CHAPTER XVII

In spite of obliterating rain, there were plenty of fresh cattle tracks along and by the side of the trail. It did not necessarily follow that any of the tracks were made by our cattle, still, they might have been, and with this slight encouragement, I hurried along, getting gradually higher, and deeper into the mountains. As I went I reflected bitterly on the perversity of cow nature. A nature that leads these gentle seeming creatures to endure hunger, thirst, and weariness, to push for miles into a trackless wilderness, if by so doing they can put their owners to trouble and expense. It was not often that our cattle ranged so far away from home, and it was with a little unconfessed feeling of dismay that, pausing to take stock of my surroundings, I suddenly discovered that I was close upon the Hermit’s cave, and no signs of the strays yet. At the same time I made another discovery as comforting as this was disquieting. Guard, whom I had forgotten to invite to accompany me, was skulking along in the underbrush beside the trail, uncertain whether to show himself or not. When I spoke to him he bounded to my side. “Guard,” I said, looking down at him thoughtfully, “it’s raining harder than ever, and the wind is blowing; now that you are with me, I think we will just stop in the cave until the storm abates a little.” Guard’s bushy tail was wet and heavy with rain, but he wagged it approvingly, and toward the cave we started. There was a green little valley over the ridge, and I resolved when the storm slackened, to climb up and have a look into it. If the cattle were not there I should be compelled to give over the hunt for that day.

A sudden lull in the storm was followed by a blacker sweep of clouds and a resounding peal of thunder, the prelude to a pitiless burst of hail-stones. Pelted by the stinging missiles, and gasping for breath as I struggled against the rising wind, I made for the cave with Guard close at my heels, and dashed into the gloomy cavern without a thought of anything but shelter.

The entrance to the cave was merely a large opening in a pile of rocks close beside the cattle trail, and the cave itself was famous throughout the valley solely because of its imagined history and its actual equipment. Because of its nearness to the trail there was little danger of its becoming a lair for wild beasts. People said that the spot had been the dwelling place of a man, educated and wealthy, who had chosen to live and die alone in the wilderness. How they came to know this was never quite clear, for the furnishing of the cave was there, offering its mute history to the first venturesome hunter who had penetrated these wilds years and years ago, just as it was offered to the curious to-day. The educational theory could probably be traced to the torn and yellowing fragments of a book that lay on the rude table opposite the cavern entrance. How many inquisitive fingers had turned its baffling pages, how many curious eyes had vainly scanned them in the course of the slow moving years in which the cavern held its secret? The book was written in a language quite unknown to us simple folk. For the theory of wealth the rusty, crumbling old flint-lock musket, leaning against the wall beside the table, was silver mounted and heavily chased. Beside the table was a rude bench made from a section of sawed pine. That was all, but impressive legends have been handed down, from one generation to another, on less foundation than the cave furnished to our valley romanticists. It was not even odd to us that no one in all these years had stolen or desecrated the pathetic mementos of a vanished life. People on the frontier have a great respect—a respect not necessarily enforced with lock and key—for the belongings of another. The mountings of the gun were of solid silver, but I doubt if even Mr. Horton could have justified himself to himself in taking it. I had been in the place once or twice and had turned over the untelling leaves with reverent fingers, but I had never felt any inclination to linger within the gloomy walls; the sunlight on the cattle trail outside had greater allurements, but now, beaten by the hail, I rushed in headlong, and in doing so nearly fell over the body of a man lying outstretched on the stone floor, just within the entrance. The man was evidently sleeping, and very soundly, for my tumultuous rush roused him so little that he merely turned on one side, sighed, and again relapsed into deepest slumber. I stood in my tracks, trembling, undecided whether to dash out into the storm or run the risk of remaining in the cavern. The fierce rattle of the hail beating on the rocks outside decided me to do the latter. Noiselessly, step by step, I stole backward into the darkness of the cavern. My backward progress was checked at last by the corner of the table against which I brought up. I glanced down at it. It was laden with a regular cowboy equipment of spurs, quirt, revolver, cartridge-belt, and the too common accompaniment of a bottle of whiskey. If the sleeping man on the floor were called on to defend himself for any cause he need not suffer for want of ammunition. I had less fear of his awakening since seeing the half-emptied bottle, but far greater fear of what he might do when he did awake.

Surely, there never was a wiser dog than Guard! He had not made a sound since our entrance, although he had certainly cocked a disdainful eye at the recumbent figure on the floor as we passed it. Now, in obedience to the warning of my uplifted finger, he crept silently to my side. He watched my movements with an air of intelligent comprehension as I quietly took possession of the bottle, revolver, and cartridge-belt, and then followed me without a sound as I stole breathlessly into the deepest recess of the cavern. The rocky roof sloped down over this recess, until, at its farthest extremity, there was scarcely room for a person to crouch under it, close to the wall, and it was so dark that I could barely make out the form of the dog crouching beside me. Safe hidden in the darkness, I determined to rid the sleeping man of at least one of his enemies. Pulling the cork from the bottle, I poured its contents on the rocks, thereby, as I found, running imminent risk of a sneeze from Guard, who rolled his head from side to side in distress as the pungent liquor penetrated his nostrils. The danger passed, luckily, without noise. We crouched in perfect silence, waiting for the hail-storm to pass. It was too violent to be of long duration, yet I could not tell, after some minutes of anxious listening, when it ceased, for the hail was followed by a fresh deluge of rain. It was comfortable in the cavern—warm and dry. The man, as his regular breathing testified, slept soundly, and I thought, while I waited, that I, too, might as well make myself easy. Softly pulling off the wet coat, I turned the dryest side outward, and, rolling it into a compact bundle, placed it under my head for a pillow. With the sleeper’s armament between myself and the rock at my back, with Guard vigilantly alive to any motion of anything, inside the cavern or out, I felt entirely safe, and wearily closed my eyes. It was pleasant lying there so sheltered and guarded, to listen to the heavy rush of the rain—or was it hail?—or the far-heard cry of wolves, or the rushing swirl of the river. I had not slept well the night before, but I could not have been asleep many minutes when I was awakened by a low growl from Guard. Brief as my nap had been, it was, nevertheless, so sound that at first I was bewildered and unable to recall what had happened. I started up quickly, bumping my head against the rocky roof, and so effectually recalling my scattered senses and the necessity for caution.

