"I should not wonder if you took most kindly to indirect advice, and there is a moral to this story," said Boone, when I lit my pipe. "Some years ago a disappointed man, who knew a little about land and horses, came out from the old country to farm on the prairie, bringing with him a woman used hitherto to the smoother side of life. He saw it was a good land and took hold with energy, believing the luck had turned at last, while the woman helped him gallantly. For a time all went well with them, but the loneliness and hardship proved too much for the woman, whose strength was of the spirit and not of the body, and she commenced to droop and pine. She made no complaint, but her eyes lost their brightness, and she grew worn and thin, while the man grew troubled. She had already given up very much for him. He saw his neighbors prospering on borrowed capital, and, for the times were good, determined to risk sowing a double acreage. That meant comfort instead of privation if all went well, and, toiling late and early, he sowed hope for a brighter future along with the grain. So far it is not an uncommon story."
I nodded, when the speaker, pausing, stared somberly towards the horizon, for since that English visit I also had staked all I hoped for in the future on the chances of the seasons.
"The luck went against him," the narrator continued. "Harvest frost, drought, and summer hail followed in succession, and when the borrowed money melted the man who held the mortgage foreclosed. He was within his rights in this, but he went further, for while there were men in that district who would, out of kindliness or as a speculation, have bought up the settler's possessions at fair prices, the usurer had his grasp also on them, and when a hint was sent them they did nothing. Therefore the auction was a fraud and robbery, and all was bought up by a confederate for much less than its value. There was enough to pay the loan off – although the interest had almost done so already – but not enough to meet the iniquitous additions; and the farmer went out ruined on to Government land with a few head of stock a richer man he had once done a service to gave him; but the woman sickened in the sod hovel he built. There was no doctor within a hundred miles, and the farmer had scarcely a dollar to buy her necessaries. Even then the usurer had not done with him. He entered proceedings to claim the few head of cattle for balance of the twice-paid debt. The farmer could not defend himself; somebody took money for willful perjury to evade a clause of the homestead exemptions, and the usurer got his order. The woman lay very ill when he came with a band of desperadoes to seize the cattle. They threatened violence; a fracas followed, and the farmer's hands were, for once, unsteady on the rifle he did not mean to use, for when a drunken cowboy would have ransacked his dwelling the trigger yielded prematurely, and the usurer was carried off with a bullet through his leg. The woman died, and was buried on a lonely rise of the prairie; and the man rode out with hatred in his heart and a price upon his head. You should know the rest of the story – but the sequel is to follow. It was not without an effort or a motive I told it you."
I stretched out my hand impulsively towards the speaker. "It is appreciated. I need not ask one name, but the other – "
"Is Foster Lane; and in due time he shall pay in full for all."
Boone's voice, which had grown a trifle husky, sank with the last words to a deeper tone, and the sinewy right hand he raised for a moment fell heavily, tight-clenched, upon his knee. He said nothing further for a while, but I felt that if ever the day of reckoning came one might be sorry for Foster Lane.
Presently he shrugged his shoulders and rose abruptly. "I have a case of pomade to sell the Swedes over yonder, and if my luck is good, some photographs to take," he said, resuming his former manner. "I presume you wouldn't care to decorate your house with tin-framed oleographs of German manufacture. I have a selection, all of the usual ugliness. Whatever happens, one must eat, you know. Well, Lane's gone into Crane Valley, and it happens I'm going that way, too. This, I hope, is the beginning of an acquaintance, Ormesby."
He sold Thorn a bottle of some infallible elixir before he climbed into his tented wagon, and left me troubled as he jolted away across the prairie. One thing, however, I was resolved upon, and that was to pay off Foster Lane at the earliest opportunity. By parting with my best stock at a heavy sacrifice it seemed just possible to accomplish it.
CHAPTER V
A SURPRISE PARTY
Except when the snow lies deep one has scanty leisure on the prairie, and when Adams departed Thorn and I hurriedly recommenced our task. We had lost time to make up, and vied with each other; for I had discovered that, even in a country where all work hard, much more is done for the master who can work himself. Pitching heavy trusses into a wagon is not child's play at that temperature, but just then the exertion brought relief, and I was almost sorry when Thorn went off with the lurching vehicle, leaving me to the mower and my thoughts. The latter were not overpleasant just then. Still, the machine needed attention, and the horses needed both restraint and encouragement, for at times they seemed disposed to lie down, and at others, maddened by the insects, inclined to kick the rusty implement into fragments, and I grew hoarse with shouting, while the perspiration dripped from me.
It was towards six o'clock, and the slanting sunrays beat pitilessly into my face, which was thick with fibrous grime, when, with Thorn lagging behind, I tramped stiffly beside the wagon towards my house. My blue shirt was rent in places; the frayed jean jacket, being minus its buttons, refused to meet across it; and nobody new to the prairie would have taken me for the owner of such a homestead as Gaspard's Trail. Thick dust, through which mounted figures flitted, rolled about the dwelling, and a confused bellowing mingled with the human shouts that rose from behind the long outbuildings.
"It's Henderson's boys bringing shipping stock along. Somebody's been squeezing him for money or he wouldn't sell at present," said Thorn, who rejoined me. "They'll camp here to-night and clean up the larder. I guess most everybody knows how Henderson feeds them."
There are disadvantages attached to the prairie custom of free hospitality, and I surmised that Henderson's stock riders might have pushed on to the next homestead if they had not known that we kept a good table at Gaspard's Trail. Nevertheless, I was thankful that no stranger need ever leave my homestead hungry, and only wondered whether my cook's comments would be unduly sulphurous. When I reached the wire-fenced corral, which was filled with circling cattle and an intolerable dust, a horseman flung his hand up in salute.
"We're bound for the Indian Spring Bottom with an H triangle draft," he said. "The grass is just frizzled on the Blackfeet run, and we figured we'd camp right here with you to-night."
"That's all right; but couldn't you have fetched Carson's by dusk without breaking anybody's neck; and yonder beasts aren't branded triangle H," I said.
The horseman laughed silently in prairie fashion. "Well, we might and we mightn't; but Carson's a close man, and I've no great use for stale flapjacks and glucose drips. No, sir, I'm not greedy, and we'll just let Carson keep them for himself. Those beasts marked dash circle are the best of the lot. Lane's put the screw on Redmond, and forced him to part. Redmond's down on his luck. He's crawling round here somewhere, cussing Lane tremendous."
"Lane seems to own all this country," I answered irritably. "Has he got a hold on your master, too? I told him and Redmond I was saving that strip of sweet prairie for myself."
"He will own all the country, if you bosses don't kick in time," was the dry answer. "I don't know how ours is fixed, but he's mighty short in temper, and you've no monopoly of unrecorded prairie. Say, it might save your boys a journey if we took your stock along with us and gave them a chance before this draft cleans all the sweet grass up. Redmond told me to mention it."
The offer was opportune, and I accepted it; then hurried towards the galvanized iron shed which served as summer quarters for the general utility man who acted as cook. He was a genius at his business, though he had learned it on board a sailing ship. He was using fiery language as he banged his pans about. "It's a nice state of things when a cattle-whacking loafer can walk right in and tell me what he wants for his supper," he commenced. "General Jackson! it's bad enough when a blame cowboy outfit comes down on one like the locusts and cleans everything up, but it's worse just when I'm trying to fix a special high-grade meal."
"I'm not particular. What is good enough for a cowboy is good enough for a rancher any time," I