The Trail Horde, Charles Alden Seltzer [read out loud books .txt] 📗

flashed a quick glance at him. "Considering that the plan didn't succeed, and that I rode clear over here to tell you about it—don't you think you ought to keep silent, Mr. Lawler?"

Whatever Lawler intended to do later, he was silent now. He was puzzled, amazed, over the startling frankness the girl had exhibited. He had heard, from Blackburn—or somebody—it wasn't important whom—that this girl was staying at the Two Diamond. He believed Blackburn had hinted at relations more intimate. And she was at this moment betraying Warden—delivering him into the hands of a man the latter hated.

"Miss Wharton," said Lawler gravely; "I confess I am puzzled. You accept Warden's hospitality, and yet you come here to betray him."

She laughed. "I am not accepting Gary's hospitality. My father is a member of the company that bought the Two Diamond, and I have as much right to be there as Gary has. We live East—in New York. I came West out of curiosity. I wanted to see the ranch. And now that I am here I intend to stay. I have always been eager to live in the West."

"Then you don't like Gary Warden?"

The girl's face sobered. "I like him. That is all."

Lawler's eyes were still grave. "Miss Wharton," he said slowly; "do you know what Gary Warden is doing—what the company with which your father is connected, is doing?"

"Yes," said the girl, frankly; "they—all of them—are trying to control the western cattle market." She looked straight at him, with no sign of embarrassment.

"That is business, isn't it? It is what men are beginning to call 'big business.' It means centralization of power, resources—and a number of things that go with it. It is an admirable scheme—don't you think? It eliminates uncertainty, risk of loss. It means the stabilizing of the cattle industry; it means gigantic profits to the men who have brains big enough to control it."

Lawler smiled. "Also, Miss Wharton, it means the complete subjection of the cattle raiser. It means that competition will be stifled; that the cattle owner will be compelled to take what prices the buyers offer. It means that the incentive to raise cattle will be destroyed. It means the end of the open market—which has always been a spur to industry. It is evil."

The girl laughed. "How tragic!" she mocked. "One would think we were facing a cataclysm, whereas business men are merely just beginning to take advantage of some of the opportunities that are everywhere around them. It is all perfectly legal, isn't it? I have heard my father say that it is."

Lawler's smile grew slightly bitter. He saw that the girl's mind was merely skipping over the surface of the commercial sea upon which her father sailed a pirate craft; she had not plunged into the depths where she might have found the basic principles of all business—fairness; she had taken no account of the human impulse that, in just men, impels them to grant to their fellows a fighting chance to win.

Watching her closely, Lawler saw in her the signs of frivolity and vanity that he had failed to see that day when he had met her in Willets. Her attitude now revealed her as plainly as though he had known her all her days. She comprehended none of life's big problems; the relations of men to one another had not compelled her attention; the fine, deep impulses of sympathy had not touched her. She was selfish, self-centered, light, inconsequential—a woman who danced from under the burdens of life and laughed at those who were forced to bear them for her.

And yet she was a woman, demanding respect from his sex. He smiled as he turned from her to fix the fire, wondering at the courage that had driven her to ride to the cabin in the storm. His smile broadened when he remembered she had said she sympathized with the "cows"—that motive, while not a high one, was as good as another since the pursuing of it had meant good for him in the end.

"Do you like this country?" she asked, as he turned.

"It isn't a half bad place. If it wasn't for some persons—and northers——"

She laughed. "There are bad people everywhere. As for the 'norther'—I enjoyed it very much until—until it got so bad that I just couldn't see where I was going. I began to be afraid that I was lost and that I'd freeze to death. And then I saw the light in the window—a little square that flickered feebly in the distance, and which sometimes seemed to disappear completely." She smiled, tremulously.

"It seemed that—after I got here—I was to freeze to death, anyway. For I couldn't make you hear me. I rode close to the door and pounded on it. I was afraid to get off, for fear I would fall in that big drift near the door and not be able to get up again. I was so cold and stiff——"

She hesitated, and Lawler saw tears in her eyes.

It was the reaction, delayed by their talk. Self-accusation shone in Lawler's eyes as he started toward her.

"I'm a box-head, Miss Wharton, for standing here, talking about nothing at all, and you nearly freezing to death."

And then he halted, midway of the distance toward her, aware that he could do nothing when he did reach her. And her manner warned him of that, too, for she pulled the blanket closer around her and crowded as far back into the bunk as she could get, looking at him with embarrassed eyes.

"If you could get your clothes fixed," he began. "You see, Miss Wharton, there wasn't much time, and we had to get them off mighty rapid. You can see that we were none too gentle about it."

She blushed, and he abruptly turned his back and walked to the fireplace. He stuck close to it until he heard her say:

"Won't you please hang my stockings up somewhere? They are so wet I can't get them on."

