Book: The Range Dwellers

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Well, say! old King turned the color of a ripe prune; every hair in that
stubble of beard stood straight out from his chin, and he looked as if
murder would be a pleasant thing. He took the glass and deliberately
emptied the whisky on the floor. "John Carleton's son, eh? I might 'a'
known it--yuh look enough like him. Me drink with a son of John Carleton?
That breed uh wolves had better not come howling around _my_ door. I asked
yuh to come t' King's Highway, young man, and I don't take it back. You
can come, but you'll get the same sort uh welcome I'd give that--"

Right there I got my hand on his throttle. He was an old man,
comparatively, and I didn't want to hurt him; but no man under heaven can
call my dad the names he did, and I told him so. "I don't want to dig up
that old quarrel, King," I said, shaking him a bit with one hand, just to
emphasize my words, "but you've got to speak civilly of dad, or, by the
Lord! I'll turn you across my knee and administer a stinging rebuke."

He tried to squirm loose, and to reach behind him with that suggestive
movement that breeds trouble among men of the plains; but I held his arms
so he couldn't move, the while I told him a lot of things about true
politeness--things that I wasn't living up to worth mentioning. He yelled
to the postmaster to grab me, and the fellow tried it. I backed into a
corner and held old King in front of me as a bulwark, warranted bullet
proof, and wondered what kind of a hornet's-nest I'd got into. The waiter
and the postmaster were both looking for an opening, and I remembered that
I was on old King's territory, and that they were after holding their
jobs.

I don't know how it would have ended--I suppose they'd have got me,
eventually--but Perry Potter walked in, and it didn't seem to take him all
day to savvy the situation. He whipped out a gun and leveled it at the
enemy, and told me to scoot and get on my horse.

"Scoot nothing!" I yelled back. "What about you in the meantime? Do you
think I'm going to leave them to clean you up?"

He smiled sourly at me. "I've held my own with this bunch uh
trouble-hunters for thirty years," he said dryly. "I guess yuh ain't got
any reason t' be alarmed. Come out uh that corner and let 'em alone."

I don't, to this day, know why I did it, but I quit hugging old King, and
the other two fell back and gave me a clear path to the door. "King was
blackguarding dad, and I couldn't stand for it," I explained to Perry
Potter as I went by. "If you're not going, I won't."

"I've got a letter to mail," he said, calm as if he were in his own
corral. "You went off before I got a chance to give it to yuh. I'll be out
in a minute."

He went and slipped the letter into the mail-box, turned his back on the
three, and walked out as if nothing had happened; perhaps he knew that I
was watching them, in a mood to do things if they offered to touch him.
But they didn't, and we mounted our horses and rode away, and Perry Potter
never mentioned the affair to me, then or after. I don't think we spoke on
the way to the ranch; I was busy wishing I'd been around in that part of
the world thirty years before, and thinking what a lot of fun I had
missed by not being as old as dad. A quarrel thirty years old is either
mighty stale and unprofitable, or else, like wine, it improves with age.
I meant to ride over to King's Highway some day, and see how he would
have welcomed dad thirty years before.




CHAPTER IV.

Through King's Highway.


It was a long time before I was in a position to gratify my curiosity,
though; between the son and heir, with nothing to do but amuse himself,
and a cowboy working for his daily wage, there is a great gulf fixed.
After being put on the pay-roll, I couldn't do just as my fancy prompted.
I had to get up at an ungodly hour, and eat breakfast in about two
minutes, and saddle a horse and "ride circle" with the rest of them--which
same is exceeding wearisome to man and beast. For the first time since I
left school, I was under orders; and the foreman certainly tried to obey
dad's mandate and treat me just as he would have treated any other
stranger. I could give it up, of course--but I hope never to see the day
when I can be justly called a quitter.

First, we were rounding up horses--saddlers that were to be ridden in the
round-up proper. We were not more than two or three weeks at that, though
we covered a good deal of country. Before it was over I knew a lot more
than when we started out, and had got hard as nails; riding on round-up
beats a gym for putting wire muscles under a man's skin, in my opinion.
We worked all around White Divide--which was turning a pale, dainty green
except where the sandstone cliffs stood up in all the shades of yellow and
red. Montana, as viewed on "horse round-up," looks better than in the
first bleak days of March, and I could gaze upon it without profanity.
I even got to like tearing over the newborn grass on a good horse, with
a cowboy or two galloping, keen-faced and calm, beside me. It was almost
better than slithering along a hard road with a motor-car stripped to the
running-gear.

