The Free Range

by Francis William Sullivan

  CHAPTER XVI

  A MESSAGE BY A STRANGE HAND

  What were the feelings of Mr. Mike Stelton that dawn had better beimagined than described. The first he knew of any calamity was when Mrs.Bissell, unable to find her husband near the house, shook him franticallyby the shoulder.

  "Get up, Mike," she cried into his ear. "Somethin's wrong here. Henry'snowhere around."

  Dazed with sleep, unable to get the proper focus on events, the foremanblundered stupidly about the place searching cursorily, and cursing thehelplessness of Beef Bissell.

  Presently he got awake, however, and perceived that dawn was coming up inthe east. Then he reveled in the delightful anticipation of what was tooccur out under the old cottonwood along the river bank. Mentally helicked his chops at the prospect of this rare treat. He intended ifpossible to make Juliet witness her lover's degradation.

  After vainly hunting some valid excuse for Bissell's untimely departure,Stelton thought he would call the boys, which he did. Then he turned hisattention to the bunk-house, for he knew the cowmen were in a hurry to getaway and would want to be called early.

  "All out!" he bawled jovially, thrusting his head in at the door.

  Not a sound came in response. Then for the first time Stelton had apremonition of trouble. He walked into the bunk-house and took quick noteof the ten tumbled but empty bunks. Also of the ten belts and revolversthat hung on wooden pegs along the wall--the sign of Western etiquette.

  In those days, and earlier, if a man rode by at meal-time or evening hewas your guest. He might take dinner with his hat on, and get his knifeand fork mixed, but if he hung up his belt and revolver he was satisfiedthat all the amenities had been observed, whether you thought so or not.

  The one other unspoken law was that every man's business was his ownbusiness and no questions were allowed. You might be entertaining a realbad man like Billy the Kid, and you might suspect his identity, but younever made inquiries, and for three reasons.

  The first was, that it was bad plains etiquette; the second, that if youwere mistaken and accused the wrong man, punishment was sure and swift;and the third was, that if you were right the punishment was still surerand swifter, for an escaping criminal never left any but mute witnessesbehind him.

  Looking at these ten indications of good-will along the bunk-house wall,Stelton's alarm was once more lulled. Perhaps the men had all gone for apaddle in the stream before breakfast, he thought. If so, they would takecare of themselves, and turn up when the big bell rang. He couldn't wasteany more time this way.

  Now to relieve the man who was guarding Larkin outside the window.

  He hurried around the house and came upon the prone figure of acow-puncher, rolled close against the house. The man's head was bloody,his hands were tied behind him, and his neckerchief had been stuffed intohis mouth and held there by another. He was half-dead when Stelton, with acry of surprise, bent over him and loosened his bonds.

  With a prolonged yell the foreman brought all hands running to him and,giving the hurt man into the care of a couple of them, ran along thehouse to Bud's window. The bent bars showed how the bird had flown.Stelton was about to give way to his fury when another cry from the rearof the cook-house told of the discovery of the second watchman's body,that had lain hidden in the long grass which grew up against the walls.

  Then didn't Stelton curse! Never had he been so moved to profaneeloquence, and never did he give such rein to it. He cursed everything insight, beginning with the ranch house; and he took that from chimney tocellar, up and down every line and angle, around the corners and out tothe barn. Then he began on the barn and wound up with the corral. Thecowboys listened in admiration and delight, interjecting words of approvalnow and then.

  But once having delivered himself of this relief, the foreman's face setinto its customary ugly scowl, and he snapped out orders to saddle thehorses. Presently a man rode up from the river bottoms and told of thediscovery of many hoof tracks there, and the place where they had waited along while.

  "I've got it!" bawled Stelton, pounding his thigh. "Larkin's men havebeen here and carried off all the owners. Oh, won't there be the deuce topay?"

  Then he picked out the cowboys who had come with their bosses and added:

  "Crowd yore grub and ride home like blazes. Get yore punchers an' bringgrub for a week. Then we'll all meet at the junction of the Big Horn andGooseberry Creek. If yuh punchers like a good job you'll get yore ownersout o' this. And I'm plumb shore when we get through there won't be asheepman left in this part of the State. To-morrer night at Gooseberry!"

