CHAPTER II
A LATE ARRIVAL
After visiting the corral, Larkin paid his respects to the pump andrefreshed himself for supper. Then he strolled around the long, ramblingranch house. Across the front, which faced southwest, had been built a lowapology for a veranda on which a couple of uninviting chairs stood. Heappropriated one of these and settled back to think.
The late sun, a red-bronze color, hung just above the horizon and softenedthe unlovely stretches of prairie into something brooding and beautiful.Thirty miles away the Rockies had become a mass of gray-blue fleecedacross the top with lines of late snow--for it was early June.
The Bar T ranch house itself stood on a rise of ground back from a cold,greenish-blue river that made a bend at this point, and that rose and hadits being in the melting whiteness of those distant peaks. Between thewillows of the river bottoms, Larkin could see the red reflection of thesun on the water, and could follow the stream's course across the prairieby the snake-like procession of cottonwoods that lined its banks.
On the plains themselves there was still a fading hue of green. Thebuffalo grass had already begun to wither under the increasing heat, andin a month would have become the same gray, cured fodder that supportedmillions of buffalo centuries before a steer was on the range.
For Bud Larkin, only a year in the West, this evening scene had not lostits charm. He loved this hour when the men washed up at the pump. Therewere enticing sounds from the cook house and enticing odors in the air.Sometimes it seemed as though it almost made up for a day's failure anddiscouragement.
His quick eye suddenly noted a dark speck moving rapidly across theprairie toward the ranch house. It seemed to skim the ground and in fiveminutes had developed into a cow pony and its rider. A quarter of an hourlater and the pony proved himself of "calico" variety, while the riderdeveloped into a girl who bestrode her mount as though she were a part ofthe animal itself.
The front rim of her broad felt hat was fastened upward with a thong andexposed her face. Bud watched her idly until she dashed up to the front ofthe house, fetched her horse back on its haunches with a jerk on thecruel Spanish bridle, and leaped to the ground before he had fairly lostheadway. Then with a slap on the rump she sent him trotting to Stelton,who had appeared around the end of the veranda as though expecting her.
Occupied with pulling off her soft white buckskin gauntlets, she did notnotice the young man on the low porch until, with an exclamation, he hadsprung to his feet and hurried toward her.
"Juliet Bissell!" gasped Larkin, holding out a hand to her. "What are youdoing here?"
"Of all people, Bud Larkin!" cried the girl, flushing with pleasure. "Why,I can't believe it! Did you drop out of the sky somewhere?"
"If the sky is heaven, I've just dropped into it," he returned, trying toconfine his joy to intelligible speech, and barely succeeding.
"That sounds like the same old Bud," she laughed, "and it's a pleasure tohear it. For if there is one thing a cowboy can't do, and it's the onlyone, it is to pay a woman a compliment. That speech brands you atenderfoot."
"Never! I've been out a year and can nearly ride a cow pony, providing itis lame and blind."
So, bantering each other unmercifully, they reached the front door.
"Wait a few minutes, Bud, and I will be out again. I must dress fordinner."
When she had gone Larkin understood at once the presence of the carpet,the patent rocker, and the piano.
"What a double-barreled idiot I am," he swore, "to talk turkey to oldBissell and never connect him with Juliet. All the sheep in the worldcouldn't get me away from here to-night." And he ejaculated the time-wornbut true old phrase that the world is a mighty small place.
Juliet Bissell had been a very definite personage in Bud Larkin's otherlife--the life that he tried to forget. The eldest son of a rich Chicagobanker, his first twenty-five years had been such years as a man alwayslooks back upon with a vast regret.
From the mansion on Sheridan Drive he had varied his time among his clubs,his sports, and his social duties, and generally made himself one of manyin this world that humanity can do without. In other words, he addednothing to himself, others, or life in general, and was, therefore,without a real excuse for existing.
Of one thing he was ever zealous, now that he had left it behind, and thiswas that his past should not pursue him into the new life he had chosen.He wished to start his career without stigma, and end it without blame.
