Guardians of the Sage (4 page)

Jim refused to lose his temper.

“I suppose you mean I may be trying to feather my own nest,” he said. “All I hoped to do was pull out of this with a clean conscience. But I won't try to disabuse your mind on that. You think what you please.”

“You can't deny your conduct has been very—irregular, to say the least.”

“Possibly irregular, but not illegal, Mr. Stall. I have been careful about that.”

“Agents have been removed for less.”

The threat failed to have the desired effect. Jim tapped the letter on his desk.

“I have already removed myself,” he said grimly. “I'll be looking for a job next month.”

Letty could not help feeling that her father was coming off second best in this tilt of words. He nervously fingered the heavy gold watch chain that spanned his vest as he tried to dissemble his rage.

“A smart Aleck gets a little authority and disrupts a whole county,” he grumbled. “Your meddling is bound to cause trouble.”

“I am sorry if that is so,” Jim said thoughtfully. “It's been the one thing I wanted to avoid. You're a rich man, Mr. Stall. You don't need an acre of this Squaw Valley land. But take Morrow, or Gault, or Dan Crockett—a dozen others—what have they got? They're just getting by, that's all. Beef is down; it's been a dry spring. They won't make hay enough to carry them through next winter. I figured if they could borrow from the bank and pick up some of this reservation they'd get enough water and bottom land to see 'em through. It wouldn't make any of them rich, but it would put them on their feet.”

This appeal to his sympathy fell on deaf ears, as Jim expected.

“I'm sorry,” the old man said, “but you can't expect me to wet-nurse the cattle business. Nobody ever helped me; what I've got I got for myself. All I can do to take care of my own business.”

“Exactly! And it will be your business to run every one of these little fellows out of Squaw Valley. I know how you work.”

Anger began to run away with the old man. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded indignantly.

Jim's answer was unhurried.

“I think you know what I mean, Mr. Stall. I happened to discover that you filed on most of the water over there years ago. Soon as you get the reservation, you'll go to court and prove up on those rights. It will be the beginning of the end for the little fellows. They'll have some range, but you'll have their water, and they can do one of two things: Move on without a dime, or sell out to you at your own terms.”

The charge left old Slick-ear speechless for a moment. His stubby mustache bristled like the quills on a porcupine's back.

Letty put an arm about him protectively. The blood had drained away from her cheeks.

“Father—don't bother to answer anything as absurd as that! You've always been fair—more than fair—” She whirled on Montana fiercely. “I never thought you could be that contemptible.”

He had never seen her like that before, superb in her indignation. And yet, he knew he had voiced only the truth.

“I'm sorry you had to hear that,” he said unhappily. “You shouldn't have come.”

“I'm glad I came! It's been very—enlightening.”

The clock was striking twelve. Old Henry reached for his hat.

“Come on, Letty; we'll go downstairs. It's time for the sale to begin.” He turned to Montana for a parting shot. “I let those people use my water for twelve years so you can accuse me of wanting to drive them out, eh? Well, I'm here, and I didn't come alone. I don't intend to be intimidated.”

“Neither do I, Mr. Stall. I haven't any paid warriors to back me up, but if I knew how to keep you from grabbing Squaw Valley I'd do it.”

“If you knew how, eh?” Old Slick-ear's voice dripped with contempt. “You won't have much to do about it, Montana. This is not my first land sale. You'll run it off according to the rules of the Land Office. The property will go to the highest bidder!”

He started for the door. Letty followed him, her chin held high. Clearer than words it told Montana in what contempt she held him. A tortured look in his eyes, he stared after her until she disappeared down the stairs.

“I guess that's final enough,” he mused bitterly. “Can't blame her for stringing along with her father.”

He had always regarded his affection for Letty Stall as hopeless. Nothing else had led him to leave the Bar S at a time when it was apparent the old man would have made him foreman of one of his ranches in a few months.

