Part 7

"You just say that because she's the best you can get," he surmised, smilingly. "If I had you over at the Circle G to be my little girl, we'd shoot this old bag of bones and give you something that could go."

Old bag of bones! _Shoot_ Queen Berengaria! Harvey Grannis never knew that then and there he settled the question as to his namesake's ever agreeing, so long as she could fight the question, to set foot on the Circle G as a home.

"Did you say you wanted me to take a message to mother?" she asked quietly, after a somewhat lengthy pause.

"Yes," said the ranchman. "You just tell 'em I said that the big spring's liable to give out--and _then_ she'll maybe think different about some things."

Small Harvie repeated the message, her clear eyes fixed on her uncle's face.

"Now I can say it just like you did," and solemnly she parroted the big man's words, giving quite unconsciously his intonation, and the threat that was in his voice. It appeared that he did not relish this, for he put in hastily:

"Don't say it cross--just _say_ it."

"But, Uncle Harvey, even if the spring does give out we always water at the big water-hole. Nobody ever did know it to give out, did they?"

"No," said Harvey Grannis, "that's why I bought the land it's on."

"And you'd always let us water at the big tank," concluded the Babe, comfortably.

"I would if 'twas only you, honey," he told her, and his eyes glittered.

He had said that he bought the land for that water-tank, and he might have added: "That's why I wouldn't sell it to your father when he wanted to buy it with Silver Spur." He might have said this, for the Silver Spur joined his big pastures, had once, in fact, been part of his holding, and when John Spooner bought from his brother-in-law, Grannis retained the pasture containing the tank, saying that he wanted to use it for convenience in watering herds when he drove them down to the railroad for shipping, and that the Spooners could always use it anyhow. This was a mere verbal arrangement, it did not stand in the deed, and when the Babe arrived with her little speech and repeated it at the dinner-table there was consternation.

"What on earth can Uncle Harvey mean?" asked Ruth indignantly. "Do you suppose he thinks the use of that tank could be taken away from us?"

"I don't think he could really be as mean as that, Ruth," reassured Elizabeth. "He's just trying to worry us because of the way we spoke. The tank is on his own land, you know."

But that the threat was real was proven later, when Roy announced that Grannis had come with a wagon and men from his ranch, and was busy running a wire-fence around the water-hole. They were putting up a locked gate, so that only by permission could anybody have access to it.

"And the big spring's just mud," said Roy, gloomily. "I think Harvey Grannis is the meanest man in Texas!"

Mrs. Spooner, pale and worn from anxiety about her husband, received the news calmly. "I don't think there's anything to worry over," she soothed the girls; "Harvey maybe has some good reason. Remember it's a dry year, and other people may have been annoying him. Anyway, I'm sure he'll not forbid us to water our cattle there. Please put Shasta to the phaeton, Roy, the Babe and I'll drive down and see about it."

The fence was indeed going rapidly up when Mrs. Spooner arrived; Grannis himself was busily directing his men, urging haste in his usual stormy manner.

"Well," he greeted his sister, "have you come to your senses yet--you and those unbroken colts you've got for daughters? You see there's no more water-hole for you to depend on. Cattle'll die, of course. Only thing you can do is to drive 'em over to my ranch and pack up and come along yourselves. If ever a set of young ones need discipline, those two girls do!"

His eyes snapped fiercely--discipline with Harvey Grannis meant punishment.

"Harvey," asked his sister, quietly ignoring his attack on her girls, "aren't you going to give us a key to that gate?"

"Give you a key to the gate? Yes, when you send me word that you're packing to move over to my ranch. I'm doing this for your good. I think you know it, and those stiff-necked young'uns could see it for themselves if you'd brought 'em up right. That's my last word, and I mean it."

Turning on his heel he walked rapidly away, leaving Mrs. Spooner to return to her waiting children.

"Never mind, mother," soothed the Babe, as they drove slowly homeward. "Uncle Harvey's not a bad man--he didn't mean sure-enough that our cattle couldn't drink at the water-hole."

