The man dropped his hand to his revolver as he spoke the last word with a twisting of the lip, a showing of his s...o...b..tic teeth, a sneer that was at once an insult and a goad. The next moment he was straining his arms above his head as if trying to pull them out of their sockets, and his companion was displaying himself in like manner, Lambert"s gun down on them, Taterleg coming in deliberately a second or two behind.
"Keep them right there," was the Duke"s caution, jerking his head to Taterleg in the manner of a signal understood.
Taterleg rode up to the fence-cutters and disarmed them, holding his gun comfortably in their ribs as he worked with swift hand. The rifle he handed down to the old negro, who was now on his feet, and who took it with a bow and a grave face across which a gleam of satisfaction flashed. The holsters with the revolvers in them he pa.s.sed to the Duke, who hung them on his saddle-horn.
"Pile off," Taterleg ordered.
They obeyed, wrathful but impotent. Taterleg sat by, chewing gum, calm and steady as if the thing had been rehea.r.s.ed a hundred times. The Duke pointed to the old negro"s hat.
"Pick it up," he ordered the younger man; "dust it off and give it to him."
The fellow did as directed, with evil face, for it hurt his high pride, just as the Duke intended that it should hurt. Lambert nodded to the man who had knocked the old fellow down with a blow of his heavy revolver.
"Dust off his clothes," he said.
Vesta Philbrook smiled as she witnessed this swift humbling of her ancient enemy. The old negro turned himself arrogantly, presenting the rear of his broad and dusty pantaloons; but the bristling, red-faced rancher balked. He looked up at Lambert, half choked on the bone of his rage.
"I"ll die before I"ll do it!" he declared with a curse.
Lambert beat down the defiant, red-balled glowering eyes with one brief, straight look. The fence-cutter broke a tip of sage and set to work, the old man lifting his arms like a strutting gobbler, his head held high, the pain of his hurt forgotten in the triumphant moment of his revenge.
"Have you got some wire and tools around here handy, Miss Philbrook?"
Lambert inquired. "These men are going to do a little fence fixin" this morning for a change."
The old negro pranced off to get the required tools, throwing a look back at the two prisoners now and then, covering his mouth with his hand to keep back the explosion of his mirth. Badly as he was hurt, his enjoyment of this unprecedented situation seemed to cure him completely.
His mistress went after him, doubtful of his strength, with nothing but a quick look into Lambert"s eyes as she pa.s.sed to tell him how deeply she felt.
It was a remarkable procession for the Bad Lands that set out from the cross-line fence a few minutes later, the two free rangers starting under escort to repair the damage done to a despised fence-man"s barrier. One of them carried a wire-stretcher, the chain of it wound round his saddle-horn, the other a coil of barbed wire and such tools as were required. After they had proceeded a little way, Taterleg thought of something.
"Don"t you reckon we might need a couple of posts, Duke?" he asked.
The Duke thought perhaps they might come in handy. They turned back, accordingly, and each of the trespa.s.sers was compelled to shoulder an oak post, with much blasphemy and threatening of future adjustment. In that manner of marching, each free ranger carrying his cross as none of his kind ever had carried it before, they rode to the scene of their late depredations.
Vesta Philbrook stood at the gate and watched them go, reproaching herself for her silence in the presence of this man who had come to her a.s.sistance with such sure and determined hand. She never had found it difficult before to thank anybody who had done her a generous turn; but here her tongue had lain as still as a hare in its covert, and her heart had gone trembling in the grat.i.tude which it could not voice.
A strong man he was, and full of commanding courage, but neither so strong nor so mighty that she had need to keep as quiet in his presence as a kitchen maid before a king. But he would have to pa.s.s that way coming back, and she could make amends. The old negro stood by, chuckling his pleasure at the sight drawing away into the distance of the pasture where his mistress" cattle fed.
"Ananias, do you know who that man is," she asked.
