With Hoops of Steel. Florence Finch Kelly
range.”
“Of course,” she assented eagerly. “At this time of year he is very likely to have been needed somewhere else on the range. I don’t believe he has—he is dead.”
“There is much feeling about it on the street. And it seems to be quite as much a matter of politics as a personal quarrel.”
“Oh, everything is politics here, Mr. Wellesly!” said the girl. “If the people all over the United States take as much interest in politics as they do here, I don’t see how they have found time to build railroads and cities.”
Wellesly laughed. “They don’t take it the same way, Miss Delarue. Las Plumas politics is a thing apart and of its own kind. Except in party names, it has no connection with the politics of the states. Here it is merely a case of ‘follow your leader,’ of personal loyalty to some man who has run, or who expects to run, for office. Being so personal, of course, it is more virulent.”
“Do you think there is likely to be any violence this time?” she asked, with a tremor of anxiety in her voice.
“There is violent talk already. I heard more than one man say that Mead ought to be lynched”—he was watching her face as he talked—“and his two friends, Ellhorn and Tuttle, along with him. There is a great deal of feeling against Mead, and the general idea seems to be that he is an inveterate cattle thief, and that the country would be better off without him.”
She turned an indignant face and flashing eyes upon him and opened her mouth to reply. Then she blushed a little, caught her breath, and asked him if he thought her father was in any danger. When Wellesly left her he said to himself: “That’s an unusually fine girl. Handsome, too. Or she would be if she didn’t wear English shoes and walk like an elephant. She seems to be interested in Emerson Mead, but old Delarue certainly wouldn’t permit anything serious. He’s too ardently on our side, or thinks he is, the old French windbag, though he’s never even been naturalized. I’ll see her again while I’m here and find out if there is anything between them. It might have some consequence for us if there is. I wish the Colonel hadn’t got the company so mixed up in their political quarrels. But there may be an advantage in it, after all, for I guess it will furnish the easiest way of getting rid of those one-horse outfits. The old man’s got the upper hand now, and as long as he keeps it we’ll be all right.”
Marguerite Delarue stood on her veranda looking after Wellesly as he walked away. “What a nice looking man he is,” ran her thoughts. “He is interesting to talk with, too. The people here may be just as good as he is, but—well, at least, he isn’t tongue-tied.”
Ellhorn and Tuttle met Emerson Mead as he stepped from his room, freshly shaven and clad in black frock coat and vest, gray trousers and newly polished shoes. As he listened to Ellhorn’s account of the sudden storm that was already shaking the little town from end to end, a yellow light flashed in his brown eyes and there came into them an intent, defiant look, the look of battle, like that in the eyes of a captured eagle. He went back into the room, buckled on a full cartridge belt, and transferred his revolver from his waistband to its usual holster.
“Now, boys,” said Mead, “we’ll go back up town and have a drink, and I’ll talk with Judge Harlin about this matter.”
The three friends walked leisurely up Main street, talking quietly together, and apparently unconscious of any unusual disturbance. Except that their eyes were restless and alert and that Mead’s glowed with the yellow light and the defiant look, they showed no sign of the excitement they felt. They were all three of nearly the same age, they were all Texan born and bred, and for many years had been the closest of friends. Each one stood six feet and some inches in his stockings, and their great stature, broad shoulders, deep chests and sinewy figures marked them for notice, even in the southwest, the land of tall, well-muscled men.
Thomson Tuttle was the tallest and by far the heaviest of the three—a great, blond giant, with the round, frank, sincere face of an overgrown school-boy, glowing with the red tan which fair skins take on in the hot, dry air of the southwest. From this red expanse a pair of serious blue eyes looked out, while a short, tawny mustache covered his lip, and auburn hair curled in close rings over his head. It was never necessary for Thomson Tuttle to do any swearing, for the colors that dwelt in his face kept up a constant profanity. There was a strain of German blood in him—his mother had come from Germany in her childhood—which showed in his impassive countenance and in the open, serious directness of his mental habit.
Ellhorn was the handsome one of the three friends. He was straight, slender, long of limb, clean of muscle, and remarkably quick and graceful in his movements. His regular features were clear-cut and his dancing eyes were bright and black and keen. His sweeping black mustache curled up at the ends in a wide curve that shaded a dimple in each cheek. He was as proud of the fact that both of his maternal grandparents had been born in Ireland as he was that he himself was a native of Texas. The vigorous Celtic strain, that in the clash of nationalities can always hold its own against any blood with which it mingles, had dowered him well with Celtic characteristics. A trace of the brogue still lingered in his speech, along with the slurred r’s and the soft drawl of his southern tongue, while his spontaneous rebellion under restraint and his brilliant disregard of the consequences of his behavior were as truly Celtic as was the honey-sweet persuasiveness with which he could convince his friends that whatever he had done had been exactly right and the only thing possible. He was all Irish that wasn’t Texan, and all Texan that wasn’t Irish, and everybody he knew he either loved or hated, and was ready, according to his feeling, either to do anything for, or to “do up” on a moment’s notice.
Emerson Mead’s stronger and more sober intelligence harked back to New England, whence his mother had come in her bridal days, and although the Puritan characteristics showed less plainly in his nature than she wished, having been much warmed and mellowed by their transplantation to southern soil, no Puritan of them all could have outdone this tall Texan in dogged adherence to what he believed to be his rights. His mother had kept faith with the land of her nativity, and as part of her worship from afar at the shrine of its great sage had given his name to her only son. By virtue of his stronger character and better poised intelligence, Emerson Mead had always been the leader of the three friends. Tuttle yielded unquestioning obedience to “Emerson’s judgment,” and, if Emerson were not present, to what he imagined that judgment would be. Ellhorn, in whose nature dwelt the instinctive rebellion of the Irish blood, was less loyal in this respect, but not a whit behind in the whole-heartedness with which he threw himself into his friend’s service. For years they had taken share and share alike in one another’s needs, and whenever one was in trouble the other two rushed to his help. Together they had gone through the usual routine of southwestern occupations. They had prospected together, had herded cattle together, together they had battled their way through sudden quarrels and fore-planned gunfights, and together, with official warrants in their pockets, had helped to keep the peace in riotous frontier towns. Some years before, they had gone into partnership in the cattle business, on the ranch which Mead still owned. But Tuttle and Ellhorn had tired of it, had sold their interest to Mead, and ever since, as deputy United States marshals, had upheld the arm of the law in its contests with the “bad men” of the frontier. All three men were known far and wide for the marvelous quickness and accuracy with which they could handle their guns.
Main street was lined, in the vicinity of the two saloons, with knots of men who talked in excited, repressed tones, as though they feared to be overheard. These knots constantly broke up and reformed as men hurried from one to another, but there was no crossing the street. Each party kept to its own side, the Democrats on the east and the Republicans on the west, and each constantly watched the other. The women had all disappeared from Main street, gone scuttling home like fowls, rushing to cover from a hailstorm, and the whole town was in a state of strained expectancy, waiting for the battle to begin. When the three friends came walking leisurely down the street, there were nods and meaning glances on the Republican side and excited whispers of “There they are!” “They are ready for work!” “That’s what they are all here together for!” “We’d better get ready for them!”
On the Democratic side of the street it