Hidden Water

He sank once more into sombre contemplation, grumbling as he nursed his wounds, and at last Hardy asked him a leading question about Sallie Winship.

“Did I ever hear from ’er?” repeated Creede, rousing up from his reverie. “No, and it ain’t no use to try. I wrote to her three times, but I never got no answer–I reckon the old lady held ’em out on her. She wouldn’t stand for no bow-legged cowpuncher–and ye can’t blame her none, the way old man Winship used to make her cook for them rodéo hands–but Sallie would’ve answered them letters if she’d got ’em.”

“But where were they living in St. Louis?” persisted Hardy. “Maybe you got the wrong address.”

“Nope, I got it straight–Saint Louie, Mo., jest the way you see it in these money-order catalogues.”

“But didn’t you give any street and number?” cried Hardy, aghast. “Why, for Heaven’s sake, Jeff, there are half a million people in St. Louis–she’d never get it in the world.”

“No?” inquired Creede apathetically. “Well, it don’t make no difference, then. I don’t amount to a dam’, anyhow–and this is no place for a woman–but, by God, Rufe, I do git awful lonely when I see you writin’ them letters to the boss. If I only had somebody that cared for me I’d prize up hell to make good. I’d do anything in God’s world–turn back them sheep or give up my six-shooter, jest as she said; but, nope, they’s no such luck for Jeff Creede–he couldn’t make a-winnin’ with a squaw.”

“Jeff,” said Hardy quietly, “how much would you give to get a letter from Sallie?”

“What d’ye mean?” demanded Creede, looking up quickly. Then, seeing the twinkle in his partner’s eye, he made a grab for his money. “My whole wad,” he cried, throwing down the roll. “What’s the deal?”

“All right,” answered Hardy, deliberately counting out the bills, “there’s the ante–a hundred dollars. The rest I hold back for that trip to St. Louis. This hundred goes to the Rinkerton Detective Agency, St. Louis, Missouri, along with a real nice letter that I’ll help you write; and the minute they deliver that letter into the hands of Miss Sallie Winship, formerly of Hidden Water, Arizona, and return an answer, there’s another hundred coming to ’em. Is it a go?”

“Pardner,” said Creede, rising up solemnly from his place, “I want to shake with you on that.”

The next morning, with a package of letters in the crown of his black hat, Jefferson Creede swam Bat Wings across the swift current of the Salagua, hanging onto his tail from behind, and without even stopping to pour the water out of his boots struck into the long trail for Bender.

One week passed, and then another, and at last he came back, wet and dripping from his tussle with the river, and cursing the very name of detectives.

“W’y, shucks!” he grumbled. “I bummed around in town there for two weeks, hatin’ myself and makin’ faces at a passel of ornery sheepmen, and what do I git for my trouble? ‘Dear Mister Creede, your letter of umpty-ump received. We have detailed Detective Moriarty on this case and will report later. Yours truly!’ That’s all–keep the change–we make a livin’ off of suckers–and they’s one born every minute. To hell with these detectives! Well, I never received nothin’ more and finally I jumped at a poor little bandy-legged sheep-herder, a cross between a gorilla and a Digger Injun–scared him to death. But I pulled my freight quick before we had any international complications. Don’t mention Mr. Allan Q. Rinkerton to me, boy, or I’ll throw a fit. Say,” he said, changing the subject abruptly, “how many hundred thousand sheep d’ye think I saw, comin’ up from Bender? Well, sir, they was sheep as far as the eye could see–millions of ’em–and they’ve got that plain et down to the original sand and cactus, already. W’y, boy, if we let them sheepmen in on us this Spring we’ll look like a watermelon patch after a nigger picnic; we’ll be cleaned like Pablo Moreno; they won’t be pickin’s for a billy goat! And Jim ’n’ Jasp have been ribbin’ their herders on scandalous. This little bandy-legged son-of-a-goat that I jumped at down in Bender actually had the nerve to say that I killed Juan Alvarez myself. Think of that, will ye, and me twenty miles away at the time! But I reckon if you took Jasp to pieces you’d find out he was mad over them three thousand wethers–value six dollars per–that I stompeded. The dastard! D’ye see how he keeps away from me? Well, I’m goin’ to call the rodéo right away and work that whole upper range, and when the river goes down you’ll find Jeff Creede right there with the goods if Jasp is lookin’ for trouble. Read them letters, boy, and tell me if I’m goin’ to have the old judge on my hands, too.”

