The Forfeit Part 33

CHAPTER XVIII

DUG MCFARLANE

The aroma of cigars blended delightfully with the fragrant evening air.

Through the cool green lacing of the creeper the sun poured the last of its golden rays into the wide stoop. The mists were already gathering upon the lower slopes of the hills, and a deep purpling seemed to be steadily embracing the whole of the great mountain range.

Two men were lounging comfortably in wide wicker chairs on the veranda.

They were resting bodies that rarely knew fatigue in the strenuous life that was theirs. But then the day was closing, and one of them had come a long saddle journey. Whisky stood on a table at the elbow of Dug McFarlane. Jeffrey Masters had coffee near by.

Outside the veranda a smudge fire in a bucket was doing battle with attacking mosquitoes, while its thin spiral of smoke served as a screen upon the still air to shut out the view of the disheveled township of Orrville.

Dug McFarlane, opulent, of middle life and ma.s.sive proportions, was in strong contrast to his guest. The American-Scot was something of a product of the soil. He was of the type which forces its way up from the smallest of small beginnings, a type which decides early upon a career in life, and which deviates not one step from the set course.

He was a man of one idea--cattle.

He knew nothing beyond--cattle. Cattle was the sum and substance of his celibate life. He was an old type of ranchman whose waking hours were devoted to a physical labor which left no room for anything else.

But Jeff knew that for all his roughness of manner and speech, a roughness which left his own partner, Bud, a man of education and refinement beside him, he counted his wealth, as he, Jeff, could only hope to count his in the distant years to come.

Jeff was his guest for the night, and the dispute upon which he was to arbitrate was to be settled upon the arrival of the man Peters. And while they waited they talked of the thing which was their mutual interest. The land and its produce, whether animal or vegetable, was their beginning and end. They discussed every prospect from the overwhelming compet.i.tion of the Argentine, to the rapid transformation of grazing pastures into golden wheat fields. Their interest seemed endless, and it seemed only to require the non-appearance of Peters for their talk to continue until sleep overtook them.

But the break came in the flow of their "shop" at the mention of the name of Peters. Jeff was curious to hear about him.

"Who is this Peters, anyway?" he demanded. "He's not down in the stock register, and n.o.body seems to have found him except you."

Dug's reply came with a great laugh. His very bright gray eyes were full of a good humor beneath his p.r.o.nounced black brows.

"Peters? Why, I guess Peters 'ud make a funeral procession laff.

You've never seen him? You don't know him? No. Sure you wouldn't.

Nor you wouldn't find him registered. Y'see, they don't register mixed farm stock. Anyways, he got me laffin' all the time. But he's bright--oh, yep, he's bright, sure. He's a little feller. To git him right you need to think of a buck louse with a think-box developed abnormal. He's a great amusin' little cuss when you see him on his patch of land. You'd think he was runnin' a cirkis he's so busy fixin'

things wrong. I'd like him fine if it wa'an't fer his habits. I can't stand the feller who eats the top of his fingers raw, an' sings hymns o' Sunday in a voice that never oughter been handed out to anything livin' that hadn't the sense to choke itself at birth."

"Is that the reason of the dispute?" Jeff asked with smile.

Dug grinned and shook his head.

"No, siree," he cried. "It ain't a thing to do with it. But I guess we'll keep clear of the dispute till he gets around. Y'see, this arbitration game needs to be played good. I'd hate to get ahead of the little cuss by settin' out my case in private. Nope. I hain't got a thing agin that gra.s.shopper. Not a thing, and I jest need to get this thing straightened right, even if it goes agin me. That's why we fixed on appealin' to you rather than the law. Y'see, I could buy up a decision at law, which Peters knows, so we decided on the right judgment of a straight feller. Say, what in----!"

Dug sprang from his chair with a forcible oath. Jeff, too, was on his feet. There was a frantic clatter beyond the screen of creeper. A string of hoa.r.s.e invective in a human voice. The hammering of horses'

hoofs and the sound of tin being battered in a wanton riot. Dug broke into a great laugh as he thrust his head out.

