The Law-Breakers
“My job’s not just that, either,” he said, his smile broadening. “You see, I just round up ‘strays,’ and send ’em to their right homes. I’m out after ‘strays’ now.”
Bill nodded with ready understanding.
“I get it,” he cried. “They just break out in spring, and go chasing after fancy grass. Then they get lost, or mussed up with ether cattle, and – and need sorting out. Must be a mighty lonesome job – always hunting ‘strays.’”
Inspector Fyles’s eyes twinkled, but his sunburned face remained serious.
“Yes, I’d say it’s lonesome – at times. You see, it isn’t easy locating their tracks. And when you do locate ’em maybe you’ve got a long piece to travel before you come up with ’em. They get mighty wild running loose that way, and, hate being rounded up. Some of ’em show fight, and things get busy. No, it’s not dead easy – and it doesn’t do making mistakes. Guess a mistake is liable to snuff your light out when you’re up against ‘strays.’”
A sudden enthusiasm lit Bill Bryant’s interested eyes.
“That sounds better than ranching,” he said quickly. “You see, I’ve lived a soft sort of life, and it kind of seems good to get upsides with things. I’ve got a notion that it’s better to hand a feller a nasty bunch of knuckles, square on the most prominent part of his face, than taking dollars out of him to pay legal chin waggers. That’s how I’ve always felt, but living in luxury in a city makes you act otherwise. I’ve quit it though, now, and, in consequence, I’m just busting to hand some fellow that bunch of knuckles.” He raised one great clenched fist and examined it with a sort of mild enthusiasm. “I’m going to ranch,” he went on simply, while the police officer surveyed him as he might some big, boisterous child. “My brother’s got a ranch at Rocky Springs. He’s done pretty well, I guess – for an artist fellow. He’s making money – oh, yes, he’s making good money, and seems to like the life.
“The fact is,” he went on eagerly, “Charlie was a bit of a bad boy – he’s a dandy good fellow, really he is; but I guess he got gay when he was an art student, and the old man got rattled over it and sent him along out here to raise cattle and wheat. Well, when dad died he left me most of his dollars. There were plenty, and it’s made me feel sick he forgot Charlie’s existence. So I took a big think over things. You see it makes a fellow think, when he finds himself with a lot of dollars that ought to be shared with another fellow.
“Well, I don’t often think hard,” he went on ingenuously. “But I did that time, and it’s queer how easy it is to think right when you really try – hard. Guess you don’t need to think much in your work – but maybe sometimes you’ll have to, and then you’ll find how easy it comes.”
He turned abruptly in the saddle and looked straight into the officer’s interested face. His eyes were alight, and he emitted a deep-throated guffaw.
“Say,” he went on, “it came to me all of a sudden. It was in the middle of the night. I woke up thinking it. I was saying it to myself. Why not go out West? Join Charlie. Put all your money into his ranch. Turn it into a swell affair, and run it together. That way it’ll seem as if you were doing it for yourself. That way Charlie’ll never know you’re handing him a fortune. Can you beat it?” he finished up triumphantly.
Stanley Fyles had not often met men in the course of his sordid work with whom he really wanted to shake hands. But somehow this great, soft-hearted, simple giant made him feel as he had never felt before. He abruptly thrust out a hand, forgetful of the previous handshakes he had endured, and, in a moment, it was seized in a second vice-like grip.
“It’s fine,” he said. Then as an afterthought: “No, you can’t beat it.”
The unconscious Bill beamed his satisfaction.
“That’s how I thought,” he said enthusiastically. “And I’ll be mighty useful to him, myself, too – in a way. Don’t guess I know much about wheat or cattle, but I can ride anything with hair on it, and I’ve never seen the feller I couldn’t pound to a mush with the gloves on. That’s useful, seeing Charlie’s sort of small, and – and mild.” Suddenly he pointed out ahead. “What’s that standing right up there? See, over there. A tree – or – something.”
Fyles abruptly awoke to their whereabouts. Bill Bryant was pointing at the great pine marking Rocky Springs.
“That’s the landmark of Rocky Springs,” he told him. This stranger had so interested and amused him that he had quite lost reckoning of the distance they had ridden together.
“I don’t see any town,” complained his companion.
“It’s in the valley. You see, that tree is on the shoulder of the valley of Leaping Creek.”
Bill’s eyes widened.
