30,000 On the Hoof

by Grey, Zane

  "Fine... Al, by gosh, I reckon you've pushed me off. I was tilting on the fence. Will you make an offer to Lee for me?"

  "Shore will. I can almost guarantee it a go."

  "I'll look you up to-night... Now, what'n hell did I come in here for?"

  "Money, same as me, I'll bet. There's still some left. While we've been talking here I've seen stacks of long-green pass out that window. Beats me where it comes from... So long, Logan. Don't get weak-kneed now. Sell!"

  Logan finally remembered that his errand in the bank was to draw money for Lucinda and Barbara. He wrote out a cheque and noted the amount of his balance had dropped below ten thousand dollars. He had had much more than that, the accumulation from years of sales of small herds. Where had so much money gone? Cashing the cheque Logan wended his way home.

  All through late spring and summer, since the boys had gone, Lucinda and Barbara had worried Logan more and more. Lucinda had altered, broken, greatly. She suffered under a hallucination that her sons would never come back from the war. She was queer sometimes. She wept at night when she thought he lay asleep. Barbara, mentally at least, appeared to be worse than Lucinda. Losing Abe with no certainty of his return had proved a terrific strain. Logan could only judge of her state of mind by her pale face, her great burning eyes, her courage, her restless energy and insatiate passion for all forms of war relief service.

  Both she and Lucinda had plunged into work with all the other women of Flagg, and particularly those who had sons, brothers, sweethearts, cousins, friends who had gone to France, or to the training-camps. They organized bazaars, concerts, socials, knitting-circles. They were persistent and relentless about raising money for their soldier boys, for relief work, particularly the Red Cross. Logan swore he had contributed a pretty penny to that cause. He had come to fume a little about all this crazy obsession. From morning till late at night his womenfolk ran and worked and harangued themselves until they were so tired, so nervous, so upset that they could not sleep.

  But when Logan got home to lunch, to see Lucinda's sad face and Barbara's strained eyes, he reproached himself for his impatience and irritation.

  When all was said, his women were the least carried away by this infernal war mania. At least Lucinda did not quite make a fool of herself and Barbara did not forget that she was the wife of Abe Huett.

  "Any news, Dad?" asked Barbara.

  "About the same, Bab. The bulletin said 'All quiet on the Western Front.'"

  "All quiet! Oh, the liars! I get so sick reading that line."

  "Why sick, my dear?"

  "Because it's false. Just think how hideous! You read that down town--and Mrs. Hardy reads a wire from Washington that Joe has been killed in action. Crashed over the German lines! Cited for bravery!... Oh-h!--poor Joe! That boy, who loved machines... He couldn't fight!"

  "Aw!... That's a punch below the belt... That's real... I'm sorry--awful sorry, I'll drop in to see Mrs. Hardy."

  "Logan, did you remember to get the money?"

  "Yes, Luce, I did--finally. Here... Folks, we've been spending a lot of money somehow."

  "Money doesn't mean anything these days," said Lucinda.

  "I reckon not. But it took a long time to earn some... I'm not kicking, Maw. I was just telling you."

  "Dad, could you let me have a--a hundred?" asked Barbara, hesitatingly.

  "I reckon so--if you promise to rest once in a while, and stop that damned knitting. Every time I come home, even at meals, you knit, knit, knit. It's getting on my nerves, honey."

  "It's not the knitting, Dad. But I'll have to quit for a while. My fingers are raw."

  "Well, after all, I have got some news," declared Logan, sitting down and slapping a big hand on each knee. "I reckon I'll sell out."

  "Your cattle?" cried Barbara eagerly.

  "Logan, how often you've said that," added his wife incredulously.

  "I reckon I'll sell at forty. Might get more, if I stuck it out. But Al Doyle called me a hawg, and darn me if he wasn't near right."

  "Daddy! Sell at forty! And you have thirty thousand head?... Why, that's over a million!"

  "Sure. And if I waited to get one dollar more a head--why, that'd be five thousand more for each of the Huetts. Can you see now why I've hung on so tight?"

  "Oh, Dad!--It's too good to be true!"

  "Not much. It is true... Set out some lunch, Luce, and the sooner I'll mozy down town while I'm in this humour."

  "Mother, think how we can help the Red Cross," murmured Barbara.

