The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop

"Oh, isn't it beautiful!" exclaimed Jennie.

Curtis sat in silence till the guide said: "We must hurry. Long ways to Streeter."

Then he drew a sigh. "That scene is typical of the old time. Nothing could be more moving to me. I saw the buffaloes feed like that once. Whose are the cattle?" he asked of the boy.

"Thompson's, I think."

"But what are they doing here – that's Tetong land, isn't it?"

The guide grinned. "That don't make no difference to Thompson. All same to him whose grass he eats."

"Well, lead on," said Curtis, and the boy galloped away swiftly down the trail. As they descended to the east the sun seemed to slide down the sky and the chill dusk rose to meet them from the valley of the Elk, like an exhalation from some region of icy waters. Night was near, but Streeter's was in sight, a big log-house, surrounded by sheds and corrals of various sorts and sizes.

"How does Mr. Streeter happen to be so snugly settled on Indian land?" asked Jennie.

"He made his location before the reservation was set aside. I believe there are about twenty ranches of the same sort within the lines," replied Curtis, "and I think we'll find in these settlers the chief cause of friction. The cattle business is not one that leads to scrupulous regard for the rights of others."

As they clattered up to the door of the ranch-house a tall young fellow in cowboy dress came out to meet them. He was plainly amazed to find a pretty girl at his door, and for a moment fairly gaped with lax jaws.

"Good-evening," said Curtis. "Are you the boss here?"

He recovered himself quickly. "Howdy – howdy! Yes, I'm Cal Streeter. Won't you 'light off?"

"Thank you. We'd like to take shelter for the night if you can spare us room."

"Why, cert. Mother and the old man are away just now, but there's plenty to eat." He took a swift stride towards Jennie. "Let me help you down, miss."

"Thank you, I'm already down," said Jennie, anticipating his service.

The young man called shrilly, and a Mexican appeared at the door of the stable. "Hosy, come and take these horses." Turning to Jennie with a grin, he said: "I can't answer for the quality of the grub, fer Hosy is cooking just now. Mother's been gone a week, and the bread is wiped out. If you don't mind slapjacks I'll see what we can do for you."

Jennie didn't know whether she liked this young fellow or not. After his first stare of astonishment he was by no means lacking in assurance. However, she was plains-woman enough to feel the necessity of making the best of any hospitality when night was falling, and quickly replied: "Don't take any trouble for us. If you'll show me your kitchen and pantry I'll be glad to do the cooking."

"Will you? Well, now, that's a sure-enough trade," and he led the way into the house, which was a two-story building, with one-story wings on either side. The room into which they entered was large and bare as a guard-room. The floor was uneven, the log walls merely whitewashed, and the beams overhead were rough pine boles. Some plain wooden chairs, a table painted a pale blue, and covered with dusty newspapers, comprised the visible furniture, unless a gun-rack which filled one entire wall could be listed among the furnishings. Curtis brought a keen gaze to bear on this arsenal, and estimated that it contained nearly a score of rifles – a sinister array.

Young Streeter opened a side door. "This is where you are to sleep. Just make yourself to home, and I'll rub two sticks together and start a fire."

After Jennie left the room, the young fellow turned abruptly. "Stranger, what might I call you?"

"My name is Curtis. I'm going over to visit the agency."

"She your wife?" He pointed his thumb in Jennie's direction.

"No, my sister."

"Oh! Well, then, you can bunk with me in this room." He indicated a door on the opposite side of the hall. "When she gets ready, bring her out to the kitchen. It's hard lines to make her cook her own grub, but I tell you right now I think she'd better."

As Jennie met her brother a few moments later, she exclaimed, "Isn't he handsome?"

"M – yes. He's good-looking enough, but he's just a little self-important, it seems to me."

"Are you going to let him know who you are?"

"Certainly not. I want to draw him out. I begin to suspect that this house is a rendezvous for all the interests we have to fight. These guns are all loaded and in prime order."

"What a big house you have here," said Jennie, ingratiatingly, as she entered the kitchen. "And what a nice kitchen."

"Oh, purty fair," replied the youth, busy at the stove. "Our ranch ain't what we'd make it if these Injuns were out o' the way. Now, here's the grub – if you can dig up anything you're welcome."

