TOM LAYLANDER reined up on the trail the herd had left on the prairie, which was broad and plain enough for the most inexperienced per son to follow, it seemed. He sat light and straight in the saddle, the outlaw's rifle in its scabbard under the joint of his knee, his pistol at his side, looking like a Texas ranger on the track of contraband. He held his reins high over the horn of his saddle as he sat looking into the south, the direction the cattle had gone.
Jim Kelly reared back and laughed, sweeping his hand to call attention to the trail.
"Tom, your cows have headed for home!" he said. "They're ten miles over in the Nation by now."
"Sa-ay, do you think that's so?" the livery cowboy asked, his mouth open in dismay.
"Surest thing you know," Jim replied, rocking again with laughter.
Maud was in little more decorous state than her hilarious brother. She was chuckling over the two deputies' humiliation over the ungenerous behavior of their cattle.
"Texas cattle always get homesick that way," she explained to Louise, but for the benefit of the two worried young men from town.
"When the wind's in the south you've got to hold 'em," said Jim. "They can smell home, they always begin to mill around and hold their heads high. They'll buck off on a stampede as quick as you can drop your hat sometimes when the wind's in the south. Didn't the sheriff tell you that?"
"He never told us nothin'!" the clerk cowboy said. "Now they'll send us up for about seventy years."
"Yes, they will stampede when the wind's in the south," Jim said. He beat his horse's neck with his hat, doubling over his saddle-horn in a new seizure of risibility.
Louise began to see the humor of the situation, and more. She looked into Maud's audacious eyes, which laughter had pinched to little slits, understanding now that this was the result of the shrewd girl's planning, into which her equally clever brother had entered with all his keen desire to throw a trick against Cal Withers.
"It's the funniest thing!" said Louise, gratitude, and laughter, and a great uplifting of exultation and relief, setting a glow in her face like the chafing of a wintry wind.
"Ain't it?" said Maud, letting out a whoop equal to the highest-keyed cowboy on the range, riding a hilarious circle around the little group.
Tom rode slowly along the herd's trail a little way, and to the side of it, coming back with serious face. He was far from seeing, or even suspecting the trick that had been turned on them as the two green hands from town.
"You'll have to trot after 'em Tom," said Jim. "They'll cut diagonal across the Nation, only ninety or a hundred miles to home. That was a lucky little stampede for, you, old son."
"Do you reckon that old scoundrel drove that herd off?" Tom put it to Jim, eye to eye.
"Cal Withers, you mean? No-o-o. They stampeded. You never had a herd of Texas cattle up here in Kansas before, you don't know their tricks."
"Three or four men drove 'em off," said Tom, going right on with it in spite of Louise's hand put up to silence him, and Maud's shrill whistle to head him off.
"That's where these boys have been ridin' around," said Jim.
"We've got to go after 'em and drive 'em back," one of the deputies declared.
"If we don't," his companion said, "old Judge Burns he'll soak us for about a hundred years apiece. Will you give us a hand with 'em, Jim?"
"I guess we might as well all go along," said Jim. "I'm kind of curious to see how far they went."
Jim looked at Laylander curiously, almost reproachfully. Tom seemed sorry, judging from the look of his glum face, that the cattle had been put by chance or design—a generous man never would question how—where he could reach out and take them, and go on to Texas with them. No court would recognize Cal Withers's judgment there.
They swung off on the trail of the cattle, Tom pretty well in the lead. He rode with his head up, his eyes and thoughts fixed far ahead of him, it seemed. Little was said as they covered the few miles to the Indian Territory line. Four or five miles on the other side they found the herd. It was spread out in good grazing order, picketed by four men.
"Well, there's your cows," said Jim, turning to the deputy sheriffs, waving his hand toward the herd.
Tom halted, as if indecisive; the deputies rode forward in eager haste. Maud and Louise drew up beside Tom, Jim lounging in his saddle a little to one side, greatly interested in the movement of the deputy sheriffs, and the man who rode out from the herd to meet them.
