by Zane Grey
“Hazelton, you impress me,” pondered the leader. “When Ormiston and my own daughter appealed to me to resent your arraignment of him, I had only one reaction. You were opposing him in my interest. I couldn’t take sides against that. It seems incredible…your effrontery…what you insinuated about him. Yet, you might possess some perspicuity…some insight denied to me and my partners. I have known of villains, and I have come in contact with a few, but I can honestly say I never have had dealings with even one. Men have trusted me, and I have trusted them, thank God. But this trek looms appallingly. That does not change me…frighten me in the least. I will make it. Still, I must think through every little and big detail, and miss nothing. It is my responsibility. And now I begin to see opposition, intrigue, perhaps treachery, blood, and death.”
“Boss, you can be sure of all of them,” Sterl rejoined earnestly. “And you can be as sure that my opposition to Ormiston is on your behalf. Otherwise, I’d have forced him to draw on me and shot him in the act.”
Dann nodded his shaggy golden mane like a sleepy lion. “Krehl, suppose you give me your angle, unbiased by your friend,” he said presently.
“Wal, if Sterl hadn’t been heah, an’ I had met thet hombre same as he did, we wouldn’t be botherin’ about Ormiston now, not a-tall,” drawled Red caustically.
“Meaning?” Dann roared.
“Meanin’, boss, thet when Ormiston rushed me like a bull, I wouldn’t have risked my precious right hand on his mug, like Sterl did. I’d jest have bored him, had a couple drinks of red likker, an’ forgot all about him.”
“Men, but that’s the red instinct to fight…to kill,” declared Dann. “Is it something raw developed in you cowboys by hard years? Where is the conscience, the religion, the justification in such acts?”
“Boss, thet’ll all come out in the wash,” Red replied. “We say Ormiston is not good…thet he threatens the success of yore trek. If no wuss! An’, so help me Gawd, he means wuss! Wal, give Ormiston the benefit of a doubt, an’ leave it to me an’ Sterl to find him out.”
“Reason, intelligence, courage,” the drover boomed. “These I respect above all other virtues. I am definitely committed to you cowboys in faith. You have my consent. Go slow. Be sure. That’s all I ask. Slyter, can you add anything to that?”
“No, Stanley. That says all. It is a terrific problem. But we chose it with our eyes open.”
“Yes, and nothing shall deter us. Hazelton, I was surprised and sorry, indeed, at the way Beryl took Ormiston’s part. She is a headstrong, passionate child. Then, Ormiston has gotten around her. They have spent a good deal of time together, so my sister says. Anyway, Beryl has been pleading with me to give into Eric’s and Ormiston’s demand that we take the trek by way of the Gulf.”
A silent acceptance of that statement attested to its significance. Red, only, dropped his gaze to the ground, and Sterl saw his lean, brown hand clutch until the knuckles shone white.
“Not that it influences me in the least,” continued Dann, rising. “I wanted you to know, that’s all…. I’ll leave you now, as it is supper time. Slyter, come to my camp later.”
Slyter arose also, shaking his head. “As if droving a mob of eight thousand cattle wasn’t enough! Leslie, I’m glad to have these wild Yankee cowboys with us.”
“Rath-thur, Dad,” she replied, her voice deep, and she walked a few steps with him, then returned.
“Dog-gone you, Leslie, cain’t you leave me an’ Sterl alone a-tall?” complained Red, but a child could see that he did not mean that.
Leslie looked from him to Sterl with troubled, grateful eyes.
“Run along, little girl,” Sterl said brusquely.
“Boys, you can’t exclude me…altogether,” replied the girl, breathing hard. “If Beryl is in it, so am I. And she is! She’s on Ash Ormiston’s side. He has been making love to her all along. She didn’t exactly brag of it, but I could see. Besides, I know her. She had all the boys at home in love with her. She likes it. Cedric, that boy today. He came on this trek solely because of Beryl. He’s an honest, fine lad. But he’s a man…a bold, unscrupulous man with girls. Neither her father nor my dad can see that.”
“Wal, my dear, we can see it,” Red returned persuasively. “An’ jest so long as he doesn’t get nowhere with you, it’ll be all right heah.”
