The Land of Strong Men Part 28

"Braden tried once to find a purchaser for part of it, and he may try again." The judge's eyes twinkled. "In that case would you consider it your duty to warn the intending purchaser?"

Angus grinned, flus.h.i.+ng a little. "If it would help Miss Winton I would consider it my duty to mind my own business."

"It seems to me about the only chance she has to get back part of the money," said the judge. "While that chance exists, it is just as well to say nothing to anybody."

CHAPTER XVII

A CRISIS

Winter came with the going of the last brigades of the geese. The sloughs and lakes froze, and the ground hardened to iron, ringing hollowly beneath hoofs, rumbling dully to wagon wheels. It was cold, but there was no snow in the valleys, though it lay white well down the flanks of the ranges. On the benchlands there was nothing to relieve the dark gloom of the firs, the bareness of the deciduous trees, the frost-burnt dead of the gra.s.ses.

Angus had seen little of Faith Winton. At the French ranch he felt like a cat in a strange garret. He had little or nothing in common with the French boys, and certainly nothing with the young men who made the place a hang-out. Though old G.o.dfrey French was polite enough, Angus felt or thought he felt a certain cool contempt. Kathleen was the only one of the family with whom he was at ease.

He was now able to ride, and help round up the cattle for the winter.

But to his annoyance there were several head which could not be found.

Again they were steers, beef cattle. As in the case of the others, some years before, they seemed to have vanished utterly. Rennie was sure they had been rustled, and again he blamed the Indians. In the end he took his rifle and an outfit, and Angus knew that very little would escape his methodical combing. On top of his other hard luck Angus felt the loss badly. He was going to be very hard run for money. None too cheerfully he went at the various tasks of snugging up for the winter.

In these he had little or no a.s.sistance from Turkey. The youngster was absent more than ever, and, one morning when, instead of helping with fencing, he led out his mare saddled, Angus ventured remonstrance.

"There are a whole lot of things to do," he observed.

"No rush," Turkey returned. "Let 'em wait."

"I am not waiting."

"Well, I am," Turkey said, his tone suddenly truculent. "I've worked all summer and fall, and I want some fun. I'm going to have it, too."

"Perhaps I want some myself," Angus suggested, holding his temper.

"Oh, you!" Turkey's voice held careless scorn of Angus' desire for recreation. "Well, if you want it, go and get it. n.o.body's stopping you.

And n.o.body's going to stop me."

Angus shut his lips grimly over the words which rose to them. He saw his brother ride away, defiance in the set of his shoulders, and he turned to his work, bitterness in his heart. That, he reflected sourly, was what he got for sticking to work. He was the steady, reliable old horse.

n.o.body suspected him of a longing for other things. A working machine, that's what he was. For Jean he did not mind, but for Turkey! Why, in weeks the boy had made a mere bluff at working, for months he had slacked. Instead of doing a man's work as he should, he had been barely earning his grub. In sudden anger Angus sank a staple with a blow which snapped the hammer handle like a stick of candy. He threw the fragment from him with a curse. But the action and the oath did not relieve.

Instead of acting as a safety valve, his self-control slipped by that much. A black mood descended on him and persisted through the day. That night he ate in glum silence, smoked in silence, and went to bed without uttering half a dozen words to Gus, who, Turkey not having returned, was his sole companion.

He slept badly. In a period of wakefulness he heard the drum hoofs on the frozen ground and knew that Turkey was coming home at last. Looking at his watch by the light of a match he saw that it was nearly two o'clock in the morning. A nice time for a fellow to come home who expected to do any work the next day. But perhaps Turkey didn't intend to.

Turkey took his time putting up his mare. When he entered the house he tripped over a chair, coming down with a crash. Whereat he swore, and something in his voice made Angus jump out of bed and light his lamp.

With it in his hand he entered Turkey's room.

One look confirmed his suspicions. Turkey was more than half drunk.

Angus stared at him in angry amazement, and Turkey stared back, sullen and defiant, the b.u.t.t of a cigarette between his lips.

"Well," he said, "what you lookin' at?"

"At you," Angus returned. "Who got you drunk?"

"I ain't drunk," Turkey denied. "If I want a drink I guess I can take it without asking you."

"Who were you with?" Angus persisted.

"None of your dam' business!" Turkey told him flatly.

Angus hesitated. He felt a strong desire to man-handle his young brother, but finally he decided against it. He went back to bed, but not to sleep. His anger struggled with a feeling of responsibility for Turkey. The boy must not be allowed to make a fool of himself; but he was difficult to handle. He realized that he himself was the last person from whom he would take advice, but something had to be done.