But her mother knew otherwise. Harvey Grannis intended to force them to live with him, for, as has been said, he was really fond of his sister and her children. Since he had come to believe John Spooner dead, the thought that now he would have them all to himself, in his big, comfortable house, grew very pleasant, so that he had determined, in his usual violent fashion, to use force if necessary to accomplish his purpose.

"I'm sure, children, I don't know what we're to do," Mrs. Spooner sighed, as she related the ill success of her errand to the family. "I didn't dream that Harvey could be so hard."

They soothed her with words of cheer, and Elizabeth sat beside her as she lay upon the lounge, and bathed her mother's aching temples with cool water.

"Never mind, mother," she whispered, "I promise to take care of you--always!"

Soothed by the magnetic touch of the firm young hands, Mrs. Spooner soon dropped asleep, and Elizabeth looking on the pitifully frail little form, beheld through tear-blurred eyes a picture of the past--a vision of the young mother, delicate and burdened with many cares, unselfishly adopting into her home and heart the abandoned offspring of strangers--the child of sordid birth and ignoble poverty! A wave of passionate gratitude swept over the girl as she looked, and again she breathed a vow to always take care of her foster-mother.

Next day Jonah Bean came galloping up to tell them that the wire of the dividing fence had been cut in the night, and the Spooner cattle had, as usual, satisfied their thirst at the water-hole! Grannis's cowboys had rounded them up and driven them out at dawn, and Grannis himself had ordered Jonah to come and mend the break, declaring he had made it.

"I ain't cut that fence, neither a-mendin' it," announced Jonah oracularly. "Stands to reason the cattle got to drink. Providence done it, 'cordin' to my way o' thinkin'."

"Grannis yelled something over at me, but I'm not worrying over it," declared Roy, "it's the meanest thing I ever knew of. I'm certainly not going to prevent the cattle drinking when somebody else cut the wires."

The cutting of a wire-fence is in all cattle-countries a grave misdemeanor, punishable by law. Harvey Grannis, when his "spite-fence" had been cut, was of course in a towering rage, threatening to prosecute the clipper, when caught, and vowing no less punishment than the penitentiary if the offence was repeated.

But the next night they were again clipped, and the Spooner herd once more rejoiced in abundance of water. Harvey Grannis had trusted to the wire-cutter being frightened away by his loud threats, and had not set a guard over the fence. Now indeed did he swear vengeance against the offender--"male or female," he declared fiercely and to further protect the fence drove a bunch of his own cattle down and camped in the pasture--he would see that no more water was furnished the Spooner cattle, or jail the clipper!

It cannot be said that this move increased his popularity with his neighbors when they came to know its meaning. Indeed his own cowboys muttered indignantly as they moved about, pitching their tents and making ready for camp, that it was a sin and shame, and the boss too pizen mean to live! At the same time they could not help admitting that it would be much wiser for the Spooner family to move over into his comfortable house and be taken care of by the wealthy ranchman, than to try and struggle along combatting poverty and drouth. This knowledge served to keep them from open revolt, though the means he had taken to accomplish his purpose moved them to scornful wrath. Brow-beating women and children didn't agree with the cowboy sense of honor.

With the coming of Grannis's camp to the water-hole pasture the Spooner's case became desperate. The well at the house had a small basin which filled slowly, and the little water it furnished must be saved for drinking and household purposes. Jonah and Roy reluctantly watered their ponies from it, but the big spring their cattle had depended on was now only a dry mud-hole. Roy went privately to Grannis and asked the privilege of hauling water from the big tank. He received for his pains an accusation of having cut the fence-wires. This in addition of Grannis's usual name for him of horse thief proved so unpleasant that he was sorry he went.

"Looks to me like we was at our row's end," remarked Jonah Bean with gloomy philosophy. "If they's a turnin' p'int I hain't seed it. Might's well sell out, Mis' Spooner, if you kin find a buyer for the bunch."

"No, no, Jonah," objected Elizabeth eagerly. "We'll find a way. Can't you think of something, Roy?" she asked.

Roy's face was sober; he and Jonah had discussed the question, and neither one could see any other way than to sell the herd before they perished of drouth.

"Nothing except sell," he said, shaking his head soberly.

