Chapter 2

Evans regarded Harris curiously as he deliberately provoked the argument, then sat back and listened to the various ideas of the others as the discussion became heated and general. It occurred to Evans that Harris was classifying the men by their views, and when the argument lagged the lean man grinned and gave it fresh impetus.

"It's a settled fact that the outfits that have put in hay are better off," he said. "But there's a dozen localities like this, a dozen little civil wars going on right now where the inhabitants are so mulish that they lay their ears and fight their own interests by upholding a flea-bit prejudice that was good for twenty years ago but is a dead issue to-day."

"And why is it dead to-day?" Morrow demanded. "And not as good as it always was?"

"Only a hundred or so different reasons," Evans returned indifferently. "Then beef-tops brought ten dollars a head and they're worth three times that now; then you bought a brand on the hoof, come as they run, for round five dollars straight through, exclusive of calves; now it's based at ten on the round-up tally. In those days a man could better afford to let part of his cows winter-kill than to raise feed to winter the whole of them through--among other things. These days he can't."

"And have your water holes fenced," Morrow said. "As soon as you let the first squatter light."

"The government has prohibited fencing water holes necessary to the adjacent range," Harris cut in. "If that valley was mine I'd have put it in hay this long time back."

"But it wasn't yours," Morrow pointed out.

"No; but it is now, or at least a part of it is," Harris said. "I picked up that school section that lays across the valley and filed on a home quarter that butts up against the rims." He sat gazing indifferently out the door as if unconscious of the dead silence that followed his remark. More men had drifted in till nearly a dozen were gathered in the room.

"That's never been done out here--buying school sections and filing squatter's rights," Morrow said at last. "This is cow country and will never be anything else."

"Good cow country," Harris agreed. "And it stands to reason it could be made better with a little help."

"Whenever you start helping a country with fence and plow you ruin it for cows," Morrow stated. "I know!"

"It always loomed up in the light of a good move to me," the newcomer returned. "One of us has likely read his signs wrong."

"There's some signs round here you better read," Morrow said. "They were posted for such as you."

"It appears like I'd maybe made a bad selection then. I'm sorry about that," Harris deprecated in a negligent tone that belied his words. "It's hard to tell just how it will pan out."

"Not so very hard--if you can read," the dark man contradicted.

The newcomer's gaze returned from down the valley and settled on Morrow's face.

"Do you run a brand of your own--so's you'd stand to lose a dollar if every foot of range was fenced?" he inquired.

"What are you trying to get at now?" Morrow demanded.

"Nothing much--now; I've already got," Harris said. "A man's interest lays on the side where his finances are most concerned."

"What do you mean by that?" Morrow insisted.

"You're good at predicting--maybe you're an expert at guessing too," Harris returned. And suddenly Evans laughed as if something had just occurred to him.

Morrow glanced at him without turning his head, then fell silent, his expression unchanged.

A chunky youngster stood in the door and bent an approving gaze on the big pinto as he swung out across the pasture lot. The boy's face was small and quizzical, a shaggy mop of tawny hair hanging so low upon his forehead that his mild blue eyes peered forth from under the fringe of it and gave him the air of a surprised terrier, which effect had gained him the title of Bangs.

"I bet the little paint-horse could make a man swing and rattle to set up in his middle, once he started to act up," he said.

"Calico wouldn't know how to start," Harris said. "A horse, inside his limitations, is what his breaker makes him. I never favored the idea of breaking a horse to fight you every time you climb him. My horses are gentle-broke."

"But you have to be able to top off just any kind of a horse," Bangs objected.

"That don't hinder a man from gentling his own string," Harris returned.

Bangs turned his surprised eyes on Harris and regarded him intently as if striving to fathom a viewpoint that was entirely new to him.

"Why, it don't, for a fact," he said at last. "Only I just never happened to think of it like that before."

Morrow laughed and the boy flushed at the disagreeable ring of it. The sound was not loud but flat and mirthless, the syllables distinct and evenly spaced. His white even teeth remained tight-closed and showed in flashing contrast to his swarthy face and black mustache. Morrow's face wore none of the active malignancy that stamps the features of those uncontrolled desperadoes who kill in a flare of passion; rather it seemed that the urge to kill was always with him, had been born with him, his face drawn and over-lengthened from the inner effort to render his homicidal tendencies submissive to his brain, not through desire for regeneration, for he had none, but as a mere matter of expediency. The set, bleak expression of countenance was but a reflection of his personality and his companions had sensed this strained quality without being able to define it in words.

"You listen to what the squatter man tells you," Morrow said to Bangs. "He'll put you right--give you a course in how everything ought to be done." He rose and went outside.

"That was a real unhumorous laugh," Evans said. "Right from the bottom of his heart."