When the real thing happened--the "calf round-up"--and thirty riders in
white felt hats, chaps, spurs a-jingle, and handkerchief ends flying out
in the wind, lined up of a morning for orders, the blood of me went
a-jump, and my nerves were all tingly with the pure joy of being alive and
atop a horse as eager as hounds in the leash and with the wind of the
plains in my face and the grass-land lying all around, yelling come on,
and the meadowlarks singing fit to split their throats. There's nothing
like it--and I've tried nearly everything in the way of blood-tinglers.
Skimming through the waves, alean to the wind in a racing-yacht, comes
nearest, and even that takes second money when circle-riding on round-up
is entered in the race. But this is getting away from my story.

We were working the country just north of White Divide, when the foreman
started me home with a message for Perry Potter--and I was to get back as
soon as possible with the answer. Now, here's where I got gay.

As I said, we were north of White Divide, and the home ranch was south,
and to go around either end of that string of hills meant an extra sixty
miles to cover each way--a hundred and twenty for the round trip. Directly
in the way of the proverbial crow's flight lay King's Highway, which--if
I got through--would put me at the ranch the first day, and back at camp
the second; and I rather guessed that would surprise our worthy foreman
not a little. I didn't see why it couldn't be done; surely old King
wouldn't murder a man just for riding through that pass--that would be
bloody-minded indeed!

And if I failed--why, I could go around, and no one would be wise to the
fact that I had tried it. I headed straight for the pass, which yawned
invitingly, with two bare peaks for the jaws, not over six miles away.
It was against orders, for Perry Potter had given the boys to understand
that they were not to go that way, and that they were to leave King and
his stronghold strictly alone; but I didn't worry about that. When I was
fairly in the mouth of the pass, I got down and looked to the cinch, and
then rode boldly forward, like a soldier riding up to the cannon's mouth
with a smile on his face. Oh, I wasted plenty of admiration on one Ellis
Carleton about that time, and rehearsed the bold, biting speech I meant
to deliver at old King's very door.

So far it was easy sailing. There was a hard-beaten road, and the hills
seemed standing back and holding aside their skirts for a free passing.
The sun lay warm on their green slopes, and one could fairly smell the
grass growing. In the hollows were worlds of blue flowers, with patches
here and there a royal purple. I stopped and gathered a handful and stuck
them in my buttonhole and under my hatband. I don't know when I have felt
so thoroughly satisfied with said Ellis Carleton--of whom I am overfond of
speaking--I even mimicked the meadow-larks, until they watched me with
heads tilted, not knowing what to make of such an impertinent fellow.

King's Highway was glorious; I didn't wonder that dad thought it worth
fighting over, and as I went on, farther and farther down this lane made
by nature for easy passing, I could see what an immense advantage it would
be to take herds through that way. I could see why the Bay State men
cursed King when they took the rough trail around the end of White
Divide.

After an hour of undisputed riding on this forbidden trail, the pass
narrowed rather abruptly till it was not more than a furlong in width; the
hills stretched their heads still higher, as if they wanted to see the
fun, and the shadow of the eastern rim laid clear across the narrow valley
and touched the foot of the opposite slope. I hope I am not going to be
called nervous if I tell the truth about things; when I rode into the
shadow I stopped whistling a bad imitation of meadow-lark notes. A bit
farther and I pulled up, looked all around, and got off and tightened the
cinch a bit more. Shylock--I always rode him when I could--threw his head
around and nearly took a chunk out of my arm, and in reproving him I
forgot, for a minute, the ticklish game I was playing. Then I loosened my
gun--I had learned to carry it inconspicuously under my coat, as did the
other boys--made sure it could be pulled without embarrassing delay, and
went on. Around the next turn a five-wired fence stretched across the
trail, with a gate fastened by a chain and padlock. I whistled under my
breath, and eyed the lock with extreme disfavor.

But I had learned a trick of the cowboys. I pulled the wire off a couple
of posts at one side of the gate, laid them flat on the ground, and led
Shylock over them. Then I found a rock, pounded the staples back in place,
and went on; only for the tracks, one could not notice that any had passed
that way. Still, it was a bit ticklish, riding down King's Highway alone
and with no idea of what lay farther on. But dad had dared go that way,
and to fight at the far end; and what dad had not been afraid to tackle,
it did not behoove his son to back down from. I made Shylock walk the next
half-mile, with some notion of saving his wind for an emergency run.

