The Rustler of Wind River Part 5

said she.

"Three dances, no less," said he, like a usurer demanding his toll.

He offered his arm, and straightway bore her off from the astonished Robin Hood, who stood staring after them, believing, perhaps, that he was the victim of some prearranged plan.

The spirit of his free ancestors seemed to be in the lithe, tall Highlander's feet. There was no dancer equal to him in that room. A thistle on the wind was not lighter, nor a wheeling swallow more graceful in its flight.

Many others stopped their dancing to watch that pair; whisperings ran round like electrical conjectures. Nola steered Major King near the whirling couple, and even tried to maneuver a collision, which failed.

"Who is that dancing with Frances Landcraft?" she breathed in the major's ear.

"I didn't know it was Miss Landcraft," he replied, although he knew it very well, and resolved to find out who the Scotsman was, speedily and completely.

"My enchanted hour will soon pa.s.s," said the Scot, when that dance was done, "and I have been looking the world over for you."

"Dancing all the way?" she asked him lightly.

"Far from it," he answered, his voice still m.u.f.fled and low.

They were standing withdrawn a little from the press in the room after their second dance, when Major King came by. The major was a cavalier in drooping hat, with white satin cape, and sword by his side, and well enough known to all his friends in spite of the little spat of mustache and beard. As the major pa.s.sed he jostled the Scot with his shoulder with a rudeness openly intentional.

The major turned, and spoke an apology. Frances felt the Highlander's muscles swell suddenly where her hand lay on his arm, but whatever had sprung into his mind he repressed, and acknowledged the major's apology with a lofty nod.

The music for another dance was beginning, and couples were whirling out upon the floor.

"I don't care to dance again just now, delightfully as you carry a clumsy one like me through--"

"A self-disparagement, even, can't stand unchallenged," he interrupted.

"Mr. Macdonald," she whispered, "your wig is awry."

They were near the door opening to the illumined garden, with its late roses, now at their best, and hydrangea clumps plumed in foggy bloom.

They stepped out of the swirl of the dance like particles thrown from a wheel, not missed that moment even by those interested in keeping them in sight.

"You knew me!" said he, triumphantly glad, as they entered the garden's comparative gloom.

"At the first word," said she.

"I came here in the hope that you would know me, and you alone--I came with my heart full of that hope, and you knew me at the first word!"

There was not so much marvel as satisfaction, even pride for her penetration, in it.

"Somebody else may have recognized you, too--that man who brushed against you--"

"He's one of your officers."

"I know--Major King. Do you know him?"

"No, and he doesn't know me. He can have no interest in me at all."

"Very well; set your beautiful red wig straight and then tell me why you wanted to come here among your enemies. It seems to me a hardy challenge, a most unnecessary risk."

"No risk is unnecessary that brings me to you," he said, his voice trembling in earnestness. "I dared to come because I hoped to meet you on equal ground."

"You're a bold man--in more ways than one." She shook her head as in rebuke of his temerity.

"But you don't believe I'm a thief," said he, conclusively.

"No; I have made public denial of it." She laughed lightly, but a little nervously, an uneasiness over her that she could not define.

"An angel has risen to plead for Alan Macdonald, then!"

"Why should you need anybody to plead for you if there's no truth in their charges? What is a man like you doing in this wild place, wasting his life in a land where he isn't wanted?"

They had turned into a path that branched beyond the lanterns. The white gravel from the river bars with which it was paved glimmered among the shadowy shrubs. Macdonald unclasped his plaid from his shoulders and transferred it to hers. She drew it round her, wrapping her arms in it like a squaw, for the wind was coming chill from the mountains now.

"It is soon said," he answered, quite willingly. "I am not hiding under any other man's name--the one they call me by here is my own. I was a 'son of a family,' as they say in Mexico, and looked for distinction, if not glory, in the diplomatic service. Four years I grubbed, an under secretary in the legation at Mexico City, then served three more as consul at Valparaiso. An engineer who helped put the railroad through this country told me about it down there when the rust of my inactive life was beginning to canker my body and brain. I threw up my chance for diplomatic distinction and came off up here looking for life and adventure, and maybe a copper mine. I didn't find the mine, but I've had some fun with the other two. Sometimes I'd like to lose the adventure part of it now--it gets tiresome to be hunted, after a while."

"What else?" she asked, after a little, seeing that he walked slowly, his head up, his eyes far away on the purple distances of the night, as if he read a dream.

"I settled in this valley quite innocently, as others have done, before and after me, not knowing conditions. You've heard it said that I'm a rustler--"

"King of the rustlers," she corrected.

"Yes, even that. But I am not a rustler. Everybody up here is a rustler, Miss Landcraft, who doesn't belong to, or work for, the Drovers' a.s.sociation. They can't oust us by merely charging us with homesteading government land, for that hasn't been made a statutory crime yet. They have to make some sort of a charge against us to give the color of justification to the crimes they practice on us, and rustler is the worst one in the cattlemen's dictionary. It stands ahead of murder and arson in this country. I'm not saying there are no rustlers around the edges of these big ranches, for there are some.

But if there are any among the settlers up our way we don't know it--and I think we'd pretty soon find out."

They turned and walked back toward the house.

"I don't see why you should trouble about it; this plainly isn't your place," she said.

"First, I refused to be driven out by Chadron and the rest because the thing got on my mettle. I knew that I was right, and that they were simply stealing the public domain. Then, as I hung on, it became apparent that there was a man's work cut out for somebody up here.

I've taken the ready-made job."

"Tell me about it."

"There's a monstrous injustice being practiced, systematically and cruelly, against thousands of homeless people who come to this country in innocent hope every year. They come here believing it's the great big open-handed West they've heard so much about, carrying everything with them that they own. They cut the strings that hold them to the things they know when they face this way, and when they try to settle on the land that is their inheritance, this copper-bottomed combination of stockmen drives them out. If they don't go, they shoot them. You've heard of it."

"Not just that way," said she, thoughtfully.

"No, they never shoot anybody but a rustler, the way the world hears of it," said he, in resentment. "But they'll hear another story on the outside one of these days. I'm in this fight up to the eyes to break the back of this infernal combination that's choking this state to death. It's the first time in my life that I ever laid my hand to anything for anybody but myself, and I'm going to see it through to daylight."

"But there must be millions behind the cattlemen, Mr. Macdonald."

"There are. It seems just about hopeless that a handful of ragged homesteaders ever can make a stand against them. But they're usurping the public domain, and they'll overreach themselves one of these days.

Chadron has t.i.tle to this homestead, but that's every inch of land that he's got a legal right over. In spite of that, he lays the claim of owners.h.i.+p to the land fifteen miles north of here, where I've nested. He's been telling me for more than two years that I must clear out."

"You could give it up, and go back to your work among men, where it would count," she said.