The Coming of the Law Part 15

He resumed:

When I look up into the night, An' see their flickerin' light.

He ceased and looked at Hollis with an abashed smile. "It don't seem to sound so good when I'm readin' her out loud," he apologized. "An' I've thought that mebbe I've worked that 'night' an' 'light' rhyme over-time.

But of course I've got 'fright' an' 'sight' an' 'height' in there to kind of off-set that." He squirmed in his chair. "You take her an' read her." He pa.s.sed the papers over to Hollis and rose from his chair. "I'll be goin' back to the outfit; Norton was sayin' that he wanted me to look up some strays an' I don't want him to be waitin' for me. But I'd like to have one of them pomes printed in the _Kicker_--just to show the folks in this here country that there's a real pote in their midst."

"Why----" began Hollis, about to express his surprise over his guest's sudden determination to depart. But he saw Nellie Hazelton standing just outside the door, and the cause of Ace's projected departure was no longer a mystery. He had gone before Hollis could have finished his remonstrance, and was fast disappearing in a cloud of dust down the trail when Hollis turned slowly to see Nellie Hazelton smiling broadly.

"I just couldn't resist coming out," she said. "It rather startled me to discover that there was a real poet in the country."

"There seems to be no doubt of it," returned Hollis with a smile. But he immediately became serious. "Ace means well," he added. "I imagine that it wasn't entirely an ambition to rush into print that moved him to submit his poems; he wants to help fill up the paper."

Miss Hazelton laughed. "I really think," she said, looking after the departing poet, "that he might have been fibbing a little when he said that the 'night' had not 'scared' him. He ran from me," she added, amus.e.m.e.nt shining in her eyes, "and I should not like to think that any woman could appear so forbidding and mysterious as the darkness."

Hollis had been scanning one of the poems in his hand. He smiled whimsically at Miss Hazelton as she concluded.

"Here is Ace's opinion on that subject," he said. "Since you have doubted him I think it only fair that you should give him a hearing.

Won't you read it?"

She came forward and seated herself in the chair that the poet had vacated, taking the ma.s.s of paper that Hollis pa.s.sed over to her.

"Shall I read it aloud?" she asked with a smile at him.

"I think you had better not," he returned; "it might prove embarra.s.sing."

She blushed and gave her attention to the poem. It was ent.i.tled: "Woman," and ran;

"Woman she dont need no tooter, be she skule mam or biscut shooter.

she has most curyus ways about her, which leads a man to kinda dout her.

Though lookin at her is shure a pleasur there aint no way to get her measure i reckon she had man on the run a long while before the world begun.

I met a biscut shooter in the chance saloon when i was blowin my coin in ratoon while the coin lasted i owned her an the town but when it was gone she throwed me down.

An so i say she dont need no tooter be she skule mam or biscut shooter she fooled me an my hart she stole which has opened my eyes an hurt my sole."

Miss Hazelton laid the ma.n.u.script in her lap and laughed heartily.

"What a harrowing experience!" she declared. Hollis was grinning at her.

"That was a bad thing to have happen to a man," he observed; "I suppose it rather shattered Ace's faith in woman. At least you could observe by his actions just a moment ago that he isn't taking any more chances."

She fixed him with a defiant eye. "But he still admits that he takes pleasure in looking at a woman!" she told him triumphantly.

"So he does. Still, that isn't remarkable. You see, a man couldn't help that--no matter how badly he had been treated."

She had no reply to make to this, though she gave him a look that he could not mistake. But he laughed. "I think Ace's effort ought to go into the _Kicker_" he said. "I have no doubt that many who read the poem will find in it a great deal of truth--perhaps a reflection of their own personal experiences."

Her face clouded and she regarded him a little soberly. "Of your own, perhaps?" she suggested.

"Not guilty," he returned laughing. "You see, I have never had any time to devote to the study of women, let alone time to allow them to fool me. Perhaps when I do have time to study them I may find some truth in Ace's effort."

"Then women do not interest you?" She was looking down the Coyote trail.

"Well, no," he said, thinking of the busy days of his past, and not being aware of the furtive, significant glance she threw toward him.

"You see, there have always been so many important things to engage my attention."

"How fortunate!" she said mockingly, after a pause during which he had time to realize that he had been very ungracious. He saw Ace's ma.n.u.script flutter toward him, saw her rise and heard the screen door slam after her. During the remainder of the afternoon he was left alone on the porch to meditate upon the evils that arise from thoughtless speech.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COALITION

Perhaps there were some persons in Union County who, acquainted with the details of the attack on Hollis, expected to read an account of it in the _Kicker_. If there were any such they were disappointed. There was nothing about the attack printed in the _Kicker_--nor did Hollis talk to any stranger concerning it.

