The Free Range

“Where are you going now, Bud?” she asked.

“Back to the sheep.”

“Can I do anything to help you?”

“I can only think of one thing, and that is to marry me.”

“Everything in time, sir!” she reproved him. “Get your muttons out of the way and then you can have me.”

Larkin groaned. Then he said:

“If anything comes for me or anybody wants me, I want you to do as I would do if I were here. Things are coming to a climax now and I must know all that goes on. Watch Stelton especially. He is crooked somewhere, and I’m going to get him if it takes me the rest of my life.”

Suddenly there was a loud knock from outside the girl’s bedroom door, and they both listened, hardly daring to breathe.

“Julie, let me in!” cried Mrs. Bissell’s querulous voice. “Where’s your father?”

“Run, dear boy, for your life!” breathed the girl.

Larkin kissed her swiftly and hurried back to the underbrush, where Sims was awaiting him in an access of temper.

“Great Michaeljohn, boss!” he growled as they rode along the bank, “ain’t yuh got no consideration fer me? From the way yuh go on a person’d think yuh were in love with the girl.”

CHAPTER XVI

A MESSAGE BY A STRANGE HAND

What were the feelings of Mr. Mike Stelton that dawn had better be imagined than described. The first he knew of any calamity was when Mrs. Bissell, unable to find her husband near the house, shook him frantically by the shoulder.

“Get up, Mike,” she cried into his ear. “Somethin’s wrong here. Henry’s nowhere around.”

Dazed with sleep, unable to get the proper focus on events, the foreman blundered stupidly about the place searching cursorily, and cursing the helplessness of Beef Bissell.

Presently he got awake, however, and perceived that dawn was coming up in the east. Then he reveled in the delightful anticipation of what was to occur out under the old cottonwood along the river bank. Mentally he licked his chops at the prospect of this rare treat. He intended if possible to make Juliet witness her lover’s degradation.

After vainly hunting some valid excuse for Bissell’s untimely departure, Stelton thought he would call the boys, which he did. Then he turned his attention to the bunk-house, for he knew the cowmen were in a hurry to get away and would want to be called early.

“All out!” he bawled jovially, thrusting his head in at the door.

Not a sound came in response. Then for the first time Stelton had a premonition of trouble. He walked into the bunk-house and took quick note of the ten tumbled but empty bunks. Also of the ten belts and revolvers that hung on wooden pegs along the wall – the sign of Western etiquette.

In those days, and earlier, if a man rode by at meal-time or evening he was your guest. He might take dinner with his hat on, and get his knife and fork mixed, but if he hung up his belt and revolver he was satisfied that all the amenities had been observed, whether you thought so or not.

The one other unspoken law was that every man’s business was his own business and no questions were allowed. You might be entertaining a real bad man like Billy the Kid, and you might suspect his identity, but you never made inquiries, and for three reasons.

The first was, that it was bad plains etiquette; the second, that if you were mistaken and accused the wrong man, punishment was sure and swift; and the third was, that if you were right the punishment was still surer and swifter, for an escaping criminal never left any but mute witnesses behind him.

Looking at these ten indications of good-will along the bunk-house wall, Stelton’s alarm was once more lulled. Perhaps the men had all gone for a paddle in the stream before breakfast, he thought. If so, they would take care of themselves, and turn up when the big bell rang. He couldn’t waste any more time this way.

Now to relieve the man who was guarding Larkin outside the window.

He hurried around the house and came upon the prone figure of a cow-puncher, rolled close against the house. The man’s head was bloody, his hands were tied behind him, and his neckerchief had been stuffed into his mouth and held there by another. He was half-dead when Stelton, with a cry of surprise, bent over him and loosened his bonds.

With a prolonged yell the foreman brought all hands running to him and, giving the hurt man into the care of a couple of them, ran along the house to Bud’s window. The bent bars showed how the bird had flown. Stelton was about to give way to his fury when another cry from the rear of the cook-house told of the discovery of the second watchman’s body, that had lain hidden in the long grass which grew up against the walls.

