Читать книгу The Cattle-Baron's Daughter - Bindloss Harold - Страница 3

It was a still, hot evening when a somewhat silent company of bronze-faced men assembled in the big living room of Cedar Range. It was built of birch trunks, and had once, with its narrow windows and loopholes for rifle fire, resembled a fortalice; but now cedar panelling covered the logs, and the great double casements were filled with the finest glass. They were open wide that evening. Around this room had grown up a straggling wooden building of dressed lumber with pillars and scroll-work, and, as it stood then, flanked by its stores and stables, barns and cattle-boys’ barracks, there was no homestead on a hundred leagues of prairie that might compare with it.

Outside, on the one hand, the prairie rolled away in long billowy rises, a vast sea of silvery grey, for the grass that had been green a month or two was turning white again, and here and there a stockrider showed silhouetted, a dusky mounted figure against the paling flicker of saffron that still lingered upon the horizon. On the other, a birch bluff dipped to the Cedar River, which came down faintly chilled with the Rockies’ snow from the pine forests of the foothills. There was a bridge four miles away, but the river could be forded beneath the Range for a few months each year. At other seasons it swirled by, frothing in green-stained flood, swollen by the drainage of snowfield and glacier, and there was no stockrider at the Range who dared swim his horse across.

Sun and wind had their will with the homestead, for there was little shelter from icy blizzard and scorching heat at Cedar; but though here and there the frame-boarding gaped and the roof-shingles were rent, no man accustomed to that country could fail to notice the signs of careful management and prosperity. Corrals, barns, and stables were the best of their kind; and, though the character of all of them was not beyond exception, in physique and fitness for their work it would have been hard to match the sinewy men in blue shirts, wide hats, and long boots, then watering their horses at the ford. They were as daring and irresponsible swashbucklers as ever rode out on mediæval foray, and, having once sold their allegiance to Torrance of Cedar, and recognized that he was not to be trifled with, were ready to do without compunction anything he bade them.

In the meanwhile Torrance sat at the head of the long table, with Clavering of Beauregard at his right hand. His face was bronzed and resolute, and the stamp of command sat plainly upon him. There was grey in his dark hair, and his eyes were keen and black, with a little glint in them; but, vigorous as he still seemed, the hand on the table was smooth and but slightly tinted by the sun, for Torrance was one who, in the language of that country, did his work, which was usually arduous, with his gloves on. He was dressed in white shirt and broadcloth, and a diamond of price gleamed in the front of the former.

His guests were for the most part younger, and Clavering was scarcely half his age: but when they met in conclave something usually happened, for the seat of the legislature was far away, and their will considerably more potent thereabouts than the law of the land. Sheriff, postmaster, railroad agent, and petty politician carried out their wishes, and as yet no man had succeeded in living in that region unless he did homage to the cattle-barons. They were Republicans, admitting in the abstract the rights of man, so long as no venturesome citizen demanded too much of them; but they had discovered that in practice liberty is usually the prerogative of the strong. Still, they had done their nation good service, for they had found the land a wilderness and covered it with cattle, so that its commerce fed the railroads and supported busy wooden towns. Some of the older men had disputed possession with the Indian, and most of them in the early days, enduring thirst and loneliness and unwearying toil, had held on stubbornly in the face of ruin by frost and drought and hail. It was not astonishing that as they had made that land – so they phrased it – they regarded it as theirs.

There were eight of them present, and for a time they talked of horses and cattle as they sipped their wine, which was the choicest that France could send them; and it is also probable that no better cigars ever came from Cuba than those they smoked. By and by, however, Torrance laid his aside.

“It’s time we got down to work,” he said. “I sent for ten of you, and eight have come. One sent valid excuses, and one made no answer.”

“Larry Grant,” said Clavering. “I guess he was too busy at the depot bringing a fat Dutchman and a crowd of hard-faced Dakota ploughboys in.”

There was a little murmur of astonishment which, had the men been different, would not have been quite free from consternation, for it was significant news.

“You’re quite sure?” asked Torrance, and his face was stern.

“Well,” said Clavering languidly, “I saw him, and bantered him a little on his prepossessing friends. Asked him why, when he was at it, he didn’t go to Manitoba for Canadians. Larry didn’t take it nicely.”

“I’m sorry,” said one of the older men. “Larry is one of us, and the last man I’d figure on committing that kind of meanness would be the son of Fremont Grant. Quite sure it’s not a fit of temper? You have not been worrying him, Torrance?”

