The Last Straw. Titus Harold
years and in the last months before the end he just let go entire. He wouldn't even give anybody else authority enough to have any say; didn't even have a foreman. That's why horses an' cattle have been stole from him.
"'Course, there's been more devil to pay since he died than went on before, but when a man leaves things in a lawyer's hands and the lawyer won't even look in on the job, what you goin' to do?"
His manner was as benevolent as it was deliberate and he turned a paternal smile on Beck.
"Let the thievin' go merrily on, I expect," the other said, giving the leather strips a series of sturdy jerks to tighten the mesh.
"I expect you'd like to be foreman, wouldn't you, Dad?" Two-Bits asked innocently, whereupon Hepburn certified the accuracy of that surmisal by moving uneasily. "You'd make a fair foreman ... fair. Now Tommy here," he continued, oblivious of the older man's discomfiture and the delighted smiles of the others, "would make a fine foreman if he'd only give a damn. But he don't ... he don't. It's too bad, Tommy, you don't settle down and amount to somethin'. You're the best hand in this country!"
Beck lifted his face and sniffed loudly.
"The smell of your bouquet is about as delicate as your diplomacy, Two-Bits!" he said.
Another pause. Beck resumed his whistling and Hepburn devoted his attention to the road. Once he looked at the other from the tail of his eye and a flicker of ill temper showed in his broad, grizzled face.
"Her name's Jane, ain't it?" Two-Bits was an ardent conversationalist. "Jane Hunter! I knowed a school marm named Hunter onct. She was worse'n thunder for sourin' milk."
"I'll bet—"
"Listen!"
Oliver held up his knife in gesture and Two-Bits stopped talking. The sounds of an approaching wagon were clearly audible.
"I'll bet it's the mail instead of—"
"You lose," muttered Hepburn, getting to his feet as a buckboard swung around the bend.
"An' she sure's come to stay!" from Jimmy as he closed his knife with an air of finality.
The body of the wagon was piled high with trunks and bags and beside the driver sat a very small woman. That she was not of the west, not the sort of woman these men had been accustomed to deal with, was evident from the clothes she wore, but at least one of them remarked that she was not wholly without the qualities essential to the frontier for, when the driver dropped down to open the gate, he gave her the reins to the lathered, excited horses which had brought her from the railroad. As soon as the gate swung open they sprang forward, but she put her weight on the reins and spoke with confident authority and wrenched them back.
"Not exactly helpless, anyhow," Tom Beck said to himself.
He was the only one of the group who did not walk across toward the cottonwoods which sheltered the long, red ranch house beside the creek. He sat there, braiding his belt, an indefinable half smile on his face.
The girl—for girlishness was her outstanding quality—jumped out unassisted. She looked about slowly, at the house first of all, then at the low stable and the corrals and, lastly, down the creek, on either side of which the hills rose sharply, giving a false appearance of narrowness to the bottoms, and her eyes rested for a long moment on the ridges far below, blue and sharp in the crystal distance.
She was unaware that the driver was waiting for her to give further directions and that the three others had come close and stopped, waiting for her to notice them, for she said aloud, as though to herself:
"For a beginning, this is quite remarkable!" Then she laughed sharply, with a hard mirthless quality, and turned about. She was genuinely surprised to confront the men; evidence of this was in her eyes, which were large and remarkably blue. She smiled brightly and said:
"Oh, I didn't know I was overlooking any one! I suppose you men belong here, on the ranch, and it's likely you've been waiting for the new owner to come. Well, here I am! I'm Jane Hunter and I want to know who you are. Now what is your name?"
Her frankness, that unhesitating, assured manner of a distinct type of city-bred woman, was new but it over-rode somewhat the embarrassment they all felt.
"My name is Hepburn, ma'am," Dad said and shook hands heavily. "I hope you like this place."
"I know I shall, Mr. Hepburn. And your name?"
"That's Jimmy Oliver, Miss Hunter," Hepburn said.
Two-Bits had watched this with growing confusion and when she turned on him her searching, straightforward glance his freckles became lost in a pink suffusion. He swayed his body from the hips and looked high over her head as he offered a limp hand.
"I'm Mister Beal," he said weakly.
"Don't you believe that!" laughed Hepburn. "That's Two-Bits. He ain't entitled to any frills."
"Two-Bits it is!" the girl cried, scanning his face in amazement at its color and contour. "I couldn't call you mister, Two-Bits. We're going to be too good friends for that!"
"Oh my gosh!" giggled the flustered cowboy and turned away, seeking refuge in the bunkhouse.
"You talk about me bein' got up by a feller that draws pictures, Tom," he said to Beck. "Holy Tin Can, you ought to see her! Why, this feller that paints them girls for these here, now, magazines painted her! She looks like she walked right out of a picture, with blue eyes an' yeller hair an' all pink an' white. An' friendly.... Oh my, I'll bet she makes this outfit take notice!"
Old Carlotta, the half-breed Mexican woman who had been housekeeper at the HC for years had come from the house to greet her new mistress. The trunks were carried in, the buckboard departed for its twenty-five mile trip back to town and the riders who had been at work further down the creek straggled in to hear the first tales of their new boss.
Conjecture was high as to her plan of procedure.
"It won't take long for things to happen. You can bank on that," Jimmy Oliver declared. "She ain't our kind of a woman an' the good Lord alone knows what notions she'll have, but she'll get busy! She's that kind."
He was not wrong for just as the sun was drawing down into the hills Carlotta appeared at the bunkhouse.
"Miss Hunter, she want to spik to Señor Dad an' Beck an' Jimmy an' Curtis," she said. "Right away, quick-pronto."
"This must be a mass meetin' with th' rest of us left out," Two-Bits said. "I'd give a dollar to look at her again ... clost up. I'll bet I wouldn't be afraid to look next time."
The four men summoned went immediately to the big house. Beck lagged a trifle and it was certain from his manner that his curiosity was not greatly excited. He appeared to be amused, for his black eyes twinkled gaily, but as they passed through the gate they set their gaze on the back of Hepburn's broad neck and a curious speculation showed in them.
Jane Hunter was waiting on the veranda which ran the length of the ranch house and without formalities began her explanation.
"You all know the situation, I believe. My uncle left me this ranch and I have come from New York to take possession. How long I remain depends on a number of things, but I find that for the present at least, I must conduct my own business. For the last four weeks, since the property came to me, it has been in the hands of Mr. Alward, the attorney in town. I arrived yesterday expecting to have his help, but his doctor has sent him into a lower altitude because of some heart difficulty and I'm alone on the job with nothing to guide me but a lengthy letter he wrote.
"I know little about business of any sort, I know nothing at all about ranching, so I have a great deal to learn. I do know that the first thing I need is an actual head for this place and that is why I called you here: to select a ... a foreman, you call him?
"Mr. Alward left word that any one of you four men would be competent and I'm going to choose one of you by chance: Understand, this is no guarantee to keep whoever is chosen