by Zane Grey
“Mr. Laramie, why isn’t there anything for father — or me — to worry about?” asked Harriet, seriously.
“Wal, I’m not so shore about yu, Miss Hallie,” he drawled. “‘Cause yu’re a young an’ handsome tenderfoot of the opposite sex from all the punchers, riders, an’ rustlers who infest this country. They’re shore not goin’ to let grass grow under their hawses’ feet, makin’ up to yu. An’ I just cain’t guess how yu’ll stand under thet.”
The merry laugh rang out at Harriet’s expense, and her absurd blush made it worse.
“Don’t let that worry you, Mr. Laramie,” retorted Harriet. “I can look after myself. I was thinking of father, his health and the business end of ranching.”
“If yu please I cain’t abide bein’ called Mister,” rejoined Nelson. “Wal, heah’s what Lonesome just said to me. An’ I shore can recommend it. ‘Dog-gone, Laramie,’ says Lonesome, ‘if our Lindsay outfit can only see this deal yore way, why, it’ll come out fine.’”
“Very well, Laramie, I am almost convinced myself,” replied Lindsay. “Explain what this way is that Lonesome places such store upon.”
Instantly the rider sobered a little and his eyes took on their usual piercing light. Harriet divined that his spirit leaped at an opportunity, for them as well as for himself and comrades.
“About yu first, sir. Yu air not so sick a man as yu think. I’ve seen many a man twice as bad off as yu come out cured an’ strong. Thet was in Nebraskie, which is shore not so wonderful as Colorado to put men back on their feet. . . . Now listen, boss. Forget trouble, loss, health, but take an interest. Rest a lot, but keep goin’. Sleep outdoors. Breathin’ this sage an’ mountain air all the time, livin’ out in the sun — why, it’ll cure yu. There’s a Mexican down in the valley. He raises all kinds of fruit an’ vegetables. He raises chickens, geese, turkeys, pigs. An’ cows, say, there’s a hundred milk cows. Shore he’s in yore employ an’ yu will live on the fat of the land.”
“Laramie, I feel a well man already. I’ll follow your advice absolutely,” declared Lindsay, earnestly.
“Wal, thet’s fine. Now about the business of ranchin’. Take an interest, shore, but don’t worry. If Miss Hallie has been yore manager an’ bookkeeper back in Ohio, she shore can fill the job heah. Anyone can see thet she’s smarter’n a man. It’d take more than Allen an’ Arlidge to cheat her. An’ they shore cheated yu, Mr. Lindsay, how bad I cain’t reckon yet. But pretty bad. Let me handle the men an’ the stock. Miss Hallie can handle the money. I’ll guarantee we could make this ranch pay if we started now without a dollar, an’ with only half the cattle I see out there on pasture. I know cattle. I know riders an’ rustlers. I can handle both. This ain’t no blowin’ my horn. Once for all I want yu to know thet. All my life I’ve wanted a chance like this. It’s the finest range I ever saw. We can run a hundred thousand haid of cattle heah despite the rustlers. Course I’m allowin’ for the usual run an’ work of thet breed. This mawnin’ I went below, after the wagons left, an’ I looked about. Allen’s outfit of nine riders were there, but Arlidge had gone. I reckon he did some tall thinkin’ last night. Anyway, I figgered he’d do just thet. Shore he could have taken these riders away, most of them, at least, but he thought better of thet, an’ for reasons I’ve got a hunch about. Some of these nine riders air no good, we can gamble on thet. An’ some others, maybe four or five of them, air or can be made faithful cowmen. It won’t take long for me to do thet. Then we’ll be ridin’ pretty.”
“Laramie, I feel tremendously encouraged — after being way down,” replied Lindsay, heartily. “Hallie, don’t you feel the same?”
“I think Nelson has a gift to inspire,” responded Harriet, gravely. It was impossible not to trust this Westerner, to feel his fire and force.
“If my daughter agrees, it is settled,” concluded Lindsay.
