The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Read online

  CHAPTER XX

  A MILLION GALLOPS OFF

  Joan was returning to camp, weighed down by a somber cloud. Dad Frazerhad carried word to her early that morning of Mackenzie's condition,the old man divided in his opinion as to whether man or beast hadmauled the shepherd and left him in such melancholy plight.

  "Both man and beast," Rabbit had told Joan, having no division of mindin the case at all. And so Joan believed it to be, also, after sittingfor hours in the hot sheep-wagon beside the mangled, unconsciousschoolmaster, who did not move in pain, nor murmur in delirium, nordrop one word from his clenched, still lips to tell whose hand hadinflicted this terrible punishment.

  And the range seemed bent on making a secret of it, also. Dad had gonehot-foot on Joan's horse to seek Earl Reid and learn the truth of it,only to ride in vain over the range where Mackenzie's flock grazed.Reid was not in camp; the sheep were running unshepherded upon thehills. Now, Joan, heading back to her camp at dusk of the longest,heaviest, darkest day she ever had known, met Reid as she rode awayfrom Dad Frazer's wagon, and started out of her brooding to hastenforward and question him.

  "How did it happen--who did it?" she inquired, riding up breathlesslywhere Reid lounged on his horse at the top of the hill waiting for herto come to him.

  "Happen? What happen?" said Reid, affecting surprise.

  "Mr. Mackenzie--surely you must know something about it--he's nearlykilled!"

  "Oh, Mackenzie." Reid spoke indifferently, tossing away his cigarette,laughing a little as he shaped the shepherd's name. "Mackenzie had alittle trouble with Swan Carlson, but this time he didn't land hislucky blow."

  "I thought you knew all about it," Joan said, sweeping him a scornful,accusing look. "I had you sized up about that way!"

  "Sure, I know all about it, Joan," Reid said, but with a gentlesadness in his soft voice that seemed to express his pity for theunlucky man. "I happened to be away when it started, but I gotthere--well, I got there, anyhow."

  Joan's eyes were still severe, but a question grew in them as shefaced him, looking at him searchingly, as if to read what it was hehid.

  "Where have you been all day? Dad's been looking high and low foryou."

  "I guess I was over at Carlson's when the old snoozer came," Reid toldher, easy and careless, confident and open, in his manner.

  "Carlson's? What business could you----"

  "Didn't he tell you about it, Joan?"

  "Who, Dad?"

  "Mackenzie."

  "He hasn't spoken since he stumbled into Dad's camp last night. He'sgoing to die!"

  "Oh, not that bad, Joan?" Reid jerked his horse about with quick handas he spoke, making as if to start down at once to the camp where thewounded schoolmaster lay. "Why, he walked off yesterday afternoon likehe wasn't hurt much. Unconscious?"

  Joan nodded, a feeling in her throat as if she choked on cold tears.

  "I didn't think he got much of a jolt when Swan took his gun away fromhim and soaked him over the head with it," said Reid, regretfully.

  "You were there, and you let him do it!" Joan felt that she disparagedMackenzie with the accusation as soon as the hasty words fell from hertongue, but biting the lips would not bring them back.

  "He needs _somebody_ around with him, but I can't be right beside himall the time, Joan."

  "Oh, I don't mean--I didn't--I guess he's able to take care of himselfif they give him a show. If you saw it, you can tell me how ithappened."

  "I'll ride along with you," Reid offered; "I can't do him any good bygoing down to see him. Anybody gone for a doctor?"

  "Rabbit's the only doctor. I suppose she can do him as much good asanybody--he'll die, anyhow."

  "He's not cut out for a sheepman," said Reid, ruminatively, shakinghis head in depreciation.

  "I should _hope_ not!" said Joan, expressing in the emphasis, as wellas in the look of superior scorn that she gave him, the differencethat she felt lay between Mackenzie and a clod who might qualify for asheepman and no questions asked.

  "I'll ride on over to camp with you," Reid proposed again, facing hishorse to accompany her.

  "No, you mustn't leave the sheep alone at night--it's bad enough to doit in the day. What was the trouble between him and Swan--who startedit?"

  "Some of Swan's sheep got over with ours--I don't know how ithappened, or whose fault it was. I'd been skirmishin' around a little,gettin' the lay of the country mapped out in my mind. Swan andMackenzie were mixin' it up when I got there."

  "Carlson set his dogs on him!" Joan's voice trembled with her highscorn of such unmanly dealing, such unworthy help.