Then didn’t Stelton curse! Never had he been so moved to profane eloquence, and never did he give such rein to it. He cursed everything in sight, beginning with the ranch house; and he took that from chimney to cellar, up and down every line and angle, around the corners and out to the barn. Then he began on the barn and wound up with the corral. The cowboys listened in admiration and delight, interjecting words of approval now and then.

But once having delivered himself of this relief, the foreman’s face set into its customary ugly scowl, and he snapped out orders to saddle the horses. Presently a man rode up from the river bottoms and told of the discovery of many hoof tracks there, and the place where they had waited a long while.

“I’ve got it!” bawled Stelton, pounding his thigh. “Larkin’s men have been here and carried off all the owners. Oh, won’t there be the deuce to pay?”

Then he picked out the cowboys who had come with their bosses and added:

“Crowd yore grub and ride home like blazes. Get yore punchers an’ bring grub for a week. Then we’ll all meet at the junction of the Big Horn and Gooseberry Creek. If yuh punchers like a good job you’ll get yore owners out o’ this. And I’m plumb shore when we get through there won’t be a sheepman left in this part of the State. To-morrer night at Gooseberry!”

Then was such a scene of hurry and bustle and excitement as the Bar T had seldom witnessed. The parting injunctions were to bring extra horses and plenty of rope, with the accent on the rope, and a significant look thrown in.

By seven o’clock, the time that Larkin, bloody, humiliated and suffering, would already have paid his penalty, there was scarcely a soul at the Bar T ranch, for the cowboys had disappeared across the plains at a hard trot.

The Bar T punchers were sent out on the range to scour for tracks of the fugitives, but, after following them some distance from the river bottom, gave up in despair when a night herder admitted that the Bar T horses had been feeding in the vicinity the night before, thus entangling the tracks. Meantime the cook was preparing food for the punchers to carry, guns were being oiled and overhauled, knives sharpened, and ropes carefully examined.

Yet as the men went about their duties there was a kind of dazed, subdued air in all they did, for it was, indeed, hard to realize that the ranch owners of nearly a quarter of Wyoming’s best range had disappeared into the empty air apparently without a sound or protest.

The following afternoon the entire Bar T outfit, excepting a couple of punchers who were incapacitated from former round-up injuries, swept out of the yard and headed almost directly east across the plain.

Julie and her mother watched them go and waved them farewell, the former with a clutch of fear at her heart for her lover and the latter in tears for her husband, thus unconsciously taking opposite sides in the struggle that they knew must ensue.

It must not be thought that Juliet had turned against her father since their final difference. After her first outbreak against his narrow views and unjust treatment of Larkin, the old love that had been paramount all her life returned, and with it a kind of pity. She knew that in a man of her father’s age his nature could not be made over immediately, if ever; the habits of a rough lifetime were too firmly ingrained. But at the same time there was something gone from the sweet and intimate affection that had formerly characterized their relations.

Lovers or married folk who declare for the efficacy of a quarrel as a renewer of love are wrong in the last analysis. Loss of control always entails loss of respect, and fervent “making up” after such an outbreak cannot efface the picture of anger-distorted features or remove the acid of bitter words. Thus it was with Juliet and her love for her father.

As to his safety she was not worried, for she knew that Bud would not allow any harm to come to him as he was in command of the men who had effected the taking-off. What Larkin’s plans were she did not fully realize, but she knew this sudden coup had been executed to further his own ends in the imperative matter of getting his sheep north. And of this she finally convinced her mother, although that lady wept copiously before the thing was accomplished.

The evening following the departure of Mike Stelton and his punchers was made notable by the arrival of a man on horseback, who carried across his saddle a black box, and in thongs at his side a three-legged standard of yellow wood. His remaining equipment was a square of black cloth.

Without invitation he turned his dejected animal into the Bar T corral and made himself at home for the evening. At the supper table he revealed his identity and explained his purpose.

“I’m Ed Skidmore,” he announced, “and I take photographs. This thing I’ve got is a camera.” He had already mounted the instrument on his tripod. “I’ve been going around from ranch to ranch and the pictures have been selling like hot cakes.”