The sleeping cowboy had also awakened and was wandering aimlessly about the cavern. He was muttering to himself, and his incoherent talk soon told me that he was in anxious quest of the bottle that I was at that moment sitting upon.

The sound of his own voice had, apparently, drowned that of Guard’s. Seeing this I put one hand on that attendant’s collar and shook the other threateningly in his face. He had been standing up, but sat down, with, I was sure from the very feel of his fur, a most discontented expression. In the silence the stranger’s plaint made itself distinctly audible:

“Leff’ ’em on a table; ’n’ whar is they at now? Reckon I must ’a’ been locoed, or, like ’nuff that ar ole hermutt’s done played a trick on me. S’h’d think he’d have more principle than t’ play a trick on a pore feller what’s jest stopped t’ rest in his hole for a few hours.”

He overturned the bench to peer inquiringly at the place where it had stood, then, straightening himself as well as he could—which was not very well—he looked slowly around the cavern. “It stan’s to reason,” he muttered thoughtfully, “that if airy one had come in whilst I was asleep I’d ’a’ woke up, so the hermutt must ’a’ done it. What a ghost kin want of a gun beats me, too! Why in thunderation didn’t he take his ole flint-lock, if he was wantin’ a gun so mighty bad, instead of sneakin’ back t’ rob a pore feller in his sleep! I wonder if the ole thing is loaded, anyway. There’s a pair of eyes shinin’ back yon in the corner; I ain’t afeared of ’em, but I wisht he’d ’a’ left my gun. Who’s agoin’ t’ draw a bead on a pair of eyes in the dark with a ole flint-lock that you have to build a bonfire around before the powder’ll take fire?”

Clearly, as his drunken muttering told, he had caught the gleam of Guard’s angry eyes, yet, it was evident, as he had said, that he was not at all afraid. Wild beast or tame, it was all one to him, that I well knew, for now that he was on his feet, and standing in the shaft of pale light streaming in at the cavern entrance, I recognized him as Big Jim.

Big Jim was a cowboy with a more than local fame for reckless daring, as well as for his unfortunate appetite for strong drink. I had seen him but once before, but I had been able on that occasion to render him a slight service. It did not seem to me, however, as I crouched trembling under the rock, watching his irresponsible movements, that the memory of that service would aid my cause with him just now, even if I were daring enough to recall it. People said that Big Jim never forgave any one who came between him and his whiskey bottle. Recalling this gossip, as the man staggered toward the corner where the rusty old musket stood, I decided that it was time to act. The flint-lock, even if loaded, would probably be as harmless in his incapable hands as any other iron rod, but under the circumstances it did not look particularly safe to linger.

As the man’s back was turned I sprang suddenly to my feet. “Seek him, Guard! Take him!” I cried, and Guard literally obeyed. Startled and sobered by the sound of a voice, Big Jim whirled around, facing the direction whence the voice came, to be met by the dog’s fierce charge. Guard’s leap was so impetuous that the man staggered under it, and, losing his balance, fell to the floor. Guard fastened his teeth in the skirt of his coat as he fell. There was a momentary struggle on the floor. While it was taking place I darted out of the cavern, revolver, cartridge-belt, and even the empty whiskey bottle in my hands. Safely outside, I halted, and with what little breath I had left whistled for Guard. A load was off my heart when the dog came bounding to my side, none the worse for his brief encounter with an unarmed cowboy.

I had hoped to get out of sight before Big Jim discovered me, but he came out of the cavern on Guard’s heels. Evidently quite sobered, he stopped when he saw me. He glanced at the armament in my hands, at the empty bottle, and, lifting his hat with its great flapping brim, scratched his head in perplexity. It was still raining, a fact which Big Jim seemed suddenly to discover.

“Wet, ain’t it?” he observed.

“Rain is usually wet,” I informed him, with unnecessary explicitness.

“Yes, I reckon ’tis. Say, that’s my bottle you’ve got in your hands.”

“So I supposed.”

“You’re welcome to the whiskey—I see it’s gone, and ’tis a good thing to take off a chill—when a body gets wet—but I’d like the bottle again.”

“I am going to put the bottle and the revolver and the belt in the hollow of the big pine near the lower crossing. You can get them there.”

“Oh, ain’t you goin’ t’ give ’em to me now?”

“No, I am not.”

“’Fraid of me, I reckon.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I won’t hurt you, Miss Leslie Gordon. I remember you first-rate. Got that little white handkercher that you done up my hand in the day I burned it so at the Alton camp yet.”

