The Rustler of Wind River Part 17

"Oh, you soldiers!" said Nola, shaking her brush at Frances' placid back, "you get up so early and you dress so fast that you're always ahead of everybody else."

Frances turned to her, a smile for her childish complaint.

"You'll get into our soldiering ways in time, Nola. We get up early and live in a hurry, I suppose, because a soldier's life is traditionally uncertain, and he wants to make the most of his time."

"And love and ride away," said Nola, feigning a sigh.

"Do they?" asked Frances, not interested, turning to the window again.

"Of course," said Nola, positively.

"Like the guardsmen of old England, Or the beaux sabreurs of France--"

that's an old border song, did you ever hear it?"

"No, I never did."

"It's about the Texas rangers, though, and not real soldiers like you folks. A cavalryman's wife wrote it; I've got it in a book."

"Maybe they do that way in Texas, Nola."

"How?"

"Love and ride away, as you said. I never heard of any of them doing it, except figuratively, in the regular army."

Nola suspended her brushing and looked at Frances curiously, a deeper color rising and spreading in her animated face.

"Oh, you little goose!" said she.

"Mostly they hang around and make trouble for people and fools of themselves," said Frances, in half-thoughtful vein, her back to her visitor, who had stopped brushing now, and was winding, a comb in her mouth.

Nola held her quick hand at the half-finished coil of hair while she looked narrowly at the outline of Frances' form against the window. A little squint of perplexity was in her eyes, and furrows in her smooth forehead. Presently she finished the coil with dextrous turn, and held it with outspread hand while she reached to secure it with the comb.

"I can't make you out sometimes, Frances, you're so funny," she declared. "I'm afraid to talk to you half the time"--which was in no part true--"you're so nunnish and severe."

"Oh!" said Frances, fully discounting the declaration.

No wonder that Major King was hard to wean from her, thought Nola, with all that grace of body and charm of word. Superiority had been born in Frances Landcraft, not educated into her in expensive schools, the cattleman's daughter knew. It spoke for itself in the carriage of her head there against the light of that fair new day, with the sunshine on the dying cottonwood leaves beyond the windowpane; in the lifting of her neck, white as King David's tower of shields.

"Well, I _am_ half afraid of you sometimes," Nola persisted. "I draw my hand back from touching you when you've got one of your soaring fits on you and walk along like you couldn't see common mortals and cowmen's daughters."

"Well, everybody isn't like you, Nola; there are some who treat me like a child."

Frances was thinking of her father and Major King, both of whom had continued to overlook and ignore her declaration of severance from her plighted word. The colonel had brushed it aside with rough hand and sharp word; the major had come penitent and in suppliance. But both of them were determined to marry her according to schedule, with no weight to her solemn denial.

"Mothers do that, right along," Nola nodded.

"Here's somebody else up early"--Frances held the curtain aside as she spoke, and leaned a little to see--"here's your father, just turning in."

"The senor boss?" said Nola, hurrying to the window.

Saul Chadron was mounting the steps booted and dusty, his revolvers belted over his coat. "I wonder what's the matter? I hope it isn't mother--I'll run down and see."

The maid had let Chadron in by the time Nola opened the door of the room, and there she stood leaning and listening, her little head out in the hall, as if afraid to run to meet trouble. Chadron's big voice came up to them.

"It's all right," Nola nodded to Frances, who stood at her elbow, "he wants to see the colonel."

Frances had heard the cattleman's loud demand for instant audience.

Now the maid was explaining in temporizing tones.

"The colonel he's busy with military matters this early in the day, sir, and n.o.body ever disturbs him. He don't see n.o.body but the officers. If you'll step in and wait--"

"The officers can wait!" Chadron said, in loud, a.s.sertive voice that made the servant shiver. "Where's he at?"

Frances could see in her lively imagination the frightened maid's gesture toward the colonel's office door. Now the girl's feet sounded along the hall in hasty retreat as Chadron laid his hearty knock against the colonel's panels.

Frances smiled behind her friend's back. The impatient disregard by civilians of the forms which her father held in such esteem always was a matter of humor to her. She expected now to hear explosions from within her father's sacred place, and when the sound failed to reach her she concluded that some subordinate hand had opened the door to Chadron's summons.

"I'll hurry"--Nola dashed into her own room, finishing from the door--"I want to catch him before he goes and find out what's wrong."

Frances went below to see about breakfast for her tardy guest, a little fluttering of excitement in her own breast. She wondered what could have brought the cattleman to the post so early--he must have left long before dawn--and in such haste to see her father, all buckled about with his arms. She trusted that it might not be that Alan Macdonald was involved in it, for it was her constant thought to hope well for that bold young man who had heaved the homesteaders'

world to his shoulders and stood straining, untrusted and uncheered, under its weight.

True, he had not died in defense of her glove, but she had forgiven him in her heart for that. A reasonable man would not have imperiled his life for such a trifle, and a reasonable woman would not have expected it. There was a great deal more sense in Alan Macdonald living for his life's purpose than in dying for a foolish little glove. So she said.

The white gossamer fichu about her throat moved as with a breath in the agitation of her bosom as she pa.s.sed down the stairs; her imperious chin was lowered, and her strong brown eyes were bent like a nun's before the altar. Worthy or unworthy, her lips moved in a prayer for Alan Macdonald, strong man in his obscure place; worthy or unworthy, she wished him well, and her heart yearned after him with a great tenderness, like a south wind roaming the night in gentle quest.

Major King, in attendance upon his chief, had opened the door to Saul Chadron at the colonel's frowning nod. Without waiting for the pa.s.sword into the mysteries of that chamber, Chadron had entered, his heavy quirt in hand, gauntlets to his elbows, dusty boots to his knees. Colonel Landcraft stood at his desk to receive him, his brows bent in a disfavoring frown.

"I've busted in on you, colonel, because my business is business, not a mess of reportin' and signin' up on nothing, like your fool army doin's." Chadron clamped with clicking spurs across the severe bare floor as he made this announcement, the frown of his displeasure in having been stopped at the door still dark on his face.

"I'm waiting your pleasure, sir," Colonel Landcraft returned, stiffly.

"I want twenty-five troopers and a cannon, and somebody that knows how to use it, and I want 'em right away!"

Chadron gave the order with a hotness about him, and an impatience not to be denied.

"Sir!" said Colonel Landcraft, throwing his bony shoulders back, his little blue eyes growing very cold and unfriendly.

"Them d.a.m.n rustlers of Macdonald's are up and standin' agin us, and I tell you I want troopers, and I want 'em on the spot!"

Colonel Landcraft swallowed like an eagle gorging a fish. His face grew red, he clamped his jaw, and held his mouth shut. It took him some little time to suppress his flooding emotions, and his voice trembled even when he ventured to trust himself to speak.

"That's a matter for your civil authorities, sir; I have nothing to do with it at all."

"You ain't got--nothing--?" Chadron's amazement seemed to overcome him. He stopped, his eyes big, his mouth open; he turned his head from side to side in dumbfounded way, as if to find another to bear witness to this incredible thing.

"I tell you they're threatenin' my property, and the property of my neighbors!" protested Chadron, stunned, it seemed, that he should have to stop for details and explanations. "We've got millions invested--if them fellers gobbles up our land we're ruined!"