L. Frank Baum_Aunt Jane 06 (11 page)

"This is my cousin, Elizabeth De Graf," announced Patsy, with cold
deliberation, determined that the proprieties should be observed in
all intercourse with these people. "And I present our friend, Myrtle
Dean. Under ordinary circumstances I believe Myrtle would be excused
from dancing, but I suppose no brute in the form of a man would have
consideration for her infirmity."

This time even Tobey flushed.

"You've a sharp tongue, Miss Doyle, and it's liable to lead you into
trouble," he retorted, losing for the moment his suave demeanor. "We
may be brutes—and I imagine we are—but we're not dangerous unless
provoked."

It was savagely said, and Uncle John took warning and motioned Patsy
to be silent.

"Lead the way, sir," he said. "Our chauffeur will of course remain
with the car."

Wampus had kept his seat, motionless and silent. He only nodded in
answer to Mr. Merrick's instructions and was entirely disregarded by
the remittance men.

The man called "Stubby," who had a round, good-humored face, stepped
eagerly to Myrtle's side and exclaimed: "Let me assist you, please."

"No," she said, shaking her head with a wan smile; "I am quite able to
walk alone."

He followed her, though, full of interest and with an air of deep
respect that belied his former actions. Tobey, content with his
present success, walked beside Mr. Merrick and led the procession
toward the ranch house. The Major followed, his tall form upright, his
manner bellicose and resentful, with Beth and Patsy on either side of
him. The remittance men followed in a straggling crowd, laughing and
boisterously talking among themselves. Just as they reached the house
a horseman came clattering down the road and all paused involuntarily
to mark the new arrival. The rider was a handsome, slim young fellow,
dressed as were the other cowboys present, and he came on at a
breakneck speed that seemed only warranted by an errand of life and
death.

In front of him, tied to the saddle, appeared a huge bundle, and as
the horse dashed up to the group standing by the ranch house the rider
gracefully threw himself off and removed his hat with a sweeping
gesture as he observed the young ladies.

"I've got him, Algy!" he cried merrily.

"Dan'l?" asked Tobey.

"Dan'l himself." He pointed to the bundle, which heaved and wriggled
to show it was alive. "He refused to come willingly, of course; so
I brought him anyhow. Never yet was there a fiddler willing to be
accommodating."

"Good for you, Tim!" shouted a dozen voices. And Stubby added in his
earnest way; "Dan'l was never more needed in his life."

Tobey was busy unwinding a long lariat that bent the captive nearly
double and secured him firmly to the panting horse. When the bonds
were removed Dan'l would have tumbled prone to the ground had not
willing hands caught him and supported him upon his feet. Our friends
then observed that he was an aged man with a face thickly furrowed
with wrinkles. He had but one eye, small and gray and very shrewd in
expression, which he turned contemptuously upon the crowd surrounding
him. Numb and trembling from his cramped position upon the horse and
the terrible jouncing he had endured, the fiddler could scarcely stand
at first and shook as with a palsy; but he made a brave effort to
control his weakness and turned smilingly at the murmur of pity and
indignation that came from the lips of the girls.

"Where's the fiddle?" demanded Tobey, and Tim unhooked a calico bag
from the saddlebow and held it out. A laugh greeted the gesture.

"Dan'l said he be hanged if he'd come," announced Tim, with a grim
appreciation of the humorous side of the situation; "so I hung him and
brought him along—and his fiddle to boot. But don't boot it until
after the dance."

"What do you mean, sir, by this rebellious attitude?" questioned
Tobey, sticking his damaged face close to that of the fiddler.

Dan'l blinked with his one eye but refused to answer.

"I've a good mind to skin you alive," continued the leader, in a
savage tone. "You'll either obey my orders or I'll throw you into the
snake pit."

"Let him alone, Algy," said Tim, carelessly. "The old scoundrel has
been tortured enough already. But I see we have partners for the
dance," looking critically at the girls, "and I claim first choice
because I've brought the fiddler."

At this a roar of protest arose and Tobey turned and said sullenly:

"Come in, all of you. We'll settle the order of dancing later on."

