The Land of Strong Men Part 27

"Don't do that!" he pleaded. "Don't cry. I didn't mean it. Come on and walk. Walk all you like. Walk a lot. I'll help you down."

She turned her face to him and he gasped; for in place of tears there was laughter, mocking laughter.

"You--you fraud!" he exclaimed.

"You--you bluff!" she retorted. "This was one of the things you could make me do because you were stronger, was it? Oh, Angus Mackay, what a soft heart you have in that big body!"

"It would serve you right if I made you walk!" he told her indignantly.

"Yes, wouldn't it? But you won't. I'll ride--if you'll promise to tell me if you get tired."

And so they went down the old tote road in the wan light of the fall sunset.

"It's exactly like that day so many years ago," she said.

But Angus, though he agreed with her, was privately conscious of a vast difference. On that far-away day he had considered the little, lost girl a nuisance and an imposition. Now he felt a strange, warm glow and thrill as he walked beside her, and a sense of contentment strange to him. He was conscious of this feeling. But, quite honestly, he attributed it to the fact that he had just got his first grizzly, and what was more, centered him, charging, with every shot; which, as he looked at it, ought to be a source of satisfaction to any properly const.i.tuted man, and adequately explained the sense of contentment aforesaid.

CHAPTER XVI

A TALK WITH JUDGE RILEY

Dr. Wilkes investigated the naked torso of Angus Mackay with skilled fingers.

"Two ribs cracked," he announced, "and you're lucky at that, young man.

The scalp wound is nothing. The ribs will be all right in a few weeks, if you give them a chance. Mind, you, Angus, no hard riding, no lifting; move gently and rest all you can."

"But the fall work--" Angus began. The doctor cut him short.

"Work!" he exploded irritably. "There's that word again. By heaven, you all say it! It's 'I can't go away, doc, I can't take a holiday, I can't rest. I've got to work.' Lord knows how many times I've heard it, and from men who wouldn't work a sick or lame horse on a bet. You'd think health was the least important thing on earth, something to be fixed up in a day or two with a Blaud's pill. Work is a fine thing to keep folks out of mischief, but it isn't the chief end of man, and it isn't a d.a.m.ned fetich that demands human sacrifice. Who'll do your work when you're dead?" He glared at Angus ferociously beneath s.h.a.ggy, red-and-gray brows.

"Well, I won't worry about that," Angus laughed. "I hope it's a long way off."

"It missed your head by about an inch yesterday," Wilkes told him.

"There you stand, over six feet, and nearly two hundred pounds of as fine bone and sinew and flesh and blood as I've ever seen, every organ of you, as far as I can tell, as sound as clear pine. And you may be good for seventy years more--or seventy hours. A long way off! Your horse steps in a hole, or a team bolts and you happen to fall wrong, or a little drop of blood clots somewhere. And puff! away you go like a pinch of dust on the trail, which is exactly what you are. A long way off! Of all the blasted but blessed c.o.c.ksureness of youth!" And he grumbled and growled as he strapped up the injured side.

But Angus paid little attention to the doctor's homily. From the latter's office he went to see Judge Riley who, much to everybody's surprise, had cut his drinking down if not out, and in consequence was much busier than of old. Before him Angus laid the puzzle of Faith Winton's property, G.o.dfrey French's connection therewith, and Braden's attempt to sell part of it.

"There may be a perfectly good explanation," said the lawyer. "For instance, there may have been other properties or other transactions involved. Then as to Braden's attempt to sell to Chetwood, he may have been acting for French, who may be Winton's executor. In any event, if half of this land could be sold for as much as was paid for the whole, n.o.body but the purchaser would be apt to make subsequent objection."

"But if French paid only about three dollars for the land and split the difference with somebody, couldn't Miss Winton claim the difference?"

"Undoubtedly. But you have no evidence of that. If you like, I'll search the t.i.tle and find out who sold the land and what consideration is stated in the conveyance to Winton. Drop in some time next week."

Angus waited the week with impatience. Convinced that there had been crooked work somewhere, he was anxious to get at the facts. Also he chafed at the comparative inactivity imposed on him by his injured ribs.

"Well," said the judge, when Angus sought him again, "I haven't found out very much. But Braden apparently owns this property."

"Braden!" Angus exclaimed.

"Yes, he is the registered owner of a large block of land which seems to include this. So far as most of the land is concerned, he is the original grantee. As to the Tetreau land, Tetreau was the original grantee of that. Five hundred acres was granted to Tetreau, and sold by him to Braden for an expressed monetary consideration of one thousand dollars and certain other considerations not specified. When he acquired that land from Tetreau, Braden then had a compact block, and apparently he has it still."