“I hate him…hate him,” she declared, flaming. “And, oh, after today, I’m afraid I hate Beryl, too.”
“Kid, now don’t be in too big a hurry. I’m not as all-fired stuck on Beryl as I was, at thet. But let’s give her a chance.”
“Leslie, I want to talk seriously to Red,” interposed Sterl.
“But…Sterl…won’t you see me…later?” Leslie implored. “I know you’ve been angry with me for days. I deserve it. I’m sorry. I told Red to tell you I’d been a cat…. Everything seems to be messed up now we’ve fallen in with the other drovers. Dad is worried. I…Sterl, I couldn’t bear to have you despise me any longer.”
“Leslie, how silly! I never despised you…and I don’t,” Sterl replied with a smile. “I’ll come after you later.”
A light illumined her troubled face. She wheeled to bound away like a deer. For a moment the cowboys sat silent.
“Pard, shore you see how it is with Leslie?” Red queried.
“I’m afraid I do,” reluctantly admitted Sterl.
“Wal, it’s a hell of a good thing, if you’re good to her. An’ you’ll have me jumpin’ all over you, if you’re not. I reckon Ormiston an’ thet fracas over at Dann’s air to blame. She’s scared of him. I’ll bet she didn’t tell us all about thet hombre. Too innocent an’ modest, mebbe, or afraid we’d kill him.”
“Which is a safe bet,” Sterl said darkly.
“Hell, yes! If we were in Texas, one of us would have bored him long ago. But we jest cain’t do it heah, unless he’s the aggressor. An’ he’s too yellow an’ too smart to be thet. These Danns an’ Slyter air square, upstandin’ men who cain’t think evil, let alone see it. They’ve got to find out. An’ Lord knows what’ll come off before thet happens. Why, Ormiston might fool them all the way.”
“Red, what’s his game?”
“Easy to say, far as the girls air concerned. Leslie had it figgered. Shore he didn’t mean marriage with her. But he might with Beryl. If Dann gets to the Kimberleys with half his cattle, he’ll be rich, an’ richer pronto.”
“He’ll never get there with half his cattle,” Sterl rejoined.
“Hell, no. But Ormiston might figger thet way.”
“Red, we’re concerned with his intentions. It’s a cinch he’ll never end this trek with us.”
“I’ve got a hunch he doesn’t mean to.”
Sterl gave Red a searching gaze, comprehending, and indicative of swiftly revolving thoughts. “You red-headed cowhand! So your mind’s beginning to function? Talk!”
“Ormiston is too deep to figger pronto, unless we jump at conclusions.”
“All right. Jump.”
“No, pard, this is ticklish bizness. I’m almost afraid to speak out to myself what I think. Aw hell, he’s a louse an’ a stinker! But all the same, he’s one of those Australians, well-educated, like all of them, an’ he’s got some kind of standin’. Because he’s made the Danns think so.”
“As we know cattlemen, Ormiston is not hot enough for this trek?”
“Exactly. His passion is not the trek…this great pioneer drive across the Never Never…but what he can get out of it.”
“Pard Red, as usual you’ve hit the trail. We’re up against the deepest, hardest game we ever struck. Listen, let’s try a trick that has worked before. Tip off Slyter and Stanley Dann that you and I will pretend to quarrel…fall out…and you’ll drink and hobnob with Ormiston’s drivers, in order to spy on Ormiston.”
“All same goin’ to the bad stuff, huh?”
“Yes. And Red, you sure can do it.”
“Thet’ll queer me with Beryl. Not thet I care about it now.”
; “No. It’ll make a hero out of you, if through this you save her father.”
“Dog-gone!” Red exclaimed, his face lighting. “You always could outfigger me. Why, it’s a hell of a good idee. Only I hate to give up our comfortable tent.”
“Give up nothing,” Sterl replied forcefully. “In camp, at night, you can hobnob with those riders, and then sneak back to me.”
“Settled, pard, an’ the cards air stacked. Tomorrow night you an’ me will have a helluva fight, savvy? Only be careful where an’ how you sock me.”