"You're not going to let them drive the cattle back, are you, Tom?" Louise inquired. She leaned and touched his arm, as if to call him from his abstraction, anxiety in her voice.
"There's nothing else to be done," Tom replied.
"Why, after all they've—after all that's been—after—after everything—surely you'll not do that, Tom?"
Jim and Maud were talking apart a little way, throwing quick glances at Tom now and then.
"It's not Colonel Withers's gang," said Tom.
"Of course it isn't!" Louise returned sharply, out of patience with his stupidity.
Jim and Maud rode on; the others followed, nothing more said. Louise looked at Tom reproachfully, indignantly, now and then, a flash in her eyes, a lift to her chin that seemed little short of disdain. Couldn't the man understand, or wouldn't he understand? Was it density, rising out of his fine notions of honor, that kept him from seeing the hands behind this bold stroke for the restoration of his property? He seemed even incapable of thinking his friends would do a thing like that, instead of whooping it up and thanking them, as a natural man ought to do.
An Indian cowboy rode up with the two deputies, who looked very deeply troubled, and exceedingly wild about the eyes.
"This feller says they stopped them cows when they come rairin' and stampedin' through here last night," the livery stable wrangler, whom they called Hank, explained. "He's tryin' to hold us up for a dollar a head charges before he'll let us drive 'em back to Kansas."
"What do you think of that for a chunk of gall? A dollar a head!" said the other deputy, familiarly called Perry by Maud and her brother.
"That's the customary charge for stock"—Jim pronounced it stalk—"that stampedes off down here." Jim took it very easily, as a thing that fell in every day usage, although he could not have cited a precedent in all his years on the border range.
"Well, I ain't got no dollar a head to pay for nobody's cows," Perry declared.
"Here too," voted Hank.
"How many have you got in that herd?" Jim asked the Indian.
"Around five hundred and fifty head."
"Five hundred and fifty plunks!" said Hank, despairingly, as if he had seen a fortune swept away.
"Say, if you'll call it a dime a head we'll try to raise the money," Perry proposed.
The Indian was not concerned in the offer enough to reject it. He sat black, silent and sulky, hat pulled down to his eyebrows, his horse snatching a little doze as it stood in the warm morning sun.
"What're we goin' to do about it?" Hank asked his partner.
"I guess we just as well ride on south till we drop off of the earth," Perry replied, full of disgust with himself for allowing the cattle to get away, and gloom for his future peace in the ribald city of McPacken.
"You talk to him, Jim. Maybe he'll let 'em go for you," Hank appealed.
"I'm willin' to do you a friendly turn any way I can, boys, but this ain't a case for me to horn in. These boys stopped your stalk; custom of the country and the law of the land allows 'em to collect services and damages."
"Damages?" Perry repeated. "They never stepped on nothing down here but the earth."
"You've got to pay fifty cents a head for drivin' through the Cherokee Strip," said Jim.
"Well, we never drove through," Hank denied, with intense feeling.
"And that ain't no dream!" said Perry.
"It's between you and them," Jim told them, his hands out of it completely. He rode off to one side to better express his complete severance and division from the affairs of the two Kansas deputies.
"This feller says no kind of a badge but one with U.S. on it goes on this side of the line," said Hank. "Is that right, Jim?"
"Sure it's right," Jim replied. "Perry ought to know that—he's been hangin' around the sheriff's office long enough."
"We ain't got no jurisdiction here," Perry admitted, shaking his doleful head.
The two drew off to discuss the matter between them, Tom watching them curiously, with a sort of impatient disdain.
"I wouldn't give five hundred bucks for them darned cows and take 'em to keep," Hank declared. He looked spitefully at the animals which had played him such a false and treacherous turn while he stole his hour of pleasure. They were browsing serenely, spread out over considerable ground, some of them so near the crisp, ripping sound of the grass could be heard as they gathered it with out-licking tongues.
"Well boys, if you want to know from me what I think about it," said Jim, assuming a judicial gravity, "I'd say go on back to town and report to the sheriff that the herd stampeded off in the night. That's all you can do, unless you pay these boys their price and take 'em."
