Wilderness Trek (1988) (5 page)

Beryl Dann was neither too dignified nor too grown up not to be pleased and flattered by what Sterl divined was an extraordinary speech to her.

As Sterl rode on with Leslie, he observed without looking back that Red did not accompany them.

"Did you like her?" queried Leslie, a dark flash of her hazel eyes on Sterl. She was a woman; still Sterl could not react to the situation with playful duplicity, as one impulse prompted him to.

"Yes, of course," he said, frankly. "Pretty and gracious, if a little haughty. I wonder--has she lived out here long?"

"Yes. The Danns have been here all of five years. But Beryl went to school in Sydney. She visits there often. She's lovely! All the young men court her... Didn't you fall in love with her at first sight?"

"My child, I did not."

"Don't call me child," she flashed, quickly. "I'm grown up. Old enough to get married!"

"You don't say. I wouldn't have thought it," replied Sterl teasingly.

"Yes. Dad thought so. He wanted to give me to a station man over here. But I wouldn't... Red has not escaped Beryl--that's obvious. Look back."

Sterl did so, to see the cowboy still leaning over his saddle gazing down upon the fair-haired girl.

"Sterl, I like Red," went on Leslie, confidentially. "But I'd never let him see it. I don't know cowboys, of course. But I know young men who are devils after women. And he's one. I could feel it... But I guess you're different. Sterl, I'm crazy to take this trek. But I'm frightened. There will be twenty young men with us. I know how they can be, even trekking in to Brisbane. Eight days! My mother, Stanley Dann's sister, Beryl and I the only women!..."

"Leslie, your fathers never should take you."

"But I want to go. Beryl does, too. It means new homes, new friends, new lives... Sterl, I hope you'll be a big brother to me. Will you?"

"Thank you. I'll try," responded Sterl, sincerely. The girl's frank wistfulness touched him deeply. "But I'm a stranger. I might be what Red calls no good atall."

"You might be, but I don't believe it... I like you, Sterl. I'm not afraid of you. Mum says I'm a hoyden. But I'm sensitive. These outback men court you on sight--hug and kiss you--or try to. Outback it's a fight for love, women, cattle--for life itself."

"Leslie, it's much like that on the western ranges where I come from. I understand a little how a young girl feels."

"You are going to be a comfort, Sterl," she said, happily. "Here we are, right in town. And there comes Red, putting Jester to a canter... There's where I went to school... Oh, I forgot something I wanted to tell you. Do you remember Dad mentioning a drover, Ashley Ormiston?"

"Yes. He is the man Mr. Dann wants your Dad to throw in with."

"Sterl, I don't like the idea at all. Mr. Ormiston is new to Downsville. You'll meet him today, so I don't need to describe him. But he has been very much in evidence since the races. I met him that day, and to be honest I was fascinated. Sterl; he--he insulted me that very first night. I've tried to avoid him ever since."

"Have you told your father?" queried Sterl. "I dare not," she replied, simply.

At that moment Red caught up with them.

"Let's tie up here," Leslie said, halting. "Now boys, you hunt up Dad. He'll be somewhere, waiting for you. Stanley Dann wants to meet you. Be good. Don't drink--or forget you're my cowboys."

They turned a corner to reach a point opposite a large store, in front of which had collected a crowd, mostly men, all trying to get out of the way of a conflict of some kind. Then Sterl saw a white man kick an aborigine into the street. He heard a woman cry out that it was Slyter's black man, Friday.

Sterl stepped out of the crowd and off from the pavement. Then a white man, agile and powerful, leaped into the street to kick the black viciously, knocking him flat.

Striding over, Sterl placed a hard hand against the aggressor and shoved him back, far from gently.

The man straightened up. He was a dark-browed, handsome fellow of about thirty, garbed as a drover.

"What business--of yours?" he panted, hoarsely.

"I just thought you'd kicked that black enough," declared Sterl, deliberately.

"Who are--you?" demanded the other, his dark eyes burning. Sterl caught a strong odor of whiskey.

"No matter. I'm a newcomer."

