The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
WILD HORSES
IT was a beautiful afternoon, crisp and clear. Two Indians and a white rider were roping steers in the railroad corral. They worked in a cloud of yellow dust through which their brilliant neckerchiefs could be seen like little darting flames. A huge pack outfit passed Hugh on the south edge of the town; covered wagon bouncing and jangling, pack horses shaking unwilling heads, mules braying—an oil prospector’s outfit returning after a summer’s work.
Hugh worked slowly along toward the bridge which lay a mile beyond the edge of Fort Sioux. He had no special destination in view. He had left The Lariat with the feeling that if he remained another moment under its roof, he would smother. He was angry, and to his utter astonishment, angry with himself, an unusual condition for Hugh.
Wyoming had for years, of course, been an equal suffrage state. Hugh had had no feeling at all of feminizing himself by allowing a woman to manage him politically. But, after his talk with Mrs. Ellis, he was feeling distinctly that in not fighting his fight with men, he had belittled himself. Yet, he knew that no such thought had entered Mrs. Ellis’ mind.
Fossil trotted rapidly across the bridge and Hugh headed him toward the trail up to the plains. He had no reason, he argued with himself, for this sense of anger. He was only experiencing once more in this contact with the Children’s Code Committee that old and universally contemptuous attitude of the American toward the man whose work did not show an obvious and practical contact with life. But he could not, for once, comfort himself with the old sense of aloofness and superiority. His anger toward himself must, he realized, be based on something he had not as yet been able to formulate.
Fossil, feeling the reins still loose on his neck when he reached the plains at the top of the corkscrew trail, stopped of his own accord to get breath after the heavy ascent. Hugh sighed and turned his attention to the panorama before him. It had been many days since he had left the canyon, and the view, of which he never wearied, enticed him for a moment from his gloomy contemplation of self.
All the vivid summer tints of purple sage and bright green bunch grass had disappeared. Vast undulating wastes of buff and russet brown stretched westward toward the black timber shadows that banded themselves at the foot of the brilliant blue peaks of the White Wolves—peaks so truly blue that Hugh distinguished them from the sapphire heavens only by the long, snow-filled crevices that scintillated like vast crystal cobwebs above the black patches of the Forest Reserve.
Fall clouds were shifting in their unspeakable glory across the canyon, now seeming about to drop like rose-tinted veils over the orange ribbon of the river, now like golden gossamer blown in titanic filaments far down the canyon, where they met the crimson buttes and vast columns that marked the river’s course; met them, caressed them for a lovely moment, then melted from gold to silver, and so on into the ever waiting, ever brooding sky. Clouds of purest scarlet sailed with unbelievable majesty among the exquisite crests of the White Wolves. Clouds of purple hung over the far, undulating wastes of the Old Sioux Tract to the north, and as Hugh looked, once again ravished by the old, old wonder of the sight, they disappeared beyond the uttermost other horizon.
Fossil jerked his great blue body fretfully and Hugh, catching sight of a mighty spiral of dust rising on the trail from the White Wolves, spurred the horse toward it. The trail led to the Clifton Pass and on into the wild-horse country. Some one must be bringing down a herd. Hugh had a sudden yearning for the old days when he had ridden range on his summer vacations for Bookie, and he set the big roan to the gallop.
Suddenly it seemed to him, as the indescribable odor of plains smote his face, that nothing, nothing was worth his exile in The Lariat; that out of the tangle and disappointment of his life there could be but one door to content—to return somehow to the open. The rise and fall of the horse, the sweet, sharp wind in his ears, the freedom from human urgings and irritations—God, what a fool he was to submit himself to all that had occurred in the past six months.
He had galloped a couple of long miles along the winding trail before he espied the cause of the dust. Some one was bringing in a herd of horses. He made a wide detour to reach the rear of the herd without breaking it, waving his hand with a shout as he ascertained that the rider on the pinto pony was Red Wolf.
“Wild horses, eh, Red Wolf?” he cried as he joined his old friend. “Good Lord, what a haul! A hundred and fifty? Hello, Eagle Wing!” to Red Wolf’s son, a huge, solemn-faced Indian on a black mare.
“Hundred forty,” said Red Wolf, with a grin. His blue flannel shirt was so powdered with dust as to be almost indistinguishable from the bronze of his face.
