The Forfeit (3 page)

For some thoughtful moments Effie gazed upon the barrier. Then she turned and surveyed her dejected pony. Again her decision was taken without hesitation. She stooped and set a pair of hobbles about the tired creature's pasterns, and, leaving him to his own devices, set off to ascertain her whereabouts.

* * * * * *

But her movements were not without feminine curiosity, added to which was the businesslike desire to familiarize herself with every foot of the country within reach of her home. This was a break into new territory. Time was small enough object to her, and, besides, her pony needed time to recuperate from its leg weariness.

It required less than ten minutes, however, to banish every other thought from her mind and absorb it in amazement at her discovery. A brief battle with a dense and obstinate scrub found her standing in the centre of a wide sort of bridle path, scored with a dozen or so cattle tracks crowded with the spurs of driven cattle.

She stood gazing down at the signs everywhere about her in the loose sand, dumbfounded at the sight. She knew there was no homestead or ranch within miles of this region. Was she not bitterly aware that her own home marked the fringe of the cattle world in this direction?

Slowly there grew in the depths of her heart a feeling of apprehension. The stillness, the remoteness, the tremendous solitude, and yet-those tracks.

She stood intent and listening. Her ears were straining for a sound. But only there came to her the whispering breezes rustling the mournful foliage of the pine woods behind her. Her eyes were raised to the walls of scrub lining the roadway. They searched vainly for a sign. There was none. Simply the riot of nature about her, and, at her feet, those tracks.

She moved. Then swiftly she passed across to the western side of the roadway where the westering sun threw ample shadow. All unconsciously it seemed her movements became almost furtive, furtive and rapid. She passed down the bush-lined way, hugging the grassy edges to avoid leaving trace of her footsteps in the sand. Understanding was with her, and that understanding warned her of the jeopardy in which she stood should her presence be advertised.

Thought, speculation and imagination were a-riot in her now. She was proceeding in the direction the broad cloven hoof marks indicated. What-lay beyond?

Many minutes passed. Breathless minutes of pulsing excitement for the woman who knew only monotony and the drudgery of an outland life. No womanish fears could deter her. She believed and hoped she was on the eve of a great discovery, and such was her reckless desire that nothing could deter her.

The aspect of the scrub changed. It became dotted with taller trees. The paler foliage of spruce reared itself, and, here and there, isolated clumps of towering pines threw shadows across her path. Then gaps broke up the continuity, but, even so, the view beyond to her left was cut off by remoter growths. Once or twice she hazarded her way into them in her search for information, but always she returned to the broad track of the footprints of driven cattle.

The pathway rose at a steep incline. It bent away to the right, and, in the distance, it seemed that it must converge upon the sharp cut edge of the great pine woods she had so recently left. With this conclusion came another. The track must terminate abruptly or it must pass back into the great pine bluff.

The end, however, was neither of these things. And it was far nearer than she had suspected. The path twisted back into the huge reverse of an S, and finished abruptly at the sharp edge of a wide deep valley.

It came upon her almost with a shock. The tracks had abruptly swung westward. She rounded the bend, and, in a moment, found herself gazing out over a wide valley from a dizzy height.

Her first feeling was that the drop was sheer, precipitate. Then realization superseded, and she flung herself full length upon the ground and pressed her way into the shelter of an adjacent bush. The path had not ended. It passed over the brink and continued its way zigzagging down the terrific slope to the valley below. It was this, and the sight of a distant spiral of smoke rising from below, which had flung her into the shelter of the friendly bush. Her risk had only been momentary, but even in that moment she had been silhouetted in full view of any chance gaze below.

She drew herself toward the edge of the drop. Just where she had flung herself it was clean and sheer, and the bush overhung. Thus she was left with a full view of the depths below. Her dark eyes dwelt upon the zigzagging path. She followed its downward course to the green plain. She tracked it across to the far side of the valley. Then she drew a sharp breath, and her eyes widened.

