Wyoming-a Story of the Outdoor West Read online

  "His horse isn't used to automobiles, and so when it met this one—"

  "I got off," interposed Reddy hastily, displaying a complexion like a boiled beet.

  "He got off," Mac explained gravely to the increasing audience.

  Denver nodded with an imperturbable face. "He got off."

  Mac introduced Miss Messiter to such of her employees as were on hand. "Shake hands with Miss Messiter, Missou," was the formula, the name alone varying to suit the embarrassed gentlemen in leathers. Each of them in turn presented a huge hand, in which her little one disappeared for the time, and was sawed up and down in the air like a pump-handle. Yet if she was amused she did not show it; and her pleasure at meeting the simple, elemental products of the plains outweighed a great deal her sense of the ludicrous.

  "How are your patients getting along?" she presently asked of her foreman.

  "I reckon all right. I sent Reddy for a doc, but—"

  "He got off," murmured Mac pensively.

  "I'll go rope another hawss," put in the man who had got off.

  "Get a jump on you, then. Miss Messiter, would you like to look over the place?"

  "Not now. I want to see the men that were hurt. Perhaps I can help them. Once I took a few weeks in nursing."

  "Bully for you, ma'am," whooped Mac. "I've a notion those boys are sufferin' for a woman to put the diamond-hitch on them bandages."

  "Bring that suit-case in," she commanded Denver, in the gentlest voice he had ever heard, after she had made a hasty inspection of the first wounded man.

  From the suit-case she took a little leather medicine-case, the kind that can be bought already prepared for use. It held among other things a roll of medicated cotton, some antiseptic tablets, and a little steel instrument for probing.

  "Some warm water, please; and have some boiling on the range," were her next commands.

  Mac flew to execute them.

  It was a pleasure to see her work, so deftly the skillful hands accomplished what her brain told them. In admiring awe the punchers stood awkwardly around while she washed and dressed the hurts. Two of the bullets had gone through the fleshy part of the arm and left clean wounds. In the case of the third man she had to probe for the lead, but fortunately found it with little difficulty. Meanwhile she soothed the victim with gentle womanly sympathy.

  "I know it hurts a good deal. Just a minute and I'll be through."

  His hands clutched tightly the edges of his bunk. "That's all right, doc. You attend to roping that pill and I'll endure the grief."

  A long sigh of relief went up from the assembled cowboys when she drew the bullet out.

  The sinewy hands fastened on the wooden bunk relaxed suddenly.

  "'Frisco's daid," gasped the cook, who bore the title of Wun Hop for no reason except that he was an Irishman in a place formerly held by a Chinese.

  "He has only fainted," she said quietly, and continued with the antiseptic dressing.

  When it was all over, the big, tanned men gathered at the entrance to the calf corral and expanded in admiration of their new boss.

  "She's a pure for fair. She grades up any old way yuh take her to the best corn-fed article on the market," pronounced Denver, with enthusiasm.

  "I got to ride the boundary," sighed Missou. "I kinder hate to go right now."

  "Here, too," acquiesced another. "I got a round-up on Wind Creek to cut out them two-year-olds. If 'twas my say-so, I'd order Mac on that job."

  "Right kind of y'u. Seems to me"—Mac's sarcastic eye trailed around to include all those who had been singing her praises—"the new queen of this hacienda won't have no trouble at all picking a prince consort when she gets round to it. Here's Wun Hop, not what y'u might call anxious, but ce'tainly willing. Then Denver's some in the turtle-dove business, according to that hash-slinger in Cheyenne. Missou might be induced to accept if it was offered him proper; and I allow Jim ain't turned the color of Redtop's hair jest for instance. I don't want to leave out 'Frisco and the other boys carrying Bannister's pills—"

  "Nor McWilliams. I'd admire to include him," murmured Denver.

  That sunburned, nonchalant youth laughed musically. "Sure thing. I'd hate to be left out. The only difference is—"

  "Well?"

  His roving eye circled blandly round. "I stand about one show in a million. Y'u roughnecks are dead ones already."

  With which cold comfort he sauntered away to join Miss Messiter and the foreman, who now appeared together at the door of the ranchhouse, prepared to make a tour of the buildings and the immediate corrals.

