Hope Hathaway Part 7

"_Interested in the sheep industry?_ Well, I should say not! It never occurred to me before as an industry, only as a nuisance. I hate sheep.

They ruin our range. One band can eat off miles and miles in a season, and spoil all the water in the country. I would go miles out of my way to avoid a band of them."

He began slowly to comprehend. "Your people have cattle, I understand.

Everyone up here seems to have cattle, too. I have heard that a strong feeling of antagonism existed between sheep and cattle owners, but thought nothing about it. I see that the feeling is not confined to the men only. Does that explain this--outrage here to-night?"

She shrugged her shoulders slightly and turned away.

"You can draw your own conclusions. Why do you ask me? I am neither a cattle-man nor a sheep-man, yet I could advise that you look about the place and see, if you can, what is meant by it all--what damage has been done. The wagon is still some distance away." Her shyness was fast disappearing. The ground she trod now was her own. He smiled down at her, finding her more natural, more prepossessing in that mood.

"I should have thought of that myself before this. After what you have told me of your dislike for the animals, I can hardly ask you to go with me, but I do not like to leave you here alone in the dark, for I must take the lantern; however, I can wait until the men get here."

"You don't need to wait at all," she said quickly. "I'll go with you, for I am curious to see what has been done--the cause of all this."

"Then come on," said the man briefly, turning toward the corral. She kept near him, her eyes following the bright rays of the lantern that swung in his hand. She feared that the boys had aimed too low, and was nervously anxious to see just what mischief had been done. Almost anything, she thought, would have been better than permitting those thousands of sheep to be piled up at the bottom of the cut-bank and the brutes of men to ride away satisfied with their dirty work.

Livingston examined the sheep while Hope, with a glance here and there about the enclosure, went to one side and looked at the panels carefully, discovering many bullet holes which told that her brave scouts, more bloodthirsty than she suspected, had aimed too low.

"I think this one is dead," said Livingston, dragging out a sheep from the midst of a number huddled in one corner. "Judging from the blood, I should say it is shot. A few are piled up over there from fright, but so many are sleeping that it will be impossible to determine the loss until morning. The loss is small; probably a hundred piled up and hurt, not more, from the looks of the band. I heard considerable firing, which lasted about a minute. I wonder if my friends about here thought they could kill off a band of sheep so easily."

Hope had not been searching for sheep, but for dead or wounded men, and finding none breathed easier. She thought of the man whose hand she had marked and who fell in such a panic among the sheep. It struck her as being a very funny incident, and laughed a little. Livingston heard the laugh and looked around in wonderment. He could see nothing amusing.

This Western girl was totally different from any girl that he had known, English or American. She must possess a sense of humor out of all proportion with anything of his conception. He thought a few minutes before that he loved her, but she seemed far removed now--an absolute stranger. The boyish laugh annoyed him. His manner as he turned to her was quite as formally polite as ever her own had been. She resented it, naturally.

"Step outside, please, until I drive in the ones near the gate, so that I may close it."

Instinctively she obeyed, with a defiant look which was lost in the dimness of the night, and hurrying past him never stopped until she drew back with a shudder at the blanket-covered form of the dead herder. A deep roar of thunder startled her into a half-suppressed scream. In the lantern's light she had not noticed the steadily increasing darkness, or the flashes of lightning. She felt herself shaking with a nervous excitement which was half fear.

Thunderstorms often made her nervous, yet she would not have acknowledged that she feared them, or any other thing. But her nervousness was only the culmination of the night, every moment of which had been a strain upon her. Another peal of thunder followed the first, fairly weakening her. She ran to her horse and, mounting, rode up near the corral. At the same instant the wagon came up, and Livingston, having placed the panel in position, turned toward it. He was close beside the girl before he saw her, and she, for an instant at a loss, sat there speechless; but as he held up the lantern, looking at her by its light, she blurted out, in a tone that she had little intention of using: "I'm going. Hope you will get along all right. Good-night."

"Wait!" he exclaimed. "I will accompany you. My horse is here now. Just a moment----"

"You don't need to go with me. Someone is waiting for me down there. I think I hear a whistle."

"Then I will go along with you until you meet the person whose whistle you hear. You do not imagine that I will allow you to go alone?"

She leaned toward him impulsively, placing her hand down upon his shoulder.

"Listen," she said softly, "I heard no whistle. There is no one waiting for me. A moment ago it seemed easy to lie to you, to make you believe things that were not absolutely true, but I can't do it now, nor again--_ever_. You think I am heartless, a creature of stone--indifferent.

It isn't so. My heart has held a little place for aching all these years. Think of me as half-witted,--idiotic,--but not _that_. Listen to me. You have such a heart--such _tenderness_--you are good and kind. You will understand me--or try to, and not be offended. I want to go home by myself. I _must_ go back _alone_. There is a reason which I will tell you--sometime. I ask as a favor--as a friend to a friend, that you will stay behind."

"But are you not afraid?"