“You might not hurt me, but I think you would hurt my dog.”

“Yes, Miss Gordon, I’m ’bleeged t’ say that if I had a shootin’ iron in my hands jest now I’d be mighty glad t’ let daylight through that dog o’ yourn. He’s too fractious t’ live in the same country as a white man.”

I grasped the revolver tighter. “How came you in the cavern?”

“Well, if you want t’ know, I took a drop too much at the dance last night, an’ the ole man, he’d said if sech a thing as that ar’ took place again he’d feel obligated t’ give me the marble heart. Mighty cranky the ole man is. So I jest wended up here along, thinkin’ I’d bunk with the ole hermutt till I got a little nigher straight. It’s a thing that don’t often happen,” he added, in self-extenuation; “but the party, it done got away with me. Now you know all about it, an’ you’d better hand over them weapons.”

In spite of his civility, he was plainly angry, and I was the more resolved not to yield. The storm had been gradually lessening, the rain had subsided to a mere drizzle, and, in the increasing silence, I plainly heard the musical tinkle of old Cleo’s bell. It came from beyond the ridge, so that it was certain that the cows were in the little green valley where I had hoped to find them. I started to climb the ridge, remarking over my shoulder to the baffled cowboy, “You’ll find your things in the pine, where I told you.”

“Say, now, don’t make me go down there on the high road!” he pleaded; “some one might see me and tell the boss. I won’t touch the consarned dog if you’ll give me the gun; I won’t, honest! The boss, he thinks I’m on the range now, an’ it’s where I had ort to be.”

I was sorry for him, but my fear was greater than my sympathy. Guard had torn the skirt of his coat in such a manner that it trailed behind as he walked, like a long and very disreputable pennant, and I could not be blind to the malevolent looks that he turned on my canine follower in spite of his fair promises.

“I never heard of any one’s being the better for drinking whiskey,” I volunteered, as a bit of information that might be of interest to him. Then I started on again, to be brought to an abrupt halt by hearing a voice on the trail below calling in a tone of piercing anxiety:

“Leslie! Leslie! Leslie!” The voice was Jessie’s.

“Jessie, I am here!” I called back re-assuringly, and ran down in the direction of the voice, leaving the cowboy staring.

In a moment I came face to face with my sister as she panted, breathless, up the trail.

“Oh, Leslie! Leslie!” she gasped. “What a chase I have had after you!”

“Why did you follow me? I have the cows—or they have themselves—and your skirts are all wet.”

For answer, Jessie gazed at me with an expression curiously compounded of horror and dismay.

“The coat! Where is the coat?” she gasped.

I remembered then that in my eagerness to escape from the cave I had left the coat lying as I had used it, rolled up for a pillow.

“It’s in the Hermit’s cave,” I said meekly, ashamed to admit that I had forgotten the thing that she held so sacred that, for its sake, she had followed me in the rain for some toilsome upward miles.

“Go back and get it instantly, instantly!” cried my usually calm sister, wringing her hands in distress. The distress was so unnecessarily acute for the cause that I resented it.

“The coat is all right, Jessie; it is safe; and I do not want to go back there now.”

“Why not?”

I told her.

“You must!” said Jessie, with whitening lips. “You must! Come!” and she rushed up the trail toward the cavern.

“What have you done with Ralph?” I asked, hurrying after her. Jessie turned an anguished glance back at me over her shoulder.

“I have left him locked up in the house with a pair of scissors and a picture book; hurry!”

“I hope they’ll keep him from thinking of the matches,” I said, bitterly. It seemed to me at that moment that Jessie showed more concern for the out-worn garment of the dead than she did for the safety of the living.

Big Jim had gone back into the cavern; he, too, had evidently been searching it, for when, at the sound of our approaching footsteps, he appeared at the entrance, it was with father’s coat in his hands. Jessie went boldly to his side.

“I want that coat, if you please,” she said firmly.

Jim backed off a little, holding the coat out at arm’s length, and examining it critically.

“Whose is it?” he asked.

“It was my father’s; it is ours; please give it to me.”

Big Jim shook his head. “No; your dog done tore my coat half offen my back; your sister made way with my tonic—I’m ’bleeged to take it for my lungs—an’ she’s got my gun an’ fixin’s, an’ won’t give ’em up. I reckon as I’ll jest keep this coat till she forks them things over.”

“Give him his things, Leslie,” Jessie commanded.

“No,” I remonstrated; “no, Jessie, if I do he will shoot Guard; I’m sure of it.”

Jessie turned on the dog: “Go home! go home, sir!” she cried, stamping her foot. Guard slunk off, his tail between his legs, and his bright eyes fixed reproachfully on me. I threw the gun with its trappings at the cowboy’s feet. “There, take them! You can shoot me if you like. I threw away your whiskey.”

“I wouldn’t ’a’ cared a bit if you’d ’a’ drunk it, as I reckoned you did,” Jim returned with a light laugh, as he picked up the gun. “I ain’t agoin’ to hurt you; tole you so in the first place. Got your little handkercher yet, I have. Here’s the coat.” He tossed it into Jessie’s outstretched arms. Clasping it tightly to her breast she started quickly down the trail.

Following her for a few steps before taking my way over the ridge, I observed that her hands were wandering swiftly over the coat, from pocket to pocket; as if seeking something. Suddenly the expression of intense anxiety on her face gave way to one of unspeakable relief. She turned around quickly and caught my hand: “Come on, you poor, abused girl! Let’s run, I am so anxious about Ralph.”

