"I don't admit that water can't be got on this land. Now, see here, I'm going to have a surveyor run the line of a ditch, and I want you to tell Chetwood you were mistaken in your levels. Understand?"
"If you can show me I'm mistaken, I'll be glad to tell him. But I'm certain of them. I've checked them up since."
"Dammit!" Mr. Braden exploded angrily, "do you know I hold a mortgage on your ranch? Do you know I hold your note? Hey?"
Angus stared at him for a moment, his black brows drawing down, his eyes narrowing. "And what has that got to do with the levels of this land?" he asked with disconcerting directness.
But Mr. Braden shirked the show-down.
"Do with it, do with it!" he sputtered. "Oh, not a thing, not a damned thing, of course. You were my agent to conclude this sale, and you threw me down."
"I wasn't your agent. I was acting for Chetwood."
"You were to get a commission from me."
"I told you I couldn't take one."
"Well, you won't get one," Mr. Braden snapped. "Levels! What do you know about levels? I'll get somebody that does."
But for some reason Mr. Braden did not do so.
It was nearly a week after this interview, that old Paul Sam rode up on his paint pony, leading Chief.
"Me sell um cooley kuitan," he announced.
"Who bought him?" Angus asked. For answer the old Indian drew forth from the recesses of his garment a slip of paper, which he handed to Angus. The latter read:
"Dear Mackay: I want you to let me have the pleasure of presenting a good horse with a good owner. This, not by way of payment for the service you did me, but in token of my appreciation of kindness to a pilgrim and a stranger here. Am leaving for a few weeks, and will look you up on my return. Faithfully,"E. W. F. Chetwood."P. S.—Don't be a bally ass. Keep the horse."
"Dear Mackay: I want you to let me have the pleasure of presenting a good horse with a good owner. This, not by way of payment for the service you did me, but in token of my appreciation of kindness to a pilgrim and a stranger here. Am leaving for a few weeks, and will look you up on my return. Faithfully,
"E. W. F. Chetwood.
"P. S.—Don't be a bally ass. Keep the horse."
From this surprising letter Angus lifted his eyes to the big chestnut. As he did so he realized that he had wanted him very badly. He took the lead rope from the old Indian.
"All right, Paul Sam," he said. "Thanks for bringing him over. Put your cayuse in the stable and come up to the house and have some muckamuck."
Now, though Angus was working hard under pressure, the hard part of it was not the work but the things he wanted to do and could not. Though he plugged away steadily at his tasks, his thoughts were not of them, but of lonely trails, and steep hills, and deep timber, and the surging waters tumbling down in nameless creeks from hoary old glaciers; and he would have given all he owned if he could with a clear conscience have quit the ranch work and taken a holiday. But as he could not, he worked on grimly.
Occasionally, however, he rode the range after stock, and on these occasions he carried a rifle, on the chance of getting a shot at a deer. Invariably now he rode Chief, who was becoming a most dependable saddle horse. And so one bright fall morning he rode along the foothills to find, if he could, a small bunch of cattle which he himself had not seen since Spring.
Shortly after mid-day he found himself near the site of an old logging camp, where several creeks united to form a muskeg, and at the foot of it a little lake. Out of the lake a larger creek ran, and across it stood the old camp buildings, now worn and weatherbeaten and roofless. The banks were steeply cut and the old pole bridge was rotten. Therefore Angus put Chief on a rope where the grazing was good, and taking his lunch and rifle, crossed the creek, intending to eat beside an excellent spring which was better than the creek water.
He leaned his rifle against one end of the ancient bunkhouse, went the length of it, turned the corner, and came full upon a huge, old-man grizzly.
The bear had been digging at a rotten stump, which strewed the ground in fragments, and the brawl of the creek had drowned whatever noise Angus had made. Thus it was a case of mutual surprise. As Angus turned the corner the bear's senses brought him warning. He turned his great, flat head, and at sight of the intruder his mane roached and bristled, and he swung about with unbelievable quickness. Being more or less penned by the wall of the eating camp and an old pole fence, he probably believed himself cornered. He half rose, with a snort, and his fierce, little eyes lit with a green flare.
Angus had had no first-hand experience with grizzlies, though he had seen them at a distance. Nevertheless, he knew a good deal about them from men who had, and his information amounted to this: The ordinary grizzly will run if he can; but if he is wounded or believes himself cornered, there is no telling just what he will do. Also there are "bad" bears, just as there are "bad" bulls or stallions.
The bear was a complete surprise to Angus. He was so close that he could almost smell him, could see the little pieces of rotten, wet wood and slaver on his jaws, the red of his mouth and the white of his tusks all speckled with dirt from his grubbing. For a moment his heart almost stopped beating, his hair prickled, and stood on end, and his knees knocked together. For an instant he stood frozen in his tracks, and then as he saw the great brown bulk gather itself he came to life and action. With an involuntary yell he leaped into the air like a scared lynx, turned and hit the ground running.
Behind him he heard a short, coughing roar, and it nearly doubled the stretch of his stride. He made the length of the bunkhouse, turned it and grabbed for his rifle. But his fingers merely brushed the barrel and knocked it down. There was no time to pick it up. He doubled the next corner like a rabbit and after him came the grizzly, with most infernal persistence.
For a short distance a grizzly is as fast as a good pony, and all that had saved Angus was dodging around corners. But that could not go on indefinitely. The walls of the roofless bunkhouse were of logs, closely mortised, but inside he knew there were the remains of some old, double-decked bunks. It was taking a chance, but he ducked through the door opening, scrambled up on the bunks, the old poles crashing beneath him, and straddled the top log just in time to escape the swipe of a steel-garnished paw which actually brushed his leg.
From this strategic position, rather out of breath and somewhat shaky, he looked down at the grizzly, and the bear looked up at him, rumbling and grumbling to himself, his wicked, little eyes burning with unholy lights. He was a big bear, shaggy and rough, with a sprinkle of gray in his mane, and there was no doubt that he was annoyed. As a beginning he knocked a bunk to pieces with one lift and bat of a paw, and rearing he reached for Angus. Luckily the wall was high, and the big claws raked bark and slivers below him. Not being able to reach his enemy, the bear dropped back with a grunt, and stood swinging to and fro gently.