Juliet, listening, noted that his conversation was that of a comparatively well-educated man and that he had none of the characteristic drawl or accent of the plainsmen. To her a camera was nothing out of the ordinary, although she had not seen one since her final return West, but her mother was vastly interested.

In those days photography was not a matter of universal luxury as it is now, and the enterprising Skidmore was practically the first to introduce it as a money-maker in the widely scattered ranches of the cow country.

“How do yuh sell ’em?” asked Martha Bissell, fluttering with the possibilities of the next morning, the time the young man had set for his operation. Martha had not been “took” since that far-off trip “East” to St. Paul, when she and Henry had posed for daguerreotypes.

“Five dollars apiece, ma’am,” said Skidmore, “and they’re cheap at the price.” And they were, since the cost of something universally desired is dependent on the supply rather than the demand.

After supper Martha retired to her bedroom to overhaul her stock of “swell” dresses, a stock that had not been disturbed in fifteen years except for the spring cleaning and airing. This left Skidmore and Juliet alone. She civilly invited him out on the veranda, seeing he was a man of some quality.

“I had a queer experience to-day,” he remarked after a few commonplaces. “I was riding to the Bar T from the Circle-Arrow and was about twenty miles away, rounding a butte, when a man rode out to me from some place of concealment.

“When he reached me he suddenly pulled his gun and covered me.

“‘Where are you goin’?’ he said. I told him I was on my way here and why. He examined my outfit suspiciously and let me go. But first he said:

“‘Take this letter to the Bar T and give it to Miss Bissell.’” Skidmore reached inside his shirt and pulled forth a square envelope, which he handed to Juliet. “The whole thing was so strange,” the photographer went on, “that I have waited until I could see you alone so that I could tell you about it.”

Juliet, surprised and startled, turned the missive over in her hands, hopeful that it was a letter from Bud and yet fearful of something that she could not explain. When Skidmore had finished she excused herself and went into her room, closing the door behind her.

On the envelope was the simple inscription, “Miss Bissell,” written in a crabbed, angular hand. This satisfied her that the message was not from Bud, and with trembling fingers she opened it. Inside was an oblong sheet of paper filled with the same narrow handwriting. Going to the window to catch the dying light, she read:

Miss:

This is to tell yuh that Mr. Larkin who yuh love is already merried. It ain’t none of my biznis, but I want yuh to no it. An’ that ain’t all. The U. s. oficers are looking for him on another charge, tu. Nobody noes this but me an’ yuh, an’ nobody will as long as the monie keeps comin’ in. If yuh doant bileeve this, axe him.

Yurs Truly,A Friend.

In the difficulty of translating the words before her into logical ideas the full import of the statements made did not penetrate Juliet’s mind at first. When they did she merely smiled a calm, contemptuous smile.

With the usual fatuous faith of a sweetheart, she instantly consigned to limbo anything whatever derogatory to her beloved. Then in full possession of herself, she returned to the veranda, where Skidmore was smoking a cigarette.

“No bad news I hope?” he asked politely, scrutinizing her features.

“Oh, no, thanks,” she replied, laughing a little unnaturally. “Not really bad, just disturbing,” and they continued their interrupted conversation.

But that night when she was in bed the crude letters of that missive appeared before her eyes in lines of fire. Of late the old mystery of Bud’s past life had not been much in her thoughts; love, the obliterator, had successfully wiped away the last traces of uneasiness that she had felt, and like all true and good women, she had given him the priceless treasure of her love, not questioning, not seeking to discern what he would have shown her had it seemed right in his mind that she should see.

But this scrawled letter to-night brought back with stunning force all the distress and doubts that had formerly assailed her. She guessed, and rightly, that Smithy Caldwell was the author of it, but she could not analyze the motives that had inspired his pen.

She told herself with fatal logic that if all this were a lie, Caldwell would not dare write it; that Larkin had paid this man five hundred dollars on another occasion not so far gone; and that it was avowedly a case of impudent blackmail. She knew, furthermore, that Bud carefully avoided all references to Caldwell even when she had brought forward the name, and that in the conversation overheard by Stelton there had been mention of someone by the name of Mary.

What if this money were going to another woman!