"Damned, meddling, Yankee blighter," shouted the Australian, and with a backhanded sweep he struck Sterl a blow across the mouth that staggered him.

Recovering his balance, Sterl leaped forward, and gave his antagonist a sudden blow low down, then swung his right fist hard and fierce at those malignant eyes, and felled him like a bullock under the ax.

Red lined up alongside his comrade. The buzzing circle crowded into the street. Sterl, to his dismay, espied Leslie's pale face. Then her father dragged her back and strode out, accompanied by a tawny-haired giant, leonine in build and mien.

Slyter gazed at the prostrate man, who was stirring, and from him to the black. "Friday! Who hit you?"

"Boss, that one fella," replied the black, and pointed to his brutal attacker.

"Dann, it's Ash Ormiston!" ejaculated Slyter.

"I see. Looks as if a horse kicked him... Here you, what does this mean?" boomed the giant, wheeling upon Sterl.

Red intervened, cool and wary. "Watch thet hombre, pard. He might have a gun."

"Krehl!" exclaimed Slyter. "Did you slug, Ormiston?"

"No, Sterl did thet. But I'd have liked to."

"Stanley, these are my two American cowboys, Krehl and Hazelton."

"Drunk and rowing, eh?" queried Dann. Sterl confronted Dann, and he was not in a humor to be conciliatory.

"No, I'm not drunk," he rang out. "It's your country-man who is that. I came upon him kicking this black man, Friday. Kicking him in the face and chest! I interfered. He called me a damned, meddling Yankee blighter and hit me. Then I soaked him."

"Friday, what you do alonga Ormiston?" asked Slyter, gruffly.

"Black fella tellum bimeby," replied Friday, and stalked into the crowd, where Sterl saw Leslie try to stop him and fail.

Meanwhile Ormiston staggered to his unsteady feet, one of his eyes beginning to puff.

"Where's that ---- Yankee who hit me?" he bit out.

Dann laid a restraining hand on him. "Man, you're drunk."

Sterl confronted him. "Go for your gun if you've got one."

Ormiston violently threw Dann off.

Dann waved the crowd back. "Get off the street!" he roared.

Chapter
4

If Ormiston had a gun concealed on his person, he made no move to draw it. Sterl's hand dropped back to his side.

"I'll not exchange shots--with a Yankee tramp," panted Ormiston.

"No. But you're not above kicking a poor black when he's down," replied Sterl.

Red again slouched over to Sterl's side. "Haw! Haw!" His hard, mirthless laugh rang with scorn. "Orful particular, ain't you, Mr. Ormiston, about who you throw a gun on? Wal, you got some sense, at thet."

"Dann, you're magistrate here!" shouted Ormiston. "Order these Yankees out of town."

"You're drunk, I told you," replied Dann. "You started a fight, then failed to go through with it."

"No, I didn't. I only kicked that snooping black. This Yankee started it... I'll not engage in a gun fight with a foreign adventurer," replied Ormiston in hoarse haste.

"Mister, why don't you pull thet gun I see inside yore coat?" drawled Red.

"Dann, order these Yankees to leave," repeated Ormiston, stridently.

"No. You're making a fool of yourself," declared Dann. "Slyter has hired these cowboys to help him on the trek."

"Slyter, is that true--you're taking these cowboys?"

"Yes, I've hired them."

"Will you discharge them?"

"No, I certainly will not."

"Then I refuse to take my drovers and my mob of cattle on Dann's trek."

"Ormiston, I don't care a damn what you do," said Slyter.

Ormiston made a forceful and passionate gesture, then shouldered his way through the crowd to disappear.

Slyter lost no time in getting to Sterl and Red and dragged them with him across the pavement into a store. Dann strode after them. And there the four men faced each other.

"Gentlemen, I'm terribly sorry," began Sterl. "It's just too bad that I had to mess up your plans at the last moment. But I couldn't stand for such dirty, low-down brutality."

"Pard," drawled Red, coolly rolling a cigarette. "If you hadn't been so damn quick I'd have busted Ormiston myself."

Dann stroked his golden beard with a massive hand, and his penetrating eyes studied the cowboys.