"Not on your life!" said Hank.
"It was an act of providence," said Jim. "No judge in the world can lay hands on a man for an act of providence. Go up there and tell 'em that."
"Right here's where I resign!" said Perry, as with sudden inspiration that cleared all his difficulties away in a breath.
"Act of providence or no act of providence, I'm with you!" Hank declared.
"If you see anybody lookin' for us, tell 'em we've gone to McPacken," Perry requested.
"As far as we're concerned, pardner, you can keep them cows," Hank addressed the Indian with lofty relief. "Providence drove 'em down here, and we ain't a goin' to run agin providence drivin' 'em back."
They galloped for the line, their interest all ahead of them. The Indian cowboy grinned.
"Well, there's your stalk, Tom," said Jim Kelly, his enthusiasm and humor rising again. "It's not goin' to cost you any dollar a head to take 'em, neither. Them's my men holdin' 'em."
"Yes, sir. It occurred to me they must be," said Tom.
"I'll let you have a couple of 'em to help you across the river; you can make the drive in eight or ten days. Hold 'em a little north of southwest and you'll hit the old crossin'. You can walk 'em over this time of the year."
"Yes sir, I don't doubt it could be done," said Tom.
"They're on my grass now; I lease down here," Jim explained. "That ain't goin' to cost you anything, either."
"You're very kind, Mr. Kelly, I sure do appreciate all you've done for me. I could run 'em off home, as you say, and be safe there. I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful when I fail to take advantage of the openin' to do it."
"What?" said Kelly in amazement. "You mean you'll not drive 'em on, now they're out of the Kansas court's jurisdiction? Say! what kind of a man are you? Let me take a look at the color of your eyes."
Tom swung his horse around and rode forward, halting his animal neck to neck with Jim's, giving Kelly as direct and open a chance for investigation into the color of his eyes, and spirit that lay behind them, as any man ever had. What Jim Kelly saw made his tanned face turn a smoky white, and his breath catch in the middle of his throat.
"Mr. Kelly, you've befriended me, you've done me as noble a service as one man ever set his hand to do for another. Say no more."
"All right," Jim returned, distant and cold. "They're down there; take 'em or leave 'em. Call them boys off," he directed his man, "and go on back to work."
Maud pressed forward between her brother and Laylander, fighting mad over this apparent flouting of friendship, as well as what she took to be a cowardly surrender of an opportunity that daring service had put into the unworthy Texan's hands.
"Mr. Laylander, may I ask you what you intend to do with them cattle?" Maud demanded.
"I'm goin' to deliver them back into the sheriff's hands, Miss Maud."
"The hell you are!" said Jim.
"I thought I was helpin' a man!" said Maud, her fury mounting. She rode nearer, shaking her quirt so near Laylander's face that he drew back, blinking his white-lashed eyes. "You're not a man, you're nothing but a big, empty bluff. You've not got sense enough to shut your fist on a stick of candy when somebody puts it in your hand!"
"There they are," said Jim, stretching out his long arm toward the cattle. "Take 'em and go to hell!"
Jim rode away to join his men, leaving Maud in her fury and Louise in her shame, to confront Laylander and arraign him as Jim felt that he deserved.
"Surely you're not in earnest, Tom. You're not going to drive them back to Kansas?" Louise pleaded.
"You wouldn't ask me to go on with them, Miss Louise," Tom replied, more of surprise than reproach in his soft voice.
"What else? I don't want to see you misled by a mistaken sense of honor to play into Cal Withers's hand again."
"Oh, let the darn fool go!" said Maud. Come on—let's get out of here."
She started her horse with a sharp lash, galloping off a little way, hauling up to wait for Louise.
"Don't you see how you've offended Mr. Kelly and Maud?" Louise pressed him. "They'll never forgive you, spurning their help, insulting them this way. You as much as say they stole the cattle when they tried to help you."
