Chapter 11
Miss Schuyler, who had not seen Hetty in this mood before, petted her, though she said very little, for she felt that the somewhat unusual abasement might, on the whole, be beneficial to her companion. So there was silence in the room, broken only by the snapping of the stove and the faint moaning of the bitter wind about the lonely building, while Miss Schuyler sat somewhat uncomfortably on the arm of Hetty's chair with the little dusky head pressed against her shoulder. Hetty could not see her face or its gravity might have astonished her. Miss Schuyler had not spoken quite the truth when, though she had only met him three times, she admitted that Hetty knew Larry Grant better than she did. In various places and different guises Flora Schuyler had seen the type of manhood he stood for, but had never felt the same curious stirring of sympathy this grave, brown-faced man had aroused in her.
A hound bayed savagely, and Hetty lifted her head. "Strangers!" she said. "Bowie knows all the cattle-boys. Who can be coming at this hour?"
The question was not unwarranted, for it was close on midnight, but Flora Schuyler did not answer. She could hear nothing but the moan of the wind, the ranch was very still, until once more there came an angry growl. Then, out of the icy darkness followed the sound of running feet, a hoarse cry, and a loud pounding at the outer door.
Hetty stood up, trembling and white in the face, but very straight. "Don't be frightened, Flo," she said. "We'll whip them back to the place they came from."
"Who is it?" asked Miss Schuyler.
Again the building rang to the blows upon the outer door; but Hetty's voice was even, and a little contemptuous.
"The rustlers!" she said.
There was a trampling below, and a corridor beneath the girls vibrated with the footsteps of hurrying men, while Torrance's voice rose faintly through the din; a very unpleasant silence, until somebody rapped upon the door. Flora Schuyler felt her heart throbbing painfully, and gasped when Torrance looked in. His lean face was very stern.
"Put the lamp out, and sit well away from the window," he said.
"No," said Hetty in a voice Miss Schuyler had not heard before; "we are coming down."
Torrance considered for a second, and then smiled significantly as he glanced at his daughter's face. "Well, you would be 'most as safe down there--and I guess it was born in you," he said.
The girls followed him down the cedar stairway and into the hall. A lamp burning very low stood on a table in one corner, but the big room was dim and shadowy, and the girls could scarcely see the five or six men standing near, not in front of, one open window. Framed by its log casing the white prairie faded into the dimness under a smear of indigo sky. Here and there a star shone in it with intense brilliancy, and though the great stove roared in the draught it seemed to Miss Schuyler that a destroying cold came in. Already she felt her hands grow numb.
"Where are the boys, Hetty?" she asked.
"In at the railroad, most of them. One or two at the back. Now, I'll show you how to load a rifle, Flo."
Miss Schuyler followed her to the table, where several rifles were lying beside a big box of cartridges, and Hetty took one of them up.
"You push this slide back, and drop the cartridge in," she said. "Now it has gone into this pipe here, and you drop in another. Get hold, and push them in until you can't get in any more. Why--it can't hurt you--your hands are shaking!"
There was a rattle, and the venomous, conical-headed cartridge slipped from Miss Schuyler's fingers. She had never handled one before, and it seemed to her that a horrible, evil potency was bound up in that insignificant roll of metal. Then, while the rifle click-clacked in Hetty's hands, Torrance stood by the window holding up a handkerchief. He called out sharply, and there was a murmur of derision in the darkness outside.
"Come out!" said a hoarse voice. "We'll give you a minute. Then you can have a sleigh to drive to perdition in."
The laughter that followed frightened Miss Schuyler more than any threats would have done. It seemed wholly horrible, and there was a hint in it of the fierce exultation of men driven to desperation.
"That wouldn't suit me," said Torrance. "What do you want here, any way?"
"Food," somebody answered. "You wanted to starve us, Torrance, and rode us out when we went chopping stove wood in the bluff. Well, you don't often miss your supper at the Range, and there's quite enough of it to make a decent blaze. You haven't much of that minute left. Are you coming out?"