"Well, I be----!" he cried.

Jeff joined in his laugh. An absurdly small man was clinging desperately to the saddle of an absurdly large horse, which was rearing and plunging in a wild effort to shed its rider and bolt from the neighborhood of the overturned smudge-fire bucket.

What a wealth of terror reigned. The gray-headed little man's face matched the hue of his hair. His short arms were grabbing frantically at his horse's neck. His eyes were full of a piteous appeal, and his savage-looking spurs were firmly grappling his steed's flanks. The wretched horse was shaking in every limb. Its eyes were bulging, and the fierce snorts of his gushing nostrils had the force of escaping steam.

Before any a.s.sistance could be offered by the onlookers the climax was reached and pa.s.sed. Elias Peters rolled slowly out of the saddle and reached the ground with a heavy flop. Then, while its recent burden gathered himself up, quite unhurt and smiling amiably in relief, the horse contentedly mouched off toward a patch of inviting gra.s.s.

"Guess I'm kind o' late, Mr. McFarlane," Elias apologized. "An' it seems I've bust up your fire-bucket some," he added ruefully. Then with cheery optimism: "It was hustling to get here. I didn't jest see it. Still, I got around."

"You sure have," grinned Dug. Then he indicated his companion. "This is Mr. Jeffrey Masters, President of the Western Union. If you'll come right along in we ken get things fixed up. Meanwhiles I'll jest have a 'hand' round-up your plug an' feed him hay."

Another chair was brought from the house and Elias Peters was ensconced therein. He was a gray little man. Gray from head to foot, it seemed.

His hair, his eyes, his skin, his whiskers, his shirt, his loose jacket over it, his trousers. Even the top-boots he wore, which, had doubtless once been black. Everything about him was gray.

Dug pressed whisky on him.

"Take your time," he had said, in his easy, cordial fashion. "Ther'

ain't no sort o' hurry. It's li'ble to shake a boy o' your years foolin' around in the dust when you'd oughter be in the saddle."

"That's just it, Mr. McFarlane," came the prompt, distressed complaint.

"What in the nature o' blamed things made me act that way?"

"Jest the--nature o' things, I guess."

The little man's eyes twinkled.

"Guess you mean ther's folks who ain't in their right element in the saddle, an'--I'm one of 'em." Then he turned on Jeff, whose whole interest had been quite absorbed in a personality which Dug had described as being reminiscent of a "buck louse." "Say, Mr. Masters, guess you ain't never tried any stunt like raisin' kebbiges on a hog ranch? No, sure you ain't. Ther's jest one feller runnin' loose on this planet 'ud act that way, an' that's me. Guess I bin doin' it all my life," he added, thoughtfully chewing a forefinger. "I was built for, an' raised in a fifth rate city, an' I got the ideas an' ambitions of the President of a Republic. Ther' ain't a blamed thing I can't do but I want to do. An' the worst of it is ther's a sort o' restless spirit in me jest sets me so crazy to do it I can't resist makin' the jump. That's how I come to buy up a b.u.m homestead up toward the hills here, an' got the notion I could make a pile runnin' a mixed farm that way. That's how I come to get outside a hoss when I'd be safer inside.

That's how I come to--'break' a deal more prairie land than I could ever sow or harvest. That's how I bought machinery for a thousand acre farm when I'd only got a half a mile. That's how I come to run a bunch of cows without settin' up fencin' around my crops. That's how I bo't the whole blamed lay-out without verifyin' the darned law feller's statement I'd got grazin' rights on Mr. McFarlane's gra.s.s--which is the thing I came right here to yarn about when I got mixed up with that unnatural h.e.l.l, which I've learned since was only set up to amuse the skitters. Kind o' makes me feel if I was to set fer my pictur' I'd sure come out a shipwreck at sea, or some other darn fool kind of unpleasantness."