“I’m glad you’ve got some affection left for him!” I retorted scornfully. “It seemed to me from the way you’ve gone on, that you cared less for either of us than for father’s old coat.”

Jessie gave the hand that lay limply in her’s an ecstatic little squeeze. “Our money, Leslie, is all in a little bag that is pinned in the lining of this old coat; it’s here now, all safe.”

I could only gasp, as she had done before me, with a difference of names, “Oh, Jessie!”

“Yes,” Jessie repeated, nodding, “and it’s quite safe, I can feel it. Our cowboy friend did not have time to find it. I only hope that Ralph has not got into mischief.” He had not. I was obliged to leave Jessie and go over the ridge for the cows, but she told me, when I presently followed her into the house, that she had found Ralph still contentedly destroying his picture book.

CHAPTER XVIII

“No, I can’t stop,” he declared, as usual, when Jessie offered him a chair. “If I set,” he continued, “I shall stay right on, like a big clam that’s got fixed to his liking, prob’ly, and I’ve got a heap to do to-day.”

Nevertheless, he dropped easily into the seat as he continued:

“Day after to-morrow’s the day, I s’pose?”

“Yes,” Jessie responded, dejectedly, “it is.”

“Hu—m—wal’, wal’, you don’t seem real animated about it, if you’ll excuse my saying so. I swan, I ’lowed you all would be right pleased to think the long waiting’s so nearly over.”

“It isn’t that,” Jessie told him, trying to keep her lips from quivering, “but—Joe has gone.”

“What!”

Jessie repeated the statement.

“Pshaw! Now, that’s too bad!” Mr. Wilson exclaimed, rubbing his hair upright, as he always did when perplexed. “Wal’, I don’t know when I’ve heard anything more surprising,” he continued, when Jessie had detailed the manner of Joe’s disappearance to him; “I’d a banked on that old man to the last breath o’ life. And he’s gone! Appearances are all-fired deceivin’, that’s so, but don’t you grieve over it, girls; it’ll all come out all right in the end. The old man has stayed right by you and helped you good since your pa was taken, but we must remember that he never was in the habit of tyin’ himself down to one place before this, and, more’n likely’s not, his old, rovin’ habits have suddenly proved too strong fer him, and he’s jest lit out because he couldn’t stan’ the pressure any longer.”

“But Joe is so faithful; he has always been just like one of the family, and he knows so well how badly we need him,” I objected; “it does not seem possible for him to have deserted us.”

“Desert is a purty ha’sh word, Miss Leslie. There’s some mystery about it, take my word for it. Joe’ll be back again, and when he comes I’ll guarantee that he’ll be able to give some good reason for going away.”

Jessie shook her head, tearfully. “I don’t believe he will ever come back,” she said.

“Wal’, s’pose he doesn’t? I reckon you two ain’t goin’ to let go your grip on that account. But troubles do seem to kind o’ thicken around you! That’s so.”

He paused a moment, musing over our troubles, and Ralph took advantage of his silence to call his attention to the kitten with which one of the neighbors had presented him to the jealous torment of his old playfellow, the big cat: “My new tat tan wink wiv bof he eyes, see?” he proclaimed, holding the animal up for inspection.

“Yes, yes, I see, little feller,” was the absent reply.

Encouraged, Ralph put the kitten on his lap. “Her won’t bite; ’oo needn’t be ’fraid,” he said.

Mr. Wilson stroked the small cat mechanically and then lifted it to the ground—using its tail for a handle, to Ralph’s speechless indignation—then he faced us again, his forehead puckered with anxious wrinkles: “There’s one thing that I never thought of until early this morning—when I did, I hurried through with my chores and came right over here. It’s a stunner to find that Joe’s gone, now, in addition to all the rest, but we must keep a stiff upper lip. Fact is, I’m to blame for not thinking of this thing six weeks—yes, three months ago. I ought to have thought of it, children,” he swept us all with a compassionate glance, “the day that your father died. I’d be willing to bet a big sum, if I was a betting man—which I’m thankful to say that I ain’t—that Jake Horton thought of it, and has kept it well in mind all along; he ain’t the man to overlook such a thing as that.” Wiping his perplexed face with the red silk handkerchief that he always kept in his hat for that purpose, he continued, desperately: “This claim was taken up, lived on, built on, notices for proving up by Ralph C. Gordon. Ralph C. Gordon! Wal’,” he ran his fingers again through his iron-gray hair, making it stand more defiantly upright than ever, “there ain’t no Ralph C. Gordon!”

The point that we had overlooked, presented to us now, for the first time, almost on the eve of our proving up, was of such vital importance, as it occurred to our awakened understanding, that, at first, we could do nothing but stare at each other, and at him, in stunned dismay. But hope, as that saving angel will, stirred, and began to brighten as our friend proceeded.

“There are ways,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of some of ’em; but I am desperate afraid that none of ’em will do. The agent might, if he was disposed to be obligin’, transfer your father’s claim to you, Jessie, if you could swear that you are the head of a family, and that’s what you can’t do—not as the law requires it, you can’t. The law don’t recognize any one as the head of a family until of legal age. Even if you were of legal age, the agent might refuse, if he saw fit. If he should, all that you can do will be to file on the claim again and go in for another five years’ tussle with the homesteading problem. ’Pears like there was a pretty fair prospect of your whole family coming of age before another siege of homesteading is ended. Why didn’t I think of all this before? ’Cause I’m an old wooden head, I s’pose! No, I’m mighty afeared that the only thing we can do is for you to jest go down and file on the land in your own name, and say nothing about age, if the agent asks no questions. As I said before, you’ll be old enough for anything before it comes time for a second proving up.”