It occurred to Angus that he might drop over the wall, get his rifle and call for a show-down, but as he waited to get back some of his breath and steadiness, meanwhile hitching along the wall to get closer to the gun, the bear shambled through the door. He trotted around the bunkhouse, and coming to the rifle sniffed at it and took a wide circle. Perhaps he knew the smell of steel, and suspected a trap. But after prowling up and down for a few minutes eying the treed man, he did not go away, which was quite contrary to what Angus had heard of the habits of bears under similar circumstances. He lay down like a dog, apparently prepared to camp there indefinitely.
From where Angus sat he could see Chief, standing hip-shot and half asleep, quite unconscious of the bear, and he was glad that the latter was equally unconscious of the horse, for he seemed full of racial prejudice against man and his possessions. All Angus could do was wait it out. An hour passed, and he grew weary of his position, and indignant at being forced to lie along a log like a lizard by a low-grade proposition like a bear. He tore off bark and pelted him with it. The grizzly merely eyed him evilly and sniffed at what he threw; so Angus gave it up, and more time passed.
In spite of his position the sun and wind made him sleepy. Perhaps he dozed. He had seen and heard nothing. But suddenly as he turned his head he saw a girl a few yards away from the old eating-camp.
For a moment Angus did not believe his eyes. It seemed one of those vague visions which flit across the mental retina in that dim shadowland between wakefulness and slumber. She was looking down into the finder of a camera, while back of her, reins lying on its neck instead of a-trail, stood a pony. She was tall and straight, and a crown of hair shone to the slope of the afternoon's sun, for she was using a pony hat to shield the camera's lens.
Angus gaped and blinked, and then he knew it was no dream vision, but real flesh and blood. Just then she got her picture and took a step or two in his direction, winding up the film.
"Hi!" Angus hailed, "don't come here. Get on your pony, quick."
Being very much in earnest, voice and words were harsh, peremptory. The girl stopped short and looked around. Then for the first time she saw him perched on the wall.
"I beg your pardon!" she said, her voice carrying clear and full, a touch of hauteur in her tone answering the harshness of Angus' command. "I'm not to come there, you say. Why not?" Her chin lifted as she spoke and she took another step forward.
"Bear!" Angus returned. "Get back, I tell you. I'm treed by a bad grizzly. Get on your pony and pull out before he sees you."
The girl stopped. "Do you mean that?" she demanded incredulously.
"Do I mean it?" Angus yelled, exasperated by her delay and frightened at her very real danger. "Get a move on you, woman, if you have any sense! He hears you now!"
His tone left no doubt of his sincerity, and the girl, turning, ran toward her pony. But the animal, not being anchored by the reins, sidled away at her swift approach.
"Hurry up!" Angus shouted, for the big savage below him, hearing another voice, was bristling afresh and suddenly started around the corner of the building to investigate. Just then the pony either sighted or smelt the bear, for he snorted, wheeled and broke into a gallop. "Run!" Angus yelled. "Get behind that eating-camp. Try to climb it, quick!" And not having time for more words he dropped from his perch, lit sprawling alongside his rifle, seized it, and jumped around the corner into the open in the wake of the grizzly, his hand hooked into the lever, while a long soft-nose snicked home in the chamber.
The girl, now fully alive to her danger, was running for the corner of the eating camp, and the grizzly, halfway between, was after her. So much Angus saw at a glance, and then he caught the lumbering but swift bulk fair center with the bead, and unhooked.
With the high-pitched, smacking voice of the rifle mingled the roar of the wounded grizzly. He went heels over head like a shot rabbit, came on his feet again facing the gun, took a second bullet as if it had been a pellet of bird-shot, and coughing out a fighting roar that seemed to hold all the bestial ferocity of the ages, came for Angus like a furry tornado.
There is this about a grizzly which entitles him to respect: When he charges, he charges home. This fact Angus knew very well. The bear was a scant forty yards away. Angus caught the center of him with his sights, and began to pump steadily. His entire attention was concentrated on holding the sights, and otherwise the gun seemed to shoot itself. Missing was next to impossible at that range, but so also was choice of aim. "When anything's comin' for you close up," Rennie had once advised him, "don't try to hit nowhere's special, but just hold plum' center and keep shootin'." While Angus did not consciously remember this advice, he followed it, with a dull wonder that the stream of soft-noses tearing through the great brute's vitals did not stop him. His last shot was fired at ten feet, and the hammer clicked down on an empty chamber. As the brown bulk hurled itself upon him, he lunged the rifle barrel with all his force into the yawning, white-tusked, red mouth. But as he tried to leap aside a huge paw blurred for an instant before his eyes and then blotted out the world. He went down, crushed and smothered as by the weight of mountains.
Angus came out of the darkness slowly with the weight still upon him. There was a strange, salt taste in his mouth and a rank smell in his nostrils. His head seemed pillowed, but his eyelids were gummed, and when he threw up his hand to clear them his fingers touched wetness. Then through a raw, red fog he saw a girl's face bending above him, and blue eyes that seemed misty as an April sky through showers, though perhaps it was only his uncertain vision that made them so.
"Please say something—if you can hear me!" said a low, clear voice as his senses came back fully.
"All right," he said. "I'm all right, I guess. What's holding me? What's on me?"
As his eyes shifted downward, a huge mound of brown fur rose against them, hiding the landscape. It was the carcass of the bear which lay across his legs, burying them from the waist down.
"I can't move it," the girl told him. "Oh, are you badly hurt? Can you take a drink of water? I'll lift your head!" She spoke all in a breath, tremulously, for she had considered him almost a dead man. She lifted his head from where it lay in her lap, and held an old tin can full of spring water to his lips.
Angus drank and felt better.