According to the letters, he was; and the boss was also looking forward with pleasure to her visit in the Spring.

“Well, wouldn’t that jar you,” commented Creede, and then he laughed slyly. “Cheer up,” he said, “it might be worse–they’s nothin’ said about Kitty Bonnair.”

Sure enough–not a word about Kitty, and the year before Lucy had spoken about her in every letter! There was something mysterious about it, and sinister; they both felt it.

And when at last the wagon came in, bearing only Judge Ware and Lucy, somehow even Jeff’s sore heart was touched by a sense of loss. But while others might dissemble, Bill Lightfoot’s impulsive nature made no concealment of its chiefest thought.

“Where’s Miss Bunnair?” he demanded, as soon as Lucy Ware was free, and there was a sudden lull in the conversation roundabout as the cowboys listened for the answer.

“I’m sorry,” said Miss Ware, politely evasive, “but she wasn’t able to come with me.”

“She’ll be down bimeby, though, won’t she?” persisted Lightfoot; and when Lucy finally answered with a vague “Perhaps” he turned to the assembled cowboys with a triumphant grin. “Um, now, what’d I tell you!” he said; and one and all they scowled and stabbed him with their eyes.

The rodéo camp was already established beneath the big mesquite, and while three or four careless cowmen held the day herd over against the mesa the rest of the outfit was busy raking The Rolls. It was all very different from what Judge Ware and Lucy had anticipated. There was no sign of excitement in their midst, no ostentatious display of arms or posting of patrols, and what surprised the judge most of all was that in their friendly gatherings around the fire there was no one, save Hardy, who would argue against the sheep.

The judge had been on to Washington and was possessed of all the material facts, but nobody was interested any more in the Salagua Forest Reserve; he had consulted with the Chief Forester and even with the President himself, laying before them the imminence of the danger, and they had assured him that everything possible would be done to relieve the situation. Did it not, then, he demanded, behoove the law-abiding residents of prospective forest reserves to coöperate with such an enlightened administration, even at the risk of some temporary personal loss? And with one voice the Four Peaks cowmen agreed that it did. There was something eerie about it–the old judge was dazed by their acquiescence.

Of all the cowmen at Hidden Water, Rufus Hardy was the only man who would discuss the matter at length. A change had come over him now; he was very thin and quiet, with set lines along his jaw, but instead of riding nervously up and down the river as he had the year before he lingered idly about the ranch, keeping tally at the branding and entertaining his guests. No matter how pedantic or polemical the old judge became, Hardy was willing to listen to him; and Lucy, hovering in the background, would often smile to hear them argue, the judge laying down the law and equity of the matter and Rufus meeting him like an expert swordsman with parry and thrust. Day by day, his prejudice wearing away from lack of any real opposition, Judge Ware became more and more pleased with his daughter’s superintendent; but Lucy herself was troubled. There was a look in his eyes that she had never seen before, a set and haggard stare that came when he sat alone, and his head was always turned aside, as if he were listening. The sheep came trooping in from the south, marching in long lines to the river’s edge, and still he sat quiet, just inside the door, listening.

“Tell me, Rufus,” she said, one day when her father was inspecting the upper range with Creede, “what is it that made you so sad? Is it–Kitty?”

For a minute he gazed at her, a faint smile on his lips.

“No,” he said, at last, “it is not Kitty.” And then he lapsed back into silence, his head turned as before.

The wind breathed through the corredor, bringing with it a distant, plaintive bleating–the sheep, waiting beyond the turbid river to cross.

“I have forgotten about Kitty,” he said absently. “For me there is nothing in the world but sheep. Can’t you hear them bleating down there?” he cried, throwing out his hands. “Can’t you smell them? Ah, Lucy, if you knew sheep as I do! I never hear a sheep now that I don’t think of that day last year when they came pouring out of Hell’s Hip Pocket with a noise like the end of the world. If I had been there to stop them they might never have taken the range–but after that, all through the hot summer when the cattle were dying for feed, every time the wind came up and roared in my ears I would hear sheep–baaa, baaa– and now I hear them again.”

He paused and looked up at her intently.

