to get rid of the thing. It is important, and Ifancy, from what my father told me, if any of the homestead-boys got itthey could make trouble for us. Chris is to ride in with it and hand it tothe Sheriff."
"I wouldn't like a letter of that kind lying round," said Miss Schuyler."Where did you put it, Hetty?"
Hetty laughed. "Where nobody would ever find it--under some clothes ofmine. Talking about it makes one uneasy. Pull out the second drawer in thebureau, Flo."
Miss Schuyler did so, and Hetty turned over a bundle of daintilyembroidered linen. Then, her face grew very grave, she laid each articleback again separately.
"Nothing there!" said Miss Schuyler.
Hetty's fingers quivered. "Pull the drawer out, Flo. No. Never mindanything. Shake them out on the floor."
It was done, and a litter of garments lay scattered about them, but nopacket appeared, and Hetty sat down limply, very white in the face.
"It was there," she said, "by the wallet with the dollars. It must havegot inside somehow, and I sent the wallet to Larry. This is horrible,Flo."
"Think!" said Miss Schuyler. "You couldn't have put it anywhere else?"
"No," said Hetty faintly. "If the wrong people got it, it would turn outthe Sheriff and make an outcry everywhere. That is what I was told, thoughI don't know what it was about."
"Still, you know it would be safe with Mr. Grant."
"Yes," said Hetty. "Larry never did anything mean in his life. But youdon't understand, Flo. He didn't know it was there, and it might havedropped out on the prairie, while, even if he found it, how is he going toget it back to me? The boys would fire on him if he came here."
Flora Schuyler looked frightened. "You will have to tell your father,Hetty."
Hetty trembled a little. "It is going to be the hardest thing I ever did.He is just dreadful in his quietness when he is angry--and I would have totell him I had been meeting Larry and sending him dollars. You know whathe would fancy."
It was evident that Hetty was very much afraid of her father, and as clearto Miss Schuyler that the latter would have some cause for unpleasantsuspicions. Then, the girl turned to her companion appealingly.
"Flo," she said, "tell me what to do. The thing frightens me."
Miss Schuyler slipped an arm about her. "Wait," she said. "Your fatherwill not be here until noon to-morrow, and that letter is in the hands ofa very honest man. I think you can trust him to get it back to you."
"But he couldn't send anybody without giving me away, and he knows itmight cost him his liberty to come here," said Hetty.
"I scarcely fancy that would stop him."
Hetty turned, and looked at her friend curiously. "Flo, I wonder how itwould have suited if Larry
had been fond of you."
Miss Schuyler did not wince; but the smile that was on her lips was absentfrom her eyes. "You once told me I should have him. Are you quite sure youwould like to hand him over now?"
Hetty did not answer the question; instead, she blushed furiously. "We aretalking nonsense--and I don't know how I can face my father to-morrow,"she said.
It was at least an hour later, and the cow-boy below had ceased hispacing, when Hetty, who felt no inclination for sleep, fancied she heard atapping at the window. She sprang suddenly upright, and saw apprehensionin Miss Schuyler's face. The cow-boys were some distance away, and alittle verandah ran round that side of the house just below the window.Flora Schuyler had sufficient courage; but it was not of the kind whichappears to advantage in the face of bodily peril, and the colour faded inher cheeks. It was quite certain now that somebody was tapping at ortrying to open the window.
"Shake yourself together, Flo," said Hetty, in a hoarse whisper. "When Itell you, turn the lamp down and open the door. I am going to see who isthere."
The next moment she had opened a drawer of the bureau, while as shestepped forward with something glinting in her hand, Flora Schuyler, whoheard a whispered word, turned the lamp right out in her confusion, and,because she dared not stand still, crept after her companion. With a swiftmotion, Hetty drew the window-curtains back, and Miss Schuyler gasped. Thestars were shining outside, and the dark figure of a man was silhouettedagainst the blue clearness of the night.
"Come back," she cried. "Oh, he's coming in. Hetty, I must scream."
Hetty's fingers closed upon her arm with a cruel grip. "Stop," she said."If you do, they'll shoot him. Don't be a fool, Flo."
It was too dark to see clearly, but Flora Schuyler realized with a painfulfluttering of her heart and a great relief whose the white face outsidethe window must be.
The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Page 15
