Dennison Grant.

by Robert Stead.

CHAPTER I

"Chuck at the Y.D. to-night, and a bed under the shingles," shouted Transley, waving to the procession to be off.

Linder, foreman and head teamster, straightened up from the half load of new hay in which he had been awaiting the final word, tightened the lines, made an unique sound in his throat, and the horses pressed their shoulders into the collars. Linder glanced back to see each wagon or implement take up the slack with a jerk like the cars of a freight train; the cushioned rumble of wagon wheels on the soft earth, and the noisy chatter of the steel teeth of the hay-rakes came up from the rear.

Transley's "outfit" was under way.

Transley was a contractor; a master of men and of circ.u.mstances. Six weeks before, the suspension of a grading order had left him high and dry, with a dozen men and as many teams on his hands and hired for the season. Transley galloped all that night into the foothills; when he returned next evening he had a contract with the Y.D. to cut all the hay from the ranch buildings to The Forks. By some deft touch of those financial strings on which he was one day to become so skilled a player Transley converted his dump sc.r.a.pers into mowing machines, and three days later his outfit was at work in the upper reaches of the Y.D.

The contract had been decidedly profitable. Not an hour of broken weather had interrupted the operations, and to-day, with two thousand tons of hay in stack, Transley was moving down to the headquarters of the Y.D. The trail lay along a broad valley, warded on either side by ranges of foothills; hills which in any other country would have been dignified by the name of mountains. From their summits the grey-green up-tilted limestone protruded, whipped clean of soil by the chinooks of centuries. Here and there on their northern slopes hung a beard of scrub timber; sharp gulleys cut into their fastnesses to bring down the turbulent waters of their snows.

Some miles to the left of the trail lay the bed of the Y.D., fringed with poplar and cottonwood and occasional dark green splashes of spruce.

Beyond the bed of the Y.D., beyond the foothills that looked down upon it, hung the mountains themselves, their giant crests pitched like mighty tents drowsing placidly between earth and heaven. Now their four o'clock veil of blue-purple mist lay filmed about their shoulders, but later they would stand out in bold silhouette cutting into the twilight sky. Everywhere was the soft smell of new-mown hay; everywhere the silences of the eternal, broken only by the m.u.f.fled noises of Transley's outfit trailing down to the Y.D.

Linder, foreman and head teamster, cushioned his shoulders against his half load of hay and contemplated the scene with amiable satisfaction.

The hay fields of the foothills had been a pleasant change from the railway grades of the plains below. Men and horses had fattened and grown content, and the foreman had reason to know that Transley's bank account had profited by the sudden shift in his operations. Linder felt in his pocket for pipe and matches; then, with a frown, withdrew his fingers. He himself had laid down the law that there must be no smoking in the hay fields. A carelessly dropped match might in an hour nullify all their labor.

Linder's frown had scarce vanished when hoof-beats pounded by the side of his wagon, and a rider, throwing himself lightly from his horse, dropped beside him in the hay.

"Thought I'd ride with you a spell, Lin. That Pete-horse acts like he was goin' sore on the off front foot. Chuck at the Y.D. to-night?"

"That's what Transley says, George, and he knows."

"Ever et at the Y.D?"

"Nope."

"Know old Y.D?"

"Only to know his name is good on a cheque, and they say he still throws a good rope."

George wriggled to a more comfortable position in the hay. He had a feeling that he was approaching a delicate subject with consummate skill. After a considerable silence he continued--

"They say that's quite a girl old Y.D.'s got."

"Oh," said Linder, slowly. The occasion of the soreness in that Pete-horse's off front foot was becoming apparent.

"You better stick to Pete," Linder continued. "Women is most uncertain critters."

"Don't I know it?" chuckled George, poking the foreman's ribs companionably with his elbow. "Don't I know it?" he repeated, as his mind apparently ran back over some reminiscence that verified Linder's remark. It was evident from the pleasant grimaces of George's face that whatever he had suffered from the uncertain s.e.x was forgiven.

"Say, Lin," he resumed after another pause, and this time in a more confidential tone, "do you s'pose Transley's got a notion that way?"

"Shouldn't wonder. Transley always knows what he's doing, and why. Y.D.

must be worth a million or so, and the girl is all he's got to leave it to. Besides all that, no doubt she's well worth having on her own account."

"Well, I'm sorry for the boss," George replied, with great soberness. "I alus hate to disappoint the boss."

"Huh!" said Linder. He knew George Drazk too well for further comment.

After his unlimited pride in and devotion to his horse, George gave his heart unreservedly to womankind. He suffered from no cramping niceness in his devotions; that would have limited the play of his pa.s.sion; to him all women were alike--or nearly so. And no number of rebuffs could convince George that he was unpopular with the objects of his democratic affections. Such a conclusion was, to him, too absurd to be entertained, no matter how many experiences might support it. If opportunity offered he doubtless would propose to Y.D.'s daughter that very night--and get a boxed ear for his pains.