“Do you know what that noise means to me?” he demanded, almost roughly. “It means little calves dying around the water hole; mothers lowing for their little ones that they have left to starve; it means long lines of cows following me out over the mesa for brush, and all the trees cut down. Ah, Lucy, how can your father talk of waiting when it means as much as that?”

“But last year was a drought,” protested Lucy pitifully. “Will it be as bad this year?”

“Every bit! Did you notice that plain between Bender and the river? It will be like that in a week if we let them cross the river.”

“Oh,” cried Lucy, “then you–do you mean to turn them back?”

“The river is very high,” answered Hardy sombrely. “They cannot cross.” And then as a quail strikes up leaves and dust to hide her nest, he launched forth quickly upon a story of the flood.

The Salagua was long in flood that Spring. Day after day, while the sheep wandered uneasily along its banks rearing up to strip the last remnants of browse from the tips of willows and burro bushes, it rolled ponderously forth from its black-walled gorge and flowed past the crossing, deep and strong, sucking evenly into the turbid whirlpool that waited for its prey. At the first approach of the invaders the unconsidered zeal of Judge Ware overcame him; he was for peace, reason, the saner judgment that comes from wider views and a riper mind, and, fired by the hope of peaceful truce, he rode furtively along the river waving a white handkerchief whenever he saw a sheep-herder, and motioning him to cross. But however anxious he was for an interview the desires of the sheepmen did not lean in that direction, and they only stared at him stolidly or pretended not to see.

Thwarted in his efforts for peace the judge returned to camp deep in thought. The sheep were at his very door and nothing had been done to stay them; a deadly apathy seemed to have settled down upon the cowmen; after all their threats there were no preparations for defence; the river was not even patrolled; and yet if quick action was not taken the upper range might be irreparably ruined before the reserve was proclaimed. Not that he would countenance violence, but a judicious show of resistance, for instance, might easily delay the crossing until the President could act, or even so daunt the invaders that they would go around. It was not strictly legal, of course, but the judge could see no harm in suggesting it, and as soon as the cowmen were gathered about their fire that evening he went out and sat down by Creede, who lay sprawled on his back, his head pillowed on his hands, smoking.

“Well, Jefferson,” he began, feeling his way cautiously, “I see that the sheep have come down to the river–they will be making a crossing soon, I suppose?”

Creede sucked studiously upon his cigarette, and shifted it to a corner of his mouth.

“W’y yes, Judge,” he said, “I reckon they will.”

“Well–er–do you think they intend to invade our upper range this year?”

“Sure thing,” responded Creede, resuming his smoke, “that’s what they come up here for. You want to take a last long look at this grass.”

“Yes, but, Jefferson,” protested the judge, opening up his eyes, “what will our cattle feed upon then?”

“Same old thing,” answered Creede, “palo verde and giant cactus. I’ve got most of mine in the town herd.”

“What!” exclaimed Judge Ware, astounded at the suggestion, “you don’t mean to say that you are preparing to go out of business? Why, my dear Jefferson, this country may be set aside as a forest reserve at any minute–and think of the privileges you will be giving up! As an owner of cattle already grazing upon the range you will be entitled to the first consideration of the Government; you will be granted the first grazing permit; there will be forest rangers to protect you; the sheep, being transient stock and known to be very destructive to forest growth, will undoubtedly be confined to a narrow trail far below us; by the payment of a nominal grazing fee you will be absolutely guaranteed in all your rights and watched over by the Federal Government!”

“Oh, hell!” exclaimed the big cowboy, rising up suddenly from his place, “don’t talk Government to me, whatever you do! W’y, Judge,” he cried, throwing out his hands, “they ain’t no Government here. They ain’t no law. I could go over and kill one of them sheep-herders and you wouldn’t see an officer in two days. I’ve lived here for nigh onto twenty-six years and the nearest I ever come to seein’ the Government was a mule branded ‘U. S.’”

He stopped abruptly and, striding out into the darkness, picked up a log of wood and laid it carefully upon the fire.

“Judge,” he said, turning suddenly and wagging an accusing finger at his former employer, “I’ve heard a lot from you about this reserve, how the President was goin’ to telegraph you the news the minute he signed the proclamation, and send a ranger in to protect the range, and all that, but I ain’t seen you do nothin’! Now if you’re goin’ to make good you’ve got jest about three days to do it in–after that the sheep will have us dished. Maybe you could use your pull to kinder hurry things up a little–do a little telegraphin’, or somethin’ like that.”

