IT turned out that the man of-accomplishment so indispensable to the gaiety of the occasion was a saturnine, dark-faced, sinewy hillbilly, originally from the Ozarks of Missouri. He called off the figures of the dances through a small aperture in the corner of his twisted mouth, running the rest of the sound out of his nose.
This man was foreman on a ranch forty of fifty miles distant from Jim Kelly's. He had come at Frank's long-carried invitation, though what pleasure he got out of the dance himself was beyond Louise Gardner's speculative realm. Glum and ill-favored, he appeared to look on it all as a trifling piece of folly in which circumstances had forced him to play a part. He grinned a little at rare intervals, a sort of beginning and ending of a grin, with none of the full-spread humor, but as a caller he was eminent in the land. He danced but seldom, and then with Louise. He said he was acquainted with her; she had served him breakfast once at the hotel.
True to Maud's prediction, Tom Laylander arrived at the ranch toward evening. He came riding the outlaw's horse, with the long-carrying rifle that he had wrenched from the dead robber's hand as he lay before the bank door. He told Louise he had spent the afternoon looking over his cattle. They had filled out surprisingly, he said; many of the younger ones could be marketed in a pinch just as they stood.
Tom was not in the mood for dancing that night, he said. He jigged through a set with Jinny, dischargsing his obligation of respect; one with Maud, because she asked him to, and another with Louise, to keep her away from the ranch foreman who called off through his nose, and wore a black shirt without coat or vest, with a necktie as red as a flame. The rest of the time he stood around talking with Jim and his guests in his soft, drawling speech, so much in contrast with the loud, harsh, wide-open-mouthed delivery of the Kansas tongue. Jinny said he sounded as if he mashed the words in the roof of his mouth.
The two deputy sheriffs on guard over what once had been Tom Laylander's herd were there, going it strong on oyster soup, and something that was not soup, which Jim Kelly had in a jug behind the chicken house. They were taking compensation in a lump for their desolate days on the range.
Tom Laylander was the star of the occasion, in spite of his modest withdrawal from its activities in his attempt to eliminate himself from public notice. Jim wanted the story of Tom's ride in pursuit of the bank robbers; how he had picked them off with the dead bandit's rifle, until he had reduced their numbers, and then closed in; whether the last of them had put up much of a fight, and how Tom had managed to come through without a scratch. Jim drew the guests around him by his loud and insistent interrogation, which was not intended for anything but lively, admiring, friendly interest, no matter for its rudeness.
Tom tried to back out of it, as if they had cornered him with some shameful accusation, levelling the matter down with his expressive hands, smoothing it to a thing of utmost simplicity, so small and unworthy that it did not merit a word. He said it really amounted to nothing at all; that it was all over, anyhow, and they must excuse him from discussing it, or any phase of it, now.
Louise understood how hard it was for him, generous, modest, truly valiant as she knew him to be. She thought that if Jim Kelly, and some of the others who looked at Tom with their uncomprehending, bold stare of curiosity, could see as deeply into his heart as she had seen, they never would say again that he had come through that experience without a scratch.
Laylander had left something out of his youth and the redundant joy of his life on that hard ride into No Man's Land. There was a wound in the plastic soul of his young manhood that gaped wide and deep. Time would cicatrize it into a harsh, rought scar; memory would touch it in after years with a shudder. A gentleman does not live through an experience such as that and come away unmarked.
Anyway, it was a triumph for Jim and Jinny to have a man so notable on display before their guests. The men all came up and shook hands with Tom, and said they were proud to know him, which was sincere and true. They were outspoken in their denunciation of Cal Withers, almost to a man. If Tom had put his case before a jury of twelve cattlemen, they said, Cal Withers would have been looking around by now for somebody else to skin; he never would have got judgment on that note.
When they talked among themselves, however, they turned queer glances around at Tom, and spoke with voices lowered. He seemed to be such a simple kind of a feller, they said. Maybe he hadn't understood what a dangerous thing he was foolin' with when he took out after them bank robbers that way, hot-foot and alone. It was something like a baby hackin' at a rattle-snake with a hatchet, they guessed; a lucky lick or two had saved him where a wiser man might have been killed.
That was about the size of it, judgin' from the looks of him, a young strawberry-complected feller like him. He didn't know what he was up to when he grabbed that rifle and rode off after them fellers. Luck had carried him through, but it was luck that darn few men ever enjoyed. The way he handed that note over in court proved he had a screw loose. No sensible man would have done a thing like that. It was well known that simple people could go through great perils and come out whole. That had happened so often in frontier experience that no man would dispute it. It was one of the mysterious laws of luck.
Frank, the dean of the range, was flinging a high heel that night. He was smoothed up for the event quite a bit, except his hair. That seemed to stand up straighter, as if alert for the pleasure of the dance. Frank fixed his favors on Maud, dancing with her at every opening, swinging her as if he felt that duty constrained him to assist her in the acrobatic feat she had set for herself in this farewell she was taking of the range.
At midnight the company began to thin out; an hour later there were only ladies enough for a set, counting the three in the house. They danced this farewell measure to Jim's playing, after which everybody took horse and galloped off as if a penalty for being abroad approached with the dawn.
The two deputy sheriffs were the last to go, owing to some difficulty they had getting on their horses. They had been the most devoted patrons of Jim's jug, which was not a cider jug as he solemnly protested to Jinny. Between the efforts of Jim and Laylander, they were hoisted up and set on their way.
