Guardians of the Sage (15 page)

“I only arrived today,” she told him, “and I'm leaving tomorrow. Father insists on it, and I dare say he's right.” She had overheard every word they had spoken, but she was as much at sea as ever. Although she was addressing herself to MacMasters she managed a furtive glance at her father. He was having a hard time hiding his surprise over her apparent change of mind.

“Undoubtedly he is right,” MacMasters said. He had caught Letty's glance at her father, and knowing them so well, was not fooled by either. “It can't be particularly pleasant for you here right now. The girls have gone down to Carmel for the summer. Why not join them for a few weeks?” His daughters were Letty's age, and they were fond of one another.

“Sounds promising,” she smiled innocently. “I had thought of going back to Willow Vista, but you are making me change my mind. If Father thought it safe for me to go out to the railroad I believe I'd go.”

Old Slick-ear jumped at the chance she was offering him. He wanted nothing better than to have her back in California.

“I wouldn't want you to go out by the way of Wild Horse,” he said, “but we'll be going to Vale early in the morning. You could go with us, Letty.”

She hesitated, as though rolling the matter over in her mind. It was quite convincing.

“Well—I think I'll go with you,” she said finally. “You can have Mr. Tracey send my trunk down from Willow Vista.”

“Don't worry about that,” her father exclaimed brusquely. “That will be taken care of.” He turned to MacMasters. “If you want to knock a little of the dust off you and wash up we'd better get at it. You can step into my room.”

Knowing the routine of the Bar S ranches as well as anyone, he spent only a minute or two in refreshing himself. When he rejoined them he offered Letty his arm and they went into the dining-room.

Instantly all eyes fell. Mr. Stall sat down at the head of the table, with his foreman at his left and Letty to his right. MacMasters found a place next to Reb. The attorney remembered Reb and shook hands with him. The men had suddenly become tongue-tied. Letty's presence alone would have embarrassed them to silence. She and MacMasters together—they had learned about him from Tiny—were just too much for them.

It was strange what a serious business they could make of eating. The food was on platters. Some of it had to pass a long way. A man would look up and say, “Pass the bread.” Instantly his eyes would return to his plate. The bread would start moving, and eventually he would help himself to it. No one bothered to say please. Possibly because when they said, “Pass the bread,” or “Pass the beans,” it was a command, not a request. They were stark sounds, rising above the clatter of knives and forks.

Mr. Stall and MacMasters had very little to say themselves, and that little concerned such casual things as the market and the political situation. Letty lost interest in them and applied herself to her promised revenge. It was not difficult for her to surmise which of the men had started the laugh at Johnny Lefleur's expense. Ike Sweet, who had been with Johnny on the North Fork, and Kin Lamb were undoubtedly the guilty ones. They were seated within striking distance. Letty singled out old Ike.

He seemed to feel her eyes on him. She could see his neck redden.

“Please pass the hors d'oeuvres,” she asked him.

Ike stiffened, but he did not look up. He knew she was speaking to him. The men on either side of him only ate more rapidly. Letty repeated her request and continued to stare at Ike until he had to look up, a look of dumb wonder on his face.

“I'm sorry,” she smiled sweetly. “The pickles, please——”

In his anxiety to get them to her swiftly, Ike almost upset them. Mr. Stall and MacMasters missed this by-play. The others were keenly aware of it, for all that they ate on with stony faces. Indeed, this was something that was destined to follow Ike for some years to come.

Kin Lamb, across the table from Ike, was enjoying it to the full behind his sullen mask until Letty suddenly turned on him and began to bombard him with requests to pass one thing after another to her until her plate was piled high with more food than she could have consumed in several days. With any effort on her part she could have reached out and taken the dishes he offered, and he would not have had to extend himself. But that was not part of her plan. She made him half arise, and then thanked him so fulsomely that after a few minutes he gulped down a cup of coffee and bolted from the room. Some one tittered; It was Johnny Lefleur. Letty gave him a knowing wink. It so emboldened him that he looked Ike in the eye and said, “Pass them
ore-dough
pickles.”

