Hope Hathaway Part 27

The breed boy shook his head. "I ain't got nothin' to tell," he said.

"Hain't been nowhere except over to Carter's camp awhile. Dave and me pretty near got nabbed by a special officer that's over there."

Shorty Smith raised himself up on his elbow.

"A special _what_!" he demanded, while a sort of stillness swept the circle.

"A special officer of the _law_," replied the boy, with cool importance.

"Dave an' me had supper with him. He's a pretty good sort of a feller."

"Nice company you've been in," observed Shorty.

"Your grandmother always said you'd come to some bad end," drawled Long Bill. An uneasy laugh went around, then absolute silence prevailed for several minutes. The old squaw seemed to be muttering under her breath.

Finally she shifted her savage gaze from the outer blackness to the faces about her camp-fire.

"Turn cowards for one man!" she exclaimed scornfully.

"Well, Harris is in there dead drunk, and what're we goin' to do without him, anyhow?" exclaimed Long Bill.

"He might not approve," supplemented Shorty Smith.

"That's right; I ain't wantin' no such responsibility on my shoulders, _just now_," declared the large fellow.

"We'll postpone matters," decided Shorty. "I ain't after such responsibility myself, you can bet your life!"

The others agreed by words and grunts. Suddenly the old woman rose to her feet, grasping her dingy blanket together in front with one scrawny hand, while she outstretched the other, pointing into the night.

"Git out!" she snarled scornfully. "Git to your beds, dogs!"

The men laughed again uneasily.

"Come on, boys," said Shorty Smith. "We'll go an' see if the old man's left a drop in his jug." He moved towards the house, followed by the others. The soft-voiced twin still retained his position by the camp-fire.

"You git too!" snarled his grandmother.

"I ain't no dog," replied the boy. The squaw grunted. "You told the dogs to go, not me! They won't find any demijohn, neither. I cached it for _you_!"

"Good boy," said his grandmother, patting him upon the head. "Go git it!"

When Hope and her companions returned that evening a couple of aged Indians hovered over the dying embers of old White Blanket's camp-fire, sociably drinking from a rusty tin cup what the riders naturally supposed to be tea. The soft-voiced twin, already curled up asleep beside his brothers, could have told them different, for had he not won the old woman's pa.s.sing favor by his generous act? So he slept well.

So did the "old man" sleep well that night--a heavy drunken stupor. He had returned from town that afternoon in his usual condition, as wild-eyed as the half-broken horses that he drove, and for awhile made things lively about the place. At such times he ruled with a high and mighty hand, and even the little babies crept out of his way as he approached. He roused up some of the idle breeds and started a poker game, which soon broke up, owing to a financial deficiency among them.

Then he roped a wild-looking stallion and rode off at a mad gait, without any apparent object, toward a peacefully feeding bunch of cattle. He rode around it, driving the cows and calves into a huddled, frightened group, then left them to recover their composure, riding, still as madly as ever, back to the stables. But the whisky finally got in its work, and Joe Harris, to the great relief of his Indian wife and family, laid himself away in a corner of the kitchen, and peace again reigned supreme.

Hope and Louisa very fortunately missed all the excitement.

The darkness was intense when they rode up to the ranch. Quiet pervaded the place, and not a light shone from the house.

"These people must go to bed with the chickens," remarked O'Hara.

"Here's some matches, Hope," said Carter, standing beside her on the ground when she had dismounted. "Never mind your horses, I'll take care of them. Run right in. Such a place for you! Darker'n a stack of black cats! I'll stand here by the house till I see a light in your room."

Just then a group of men, led by Shorty Smith, came out of the dark pa.s.sage between the kitchen and the other part of the house, and made their way toward the stables. The ones in the rear did not see the riders, and were muttering roughly among themselves. They had been making another fruitless search for the cattle-man's whisky, and were now going to bed.

"Come back here," said Sydney, drawing both girls toward the horses which O'Hara was holding. They moved backward under his grasp and waited until the men had pa.s.sed.

"Hope, you'll either have to change your boarding place or go home,"

announced her cousin.

"I'll do neither," replied the girl decisively. "Don't be foolish, Syd, because of a darkened house and a handful of harmless men! I'm not a baby, either. You'll make Larry think I'm a very helpless sort of person. Don't believe him, Larry! I'll admit that this isn't always a safe country for men, but there is no place on earth where a woman is surer of protection than among these same wild, dare-devil characters. I know what I'm talking about. Home? Well, I guess not! Come on, Louisa.

See, she isn't afraid! Are you? Good-night, both of you!"

"Goot-night," called the German girl.

"It's just as she says," explained Carter, as he and O'Hara rode homeward. "It is perfectly safe for a girl out here, in spite of the tough appearances of things--far safer than in the streets of New York or Chicago. There isn't a man in the country that would dare speak disrespectfully to a girl. Horse-stealing wouldn't be an instance compared with what he'd get for that. He'd meet his end so quick he wouldn't have time to say his prayers! That's the way we do things in this country, you know."

"It's hard to understand this, judging from appearances," said O'Hara.

"I'm not exactly a coward myself, but I must own it gave me a chill all down my spine when those tough-looking specimens began to pour out from that crack between the buildings. I'd think it would make a girl feel nervous."

"But not Hope," replied Carter. "She's used to it; besides she's not like other girls. She's as fearless as a lion. You can't scare _her_. If she was a little more timid I wouldn't think about worrying over her, but she's so blame self-reliant! She knows she's as quick as chain lightning, and she's chockful of confidence. For my own part, I wish she'd never learned to shoot a gun."

"It strikes me she's pretty able to take care of herself," said O'Hara.

"If I were you I wouldn't worry over it."

"Well, I want to get her back to the ranch, and I'm going to, too!"

said Carter. Then to O'Hara's look of wonder, "I might as well be in Halifax as any real good I can be to her here--in case anything should come up. You see, there's been trouble brewing for months. All these men around here are down on Livingston, because he's running sheep on the range they had begun to think was their own exclusive property. He's as much right to run sheep on government land as they have to run cattle, though sheep are a plumb nuisance in a cow country. These ranchers around here haven't any use for his sheep at all, and have been picking at him ever since he came up here."

He then went on to tell what he knew about the shooting at Livingston's corral.

"I'm pretty certain now that Hope was mixed up in it, though Livingston is as ignorant as can be in regard to the matter. He's too much a stranger to the ways of the country to learn everything in a minute. It was funny about you knowing him, wasn't it? He's a fine man, all right, and I hope this outfit won't bluff him out of the country. Harris is at the bottom of it. If it wasn't for him there wouldn't be any trouble.

Now it's my opinion that Hope's trying to stand off the whole outfit for Livingston's sake, and doesn't want him to know it."

O'Hara was silent for a moment, then replied:

"I'm not the fellow to make a fuss because a better man than me turns up. I knew in a minute he was dead in love with her."

Then he told something to Carter in confidence which caused him to pull his horse up suddenly in the trail and exclaim: "You don't say!"

CHAPTER XXIII

"It is a long road," observed Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "I had no idea it was so far. So these are the foot-hills of the mountains. Is this Harris place very much farther?"

"'Bout five mile straight up in the mountains," replied her companion.

"Then," said the lady decisively, "I am going to stop here at this spring, get a drink, and rest awhile; I'm about half dead!"