Sawtooth Ranch Read online

  "You didn't tell him anything, did you?" he asked, as if there had been no pause in their talk.

  "No—I made him believe I wasn't there. Or I tried to. And dad! As I was going to cross that creek just before you come to Rock City, two men came along on horseback, and I hid before they saw me. They stopped to water their horses, and they were talking. They said something about the TJ had been here a long time, but they would get theirs, and it was like sitting into a poker game with a nickel. They said the little ones aren't big enough to fight the Sawtooth, and they'd carry lead under their hides if they didn't leave. Dad, isn't your brand the TJ? That's what it looks like on Yellowjacket."

  Brit did not answer, and when Lorraine was sure that he did not mean to do so, she asked another question. "Dad, why didn't you want me to leave the ranch to-day? I was nervous after that man was here, and I did go."

  "I didn't want you riding around the country unless I knew where you went," Brit said. "My brand is the TJ up-and-down. We never call it just the TJ."

  "Oh," said Lorraine, relieved. "They weren't talking about you, then. But dad—it's horrible! We simply can't let that murder go and not do anything. Because I know that man was shot. I heard the shot fired, and I saw him start to fall off his horse. And the next flash of lightning I saw——"

  "Look here, Raine. I don't want you talking about what you saw. I don't want you thinkin' about it. What's the use? Thurman's dead and buried. The cor'ner come and held an inquest, and the jury agreed it was an accident. I was on the jury. The sheriff's took charge of his property. You couldn't prove what you saw, even if you was to try." He looked at her very much as Lone Morgan had looked at her. His next words were very nearly what Lone Morgan had said, Lorraine remembered. "You don't know this country like I know it. Folks live in it mainly because they don't go around blatting everything they see and hear and think."

  "You have laws, don't you, dad? You spoke about the sheriff——"

  "The sheriff!" Brit laughed harshly. "Yes, we got a sheriff, and we got a jail, and a judge—all the makin's of law. But we ain't got one thing that goes with it, and that's justice. You'd best make up your mind like the cor'ner's jury done, that Fred Thurman was drug to death by his horse. That's all that'll ever be proved, and if you can't prove nothing else you better keep your mouth shut."

  Lorraine sprang up and stood facing her father, every nerve taut with protest. "You don't mean to tell me, dad, that you and Frank Johnson and Lone Morgan and—everybody in the country are cowards, do you?"

  Brit looked at her patiently. "No," he said in the tone of acknowledged defeat, "we ain't cowards, Raine. A man ain't a coward when he stands with his hands over his head. Most generally it's because some one's got the drop on 'im."

  Lorraine would not accept that. "You think so, because you don't fight," she cried hotly. "No one is holding a gun at your head. Dad! I thought Westerners never quit. It's fight to the finish, always. Why, I've seen one man fight a whole outfit and win. He couldn't be beaten because he wouldn't give up. Why——"

  Brit gave her a tolerant glance. "Where'd you see all that, Raine?" He moved to the table, picked up his pipe and knocked out the ashes on the stove hearth. His movements were those of an aging man—yet Brit Hunter was not old, as age is reckoned.

  "Well—in stories—but it was reasonable and logical and possible, just the same. If you use your brains you can outwit them, and if you have any nerve——"

  Brit made a sound somewhat like a snort. "These days, when politics is played by the big fellows, and the law is used to make money for 'em, it takes nerve just to hang on," he said. "Nobody but a dang fool would fight." Slow anger grew within him. He turned upon Lorraine almost fiercely. "D'yuh think me and Frank could fight the Sawtooth and get anything out of it but a coffin apiece, maybe?" he demanded harshly. "Don't the Sawtooth own this country? Warfield's got the sheriff in his pocket, and the cor'ner, and the judge, and the stock inspector—he's Senator Warfield, and what he wants he gets. He gets through the law that you was talking about a little while ago. What you goin' to do about it? If I had the money and the land and the political pull he's got, mebby I'd have me sheriff and a judge, too.

