Part 28 (2/2)

'Drop in and see us when you're in town and have the time,' he said cordially. 'Mrs. Engle was speaking of you only the other day. You'll want to be on your way now. I'll let you have five thousand on your equity and let the other fifteen hundred ride with it, making one note for sixty-five hundred. I think that if you work things right and hold down expenses and make the sales and purchases and other sales you have in mind, you'll get away with your deal. Just the same, my boy,' and for an instant there came into his eyes the fighting look which had been there frequently in the day when he fought out his own battles, 'you've got a man's-sized job on your hands.'

'I know it,' said Alan. And when, the proper papers signed, he said good-bye, his eyes brightened and he said directly: 'It's a great thing, John Engle, to have a man's-sized man to talk things over with.'

From his window Engle musingly watched the tall form go out to the horse at the hitching-post and swing up into the saddle.

'Now what's happened between him and John Carr?' he asked himself. And without hesitation he answered his own question: 'A girl, I suppose.

Well, she ought to be a real girl to do that.'

Howard, riding joyously back toward Desert Valley, thought first of Helen. But not even Helen could hold all of his thoughts when at length his horse's hoofs fell again upon the rim of Desert Valley Land.

Upon the bordering hills of the southern edge of the valley he drew rein and sat, lost in thought. He saw herds feeding, and they were his herds and he himself did not know their exact number. He must know; the game was swiftly becoming one where p.a.w.ns count. He saw a man riding; it was his man, whom he must direct and pay. He saw water running in one of his larger creeks, and thought how it too must be made to work for him. Yonder were colts running wild; there were more than he required at present. They must be broken; they could be sold.

He looked across empty acres, rich pasture lands void of grazing stock.

A slow, thoughtful frown gathered in his eyes; he must somehow put stock into them, stock to be bought skilfully and sold skilfully. All of this glorious sweep of country stretching to the four corners of the compa.s.s was his, his very own, if he were man enough to go on with the work to which he had somewhat lightly set his hand. He had loved it always, since first he had come here as John Carr's guest. He loved it now with a mounting pa.s.sion. It flashed over him that when, at some far-distant time, he should die, this was the one spot upon G.o.d's great earth where he should want his ashes scattered on the little wind which came down from the hills. It was a part of him and he a part of it.

And as he loved it and yearned for it utterly, so did Helen love it.

'It is going to be mine and yours, my dear.' He spoke aloud, his voice stern with his determination. 'For us to have and to hold.'

And because of the thought and the knowledge of what lay ahead of him, he knew that for the present he must forego that to which he had looked forward all day. He must for a little postpone a ride to see Helen.

For already he foresaw the calls upon his time; short-handed, it was to be work for him from long before day until long after dark. As he started down the hill into the valley he saw a herd of cattle coming from the north. He had a round-up on his hands to begin with, and it was already beginning.

Chapter XXI

Almost

Long hours and hard work in the cattle country mean that a man slips from his saddle into his bunk and to sleep, and from his bunk into his saddle again, with only time to bolt his food and hot coffee infrequently and at irregular intervals. Chuck Evans had obeyed orders; the ranch was short-handed and the 'old-timers' remaining cursed a little, to be sure, at the new order of things, but understood and went to work. Howard, when he met them all at supper long after dark, noted how their sunburned eyes turned upon him speculatively.

And he knew that in their own parlance every mother's son of them was ready to go the limit if the old man set the pace. That night, when the others trooped off to bed, he detained Chuck Evans and Plug Oliver and Dave Terril for a brief conference. To them he gave in what detail he could his latest plans. Also, since they were friends as well as hired hands, he told them frankly of his difficulties and of his success with Engle. When the men left him they had accepted his fight as their own.

The first man in the saddle the next day was Howard. He ordered the tally taken of every head of stock on his ranch. This alone, since his acres were broad and since his stock grazed free over thousands of acres lying adjacent to Desert Valley on three sides, was a big task.

Already, during his absence, a number of the best of the beef cattle had been moved to the meadowlands. He set a man to close-herd there; he sent other men to bring in still other straying stock; he himself judged every single head, cutting out those he deemed unfit; finally he saw the growing herd driven down into the choicest of his meadow grazing land to fatten.

All of this required days. Between breakfast and supper every man with the outfit changed his horse several times; Howard, the hardest rider of them all, changed horses five times the first day. He and his men showed signs of the strain they put upon their bodies; they were a gaunt, lean-jawed, wild-eyed lot. There was little frolic left in them when night came; they were short-spoken, p.r.o.ne to grow fierce over trifles. But there was not a sullen or discontented man among them.

They took what came; they had known times of stress before; they could look forward to a day to come of boisterous relaxation and money to be spent in town. Though the subject had never been mentioned, they fully understood that there would be a bonus coming and a glorious holiday.

They would see the old man through now: later he would square the account.

Eat, sleep and work; there was nothing else in their schedule. The times when Howard had a few moments over a cigarette to think quietly of Helen were times when he could not go to her: in the dimness of the coming day when he was going out to saddle and she would still be asleep; in the dark of the day ended when she would be going to bed.

But he held grimly to his task here, saying to himself that in a few days he would ride to her and with something to say; wondering how she would listen; sometimes aglow with his hope, sometimes fearing. And, as he thought of her, so did he think often of John Carr. He did not know if Carr had gone East or if still he were a daily guest at the Longstreet home. Not a man of his riders had been beyond the confines of the grazing lands; no one had come in from the outside. There was no news.

So a full week sped by. Then for the first time came both opportunity and excuse for Howard to leave the ranch. Chuck Evans had ridden into San Ramon to see if there were a market for a string of mules; he brought back word that a teamster named Roberts in the new mining-camp had been making inquiries. It seemed that he wanted high-grade stock and had the money to pay for it. Everything was running smoothly on the ranch, and Howard rode this time on his own errand. But, before starting for Sanchia's Town, he slipped into the ranchhouse and shaved and changed to a new s.h.i.+rt and chaps and recently blackened boots.

Thereafter he brushed his best black hat. Then from a bottom drawer of his old bureau, where it was hidden under a pile of clothing, he brought out a parcel which had come with him from a store in San Juan.

As good a way as any to see Roberts in Sanchia's Town led by way of the Longstreet camp on Last Ridge. Howard took the winding trail up which his horse could climb to the plateau, and once on the level land came swooping down on the well-remembered spot joyously. The spot itself was hidden from him by the grove of stunted pines until he came within a couple of hundred yards of it. Then he jerked his horse down to a standstill and sat staring before him incredulously. The cabin was gone quite as though there had never been a cabin there in all time.

At first he wouldn't believe his eyes. Then swiftly his wonderment altered to consternation. They had gone! Helen and her father had gone. Carr had prevailed upon them; Howard had not come to see; by now they were flying eastward upon the speeding overland train, or perhaps were already in New York.

The splendour of the day died; the joyousness went out of his heart; he sat staring at the emptiness before him, then at the parcel in brown paper clutched so foolishly in his hand. He looked all about him; through the trees as though he expected to see Helen's laughing face watching him; across the broken ridges beyond the flat; down into his own valley. Down there, too, the glory had pa.s.sed. When he had stood here with Helen and they two had looked across the valley lands together, it had been to him like the promised land. Now it was so much dirt and rock and gra.s.s with cows and horses browsing stupidly across all of it.

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