CHAPTER XVII

MR. DALHART DECLARES

“ON OUR way, Sanchez!” commanded Nabours, breaking the tense silence of the disheartened camp. “We’ve got to get back. The boys are holding three or four bunches over thataway.”

“_Seguro_, Señor Jeem,” replied the old man. He nodded. Yet another rider was coming in.

“That’s Dalhart. He ought to know something. We’ve got to have fresh horses.”

“_Poco tiempo!_”

The keen ear of the old Mexican again served. Afar they heard a tinkling. From behind a screening mesquite fringe showed the head of the remuda, following a gray bell mare at a stiff trot. Back of the horses rode Cinquo, his clothing stripped, his face bloody and pale. He got no word of praise, nor asked one. The black bruises on his legs showed through his ripped jeans.

“Well?” The trail boss turned to Dalhart, grimed and dust-covered, who had brought a tin cup to the fire.

“We’ve got around a thousand head, maybe twelve hunderd. Del and two boys are holding ’em on a flat this side the pecan bottoms—three mile, I reckon. Ain’t it hell? They scattered like pa’tridges. I ain’t seen no one else.”

“_Yo_, me an’ dos hombres!” began Sanchez, excited, pointing.

“Damn it, talk English, Sanchez!” interrupted Nabours savagely.

“_Seguro; muy bien, Señor Corporal_,” rejoined Sanchez. “I say, two man and me, we got plenty _vacas_ round up. They send-a me for tobac’. We got h’eight, seven hoonderd head, _piense qu’ si_. Most half-a da herd.”

“Not half yet. Well, Dalhart, I’ve got to ride the fan. Stay here and watch things. We’ll make the gethering to this bed ground.”

“But who done that shooting anyway?” demanded Dalhart suddenly. “That’s what started ’em.”

Nabours looked over his shoulder to where Taisie sat.

“Dalhart,” said he, “there’s funny business. The Rudabaugh gang is follering us, nigh as I can tell. They allowed to stampede the herd and then jump what was left of the camp.”

“But who shot?”

“I’d take my oath it was Dan McMasters, the man we sent out of our camp. Well, he killed one of his own men.”

“The hell!”

“Yes, he did. Look yon!” The great birds now made a black blot on the grass. “That’s one of the Rudabaugh men. McMasters killed him by mistake. He was right in Miss Taisie’s camp.”

“Jim,” said the cow hunter at last, “that Austin gang don’t never mean fer no Del Sol herd never to leave this country. Why?”

“For the same reason they want that Burleson Lockhart scrip. For the same reason they killed Burleson Lockhart. Dalhart, them carpetbaggers have got a big game on. All the state of Texas to steal—and they’re going to steal it!

“And McMasters got away again! I thought he was our friend. We’re riding his horses and drinking his coffee now. She don’t know that. Dalhart, ef ever a girl needed a man to take care of her, yon’s one that does. One man’s better’n twenty, with a woman. She needs just one—and she ain’t got one.

“Well, I got to go back. Come Sanchez,” he concluded. “You’ll have to stay here and look out for the camp, Dalhart. They might come back. Shoot first!”

Left in charge, Mr. Dalhart employed his own methods. First he inquired of the cook for hot water, got a tin pan of water on the base of the wagon tongue and found a bit of yellow soap. Cleansing his dusty face and hands the best he could, he employed the very catholic beneficences of a split meal sack which the cook also used as a towel. Then he prowled among the bed rolls. After certain rummagings, he presently emerged clad in a brand-new pair of the light-colored trousers, with heavy stripes of black, which then made Texan apotheosis of male splendor. He even added a brilliant tie, which in good sooth represented the heart hunger of Cinquo Centavos, and almost his last dime. Dalhart was a ruthless man. What he found to his notion in the several war bags he took, trusting to be able to explain.

Oiled and curled as best might be in a cow camp, with a final sweep into better order of his strong sunburned beard, Mr. Dalhart at last walked straight across to Taisie’s bivouac, whither she had withdrawn. Without so much as by your leave, he ordered Taisie’s women to go on away.

“I’m top rod here just now, Miss Lockhart,” said he, “and I want to talk with you a little while. This is my first chance.”

The girl looked at him. She had been in tears. Her nerves were going. She was no longer the daring Taisie Lockhart, “_dulce ridentem . . . dulce loquentem,_” like the Lalage of Horace of old, always ready to chat and ready to laugh.

“Drive them away!” Her glance was toward the distant row of solemn black birds, advancing, hopping staring.

Dalhart dropped her tent flap into a screen. He found a bundle and seated himself, not invited.

“Miss Lockhart,” said he directly, “one way, I’m only one of your hands. In Uvalde, you could find out who I am.”

“I suppose so. You’re on point? That means my foreman thinks you know cows?”