The thought overwhelmed her as she lay there, and she sat up gasping for breath, but in a moment the eternal defense of the man, inherent in every woman who loves, came to the rescue, and she told herself vehemently that Bud was honorable, if nothing else. Then the sentence concerning the United States officers wanting him on another charge recurred to her, and she found her defense punctured at the outset. If he were honorable, how could it be that the officers were after him?

In despair at the quandary, but still clinging to her faith, she fell back on the unanswerable fact of feminine intuition. Bud seemed good and true; it was in his eyes, in his voice, in his very manner. He looked at the world squarely, but with a kind of patient endurance that bespoke some deep trouble.

Then for the first time the thought came to Juliet that perhaps he was shielding someone else.

But who? And, if so, why did Caldwell write this letter?

Unable to answer these questions, but confronted by the thought that Bud’s love was the sweetest thing in the world to her, she at last fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.

CHAPTER XVII

A BATTLE IN THE DARK

“Everything ready?”

Bud Larkin sat his horse beside Hard-winter Sims and looked back over the white mass that grew dimmer and dimmer in the dark.

“Yes.” Sims lounged wearily against the horse’s shoulder. It had been a hard day.

“Get ’em on the move, then.”

Sims, without changing his position, called out to the herders. These in turn spoke to the dogs, and the dogs began to nip the heels of the leader sheep, who resented the familiarity with loud blatting and lowering of heads. But they knew the futility of resisting these nagging guardians and started to forge ahead. Other dogs got the middlers in motion, and still others attended to the tailers, so that in five minutes from the time Larkin gave the word the whole immense flock was crawling slowly over the dry plain.

Eight thousand of them there were; eight thousand semi-imbecile creatures, unacquainted with the obstacles they must encounter or the dangers they must face before they could be brought to safety or lost in the attempt. And to guard them there were nearly seventy men whose fear lay not in the terrors to be met, but in the sheep themselves: for there is no such obstacle to a sheep’s well-being as the sheep himself.

The last flock had arrived the night before, well-fed and watered. The preceding six thousand were in good condition from days and weeks of comfortable grazing in the hills; all were in good shape to travel.

In moving them at this time Larkin had seized the psychological moment.

The disgruntled cattle-owners, under a guard of ten men, were resting quietly far from anything resembling excitement in one of the untracked places among the mesas and scoria buttes. Bud had ascertained, by spies of his own that scoured the country, that the great posse of rescuing cowpunchers had gone safely off on a wild-goose chase, misled by one of the sheepmen who was unknown in the country.

For the present, therefore, the range was clear, and Bud reckoned on its remaining so until the cattlemen had been rescued from their durance vile. In such a time the sheep-danger shrank into insignificance, and Larkin counted on having his animals across the Bar T range before the finding of the cattlemen, after which, of course, the men would be turned loose with much commiseration and apology.

Of the seventy men guarding and driving the sheep not more than thirty were regular herders. Forty were mounted and belonged to Jimmie Welsh’s fighting corps, which was composed mostly of owners and superintendents from the north country.

Your usual Western shepherd is not a fighting man and cases have occurred in the bitter range wars where a herder has been shot down in cold blood unable to make a defense because of the grass growing out of his rifle.

Years alone in the brooding silence of the Sierra slopes or the obscure valleys of the northern Rockies take the virulence out of a man and make him placid and at one with nature. Into his soul there sinks something of the grandeur of cloud-hooded peaks, the majesty of limitless horizons and the colors of sky-blue water and greensward. With him strife is an unknown thing except for the strife of wits with another herder who would attempt to share a succulent mountain meadow.

Common report has it, and such writers as Emerson Hough put it in their books, that a sheep-herder can scarcely follow his calling for seven years without going mad. On the other hand, those who have lived for years among the sheep declare that they have never seen a sheep-herder even mentally unbalanced.

Probably both are right, as is usual to a degree in all discussion; but the fact remained that, sane or insane, the herder was not a fighting man – something had gone out of him. Therefore in bringing men other than herders south with him, Jimmie Welsh had shown his cleverness. To fight riders he had brought riders, and these men now helped to direct the river of animals that flowed along over the dry plain.

