IV
JUDITH PUTS IT STRAIGHT
"Old man" Carson--so-called through lack of courtesy and because of thesprinkling of gray through his black hair, a man of perhapsforty-five--filled an unthinkably disreputable pipe with his ownconception of "real tobacca" and chuckled so that the second match wasrequired; before he was ready to say his say.
"You just listen to me, you boys!" he said. "I worked with the DownRiver outfit a year before Trevors sent me word he had a job open hereat better pay. That's only seventy-five miles, and news doespercolate, give it time. None of you fellers ever saw old LukeSanford?"
"I'd been working here close to two weeks when he got killed," Bud saidas Carson's twinkling eyes went from face to face. "I got my jobstraight from him, not Trevors."
"That's so," said Carson. "Well, Bud knows the sort Luke Sanford was.He was dead and buried when I come to the Blue Lake, but I'd saw himtwice and I'd heard of him more times than that. Quiet man that'tended to his own business and didn't say so all-fired much 'less hewas stirred up. And then--!" He whistled his meaning. "A fighter.All he ever got he fought for. All he ever held on to he fought for.He bucked Western Lumber for a dozen years, first and last. And, bycripes, he nailed their durned hides on his stable-door, too!
"Well, I heard tell about this same Luke Sanford ten years ago andmore--about him and his little girl. From what folks said I guessthere never was a man wanted a boy-baby worse'n Luke Sanford beforeJudith come. And I guess there never was a man put more stock in hisown flesh and blood than Luke did in her as soon as he got used to herbeing a she. I don't know just exactly how old she was ten years ago,women folks being so damn' tricky in the looks of their ages, but I'dsay she was eight or nine or ten or eleven years old. Anyhow, Luke hadtook her in hand already."
"Taught her to ride, huh?" asked one of the men.
"You're shouting, Poker Face," nodded Carson with vehemence. "He suredid! Why, that girl's rid real horses since she was the size of a pairof boots. Luke took her everywhere he went, up in the mountains, overthe Big Ridge, down valley-ways, into town when he went off on hisyearly. And they say Luke wasn't no poky rider, either. You've rodehis string, Bud? What are those for horses, huh?"
"I'm a little particular when it comes to a saddle-horse," Budadmitted. "But I never asked any better than old Sanford's string."
"You hear him!" said Carson. "Well, that Judy girl has rid horses likethem for a dozen years. And her dad--anyway, folks say so down on theriver--showed her his way to ride and his way to shoot and his way toplay cards! I guess," and he spoke with slow thoughtfulness, "thatshe's a real chip off'n the old block. It's my guess number two thatshe ain't just shooting off her face promiscuous when she says there'ssomething crooked in the deal Trevors has been handing her. And, thirdbet, there's most likely going to be seven kinds of hell popping aroundthis end of the woods for a spell."
"What are you doing about it, Carson?" asked the man whose unusuallyvacuous expression gave him his name of Poker Face. "Stick on the jobor quit?"
"Me?" Carson sought a match, and when he had found it, held it long inhis grimy fingers, staring at it thoughtfully. "Me stay an' let ashe-girl boss me? Well, it ain't the play a man might look to me tomake, an' I ain't saying it's the trick I'd do every day in the week.But here there's some things to set a man scratching his head: she's awinner, all right, an' I'm the first man to up an' say so. She's gotthe sand an' she's got the savvy. Take 'em together an' they make whatyou call gumption. Sure it ain't no woman's job to step in an' run anoutfit like this one; a woman ain't nacherally cut out for that sort ofthing any more'n a man is to darn socks an' drink tea with lemon in it.Again, tipping it over so's you can look at the other side, like a fairman ought to, what's she going to do? She lands here sudden, strikingall four feet in a mess of trouble. She grabs holt of things, seeingthey belong to her in a way, an' seeing she's fed Trevors his time. Imight go trailing my luck some other-where, if I did the first foolthing that plopped into my nut. But playing fair, I'm going to stickan' do my damnedest to see Luke Sanford's girl put up her scrap. Yes,sir."
"What did she want to fire Trevors for?" asked Benny, the cook.
Carson, looking at him contemptuously, spoke in contemptuous answerabout the stem of his pipe. "Any man on the job can answer you that,Cookie. It's been open an' shut the last month Trevors is either crazyor crooked. I said, didn't I, Western Lumber's itching to get itsdevil-fish legs wropped aroun' Blue Lake timber? They've busted morethan one rancher up in the mountains. Trevors is in with 'em. Any manon the ranch that don't know that, don't want to know it!" He removedhis pipe at last, and his look upon Benny was full of meaning. "Rollthat in your dough, Cookie, an' make biscuits out'n it."
"Go easy there, grandfather," growled Benny.
