Part 26 (1/2)
”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 a.s.sertion, 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 h.e.l.l 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.”