“I’ll do it!” cried the judge, taking the bait like a fish, “I’ll do it at once! I want your best horse, Jeff, and a guide. I’ll wire the chief forester from Bender!”

“Keno!” said Creede sententiously, “and give my regards to Teddy.”

As the old judge disappeared over the western rim the next morning the rodéo boss smiled grimly behind his hand, and glanced significantly at Hardy. Then, with the outfit behind him, he rode slowly up the cañon, leaving his partner to his steady job as “family man”–entertaining the boss.

For two days the sheepmen watched the river eagerly, waiting for a drop; then suddenly, as the snow water ran by and a cool day checked the distant streams, it fell, and the swift pageant of the crossing began. At sun-up a boss herder rode boldly out into the current and swam it with his horse; brawny Mexicans leapt into the thicket of palo verdes that grew against the cliff and cut branches to build a chute; Jasper Swope in his high sombrero and mounted on his black mule galloped down from the hidden camp and urged his men along. Still the same ominous silence hung about the shore where Juan Alvarez lay buried beneath the cross. There was no watcher on Lookout Point, no horsemen lurking in the distance; only the lowing of the day herd, far up the cañon, and the lapping of muddy waters. Across the river the low malpai cliffs rose up like ramparts against them and Black Butte frowned down upon them like a watch tower, but of the men who might be there watching there was no sign.

The sheepman studied upon the situation for a while; then he sent a messenger flying back to camp and soon a hardy band of wethers came down, led by an advance guard of goats, and their plaintive bleating echoed in a confused chorus from the high cliffs as they entered the wings of the chute. Already the camp rustlers had driven them out on the slanting rock and encircled the first cut with their canvas wagon cover, when Jasper Swope held up his hand for them to stop. At the last moment and for no cause he hesitated, touched by some premonition, or suspicious of the silent shore. One after another the herders clambered back and squatted idly against the cool cliff, smoking and dangling their polished carbines; the sheep, left standing upon the rock, huddled together and stood motionless; the goats leapt nimbly up on adjacent bowlders and gazed across the river intently; then, throwing up his hand again, the sheepman spurred his black mule recklessly into the water, waving his big hat as he motioned for the sheep to cross.

As the long hours of that portentous morning wore on, palpitating to the clamor of the sheep, a great quiet settled upon Hidden Water. Sitting just within the door Hardy watched Lucy as she went about her work, but his eyes were wandering and haggard and he glanced from time to time at the Black Butte that stood like a sentinel against the crossing. In the intervals of conversation the bleating of the sheep rose suddenly from down by the river, and ceased; he talked on, feverishly, never stopping for an answer, and Lucy looked at him strangely, as if wondering at his preoccupation. Again the deep tremolo rose up, echoing from the cliffs, and Hardy paused in the midst of a story to listen. He was still staring out the doorway when Lucy Ware came over and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Rufus,” she said, “what is it you are always listening for? Day after day I see you watching here by the door, and when I talk you listen for something else. Tell me–is it–are you watching for Kitty?”

“Kitty?” repeated Hardy, his eyes still intent. “Why no; why should I be watching for her?”

At his answer, spoken so impassively, she drew away quickly, but he caught her hand and stopped her.

“Ah no,” he said, “if I could only listen for something else it would be better–but all I hear is sheep. I’m like old Bill Johnson; I can still shoot straight and find my way in the mountains, but every time I hear a sheep blat I change. Poor old Bill, he’s over across the river there now; the boys have heard his hounds baying up in the high cliffs for a week. I’ve seen him a time or two since he took to the hills and he’s just as quiet and gentle with me as if he were my father, but if anybody mentions sheep he goes raving crazy in a minute. Jeff says he’s been that way himself for years, and now it’s got me, too. If I get much worse,” he ended, suddenly glancing up at her with a wistful smile, “you’ll have to take me away.”

“Away!” cried Lucy eagerly, “would you go? You know father and I have talked of it time and again, but you just stick and stick, and nothing will make you leave. But listen–what was that?”

A succession of rifle shots, like the popping of wet logs over a fire, came dully to their ears, muffled by the bleating of sheep and the echoing of the cliffs. Hardy leapt to his feet and listened intently, his eyes burning with suppressed excitement; then he stepped reluctantly back into the house and resumed his seat.