Torrance closed one hand. “Grant of Fremont was my best friend, and when he died I ’most brought the lad up as a son. When he got hold of his foolish notions it hurt me considerably, and I did what I could to talk him out of them.”

There was a little smile in the faces of some of the men, for Torrance’s draconic fashion of arguing was known to them.

“You put it a little too straight, and he told you something that riled you,” said one.

“He did,” said Torrance grimly. “Still, for ’most two years I kept a curb on my temper. Then one evening I told him he had to choose right then between his fancies and me. I could have no dealings with any man who talked as he did.”

“Do you remember any of it?” asked another man.

“Yes,” said Torrance. “His father’s friends were standing in the way of progress. Land that would feed a thousand families was keeping us in luxury no American was entitled to. This was going to be the poor man’s country, and the plough was bound to come!”

Clavering laughed softly, and there were traces of ironical amusement in the faces of the rest. Very similar predictions had more than once been flung at them, and their possessions were still, they fancied, secure to them. They, however, became grave again, and it was evident that Larry Grant had hitherto been esteemed by them.

“If it had been any one else, we could have put our thumb on him right now,” said one. “Still, I don’t quite figure it would work with Larry. There are too many folks who would stand in with him.”

There was a little murmur of approbation, and Clavering laughed. “Buy him off,” he said tentatively. “We have laid out a few thousand dollars in that way before.”

Some of the men made gestures of decided negation, and Torrance looked at the speaker a trifle sternly.

“No, sir,” he said. “Larry may be foolish, but he’s one of us.”

“Then,” said somebody, “we’ve got to give him time. Let it pass. You have something to tell us, Torrance?”

Torrance signed to one of them. “You had better tell them, Allonby.”

A grey-haired man stood up, and his fingers shook a little on the table. “My lease has fallen in, and the Bureau will not renew it,” he said. “I’m not going to moan about my wrongs, but some of you know what it cost me to break in that place of mine. You have lived on the bitter water and the saleratus bread, but none of you has seen his wife die for the want of the few things he couldn’t give her, as I did. I gave the nation my two boys when the good times came, and they’re dead – buried in their uniform both of them – and now, when I’d laid out my last dollar on the ranch, that the one girl I’ve left me might have something when I’d gone, the Government will take it away from me. Gentlemen, is it my duty to sit down quietly?”

There was a murmur, and the men looked at one another with an ominous question in their eyes, until Torrance raised his hand.

“The land’s not open to location. I guess they’re afraid of us, and Allonby’s there on toleration yet,” he said. “Gentlemen, we mean to keep him just where he is, because when he pulls out we will have to go too. But this thing has to be done quietly. When the official machinery moves down here it’s because we pull the strings, and we have got to have the law upon our side as far as we can. Well, that’s going to cost us money, and we want a campaign fund. I’ll give Allonby a cheque for five hundred dollars in the meanwhile, if he’ll be treasurer; but as we may all be fixed as he is presently, we’ll want a good deal more before we’re through. Who will follow me?”

Each of them promised five hundred, and then looked at Clavering, who had not spoken. One of them also fancied that there was for a moment a trace of embarrassment in his face; but he smiled carelessly.

“The fact is, dollars are rather tight with me just now,” he said. “You’ll have to wait a little if I’m to do as much as the rest of you. I am, however, quite willing.”

“I’ll lend you them,” said Torrance. “Allonby, I’ll make that cheque a thousand. You have got it down?”

Allonby accepted office, and one of the other men rose up. “Now it seems to me that Torrance is right, and with our leases expired or running out, we’re all in the same tight place,” he said. “The first move is to get every man holding cattle land from here to the barren country to stand in, and then, one way or another, we’ll freeze out the homesteaders. Well, then, we’ll constitute ourselves a committee, with Torrance as head executive, and as we want to know just what the others are doing, my notion is that he should start off to-morrow and ride round the country. If there are any organizations ready, it might suit us to affiliate with them.”

It was agreed to, and Clavering said, “It seems to me, sir, that the first question is, ‘Could we depend upon the boys if we wanted them?’”

Torrance strode to an open window and blew a silver whistle. Its shrill note had scarcely died away when a mounted man came up at a gallop, and a band of others in haste on foot. They stopped in front of the window, picturesque in blue shirts and long boots, sinewy, generously fed, and irresponsibly daring.