  Logan grunted forcibly. "Yes, my girl, but there'll be a limit. The war has got you both hipped."

  Mitchell, buyer for the Government, suavely welcomed Logan into his office and moved a chair for him. Mitchell was a man over forty, with stern, smooth face and shrewd, cold eyes.

  "Good day, Huett. You certainly have taken your time about giving me an answer."

  Logan returned his greeting and drawled: "I'm never in a hurry with cattle deals."

  "You'd have done well if you had been in a hurry," returned Mitchell, curtly. "The price of cattle went up. You cattlemen lost your heads. You could have sold once for forty dollars a head--then thirty-eight. When it was thirty-two I warned you--advised you to close. But you knew it all.

  Yesterday I bought the last of Babbitt's for twenty-eight. To-day I wouldn't give you twenty-five."

  Huett took that for a crafty, greedy bluff. Nevertheless it added to his concern. Doyle had been right--he had waited too long.

  "I can sell to Kansas City buyers for more than that."

  "Go out and try it. The stockyards there are flooded."

  Huett got up slowly and clapped on his sombrero. "Good day, Mitchell," he said gruffly, and stamped out.

  Mitchell called after him: "Your family will suffer for your pig-headedness!"

  That surprising sally added anger to Huett's amazed concern. It happened to hit an extremely sore spot. In the next hour he was to learn that the market for cattle had closed, so far as it pertained to Flagg. Babbitt, Charteris, Wilson, Little, all the cattle barons confirmed this, and admitted frankly that they had gambled for too high stakes. But Huett could not be convinced. A man who had thirty thousand head of cattle to sell held a fortune in his hands. The boom might be past, but beef and hides represented gold more or less. He wired to Kansas City for an offer, and then hunted up Doyle.

  "Let's have a drink, old-timer," suggested Al. "We need it."

  "Don't care if I do... Mitchell turned me down cold. Wouldn't give me twenty-five!"

  "Logan, I don't like that girl-chasin' dude," replied the old Arizonian, bluntly. "I just had a talk with my son Lee. He was keen about your offer, and he can get a dozen or more good cowboys and fifty Navvies."

  "Humph! If I can't sell I can't drive."

  "Sell? Of course you can sell. It's tough to come down, but you must reckon on the large number of cattle in your herd. The three thousand head sold here since early May averaged only twenty dollars a head. Some went for thirty and most of them for fifteen or less."

  "So I reckoned. Just wired to Kansas City."

  "Logan, Lee thinks this buyer is hot after Barbara. It's pretty well known, Lee says, among the young people. Mitchell has been playing high jinks among the Flagg girls. But Barbara snubbed him, which made him mad about her."

  "Most young men and older ones too fall for Barbara. She had to give up the dances because of the fights over her."

  "Shore. But this is different, Logan," rejoined Al, seriously. "In war-time women are not responsible. Or else they're inspired about somethin'. I remember during the Civil War that officers in uniform just played hell with women. It's worse now, for this is a hell of a war."

  "But Al... My God, Barbara is--"

  "Just like all the other young women, thrown off her balance. My daughter is only fifteen, but she's loco. She despises cowboys that were not accepted for draft. To sum it up, women are not themselves nowadays. Wal, war plays hell with men, too... The hunch I want
to make about Barbara is this. You can't keep her out of this war-relief work, but you can keep her away from Mitchell."

  "I sure can, if it's necessary," returned Logan, his surprise succeeding to grimness.

  "Mitchell thinks he has you in a corner now. His refusal to buy was a bluff. He might be low-down enough to work on Barbara with this cattle deal."

  "Ah-huh. I wouldn't put it above him. Thanks, Al," replied Logan, soberly, and went his way.

  From that hour he meant to take interest in what was going on in Flagg.

  But he resisted his desire to interrogate Lucinda and Barbara. Next day he received an answer to his telegram. His Kansas buyer offered ten dollars on the hoof. That did not interest Logan. But he accepted the fact of a slump in the market price of cattle and that he had lost considerably by holding on. That was the gamble of cattle-raising. The gamble still applied. He had a week or two yet that he k could wait, and still make the cattle drive that fall. Meanwhile he walked the streets, talked war and cattle, read the bulletins and the papers, and had a keen eye for all forms of relief work.