He showed her the pantry, where she found plenty of bacon and flour, and some eggs and milk.

"I thought cattlemen never had milk?"

"Well, they don't generally, but mother makes us milk a cow. Now, I'll do this cooking if you want me to, but I reckon you won't enjoy seein' me do it. I can't make biscuits, and we're all out o' bread, as I say, and Hosy's sinkers would choke a dog."

"Oh, I'll cook if you'll get some water and keep a good fire going."

"Sure thing," he said, heartily, taking up the water-pail to go to the spring. When he came back Jennie was dabbling the milk and flour. He stood watching her in silence for some minutes as she worked, and the sullen lines on his face softened and his lips grew boyish.

"You sure know your business," he said, in a tone of conviction. "When I try to mix dough I get all strung up with it."

She replied with a smile. "Is the oven hot? These biscuit must come out just right."

He stirred up the fire. "A man ain't fitten to cook; he's too blame long in the elbows. We have an old squaw when mother is home, but she don't like me, and so she takes a vacation whenever the old lady does. That throws us down on Hosy, and he just about poisons us. A Mexican can't cook no more'n an Injun. We get spring-poor by the time the old lady comes back." Jennie was rolling at the dough and did not reply to him. He held the door open for her when she was ready to put the biscuit in the oven, and lit another bracket-lamp in order to see her better.

"Do you know, you're the first girl I ever saw in this kitchen."

"Am I?"

"That's right." After a pause he added: "I'm mighty glad I didn't get home to eat Hosy's supper. I want a chance at some of them biscuit."

"Slice this bacon, please – not too thick," she added, briskly.

He took the knife. "Where do you hail from, anyway?" he asked, irrelevantly.

"From the coast," she replied.

"That so? Born there?"

"Oh no. I was born in Maryland, near Washington."

"There's a place I'd like to live if I had money enough. A feller can have a continuous picnic in Washington if he's got the dust to spare, so I hear."

"Now you set the table while I make the omelette."

"The how-many?"

"The omelette, which must go directly to the table after it is made."

He began to pile dishes on the table, which ran across one end of the room, but found time to watch her as she broke the eggs.

"If a feller lives long enough and keeps his mouth shut and his eyes open he'll learn a powerful heap, won't he? I've seen that word in the newspaper a whole lot, but I'll be shot if I ever knew that it was jest aigs."

Jennie was amused, but too hungry to spend much time listening. "You may call them in," she said, after a glance at the biscuit.

The young man opened the door and said, lazily, "Cap, come to grub."

Curtis was again examining the guns in the rack, "You're well heeled."

"Haff to be, in this country," said the young fellow, carelessly. "Set down anywhere – that is, I mean anywhere the cook says."

Jennie didn't like his growing familiarity, but she dissembled. "Sit here, George," she said, indicating a chair at the end. "I will sit where I can reach the coffee."

"Let me do that," said Calvin. "Louie, I guess you're not in this game," he said to the boy looking wistfully in at the door.

"Oh, let him come – he's as hungry as we are. Let him sit down," protested Jennie.

Young Streeter acquiesced. "It's all the same to me, if you don't object to a 'breed," he said, brutally. Louie took his seat in silence, but it was plain he did not enjoy the insolence of the cowboy.

Curtis was after information. "You speak of needing guns – there isn't any danger, I hope?"

"Well, not right now, but we expect to get Congress to pass a bill removing these brutes, and then there may be trouble. Even now we find it safer to go armed. Every little while some Injun kills a beef for us, and we want to be prepared to skin 'em if we jump 'em up in time. I wouldn't trust one of 'em as far as you could throw a yearling bull by the tail."

"Are they as bad as that?" asked Jennie, with widely open eyes.

"They're treacherous hounds. Old Elk goes around smiling, but he'd let a knife into me too quick if he saw his chance. Hark!" he called, with lifted hand.

They all listened. The swift drumming of hoofs could be heard, mingled with the chuckle of a carriage. Calvin rose. "That's the old man, I reckon," and going to the door he raised a peculiar whoop. A voice replied faintly, and soon the buggy rolled up to the door and the new-comer entered the front room. A quick, sharp voice cried out:

"Whose hat is that? Who's here?"

"A feller on his way to visit the agent. He's in there eatin' supper."

