Muller nodded and refilled his pipe, and save for the click of the fräulein’s needles there was once more silence in the bare room. She had not spoken, for the knitting and the baking were her share, and the men whose part was the conflict must be clothed and fed. They knew it could not be evaded, and, springing from the same colonizing stock, placid Teuton with his visions and precision in everyday details, eager American, and adventurous Englishman, each made ready for it in his own fashion. Free as yet from passion, or desire for fame, they were willing to take up the burden that was to be laid upon them; but only the one who knew the least awaited it joyously. Others had also the same thoughts up and down that lonely land, and the dusty cars were already bringing the vanguard of the homeless host in. They were for the most part quiet and resolute men, who asked no more than leave to till a few acres of the wilderness, and to eat what they had sown; but there were among them others of a different kind – fanatics, outcasts, men with wrongs – and behind them the human vultures who fatten on rapine. As yet, the latter found no occupation waiting them, but their sight was keen, and they knew their time would come.
It was a week later, and a hot afternoon, when Muller laid the big crosscut saw down on the log he was severing and slowly straightened his back. Then he stood up, red and very damp in face, a burly, square-shouldered man, and, having mislaid his spectacles, blinked about him. On three sides of him the prairie, swelling in billowy rises, ran back to the horizon; but on the fourth a dusky wall of foliage followed the crest of a ravine, and the murmur of water came up faintly from the creek in the hollow. Between himself and its slender birches lay piled amidst the parched and dusty grass, and the first courses of a wooden building, rank with the smell of sappy timber, already stood in front of him. There was no notch in the framing that had not been made and pinned with an exact precision. In its scanty shadow his daughter sat knitting beside a smouldering fire over which somebody had suspended a big blackened kettle. The crash of the last falling trunk had died away, and there was silence in the bluff; but a drumming of hoofs rose in a sharp staccato from the prairie.
“Now,” said Muller quietly, “I think the chasseurs come.”
The girl looked up a moment, noticed the four mounted figures that swung over the crest of a rise, and then went on with her knitting again. Still, there was for a second a little flash in her pale blue eyes.
The horsemen came on, the dust floating in long wisps behind them, until, with a jingle of bridle and stirrup, they pulled up before the building. Three of them were bronzed and dusty, in weather-stained blue shirts, wide hats, and knee-boots that fitted them like gloves; and there was ironical amusement in their faces. Each sat his horse as if he had never known any other seat than the saddle; but the fourth was different from the rest. He wore a jacket of richly embroidered deerskin, and the shirt under it was white; while he sat with one hand in a big leather glove resting on his hip. His face was sallow and his eyes were dark.
“Hallo, Hamburg!” he said, and his voice had a little commanding ring. “You seem kind of busy.”
Muller blinked at him. He had apparently not yet found his spectacles, but he had in the meanwhile come upon his axe, and now stood very straight, with the long haft reaching to his waist.
“Ja,” he said. “Mine house I build.”
“Well,” said the man in the embroidered jacket, “I fancy you’re wasting time. Asked anybody’s leave to cut that lumber, or put it up?”
“Mine friend,” said Muller, smiling, “when it is nod necessary I ask nodings of any man.”
“Then,” said the horseman drily, as he turned to his companions, “I fancy that’s where you’re wrong. Boys, we’ll take him along in case Torrance would like to see him. I guess you’ll have to walk home, Jim.”
A man dismounted and led forward his horse with a wrench upon the bridle that sent it plunging. “Get your foot in the stirrup, Hamburg, and I’ll hoist you up,” he said.
Muller stood motionless, and the horseman in deerskin glancing round in his direction saw his daughter for the first time. He laughed; but there was something in his black eyes that caused the Teuton’s fingers to close a trifle upon the haft of the axe.
“You’ll have to get down, Charlie, as well as Jim,” he said. “Torrance has his notions, or Coyote might have carried Miss Hamburg that far as well. Sorry to hurry you, Hamburg, but I don’t like waiting.”
Muller stepped back a pace, and the axe-head flashed as he moved his hand; while, dazzled by the beam it cast, the half-tamed broncho rose with hoofs in the air. Its owner smote it on the nostrils with his fist, and the pair sidled round each other – the man with his arm drawn back, the beast with laid-back ears – for almost a minute before they came to a standstill.
“Mine friend,” said Muller, “other day I der pleasure have. I mine house have to build.”
“Get up,” said the stockrider. “Ever seen anybody fire off a gun?”
Muller laughed softly, and glanced at the leader. “Der rifle,” he said drily. “I was at Sedan. To-day it is not convenient that I come.”
“Hoist him up!” said the leader, and once more, while the other man moved forward, Muller stepped back; but this time there was an answering flash in his blue eyes as the big axe-head flashed in the sun.
“I guess we’d better hold on,” said another man. “Look there, Mr. Clavering.”
He pointed to the bluff, and the leader’s face darkened as he gazed, for four men with axes were running down the slope, and they were lean and wiry, with very grim faces. They were also apparently small farmers or lumbermen from the bush of Michigan, and Clavering knew such men usually possessed a terrible proficiency with the keen-edged weapon, and stubbornness was native in them. Two others, one of whom he knew, came behind them. The foremost stopped, and stood silent when the man Clavering recognized signed to them, but not before each had posted himself strategically within reach of a horseman’s bridle.
“You might explain, Clavering, what you and your cow-boys are doing here,” he said.
Clavering laughed. “We are going to take your Teutonic friend up to the Range. He is cutting our fuel timber with nobody’s permission.”
“No,” said Grant drily; “he has mine. The bluff is on my run.”
“Did you take out timber rights with your lease?” asked Clavering.
“No, I hadn’t much use for them. None of my neighbours hold any either. But the bluff is big enough, and I’ve no objection to their cutting what billets they want. Still, I can’t have them driving out any other friends of mine.”
Clavering smiled ironically. “You have been picking up some curious acquaintances, Larry; but don’t you think you had better leave this thing to Torrance? The fact is, the cattle-men are not disposed to encourage strangers building houses in their country just now.”
“I had a notion it belonged to this State. It’s not an unusual one,” said Grant.
Clavering shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, it sounds better that way. Have it so. Still, it will scarcely pay you to make yourself unpopular with us, Larry.”
“Well,” said Grant drily, “it seems to me I’m tolerably unpopular already. But that’s not quite the point. Take your boys away.”
Clavering flung his hand up in half-ironical salutation, but as he was about to wheel his horse a young Englishman whose nationality was plainly stamped upon him seized his bridle.
“Not quite so fast!” he said. “It would be more fitting if you got down and expressed your regrets to the fräulein. You haven’t heard Muller’s story yet, Larry.”
“Let go,” said Clavering, raising the switch he held. “Drop my bridle or take care of yourself!”
“Come