“Boys,” he said, “you’ve been told there’s a change coming, and by and by this country will have no more use for you. Now, if any folks came here and pulled our boundaries up to let the mean whites from back east in, what are you going to do?”

There was a burst of hoarse laughter. “Ride them down,” said one retainer, with the soft blue eyes of a girl and a figure of almost matchless symmetry.

“Grow feathers on them,” said another. “Ride them back to the railroad on a rail.”

“I scarcely think that would be necessary,” said Torrance quietly. “Still, you’d stand behind the men who pay you?”

There was a murmur that expressed a good deal, though it was inarticulate, and a man stood forward.

“You’ve heard them, sir,” he said. “Well, we’ll do just what you want us to. This is the cattle-baron’s country, and we’re here. It’s good enough for us, and if it means lots of trouble we’re going to stay here.”

Torrance raised his hand, and when the men moved away turned with a little grim smile to his guests. “They’ll be quite as good as their word,” he said.

Then he led them back to the table, and when the decanter had gone round, one of the younger men stood up.

“We want a constitution, gentlemen, and I’ll give you one,” he said. “The Cedar District Stockraisers’ Committee incorporated to-day with for sole object the defence of our rights as American citizens!”

Clavering rose with the others, but there was a little ironical smile in his eyes as he said, “If necessary against any unlawful encroachments made by the legislature!”

Torrance turned upon him sternly. “No, sir!” he said. “By whatever means may appear expedient!”

The glasses were lifted high, and when they had laid them down the men rode away, though only one or two of them realized the momentous issues which they and others had raised at about much the same time. They had not, however, met in conclave too soon, for any step that man makes forward towards a wider life is usually marked by strife, and the shadow of coming trouble was already upon the land. It had deepened little by little, and the cattle-barons had closed their eyes, as other men who have held the reins have done since the beginning, until the lean hands of the toilers fastened upon them, and fresh horrors added to an ancient wrong were the price of liberty that was lost again. They had done good service to their nation, with profit to themselves, and would not see that the times were changing and that the nation had no longer need of them.

Other men, however, at least suspected it, and there was an expectant gathering one hot afternoon in the railroad depot of a little wooden town where Grant stood waiting for the west-bound train. There was little to please the eye about the station, and still less about the town. Straight out of the great white levels ran the glistening track, and an unsightly building of wood and iron rose from the side of it, flanked by a towering water-tank. A pump rattled under it, and the smell of creosote was everywhere. Cattle corrals ran back from the track, and beyond them sun-rent frame houses roofed with cedar shingles straggled away on the one hand, paintless, crude, and square. On the other, a smear of trail led the dazzled vision back across the parched levels to the glancing refraction on the horizon, and the figure of a single horseman showing dimly through a dust cloud emphasized their loneliness. The town was hot and dusty, its one green fringe of willows defiled by the garbage the citizens deposited there, and the most lenient stranger could have seen no grace or beauty in it. Yet, like many another place of the kind, it was destined to rise to prosperity and fame.

The depot was thronged that afternoon. Store and hotel keeper, citizens in white shirts and broadcloth, jostled blue-shirted cattle men, while here and there a petty politician consulted with the representative of a Western paper. The smoke of cigars drifted everywhere, and the listless heat was stirred by the hum of voices eager and strident. It was evident that the assembly was in an expectant mood, and there was a murmur of approbation when one newspaper man laid hold of Grant.

“I couldn’t light on you earlier, but ten minutes will see us through,” he said. “We’ll make a half-page of it if you’ll let me have your views. New epoch in the country’s history! The small farmer the coming king! A wood-cut of the man who brought the first plough in.”

Larry Grant laughed a little. “There are quite a few ahead of me, and if you spread my views the barons would put their thumb on you and squeeze you flat,” he said. “On the other hand, it wouldn’t suit me if you sent them anything I told you to publish.”

The man appeared a trifle embarrassed. “The rights of the Press are sacred in a free country, sir,” he said.

“Well,” said Grant drily, “although I hope it will be, this country isn’t quite free yet. I surmise that you don’t know that the office of your contemporary farther east was broken into a few hours ago, and an article written by a friend of mine pulled out of the press. The proprietor was quietly held down upon the floor when he objected. You will hear whether I am right or wrong to-morrow.”

What the man would have answered did not appear, for just then somebody shouted, and a trail of smoke swept up above the rim of the prairie. It rose higher and whiter, something that flashed dazzlingly grew into shape beneath it, and there was a curious silence when the dusty cars rolled into the little station. It was followed by a murmur as an elderly man in broad white hat and plain store clothing, and a plump, blue-eyed young woman, came out upon the platform of a car. He wore a pair of spectacles and gazed about him in placid inquiry, until Grant stepped forward. Then he helped the young woman down, and held out a big, hard hand.