Laramie’s lean bronze face took on a dusky red. Probably it was a tremendous issue for him to have his chance hang upon a woman’s judgment. Harriet felt keenly for him, but all that she had of intuition and judgment were exercised in behalf of her father. As she met Laramie’s eyes they lost something of their piercing intensity, that eagle-look of pride, in a softening appeal which she trusted. He might be a blood-spiller, this cool, easy, drawling Southerner, but he was honest and he had her father’s interest at heart. Harriet felt a reluctance to association, even in the most impersonal business way, with a man notorious for his skill with a gun, for his killings. She struggled for the common sense she prided herself upon. She could not foster Eastern ideals upon this crude wild West. It might well be that only such a man as Laramie Nelson could bring success out of disaster. She had a glimmering that, out of gratefulness to him already, would rise something even stranger, perhaps respect. She endeavored to face the West with open mind.
“I agree, father,” she said, with finality. “I will work with Nelson.”
“Thanks, miss,” returned Nelson, somewhat huskily. “I hope I can live up to yore trust.”
“I hope and pray I do not make a mess of ranching,” said Harriet, fervently. “Now — where do we begin?”
“With the house heah,” answered Nelson. “There’s shore a lot of work. My idee is to have Fork Mayhew, who was the rider thet spoke up for himself an’ pards last night — I’ll have them herd the cattle pretty close in, while I put the rest of the outfit to work heah with us. Then I’ll take a ride out occasionally or send Lonesome an’ Tracks. An’ thet reminds me, boss. Do you happen to have a spyglass?”
“I brought both a telescope and field glass. Both presents to me. Didn’t know what to do with the darned things, so I packed them.”
“Good!” The rider rubbed his strong brown hands together. “We can sweep the whole range from the wall, an’ also see a lot of what’s goin’ on below, without anyone seein’ us. Shore I’m suspicious. Don’t overlook thet. . . . The place I’ve picked out for yore office, Miss Hallie, couldn’t be beat. It’s next to the gate on the left side. All stone walls, with heavy log door thet’d have to be chopped or burned. It’s got a large porthole front an’ back, which cut out some will do fine for windows. We’ve cleaned this all up spick an’ span. Nice stone floor. We’ll whitewash the walls, build in shelves, a desk, table, an’ whatever else yu want. In another day or two yu can move all yore papers, valuables, money, an’ such in there an’ lock the door with a feelin’ yu cain’t be robbed.”
“How you anticipate my wants!” exclaimed Harriet, warmly. The man was perplexing her with his practical suggestions.
“Shore, an’ thet ain’t nothin’,” returned Nelson, visibly pleased. “Lonesome has got some wonderful idees, but he won’t tell me. Says he wants the credit himself. . . . Wal, it’s work now. Yu folks camp out right heah till we get the rooms done, one by one. Girls, any bags or trunks yu need just point out to us an’ we’ll lug them over to yore camp.”
“But we’d better not unpack much until we have rooms all fixed up, new and clean,” replied Harriet, dubiously.
“Shore not. An’ yu-all better go the rounds with me to pick out just which of these stalls yu want for rooms. There air four big stone fireplaces with chimneys goin’ up through the walls, an’ thet is shore one grand thing for this ranch-house. It’ll get cold as blue blazes, but with plenty of wood yu’ll never know it’s winter. . . . Now, folks, I’d like to make a suggestion.”
“Nelson, you can’t make too many suggestions to suit us,” declared Lindsay.
“Wal, unfortunately, these heah stone fireplaces are not close together. I didn’t count this one Jud is usin’. Come to look about, this would make a first-rate kitchen. Wal, suppose we fix up the next stall with fireplace as a sittin’-room for yu, Lindsay an’ Mrs. Lindsay, with a door leadin’ into the next stall, which can be made into a bedroom. If yu want we can haul in a wood stove for thet, an’ for all bedrooms. Yore son Neale has already picked his on this side. Those stalls — or rooms, I reckon I should call them, for they shore were rooms before c
attlemen run hosses in heah — across on the other wing are bigger than these. Fifteen by about thirty feet. Thet’s a big room. It’ll take a lot of lumber, paint, an’ such to make them comfortable for all yore furniture, rugs, an’ nice things. It’s good I bought chisels an’ mauls. Else we’d had he — hail Columbia cuttin’ the portholes into windows.”
“Come on, Laramie,” cried Lenta, breaking her long rapt silence. “Help me pick a big room for Hallie and me, with a sitting-room next, where we’ll have a fireplace.”
“Shore. An’ where will yore other sister be?” rejoined Nelson, smiling.
“I’d like to be next to them. But I’m not afraid to be alone,” replied Florence.
