The Cattle-Baron's Daughter

“My boys have got the fire under,” Cheyne said, coming in an hour later. “Now, I have been in the saddle most of the day, and while your cook has promised to billet the boys, I’ll have to ask you for shelter. If you told me a little about what led up to this trouble, it might pass the time.”

“I don’t see why I should,” Breckenridge informed him.

“It could not hurt you, any way,” suggested Cheyne, “and it might do you good.”

Breckenridge looked at him steadily, and felt a curious confidence in the discretion of the quiet, bronze-faced man. As the result of it, he told him a good deal more than he had meant to do when he commenced the story.

“I think you have done right,” Cheyne said. “A little rough on him! I had already figured he was that kind of a man. Well, I hear the rest of the boys coming back, and I’ll send up a sergeant who knows a good deal about these accidents to look after him.”

The sergeant came up by and by and kept watch with Breckenridge for a while; but, after an hour or so Breckenridge’s head grew very heavy, and the sergeant, taking his arm, silenced his protests by nipping it and quietly put him out of the room. When he awoke next morning he found that Grant was capable at least of speech, for Cheyne was asking him questions, and receiving very unsatisfactory answers.

“In fact,” said the cavalry officer, “you don’t feel disposed to tell me who the men that tried to burn your place were, or anything about them?”

“No,” Larry said feebly. “It would be pleasanter if you concluded I was not quite fit to talk just now.”

Cheyne glanced at Breckenridge, who was watching him anxiously. “In that case I could not think of worrying you, and have no doubt I can find out. In the meanwhile I guess the best thing you can do is to go to sleep again.”

He drew Breckenridge out of the room, and shook hands with him. “If you are wanted I’ll send for you,” he said. “Keep your comrade quiet, and I should be astonished if he is not about again in a day or two.”

Then, he went down the stairway and swung himself into the saddle, and with a rattle and jingle he and the men behind him rode away.

XXVII

CLAVERING’S LAST CARD

There was an impressive silence in Hetty’s little drawing-room at Cedar Range when Cheyne, who had ridden there the day after he left Fremont, told his story. He had expected attention, but the effect his narrative produced astonished him. Hetty had softly pushed her chair back into the shadow where the light of the shaded lamp did not fall upon her, but her stillness was significant. He could, however, see Miss Schuyler, and wondered what accounted for the impassiveness of her face, now the colour that had flushed her cheek had faded. The silence was becoming embarrassing when Miss Schuyler broke it.

“Mr. Grant is recovering?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Cheyne. “He was coming round when I left him. The blow might have been a dangerous one; but I had a suspicion he had more than that to contend with.”

“Yes?” said Hetty, a little breathlessly.

“Of course, his affairs were not my business,” Cheyne went on, “but it seemed to me the man had been living under a heavy strain; and though we were strangers, I could not help feeling a sympathy that almost amounted to a liking for him. He must have found it trying when the men he had done his best for came round to burn his place; but I understand he went out to speak to them with empty hands when they struck him down.”

“What made them attack him?” asked Miss Schuyler.

“I’m not quite sure, but I have an idea they were displeased because he did not countenance their attempt to wreck the cattle-train. Then, I believe he held some dollars in trust for them, and, as they presumably wanted them for some fresh outrage, would not give them up. Mr. Grant is evidently a man with a sense of responsibility.”

Hetty looked up suddenly. “Yes,” she said. “He would have let them tear him to pieces before he gave them one.”

Cheyne noticed the faint ring in her voice, and fancied it would have been plainer had she not laid a restraint upon herself. A vague suspicion he had brushed away once more crept into his mind.

“Well,” he said, slowly, watching Hetty the while, “I fancy the efforts he made to save your friends’ stock will cost him a good deal. The point is that a man of his abilities must have recognized it at the time.”

Hetty met his glance, and Cheyne saw the little glow in her eyes. “Do you think that would have counted for anything with such a man?”

Cheyne made a little gesture of negation that in a curious fashion became him. “No. That is, I do not believe he would have let it influence him.”

“That,” said Miss Schuyler, “is a very comprehensive admission.”

Cheyne smiled. “I don’t know that I could desire a higher tribute paid to me. Might one compliment you both on your evident desire to be fair to your enemies?”

He saw the faint flush in Hetty’s face, and was waiting with a curious expectancy for her answer, when Torrance came in. He appeared grimly pleased at something as he signed to Cheyne.