"Then _I'll_ find a way!" declared Elizabeth, passionately. "They shan't be sold--and they shan't starve, either. You and Jonah round up the bunch and Ruth and I will haul water from Munson's pond--it never dries up, and I know Mr. Munson won't care."

"O, that will be the very thing! Mother, please let us," begged Ruth, eager to help.

Really there seemed nothing else to do. Elizabeth's plan though it meant hard work, was at least feasible--for a time, at least; in the meantime something unforseen might turn up.

So, with a big hogshead in the ranch wagon they drove five miles to get water, which their neighbor Mr. Munson kindly let them have.

"I always knew Harvey was a cross-grained old sinner," frankly declared Mr. Munson. "Wants to starve you out, I hear, so's he c'n make you all live with him. Well, I don't think much of his plan. But you're plumb welcome to water--long's you hold out to haul it."

For three days they hauled water, staying but not satisfying the famishing cattle's thirst; and on one pretext or another Grannis kept his men in the water-hole pasture. The morning of the third day Ruth came upon Elizabeth with the wire clippers in her hand and a very queer look upon her face--a look that caused an awful thought to flash into the younger sister's mind. Could she--could Elizabeth be the wire-clipper that Harvey Grannis was waiting to catch--and jail? The thing was impossible, she argued fiercely; Elizabeth simply couldn't do such a thing!

Yet somehow all day she felt an uneasy sense that more trouble was brewing, and that night after their early supper when she could not find Elizabeth anywhere, terror seized her, and without letting anybody know, she ran wildly across the pastures by the short cut, to search for her.

It was a wonderful velvet-black summer night, the skies star-sprinkled and the enemy's camp lighted by a great central cook-fire that could be seen far in that flat, plains-country. Flickering lanterns moved about it. Ruth ran on, seeking Elizabeth where the former cuttings had been, and praying that she would not find her there.

Halfway across she met Roy coming back from a secret survey of Grannis's camp. With panting breath she gasped out her story. Somebody must find Elizabeth!

"I will," said Roy quietly, "I think I know where she is. You go back to the house, Ruth--I'll find her."

He turned back in the direction of the camp and Ruth walked slowly to the house, meeting her mother and Jonah, who were driving down the avenue in the phaeton.

"O, mother!" whispered Ruth anxiously. "Where are you going in the dark? Who are you looking for?"

"Hush!" warned her mother. "I'm not looking for any one. Why do you ask? I'm going to your Uncle Harvey's camp. I thought you were all in your rooms--I didn't want Elizabeth to know, and I just can't stand this any longer. I think, if he's made to see things right, that he'll give us a key to that gate, as he ought to, and leave us in peace. You run in the house and go to bed--and don't let Elizabeth know."

"O, goodness gracious! Whatever shall I do?" moaned poor Ruth, as she watched her mother and Jonah drive away. "Maybe Roy won't be in time, and while Mother's right there, begging Uncle Harvey to go home they'll catch Elizabeth and bring her before them all! It would just about kill mother. I can't stay here--I just can't!"

Forgetful of the Babe left alone in the dark, Ruth darted away on the trail of Roy and Elizabeth.

Supper was over at the camp when Mrs. Spooner and Jonah reached it. The cowboys scattered about on the grass, smoked, or played cards or read old newspapers by the light of the cook-fire. Harvey Grannis sat on a camp stool before his tent and smoked a pipe which was anything but a pipe of peace. He was angry with his cowboys who took no pains to conceal their disapproval of his high-handed proceedings with the Spooners because they would not yield, but most important of all, he was angry with himself, because he knew in his heart he was behaving in a most contemptible way.

The gate towards the road was not locked, nor even shut. Jonah drove through it and was in the middle of the camp before Grannis noticed his arrival.

"Can I speak to you privately, Harvey?" asked his sister, as he arose and came forward to greet her.

"No, ma'am," he answered with emphatic loudness. "Say your say--Everybody's welcome to hear it. I've done nothing I'm ashamed of."