“Strikes me funny,” laughed Mrs. Lindsay. “Here we are cooped in an old fort and planning offices, bedrooms, sitting-rooms. It’s just rich. I’ll have you all know that I want a parlor, a reception-room, a library.”
“Ha! Ha! Where you can entertain our numerous neighbors,” exclaimed Harriet, gaily. “Wait, mother dear, till you have a long look at our neighborhood.”
“Wal, thet’s about all, I reckon. No, I forgot somethin’,” went on Nelson, turning to Lindsay once more. “Where would yu want me an’ Lonesome an’ Tracks to bunk, sir?”
“Not far away, that’s certain,” declared Lindsay, bluntly.
“Wal, so we figgered, leastways till yu-all get broke in to the West.”
“Laramie, I would like you boys to camp right in that gate, at nighttime, anyhow,” asserted Lenta, vigorously.
“Wal, it’d never do to tell Lonesome thet,” drawled Nelson, with a grin. “He’d be unrollin’ his tarp under yore front door. Come on, girls. Pick out yore room an’ then I’ll go back to work.”
CHAPTER VIII
HARRIET PONDERED OVER her ledger and her diary, and she could have wept at the entries there. But the fact that kept back her tears, that made her rejoice in spite of all, was the truth about her father. After spending a week flat upon his back, during which he appeared to sink toward the verge, he had gotten up and stayed up, to the despair of his family. Then had come what Harriet believed one of his short improved spells that, like the others, would soon end, leaving him worse than ever. But this last time there was no relapse. And now six weeks had gone by! She could doubt no longer. He was on the mend. The high cool dry air of Colorado, with its wonderful quality to restore, had saved him. And that was enough. That was what they had all come West for, worked and endured and prayed for. Harriet wondered why she could not be unutterably happy and humbly grateful. But she was. She might not be able to show it like her mother, who cared for nothing except her husband’s recovery; or Florence, whose dreams had magnified in this benign environment; or Lenta, who adored everything and everybody, particularly the riders, around their new home; or Neale, who rode bucking broncos, or tried to ride them, and otherwise gravitated toward the life of the range. Nevertheless, Harriet knew that in her heart she was as deeply thankful as any of them. Only somebody had to run the ranch, and that devolving upon her, was a nightmare.
It was mid-June. She could look through the open iron-barred window of her cool stone-walled office down upon the green ranch and out upon the purple range. The air was full of dry sweet fragrance; flowers waved in the prairie grass; flocks of blackbirds swirled in clouds over the tilled fields and verdant pastures; the brook that had its source in the cottonwoods of the courtyard sang by her open door and crashed musically over the rocks down into the valley. If she chose she could step out and climb the stone steps to the ramparts of the old fort, and from there see a panorama of ever-changing mountains, ever-growing in magnificence, ever strengthening in her trials.
A month of such labor as Harriet had never seen equaled had transformed the interior of the old fort to a unique, spacious, comfortable and even luxurious home, and the courtyard, with its great cottonwoods, its mossy boulders and welling spring, into a shady, beautiful bower, which inspired rest and happiness.
Laramie Nelson had been the genius of this work. Early and late he had slaved at it, driving his faithful partners to their limit, and somehow extracting service out of Arlidge’s uncertain outfit. The debt of the Lindsays to Laramie Nelson could never be paid, yet it kept growing in what seemed to Harriet leaps and bounds.
Wherefore, then, had she any cause to be unhappy? Was this longing, half-bitter, frustrating burden a real or an imagined unhappiness? No shadow of the old heart-sickness had returned. That was past. But some new ill, secret and persistent, pervaded Harriet’s soul.
For one thing, the affairs of the ranch, so far as cattle were concerned, were disheartening. According to Nelson’s account, which he would not absolutely vouch for, Allen had left seven or eight thousand head of cattle, out of the ten thousand he received payment for, on the Peak Dot range. Of these more than four thousand head had been driven off by rustlers a few days before the Lindsays had arrived, and since then straggling bands, of a few head each, had disappeared. So that not many more than two thousand cattle remained, mostly cows and calves. All pertaining to this ranching business was amazing to Harriet; however, the fact that Nelson claimed he could find out where the stolen cattle had gone, but he could not recover them, surely had a good deal to do with Harriet’s seeing her ledger all red. She concealed her gathering wrath. It had grown upon Harriet that Nelson, though unquestionably honest, concealed the worst from her. She could not tell, however, whether this had to do with the impossibility of raising cattle in that country without fighting rustlers, or of some complexity in the situation Allen had left behind, the smoothing out of which she herself unconsciously combated. She had given Nelson to understand once for all, if he was to stay on at Spanish Peaks Ranch, that he must not resort to bloodshed. Had she tied his hands? Something Lonesome had been overheard to say had disquieted Harriet. And it had begun to dawn upon her that she must be poorly equipped for the task imposed upon her.