Memories of pleasant days with her at the Willow Vista ranch smote him. It made him realize that even in his hopelessness he had never quite ceased to hope.

Everything about this business seemed to have gone wrong.

“Maybe it will bring me to my senses,” he thought, appalled anew by the absurdity of daring to aspire to her. Wealth, position—everything removed her from his world.

It occurred to him that he might advance his own interests by trying to placate her father.

“No, I can't do that. He's wrong about this, and I'm right, even though he's got me at the end of a limb.”

This sale was the first one of importance that he had conducted. From a desk drawer he drew out his instructions and scanned them hastily. He had read them a score of times and knew them almost by heart. If Mr. Stall or anyone else wished to bid on the land as a whole, he would have to take the bid. He glanced over the terms under which the land might be sold, looking for a loophole or technicality he might invoke to defeat the old man even now.

As he was about to toss the letter back into his desk an idea flashed in his mind that pulled him up short. It intrigued him more the longer he considered it.

“If he does what I think he'll do, it'll be up to me to say yes or no,” he murmured aloud in his abstraction. “It's Saturday—the bank is closed! He wouldn't have an out!”

He failed to hear someone run up the stairs. It was Clem Harvey, his surveyor. There was always something breathless about Clem, as though he didn't quite expect to finish what he had to say.

“Gee willikens, Jim,” he exclaimed excitedly, “don't you know it's twelve o'clock? Everybody's waiting and people are beginning to get restless and——”

“I'm coming.”

Montana's preoccupation caused Clem to push back his tattered Stetson and cock his head at him inquisitively.

“Ain't nothin' wrong is there? Ain't nothin'——”

“No, everything is all right, Clem.” Jim's voice was hard and chilling. “Don't you hear the birds singing?”

“Birds?” A baffled look crept into Clem's watery eyes.

“Yeah, buzzards! . . . Come on, Let's go!”

A
GREAT hush rested on the crowd below. The Squaw Valley men had drawn apart, their faces grave. Their wives stood with them now, their shopping done—women old before their time with the never-ending drudgery that is a ranch-woman's life.

Man and wife, they resented Henry Stall's presence there. In him they recognized their common enemy, come to dash the cup of hope from their hands even as they were raising it to their lips. Because they came of a race of stout-hearted fighting men, even hopelessness could not strike fear in their hearts, and as they faced old Slick-ear and his men, lounging in the shade at the side of the sheriff's office, there was a smouldering defiance in their eyes and the set of their mouths that said they would not bow their heads to any oppressor.

Their hostility included Letty as well as her father. The fineness of her clothes, her air of self-possession embittered them. She felt it, too. It was as though she had wronged them. It made her wonder how much truth there was in what Montana had said. Upstairs, she had championed her father's cause and said he was always fair. In her heart, she knew he could be ruthless, brooking no opposition when he'd set his mind on something.

Under a spreading box-elder, just beyond the steps, a young woman was trying to get her baby to sleep. Three other children, the oldest not over six, hovered about her, their eyes big and staring.

The girl was not much older than Letty, but already there was a pinched, hunted look in her eyes. There was something proud and defiant about her that made one forget her shabby clothes and hands, red and rough from hard work.

“Just getting by,” Montana had said. The words came back to Letty, and she felt her heart go out to the woman. Impulsively she tried to caress the oldest child, a boy. He drew back, afraid. His mother caught him by the arm and drew him to her side.

“You stay right here, Jess,” she scolded. “I don't want you takin' up with no strangers.”

Letty turned away, pretending not to have heard. But everywhere she looked she met the same distrust and hostility. She knew their enmity was not personal to her; she was a stranger to them. But she was her father's daughter, and they hated her accordingly. It drove home the realization that for all his talk of fair-play, the business about to be enacted had an ugly side.

Montana came out then. The charged silence deepened as he walked over to the big map. His manner was solemn. Letty thought he seemed embarrassed at finding himself the center of attention.