  "Fred Thurman tried to fight the Sawtooth over a water right he owned and they wanted. They had the case runnin' in court till they like to of took the last dollar he had. He got bull-headed. That water right meant the hull ranch—everything he owned. You can't run a ranch without water. And when he'd took the case up and up till it got to the Supreme Court, and he stood some show of winnin' out—he had an accident. He was drug to death by his horse."

  Brit stooped and opened the stove door, seeking a live coal; found none and turned again to Lorraine, shaking his pipe at her for emphasis.

  "We try to prove Fred was murdered, and what's the result? Something happens: to me, mebby, or Frank, or both of us. And you can't say, 'Here, I know the Sawtooth had a hand in that.' You got to prove it! And when you've proved it," he added bitterly, "you got to have officers that'll carry out the law instead of using it to hog-tie yuh."

  His futile, dull anger surged up again. "You call us cowards because we don't git up on our hind legs and fight the Sawtooth. A lot you know about courage! You've read stories, and you've saw moving pictures, and you think that's the West—that's the way they do it. One man hold off a hunderd with his gun—and on the other hand, a hunderd men, mebby, ridin' hell-whoopin' after one. You think that's it—that's the way they do it. Hunh!" He lifted the lid of the stove, spat into it as if he were spitting in the face of an enemy, and turned again to Lorraine.

  "What you seen—what you say you seen—that was done at night when there wasn't no audience. All the fighting the Sawtooth does is done under cover. You won't see none of it—they ain't such fools. And what us small fellers do, we do it quiet, too. We ain't ridin' up and down the trail, flourishin' our six-shooters and yellin' to the Sawtooth to come on and we'll clean 'em up!"

  "But you're fighting just the same, aren't you, dad? You're not letting them——"

  "We're makin' out to live here—and we've been doin' it for twenty-five year," Brit told her, with a certain grim dignity. "We've still got a few head uh stock left—enough to live on. Playin' poker with a nickel, mebby—but we manage to ante, every hand so fur." His mind returned to the grisly thing Lorraine had seen.

  "We can't run down the man that got Fred Thurman, supposin' he was killed, as you say. That's what the law is paid to do. If Lone Morgan told you not to talk about it, he told you right. He was talking for your own good. What about Al—the man from Whisper? You didn't tell him, did you?"

  His tone, the suppressed violence of his manner, frightened Lorraine. She moved farther away from him.

  "I didn't tell him anything. He was curious but—I only said I knew him because he was wearing a brown hat, and the man that shot Mr Thurman had a brown hat. I didn't say all that. I just mentioned the hat. And he said there were lots of brown hats in the country. He said he had traded for that one, just yesterday. He said his own hat was gray."

  Brit stared at her, his jaw sagging a little, his eyes growing vacant with the thoughts he hid deep in his mind. He slumped down into his chair and leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees, his fingers clasped loosely. After a little he tilted his head and looked up at her.

  "You better go to bed," he told Her stolidly. "And if you're going to live at the Quirt, Raine, you'll have to learn to keep your mouth shut. I ain't blaming you—but you told too much to Al Woodruff. Don't talk to him no more, if he comes here when I'm gone." He put out a hand, beckoning her to him, sorry for his harshness. Lorraine went to him and knelt beside him, slipping an arm around his neck while she hid her face on his shoulder.

  "I won't be a nuisance, dad—really, I won't," she said. "I—I can shoot a gun. I never shot one with bullets in, but I could. And I learned to do lots of things when I was working in that play West I thought was real. It isn't like I thought. There's no picture stuff in the re
al West, I guess; they don't do things that way. But—what I want you to know is that if they're fighting you they'll have to fight me, too.

  "I don't mean movie stuff, honestly I don't. I'm in this thing now, and you'll have to count me, same as you count Jim and Sorry. Won't you please feel that I'm one more in the game, dad, and not just another responsibility? I'll herd cattle, or do whatever there is to do. And I'll keep my mouth shut, too. I can't stay here, day after day, doing nothing but sweep and dust two rooms and fry potatoes and bacon for you at night. Dad, I'll go crazy if you don't let me into your life!

  "Dad, if you knew the stunts I've done in the last three years! It was make-believe West, but I learned things just the same." She kissed him on the unshaven cheek nearest her—and thought of the kisses she had breathed upon the cheeks of story fathers with due care for the make-up on her lips. Just because this was real, she kissed him again with the frank vigour of a child.