Jeff was forced to echo the laugh which Dug indulged in without restraint. It seemed cruel in face of the strange little man's serious distress. But its only effect upon him was to produce an inquiring glance of profound but unresentful astonishment.

"Guess I must 'a' said something," he protested mildly. "Seems to me I most generly do, with Mr. McFarlane around." Then he smiled in his wintry fashion, which was quite powerless to add warmth to his curious aspect of grayness. "Guess he must ha' been born laffin'--p'raps," he added thoughtfully. "It's a dandy thing bein' born laffin'. I don't reckon I ever got that luck. It's more likely my moma got lost in a fog the day I was born. Can't account noways fer things otherwise."

Dug pushed the whisky bottle at him as a set-off to his own uncontrolled mirth, and in a few moments contrived to subdue his paroxysms sufficiently to start the business in hand.

"Now, Masters," he said, as soon as the diminutive Elias had ministered adequately to his gla.s.s, "we've got a curious proposition to set before you. It's jest one of them things which crops up in a country like this, where a whole heap o' the laws happens along through custom. An'

like all sech customs, ther's li'ble to be a tarnation lot of friction lyin' around if we can't get a right settlement. Now, if we go to the courts it's goin' to be a mighty big sc.r.a.p, eatin' up a h.e.l.l of a pile of dollars. An' if you're wise to the ways of the law fellers you ken just about figger the verdict is goin' to come along to the feller with the biggest wad. In this case I guess I'm the feller with the biggest wad. Now, ther's no sort o' bad blood between Peters an' me, 'cep' it is he will sing hymns outrageous on a Sunday. Still, I ain't goin' to let that cut no ice. I'm out for a square decision between us by a feller that don't know the meanin' of graft. I don't care a cuss who gets it. But I ain't goin' to be bluffed by any fancy legal readings of a position by city lawyers who don't know the north end of a steer goin' south from the cluckin' proposition of a blind hen motherin' a litter o' dormice. Peters here'll give you his case, seein' he's plaintiff, in an elegant flow of warm air, an' when he's through I'll sort of hand you a counterblast. An' when we finished you'll hand out your dope on the subject, that is if we ain't talked you into a home for incurable arbitrators. You'll get busy right away, Peters."

The rancher's manner was irresistible in its breezy frankness and generosity. Jeff wondered at him. Any man of modern business methods, he felt, would have jumped at the advantage which his wealth would have given him in the law courts over so insignificant a person as Elias Peters. The whole situation inspired in him the feeling that he was in the presence of a really big man. A man who deserved every fraction of his success.

Nor was there any doubt as to the little gray man's feelings as he took a drink of whisky, and fixed his small eyes upon the weather and years-lined features of his adversary.

"Guess you've made me feel 'bout as big as an under-fed skitter," he complained. "You make me sort o' feel I want to tell you to keep your darn grazin' rights till I ken hand you a bunch of bills such as I'd like to pa.s.s on to an honest man. But I don't guess I'm goin' to do it. Y'see, I just can't afford it. If I can't graze my stock on your gra.s.s they got to starve, or I got to get out. An', seein' I doped all my wad into this lay-out, it 'ud well-nigh mean ruin to act that way."

Then he turned to Jeff, who was almost bewildered at the curious att.i.tude toward each other of these men.

"Now, I ain't got a fancy yarn to hand you," he went on, fumbling in his pockets. "I jest got my papers, here, as I got 'em from the law fellers. You best take 'em, an' after we done get a look into 'em."

He pa.s.sed them across. "Now these are the fac's of how I bo't, why I bo't, an' who I bo't from. The place is a haf section, an' they asked five thousand odd dollars for it. It was a b.u.m sort o' homestead, an'

belonged to a widder woman who'd got her man shot up by some rustlers workin' around this country. They went by the name of Whitstone, but their real name, by them papers, was Van Blooren----"

"What name?" Jeff's voice broke sharply in upon the little man.

"Van Blooren."