“If you'll step nearer, we'll begin,” he said.

Quantrell, tall and saturnine, stood with the Squaw Valley men. He moved forward and the others followed him. Old Slick-ear mounted the steps alone, unabashed by the glances levelled at him.

Montana read the letter authorizing the sale.

“The land will be sold to the highest bidder,” he went on. “The terms: twenty-five per cent now and the balance when title is given.” He turned and pointed to the map. “The map has been divided into quarter sections. I cannot accept a bid for any parcel less than one hundred and sixty acres. I will begin the sale with section one, offering it first as a whole section. Are there any offers?”

“Just a minute, Montana,” Old Henry interrupted. “You are authorized to accept bids on this property as a whole.”

It was the very thing Montana had been waiting for him to say.

“That's correct,” he admitted, his tone guileless. “If anybody cares to make a bid on the reservation as a whole I am compelled to accept that bid.”

An angry murmur broke from the Squaw Valley men. They knew Montana and regarded him as their friend. They had not expected him to sell them out without a protest.

“Are there any bids on the property as a whole?”

“Three dollars an acre!” Old Slick-ear clipped the words off short.

“A man can't come in here and hog it like that!” Quantrell burst out angrily. “Where do we come in, Montana?”

“You're right, Quantrell! We don't aim to be cheated like that!” It was Dan Crockett. The other Squaw Valley men rallied about him instantly.

Montana continued to gaze at the old man.

“That's the minimum bid, Mr. Stall,” he said. “It's a ridiculous price.”

“It's my bid!”

The Bar S men had got to their feet and drawn closer. Over their heads came the creaking of leather as the horses fought the flies.

“The law compels me to accept it,” Jim droned tonelessly. “Are there any other bids?”

Dan Crockett stepped up to him, his face grim and determined.

“There's going to be trouble here, Montana, if you go through with this,” he warned. “We all thought you was our friend.”

“I am your friend, Dan, but my hands are tied; I've got to take this bid. If there's any trouble here, don't you start it.” He raised his voice. “Are there any other bids?”

There were none.

“Sold to Stall and Matlack!”

It was a moment pregnant with tragedy. There were a hundred armed men in that crowd. It needed only a word to start the conflagration.

Quantrell was beside himself. In the emergency, he elected to become the self-appointed leader of the Squaw Valley faction. Crockett and the others were too stunned by the sudden turn of events to object.

“It ain't no more than you'd expect from a man who'd let an Indian call him a liar and get away with it,” he bellowed as he started up the steps.

Montana kept his head. A few seconds now would tell the tale. The form he was filling out was about ready. Quantrell pushed in between him and the old man.

“There'll be blood spilled here if you go through with this, Montana,” he spit out threateningly.

“And there'll be a lynching as well as a land sale,” Jim murmured calmly as he finished the form. “If you think I'm bluffing—call my hand.”

Implacable hatred blazed in Quantrell's eyes. He wanted to go through with the play he had started, but wisdom warned him that the very men who were backing him up now would be the first to turn against him if they learned that it was his babbling that had wrecked their hopes.

Old Slick-ear thought he understood Montana's answer; but it was no affair of his. He had won easier than he expected, and he was content. He looked the form over. It was in order. He got out a pencil and made some figures on the back of his notebook.

“Twenty-five per cent will be eight thousand, two hundred dollars—right?”

“That's right, Mr. Stall,” Jim agreed. “Eight thousand, two hundred dollars.”

The old man brought out a Stall and Matlack script-book as well-known as money in that country. Wages, bills, taxes—every Stall and Matlack transaction was paid in that familiar green script with the bull's head adorning it.

“If you'll step up to your office,” he said, “I'll fill out this script.”

The moment had arrived. Jim shook his head. The eyes of the crowd were on them.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Stall,” he declared thoughtfully, “but I can't take your script.”

“You can't take it? What do you mean you can't take it?”