  One night Barbara presented herself late at the supper table, most becomingly dressed, very handsome indeed. Logan particularly noted the red spots in her white cheeks and the brilliancy of her eyes.

  "Bab, you sure look good for sore eyes... Where are you going all togged up?"

  "I have a date with Mr. Mitchell," replied Barbara, frankly. "Some bazaar or Red Cross affair?"

  "No. He wants me to see a war picture at the theatre."

  "Ever go with him before?"

  "No. He never asked me."

  "Barbara, it's all over town that Mitchell is hot after you," said Logan, gravely.

  "Oh, Dad!" she cried. "I didn't think you listened to gossip!"

  "I didn't until lately... Has Mitchell made love to you?"

  "He tried. He's gallant, like a romantic soldier. Likes all the girls, and they like him. But since I told him I was married he's been very--nice."

  "Has he mentioned my cattle to you?"

  "Yes. He intimated you were a greedy old cowman who'd hang on to his cattle and let his family starve. He predicts that cattle and hides will have no value after the war. I told him I could persuade you to sell.

  Indeed, I was going to talk to you presently."

  "My girl, has this slick hombre hinted that he'd buy my cattle if you were very--nice to him?"

  "What do you mean?" asked Barbara hotly.

  "Bab, I knew you were an innocent, unworldly girl, but I didn't think you could be so green."

  "Father! You've insulted Mr. Mitchell, and now you insult me," protested Barbara, hotly.

  "No, honey. And I swear I think more of you for your innocence. But don't be a little fool, Bab."

  "Oh, I can't believe what you hint about Mr. Mitchell."

  "Barbara, you women couldn't see the devil himself if he had on a uniform... Now you take my word for it until you see for yourself... Let's slip one over on this fellow, as the saying goes here. You go to the movies with him, but come home pronto. Be sweet to the lady-killer. Give him a dose of his own medicine. Tell him you are afraid your Dad will go broke hanging on to his cattle herd. Tell him if he'll only buy it you'll be very--very nice to him."

  "Logan Huett!" burst out Lucinda, red in the face. "Dad, I'm surprised," added Barbara, hotly.

  "You'll be a damn sight more surprised if you do as I ask," declared Logan, bluntly.

  "I'll do it and I'll--I'll mean it," returned Barbara, spiritedly. "I think you're suspicious, unjust, old-fashioned. I think you're--"

  "Never mind what I am," interrupted Logan, in the first stern tone he had ever used to her. "I know what you mean by being nice. You'd be yourself.

  Mitchell will take it another way. But after to-night you are never to go anywhere with him again, or ask him in here if he calls, or lay yourself open to any occasion with him alone. Do you understand me, young lady?"

  "I--I couldn't help it."

  "You'll obey me?"

  "Yes, Father."

  That ended the discussion, though not the confusion and resentment Logan's women-folk felt. As for Logan, he had taken pains to find out all about Mitchell, and he felt not only justified, but quite elated. He attended that motion-picture, to his regret. The scenes of marching soldiers and embarking marines, the long lines of moving artillery, the endless streams of trucks, the soldiers, miserable and begrimed in muddy trenches, the tanks belching fire, and the cannons puffing smoke, the great holes blown in the ground by bursting shells--all these scenes purported to have actually been filmed at the front made Logan sick and dazed.

  "So that's war!" he muttered, jostling through the noisy crowd emerging into the street. "And I sent my sons into that... Good God! I reckoned they'd have a chance. Man to man, with rifles, behind trees and rocks, where the sharp eye and crack shot would prove who was best! But that--God Almighty--what would you call that?"

  Logan went home to find Lucinda out, as usual. He lighted the lamp and building a fire in the open fireplace, he composed himself to his pipe when Barbara entered quickly. Her beautiful face was white instead of pale, and her great eyes appeared to flare lightnings.

  "Hello, Bab. Glad you got home so early. What upset you?"

  "Dad, I don't know which was the worse, Mr. Mitchell or that ghastly motion-picture," she replied, with suppressed agitation.

  "Humph. That picture was pretty damn bad. It made me sick."

  Barbara threw off her coat and hat, and stood in the open door of her room, facing Logan. He had never seen her as she was now, and he felt a surge of elation.