A raucous bellow sounded from the cookhouse and every man within earshot rose and moved toward the summons to feed.

"Let's go eat it up," Evans said and left the bunk house with Harris.

"Did you gather all the information you was prospecting for?" he asked.

Harris nodded. "I sorted out one man's number," he said.

"Now if you'd only whispered to me I'd have told you right off," Evans said. "It's astonishing how easy it is to pick them if you try."

"Waddles is a right unpresuming sort of a man in most respects," Evans volunteered as they entered the cookhouse. "But he's downright egotistical about his culinary accomplishments."

All through the meal the gigantic cook hovered near Billie Warren as she sat near one end of the long table. It was evident to Harris that the big man was self-appointed guardian and counsellor of the Three Bar boss. He showed the same fussy solicitude for her welfare that a hen would show for her helpless chicks.

"Praise the grub and have a friend at court," Harris murmured in Evans' ear.

Billie Warren had nearly completed her meal before the men came in. She left the table and went to her own room. When Harris rose to go he slapped the big man on the back.

"I'd work for half pay where you get grub like this," he said. "That's what I'd call a real feed."

Waddles beamed and followed him to the door.

"It's a fact that I can set out the best bait you ever throwed a lip over," he confessed. "You're a man of excellent tastes and it's a real pleasure to have you about."

Billie Warren opened the door and motioned to Harris. He went into the big front room that answered for both living room and sleeping quarters. A fire burned in the rough stone fireplace; tanned pelts, Indian curios and Navajo rugs covered the walls; more rugs and pelts lay on the floor. Indian blankets partitioned off one end for her sleeping room.

"You had something to tell me," she observed, after he had remained silent for the space of a minute, sitting in the chair she had indicated and gazing into the fire.

"And I'll have to start it a little different from the way I first counted on," he said. "Have any of the boys mentioned my name to you?"

She shook her head and waited for him to go on.

"You won't care much to hear it," he announced. "I'd thought some of spending two years here under some other name--but perhaps it's better to come out in the open--don't you think?"

The girl had straightened in her chair and was leaning toward him, her face white and her gray eyes boring straight into the man's. She knew now who he was,--the man she had more reason to despise than all others on earth combined. Of the Harris family she knew nothing at all except that her father's lifelong regret had been the fact that the partnership between himself and his oldest friend, William Harris, had never been brought to pass. And this regret had, in the end, led him to try and cement that arrangement in the second generation. Five years before his trail had crossed that of the elder Harris for the first time since he had taken over the Three Bar brand; and when his will had been read she had known that on the occasion of that visit his old friend had played upon this sentiment to trick him into making it. On all sides of her she had evidence that men were wolves who preyed upon the interests of others, and there was not a doubt that the father of the man before her had preyed upon her interests through the sentiment of her parent; no other possible theory could account for the strange disposal of his property, the will dated and signed at the exact time of his visit to the Harrises.

The tenseness of her pose was replaced by lethargic indifference and she relaxed into her chair.

"I've known all the time you would come," she said.

"It's too bad, Billie," he said. "It's tough having me wished on to you this way."

"Don't play that game with me!" she flared. "Of course you've disproved every drop of human decency in advance."

"It sure looms up like that on the surface," he admitted ruefully. "But I didn't have a hand in cinching you this way."

"You could have proved that by staying away. I wrote you a year ago that I'd donate you a half-interest in the Three Bar at the expiration of the time if you'd only keep off the place. But at the last moment you couldn't resist having it all. Ten more days and you'd have been too late."

The man nodded slowly.

"Too late," he agreed and sat looking into the fire.

She had been almost a son to her father, had ridden the range with him, managed the Three Bar during his sickness; and such was her loyalty to his memory that not a trace of her bitterness had been directed toward her parent. He had loved the Three Bar and had always believed that old Bill Harris, its founder, had loved it too. His will had stipulated that half of his property should go to the younger Harris under the condition that the man should make his home on the Three Bar for two out of the first three years after her father's decease. The whole of it was to go to him in case she failed to make her own home at the Three Bar during her co-heir's stay, or in the event of her marriage to another before the expiration of three years.

"Of course I'm tied here for two years," she said. "Or left penniless. If you can make it unpleasant enough to drive me away--which won't be difficult--you win."

"I wouldn't count too strong on that," he counseled mildly.

"Then why did you come?" she insisted. "Half of it was yours by merely keeping away."

"Maybe I'm sort of tied up myself--in ways you don't suspect," he offered.

"Very likely!" she returned; "sounds plausible. You might offer to marry me," she suggested when he failed to answer. "You could gain full possession at once that way."

He removed his gaze from the fire and looked long at her.

"It will likely come to that," he said.

"I'll put a weapon in your hands," she retorted. "Whenever it does come to that I'll leave the ranch--so now you know the one sure way to win."

