The Settling of the Sage Part 27

They walked to the near edge of the field and Harris stooped to part the knee-deep grain, pointing to the slender stems of alfalfa with their delicate leaves.

"We have a record stand of young hay," he said. "It's thick all through--every place I've looked." He straightened up and laughed.

"And I expect I've looked at every acre. I've been right interested in those little shoots. It's deep-rooted now. The worst is past. I don't see that anything that could happen now would kill it out. Next year we'll put up a thousand tons of hay."

He dropped a hand on her shoulder and stood looking down at her.

"Billie, don't you think it's about time you were finding out what Judge Colton wants?" he asked. "He's been right insistent on your going back to confer with him."

The girl shook her head positively. Two months before Judge Colton had written that he must advise with her on matters of importance and suggested that she come on at once. Harris had urged her to go and almost daily referred to it.

"I can't go now," she said. "Not till I've seen one whole season through. When the first Three Bar crop is cut and in the stack I'll go. All other business must wait till then. You two can't drive me away till after I see that first crop in the stack."

"If you'd go now you'd likely get back before we're through cutting,"

he urged. "And the Judge has written twice in the last two weeks."

Before she could answer this a horseman appeared on the valley road.

The furthest irrigator, merely a speck in the distance, exchanged shovel for rifle and crossed to the fence. The rider, as if expecting some such move, pulled up his horse and approached at a walk.

Harris saw the two confer. The horseman handed some object to the other and urged his horse on toward the house. He was one of the sheriff's deputies. He grinned as he tapped his empty holster.

"One of your watchdogs lifted my gun," he said. He handed Harris a note.

After reading it Harris looked at his watch and snapped it shut, glanced at the sinking sun and turned to the girl.

"I have to make a little jaunt," he explained.

"Alden wants to see me. I'll take Waddles along. As we go down I'll send Russ or Tiny up to cook for the rest."

The deputy turned his horse into the corral and five minutes later Harris and Waddles rode away. Waddles was mounted on Creamer, the big buckskin.

"We'll have to step right along," Harris said. "It's forty miles."

They held the horses to a stiff swinging trot that devoured the miles without seeming to tire their mounts. For four hours they headed south and a little east, never slackening their pace except to breathe the horses on some steep ascent. The buckskin and the paint-horse had lost the first snap of their trot and it was evident that they would soon begin to lag. Another hour and they had slowed down perceptibly.

The two men dismounted and tied the horses to the brush in a sheltered coulee, then started across a broad flat on foot. Out in the center a spot showed darker than the rest,--the old cabin where Carpenter had elected to start up for himself after being discharged from the Three Bar.

When within a hundred yards of the cabin a horse, tied to a hitch post in front, neighed shrilly and Harris laid a restraining hand on Waddles's arm. They knelt in the brush as the door opened and a man stood silhouetted against the light. After a s.p.a.ce of two minutes Carp's voice reached them.

"Not a sound anywheres," he said. "Likely some horses drifting past."

He went inside and closed the door. The two men circled the cabin and came up from the rear. A window stood opened some eight inches from the bottom. Through the holes in the ragged flour sack that served as a curtain Harris secured a view of the inside. Carp and Slade sat facing across a little table in the center of the room.

"I want to clean up and go," Carp was saying. "This d.a.m.n Harris put me on the black list."

"You've been on it for three months," Slade said. "Nothing has happened yet. But don't let me keep you from pulling out any time you like."

"But I've got a settlement to make," Carp insisted. "Let's get that fixed up."

"Settlement?" Slade asked. "Settlement with who?"

Carpenter leaned across the table and tapped it to emphasize his remarks.

"Listen. Morrow gave me a bill of sale from you calling for a hundred head of Three Bar she-stock, rebranded Triangle on the hip."

Slade nodded shortly.

"I gave Morrow that for two years' back pay when he quit. He could sell out to you if he liked."

"And now I want to sell out," Carp said. "And be gone from here."

"How many head have you got?" Slade asked.

"Three hundred head," Carp stated.

"You've increased right fast," Slade remarked. "I'd think you'd want to stay where you was doing so well. How much do you want?"

"Five dollars straight through," Carp said.

"Cheap enough," Slade answered. "If only a man was in the market." He looked straight at Carp and the man's eyes slipped away from Slade's steady gaze. "But I'm not buying. Likely Morrow will buy you out."

"Morrow ought to be here now," Carp stated. "He's coming to-night."

"Then I'd better go," Slade said. "I don't like Morrow's ways."

The thud of horse's hoofs sounded from close at hand. The two men outside lay flat in the shadow of the house. A shrill whistle, twice repeated, called Carp to his feet and he crossed to the door to answer it. Morrow dismounted and came to the door. He nodded briefly to Slade, hesitating on the sill as if surprised to find him there. Carp lost no time in stating his proposition. He spoke jerkily.

"I want to get out," he said. "I'll sell for five dollars a head."

Morrow held up a hand to silence him.

"I'll likely buy--but I never talk business in a crowd." He crossed the room and sat with his back to the window. "There's plenty of time."

"I take it I'm the crowd," Slade remarked. "So I'll step out."

Morrow stiffened suddenly in his chair as a cold ring was pressed against the back of his neck through the crack of the window. At the same instant Carp had tilted back and raised one knee. The gun that rested on his leg was peeping over the table at Slade.

"Steady!" he ordered. "Sit tight!"

The window was thrown up to its full height by Waddles and the curtain s.n.a.t.c.hed away from the gun which Harris held against Morrow's neck.

Carp's apparent nervousness had vanished. He flipped back his vest and revealed a marshal's badge.

"I'd as soon take you along feet first as any way," he said. "So if you feel like acting up you can start any time now."

Slade's eyes came back from the two men at the window and rested on the badge.

"So that's it," he said with evident relief. "A real arrest--when I figured it was an old-fashioned murder you had planned. What do you want with me?"

Waddles had reached down and removed Morrow's gun.

"A number of things," Carpenter said. "Obstructing the homestead laws for one."