The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 37

Hetty laughed. "I guessed that would rouse you--but it is," she said. "I have made my mind up, Flo. If he doesn't come in an hour or so, we'll go to Muller's, too."

Miss Schuyler was by no means sure that this would please her, but she said nothing and once more there was a silence she found it difficult to bear.

In the meanwhile, Clavering, whose foot pained him, was urging the Badger to his utmost pace. He rode without saddle or stirrups, which, however, was no great handicap to anyone who had spent the time he had in the cattle country, and, though it was numbingly cold and he had left his furs behind him, scarcely felt the frost, for his brain was busy. He knew Hetty Torrance, and that what he had done would count for much with her; but that was not what had prompted him to make the somewhat perilous venture.

Free as he was in his gallantries, he was not without the chivalrous daring of the South his fathers came from, and Hetty was of his own caste.

She, at least, would have been sure of deference from him, and, perhaps, have had little cause for complaint had he married her. Of late the admiration he felt for her was becoming tinged with a genuine respect.

He knew that the homesteaders, who had very little cause to love him, were in a somewhat dangerous mood just then, but that was of no great moment to him. He had a cynical contempt for them, and a pride which would have made him feel degraded had he allowed any fear of what they might do to influence him. He had also, with less creditable motives, found himself in difficult positions once or twice already, and his quickly arrogant fearlessness had enabled him to retire from them without bodily hurt or loss of dignity.

The lights of Muller's homestead rose out of the prairie almost before he expected to see them, and a few minutes later he rode at a gallop up to the door. It opened before he swung himself down, for the beat of hoofs had carried far, and when he stood in the entrance, slightly dazed by the warmth and light, there was a murmur of wonder.

"Clavering!" said somebody, and a man he could not clearly see laid a hand on his shoulder.

He shook the grasp off contemptuously, moved forward a pace or two, and then sat down blinking about him. Muller sat by the stove, a big pipe in hand, looking at him over his spectacles. His daughter stood behind him knitting tranquilly, though there was a shade more colour than usual in her cheeks, and a big, grim-faced man stood at the end of the room with one hand on a rifle that hung on the wall. Clavering instinctively glanced over his shoulder, and saw that another man now stood with his back to the door.

"You have come alone?" asked the latter.

"Oh, yes," said Clavering unconcernedly. "You might put my horse in, one of you. If I could have helped it, I would not have worried you, but my sleigh got damaged and Miss Torrance and another lady are freezing in the Bitter Creek bluff, and I know you don't hurt women."

"No," said the man dropping his hand from the rifle, with a little unpleasant laugh. "We haven't got that far yet, though your folks are starving them."

"Well," said Clavering, "I'm going to ask you to send a sledge and drive them back to Cedar or on to Allonby's."

The men exchanged glances. "It's a trick," said one.

"So!" said Muller. "Der ambuscade. Lotta, you ride to Fremont, und Larry bring. I show you how when we have drubbles mit der franc tireurs we fix der thing."

Clavering exclaimed impatiently. "You have no time for fooling when there are two women freezing in the bluff. Would I have come here, knowing you could do what you liked with me, if I had meant any harm to you?"

"That's sense, any way," said one of the men. "I guess if he was playing any trick, one of us would be quite enough to get even with him. You'll take Truscott with you, Muller, and get out the bob-sled."

Muller nodded gravely. "I go," he said. "Lotta, you der big kettle fill before you ride for Larry. We der bob-sled get ready."

"You are not going to be sorry," said Clavering. "This thing will pay you better than farming."

The man by the door turned with a hard laugh. "Well," he said, "I guess we'd feel mean for ever if we took a dollar from you!"

Clavering ignored the speech. "Do you want me?" he said, glancing at Muller.

"No," said the man, who now took down the rifle from the wall. "Not just yet. You're going to stop right where you are. The boys can do without me, and I'll keep you company."

Ten minutes later the others drove away, and, with a significant gesture, Clavering's companion laid the rifle across his knees.

XXI

CLAVERING APPEARS RIDICULOUS

There was silence in the log-house when the men drove away, and Clavering, who sat in a corner, found the time pa.s.s heavily. A clock ticked noisily upon the wall, and the stove crackled when the draughts flowed in; but this, he felt, only made the stillness more exasperating. The big, hard-faced bushman sat as motionless as a statue and almost as expressionless, with a brown hand resting on the rifle across his knees, in front of a row of shelves which held Miss Muller's crockery. Clavering felt his fingers quiver in a fit of anger as he watched the man, but he shook it from him, knowing that he would gain nothing by yielding to futile pa.s.sion.

"I guess I can smoke," he said flinging his cigar-case on the table. "Take one if you feel like it."

The swiftness with which the man's eyes followed the first move of his prisoner's hand was significant, but he shook his head deliberately.

"I don't know any reason why you shouldn't, but you can keep your cigars for your friends," he said.

He drawled the words out, but the vindictive dislike in his eyes made them very expressive, and Clavering, who saw it, felt that any attempt to gain his jailer's goodwill would be a failure. As though to give point to the speech, the man took out a pipe and slowly filled it with tobacco from a little deerskin bag.

"What are you going to do with me?" asked Clavering, partly to hide his anger, and partly because he was more than a little curious on the subject.