“Right-o. There’s Friday. Red, I’m going to try to make that black understand our game.”
“Go ahead. Another good idea. I shore like that native. I’ll tell Slyter, an’ then talk to Leslie a bit.”
Friday stood on the brink of the riverbank. How magnificent he fitted into the wild scene! A golden aftermath of sunset hung in the valley; a full moon tipped the notch where the waterfall shone; the river ran amber and gold; waterfowl of bright plumage lined the sandbars; bird songs were so varied and commingled that there was contrast between discord and melody. The mile-wide grassy flat across the river was alive with cattle of different colors, and the smell of dust and manure was in the air.
“Friday, you sit down alonga me,” Sterl said to the native. “Me bad here. Trouble,” went on Sterl, touching his forehead. The black’s big eyes appeared to engulf him with in scrutable interrogation. Again Sterl received an impression that the black was quick, intelligent, mystic in his interpretation. Sterl summoned all his wit and feeling as he made an impressive gesture that embraced the mob of cattle. Then he smoothed out a little bare spot of sand and made marks on it. “We here,” he went on. “Long way, far up, big river. Long way farder big water…big gulf. Ormiston, and three drovers”—here Sterl held up three fingers— “want to go alonga gulf. Big boss, me, redhead, and Slyter want go along river, then cross this way…here…cross big land. No pads alonga here. Nobody know. Mebbe black fella know. Savvy, Friday?”
“Me savvy,” replied the black, and, tracing the gulf line, he shook his head vehemently, then tracing a line along the big river and across the big land he nodded just as vehemently.
“Good, Friday,” Sterl affirmed, strongly stirred. He would stake a great deal on this native. “You know country up alonga here?”
The aborigine shook his head. “Might be black fella tellum.”
This thrilled Sterl to the core. He touched Friday on his black breast. If the native could learn from these wild natives en route how wonderfully that would help! “Friday, get black fella tell?”
“Might be. Some black fella good…some bad.”
“Some white fella bad,” went on Sterl intensely. “Ormiston bad. Him wanta go this way. No good. Him make some white fella afraid. Savvy, Friday?”
The native nodded. He encouraged Sterl greatly. If he understood, then it did not matter that he could talk only a little.
“Ormiston bad along missy,” continued Sterl. “Alonga big boss’s missy, too. Him make magic alonga Dann missy. Him wants me.” And here Sterl struck his own breast. “Bad white fella. Afraid me. Afraid Red. Afraid Friday. Stab in back!” Here Sterl took out his knife and made as if to stab Friday from behind. “Friday, watchum all the time. Me watchum all the time. Savvy, Friday?”
The aborigine nodded his black head instantly with the mien of an Indian chief damning an enemy to destruction. “Friday savvy. Friday watchum. Friday no afraid. Bimeby black fella kill him!”
Sterl left Friday then and walked alone in the moon-blanched dusk. He thought he had cause to be elated. That black man was a tower of strength. His help would be inestimable. Sterl wondered if Friday had meant a black fellow would kill Ormiston, or if he would. Sterl inclined to the latter possibility, although Slyter had told him black men very seldom killed whites. In this case, however, there was profound incentive and persuasion.
Sterl forgot to call for Leslie, but, when she stole upon him, it was certain that she had not forgotten, and that with the moonlight on her rippling hair and sweet grave face and unfathomable eyes she was lovely.
“I waited and waited, but you didn’t come,” she said, taking his arm and leaning on him.
“Leslie, the talk I just had with Friday would make anyone forget. I’m sorry. But as you didn’t, well….” He looked down upon her with stirring of his pulse. In another year Leslie would be a beautiful woman, and irresistible. Long before that he divined she would cure his heartbreak. What a hopeless situation for a cowboy!
“You’ve forgiven me?”
“Really, Leslie, I didn’t have anything to forgive.”
“Oh, but I think you had. I don’t know what was the matter with me that day. Or now, for that matter. Today has been a little too much for your cowgirl. Red told me about cowgirls. Oh, he’s the nicest, cutest, strangest boy I ever knew. I adore him, Sterl.”
