Читать книгу Raiders of Spanish Peaks - Zane Grey - Страница 6

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On Sunday Garden City appeared to become a deserted village, as far as the main street was concerned. The short walk that Harriet took with her mother discovered but few people and these were on the side streets. Outside of this interval the whole of that day was devoted to planning of purchases for their newly acquired home. Fortunately they were not limited as to means; otherwise they would have faced a sorry prospect.

Naturally there were several squabbles in the family, precipitated by the younger Lindsays. Mrs. Lindsay gave Harriet the duty of censorship over each individual list. To Florence she said: “Substitute these articles I checked with things that will make your room livable.” To Lenta: “Child, you’ve done pretty well, but if you ate all the candy listed here we’d need a doctor.” And to Neale: “I’ll talk to father about the saddles, chaps, guns, on yours. I should think one of each would be sufficient to start on, if you are to be permitted freedom with such.”

What this trio said to Harriet was vastly more forceful than elegant. Neale left in high dudgeon to take his case to his court of appeal—his mother.

After dinner Mr. Lindsay summoned them to meet a remarkable Westerner. This was the famous plainsman, Buffalo Jones. Upon first sight Jones struck Harriet singularly and not favorably. He was a rugged man in the prime of life, tall, erect, broad-shouldered, with a physiognomy that baffled her. Like so many of these Westerners he had a hard cast of face, and eyes narrowed by years of exposure to the open. They were light-blue eyes and looked right through Harriet. His smile, however, seemed to change the ruthless, craggy set of mouth and chin. After all the Lindsays had been introduced Jones won Harriet over in a single speech.

“Wal, I shore am glad to meet you-all. It’s a lucky day for the West. Lindsay, you’re still a young man an’ in a few months you’ll be strong as an ox, ridin’ all day. Mrs. Lindsay, you will soon accustom yourself to the plains an’ be a pioneer’s wife. It’s a hard but wonderful life. . . . An’ what shall I say to these handsome, healthy girls? Wal, I wish I were a young man again. Three strappin’ riders somewhere out there don’t know the great good luck in store for them. . . . Young man, you’ve got good eyes—at least one of them is—an’ a good chin. But you’re kind of pale round the gills an’ your hands are soft. Look out for the cow-punchers, keep quiet an’ work—that’s Buffalo Jones’ hunch.”

Jones appeared to strike them all, except possibly Neale, to be the Westerner they needed to meet. Lenta did not show the least awe and her first wide-eyed query, accompanied by her irresistible smile, evidently pleased him: “Why do they call you Buffalo Jones? Are you another Buffalo Bill?”

“Yes, in a way. Bill an’ I are friends and we both were buffalo-hunters, but now I’m putting my energies to savin’ buffalo. I lassoed an’ captured most of the live buffalo left today, of course when they were calves.”

“How thrilling! Oh, tell us about it,” burst out Lenta.

“Hold on, Lent,” spoke up her father, gaily. “I lassoed and captured Buffalo Jones. I’d like to hear wild stories as well as you. But let’s not wear him out. What we need to get straight is the thing we’re up against. This West—our lately acquired ranch—what we must expect—and do—in fact all a family of blessed tenderfeet needs to know.”

Jones presented a contrast to most of the aloof Westerners they had seen and met. Harriet was quick to grasp that it was because he loved the country, had been and no doubt still was a factor in its development, and that he delighted in the acquisition of new pioneer blood.

They led him upstairs to the parlor, which was empty, and all of them seemed inspired by his presence. It was Jones, however, who took the initiative by plying Mr. Lindsay with questions. In a few moments he was in possession of all the facts about Lindsay’s deal with Allen.

“Wal, wal, you are a fast stepper. I hope it’s all right. I’ll look into it. . . . Spanish Peaks Ranch? It’s over in Colorado. Beautiful country, fine range, ideal for cattle. A high dry climate.”

Then he asked further questions as to distances from towns, railroad, market, water, and lastly the ranch-house.