The interior of the ranch house was certainly picturesque. A great
living room ran all across the front, with an immense fireplace
built of irregular adobe bricks. The floor was strewn with skins of
animals—mostly coyotes, a few deer and one or two mountain lions—and
the walls were thickly hung with weapons and trophies of the chase.
A big table in one corner was loaded with bottles and glasses,
indicating the intemperate habits of the inmates, while on the chimney
shelf were rows of pipes and jars of tobacco. An odor similar to that
of a barroom hung over the place which the air from the open windows
seemed unable to dissipate.

There were plenty of benches and chairs, with a long mess table
occupying the center of the room. In a corner was an old square piano,
which a Mexican was trying to dust as the party entered.

"Welcome to Hades!" exclaimed Tobey, with an absurd gesture. "Be good
enough to make yourselves at home and I'll see if those devils of
Chinamen are getting luncheon ready."

Silently the prisoners sat down. The crowd poured in after them and
disposed themselves in various attitudes about the big room, all
staring with more or less boldness at the three girls. Dan'l the
fiddler was pushed in with the others and given a seat, while two or
three of the imitation cowboys kept guard over him to prevent any
possible escape. So far the old man had not addressed a word to
anyone.

With the absence of the leader the feeling of restraint seemed to
relax. The cowboys began whispering among themselves and chuckling
with glee, as if they were enjoying some huge joke. Stubby had placed
himself near the three young ladies, whom he eyed with adoring
glances, and somehow none of the prisoners regarded this childish
young fellow in exactly the same light as they did his comrades. Tim,
his attitude full of grace as he lounged against a settle, was also
near the group. He seemed a bit thoughtful since his dramatic arrival
and had little to say to anyone.

Mr. Merrick engaged Stubby in conversation.

"Does Mr. Tobey own this place?" he asked.

"By proxy, yes," was the reply. "It isn't in his name, you know,
although that doesn't matter, for he couldn't sell his desert ranch if
he had a title to it. I suppose that is what his folks were afraid
of. Algy is the fourth son of old Lord Featherbone, and got into a
disgraceful mess in London some years ago. So Featherbone shipped
him over here, in charge of a family solicitor who hunted out this
sequestered spot, bought a couple of thousand acres and built this
hut. Then he went home and left Algy here to keep up the place on a
paltry ten pounds—fifty dollars—a month."

"Can he manage to do that?" asked Uncle John.

"Why, he has to, you see. He's got together a few cattle, mostly
stolen I imagine; but he doesn't try to work the land. Moreover he's
established this community, composed of his suffering fellow exiles,
the secret of which lies in the fact that we work the cooperative
plan, and all chip in our remittances to boil the common pot. We can
keep more servants and buy more food and drink, that way, than if each
one of us lived separately."

"Up in Oregon," said Mr. Merrick, "I've known of some very successful
and prosperous ranchmen among the remittance men."

"Oh, we're all kinds, I suppose, good and bad," admitted Stubby. "This
crew's mostly bad, and they're moderately proud of it. It's a devil
of a life, sir, and Hades Ranch is well named. I've only been here a
month. Had a little property up North; but the sheriff took it for
debt, and that forced me to Algy, whom I detest. I think I'll move on,
before long. But you see I'm limited. Can't leave Arizona or I'll get
my remittance cut off."

"Why were you sent here into exile?" asked Myrtle artlessly.

He turned red and refused to meet her eyes.

"Went wrong, Miss," he said, "and my folks wouldn't stand for
it. We're all in the same boat," sweeping his arm around, "doing
punishment for our misdeeds."

"Do none of you ever reform?" inquired Patsy.

"What's the use? We're so far away from home no one there would ever
believe in our reformation. Once we become outcasts, that's the end
of our careers. We're buried in these Western wilds and allowed just
enough to keep alive."

"I would think," said Uncle John musingly, "that the manly way would
be to cut yourself off entirely from your people at home and go to
some city in the United States where honesty and industry would win a
new name for you. Then you could be respected and happy and become of
use to the world."

