Light of the Western Stars Part 6

"We shall see about that. I don't know what's in the trunks. I never pack anything. My dear brother, what do I have maids for?"

"How did it come that you didn't travel with a maid?"

"I wanted to be alone. But don't you worry. I shall be able to look after myself. I dare say it will be good for me."

She went to the gate with him.

"What a s.h.a.ggy, dusty horse! He's wild, too. Do you let him stand that way without being haltered? I should think he would run off."

"Tenderfoot! You'll be great fun, Majesty, especially for the cowboys."

"Oh, will I?" she asked, constrainedly.

"Yes, and in three days they will be fighting one another over you.

That's going to worry me. Cowboys fall in love with a plain woman, an ugly woman, any woman, so long as she's young. And you! Good Lord!

They'll go out of their heads."

"You are pleased to be facetious, Alfred. I think I have had quite enough of cowboys, and I haven't been here twenty-four hours."

"Don't think too much of first impressions. That was my mistake when I arrived here. Good-by. I'll go now. Better rest awhile. You look tired."

The horse started as Alfred put his foot in the stirrup and was running when the rider slipped his leg over the saddle. Madeline watched him in admiration. He seemed to be loosely fitted to the saddle, moving with the horse.

"I suppose that's a cowboy's style. It pleases me," she said. "How different from the seat of Eastern riders!"

Then Madeline sat upon the porch and fell to interested observation of her surrounding. Near at hand it was decidedly not prepossessing. The street was deep in dust, and the cool wind whipped up little puffs. The houses along this street were all low, square, flat-roofed structures made of some kind of red cement. It occurred to her suddenly that this building-material must be the adobe she had read about. There was no person in sight. The long street appeared to have no end, though the line of houses did not extend far. Once she heard a horse trotting at some distance, and several times the ringing of a locomotive bell. Where were the mountains, wondered Madeline. Soon low over the house-roofs she saw a dim, dark-blue, rugged outline. It seemed to charm her eyes and fix her gaze. She knew the Adirondacks, she had seen the Alps from the summit of Mont Blanc, and had stood under the great black, white-tipped shadow of the Himalayas. But they had not drawn her as these remote Rockies. This dim horizon line boldly cutting the blue sky fascinated her. Florence Kingsley's expression "beckoning mountains" returned to Madeline. She could not see or feel so much as that. Her impression was rather that these mountains were aloof, unattainable, that if approached they would recede or vanish like the desert mirage.

Madeline went to her room, intending to rest awhile, and she fell asleep. She was aroused by Florence's knock and call.

"Miss Hammond, your brother has come back with Stillwell."

"Why, how I have slept!" exclaimed Madeline. "It's nearly six o'clock."

"I'm sure glad. You were tired. And the air here makes strangers sleepy.

Come, we want you to meet old Bill. He calls himself the last of the cattlemen. He has lived in Texas and here all his life."

Madeline accompanied Florence to the porch. Her brother, who was sitting near the door, jumped up and said:

"h.e.l.lo, Majesty!" And as he put his arm around her he turned toward a ma.s.sive man whose broad, craggy face began to ripple and wrinkle. "I want to introduce my friend Stillwell to you. Bill, this is my sister, the sister I've so often told you about--Majesty."

"Wal, wal, Al, this's the proudest meetin' of my life," replied Stillwell, in a booming voice. He extended a huge hand. "Miss--Miss Majesty, sight of you is as welcome as the rain an' the flowers to an old desert cattleman."

Madeline greeted him, and it was all she could do to repress a cry at the way he crunched her hand in a grasp of iron. He was old, white-haired, weather-beaten, with long furrows down his checks and with gray eyes almost hidden in wrinkles. If he was smiling she fancied it a most extraordinary smile. The next instant she realized that it had been a smile, for his face appeared to stop rippling, the light died, and suddenly it was like rudely chiseled stone. The quality of hardness she had seen in Stewart was immeasurably intensified in this old man's face.

"Miss Majesty, it's plumb humiliatin' to all of us thet we wasn't on hand to meet you," Stillwell said. "Me an' Al stepped into the P. O.

an' said a few mild an' cheerful things. Them messages ought to hev been sent out to the ranch. I'm sure afraid it was a bit unpleasant fer you last night at the station."

"I was rather anxious at first and perhaps frightened," replied Madeline.

"Wal, I'm some glad to tell you thet there's no man in these parts except your brother thet I'd as lief hev met you as Gene Stewart."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, an' thet's takin' into consideration Gene's weakness, too. I'm allus fond of sayin' of myself thet I'm the last of the old cattlemen.

Wal, Stewart's not a native Westerner, but he's my pick of the last of the cowboys. Sure, he's young, but he's the last of the old style--the picturesque--an' chivalrous, too, I make bold to say, Miss Majesty, as well as the old hard-ridin' kind. Folks are down on Stewart. An' I'm only sayin' a good word for him because he is down, an' mebbe last night he might hev scared you, you bein' fresh from the East."

Madeline liked the old fellow for his loyalty to the cowboy he evidently cared for; but as there did not seem anything for her to say, she remained silent.