  Then was such a scene of hurry and bustle and excitement as the Bar T hadseldom witnessed. The parting injunctions were to bring extra horses andplenty of rope, with the accent on the rope, and a significant look thrownin.

  By seven o'clock, the time that Larkin, bloody, humiliated and suffering,would already have paid his penalty, there was scarcely a soul at the BarT ranch, for the cowboys had disappeared across the plains at a hardtrot.

  The Bar T punchers were sent out on the range to scour for tracks of thefugitives, but, after following them some distance from the river bottom,gave up in despair when a night herder admitted that the Bar T horses hadbeen feeding in the vicinity the night before, thus entangling the tracks.Meantime the cook was preparing food for the punchers to carry, guns werebeing oiled and overhauled, knives sharpened, and ropes carefullyexamined.

  Yet as the men went about their duties there was a kind of dazed, subduedair in all they did, for it was, indeed, hard to realize that the ranchowners of nearly a quarter of Wyoming's best range had disappeared intothe empty air apparently without a sound or protest.

  The following afternoon the entire Bar T outfit, excepting a couple ofpunchers who were incapacitated from former round-up injuries, swept outof the yard and headed almost directly east across the plain.

  Julie and her mother watched them go and waved them farewell, the formerwith a clutch of fear at her heart for her lover and the latter in tearsfor her husband, thus unconsciously taking opposite sides in the strugglethat they knew must ensue.

  It must not be thought that Juliet had turned against her father sincetheir final difference. After her first outbreak against his narrow viewsand unjust treatment of Larkin, the old love that had been paramount allher life returned, and with it a kind of pity. She knew that in a man ofher father's age his nature could not be made over immediately, if ever;the habits of a rough lifetime were too firmly ingrained. But at the sametime there was something gone from the sweet and intimate affection thathad formerly characterized their relations.

  Lovers or married folk who declare for the efficacy of a quarrel as arenewer of love are wrong in the last analysis. Loss of control alwaysentails loss of respect, and fervent "making up" after such an outbreakcannot efface the picture of anger-distorted features or remove the acidof bitter words. Thus it was with Juliet and her love for her father.

  As to his safety she was not worried, for she knew that Bud would notallow any harm to come to him as he was in command of the men who hadeffected the taking-off. What Larkin's plans were she did not fullyrealize, but she knew this sudden _coup_ had been executed to further hisown ends in the imperative matter of getting his sheep north. And of thisshe finally convinced her mother, although that lady wept copiously beforethe thing was accomplished.

  The evening following the departure of Mike Stelton and his punchers wasmade notable by the arrival of a man on horseback, who carried across hissaddle a black box, and in thongs at his side a three-legged standard ofyellow wood. His remaining equipment was a square of black cloth.

  Without invitation he turned his dejected animal into the Bar T corral andmade himself at home for the evening. At the supper table he revealed hisidentity and explained his purpose.

  "I'm Ed Skidmore," he announced, "and I take photographs. This thing I'vegot is a camera." He had already mounted the instrument on his tripod."I've been going around from ranch to ranch and th
e pictures have beenselling like hot cakes."

  Juliet, listening, noted that his conversation was that of a comparativelywell-educated man and that he had none of the characteristic drawl oraccent of the plainsmen. To her a camera was nothing out of the ordinary,although she had not seen one since her final return West, but her motherwas vastly interested.

  In those days photography was not a matter of universal luxury as it isnow, and the enterprising Skidmore was practically the first to introduceit as a money-maker in the widely scattered ranches of the cow country.

  "How do yuh sell 'em?" asked Martha Bissell, fluttering with thepossibilities of the next morning, the time the young man had set for hisoperation. Martha had not been "took" since that far-off trip "East" toSt. Paul, when she and Henry had posed for daguerreotypes.

  "Five dollars apiece, ma'am," said Skidmore, "and they're cheap at theprice." And they were, since the cost of something universally desired isdependent on the supply rather than the demand.

  After supper Martha retired to her bedroom to overhaul her stock of"swell" dresses, a stock that had not been disturbed in fifteen yearsexcept for the spring cleaning and airing. This left Skidmore and Julietalone. She civilly invited him out on the veranda, seeing he was a man ofsome quality.