“Oh, that’s a valley, eh? And Charlie’s ranch is down below. I see.”
The man’s eyes became thoughtful, and he relapsed into silence as they drew on toward the aged signpost. He was thinking – perhaps hard – of that brother whom he had not seen for years. Maybe, now that the time had come for the meeting, some feeling of nervousness was growing. Perhaps he was wondering if he would be as welcome as he hoped. Had Charlie changed much? Would his coming be deemed an impertinence? Charlie had not answered his letter. He forgot his brother had not had time to answer his impulsive epistle.
As they drew near the valley his eyes lost their enthusiastic light. His great, honest face was grave, almost to the point of anxiety.
Fyles, watching him furtively, observed every change of expression, and the meaning of each was plain enough to him. He, too, was wondering about that meeting. It would have interested him to have witnessed it. He was thinking about that brother in Rocky Springs. He knew him slightly, and knew his reputation better, and, in consequence, the two words “drunkard” and “crook” drifted through his mind, and left him regretfully wondering. Somehow he felt sorry, inexpressibly sorry, for this great big babe of a man whom he found himself unusually glad to have met.
CHAPTER X
THE BROTHERS
The valley of Leaping Creek gaped at Bill Bryant’s feet and the man’s ready delight bubbled over.
“Say,” he demanded of his guide, “and this is where my brother’s ranch is? Gee,” he went on, while Fyles nodded a smiling affirmative, “it surely is the dandiest ditch this side of creation. It makes me want to holler.”
As Fyles offered no further comment they rode on down the hill in silence, while Bill Bryant’s shining eyes drank in the beauties which opened out in every direction.
The police officer, by virtue of his knowledge of the valley, led the way. Nor was he altogether sorry to do so. He felt that the moment for answering questions had passed. Any form of cross-examination now might lead him into imparting information that might hurt this stranger, and he had no desire to be the one to cast a shadow upon his introduction to the country he intended to make his home.
However, beyond this first expression of delight, Bill Bryant made no further attempt at speech. Once more doubt had settled upon his mind, and he was thinking – hard.
Ten minutes later the village came into view. Then it was that Bill was abruptly aroused from his somewhat troubled thought. They were just approaching the site of the new church, and sounds of activity broke the sylvan peace of the valley. But these things were of a lesser interest. A pedestrian, evidently leaving the neighborhood of the new building, was coming toward them along the trail. It was a girl – a girl clad in a smart tailored costume, which caught and held the stranger’s most ardent attention.
She came on, and as they drew abreast of her, just for one brief instant the girl’s smiling gray eyes were raised to the face of the stranger. The smile was probably unconscious, but it was nevertheless pronounced. In a moment, off came Bill’s hat in a respectful salute, and only by the greatest effort could he refrain from a verbal greeting. Then, in another moment, as she passed like a ray of April sun, he had drawn up beside his guide.
“Say,” he cried, with a deep breath of enthusiasm, “did you get that pretty girl?” Then with a burst of impetuosity: “Are they all like that in – this place? If so, I’m surely up to my neck in the valley of Leaping Creek. Who is she? How did she get here? I’ll bet a thousand dollars to a bad nickel this place didn’t raise her.”
The officer’s reply to the volley of questions came with characteristic directness.
“That’s Miss Seton, Miss Helen Seton, sister of the one they call – Kate. They’re sort of farmers, in a small way. Been here five years.”
“Farmers?” Bill’s scorn was tremendous. “Why, that girl might have stepped off Broadway, New York, yesterday. Farmers!”
“Nevertheless they are farmers,” replied Fyles, “and they’ve been farming here five years.”
“Five years! They’ve been here five years, and that girl – with her pretty face and dandy eyes – not married? Say, the boys of this place need seeing to. They ought to be lynched plumb out of hand.”
Fyles smiled as he drew his horse up at the point where the trail merged into the main road of the village.
“Maybe it’s not – their fault,” he said dryly.
But Bill’s indignation was sweeping him on.
“Then I’d like to know whose it is.”
Fyles laughed aloud.
“Maybe she’s particular. Maybe she knows them. They surely do need lynching – most of ’em – but not for that. When you know ’em better you’ll understand.”
He shrugged his shoulders and pointed down the trail, away from the village.
“That’s your way,” he went on, “along west. Just keep right along the trail for nearly half a mile till you come to a cattle track on the right, going up the hill again.”