The telltale smoke rose from the heart of a woodland bluff, and near by a large herd of cattle was grazing, watched over by three mounted men whose horses were moving slowly over the bright green carpet of grass.

She lay quite still, regardless of all but those moving figures, and the dark green bluff. She was watching and waiting for she knew not what. Her heart was thumping in her bosom, and her breath came rapidly. There was no question in her mind. In a moment her whole life seemed to have changed. The day had dawned to a contemplation of the monotonous round of drudging routine, only to close with a thrill such as she had never dreamed could be hers.

The moments passed; rapid, poignant moments. The sun dipped lower toward the alabaster crests of distant mountain peaks. The peace of the scene suggested nothing of the turbulent thought a-riot behind her wide, dark eyes. What must be done? What could she do-a woman? She felt helpless-so helpless. And yet--

She raised herself upon her elbow and propped her soft cheek upon the palm of her hand. She must think-think. The chance of it all. It was so strange. There lay the secret revealed-the secret which every rancher in the district for years had sought to discover. There was the camp of the Lightfoot gang. She had discovered it, had discovered its approach. Everything-she, a woman.

What could she do with the secret? How could she-- She thought of her husband. But somehow her enthusiasm lessened with the thought. But she needed him. Yes. There was no room for any doubt on that score. He must be roused, and convinced. He most be made to see the importance and significance of her discovery, and they must turn it to--

The crack of a rifle startled her. Almost on the instant the whistling, tearing of a bullet sounded in the bush to the left of her. Her glance was terrified as it turned in the direction. Then, in a moment, she was crouching lower as she searched the valley away over by the bluff.

In an instant her nerves strung tight. A group of men were standing just within its shadow, and the three horsemen, who had been riding round the cattle, were racing directly toward the foot of the pathway leading out of the valley. She must have been seen when she had stood at the opening. And now--

But there was not a second to lose. She sprang to a crouching position under the bush. Another shot rang viciously upon the still air. The bullet tore its way through the bush. This time it was still wider of her hiding place. But already she had begun her retreat-swiftly, and crouching low.

She reached the shelter of the barrier just as another bullet whistled overhead. Then she set off at a run.

And as she ran she calculated the chances. She had a big start, and the horsemen had to face the zigzag climb. If she made no mistakes there was little chance of their discovering her. They could never make that climb before she reached her pony.

She increased her pace. Her nerves were steadying. Strangely her control was wonderful. There was no real fear in her-only tension. Now as she ran down the open way her eyes were alert for every landmark, and her woodcraft was sufficiently practised to stand her in good stead. She recognized each feature in the path until she came to the point where she had first entered it In a moment she was battling her way through the thick bush, and the tension she was laboring under took her through it in a fraction of the time her first traversing had been made. Her pony was standing within ten yards of the spot at which she had left him.

She breathed a great relief. In a moment she had unbuckled the hobbles on his forelegs. Then, with the habit of her life on the plains, she tightened the cinchas of the saddle. Then she replaced the bit in its mouth.

As she swung herself into the saddle the distant plod of hoofs pounding the cattle tracks reached her. For one instant she sat in doubt. Then, with a half-thought fear lest her hard pursuit of the wounded deer had left her tough broncho spent, she swung him about and vanished like a ghost into the gloomy depths of the woods.

* * *

Dug McFarlane was a picturesque creature. He was big in height and girth. He was also big in mind. And, which was much more important to the people of the Orrville ranching world, big in purse. He was grizzled and gray, and his eyes beamed out of a setting which was surely made for such beaming; a setting which possessed no sharp angles or disfiguring hollows, but only the healthy tissue of a well-nourished and wholesome-living man in middle life.

As he sat his horse, beside his station foreman, gazing out at the broken line of foothills which marked the approach to the barrier of mountains cutting against the blue, he seemed to display in his bearing something of that dominating personality which few successful men are entirely without. All about them lay the heavy-railed corrals of a distant out-station. Just behind stood the rough shanty, which was the bunkhouse for the cowhands employed in this region. The doctor was still within, tending the grievously injured man who had been so badly wounded in the previous night's raid by the rustlers.