  "I had a queer experience to-day," he remarked after a few commonplaces."I was riding to the Bar T from the Circle-Arrow and was about twentymiles away, rounding a butte, when a man rode out to me from some place ofconcealment.

  "When he reached me he suddenly pulled his gun and covered me.

  "'Where are you goin'?' he said. I told him I was on my way here and why.He examined my outfit suspiciously and let me go. But first he said:

  "'Take this letter to the Bar T and give it to Miss Bissell.'" Skidmorereached inside his shirt and pulled forth a square envelope, which hehanded to Juliet. "The whole thing was so strange," the photographer wenton, "that I have waited until I could see you alone so that I could tellyou about it."

  Juliet, surprised and startled, turned the missive over in her hands,hopeful that it was a letter from Bud and yet fearful of something thatshe could not explain. When Skidmore had finished she excused herself andwent into her room, closing the door behind her.

  On the envelope was the simple inscription, "Miss Bissell," written in acrabbed, angular hand. This satisfied her that the message was not fromBud, and with trembling fingers she opened it. Inside was an oblong sheetof paper filled with the same narrow handwriting. Going to the window tocatch the dying light, she read:

  Miss:

  This is to tell yuh that Mr. Larkin who yuh love is already merried. It ain't none of my biznis, but I want yuh to no it. An' that ain't all. The U. s. oficers are looking for him on another charge, tu. Nobody noes this but me an' yuh, an' nobody will as long as the monie keeps comin' in. If yuh doant bileeve this, axe him.

  Yurs Truly, A Friend.

  In the difficulty of translating the words before her into logical ideasthe full import of the statements made did not penetrate Juliet's mind atfirst. When they did she merely smiled a calm, contemptuous smile.

  With the usual fatuous faith of a sweetheart, she instantly consigned tolimbo anything whatever derogatory to her beloved. Then in full possessionof herself, she returned to the veranda, where Skidmore was smoking acigarette.

  "No bad news I hope?" he asked politely, scrutinizing her features.

  "Oh, no, thanks," she replied, laughing a little unnaturally. "Not reallybad, just disturbing," and they continued their interrupted conversation.

  But that night when she was in bed the crude letters of that missiveappeared before her eyes in lines of fire. Of late the old mystery ofBud's past life had not been much in her thoughts; love, the obliterator,had successfully wiped away the last traces of uneasiness that she hadfelt, and like all true and good women, she had given him the pricelesstreasure of her love, not questioning, not seeking to discern what hewould have shown her had it seemed right in his mind that she should see.

  But this scrawled letter to-night brought back with stunning force all thedistress and doubts that had formerly assailed her. She guessed, andrightly, that Smithy Caldwell was the author of it, but she could notanalyze the motives that had inspired his pen.

  She told herself with fatal logic that if all this were a lie, Caldwellwould not dare write it; that Larkin had paid this man five hundreddollars on another occasion not so far gone; and that it was avowedly acase of impudent blackmail. She knew, furthermore, that Bud carefullyavoided all references to Caldwell even when she had brought forward thename, and that in the conversation overheard by Stelton there had beenmention of someone by the name of Mary.

  What if this money were going to another woman!

  The thought overwhelmed her as she lay there, and she sat up gasping forbreath, but in a moment the eternal defense of the man, inherent in everywoman who loves, came to the rescue, and she told herself vehemently thatBud was honorable, if nothing else. Then the sentence concerning theUnited States officers wanting him on another charge recurred to her, andshe found her defense punctured at the outset. If he were honorable, howcould it be that the officers were after him?

  In despair at the quandary, but still clinging to her faith, she fell backon the unanswerable fact of feminine intuition. Bud _seemed_ good andtrue; it was in his eyes, in his voice, in his very manner. He looked atthe world squarely, but with a kind of patient endurance that bespoke somedeep trouble.

  Then for the first time the thought came to Juliet that perhaps he wasshielding someone else.

  But who? And, if so, why did Caldwell write this letter?

  Unable to answer these questions, but confronted by the thought that Bud'slove was the sweetest thing in the world to her, she at last fell asleepwith a smile upon her lips.