The Free Range Part 10

"If I do, it is none of your business," she replied, her eyes beginning to blaze.

"That dude sheepman, I allow. He's a gilt-edged vanderp.o.o.p, he is! But I'd hate to be in his boots, if you want to know it."

"Look here, Mike Stelton," and Juliet drew her horse abruptly to a stop, "either you say nothing more on this subject or I shall tell my father what you have done this afternoon when we reach home."

Instantly the man saw he had gone too far, and, with a quickness born of hatred, immediately changed his front.

"I was only thinkin' of protectin' you," he muttered, "and I'm sorry I was ornery about things. That feller Larkin is a bad lot, that's all. He wouldn't be out here if he wasn't."

Perhaps it was that Juliet had given a greater place to Larkin in her thoughts than she realized; perhaps his eloquent defense of wool-growing had not been sufficient explanation for his unheralded appearance on the range. Whatever the reason, the girl rose to the bait like a trout when the ice has left the rivers.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

"You remember that feller Caldwell that rode in late to supper the night Larkin come?"

"Yes."

"Well, I heard him blackmail Larkin for five hundred dollars back by the corral fence. An' Larkin knew what he had to do as soon as Caldwell showed up. Didn't yuh see him turn yaller at the table?"

As a matter of fact Larkin's perturbation at that time had been puzzling and inexplicable to Juliet. Also the disappearance of the two men immediately after supper had mystified her. But without admitting this to Stelton she asked:

"What was it all about?"

"I don't know exactly, Miss Julie, but it worked in somethin' he done back in Chicago a year or so ago. From what I heard 'em say, Larkin just dodged the calaboose. Now there ain't no disgrace in that--that's really credit--but that don't clear him of the crime noways. Why, I even heard 'em talk about two thousand dollars that Larkin give this Caldwell a couple of years back."

"How did you learn all this?" she asked.

"I was a goin' back to the corral for a rope I left hangin' on a post there, an' I heard 'em talkin'."

"And you listened, I suppose," remarked Julie contemptuously.

"Mebbe I did," he retorted, stung by her tone. "But you can be thankful for it. I'd be plenty mad if you throw'd yourself away on a man like-a-that. A hoss that'll kill one puncher'll kill another. Same with a man."

"What are you saying, Mike?" cried the girl, frightened out of her att.i.tude of aloof reserve. "Kill a man! He's never killed a man, has he?"

"He didn't say so in so many words, no ma'am, but that talk o' their'n was mighty suspicious."

Unwittingly Stelton had struck his hardest blow. To him, as to other rough and ready men in the West, life was a turbulent existence conducted with as few hasty funerals as was absolutely necessary. But in the girl who had absorbed the finer feelings of a civilized community, the horror of murder was deep-rooted.

She knew that to a man in Larkin's former position the slightest divergence from the well-defined tenets of right and wrong was inexcusable. Crime, she knew, was a result of poverty, necessity, self-defense or lack of control, and she also knew that Bud Larkin had never been called upon to fall back on any of these. How much of truth, therefore, was there in Stelton's innuendoes?

"Would you swear on the Bible that you overheard what you have told me?"

she asked suddenly.

"Yes, ma'am, I sh.o.r.e would," Stelton answered with solemn conviction.

There was no question now in her mind but that Larkin was paying the piper for some unsavory fling of which she had heard nothing. She did not for a moment believe that the affair could be as serious as Stelton wished her to imagine; but she was sorely troubled, nevertheless, for she had always cared for Larkin in a happy, wholehearted way.

Many times since her final coming West she had remembered with a secret tenderness and pride that this wealthy and popular young man had been willing to trust his life to her. It was one of the sweetest recollections of those other far-off days.

Now, because the thought of Stelton's revelations was unbearable to her she resolutely put it from her until a time when she could mourn alone over this shattered illusion.

"Thank you, Mike, for telling me this," she said gently. "Please never say anything further about it."

And Stelton, elated that his plan of revenge had worked so well, smiled with satisfaction and relapsed into silence during the remainder of the ride home.

All of these events are set down here with some pretense at detail to indicate the important trend of affairs after Larkin had said a more-or-less indifferent good-by to Juliet Bissell at the fork of Gra.s.s Creek. While he was wrestling with material problems, these others that destiny had suddenly joined to him were undergoing mental disturbances in which he was the princ.i.p.al though unconscious factor. And this unconscious prominence was to be the main reason for what next occurred.

It was perhaps noon of the day following Larkin's capture by the rustlers, when from a point directly east of the ranch house a cowboy appeared, riding at a hard gallop. Contrary to most fictions, cowboys rarely ever urge their ponies beyond a trot, the only occasions being the round-up, the stampede, the drive, or when something serious has occurred.

Mike Stelton saw the puncher from a distance and walked to the corral to meet him. Jerking his pony back on his haunches, the rider leaped from his back before the animal had fairly come to a stop.

"Mike, we've been tricked!" he cried. "That whole two thousand head of sheep are tracking north as fast as they can go far over east on the range, beyond the hills."

"What!" cried the foreman, hardly able to credit his ears. "The boys down on watch at the Big Horn swore they had scattered the flock last night when Larkin started to run them north on the range."

"Well, they swore wrong, then, for I've just come from where I seen 'em. I was over back of them hogbacks and b.u.t.tes lookin' for strays and mavericks when along come them muttons in a cloud of dust that would choke a cow. I allow that darned sheepman has made us look like a lot of tenderfeet, Mike."

Stelton at this intelligence fairly gagged on his own fury. Larkin had scored on him again. The two were joined at this moment by Bissell who had noted the excitement at the corral. When apprised of what had happened, the cowman's face went as dark with anger as that of his foreman.

Beef Bissell was not accustomed to the sensation of being outwitted in anything, and the knowledge that the sheep were nearly half-way up the range put him almost beside himself.

For a few moments the trio looked at one another speechless. Then Bissell voiced the determination of them all.

"By the devil's mare!" he swore. "I won't be beaten by any sheepman that ever walked. Stelton, how many men will be in to-night?"

"Fifteen."

"Get 'em and bring 'em to me as soon as they come."

While the foreman went off about this business Bissell learned from Chuck, the cowboy, just where he had seen the sheep last, how fast they were traveling, and how far he calculated they would go before bedding down for the night.

"I reckon the outfit ought to camp somewhere about Little Creek," said Chuck. "That's runnin' water."

"And how far beyond that is Little River?"

"Two miles more or less."

"Fine. Wait around till the rest of the boys come in, Chuck. Oh, by the way, how near are the sheep to our eastern herd of cows?"

"Five miles more will bring 'em to the range the cows are on now."

An hour before supper the rest of the punchers began to come in from riding the range and rounding up strays. Before they were permitted a mouthful, however, Bissell went out to the bunk house with Stelton.

"Boys," he said, "which of you was down at the Big Horn last night an'

turned them sheep back?"

A man spoke up and then two more who had been left on guard in the vicinity.