  "He must have; one of the dogs was shot, and I noticed Mackenzie'shand was chewed up a little. They were scuffling to get hold ofMackenzie's gun when I got there--he'd dropped it, why, you can searchme! Swan got it. He hit him once with it before I could--oh well, Iguess it don't make any difference, Mackenzie wouldn't thank me forit. He's a surly devil!"

  Joan touched his arm, as if to call him from his abstraction, leaningto reach him, her face eager.

  "You stopped Swan, you took the gun away from him, didn't you, Earl?"

  "He's welcome to it--I owed him something."

  Joan drew a deep breath, which seemed to reach her stifling soul andrevive it; a softness came into her face, a light of appreciativethankfulness into her eyes. She reined closer to Reid, eager now tohear the rest of the melancholy story.

  "You took the gun away from Swan; I saw it in his scabbard downthere. Did you have to--did you have to--do anything to Carlson,Earl?"

  Reid laughed, shortly, harshly, a sound so old to come from younglips. He did not meet Joan's eager eyes, but sat straight, head up,looking off over the darkening hills.

  "No, I didn't do anything to him--more than jam my gun in his neck. Hegot away with thirty sheep more than belonged to him, though--I foundit out when I counted ours. I guess I was over there after them whenDad was lookin' for me today."

  "You brought them back?" Joan leaned again, her hand on his arm, whereit remained a little spell, as she looked her admiration into hisface.

  "Nothing to it," said Reid, modestly, laughing again in his gratingharsh way of vast experience, and scorn for the things which move theheart.

  "It's a good deal, I think," said she. "But," thoughtfully, "I don'tsee what made him drop his gun."

  "You can search me," said Reid, in his careless, unsympathetic way.

  "It might have happened to anybody, though, a dog and a man againsthim."

  "Yes, even a better man."

  "A better man don't live," said Joan, with calm decision.

  Reid bent his eyes to the pommel of his saddle, and sat so a fewmoments, in the way of a man who turns something in his thoughts.Then:

  "I guess I'll go on back to the sheep."

  "He may never get well to thank you for what you did, Earl," andJoan's voice threatened tears in its low, earnest tremolo, "butI----"

  "Oh, that's all right, Joan." Reid waved gratitude, especiallyvicarious gratitude, aside, smiling lightly. "He's not booked to goyet; wait till he's well and let him do his own talking. Somebodyought to sneak that gun away from him, though, and slip a twenty-twoin his scabbard. They can't hurt him so bad with that when they takeit away from him."

  "It might have happened to you!" she reproached.

  "Well, it might," Reid allowed, after some reflection. "Sure, itmight," brightening, looking at her frankly, his ingenuous smilesoftening the crafty lines of his thin face. "Well, leave him toRabbit and Dad; they'll fix him up."

  "If he isn't better tomorrow I'm going for a doctor, if nobody elsewill."

  "You're not goin' to hang around there all the time, are you, Joan?"

  Reid's face flushed as he spoke, his eyes made small, as if he lookedin at a furnace door.

  Joan did not answer this, only lifted her face with a quick start,looking at him with brows lifted, widening her great, luminous, tendereyes. Reid stroked her horse's mane, his stirrup close to her foot,his l
ook downcast, as if ashamed of the jealousy he had betrayed.

  "I don't mind the lessons, and that kind of stuff," said he, lookingup suddenly, "but I don't want the girl--oh well, you know as well asI do what kind of a deal the old folks have fixed up for you and me,Joan."

  "Of course. I'm going to marry you to save you from work."

  "I thought it was a raw deal when they sprung it on me, but that wasbefore I saw you, Joan. But it's all right; I'm for it now."

  "You're easy, Earl; dad's workin' you for three good years withoutpay. As far as I'm concerned, you'd just as well hit the breeze out ofthis country right now. Dad can't deliver the goods."

  "I'm soft, but I'm not that soft, Joan. I could leave here tomorrow;what's to hold me? And as far as the old man's cutting me out of hiswill goes, I could beat it in law, and then have a pile big enoughleft to break my neck if I was to jump off the top of it. They're notputting anything over on me, Joan. I'm sticking to this little oldrange because it suits me to stick. I would go tomorrow if it wasn'tfor you."

  Reid added this in a low voice, his words a sigh, doing it well, evenconvincingly well.

  "I'm sorry," Joan said, moved by his apparent sincerity, "but there'snot a bit of use in your throwing away three years, or even three moremonths, of your life here, Earl."

