The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

  IX

  There was a new contentment in the eyes of the Three Bar girl as shesat her horse beside Carlos Deane and looked off down the bottoms. Ahaze of smoke drifted above the little valley of the Crazy Loop. Threemule outfits were steadily ripping up the sage flats. Men lifted theuprooted brush on forks and piled it for the burning. The two rodedown to the fields with the pungent sage smoke drifting in their faces.Harris joined them, a smudge of fire-black across his forehead, andswept his arm across the stretch of plowed ground.

  "Can you picture that covered with a stand of alfalfa hay?" he asked.

  The girl nodded.

  "Yes--and cut and cured and in the stack yards," she said. "And astraight red run of Three Bar cows wintering under fence."

  Harris wondered if her new contentment came wholly from the progressthe Three Bar was making or was derived partly from the presence ofCarlos Deane. Each man had recognized the other as a contender for thelove of the Three Bar girl and during the two days of Deane's stay eachone had been covertly sizing and estimating the caliber of the otherman.

  "The opposite faction hasn't succeeded in wrecking the Three Bar up todate," Deane said. "It's probable they see you're too strong for them."

  "It's hard to wreck plowed ground," Harris pointed out. "And that'sall they have to work on right now; not a fence to tear up, a stack tofire or any growing crops to trample down. All they can do right nowis to wait. It must be wearing. But sooner or later they'll showtheir teeth."

  For a month prior to Deane's arrival Harris had been occupied from dawntill dark with the details of the new work. The wagons had made aweek's trip to the railroad to freight in more implements and supplies.A hundred acres of plowed ground lay mellowing under the sun. Fivemiles back up the slope of the hills two men worked in a valley oflodgepole pine, felling, trimming and peeling sets of matched logs forthe cabins that must be erected on each filing. The cowhands were outworking the range in pairs, branding late-dropped calves and movingdrifted stock back to the home range. Forty white-face bulls had beentrail-herded from the railroad and thrown out along the foot of thehills to replace the other bulls that had been rounded up and broughtin. These old stags now grazed in the big pasture lot until such timeas the beef herd should be gathered and shipped. In a few more daysthe boys would come in from the range and gather at the home ranch,preparatory to going out once more on the beef round-up.

  "I'm about to take a vacation," Harris said. "The ranger is comingover to mark out some more trees for us and to run the U. S. brand onthe logs we've already cut. I'm going back up in the hills with him tosort out a valley or two for summer range."

  "We don't need any extra range now," Billie said. "Why pay grazingfees before we need the room."

  "Just to get our wedge in first," Harris explained. "We can getgrazing permits on the Forest now--right in the best grass valleys.Each year we'll throw some cows up there to hold our rights. There'llalways be good grass on the Forest Reserves for they won't permitoverstocking. The day will come when we'll be glad to have permits tosummer-feed a thousand or so head on the Forest. I was thinking maybeyou and Deane would like to make the jaunt."

  "We'll go," the girl decided.

  "It's a question of time," Deane said. "How long will we be gone?"

  "We'll start in an hour or two," Harris said. "Just as soon as Wiltonturns up. We'll only be gone five days at the most."

  "Then I'll stretch my stay to cover it," Deane accepted. "I'dcertainly hate to pass up a chance for a trip in the hills."

  "We'll ride back and make up an extra bed roll," Harris said. "Thenwe'll be all set to start when Wilton shows up."

  Calico had sidled off the plowing and was cropping the grass at theedge of it. As Harris moved toward him Evans rode down the right-handslope and the three waited for him.

  "Moore and I were working in close and I thought I'd ride over to tellyou that the wild bunch has lost a veteran," he said. "Some one putBarton out over in the Breaks."

  Barton, whose name was linked with that of Harper, had been found witha rifle ball through his chest. His own gun, found by hisout-stretched hand, had showed one blackened cylinder, the empty shellsufficient proof that he had fired a single shot at his assailant.

  "Anyway, he had a chance to see who got him," Lanky philosophized. "Hewas likely ordered to turn round--given a fighting chance maybe."

  The girl could find no sorrow in her heart over the passing of Bartonbut there was an uneasy feeling deep within her,--a vague suspicionthat she should be able to pronounce the killer's name. This elusivethought was crowded from her mind when the ranger rode up to the ThreeBar accompanied by Slade, each man leading a pack horse.

  "Slade's going to look over a little territory up on the Forest,"Wilton explained. "So we can get it all done on one trip."