Of a sudden I rounded a sharp nose of hill and came plump on the palace of
the King. It looked a good deal like the Bay State Ranch--big corrals and
sheds and stables, and little place for man to dwell. The house, though,
was bigger than ours, and looked more comfortable to live in. And the
thing that struck me most was the head which King displayed for strategy.
The trail wound between those same sheds and corrals, a gantlet two
hundred yards long that one must run or turn back. On either side the
bluffs rose sheer, with the buildings crowding close against their base.
I didn't wonder Frosty called King's Highway "bad medicine." It certainly
did look like it.

I went softly along that trail, turning sharp corners around a shed here,
circling a corral there, with my hand within an inch of my gun, and my
heart within an inch of my teeth, and you may laugh all you like.

No one seemed to be about; the sheds were deserted, and a few horses dozed
in a corral that I passed; but human being I saw none. It was evident that
King did not consider his enemy worth watching. I passed the last shed and
found myself headed straight for the house; I had still to get through its
very dooryard before I was in any position to crow, and beyond the house
was another fence; I hoped the gate was not locked. Shylock pricked up
his ears, then laid them back along his neck as if he did not approve the
layout, either. But we ambled right along, like a deacon headed for
prayer-meeting, and I tried to look in four different directions at one
and the same time.

For that reason, I didn't see her till she stood right in front of me; and
when I did, I stared like an idiot. It was a girl, and she was coming down
a path to the trail, with her hands full of flowers, for all the world
like a Duchess novel. Another minute, and I'd have run over her, I guess.
She stopped and looked at me from under lashes so thick and heavy they
seemed almost pulling her lids shut, and there was something in her eyes
that made me go hot and cold, like I was coming down with grippe; when she
spoke my symptoms grew worse.

"Did you wish to see father?" she asked, as if she were telling me to
leave the place.

"I believe," I rallied enough to answer, "that 'father' would give a good
deal to see _me_." Then that seemed to shut off our conversation too
abruptly to suit me; there are occasions when prickly chills have a
horrible fascination for a fellow; this was one of the times.

"He's not at home, I'm very sorry to say," she retorted in the same
liquid-air voice as before, and turned to go back to the house.

I thanked the Lord for that, in a whisper, and kept pace with her. It was
plain she hated the sight of me, but I counted on her being enough like
her dad not to run away.

"May I trouble you for a drink of water?" I asked, in the orthodox tone of
humility.

"There is no need to trouble me; there is the creek, beyond the house; you
are welcome to all you want."

"Thanks." I watched the pink curve of her cheek, and knew she was dying
for a chance to snub me still more maliciously. We were at the steps of
the veranda now, but still she would not hurry; she seemed to hate even
the semblance of running away.

"Can you direct me to the Bay State Ranch?" I hazarded. It was my last
card, and I let it go with a sigh.

She pointed a slim, scornful finger at the brand on Shylock's shoulder.

"If you are in doubt of the way, Mr. Carleton, your horse will take you
home--if you give him his head."

That put a crimp in me worse than the look of her eyes, even. I stared at
her a minute, and then laughed right out. "The game's yours, Miss King,
and I take off my hat to you for hitting straight and hard," I said. "Must
the feud descend even to the second generation? Is it a fight to the
finish, and no quarter asked or given?"

I had her going then. She blushed--and when I saw the red creep into her
cheeks my heart was hardened to repentance. I'd have done it again for the
pleasure of seeing her that way.

"You are taking a good deal for granted, sir," she said, in her loftiest
tone. "We Kings scarcely consider the Carletons worthy our weapons."

"You don't, eh? Then, why did you begin it?" I wanted to know. "If you
permit me, you started the row before I spoke, even."

"I do _not_ permit you." Clearly, my lady could be haughty enough to
satisfy the most fastidious.

"Well," I sighed, "I will go my way. I'm a lover of peace, myself; but
since you proclaim war, war it must be. I'm not so ungallant as to oppose
a lady's wishes. Is that gate down there locked?"

"Figuratively, it's _always_ locked against the Carletons," she said.

"But I want to go through it _literally_," I retorted. And she just looked
at me from under those lashes, and never answered.

"Well, the air grows chill in King's Highway," I shivered mockingly. "If
ever I find you on Bay State soil, Miss King, I shall take much pleasure
in teaching you the proper way to treat an enemy."

