Part 18 (1/2)

”It's hard to wreck plowed ground,” Harris pointed out. ”And that's all they have to work on right now; not a fence to tear up, a stack to fire or any growing crops to trample down. All they can do right now is to wait. It must be wearing. But sooner or later they'll show their teeth.”

For a month prior to Deane's arrival Harris had been occupied from dawn till dark with the details of the new work. The wagons had made a week's trip to the railroad to freight in more implements and supplies.

A hundred acres of plowed ground lay mellowing under the sun. Five miles back up the slope of the hills two men worked in a valley of lodgepole pine, felling, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and peeling sets of matched logs for the cabins that must be erected on each filing. The cowhands were out working the range in pairs, branding late-dropped calves and moving drifted stock back to the home range. Forty white-face bulls had been trail-herded from the railroad and thrown out along the foot of the hills to replace the other bulls that had been rounded up and brought in. These old stags now grazed in the big pasture lot until such time as the beef herd should be gathered and s.h.i.+pped. In a few more days the boys would come in from the range and gather at the home ranch, preparatory to going out once more on the beef round-up.

”I'm about to take a vacation,” Harris said. ”The ranger is coming over to mark out some more trees for us and to run the U. S. brand on the logs we've already cut. I'm going back up in the hills with him to sort out a valley or two for summer range.”

”We don't need any extra range now,” Billie said. ”Why pay grazing fees before we need the room.”

”Just to get our wedge in first,” Harris explained. ”We can get grazing permits on the Forest now--right in the best gra.s.s valleys.

Each year we'll throw some cows up there to hold our rights. There'll always be good gra.s.s on the Forest Reserves for they won't permit overstocking. The day will come when we'll be glad to have permits to summer-feed a thousand or so head on the Forest. I was thinking maybe you and Deane would like to make the jaunt.”

”We'll go,” the girl decided.

”It's a question of time,” Deane said. ”How long will we be gone?”

”We'll start in an hour or two,” Harris said. ”Just as soon as Wilton turns up. We'll only be gone five days at the most.”

”Then I'll stretch my stay to cover it,” Deane accepted. ”I'd certainly hate to pa.s.s up a chance for a trip in the hills.”

”We'll ride back and make up an extra bed roll,” Harris said. ”Then we'll be all set to start when Wilton shows up.”

Calico had sidled off the plowing and was cropping the gra.s.s at the edge of it. As Harris moved toward him Evans rode down the right-hand slope and the three waited for him.

”Moore and I were working in close and I thought I'd ride over to tell you that the wild bunch has lost a veteran,” he said. ”Some one put Barton out over in the Breaks.”

Barton, whose name was linked with that of Harper, had been found with a rifle ball through his chest. His own gun, found by his out-stretched hand, had showed one blackened cylinder, the empty sh.e.l.l sufficient proof that he had fired a single shot at his a.s.sailant.

”Anyway, he had a chance to see who got him,” Lanky philosophized. ”He was likely ordered to turn round--given a fighting chance maybe.”

The girl could find no sorrow in her heart over the pa.s.sing of Barton but there was an uneasy feeling deep within her,--a vague suspicion that she should be able to p.r.o.nounce the killer's name. This elusive thought was crowded from her mind when the ranger rode up to the Three Bar accompanied by Slade, each man leading a pack horse.

”Slade's going to look over a little territory up on the Forest,”

Wilton explained. ”So we can get it all done on one trip.”

There was no way to avoid this unexpected addition to their party.

Harris and the ranger packed the three bed rolls and Billie's teepee along with the necessary equipment and in half an hour the little cavalcade filed up a gulch back of the Three Bar, the ranger in the lead with his pack horse. The other pack animals followed and the three other men and the girl brought up the rear in single file. By noon they made the first rims and followed over into a rolling country, heavily timbered in the main. In the early evening they rode out on to a low divide and Blind Valley showed below them, a broad expanse of open gra.s.sland. A little stream threaded the bottoms and its winding course was marked by thickets of birch. In places it disappeared under the leafy tunnels of aspen groves, their pale silvery trunks and leaves contrasting with the heavy blue-green of an occasional water-spruce.

In a narrowing of the valley it was choked from wall to wall by a cottonwood jungle, opening out once more into wide meadows immediately below the neck. Long open parks extended their tongues well back up the timbered sidehills.

”Feed!” Harris said. ”Feed. Worlds of it.”

They angled down the slope and struck the rank gra.s.s of the bottoms,--mountain hay in which the horses stood knee-deep. They made camp at the mouth of a branching canyon, just within the timber. The ranger threw the horses up this side gulch while Harris felled a dead pine and kindled a fire. When the ranger returned he picketed one horse in the heavy gra.s.s while Slade pitched Billie's teepee under a spruce. The meal was finished, dishes washed and the five sat round a fire.

Harris sensed Deane's att.i.tude toward it all for he knew something of the other man's way of life. Those with whom Deane was thrown most in contact were careful of appearances. It was unheard-of in his code that a girl should jaunt for days accompanied by four men. Here appearances seemed entirely disregarded and no one gave the matter a thought.

The moon swung over the ridges and shed its radiance over Blind Valley.

Deane motioned to Billie and the girl rose and followed him to the edge of the timber where they sat on a blow-down.

”Billie, let me take you away from all this,” he urged. ”All this hard riding and rough man's work. Let me give you the things that will shut out all the hards.h.i.+ps. What's the use of going on like this?”

The girl was conscious of a vague sense of disappointment. Deane was an active figure in the business life of his own community and she had felt some pride in the fact that when he should come to the Three Bar he would find that she too was doing real work in the world. She reflected that his att.i.tude was that of so many other men, his idea of love synonymous with shelter for the object of it, and his main plea was that of providing her with shelter against all the rough corners of life. Shelter! And what she wanted was to be part of things--to have a hand in running her own affairs. It came to her that of all men perhaps Slade understood her the best.