  "Isn't there a woman on the place?" she was asking Morgan.

  "No'm, there ain't. Henderson's daughter would come and stay with y'u a while I reckon."

  "Please send for her at once, then, and ask her to come to-day."

  "All right. I'll send one of the boys right away."

  "How did y'u leave 'Frisco, ma'am?" asked Mac, by way of including himself easily.

  "He's resting quietly. Unless blood-poisoning sets in they ought all to do well."

  "It's right lucky for them y'u happened along. This is the hawss corral, ma'am," explained the young man just as Morgan opened his thin lips to tell her.

  Judd contrived to get rid of him promptly. "Slap on a saddle, Mac, and run up the remuda so Miss Messiter can see the hawsses for herself," he ordered.

  "Mebbe she'd rather ride down and look at the bunch," suggested the capable McWilliams.

  As it chanced, she did prefer to ride down the pasture and look over the place from on horseback. She was in love with her ranch already. Its spacious distances, the thousands of cattle and the horses, these picturesque retainers who served her even to the shedding of an enemy's blood; they all struck an answering echo in her gallant young heart that nothing in Kalamazoo had been able to stir. She bubbled over with enthusiasm, the while Morgan covertly sneered and McWilliams warmed to the untamed youth in her.

  "What about this man Bannister?" she flung out suddenly, after they had cantered back to the house when the remuda had been inspected.

  Her abrupt question brought again the short, tense silence she had become used to expect.

  "He runs sheep about twenty or thirty miles southwest of here," explained McWilliams, in a carefully casual tone.

  "So everybody tells me, but it seems to me he spills a good deal of lead on my men," she answered impatiently. "What's the trouble?"

  "Last week he crossed the dead-line with a bunch of five thousand sheep."

  "Who draws this dead-line?"

  "The cattlemen got together and drew it. Your uncle was one of those that marked it off, ma'am."

  "And Bannister crossed it?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Yesterday 'Frisco come on him and one of his herders with a big bunch of them less than fifteen miles from here. He didn't know it was Bannister, and took a pot-shot at him. 'Course Bannister came back at him, and he got Frisco in the laig."

  "Didn't know it was Bannister? What difference WOULD that make?" she said impatiently.

  Mac laughed. "What difference would it make, Judd?"

  Morgan scowled, and the young man answered his own question. "We don't any of us go out of our way more'n a mile to cross Bannister's trail," he drawled.

  "Do you wear this for an ornament? Are you upholstered with hardware to catch the eyes of some girl?" she asked, touching with the end of her whip the revolver in the holster strapped to his chaps.

  His serene, gay smile flashed at her. "Are y'u ordering me to go out and get Ned Bannister's scalp?"

  "No, I am not," she explained promptly. "What I am trying to discover is why you all seem to be afraid of one man. He is only a man, isn't he?"

  A veil of ice seemed to fall over the boyish face and leave it chiseled marble. His unspeaking eyes rested on the swarthy foreman as he answered:

  "I don't know what he is, ma'am. He may be one man, or he may be a hundred. What's more, I ain't particularly suffering to find out. Fact is, I haven't lost any Bannist
ers."

  The girl became aware that her foreman was looking at her with a wary silent vigilance sinister in its intensity.

  "In short, you're like the rest of the people in this section. You're afraid."

  "Now y'u're shoutin', Miss Messiter. I sure am when it comes to shootin' off my mouth about Bannister."

  "And you, Mr. Morgan?"

  It struck her that the young puncher waited with a curious interest for the answer of the foreman.

  "Did it look like I was afraid this mawnin', ma'am?" he asked, with narrowed eyes.

  "No, you all seemed brave enough then, when you had him eight to one."

  "I wasn't there," hastily put in McWilliams. "I don't go gunning for my man without giving him a show."

  "I do," retorted Morgan cruelly. "I'd go if we was fifty to one. We'd 'a' got him, too, if it hadn't been for Miss Messiter. 'Twas a chance we ain't likely to get again for a year."

  "It wasn't your fault you didn't kill him, Mr. Morgan," she said, looking hard at him. "You may be interested to know that your last shot missed him only about six inches, and me about four."

  "I didn't know who you were," he sullenly defended.