“Big place, stone and mortar, built round some cottonwood trees and a spring——”

“O Lord! Is that your ranch-house? Wal!—I’ve been there. You needn’t fear that it’ll blow down or that you can’t keep the wolves and cold out in winter.”

“Dear me!” sighed Mrs. Lindsay. Harriet hid what the two younger girls expressed. But Neale was eager to know more about the wolves, the hunting, the wildness. Jones rather endeavored to retrieve the dismaying impression he had conveyed, despite the fact that if he was not dismayed for them he certainly was concerned.

“May I ask if you are prepared to spend considerable more money to make this place possible for your women folk?”

“Oh yes. I expected that. I can afford it.”

“Wal now, that puts a different light on the matter,” said Jones, with satisfaction. “You can make that old fort one of the show places of the West. Like Maxwell’s Ranch over in New Mexico. . . . Will you arrange for me to meet this Lester Allen and his foreman?”

“I’m sorry. They left town at daybreak. I had planned to meet them here at the hotel. But they had breakfast before I was up.”

“Wal, you don’t say!” ejaculated Jones, plainly surprised. “An’ the deal was only settled yesterday?”

“We kept the bank open after regular hours to settle it.”

“What was their hurry?”

“They didn’t say. I confess I was a little put out.”

“Humph! . . . Of course Allen will send his foreman back to help you buy your outfit an’ pack it to the ranch.”

“No. Nothing was said about that. Arlidge did not seem keen to take charge for me. But he finally agreed. I think my daughters decided him.”

“Arlidge. Who’s he?”

“Allen’s foreman.”

“Not Luke Arlidge?” queried the old plainsman, quickly.

“Luke Arlidge. That’s the name.”

“Wal, Lindsay,” went on Jones, constrainedly, “we’ll talk that all over later. It’d bore the ladies.”

“Now tell us why you’re called Buffalo Jones?” begged Lenta.

“Wal, for a number of reasons, all to do with buffalo. But I like to feel that I deserve it most because I did preserve the American bison,” replied the plainsman. “The fact is, though, that the name never stuck till after the massacre of the last great herd of buffalo an’ the bloody Indian fight it raised.

“In the late ’seventies the buffalo hide-hunters chased the buffalo to their last stand. This was in Texas, south of the Pan Handle. Thousands of hide-hunters were scattered all along the range an’ millions of buffalo were butchered for their hides alone. The Indian tribes saw their meat going, their buffalo robes, and that if they did not stop the white hunters they would starve. The Comanches were the fiercest tribe, though the Kiowas, Arapahoes an’ Cheyennes were bad enough. If they had joined forces the West never would have been settled. As it was the buffalo-hunters banded together an’ broke the power of the redmen forever.

“It was in 1877 that the big fight came off—also the end of the buffalo. But the hunters had to quit killin’ buffalo to kill Indians. I was in the thick of that campaign. Comanches under a fierce chief named Nigger Horse made repeated raids on hunters’ camps, murderin’ an’ scalpin’. I organized a band of hunters an’ we tracked Nigger Horse to his hidin’-place up on the Staked Plains. I had Indian and Mexican scouts who tracked the wily old devil over rock an’ sand. I surrounded Nigger Horse’s force in a deep rocky gulch an’ planted part of my men to block the escape of the Comanches. That was about the bloodiest fight I was ever in. We surprised them at dawn an’ all day the battle waged. Then when Nigger Horse saw he was beaten an’ was in danger of bein’ wiped out completely, he sent his son at the head of the hardest-ridin’ bucks straight for the mouth of the gully. That was a magnificent sight. The Comanches were the grandest horsemen the West ever developed. An’ the war-cry of the Comanches was the most blood-curdling of all Indian yells. We all saw what was comin’. The Indian riders collected at a point below out of rifle-shot. Comanches were vain, proud, fierce warriors, an’ this was a race their hearts reveled in. Our men yelled along the line. The son of Nigger Horse—I forget that buck’s name—pranced his horse at the head of the band. It was somethin’ that made even us hardened old buffalo-hunters thrill. Then with him in the lead an’ with such a yell as never was heard before they charged. What ridin’. But Nigger Horse’s son, swift an’ darin’ as he was, never got halfway. He fell at a long shot from one of my sharp-shooters. That broke the back of the charge an’ Nigger Horse’s last defense. Only a few of those riders got away. An’ the rest of the great Comanche band that escaped climbed out on foot. I reckon no other single fight had so much to do with breakin’ the redmen as that one. Certainly not with the Comanches.”

