XII
THE SPROUTING OF THE SEED
Late in the afternoon of a bitter day Grant drove into sight of the lastof the homesteaders' dwellings that lay within his round. It rose, ashapeless mound of white, from the wilderness that rolled away in billowyrises, shining under the sunlight that had no warmth in it. The snow thatlay deep about its sod walls and upon the birch-branch roof hid itssqualidness, and covered the pile of refuse and empty cans, but Grant knewwhat he would find within it, and when he pulled up his team his face grewanxious. It was graver than it had been a year ago, for Larry Grant hadlost a good deal of his hopefulness since he heard those footsteps at thedepot.
The iron winter, that was but lightly felt in the homes of thecattle-barons, had borne hardly on the men huddled in sod-hovel, andbirch-log shanty, swept by the winds of heaven at fifty degrees below.They had no thick furs to shelter them, and many had very little food,while on those who came from the cities the cold of the Northwest set itsmark, numbing the half-fed body and unhinging the mind. The lean farmersfrom the Dakotas who had fought with adverse seasons, and the sinewyaxe-men from Michigan clearings, bore it with grim patience, but therewere here and there a few who failed to stand the strain, and, listeningto the outcasts from the East, let passion drive out fortitude and dreamedof anarchy. They had come in with a pitiful handful of dollars to buildnew homes and farm, but the rich men, and in some cases their ownsupineness, had been too strong for them; and while they waited theirscanty capital melted away. Now, with most of them it had almost gone, andthey were left without the means to commence the fight in spring.
Breckenridge saw the shadow in Grant's face, and touched his arm. "I'll goin and give the man his dollars, Larry," he said. "You have had about asmuch worry as is good for you to-day."
Grant shook his head. "I've no use for shutting my eyes so I can't see athing when I know it's there."
He stepped out of the sleigh and went into the shanty. The place had oneroom, and, though a stove stood in the midst of it and the snow that keptsome of the frost out was piled to the windows, it was dank and chill.Only a little dim light crept in, and it was a moment or two before Grantsaw the man who sat idle by the stove with a clotted bandage round hisleg. He was gaunt, and clad in jean patched with flour-bags, and his faceshowed haggard under his bronze. Behind him on a rude birch-branch couchcovered with prairie hay a woman lay apparently asleep beneath a tatteredfur coat.
"What's the matter with her?" Grant asked.
"I don't quite know. She got sick 'most two weeks ago, and talks of a painthat only leaves her when she's sleeping. One of the boys drove in to therailroad for the doctor, but he's busy down there. Any way, it would havetaken him 'most a week to get here and back, and I guess he knew I hadn'tthe dollars to pay him with."
Grant recognized the hopeless evenness of the tone, but Breckenridge, whowas younger, did not.
"But you can't let her lie here without help of any kind," he said.
"Well," said the man slowly, "what else can I do?"
Breckenridge could not tell him, and appealed to his comrade. "We have gotto take this up, Larry. She looks ill."
Grant nodded. "I have friends down yonder who will send that doctor out,"he said. "Here are your dollars from the fund. Ten of them this time."
The man handed him one of the bills back. "If you want me to take morethan five you'll have to show your book," he said. "I've been finding outhow you work these affairs, Larry."
Grant only laughed, but Breckenridge turned to the speaker with anassumption of severity that was almost ludicrous in his young face.
"Now, don't you make yourself a consumed ass," he said. "You want thosedollars considerably more than we do, and we've got quite a few of themdoing nothing in the bank. That is, Larry has."
Grant's eyes twinkled. "It's no use, Breckenridge. I know the kind of manhe is. I'm going to send Miss Muller here, and we'll come round and poundthe foolishness out of you if you try to send back anything she bringswith her. This place is as cold as an ice-store. What's the matter withyour stove?"
"The stove's all right," and the man pointed to his leg. "The trouble isthat I've very little wood. Axe slipped the last time I went chopping inthe bluff, and the frost got into the cut. I couldn't make three miles onone leg, and pack a load of billets on my back."
"But you'd freeze when those ran out, and they couldn't last you twodays," said Breckenridge, glancing at the little pile of fuel.
"Yes," said the man grimly. "I guess I would, unless one of the boys camealong."
"Anything wrong with your oxen?" asked Grant.
"Well," said the man drily, "we've been living for 'most two months on oneof them. I salted a piece of him; the rest's frozen. I had to sell theother to a Dutchman. Since the cattle-boys stopped me ploughing I hadn'tmuch use for them, any way."
"Then," said Breckenridge, "why the devil did you bring a woman out tothis forsaken country?"
Perhaps the man understood what prompted the question, for he did notresent it. "Where was I to take her to? I'm a farmer without dollars, andI had to go somewhere when I'd lost three wheat crops in Dakota. Somebodytold me you had room for small farmers, and when I heard the land was tobe opened for homesteading, I sold out everything, and came on here tobegin again. Never saw a richer soil, and there's only one thing wrongwith the country."