There were two cook outfits to feed the men, one of which contained the incomparable Ah Sin, who had amply revenged himself on the herders for his warm reception at the camp.

That first night they marched ten miles, and, as before, found the water-holes polluted by the cattle which take delight in standing in the mud, and thus in a dry country work their own destruction by filling the springs.

The next day the sheep cropped fairly well, although the sun was terrific and no more water was discovered. Nightfall found them becoming nervous and uneasy. They milled a long while before they bedded, and more of them than usual stood up to watch.

Not a rider had been seen all day. Through the baking glare there had moved a cloud of suffocating dust, and under it the thirsting, snorting, blethering sheep, with the dogs on the edges and the men farther out at regular intervals along the line.

After supper some of the men slept, for it was not planned to start the sheep until midnight, as they needed the rest, being footsore with long traveling. It was calculated also that they would reach the ford at the Big Horn by shortly before dawn.

But the sheep would have none of it, and moved and milled uneasily until, in order to save the lambs that were being crushed in the narrowing circle, Sims gave the order to resume the march.

The night “walk” of sheep is a strange thing. First, perhaps, rides a shepherd, erect and careless in his saddle, the red light glowing from the tip of his cigarette; and beside his horse a collie-dog, nosing at objects, but always with ears for the sheep and the voice of his master.

Then come the sheep themselves, with cracking ankle-joints, clattering feet, muffled blethering, a cloud of dust, and the inevitable sheep smell. Perhaps there is a moon, and then the herders must watch for racing cloud-shadows that cause stampedes.

Such was the picture of the Larkin sheep that night, only there was no moon. They started at ten, and Sims sent Miguel forward to walk before them, so they would not exhaust themselves with too fast traveling. On the move the sheep seemed more contented.

It was perhaps one o’clock in the morning that Larkin, in company with his chief herder, spurred out far in front of the advancing flock to reconnoiter. The sheep would be within approaching distance of the ford in a couple of hours, and Bud wished everything to be clear for them.

Nearing the Big Horn, Sims suddenly drew up his horse, motioning Bud to silence. Listening intently, they heard the voice of a man singing an old familiar plains song. The two looked at each other in amazement, for this was one of the “hymns” the cowboys use to still their cattle at night, the time of the most dreaded stampedes. It was the universal theory of the cow country that cattle, particularly on a “drive,” should not be long out of hearing of a human voice.

So the night-watchers, as they rode slowly about the herd, sang to the cattle, although some of the ditties rendered were strong enough to stampede a herd of kedge-anchors.

“Cows here?” said Sims. “What does this mean, boss?”

“It means that we’re beaten to the ford and will have to hold the sheep back.”

“Yes, but who’s driving now? This is round-up and branding season.”

“I don’t know, but between you and me, Sims, I’ll bet a lamb to a calf that the rustlers are running their big pickings north. There are some mighty good heads at the top of that crowd, and they have taken advantage of the deserted range, just as we have, to drive their critters.”

“By George! You’ve hit it, boss!” cried Sims, slapping his thigh. “Now, what do yuh say to do?”

For a long minute of silence Bud Larkin thought. Then he said:

“Here’s my chance to get those rustlers and at the same time benefit myself. There can’t be more than a dozen or fifteen of them at the outside. Ride back to the camp, Simmy, and get twenty men, the best gun-rollers in the outfit. Tell anybody that’s afraid of his hide to stay away, for the rustlers are top-notch gun-fighters.”

“But what’ll yuh do with a thousand cattle on yore hands?” demanded Hard-winter in amazement.

“I’ll tell you that if we get ’em,” was Bud’s reply. “As I see it, we can’t do without them.”

The plan of campaign was somewhat indefinite. The last intention in the world was to frighten away the cattle by a grand charge and a salvo of young artillery. With great caution the sheepmen approached near enough to discern the white cover of the cook-wagon, when it was seen that the whole herd was slowly moving toward the ford, the singing rustlers circling around it.

Bud told off a dozen of his riders and instructed each to pick a man and to ride as near in to him as possible without being seen. Then, at the signal of a coyote’s howl twice given, to close in and get the drop on the rustlers, after which the remainder of the body would come along and take the direction of things.