  "You'll like me better when you begin to know me, Joan. I've stood offbecause I didn't want to interfere with your studies, but maybe now,since you've got a vacation, I can come over once in a while and getacquainted."

  "Earl, it wouldn't be a bit of use." Joan spoke earnestly, pitying hima little, now that she began to believe him.

  "Why, we're already engaged," he said; "they've disposed of us likethey do princes and princesses."

  "I don't know how they marry them off, but if that's the way, it won'twork on the sheep range," said Joan.

  "We've been engaged, officially, ever since I struck the range, andI've never once, never even--" He hesitated, constrained bybashfulness, it seemed, from his manner of bending his head andplucking at her horse's mane.

  "We're not even officially engaged," she denied, coldly, not pityinghis bashfulness at all, nor bent to assist him in delivering what layon the end of his tongue. "You can't pick up a sheepwoman and marryher off--like some old fool king's daughter."

  Reid placed his hand over hers where it lay idly on the saddle-horn,the reins loosely held. He leaned closer, his eyes burning, his facenear her own, so near that she shrank back, and drew on her hand tocome free.

  "I don't see why we need to wait three years to get married, Joan," heargued, his persuasive voice very soft and tender. "If the old man sawI meant business----"

  "Business!" scorned Joan.

  "Sheep business, I mean, Joan," chidingly, a tincture of injury in histone.

  "Oh, sheep business," said Joan, leaning far over to look at theknotting of her cinch.

  "Sure, to settle down to it here and take it as it comes, the way hegot his start, he'd come across with all the money we'd want to take arun out of here once in a while and light things up. We ought to begettin' the good out of it while we've got an edge on us, Joan."

  Joan swung to the ground, threw a stirrup across the saddle, and beganto tighten her cinch. Reid alighted with a word of protest, offeringhis hand for the work. Joan ignored his proffer, with a littleindependent, altogether scornful, toss of the head.

  "You can find plenty of them ready to take you up," she said. "What'sthe reason you have to stay right here for three years, and then marryme, to make a million dollars? Can't you go anywhere else?"

  "The old man's picked on this country because he knows your dad, andhe settled on you for the girl because you got into his eye, just theway you've got into mine, Joan. I was sore enough about it at first tothrow the money and all that went with it to the pigs, and blow out ofhere. But that was before I saw you."

  "Oh!" said Joan, in her pettish, discounting way.

  "I mean every word of it, Joan. I can't talk like--like--some men--myheart gets in the way, I guess, and chokes me off. But I never saw agirl that I ever lost sleep over till I saw you."

  Joan did not look at him as he drew nearer with his words. She pulledthe stirrup down, lifted her foot to it, and stood so a second, handon the pommel to mount. And so she glanced round at him, standing nearher shoulder, his face flushed, a brightness in his eyes.

  Quicker than thought Reid threw his arm about her shoulders, drawingher to him, his hot cheek against her own, his hot breath on her lips.Surging with indignation of the mean advantage he had taken of her,Joan freed her foot from the stirrup, twisting away from theimpending salute, her hand to Reid's shoulder in a shove that sent himback staggering.

  "I thought you were more of a man than that!" she said.

  "I beg your pardon, Joan; it rushed over me--I couldn't help it."Reid's voice shook as he spoke; he stood with downcast eyes, theexpression of contrition.

  "You're too fresh to keep!" Joan said, brushing her face savagely withher hand where his cheek had pressed it for a breath.

  "I'll ask you next time," he promised, looking up between whatseemed hope and contrition. But there was a mocking light in hissophisticated face, a greedy sneer in his lustful eyes, which Joancould feel and see, although she could not read to the last shamefuldepths.

  "Don't try it any more," she warned, in the cool, even voice of onesure of herself.

  "I ought to have a right to kiss my future wife," he defended, ashadow of a smile on his thin lips.

  "There's not a bit of use to go on harping on that, Earl," she said,in a way of friendly counsel, the incident already past and trampledunder foot, it seemed. "If you want to stay here and work for dad,three years or thirty years, I don't care, but don't count on me. Iguess if you go straight and prove you deserve it, you'll not need anygirl to help you get the money."

  "It's got to be you--nobody else, Joan."

  "Then kiss your old million--or whatever it is--good-bye!"

  Joan lifted to the saddle as if swept into it by a wave, and drew herreins tight, and galloped away.