“Oh—terrible!” cried Lenta, breathlessly, her eyes shining. “But I don’t see how—why they called you Buffalo Jones, just for that.”

“Wal, I don’t see, either,” laughed the plainsman. “It’s true, though. That night in camp it turned out the sharp-shooter who killed Nigger Horse’s son was a young North Carolinian named Nelson. Laramie Nelson. He got the front handle here on the plains. I never knew his right name. Wal, he stood up among us as we sat round the camp fire, a crippled dead-beat outfit, an’ liftin’ his cup high he yelled, ‘Heah’s to Buffalo Jones!’ The men roared an’ they drank. An’ from that night they called me Buffalo Jones.”

“So that was it? Oh, how I’d liked to be there!” cried Lenta.

“Was it coffee they drank your health in?” asked Lindsay, quizzically.

“Wal, no.”

Harriet felt an unfamiliar impulse, that seemed to come from a thrilling heat along her veins.

“And what became of the young man?” she asked.

“Nelson, you mean? Wal, he made other great shots after that,” replied the plainsman, reminiscently. “He belonged to that Southern breed of wild youngsters who spread over Texas an’ the West. Laramie was one of the finest boys I ever knew. But those were hard days, an’ if a man survived, it was through his quickness with a gun. He shore earned a name for himself. For years now I haven’t heard of him. Gone, I reckon. An unmarked grave somewhere, out there on the ’lone prairie,’ as his kind called the plains.”

An unaccountable pang assailed Harriet’s breast. Poor brave wild boy! The West took its first strange hold upon her. There were things she had never dreamed of. History, story, legend, were somehow unreal. But here she was listening to a man who had seen and lived great events of the frontier, whose face was a record of those unparalleled adventures about which Easterners could not help but be skeptical and cold.

Soon after that narrative Jones left with her father, and Harriet went back to her room and the growing puzzle of plans and lists, of what to discard and what to retain. Bedtime came with Lenta’s yawning entrance. The young lady, while undressing, delivered herself of a last humorous remark:

“Dog-goneit, Hallie, I’m a-goin’ to like this West!”

Bright and early next morning, all the Lindsays, except Neale, assembled for breakfast and with visible and voluble anticipation of an exciting day.

“Oh yes, I nearly forgot,” said Lindsay, in the midst of the meal. “Jones bade me be sure that you womenfolk bought heavy coats and woolen shirts, rubber buskins, slickers, and warm gloves. He said it wasn’t summer yet by a long chalk and we might hit into a storm.”

This interested all except Florence, who leaned more to decorative than useful purchases. Harriet saw that she added these new articles to her list. After breakfast they sallied forth, with Harriet, for one, realizing that they were furnishing covert amusement to employees of the hotel.

That was a day. Harriet found herself so tired when evening came that she scarcely had appetite for dinner. Her father appealed to her for help in making out a list of food supplies to purchase on the morrow.

“I don’t believe I’m equal to that—at least not tonight,” replied Harriet, dubiously.

“Jones was right about the foreman, Arlidge. He should have stayed to advise me. What do I know about supplies in this country?”

“Or I? But we know what we have been accustomed to and can easily buy that, so far as it is supplied here. I discovered one fine big grocery, I dare say they keep everything.”