"I take it for all they meant it to be," Tom said seriously. "It was different with them, the law hadn't laid a hand on their property and told them to stand off. But if I go on with the cattle I'll be stealin' them. There's no two ways about that, Miss Louise."
"It would be all right for you to go on with them," she insisted, "since they strayed off this way into your hands. Or for all that anybody ever will know, need know, they strayed. Nobody in Texas will ask you how you came to get hold of them, I'll bet you, Tom."
"They'd think it was a pretty smooth trick, I expect," Tom admitted, obliged to grin a little in appreciation of it himself.
"They'd tell you in Texas you did right to drive the cattle on from here."
"I expect likely some of them would," Tom agreed.
"Wouldn't everybody?" she insisted, convinced that she was right.
"I expect most everybody would, Miss Louise."
"Then go on."
"A man's got to begin, and end, standin' right with himself, Miss Louise. There's so many things all along the road that he does, that nobody but his ownself knows anything about. When a man begins to cheat himself he'll turn out the biggest scoundrel that ever was. I told you once I was goin' to wait on the law like a gentleman. That's what I'm bound by honor to do."
"Oh, your honor, your honor!" Louise said, scornfully impatient. "All I hear about is your honor. I'll tell you now, Tom Laylander, you'd be better off without the kind of honor that makes you turn every trick right into the hands of the people that are skinning you. You've got it wrong; it's sentiment, not honor. What you need right now is about three feet of new backbone."
"I expect you're right, Miss Louise."
She turned on him furiously, her face passionately hot.
"Oh, haven't you even got spirit enough to argue?" she cut him. "I'd rather hear you call me a liar, I'd' rather you'd slap me, than go leading along that way like a calf!"
Tom hung his head, the color gone out of his face. He shifted his holster a little, as if it hung uncom fortably; put his hand to his hat and adjusted it, as if everything about him was out of gear.
"You're going to drive them on, aren't you, Tom?" Softly, a little note of cajolery in her tone, a little note of tenderness, as if she had repented her scornfulness and laid a soothing hand on his hurt.
"No, ma'am."
"Won't you do it for me—because I ask you—Tom?"
"There's mighty little I wouldn't do for you, Miss Louise. I'd do anything in the bounds of honor that a man could do, ma'am."
"But you'll not go on to Texas with that herd. Is that what you mean?"
"That's what I mean, Miss Louise."
"Then you can cross me off!"
"Ma'am?" said Tom, starting as if he had been struck.
"I tell you, if that kind of honor means more to you than I do, it's all off between you and me. Do you understand?"
"I hope I don't, Miss Louise."
"What will Cal Withers think of you? What will the sheriff think? What will everybody in McPacken say? They'll all say you're a fool, like they did when you gave up that note. Don't do a fool thing twice, Tom. I tell you again, you can go on to Texas with these cattle, or you can say good-by."
Tom appeared to wilt as if the backbone that Louise had disparaged had suffered a sudden necrosis and crumbled in his skin. He dropped his reins, took hold of the saddle-horn with both hands, clinging as Louise had seen cowboys hold when loaded on their horses in front of the saloon in McPacken.
Tom Laylander was about the sickest looking lad she ever had seen. She did not fully understand until that moment just how much the little chats over their late suppers had done for him. She saw it with exultation, a glow of pride-coming into her face. She was going to save this unsophisticated, old-fashioned boy from himself. It was between her and that peculiar standard of honor that he had set up for his guide. Let him choose. She did not doubt for a moment as she looked at him sitting there nerveless and white, holding to the saddle like a sick and stricken man, what the decision finally would be. She was saving Tom Laylander from his greatest enemy—himself.
Tom straightened his back presently, sweating from the wrench her cruel condition had given him. He fumbled for the reins like a blind man, drew them taut, lifting them high above the saddle-horn. He lifted his hand to his hat, touching it in respectful salute, faced her for a moment, youth dead in his bright blue eyes.
"Farewell, Miss Louise," he said.
He touched spurs to his horse, giving it rein, and rode away and left her, never turning his head to see whether she laughed or cried.