Ace's poem ent.i.tled "Woman" had gone into the paper, causing the poet--for many days following the appearance of his composition--to look upon his fellow punchers with a sort of condescending pity. On the second day after his discussion with Miss Hazelton over Ace's poem Hollis returned to the Circle Bar. He had succeeded in convincing Nellie that he had answered thoughtlessly when he had informed her that he took no interest in women, and though she had defiantly a.s.sured him that she had not taken offense, there had been a light in her eyes upon his departure which revealed gratification over his repentance. She stood long on the porch after he had taken leave of her, watching him as he rode slowly down the trail and disappeared around a turn. Then she smiled regretfully, sighed, and went into the house.

Hollis's return to the Circle Bar was unostentatious and quite in keeping with his method of doing things. Within the next few days he met several of the Circle Bar men and there were mutterings against Dunlavey, but Hollis discouraged action, a.s.suring the mutterers that his differences with Dunlavey were entirely personal and that he intended carrying on the fight alone.

His wounds mended rapidly, and within two weeks--except for the broken wrist--he was well as ever. Meanwhile Potter had succeeded in getting the _Kicker_ out on time, though there had been a noticeable lack of aggressiveness in the articles. Especially was this true of the articles bearing upon the situation in Union County. Hollis had dictated some of these, but even those which he had dictated had seemed to lack something.

Nothing had been heard of Dunlavey--it seemed that after the attack upon Hollis he had withdrawn from the scene to await the latter's next move.

But Hollis was in no hurry; he had lost some of the enthusiasm that had marked his att.i.tude in the beginning, but this enthusiasm had been replaced by determination. He was beginning to realize that in Dunlavey he had met a foe worthy of his most serious efforts. He had determined that there would be no repet.i.tion of the attack upon him, and therefore during his convalescence he had sent to Las Vegas for a repeating rifle, and this he carried with him on his trips to and from Dry Bottom.

Meanwhile the drought continued. The sky was cloudless, the desultory breezes that swept the plains blighted growing things, raising little whirlwinds of fine, flinty alkali dust and spreading it over the face of the world. The storm that had caught Hollis on the Dry Bottom trail had covered only a comparatively small area; it had lasted only a brief time and after its pa.s.sage the country was dry as before.

Rabbit-Ear Creek of all the streams in the vicinity of Dry Bottom held water. From all points of the compa.s.s cattle drifted to the Rabbit-Ear, slaking their thirst and refusing to leave. Bronzed riders on drooping ponies trailed them, cutting them out, trying to keep their herds intact, but not succeeding. Confusion reigned. For miles in both directions Rabbit-Ear Creek became one huge, long watering trough.

Temporary camps were made; chuck wagons rattled up to them, loaded with supplies for the cowboys, and rattled back to distant ranches for more.

There had been other droughts, but this one was unexpected--unprecedented. There had always been a little water everywhere. Now Rabbit-Ear Creek held all there was.

Only the small cattle owners suffered because of the drought. Riders told of the presence of plenty of water in the Canadian, the Cimarron, and the Ute. Carrizo held some. In fact, nearly all the streams held by the large ranchers seemed to contain plenty. The smaller owners, whose herds were smaller and whose complement of punchers was necessarily limited, had apparently been selected by Providence for ruin.

There were mutterings against the large owners, against Providence.

Particularly were there mutterings against Dunlavey when word came to the owners of the herds that if the drought was not broken within the next ten days the Circle Cross manager would drive all foreign cattle from the Rabbit-Ear. He would not allow his own herds to suffer to save theirs, he said.

On the night following the day upon which the small owners had received this word from Dunlavey a number of the former waited upon Hollis. They found him seated on the lower gallery of the ranchhouse talking to Norton and Potter. Lemuel Train, of the Pig-pen outfit, had been selected as their spokesman. He stood before Hollis, a big man, diffident in manner and rough in appearance, surrounded by his fellow ranchers, bronzed, bearded, serious of face. Though the sun had been down three hours the heat was frightful and the visitors shuffled their feet and uncomfortably wiped the perspiration from their brows.

"Sit down," invited Hollis. He rose and stood while the men draped themselves on the edge of the gallery floor--all except the spokesman, Lemuel Train. The latter faced Hollis. His face was grim in the dusk.

"We've come to see what you've got to say about water," he said.

Days before Norton had told Hollis that these men who were now herding at the Rabbit-Ear were the small ranchers who had refused to aid the elder Hollis in his fight against Dunlavey some years before. Therefore Hollis did not answer at once. When he did his voice was dry and cold.

He too had heard of Dunlavey's ultimatum concerning the water.