“Mr. Grant?” he said.

Grant nodded, and raised his hat to the girl. “Yes,” he said. “Mr. Muller?”

“Ja,” said the other man. “Also der fräulein Muller.”

There was a little ironical laughter from the crowd. “A Dutchman,” said somebody, “from Chicago. They raise them there in the sausage machine. The hogs go in at one end, and they rake the Dutchmen out of the other.”

Muller looked round inquiringly, but apparently failed to discover the speaker.

“Dot,” he said, “is der chestnut. I him have heard before.”

There was good-humoured laughter – for even when it has an animus an American crowd is usually fair; and in the meanwhile five or six other men got down from a car. They were lean and brown, with somewhat grim faces, and were dressed in blue shirts and jean.

“Well,” said one of them, “we’re Americans. Got any objections to us getting off here, boys?”

Some of the men in store clothing nodded a greeting, but there were others in wide hats, and long boots with spurs, who jeered.

“Brought your plough-cows along?” said one, and the taunt had its meaning, for it is usually only the indigent and incapable who plough with oxen.

“No,” said one of the newcomers. “We have horses back yonder. When we want mules or cowsteerers, I guess we’ll find them here. You seem to have quite a few of them around.”

A man stepped forward, jingling his spurs, with his jacket of embroidered deerskin flung open to show, though this was as yet unusual, that he wore a bandolier. Rolling back one loose sleeve he displayed a brown arm with the letters “C. R.” tattooed within a garter upon it. “See this. You’ve heard of that mark before?” he said.

“Cash required!” said the newcomer, with a grin. “Well, I guess that’s not astonishing. It would be a blame foolish man who gave you credit.”

“No, sir,” said the stockrider. “It’s Cedar Range, and there’s twenty boys and more cattle than you could count in a long day carrying that brand. It will be a cold day when you and the rest of the Dakotas start kicking against that outfit.”

There was laughter and acclamation, in the midst of which the cars rolled on; but in the meanwhile Grant had seized the opportunity to get a gang-plough previously unloaded from a freight-car into a wagon. The sight of it raised a demonstration, and there were hoots, and cries of approbation, while a man with a flushed face was hoisted to the top of a kerosene-barrel.

“Boys,” he said, “there’s no use howling. We’re Americans. Nobody can stop us, and we’re going on. You might as well kick against a railroad; and because the plough and the small farmer will do more for you than even the locomotive did, they have got to come. Well, now, some of you are keeping stores, and one or two I see here baking bread and making clothes. Which is going to do the most for your trade and you, a handful of rich men, who wouldn’t eat or wear the things you have to sell, owning the whole country, or a family farming on every quarter section? A town ten times this size wouldn’t be much use to them. Well, you’ve had your cattle-barons, gentlemen most of them; but even a man of that kind has to step out of the track and make room when the nation’s moving on.”

He probably said more, but Grant did not hear him, for he had as unostentatiously as possible conveyed Muller and the fräulein into a wagon, and had horses led up for the Dakota men. They had some difficulty in mounting, and the crowd laughed good-humouredly, though here and there a man flung jibes at them; while one, jolting in his saddle as his broncho reared, turned to Grant with a little deprecatory gesture.

“In our country we mostly drive in wagons, but I’ll ride by the stirrup and get down when nobody sees me,” he said. “The beast wouldn’t try to climb out this way if there wasn’t something kind of prickly under his saddle.”

Grant’s face was a trifle grim when he saw that more of the horses were inclined to behave similarly, but he flicked his team with the whip, and there was cheering and derision when, with a drumming of hoofs and rattle of wheels, wagons and horsemen swept away into the dust-cloud that rolled about the trail.

“This,” he said, “is only a little joke of theirs, and they’ll go a good deal further when they get their blood up. Still, I tried to warn you what you might expect.”

“So!” said Muller, with a placid grin. “It is noding to der franc tireurs. I was in der chase of Menotti among der Vosges. Also at Paris.”

“Well,” said Grant drily, “I’m ’most afraid that by and by you’ll go through very much the same kind of thing again. What you saw at the depot is going on wherever the railroad is bringing the farmers in, and we’ve got men in this country who’d make first-grade franc tireurs.”