"It was unfortunate," he began, "Ormiston had been drinking. But I'll swear the black absolutely did not deserve that kicking. Friday is the best native I ever knew. He's honest, loyal, devoted to Leslie, who was good to his gin when she lay dying."

Red eased forward a step, in his slow way. "Mr. Dann, I'd like to ask you, without meanin' offense, if there ain't Englishmen heah an' there who's jest no good atall?"

Dann let out a deep laugh that was convincing. "There are, cowboy, and you can lay to that."

"Wal, I'm glad to heah you admit it. If I ever met a low-down hombre thet Ormiston is one. Mebbe it wouldn't have been so easy to see through--him but for the drink. No, Ormiston is jest no good atall--an' he come damn near bein' a daid one."

"Tell me, Hazelton," spoke up Dann, his amber eyes full of little, dancing glints, "if Ormiston had moved to draw his revolve!--what would you have done?"

"I'd have killed the fool," declared Sterl.

"Indeed!--Did you see that Ormiston was armed?"

"No. But I knew it... Now, Slyter, I think the thing for Red and me to do is to leave town at once."

"You will do nothing of the kind," rejoined Slyter, stoutly.

"Boys, it's not to be thought of," added Dann. "Ormiston was bluffing. He won't quit us. Like all of us he sees a way to wealth. And we need him with us. The more drovers, the more cattle, the better our chances for success."

"Mr. Dann, I see the necessity for you. But if Red and I go--we'll clash with Ormiston."

"Listen, you young gamecocks," went on Dann, persuasively. "Outback there will be too much clash with the elements and the blacks for us drovers to fight among ourselves. We'll all be brothers before we reach the Never-never. Isn't that so, Bing?"

"It has been proved by other treks," replied Slyter, earnestly. "If you boys are concerned about me or Leslie--just forget that and take the risk."

"Boss, we'll never throw you down," said Red.

"We will go," added Sterl, and his tone was a pledge. "But have you ever driven cattle into a hard wilderness, months on end, against all the hard knocks a desolate country can deal you?"

"No, Hazelton, we have never been on a real trek," Dann replied. "But my brother Eric has. He slights the hardships either because he is callous, unfeeling, or because he doesn't want me to know. In fact, Eric has failed after several starts in Queensland."

"Do you want my advice?"

Dann nodded his leonine head. "Indeed yes! It's too late now, even if I would back out. Hazelton, perhaps Providence sent you rangemen to help us. To get down to fundamentals, tell us just what kind of range you have driven mobs of cattle over--how far--what kind of obstacles--how you worked."

"That's easy, gentlemen, and you can believe what I tell you," replied Sterl. "Some years ago, just after the Civil War, Texas was overrun with millions of longhorn cattle. The ranchers had no home market. A rancher named Chisholm conceived the idea of driving herds of cattle from southern Texas across the plains to Kansas. Chisholm started out with over three thousand head of cattle and twelve riders. He made it--five hundred miles--in something over ninety days, losing four cowboys and two thousand head of cattle. But he sold what was left at a huge profit. His Chisholm Trail inaugurated trail driving in Texas.

"As for hardships--in that early day fifty million buffalo ranged from the Gulf of the Dakotas. For years stampedes of buffalo were the worst obstacles the trail drivers had to overcome. Next to that were the attacks and raids of savage Indians. There were rivers to ford, some of them big and wide, often in flood. In dry years there were long drives from water to water. Thunderstorms often stampeded herds. Dust storms, sandstorms were terrible to drive against. In the fall and winter, the Del Notre, the freezing gale that blew out of a clear sky, was something the riders hated and feared. Lastly there came rustling--the era of the cattle thieves, which is in its heyday right now."

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" exclaimed Dann, his eyes shining. "Jesse Chisholm was a man after my heart. A savior of Texas, yes?"

"Indeed he saved Texas and built the cattle empire."

Red emitted a cloud of smoke, and drawled: "Boss, I rode for Jesse once. He was a great hombre. Harder than the hinges on the gates of hell! Sometime I'll tell you stories about him, one thing special, his jingle-bob brand, thet was so famous."