"I don't think I'm hurt much," he said. "Where is all the blood coming from?" He put his hand to his head, touching gingerly a four-inch rip in his scalp. There was a pain in his side which was worse when he moved, but he said nothing about that and otherwise he could find nothing wrong.
"You must get out from under that brute," the girl told him. "I've tried to pull it off, and I've tried to pull you out, but I'm not strong enough."
She stooped behind him, her hands beneath his shoulders, and he drew his legs clear of the weight. When he got to his feet he was giddy for a moment and leaned against her for support. With her assistance he got to the spring, and washed off the coagulated blood, while she made a bandage of their handkerchiefs and fitted it deftly. The icy water cleared away the last of the fog, and save for a growing stiffness and soreness he felt well enough. He looked at the girl who sat beside him on the brown grass and wondered who she was and where on earth she had come from.
The girl was tall, and clean and graceful as a young pine. She carried her head well lifted, which Angus considered a good sign in horses and human beings. A mass of fair hair was coiled low at the base of it and drawn smoothly back from a broad forehead. Her eyes were a clear blue which reminded Angus of certain mountain lakes, and yet a little weary and troubled as if some shadow overcast them. Her smooth cheeks, too, were pale, with but little of the color that comes from the kiss of wind and sun. She was an utter stranger to him, and yet there was something vaguely familiar.
The fact was that he was staring at her. She met his gaze evenly.
"Do you know that you are lucky not to be badly hurt?" she said.
"It would have served me right if I had been."
"Why?"
"For leaving my rifle in the first place, and for rotten shooting in the second," he replied seriously. "I should have stopped him, and so I would if I had taken my time about it. I guess I got rattled."
"Is that your trouble?" she laughed. "The bear is simply riddled with bullets."
"Is that so?" he returned with obvious pleasure. "Tell me what happened."
"I stopped running when you fired the first shot," she said. "You and the bear seemed to go down together, and he rolled clean over you. It was only in his last flurry that he threw himself across your legs."
"Lucky he didn't claw me up in that flurry. He was a tough old boy."
"If you had been killed it would have been my fault," she said seriously. "You were quite safe, and you attacked him to save me."
"I would have come down, anyway, the first chance he gave me to get hold of my rifle."
"It was stupid of me," she persisted. "At first, you see, I couldn't believe there was a bear. I thought you were trying to frighten me. And then I justcouldn'tcatch that pony. I'm not used to horses, I'm afraid."
Now, as she spoke, something in her voice struck a chord in Angus' recollection. Where had he heard that faint lisp, that slurring of the sibilants? For a moment he puzzled, groping for an elusive memory. And then suddenly it leaped at him out of the one day, years before, whose happenings, even the least of them, he never forgot. And he saw a little girl, frightened but trying to be brave, and a lanky boy confronting her with a rifle.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "you are little Faith Winton!"
She frowned, drawing herself up a little.
"I am Faith Winton, but how do you know? Have I ever—" She broke off, staring at him. "Why, it's impossible. You can't bethatboy!"
"I used to be," he told her. "I've grown a little, since."
"Angus! Angus Mackay!" she cried, her face lighting swiftly. "Oh, I know you now. I've never forgotten. And your sister's doughnuts! How good they were, and how good you were to me!" She leaned forward, catching his great, brown, work-hardened paws in her slim hands. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you again, Ang—I mean Mr. Mackay."
"My name is still Angus."
"Oh, but that was years ago. How did you recognize me? I was such a little girl. To think of meeting you again—like this!"
"I knew you by your lisp," he told her. "And I wish you would call me 'Angus.'"
"Well—Anguth!" She said it with the old lisp. "I can't help it sometimes," she confessed. "I struggle and struggle, and then I forget myself and—lithp. Do you mind it very much?"
"I like it."
"Tho nithe of you to thay tho!" she exaggerated laughing. "No, I won't lisp any more—until I forget myself. But how big you are—almost as big as Gavin himself."
"I am big enough," Angus admitted. "I get in my own way sometimes." For the first time he noticed a black band on her sleeve. She caught the glance.
"My father died two months ago." Her voice broke, and Angus looked away.
"I am sorry," he said awkwardly.
"I can't talk about it very well yet," she said. "I didn't mean to. One shouldn't—to a stranger."
"But I'm not a stranger. You seem like—well—like an old friend."
"I'm glad of that," she said, smiling a trifle sadly. "You see, father and I were always together, and it's new and—and hard to be alone. But I suppose I shall get used to it after a while."
"You have your kin here," he ventured.
"Yes, I have them," she agreed. "But they are not really my kin. And then I won't be with them very long."
"You are going away?" For some reason Angus experienced a sensation of regret.
"No, I am going to stay here. I am thinking of ranching."
"Ranching!" he exclaimed.
"Yes. Why not?"
"Do you know anything about it?"
"No, but I could learn, I suppose."
"I suppose you might. But the work is hard—man's work. I wouldn't buy a ranch, if I were you."
"But I have one—or the makings of one. A few years ago Uncle Godfrey bought nearly a thousand acres for father. I'm afraid there isn't much of it cleared, and there is no house fit to live in. I had been to look at it, and was riding back by this old logging camp. That's how I happened to be here."
"Where is this land?" Angus asked.
Her reply gave him almost as much of a shock as he had received from the bear; for as she described it, the land, or at least part of it, was none other than the old Tetreau place which Mr. Braden had painstakingly tried to unload on Chetwood. But if it belonged to her or to her father how could Braden sell it? And then, again, she had spoken of nearly a thousand acres, while the old Tetreau place comprised some five hundred only. Something of his thoughts reflected in his face.
"Do you know the land?" she asked.
"Yes, I know it," he admitted. "Have you ever thought of selling the land instead of ranching it? Has any one ever tried to sell it for you?"
"Oh, no," she replied. "I don't want to sell it—yet, a while, anyway. Father's idea was to hold it till land increased very much in value. Uncle Godfrey told him that was bound to occur. It was an investment, you see. It cost only ten dollars an acre."