  "I see. You only shoot at women when you don't know who they are." She turned her back on him pointedly and addressed herself to McWilliams. "You can tell the men working on this ranch that I won't have any more such attacks on this man Bannister. I don't care what or who he is. I don't propose to have him murdered by my employees. Let the law take him and hang him. Do you hear?"

  "I ce'tainly do, and the boys will get the word straight," he replied.

  "I take it since yuh are giving your orders through Mac, yuh don't need me any longer for your foreman," bullied Morgan.

  "You take it right, sir," came her crisp reply. "McWilliams will be my foreman from to-day."

  The man's face, malignant and wolfish, suddenly lost its mask. That she would so promptly call his bluff was the last thing he had expected. "That's all right. I reckon yuh think yuh know your own business, but I'll put it to yuh straight. Long as yuh live you'll be sorry for this."

  And with that he wheeled away.

  She turned to her new foreman and found him less radiant than she could have desired. "I'm right sorry y'u did that. I'm afraid y'u'll make trouble for yourself," he said quietly.

  "Why?"

  "I don't know myself just why." He hesitated before adding: "They say him and Bannister is thicker than they'd ought to be. It's a cinch that he's in cahoots somehow with that Shoshone bunch of bad men."

  "But—why, that's ridiculous. Only this morning he was trying to kill Bannister himself."

  "That's what I don't just savvy. There's a whole lot about that business I don't get next to. I guess Bannister is at the head of them. Everybody seems agreed about that. But the whole thing is a tangle of contradiction to me. I've milled it over a heap in my mind, too."

  "What are some of the contradictions?"

  "Well, here's one right off the bat, as we used to say back in the States. Bannister is a great musician, they claim; fine singer, and all that. Now I happen to know he can't sing any more than a bellowing yearling."

  "How do you know?" she asked, her eyes shining with interest.

  "Because I heard him try it. 'Twas one day last summer when I was out cutting trail of a bunch of strays down by Dead Cow Creek. The day was hot, and I lay down behind a cottonwood and dropped off to sleep. When I awakened it didn't take me longer'n an hour to discover what had woke me. Somebody on the other side of the creek was trying to sing. It was ce'tainly the limit. Pretty soon he come out of the brush and I seen it was Bannister."

  "You're sure it was Bannister?"

  "If seeing is believing, I'm sure."

  "And was his singing really so bad?"

  "I'd hate ever to hear worse."

  "Was he singing when you saw him?"

  "No, he'd just quit. He caught sight of my pony grazing, and hunted cover real prompt."

  "Then it might have been another man singing in the thicket."

  "It might, but it wasn't. Y'u see, I'd followed him through the bush by his song, and he showed up the moment I expected him."

  "Still there might have been another man there singing."

  "One chance in a million," he conceded.

  A sudden hope flamed up like tow in her heart. Perhaps, after all, Ned Bannister was not the leader of the outlaws. Perhaps somebody else was masquerading in his name, using Bannister's unpopularity as a shield to cover his iniquities. Still, this was an unlikely hypothesis, she had to admit. For why should he allow his good name to be dragged in the dust without any effort to save it? On a sudden impulse the girl confided her doubt to McWilliams.

  "You don't suppose there can be any mistake, do you? Somehow I can't think him as bad as they say. He looks awfully reckless, but one feels one could trust his face."

  "Same here," agreed the new foreman. "First off when I saw him my think was, 'I'd like to have that man backing my play when I'm sitting in the game with Old Man Hard Luck reaching out for my blue chips.'"

  "You don't think faces lie, do you?"

  "I've seen them that did, but, gen'rally speaking, tongues are a heap likelier to get tangled with the truth. But I reckon there ain't any doubt about Bannister. He's known over all this Western country."

  The young woman sighed. "I'm afraid you're right."

  CHAPTER 5. THE DANCE AT FRASER'S

  "Heard tell yet of the dance over to Fraser's?"

  He was a young man of a brick red countenance and he wore loosely round his neck the best polka dot silk handkerchief that could be bought in Gimlet Butte, also such gala attire as was usually reserved only for events of importance. Sitting his horse carelessly in the plainsman's indolent fashion, he asked his question of McWilliams in front of the Lazy D bunkhouse.