"No," said Torrance briefly, and, dropping the handkerchief, moved from the window.
The next moment there was a flash in the darkness, and something came whirring into the room. The girls could not see it, but they heard the thud it struck with and saw a chip start from the cedar panelling. Then, there was a rush of feet, and twice a red streak blazed from the window. A man jerked a cartridge, which fell with a rattle from his rifle, and a little blue smoke blew across the room. Flora Schuyler shivered as the acrid fumes of it drifted about her, but Hetty stood very straight, with one hand on the rim of the table.
"Got nobody, and they're into the shadow now," said a man disgustedly, and Flora Schuyler, seeing his face, which showed a moment fierce and brutish as he turned, felt that she could not forget it, and most illogically hated him.
For almost a minute there was silence. Nobody moved in the big room, where the shadows wavered as the faint flickering lamplight rose and fell, and there was no sound but the doleful wail of the night wind from the prairie. It was broken by a dull crash that was repeated a moment later, and the men looked at one another.
"They've brought their axes along," said somebody. "If there's any of the Michigan boys around they'll drive that door in."
"Watch it, two of you," said Torrance. "Jake, can't you get a shot at them?"
A man crouched by the open window, which was some little height from the ground, his arms upon the sill, and his head showing against the darkness just above them. He was, it seemed to Miss Schuyler, horribly deliberate, and she held her breath while she watched, as if fascinated, the long barrel move a little. Then its muzzle tilted suddenly, a train of red sparks blew out, and something that hummed through the smoke struck the wall. The man dropped below the sill, and called hoarsely through the crash of the falling axes.
"Got the pillar instead of him. There's a streak of light behind me. Well, I'll try for him again."
Hetty emptied the box of cartridges, and, with hands that did not seem to tremble, stood it up before the lamp. Once more the man crouched by the window, a blurred, huddled object with head down on the rifle stock, and there was another streak of flame. Then, the thud of the axes suddenly ceased, and he laughed a little discordant laugh.
"Got him this time. The other one's lit out," he said.
Miss Schuyler shuddered, and clutched at the table, while, though Hetty was very still, she fancied she heard a stifled gasp. The silence was even more disconcerting than the pounding of the axes or the crash of the firing. Flora Schuyler could see the shadowy figures about the window, and just distinguish some of them. The one standing close in front of it, as though disdainful of the risk he ran, was Torrance; the other, who now and then moved lithely, and once rested a rifle on the sill, was Clavering; another, the man who had fired the last shot; but the rest were blurred, formless objects, a little darker than the cedar panelling. Now and then the streak of radiance widened behind the box, and the cold grew numbing as the icy wind flowed in.
Suddenly a voice rose up outside. "You can't keep us out, Torrance. We're bound to get in; but I'll try to hold the boys now if you'll let us have our wounded man, and light out quietly."
Torrance laughed. "You are not making much of a show, and I'm quite ready to do the best I can," he said. "If there's any life in him we want your man for the Sheriff."
Then he turned to the others. "I was 'most forgetting the fellow outside there. We'll hold them off from the window while you bring him in."
It appeared horribly risky, but Torrance spoke with a curious unconcernedness, and Clavering laughed as, signing to two men, he prepared to do his bidding. There was a creaking and rattling, and the great door at one end of the hall swung open, and Flora Schuyler, staring at the darkness, expected to see a rush of shadowy figures out of it. But she saw only the blurred outline of two men who stooped and dragged something in, and then the door swung to again.
They lifted their burden higher. Torrance, approaching the table, took up the lamp, and Miss Schuyler had a passing glimpse of a hanging head and a drawn grey face as they tramped past her heavily. She opened her blue lips and closed them again, for she was dazed with cold, and the cry that would have been a relief to her never came. It was several minutes later when Torrance's voice rose from by the stove.
"We'll leave him here in the meanwhile, where he can't freeze," he said. "Shot right through the shoulder, but there's no great bleeding. The cold would stop it."
