Such a defeat as this could not pass unnoticed among the punchers, who had never been accorded the pleasure of their gloomy foreman's presence at meal times, and Stelton suffered keenly from the gibes of the men.
Stelton endured all this with seeming calmness, but when Bissell returned the foreman got his revenge. He outlined with full detail and considerable embellishment the constant progress that Larkin was making with Juliet. Disclaiming any interest of his own in the matter, he explained that the reason for his complaint was the character of Larkin.
"Why, boss, yuh shore wouldn't want a darned sheepman breakin' Julie's heart," he said, "an' him a Eastern dude at that. You should 'a' seen that feller. Yuh no more'n got yore back turned than he carried on with Juliet all the time. It made me plenty mad, too; but what could I do about it? I just moved my grub-pile down with the boys an' thought I'd tell yuh when yuh came home."
A half an hour of this was sufficient to work Bissell up into a furious rage, and, in something the same temper, he sent for Juliet an hour before dinner.
Now, a man who is subjected to choleric outbursts should never send for anything but food an hour before dinner, for the reason that a very trivial thing looks, at that time, big enough to wreck the nation. Bissell, however, failed to recollect this simple truth, and greeted his daughter with smoldering eyes, that gradually softened, however, the longer he looked at her.
"There is somethin' I want to ask yuh, Prairie Bell," he began. "Yuh won't mind?"
"No, dear," she answered. "What is it?"
"This sheepman Larkin--is it true yuh been courtin' with him while I been away?"
"I've been riding with him a good deal, and I've seen him every day, if that is what you mean. You trust me to be sensible, don't you, father?"
"Yes, Julie, o' course I do; but I'm just thinkin' of yerself--and of me. Dunno what people'd say if they knowed ol' Bissell's daughter was traipsin' around with a sheepman that stands in with the rustlers. An' you--I allow it'd break my heart if yuh ever got fond of that rascal. He's a bad lot."
"I can't agree with you in any of those things," said the girl, with just the right mixture of determination and affection in her voice. "To anyone who is fair, it is no disgrace to be a sheepman; Mr. Larkin is not in with the rustlers, as I believe he outlined to you, nor is he a rascal in any way. Lastly, I don't care what people say about whom I ride with. Mr. Larkin is a gentleman, and that is all I require."
During this speech, which held the middle ground between daring and prudence, independence and acquiescence, civility and impertinence, Bissell's jaw dropped and his eyes opened. He had rarely, if ever, known his daughter to make such an explicit refutal of his inferences. His brow darkened.
"Yuh never stuck up fer a man like that in yore life, Julie," he accused her severely. "That Larkin is a bad one. Mebbe yuh don't know it, but he can't answer for everything in his life. O' course, you can't understand these things, but I'm just tellin' yuh. Now, I'm plumb sorry to have to do it, but I want yuh to tell me yuh won't go out with him any more."
"I don't think you should ask me that, father," said the girl quietly. "I am old enough to choose my own associates. I have known Mr. Larkin for years, where you have only known him for days. I love you too much to disgrace you or mother, daddy dear; but you must not ask me to act like a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl."
To Bissell, after dinner, this talk would have served its intended purpose--that of presenting reasonably the reverse side of the argument. Now, however, it merely stirred him up. He looked sharply at his daughter with his small, piercing eyes.
"Do you defy me?" he thundered, amazed at the girl's temerity. "All I do is try to think up ways of makin' yuh happy, an' now yuh insist on havin' this scoundrel make love to yuh, whether I want it or not. Answer me this, Julie, are you in love with him?"
"I've never met another man I cared as much for," she returned with calm frankness, looking at him with big, unafraid brown eyes.
"Great Heavens!" cried Bissell, leaping out of his chair and raising his clenched fists above his head. "That I should come to this! Julie, do yuh know what yore sayin'? Do yuh know what yore doin'?"
"Yes, I do; and do you want to know the reason for it?"
"Yes."
"Because I think the things that have been done to Mr. Larkin are contemptible and mean." There was no placidity in those brown eyes now. They flashed fire. Her face had grown pale, and she, too, had risen to her feet. "I'm a cowman's daughter, but still I can be reasonable. Our range is free range, and he has a perfect right to walk his sheep north if he wants to. And even if he hadn't, there is no excuse for the stampede that took place the other night.
"And last of all, you have no right to keep Mr. Larkin here against his will so that he does not know what is happening to the rest of his flocks. I consider the whole thing a hideous outrage. But that isn't all. You have talked to me this afternoon in a suspicious manner that you have no right to use toward me. I am not a child, and shall think and act for myself."
"What do you mean by that? That you will help this scoundrel?"
"Yes, if I think it is the right thing to do."
Bissell started back as though someone had struck him. Then he seemed to lose his strength and to shrivel up, consumed by the flame of his bitterness and disappointment. At the sight, the girl's whole heart melted toward the unhappy man, and she longed to throw her arms around him and plead for forgiveness. But the same strain that had made her father what he was, in his hard environment, was dominant in her, and she stood her ground.
For a minute Bissell looked at her out of dull, hurt eyes. Then he motioned toward the door.
"Go in," he said gently; "I don't want to see yuh."
CHAPTER XIII
THE HEATHEN CHINEE
Hard-winter Sims, lying at full length on the grass, indulging in another of his frequent siestas, was rudely awakened by one of his herders.
"More sheep they come," said the man.
"Great Michaeljohn!" swore Sims, heaving his long length erect. "More?"
"Yes; it is Rubino with the third flock."
Sims cast a practiced eye over the sides of the swelling hills, where already two thousand animals, the second consignment, were feeding. It was now a week since he had met Bud Larkin after the stampede, and he was worried over the nonappearance of his chief. Here, in the hills of the southern hook of the Big Horn Mountains, he had fed the second flock up one valley and down the next, waiting for Larkin's arrival or some word from him.
Hurrying south after that midnight meeting, he had reached his destination just in time to check the advance of the second two thousand that had come the night before. Knowing the hard march north, but ignorant of the conditions now prevailing on the Bar T range, he had hesitated to expose more of Larkin's animals to ruin.
The arrival of this third flock complicated matters in the extreme, since the feeding-ground became constantly farther away from the original rendezvous.
He looked in the direction indicated by the herder and saw the cloud of dust that betokened the advance of the new flock. Soon the tinkle of the bells and the blethering of the animals themselves reached him, and he started leisurely back to meet Rubino.
He found the sheep in good physical shape, for they had been traveling at a natural pace, a condition not always easily brought about, and totally dependent on the skill of the herder. If the dogs or men follow constantly behind the animals, they, feeling that they are being constantly urged, will go faster and faster, neglecting to crop, and so starve on their feet in the midst of abundant feed. For this reason herders often walk slowly ahead of their flock, holding them back.
"Where are the next two thousand?" Sims asked Rubino.
"Two days behind, and coming slowly."
"And