"I hope it won't pan out like that," he said. "I'll be disappointed--more than I can say."

She rose and stood waiting for him to go.

"Good night, Billie," he said. "I expect maybe things will break all right for us."

She did not answer and he went out. Waddles hailed him in friendly fashion as he passed through the cookhouse, then wiped his hands and stepped into Billie's quarters. Waddles was a fixture at the Three Bar; he had ridden for her father until he had his legs smashed up by a horse and had thereafter reigned as cook. He was confidential adviser and self-appointed guardian of the girl. His mind was still pleasantly concerned with the stranger's warm praise of his culinary efforts.

"That new man now, Billie," he remarked. "He's away off ahead of the average run. You mark me--he'll be top hand with this outfit in no time at all." Then he observed the girl's expression. "What is it, Pet?" he inquired. "What's a-fretting you?"

"Do you know who he is?" she asked.

Waddles wagged a negative head.

"He's Calvin Harris," she stated.

Instead of the blank dismay which she had expected to see depicted on Waddles's face at this announcement, it seemed to her that the big man was pleased.

"The hell!" he said. "'Scuse me, Billie. So this here is Cal! Well, well--now what do you think of that?"

"I think that I don't want to stay here alone with him while you're out after the horses," she returned.

"Wrong idea!" the big man promptly contradicted. "You've got to stick it out for two years, girl. The best thing you can do is to get acquainted; and figure out how to get along the best you can--the pair of you."

"That's probably true," she assented indifferently. "I'll have to face a number of things that are equally unpleasant in the next two years--so I might as well start now. He must have praised the food in order to win you to his side in two minutes flat."

Waddles's face expressed pained reproach.

"Now there it is again!" he said. "You know I'm only on one side--yours. Old Cal Warren had some definite notion when he framed this play; so it's likely this young Cal is on your side, too."

"But even more likely not," she stated.

"Then what?"

"Why, then I'll have to kill him and put a stop to it," the big man announced. "But it's noways probable that it will come to that. Let's use logic. He spoke well of my cooking--like you said--which proves him a man of some discernment. No way to get around that. Now a man with his judgment wouldn't suspect for one living second that he could play it low-down on you with me roosting close at hand. Putting two plain facts together it works out right natural and simple that he's on the square. As easy as that," he finished triumphantly. "So don't you fret. And in case he acts up I'll clamp down on him real sudden," he added by way of further reassurance.

His great paw opened and shut to illustrate his point as he moved toward the door and the Three Bar girl knew that when Waddles spoke of clamping down it was no mere figure of speech.

III

Billie Warren heard the steady buzz of a saw and later the ringing strokes of an axe. The men had departed three hours before to be gone for a week on the horse round-up but she had not yet issued from her own quarters. The music of axe and saw was ample evidence that her new and undesired partner was making valuable use of his time. She went outside and he struck the axe in a cross section of pine log as she moved toward him.

"We'll have to get along the best we can," she announced abruptly. "Of course you will have a say in the management of the Three Bar and draw the same amount for yourself that I do."

He sat on a log and twisted a cigarette as he reflected upon this statement.

"I'd rather not do that," he decided. "I don't want to be a drain on the brand--but to help build it up. Suppose I just serve as an extra hand and do whatever necessary turns up--in return for your letting me advise with you on a few points that I happen to have worked out while I was prowling through the country."

"Any way you like," she returned. "It's for you to decide. Any money which you fail to draw now will revert to you in the end so it won't matter in the least."

His reply was irrelevant, a deliberate refusal to notice her ungenerous misinterpretation of his offer.

"Do you mind if I gather a few Three Bar colts round here close and break out my own string before they get back?" he asked.

"Anything you like," she repeated. "I'm not going to quarrel. I've made up my mind to that. I'll be gone the rest of the day."

Five minutes later he saw her riding down the lane. She was not seeking companionship but rather solitude and for hours she drifted aimlessly across the range, sometimes dismounting on some point that afforded a good view and reclining in the warm spring sun. Dusk was falling when she rode back to the Three Bar. As she turned her sorrel, Papoose, into the corral she noticed several four-year-old colts in the pasture lot. As she returned to the house Harris appeared in the door.

"Grub-pile," he announced.

They sat down to a meal of broiled steak, mashed potatoes, hot biscuits, coffee and raspberry jam. She had deliberately absented herself through the noon hour and well past the time for evening meal, confidently expecting to find him impatiently waiting for her to return and prepare food for him.

"You make good biscuits--better than those Waddles stirs up," she said. "Though I'd never dare tell him so." It was the first time she had conceded that there might be even a taint of good in him.

"Well, yes--they're some better than those I usually turn out," he confessed. "Having a lady to feed I flaked the lard in cold instead of just melting it and stirring her in like I most generally do. I'm right glad that you consider them a success."