Strangely enough, the person who had implanted this ambition anddetermination in him was Juliet Bissell. Three winters before, he had mether at the charity ball, and at the time she was something of a socialsensation, being described as "that cowgirl from Wyoming." However, that"cowgirl" left her mark on many a gilded youth, and Bud Larkin was one.
He had fallen in love with her, as much as one in his position is capableof falling in love, had proposed to her, and been rejected with a graceand gentleness that had robbed the blow of all hurt--with one exception.Bud's pride, since his wealth and position had meant nothing in the girl'seyes, had been sorely wounded, and it had taken six months of the vastmystery of the plains to reduce this pettiness to the status of a secretshame.
When Juliet refused him she had told him with infinite tact that herhusband would be a man more after the pattern of her father, whom sheadored, and who, in turn, worshiped the very air that surrounded her; andit was this fact that had turned Bud's attention to the West and itsopportunities.
When she returned to the porch Juliet had on a plain white dress with pinkribbons at elbows, neck, and waist. Larkin, who had always thrilled at hersplendid physical vigor, found himself more than ever under the spell ofher luxuriant vitality.
Her great dark eyes were remarkably lustrous and expressive, her blackhair waved back from her brown face into a great braided coil, herfeatures were not pretty so much as noble. Her figure, with its limbercurves, was pliant and graceful in any position or emergency--the resultof years in the saddle. Her feet and hands were small, the latter beingfirm but infinitely gentle in their touch.
"Well, have you forgotten all your Eastern education?" Larkin asked,smiling, as she sat down. "Have you reverted to your original untamedcondition?"
"No, indeed, Bud. I have a reputation to keep up in that respect. The factthat I have had an Eastern education has made our punchers so proud thatthey can't be lived with when they go to town, and lord it overeverybody."
"I suppose they all want to marry you?"
"Yes, singly or in lots, and sometimes I'm sorry it can't be done, I lovethem all so much. But tell me, Bud, what brings you out West in generaland here in particular?"
"Probably you don't know that a year and a half ago my father died," andLarkin's face shadowed for a moment with retrospection. "Well, he did, andleft me most of his estate. I was sick of it there, and I vowed I wouldpull up stakes and start somewhere by myself. So I went up to Montana inthe vicinity of the Musselshell Forks and bought a ranch and some stock."
"Cattle?"
"No, sheep. The best merino I ever saw--"
"Bud Larkin! You're not a sheepman?"
"Yes, ma'am, and a menace to a large number of cowmen, your father amongthem."
The girl sank back and allowed him to relate the story of his adventuresup to the present time, including the interview with Beef. At thedescription of that she smiled grimly; and he, noting the fact, toldhimself that it would take a masterly character to subdue that free, wildpride.
"Now, Julie," he concluded, "do me the favor of instilling reason intoyour father. I've done my best and we have parted without murder, butthat's all. I've got to have a friend at court or I will be ruined beforeI commence."
The girl was silent for a few minutes and sat looking down at herslippered feet.
"Bud," she said at last, "you've never known me to tell anything but thetruth, and I'm going to tell it to you now. I will be your friend ineverything except where you ask me to yield my loyalty to my father andhis
interests. He is the most wonderful father a girl ever had, and if hewere to say that black was white, I should probably swear to it if heasked me to."
"I admire you for that," said Bud genuinely, although all his hopes inthis powerful ally went glimmering. "Let's not talk shop any longer. It'stoo good just to see you to think about anything but that."
So, for a while, they reminisced of the days of their former friendship,by tacit agreement avoiding any reference to intimate things. And Larkinfelt spring up in him the old love that he had convinced himself was dead;so that he added to his first resolution to succeed on the range, asecond, that he would, in the end, conquer Juliet Bissell.
The thought was pleasing, for it meant another struggle, another outletfor the energies and activities that had so long lain dormant in him. Andwith the undaunted courage of youth he looked eagerly toward the battlethat should win this radiant girl.
But for the present he knew he must not betray himself by word, look oraction; other things of greater moment must be settled.
At last, as they talked, the cook, a long-suffering Chinaman, seized ahuge brass bell and rang it with all his might, standing in the door ofthe cook house.