  There was no way to avoid this unexpected addition to their party.Harris and the ranger packed the three bed rolls and Billie's teepeealong with the necessary equipment and in half an hour the littlecavalcade filed up a gulch back of the Three Bar, the ranger in thelead with his pack horse. The other pack animals followed and thethree other men and the girl brought up the rear in single file. Bynoon they made the first rims and followed over into a rolling country,heavily timbered in the main. In the early evening they rode out on toa low divide and Blind Valley showed below them, a broad expanse ofopen grassland. A little stream threaded the bottoms and its windingcourse was marked by thickets of birch. In places it disappeared underthe leafy tunnels of aspen groves, their pale silvery trunks and leavescontrasting with the heavy blue-green of an occasional water-spruce.In a narrowing of the valley it was choked from wall to wall by acottonwood jungle, opening out once more into wide meadows immediatelybelow the neck. Long open parks extended their tongues well back upthe timbered sidehills.

  "Feed!" Harris said. "Feed. Worlds of it."

  They angled down the slope and struck the rank grass of thebottoms,--mountain hay in which the horses stood knee-deep. They madecamp at the mouth of a branching canyon, just within the timber. Theranger threw the horses up this side gulch while Harris felled a deadpine and kindled a fire. When the ranger returned he picketed onehorse in the heavy grass while Slade pitched Billie's teepee under aspruce. The meal was finished, dishes washed and the five sat round afire.

  Harris sensed Deane's attitude toward it all for he knew something ofthe other man's way of life. Those with whom Deane was thrown most incontact were careful of appearances. It was unheard-of in his codethat a girl should jaunt for days accompanied by four men. Hereappearances seemed entirely disregarded and no one gave the matter athought.

  The moon swung over the ridges and shed its radiance over Blind Valley.Deane motioned to Billie and the girl rose and followed him to the edgeof the timber where they sat on a blow-down.

  "Billie, let me take you away from all this," he urged. "All this hardriding and rough man's work. Let me give you the things that will shutout all the hardships. What's the use of going on like this?"

  The girl was conscious of a vague sense of disappointment. Deane wasan active figure in the business life of his own community and she hadfelt some pride in the fact that when he should come to the Three Barhe would find that she too was doing real work in the world. Shereflected that his attitude was that of so many other men, his idea oflove synonymous with shelter for the object of it, and his main pleawas that of providing her with shelter against all the rough corners oflife. Shelter! And what she wanted was to be part of things--to havea hand in running her own affairs. It came to her that of all menperhaps Slade understood her the best.

  "I don't want shelter!" she said. "And I can't think of anything elsetill after the Three Bar is a going concern."

  The voices of the three men round the fire drifted to them.

  "Listen," she urged.

  "Blind Valley ought to summer-feed three hundred head," the ranger wassaying. "I'll recommend permits for that man
y cows."

  "That'll suit me," Slade nodded. "I'll put in application through you?"

  "Not if I can help it you won't," Harris said. "Why should you havepermits right in the back yard of the Three Bar with all the rest ofthe hills open to you? There's a natural lead right down to thecorrals; divides to form wings. It's up to Wilton, of course, but I'mgoing to make application to graze Blind Valley myself. They'll allowwhichever one he recommends."

  "Harris has first call," the ranger stated mildly. "This is thelogical range for his stuff--this and one or two others right close.We can fix you up in a dozen other good grass countries further on,Slade, if it's all the same."

  Slade nodded agreement. The ranger had authority to recommend theissuing of permits and his superiors would not go contrary to hissuggestions in any but exceptional cases--certainly not in this matter.Slade's eyes turned frequently toward the two figures on the log,silhouetted against the white of the moonlit meadow, and his slashedmouth set in disapproval. Harris noted this and smiled as it occurredto him that Slade's views on the subject of Deane's appropriating thegirl for himself were about on a par with Deane's ideas relative to hertouring the hills with four men.

  The two came back and sat with the others round the dying fire, thenall turned in for the night, Billie in her teepee and the men in theirbed rolls with no other overhead shelter than the trees. In less thanan hour Harris raised on one elbow. The ranger woke just as Harrisslipped from his bed roll and tugged on his chaps. The steady thud ofhoofs had penetrated each man's consciousness and apprised him of thefact that the horses were coming down.

  Wilton closed his eyes as Harris departed to head them back. Threetimes during the night Deane was roused as one or the other of thethree men left his bed roll to frustrate an attempt of the horses tomake a break for home. Near morning he was once more wakened by aclammy dampness on his face. A fine drizzle was falling. Slade was onhis feet, shoving a few sticks of wood inside the flap of Billie'steepee.

