The Trail Horde Part 3

Business had strayed from the railroad track; it had left the station, the freighthouse, the company corral, and some open sheds, to establish its enterprises one block southward. There, fringing a wide, unpaved street that ran east and west, parallel with the gleaming steel rails, Business reared its citadels.

Willets buildings were not imposing. One-story frames predominated, with here and there a two-storied structure, or a brick aristocrat seeming to call attention to its substantial solidity.

Willets had plenty of s.p.a.ce in which to grow, and the location of the buildings on their sites, seemed to indicate that their builders appreciated the fact that there was no need for crowding. Between each building was s.p.a.ce, suggestive of the unending plains that surrounded the town. Willets sat, serene in its s.p.a.ce and solitude, unhurried, uncramped, sprawling over a stretch of gra.s.s level--a dingy, dirty, inglorious Willets, shamed by its fringe of tin cans, empty bottles, and other refuse--and by the clean sweep of sand and sage and gra.s.s that stretched to its very doors. For Willets was man-made.

From the second story of a brick building that stood on the southern side of the street, facing the station, Gary Warden could look past the red station into the empty corrals beside the railroad track. Jim Lefingwell, Warden's predecessor, had usually smiled when he saw the corral comfortably filled with steers. But Gary Warden smiled because the corral was empty.

Warden was standing beside a flat-topped desk at one of his office windows. Warden was big, though not ma.s.sive. He seemed to have the frame of a tall, slender man, and had he stayed slender he might have carried his flesh gracefully. But Warden had lived well, denying himself nothing, and the flesh which had been added had formed in flabby bunches, drooping his shoulders, sagging his jaws, swelling the back of his neck.

And yet Warden was not old; he had told some new-made friends in Willets that he was thirty-five. But he looked older, for a certain blase sophistication that shone from his eyes and sat on the curves of his lips, did much to create the impression of past maturity.

Warden dressed well. He was coatless, but he wore a s.h.i.+rt of some soft, striped material, with a loose, comfortable-looking collar and a neat bow tie. His hair was short, with bristles in the roll of fat at the back of his neck; while at his forehead it was punctiliously parted, and plastered down with precision.

Warden was not alone. At another window, her elbows on the sill, her hands crossed, her chin resting on the knuckles of the upper one, sat a woman.

She was young, slender, lissom. There was grace in every line of her, and witchery in the eyes that watched Warden with a steady gaze. She too, was hatless, seemingly conscious of the beauty of her hair, which was looped and twisted into glistening strands that fell over her temples and the back of her neck.

As she watched Warden, who was smiling at the empty corral, she withdrew her elbows from the window-sill, twisted around, so that she faced Warden, and idly twirled the felt hat that she took from her lap.

"Does something please you, Gary?" she asked with slight, bantering emphasis.

Warden's smile broadened. "Well, I'm not exactly displeased."

"With Willets--and the rest of it?"

"With that corral--over there." He pointed.

"Why, it's empty!"

"That's why."

"Why you are pleased! That is odd. As a buyer, I should think you would be more pleased if the corral were full--had cows in it. That is what you are here for, isn't it?"

"Yes," grinned Warden; "to keep it empty until it is filled with steers at my price."

"Oh, bother!" The woman yawned. "I am glad it is you and not I who is to deal with these clod-hoppers. I should turn sour--or laugh myself to death."

"Getting tired of it already, Della?"

"Dreadfully tired, Gary. If I could see one interesting person, or a good-looking man with whom I could flirt----"

"Don't forget our engagement, Della," warned Warden.

She laughed, shooting a mischievous glance at him. "Oh, it would be harmless, I a.s.sure you--mere moral exercise. Do you imagine I could lose my heart to one of these sagebrush denizens?"

"Not you, Della," grinned Warden; "that isn't your style."

The girl yawned again, and got to her feet, smoothing her ruffled skirts. Then she walked to a mirror on a wall near the door, and spent some time placing the felt hat on her head at a precise angle, making certain that the coils of hair under it were arranged in the most effective manner. She tucked a stray wisp into the ma.s.s at the nape of her neck, patted the glistening coils so that they bulged a little more--smiling with smooth serenity at the reflection in the gla.s.s.