  "Dad," she said wheedlingly, "I think you might scare up something that I can really ride. Yellowjacket is safe, but—but you have real live horses on the ranch, haven't you? You must not go judging me by the palms and the bay windows of the Casa Grande. That's where I've slept, the last few years when I wasn't off on location—but it's just as sensible to think I don't know anything else, as it would be for me to think you can't do anything but skim milk and fry bacon and make sour-dough bread, just because I've seen you do it!"

  Brit laughed and patted her awkwardly on the back. "If you was a boy, I'd set you up as a lawyer," he said with an attempt at playfulness. "I kinda thought you could ride. I seen how you piled onto old Yellowjacket and the way you held your reins. It runs in the blood, I guess. I'll see what I can do in the way of a horse. Ole Yellowjacket used to be a real rim-rider, but he's gitting old; gitting old—same as me."

  "You're not! You're just letting yourself feel old. And am I one of the outfit, dad?"

  "I guess so—only there ain't going to be any of this hell-whoopin' stuff, Raine. You can't travel these trails at a long lope with yore hair flyin' out behind and—and all that damn foolishness. I've saw 'em in the movin' pitchers——"

  Lorraine blushed, and was thankful that her dad had not watched her work in that serial. For that matter, she hoped that Lone Morgan would never stray into a movie where any of her pictures were being shown.

  "I'm serious, dad. I don't want to make a show of myself. But if you'll feel that I can be a help instead of a handicap, that's what I want. And if it comes to fighting——"

  Brit pushed her from him impatiently. "There yuh go—fight—fight—and I told yuh there ain't any fighting going on. Nothing more'n a fight to hang on and make a living. That means straight, hard work and mindin' your own business. If you want to help at that——"

  "I do," said Raine quietly, getting to her feet. Her legacy of stubbornness set her lips firmly together. "That's exactly what I mean. Good night, dad."

  Brit answered her non-committally, apparently sunk already in his own musings. But his lips drew in to suppress a smile when he saw, from the corner of his eyes, that Lorraine was winding the alarm on the cheap kitchen clock, and that she set the hand carefully and took the clock with her to bed.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE EVIL EYE OF THE SAWTOOTH

  Oppression is a growth that flourishes best in the soil of opportunity. It seldom springs into full power at once. The Sawtooth Cattle Company had begun much as its neighbours had begun: with a tract of land, cattle, and the ambition for prospering. Senator Warfield had then been plain Bill Warfield, manager of the outfit, who rode with his men and saw how his herds increased,—saw too how they might increase faster under certain conditions. At the outset he was not perhaps, more unscrupulous than some of his neighbours. True, if a homesteader left his claim for a longer time than the law allowed him, Bill Warfield would choose one of his own men to file a contest on that claim. The man's wages would be paid. Witnesses were never lacking to swear to the improvements he had made, and after the patent had been granted the homesteader (for the contestant always won in that country) the Sawtooth would pay him for the land. Frequently a Sawtooth man would file upon land before any other man had claimed it. Sometimes a Sawtooth man would purchase a relinquishment from some poor devil of a claim-holder who seemed always to have bad luck, and so became discouraged and ready to sell. An intelligent man like Bill Warfield could acquire much land in this manner, give him time enough.

  In much the same manner his herds increased. He bought out small ranchers who were crowded to the selling point in one way or another. They would find themselves fenced off from water, the Sawtooth having acquired the water rights to creek or spring. Or they would be hemmed in with fenced fields and would find it next to impossible to make use of the law which gave them the right to "condemn" a road through. They would not be openly assailed,—Bill Warfield was an intelligent man. A dozen brands were recorded in the name of the Sawtooth Cattle Company, and if a small rancher found his calf crop shorter than it should be, he might think as he pleased, but he would have no tangible proof that his calves wore a Sawtooth brand.

  Inevitably it became necessary now and then to stop a mouth that was ready to speak unwelcome truths. But if a Sawtooth man were known to have committed violence, the Sawtooth itself was the first to put the sheriff on his trail. If the man successfully dodged the sheriff and made his way to parts unknown, the Sawtooth could shrug its shoulders and wash its hands of him.

