CHAPTER VI
GAIN AND LOSS
Alice Page was but an episode in the life of the Mackays, but herinfluence was far-reaching, at least with Angus and Jean. She stimulatedin the former a taste for reading, dormant and unsuspected. She made himsee that he was wasting his evenings, and she got him books of historyand travel and voyages, with a sprinkling of the classics of Englishfiction. Angus, who had been unaware that such books existed, took tothem like a young eagle to the air, for they opened the door to theromances of the world.
Though nobody save Alice Page suspected it, the grim-faced boy was fullof the romance of youth. At heart he was an adventurer, of the stuff ofwhich the old conquistadores were made.
Jean needed no encouragement to study. Outwardly, Angus was hard andpractical. Outwardly, Jean was thoughtful and at times dreamy. Inwardlythe reverse was true. Jean was more practical than he, less inclined tosecret dreams. She intended to fit herself to teach, and her studieswere a means to that end. But most of Angus' reading, apart fromtechnical works, was the end itself. He was not conscious that it wasdeveloping him, broadening his outlook, replacing to some extent moreintimate contact with the outer world of men and affairs.
Thus time passed and another year slid around. Alice Page was gone,teaching in a girls' residential small college on the coast. The ranchwas beginning to respond to the hard work. Stock on the range wasincreasing in numbers and value. More settlers were coming in, and landwhich had been a drug on the market was beginning to find purchasers.
Angus had grown into a young man, tall and lean, quite unstiffened byhis hard work. Turkey was a youth, slimmer of build and smaller of bonethan his brother, but wiry and hard and catlike in quickness. Jean hadgrown from a slip of a girl into a slender, brown-eyed maid. She wasthrough with the local school, and though she never hinted at it, Angusknew quite well that she desired to attend the college where Alice Pagetaught. It was characteristic of him that he said nothing until he couldspeak definitely. But one night he told her she had better get ready togo. Jean was startled.
"How on earth did you know I was thinking of that?"
"It didn't need the second sight of old Murdoch McGillivray," herbrother returned. "You had better get such things as you want."
"But--can you afford it?" she asked doubtfully.
"Yes. You write to Alice to-night."
So in the early fall Jean went away, and her brothers missed her verymuch; Turkey, because he had now to mend his own clothes and take a turnat the cooking, and Angus because he had confided in her more than inanybody else.
When the fall grew late and the snow near, Rennie rode the range forstock, which was usually split up into small bands, scattered here andthere in valleys and pockets along the base of the hills. Each bunch hadits own territory, from which it seldom strayed unless feed got short.Therefore any given lot could usually be found by combing a few squaremiles. Before the heavy snows these bunches were rounded up and drivento the ranch to winter there. But this time Rennie could find no traceat all of one bunch.
"It's them three-year-old steers," he said, "that used in between CatCreek and the mountain. They sure ain't on the range."
"They must have drifted off. Maybe the feed got short."
"The feed's good yet--never saw it better this time of the year."
"Likely they've gone up one of the big draws off the pass," Angussuggested.
"Well, I wish you'd tell me which. I've rode every draw for ten mileseach way, and durn' if I can find a hoof."
This was serious. It was up to them to find those steers before the snowcame. Angus had no mind to see them come staggering in in mid-winter,mere racks of bones; and apart from that he had counted on the proceedsof their sale to pay Jean's expenses and some of the interest onBraden's mortgage. Accordingly, he turned himself loose on the rangewith Dave and Turkey. They spent the better part of a week in the saddleand rode half a dozen ponies to a show-down, but of the missing stockthey found never a trace.
"I'll bet somebody's rustled them," Turkey decided.
"Bosh!" said Angus.
"If you're such a darn' wise gazabo, why don't you find 'em?" Turkeyretorted. "What do you think, Dave?"
"Don't know," said Rennie. "Blamed if it don't look like it."
"Rustled--nothing!" Angus exclaimed contemptuously. "There aren't anyrustlers here."
"There never was no rustlers no place till folks began to miss stock,"Rennie pointed out mildly.
"But who would rustle them?"
"Well, of course that's the thing to find out."
It was a puzzle. Every steer wore the MK, and mistakes of ownership wereout of the question. From calfhood they had summered on that range,coming in fat and frisky to winter by the generous stacks. There was nogood reason why they should have left it. Not only had the entire rangebeen combed carefully, but none of the other cattle owners had seenthem.
"If they been rustled," Rennie decided, "it's good bettin' it's Injuns.Some of the young Siwashes is plenty cultus."
"What could they do with them? They couldn't range them with their ownstock."
"No, but they could drive them south if they was careful about it, andmix 'em up with the stock of them St. Onge Injuns, and nobody'd be aptto notice. I've sent word to a feller down there to ride through andtake a look."