The indignant blood rushed to Mrs. Spooner's pale face. She had no wish to make a scene. She pushed aside the rug and stepped quietly from her phaeton. Jonah held the lines over Shasta, looking straight ahead of him. The circle of cowboys drew closer, listening curiously, eagerly, most of them with angry distaste, yet hopeful that the little woman would speak up to their boss.

And she did. She told him pretty plainly what she thought of his behavior. She began with the sale of the ranch to John Spooner and the verbal agreement concerning the use of this tank or water-hole which had never in the memory of man gone dry. Her voice faltered when she spoke of her husband's absence and danger, the doubt which Harvey had expressed of his brother-in-law's ever returning to his family. She mentioned the conduct of her daughters as highly creditable to them.

At this point Harvey, enraged by being reproved when he fully expected entreaties, broke in.

"Well, those same high-spirited girls of yours have been cutting wires, ma'am--and wire-cutting is a penitentiary offense. Jake over there, saw a girl snooping along the fence and bending over working at it, and when he got down there three wires were clipped in two, and swinging. That's the way your girls show their high-spirit!"

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. Spooner indignantly. "Neither Ruth nor Elizabeth would do such a thing. They fully understand that it's a crime before the law--though surely what you are doing, Harvey, is a crime before Heaven. Maybe you think I cut the wires?"

"No, no, Jennie," began Harvey, somewhat abashed, yet still thoroughly angry. "You hold on and I'll catch the minx in the act--we've got three men hidden down by the fence now--Here they come!"

There was a stir off in the darkness where the fence cutting had been. Mrs. Spooner put her hand to her heart and gasped, praying silently that neither of her girls had been driven into reckless reprisals. She had talked to them about it, again and again as she did to Roy, begging them to remember that two wrongs never made a right. Then she turned away and hid her eyes against the phaeton edge.

"Sufferin' Moses!" groaned Jonah Bean.

For Elizabeth Spooner, Ruth Spooner and Roy Lambert were being hustled into the circle of light by two eager cowboys.

"We caught your wire-clipper, boss," they sniggered jeeringly. "Caught 'er in the act! We'll all stand by you when you fix to send her off to jail!"

"Elizabeth--my child! How could you?" wailed Mrs. Spooner.

"You see--I told you!" broke in Grannis, speaking loud to cover his dismay.

"O, I didn't cut the wires," said Elizabeth composedly, adding in her clear tones, "I didn't--neither did Ruth or Roy. But we got there just as they caught the wire-clipper, and we came along to see how Uncle Harvey likes his work. Look, Uncle Harvey!"

And she drew aside to reveal the clipper.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*A Partner of the Sun*

It took Harvey Grannis a long time to live down that scene by the camp fire; for when Elizabeth drew aside there stood revealed, clinging to her skirts, a pair of wire-clippers clutched in her free hand--the Babe. Harvey Grannis stared incredulously for a full minute, and everybody stared at him. Then he turned away with an inarticulate exclamation that was like a groan.

"O, Uncle Harvey!" cried the Babe, rushing forward at the sound of his voice, clasping his knees, bumping him with the wire-clippers, looking up at him, her face streaming with tears.

"It wasn't this child," he declared fiercely, catching her up in his arms and glaring across her head at the others. "The rest of you are puttin' it on her--of if her poor little hands done the work, you all egged her on and made her do it."

"No, they didn't," declared the child, squirming free and getting to her feet, her real courage coming to her aid and sweeping away the nervous fright that had possessed her. "I cut the wire that first night--and then I cut it the next night, because the cows were thirsty, and I knew you wouldn't be mad after all--you were just making believe, weren't you, Uncle Harvey?"

She turned confidentially to him, and the big man looked exceedingly foolish. The tension of the scene slackened a bit, and one or two of the cowboys snickered. But Mrs. Spooner's face was stern as she came forward and took her little girl by the hand.

"You see, Harvey, why I don't want to come and live in your house," she said clearly and distinctly. "Perhaps you understand now why I'm not willing that you should have a chance to discipline my girls. Look what you drive people into!"

Her glance went fleetingly to Roy, and everybody in the cow-camp remembered how Grannis's ideas of discipline had made a sort of horse thief out of a very honest lad.