"Laws, Miss Vesta, co"se I do. Didn"t you hear his hoss-wrangler call him Duke?"
"I heard him call him Duke."
"He"s that man they call Duke of Chimley b.u.t.te--I know that hoss he"s a-ridin"; that hoss used to be Jim Wilder"s ole outlaw. That Duke man killed Jim and took that hoss away from him; that"s what he done. That was while you was gone; you didn"t hear "bout it."
"Killed him and took his horse? Surely, he must have had some good reason, Ananias."
"I don" know, and I ain"t a-carin". That"s him, and that"s what he done."
"Did you ever hear of him killing anybody else?"
"Oh, plenty, plenty," said the old man with easy generosity. "I bet he"s killed a hun"ed men--maybe mo"n a hun"ed."
"But you don"t know," she said, smiling at the old man"s extravagant recommendation of his hero.
"I don" know, but I bet he is," said he. "Look at "em!" he chuckled; "look at old Nick Ha"gus and his onery, low-down Injun-blood boy!"
CHAPTER X
GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY
Vesta rode out to meet them as they were coming back, to make sure of her thanks. She was radiant with grat.i.tude, and at no loss any longer for words to express it. Before they had ridden together on the return journey half a mile, Taterleg felt that he had known her all her life, and was ready to cast his fortunes with her, win or lose.
Lambert was leaving the conversation between her and Taterleg, for the greater part. He rode in gloomy isolation, like a man with something on his mind, speaking only when spoken to, and then as shortly as politeness would permit. Taterleg, who had words enough for a book, appeared to feel the responsibility of holding them up to the level of gentlemen and citizens of the world. Not if talk could prevent it would Taterleg allow them to be cla.s.sed as a pair of boors who could not go beyond the ordinary cow-puncher"s range in word and thought.
"It"ll be some time, ma"am, before that feller Hargus and his boy"ll try to make a short cut to Glendora through your ranch ag"in," said he.
"It was the first time they were ever caught, after old man Hargus had been cutting our fence for years, Mr. Wilson. I can"t tell you how much I owe you for humiliating them where they thought the humiliation would be on my side."
"Don"t you mention it, ma"am; it"s the greatest pleasure in the world."
"He thought he"d come by the house and look in the window and defy me because I was alone."
"He"s got a mean eye; he"s got a eye like a wolf."
"He"s got a wolf"s habits, too, in more ways than one, Mr. Wilson."
"Yes, that man"d steal calves, all right."
"We"ve never been able to prove it on him, Mr. Wilson, but you"ve put your finger on Mr. Hargus" weakness like a phrenologist."
Taterleg felt his oats at this compliment. He sat up like a major, his chest out, his mustache as big on his thin face as a Mameluke"s. It always made Lambert think of the handlebars on that long-horn safety bicycle that he came riding into the Bad Lands.
"The worst part of it is, Mr. Wilson, that he"s not the only one."
"Neighbors livin" off of you, are they? Yes, that"s the way it was down in Texas when the big ranches begun to fence, they tell me--I never was there, ma"am, and I don"t know of my own knowledge and belief, as the lawyers say. Fence-ridin" down there in them days was a job where a man took his life in both hands and held it up to be shot at."
"There"s been an endless fight on this ranch, too. It"s been a strain and a struggle from the first day, not worth it, not worth half of it.
But father put the best years of his life into it, and established it where men boasted it couldn"t be done. I"m not going to let them whip me now."
Lambert looked at her with a quick gleam of admiration in his eyes. She was riding between him and Taterleg, as easy in their company, and as natural as if she had known them for years. There had been no heights of false pride or consequence for her to descend to the comradeship of these men, for she was as unaffected and ingenuous as they. Lambert seemed to wake to a sudden realization of this. His interest in her began to grow, his reserve to fall away.
"They told us at Glendora that rustlers were running your cattle off,"
said he. "Are they taking the stragglers that get through where the fence is cut, or coming after them?"