CHAPTER IXSuspicion
LIGHTNING did not return until sundown, and when he reappeared the hard light of his eyes had deepened, and the thrust of his chin had become more aggressive. Molly realised these ominous signs when she encountered him at the barn, where she had just stabled her team after a long day’s seeding.
“Well?” she inquired.
The old man shook his head, and the storm leaped into his eyes.
“Not a sight of ’em,” he declared harshly. Then he turned a swift, malevolent glance in the direction of the hills to the south-west. “An’ we ain’t gettin’ a sight of ’em anyway. Our six prime cows in full milk. It ain’t no sort o’ use chasin’ these hills fer strays with—hoss thieves around.”
Molly’s smile changed to a look of incredulity.
“Horse thieves?” she echoed. Then she shook her head. “They surely would look for a territory where there’s stock to steal. Why, there isn’t fifty head between Dan Quinlan, up in the hills, and us, and that poor boy, Andy McFardell, on the road to Hartspool, with his miserable half section he’s trying to make look like a homestead. And there’s no one else within fifty miles of us, except Hartspool way.”
The choreman slid out of the saddle. He loosened the cinchas of the saddle and flung it on the ground. Then he clapped his mare on the quarters, and watched her move off for that roll which a horseman knows means so much.
“It’s only reasonable fer you thinkin’ that way,” Lightning admitted with unintentional patronising. “I guess you argue like the dandy gal you are, an’ not like a hoss thief tough.” He gazed thoughtfully down at the girl’s slim figure in its simple home-made clothing, that was so carefully planned to leave freedom for her work. “But I ain’t told you all the stuff I got in my head. I tell you my eyes and ears, an’ nose are all wide open. I’m wise to a whole heap of doings about these hills. Them cows is gone. Plumb gone. They ain’t within a ten-mile range of us. I’ve rode every yard this day. An’ six milch cows full of milk couldn’t have made ten miles in the night grazin’. They’ve been drove. Them bars at the corral hev been taken down. When I set ’em in place ther’s no buzzy cows ken make a getaway.”
Molly’s smile broke out.
“I fixed them last night,” she corrected. “You were busy getting the seeder right for me. Don’t you remember?”
The man stared.
“I’d fergot,” he said shortly.
“Maybe I didn’t fix them right,” Molly went on quickly, in an endeavour to make things easier. “It was nearly dark. But—best come right up to the house. I’ll fix supper, and you can tell me about—horse thieves.”
Molly went off to the house. But Lightning made no move to accompany her. A day wasted scouring the hills left him with a heavy leeway of chores to make up. It was upwards of an hour, and darkness had closed down, before he appeared at the house for the meal the girl had prepared. Molly made no attempt to question him further till the man’s needs had been amply supplied. She knew too well the value of a comforted stomach in men-folk.
After she, too, had eaten, Molly sat with her elbowsplanted on the table, and her cheeks supported in the palms of her sun-browned hands. She was thoughtfully watching Lightning devour the last of his third portion of baked hash. They were in the neat kitchen. It was plain and scrupulously simple in its furnishings, much of which had been home-made. But they were ample for the needs of their no less simple lives.
Lightning washed down his supper with a noisy draught of tea from an enamelled beaker. And as he did so Molly withdrew from the table to replenish it.
“Light your old pipe,” she said, as she passed the teapot back to the stove. “Then you can tell me about—horse thieves.”
“It’s—Dan Quinlan.”
Lightning’s statement was an explosion.
“Dan Quinlan?”
Molly came again to her chair, and sat down in a hurry. She was genuinely startled.
“Why, Dan Quinlan’s been up in the hills years,” she went on, recovering herself. “I remember him when I was a kiddie.” She shook her head. “I’d say you’ve made a bad guess.”
“Hev I?”
The old man’s eyes widened. And Molly saw the old “Two-gun” Rogers glaring out of them.
“Oh, yes, maybe I hev. Maybe I’m a bad guesser, anyway,” he cried sarcastically. Then, with sudden ferocity: “But I’m right! It’s Dan Quinlan!”
After that he sat back in his chair and lit his pipe.
