CHAPTER XI
HEPBURN'S PLAY
It was the next morning. Beck, standing beside Jane's desk, had told her of the foreman's departure and its motive.
"But doesn't that mean he'll be in danger?" she queried in frank dismay.
"A man who goes after horse thieves is likely to run into trouble, ma'am. That is, if he gets close to 'em. He wouldn't let anybody go with him so I guess he figures he's competent,"—dryly. "He'll come back all right. I'd bet on it."
"But I don't want any of you men to put yourselves in danger for me, for the things I own. I won't have it! Haven't we any law to protect us?"
Beck shook his head.
"There's law, on books. But using that law takes time and in some cases, like this, there ain't time to spare. You've got to make a law of your own or those that somebody else makes won't be worth much to you.
"It ain't just pleasant to have to go gunning for your horses and cattle, but if that's the only way to hold 'em it's got to be done. It's either go get 'em and drive the thieves out or be driven out yourself. You don't want to be driven out, do you, ma'am?"
"You know the answer to that," she declared resolutely. "Where is this place? How long will it take him to get there?"
"Can't tell that. Twenty Mile is only a short ride, but we got the news late. They're probably gone yonder by now and he might trail 'em a good many days an' then lose 'em."
Again that dryness of manner as he looked at the girl.
"And this other? This water hole? What about that?"
Beck could not give her an answer.
"It all depends on what sort of nester this is. He might be talked out of it, though that ain't likely."
She tapped the desk with nervous fingers.
"I came down to tell you about Dad last night. That's why I was here," he explained, as though he considered an explanation necessary. And with it was an indication of the curiosity which he could not conceal.
Jane flushed, and her gaze fell. The man stood looking down at her golden hair, the soft skin of cheeks and throat, the parted lips. One of his hands closed slowly, tightly. For a moment he let himself want her!
"I am very glad that you did come. I don't know how much you heard or what you saw but—"
"Nothing that I can recall, except that you wasn't havin' your own way."
The courtesy of this touched her and she smiled her gratitude.
"Dick Hilton had been an old friend of mine; that is, I thought he was a friend. I....
"He said some things last night that I wouldn't want you to misunderstand. They.... That is, it would hurt me to think that you might believe what you heard him say."
"I don't think there's any danger of me misunderstanding anything that man would say about you. I mean, his meaning, ma'am, not only his words."
"That is as much assurance as could be given," she replied.
For forty-eight hours following Hepburn's departure the H C was in a state of expectation. Frequently, even on the first night following, the men would stop talking and listen at any unusual sound as though that all believed it might be the foreman returning or some one with the word that he would never return, because the remainder of the crew did not have the faith in his well being that Beck had expressed to Jane Hunter.
The Reverend held the floor much of the time, preaching frequent impromptu sermons, discoursing largely on small matters. To him the rest listened in delight with the exception of Two-Bits, who was overawed by the verboseness of his kin.
A less obvious activity of the Reverend's was his pertinent, never ceasing questioning. He asked questions casually and covered his attempts to glean information by long-winded comments on irrelevant subjects. Tom Beck, even, caught himself expressing opinions when he had not intended to and guarded himself thereafter.
"He's an old fox!" he thought. "He knows a heap more than he lets on ... like some other folks."
Otherwise the man seemed harmless. He let no opportunity pass to sell his fountain pens which he carried always in the pockets of his frock coat. He took frequent inventories of his stock and when he miscounted or actually found some article missing he turned the place upside down until the loss was adjusted.
He seemed inclined to linger because though assuring the rest that his plans were not of mortal making he often spoke of the summer's work. He was no mean ranch hand himself and was with his brother much, doing everything from branding colts to digging post holes.
When, on the morning of the third day Hepburn had not returned, Jane called Beck to the house and asked if he did not think it wise to send help. The man did not reply at once because at this suggestion a possibility flashed into his mind which he had not considered hitherto. He looked at the girl who stood fingering the locket and asked himself:
"Has he taken this chance to quit the country? Has something happened that is bound to come to light?"
Aloud, he said:
"Your worry is in the wrong place. You're worrying over your men and you ought to be worrying over your stock. You've come into this country; you want to stay; you don't seem to understand, quite, that this is no polite game you're playing.
"When a man goes to work for an outfit, if he's the right kind to be a top hand out here, he's willing to do anything that comes up, even if it's risking his life. That ain't right pleasant to think about, ma'am, but we all understand it. If it has to be it has to be; no choice.
"If you're going to worry more about your men in a case like this than you do about havin' them hold up your end of the game you ain't going to play up to your part. You can't be soft hearted and stand off horse thieves."
"But, don't you see that I can't feel that way?" she pleaded.
"Then you've got to act that way, ma'am," he replied in rebuke. "Your men have got to understand that you care whether school keeps or not ... or school ain't going to keep. Get that straight in your head."
He looked down at her a moment and his face changed, that little dancing light coming into his eyes at first; then he smiled openly.
"There's a word we use out here that I guess that they didn't use in the country you come from. It's Guts. They're necessary, ma'am."
He waited to see how she would take his assertion, but she only flushed slightly.