Jessie, who had been listening intently, here suddenly interposed with sparkling eyes, “I’m old enough now, Mr. Wilson, or, at least, I shall be to-morrow. To-morrow is my birthday, and I shall be eighteen!”

Mr. Wilson sprang up so suddenly that he overturned his chair, and sent Ralph’s new pet scurrying from the room in wild alarm.

“Hooray for us!” he cried, seizing Jessie’s hand. “The Gordons forever! Now we’re all right. I’ve felt certain all along that the agent would give you a deed if he could, but he couldn’t if you were all under age. ’Twouldn’t ’a’ been legal. But if one of you is of legal age, the homestead business is settled.”

“But suppose he should refuse to give us a deed on account of the claim’s standing in father’s name?” Jessie asked.

“In that case the thing to do is to file on it again, right there and then, in your own name—strange, ain’t it,” he interjected, suddenly, “that the law ’pears to declare that a girl’s as smart at eighteen as a boy is at twenty-one? Wal’, the law don’t know everything; you must go down there day after to-morrow, prepared to enter the claim again, though I do hope it won’t come to that.”

“That will cost a good deal, too, won’t it?” Jessie inquired, dejectedly.

“Yes; it will. I don’t see but you must go down with money enough not only to pay up the final fees, but to file on the land again in case of the agent’s refusal.”

“Will that take more than the fees would amount to?” I inquired.

“Bless you, yes! I don’t know jest how much, but a right smart. How much have you got now?”

It needed no reckoning to tell the sum total of our painfully garnered hoard. Mr. Wilson shook his head when Jessie named the sum total. “Not enough; not enough, by half! And, as the worst luck will have it, I’m clean out of money myself jest now. I declare, I don’t see where my money all goes! It don’t ’pear to matter how much I may have one day, it’s all gone the next; beats all, it does!” He looked at us solemnly, sitting with his lips pursed up, his hair standing bolt upright, and his brows knit over the problem of his own financial shortage, yet, to one who knew him, no problem was of easier solution. Up and down the length and breadth of the valley, in miner’s lonely cabin, in cowboy’s rough shack, or struggling rancher’s rude domicile—wherever a helpful friend was needed, Mr. Wilson was known and loved, and, if money was needed, all that he had was freely given. So it was no surprise to learn that he was suffering from temporary financial embarrassment at a time when he would have liked, as usual, to help a friend.

“Say,” he suddenly exclaimed, starting from his troubled reverie; “in order to make all safe, you’ve got to have money enough to file on that land when you go down; there’s no ‘if’s’ nor ‘and’s’ about that! Your father would never ’a’ hesitated a minute about borrowing the money for such a purpose, if he had it to do. Now, Jim Jackson—over Archeleuta way—he’s owing me quite a consid’able. I’ll go over there to-day and see what I can do with him. He’ll help us out if he can, but he’s been having sickness in his family, and maybe he can’t; we’ll have to take our chances. I do’ no’s a hold-up is ever justifiable,” he continued, with a humorous twinkle in his bright eyes; “but if it is, this would be one of the times. I hope we won’t be drove to that!”

He took his departure shortly after, going back home to exchange his team—to the detriment of his own affairs, I’m afraid—for a saddle-horse, the better to perform the somewhat hazardous journey up “Archeleuta way,” but, before going, he enjoined us, if we had any written proof of Jessie’s coming of age on the morrow, to look it up and have it in readiness to offer in evidence, in case the fact were questioned.

“Your coming of age to-morrow is of so much importance that it seems almost too good to be true,” he said, earnestly.

So, after he had gone, Jessie took the big family Bible down from the book shelf, and, opening the book, turned to the pages where the Gordon family record had been carefully kept for many years. We knew, of course, that there could be no mistake, but it was pleasant to see the proof of our security in indisputable black and white.

“I’m afraid that Mr. Wilson will get nothing out of the Jacksons,” Jessie remarked, as we turned away from a prolonged inspection of the record; “he has had bad luck, and I heard, the other day, that Ted had broken his arm.”

“I’m not going to be afraid about anything now,” I declared valiantly. “I’m sure we’ll come out all right. Mercy on us! What was that?” I broke off, as a chorus of mingled outcries came to our ears. Outside the doorway there appeared to be, judging by the sound, a lively commotion, in which cat, dog, and boy were each bearing a part. We ran out in alarm and found Ralph just picking himself up off the ground upon which he seemed to have been thrown with some force.

Ralph, unnoticed in the interest of our talk with Mr. Wilson, had been amusing himself in his own way. His way had been to overturn the empty bushel basket and put it over Guard, who was lying by the doorstep. Guard had submitted to imprisonment with placid indifference until it came to Ralph’s thrusting the new cat in with him; this he instantly resented, so, to insure the dog’s staying within, Ralph had climbed upon the basket. Whereupon Guard sprang up, overturning both jail and jailor. The liberated cat fled with all speed, and Guard walked off in disgust.

“What on earth are you trying to do?” I demanded.