The stockings, wet and limp, fell close beside him. He snatched them up, grinning widely, though fearful that she might see the grin, and carefully laid them over the back of a chair, pulling the chair close to the fire.

Then he got out a frying-pan and began to prepare supper for her. When the aroma of the sizzling bacon was wafted to her, he heard her exclaim:

"U-um, that smells good! Why, I am almost famished!"

Five minutes later, with a plate in her lap and a cup of steaming coffee resting on the rail of the bunk, she was eating. Her eyes were bright and her color high as she watched Lawler, who was seated at the table with his back to her.

"You don't feel much like talking, do you?"

"No," he said. "According to the way this norther is whooping it up we'll run out of talk before we can break trail out of here."

"Do you mean that the storm may last some days?"

"There is no telling. At this time of the year they are mighty uncertain. I've known them to stick around for a month or more."

She sat very silent, and for a time did not even move her lips. Stealing a swift glance at her, expecting to see a worried light in her eyes, Lawler noted that there was a slight—a very slight smile on her lips.

He was amazed, incredulous, and he stole another glance at her to make certain. There was no denying it—there was a smile in the eyes that were gazing meditatively past him into the fire; a smile on her lips—giving him proof that the prospect of remaining alone in the cabin with him had not crushed her—had not brought the hysterical protests that he had feared. She was plainly pleased, possibly considering the thing an adventure which would have no damaging consequences.

With a malice in his eyes that she did not see—for he looked gravely at her, he said, slowly:

"Listen, Miss Wharton!"

He raised a hand and looked at the north window. Following his gaze she saw the snow whipping against the glass, rattling against the panes like small hailstones hurled with frightful velocity. The incessant droning whine of the wind reached their ears, deep in volume as though it would tell them of its interrupted sweep across the vast plains; as though to convince them of its unlimited power and ferocity. She knew as well as he that the big drifts around the cabin had grown bigger; that other drifts were forming around the walls. For the sounds were muffled, and a great, weird calm had settled inside the cabin. The walls, snow-banked, were deadening outside sound.

"A man couldn't go half a mile in that, now, Miss Wharton. And it will be days before anybody can reach us. I am afraid we are in for a long spell of monotony."

"Well," she said, gazing straight at him; a glow in her eyes that puzzled him; "we can't help it, can we? And I suppose we shall have to make the best of it."

Lawler, however, did not expect the storm to last more than a day or so. They seldom did, at this time of the year. He had drawn the gloomy picture merely in an attempt to force Miss Wharton to realize the indelicacy of her position. He had thought she would have exhibited perturbation. Instead, she was calm and plainly unworried.

Puzzled, Lawler leaned an elbow on the table and scowled into the fire. There was no apparent reason why he should object to remaining in the cabin with a pretty woman who did not seem eager to leave it. And yet he was afflicted with a grave unrest.

Givens and Link were in the dugout, and presently they would return to the cabin. They would have to remain in the cabin, for it would be inhuman of him to compel them to stay very long in the dugout with the horses. Thus was Miss Wharton shielded against the impropriety of staying for any length of time in the cabin with him, alone.

But the safeguard of propriety was also a danger. Because Link had permitted a certain light to glow in his eyes Lawler had knocked him down. If the four of them were to remain in the cabin for any length of time, there would be periods when he must sleep. And then Link—

Lawler's thoughts broke off here, for he heard a sound at the door—Givens' voice, saying hoarsely:

"For God's sake, Boss, let us in! We're freezin' to death!"

Lawler got up and walked to the door. He hesitated as he lifted the bar, telling Miss Wharton to wrap the blanket tightly around her in anticipation of the rush of wind. When he saw that she obeyed him, he swung the door open.

As Lawler opened the door he stepped back with it, escaping by inches the sweep of an axe blade that caught the light from the lamp and shimmered brightly in a half-circle as it was swung with the malignant force of Link's arms.

The blade of the axe struck the floor, sinking deep into the boards; while Link, hurled off balance by the viciousness of his attack, tumbled headlong after the axe, sprawling on his hands and knees on the cabin floor, muttering curses.

CHAPTER XX THE "KILLING"

For an instant following the attack there was no change in the scene inside the cabin. Surprise that Lawler had escaped his blow seemed to retard Link's movements quite as much as the force of his fall. For he floundered on the floor, unable to get his feet under him; while the bitter wind, howling in through the open door, hurled a blinding avalanche of white clear to the fireplace. On the floor in the smother of white was Link, and near him the handle of the axe stuck rigidly upward, its blade buried deeply in the floor.

Della Wharton had been watching Lawler as he opened the door, and she had seen what quickly had followed. Now, though a nameless