"I shall be greatly diverted, no doubt," was the scornful reply of
her--and just then an old lady came to the door, and I lifted my hand
grandly in a precise military salute and rode away, wondering which of us
had had the best of it.

The gate wasn't locked, and as for taking a drink at the creek, I forgot
that I was thirsty. I jogged along toward home, and wondered why Frosty
had not told me that King had a daughter. Also, I wondered at her
animosity. It never occurred to me that her father, unlike my dad, had
probably harped on the Carletons until she had come to think we were in
league with the Old Boy himself. Her dad's game leg would no doubt argue
strongly against us, and keep the feud green in her heart--supposing she
had one.

On the whole, I was glad I had traveled King's Highway. I had discovered a
brand-new enemy--and so far in my life enemies had been so scarce as to be
a positive diversion. And it was novel and interesting to be so thoroughly
hated by a girl. No reason to dodge _her_ net. I rather congratulated
myself on knowing one girl who positively refused to smile on demand. She
hadn't, once. I got to wondering, that night, if she had dimples. I meant
to find out.




CHAPTER V.

Into the Lion's Mouth.


Perry Potter, when he had read the foreman's note, asked how long since
I left camp; when I told him that I was there at daylight, he looked at me
queerly and walked off without a word. I didn't say anything, either.

I stayed at the ranch overnight, intending to start back the next morning.
The round-up would be west of where I had left them, according to the
foreman--or wagon-boss, as he is called. Logically, then, I should take
the trail that led through Kenmore, the mining-camp owned by King, and
which lay in the heart of White Divide ten miles west of King's Highway.
That, I say, was the logical route--but I wasn't going to take it.
I wasn't a bit stuck on that huddle of corrals and sheds, with the trail
winding blindly between, and I wasn't in love with the girl or with old
King; but, all the same, I meant to go back the way I came, just for my
own private satisfaction.

While I was saddling Shylock, in the opal-tinted sunrise, Potter came down
and gave me the letter to the wagon-boss, an answer to the one I had
brought.

"Here's some chuck the cook put up for yuh," he remarked, handing me a
bundle tied up in a flour-sack. "You'll need it 'fore yuh get through to
camp; you'll likely be longer going than yuh was comin'."

"Think so?" I smiled knowingly to myself and left him staring
disapprovingly after me. I could easily give a straight guess at what he
was thinking.

I jogged along as leisurely as I could without fretting Shylock, and, once
clear of the home field, headed straight for King's Highway. It wasn't the
wisest course I could take, perhaps, but it was like to prove the most
exciting, and I never was remarkable for my wisdom. It seemed to me that
it was necessary to my self-respect to return the way I came--and I may as
well confess that I hoped Miss King was an early riser. As it was,
I killed what time I could, and so spent a couple of hours where one would
have sufficed.

Half a mile out from the mouth of the pass, I observed a human form
crowning the peak of a sharp-pointed little butte that rose up out of the
prairie; since the form seemed to be in skirts, I made for the spot.
Shylock puffed up the steep slope, and at last stopped still and looked
back at me in utter disgust; so I took the hint and got off, and led him
up the rest of the way.

"Good morning. We meet on neutral ground," I greeted when I was close
behind her. "I propose a truce."

She jumped a bit, and looked very much astonished to see me there so
close. If it had been some other girl--say Ethel Mapleton--I'd have
suspected the genuineness of that surprise; as it was, I could only think
she had been very much absorbed not to hear me scrambling up there.

"You're an early bird," she said dryly, "to be so far from home." She
glanced toward the pass, as though she would like to cut and run, but
hated to give me the satisfaction.

"Well," I told her with inane complacency, "you will remember that 'it's
the early bird that catches the worm.'"

"What a pretty speech!" she commented, and I saw what I'd done, and felt
myself turn a beautiful purple. Compare her to a worm!

But she laughed when she saw how uncomfortable I was, and after that I was
almost glad I'd said it; she _did_ have dimples--two of them--and--

The laugh, however, was no sign of incipient amiability, as I very soon
discovered. She turned her back on me and went imperturbably on with her
sketching; she was trying to put on paper the lights and shades of White
Divide--and even a desire to be chivalrous will not permit me to lie and
say that she was making any great success of it. I don't believe the Lord
ever intended her for an artist.

"Aren't you giving King's Highway a much wider mouth than it's entitled
to?" I asked mildly, after watching her for a minute.

"I should not be surprised," she told me haughtily, "if you some day
wished it still wider."