In due course Rennie heard from the "feller." The steers were not on theSt. Onge reserve. Thus Angus was up against a blank wall. Nobody woulddeal openly in stock plainly branded. Garland knew as much as anybody oftransactions in stock, but he had heard nothing which might give a clewto the missing steers.
With the passage of time Garland and Angus were on terms again, thoughnaturally there was little cordiality. But apparently Garland retainedno active ill-feeling. The occurrences of that night were known tonobody but the three participants. As for Garland himself having hadanything to do with the steers, it seemed out of the question. He hadnever been mixed up in any shady transactions, and apart from that,handling stolen stock would be too risky for him. There were only a fewwhite men who were not above all suspicion; and these there was noreason at all to suspect. But for that matter there was no more reasonto suspect any Indian. Rennie, however, had a species of logic all hisown.
"No reason!" he grunted. "Why, you say yourself there ain't no reason tosuspect a white man. Then it's got to be an Injun, ain't it? Sure! Ongen'ral principles it's a cinch."
But Angus did not hold with this view. Though he had no specialaffection for Indians--as few people who know them have--in his opinionthey were no worse than other people in the matter of honesty. The oldermen he would trust with anything. Some of them, especially the chief, avenerable and foxy old buck named Paul Sam, had been friends of hisfather.
"I'll have a talk with old Paul Sam the first time I see him," he toldRennie. "He's as straight as they make them."
"Well, I guess he's the best of the bunch," Rennie admitted.
A day or two afterward Angus met Paul Sam on the range, looking forponies. Though the Indian was old, he sat his paint pony as easily as ayoung man. In his youth he must have been as straight and clean-cut asa lance, and even the more than three score and ten snows which hadsilvered his hair had bent his shoulders but little. He was accompaniedby his granddaughter, Mary, a girl of Jean's age, who, being his lastsurviving relative, was as the apple of his eye. He had sent her tomission school and denied her nothing. As he owned many horses and alarge band of cattle, Mary had luxuries unknown to most Indian girls.She was unusually good-looking and a good deal spoiled, though Paul Sam,being of the old school, cherished certain primitive ideas concerningwomen.
He listened in silence to Angus' statement regarding the missing stock,surveying him with a shrewd old eye.
"You think Injun kapswalla them moos-moos?" he asked with directness.
"I didn't say anybody stole them. I'm just trying to find out what'sbecome of them."
Paul Sam grunted. "All time white man lose moos-moos, lose kuitan, himtum
tum Injun steal um," he said. "All time blame Injun. Plenty cultusInjun; plenty cultus white man, too."
"That's true," Angus admitted.
"You nanitch good for them moos-moos? Him all got brand?"
"Yes."
The old man reflected. "Spose man kapswalla um no sell um here," heannounced. "Drive um off--si-a-a-ah--then sell um."
This was precisely Rennie's reasoning.
"Where?" Angus queried. But on this point Paul Sam had no theory. Nobodycould tell, but some day it might be cleared up.
"Well, if you hear anything of my steers, let me know," continued Angus.
Paul Sam nodded. "Your father my tillikum," he said. "Him dam' goodskookum man. S'pose me hear, me tell you."
But the young eyes of Mary had sighted ponies to the left. She announcedthis to her grandfather in soft, clucking gutturals.
"Goo'-by," said Paul Sam.
"Good-by," said Angus. "Good-by, Mary."
The girl nodded, with a flash of white teeth and a glance which dweltfor an instant admiringly on Angus' long, lean body. Then she shook upher fast pony and sailed away through the timber of the benchland toround up the bunch of half-wild cayuses, while her grandfather followedat a pace better suited to his years.
But the fall went and the snow came, and Angus got no news. It was aheavy loss just then, which he could not afford. Somehow it must be madeup, and the only way he saw to do it was to cut cordwood. The price waslow and the haul was long, but it was a case, for he had to have themoney.
So all that winter he and Gus cut and split, while Rennie hauled andTurkey looked after the house and the feeding. And so all through thecold weather they made cordwood. It did not make up for the loss of thesteers, but it helped, and he was able to send money to Jean.
The long winter passed. The days lengthened and the sun mounted higher,so that it was warm on the south side of house and barn and stack. Thesnow went in a glorious, booming Chinook wind that draped the rangeswith soft, scudding clouds, and set every gulch roaring with waters.The ground thawed, and earth-smells struck the nostrils again. Upagainst the washed blue of the sky flocks of geese bore their waynorthward. One morning they heard the liquid notes of a meadow-lark.Then came robins and bluebirds, and a new season opened with a rush.
The Land of Strong Men Page 6