Another day saw their personal wants wonderfully and fearfully attended to. Mrs. Lindsay had bought furniture, kitchen ware, bedding, linen, and in fact, Harriet’s father said, enough truck to fill several of the six big wagons he had obtained.

“What we can’t take we’ll send back for,” he concluded, ending that mooted question.

Buffalo Jones had dinner with them that evening and his keen interest and sympathy were nothing if not thrilling. He laughed over some of their purchases.

“Wal, you’re a lucky outfit!” he drawled. “Just suppose you hadn’t any money. That you had to tackle the plains with your bare hands, so to say! . . . I wish my family was here. I’ve got two girls. I’d like you-all to meet them.”

Harriet was drawn away to her father’s room, where he and Jones desired a little privacy. To Lindsay’s explanation that Harriet was his right-hand man and would handle the financial end of the new enterprise, Jones gave hearty approbation.

“She looks level-headed,” he went on, “an’ I reckon will stand up under the knocks you’ll get. . . . Now, Lindsay, for the first one. You’ve gone into an irregular deal, an’ some way or other are bound to be cheated.”

Lindsay never batted an eye.

“Father, I told you,” said Harriet.

“You’ve to learn that Westerners are close-mouthed. They almost never talk to strangers about other Westerners. It’s not conducive to long life. But no matter—I’m goin’ to waive that. . . . Your man Allen has not the best of reputations. An’ Arlidge has been in several shady deals, over the last of which he killed a man. In fact, he has several killin’s to his credit, an’ at that he has not been many years in western Kansas. You’ve bought a ranch, all right, an’ if my memory is good it’s one that will make a wonderful place. But you’ll find probably less than half ten thousand head of stock, maybe only a third. There’s where the trick came in. It always does in deals where tenderfeet buy Western stock. Couldn’t be otherwise. Can you swallow that?”

“I have, already. I’m no fool. The gleam in Allen’s eye and Arlidge’s glib tongue were not lost on me. I’ve swallowed this and can stand more.”

“Good. Now brace yourself for a harder jolt. The worst is yet to come. It’s a safe bet that Allen, with another so-called ranch thirty miles from Spanish Peaks Ranch, an’ his foreman Arlidge workin’ for you, will clean out most if not all the stock they sold to you.”

“Clean out! Steal it?” ejaculated Lindsay, his jaw dropping.

“They’ll rustle it off. Let me explain. We are now in the midst of what I might call the third great movement of early frontier history—the cattle movement. First came the freighters, wagon-trains, gold-seekers, fur-trappers, an’ the Indian fights. Next the era of the buffalo an’ the settler. This is the cattle movement. For years now vast herds of cattle have been driven up out of Texas to Abilene an’ Dodge, the cattle terminus. From these points cattle have been driven north an’ west, an’ shipped East on cattle-trains. The cattle business is well on an’ fortunes are bein’ made. With endless range, fine grass an’ water, nothin’ else could be expected. I sold out my own ranch a year back. Reason was I saw the handwritin’ on the wall. Cattle-stealin’! There had always been some stock stole. Every rancher will tell you that. But rustlin’ now is a business. The rustler has come into his own. He steals herds of cattle in a raid. Or he will be your neighbor rancher, brandin’ all your calves. The demand for cattle is big. Ready money always. An’ this rustlin’ is goin’ to grow an’ have its way for I don’t know how long. Years, anyway. You’ll be in the thick of it an’ I want to start you right.”

“You’re most kind, Jones,” replied Harriet’s father, feelingly. “I appreciate your—your breaking a Western rule for me. However I’m not dismayed. I’ll see it through. Only tell me what to do.”

“That’s the stumper,” rejoined the plainsman, with a dry laugh. “You’ve got to live it. But the very first thing you must do is to get a man—a Westerner—who will be smart enough for Allen an’ Arlidge. They sold nine range-riders with the range. It’s a foregone conclusion that most of these riders, if not all, will remain on Allen’s side of the fence. You won’t be able to tell who they are until they prove themselves. I must find you a hard-shootin’ range-rider who knows the game.”