"That's something I ain't learned," was old Carson's ready answer,lightly given. "I've told you before, if you don't want your nameprinted plain don't come around asking me to spell it."
Benny growled an answer but did not take up the quarrel. He knewCarson well enough to know that there was no man living readier for afight or abler to conduct his own part of it. Carson, smaller thanBenny, was wiry, quick-footed, hard-eyed. There was something abouthim that caused a man of Benny's sort to stop and think.
"_Que hay_, Bud?" called a voice, and old Jose, his face shining withhis joy--Bud was certain that Judith had actually kissed the leatherycheek and wondered how she could do it!--came down the knoll. "_Lasenorita_ wants you!"
"Haw!" gurgled Bandy O'Neil facetiously. "It's your manly beauty, Bud!You ol' son-of-a-gun of a lady-killer!"
Bud Lee swung about upon his heel to glare at Bandy. But suddenlyconscious of a flush creeping up hotly under his tan, he turned hisback and strode away to the house. Bandy's "haw, haw!" followed him.Lee's face was flaming when he entered the office.
"What do you want with me?" he said shortly, angered at Bandy, JudithSanford and himself.
"Bow, wow!" retorted Judith, looking up from Trevors's table. "Whosedog art thou? Do you want me to think you are as fierce as you look?"
"You sent for me?" he said coolly.
She looked up at him critically. "What's come over you, Lee? I tookyou for a cool head--Heaven knows I need a few cool heads around meright now!--and here you show up with red in your eye, barking at me."
"Let's pass up what I look like," said Lee stiffly. "What can I do foryou. Miss Sanford?"
"Hm," said Judith. "On your high horse, are you? All right, staythere. What I want is some information. How long have you been on theBlue Lake pay-roll?"
"A little over six months," he answered colorlessly.
"_Over_ six months?" A quick look of interest came into her eyes."Trevors hired you? Or dad?"
"Your father."
"Then"--and a sudden, swift smile came for the first time that morninginto the girl's eyes--"you're square! Thank God for one man to be sureof."
She had risen with a quick impetuosity and put out her hand. Lee tookit into his own, and felt it shut hard, like a man's.
"Just how do you know I'm square?" he asked slowly.
"Dad was human," she replied softly. "He made some mistakes. But henever made a mistake in a horse foreman yet. He has said to me a dozentimes: 'Judy, watch the way a man treats his horse if you want to sizehim up! And never put your horses into the care of a man who isn'twhite, clean through.' Dad knew, Bud Lee!"
Lee made no answer. For a little Judith, back at the long table andlooking strangely small in the big, bare room before this massive pieceof furniture, stared into vacancy with reminiscent eyes. Then, with alittle shrug of her shoulders, she turned again to the tall foreman.
"Why did you tell Trevors this morning that you were going to quitwork?" she asked with abrupt directness.
"Because," he answered, and by now his flush had subsided and his gravegood-humor had come back to him with his customary serenity, "I feltlike moving on."
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br /> "Because," she insisted, "you know that there was some dirty work afootand did not care to be messed up in it?"
Now here, most positively, Bud Lee said within himself, was a person toreckon with. How did she know all that? She was just a girl,somewhere, as old Carson put it, between eighteen and twenty-two. Whatbusiness did a kid like this have knowing so blamed much?
"You've got your rope on the right pair of horns," he said after hisbrief pause.
"How did you know that Trevors was working the double-cross on thisdeal?" she demanded.
"I didn't know," he said stiffly. "I just guessed. The same as you.He was spending too much money; he was getting too little to show forit; he was selling too much stock too cheap."
"What's the matter with you?" cried the girl, surprising him with theheat of her words and the sudden darkening of her eyes. "Why do youinsist on being so downright stand-offish and stiff and aloof? Whathave I done to you that you can't be decent? Here I am only puttingfoot on my own land and you make me feel like an intruder."
"I am answering your questions."
"Like a half-animated trained iceberg, yes. Can't you act like a humanbeing? Oh, I've got your number, Bud Lee, and you are just as narrowbetween the horns as the rest of the outfit. You are narrow andprejudiced and blindly unreasonable! I know as much about ranching asany man of you; I know more about this outfit because the best man thatever set foot on it, and that's Luke Sanford, taught me every crook,and bend of it; and now, just because I'm a girl and not a boy, youstand off like I had the smallpox; just when I need loyalty andunderstanding and when, the Lord knows, I've already got a doublehandful of trouble, I can't count for a minute on men that have beentaking my pay for months! Get some of the mildew and cobwebs out ofyour head and tell me this: What reason in the world is there why youchoose to think I haven't any business wearing my own shoes?"
"That's sure putting it straight," said Lee slowly.