"You mean your father paid ten thousand dollars for the land!" Angus exclaimed.
"Yes, in round figures. He never saw it. Uncle Godfrey said it was well worth that, and of course he knows."
There was little that Angus could say. He was no stranger to wild-catting in lands, but he held to the old idea that agricultural land is worth what it will grow and no more: a maxim which, if remembered by prospective purchasers, would cut down both sales and disappointments. But the puzzling thing was that Godfrey French, who wasn't an easy mark by any means, should have advised his relative to pay ten dollars an acre for land half of which was too rough to cultivate and of which all was non-irrigable; and this at a time when good, wild land was to be had in plenty for from three to five dollars an acre. Added to that was the abortive Braden-Chetwood deal. The one clear thing was that Faith Winton had a bunch of worthless land. He hoped that it did not represent her entire patrimony.
"You will find it hard work starting a ranch," he said. "Clearing, breaking, fencing and so on are expensive, too."
"But whatever I spend will make the place worth that much more, and then if I wish to sell I would have a better chance. People always prefer to buy improved properties, I'm told."
Angus had neither the heart nor the nerve to tell her the truth. Everything went to show that her father had been deliberately stung by Godfrey French. Never in the world would he have paid ten dollars of his own money for such a property. Had he paid ten dollars of Winton's money? Angus doubted it. In plain language, his thought was that French had paid about three dollars an acre, and either pocketed the difference or split it with the seller.
"What does your uncle think about it?" he asked.
"He doesn't want me to try ranching. He says the place is increasing in value anyway, and that I should not be in a hurry to sell."
Naturally, thought Angus, that would be French's advice. Perhaps he had had the handling of the property, and Braden had been acting for him when trying to sell to Chetwood. If that sale had gone through, half the property would have been sold for what had been paid for the whole, and the remainder, worthless or not, would have been velvet. But as it was French was in a tight box, and the only thing he could do was to advise the girl to let the place alone, and hope that nothing would occur to arouse her suspicions. Angus half wished for her sake that he had not blocked the sale to Chetwood.
"You see," she said, "I have to do something for a living. I haven't enough to keep me in idleness, and anyway I don't want to be idle. But I didn't mean to bother you with my worries. I don't know why it is, but I find myself talking to you just as frankly as when I was the little, lost girl and you were the big boy. Perhaps I am a little lost, still. You—you seem comforting, somehow." She considered for a moment. "Perhaps it's the bigness of you. But I don't talk to Gavin as I do to you, and I know him much better. Why is it?"
"I don't know, but I'm glad of it," Angus told her. "I want to help you if I can."
"Now, I believe that's why," she said. "You want to help folks who need it. That's the secret of it."
"Nothing of the sort," Angus told her. Suddenly he realized that the sun was low above the western ranges and that the early fall evening was coming. "We'll have to be moving if we're to get home by dark," he said. "To-morrow I'll skin out the bear."
"Oh—my pony!" she exclaimed. "I never thought of him."
"No use looking for him. Likely he headed for home. You'll ride my horse."
"And let you walk? Indeed, no!"
"Of course you will."
"But I won't. You're hurt—"
"Not a bit," Angus lied cheerfully.
"Yes, you are. There, you see, you're almost too stiff to walk. I won't have it, Angus, really I won't."
Angus did not argue the point further. He was accustomed to having his own way with girls, or at least with Jean. He was sore and stiff, and when he first moved a sharp pain in his side made him catch his breath, but he knew that the best cure for stiffness is movement. They crossed the creek and he saddled Chief, and without a word began to take up the stirrups.
"Angus," said Faith Winton, "I meant what I told you. I rode your pony years ago, when I was a little, lost girl—"
"What are you now?"
"A pedestrian," she said with determination.
"Now, see," Angus urged. "It's over five miles. Your shoes would be cut to pieces on the rocks, and you'd be tired out. So you're going to ride."
"I'mnot, Angus! What are you—Oh!"
For Angus, finding that argument was a waste of time had picked her up and put her in the saddle. Thence she stared down at him, and now there was no lack of color in her cheeks.
"Angus Mackay! What—what do you mean?"
"You are going to ride," Angus told her with finality, "and that is all there is to it."
"I'm not used to being thrown about like a sack of oats!" she flashed, and would have dismounted, but he stopped her. "How dare you!" she cried. "Let me down! Take your hands off me, Angus Mackay!"
"Then behave sensibly!" said Angus.
"Sensibly! My heavens! do you think I'm a child?"
"A child would be glad to ride."
"Do you think you can make me do things merely because you're stronger?"
"Yes," Angus told her flatly, "some things. This, for one."
"Admitting that—you're brutal!"
"And admitting that," Angus returned, "will you act like a sensible girl?"
For a moment she frowned at him, her eyes stormy, dark with anger. And then, slowly, she bent low over the saddle horn, and turned her face away, while a sob shook her slight figure. At which awful spectacle Angus' resolution suddenly melted to contrition.
"Don't do that!" he pleaded. "Don't cry. I didn't mean it. Come on and walk. Walk all you like. Walk a lot. I'll help you down."
She turned her face to him and he gasped; for in place of tears there was laughter, mocking laughter.
"You—you fraud!" he exclaimed.
"You—you bluff!" she retorted. "This was one of the things you could make me do because you were stronger, was it? Oh, Angus Mackay, what a soft heart you have in that big body!"
"It would serve you right if I made you walk!" he told her indignantly.
"Yes, wouldn't it? But you won't. I'll ride—if you'll promise to tell me if you get tired."
And so they went down the old tote road in the wan light of the fall sunset.
"It's exactly like that day so many years ago," she said.
But Angus, though he agreed with her, was privately conscious of a vast difference. On that far-away day he had considered the little, lost girl a nuisance and an imposition. Now he felt a strange, warm glow and thrill as he walked beside her, and a sense of contentment strange to him. He was conscious of this feeling. But, quite honestly, he attributed it to the fact that he had just got his first grizzly, and what was more, centered him, charging, with every shot; which, as he looked at it, ought to be a source of satisfaction to any properly constituted man, and adequately explained the sense of contentment aforesaid.