"Well," said the man reflectively. "I don't quite know. Keep you here until Larry comes, any way. It wouldn't take long to fix it so you'd be sorry you had worried poor folks if the boys would listen to me."

This was even less encouraging; but there were still points on which Clavering desired enlightenment.

"Will Muller bring Miss Torrance and her companion here?" he asked.

The bushman nodded. "I guess he will. It's quite a long way to Allonby's, and they'll be 'most frozen after waiting in the bluff. Now, I'm not anxious for any more talk with you."

A little flush crept into Clavering's forehead; but it was not the man's contemptuous brusqueness which brought it there, though that was not without its effect. It was evident that the most he could hope for was Larry's clemency, and that would be difficult to tolerate. But there was another ordeal before him. Hetty was also coming back, and would see him a prisoner in the hands of the men he had looked down upon with ironical contempt. Had the contempt been a.s.sumed, his position would have been less intolerable; but it was not, and the little delicately venomous jibes he seldom lost an opportunity of flinging at the homesteaders expressed no more than he felt, and were now and then warranted.

Clavering, of course, knew that to pose as a prisoner as the result of his efforts on her behalf would stir Hetty's sympathy, and his endurance of persecution at the hands of the rabble for his adherence to the principles he fancied she held would further raise him in her estimation; but he had no desire to acquire her regard in that fashion. He would have preferred to take the chances of a rifle-shot, for while he had few scruples he had been born with a pride which, occasionally at least, prevented his indulgence in petty knavery; and, crushing down his anger, he set himself to consider by what means he could extricate himself.

None, however, were very apparent. The homesteader showed no sign of drowsiness or relaxed vigilance, but sat tranquilly alert, watching him through the curling smoke. It was also some distance to the door, which, from where Clavering sat, appeared to be fastened and he knew the quick precision with which the bushman can swing up a rifle, or if it suits him fire from the hip. A dash for liberty could, he fancied, have only one result; it was evident that he must wait.

Now waiting is difficult to most men, and especially to those in whose veins there flows the hot Southern blood, and Clavering felt the taste of the second excellent cigar grow bitter in his mouth. He sat very still, with half-closed eyes, and a little ironical smile upon his lips when his grim companion glanced at him. In the meantime the stove crackled less noisily and the room grew steadily colder. But Clavering scarcely felt the chill, even when the icy draughts whirled the cigar-smoke about him, for he began to see that an opportunity would be made for him, and waited, strung up and intent. When he thought he could do so un.o.bserved, he glanced at the clock whose fingers now moved with a distressful rapidity, knowing that his chance would be gone if the bob-sled arrived before the cold grew too great for his jailer.

Ten minutes dragged by, then another five, and still the man sat smoking tranquilly, while Clavering realized that, allowing for all probable delays, Muller and Miss Torrance should arrive before the half-hour was up. Ten more minutes fled by, and Clavering, quivering in an agony of impatience, found it almost impossible to sit still; but at last the bushman stood up and laid his rifle on the table.

"You will stop right where you are," he said. "I'm going to put a few billets in the stove."

Clavering nodded, for he dared not trust himself to speak, and the man, who took up an armful of the billets, dropped a few of them through the open top of the stove. One, as it happened, jammed inside it, so that he could get no more in, and he laid hold of an iron sc.r.a.per to free it with.

He now stood with his back to Clavering, but the rifle still lay within his reach upon the table.

Clavering rose up, and, though his injured foot was painful, moved forward a pace or two noiselessly in his soft moccasins. A billet had rolled in his direction, and swaying lithely from the waist, with his eyes fixed upon the man, he seized it. The homesteader was stooping still, and he made another pace, crouching a trifle, with every muscle hardening.

Then, the man turned sharply, and hurled the sc.r.a.per straight at Clavering. It struck him on the face, but he launched himself forward, and, while the homesteader grabbed at his rifle, fell upon him. He felt the thud of the billet upon something soft, but the next moment it was torn from him, the rifle fell with a clatter, and he and the bushman reeled against the stove together. Then, they fell against the shelves and with a crash they and the crockery went down upon the floor.

Clavering was supple and wiry and just then consumed with an almost insensate fury. He came down uppermost but his adversary's leg was hooked round his knee, and the grip of several very hard fingers unpleasantly impeded his respiration. Twice he struck savagely at a half-seen brown face, but the grip did not relax, and the knee he strove to extricate began to pain him horribly. The rancher possessed no mean courage and a traditional belief in the prowess of his caste, was famed for proficiency in most manly sports; but that did not alter the fact that the other man's muscle, hardened by long use of the axe, was greater than his own, and the stubborn courage which had upheld the homesteader in his struggle with adverse seasons and the encroaching forest was at least the equal of that born in Clavering.

So the positions were slowly reversed, until at last Clavering lay with his head amidst a litter of broken cups and plates, and the homesteader bent over him with a knee upon his chest.

"I guess you've had 'bout enough," he said. "Will you let up, or do you want me to pound the life out of you?"

Clavering could not speak, but he managed to make a movement with his head, and the next moment the man had dragged him to his feet and flung him against the table. He caught at it, gasping, while his adversary picked up the rifle.