“Hard-shooting?” echoed Lindsay, in consternation.

“That’s what I said, my friend. The harder an’ quicker he is the better. I reckon there’ll be some powder burned at Spanish Peaks Ranch this summer.”

“O Lord! What will the wife say? Hallie, look what I’ve got you all into.”

“Father, it makes my stomach feel sickish,” declared Harriet. “But we can’t back out now.”

“Back out! I should say not. Damn those two slick cattlemen! . . . Jones, where’ll I get the range-rider I’m going to need?”

“Stumps me some. I can’t put my hand on anyone just now. But I’ll look around. An’ if no one can be found I’ll go myself back to Dodge an’ fetch one. I like your spirit, Lindsay. I like your family. An’ I’m goin’ to do what I can to help you.”

The plainsman’s gray-blue eyes gave forth a narrow piercing gleam, hard to meet, but wonderful to feel.

“I reckon you’d better keep all this to yourselves,” he advised. “An’ don’t be in a hurry to leave.”

With that he departed, leaving Harriet deeply perturbed and her father downcast. As in the past, Harriet endeavored to cheer and inspirit him. And they managed to hide their feelings and fears from the rest of the family. Neale, however, threw a bombshell into the midst of their breakfast the next morning by blurting out: “They’re talking about us in this hayseed town. Say we’re a family of rich tenderfeet and that we got properly fleeced.”

“Where’d you hear such gossip?” queried Lindsay, red in the face.

“In a saloon. But it’s common talk all over.”

“Well, if it’s true, that’ll give you a fine opportunity to help support this tenderfoot family.”

“Neale couldn’t support a baby if he had a cradle and a flock of cows,” retorted Lenta, sententiously. “Never mind, Dad. We came out here for you to get well. And we can stand anything.”

The girls were in and out of the hotel all morning, so that Harriet lost track of them. About noon they came in, giggling, and left packages strewn from one room to another.

“Hal, you missed something,” said Lenta, mysteriously.

“Did I? Thank goodness. I’ve sure missed a good deal of money I had figured up.”

“Ha! Ha! You will. But honest, sis, this was rich. Flo came staggering into the hall downstairs, and as she could hardly see from behind her pile of bundles, she ran plump into the handsomest strangest-looking Westerner we’ve seen. I nearly burst myself laughing, but I kept out of it. Flo knocked him galley-west and of course the packages went flying. She was flabbergasted—and you know to flabbergast Flo isn’t easy. This handsome ragamuffin laughed, doffed his old sombrero, and apologized with the grace of a courtier. His manners and speech were hardly what you’d expect from such a tramp. His dusty clothes hung in rags. He had a big gun in a belt and that belt had a shiny row of brass shells. He was young, thin, tanned almost gold, and his eyes—oh! they were wonderful! Black and sharp as daggers. His hair was black, too, and all long and mussed. I saw all this, of course, while he went to picking up Flo’s packages. Then, will you believe it? he said: ‘Permit me to carry these for you, miss.’ Flo blushed like a rose. Fancy that. And she stammered something. They went upstairs. I hope she was not so rattled she forgot to thank him.”

“Well, that was an adventure,” replied Harriet, with interest.

“It wasn’t a marker to what happened to me,” retorted Lenta, her eyes shining. “I had stepped aside into the doorway of that storeroom. I didn’t want to meet that black-eyed cavalier on the stairway. I heard his spurs clicking on the steps. He passed without seeing me and he said to another fellow who had come in, and whom I hadn’t seen yet. ‘My Gawd! Lonesome, did you see her? She was a dream.’

“This other fellow let out a yelp. ‘Did I? Lordy! Lock the gate!’

“Well, they went out and I ventured forth,” continued Lenta. ”But I tripped on the rug. Honest I did, Hallie! One of my bundles dropped. Then, lo and behold! this second fellow appeared as if by magic. He was young, rosy, ugly, bow-legged. He wore the awfulest hairy pants. His shirt was in tatters. He smelled like—like the outdoors. He picked up my bundle and laid it on top of the others in my arms. And he said:

“‘Sweetheart, look out for Western range-riders. Even my pard is a devil with the women.’