“Say, Molly, gal, you’d jest hate to think bad of Dan Quinlan, ’cos you’d hate to think bad of any feller,” he went on sharply. “I ain’t seen you raised from a squallin’ bundle of fancy fixin’s without gettin’ wise to the things lying back of your dandy eyes. You don’t ever get near Dan Quinlan. Twenty-five miles of bad hill territory an’ muskeg is quite a piece, even to folk like us. But if youknew him you wouldn’t be feelin’ good about him same as you do fer that darn gopher, McFardell, the Police set adrift without a ‘brief’ to say the boy he was. Dan Quinlan’s a drunken Irish bum, the sort that’s dead sure to get on the cross when it suits him. I know his sort. I met a heap of his sort in the old Texas days. I——”
“But why? What makes you think he’s on the cross? Because our cows have strayed?”
Molly had recognised the reminiscent tone. In a moment the old man was flaring again.
“Them beasts was—drove!” he cried fiercely. Then he removed his pipe and flourished it at the girl. “How do I know? Why, I’ve rode our territory fer ten miles around. Who’s drove ’em? Dan Quinlan. How do I know? Dan Quinlan’s shippin’ a bunch of yearlings he couldn’t have raised honest out of the ten fool cows he starves around his bum layout. He’s no sort of ranchman, an’ a no-account feller, who’s fixed his place right there twenty-fi’ miles south-west of us, up in the hills where folks an’ the police boys ain’t like to worry around. Last year he registered his brand. ‘Lazy K’—that’s his brand. An’ I’d surely guess it’s suitable. An’ last summer he shipped into the Calford market, an’ through Hartspool, a hundred an’ fifty beasts risin’ two-year-old. It can’t be done on his cows. An’ all that I got from Hartspool, wher’ the folks are guessin’ hard about it.”
Just for a moment the girl was impressed. Then she shook her head in quick decision.
“It surely sounds queer, Lightning,” she said, the more gently for the denial she was about to make, “but there’s something missing. Dan Quinlan hasn’t a neighbour but us, and we’re twenty-five miles away. Who’s he duffed his breeding cows from? We haven’t lost even a calf ever before. And you say he’s traded a hundred an’ fifty? No. That doesn’t answer whose stolen our cows.”
Lightning stirred irritably. His argument had been allsufficient for him. But the girl’s reason worried him.
“I’m goin’ right up there, anyway,” he declared. “An’ I’ll shoot his vitals to coyote feed, but I’ll get them beasties back.”
Molly realised the danger-signal.
“I shouldn’t,” she said. “Let’s get so sure there can’t be a mistake.”
“I tell you I’m goin’.” The man’s hasty anger was stirring again. “An’ I’m goin’ farther. We’ve sat around a deal too long. I’m goin’ all through this territory. Ther’s folk gettin’ around, like that boy, McFardell. An’ we got to know jest how things are. We can’t stand fer neighbours acting queer. With boys raising stock out of cows they ain’t got, an’ throw-outs from the Police squattin’ on the land under pretence of raising a farm, an’ spendin’ most of his time bucking the game, an’ shooting craps in Hartspool, we need to keep tab of things with a brace of guns in our belts. I surely am goin’ right up to that Irishman’s layout right away.”
Molly reached out and laid a pacifying hand on the old ruffian’s shoulder.
“No, don’t you do it, Lightning,” she said almost pleadingly. “I know just how you’re feeling. And, in a way, I surely feel the same. But let’s take another day. Then I’ll be right with you in anything you do. I’ll take my pony and chase up the creeks to-morrow. I’ll peek around, and I won’t leave a blade of sweet grass unturned. You stop right here till I get back, and after that, if I haven’t located those cows—why, we’ll just get right after the Police in Calford.”
“You’re givin’ him time, gal, an’ I don’t like it,” Lightning protested. “He’ll get nigh three days to hide up them beasties in the hills. That ain’t my way. Git right after ’em quick. Guns is the only thing fer hoss thieves.”
“Sure it is. All the time,” Molly agreed, her eyestwinkling. “But let me have it my way this time. It makes me feel real bad suspecting folk—till——”
A wide grin spread over the choreman’s gaunt features.
“That’s it, gal,” he cried, slapping the table in sudden glee. “What did I say? You’d hate to think bad of a jack-rabbit. Sure. We’ll act your way—to-morrow. After that—my way.”
Molly nodded.
