"There's no use in saying I'm obliged to both of you, because you know it well," I made shift to answer; and Sally Steel stroked the hair back from my forehead in sisterly fashion as she smiled at Thorn. "But what about the stock? Did they all get through?"

Thorn's honest face clouded, and Sally Steel laid her plump hand on my mouth. "You're not going to worry about that. A herd of cattle stampeded over you and you're still alive. Isn't that good enough for you?"

I moved my head aside. "I shall worry until I know the truth. All the beasts could not have got out. How many did?" I asked.

Thorn looked at Sally, then sideways at me, and I held my breath until the girl said softly: "You had better tell him."

"Very few," said the foreman; and I hoped that my face was as expressionless as I tried to make it when I heard the count. "Some of those near the fence got clear, and some didn't. Steel had grubbed up a post, and when the wires slacked part of the rest got tangled up and went down, choking the gap. It was worse than a Chicago slaughter-house when the fire rolled up."

"The horses, too? How long have I been ill, and has any rain fallen?" I asked, with the strange steadiness that sometimes follows a crushing blow, and Thorn moodily shook his head.

"Both horses done for. You've been ill 'bout two weeks, I think. No rain worth mentioning--and the crop is clean wiped out."

There was silence for some minutes, and Sally Steel patted my uninjured shoulder sympathetically. Then I pointed to a litter of papers on the table, and inquired if there were any letters in Lane's writing. Thorn handed me one reluctantly, and it was hard to refrain from fierce exclamation as I read the laconic missive. Lane regretted to hear of my accident, but the scarcity of money rendered it necessary to advise me that as I had not formally accepted his terms, repayment of the loan was overdue, and he would be obliged to realize unless I were willing to pledge Crane Valley or renew the arrangement at an extra five per cent.

on the terms last mentioned.

"Bad news?" said Sally. "Then I guess Thorn sha'n't worry you any more; but it's just when things look worst the turn comes. That team will be bolting soon, Thorn. I'll sit right back in the corner, and until you want to talk to me you can forget I'm there."

The high-pitched voice sank to a gentler tone, and I felt grateful to Sally Steel. Her reckless vagaries often formed a theme for laughter when the inhabitants of the prairie foregathered at settlement or store; but there was a depth of good-nature, as well as an overdaring love of mischief in her, and not infrequently a blessing accompanied the jest.

Thorn was moving towards the door when, recollecting another point, I beckoned him.

"How was it that when they had, or should have had, time enough, Henderson's man and Redmond did not stop the cattle bunching in the fence? It's very unlike our ways if they made no effort to save my beasts as well as their own masters' property," I said.

Foreman Thorn looked troubled, and I saw that Sally was watching him keenly. "I don't understand it rightly, and I guess no man ever will,"

he said. "Of course, we struck Henderson's Jo with just that question, and this is what he made of it. He and Redmond were camping in Torkill's deserted sod-house, and when they saw the fires were bad that night, Redmond said he'd ride round the cattle. Their own lot was pretty well out of harm's way, east of the fence, but Jo told him to take a look at yours. Redmond started, and, as Jo knew that he'd be called if he were wanted, he went off to sleep."

"That does not explain much," I interjected, when Thorn halted, rubbing his head as though in search of inspiration.

"There isn't an explanation. Jo, waking later, saw the fire coming right down the hollow and started on foot for the fence. There was no sign of Redmond anywhere. Jo couldn't get the stock out, and he couldn't cut the fence, and he was going back for an ax when we met him. You know all the rest--'cept this. Steel and I were standing over you, and the fire was roasting the beasts mixed up in the fence, when Redmond comes along. The way he stood, the flame shone right on his face. It seemed twisted, and the man looked like a ghost. He stood there blinking at the beasts--and it wasn't a pretty sight--then shook all over as he stooped down and looked at you. There was a good deal of blood about you from the horse.

"'What the devil's wrong with you? Stiffen yourself up!' says Steel; and Redmond's voice cracked in the middle as he answered him: 'I'm feeling mighty sick. Is he dead?'

"'Looks pretty near it. If you'd seen those beasts clear he mightn't have come to this. Here, take a drink. We'll want you presently,' says Steel, and went on strapping you together with a girth and bridle, while I watched Redmond with one eye. As you know, there was never much grit in the creature, and he had another shivering fit.

"'Get out until you're feeling better. That kind of thing's catching, and we've lots to do,' I said; and he laughs with a cackle like an hysterical woman, and blinks straight past me. Steel and I figured he'd got hold of some smuggled whisky and been drinking bad, but afterwards Henderson's Jo said no.

"'It's murder. My G.o.d! It's horrible--an' he never done anyone no harm,'

he says, and falls to cussing somebody quietly. I can talk pretty straight when I'm hot myself, but that was ice-cold swearing with venom in it, and when he got on to Judas, with the devil in his eyes, I ripped up a big sod and plugged him on the head with it.

"'If you don't let up or quit I'll pound the life out of you,' says Steel.

"Well, we got you fixed so you couldn't make the damage worse, and when Steel went for the wagon and I looked around for Redmond he was gone.

Don't know what to think of it, anyway, 'cept his troubles or bad whisky had turned his head. You see he was never far from crazy."

"Why didn't one of you get hold of him and make him talk next day?" I asked; and Thorn looked at me curiously.

"Because he'd gone. Lit out to n.o.body knows where and stopped there. I don't know just what to think, myself."

Sally took Thorn by the shoulders and thrust him out, but he left me with sufficient, and unpleasant, food for reflection. The stock I had counted on were gone. Also, when it was above all things desirable that I should be up and doing, I must lie still for weeks, useless as a log.