Then he shifted the direction of his pointing finger to a distant house on the hillside, which stood in full view.
“The track’ll take you to that shanty there, with the veranda facing this way. That’s Charlie Bryant’s place, and, unless I’m mistaken, that’s your brother standing right there on the veranda looking out this way. For a rancher – he don’t seem busy. Guess I’m going right on down to the saloon. I’ll see you again some time. So long.”
The police officer swung his horse round, and set off at a sharp canter before Bill could give expression to any of the dozen questions which leaped to his lips. The truth was Fyles had anticipated them, and wished to avoid them.
Charlie Bryant was standing on the veranda of his little house up on the hillside. He was watching with eyes of anxious longing for the sight of a familiar figure emerging from a house, almost as diminutive as his own, standing across the river on the far side of the valley.
There was never any question as to the longing in his dark eyes when they were turned upon the house of Kate Seton, but the anxiety in them now was less understandable.
It was his almost constant habit to watch for her appearance leaving her home each morning. But to-day she had remained invisible. He wondered why. It was her custom to be abroad early, and here it was long past mid-day, and, so far, there had been no sign of her going.
He wondered was she ill. Helen had long since made her appearance. He knew well enough that the new church building, and the many other small activities of the village, usually claimed Helen’s morning. That was the difference, one of the many differences between the sisters. Helen must always be a looker on at life – the village life. Kate – Kate was part of it.
He sighed, and a look of almost desperate worry crossed his dark, good-looking face. His thoughts seemed to disturb him painfully. Ever since he had heard of Inspector Fyles’s coming to the village a sort of depression had settled like a cloud upon him – a depression he could not shake off. Fyles was the last man he wished to see in Rocky Springs – for several reasons.
He was reluctantly about to turn away, and pass on down to his corrals, which were situated on the slope beside the house. There was work to be done there, some repairs, which he had intended to start early that morning. They had been neglected so long, as were many things to do with his ranch.
With this intention he moved toward the end of the veranda, but his progress was abruptly arrested by the sight of two horsemen in the distance making their way down toward the village. For awhile he only caught odd glimpses of them through the trees, but at last they reached the main road of the village, and halted in full, though somewhat distant, view of his house.
In a moment the identity of one of the men became certain in his mind. In spite of the man’s civilian clothing he recognized the easy poise in the saddle of Inspector Fyles. He had seen him so many times at comparatively close range that he was sure he could not be mistaken.
The sight of the police officer banished all his interest in the identity of the second horseman. A dark look of bitter, anxious resentment crept into his eyes, and all the mildness, all the gentleness vanished out of his expressive features. They had suddenly grown hard and cold. He knew that trouble was knocking at the door of Rocky Springs. He knew that his own peace of mind could never be restored so long as the shadow of Stanley Fyles hovered over the village.
Presently he saw the two horsemen part. Fyles rode on down toward the village while the other turned westwards, but the now hot eyes of the watching man followed only the figure of the unwelcome policeman until it was lost to view beyond the intervening bush.
As the officer disappeared the rancher made a gesture of fierce anger.
“Kate, Kate,” he cried, raising his clenched fists as though about to strike the unconscious horseman, “if I lose you through him, I’ll – I’ll kill him.”
Now he hurried away down to the corrals with the air of a man who is endeavoring to escape from himself. He suddenly realized the necessity of a vent for his feelings.
But his work had yet to suffer a further delay. He had scarcely reached the scene of operations when the sound of galloping hoofs caught and held his attention. He had quite forgotten the second horseman in his bitter interest in the policeman. Now he remembered that he had turned westward, which was in the direction of his ranch. The sounds were rapidly approaching up the track toward him. His eyes grew cold and almost vicious as he thought. Was this another of the police force? The force to which Fyles belonged?
He stood waiting at the head of the trail. And the look in his eyes augured ill for the welcome of the newcomer.
The sounds grew louder. Then he heard a voice, a somewhat familiar voice. It was big, and cheerful, and full of a cordial good humor.
“By Judas! he was a thief, and an outrageous robber, but you can go, my four-footed monument to a blasted rogue’s perfidy. Five hundred good dollars – now, at it for a final spurt.”
Charlie Bryant understood. The man was talking to his horse. Had he needed evidence it came forthwith, for, with a rush, at a headlong gallop, a horseman dashed from amid the bushes and drew up with a jolt almost on top of him.