  In the first gray light of morning Harris was up and slicing shavingsfrom the few dry sticks Slade had so thoughtfully tucked away.Breakfast was cooked under the dripping trees. The ranger was soakedto the knees as he waded through the tall grass to the picketed horse.He saddled him and went up-country after the other horses. The outfitwas packed up and the little procession filed away toward the nextvalley--and Carlos Deane proved his real caliber to Harris.

  Throughout the day they rode in a fine drizzle; in the timber the wetbranches whipped them and sprayed water down the necks of theirslickers; in the boggy meadows of the bottoms the mosquitoes hoveredround them in humming swarms. The horses stamped, shook their headsangrily and switched their tortured flanks with dripping tails till atlast the men greased their noses, eyes and flanks to protect theanimals from the singing horde. When they dismounted to lead theirhorses up precipitous game trails leading to the crest of some divideDeane's Angora chaps flapped like dead weights and seemed to drag himback. From the lofty ridges they gazed down upon white clouds floatingin the valleys; and at night they made camp and slept in damp bed rollswith the clammy mist chilling them. The next day was the same.

  Harris knew that a man might evidence great courage in the face ofdanger, risk his life in the heat of excitement, but that the true testof iron control is to experience grinding discomfort and smile.Deane's neck was raw and chafed from the wet neckband of his flannelshirt and his hands and cheeks were puffed with the bites of thebuzzing pests. But Deane had been cheerful throughout and had utteredno complaint.

  Toward evening of the second gloomy day Harris rode up beside him.

  "You'll do," he said.

  "How's that?" Deane asked.

  "There's maybe one man out of every two hundred that can go along likethis and not get to blaming every one in sight for what's happening tohim. I don't know as I'd have blamed you any if you'd been cussing usall out for the past two days."

  Deane laughed and shook his head.

  "I've been rather enjoying it," he said.

  "You're just a plain, old-fashioned liar, Deane," Harris returned."You haven't been enjoying it any more than the rest of us--which ismighty little; but you've got insides enough to let on like it'sconsiderable sport--which is a whole lot."

  "No one else has done any beefing," Deane said. "So why should I?"

  "This is everyday business with us," Harris pointed out. "And rightunusual for you. There's likely a number of things you do every dayback your way, but that doesn't signify that I could amble back thereand perform as well as you."

  "I suspect you'd make out all right," Deane said. "Anyway--I'm muchobliged for the endorsement."

  They camped again in the drizzle but by noon of the following day thesun peeped through. In an hour every cloud and fog-bank had beendispersed with a rapidity which is seen only in the hill country. Theranger pulled up his horse as they struck a game trail in the saddle ofa low divide. A bunch of shod horses had been over it a few hours past.

  "Some of the albino's layout," Wilton surmised. "They cross throughhere to that camp of theirs down in the Breaks. I've run across theirtrails up here before."

  They rode out on to a spur and looked down on the low country. Sladeand the ranger were going on, the others returning to the Three Bar.Harris pointed to the country spread out below them.

  "That's the Breaks," he told Deane. "I'll point out the albino'sstronghold."

  "While they're looking I want to talk to you," Slade said to Billie.

  "Let's get together," he said, when the others had passed on. "Why areyou so dead set on making a squatter outfit of the Three Bar? Don'tyou know the nesters will flock in here and cut the range all up assoon as they see a chance?"

  "Not my range," she said. "Outside of the V L and the Halfmoon Dthere's not another site they can get water for, except maybe a coupleof spring gulches where flood reservoirs will hold back enough to watera forty. So we'll still control our home range."

  "But there's a dozen sites down in my range," he said.

  "And a dozen small outfits wouldn't run any more cows than you do now,"she said. "At least not on my range; so what difference will it maketo me? Why don't you have men file on all those sites?"

  "You can't make a contract that will hold a man to turn over hishomestead after it's proved up," he said. "Half of them would keeptheir land."

  "Of course," she agreed. "But then you'd have half instead of nothingat all. Do you want the world?"

  "I want you!" he said. "Throw in with me, girl. I'm going to fightthese nesters off--the Three Bar among the rest if you don't quit.I'll smash the Three Bar into mincemeat unless you run this damnedHarris off and quit this game."

  It was the first time Slade had ever threatened. Her spirits hadsoared over the prospects of the Three Bar and she was suddenly afraidfor her brand if Slade, who had whittled down a dozen outfits at once,should suddenly turn his whole attention to the Three Bar.