“His eyes fairly danced, they were so full of fun. If his pard was a devil, I’d like to know what he is. . . . I know I got as red as a beet and I rushed away without giving him a piece of my mind.”

“God help us from now on! It has begun,” exclaimed Harriet, solemnly.

“What has begun?” asked Lenta, innocently.

“I don’t know what to call it. Slaughter of the Westerners might do.”

“All right, old girl,” retorted Lenta, half offended, for in her excitement evidently she had been sincere. “But you look out for yourself. Everything will happen to you!”

That occasioned Harriet some uneasiness. It seemed to be in the nature of a prophecy. But she passed it by and went on with her work until called to lunch. Her father was waiting at the head of the stairs. All the shadow of worry and uncertainty had disappeared from his face. He was bright, smiling, more than his old self again. Somehow he had gained.

“Now, father?” queried Harriet, in wondering gladness.

“What do you think, Hallie? I’ve had a stroke of fortune. At least Buffalo Jones swore it was. He ran across one of his scouts of buffalo days—in fact that very young fellow who killed Nigger Horse’s son in the Indian fight, you remember. Nelson—Laramie Nelson. He it was who was responsible for Jones being called Buffalo Jones. Well, Nelson just happened to ride into Garden City with two other range-riders. Jones said he whooped when he saw them. No wonder! Talk about Westerners! Wait until you see these.”

“Three—range—riders,” returned Harriet, almost falteringly. Could two of them be the young men Florence and Lenta had encountered? Could they! There was absolutely no doubt of it, and Harriet could not account for her feelings. Suppose the third one happened to be this Laramie Nelson, already picturesquely limned against the difficult background of Harriet’s fancy!

“Well, after introducing me,” went on Lindsay, “Jones went off with Nelson. I met them later in the saloon where Nelson’s partners were playing pool. It seems the three had just returned from some hard expedition after horse-thieves, or something, and that accounted for their bedraggled appearance. Jones had made a proposition to Nelson about joining up with me. Evidently it wasn’t so promising to him. But Jones and I importuned him until he said he reckoned he’d go if I hired his friends. I agreed. So the two young men were called from their game and introduced to me. Their names were Lonesome Mulhall and Tracks Williams. Had been with Nelson for years. In fact, they were inseparable. Strange to me both these young Westerners demurred. They did not want to come. Mulhall said: ‘Laramie, I don’t mind work, as you well know, but I kick against a lot of tenderfoot girls in the outfit.’ And Williams backed him up. Whereupon Nelson swore at them. ‘Yu’re a couple of contrary jackasses. Heah’s yore chance to help a family that’ll shore need it. Lonesome, only awhile back yu were lamentin’ yore lack of feminine inspiration—I reckon yu called it. An’ Tracks, heah, he was sore at me ’cause ridin’ with me left him nothin’ to be chivalrous about.’

“‘Pard, mebbe we’d better reconsider,’ said Mulhall to Williams. ‘’Cause it’s a shore bet Laramie is goin’ to line up with this Peak Dot outfit.’

“‘Ump-umm,’ replied Williams.

“‘Wal, if yu haven’t got stuff in yu to want to help a fine family, maybe yu’ll go for my sake,’ snorted Nelson, with fire in his eye.

“‘How come, pard?’ asked Lonesome, curiously.

“‘Wal, the foreman Allen turned over to Mr. Lindsay happens to be Luke Arlidge. Now will yu stick to me?’

“‘Hell yes!’ yelled Mulhall.

“‘How about yu, Tracks?’ asked Nelson of his other partner.

“‘Laramie, I hate to give in, but I wouldn’t miss seeing you kill Arlidge for a million dollars!’”