“You’re good to me, Lightning,” she said warmly. “I guess I’ll be all wrong, and you’ll be right, as you mostly are. Still, I don’t see you need be worried about that boy Andy McFardell, though. I sort of feel good about him. I’d say any boy who takes up land is a swell tryer. Can you wonder he gets into Hartspool to buck a game? Why, think. He’s right on his lonesome there. Not a soul to pass a hand to him. He’s mighty little money, and he’s got to fix it all up himself. I’d go crazy that way—if there wasn’t some sort of game around to buck. Then to get fired from the Police. My, that’s awful. I haven’t heard why, and he never talks, but I often see a deal of worry in his swell eyes. We shouldn’t think hardly of him.”
“No. You’ve a hunch fer that boy.”
Lightning’s smile had passed. Molly looked squarely into the eyes behind the smoke of his pipe. Hers were unsmiling, too.
“When disaster hits a man, and he’s the courage to start up in decency, it gets a hunch from me all the time,” she said coldly. “Life’s tough in these foothills, Lightning. I’ve been bred to it. The man who can jump into it, and face it right, seems to me my best notion of a—man.”
“Sure. If he’s on the straight.”
Molly drew a deep breath. A quick sparkle lit her eyes. “Andy McFardell’s on the straight,” she said quietly, as she rose to clear the supper-table.
Lightning passed out of the house to the blankets awaiting him at his bunk-house.
As he passed along to his quarters audible expressions of disgust and anger broke from him. The cows were forgotten. Dan Quinlan was forgotten. All his bitterness was turned against the man the mention of whose name had stirred Molly to a rebuke that had hurt him in a fashion of which she was wholly unaware.
Horse thieves were anathema to Lightning Rogers, whose life had been wholly spent in cattle countries. His hatred of them was something traditional rather than personal. He believed it was the right of every citizen to shoot to kill “on sight” where cattle thieves were concerned. There could be no extenuation. They were the wolf-pack to which no mercy should be shown, to which no quarter should be given. But the man, Andrew McFardell, who had come into their lives something under two years ago, was on a different plane.
He hated the man. He hated his dark good looks and foxy face. He hated his easy, pleasant manners. He hated the thought that he had come to set up his homestead on the trail to Hartspool, within ten miles of the farm. He hated him because of Molly’s liking for him. So, for once he rolled into his blankets and lay awake for hours searching his mind for the answer to the threat which he believed to be overshadowing the child of whom he had become the self-constituted guardian.
Lightning had no illusions. He had no false sentiments. Molly was the owner of a farm that had been amply prosperous in her father’s lifetime. It still afforded her a livelihood. She had good stock, and ample buildings. She had a stout home, and knew the business in all its phases. Furthermore, she was strong andcapable, and a pretty girl of twenty; and as simple as the hills that had bred her.
Now, almost immediately after her father’s death, this “bobtail” policeman had come into her life. Why? Why of all places had he chosen the foothills for the setting up of his homestead?
To Lightning’s method of reasoning there was only one answer to the question. He saw the time coming when Andrew McFardell’s pretence of a homestead would be completely abandoned, and he himself would be asked to serve under a master instead of a mistress. And it would be a master who was a “throw-out” from the Police Force.
More than half the night was endured in angry thought. And when, at last, his stertorous breathing proclaimed his sleep, it was only after his mind had been completely made up as to the line of action he intended to follow on the morrow.
Molly had retired to bed in the firm belief that she had effectually steadied her loyal friend. She was certain that she would discover the precious cows calmly grazing, tucked away in some secret, sweet-grass slough in which the hill country abounded. She anticipated a day in the saddle, perhaps; a day of hill-ranging, with her saddle-mare’s eager body thrilling under her. She would strike out north and east along the creek in the direction of Whale River, into which it flowed. It was sweet grass all the way. It was on the way to Hartspool, but she had no intention of doing the whole journey. She would not go farther than Andy McFardell’s homestead. If the cows were not in that direction she would strike out on a fresh line that afternoon.
Molly was at that age when self-deception is the most natural thing in the world. It never occurred to her to doubt her sincerity in selecting the direction of McFardell’s homestead for her first search. But, having decidedher course, she lay there between the snowy sheets contemplating a picture of the dark-faced, dark-eyed man she had first learned to pity for the hardships confronting him; whose courage she applauded.
Lightning was right. For all her twenty years Molly was an innocent child. Love as yet meant nothing to her. But even so, as she dropped off to sleep at last, it was with a ravishing feeling that to-morrow would be a day of unusual pleasure. And the pleasure of it had no relation to her search for her missing cows.