  "I've got it to do," Slade stated. "Since you've started this dealthere's been nesters filed papers on every good site in my range,waiting to rush in as soon as I lose my grip. Do you think I'll letthem crowd me out? Not in a thousand years! I'm telling you--I'llbreak the Three Bar if you keep it up."

  "All right!" she said. "And what about the homestead laws?"

  "I'm the law out here," he asserted.

  It came to her that Slade was fighting on the defensive, that he fearedto let the Three Bar succeed and set up a precedent in defiance of thesigns that dotted the range.

  "Then it's war!" she said. "And you'll go under yourself, from yourown size, if you haven't the judgment to hedge yourself now like therest. The Three Bar is going ahead--and we're going to win."

  She turned her horse but Slade caught her arm and whirled her around.He jerked a thumb at the two men down the ridge.

  "What can Deane, a half-baked boy, give you?" he demanded. "Money--andtrinkets to hang all over you till you flash like a Mexican's bridle; af
lower garden and a soft front lawn to range in--and after a year ortwo you'd give your soul to trade it off for an acre of raw sage.You'd trade a castle full of glittering chandeliers for one hour at theround-up fire--your box at the opera for a seat on the ground with yourback against the chuck-wagon wheel while the boys sang just one oldsong. I know! You'd soon get fed up on too much of that. You want anoutfit of your own. I'll give you that--the biggest in the State."

  She shook her head without answering.

  "Then I'll break you," he predicted a second time. He drew a foldedslip of paper from his pocket and held it out to her. "That's theexchange slip," he said. "It calls for three hundred odd head of mixedstuff. You can send yours over any time." He turned his horse andfollowed after the ranger while the girl joined Harris and Deane.

  Harris had slipped the strap of his glasses and handed them to Deanewho had dismounted and was peering off at the spot Harris had pointedout. A few scattered shacks, showing as toy houses from the distance,stood in the center of a broad open basin, sheltered on all sides bythe choppy mass of the Breaks. A solid corral, almost a stockade,stood near the buildings and a few white points indicated that a teepeeor two had been pitched along its edge.

  "That's Arnold's stockade," Harris explained to Deane. "Arnold was anold-time rustler that finished at the end of a rope fifteen years ago.Now all the drifters in the country stop over here if they want a placeto hole up."

  Deane had been striving to fathom the attitude of a community where thethieves were known as such, their headquarters a matter of commonknowledge, and yet allowed to carry on their trade.

  "Can't the sheriff clean them out of there?" he asked.

  "He could," Harris said. "But no man will make a complaint. They canrustle every steer in the country and the losers are afraid to make areport. Every outfit is supposed to protect its own. If Alden shouldride up to almost any ranch within a hundred miles and ask them ifthey'd missed any stock in the last three years they'd shake theirheads and swear that they hadn't lost a hoof. But the Three Bar has aclean page; we're not afraid he'll get a line on us while we're havinghim round up some one else. The first time we get a scrap of realevidence on any man we'll call Alden in."

  "You told me the Three Bar herds have been cut in half," Deane said."How much evidence do you need?"

  "It's like this:" Harris explained. "We'd have to make a specificcharge against a few men--name them in connection with some raid. Thatnest down there is only a sort of stopping place. There's twenty or sothat use it on and off. Maybe the very men we'd name would be inColdriver or some other place and could prove it. Even if theycouldn't we couldn't get a man to testify. Then too, rustling is aboutthe hardest thing in the world to prove. There's a dozen ways they canwork it. I could catch some of them driving a bunch of Three Bar cowstoward the Idaho line. They'd look up and see me and calmly ride onpast the cows. They could say the bunch was just drifting ahead oftheir horses--that they weren't driving them at all. Who can prove acase of rustling even if you see it, unless you actually catch onealtering a brand--which they wouldn't do anywhere within a hundredmiles of that brand's range."

  "Then how will you ever convict one?" Deane asked.

  "The only way to convict a rustler right now is to kill him and swearthat you run up on him changing a brand," Harris said. "I expectthat's what we'll have to do."

  Deane looked at the girl to determine how she met this suggestion.Instead of the shiver of distaste which he rather expected her lipswere pressed tight.

  "A little of that would help Slade too," she said. "He told me justnow that he'd smash the Three Bar."

  The man reflected that this sort of a life could not help but wear offsome of her natural fineness and harden her.

  They followed the rims till they had cleared the Breaks, then angleddown to the foothills and headed for the Three Bar. They held a steadygait until a half hour after sunset and camped in the open near a tinyspring. Again Deane was impressed with the impropriety of the girl'sbeing out with two men who loved her and the thought was an ache thatremained with him. It was a natural reaction,--the lifelong trainingto guard against appearances which were open to criticism asreligiously as against the accomplished fact.

