“What are they doing there? Do they belong to you?” asked Miss Schuyler.
The flush the wind had brought there turned to a deeper crimson in Hetty’s usually colourless face. “To us!” she said, and her voice had a thrill of scorn. “They’re homesteaders. Ride down. I want to see who’s leading them.”
She led the way with one little gloved hand clenched on the dainty switch she held; but before she reached the foremost team the man who pulled it up sprang down from the driving-seat of the big machine. A tall wire fence, with a notice attached to it, barred his way. The other ploughs stopped behind him, somebody brought an axe, and Hetty set her lips when the glistening blade whirled high and fell. Thrice it flashed in the sunlight, swung by sinewy arms, and then, as the fence went down, a low, half-articulate cry rose from the waiting men. It was not exultant, but there was in it the suggestion of a steadfast purpose.
Hetty sat still and looked at them, a little sparkle in her dark eyes, and a crimson spot in either cheek, while the laces that hung from her neck across the bodice of the white dress rose and fell. It occurred to Flora Schuyler that she had never seen her companion look half so well, and she waited with strained expectancy for what should follow, realizing, with the dramatic instinct most women have, who the man with the axe must be. He turned slowly, straightening his back and stood for a moment erect and statuesque, with the blue shirt open at his bronzed neck and the great axe gleaming in his hand; and Hetty gasped. Miss Schuyler’s surmise was verified, for it was Larry Grant.
“Larry,” said her companion, and her voice had a curious ring, “what are you doing here?”
The man, who appeared to ignore the question, swung off his wide hat. “Aren’t you and Miss Schuyler rather far from home?” he asked.
Flora Schuyler understood him when, glancing round, she noticed the figure of a mounted man forced up against the skyline here and there. Hetty, however, had evidently not seen them.
“I want an answer, please,” she said.
“Well,” said Larry gravely, “I was cutting down that fence.”
“Why were you cutting it down?” persisted Miss Torrance.
“It was in the way.”
“Of what?”
Grant turned and pointed to the men, sturdy toilers starved out of bleak Dakota and axe-men farmers from the forests of Michigan. “Of these, and the rest who are coming by and by,” he said. “Still, I don’t want to go into that; and you seem angry. You haven’t offered to shake hands with me, Hetty.”
Miss Torrance sat very still, one hand on the switch, and another on the bridle, looking at him with a little scornful smile on her lips. Then she glanced at the prairie beyond the severed fence.
“That land belongs to my friends,” she said.
Grant’s face grew a trifle wistful, but his voice was grave. “They have had the use of it, but it belongs to the United States, and other people have the right to farm there now. Still, that needn’t make any trouble between you and me.”
“No?” said the girl, with a curious hardness in her inflection; but her face softened suddenly. “Larry, while you only talked we didn’t mind; but no one fancied you would have done this. Yes, I’m angry with you. I have been home ’most a month, and you never rode over to see me; while now you want to talk politics.”
Grant smiled a trifle wearily. “I would sooner talk about anything else; and if you ask him, your father will tell you why I have not been to the range. I don’t want to make you angry, Hetty.”
“Then you will give up this foolishness and make friends with us again,” said the girl, very graciously. “It can’t come to anything, Larry, and you are one of us. You couldn’t want to take away our land and give it to this rabble?”
Hetty was wholly bewitching, as even Flora Schuyler, who fancied she understood the grimness in the man’s face, felt just then. He, however, looked away across the prairie, and the movement had its significance to one of the company, who, having less at stake, was the more observant. When he turned again, however, he seemed to stand very straight.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” he said.
“No?” said Hetty, still graciously. “Not even when I ask you?”
Grant shook his head. “They have my word, and you wouldn’t like me to go back upon what I feel is right,” he said.
Hetty laughed. “If you will think a little, you can’t help seeing that you are very wrong.”
Again the little weary smile crept into Grant’s face. “One naturally thinks a good deal before starting in with this kind of thing, and I have to go through. I can’t stop now, even to please you. But can’t we still be friends?”
For a moment there was astonishment in the girl’s face, then it flushed, and as her lips hardened and every line in her slight figure seemed to grow rigid, she reminded Miss Schuyler of the autocrat of Cedar Range.
“You ask me that?” she said. “You, an American, turning Dutchmen and these bush-choppers loose upon the people you belong to. Can’t you see what the answer must be?”
Grant did apparently, for he mutely bent his head; but there was a shout just then, and when one of the vedettes on the skyline suddenly moved forward he seized Miss Torrance’s bridle and wheeled her horse.
“Ride back to the Range,” he said sharply, “as straight as you can. Tell your father that you met me. Let your horse go, Miss Schuyler.”
As he spoke he brought his hand down upon the beast’s flank and it went forward with a bound. The one Flora Schuyler rode flung up its head, and in another moment they were sweeping at a gallop across the prairie. A mile had been left behind before Hetty could pull her half-broken horse up; but the struggle that taxed every sinew had been beneficial, and she laughed a trifle breathlessly.
“I’m afraid I lost my temper; and I’m angry yet,” she said. “It’s the first time Larry wouldn’t do what I asked him, and it was mean of him to send us off like that, just when one wanted to put on all one’s dignity.”
Miss Schuyler appeared thoughtful. “I fancy he did it because it was necessary. Didn’t it strike you that you were hurting him? That is a good man and an honest one, though, of course, he may be mistaken.”
“He must be,” said Hetty. “Now I used to think ever so much of Larry, and that is why I got angry with him. It isn’t nice to feel one has been fooled. How can he be good when he wants to take our land from us?”
Flora Schuyler laughed. “You are quite delightful, Hetty, now and then. You have read a little, and been taught history. Can’t you remember any?”
“Oh yes,” said Hetty, with a little thoughtful nod. “Still, the men who made the trouble in those old days were usually buried before anyone was quite sure whether they were right or not. Try to put yourself in my place. What would you do?”
There was a somewhat curious look in Miss Schuyler’s blue eyes. “I think if I had known a man like that one as long as you have done, I should believe in him – whatever he did.”
“Well,” said Hetty gravely, “if you had, just as long as you could remember, seen your father and his friends taking no pleasure, but working every day, and putting most of every dollar they made back into the ranch, you would find it quite difficult to believe that the man who meant to take it from them now they were getting old and wanted to rest and enjoy what they had worked for was doing good.”
Flora Schuyler nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I would. It’s quite an old trouble.