Harriet’s sense of duty and responsibility, as much as her pride, fired her to an ambition to succeed at ranching. She had been no small factor in her father’s success as a ship-chandler back on Lake Erie. He had still considerable means, but Harriet looked forward to the time when they could live on their ranching income. At the present day, however, that desirable contingency seemed far remote. According to Nelson the herd needed to be added to, built up, and guarded before it could command an income, but there was no sense in that until the rustlers moved away from Colorado or died of old age.
“They shore never will die with their boots on,” Nelson had concluded, with a hint of sarcasm.
That was the grave situation in regard to the main issue — cattle-raising. For the rest there were a number of perturbing developments for Harriet to cope with.
Nelson had been able to hold the Allen outfit of riders together until one and all of them had caught a glimpse of Lenta on a horse — then, according to the disgruntled Lonesome, “the dinged sons-of-guns couldn’t be druv off.”
Lenta’s reaction to the wild West was not wholly unexpected, although not even Harriet had seen the abandon with which the girl threw herself into everything around the ranch, from work to play. No one could accuse Lenta of shirking her share of the manifold tasks of home-making. Florence had confined herself to the things that concerned her own comfort, pleasure, and appeal. It was Lenta’s play, however, that lay open to criticism, and which vastly concerned Harriet. Her mother could not see it and her father only laughed. Neale took exception to Lenta’s carrying-on, as he termed it, which only added fuel to the flame. When Harriet was not worrying herself frantic for fear Lenta would be killed by a horse — the girl had already been thrown four times — or kidnapped, or worse, Harriet was rendered almost as desperate by her sister’s flirtations.
Neale, too, presented a problem. He had amazed them all by his hitherto undeveloped ability to stick to hard work, as he had outraged them all, especially his mother, by his drinking and fighting. To be sure, Harriet guessed that Neale was not solely to bla
me for this. All these riders, even Nelson, had an itch to play tricks on tenderfeet, and Lonesome was the worst of the lot. That boy was as incorrigible as he was likable; moreover, it appeared that Neale and Lonesome did not hit it off well together.
Like wildfire the fame of Florence’s beauty and Lenta’s charm had spread over the range. For three Sundays now riders from all over had called at the ranch. Lindsay made them welcome and his wife indulged her passion to entertain. What a picturesque group these range-riders made! They had come to see and to be seen. Lean, youthful, intent faces, some of them clean and fine, many of them hard, a few of them sinister — how Harriet reveled in a study of them! So far as the beauty of the Lindsay family was concerned, however, these riders might better have stayed away, for Florence could not see anyone except Ted Williams. That fact had become patent, accepted by all about the ranch.
“Where do they all come from?” asked Harriet, in amaze. “This lonely wilderness! So many young men!”
“Wal, I reckon they come from all over,” Nelson had replied. “An’ some of them air rustlers an’ hawse-thieves, Miss Hallie.”
“Oh no! . . . Nelson, how can you say such things?” exclaimed Harriet, almost indignant. “They seem not at all different from our own riders.”
“Wal, yu hit it plumb center. They shore ain’t any different atall from ours,” drawled Nelson, his light eyes, with their unfathomable clearness, making Harriet uneasy. “An’ I suppose yu even have a good word for Luke Arlidge?”
Nelson’s dry tone had added to Harriet’s embarrassment. She blushed, and that always annoyed her. No one else at the ranch had the power to bring the blood to her cheeks. It infuriated Harriet, and like a woman she sought to wound in return.
“Oh, Mr. Arlidge? Yes, I can say a good word for him. It seems he has parted with that disagreeableness he showed when we arrived. He’s entertaining. Father likes him. And you know he doesn’t want either Arlidge or Allen to be our enemies. And — we girls think Mr. Arlidge quite handsome — in a sort of bold and flashy way.”