“Charlie!”
“Bill! Good old – Bill!”
The greetings came simultaneously. The next instant Big Brother Bill flung out of the saddle, and stood wringing his brother’s hand with great force.
“Gee! It’s good to see you, Charlie,” he cried joyously.
“Good? Why, it’s great, and – and I took you for one of the damned p’lice.”
Charlie’s face was wreathed in such a smile of welcome and relief, that all Big Brother Bill’s doubts in that direction were flung pell-mell to the winds.
Charlie caught something of the other’s beaming enthusiasm.
“Why, I’ve been expecting you for days, old boy. Thought maybe you’d changed your mind. Say, where’s your baggage? Coming on behind? You haven’t lost it?” he added anxiously, as Bill’s face suddenly fell.
“I forgot. Say, was there ever such a tom-fool trick?” Bill cried, with a great laugh at his own folly. “Why, I left it checked at Moosemin – without instructions.”
Charlie’s smiling eyes suddenly widened.
“Moosemin? What in the name of all that’s – ?”
“I’ll have to tell you about it later,” Bill broke in hastily. “I’ve had one awful journey. If it hadn’t been for a feller I met on the road I don’t know when I’d have landed here.”
Charlie nodded, and the smile died out of his eyes.
“I saw him. You certainly were traveling in good company.”
Bill nodded, towering like some good-natured St. Bernard over a mild-eyed water spaniel.
“Good company’s a specialty with me. But I didn’t come alongside any of it, since I set out to make here ’cross country from Moosemin on the advice of the only bigger fool than myself I’ve ever met, until I ran into him. Say, Charlie, I s’pose its necessary to have a deal of grass around to run a ranch on?”
Charlie’s eyes lit with the warmest amusement. This great brother of his was the brightest landmark in his memory of the world he had said good-bye to years ago.
“You can’t graze cattle on bare ground,” he replied watchfully. “Why?”
Bill’s shoulders went up to the accompaniment of a chuckle.
“Nothing – only I hate grass. I seem to have gone over as much grass in the last week as a boarding-house spring lamb. But for that feller, I surely guess I’d still be chasing over it, like those ‘strays’ he spends his life rounding-up.”
A quick look of inquiry flashed in the rancher’s eyes.
“Strays?” he inquired.
Bill nodded gravely. “Yes, he’s something in the ranching line. Rounds up ‘strays,’ and herds ’em to their right homes. His name’s Fyles – Stanley Fyles.”
Just for an instant Charlie’s face struggled with the more bitter feelings Fyles’s name inspired. Then he gave way to the appeal of a sort of desperate humor, and broke into an uncontrolled fit of laughter.
Bill looked on wondering, his great blue eyes widely open. Then he caught the infection, and began to laugh, too, but without knowing why.
After some moments, however, Charlie sobered and choked back a final gurgle.
“Oh, dear!” he exclaimed. “You’ve done me a heap of good, Bill. That’s the best laugh I’ve had in weeks. That fellow a rancher? Fyles – Stanley Fyles a – rancher? Well, p’raps you’re right. That’s his job all right – rounding up ‘strays,’ and herding ’em to their right homes. But the ‘strays’ are ‘crooks,’ and their homes the penitentiary. That’s Inspector Stanley Fyles, of the Mounted Police, and just about the smartest man in the force. He’s come out here to start his ranching operations on Rocky Springs, which has the reputation of being the busiest hive of crooks in Western Canada. You’re going to see things hum, Bill – you’ve just got around in time.”
CHAPTER XI
THE UNREGENERATE
Later in the afternoon the two brothers found themselves seated on the veranda talking together, as only devoted relationship will permit after years of separation.
They had just returned from a brief inspection of the little ranch for Bill’s edification. The big man’s enthusiasm had demanded immediate satisfaction. His headlong nature impelled him to the earliest possible digestion of the life he was about to enter. So he had insisted on a tour of inspection.
The inspection was of necessity brief. There was so little to be seen in the way of an outward display of the prosperity his elder brother claimed. In consequence, as it proceeded, the newcomer’s spirits fell. His radiant dreams of a rancher’s life tumbled about his big unfortunate head, and, for the moment, left him staggered.