"Well, good-bye, Gary. I left Aunt Hannah at Corwin's store. She'll be afraid I've eloped with you. No," she added, as Warden advanced toward her; "no kisses now. I'll look in again before we leave town."

She opened the door, and as it closed she flashed a smile at Warden.

Then he heard her descending the stairs. He watched the closed door for an instant, frowning disappointedly; then he strode again to one of the front windows, grinning as his gaze rested on the empty corral.

CHAPTER IV

REBELLION

Accident or design had placed the schoolhouse at the eastern edge of town. The invisible power which creates the schoolhouse seemingly takes no account of time or place. It comes, unheralded, unsung, and squats in the place where the invisible power has placed it, and instantly becomes as indispensable as the ungainly youth that occupies it.

All youth is not ungainly. Ruth Hamlin was considering the negative proposition as she stood on the little platform in front of the blackboard just before noon, calmly scrutinizing the faces of the score of pupils who composed her "cla.s.s."

About half of her pupils, she decided, were worthy of the affection she had bestowed upon them. The remainder were ungrateful, incorrigible hoodlums. There had been times when Ruth wondered if the task of teaching was worth while.

A good teacher must not be vindictive; and Ruth was trying her best to keep alive the spark of mercy and compa.s.sion that threatened to burn itself out.

Despite her apparent calm--the outward sign of cold self-control--Ruth's face revealed indications of the terrific struggle that was going on within her. Her face was pale, and though her eyes seemed to smile, there was a gleam far back in them that suggested thoughts of force, instant, vicious. Also there was wrath in them--wrath that threatened to break with volcanic fury.

The girl was of medium height, and yet she seemed to be almost tall as she stood on the platform. She was erect, her head was held high. She was slender, with a gracefully rounded figure, but as she stood there, her muscles straining, her chest swelling with the pa.s.sion she was trying to suppress, she must have appeared Amazonic to the culprits whose crimes had goaded her to thoughts of corporal punishment.

It was not difficult to single out the culprits. There were two, and they sat defiantly in their seats, sneering their contempt of the teacher's wrath, advertising their entire disregard for the restraining influence of rules.

Both were boys. The larger, freckle-faced, with an uptilted nose and belligerent eyes, was fully as tall as Ruth. He was broad and muscular, and it was evident that consideration for his size was one influence that had thus far delayed the punishment he no doubt merited.

It was evident, too, that the culprit suspected this, for as Ruth's hesitation continued he grew bolder and more contemptuous. And now, having divined that Ruth would not attempt to inflict the punishment she meditated, the young man guffawed loudly.

"Shucks," he sneered, winking piratically at his brother-culprit; "she's tryin' to run a whizzer in on us. She ain't goin' to do _nuthin'_!"

"Jimmy Singleton; you advance to the platform!" Ruth's voice came sharply, quavering with the pa.s.sion she had been suppressing until now.

She stood rigid until "Jimmy" got out of his seat with elephantine deliberation, and shuffled to the edge of the platform, where he stood, grinning defiantly.

Ruth raised the lid of her desk and took out a formidable willow branch, which she had cut only the day before from a tree that grew beside the Wolf near her cabin, in antic.i.p.ation of the present incident.

She had known for many days that she would have to punish Jimmy Singleton, for Jimmy had been growing daily less amenable to discipline.

But she had hoped that she would not be compelled to punish him--she had escaped that disagreeable task so far.

But there was no alternative, and though she grew deadly white and her legs grew weak as she drew out the willow switch, she advanced on Jimmy, her eyes flaming with desperate resolution.

As she reached Jimmy's side, he lunged toward her. He struck viciously at her with his fist, the blow landing on her shoulder near the neck. It had been aimed at her face, but she had somehow dodged it. The force of the blow brought Jimmy against her, and he seized her around the waist and attempted to throw her. She brought the switch down sharply on Jimmy's legs as they struggled, and the sting of the blow enraged the boy. He deliberately wrenched himself loose; then leaped forward, swinging his arms viciously.

He had not struck the girl fairly, but she was in a daze from the rapid movement, and she was not aware of what was going on around her, centering all her energy in an attempt to keep the boy from striking her face.

But she suddenly became conscious that a big form had loomed close to her; she heard a deep, angry voice saying: