The Cattle-Baron's Daughter

“And how you bound it up?”

“Well,” said Hetty, “I don’t know, after the work you have done with it, that I should care to do that now.”

“There are affairs you should never hear of and I don’t care to talk about with you,” Grant said, very quietly, “but since you have mentioned this one you must listen to me. Just as it is one’s duty to give no needless pain to anything, so there is an obligation on him to stop any other man who would do it. Is it wrong to kill a grizzly or a rattlesnake, or merciful to leave them with their meanness to destroy whatever they want? Now, if you had known a quiet American who did a tolerably dangerous thing because he fancied it was right, and found him shot in the back, and the trail of the man who crept up behind him and killed him for a few dollars, would you have let that man go?”

Hetty ignored the question. “The man was your friend.”

“Well,” said Grant slowly, “he had done a good deal for me, but that would not have counted for very much with any one when we made our decision.”

“No?” And Hetty glanced at him with a little astonishment.

Grant shook his head. “No,” he said. “We had to do the square thing – that and nothing more; but if we had let that man go, he would, when the chance was given him, have done what he did again. Well, it was – horrible; but there was no law that would do the work for us in this country then.”

Hetty shivered, but had there been light enough Grant would have seen the relief in her face, and as it was his pulse responded to the little quiver in her voice. Why it was she did not know, but the belief in him which she had once cherished suddenly returned to her. In the old days the man she had never thought of as a lover could, at least, do no wrong.

“I understand.” Her voice was very gentle. “There must be a good deal of meanness in me, or I should have known you only did it because you are a white man, and felt you had to. Oh, of course, I know – only it’s so much easier to go round another way so you can’t see what you don’t want to. Larry, I’m sorry.”

Grant’s voice quivered. “The only thing you ever do wrong, Hetty, is to forget to think now and then; and by and by you will find somebody who is good enough to think for you.”

The girl smiled. “He would have to be very patient, and the trouble is that if he was clever enough to do the thinking he wouldn’t have the least belief in me. You are the only man, Larry, who could see people’s meannesses and still have faith in them.”

“I am a blunderer who has taken up a contract that’s too big for him,” Grant said gravely. “I have never told anyone else, Hetty, but there are times now and then when, knowing the kind of man I am, I get ’most sick with fear. All the poor men in this district are looking to me, and, though I lie awake at night, I can’t see how I’m going to help them when one trace of passion would let loose anarchy. It’s only right they’re wanting, that is, most of the Dutchmen and the Americans – but there’s the mad red rabble behind them, and the bitter rage of hard men who have been trampled on, to hold in. It’s a crushing weight we who hold the reins have got to carry. Still, we were made only plain farmer men, and I guess we’re not going to be saddled with more than we can bear.”

He had spoken solemnly from the depths of his nature, and all that was good in the girl responded.

“Larry,” she said softly, “while you feel just that I think you can’t go wrong. It is what is right we are both wanting, and – though I don’t know how – I feel we will get it by and by, and then it will be the best thing for homestead-boys and cattle-barons. When that time comes we will be glad there were white men who took up their load and worried through, and when this trouble’s worked out and over there will be nothing to stop us being good friends again.”

“Is that quite out of the question now?”

“Yes,” said Hetty simply. “I am sorry, but, Larry, can’t you understand? You are leading the homestead-boys, and my father the cattle-barons. First of all I’ve got to be a dutiful daughter.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “Well, it can’t last for ever, and we can only do the best we can. Other folks had the same trouble when the boys in Sumter fired the starting gun – North and South at each other’s throats, and both Americans!”

Hetty decided that she had gone sufficiently far, and turned in her saddle. “What is the Englishman telling you, Flo?” she asked.

Miss Schuyler laughed. “He was almost admitting that the girls in this country are as pretty as those they raise in the one he came from.”

“Well,” said Breckenridge, “if it was daylight I’d be sure.”