For the time Dug's beaming eyes were shadowed with a concern that was half angry and wholly depressed. They searched the rolling grass-land until the distance was swallowed up by the barrier of hills. He was seeking one reassuring glimpse of the black, hornless herd whose pastures these were. But only disappointment met him on every side. The beautiful, sleek, Aberdeen-Angus herd, which was his joy and pride, had vanished. They had gone, he knew. They had gone the same way that, during the last five years, hundreds of head of his stock had gone. It was the last straw.

"Say, Lew Hank," he said, in a voice of something approaching an emotion he possessed no other means of displaying, "it's beat me bad. It's beat me so bad I don't seem able to think right. We'd a hundred head running on this station. As fine a bunch as ever were bred from the old country's strain. I just feel that mad I could set right in to break things."

Then, after a long pause during which the station foreman waited silent:

"And only last night, while these guys was raising the mischief right here, I was setting around doping out big talk, and raising a mighty big wad for the round-up of the whole darnation gang. Can you beat it? I'm sore. Sore as hell. Say, tell it me again. I don't seem to have it clear."

He passed one great muscular hand across his moist forehead, and the gesture was rather one of helplessness.

Lew Hank regarded him with measuring eyes. He knew him so well. In the ten years and more he had worked for him he had studied his every mood. This phase in the great cattleman's character was something new, something rather startling. Dug's way was usually volcanic. It was hot and fierce for a while, generally to hollowed by a hearty laugh, rather like the passing of a summer storm. But this, in Lew's opinion, was a display of weakness. A sign he neither liked nor respected. The truth was Dug McFarlane had been hit in a direction of which his subordinate had no understanding. That herd of Aberdeen-Angus cattle had been his plaything. His hobby. He had been devoted to it in a way that would have been absurd to any one but a cattleman. Hank decided this unaccustomed weakness must be nipped in the bud.

"Say, boss, it ain't no use in squealin'," he grumbled, in the hard tones of a man who yields to no feelings of sympathy. His weather-stained face was set and ugly in its expression. "Wher's the use in it anyway?" he demanded. "Get a look around. There's miles of territory, an' all of it runs into them blamed hills. I got three boys with me. They're right boys, too. I don't guess there's a thing you or me could tell 'em 'bout their work. Not a thing. Day and night one of 'em's on grazin' guard. Them beasties ain't never left to trail off into the hills. Wal, I guess that's all we ken do-sure. Say, you can't hold up a gang of ten an' more toughs with a single gun in the dead, o' night, 'specially with a hole in your guts same as young Syme's had bored into his. I ain't ast once, nor twice, to hev them beasties run into the corrals o' nights, and fed hay, same as in winter. I've ast it fifty times. It's bin up to you, boss. So I say it's no use in squealin'."

Hank spat over his horse's shoulder, and his thin lips closed with a snap. He was a lean forceful prairieman who possessed, as he would himself have said, no parlor tricks. Dug McFarlane, for all his wealth, for all he had been elected president of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' Association three years in succession, was no more to him than any other employer who paid wages for work loyally performed.

Dug regarded his foreman with close attention. He ignored the man's rough manner. But, nevertheless, it was not without effect.

"And the other boys?"

"Was dead asleep in the bunkhouse-same as me. What 'ud you have? They ain't sheep dogs."

Dug took no umbrage.

"And they're out on the trail-right now?"

"Sure. Same as we should be, 'stead o' wastin' hot air around here. Say, I guess you're feelin' sore. But I don't guess your feelin's is a circumstance to mine, boss. You ain't bin beat to your face by this lousy gang. I have. An' say, I'm yearnin'-jest gaspin'-to wipe out the score. I don't sort o' care a bit for your loss. That ain't my funeral. But they've beat me plumb out-same as if I was some sucker who ain't never roped an' branded a three-year-old steer since I was pupped. Are you comin' along? They struck out northwest. We got that, an' the boys is follerin' hard on their trail. It'll be better'n squealin' around here."