When the meal was finished she rose without a word and went into her own quarters, convinced that this desertion would certainly call forth a protest; but the man calmly went about the business of washing the dishes as if he had expected nothing else, and presently she heard the door close behind him and immediately afterwards a light appeared in the bunk-house window.

The rattle of pots and pans roused her before daylight. Some thirty minutes later he called to her.

"I've finished," he said. "You'd better eat yours before it gets cold," and the closing of the door announced that he had gone without waiting for an answer. She heard again the sound of saw and axe as he worked up the dry logs into stove lengths. At least he was making good his word to the cook. The sounds ceased when the sun was an hour high and when she looked out to determine the reason she saw him working with four colts in one of the smaller corrals.

He had fashioned a hackamore for each and they stood tied to the corral bars. He left them there and repaired to the big gates of the main corral. The two swinging halves sagged until their ends dragged on the ground when opened or closed, necessitating the expenditure of considerable energy in performing either operation. She watched him tear down the old support wires and replace them with new ones, stretching a double strand from the top of the tall pivot posts to the free ends of the gates. Placing a short stick between the two strands of heavy wire he twisted until the shortening process had cleared the gate ends and they swung suspended, moving so freely that a rider could lean from his saddle and throw them open with ease.

This completed to his satisfaction he fashioned heavy slabs of wood to serve as extra brake-blocks for the chuck wagon. Between the performance of each two self-appointed duties he spent some little time with the colts, handling them and teaching them not to fear his approach, cinching his saddle on first one and then the next, talking to them and handling their heads.

For three days there was little communication between the two. It was evident that he had no intention of forcing his society upon her, and her failure to prepare his meals failed to elicit a single sign to show that he had expected otherwise; the contrary was true, in fact, for he invariably prepared enough for two. It was clear that he exercised the same patience toward her that he showed in handling the green four-year-olds; and she was inclined to be a little scornful of his method of gentle-breaking them. She felt her own ability to handle any horse on the range although old Cal Warren had gentled every animal she had wanted for her own and flatly refused to let her mount any others. Waddles was as insistent upon this point as her parent had been, but never had she known a cowhand who took time and pains to gentle his own string.

In the afternoon of the third day she saw him swing to the back of a big bay, easing into the saddle without a jar, and the colt ambled round the corral, rolling his eyes back toward the thing clamped upon him but making no effort to pitch. He dismounted and stripped off the saddle, cinched it on a second horse and let him stand, leading a third out to a snubbing post near the door of the blacksmith shop where he proceeded to put on his first set of shoes.

The girl went out and sat on the sill of the shop door and watched him. The colt pulled back in an effort to release the forefoot that the man held clamped between his leather-clad knees, then changed his tactics and sagged his weight against Harris.

"You Babe!" the man ordered. "Don't you go leaning on me." He pared down the hoof and fitted the shoe but before nailing it on he released the colt's foot and addressed the girl. "If I'd fight him now while he's spooky and half-scared it would spoil him maybe," he explained.

"I gentle-break mine, too," she said, and the man overlooked the inflection which, as plainly as words, was intended to convey the impression that his ways were effeminate. "If every man used up his time gentling his string he'd never have a day off to work at anything else."

"Why, it don't use up much time," he objected. "They halfway break themselves, standing round with a saddle on and having a man handle them a little between spells of regular work--like cutting firewood and such. And it's a saving of time in the end. There's three hundred odd days every year when a man consumes considerable time fighting every horse he steps up on--if they're broke that way to start."

"So your only reason for not riding them out is to save time," she said.

"If you mean that I'm timid," he observed, "why, I don't know as I'd bother to dispute it." He moved over and sat on his heels facing her, twisting the ever handy cigarette. "Listen," he urged. "Let's you and I try to get along. Now if you'll only make up your mind that I'm not out to grab the Three Bar, not even the half of it that's supposed to be mine--unless you get paid for it--why, we're liable to get to liking each other real well in the end. I'll give you a contract to that effect."

"Which you know would be worthless!" she returned. "The will specifically states that any agreements between us prior to the time of division are to be disregarded. A written contract would have no more value than your unsupported promise and in view of what's happened you don't expect me to place a value on that."

He pulled reflectively at his cigarette and she rather expected another of the irrelevant remarks with which he so often replied to her pointed thrusts.

"No," he said at last. "But it's a fact that I don't want the Three Bar--or rather I do if you should ever decide to sell."

"I never will," she stated positively. "It's always been my home. I've been away and had a good time; three winters in school and enjoying every second; but there always comes a time when I'm sick to get back, when I know I can't stay away from the Three Bar, when I want to smell the sage and throw my leg across a horse--and ride!"