There was an instant response in the wild whoop of the cowboys who hadbeen suffering the pangs of starvation for the past half-hour.
"Of course you must come to our private table, Bud," said Juliet. "I wantyou to see father's other side." So they rose and went in the front way.
The ranch house had been planned so that to the right of the entrance wasthe living-room, and back of that the dining-room. To the left threesmaller rooms had been made into sleeping apartments. At the back of thestructure and extending across the width of it was a large room that, inthe early days of the Bar T, had served as the bunk-house for the cowpunchers.
This had now been changed to the mess-room for them, while the family,with the addition of Stelton, the foreman, used the smaller private room.Owing to the large increase in the number of Bar T punchers a specialbunk-house had been built in the rear of the main structure.
At table Larkin for the first time met Mrs. Bissell, who proved to be atypical early cowman's wife, thin, overworked, and slightly vinegary ofdisposition, despite the fact that she had at one time in her life beenthe belle of a cowtown, and had been won from beneath the ready .45's of anumber of rivals.
At Bud's entrance Stelton grunted and scowled, and generally showedhimself ill-pleased that Juliet should have known the visitor. On theother hand, as the girl had promised, Beef Bissell, for years the terrorof the range, displayed a side that the sheepman would never havesuspected. His voice became gentle, his laugh softened, his languagepurified, and he showed, by many little attentions, the unconsciouschivalry that worship of a good woman brings to the surface.
For her part, the girl appraised this devotion at its true value and neverfailed in the little feminine thoughtfulnesses that appeal so strongly toa worried and busy man.
That Stelton should be at the table at all surprised Bud, for it was notthe habit of foremen to eat away from the punchers. But here the fact wasthe result of a former necessity when Bissell, hard-pressed, had calledhis foreman into consultation at meal times.
Old Bissell proved himself a more genial host than business rival, andwhen he had learned of Larkin and his daughter's former friendship, heforgot sheep for the moment and took an interest in the man. Mrs. Bissellsat open-mouthed while Bud told of the glories of Chicago in the earlyeighties, and never once mentioned her famous visit to St. Paul, soovercome was she with the tales this young man related.
Everyone was at his or her ease when the rapid tattoo of hoofs was heard,and a horse and rider drew up abruptly at the corral. One of the punchersfrom the rear dining-room went out to meet him and presently appearedsheepishly in the doorway where Bissell could see him.
"Is there a Mr. Larkin here?" asked the puncher.
"Yes," said Bud, pushing back his chair.
"There's a stranger out here that 'lows he wants to see you."
"Send him in here and give him something to eat, Shorty," sang outBissell. "If he's a friend of Larkin's, he'd better have dinner with him.And, Shorty, tell that Chinaman to rustle another place here _pronto!_"
As for Bud Larkin, he was at a total loss to know who his visitor mightbe. With a sudden twinge of fear he thought that perhaps Hard-winter Sims,his chief herder, had pursued him with disastrous information from theflocks. Wondering, he awaited the visitor's appearance.
The stranger presently made a bold and noisy entrance, and, when his facecame into view, Bud sank back in his chair weakly, his own paling a triflebeneath the tan. For the man was Smithy Caldwell, a shifty-eyed crook fromChicago, one who had dogged him before, and whom he had never expected tosee again. How the villain had tracked him to the Bar T outfit Bud couldnot imagine.
Seeing the eyes of the others upon him, Larkin recovered himself with aneffort and introduced Caldwell; but to the eyes of even the mostunobservant it was plain that a foreign element of disturbing nature hadsuddenly been projected into the genial atmosphere. The man was coarse inmanner and speech and often addressed leering remarks to Juliet, whodisregarded them utterly and confined her attention to Bud.
"Who is this creature?" she asked _sotto voce_. "What does he want withyou?"
Bud hesitated, made two or three false starts, and finally said:
"I am sure his business with me would not interest you."
"I beg your pardon," said the girl, rebuffed. "I seem to have forgottenmyself."
"I wish I could," ejaculated Bud bitterly, and refused to explain further.
The Free Range Page 2