  Then whispers were heard that the Sawtooth had on its pay roll men who were paid to kill and to leave no trace. So many heedless ones crossed the Sawtooth's path to riches! Fred Thurman had been one; a "bull-headed cuss" who had the temerity to fight back when the Sawtooth calmly laid claim to the first water rights to Granite Creek, having bought it, they said, with the placer claim of an old miner who had prospected along the headwaters of Granite at the base of Bear Top.

  By that time the Sawtooth had grown to a power no poor man could hope to defeat. Bill Warfield was Senator Warfield, and Senator Warfield was a power in the political world that immediately surrounded him. Since his neighbouring ranchmen had not been able to prevent his steady climbing to the position he now held, they had small hope of pulling him down. Brit was right. They did well to hang on and continue living in that country.

  At open killing, one that would attract the attention of the outside world might be avenged. The man who committed the crime might be punished,—if public opinion were sufficiently massed against him. In that case Senator Warfield would cry loudest for justice. But it would take a stronger man than the country held to raise the question of Fred Thurman's death and take even the first steps toward proving it a murder.

  "It ain't that they can do anything, Mr Warfield," the man from Whisper said guardedly, urging his horse close to the machine that stood in the trail from Echo. It was broad day—a sun-scorched day to boot—and Senator Warfield perspired behind the wheel of his car. "It's the talk they may get started."

  "What have they said? The girl was at the ranch for several days. She didn't talk there, or Hawkins would have told me."

  "She was sick. I saw her the other day at the Quirt, and she more'n half recognised me. Hell! How'd I know she was in there among them rocks? Everybody that was apt to be riding through was accounted for, and I knew there wasn't any one coming horseback or with a rig. My hearing's pretty good."

  Warfield moved the spark lever up and down on the wheel while he thought. "Well," he said carefully at last, "if you're falling down in your work, what are you whining about it to me for? What do you want?"

  Al moistened his lips with his tongue. "I want to know how far I can go. It's been hands off the Quirt, up to now. And the Quirt's beginning to think it can get away with most anything. They've throwed a fence across the pass through from Sugar Spring to Whisper. That sends us away around by Three Creek. You can't trail stock across Granite Ridge, nor them lava ledges. If it's going to be hands off, I want to know it. There's other
places I'd rather live in, if the Quirt's going to raise talk about Fred Thurman."

  Senator Warfield pulled at his collar and tie as if they choked him. "The Quirt has made no trouble," he said. "Of course, if they begin throwing fences across our stock trails and peddling gossip, that is another story. I expect you to protect our interests, of course. And I have never made a practice of dictating to you. In this case"—he sent a sharp glance at Al—"it seems to me your interests are involved more than ours. As to Fred Thurman, I don't know anything about it. I was not here when he died, and I have never seen this girl of Brit's who seems to worry you. She doesn't interest me, one way or the other."

  "She seems to interest Bob a whole lot," Al said maliciously. "He rode over to see her yesterday. She wasn't home, though."

  Senator Warfield seemed unmoved by this bit of news, wherefore Al returned to the main issue.

  "Do I get a free hand, or don't I?" he insisted. "They can't be let peddle talk—not if I stay around here."

  Senator Warfield considered the matter.

  "The girl's got the only line on me," Al went on. "The inquest was as clean as I ever saw. Everything all straight—and then, here she comes up——"

  "If you know how to stop a woman's mouth, Al, you can make a million a month telling other men." Senator Warfield smiled at him. Then he leaned across the front seat and added impressively, "Bear one thing in mind, Al. The Sawtooth cannot permit itself to become involved in any scandal, nor in any killing cases. We're just at the most crucial point with our reclamation project, over here on the flat. The legislature is willing to make an appropriation for the building of the canal, and in two or three months at the latest we should begin selling agricultural tracts to the public. The State will also throw open the land it had withdrawn from settlement, pending the floating of this canal project. More than ever the integrity of the Sawtooth Cattle Company must be preserved, since it has come out openly as a backer of the irrigation company. Nothing—nothing must be permitted to stand in the way."