A rapid, resolute step approached the door, and Curtis looked up to meet the keen eyes of a big, ruddy-faced man of fifty, with hair and beard as white as wool. His eyes were steel-blue and penetrating as fire.

"Good-evening, sir. Good-evening, madam. Don't rise. Keep your seats. I'll just drop my coat and sit down with you."

He was so distinctly a man of remarkable quality that Curtis stared at him in deep surprise. He had expected to see a loose-jointed, slouchy man of middle-age, but Joseph Streeter was plainly a man of decision and power. His white hair did not betoken weakness or age, for he moved like one in the full vigor of his late manhood. To his visitors he appeared to be a suspicious, irascible, and generous man.

"Hello!" he called, jovially, "biscuit! Cal, you didn't do these, nor Hosy, neither."

Cal grinned. "Well, not by a whole row o' dogs. This – lady did 'em."

Streeter turned his vivid blue eyes on Jennie. "I want to know! Well, I'm much obliged. When did you come?" he asked of Curtis.

"About an hour ago."

"Goin' far?"

"Over to the agency."

"Friend of the agent?"

"No, but I have a letter of introduction to him."

Streeter seemed to be satisfied. "You'll find him a very accommodating gentleman."

"So I hear," said Curtis, and some subtle inflection in his tone caused Streeter to turn towards him again.

"What did I understand your name was?"

"Curtis."

"Where from?"

"San Francisco."

"Oh yes. I think I heard Sennett speak of you. Those biscuit are mighty good. I'll take another. Couldn't persuade you to stay here, could I?" He turned to Jennie.

Jennie laughed. "I'm afraid not – it's too lonesome."

Cal seized the chance to say: "It ain't so lonesome as it looks now. We're a lively lot here sometimes."

Streeter gave him a glance which stopped him. "Cal, you take Hosy and go over to the camp and tell the boys to hustle in two hundred steers. I want to get 'em passed on to-morrow afternoon, or next day sure."

Calvin's face fell. "I don't think I need to go. Hosy can carry the orders just as well as me," he said, boyishly sullen.

"I want you to go!" was the stern answer, and it was plain that Streeter was commander even of his reckless son.

As he rose from the table, Calvin said, in a low voice, to Jennie, "I'll be here to breakfast all right, and I'll see that you get over to the agency."

Streeter the elder upon reflection considered that his guests had not sufficiently accounted for themselves, and, after Calvin left, again turned a penetrating glance on Curtis, saying, in a peculiar way, "Where did you say you were from?"

"San Francisco," replied Curtis, promptly, and cut in ahead with a question of his own. "You seem to be well supplied with munitions of war. Do you need all those guns now?"

"Need every shell. We're going to oust these devils pretty soon, and they know it, and they're ugly."

"What do you mean by ousting 'em?"

"We're pushing a bill to have 'em removed."

"Where to?"

"Oh, to the Red River reservation, or the Powder Valley; we're not particular, so that we get rid of 'em."

Jennie tingled with indignation as Streeter outlined the plans of the settlers and told of his friction with the redmen, but Curtis remained calm and smiling.

"You'll miss their market for your beef, won't you?"

"Oh, that's a small item in comparison with the extra range we'll get," and thereupon he entered upon a long statement of what the government ought to do.

Jennie rose wearily, and the old man was all attention.

"I suppose you are tired and would like to go to bed?"

"We are rather limp," confessed Curtis, glad to escape the searching cross-examination which he knew would follow Jennie's retirement.

When they were alone the two young people looked at each other in silence, Jennie with big, horrified eyes, Curtis with an amused comprehension of his sister's feeling. "Isn't he a pirate? He doesn't know it, but his state of mind makes him indictable for murder on the high seas."

"George, I don't like this. We are going to have trouble if this old man and his like are not put off this reservation."

"Well, now, we won't put him off to-night, especially as he is a gallant host. But this visit here has put me in touch with the cattlemen. I feel that I know their plans and their temper very clearly."

"George, I will not sleep here in this room alone. You must make up a cot-bed or something. These people make me nervous, with their guns and Mexican servants."

"Don't you worry, sis. I'll roll up in a blanket and sleep across your door-sill," and this he did, acknowledging the reasonableness of her fears.