She interrupted him. "Afraid? Not I! Why, I was born here, and am a part of it, and it of me! Ask your men there, they know. I want to ride like the wind--alone--ahead of the storm, to get there soon. I am tired." Her low, quick speech bewildered him. Her words were too inconsistent, too hurried, to convey any real meaning.

"Will you ride with one of my men?" he asked.

"Oh, why _can't_ you let me do as I wis.h.!.+" she cried impatiently. "I want to go alone."

"It seems quite evident that you do not want _my_ company, but one of the men must go and take a lantern. It's too dark to see the road." His tone was decisive.

She leaned toward him again. This time her words fell harshly.

"You are a man of your word?"

"I hope so; but that is not the issue just now."

"Then promise you will not go with me to-night."

"No need of that. I have decided to send one of my men--and I think," he added briefly, "that there is no necessity of prolonging this conversation. Good-evening."

"Then you will not come!" she exclaimed, relieved. "And never mind telling your man, for I shall ride like the wind, and will be halfway home before he can get on his horse." She turned like a flash. The quick beats of her horse's hoofs echoed back until the sound was lost in the distance.

Livingston stood silent, listening, until he could no longer hear the dull notes on the dry earth--his thoughts perturbed as the night.

CHAPTER VIII

Captain Bill Henry, foreman of the Bar O outfit, and head by choice of the season's round up, had just ridden into camp. Most of the men were in the cook-tent when he turned his dripping bay horse in with the others. Then he picked up his saddle, bridle, and blanket and carried them up to the cook-tent, where he threw them down, hitting one of the stake-ropes with such violence as to cause the whole tent to quiver, and one of the boys inside to mutter under his breath:

"Lord, the Cap's on the prod! What in the devil's he got in his gizzard now?"

"Don't know," answered the second, returning from the stove, where he had loaded his plate with a wonderful a.s.sortment of eatables and seated himself on a roll of bedding beside the first speaker. "Too bad he couldn't knock the roof off'n our heads. He's sure enough mad, just look at him!" he whispered, as Captain Bill Henry stooped his tall, lank frame to come into the tent.

The men, sitting about inside, glanced up when he entered. Some of them grinned, others went on with their supper, but the "Cap" from under his bushy red eyebrows hardly noticed them as he took the necessary dishes from the mess-box and strode over to the stove, around which old Evans, the cook, moved in great concern.

"Now just try some o' them beans. Regular Boston baked, Cap, they'll melt in your mouth. An' here's a kidney stew I've been savin' fer you,"

taking from the oven a well concealed stew-pan. "If any o' them boys 'ud a found it they'd made short work of it, I reckon."

He removed the cover and held the dish under Bill Henry's nose. The "Cap" gave one sniff. "Phew! Take it away! Don't like the d.a.m.n'd stuff, nohow!"

A dazed look pa.s.sed over old Evans' face, giving way to one of mortal injury. Not a man smiled, though several seemed about to collapse with a sudden spasm which they tried in vain to control. Away went the contents of the pan, leaving a streak of kidney-stew almost down to the horse ropes. "If it ain't good enough fer you, it ain't fer me," said the cook, his bald head thrown well back upon thin shoulders.

The "Cap" glared at him as he poured out a generous measure of strong coffee into a large tin cup, then ran his eye about the tent for a possible seat.

A quiet-looking fellow, a youth fresh from the East, got up, politely offering him the case of tomatoes upon which he had been sitting. Bill Henry refused it with a scowl, taking a seat upon the ground near the front of the tent, where he crossed his lank legs in front of him. The cow-puncher sank back upon his case of tomatoes while the "Cap" ate in great, hungry mouthfuls, soaking his bread in the sloppy beans and was.h.i.+ng it down with frequent noisy sips of hot coffee. Finally he began to speak, with a full Missouri tw.a.n.g:

"This beats h.e.l.l! Not a dang man around this part of the country wants to throw in with this here outfit. Never saw no such luck! Here we are with two months' steady work before we make town, an' only ten men to do the work o' fifteen! I'll hire no more devilish breeds. You can't trust 'em no more'n you can a rattler, no, sir! All of 'em quit last night, an' Long Bill along with 'em! I'd never thought it o' Bill. Been ridin'

all the evenin' an' couldn't find hair or hide of him. It's enough to make a man swear a blue streak, yes, sir! Well, I rounded up one breed limpin' 'round Harris' shack, an' he said his gun went off by accident an' give him a scratch on the calf o' the leg. Bet ten dollars he's been in a fight over there! d.a.m.n'd nest o' drunken louts! I'll be glad when we're away from these here parts!"

At this point one of the cowboys got up, threw his dishes into the pan, and strode outside.

"You on night-herd to-night?" asked the Captain.

"Yep," answered the cow-puncher. "Going to relieve Jack."

"Tell them other fellers to come along in an' git their chuck; it's mighty nigh time to turn in now. Got to make Miller's crossing in the morning."