“Where did you get them?”
“Black Basin country, back of White Wolves. For government.”
“Have any trouble getting them?” asked Hugh, bringing Fossil to bear on a lagging mare.
“O not so heap much! All too tired now, too hungry make much trouble.”
“Well, it’s a fine haul!” exclaimed Hugh. “Lord, it’s a thousand years since I brought in my last bunch of wild horses. Fossil’s mother was a foal in that lot. Remember?”
Red Wolf nodded and rode to the left as a huge dapple-gray stallion suddenly reared and made a break for an unexpected draw. Hugh loosened and recoiled his lariat, then followed in with a look of vast interest.
Red Wolf had reason to be glad of Hugh’s help not long after, for as the herd drew nearer to the river canyon and smelled water, it took all the skill of the three riders to prevent a stampede. In fact, the trip down the corkscrew trail was a miracle and nothing less, with unshod hoofs thundering, small stones flying, screams of crowded brood mares, hoarse neighing of stallions and a streaming welter of dark, flying manes and tails against the red canyon walls, doubly crimson in the setting sun. A colt or two fell over the edge; but the main body made the passage in safety.
Once on the level canyon floor, Hugh galloped ahead to guard the bridge—a stampede through the town might result in casualties—while Red Wolf and his son were able, with much whooping, hard riding and lashing with long lariat ropes, to force the frantic beasts away from the steep and fatal brim toward which the gray stallion was leading them, to the watering ford near the bridge.
The horses had finished drinking and were milling anxiously on the level floor again when a jitney containing Mrs. Morgan and her committee buzzed half-way across the bridge, and paused.
“Can we get across, Hughie,” called his mother-in-law, “before they reach the bridge? We’re going over to the air camp. Fred flew up the canyon half an hour ago and we want to see him land.”
Hugh shook his head, his eyes on the uneasy herd. “You’d better go back. There’s no telling what these brutes will do. Good heavens, here he comes now!”
Above the uproar made by the jitney, above the churning of the herd, sounded the fusillade of the approaching plane, zigzagging drunkenly, just over the water. A tiny figure, waving impotent arms, appeared on the run from the airplane camp. An eagle hung frozen in the blue above as if he sensed the impending calamity and was paralyzed by it. The milling of the herd changed to frenzied circling. The airplane made an abortive effort to turn toward the town side of the river, twisted completely round with nose toward the air camp, dragged one wing in the water and charged like an ancient tyranasaurus through the shallows of the drinking ford into the lunging herd.
Fossil reared and fought to turn onto the bridge. Mrs. Morgan, like the eagle, seemed for a moment paralyzed, then she set the machine to backing while the women with her wrung their hands and seemed to scream, though no sound could be heard above the airplane and the herd. Hugh, one eye on the jitney, dug the spurs deep and held Fossil firmly across the bridgehead while he fought back the maddened beasts that hurled themselves against him. The airplane circled viciously for a moment, then leaving behind it an awful, screaming carnage, it ran straight across the canyon and brought up against the far red wall. The gray stallion, with blood-stained mane, appeared from the chaos of legs beside the drinking ford, and in the sudden half-stillness that succeeded the departure of the airplane, he squealed ferociously and, thoroughly amuck, charged the bridgehead.
The mares which Hugh had been lashing back with his lariat fell aside. As the gray stallion reared to strike at Fossil, a small black stallion charged through the retreating mares and hit the gray on the flank. He struck deep for his bite had all the impact of the little brute’s leap through the mares. It brought the gray down on his back. In the moment’s respite, Hugh looked back at the jitney. It was stalled across the middle of the bridge. He swore and began hastily to coil his lariat, a feat as extraordinary as it was beautiful in its grace, for Fossil was rearing and plunging. Hugh hung on with his spurs, coiled the rope and waited.
It was evident that here was an ancient enmity that the assault by the airplane had precipitated. The gray, once more on his feet, would have charged Hugh again, but the black, frenzied by the sight and smell of his enemy’s blood, would not permit it. He reared and struck at the gray’s head, gouging his neck as he came down. The gray squealed and turned to do battle.