"But there must be a deed to Winton."

"If so it isn't registered. Braden can convey and give a good registered t.i.tle. There is nothing to show any interest of Winton's. Are you sure this is the property his daughter meant?"

"From her description, it can't be any other."

"Then probably there is an unregistered conveyance from Braden to Winton, or to French as the latter's trustee. As to the price paid, it may have been high, but it does not prove nor even raise the presumption of fraud. You can't tell the girl your suspicions, when they are mere suspicions, especially while she is under French's roof."

"I believe both Braden and French are crooks. I never liked Braden, but up to a little while ago, I thought he was straight. And I always thought old French was a gentleman."

"So he is."

"Not if he is a crook."

"Nonsense!" the judge returned. "Gentlemen have been pirates, outlaws and highwaymen. A gentleman may be a blackguard, just as a well-bred dog may be a sheep-killer, or run wild with wolves. It's one word, not two.

It's a name for a breed, not a descriptive term for qualities such as honesty, courtesy or the like."

"If a man has those qualities, isn't he a gentleman?"

"No," said the judge, "though he may be something a good deal better.

I'm as democratic as they make 'em, but it is an undoubted fact that there are strains of men, just as there are strains of animals.

Considered as a strain of mankind, a gentleman is a gentleman, no matter how big a rascal he is. The Frenches are all gentlemen--that is, all but Blake."

"Why not Blake, if it is a breed?"

"G.o.d knows," the judge replied. "Blake is a full brother to the rest, but he's not the same breed. He's a throwback to something that crept in somehow, maybe a century or so ago, when n.o.body was looking. He has the body, but not the heart. He is a cur, while the rest are--wolves." He drummed on his blotter. "In confidence, Angus, I am going to tell you one or two things: The first is that the Frenches have little or no money left. They have been going down hill steadily for years. This horse racing and gambling is not amus.e.m.e.nt, but their living. Their ranch is mortgaged for all it will stand, and more. So you see, it's not likely French could repay the girl, even if we proved he cheated Winton.

"And now for Braden:" He paused for a moment, and his bushy brows drew down. "If there is one thing I despise," he said with emphasis, "it is a hypocrite. More repulsive to me than even sordid crime is hypocrisy, snivelling righteousness, a lip-and-broadcloth service of the Almighty, the broad phylacteries of the Pharisee. All my life I have hated such things. And Braden, mark you, is a hypocrite. Outwardly, he is full of good works. Your father was deceived in him, and I told him so when he would have made Braden his executor, but I had merely my own opinion.

"Well, when your father died, Braden conceived an ingenious plan to get hold of the ranch, knowing that it would increase in value very much, eventually. The first step was to get you children off it, to put somebody else on, to allow the rent to get into arrears, to let the place run down a little. With the acc.u.mulating interest on the mortgage, ownership would involve a heavy financial burden. Then a straw man would have made an offer for the place, d'ye understand me? And to get money for your education and maintenance Braden would have accepted, and to keep his skirts clean he would have got a court order approving the sale. Afterward the straw man would have transferred to Braden. Is that clear to you?"

Angus nodded, amazed.

"Also absence from the place would have weaned you youngsters away from it," the judge continued. "When you came to me for advice I went to Braden and read his mind to him, and his face told me I had read it aright. Since then he has hated me for knowing him for what he knows himself to be. So, in course of time, he laid a trap for me with a pretended client and monies for a certain investment. The idea was that the man with whom I was to invest the monies was to deny it, and they thought they had it arranged so that I could not produce evidence of what had become of it. But they were wrong. I had evidence, and with a very little more I'd have had a clear case of conspiracy against them.

However, I fell short of that and let it go. But one thing it did for me: It showed me that I needed a clear head, and it gave me the will to fight the habit that had a grip on me. So there's information in confidence for you, Angus. Now Braden and French are working together.

French and his sons get the confidence of young fellows with more money than experience, steer them to Braden who sells them land, and the commissions are split. Perhaps that is what happened in the Winton case.

Only we can't prove it."

"No," Angus admitted. For the first time he told the judge of the money he had borrowed from Braden. The old jurist whistled softly.

"What with that and the mortgage arrears, you are not in good shape, my boy. If I were you, I should make every effort to get clear as soon as possible."

"The hail hit me badly, but next year, with a good crop and all the new land I have broken, I ought to be able to make a good payment. Then you think nothing can be done to help Miss Winton?"