Ike could have killed him with pleasure. Letty suspected as much and enjoyed it accordingly.

Supper was no sooner over than Reb began dispatching his men to the front, spreading them out along the North Fork and west of the Big Powder, north of Quantrell's line.

While her father was conferring with Reb and acquainting him with the fact that he was leaving for Vale in the morning, to be gone at least forty-eight hours, Letty sat on the porch with MacMasters.

It was a witching hour, the whippoorwills calling plaintively as they sailed over the sage. The Malheurs and the Juniper Hills were deep purple blurs. The valley itself was majestically beautiful in the mauve and lavender afterglow.

With all the cunning she could command, Letty tried valiantly to draw from the lawyer the reason for his presence. She failed dismally, MacMasters turning her queries with ease born of long professional experience.

When old Slick-ear came in, he bundled her off to her room with scant ceremony. He was anxious to hear what MacMasters had to say.

They talked for a long time. It was after nine when Letty heard them saying good-night. Her light was out, but she was not asleep. From her window she had a distant view of the North Fork. The moon had risen and the night was so bright that she could see an incredible distance.

She found her thoughts turning to Jim Montana. He was sound asleep in Wild Horse at the moment. She didn't know that; and not knowing, she thought only of the danger he might be in. MacMasters' sudden appearance was linked in her mind with the mysterious remark her father had made that day anent the courts still having something to say about this struggle. Whatever the move was, it was evidently coming to a head even sooner than her father had figured. That it could portend anything but ill for the other side seemed a foregone conclusion.

It distressed her to have to admit that her sympathies were not with her father. It savoured of dis-loyalty, and she reproached herself bitterly. But that did not alter the case.

“I can't help feeling they are the underdog in this,” she thought. “The Bar S is rich and powerful; they're poor and helpless, in a way. Doesn't seem to be the sporting thing to crush them.”

She and Montana viewed the struggle in quite the same light, yet it did not occur to her that his championing of their cause had influenced her at all.

“There are rights involved here which the law may not recognize,” she mused on; “but they are rights, just the same. Jim recognized that. I wish I could do something to help him.”

The night was very still. Several times she listened carefully, but the vagrant breeze brought no sound of strife to her ears. It was nearing midnight before she closed her eyes and slept, a prayer for Jim's safety on her lips.

Her father rapped on her door at half past five. At six o'clock they were having breakfast. Reb came in. The night had passed without a shot being fired.

“Don't take anything for granted while I'm gone,” the old man warned him. “I'll be surprised if you don't hear from them before I get back.”

In a few minutes they were ready to leave. Vale lay beyond the Malheurs, to the northeast. There was no road. The trail they followed had been used for years. Over it the corral poles and fence posts used on the ranch had been snaked down from the foothills.

At first they rode abreast. The air was keen and bracing, MacMasters found the scene inspiriting. Old Slick-ear was in a congenial mood. Letty seemed in the best of spirits, keeping up a running fire of conversation with them as opportunity permitted.

In the course of an hour the buck brush and clumps of willow along the dry wash of what in early spring was a flowing creek, leading to the Big Powder, began to bar the way. They strung out in single file, and Letty managed it so she drew up in the rear. For seconds at a time they were out of sight of one another.

Not more than fifteen minutes had passed when Mr. Stall and MacMasters heard Letty scream. They looked back to see her horse rearing and plunging back over the trail they had just come.

They wheeled their horses at once and took after her. Screened by the willows, she pulled her pony up, dropped the reins over his head and flung herself on the ground.

It was only a minute before they found her. Her eyes were closed and she was groaning piteously. Her father leaped out of his saddle and cradled her head in his arms. If she could have seen his concern she undoubtedly would not have had the courage to carry through her deception.

“Letty—” he called. “Are you hurt?”

“I guess she's fainted,” she heard MacMasters say. The two men were bending over her.

Letty opened her eyes slowly, a look of pretended pain twisting her lips. Her father was somewhat relieved. He asked MacMasters to get his canteen. He held it to her lips and made her sip a little water.