The Y.D. creek had crossed its valley, shouldering close against the base of the foothills to the right. Here the current had created a precipitous cutbank, and to avoid it and the stream the trail wound over the side of the hill. As they crested a corner the silver ribbon of the Y.D. was unravelled before them, and half a dozen miles down its course the ranch buildings lay cl.u.s.tered in a grove of cottonwoods and evergreens. All the great valley lay warm and pulsating in a flood of yellow sunshine; the very earth seemed amorous and content in the embrace of sun and sky. The majesty of the view seized even the unpoetic souls of Linder and Drazk, and because they had no other means of expression they swore vaguely and relapsed into silence.

Hoof-beats again sounded by the wagon side. It was Transley.

"Oh, here you are, Drazk. How long do you reckon it would take you to ride down to the Y.D. on that Pete-horse?" Transley was a leader of men.

Drazk's eyes sparkled at the subtle compliment to his horse.

"I tell you, Boss," he said, "if there's any jackrabbits in the road they'll get tramped on."

"I bet they will," said Transley, genially. "Well, you just slide down and tell Y.D. we're coming in. She's going to be later than I figured, but I can't hurry the work horses. You know that, Drazk."

"Sure I do, Boss," said Drazk, springing into his saddle. "Just watch me lose myself in the dust." Then, to himself, "Here's where I beat the boss to it."

The sun had fallen behind the mountains, the valley was filled with shadow, the afterglow, mauve and purple and copper, was playing far up the sky when Transley's outfit reached the Y.D. corrals. George Drazk had opened the gate and waited beside it.

"Y.D. wants you an' Linder to eat with him at the house," he said as Transley halted beside him. "The rest of us eat in the bunk-house."

There was something strangely modest in Drazk's manner.

"Had yours handed to you already?" Linder managed to banter in a low voice as they swung through the gate.

"h.e.l.l!" protested Mr. Drazk. "A fellow that ain't a boss or a foreman don't get a look-in. Never even seen her.... Come, you Pete-horse!" It was evident George had gone back to his first love.

The wagons drew up in the yard, and there was a fine jingle of harness as the teamsters quickly unhitched. Y.D. himself approached through the dusk; his large frame and confident bearing were unmistakable even in that group of confident, vigorous men.

"Glad to see you, Transley," he said cordially. "You done well out there. 'So, Linder! You made a good job of it. Come up to the house--I reckon the Missus has supper waitin'. We'll find a room for you up there, too; it's different from bein' under canvas."

So saying, and turning the welfare of the men and the horses over to his foreman, the rancher led Transley and Linder along a path through a grove of cottonwoods, across a footbridge where from underneath came the babble of water, to "the house," marked by a yellow light which poured through the windows and lost itself in the shadow of the trees.

The nucleus of the house was the log cabin where Y.D. and his wife had lived in their first married years. With the pa.s.sage of time additions had been built to every side which offered a point of contact, but the log cabin still remained the family centre, and into it Transley and Linder were immediately admitted. The poplar floor had long since worn thin, save at the knots, and had been covered with edge-grained fir, but otherwise the cabin stood as it had for twenty years, the white-washed logs glowing in the light of two bracket lamps and the reflections from a wood fire which burned merrily in the stove. The skins of a grizzly bear and a timber wolf lay on the floor, and two moose heads looked down from opposite ends of the room. On the walls hung other trophies won by Y.D.'s rifle, along with hand-made bits of harness, lariats, and other insignia of the ranchman's trade.

The rancher took his guests' hats, and motioned each to a seat.

"Mother," he said, directing his voice into an adjoining room, "here's the boys."

In a moment "Mother" appeared drying her hands. In her appearance were courage, resourcefulness, energy,--fit mate for the man who had made the Y.D. known in every big cattle market of the country. As Linder's eye caught her and her husband in the same glance his mind involuntarily leapt to the suggestion of what the offspring of such a pair must be.

The men of the cattle country have a proper appreciation of heredity....

"My wife--Mr. Transley, Mr. Linder," said the rancher, with a courtliness which sat strangely on his otherwise rough-and-ready speech.

"I been tellin' her the fine job you boys has made in the hay fields, an' I reckon she's got a bite of supper waitin' you."

"Y.D. has been full of your praises," said the woman. There was a touch of culture in her manner as she received them, which Y.D.'s hospitality did not disclose.

She led them into another room, where a table was set for five. Linder experienced a tang of happy excitement as he noted the number. Linder allowed himself no foolishness about women, but, as he sometimes sagely remarked to George Drazk, you never can tell what might happen. He shot a quick glance at Transley, but the contractor's face gave no sign. Even as he looked Linder thought what an able face it was. Transley was not more than twenty-six, but forcefulness, a.s.sertion, ability, stood in every line of his clean-cut features. He was such a man as to capture at a blow the heart of old Y.D., perhaps of Y.D.'s daughter.