Hetty was at her father's side the next moment. "Flo," she said, "we have to do something now."
Torrance waved them back. "The longer that man stops as he is, the better chances he's going to have." He glanced towards the window. "Boys, can you see what they're doing now?"
"Hauling out prairie hay," said Clavering. "They've broken into the store, and from what one fellow shouted they've found the kerosene."
Torrance said nothing whatever, and his silence was significant. Listening with strained attention, Flora Schuyler could hear a faint hum of voices, and now and then vague sounds amidst a patter of hurrying steps. They told her very little, but the tension in the attitude of the half-seen men had its meaning. It was evident that their assailants purposed to burn them out.
Ten minutes passed, as it were interminably, and still nobody moved. The voices had grown a little louder, and there was a rattle as though men unseen behind the buildings were dragging up a wagon. Suddenly a rhythmic drumming came softly through it, and Clavering glanced at Torrance.
"Somebody riding this way at a gallop," he said.
The beat of hoofs grew louder. The men without seemed to be running to and fro, and shouting to one another, while those in the hall clustered about the window, reckless of the risk they ran. Standing a little behind them Hetty saw a dim mounted figure sweep out of the waste of snow, and a hoarse shout went up. "Hold on! Throw down that rifle! It's Larry Grant."
XIV
TORRANCE'S WARNING
In another moment the horseman pulled up, and sat motionless in his saddle with his head turned towards the house. Hetty could see him silhouetted, shapeless and shadowy in his big fur-coat, against the whiteness of the snow, and the relief she felt betrayed itself in her voice as she turned to Miss Schuyler.
"Yes," she said, "it's Larry. There will be no more trouble now."
Flora Schuyler laughed a little breathless laugh, for though she also felt the confidence her companion evinced, the strain had told on her.
"Of course," she said, "he knew you wanted him. There are men like that."
It was a simple tribute, but Hetty thrilled with pride. Larry was at least consistent, and now, as it had been in the days both looked back upon, he had come when she needed him. She also recognized even then that the fact that he is generally to be found where he is wanted implies a good deal in the favour of any man.
And now half-seen objects moved out from behind barn and stable, and the horseman turned towards them. His voice rose sharply and commandingly.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
There was no answer for several moments, and then a man stepped forward gesticulating fiercely as he commenced a tirade that was less than half intelligible. Larry checked him with a lifted hand.
"There's a good deal of that I can't quite understand, and the rest doesn't seem to fit this case," he said, with a laugh that had more effect upon some of those who heard it than a flow of eloquence would have had. "Boys, we have no use for worrying about the meanness of European kings and folks of that kind. If you have brought any along I'd sooner listen to sensible Americans."
Another man stepped forward, and there was no doubt about his accent, though his tone was deprecatory.
"Well, it just comes to this," he said. "Torrance and the cattle-men have done their best to starve us and freeze us out, and, since he has made it plain that there's no room for both of us, somebody has got to go. Now, we have come a long way and we mean to stay. We're not looking for trouble, but we want our rights."
There was a murmur of encouragement from the rest, but again Larry's laugh had its effect. "Then you're taking a kind of curious way of getting them," he said. "I don't know that trying to burn folks' houses ever did anybody much good, and it's quite likely to bring a regiment of United States cavalry down on you. Mr. Torrance, I fancied I heard firing. Have you anybody hurt inside?"
"One of your men," said Torrance drily. "We hope to pull him round, and let the Sheriff have him."
It was not a conciliatory answer, and came near undoing what Grant had accomplished; but the grim old cattle-baron was not the man to propitiate an enemy. A murmur followed it, and somebody said, "Boys, you hear him! Bring along that wagon. We're going in."
The form of speech was Western, but the voice was guttural, and when there was a rattle of wheels Grant suddenly changed his tone.
"Stop right there," he said. "Throw every truss of hay down. The man who holds off when I tell him what to do is going to have trouble with the executive."