Dr. Wilkes investigated the naked torso of Angus Mackay with skilled fingers.
"Two ribs cracked," he announced, "and you're lucky at that, young man. The scalp wound is nothing. The ribs will be all right in a few weeks, if you give them a chance. Mind, you, Angus, no hard riding, no lifting; move gently and rest all you can."
"But the fall work—" Angus began. The doctor cut him short.
"Work!" he exploded irritably. "There's that word again. By heaven, you all say it! It's 'I can't go away, doc, I can't take a holiday, I can't rest. I've got to work.' Lord knows how many times I've heard it, and from men who wouldn't work a sick or lame horse on a bet. You'd think health was the least important thing on earth, something to be fixed up in a day or two with a Blaud's pill. Work is a fine thing to keep folks out of mischief, but it isn't the chief end of man, and it isn't a damned fetich that demands human sacrifice. Who'll do your work when you're dead?" He glared at Angus ferociously beneath shaggy, red-and-gray brows.
"Well, I won't worry about that," Angus laughed. "I hope it's a long way off."
"It missed your head by about an inch yesterday," Wilkes told him. "There you stand, over six feet, and nearly two hundred pounds of as fine bone and sinew and flesh and blood as I've ever seen, every organ of you, as far as I can tell, as sound as clear pine. And you may be good for seventy years more—or seventy hours. A long way off! Your horse steps in a hole, or a team bolts and you happen to fall wrong, or a little drop of blood clots somewhere. And puff! away you go like a pinch of dust on the trail, which is exactly what you are. A long way off! Of all the blasted but blessed cocksureness of youth!" And he grumbled and growled as he strapped up the injured side.
But Angus paid little attention to the doctor's homily. From the latter's office he went to see Judge Riley who, much to everybody's surprise, had cut his drinking down if not out, and in consequence was much busier than of old. Before him Angus laid the puzzle of Faith Winton's property, Godfrey French's connection therewith, and Braden's attempt to sell part of it.
"There may be a perfectly good explanation," said the lawyer. "For instance, there may have been other properties or other transactions involved. Then as to Braden's attempt to sell to Chetwood, he may have been acting for French, who may be Winton's executor. In any event, if half of this land could be sold for as much as was paid for the whole, nobody but the purchaser would be apt to make subsequent objection."
"But if French paid only about three dollars for the land and split the difference with somebody, couldn't Miss Winton claim the difference?"
"Undoubtedly. But you have no evidence of that. If you like, I'll search the title and find out who sold the land and what consideration is stated in the conveyance to Winton. Drop in some time next week."
Angus waited the week with impatience. Convinced that there had been crooked work somewhere, he was anxious to get at the facts. Also he chafed at the comparative inactivity imposed on him by his injured ribs.
"Well," said the judge, when Angus sought him again, "I haven't found out very much. But Braden apparently owns this property."
"Braden!" Angus exclaimed.
"Yes, he is the registered owner of a large block of land which seems to include this. So far as most of the land is concerned, he is the original grantee. As to the Tetreau land, Tetreau was the original grantee of that. Five hundred acres was granted to Tetreau, and sold by him to Braden for an expressed monetary consideration of one thousand dollars and certain other considerations not specified. When he acquired that land from Tetreau, Braden then had a compact block, and apparently he has it still."
"But there must be a deed to Winton."
"If so it isn't registered. Braden can convey and give a good registered title. There is nothing to show any interest of Winton's. Are you sure this is the property his daughter meant?"
"From her description, it can't be any other."
"Then probably there is an unregistered conveyance from Braden to Winton, or to French as the latter's trustee. As to the price paid, it may have been high, but it does not prove nor even raise the presumption of fraud. You can't tell the girl your suspicions, when they are mere suspicions, especially while she is under French's roof."
"I believe both Braden and French are crooks. I never liked Braden, but up to a little while ago, I thought he was straight. And I always thought old French was a gentleman."
"So he is."
"Not if he is a crook."
"Nonsense!" the judge returned. "Gentlemen have been pirates, outlaws and highwaymen. A gentleman may be a blackguard, just as a well-bred dog may be a sheep-killer, or run wild with wolves. It's one word, not two. It's a name for a breed, not a descriptive term for qualities such as honesty, courtesy or the like."
"If a man has those qualities, isn't he a gentleman?"
"No," said the judge, "though he may be something a good deal better. I'm as democratic as they make 'em, but it is an undoubted fact that there are strains of men, just as there are strains of animals. Considered as a strain of mankind, a gentleman is a gentleman, no matter how big a rascal he is. The Frenches are all gentlemen—that is, all but Blake."
"Why not Blake, if it is a breed?"
"God knows," the judge replied. "Blake is a full brother to the rest, but he's not the same breed. He's a throwback to something that crept in somehow, maybe a century or so ago, when nobody was looking. He has the body, but not the heart. He is a cur, while the rest are—wolves." He drummed on his blotter. "In confidence, Angus, I am going to tell you one or two things: The first is that the Frenches have little or no money left. They have been going down hill steadily for years. This horse racing and gambling is not amusement, but their living. Their ranch is mortgaged for all it will stand, and more. So you see, it's not likely French could repay the girl, even if we proved he cheated Winton.
"And now for Braden:" He paused for a moment, and his bushy brows drew down. "If there is one thing I despise," he said with emphasis, "it is a hypocrite. More repulsive to me than even sordid crime is hypocrisy, snivelling righteousness, a lip-and-broadcloth service of the Almighty, the broad phylacteries of the Pharisee. All my life I have hated such things. And Braden, mark you, is a hypocrite. Outwardly, he is full of good works. Your father was deceived in him, and I told him so when he would have made Braden his executor, but I had merely my own opinion.