"You just bet it's putting it straight!" she announced vigorously."And you'll find that it's a way I have, putting things straight. Iwas trained to the business by a better man than you'll ever be, BudLee."
"Maybe so," he admitted without heat. "I'll take off my hat to LukeSanford for a man. And I'll take off my hat to you, if you want toknow. But, training or no training, this is no job for a lady, andshooting up Trevors and riding the Prince isn't going to make it so.Sure enough it's none of my butt-in what sort of thing you do. But atthe same time there's no call for me to say you're doing fine when Idon't see it that way."
"What you're looking for," sniffed Judith contemptuously, "is a femalebeing extinct this one hundred years! You'd have every girl wear tailsto her gowns, and duck and dodge behind fans and faint every time shejabbed her thumb with a pin!"
"I can't see that a woman's place is riding bucking broncos andrampsing around. . . ."
"A woman's place!" she scoffed. "Her place where a blunder-headed manputs her! How do you know what her place is? Do you suppose the bloodin a healthy-bodied, healthy-minded woman is any different from yourblood? How would you like to be told just what your place is? To bejammed, for instance, into a little bungalow in a city; to be squeezedinto a dress-suit and told 'Stay there and look sweet'; to be commandednot to get up a natural sweat, nor to kick over the traces with whichsome woman had hitched you to the cart of convention. How'd _you_ likeit, Bud Lee?"
Bud Lee grinned and a new look crept into his eyes. "Being Bud Lee,"he answered frankly, "I wouldn't stand it for one little tick of theclock! If you want me to swap talk with you; all day at ninety bucks amonth, all right. I'd say there's two kinds of men, too. There's mykind; there's the Dave Burril Lee kind. You see, he's a sort ofrelation of mine, is Dave Burril Lee, and I'm not exactly proud of him.He's the kind that wears dress-suits and sticks in a bungalow. He'sproud of his name Burril and Lee, both, because big men down South wore'em before he did, and they were relations. He's swelled up over theway he can dance and ride after a fox, and over the coin he's got inthe bank. Then there's Bud Lee who ducks out of that sort of ascrap-heap and beats it for the open."
"I get you!" broke in Judith, her eyes very bright. "And you men here,my men, want me to be the sort of woman that your precious cousin, DaveBurril, is a man? Is that it? Where's your logic this morning?"
"Meaning horse sense?" he smiled. "It's in these few little words:'What's right for a man may be dead wrong for a woman.'"
"Oh, scat!" she cried impatiently. "What am I wasting time with youfor? You're right when you say that if I am paying you ninety dollarsa month and grub and blankets I'd better get something out of youbesides talk." She swung back to her table. "What was Trevors'slatest excuse for selling at a sacrifice?" she asked, her tone dry andbusinesslike. "Why was he selling those horses at fifty dollars ahead?"
"Told me he just had a wire last night from Young Hampton, asking forthree thousand," he explained in a similar tone, though his eyes weretwinkling at her.
"Pollock Hampton has his nerve!" she snapped. She took up thetelephone instrument at her elbow and demanded the Western Union atRocky Bend. "Judith Sanford speaking," she said crisply. "Repeat themessage of last night for the general manager, Blue Lake Ranch."
In a moment she had it. "So Trevors wasn't lying about that part ofit," she said reluctantly. And to the Western Union agent, "Take thismessage:
POLLOCK HAMPTON, Hotel Glennlyn, San Francisco:
Impossible send money now or for some time. Have fired Trevors.Running outfit myself. Need every cent we can raise to pay interest onloans, men's salaries and keep going. This is final.
JUDITH SANFORD, _General Manager_.
"That may start his gray matter working," she ended as she clicked upthe receiver. "Now, Lee, will you stick with me ten days or so andgive me time to get a man in your place?"
"Yes, I'll do that, Miss Sanford."
"You will help me in every way you can while you are with me?"
"When I work for a man--or a woman," he added gravely, "I don't holdback anything."
"All right. Then start in right now and tell me about the gang Trevorshas taken on. Are they all crooks?"
"I wouldn't say so. I wouldn't put it that strong."
"That little gray, quick-spoken man with the smelly pipe--he'sstraight, isn't he?"
"That would be old Carson? Yes; he's a good man. You won't find abetter."
"Is he going to quit, too? Just because I've come?"
Lee shook his head. "If you work him right Carson will stick rightalong. Being white clean through, being broader-minded than I am"--andthe twinkle came again into his eyes--"Carson'll show you a squaredeal."
"Has he any love for Bayne Trevors?"
"Maybe you'd better ask Carson."
In a flash she was on her feet and had gone to the door. "Carson!" shecalled loudly. "Come here, will you?"