"The men in it?" asked Breckenridge.
The farmer nodded, and a little glow crept into his eyes. "Yes," he saidfiercely. "The cattle-barons--and there'll be no room for anyone untilwe've done away with them. We've no patience for more fooling. It has gotto be done."
"That's the executive's business," said Grant.
The man rose, with a little quiver of his lean frame and a big handclenched. "No," he said, "it's our business, and the business of everyhonest citizen. If you don't tackle it right off, other men will put thecontract through."
"You'll have to talk plainer," said Grant.
"Well," said the farmer, "that's easy. It was you and some of the othersbrought us in, and now we're here we're starving. There's land to feed ahost of us, and every citizen is entitled to enough to make a living on.But while the cattle-men keep hold, how's he going to get it? Oh, yes,we've cut their fences and broken a few acres here and there; but how arewe going to put through our ploughing when every man who drives a furrowhas to whip up six of his neighbours to keep the cow-boys off him? Well,there's just one answer. We're going to pull those men down."
"You're going to sit tight until your leaders tell you to move," Grantinformed him.
The man laughed harshly. "No," he said. "Unless they keep ahead of uswe're going to trail them along. You're a straight man, Larry, but youdon't see all you've done. You set this thing going, and now you can'tstep out if it goes too far for you. No, sir, you've got to keep the paceand come along, and it's going to be quite lively now some of the Chicagoanarchy boys are chipping in."
Grant's face was very stern. "When they're wanted, your leaders will bethere," he said. "They've got hold, and they'll keep it, if they have towhip the sense into some of you. Now give me that axe of yours, and we'llget some wood. I don't want to hear any more wild talking."
He went out, taking Breckenridge with him, and an hour later returned witha sleigh-load of birch branches, which he flung down before the shanty.Then, he turned the team towards Fremont ranch, and his face was grave ashe stared over the horses' heads at the smear of trail that wound away, ablue-grey riband, before the gliding sleigh.
"I wonder if that fellow meant to give us a hint," said Breckenridge.
Grant nodded. "I think he did--and he was right about the rest. Two yearsago I was a prosperous rancher, proud of the prairie I belonged to, andwithout a care; but I could see what this country was meant to be, andwhen the others started talking about the homestead movement I did myshare. Folks seemed keen to listen; we got letters from everywhere, and wetold the men who wrote them just what the land could do. It was sowingblindfold, and now
the crop's above the sod it 'most frightens me. No mancan tell what it will grow to be before it's ready for the binder, andwhile we've got the wheat we've got the weeds as well."
"Wasn't it always like that? At least, it seems so from reading a littlehistory. I don't know that I envy you, Larry. In the tongue of thiscountry, it's a hard row you have to hoe. Of course, there are folks whowould consider they had done enough in planting it."
"Yes," Grant agreed, "we have quite a few of them over here; but, if morethan we've planted has come up, I'm going right through."
Breckenridge said nothing further, and there was silence until the lightsof Fremont rose out of the snowy wilderness. When they reached it theyfound a weary man lying in a big chair; he pointed to the litter of plateson the table as he handed Grant a letter.
"I haven't eaten since sun up, and drove most of sixty miles, so I didn'twait," he said. "Our executive boss, who told me to lose no time, seemedkind of worried about something."
Grant opened the letter, which was terse. "Look out," he read. "We had toput the screw on a crazy Pole who has been making wild speeches here, andas he lit out I have a notion he means to see what he can do with thediscontented in your district. We couldn't have him raising trouble roundthis place, any way. It's taking us both hands to hold the boys inalready."
"Bad news?" said Breckenridge sympathetically.
"Yes," Grant said wearily. "Get your supper and sleep when you can. You'llbe driving from sun up until after it's dark to-morrow."
They ate almost in silence, but, though the messenger and Breckenridgeretired shortly after the meal, Grant sat writing until late in the night.Then, he stretched his arms wearily above his head, and his face showedworn and almost haggard in the flickering lamplight.
"It has put Hetty further from me than ever, and cost me the goodwill ofevery friend I had; while the five thousand dollars I've lost as welldon't count for very much after that," he said.
Early next morning Breckenridge and the messenger drove away, and rathermore than a week later Fraeulein Muller, whom the former had taken toattend on the homesteader's wife, arrived one night at Fremont ranch. Shecame in, red-cheeked, unconcerned, and shapeless, in Muller's fur coat,and quietly brushed the dusty snow from her dress before she sat down asfar as possible from the stove.
"I a message from Mrs. Harper bring," she said. "Last night two men toHarper's house have come, and one now and then will to the other talk inour tongue. He is one, I think, who will destroy everything. Then theytalk with Harper long in the stable, and to-day Harper with his riflerides away. Mrs. Harper, who has fears for her husband, would have youknow that to-night, or to-morrow he will go with other men to the CedarRanch."
