The Free Range Part 29

The sensitive mouth was still wilful, though character was beginning to show there. He was, in fact, a grand mistake in upbringing. With all the instincts of a lover of beauty he had been raised by a couple of dull parents to a rule-of-thumb existence that started in a business office late one morning and ended in a cafe early the next.

It was the kind of life to which the poor laborer looks up with consuming envy, and which makes him what he thinks is a socialist. Given a couple of sharp pencils and some blocks of paper, along with sympathy and encouragement, Lester Larkin might have become a writer or an artist of no mean ability.

But the elder Larkin, believing that what had made one generation would make another, had started young Lester on a high stool in his office with a larger percentage of dire results than he had ever imagined could accrue to the employment of one individual. With the high stool went a low wage and a lot of wholesome admonitions--and this, after a boyhood and early youth spent in the very lap of luxury.

Thus, when the father died, the boy, at nineteen, knew more ways to spend a dollar than his father had at thirty-nine, and less ways to earn it than his father at nine. So much for Lester.

"Well, if I can help you in any way, Bud, let me know," he said when his brother had finished his story of the range war that was now reaching its climax. "I rather imagine I would like a jolly good fight for a change."

"I don't want you to get hurt, kid," replied Bud, smiling at the other's enthusiasm, "but I have an idea that I can use you somehow. Just stick around for a day or two and I'll show you how to 'walk' sheep so your eyes'll pop out."

"It's purely a matter of business with me," rejoined Lester. "Pictures of seventy men at five dollars apiece, selling only one to each, will be three hundred and fifty dollars. I think I'll stick."

"Suppose I get 'em all in one group so you can't take individuals, then what will you do?"

"I'll make more money still," retorted the other promptly. "I'll sell seventy copies of the same picture at five apiece and only have to do one developing. What are you tryin' to do, kid me?"

Bud laughed and gave up the attempt to confuse the boy.

During the next two days Bud saw more sheep-walking than he had seen since going into the business, and Lester amused himself profitably by taking pictures of the embarra.s.sed plainsmen, many of whom would not believe it possible that an exact image of them could be reproduced in the twinkling of an eye, but who were willing to pay the price if the feat were accomplished.

When he had filled all his private orders, the picturesqueness of the life and outfit with which he traveled so appealed to Lester that he made nearly a hundred plates depicting the daily events of the drive and the camp. And these hundred plates, three-quarters of which were excellent, form by far the best collection of actual Western scenes of that time and are still preserved in the old Larkin ranch house in Montana.

At the end of the two days the Gray Bull River was still twenty miles away and would require an equal amount of time to be reached and crossed.

During this period Bud Larkin knew nothing whatever of the fate of Jimmie Welsh and his companions, believing that they still held the repentant cowmen captive, and that the punchers in pursuit were still searching the bad lands for them--an almost endless task.

He was in a state of high good humor that his plans had carried out so well, and looked forward with almost feverish impatience to the glorious hour when the last of his bawling merinos should stand dripping, but safe, on the other side of the Gray Bull. The nearer approach to the stream brought a greater nervous tension and scouts at a five-mile radius rode back and forth all day searching for any signs of spying cowpunchers.

The thought that he might effect the pa.s.sage without hindrance or loss was stretching the improbable in Bud's mind, and he devoted much time every day to an inspection of his supplies and accouterments.

CHAPTER XXI

JULIE INVESTIGATES

The occasion when nine men with their hands tied behind them arrived at the Bar T ranch, accompanied by six others with Winchesters across their saddle bows, was an extremely happy one for Juliet Bissell. This happiness was not a.s.sociated, except superficially, with the capture of the rustlers, but had to do especially with the receipt of a certain smeared and blackened journal from a certain tall and generously proportioned young man.

The captives arrived at noon, but it was nearly supper-time before she had finished reading, around, amid, among and between the lines, despite the fact that the lines themselves left very little doubt as to the writer's meaning.

This was not the same beautiful girl Bud Larkin had left behind him that early morning of his escape. Since that time she had changed. The eyes that had formerly been but the beautiful abode of allurement and half-spoken promises, had taken on a sweet and patient seriousness. The corners of her mouth still turned up as though she were about to smile, but there was a firmer set to them that spoke of suppressed impulses.