One thing at least I saw clearly, and that was the usurer's purpose to absorb my property; and as I lay with throbbing forehead and tight-clenched fingers, which had grown strangely white, I determined that he should have cause to remember the struggle before he accomplished it. That Redmond had been driven by him into shameful treachery appeared too probable, though there was no definite proof of it, and the thought stiffened my resolution. My scattered neighbors, patient as they were, were ill to coerce and would doubtless join me in an effort before the schemer's machinations left us homeless.

Then I could hardly check a groan as I remembered all that the brief glimpses of a brighter life at Bonaventure had suggested. A few months earlier it had appeared possible that with one or two more good seasons I might even have attained to it; but since then a gulf had opened between Beatrice Haldane and me, and the best I could hope for was a resumption of what now seemed hopeless drudgery. It was a bitter awakening, and I almost regretted that Steel and Foreman Thorn had not been a few seconds later when the fence went down. An hour pa.s.sed, and Sally Steel, bringing a chair over to my side, offered to read to me what she said was a real smart shadowing story. I glanced at the invincible detective standing amid a scene of bloodshed, depicted on the cover of the journal she held up, and declined with due civility.

"I am afraid my nerves are not good enough. I should sooner you talked to me, Sally," I said.

She laughed coquettishly, and there was no doubt that Steel's sister was handsome, as women on that part of the prairie go. Sun and wind had ripened the color in her face, her teeth were white as ivory, her lips full and red, and perhaps most men would have found pleasure watching the sparkle of mischief that danced in her eyes as she answered demurely: "That would be just too nice. What shall we talk about?"

"You might tell me who was the first to come ask about me," I said.

The girl stretched out one plump arm with a comprehensive gesture. "They all came, bringing things along, most of them. Even the little Icelander; he loaded up his wagon with a keg of herrings--said they were best raw--and lumps of grindstone bread. Oh, yes; they all came, and I was glad to see them, 'cept when some of their wives came with them."

"They are kind people in this country; but how could the women worry you? In any case, I think you would be equal to them," I commented; and, somewhat to my surprise, the girl first blushed, and then looked positively wicked.

"They--well, they would ask questions, and said things, when they found Tom was down to Brandon," she answered enigmatically. "Still, I guess I was equal to most of them. 'Rancher Ormesby's not sending the hat round yet, and that truck is not fit for any sick man to eat when it's just about half-cooked,' I said. 'You can either take it back or leave it for Thorn to worry with. Fresh rocks wouldn't hurt his digestion. Just now I'm way too busy to answer conundrums.'"

Sally seemed glad to abandon that topic, and did not look quite pleased when I hazarded another question, with suppressed interest, but as carelessly as I could: "Did anybody else drive over?"

The girl laughed a trifle maliciously, and yet with a certain enjoyment.

"Oh, yes. One day, when I was too busy for anything, the people from Bonaventure drove over, and wanted to take you back. I don't know why, but the way Haldane's elder daughter looked about the place just got my back up. 'You can't have him. This is where he belongs,' I said.

"'But he is ill, and this place is hardly fit for him. There are no comforts, and we could take better care of him,' said the younger one, and I turned round to her.

"'That's just where you're wrong. Rancher Ormesby has lived here for eight years, and when he's sick he has plenty friends of his own kind to take care of him. I'm one of them, and we don't dump our sick people on to strangers,' I said.

"The elder one she straightens herself a little, as though she didn't like my talk. 'He could not be as comfortable as he would be at Bonaventure, which is the most important thing. We will ask the doctor; and have you any right to place obstacles in the way of Mr. Ormesby's recovery?' says she, and that was enough for me.

"'I've all the right I want,' I answered. 'I'm running Gaspard's Trail, and if you can find a man about the place who won't jump when I want him, you needn't believe me. That makes me a busy woman--see?--so I'll not keep you. Go back to Bonaventure, and don't come worrying the people he belongs to about Rancher Ormesby.'"

I groaned inwardly, and only by an effort concealed my blank consternation. "What did they say next?" I asked.

"Nothing much. The younger one--and I was half sorry I'd spoken straight to her--opened her eyes wide. The elder one she looks at me in a way that made me feel fit to choke her, while Haldane made a little bow. 'I have no doubt he is in capable hands, and we need not trouble you further. No, I don't think you need mention that we called,' says he."

Sally tossed her head with an air of triumph as she concluded, and I lay very still, for it was too late to pray for deliverance from my friends, though of all the rude succession this was about the most cruel blow.

What mischievous fiend had prompted the quick-tempered girl to turn upon the Haldanes I could never surmise, but jealousy might have had something to do with it, for Trooper Cotton had once been a favorite of hers. In any case, the result appeared disastrous, for, while I believed her no more than thoughtless, there was no disguising the fact that some of the settlers' less-favored daughters spoke evil of Sally Steel, and I feared their stories had reached Bonaventure.

When five minutes or so had pa.s.sed she looked at me somewhat shyly.

"You're not mad?" she said.

"I could hardly be vexed with you, whatever happened, after all you have done for me. I was only thinking," I made shift to answer. "Still, you might have been a little more civil, Sally."

For a moment or two the girl appeared almost penitent; then she bent her head towards my own, and again the mischief crept into her eyes.

"I'd have brought them in to a banquet, if I had only guessed," she said; and with a thrill of laughter she slipped out of the room. It was with sincere relief I saw her go, for I was in no mood for the somewhat pointed prairie banter, and felt that, in spite of her manifold kindnesses, I could almost have shaken Sally Steel. Then I turned my head from the light, remembering I was not only a ruined man without even power to move, but had left a discordant memory with the friends whose good opinion I most valued, and whom now I might never again meet on the old terms.

CHAPTER VIII