The Cattle-Baron's Daughter

“You are laughing at me, and it’s quite likely I deserve it. We will talk of something else. I was telling you about the cavalry officer.”

“No,” said Hetty, “I don’t think you were.”

“Then I meant to. He has just come up from the Apache country – a kind of quiet man, with a good deal in him and a way of making you listen when you once start him talking. We half expect him here this evening, and if he comes, I want you to be nice to him. You could make him believe we are in the right quite easily.”

“From the Apache country?” and Flora Schuyler glanced at Hetty.

Allonby nodded. “New Mexico, Arizona, or somewhere there. Now, just when you were beginning to listen, there’s Mr. Torrance wanting me.”

He rose with evident reluctance, and Miss Schuyler sat reflectively silent when he moved away.

“What are you thinking of?” asked Hetty sharply.

“That the United States is not after all such a very big country. One is apt to run across a friend everywhere.”

Hetty did not answer, but Miss Schuyler knew that she was also wondering about the cavalry officer, when half an hour later it became evident, from the sounds outside, that a sleigh had reached the door, and when a little further time had passed Allonby ushered a man in blue uniform into the room. Hetty set her lips when she saw him.

“Oh!” said Miss Schuyler. “I felt quite sure of it. This is the kind of thing that not infrequently happens, and it is only the natural sequence that he should turn up on the opposite side to Larry.”

“Flo,” said Hetty sharply, “what do you mean?”

“Well,” she said lazily, “I fancy that you should know better than I do. I have only my suspicions and some little knowledge of human nature to guide me. Now, of course, you convinced us that you didn’t care for Cheyne, but we have only your word to go upon in regard to Larry.”

Hetty turned upon her with a flash in her eyes. “Don’t try to make me angry, Flo. It’s going to be difficult to meet him as it is.”

“I don’t think you need worry,” and Flora Schuyler laughed. “He is probably cured by this time, and has found somebody else. They usually do. That ought to please you.”

In the meantime, Allonby and the man he was presenting to his friends were drawing nearer. Hetty rose when the pair stopped in front of them.

“Captain Jackson Cheyne, who is coming to help us. Miss Torrance and Miss Schuyler, the daughter and guest of our leader,” said Allonby, and the soldierly man with the quiet, brown face, smiling, held out his hand.

“We are friends already,” he said, and passed on with Allonby.

“Was it very dreadful, Hetty?” said Flora Schuyler. “I could see he means to come back and talk to you.”

Hetty also fancied Cheyne wished to do so, and spent the next hour or two in avoiding the encounter. With this purpose she contrived to draw Chris Allonby into one of the smaller rooms where the card-tables were then untenanted, and listened with becoming patience to stories she had often heard before. She, however, found it a little difficult to laugh at the right places, and at last the lad glanced reproachfully at her.

“It spoils everything when one has to show you where the point is,” he said; and Hetty, looking up, saw Cheyne and Flora Schuyler in the doorway.

“Miss Newcombe is looking for you, Mr. Allonby,” said the latter.

There was very little approval in the glance Hetty bestowed upon Miss Schuyler and Allonby seemed to understand it.

“She generally is, and that is why I’m here,” he said. “I don’t feel like hearing about any more lepidoptera to-night, and you can take her Captain Cheyne instead. He must have found out quite a lot about beetles and other things that bite you down in Arizona.”

Miss Schuyler, disregarding Hetty, laughed. “You had better go,” she said. “I see her coming in this direction now, and she has something which apparently contains specimens in her hand.”

Allonby fled, but he turned a moment in the doorway. “Do you think you could get me a real lively tarantula, Captain Cheyne?” he said. “If a young lady with a preoccupied manner asks you anything about insects, tell her you have one in your pocket. It’s the only thing that will save you.”

He vanished with Miss Schuyler, and Hetty, somewhat against her wishes, found herself alone with Cheyne. He was deeply sunburned, and his face thinner than it had been, but the quiet smile she had once found pleasure in was still in his eyes.

“Your young friend did his best, and I am half afraid he had a hint,” he said.

Hetty blushed. “I am very pleased to see you,” she said hastily. “How did you like New Mexico?”

“As well as I expected,” Cheyne answered with a dry smile. “It is not exactly an enchanting place – deformed mountains, sun glare, adobe houses, loneliness, and dust. My chief trouble, however, was that I had too much time to think.”

“But you must have seen somebody and had something to do.”

“Yes,” Cheyne admitted. “There was a mining fellow who used to come over and clean out my whiskey, and sing gruesome songs for hours together to a banjo that had, I think, two strings. I stayed out all night quite frequently when I had reason to believe that he was coming. Then, we killed a good many tarantulas – and a few equally venomous pests – but when all was done it left one hours to sit staring at the sage-brush and wonder whether one would ever shake off the dreariness of it again.”

“It must have been horribly lonely,” Hetty said.

“Well,” said Cheyne, very slowly, “there was just one faint hope that now and then brightened everything for me. I thought you might change. Perhaps I was foolish – but that hope would have meant so much to me. I could not let it go.”

Hetty turned and looked at him with a softness in her eyes, for the little tremor in his voice had touched her.

“And I was hoping you had forgotten,” she said.

“No,” said Cheyne quietly. “I don’t think I ever shall. You haven’t a grain of comfort to offer me?”

Hetty shook her head, and involuntarily one hand went up and rested a moment on something that lay beneath the laces at her neck. “No,” she said. “I am ever so sorry, Jake, but I have nothing whatever to offer you – now.”

“Then,” said Cheyne, with a little gesture of resignation, “I suppose it can be borne because it must be – and I think I understand. I know he must be a good man – or you would never have cared for him.”

Hetty looked at him steadily, but the colour that had crept into her cheek spread to her forehead. “Jake,” she said, “no doubt there are more, but I have met two Americans who are, I think, without reproach. I shall always be glad I knew them – and it is not your fault that you are not the right one.”

Cheyne made her a little grave inclination. “Then, I hope we shall be good friends when I meet the other one. I am going to stay some little time in the cattle country.”

“I almost hope you will not meet just yet,” Hetty said anxiously, “and you must never mention what I have told you to anybody.”

“You have only told me that I was one of two good Americans,” said Cheyne, with a quiet smile which the girl found reassuring. “Now, you don’t want to send me away?”

“No,” said Hetty. “It is so long since I have seen you. You have come to help us against our enemies?”

Cheyne saw the girl’s intention, and was glad to fall in with it, but he betrayed a little embarrassment. “Not exactly, though I should be content if my duty amounts to the same thing,” he said. “We have been sent in to help to restore order, and it is my business just now to inquire into the doings of a certain Larry Grant. I wonder if you could tell me anything about him?”

He noticed the sudden intentness of Hetty’s face, though it was gone in an instant.

“What have you found out?” she asked.

“Very little that one could rely upon. Everybody I ask tells me something different, he seems a compound of the qualities of Coleman the Vigilante, our first President, and the notorious James boys. As they were gentlemen of quite different character, it seems to me that some of my informants are either prejudiced or mistaken.”

“Yes,” said Hetty. “He is like none of them. Larry is just a plain American who is fearlessly trying to do what he feels is right, though it is costing him a good deal. You see, I met him quite often before the trouble began.”

Cheyne glanced at her sharply, but Hetty met his gaze. “I don’t know,” he answered, “that one could say much more of any man.”

Just then Flora Schuyler and Miss Allonby came in. “Hetty,” said the latter, “everybody is waiting for you to sing.”