Mr. Lindsay had recited all this in a thrilling whisper. He waited to see if it had made any impression on Harriet. Manifestly he was more than satisfied. Then he concluded:

“That ended the argument. And I engaged Nelson and his friends on the spot. I feel pretty good about it, as much for you girls’ sake as my own. Jones declared Colorado wasn’t big enough for both Nelson and Arlidge. And sooner or later Nelson would take charge of our ranch. The best of it is that the expectations Jones had roused in me, regarding this Laramie Nelson, were more than fulfilled. What a quaint soft-voiced fellow! You’d never believe he had killed men.”

“Mercy, father!” burst out Harriet, with a revulsion of feeling. “Don’t say he’s a—a murderer!”

“Hallie, these Western folk have got me up a tree,” declared Lindsay. “They talk of shooting and killing as we do of—of plowing corn. Jones said Nelson had killed men—he didn’t know how many—that he was a marked character in the West. I gathered in spite of a gun record, Jones regarded Nelson as the salt of the earth.”

“Oh, these bloody frontiersmen!” exclaimed Harriet, aghast. “How can we have a man like that around?”

“Well, I’m getting—what do they call it?—a hunch that before long we may be damned good and glad to have him,” declared Lindsay, bluntly. And when her father swore he was most genuinely in earnest. They went to lunch, at which time Lindsay casually announced that it was possible they might start for their ranch in a very few days. This upset his hearers in one way or another. Lenta was in raptures; Florence had some secret reason for wanting to linger in Garden City.

“Say, Dad, are you going to give me a job?” demanded Neale.

“Yes. You drive one of the wagons,” returned the father, concisely. To which the remainder of the family took instant exception.

After lunch the Lindsays scattered on their various errands. Harriet, coming in alone, encountered her father in the lobby in company with the most striking man she had ever seen.

“Harriet, come here,” called Lindsay, dragging his tall companion forward. “This is my new man, Laramie Nelson. . . . Meet my eldest girl, Nelson. You must get acquainted. She will be my mainstay out on the ranch.”

Harriet bowed and greeted Mr. Nelson with all outward pleasantry. Inwardly she was shrinking, and wondering why that was so.

“Wal, Lady, I shore am glad to meet yu,” drawled Nelson, removing his old sombrero. His low voice and quaint manner were markedly Southern.

Before more could be said Lenta and Florence bounced and floated in, to be presented to Nelson. This gave Harriet opportunity to look at him. He was tall, slim, sandy-haired, slightly freckled, and his eyes, gray and intent, shone with something which reminded her of those of Buffalo Jones and Luke Arlidge. His lean face wore a sad cast. He did not smile, even at the irrepressible Lenta, who was nothing if not fascinated with him. His garb was travel-stained and rent. His shiny leather overalls, full of holes, flounced down over muddy boots. Great long spurs bright as silver dragged their rowels on the floor. His right side stood toward Harriet, and low down, hanging from a worn belt and sheath, shone the dark deadly handle of a gun. All about him suggested long use, hard service. So this was the killer Laramie Nelson—this strange soft-spoken, singularly fascinating Westerner? Harriet was as amazed as she was repelled. He did not look it.

Suddenly attention was directed upon Harriet again and she almost betrayed herself in confusion. The girls made demands for money.

“She’s our treasurer, Mr. Nelson,” declared Lenta, gaily. “Dad never handles money. . . . Look out for your wages!”

“Oh, Lenta, that’s unkind!” exclaimed Harriet, flushing. “Indeed, Mr. Nelson, I am not that bad.”

And it was an indication of Harriet’s unusual preoccupation that she handed her purse to Lenta, who whooped and ran out, to be pursued by Florence.

“There, do you wonder I need to be careful of father’s money?” queried Harriet, with a laugh.

“Wal, miss, I’m wonderin’ a lot,” replied Nelson, with his first smile, a slow dawning change that made him younger. “Most of all I’m wonderin’ how yore paw will ever run cattle an’ range-riders with three such lovely daughters around. It cain’t be done.”