  "Nope. When does the shindig come off?"

  "Friday night. Big thing. Y'u want to be there. All y'u lads."

  "Mebbe some of us will ride over."

  He of the polka dot kerchief did not appear quite satisfied. His glance wandered toward the house, as it had been doing occasionally since the moment of his arrival.

  "Y'u bet this dance is ace high, Mac. Fancy costumes and masks. Y'u can rent the costumes over to Slauson's for three per. Texas, he's going to call the dances. Music from Gimlet Butte. Y'u want to get it tucked away in your thinker that this dance ain't on the order of culls. No, sirree, it's cornfed."

  "Glad to hear of it. I'll cipher out somehow to be there, Slim."

  Slim's glance took in the ranchhouse again. He had ridden twenty-three miles out of his way to catch a glimpse of the newly arrived mistress of the Lazy D, the report of whose good looks and adventures had traveled hand in hand through many canons even to the heart of the Tetons. It had been on Skunk Creek that he had heard of her three days before, and now he had come to verify the tongue of rumor, to see her quite casually, of course, and do his own appraising. It began to look as if he were going to have to ride off without a glimpse of her.

  He nodded toward the house, turning a shade more purple than his native choleric hue. "Y'u want to bring your boss with y'u, Mac. We been hearing a right smart lot about her and the boys would admire to have her present. It's going to be strictly according to Hoyle—no rough-house plays go, y'understand."

  "I'll speak to her about it." Mac's deep amusement did not reach the surface. He was quite well aware that Slim was playing for time and that he was too bashful to plump out the desire that was in him. "Great the way cows are jumpin', ain't it?"

  "Sure. Well, I'll be movin' along to Slauson's. I just drapped in on my way. Thought mebbe y'u hadn't heard tell of the dance."

  "Much obliged. Was it for old man Slauson y'u dug up all them togs, Slim? He'll ce'tainly admire to see y'u in that silk tablecloth y'u got round your neck."

  Slim's purple deepened again. "Y'u go to grass, Mac. I don't aim to ask y'u to be my valley yet awhile."

  "C'rect.
I was just wondering do all the Triangle Bar boys ride the range so handsome?"

  "Don't y'u worry about the Triangle Bar boys," advised the embarrassed Slim, gathering up his bridle reins.

  With one more reluctant glance in the direction of the house he rode away. When he reached the corral he looked back again. His gaze showed him the boyish foreman doubled up with laughter; also the sweep of a white skirt descending from the piazza.

  "Now, ain't that hoodooed luck?" the aggrieved rider of the Triangle Bar outfit demanded of himself, "I made my getaway about three shakes too soon, by gum!"

  Her foreman was in the throes of mirth when Helen Messiter reached him.

  "Include me in the joke," she suggested.

  "Oh, I was just thinkin'," he explained inadequately.

  "Does it always take you that way?"

  "About these boys that drop in so frequent on business these days. Funny how fond they're getting of the Lazy D. There was that stock detective happened in yesterday to show how anxious he was about your cows. Then the two Willow Creek riders that wanted a job punching for y'u, not to mention mention the Shoshone miner and the storekeeper from Gimlet Butte and Soapy Sothern and—"

  "Still I don't quite see the joke."

  "It ain't any joke with them. Serious business, ma'am."

  "What happened to start you on this line?"

  "The lad riding down the road on that piebald pinto. He come twenty miles out of his way, plumb dressed for a wedding, all to give me an invite to a dance at Fraser's. Y'u would call that real thoughtful of him, I expect."

  She gayly sparkled. "A real ranch dance—the kind you have been telling me about. Are Ida and I invited?"

  "Invited? Slim hinted at a lynching if I came without y'u."

  She laughed softly, merry eyes flashing swiftly at him. "How gallant you Westerners are, even though you do turn it into burlesque."

  His young laugh echoed hers. "Burlesque nothing. My life wouldn't be worth a thing if I went alone. Honest, I wouldn't dare."

  "Since the ranch can't afford to lose its foreman Ida and I will go along," she promised. "That is, if it is considered proper here."

  "Proper. Good gracious, ma'am! Every lady for thirty miles round will be there, from six months old to eighty odd years. It wouldn't be PROPER to stay at home."