His first visit was to the barn, where Kid Blaney, his brother’s ranchman, was rubbing down two well saddle-marked cow-ponies, after his morning out on the fences. It was a crazy sort of a shanty, built of sod walls with a still more crazy door frame, and a thatched roof more than a foot thick. It was half a dug-out on the hillside, and suggested as much care as a hog pen. The floor was a mire of accumulations of manure and rotted bedding, and the low roof gave the place a hovelish suggestion such as Bill could never have imagined in the breezy life of a rancher, as he understood it.
There were one or two other buildings of a similar nature. One was used for a few unhealthy looking fowls; another, by the smell and noise that emanated therefrom, housed a number of pigs. Then there was a small grain storehouse. These were the buildings which comprised the ranch. They were just dotted about in the neighborhood of the house, at points most convenient for their primitive construction.
The corrals, further down the slope, offered more hope. There were three of them, all well enough built and roomy. There was one with a branding “pinch,” outside which stood a small hand forge and a number of branding irons. At the sight of these things Bill’s spirit improved.
When questioned as to pastures and grazing, Charlie led him along a cattle track, through the bush up the slope, to the prairie level above. Here there were three big pastures running into a hundred acres or more, all well fenced, and the wire in perfect order. Bill’s improving spirits received a further fillip. The grazing, Charlie told him, lay behind these limits upon the open plains, over which the newcomer had spent so much time riding.
“You see, Bill,” he said, half apologetically, “I’m only a very small rancher. The land I own is this on which the house stands, and these pastures, and another pasture or two further up the valley. For grazing, I simply rent rights from the Government. It answers well enough, and I only have to keep one regular boy in consequence. Spring and fall I hire extra hands for round-up. It pays me better that way.”
Bill nodded with increasing understanding. His original dreams had received a bad jolt, but he was beginning a readjustment of focus. Besides, his simple mind was already formulating fresh plans, and he began to talk of them with that whole-hearted enthusiasm which seemed to be the foundation of his nature.
“Sure,” he said cordially. “And – and you’ve done a big heap, Charlie. Say, how much did dad start you out with? Five thousand dollars? Yes, I remember, five thousand, and our mother gave you another two thousand five hundred. It was all she had. She’d saved it up in years. It wasn’t much to turn bare land into a money-making proposition, specially when you’d had no experience. But we’re going to alter all that. We’re going to own our grazing, if it can be bought. Yes, sir, we’re going to own a lot more, and I’ve got nearly one hundred thousand dollars to do it with. We’re going to turn these barns into barns, and we’re going to run horses as well as cattle. We’re going to grow wheat, too. That’s the coming game. All the boys say so down East – that is, the real bright boys. We’re just going to get busy, you and me, Charlie. We’re going to have a deed of partnership drawn up all square and legal, and I’m going to blow my stuff in it against what you’ve got already, and what you know. That’s what I’m here for.”
By the aid of his big voice and aggressive bulk Bill strove to conceal his obvious desire to benefit his brother under an exterior of strong business methods. And he felt the result to be all he could desire. He told himself that a man of Charlie’s unbusiness-like nature was quite easy to impress. When it came to a proper understanding of business he was much his brother’s superior.
Charlie, however, was in no way deceived, but such was his regard for this simple-minded creature that his protest was of the mildest.
“Of course we could do a great deal with your money, Bill, but – but it’s all you’ve got, and – ”
His protest was hastily thrust aside.
“See here, Charlie, boy, that’s right up to me,” Bill cried, with a buoyant laugh. “I’m out here to ranch. That’s what I’ve come for, that’s what I’ve worn my skin to the bone for on the most outrageously uncomfortable saddle I’ve ever thrown a leg over. That’s why I took the trouble to keep on chasing up this place when my brain got plumb addled at the sight of so much grass. That’s why I didn’t go back to find the feller – and shoot him – for advising me to get off at Moosemin instead of hitting back on my tracks for the right place to change trains. You see, maybe I haven’t all the horse sense in some things you have, but I’ve got my back teeth into the idea of this ranching racket, and my dollars are going to talk all they know. I tell you, when my mind’s made up, I can’t be budged an inch. It’s no use your trying. I know you, Charlie. You’re scared to death I’ll lose my money – well, I’m ready to lose it, if things go that way. Meanwhile, I’ve a commercial proposition. I’m out to make good, and I’m looking for you to help me.”