Stubby laughed.

"That has been tried," he replied; "but few ever made a success of it.
We're generally the kind that prefers idleness to work. My family is
wealthy, and I don't mind taking from them what little they give me
willingly and all that I can screw out of them besides. I'm in for
life, as the saying is, and I've no especial ambition except to drink
myself to death as soon as possible."

Patsy shuddered. It seemed a horrible thing to be so utterly hopeless.
Could this young fellow have really merited his fate?

Tim had listened carelessly to the conversation until now, when he
said listlessly:

"Don't think us all criminals, for we're not. In my own case I did
nothing to deserve exile except that I annoyed my elder brother by
becoming more popular with our social set than he was. He had all the
property and I was penniless, so he got rid of me by threatening to
cut off my allowance unless I went to America and stayed there."

"And you accepted such a condition?" cried Patsy, scornfully. "Why
were you not independent enough to earn your own living?"

He shrugged his shoulders, yet seemed amused.

"I simply couldn't," said he. "I was not educated to work, you know,
and to do so at home would be to disgrace my noble family. I've too
much respect for my lineage to labor with my hands or head."

"But here in America no one would know you," suggested Beth.

"I would only humiliate myself by undertaking such a task. And why
should I do so? While I am in America my affectionate brother, the
head of the family, supports me, as is his duty. Your philosophy is
pretty enough, but it is not practical. The whole fault lies in our
old-fashioned system of inheritance, the elder male of a family
getting all the estate and the younger ones nothing at all. Here, in
this crude and plebeian country, I believe it is the custom to provide
for all one's children, and a father is at liberty to do so because
his estate is not entailed."

"And he earns it himself and can do what he likes with it," added
Uncle John, impatiently. "Your system of inheritance and entail may
be somewhat to blame, but your worst fault is in rearing a class of
mollycoddles and social drones who are never of benefit to themselves
or the world at large. You, sir, I consider something less than a
man."

"I agree with you," replied Tim, readily. "I'm only good to cumber the
earth, and if I get little pleasure out of life I must admit that it's
all I'm entitled to."

"And you can't break your bonds and escape?" asked Patsy.

"I don't care to. People who are ambitious to do things merely bore
me. I don't admire them or care to imitate them."

From that moment they took no further interest in the handsome
outcast. His world was not their world.

And now Tobey came in, driving before him a lot of Mexicans bearing
trays of food. The long table was laid in a moment, for everything
was dumped upon it without any attempt at order. Each of the cowboys
seized a plate from a pile at one end and helped himself to whatever
he wanted.

Two or three of the men, however, were courteous enough to attend to
their unwilling guests and see they were served as well as conditions
would permit The food was plentiful and of good quality, but although
none of Uncle John's party was squeamish or a stickler for form, all
more or less revolted from the utter disregard of all the proprieties.

"I'm sorry we have no wine; but there's plenty of whiskey, if you like
it," remarked Tobey.

The girls were silent and ate little, although they could not help
being interested in observing the bohemianism of these gently reared
but decadent sons of respectable English families. As soon as they
could they left the table, and Tobey, observing their uneasiness in
spite of his damaged and nearly useless optics, decided to send them
to another room where they could pass the afternoon without further
annoyance. Stubby escorted the party and ushered them into a good
sized room which he said was "Algy's study," although no one ever
studied there.

"Algy's afraid you'll balk at the dance; so he wants to please you
however he can," remarked the round faced youth. "You won't mind being
left alone, will you?"

"We prefer it, sir," answered the Major, stiffly.

"You see, we're going to have a rare lark this afternoon," continued
Stubby, confidentially. "Usually it's pretty dull here, and all we
can do is ride and hunt—play cards and quarrel. But your coming has
created no end of excitement and this dance will be our red-letter day
for a long time to come. The deuce of if is, however, that there are
only two girls to dance with thirteen men. We limit our community to
fifteen, you know; but little Ford and old Rutledge have backed down
and won't have anything to do with this enterprise. I don't know why,"
he continued, thoughtfully.