“Well, I’m not so sure I’ll allow you to adore Red,” Sterl stated, half in jest, half in earnest.
“Oh, but you misunderstand me, Sterl. I don’t mean love. I don’t love Red.”
“Yeah? What’s the difference?”
“I think to love him would be the opposite of how I hate Ash Ormiston?”
“I savvy. And see here, Leslie, now that we’ve made up, and you’re my charge on this trek….”
“How did you guess I longed for that?” she interposed frankly.
“I didn’t. But as you seemed upset this afternoon and put such store in my friendship, why I decided to sort of boss you.”
“Sterl, I’ll do anything you ask. Dad hasn’t any time for me. He’s so troubled over this trek. And Mum can’t see me, either. She thinks I’m still a little girl.”
“I started to ask sentimental and intimate questions, young lady. Would you mind telling me just what boys have been to you?”
“Not at all. They’ve been fun. Playmates, until a couple of years ago, when all of a sudden I changed. Then the tomboy fun somehow changed. All the boys there at Downsville made…well, advances. I didn’t like being kissed and hugged. That is until Cedric came. I guess I liked his kisses. But Beryl soon cut me out, and that was the end of that.”
Sterl did not need to hear any more about Leslie’s adolescence and puppy love. She was as transparent as crystal water.
“Leslie, to change the subject, this trek we’ve started has got me buffaloed.”
“Buffaloed? What on earth’s that?”
“It’s cowboy slang. Buffalo have a habit of stampeding. Millions of huge shaggy beasts rolling along like an avalanche.”
“Then I’m buffaloed, too. Sterl, I was doing fairly well, outside of my fear you didn’t like me any more. But since we got to this camp, and I saw Ormiston again…I’m just scared out of my wits. Silly me!”
“Scared of what?”
“Him. The trek. The split among the drovers. Beryl’s insult to you. Of which way to turn. Oh, so much.”
“Well, outside of Ormiston, I reckon there’s plenty to be scared about. Ormiston, though…you needn’t fear him personally, any more.”
“But I do. You don’t know Ash Ormiston,” returned the girl somberly.
“It looks as though I am doomed to get pretty well acquainted with him,” Sterl said grimly. “Keep out of his way. Always ride within sight of us. Never lose sight of me in a jam of any kind. Don’t go to Dann’s camp unless with us or your dad.”
“Dad would take me, and forget me pronto. I can’t stick in camp with Mum all these long evenings. Sterl, won’t you please let me be with you often like this? I couldn’t have slept tonight, if you hadn’t.”
“Yes, you can be with me all you want,” promised Sterl, helpless in the current. “But we must go to bed early. Remember, I have night guard. That means you’re slated for bed right now.”
“Oh, you darling,” she cried happily, and, kissing him soundly, she ran toward her wagon.
Chapter Eight
Slyter wanted to keep his mob of cattle intact,
so that it would not be lost in the larger mob. It was inevitable. Sterl told him that sooner or later there would be only one mob. All the cattle except Woolcott’s were unbranded.
Stanley Dann had foreseen this contingency, and his idea was to number the stock of each drover as accurately as possible, and, when they arrived at their destination, let each drover take his percentage of what was left.
Discussion of this detail was held at the end of the next day’s trek, in a widening part of the valley, where the stream formed a large pool, like a lake. Leslie, whose duty was to give a name to each campsite, called this one Green Pool. Ashley Ormiston objected to the idea of percentage, and, when Stanley Dann put it to a vote, Red Krehl sided with Ormiston. This did not mean anything much for the moment, because both Dann and Slyter were in the secret of Red’s apparent defection. It had other effects, however, inasmuch as it brought Beryl’s favor and infuriated Leslie. She was developing fast on this trip; she had a mind of her own, and she spoke it.
“Red Krehl, I’m ashamed of you,” she burst out, when Red approached the Slyter campfire that night.
“You air. Wal, thet’s turrible,” drawled Red, in a voice which would have angered anyone.
“I saw you, after we halted today. You were with Ormiston’s drovers. Very jolly! And after that conference at Dann’s you were basking in Beryl’s smiles. She has won you over for Ormiston.”