It was a bold venture, and any sign of effort or unevenness of inflection would have rendered it futile, but the voice was sharp and ringing, and the fashion in which the horseman flung up his arm commanding. It was, also, tactful, for some of those who heard it had been drilled into unreflecting obedience, and there is in the native American the respect for a duly accredited leader, which discipline has further impressed upon the Teuton. Still, those who watched from the window felt that this was the crisis, and tightened their numbed fingers on the rifles, knowing that if the horseman failed they would shortly need them again. None of them, however, made any other movement, and Miss Schuyler, who, grasping Hetty's hand, saw the dim figures standing rigid and intent, could only hear the snapping of the stove.
"Hetty," she gasped, "I shall do something silly in another moment."
The tension only lasted a moment or two. A man sprang up on the pole of the wagon, and a truss of hay went down. Another followed, and then, men who had also felt the strain and now felt it a relief to do anything, clustered about the wagon. In a few minutes it was empty, and the men who had been a mob turned to the one who had changed them into an organized body.
"What do you want now?" asked one of them.
"Run that wagon back where you got it from," said Larry.
It was done, and when the clustering figures vanished amidst a rattle of wheels Torrance laid aside his rifle and sat down on the table.
"I guess there'll be no more trouble, boys. That's a thing there's not many men could have done," he added.
His daughter also sat down in the nearest chair, with Flora Schuyler's hand still within her own. She had been very still while the suspense lasted, but she was trembling now, and her voice had a little quiver in it as she said, "Wasn't he splendid, Flo?"
It was some minutes before Grant and the other men came back again, and fragments of what he said were audible. "Then, you can pick out four men, and we'll hear them at the committee. I have two or three questions to ask you by and by. Half a dozen of you keep a look-out. The rest can get into the stable out of the frost."
The men dispersed, and Grant turned towards the house. "I don't think you need have any further anxiety, and you can shut that window if you want to, Mr. Torrance."
Torrance laughed. "I don't know that I've shown any yet."
"I hope you haven't felt it," said Grant. "It is cold out here, and I'm willing to come in and talk to you."
Somebody had moved the box away from the lamp, and Clavering's face showed up against the wavering shadow as he turned towards his leader. Flora Schuyler saw a little unpleasant smile on his lips as he pointed suggestively to the men with rifles he had sent towards the door.
"That would suit us, sir," he said.
Torrance understood him, for he shook his head impatiently. "It wouldn't pay. There would be too many of his friends wondering what had become of him. Get the door open and tell him to come in. Light the big lamps, somebody."
The door was opened, and, as if in confirmation of Torrance's warning, a voice rose up outside. "We have let him go, but if you try any meanness, or he isn't ready when we want him, we'll pull the place down," it said.
Larry walked out of the darkness into the blaze of light, and only smiled a little when the great door swung to behind him and somebody brought the window banging down. Two men with rifles stepped between him and the former; but if Torrance had intended to impress him, he had apparently failed, for he moved forward with quiet confidence. The fur cap he held in his hand was white, and the great fur coat stood out from his body stiff with frost, while Hetty winced when she saw the pallor of his face. It was evident that it was not without a strenuous effort he had made the mob subservient to him.
But his eyes were grave and steady, in spite of the weariness in them, and as he passed the girls he made a little formal inclination with his head. He stopped in front of Torrance, who rose from his seat on the table, and for a moment the two men looked at one another. Both stood very straight, one lean, and dark, and commanding, with half-contemptuous anger in his black eyes; the other of heavier frame and brown of skin and hair save where what he had done had left its stamp of pallor. Yet, different as they were in complexion and feature, it seemed to Miss Schuyler, who watched them intently, that there was a curious, indefinite resemblance between them. They were of the same stock and equally resolute, each ready, it seemed, to stake all he had on what he held the right.
