The Mistress of Bonaventure. Bindloss Harold
for some minutes, and Sally Steel patted my uninjured shoulder sympathetically. Then I pointed to a litter of papers on the table, and inquired if there were any letters in Lane's writing. Thorn handed me one reluctantly, and it was hard to refrain from fierce exclamation as I read the laconic missive. Lane regretted to hear of my accident, but the scarcity of money rendered it necessary to advise me that as I had not formally accepted his terms, repayment of the loan was overdue, and he would be obliged to realize unless I were willing to pledge Crane Valley or renew the arrangement at an extra five per cent. on the terms last mentioned.
"Bad news?" said Sally. "Then I guess Thorn sha'n't worry you any more; but it's just when things look worst the turn comes. That team will be bolting soon, Thorn. I'll sit right back in the corner, and until you want to talk to me you can forget I'm there."
The high-pitched voice sank to a gentler tone, and I felt grateful to Sally Steel. Her reckless vagaries often formed a theme for laughter when the inhabitants of the prairie foregathered at settlement or store; but there was a depth of good-nature, as well as an overdaring love of mischief in her, and not infrequently a blessing accompanied the jest. Thorn was moving towards the door when, recollecting another point, I beckoned him.
"How was it that when they had, or should have had, time enough, Henderson's man and Redmond did not stop the cattle bunching in the fence? It's very unlike our ways if they made no effort to save my beasts as well as their own masters' property," I said.
Foreman Thorn looked troubled, and I saw that Sally was watching him keenly. "I don't understand it rightly, and I guess no man ever will," he said. "Of course, we struck Henderson's Jo with just that question, and this is what he made of it. He and Redmond were camping in Torkill's deserted sod-house, and when they saw the fires were bad that night, Redmond said he'd ride round the cattle. Their own lot was pretty well out of harm's way, east of the fence, but Jo told him to take a look at yours. Redmond started, and, as Jo knew that he'd be called if he were wanted, he went off to sleep."
"That does not explain much," I interjected, when Thorn halted, rubbing his head as though in search of inspiration.
"There isn't an explanation. Jo, waking later, saw the fire coming right down the hollow and started on foot for the fence. There was no sign of Redmond anywhere. Jo couldn't get the stock out, and he couldn't cut the fence, and he was going back for an ax when we met him. You know all the rest – 'cept this. Steel and I were standing over you, and the fire was roasting the beasts mixed up in the fence, when Redmond comes along. The way he stood, the flame shone right on his face. It seemed twisted, and the man looked like a ghost. He stood there blinking at the beasts – and it wasn't a pretty sight – then shook all over as he stooped down and looked at you. There was a good deal of blood about you from the horse.
"'What the devil's wrong with you? Stiffen yourself up!' says Steel; and Redmond's voice cracked in the middle as he answered him: 'I'm feeling mighty sick. Is he dead?'
"'Looks pretty near it. If you'd seen those beasts clear he mightn't have come to this. Here, take a drink. We'll want you presently,' says Steel, and went on strapping you together with a girth and bridle, while I watched Redmond with one eye. As you know, there was never much grit in the creature, and he had another shivering fit.
"'Get out until you're feeling better. That kind of thing's catching, and we've lots to do,' I said; and he laughs with a cackle like an hysterical woman, and blinks straight past me. Steel and I figured he'd got hold of some smuggled whisky and been drinking bad, but afterwards Henderson's Jo said no.
"'It's murder. My God! It's horrible – an' he never done anyone no harm,' he says, and falls to cussing somebody quietly. I can talk pretty straight when I'm hot myself, but that was ice-cold swearing with venom in it, and when he got on to Judas, with the devil in his eyes, I ripped up a big sod and plugged him on the head with it.
"'If you don't let up or quit I'll pound the life out of you,' says Steel.
"Well, we got you fixed so you couldn't make the damage worse, and when Steel went for the wagon and I looked around for Redmond he was gone. Don't know what to think of it, anyway, 'cept his troubles or bad whisky had turned his head. You see he was never far from crazy."
"Why didn't one of you get hold of him and make him talk next day?" I asked; and Thorn looked at me curiously.
"Because he'd gone. Lit out to nobody knows where and stopped there. I don't know just what to think, myself."
Sally took Thorn by the shoulders and thrust him out, but he left me with sufficient, and unpleasant, food for reflection. The stock I had counted on were gone. Also, when it was above all things desirable that I should be up and doing, I must lie still for weeks, useless as a log. One thing at least I saw clearly, and that was the usurer's purpose to absorb my property; and as I lay with throbbing forehead and tight-clenched fingers, which had grown strangely white, I determined that he should have cause to remember the struggle before he accomplished it. That Redmond had been driven by him into shameful treachery appeared too probable, though there was no definite proof of it, and the thought stiffened my resolution. My scattered neighbors, patient as they were, were ill to coerce and would doubtless join me in an effort before the schemer's machinations left us homeless.
Then I could hardly check a groan as I remembered all that the brief glimpses of a brighter life at Bonaventure had suggested. A few months earlier it had appeared possible that with one or two more good seasons I might even have attained to it; but since then a gulf had opened between Beatrice Haldane and me, and the best I could hope for was a resumption of what now seemed hopeless drudgery. It was a bitter awakening, and I almost regretted that Steel and Foreman Thorn had not been a few seconds later when the fence went down. An hour passed, and Sally Steel, bringing a chair over to my side, offered to read to me what she said was a real smart shadowing story. I glanced at the invincible detective standing amid a scene of bloodshed, depicted on the cover of the journal she held up, and declined with due civility.
"I am afraid my nerves are not good enough. I should sooner you talked to me, Sally," I said.
She laughed coquettishly, and there was no doubt that Steel's sister was handsome, as women on that part of the prairie go. Sun and wind had ripened the color in her face, her teeth were white as ivory, her lips full and red, and perhaps most men would have found pleasure watching the sparkle of mischief that danced in her eyes as she answered demurely: "That would be just too nice. What shall we talk about?"
"You might tell me who was the first to come ask about me," I said.
The girl stretched out one plump arm with a comprehensive gesture. "They all came, bringing things along, most of them. Even the little Icelander; he loaded up his wagon with a keg of herrings – said they were best raw – and lumps of grindstone bread. Oh, yes; they all came, and I was glad to see them, 'cept when some of their wives came with them."
"They are kind people in this country; but how could the women worry you? In any case, I think you would be equal to them," I commented; and, somewhat to my surprise, the girl first blushed, and then looked positively wicked.
"They – well, they would ask questions, and said things, when they found Tom was down to Brandon," she answered enigmatically. "Still, I guess I was equal to most of them. 'Rancher Ormesby's not sending the hat round yet, and that truck is not fit for any sick man to eat when it's just about half-cooked,' I said. 'You can either take it back or leave it for Thorn to worry with. Fresh rocks wouldn't hurt his digestion. Just now I'm way too busy to answer conundrums.'"
Sally seemed glad to abandon that topic, and did not look quite pleased when I hazarded another question, with suppressed interest, but as carelessly as I could: "Did anybody else drive over?"
The girl laughed a trifle maliciously, and yet with a certain enjoyment. "Oh, yes. One day, when I was too busy for anything, the people from Bonaventure drove over, and wanted to take you back. I don't know why, but the way Haldane's elder daughter looked about the place just got my back up. 'You can't have him. This is where he belongs,' I said.
"'But he is ill, and this place is hardly fit for him. There are no comforts, and we could take better care of him,' said the younger one, and I turned round to her.
"'That's just where you're wrong. Rancher Ormesby has