“His friends have burned the rascal out,” he said. “Well, I don’t know that we could have hoped for anything better; but I want to hear what you can tell me about it. You will have to spare me Captain Cheyne for a little, Hetty.”

Cheyne rose and went away with him, while, when the door closed behind them, Hetty – who had seen the vindictive satisfaction in her father’s face – turned to her companion with a flash of imperious anger in her eyes.

“Flo,” she said, “how can he? It’s wicked of him.”

Miss Schuyler checked her with a gesture. “Any way, he is your father.”

Hetty flushed, but the colour faded and left her face white again. “Well,” she said, “Clavering isn’t, and it is he who has made him so bitter against Larry. Flo, it’s horrible. They would have been glad if the boys had killed him, and when he’s ill and wounded they will not let me go to him.”

Her voice broke and trembled, and Flora Schuyler laid a hand restrainingly upon her arm. “Of course. But why should you, Hetty?”

Hetty, who shook off her grasp, rose and stood quivering a little, but very straight, looking down on her with pride, and a curious hardness in her eyes.

“You don’t know?” she said. “Then I’ll tell you. Because there is nobody like Larry, and never will be. Because I love him better than I ever fancied I could love anybody, and – though it’s ’most wonderful – he has loved me and waited ever so patiently. Now they are all against him, I’m going to him. Flo, they have ’most made me hate them, the people I belong to, and I think if I was a man I could kill Clavering.”

Flora Schuyler sat very still a moment, but it was fortunate she retained her composure whatever she may have felt, for Hetty was in a mood for any rashness. Stretching out her hand, she drew the girl down beside her with a forceful gentleness.

“Hetty,” she said, “I think I know how such a man as Larry is would feel, and you want him to be proud of you. Well, there are things that neither he nor you could do, and you must listen to me quietly.”

She reasoned with the girl for a while until Hetty shook the passion from her.

“Of course you are right, Flo,” she said, and her voice was even. “If he could bear all that, I can be patient too. Larry has had ever so many hard things to do, but it is only because it would not be fair to him I’m not going to him now. Flo, you will not leave me until the trouble’s through?”

Miss Schuyler turned and kissed her, and then, rising quietly, went out of the room. She had shown Hetty her duty to Larry, which she felt would be more convincing just then than an exposition of what she owed her father, and had reasons for desiring solitude to grapple with affairs of her own. What she had done had cost her an effort, but Flora Schuyler was fond of Hetty and recognized the obligation of the bond she was contracting when she made a friend.

Some minutes had passed when Hetty rose and took down her writing-case from a shelf. She could at least communicate with Larry, for the maid, who had more than one admirer among the cow-boys, had found a means by which letters could be conveyed; but the girl could not command her thoughts, and written sympathy seemed so poor and cold a thing. Two letters were written and flung into the stove, for Flora Schuyler’s counsel was bearing fruit; and she had commenced two more when there was a tapping at the door. Hetty looked up with a little flash in her eyes, and swept the papers into the writing-case as Clavering came in. Then she rose, and stood looking at him very coldly.

It was an especially unfortunate moment for the man to approach her in, and, though he did not know why it should be so, he recognized it; but there were reasons that made any further procrastination distinctly unadvisable.

“There is something I have been wanting to tell you for a long time, Hetty,” he said.

“It would be better for you to wait a little longer,” the girl said chillingly. “I don’t feel inclined to listen to anything to-night.”

“The trouble,” said Clavering, who spoke the truth, “is that I can’t. It has hurt me to keep silent as long as I have done already.”

He saw the hardening of Hetty’s lips, and knew that he had blundered; but he was committed now, and could only obey when she said, with a gesture of weariness “Then go on.”

The abrupt command would probably have disconcerted most men and effectually spoiled the appeal they meant to make, and Clavering’s face flushed as he recognized its ludicrous aspect. Still, he could not withdraw then, and he made the best of a difficult position with a certain gracefulness which might, under different circumstances, have secured him a modicum of consideration. As it was, however, Hetty’s anger left her almost white, and there was a light he did not care to see in her eyes when she turned towards him.

“I am glad you have told me this,” she said. “Since nothing else would convince you, it will enable me to talk plainly; I don’t consider it an honour – not in the least. Can’t you see that it is wholly and altogether out of the question that I should ever think in that way of you?”

Clavering gasped, and the darker colour that was in his cheek showed in his forehead too. Hetty reminded him very much of her father, then – and he had witnessed one or two displays of the cattle-baron’s temper.