"Well, when your father died, Braden conceived an ingenious plan to get hold of the ranch, knowing that it would increase in value very much, eventually. The first step was to get you children off it, to put somebody else on, to allow the rent to get into arrears, to let the place run down a little. With the accumulating interest on the mortgage, ownership would involve a heavy financial burden. Then a straw man would have made an offer for the place, d'ye understand me? And to get money for your education and maintenance Braden would have accepted, and to keep his skirts clean he would have got a court order approving the sale. Afterward the straw man would have transferred to Braden. Is that clear to you?"
Angus nodded, amazed.
"Also absence from the place would have weaned you youngsters away from it," the judge continued. "When you came to me for advice I went to Braden and read his mind to him, and his face told me I had read it aright. Since then he has hated me for knowing him for what he knows himself to be. So, in course of time, he laid a trap for me with a pretended client and monies for a certain investment. The idea was that the man with whom I was to invest the monies was to deny it, and they thought they had it arranged so that I could not produce evidence of what had become of it. But they were wrong. I had evidence, and with a very little more I'd have had a clear case of conspiracy against them. However, I fell short of that and let it go. But one thing it did for me: It showed me that I needed a clear head, and it gave me the will to fight the habit that had a grip on me. So there's information in confidence for you, Angus. Now Braden and French are working together. French and his sons get the confidence of young fellows with more money than experience, steer them to Braden who sells them land, and the commissions are split. Perhaps that is what happened in the Winton case. Only we can't prove it."
"No," Angus admitted. For the first time he told the judge of the money he had borrowed from Braden. The old jurist whistled softly.
"What with that and the mortgage arrears, you are not in good shape, my boy. If I were you, I should make every effort to get clear as soon as possible."
"The hail hit me badly, but next year, with a good crop and all the new land I have broken, I ought to be able to make a good payment. Then you think nothing can be done to help Miss Winton?"
"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, flushing 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."
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 grasses.
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 Godfrey 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 assistance 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. Nobody's stopping you. And nobody'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. Nobody 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 butt 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 hit 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. Neither Angus nor Gus had been out of the house for five or six hours before the fire. As they put the horses back Angus found Turkey's mare's manger full of hay. Drunk or sober the boy would look after the animal's needs. But to get hay he had either to fork it down from the mow or get it from the stack. As the mow was dark, with a ladder to climb, there wasn't much doubt that he had got it from the latter. Then at the stack he had either dropped the butt of a cigarette or the end of a match. There was no doubt in Angus' mind as to the origin of the fire.
But as was his custom, he kept his thoughts to himself. He sent Gus to the house to get what sleep he could, and he remained on guard against chances from stray sparks.
As he stared at the heap of black and gray and red which had been his stack his anger hardened. In the heart of the heap he seemed to see the fields where the hay had grown, green and tender in the spring, laced with the silver threads of irrigation waters; and lush and high and waving in the summer winds, tipped and tinged with the pink and red of clover and alfalfa and the purple bloom of timothy. He thought of the labor that had gone into it—the careful irrigation, the mowing, the raking, the hauling, the stacking—all to the end that the stock should be full-bellied and fat-clad against the cold and snow that shrinks ill-nourished stock to racks of hide-tied bone. He looked ahead—two months, three—and he could hear the hunger-bawling of the cattle clustered by the corral bars, and see them hump-backed and lean and shivering, and weak and dying of cold and hunger. He could see their eyes, looking to him for the food man should provide.
Unless he would see that picture become grim reality he must buy feed, and he had no money to spare. His straw was quite insufficient to winter his stock on. Then he had counted on selling some of the hay. It all meant that his debt must be increased. In the breath of the fire the fruits of his hard work had been wiped out. As he thought of all these things he was filled with bitterness against his brother.
When dawn came and all danger was over he went in to breakfast. Turkey still slept. Angus let him slumber, and going to the workshop went to work repairing a set of sleighs.
He had worked for an hour or more when Turkey emerged from the house, his hands in his pockets, his back hunched. At first he did not notice the absence of the stack. When he did, being almost at the stable, he stopped short, staring at the black heap, at the frozen blankets and covers hanging on the fence. He entered the stable, came out again, and hearing Angus' hammering, made for the workshop. As he came in Angus saw that his mouth was set, his face flushed, his brow scowling.
"Say—" he began and stopped. "Say—"
"Well?" Angus returned, coldly.
"The stack!"
"You can see for yourself, can't you?"
"Why didn't you call me?"
"You'd have been a lot of use!"
The boy flushed darkly.
"What started it?"
"You ought to know," Angus replied, "whether you do or not."
"What do you mean?" Turkey cried.
"I mean that you started the fire yourself."
"What?" Turkey exclaimed. "I didn't! What do you take me for?"
"Where did you get the hay to fill Dolly's manger?"
"From the stack," Turkey admitted.
"I thought so. And you dropped a butt or a match. Nobody else had been near there for hours."
"I didn't. I didn't light a cigarette till after I came out of the stable."
"I don't think you know what you did. The stack is gone. We have to buy feed now, and we haven't the money to pay for it."
"That's not my fault," Turkey asseverated. "I won't be blamed for what I didn't do."
"No," Angus returned grimly, "but for what you did do."
"If you say I started that fire you're a —— liar!" Turkey flared.
Angus looked at him with narrowing eyes.
"You had better go slow, Turkey," he warned. "I don't feel like taking much from anybody this morning. And I'll take less from you than anybody."
"Then don't say I started that fire!" Turkey cried "The hay was mine as well as yours. You act as if you were boss here, and I won't stand for it any longer."
Under ordinary circumstances Angus would have let that go. But now he was sore and worried and angry. He had worked hard, denied himself a good deal to hold the ranch together and make a living for them all. It seemed that a show-down had to come and he was ready for it.
"We may as well settle this now," he said. "I am boss. I mean to stay boss, and while you're on this ranch you'll toe the mark after this, understand?"
"Is that so?" Turkey sneered.
"It is so," Angus repeated. "Let me tell you something: I've given you the easy end right along, and you haven't held up even that. You've shirked and loafed every chance you've had. This has got to stop. And there will be no more of this coming in at all hours of night."