Ralph raised his violet eyes soberly to my face as he replied: “Us was havin’ a round-up; now us all ’tampeded,” and the violet eyes were drenched with raindrops, as the little cattleman threw himself on the ground, sobbing.

“Never mind, darling, your herd will all come home,” I said, consolingly.

“Me don’t want ’em to tum back; me’s so mad!” was the uncompromising reply.

CHAPTER XIX

The cows broke out of the corral that night, and it took so long to hunt them up, get them back into the corral, and milk them, that it was quite the middle of the day when I was ready to start out on my unwelcome business. Try as I might to convince myself to the contrary, the effort to borrow money seemed to me, somehow, akin to beggary. In my heart I had a cowardly wish that Joe had been on hand to take my place, but I kept all such reflections to myself. I had changed my print dress for the worn old riding habit of green serge, and was about starting for the barn to get Frank, when Jessie remarked:

“While you are hunting for a chance to borrow money, I’ll be earning some. If I can finish this work to-day—it’s Annie Ellis’ wrapper—I’ll have two dollars to add to the fund. Why, Leslie, I’d pretty nearly sell the dress off my back to raise money to-day!”

“Well, I know I’d do that, with half the reason for it that we have now. Dresses are a bother, anyway”—my habit was too short and too tight, not having kept pace with my growth—“but, all the same, I hate to see you working so hard. You’ve really grown thin and pale lately,” I added.

“It won’t be for long; I’ll soon be through with it now—” Jessie was beginning, when a cheerful voice from the doorway echoed her words:

“No; it won’t be for long! That’s a comfort, ain’t it?”

We both started. We had been so engrossed that we had heard no one approaching, and, even if we had, we could scarcely have been less startled, for the man leaning comfortably against the door-jamb was Jacob Horton. It had been many weeks since he had, to our knowledge, set foot on our premises.

“Good morning, Miss Jessie and Leslie,” he began affably. “Nice morning, ain’t it? I’ve been living in this valley going on eight year, and I don’t recollect as ever I see a nicer mornin’ than this is.”

He put one foot upon the door sill—a suggestive attitude—but neither of us invited him to enter. He was not easily daunted, however. The hand that rested against the door-jamb was still bandaged, and, as I made out with a swift glance, a button was still missing from his coat. It was the coat that he had worn on the night that he had ostensibly salted the cattle in the far pasture. From his point of observation Mr. Horton, turning slightly, threw an admiring glance around. The glance seemed to include the outer prospect as well as the inner.

“This is a sightly place for a house, ain’t it?” he remarked. “I do’no—I really do’no but I’d like that knoll t’other side the river just as well, though, and it would be nigher the spring. I’ll speak to my wife about it; if she likes this spot better, why, here our house goes up. I shan’t object. We can move this contraption that your father built, back for a hen house, or a pig-pen; just as she says. I always try to please my wife.”

“When you get ready, perhaps you’ll kindly tell us what you are talking about, Mr. Horton,” Jessie said, rising from the sewing machine and going toward the door, whither I followed her.

“Tell you? Oh, yes, I forgot. Of course you girls can’t be expected to know—young as you be—that you can’t hold this claim. This claim was open for re-entry the day that your father was drowned. I wasn’t ready to take it up just then; I am ready now. Odd, ain’t it? I’ve been hearin’ some talk—my wife told me, in fact—that you girls had laid out to go down to the land office with your witnesses to offer final proof to-morrow; Well, now—he, he! That’s a reg’lar joke, for if you’ll believe it, to-morrow’s the day I’ve set to go down and file on this claim, ’count of it’s being vacant! I don’t s’pose, now, that you girls are reely in earnest about trying to keep the place? It would be a sight of trouble to you, even if the law would allow it, which it won’t.”

“Why not, Mr. Horton?” I asked.

“Why not? Wal’, I don’t know just why; I didn’t make the homestead laws—reasonable laws they be, though; I couldn’t ’a’ made better ones myself—but I can tell you two girls one big, fundamental clause, so to speak, of the Homestead Act, under which you don’t come—yes, two of ’em. First, foremost, and enough to swamp your whole outfit, if there was nothing else, you ain’t neither of you of age. Second, not being of age, you ain’t neither of you the head of a family.”

I looked at Mr. Horton’s bandaged hand, and a thrill of genuine delight went through me, as I hastened to dispute one of his fundamental clauses.

“Jessie is the head of a family, Mr. Horton—Ralph and I are her family.”

“Maybe! Maybe! I s’pose, no doubt, you regard yourselves in that light. No harm’s done, as long as you keep it to yourselves, but you’ll find that the law won’t recognize you in that way. The law’s everlastin’ partic’lar about such things. But, again, there’s the matter of your both being under age! Now, what a misfortune that is to you—s’posing that you’re in earnest about wanting to keep this place, but I reckon you ain’t—if you recollect, you two, I’ve always said that I’d have this place. It may save you some trouble and expense, if I say right here and now, that I mean to have it! I mean to have it! Don’t forget that! But I ain’t a hard man—not at all—and I’m willing to make it as easy as I can for you. Why, I could ’a’ filed on this any time since your pa died, but I didn’t, and why not?”

“If you ask me,” I said, speaking very quietly, though I was trembling with indignation, “I suppose you didn’t file on it because you thought it would be better to let us get a crop in before you did it; then you could steal the crop along with the place.”

“Leslie!” Jessie exclaimed, aghast.