"There wouldn't be the chance for fighting, if it was; and I take great
pleasure in keeping the feud going."

"I thought you were anxious for a truce," she said recklessly, shading a
slope so that it looked like the peak of a roof.

"I am," I retorted shamelessly. "I'm anxious for anything under the sun
that will keep you talking to me. People might call that a flirtatious
remark, but I plead not guilty; I wouldn't know how to flirt, even if
I wanted to do so."

She turned her head and looked at me in a way that I could not
misunderstand; it was plain, unvarnished scorn, and a ladylike anger, and
a few other unpleasant things.

It made me think of a certain star in "The Taming of the Shrew."

"Fie, fie! unknit that threatening, unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy neighbor and thine enemy,"

I declaimed, with rather a free adaptation to my own need.

Her brow positively refused to unknit. "Have you nothing to do but spout
bad quotations from Shakespeare on a hilltop?" she wanted to know, in a
particularly disagreeable tone.

"Plenty; I have yet to win that narrow pass," I said.

"Hardly to-day," she told me, with more than a shade of triumph. "Father
is at home, and he heard of your trip yesterday."

If she expected to scare me by that! "Must our feud include your father?
When I met him a month ago, he gave me a cordial invitation to stop, if
I ever happened this way."

She lifted those heavy lashes, and her eyes plainly spoke unbelief.

"It's a fact," I assured her calmly. "I met him one day in Laurel, and was
fortunate enough to perform a service which earned his gratitude. As
I say, he invited me to come and see him; I told him I should be glad to
have him visit me at the Bay State Ranch, and we embraced each other with
much fervor."

"Indeed!" I could see that she persisted in doubting my veracity.

"Ask your father if we didn't," I said, much injured. I knew she wouldn't,
though.

A scrambling behind us made me turn, and there was Perry Potter climbing
up to us, his eyes sharper than ever, and his face so absolutely devoid of
expression that it told me a good deal. I'll lay all I own he was a good
bit astonished at what he saw! As for me, I could have kicked him back to
the bottom of the hill--and I probably looked it.

"There was something I forgot to put in that note," he said evenly, just
touching the brim of his hat in acknowledgment of the girl's presence. "I
wrote another one. I'd like Ballard to get it as soon as you can make
camp--conveniently." His eyes looked through me almost as if I weren't
there.

My desire to kick him grew almost into mania. I took the note, saw at a
glance that it was addressed to me, and said: "All right," in a tone quite
different from the one I had been using to tease Miss King.

He gave me another sharp look, and went back the way he had come, leaving
me standing there glaring after him. Miss King, I noticed, was sketching
for dear life, and her cheeks were crimson.

When Potter had got to the bottom and was riding away, I unfolded the note
and read:

Don't be a fool. For God's sake, have some sense and keep away
from King's Highway.

I laughed, and Miss King looked up inquiringly. Following an impulse I've
never yet been able to classify, I showed her the note.

She read it calmly--I might say indifferently. "He is quite right," she
said coldly. "I, too--if I cared enough--would advise you to keep away
from King's Highway."

"But you don't care enough to advise me, and so I shall go," I said--and
I had the satisfaction of seeing her teeth come down sharply on her lower
lip. I waited a minute, watching her.

"You're very foolish," she said icily, and went at her sketching again.

I waited another minute; during that time she succeeded in making the pass
look weird indeed, and a fearsome place to enter. I got reckless.

"You've spoiled that sketch," I said, stooping and taking it gently from
her. "Give it to me, and it shall be a flag of truce with which I shall
win my way through unscathed."

She started to her feet then, and her anger was worth facing for the glow
it brought to eyes and cheeks, and the tremble that came to her lips.

"Mr. Carleton, you are perfectly detestable!" she cried.

"Miss King, you are perfectly adorable!" I returned, folding the sketch
very carefully, so that it would slip easily into my pocket. "With so
authentic a map of the enemy's stronghold, what need I fear? I go--but,
on my honor, I shall shortly return."

She stood with her fingers clasped tightly in front of her, and watched me
lead Shylock down that butte--on the side toward the pass, if you are
still in doubt of my intentions. When I say she watched me, I am making a
guess; but I felt that she was, and it would be hard to disabuse my mind
of that belief. And when I started, her fingers had been clinging tightly
together. At the bottom I turned and waved my hat--and I know she saw
that, for she immediately whirled and took to studying the southern
sky-line. So I left her and galloped straight into the lion's den--to use
an old simile.

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