The Free Range Part 14

"Well, what do you want?" he demanded angrily.

"Bissell wants to see you," said the rider whose voice the sheepman recognized as that of Stelton.

Not deigning to enter an argument with the foreman, Bud walked back to where Bissell stood beside his horse.

"Now the sheep are out of the way, if you want to learn anything about rustlers I guess our friend here can tell you," remarked Stelton suddenly, in a voice exultant as it was ugly.

"Oh, yes, father," added Juliet, "he's been with them for almost two days."

"Is this so, Mr. Larkin?" asked Bissell.

"Yes."

"Well, we won't discuss it now," said the cowman. "Let's go back to the ranch house and get something to eat. I have an extra horse here, Larkin, if you care to ride."

"I don't care to, thanks," answered Bud dryly. "Since you have ruined me, you will do me a favor by letting me go."

"I allow I'd like to do you a favor," rejoined Bissell with equal courtesy, "but I've got to find out about them rustlers. We won't keep yuh long."

"Come on, get up on that horse," said the voice of Stelton close beside him, and Bud turned to look into the long barrel of the foreman's gun that was stuck under his nose.

Trembling with suppressed fury, he did as he was told, but on the ten-mile ride to the Bar T ranch said nothing, and only revolved in his mind one question: How did Stelton know he had been with the rustlers before Julie had said anything about them?

CHAPTER XI

MADE PRISONER

At three o'clock the next afternoon Beef Bissell felt better than he had for some time, this condition being a result of his vindictive triumph over Bud Larkin, and the fact that that young man was in his hands. He felt that the back of the sheep business had been broken as far as his range and his county were concerned.

I have put the opening of this chapter at three o'clock, because that was the hour at which life began to be manifest at the Bar T ranch after the stirring events of the night before. Bud Larkin himself, worn out with his nights and days of vigil, had gone to sleep on his bed almost in the act of taking his boots off. Vague ideas of escape had coursed through his mind only to be overtaken and killed by the slumber he had evaded for so long.

His window faced southwest, and when he awoke it was to find the dazzling gold of the sun warming his face. For a moment he did not realize where he was, staring thus into the blinding radiance; but memory is only a few seconds sleepier than its master, and shortly everything came back to him.

A sinking sensation came over him as he remembered the wanton slaughter of his sheep, more because of the helpless agony of the poor dumb brutes than because of the monetary loss, although the latter was no trifling consideration, since nearly eight thousand dollars had been wiped out in less than half an hour.

Added to this sickening sensation was one of dull, choking rage that Bissell, a man of wealth and certain prominence in the State, should suggest and pursue a course that the most despised sheep-herder would never countenance. That, Larkin told himself, showed the real man; the rough, crude product of a rough and bitter country.

For the slogan of the earlier West was selfishness.

"All this is mine and don't you come a-nigh me!" bawled the cowman when the nesters or grangers began to make their appearance.

The cowboy himself was the chief exponent of this philosophy. Restraint was unknown to him--his will was his law, and he tried to make it everyone else's. When thousands of men have the same idea the result is trouble; hence the practice of cluttering up one's person with artillery.

The one person for whom the cow-puncher had no respect and for whom the cow country was no fit abiding place was the man who allowed himself to be domineered. For that man convict-labor on a coral road would have been paradise compared to his ordinary existence.

Thus was the West the supreme abode at that time of the selfists or anarchists who have no thought or consideration outside their own narrow motives and desires.

Though Bud Larkin could not have a.n.a.lyzed his feelings in words, perhaps, yet he felt this keenly, and knew that now or never must he take his stand and keep it. He labored under the double handicap, in this country, of having gone in for sheep and having been beaten at it the very first thing. Consequently, if he ever expected to gain any caste, or at least a hearing, he must turn the tables and that as soon as possible.

At the present moment, as he washed his face in the thick white wash-bowl that made the guest-room of the Bar T celebrated for leagues around, he had nothing but the remotest ideas of how this might be done. The fact, in brief, was that his sheep were and would continue piling up in the hills north of the Badwater, ready to enter the hazardous stretch of dry territory that had so nearly been disastrous to his first flock.

Until he should be free and could reconnoiter his chances and resources he would hesitate to order them sent north. And yet they could not stay forever near the Badwater. Neither could they be halted on their march north, because they were crossing the range of Wyoming sheepmen at the time and common plains courtesy demanded that they be removed as fast as possible.

But for the fact that Sims was in personal charge Bud Larkin would have been in utter despair. Such was his confidence in his indolent herdsman that he felt that though ultimate failure attended their efforts no blame could ever be attached to Sims.

Leaving the guest-chamber, Larkin immediately stepped into the dining-room and the gloomy thoughts fled, for there sat Juliet near the window, sewing. She greeted him with a smile and immediately rose.

"Well, Mr. Man, I thought you would never wake up," she remarked in mock reproof. "I've been waiting here since dinner to see that you had something to eat when you came out. You must be wild hungry."

"I could eat a saddle," said Larkin.

"Sorry, but the saddles are all out," she replied with a smile. "However, we have some nice fresh broiled quirts, garnished with rawhide."

"Bring me a double order," said Bud, laughing, as he seated himself.

When he was almost through with his meal Juliet remarked:

"Father asked me to say that he would like to have a talk with you on the veranda when you were ready."

"I'll go right out," he answered, thanking her for the trouble she had taken.

He found Bissell seated in one of the big chairs outside, and took the other. Both men rolled a cigarette and then Bissell spoke.

"I owe you a great deal, Larkin, for saving my daughter last night," he said with genuine emotion in his voice. "Under the circ.u.mstances I am sorry for what I did, and wish I had it to do over again."

"As for the first, I don't deserve much credit. Juliet really saved her own life by coming to us when I fired the warning shot. As to the sheep, it's too late to think about them now; we'll come to another reckoning in that matter later on. I'd hardly expect a horse-thief to do a trick like that."

Bissell's tanned face turned a deep mahogany hue under the sting of this remark, and his eyes lost the soft look they had held when he spoke of Juliet.

"I'm willing to pay yuh the money loss," he replied, still anxious to make amends.

"On guarantee, I suppose, that I don't try to bring the rest of my sheep north."

"Yes."

"That's impossible, as you might know."

"I allow you're right foolish, Mr. Larkin; better think it over."

"I did that last night when the sheep went into the river," said Bud dryly.

"I suppose so, but a night's sleep sometimes changes a man's mind."

"Not mine. The first night I was here I told you that I would bring my sheep north, and I still intend to do it. I am always willing to meet a man half-way; but you wouldn't meet me. Instead of that you started in to ruin me. I have no objection to that, but you'd better take care that your schemes don't work two ways."