But Mr. Horton’s thin lips parted in a wolfish smile. “Oh—ho! you’re up on the homestead laws to some extent, I see. Crops do go with the land when the claimant forfeits his right to the land that bears them. Your father, he forfeited his right by getting drownded, and no one has entered the claim since, so I’m about to enter it. As I said before I ain’t a hard man, and I’m willing to make it as easy as I can for you, so I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pay a fair price for such improvements as your father made. They don’t amount to much—”

“But if you should decide to commute the claim, instead of waiting five years to prove up, it would be worth a good deal to you to be able to swear that such and such things had stood on the place so long, which you could not do if we took our improvements away; for we have a right to remove whatever we have built, if we do not keep the claim.”

Mr. Horton’s narrow eyes rested on me with anything but a friendly expression. “You’re posted quite a consid’able; ain’t you, Miss Smarty? Pity you didn’t know jest a little mite more. Well; we won’t quarrel over a little thing like that. I’ll pay for the improvements, and you’ll jest leave ’em where they are. This house, now, I’ll take a look at it; it don’t amount to much, that’s so, but such as ’tis, I’ll look at it.”

“You are welcome to do so,” Jessie assured him.

I think it came into her mind, as it certainly did into mine, that he wished to ascertain if the house were not lacking in some one or more of the essential equipments of a homesteader’s claim. If he should discover such a lack his task would be all the easier. I ran over a hasty, furtive inventory on my fingers: “Cat, clock, table, chairs, stove—”

The cat was lying comfortably outstretched on the window ledge, her head resting on the open pages of the Bible, that we had both neglected to replace. The clock ticked loudly from its place on the mantel-piece; there was a fire in the stove, and, absorbed in staring, Mr. Horton stumbled over one of the chairs. The result of his inspection did not please him; he scowled at the cat, who resented his glance by springing from the window and hissing spitefully at his legs as she passed him on her way out. Her sudden spring drew our visitor’s attention to the book on which her head had been resting; the written pages attracted his notice.

“What’s that?” he demanded, going nearer, the better to examine them.

“That is our family Bible,” Jessie replied, laying her hand upon it reverently. “This”—she looked up at him with a kind of still, pale defiance—“this is the Gordon family record! It has been kept in these pages since the days of our great-great-grandfather, and”—she turned the book so that Mr. Horton’s eyes rested on the entry—“it may interest you to know that I am eighteen, of legal age, to-day.”

Mr. Horton’s jaw dropped, and for a speechless instant he looked the picture of blank amazement, then he rallied.

“Records can lie,” he declared, brutally. “You don’t look eighteen, Jessie Gordon, and I don’t believe you are. It’s a likely story, ain’t it now, that you should happen to be of age on the very day, almost, that it’s a matter of life or death, as one might say, that you should be! No, that’s too thin; it won’t wash. You’ve made a little mistake in your entry, that’s all. One of them convenient mistakes that folks are apt to make when it’s to their interest to do so.”

“As there is no man here to kick you out of the house, I suppose you feel at liberty to say whatever comes into your wicked head, and we must bear it!” Jessie said, her voice shaken with anger.

In spite of himself, Mr. Horton winced at that. “I ain’t one to take advantage of your being helpless,” he declared, virtuously. “You’ve no call to hint as much. But you know as well as I do that you don’t look a day over sixteen, if you do that, and you couldn’t make nobody—no land agent—believe that you are of age, if you didn’t have that record to swear by.”

“As we do have it, it will probably answer our purpose.”

“Oh, well; maybe ’twill; maybe ’twill!” his glance ranged up and down the window, where lay the book with its irrefutable evidence. Then his eyes fell, and his tones changed to blandness once more. “I must be going,” he announced, edging toward the door; “I was passing along, and an idee popped into my head. You’ve been to some expense in helping to find your pa’s body—though why you should ’a’ been so set on finding it, nobody knows; folks is so cur’ous, that way! If it had been my case, I reckon my folks would ’a’ had sense enough to leave me where I was—”

“I am sure they would—gladly!” I interposed, quickly.

Mr. Horton shot an evil glance in my direction, and went on: “Well, you’ve been to some expense, and the mines have shut down so’s ’t that old crackerjack of a nigger that hangs ’round your place is out of work. I’m going to pre-empt this place—none o’ your slack-twisted homestead rights for me—and I thought it would be neighborly if I was to step in and tell you, Jess, that my wife’s wanting a hired girl. She was speaking of it last night, and the thought came into my head right off, though I didn’t mention it to her, that you was going to need a home, and there was your chance. Being so young and inexperienced—for you don’t look eighteen, no—I reckon you’d be willing to work without any more wages than jest your board and lodging until you had kind o’ got trained into doing things our way.”

“I’m afraid that I should never earn any wages at anything—not if I were to live a thousand years, if I had to be trained to do things your way first!” Jessie told him, with flashing eyes.

“Oh, that’s all right; you’ll get over some of your high notions when you get to be a hired girl. You’ll prob’ly acquire the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, same’s the Bible speaks of, and it’s one that you ain’t got at present. As for you”—he turned on me savagely, and it was evident that he held me in even less esteem than he did my sister—“you can get out, and that brat”—he glared at Ralph, who had drawn near, and was regarding him with a kind of solemn, impersonal interest—“you can get shet of him easy enough—you can send him to the poor-house.”