  "Dad, I apologize," she said, her dark eyes on him. "You were right about Mitchell. I started out to be very sweet and nice, as I had bragged to you I'd be... I'm afraid I overdid it. On the way home, just now, he--he... Well, I'd have been happier and safer With Jack Campbell... But I got away from your lady-killer without destroying his illusion that he'd made an easy conquest of the simple little country-jake. Which I was!"

  "Ha! ha! Well, I'll be doggoned... I hope he didn't insult you, Bab. It takes me off my feed for weeks to kill a man."

  "Hush, Dad. He insulted me, but he didn't guess that. I reckon he thinks it his charming, masterly way with women."

  "Humph. I'm not so stuck on that--. Did Mitchell mention cattle?"

  "He did. He'll send for you to-morrow. And he'll buy. It's up to you now, Dad. I'll never let him come near me again."

  Logan sat up, smoking, and waiting for Lucinda to come in. He would sell his thirty thousand head. Then what? Wait for the boys to come home. He would miss the brown game trails and the lovely coloured woods this fall.

  What strange inexplicable creatures women were! But wonderful, good, faithful--most of them! And men? He was not learning so much to make him proud of his sex these days. War, greed, lust--they seemed to go together.

  Next morning Logan had a stroke of good fortune in the shape of an offer from a Chicago firm, through its local buyer who had arrived in Flagg, of twenty-five dollars a head for his cattle, delivered at the company's cost at the railroad. When, therefore, Logan received a verbal message to call upon the Government official he felt pretty self-assured. He would get more than twenty-five, and anything more he felt was a windfall.

  Mitchell was cool, calculating, business-like when Logan entered his presence. Logan's last vestige of respect fled before this smooth, mask-faced man who had only the night before insulted his daughter. Logan sensed something he had never encountered before in his deals with men, and it baffled him. But he divined what an infinitesimal figure he cut in the machinations of this suave gentleman. It affected Logan exceedingly.

  "Morning, Huett. I hear Blair made you an offer."

  "Yep. He came across pretty good."

  "Twenty-five a head and expenses of delivery. He told me Al Doyle had prompted the offer and that you'd accept."

  "Wal, that was fine of Al. But I couldn't think of it."

  "No, you wou
ldn't," retorted Mitchell tartly. "What do you want this morning?"

  Logan conceived the idea that Mitchell really did not care what the cattle cost, once he made up his mind to buy. It was an unusual deduction for Logan to make, and he shrewdly thought he would test it out by asking a high figure from which he could come down considerably and still make a big deal.

  "I want expense for the drive and full charge of it. Thirty-five dollars a head, paid on delivery at the railroad--in cash."

  "In cash?" repeated Mitchell in amazement.

  "Yes, in cash. I might have to wait on a bank draft for so much money.

  It'll take two weeks or more to drive. That'd give you plenty of time to get the cash."

  Mitchell waved a deprecatory hand, which meant that it was no matter of importance how the debt was paid. But before he averted his eyes, Logan caught a fleeting glimpse of an extraordinarily steely flash. Also the man crushed a piece of paper that he held in his hand. These evidences of feeling puzzled Logan until Mitchell turned with a light on his face.

  Then Logan imagined the singular reaction had to do with Barbara.

  "Expenses and management of delivery okay," said Mitchell, blandly. "But thirty-five dollars is too high. I can't pay it."

  They argued. Logan certainly felt the buyer's flinty edge, yet he did not seem to grasp sincerity. Logan distrusted his own deductions. He had made too many blunders. Here he meant to hold out a little, then capitulate for anything above twenty-five.

  "Twenty-eight dollars on the hoof!" launched Mitchell, out of a doubtful sky.

  Logan shook at the tigerish leap of hot blood. After all his stern resistance and the flex and reflex of prices, to call so soon was balm to his wounded pride, gratification to his greed.

  "Sold!" he boomed, and extended a great horny hand. But the army official was writing and appeared not to notice the gesture.

  "Logan Huett. Flagg, Arizona. Thirty thousand on the hoof. Twenty-eight dollars a head. Pay in cash on delivery. Expense to drive extra," he droned crisply, while he wrote rapidly. He shoved the paper back and his sleek head came erect with a hawk-like swiftness. "Huett, the deal is on.