"I guess if their horses don't take 'em to camp they'll go to McPacken," Jim said.
"Maybe I'd better go with 'em and see they don't wander off," Tom suggested.
"No, let 'em go. Nothing's goin' to hurt 'em."
Tom was for setting out for McPacken himself, but Jim and Jinny would not hear of it. Maud said she would be offended forever unless he remained over a day or two. Louise could not add her word, but she did all that a girl could do with her eyes, and Tom yielded, without any great expenditure of persuasion. Jim opened one of the five doors and told him to make himself at home.
The household was astir early next morning, even to little Jinny and Jim, for a little indulgence will not break a habit that necessity has fixed upon a man. Tom was out with the first gleam of sun, feeling more at home than he had since coming to Kansas. It was like old times to see the sun come up that way at the level edge of the world.
Maud and Louise were a little late coming to breakfast, at which they finally appeared in riding habits, looking as fresh as buttermilk, Jim said.
"Where do you two intend to go straddlin' off to this morning?" he inquired. "Them town ridin' bloomers of yours're liable to scare all the cows on the range."
"You'll have to take the chance, then," said Maud, with her wide-spreading grin. "I'm going over to the Nation with Louise to show her some squaws and squawks."
"Great sight," said Jinny, contemptuous of the lowly creatures.
"We'll have Tom along. He's a cowman; he can head off any stampede we start," Maud explained.
"You'll go, won't you Tom?" Louise appealed.
"I'd just love to," Tom replied.
"Somebody a ridin' up," Jinny announced. She leaned to look out of the open door, a platter of ham and eggs raised high to balance her.
"It's them two deputy sheriffs," said Jim, curious speculation in his voice. "Wonder what they're back here after?"
"More cider," said Jinny, scornful of man's weakness.
"Hello, boys!" Jim hailed from the door, too much interested in breakfast to go very far away from it. "Light and look at your saddles. Come on in and get some breakfast."
Jinny had anticipated this shouted invitation. She was at the cupboard after more plates and cups, and Maud, knowing the rule of hospitality in that country, was closing little Jim and Jinny up, making room for the visitors at the end of the table. Louise heard the crunch on the gravel path leading from gate to door.
"Say, Jim, you ain't seen them darn cows of ours around here this morning, have you?" one of the deputies inquired, considerably troubled.
"No. What's the matter of 'em?"
"Gone," another voice replied. "We left 'em there, all bunked down when we come over here last night. There wasn't a hide or hair of 'em in sight when we got up this morning."
"Have you looked around over there?" Jim asked.
"Sure we have. They're gone as clean as if the wind had blowed 'em away."
Louise looked at Tom, who turned toward the door, listening to what was being reported. She wondered what new trouble was coming now. Tom excused himself and went to the door.
"I guess they're around somewhere, they couldn't go very far in that time," Jim said, more amused than concerned. He held the screen door open. "Come in and get some breakfast, then me and Tom we'll ride over with you and see if we can't find 'em."
"We'd sure be obliged to you if you would," said the livery stable cowboy, his foot in the door. "What us fellers don't know about cows'd surprise you."
"And that ain't no lie," the other one seconded. He came in after his companion, both of them grinning at the girls and giving everybody greeting.
"No use to worry," Jinny assured them; "they're right around there some place. Cattle don't stampede off this kind of weather very often."
"Well, it does happen sometimes," Jim seemed to: soliloquize, engaged again with his ham and eggs. "They might 'a' got a scare at something and bucked off, but they wouldn't go far."
"We'll be in a one h—, we'll be in a d—, we'll be in one grand fix," said the livery stable cowboy, hitting a polite exposition of their situation at last, pronouncing it with desperate earnestness, "if we can't find them cows in time for the sale. What do you suppose they'll do to us, Jim?"
"Send us up for about forty-nine years!" said the other cowboy, gloomily.
"We'll find 'em, all right," Jim declared.
The two deputies appeared to be quite sober, although they had no craving for ham and eggs. They drank coffee from their saucers, sitting uneasily, ready to jump and go.
"What did that nigger cook say happened to the herd?" Tom inquired.
"He didn't know nothing about it till he looked out of his wagon this morning," the clerk cowboy replied. "We made a mistake leavin' them darn cattle alone last night."
"It sure looks like it," Tom agreed.
"We'll get about fifty-five years apiece if we don't find 'em in time for the sale."
Maud began to talk then, and Jinny, seeing what a scare the two young men had got thrown into them. Louise kept her peace, not being a cow authority. But she was passing through a curious fluctuation of hope and dread; a glow as of some undefined joy rising in her one moment, sinking away to the cold depression of despair the next. What had become of the cattle? Who had driven them off? Who was there to gain anything by their removal from the sheriff's custody but Tom? And Tom would no more have thought of doing it than he would have thought of robbing Jim Kelly of the horses in his corral.
"They're right around there in a holler somewhere," said Jim. "You boys overlooked 'em, easy enough to do unless you're used to cattle. Five or six hundred head's nothing but a speck on the range, 'specially when they bunch up and lay down somewhere in a holler."
Tom was silent. If he had any theories he kept them to himself, as Louise expected of him. But she looked at him appealingly, as if asking him to say something that would assure and quiet her uneasy perplexity. He only shook his head.
"Let's go with them, Louise," Maud proposed, all animation for the adventure. "I want to see the hole that swallowed five hundred head of cattle while the cute little shepherd boys were asleep."
Louise hesitated, glancing at Tom for his opinion.
"I'd love to have you come," he said.