"If Hepburn don't show up soon, it might be wise to go prospectin', but it won't be best to think more about him than you do about the men he's after ... least, it won't be wise to show you do. I ain't advisin' you to be hard hearted. Just play the game; that's all."
He left her, with a deal to think about.
After all, there had been no occasion for concern because at noon, dust covered, on a gaunt horse, the foreman brought eight HC horses into the ranch.
The men hastened from the dinner table but Hepburn did not respond to their queries and congratulations. He bore himself with dignity and had an eye only for the completion of his task.
"Open the gate to the little corral, Two-Bits," he directed and, this done, urged the horses within.
Next he dragged his saddle from the big bay and rubbed the animal's back solicitously, let him roll and led him to the stable where he measured out a lavish feed of oats.
Meanwhile he had been surrounded by insistent questioners but he put them off rather abruptly; when he emerged from the stable, slapping his palms together to rid them of moist horse hair he stopped, hitched up his chaps and looked from face to face until his eyes met those of Tom Beck, who had been the last to approach. Their gazes clung, Hepburn's in challenge, now, and in the other's an expression which defied definition.
"I brought 'em in," the foreman said, still staring at Beck and bit savagely down on his tobacco. "Does that mean anything?"
Beck smiled, as though it did not matter much, and said:
"For the present ... you win."
The others had not caught the significance of this exchange and when Dad moved forward their talk broke out afresh. The foreman grinned, pleased at the stir.
"Now, now! Don't swamp a waddie when he comes in after next to no sleep an' ridin' from hell to breakfast!" he protested. "One at a time, one at a time."
"Tie to the story an' drag her past us," advised Curtis.
"It ain't much,"—with a modesty that was somewhat forced. "It wasn't nothin' but a case of goin' and gettin' the goods. Picked up the trail at the mouth of Twenty Mile early the mornin' after I set out and dragged right along on it. There was three of 'em, so I laid pretty low after noon. Then one cuts off towards the rail road and at night the others turned the horses into that old corral at the Ute's buckskin camp. I waited until they got to sleep, saw I couldn't sneak the stock away so,"—he spat and wiped his mustache, "I just naturally scattered their fire all ways!"
He laughed heartily.
"You'd ought to seen 'em coming out of their blankets! I dropped two shots in the coals and then blazed away at the first man up. Missed him but cut 'em off from their ridin' horses, got ours out of the corral while their saddle stock was stampedin' all over the brush and lit out for here, hittin' the breeze!
"That's about all. Stopped at Webb's last night and tried to figure out the men, but they're strangers, I guess."
There were comments and questions. Then Jimmy Oliver, looking at Dad's saddle, said:
"What happened to your horn, there?"
The foreman chuckled.
"One of 'em almost got me, boys, but a miss is as good as four or five days' ride, ain't it? Was circlin' for the horses, shootin' sideways at 'em when one of 'em put some lead in betwixt me and the horn, only quite close to the horn, it seems."
"Well, I'll be darned if you didn't have a close shave, and—"
Just then Jane Hunter rode up on her sorrel and when she saw her foreman she smiled in relief.
"You're back, and safely!" she said as she dismounted.
"With the bacon, ma'am."
"An' they almost got his bacon, Miss Hunter," Oliver said. "Look here!" He indicated the damaged saddle and explained.
"They came that close to shooting you?" she asked Dad. Her voice was even enough but she could not conceal her dismay at his narrow escape.
"Why, Miss Hunter, that ain't nothin'! I was just tellin' the boys that a miss is as good as a long ride. I'm your foreman, they was your horses—"
"Such things have to be," she broke in, making an effort to be decisive and convincing, but her voice was not just steady and Beck, at least, knew how desperately she tried to play up to her part, to smother her impulse to show that she held life dearer than she did her property, to shrink from the hard facts of the hard life she faced.
"So long as I'm your foreman nobody's goin' to get away with your stock without a fight," Hepburn went on pompously, well satisfied with the impression he had made. "If necessary they'll come a lot closer to lettin' blessed sunshine in to my carcass than this! There ain't a man of us who wouldn't do it for you an' gladly. If they're goin' to try to fleece you they've got us to reckon with first.
"Ain't that the truth, Tom?"
Beck did not reply but watched Jane Hunter as she stood looking down at the saddle with its tell tale scar.
The Reverend remained when the group broke up. He leaned low over the saddle and examined the leather binding about the horn. He fingered it, then lowered his face close against it. For a moment he held so and then straightened slowly. He walked toward the bunk house so absorbed that he talked to himself and as he passed Beck he was muttering:
"... wolf in sheep's clothing ..."
"What's that?" asked Beck.
The Reverend stopped, surprised that he had been overheard. He looked at Tom and blinked and rattled the pens in his coat pocket; then looked about to see whether they were observed.
"Brother, when a man is honest does he go to great pains to make that honesty evident? Does he lie to make people believe he does not act a lie?"
"Not usually. What are you drivin' at, Reverend?"
The other stepped closer.
"If you'll examine that saddle horn, you'll discover that the shot which tore it was fired from a gun held so close that the powder burned the leather. More: that it was fired so recently that the smell of powder is still there.
"There is something rotten, brother, in a locality nearer than Denmark!"
Beck whistled softly to himself.