The Last Straw Part 1

The Last Straw.

by Harold t.i.tus.

CHAPTER I

THE NEW BOSS

The last patches of snow, even in the most secluded gulches, had been licked up by the mounting sun; the waters of Coyote Creek had returned to the confines of the stream bed; in places a suggestion of green was making its appearance about the bases of gra.s.s clumps, and cottonwood buds were swelling. Four men sat on the bench before the bunkhouse of the H.C. ranch; one was braiding a belt, another whittling and two more, hats over their eyes to shield them from the brilliant light, joined in the desultory conversation from time to time.

In the pauses, such as the one now prevailing, was something besides the spirit of idling. Dad Hepburn, gray of hair, eye and mustache, but with the body of a young man, who sat nearest the doorway, glanced frequently towards the road as though expecting to see another come that way to bring fresh interest; Two-Bits Beal was uneasy and did not remain long in one pose, as men do who sit in the first real warmth of spring for its own sake; Jimmy Oliver, the whittler, stopped now and then and held his head at an angle, as if listening; and although he worked industriously at the belt it was evident that Tom Beck had thought for other affairs.

"So she was his nephew an' only heir," commented Two-Bits, gravely.

Hepburn stirred and snorted softly. Jimmy Oliver looked at the homely, freckle-blotched face of the gaunt speaker and grinned. After a moment Tom Beck said:

"Two-Bits, for a smart man you know less than anybody I ever encountered! When I first set eyes on you, I said to myself, 'That man ain't real. He's no work of G.o.d A'mighty. Some of these _hombres_ that draw cartoons for newspapers got him up.' But I thought you must have brains, seein' you're so powerful low on looks. You're a good cowhand and a first rate horse handler, but won't you ever get anything in your head but those things? Or did this cartoonist make a mistake an' put your kidneys in your skull?

"Niece; _niece!_ Not nephew!"

"Have it your way," Two-Bits said in his high voice, swallowing so his immense Adam's apple shot up half the extraordinary length of his lean throat toward his pointed chin, and slipped back again with a jerk. "I was half right, wasn't I? She's his only heir, ain't she? You can't ask a man to be more'n half right, can you?"

"If his heir'd been a nephew instead of a niece, we wouldn't all be settin' here so anxious about this arrival," opined Jimmy. "An' we wouldn't all be wonderin' if we was goin' to work for a squaw outfit.

It'll be a relief when this lady lands in our midst. Mebby there'll be less speculatin' and more work done."

"You're right," a.s.sented Dad, and pulled at his mustache. "There's a lot to do."

Tom Beck began to whistle softly and the older man glanced sideways at him uneasily; then fixed his eyes on the road.

"I'll bet two bit," volunteered Two-Bits, "that she's as homely as Tom claims I am an' about as pleasant as a hod full of b.u.mble bees."

No one demonstrated interest in his offer and, as though he had not even heard it, Beck said:

"Seems to me there's been a lot goin' on lately, Dad. Or did you mean there was a lot _more_ to do?"

"I don't remember such awful activity," the other replied. "'Course, there's been--"

"n.o.body ever located those four mares an' their colts, did they? And the last we heard about that bunch of white faces they was headed towards Utah with a shod horse trailing 'em."

Hepburn changed what started as an impatient expostulation into a sharp sigh and relieved himself by stabbing a spur into the hard ground.

"Yes, there has been stealin'," he admitted. "There's been a lot of it.

But who could do anything? The old man had been slack for years and in the last months before the end he just let go entire. He wouldn't even give anybody else authority enough to have any say; didn't even have a foreman. That's why horses an' cattle have been stole from him.

"'Course, there's been more devil to pay since he died than went on before, but when a man leaves things in a lawyer's hands and the lawyer won't even look in on the job, what you goin' to do?"

His manner was as benevolent as it was deliberate and he turned a paternal smile on Beck.

"Let the thievin' go merrily on, I expect," the other said, giving the leather strips a series of st.u.r.dy jerks to tighten the mesh.

"I expect you'd like to be foreman, wouldn't you, Dad?" Two-Bits asked innocently, whereupon Hepburn certified the accuracy of that surmisal by moving uneasily. "You'd make a fair foreman ... _fair_. Now Tommy here," he continued, oblivious of the older man's discomfiture and the delighted smiles of the others, "would make a fine foreman if he'd only give a d.a.m.n. But he don't ... he don't. It's too bad, Tommy, you don't settle down and amount to somethin'. You're the best hand in this country!"

Beck lifted his face and sniffed loudly.

"The smell of your bouquet is about as delicate as your diplomacy, Two-Bits!" he said.

Another pause. Beck resumed his whistling and Hepburn devoted his attention to the road. Once he looked at the other from the tail of his eye and a flicker of ill temper showed in his broad, grizzled face.

"Her name's Jane, ain't it?" Two-Bits was an ardent conversationalist.

"Jane Hunter! I knowed a school marm named Hunter onct. She was worse'n thunder for sourin' milk."

"I'll bet--"

"Listen!"

Oliver held up his knife in gesture and Two-Bits stopped talking. The sounds of an approaching wagon were clearly audible.

"I'll bet it's the mail instead of--"

"You lose," muttered Hepburn, getting to his feet as a buckboard swung around the bend.

"An' she sure's come to stay!" from Jimmy as he closed his knife with an air of finality.

The body of the wagon was piled high with trunks and bags and beside the driver sat a very small woman. That she was not of the west, not the sort of woman these men had been accustomed to deal with, was evident from the clothes she wore, but at least one of them remarked that she was not wholly without the qualities essential to the frontier for, when the driver dropped down to open the gate, he gave her the reins to the lathered, excited horses which had brought her from the railroad. As soon as the gate swung open they sprang forward, but she put her weight on the reins and spoke with confident authority and wrenched them back.

"Not exactly helpless, anyhow," Tom Beck said to himself.

He was the only one of the group who did not walk across toward the cottonwoods which sheltered the long, red ranch house beside the creek.

He sat there, braiding his belt, an indefinable half smile on his face.

The girl--for girlishness was her outstanding quality--jumped out una.s.sisted. She looked about slowly, at the house first of all, then at the low stable and the corrals and, lastly, down the creek, on either side of which the hills rose sharply, giving a false appearance of narrowness to the bottoms, and her eyes rested for a long moment on the ridges far below, blue and sharp in the crystal distance.

She was unaware that the driver was waiting for her to give further directions and that the three others had come close and stopped, waiting for her to notice them, for she said aloud, as though to herself:

"For a beginning, this is quite remarkable!" Then she laughed sharply, with a hard mirthless quality, and turned about. She was genuinely surprised to confront the men; evidence of this was in her eyes, which were large and remarkably blue. She smiled brightly and said:

"Oh, I didn't know I was overlooking any one! I suppose you men belong here, on the ranch, and it's likely you've been waiting for the new owner to come. Well, here I am! I'm Jane Hunter and I want to know who you are. Now what is your name?"

Her frankness, that unhesitating, a.s.sured manner of a distinct type of city-bred woman, was new but it over-rode somewhat the embarra.s.sment they all felt.

"My name is Hepburn, ma'am," Dad said and shook hands heavily. "I hope you like this place."

"I know I shall, Mr. Hepburn. And your name?"

"That's Jimmy Oliver, Miss Hunter," Hepburn said.

Two-Bits had watched this with growing confusion and when she turned on him her searching, straightforward glance his freckles became lost in a pink suffusion. He swayed his body from the hips and looked high over her head as he offered a limp hand.