Judith of Blue Lake Ranch.
by Jackson Gregory.
I
BUD LEE WANTS TO KNOW
Bud Lee, horse foreman of the Blue Lake Ranch, sat upon the gate of the home corral, builded a cigarette with slow brown fingers, and stared across the broken fields of the upper valley to the rosy glow above the pine-timbered ridge where the sun was coming up. His customary gravity was unusually p.r.o.nounced.
"If a man"s got the hunch an egg is bad," he mused, "is that a real good and sufficient reason why he should go poking his finger inside the sh.e.l.l? I want to know!"
Tommy Burkitt, the youngest wage-earner of the outfit and a profound admirer of all that taciturnity, good-humor, and quick capability which went into the make-up of Bud Lee, approached from the ranch-house on the knoll. "Hi, Bud!" he called. "Trevors wants you. On the jump."
Lee watched Tommy coming on with that wide, rocking gait of a man used to much riding and little walking. The deep gravity in the foreman"s eyes was touched with a little twinkle by way of greeting.
Burkitt stopped at the gate, looking up at Lee. "On the jump, Trevors said," he repeated.
"The h.e.l.l he did," said Lee pleasantly. "How old are you this morning, Tommy?"
Burkitt blushed. "Aw, quit it, Bud," he grinned. Involuntarily the boy"s big square hand rose to the tender growth upon lip and chin which, like the flush in the eastern sky, was but a vague promise of a greater glory to be.
"A hair for each year," continued the quiet-voiced man. "Ten on one side, nine on the other."
"Ain"t you going to do what Trevors says?" demanded Tommy.
For a moment Lee sat still, his cigarette unlighted, his broad black hat far back upon his close-cropped hair, his eyes serenely contemplative upon the pink of the sky above the pines. Then he slipped from his place and, though each single movement gave an impression of great leisureliness, it was but a flash of time until he stood beside Burkitt.
"Stick around a wee bit, laddie," he said gently, a lean brown hand resting lightly on the boy"s square shoulder. "A man can"t see what is on the cards until they"re tipped, but it"s always a fair gamble that between dawn and dusk I"ll gather up my string of colts and crowd on.
If I do, you"ll want to come along?"
He smiled at young Burkitt"s eagerness and turned away toward the ranch-house and Bayne Trevors, thus putting an early end to an enthusiastic acquiescence. Tommy watched the tall man moving swiftly away through the brightening dawn.
"They ain"t no more men ever foaled like him," meditated Tommy, in an approval so profound as to be little less than out-and-out devotion.
And, indeed, one might ride up and down the world for many a day and not find a man who was Bud Lee"s superior in "the things that count."
As tall as most, with sufficient shoulders, a slender body, narrow-hipped, he carried himself as perhaps his forebears walked in a day when open forests or sheltered caverns housed them, with a lithe gracefulness born of the perfect play of superb physical development.
His muscles, even in the slightest movement, flowed liquidly; he had slipped from his place on the corral gate less like a man than like some great, splendid cat. The skin of hands, face, throat, was very dark, whether by inheritance or because of long exposure to sun and wind, it would have been difficult to say. The eyes were dark, very keen, and yet reminiscently grave. From under their black brows they had the habit of appearing to be reluctantly withdrawn from some great distance to come to rest, steady and calm, upon the man with whom he chanced to be speaking. Such are the serene, dispa.s.sionate eyes of one who for many months of the year goes companionless, save for what communion he may find in the silent pa.s.ses of the mountains, in the wide sweep of the meadow-lands or in the soul of his horse.
The gaunt, sure-footed form was lost to Tommy"s eyes; Lee had pa.s.sed beyond the clump of wild lilacs whose glistening, heart-shaped leaves screened the open court about which the ranch-house was built. A strangely elaborate ranch-house, this one, set here so far apart from the world of rich residences. There was a score of rooms in the great, one-story, rambling edifice of rudely squared timbers set in field-stone and cement, rooms now closed and locked; there were flower-gardens still cultivated daily by Jose, the half-breed; a pretty court with a fountain and many roses, out upon which a dozen doorways looked; wide verandas with glimpses beyond of fireplaces and long expanses of polished floor. For, until recently, this had been not only the headquarters of Blue Lake Ranch, but the home as well of the chief of its several owners. Luke Sanford, whose own efforts alone had made him at forty-five a man to be reckoned with, had followed his fancy here extensively and expensively, allowing himself this one luxury of his many lean, hard years. Then, six months ago, just as his ambitions were stepping to fresh heights, just as his hands were filling with newer, greater endeavor, there had come the mishap in the mountains and Sanford"s tragic death.