"This child's a minor," began Grannis, sulkily. "She's not to blame. If you have a mind to let her come and live with me--even part of the time--I'll give her the key to the gate. What do you say?"

Mrs. Spooner looked at her little girl's face and read the terror and distaste in it.

"Please, O, _please_ don't, mother!" came the imploring whisper. The Babe had visions of Queen Berengaria slain and herself set to careering about on a strange pinto that she could never love--and yet expected to be thankful for the change!

"I say that you've proved yourself as hard as usual, Harvey," Mrs. Spooner returned quietly. "I couldn't spare my baby--even if she were willing to go. Why can't you be contented with the children loving and respecting you--and staying independently in their own home?"

The defeat was too public. Grannis would not accept it.

"All right," he growled. "That gate's locked from this on--and you can get along the best way you know how for all of me. It's lucky it wasn't one of your older girls that played this trick--or one of the men you employ. You've got off easy."

The Spooner party went home in despair. The Babe showed unexpected spirit and demanded that, as she had cut the wires, the cattle be allowed to go in and water that night. They were. Nobody interfered with Ruth and Elizabeth when they hauled three hogsheads of water the next morning while Grannis's force was breaking camp and before they had mended the fence.

But that was the end of everything. There was no news from Cuba, and Mrs. Spooner began to look about her for some way to dispose of the cattle. It was the next week, in the midst of her perplexities, that Harvey Grannis rode up to the ranch to warn them that he intended to foreclose his mortgage on the place at once.

"I'm doing it for your own good, Jennie," he argued. "I'll still hold to my offer to give you all a home. Common sense ought to tell you it will be a sight better to live at the Circle G and have a man to look after you than to stay here and starve, depending on a jail-bird, an old fool and a couple of feather-headed girls. When do you think you'll be ready to move?"

"I must consult my girls first, Harvey," said Mrs. Spooner quietly. "They are down at the corral--I'll call them at once. I have a dreadful headache this morning, and when I've explained the situation to them I'll go and lie down. They can answer your questions as well as I."

Her brother fumed a good deal at this, vowing that he wouldn't be surprised if she felt called upon to consult old Jonah and the jail-bird!

"I certainly do intend to consult them," replied his sister mildly. "Only just now they are out hauling water from Munson's pond. But the girls'll be here in a minute--I will do as we all think best."

Elizabeth and Ruth felt their hearts sink at sight of their uncle, certain that his coming meant some new disaster. "He couldn't bring anything else!" they thought indignantly.

Mrs. Spooner, warning Grannis to silence, explained his proposition to the girls very clearly and calmly; she wished them to see it as favorably as possible, for in her heart she could think of nothing better--there seemed to be no other alternative; it seemed they must live with Harvey, hard as it would be. When she had finished she went to lie down.

Ruth looked at Elizabeth for counsel as her mother left the room. If there was any other way, she was sure that Elizabeth would find it.

"We'll agree to give up the ranch at once," began Elizabeth.

"You'll have to," interrupted Harvey Grannis. "Those are the terms of the mortgage. I _could_ put you out to-day, but I'll give you time to pack."

"With the privilege of making our payment when father comes home. Are you willing to do that, Uncle Harvey?" Elizabeth finished.

Grannis agreed promptly to this, certain now that he would have his own way with the family.

"Then we'll move next week," decided Elizabeth.

"I'll send my teams over for your things--Monday, say?" asked Grannis, in high satisfaction.

"O, no," Elizabeth demurred, "there'll be no need to bother you. Jonah and Roy can move us without any help. Thank you, just the same."

"Jonah and Roy, is it?" snorted Grannis. "Well, I told your mother, and I tell you, that I won't have that young horse-thief on my place. The teams will be here Monday. See that you're ready when they come."

"But we aren't going to the Circle G, Uncle Harvey," said Elizabeth, mildly.

Grannis was in the doorway, he turned, his look of surprise and dismay was almost comical.

"Where are you going, then? Straight to destruction, I suppose. And dragging your poor sick mother with you. I want a word with Jennie about this."

"Mother has allowed me to speak for her," Elizabeth said. "Ruth and I are going to take care of her. We can--you know we can."