Grant fancied that it was not without a purpose his companion checked her horse to let the others come up, and, though it cost him an effort, acquiesced. His laugh was almost as ready as that of the rest as they rode on four abreast, until at last the lights of Cedar Range blinked beside the bluff. Then, they grew suddenly silent again as Muller, who it seemed remembered that he had been taught by the franc tireurs, rode past them with his rifle across his saddle. They pulled up when his figure cut blackly against the sky on the crest of a rise, and Hetty’s laugh was scarcely light-hearted.

“You have been very good, and I am sorry I can’t ask you to come in,” she said. “Still, I don’t know that it’s all our fault; we are under martial law just now.”

Grant took off his hat and wheeled his horse, and when the girls rode forward sat rigid and motionless, watching them until he saw the ray from the open door of Cedar Range. Then, Muller trotted up, and with a little sigh he turned homewards across the prairie.

About the same time Richard Clavering lay smoking, in a big chair in the room where he kept his business books and papers. He wore, among other somewhat unusual things, a velvet jacket, very fine linen, and on one of his long, slim fingers a ring of curious Eastern workmanship. Clavering was a man of somewhat expensive tastes, and his occasional visits to the cities had cost him a good deal, which was partly why an accountant, famous for his knowledge of ranching property, now sat busy at a table. He was a shrewd, direct American, and had already spent several days endeavouring to ascertain the state of Clavering’s finances.

“Nearly through?” the rancher asked, with a languidness which the accountant fancied was assumed.

“I can give you a notion of how you stand, right now,” he answered. “You want me to be quite candid?”

“Oh, yes,” said Clavering, with a smile of indifference. “I’m in a tight place, Hopkins?”

“I guess you are – any way, if you go on as you’re doing. You see what I consider it prudent to write off the value of your property?”

Clavering examined the paper handed him with visible astonishment. “Why have you whittled so much off the face value?”

“Just because you’re going to have that much taken away from you by and by.”

Clavering’s laugh was quietly scornful. “By the homestead-boys?”

“By the legislature of this State. The law is against you holding what you’re doing now.”

“We make what law there is out here.”

“Well,” said Hopkins, coolly, “I guess you’re not going to do it long. You know the maxim about fooling the people. It can’t be done.”

“Aren’t you talking like one of those German socialists?”

“On the contrary. I quite fancy I’m talking like a business man. Now, you want to realize on those cattle before the winter takes the flesh off them, and extinguish the bank loan with what you get for them.”

Clavering’s face darkened. “That would strip the place, and I’d have to borrow to stock again.”

“You’d have to run a light stock for a year or two.”

“It wouldn’t suit me to do anything that would proclaim my poverty just now,” said Clavering.

“Then you’ll have to do it by and by. The interest on the bond is crippling you.”

“Well.” Clavering lighted another cigar. “I told you to be straight. Go right on. Tell me just what you would do if the place was in your hands.”

“Sell out those cattle and take the big loan up. Clear off the imported horses and pedigree brood mares. You have been losing more dollars than many a small rancher makes over them the last few years.”

“I like good horses round the place,” Clavering said languidly.

“The trouble,” said Hopkins, “is that you can’t afford to have them. Then, I would cut down my personal expenses by at least two-thirds. The ranch can’t stand them. Do you know what you have been spending in the cities?”

“No. I gave you a bundle of bills so you could find it out.”

Hopkins’ smile was almost contemptuous. “I guess you had better burn them when I am through. I’ll mention one or two items. One hundred dollars for flowers; one thousand in several bills from Chicago jewellers! The articles would count as an asset. Have you got them?”

“I haven’t,” said Clavering. “They were for a lady.”

“Well,” said Hopkins, “you know best; but one would have fancied there was more than one of them from the bills. Here’s another somewhat curious item: hats – I guess they came from Paris – and millinery, two hundred dollars’ worth of them!”

A little angry light crept into Clavering’s eyes. “If I hadn’t been so abominably careless you wouldn’t have seen those bills. I meant to put them down as miscellaneous and destroy the papers. Well, I’ve done with that extravagance, any way, and it’s to hear the truth I’m paying you quite a big fee. If I go on just as I’m doing, how long would you give me?”

“Two years. Then the bank will put the screw on you. The legislature may pull you up earlier, but I can tell you more when I’ve squared up to-morrow.”