"I'll come in when I like and go where I like," Turkey declared defiantly, "and I'd like to see you stop me."
"You will see it," Angus told him grimly. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You've burnt up our stack—"
"You're a liar!" Turkey cried hotly. "Don't you tell me that again!"
"Tell you again!" Angus said contemptuously. "I'll not only tell you again, but for two pins I'd hand you something to make you remember it."
"Then fly at it!" Turkey cried, and struck him in the face.
For an instant Angus was so surprised that he did nothing at all. Then, taking another blow, he caught his brother by wrist and shoulder and slammed him back against the wall with a force which shook the frame building. He was white-hot with anger, and all that restrained him was fear—fear that if he once lost grip of himself he would go too far. As he held the boy pinned and helpless he fought his fight and won it. His grip relaxed and he stepped back.
"Don't ever do that again, Turkey," he said quietly.
Turkey, freed, stared at him. "I called you a liar and hit you twice."
"I know it," Angus returned impatiently. "And I could beat you to a froth, and you know it. I don't want to start—the way I'm feeling. That's all."
"Then I'm sorry I hit you," Turkey conceded. "But all the same, I didn't fire the stack."
"We won't talk about it."
"Yes, we will. If you think I did, I'm pulling out."
"You'll do as you please," Angus said coldly. "You'll come back mighty soon."
"Don't fool yourself," Turkey retorted. "I'm sick of this dam' place, and working day in and day out."
"I've told you what I think of your work. If you're sick of it I'm just as sick of coddling you along. Can't you get it through your head that you're almost a man?"
"Yes," Turkey returned, "and I'm going where I'll be treated like one."
"Then you'll have to change a lot," Angus informed him. "When you behave like one you'll be treated like one, here or anywhere else. Till you do that, you won't. And here it is cold for you, Turkey, with no trimmings: You may go to the devil if you like; but you can't stay on this ranch and do it, because I won't stand for it."
And so, at last, the issue between the brothers, so long pending, lay clear and sharply defined. There was no middle course. For a long minute they looked each other in the face. Then said Turkey:
"You and the ranch can go to hell!"
He turned on his heel and went to the house whence, a few minutes later, he emerged wearing wool chaps and a heavy mackinaw. In one hand he carried his pet rifle; in the other a canvas warbag. He went into the stable and presently led out his mare, saddled. Then he jogged away without a glance in Angus' direction.
On Christmas Day, Angus and Rennie found themselves alone on the ranch. Gus had gone to town, which meant that he would be drunk for some days. Turkey had not returned since he rode away, nor had Angus seen him, though he had learned that he was helping Garland to round up a drive or two of cattle and would probably feed a bunch through the winter for a grubstake.
The weather had turned mild. The day was warm as October, and the frost was coming out of the ground, for still there was no snow. Rennie was busy with preparations for an elaborate night dinner, but Angus was restless.
"I think I'll go out and look for that old buckskin cayuse," he said.
"He ain't worth lookin' for," Rennie returned; "but if you go, you better pack that old buffler coat."
But Angus did not take the old buffalo riding coat which had been his father's. He got into a pair of leather chaps and tied a mackinaw on the saddle.
The big horse wanted to go, and Angus let him. When he left the road it was to follow cattle trails, on which Chief sailed smoothly. Now and then he pulled up to listen for bells, but the buckskin was merely an excuse. He was an old sinner, with a habit of staying out as long as he could rustle feed. When Angus ran across him at last, late in the afternoon, he was with a band of half-wild, disreputable friends, from whom he had no intention of being separated. They knew every foot of every trail in a badly broken country, and Chief, though sure-footed, was not a stock horse. The continued twists and turns and brush worried him. He could not use his speed, and not knowing exactly what was expected of him, began to fret. After an hour of fruitless chase Angus gave it up and looked around to get his bearings.
He found himself up under a mountain in a rough country some fifteen miles from home. The sun was gone; and all over the north and west and overhead the sky was blue-black, trimmed with dirty gray. As he sat breathing Chief he could hear a far-off straining and sighing. A gust of cold wind drove past, and borne with it were white flakes.
Angus needed nobody to interpret these signs, and he cursed the buckskin and his own carelessness in neglecting to watch sun and sky. Real winter was opening with a blizzard, and from all indications it was going to be the real thing.
In five minutes the snowflakes had become a white blur. He could not see fifty yards ahead. Trails vanished. Landmarks were invisible. The air was full of drifting white. It was as if one had suddenly gone nearly blind, unable to see beyond a short radius. No man could hold a course with certainty. Constantly it grew colder, and the light began to fail.
Riding fast in the growing darkness was impossible. The cold began to nip his fingers through his light buckskin gloves, and his toes, for he was wearing leather boots and but a single pair of socks. He steered a general downhill course which he knew in time must intersect a wagon trail which led past the French ranch and thence home. The trouble was that in the darkness he might cross it. In that event it would be a case of spending the night out.
It grew utterly dark, save for a certain dim light which the snow seemed to hold. Warned by a growing numbness in his feet Angus dismounted and stamped the blood back into them. He decided that it must be below zero. On the brows of the benches the wind was bitter.
Just as he decided that he must have passed it, he came on the wagon trail. He mounted and gave Chief his head. But once more his feet began to numb. Again he got down and stamped the circulation going, but as soon as he began to ride again they numbed. To take off boots and rub was out of the question, so he sent Chief sailing into the blinding storm, trusting to luck to keep on the road.
After several miles of blind riding he saw the far flicker of a light which he knew must come from the French ranch. He had no wish to intrude on Christmas night, but he knew that unless he was to have badly frozen feet he must get to shelter at once. He struck the fence, followed it to the gate, and turned in.
The house, when he got close enough to see through the driving snow, was brightly lighted behind drawn blinds. The chords of a piano came to him, accompanying a strong, ringing baritone, and as he passed beneath the window the old, rousing, hunting chorus of "John Peel" crashed out.
A devil of a time to butt in, Angus reflected grimly, as he led Chief under the partial shelter of the house. No doubt there was a Christmas party on. However, it was no night to indulge in pride or shyness.