Lee pa.s.sed silently through the courtyard, by the fountain which in the brightening air was like a chain of silver run through invisible hands, down the veranda bathed in the perfume of full-blown roses, and so came to the door at the far end. The door stood open; within was the office of Bayne Trevors, general manager. Lee entered, his hat still far back upon his head. The sound of his boots upon the bare floor caused Trevors to look up quickly.
"h.e.l.lo, Lee," he said quietly. "Wait a minute, will you?"
Quite a different type from Lee, Bayne Trevors was heavy and square and hard. His eyes were the glinting gray eyes of a man who is forceful, dynamic, the sort of man who is a better captain than lieutenant, whose hands are strong to grasp life by the throat and demand that she stand and deliver. Only because of his wide and successful experience, of his initiative, of his way of quick, decisive action mated to a marked executive ability, had Luke Sanford chosen Bayne Trevors as his right-hand man in so colossal a venture as the Blue Lake Ranch. Only because of the same pushing, vigorous personality was he this morning general manager, with the unlimited authority of a dictator over a petty princ.i.p.ality.
In a moment Trevors lifted his frowning eyes from the table, turning in his chair to confront Lee, who stood lounging in leisurely manner against the door-jamb.
"That young idiot wants money again," he growled, his voice as sharp and quick as his eyes. "As if I didn"t have enough to contend with already!"
"Meaning young Hampton, I take it?" said Lee quietly.
Trevors nodded savagely.
"Telegram. Caught it over the line the last thing last night. We"ll have to sell some horses this time, Lee."
Lee"s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "I didn"t plan to do any selling for six months yet," he said, not in expostulation but merely in explanation. "They"re not ready."
"How many three-year-olds have you got in your string in Big Meadow?"
asked Trevors crisply.
"Counting those eleven Red Duke colts?"
"Counting everything. How many?"
"Seventy-three."
The general manager"s pencil wrote upon the pad in front of him "73,"
then swiftly multiplied it by 50. Lee saw the result, 3,650 set down with the dollar sign in front of it. He said nothing.
"What would you say to fifty dollars a head for them?" asked Trevors, whirling again in his swivel chair. "Three thousand six fifty for the bunch?"
"I"d say the same," answered Lee deliberately, "that I"d say to a man that offered me two bits for Daylight or Ladybird. I just naturally wouldn"t say anything at all."
"Who are Daylight and Ladybird?" demanded Trevors.
"They"re two of _my_ little horses," said Lee gently, "that no man"s got the money to buy."
Trevors smiled cynically. "What are the seventy-three colts worth then?"
"Right now, when I"m just ready to break "em in," said Bud Lee thoughtfully, "the worst of that string is worth fifty dollars. I"d say twenty of the herd ought to bring fifty dollars a head; twenty more ought to bring sixty; ten are worth seventy-five; ten are worth an even hundred; seven of the Red Duke stock are good for a hundred and a quarter; the other four Red Dukes and the three Robert the Devils are worth a hundred and fifty a head. The whole bunch, an easy fifty-seven hundred little iron men. Which," he continued dryly, "is considerable more than the thirty-six hundred you"re talking about. And, give me six months, and I"ll boost that fifty-seven hundred. Lord, man, that chestnut out of Black Babe by Hazard, is a real horse! Fifty dollars----"
He stared hard at Trevors a moment. And then, partially voicing the thought with which he had grappled upon the corral gate, he added meditatively: "There"s something almighty peculiar about an outfit that will listen to a man offer fifty bucks on a string like that."
His eyes, cool and steady, met Trevors"s in a long look which was little short of a challenge.
"Just how far does that go, Lee?" asked the manager curtly.
"As far as you like," replied the horse foreman coolly. "Are you going to sell those three-year-olds for thirty-six hundred?"
"Yes," answered Trevors bluntly, "I am. What are you going to do about it?"
"Ask for my time, I guess," and although his voice was gentle and even pleasant, his eyes were hard. "I"ll take my own little string and move on.
"Curse it!" cried Trevors heatedly. "What difference does it make to you? What business is it of yours how I sell? You draw down your monthly pay, don"t you? I raised you a notch last month without your asking for it, didn"t I?"
"That"s so," agreed the foreman equably. "It"s a cinch none of the boys have any kick coming at the wages."