“Yes. Now, Mr. Nabours and I been talking. We think we’ve been jumped by the Sim Rudabaugh bunch, of Austin. They don’t ever aim to let this herd git north, Miss Lockhart. They aim to break it up and git it headed west.

“They’ve got their own surveyors out—away west. We seen four camps of surveyors in west there this spring, where we was hunting strays. They’re locatin’ range by the hundreds of sections—waste land nobody has wanted. They’re scrippin’ it, ma’am. They want all the scrip they can git, and they done got it most all.”

He spoke of certain things. In his mind were certain other things. His bold eyes, virile, assertive, demanding, never left the alluring picture that Taisie Lockhart made for any man. She remained languid, indifferent.

“My father said Texas lands would go up. He was laughed at. You knew him—my father?”

“No’m; I didn’t know him personal. But all Texas knowed Colonel Burleson Lockhart fer a square man and a big man. This state needs him now; it shore does. We’ve got to clean up Austin, or Austin’s goin’ to take all Texas away from the Texans.

“Them folks don’t want you to git the first herd north, ma’am. They’ll drive that theirselves when they git things all fixed fer hit.”

The girl buried her face in her hands again. Her shoulders trembled. The night had left her much unnerved.

“Yes, Miss Taisie,” said the man’s voice, now gentle. “Yore paw didn’t come back from up north. Sim Rudabaugh did. He ain’t like us. He’s a heap smarter’n us Texans. He’s seed more and been around more. No tellin’ who’s in his gang. It takes a lot of big men to swing as big a deal as he’s got in mind. Now, there was Sher’f McMasters——”

“Don’t! Please don’t! And—what is it that brings you over here?”

“All right, I won’t. I was only goin’ to say, hit all works out fer to prove the general scheme Jim Nabours and me both has told you about—Rudabaugh! That man made his boast in Austin, ma’am, last year, atter he come back from up north, he’d have the last Del Sol cow. More! He said he was goin’ to ride up to Del Sol and knock on yore front door!”

“What?” She flashed a sudden glance of wrath.

“That’s all. Rudabaugh played to break you first. Then, when you hadn’t a way to turn—well——

“Miss Taisie Lockhart”—his voice now rang rather true, very humble—“it’s bad, your lookout. You’ve got all of us, yes; but like Jim said, twenty men ain’t the pertection of one, fer a woman.”

“But what is it that you mean?”

“Now, I got to talk straight. Would you choose to look up at me, please?”

She did not raise her face.

“Well, I throwed in with this trail herd because I’d saw you! I couldn’t turn back from goin’. I did allow that when we’d made yore stake for you and put you on yore feet independent, with all Del Sol and every Texan back of you, why, then—when I couldn’t take no advantage at all—then I was goin’ to tell you I was goin’ to marry you. I thought by then you’d be more used to seein’ me around.”

Silence. The ruddy crown of hair covered her hid face, reddened with outraged blushes. She rose, started away. He was at her side.

“Miss Taisie, this raid has changed the whole world in one night. It’s left you in danger. You don’t need twenty men! You need one! The trail’s no place for you, even married. But there’s a church at Fort Worth, and a Methodist preacher. We’ll be there afore long. That’s time for you to think it over.”

Anastasie Lockhart broke into a sudden hysterical laughter.

“Is it so funny, ma’am?”

“Yes!” she rejoined. “Fort Worth—that’s what Jim advised, too. But first he said Austin. And it—it was another man!”

“It was Del Williams! Did you tell him——”

“I’ve told him nothing! He has asked me nothing! That’s nothing to be discussed by you or me at any time! That will do!”

“Well, I couldn’t help it—me lovin’ you the minute I saw you, and follerin’ in because I couldn’t no ways help it; and you needin’ just one such a man like me, and all—and all——”

His voice broke a bit under the blow his astonishing male vanity had received. And who was she, an orphan, to hold herself so high, when here was an honest man, a Texan, like himself?

Suddenly he reached out a lean brown hand. Her beauty was too much for him. The girl shrank, caught a cupped hand against her temple, where lay still the illicit kiss of the dark.

“No! No! You must not! No! I need some one, yes. I do! But I can’t——”

“I kin wait, Miss Taisie. I allowed to wait till we’d sold yore cows. I just thought things had broke so maybe it’d be best if I didn’t wait.”

“Wait!” was all she could say.

Torn and unhappy, she bent her bright head once more. He was man enough to go away. When he was gone she reflected that he had been man enough to come.

And thereafter, in yet more wretched self-searching, she reasoned that, after all, her fate now had cast her into a world where a woman’s range of choice was very narrow. After all, who was she, to ask the fulfillment of the old dream of human happiness? She sought comfort in philosophy. It is poor comfort for a woman.