Flora Schuyler, who had trained her observation, also read what they felt in their faces, and saw in that of Torrance grudging approval tempered by scorn of the man who had trampled on the traditions of those he sprang from. She fancied that Larry recognized this and that it stung him, though he would not show that it did, and his attitude pleased her most. It was unyielding, but there was a deference that became him in it.
"I am sorry I did not arrive soon enough to save you this inconvenience, sir," he said.
Torrance smiled grimly, and there was a hardness in his voice. "You have been here a good many times, Larry, and we did our best for you. None of us fancied that you would repay us by coming back with a mob of rabble to pull the place down."
Grant winced perceptibly. "Nobody is more sorry than I am, sir."
"Aren't you a trifle late?"
"I came as soon as I got word."
Torrance made a little gesture of impatience. "That's not what I mean. There is very little use in being sorry now. Before the other fools you joined started there talking there was quietness and prosperity in this country. The men who had made it what it is got all, but nothing more than they were entitled to, and one could enjoy what he had worked for and sleep at night. This was not good enough for you--and this is what you have made of it."
He stretched out his arm with a forceful gesture, pointing to the men with rifles, the two white-faced girls, and the splinters on the wall, then dropped his hand, and Larry's eyes rested on the huddled figure lying by the stove. He moved towards it, and bent down without a word, and it was at least five minutes before he came back again, his face dark and stern.
"You have done nothing for him?" he said.
"No," said Torrance, "we have not. I guess nature knows what's best for him, and I didn't see anything to be gained by rousing him with brandy to start the bleeding."
"Well, first of all, I want that man."
"You can have him. We had meant him for the Sheriff, but what you did just now lays me in your debt, and I would not like to feel I owed you anything."
Grant made a little gesture. "I don't think I have quite deserved that, sir. I owe you a good deal, and it makes what I have to do harder still. Can't you remember that there was a time when you were kind to me?"
"No," said Torrance drily. "I don't want to be reminded when I have done foolish things. I tried to warn you, but you would not listen to me, that the trail you have started on will take you a good deal farther than you meant to go. If you have anything to tell me, I would sooner talk business. Are you going to bring your friends round here at night again?"
"They came without me, and, if I can help it, will not come back. This thing will be gone into, and the leaders punished by our committee. Now, are you willing to stop the intimidation of the storekeepers, which has brought about this trouble, and let us get provisions in the town? I can offer you something in exchange."
"No," said Torrance. "Do what suits you best. I can make no terms with you. If it hadn't been for my foolishness in sending the boys off with the cattle, very few of your friends would have got away from Cedar Range to-night."
"I'll take my man away. I can thank you for that at least," was Grant's answer.
He moved to the door and opened it, and three men came in. They did his bidding, and all made way for them when they tramped out unsteadily with their burden. Then, he turned once more to Torrance with his fur cap in his hand.
"I am going now, sir, and it is hard to tell what may happen before we meet again. We have each got a difficult row to hoe, and I want to leave you on the best terms I can."
Torrance looked at him steadily, and Grant returned it with a curious gravity, though there were fearless cattle-men at Cedar Range who did not care to meet its owner's gaze when he regarded them in that fashion. With a just perceptible gesture he directed the younger man's attention to the red splashes on the floor.
"That alone," he said quietly, "would stand between you and me. We made this land rich and peaceful, but that did not please you and the rest, who had not sense to see that while human nature's what it is, there's no use worrying about what you can't have when you have got enough. You went round sowing trouble, and by and by you'll have to reap it. You brought in the rabble, and were going to lead them, and make them farmers; but now they will lead you where you don't want to go, and when you have given them all you have, turn and trample on you. With the help of the men who are going back on their own kind, they may get us down, but when that time comes there will not be a head of cattle left, or a dollar in the treasury."
"I can only hope you are mistaken, sir," said Grant.
"I have lived quite a long while, but I have never seen the rabble keep faith with anyone longer than it suited them," the older man said. "Any way, that is not the question. You will be handed to the Sheriff if you come here again. I have nothing more to tell you, and this is, I hope, the last time I shall ever speak to you."