CHAPTER XX

It was a reckless speech to make, as I felt when I looked at him. His face turned of a livid pallor; he looked murderous as he stood in his tracks, glaring at me. He was, I am certain, afraid to trust himself to speak, or to remain near me. He bounded out of the house shouting “Whoa! Whoa!” as he ran. Guard was dozing by the doorstep. Mr. Horton’s action and call were so sudden that he sprang up, wide awake, looking eagerly around, under the impression that his services were in requisition. Though nearly full grown he was still a puppy, with many things to learn. The horse, also startled by Mr. Horton’s outcry, raised his head, turning it from side to side as he looked back in search of the creature that had made such a direful noise. He quickened his pace into a trot, checked painfully whenever he stepped on the trailing bridle.

An older and wiser dog than Guard, seeing the saddle and the trailing bridle, would have known better than to attempt to practice his “heeling” accomplishments on the animal that wore them. But Guard, eager to air his lately-acquired knowledge, stopped for no such considerations. Passing Mr. Horton, who was running after the horse, like a flash, he made a bee-line for that gentleman’s mount. Reaching the animal, he crouched and bit one of his heels sharply. As the horse bounded away, he followed, nipping the flying heels and yelping with excitement. Mr. Horton toiled along in their rear and I ran after him—not actuated by any strong desire to come to his assistance, but in fear of what might happen should he succeed in laying hands on Guard. The very set of his vanishing shoulders told me that he was purple with rage and fatigue, and I had good cause to fear for the safety of the dog, to whom I called and whistled, imploringly. After a chase of about half a mile, Guard, making a wide detour around Mr. Horton, came slinking back to me. He was evidently troubled with misgivings as to the propriety of his conduct, and crouched in the dust at my feet, looking up at me with beautiful beseeching eyes. “You did very, very wrong!” I admonished him, earnestly. “You are never—ne-ver—to heel a horse that has a saddle or bridle on. Do you understand?”

Guard hung his head dejectedly, his bright eyes seeming to say that he understood, and would profit by the lesson.

Returning to the house I went in again instead of mounting the waiting horse and getting about my delayed errand.

“Did Mr. Horton catch his horse?” Jessie inquired.

“I don’t know; I hope not, I’m sure. I think a five-mile walk will do him good. He’ll have time to cool off a little.”

“He thinks that we have made a false entry here,” Jessie went on, resentfully, approaching the window ledge and turning the leaves of the record. “Why,” she continued, “it does not seem to me that even a hardened criminal would dare to do a thing like that! And I’m not a hardened criminal—yet. I am not sure but that I might become one if I am obliged to see much of Mr. Horton, though!” She closed the book and, stepping up on a chair, laid it on the shelf where our few books were kept. When she stepped down again she had another book in her arms. It was a large, square, leather-bound volume, almost identical in appearance with the one that she had just laid away.

“What are you looking in the dictionary for?” I asked, as she laid the book on the broad window ledge that made such a convenient reading-desk.

“I want to know exactly what ‘fundamental’ means,” she replied. “I know pretty well, or I think I do, but I want to know exactly.”

Finding the word, she presently read aloud:

“‘Fundamental—pertaining to the foundation; hence, essential, elementary; a leading or primary principle; an essential.’”

“Well, that’s plain enough,” she said, closing the book; “but I think we have looked out for fundamental clauses pretty faithfully. I wish that Joe was at home; we must get an early start to-morrow. It is foolish to feel so, when we know just how matters stand; but, somehow, Mr. Horton’s threats have made me uneasy.”

“No wonder! The very sight of him is enough to make one shudder. But I don’t see that there is anything that we can do, more than we are doing, Jessie.”

“You might ride over, since you are going out anyway, and tell Mr. Wilson what Mr. Horton has been saying. If you call on Mr. Drummond, who is our main hope for raising the money, you’ll pass Wilson’s, anyway.”

“Oh, yes! I’ll see him, sure; and now I must be going.”

I went out accordingly, observing in an absent way, as I left the room, that, since no fundamental clause required Jessie to replace the dictionary on its shelf, it was still lying on the window-ledge.

I rode immediately over to Mr. Wilson’s, and was fortunate in finding him at home. He promised to “turn the thing over in his mind,” and, if there seemed to him, as a result of this process, anything, any new move, called for on our part, to ride over during the day and let us know.

Then I went on to the two or three places that we had in mind as most promising, if one desired to raise money, and failed distinctly, in every case. It was, as one of the ranchmen feelingly explained, “a dry time; between hay and grass. Too late for the spring round-up and too early for the fall harvest.” Every one was, accordingly, lacking in ready cash.

I returned home, not greatly dejected by my failure, since, thanks to Mr. Wilson, I had so well understood the existing conditions before starting out that I would have been surprised if I had succeeded.

Joe being still absent, I was obliged to care for Frank myself. When, in the dusky twilight, I at length entered the house, it was to find little Ralph already fast asleep and Jessie about starting for the corral with the milk-pail.

“Haven’t you got the milking done yet, Jessie?”

“No; I waited for Ralph to get to sleep and for you to come. Did you get any money?”

“No.”

Jessie sighed. “I don’t know, after all, that I much expected that you would. Well, if you can wait a little for your supper, come out to the corral and let me tell you what Mr. Wilson has been saying.”

“Has he been here again?”

“Yes; he just left a few minutes before you came.”

We went on out to the corral where the cows were waiting to be milked, Guard following after us with as much sedateness and dignity as if he had never contemplated, much less committed, a foolish act in his life.