"Miss Majesty, the day of the cattleman is about over. An' the day of the cowboy, such as Gene Stewart, is over. There's no place for Gene. If these weren't modern days he'd come near bein' a gun-man, same as we had in Texas, when I ranched there in the 'seventies. But he can't fit nowhere now; he can't hold a job, an' he's goin' down."

"I am sorry to hear it," murmured Madeline. "But, Mr. Stillwell, aren't these modern days out here just a little wild--yet? The conductor on my train told me of rebels, bandits, raiders. Then I have had other impressions of--well, that were wild enough for me."

"Wal, it's some more pleasant an' excitin' these days than for many years," replied Stillwell. "The boys hev took to packin' guns again. But thet's owin' to the revolution in Mexico. There's goin' to be trouble along the border. I reckon people in the East don't know there is a revolution. Wal, Madero will oust Diaz, an' then some other rebel will oust Madero. It means trouble on the border an' across the border, too.

I wouldn't wonder if Uncle Sam hed to get a hand in the game. There's already been holdups on the railroads an' raids along the Rio Grande Valley. An' these little towns are full of Greasers, all disturbed by the fightin' down in Mexico. We've been hevin' shootin'-sc.r.a.pes an'

knifin'-sc.r.a.pes, an' some cattle-raidin'. I hev been losin' a few cattle right along. Reminds me of old times; an' pretty soon if it doesn't stop, I'll take the old-time way to stop it."

"Yes, indeed, Majesty," put in Alfred, "you have hit upon an interesting time to visit us."

"Wal, thet sure 'pears to be so," rejoined Stillwell. "Stewart got in trouble down heah to-day, an' I'm more than sorry to hev to tell you thet your name figgered in it. But I couldn't blame him, fer I sure would hev done the same myself."

"That so?" queried Alfred, laughing. "Well, tell us about it."

Madeline simply gazed at her brother, and, though he seemed amused at her consternation, there was mortification in his face.

It required no great perspicuity, Madeline thought, to see that Stillwell loved to talk, and the way he squared himself and spread his huge hands over his knees suggested that he meant to do this opportunity justice.

"Miss Majesty, I reckon, bein' as you're in the West now, thet you must take things as they come, an' mind each thing a little less than the one before. If we old fellers hedn't been thet way we'd never hev lasted.

"Last night wasn't particular bad, ratin' with some other nights lately.

There wasn't much doin'. But, I had a hard knock. Yesterday when we started in with a bunch of cattle I sent one of my cowboys, Danny Mains, along ahead, carryin' money I hed to pay off hands an' my bills, an' I wanted thet money to get in town before dark. Wal, Danny was held up.

I don't distrust the lad. There's been strange Greasers in town lately, an' mebbe they knew about the money comin'.

"Wal, when I arrived with the cattle I was some put to it to make ends meet. An' to-day I wasn't in no angelic humor. When I hed my business all done I went around pokin' my nose beak an' there, tryin' to get scent of thet money. An' I happened in at a hall we hev thet does duty fer' jail an' hospital an' election-post an' what not. Wal, just then it was doin' duty as a hospital. Last night was fiesta night--these Greasers hev a fiesta every week or so--an' one Greaser who hed been bad hurt was layin' in the hall, where he hed been fetched from the station.

Somebody hed sent off to Douglas fer a doctor, but be hedn't come yet.

I've hed some experience with gunshot wounds, an' I looked this feller over. He wasn't shot up much, but I thought there was danger of blood-poison-in'. Anyway, I did all I could.

"The hall was full of cowboys, ranchers, Greasers, miners, an' town folks, along with some strangers. I was about to get started up this way when Pat Hawe come in.

"Pat he's the sheriff. I reckon, Miss Majesty, thet sheriffs are new to you, an' fer sake of the West I'll explain to you thet we don't hev many of the real thing any more. Garrett, who killed Billy the Kid an' was killed himself near a year or so ago--he was the kind of sheriff thet helps to make a self-respectin' country. But this Pat Hawe--wal, I reckon there's no good in me sayin' what I think of him. He come into the hall, an' he was roarin' about things. He was goin' to arrest Danny Mains on sight. Wal, I jest polite-like told Pat thet the money was mine an' he needn't get riled about it. An' if I wanted to trail the thief I reckon I could do it as well as anybody. Pat howled thet law was law, an' he was goin' to lay down the law. Sure it 'peared to me thet Pat was daid set to arrest the first man he could find excuse to.

"Then he cooled down a bit an' was askin' questions about the wounded Greaser when Gene Stewart come in. Whenever Pat an' Gene come together it reminds me of the early days back in the 'seventies. Jest naturally everybody shut up. Fer Pat hates Gene, an' I reckon Gene ain't very sweet on Pat. They're jest natural foes in the first place, an' then the course of events here in El Cajon has been aggravatin'.

"'h.e.l.lo, Stewart! You're the feller I'm lookin' fer,' said Pat.

"Stewart eyed him an' said, mighty cool an' sarcastic, 'Hawe, you look a good deal fer me when I'm hittin' up the dust the other way.'

"Pat went red at thet, but he held in. 'Say, Stewart, you-all think a lot of thet roan horse of yourn, with the aristocratic name?'

"'I reckon I do,' replied Gene, shortly.