She moved with a greater dignity, and for the first time became aware of the real worth of her mother, who until now she had somehow taken for granted. Martha's consternation and grief at her husband's sudden and prolonged disappearance, only broken by the visit of Skidmore and his camera, had been really pitiful, and the girl's eyes were opened to the real value and beauty of an undying love.

Her own misery, after the receipt of the letter brought by Skidmore, she had faced alone, and in her, as in all good and true natures, it had worked a change. It had softened her to the grief of another, and showed her, for the first time, that happiness is only really great when in sharp contrast with pain.

So this long and simple love-letter from Bud, while satisfying the cravings of the lover, stirred up again the misgivings of the doubter. And her cogitations resulted in the admission that Bud must be either one of two things. Either he was absolutely innocent of the imputations contained in the letter that Skidmore brought, or he was one of the most consummate villains at large.

There were grounds for both suppositions, and the girl, after hours of vain struggle, found herself still in the middle ground, but more nervous and anxious than she had ever been.

The arrival of Mike Stelton under guard two days after that of the other rustlers created a sensation. For the girl it was the blow that shattered another illusion, for although she had never cared for the foreman, her belief in his unswerving faithfulness to the Bissell house was absolute.

Now to see him the admitted leader of the gang that had steadily impoverished her father was almost unbelievable.

The man who brought Stelton in also brought a hurried scrawl to Juliet from Bud, which read:

Darling:

We are more than half-way up the range. Have recovered 1,500 head of rebranded stock, much of which is Bar T. Stelton is the head of the rustlers and I have the proof. Sorry to foist these criminals on the Bar T, but it was the nearest ranch, and besides, I want them there when your father comes home. Also I want to be able to tell you that I love you, and will love you always. With luck, two days ought to see the end of all these troubles.

Your Bud.

Probably the most miserable man in the whole cow country at this time was Smithy Caldwell. Aside from the fate he feared, his position among the captured rustlers was one of utter torture. The men had discovered that it was through his selfish scheming that Stelton had been betrayed, and they treated him with the cruelty and scorn of rough, savage men.

So, when Stelton appeared, Caldwell fairly cringed. With the strange, unreasoning terror of a coward he feared bodily harm at the hands of the foreman, forgetting that, in all probability, his life was forfeit sooner or later.

His fear was all but realized, for no sooner were Stelton's hands unbound as he caught sight of Caldwell than he made a leap for him and would have strangled him then and there had not others pulled the two apart.

"There, you whelp!" bellowed Stelton. "That's a sample of what you'll get later on. All I ask is to see you kickin' at the end of a rope, you yellow-bellied traitor!" And Smithy, clutching at his throat, staggered, whimpering, away.

The day after Stelton's arrival Juliet conceived the idea of questioning the foreman about the letter that she knew Smithy Caldwell had written her. At her request he was brought into the living-room of the ranch house with his hands tied to permit of the guard leaving them together.

Now that all Bud's prophecies in regard to the man had been fulfilled, she feared him, and one glance at his dark, contorted face as he was led in increased this fear.

For his part the very sight of this sweet, quiet girl for whom he had waited so long, and through whose lover he was now doomed, brought a very eruption of rage. His lips parted and bared his teeth, his eyes were bloodshot, and his swarthy face worked with fury.

"Mike, I'm sorry to see you here like this," said Juliet gently.

"A lot you are!" he sneered brutally. "You're tickled to death. Hope to see me swing, too, I suppose?"

"Don't talk like that," she protested, horrified at the change in the man.

"I'm going to try to see what I can do for you, though Heaven knows you don't deserve much."

Fury choked him and prevented a reply. At last he managed to articulate.

"What do yuh want of me?" he growled.

"I want you to tell me about a letter that I received a few days ago. It was brought here by a man by the name of Skidmore, who takes pictures."

At the identification of the letter, Stelton's eyes glittered and his mouth grinned cruelly.

"What do yuh want to know about it?" he asked.

"First I want to know why you wrote it?"

"I didn't write it," he snarled.

"Well, then, why you had Caldwell write it?"