“I guess it’s only those Mexican herders,” he said. “They shoot that way to drive their sheep.”

“But look!” cried Lucy, pointing out the door, “the Black Butte is afire! Just see that great smoke!”

Hardy sprang up again and dashed out into the open. The popping of thirty-thirtys had ceased, but from the summit of the square-topped butte a signal fire rose up to heaven, tall and straight and black.

“Aha!” he muttered, and without looking at her he ran out to the corral to saddle Chapuli. But when he came back he rode slowly, checking the impatience of his horse, until at last he dismounted beside her. For days his eyes had been furtive and evasive, but now at last they were steady.

“Lucy,” he said, “I haven’t been very honest with you, but I guess you know what this means–the boys are turning back the sheep.” His voice was low and gentle, and he stood very straight before her, like a soldier. Yet, even though she sensed what was in his mind, Lucy smiled. For a month he had been to her like another man, a man without emotion or human thought, and now in a moment he had come back, the old Rufus that she had known in her heart so long.

“Yes,” she said, holding out her hand to him, “I knew it. But you are working for me, you know, and I cannot let you go. Listen, Rufus,” she pleaded, as he drew away, “have I ever refused you anything? Tell me what you want to do.”

“I want to go down there and help turn back those sheep,” he said, bluntly. “You know me, Lucy–my heart is in this fight–my friends are in it–and I must go.”

He waited for some answer, but Lucy only turned away. There were tears in her eyes when she looked back at him and her lips trembled, but she passed into the house without a word. Hardy gazed wonderingly after her and his heart smote him; she was like some sensitive little child to whom every rough word was a blow, and he had hurt her. He glanced at the signal fire that rolled up black and sombre as the watcher piled green brush upon it, then he dropped his bridle rein and stepped quickly into the house.

“You must forgive me, Lucy,” he said, standing humbly at the door. “I–I am changed. But do not think that I will come to any harm–this is not a battle against men, but sheep. No one will be killed. And now may I go?” Once more his voice became low and gentle and he stood before her like some questing knight before his queen, but she only sat gazing at him with eyes that he could not understand.

“Listen, Lucy,” he cried, “I will not go unless you tell me–and now may I go?”

A smile came over Lucy’s face but she did not speak her thoughts.

“If you will stay for my sake,” she said, “I shall be very happy, but I will not hold you against your will. Oh, Rufus, Rufus!” she cried, suddenly holding out her hands, “can’t you understand? I can’t set myself against you, and yet–think what it is to be a woman!” She rose up and stood before him, the soft light glowing in her eyes, and Hardy stepped forward to meet her; but in that moment a drumming of hoofs echoed through the doorway, there was a rush of horsemen leaning forward as they rode, and then Jefferson Creede thundered by, glancing back as he spurred down the cañon to meet the sheep.

“My God!” whispered Hardy, following his flight with startled eyes, and as the rout of cowboys flashed up over the top of Lookout Point and were gone he bowed his head in silence.

“Lucy,” he said, at last, “my mind has been far away. I–I have not seen what was before me, and I shall always be the loser. But look–I have two friends in all the world, you and Jeff, and you are the dearer by far. But you could see as Jeff went by that he was mad. What he will do at the river I can only guess; he is crazy, and a crazy man will do anything. But if I am with him I can hold him back–will you let me go?” He held out his hands and as Lucy took them she saw for the first time in his shy eyes–love. For a moment she gazed at him wistfully, but her heart never faltered. Whatever his will might be she would never oppose it, now that she had his love.

“Yes, Rufus,” she said, “you may go, but remember–me.”

CHAPTER XXIII

THE LAST CROSSING

The rush and thunder of cow ponies as they hammered over the trail and plunged down through the rocks and trees had hardly lost its echoes in the cliffs when, with a flash of color and a dainty pattering of hoofs, Chapuli came flying over the top of Lookout Point and dashed up the river after them. The cowmen had left their horses in the deep ravine at the end of the malpai bluffs and were already crouched behind the rampart of the rim rocks as close as Indian fighters, each by some loophole in the blackened malpai, with a rifle in his hand. As Hardy crept in from behind, Jeff Creede motioned him to a place at his side greeting him at the same time with a broad grin.