Puzzling over his course he became aware that the room was no longer dark. It was not the dim light of dawn, but a reddish, reflected glow.

With the realization he bounded from his bed and into the living room.

There the light was brighter, and through a window which faced the stables he saw a shaft of flame lick high in the air.

"Gus!" he shouted. "Fire!"

As he dashed for his room and pulled on trousers and moccasins, he heard the weight of Gus. .h.i.t the floor above. Not waiting for him, he ran for the stables.

The stable yard and corrals were drenched in a red glare, and smoke and leaping sheets of flame were driving with a bitter south wind. The stock in corrals and sheds was bawling; in the stable horses were stamping and whinnying. For a moment he thought the stable was on fire, but as he vaulted a five-foot gate, not waiting to open it, he saw that it was not the stable but the great stack of hay close to it and directly to wind-ward.

Nothing could save the stack. The fire had a good hold and the flame sheets were leaping and smothering in hot smoke with the noise of a hundred flapping blankets. The fire and the sparks were driving directly at the stable. Its walls were of peeled logs, which offered little hold for fire, but its roof was of split shakes and its mow full of hay.

He threw the doors wide and began to turn the horses loose. But frightened by the glare and the smoke and the roar and crackle of flames, they hung back snorting, cowering in their stalls.

It was no time for half measures. Gus joined him, a fiendish figure in red flannel underclothes, which he wore day and night all the year round, for the big Swede had waited only to pull on a pair of moccasins. With whip and pitchfork they slashed and prodded the animals out.

"By the Yumpin' Yudas!" Gus cried, "Ay tank dae stable ban go."

It looked like it. The flames were reaching and snapping back, and flying streams of sparks were now driving upon the weather-worn, dry shakes. If the roof caught, or if a vagrant spark reached the hay with which the mow was filled, nothing could save it. But Angus was not inclined to lose his stable without an effort.

"Get all the horse blankets and wagon covers, soak 'em, and throw 'em up to me," he ordered. "I'm going up on the roof. Help me with the ladder."

A ladder hung on the north wall of the stable. Together they shot it up.

Angus grabbed a coil of lash rope and a couple of lariats, and ran up the ladder. Making the rope fast to the top rung and taking the coil over his arm he crawled up the steep slope of the roof. As he put his head over the ridge smoke stung his eyes and bit at his lungs. The pitch was fairly bubbling from the old shakes on the southern exposure.

Behind him Gus staggered up the ladder with an armful of dripping horse blankets which he had soaked in the ditch. Angus ripped off a bit of loose lining and tied it over his nose and mouth. Then, taking the wet blankets on one arm and a turn of rope around the other, he drew a full breath of good air and went over the ridge into the smoke and flying red cinders.

Down close to the eaves he saw a little, blue flame start and die, and start again and live. He went down, his body at right angles to the pitch of the roof against the pull of the rope, and spread a dripping blanket on it. As he did so a big fluff of burning hay lit above him.

He extinguished that. Little, creeping lizards of fire began to glow, and he beat them out and yelled for more blankets. The moisture was being sucked from his body, his eyes stabbed with pain and his lungs ached. Sparks clung to him and burned through to the skin, the heat of the roof struck through the soles of his moccasins. The little, creeping flames, starting everywhere, seemed personal enemies, and he beat upon them with wet blankets, and stamped upon them and croaked curses at them. Then Gus was beside him, a very welcome demon in his red garments, working like a maniac and swearing strange oaths. Together they kept the roof till the heat lessened, and the tongues and sheets of flame snapped no more in their faces, and blackened and gray ashes instead of red cinders powdered them, and where Angus' fine stack of bright hay had been was a red and glowing heap.

They came down from the roof and drank deeply from the running ditch, and the cold wind striking their overheated bodies through burnt and insufficient clothing, cut to the bone.

In the house, changing his burnt garments for warm clothes, Angus for the first time thought of his brother and looked into his room. The boy slept. He had known nothing of the fire.

"By Yimminy, dat kid sleep like a mudsill," Gus commented. "Ay holler at him when Ay go out, too."

"Let him sleep," Angus said. "Come on and get the horses into the stable again."

He spoke quietly, but there was bitter anger in his heart. It was bad enough that Turkey should lie in drunken slumber; but far worse than that he was the last person who had been near the stable and stack.