He could not leave Chief out in the storm, and an attempt to stable him himself would probably mean a battle with the dogs which slept in the stables. He banged on the door, and as no one answered stepped into the hall. After the temperature outside it seemed tropical, friendly with the smell of warmth and good tobacco. Being in a hurry, he did not stand on ceremony, but opened the door to his left just as the last notes of "John Peel" died. For a moment he blinked in the light like a storm-driven night bird.
There were nearly a dozen men besides the Frenches, and among them he recognized Chetwood. Kathleen was swinging around from the piano, laughing up at the singers. Tobacco smoke eddied blue around the hanging lamps. A couple of card tables were going. After the hours of cold and darkness and the sting of the wind-driven snow, it seemed to Angus extraordinarily warm and cosy and comforting.
Kathleen was the first to catch sight of the snow-plastered apparition in the doorway.
"Why, Angus!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet.
"I'm sorry to bother you," Angus said, "but I got caught back on the range, and my feet are touched a little. If I can put up my horse—"
But Gavin French rose from his card game.
"Larry will look after your horse. You come along with me out of this heat."
Angus stumped after the blond giant down the hall and into a back kitchen, where he unlaced his boots while Gavin brought in a dishpan of snow.
"Toes and heels," the big man observed as he rubbed briskly. "It's no night for leather boots. It's close to fifteen below now, and a wind with it. Feel the blood starting yet?"
Angus felt the welcome tingle of returning circulation and continued the rubbing himself, while Gavin brought him his own moccasins and a pair of heavy woolen socks. As he was putting them on Kathleen entered.
"If you were caught on the range you haven't had anything to eat. I've got something ready in the dining room. You can go back to your game, Gan. I'll look after him."
"Don't bother about me," Angus said.
"I'm not. Come along and eat."
He followed her into the dining room where the table was spread with a substantial cold meal. She sat down with him.
"Now, see here," he said, "this is not right. I'm taking you away from your guests—"
"You're one of them," she laughed.
"An unbidden one."
"But a very welcome one. Don't be silly."
Angus ate and drank, and the food and hot coffee warmed him through.
"And now," said Kathleen, "we'll join the festive throng."
But Angus balked. He was not dressed for such things. He preferred to stay out in the kitchen.
"Angus Mackay, you make me tired!" Kathleen told him. "What do I care about your clothes? You're still thinking of yourself as an unbidden guest, after I've told you you're more than welcome. I'm not going to let you sit out in the kitchen like an Indian. Come along, now, like a good boy."
As there was no way out of it, Angus followed her, feeling very conscious of his worn riding-clothes. But as everybody was playing cards nobody cast more than a casual glance in his direction, save Faith Winton, who rose and came toward them.
"Kathleen, I've driven my unfortunate partner nearly crazy. He's too polite to tell me what he thinks of my play, but see how wistfully he's looking at you."
Kathleen laughed.
"Well, take care of Angus, then. And keep his mind off his clothes. He's worrying because he isn't dressed like a head waiter." With a nod she left them and seated herself at the vacant table.
"They were relieved to get rid of me," Faith Winton laughed. "Shall we sit down and talk? I haven't seen you for weeks. Why didn't you come to see me once in awhile?"
"I wanted to, but somehow—"
"Never mind excuses. When I get a place of my own perhaps you will be more neighborly. I've made up my mind to build a house on my ranch in the spring."
She told him her plans. She would have a cottage built, buy a few head of stock and some chickens, break a few acres as a start and set out fruit trees. Between the rows she would grow small fruits, feed, vegetables. When the trees came into bearing she would have an assured, definite income.
Angus listened in grim silence. He had heard it all before from the hopeful lips of new settlers. Theoretically, so many bushels may be grown to the acre, a tree so many years old will bear so many boxes of fruit. This is quite unassailable, proven by actual experience, by incontestable data, set out in reports which are the gospel of the new and especially the inexperienced settler. He seizes these facts avidly, but overlooks or refuses to consider a number of other things, such as drought, hail, frosts early or late, winter-killed trees, pests, poor years, low prices, and a hundred other factors which taken together make those actually used entirely misleading. But the one big factor which the inexperienced invariably refuse to consider at all, is that inexperience itself.
"I don't want to discourage you," he said, "but you know, don't you, that you can't do this work yourself. Hiring will eat up your profit."
"But there must be a margin. You hire men yourself."
"I hire two men to about three hundred acres. You are thinking of hiring about one man for ten. At that rate I should have thirty men, and the land wouldn't pay for them."
"But I could hire a man as I needed him, and what improvements I make will increase the value of the place. And when I get more cleared—"
Metaphorically, Angus threw up his hands. It was no use. Also it was impossible to tell her the truth about the property under the circumstances. With actual experience she might give up the idea. All he could do was to make the experiment as cheap as possible for her.
"Well," he said, "when the winter breaks up, if you're of the same mind, I'll do your breaking and disking for you, if you like, and seed it down to something. I can clean out the spring and run a ditch and fix it for irrigating. You needn't bother with water from the creek for a few acres. While I'm about it I might as well do the fencing and fork out the sods for a garden patch. When the sleighing is good I'll haul over a few loads of well-rotted manure."
"Thank you," she said, "but—"
"Oh, that's all right," Angus continued. "I guess you don't know much about planting trees and garden truck. I'll attend to that. I may as well order your seeds while I'm getting my own. I can run a cultivator through the garden now and then in the evenings. I can fix you up with all the tools you'll need. Then I can give you a milk cow, a nice quiet—"
"Wait, wait!" she interrupted as Angus began to think of other items. "What are all these things and all this work going to cost?"
"Cost?" Angus echoed blankly. "Why, nothing, of course. They don't amount to anything."
"Don't they? It seems to me you're calmly arranging to do all my work yourself—the work you said I'd have to hire done."
"These are just a few little chores for a neighbor. Nobody would think of charging for them. We sort of swap work about here."