Grant was on his feet in a moment, and nodded to Breckenridge, who rosealmost as quickly and glanced at him as he moved towards the door.
"Yes," he said, "there's some tough hoeing to be done now. You'll driveMiss Muller back to Harper's, and then turn out the boys. They're to comeon to Cedar as fast as they can."
"And you?" said Breckenridge quietly.
"I'm going there now."
"You know the cattle-men would do almost anything to get their hands onyou."
"Oh, yes," Grant said wearily. "Aren't you wasting time?"
Breckenridge was outside the next moment, but before he had the sleighready Grant lead a saddled horse out of the stable, and vanished at agallop down the beaten trail. It rang dully beneath the hoofs, but thefrost that had turned its surface dusty lessened the chance of stumbling,and it was not until the first league had been left behind and he turnedat the forking beneath a big birch bluff that he tightened his grip on thebridle. There it was different, for the trail no longer led wide andtrampled hard across the level prairie, but wound, an almost invisibleriband, through tortuous hollow and over swelling rise, so narrow that inplaces the hoofs broke with a sharp crackling through the frozen crust ofsnow. That, Larry knew, might, by crippling the beast he rode, stop himthen and there, and he pushed on warily, dazzled at times by the light ofthe sinking moon which the glistening white plain flung back into hiseyes.
It was bitter cold, and utterly still for the birds had gone south longago, and there was no beast that ventured from his lair to face the frostthat night. Dulled as the trample of hoofs was, it rang about himstridently, and now and then he could hear it roll repeated along theslope of a rise. The hand upon the bridle had lost all sense of feeling,his moccasined feet tingled painfully, and a white fringe crackled underhis hand when, warned by the nipping of his ears, he drew the big fur capdown further over them. It is not difficult to lose the use of one'smembers for life by incautiously exposing them to the cold of the prairie,while a frost that may be borne by the man covered to the chin with greatsleigh robes, is not infrequently insupportable to the one on horseback.
Grant, however, took precautions, as it were mechanically, for his mindwas too busy to feel in its full keenness the sting of the frost, andwhile his eyes were fixed on the blur of the trail his thoughts were faraway, and it was by an almost unconscious effort he restrained theimpatient horse. Because speed was essential, he dare risk no undue haste.He was not the only rider out on the waste that night, and the shiver thatwent through him was not due to the cold as he pictured the other horsemenpressing on towards Cedar Ranch. Of the native-born he had little fear,and he fancied but few of them would be there. There was even less todread from any of English birth, but he feared the insensate alien, andstill more the human vultures that had gathered about the scene of strife.They had neither race, nor creed, nor aspirations, but only an unhallowedlust for the fruits of rapine.
He could also picture Hetty, sitting slight and dark-eyed at the piano, ashe had often seen her, and Torrance listening with a curious softening ofhis lean face to the voice that had long ago wiled Larry's heart away fromhim. That led him back to the days when, loose-tressed and flushed inface, Hetty had ridden beside him in the track of the flying coyote, andhe had seen her eyes glisten at his praise. There were other times when,sitting far apart from any of their kind, with the horses tethered besidethem in the shadow of a bluff, she had told him of her hopes andambitions, but half-formed then, and to silence his doubts sung him somesimple song. Larry had travelled through Europe, to look about him, as henaively said, but it was what reminded him of that voice he had found mostpleasure in when he listened to famous sopranos and great cathedralchoirs.
Still, he had expected little, realizing, as he had early done, that Hettywas not for him. It was enough to be with her when she had any need of himand to dream of her when absent, while it was only when he heard she hadfound her hopes were vain that he clutched at the very faint but alluringpossibility that now her heart might turn to him. Then, had come thesummons of duty, and when he had to choose which side he would take,Larry, knowing what it would cost him, had with the simple loyalty whichhad bound him as Hetty's servant without hope of reward, decided on whathe felt was right. He was merely one of the many quiet, steadfast men whomthe ostentatious sometimes mistake for fools, until the nation they formthe backbone of rises to grapple with disaster or emergency. They are notconfined to any one country; for his comrade, Muller, the placid,unemphatic Teuton, had been at Worth and Sedan.
Though none of these memories delayed him a second, he brushed them fromhim when the moon dipped. Darkness swooped down on the prairie, and it isthe darkness that suits rapine best; now, that he could see the trail nolonger, he shook the bridle, and the pace grew faster. The powdery snowwhirled behind him, the long, dim levels flitted past, until at last, withheart thumping, he rode up a rise from whose crest he could see CedarRange. A great weight lifted from him--the row of windows were blinkingbeside the dusky bluff! But even as he checked the horse the ringing of arifle came portentously out of the stillness. With a gasp he drove in hisheels and swept at a furious gallop down the slope.