“What happened?” he demanded anxiously.

“My horse almost stepped on a rattler,” she lied convincingly. “I—I wasn't ready for it.” Her voice sounded very weak and faint.

“Well, are you hurt?”

“My ankle—” she groaned. “It's driving me mad. I—I'm afraid you'll have to cut my boot.”

Mr. Stall soon had the boot cut away so it could be removed. Letty obliged with a heart-rending groan as it came off.

“It doesn't look swollen,” her father said when he had removed her stocking.

“It'll begin to swell in a few minutes,” MacMasters put in, having been completely deceived. “You were lucky not to get a broken leg. We ought to bind it up right away.”

Letty told them there was a skirt in her saddle bag that would serve the purpose. They got it at once and tore it into strips.

“Not so tight, Father!” she protested as old Slick-ear bound the ankle. “Are you sure it isn't broken?”

“Why, no,” he grumbled. “It's just a little sprain.” He had begun to realize what a predicament he was in. Obviously Letty could not go on to Vale with them. He would have to take her back to the ranch and leave her there. He turned to his attorney. “This complicates things for us, Mr. MacMasters,” he said. “It doesn't look as though we could possibly get to Vale before evening now. We are going to lose two or three hours at best. We'll have to return to the ranch.”

“Naturally,” MacMasters said with good grace. “We can save a few minutes if we get started at once.” He turned to address Letty. “Do you think you can stay in your saddle if we lift you up? We'll walk the horses.”

“I'll take her up with me,” her father suggested. “It'll be easier on her and we can make better time.” He chewed at his mustache as usual when greatly perturbed. “I didn't want you to stay at the ranch,” he told her, “but it looks as though there was nothing else to do now.”

Letty gazed up at him with well-stimulated agony.

“Father—I don't want to stay at the ranch,” she sighed. “If you could get a rig we could drive out——”

“We'd have to go all the way around by Iron Point,” he cut her off. “It isn't to be thought of. I'm due in Vale this afternoon. Yesterday you insisted on staying; now you won't have it.” He shook his head hopelessly. “I can't understand you at all. If you have to stay at the ranch, you can do it, can't you? It isn't so bad as that.”

“But there's nothing to do. I thought it would be exciting. And the men—they're all laughing at me behind my back.”

“What?” he exploded. “Laughing over what?”

“Over my chaperon . . . . As though I were a child! I heard what they were saying. Calling him my nurse-maid! I won't stand it, Father! I refuse to stay there!”

“Now see here, Letty,” he grumbled, “no sense making a mountain out of a mole hill. If you have to stay there for a few days you will. I've got a right to expect some co-operation from you. As for having a man to watch you—I did it only because I was afraid you'd get adventurous and run into trouble. You'll not be able to do much running about now; so I'll put you on your own. I'll send a note to Mr. Russell.”

Letty gave in grudgingly. When she finally said yes he gave her hand a little pat of affection.

“I'll bring you an armful of books and magazines,” he promised. “It may be some days before you'll be able to leave.”

Their return to the ranch was of necessity slow. They had returned to within two miles of the house when old Slick-ear saw one of his men, off to the east. He hailed him.

“If you could go in with him,” he suggested to Letty, “we could save an hour. You'll find some liniment and arnica in my room. You'll be able to do about as much for yourself as I could.”

Letty propped herself up to get a glimpse of the on-coming rider. She was delighted to discover that it was Kin Lamb.

“I've made you trouble enough, Father,” she sighed. “There's no need of making you go all the way back to the house.”

Kin's face fell when he learned that he was to carry Letty back to the ranch. But an order was an order.

They transferred her to his horse, and Letty took a death grip on him. Her father warned him to be careful of her.

“Yes, sir,” Kin muttered. The “sir” in itself was proof enough of his agony.

They parted a few minutes later and soon lost sight of one another. Letty heaved a sigh of relief. She had won hands down, and her cup was still brimming over. She tightened her hold on Kin and pillowed her head on his shoulder.