  As they sat round the little fire the girl handed Harris the paperSlade had given her. It was a scrawled bill of sale calling for threehundred odd head of Circle P cows, listed in the exact numbers of allages and sexes. In return she would send him an exchange slip for thesame number of Three Bar stock. This exchange system was one ofSlade's own devising, intended to eliminate the time and expense ofsending riders to scour adjacent ranges in search of drifted stock.Each outfit exchanged slips based on the round-up tally with everyother brand and so could show bill of sale for off-brand stuff in theirbeef shipments or for any rebrands on the range.

  "This labor-saving device is Slade's trump card," Harris said. "Itworks all his way. We couldn't turn in a false report. But he hasthree crews covering his range, each under a different wagon foremanand no one of them wise to what the rest are doing. It's only theforemen that jot down the daily tallies and keep the final score. Evenif they talked among themselves, why, they're all riding for Slade'sbrand--and there you are."

  Deane was regarding the penciled memorandum signed by Slade.

  "Not a very impressive document," he observed.

  Harris laughed at the other's evident disapproval of such a slipshodmethod of property transfer.

  "Not very," he agreed. "But it's absolutely good. You could borrowmoney against that at the bank. He doesn't get us that way but here'show he does: He's mapped out a rebrand system. His rebrand is Triangleon the hip. When he gets our exchange slip all he has to do is go onhis range and run the Triangle on the hip of the number of Three Barstock it calls for. There are Three Bar cows ranging a hundred milesfrom here, just as there's brands a hundred miles off whose stock turnsup here--with a Triangle on the hip. Who's going to check Slade up?It would take three crews to cover his range and tally the fresh ThreeBar rebrands of this one season--a few here and a few there. He shipstrainloads of cows in a year. There's some old rebrands in each lot,say; maybe more than last year's exchange. Well he simply has beenholding them over. He can easy explain that. It would break a smalloutfit to hire enough hands to cover his range and check him up--andhe'd buy part of those. The albino's men are petty-larceny banditscompared with Slade."

  Deane turned to the girl.

  "Billie, why don't you get out of a game where everything is crooked--agame of who can steal the most and every man for himself?" he asked.

  "Why don't you fold your hands and give up your business the firstthing that goes wrong?" she countered. "Instead of trying to remedyit?"

  "But you don't have to do it," he urged.

  "Neither do you," she said. "I've the same pride in the Three Bar thatyou have in anything you've helped build up. You'd fight all theharder for one of your schemes that was hard-pressed--and so would I."

  She turned to her teepee and ended the discussion, her pride a littlehurt that Deane should so little appreciate her work--and the spiritthat made her hold on instead of giving up.

  That evening they rode up to the Three Bar just as Waddles announcedthe evening meal.

  "She's hot!" the big voice wailed. "She's re-e-ed hot!"

  The hands were gathering at the ranch, coming in from the range for afrolic before the beef round-up should keep out for another month.Deane's time was up and he had planned to leave on the following day.

  "You can't do that," Harris said. "Two more days for you. I've givenorders not to let you off the place till after the dance at Brill's.This is Tuesday and the big frolic will be staged Thursday night. Thenyou're free to go."

  Deane shook his head and prepared to offer an excuse but Harrissmilingly refused to consider it.

  "No use to try," he said. "The boys won't let you go. We've had youout in the rain and now we'll try to make amends for
it. Billie, don'tlet him leave the place. I'll detail you as guard."

  "You hear the orders," she said. "You're stuck for two more days atthe Three Bar whether you like it or not."

  "That settles it," Deane said. "I do want to see that dance."

  Horne strolled up to them as they reached the corral.

  "Another of the wild bunch down," he said. "Magill this time. Got itjust the same as Barton did last week. Shot from in front; one emptyshell in his gun. The Breaks is getting to be a hard place to residein."

  Again the girl felt that queer sensation of having expected this totranspire, as if possibly she had helped plan the deed herself and hadforgotten it. That night as she lay in bed her mind was concerned withit and at times the solution seemed almost to reach the surface of herconsciousness. Two belated riders came up the lane. As they rode pasther open window she heard the name of Magill.

  "That's two for Bangs," said a voice she knew for Moore's.

  The evasive sense of familiarity, of being in some way identified withthe killings, was suddenly clear to her,--so clear that she marveled atnot having known at once.

  Old Rile Foster was haunting the Breaks near Arnold's, imposing grimand merciless justice on all those whom he suspected of having had ahand in the finish of Bangs.