There was a little silence, a low sound of laughter, then Carson'ssharp voice answering: "I'm coming!"
Judith went back to her chair. She did not speak until Carson's wiryform slipped through the doorway. Then with the old cattleman'sshrewd, hard eyes upon her she turned from a clip full of papers shehad been looking through and spoke to him quietly:
"You used to work for the Granite Canyon crowd, didn't you, Carson?"
"Yes'm," he answered.
"Cattle foreman there for several years?"
"Yes'm."
"Helped clean out the Roaring Creek gang didn't you, Carson?"
Carson shifted a bit, colored under her fixed eyes, and finallyadmitted:
"Yes'm."
"Haven't had a real first-class fight for quite a bit, have you,Carson? Not since that gash on your jaw healed? Not since you andScotty Webb mixed with the Roaring Creekers?"
Carson rubbed his jaw, flashed a quick look at Bud Lee as though formoral support, looked still further embarrassed, and finally chokedover his brief:
"No'm."
Judith sat smiling brig
htly up at his hard features. "I've heard dadtalk about that," she said thoughtfully. "I guess I've got at leastone real man on the ranch, Carson. Oh, don't dodge like that! I'm notgoing to put my arms around you and kiss you on the top of your head.But I do love a man that loves a fair fight. . . . Lee, here, hasgiven me his promise to stick on the job for ten days or so, to give metime to get some one else to look after my horses."
"Yes'm," said Carson, fingering his pipe and looking down.
For a few moments the girl sat still, now and then flashing a quick,keen look from one to the other of her two foremen. Then, abruptly,her eyes on Carson, she snapped: "You've found out, more or lessrecently, haven't you, that Bayne Trevors is a crook? You've perhapseven guessed that he's been taking money from me with one hand and fromthe Western Lumber with the other?"
"Yes'm," said Carson. "I doped it up like that."
"Why," cried the girl, "he's fired all of the old men and Heaven knowshow many of his sort he's put in their places! Help me clean 'em out,Carson! Where will we begin? I've chucked Trevors and Ward Hannon.Who goes next, Carson?"
"Benny the cook," said Carson gently. "An' I'd be obliged, ma'am, ifyou'd let me go boot him off'n the ranch."
"That's talking," she said enthusiastically. "You can attend to him.Any one else?"
Carson shook his head. "I got my suspicions," he said. "But that'sall I'm dead sure on."
"The others can wait then. Now, I'm taking a gamble on you and Lee.You have all kinds of chances to double-cross me. But I've got to takea chance now and then. I'm going to tell you something: Trevors istrying to sell me out to the Western Lumber people. He is one of theircrowd and has been since they bought him up six months ago. They wantour timber tract over the north ridge but they don't think they willhave to pay the price. They want the lake; they want the water-powerof Blue Lake River! They want pretty well all we've got. The ranchoutside the stock we've got running on it, is worth a clean milliondollars if it is worth a nickel. Well, the Western Lumber Company hasoffered us exactly two hundred and fifty thousand! Only quarter ofwhat it's worth! They know we're mortgaged; they know the interest wehave to pay is heavy; they know Pollock Hampton, for one, is a spenderwho knows nothing about big business; they think that I, because I'm agirl, am a fool. It looks to them like a melon easy to cut and ripefor the slicing."
She paused a moment, frowning thoughtfully at the floor. Then suddenlyshe lifted her eyes to Carson's, saying crisply: "Trevors took time atthe end to tell me something. That something was that he was going tomake me sell. He was excited a bit, I'll admit, or he wouldn't havespoken quite so plainly. And he counted upon the fact of my sex, ofcourse, to feel confident that he could throw a scare into me. He eventhreatened, if I hadn't come to my senses before the ranch was dry inthe summer, to burn me out!"
Carson blinked at her. "How's that?" he asked.
She told him again, coolly indifferent, it seemed to Carson.
"The durned polecat!" whispered the cattle foreman.
"Now then," cried Judith, "you've got your first job cut out for you.Let Bayne Trevors or one of his gang set foot on Blue Lake land, andI'll tell you what I think of you, Carson! Or is the job going to betoo big for you?"
Carson smiled deprecatingly. "I'd like to see 'em try it," he said inthat soft, whispering voice which upon occasions was characteristic ofhim. "I sure would, Miss Judy!"
"That's all this morning, Carson," she said quietly. "On your waydon't forget to look in on your friend Benny."
Carson went hastily down the knoll, his eyes bright. Judith laughedsoftly.
"I've got his number, Bud Lee! All that's needed to keep that oldmountain-lion on the job is to show him a real fight ahead! And bygolly, Mr. Man, there's going to be scrap enough from the very jump tomake Carson forget whether he's working for a woman or John W. Satan,Esquire!"