Hugh’s saddle gun was loaded, but he was loath to injure either of the beautiful brutes. Once more he glanced at the jitney. Mrs. Morgan was wringing her hands over the steering wheel. A stallion gone amuck is almost as dangerous and quite as vicious as a mad elephant. Hugh hesitated for a moment. Eagle Wing, over by the watering ford, was helping his father to his feet. The old Indian apparently was terribly injured. Hugh backed Fossil slowly along the bridge until he was far enough from the huge battle on the bridgehead to avoid the lunging and terrible hoofs. He swung his rope carefully, caught the rearing gray around the two forelegs and as the great brute fell he turned Fossil and ran him to within a few yards of the stalled jitney. Then while the gray rolled and squealed and before he could cause a perceptible slack in the lariat, which the well-trained Fossil strained to keep taut, Hugh leaped from the saddle, pack rope and Fossil’s hackamore in hand, and with unbelievable quickness roped the gray’s rear legs.
The black, in the meantime, had paused in bewilderment at the sudden inexplicable departure of his enemy. But as Hugh dismounted and leaped toward the gray, he squealed and charged. Hugh slipped a hackamore over the gray’s head and was fastening it to the bridge rail as the black leaped with all fours on his helpless foe. Hugh jumped aside, but not quite quickly enough to escape a flying hoof which ripped his corduroy jacket from neck to belt. The leaping black brought up against Fossil, still struggling to keep taut the lariat rope that now was beginning to twist the saddle. Fossil was in no mood to be tampered with and he promptly bit the black on the cheek with an expert incisiveness that brought the doughty warrior to a moment’s pause. In that moment, Hugh released the lariat from the gray and running under the black’s outstretched neck he mounted and rode down upon the angry little stallion.
The black had no intention of turning tail, but Hugh did not propose to use the lariat until he had forced the black out of fighting distance of the gray. Fossil, angry and excited, needed no urging. He rushed squealing to the battle, biting his adversary as shoulder met shoulder, and Hugh lashed the foam-flecked black face with all the force of the coiled rope. The stallion leaped backward, teeth bared, and Hugh twirled the lariat and roped him round the neck. Then, as the stallion reared for a charge, he shouted at Fossil, dug the spurs deep and raced past the black. The rope came taut and the astonished stallion, choking and kicking, was turned and dragged from the bridge to the sand, where shortly Hugh had him hobbled and staked.
Hugh wiped his face on his sleeve and looked about him. The other horses were scattered in small groups over the canyon floor. Without the leadership of the stallion they would not be too difficult to herd, and the jitney no longer was of moment. Hugh ran quickly over to the two Indians. Eagle Wing was tying his neck scarf around his father’s chest, which was fearfully lacerated. Hugh helped as best he could, then said:
“Take him in to the doctor, Eagle Wing. I’ll look out for the herd”
Then he galloped across the sand to the scene of the airplane wreck. Fred evidently had been able to get some sort of control of the engine before he brought up against the wall, for except for a crumpled wing Hugh could not see that the plane showed outward signs of injury. Fred was sitting in the sand, making grimaces, while Marten, red of hair and red of face, bound up his arm and cursed him.
“Well, Fred!” said Hugh, soberly.
Fred looked up, very drawn as to new shaven face, very much disheveled as to hair and clothes. But Marten gave him no chance to speak.
“I had told the damn fool fifty times,” shouted Marten, “not to go near the plane unless I was with him. But no sooner does he get rid of that beard than he thinks he’s an ace! He’s lucky to get out with a busted arm. My God, a real airman would ’a’ been killed!”
“Not if he’d ever driven a twelve-mule team,” interposed Hugh grimly. “Pretty much used up, old timer?”
“Yes. Anybody else hurt?” asked Fred feebly.
“Old Red Wolf is pretty badly cut up and there’s a hellish mess among the horses by the ford. I’ll go back there and put the brutes out of their misery. Can you get him over to the Doc without me, Marten? Then I’ll stay here and ride herd. Mrs. Morgan was still stalled on the bridge when I left. Look out for the stallion I’ve got roped there.”
Fred looked up at Hugh reproachfully. “I told you that woman would ruin me,” he said. “I tell you, I’m through with her now. I’m going back to fossil digging.”
“I don’t blame you, pardner,” said Hugh, turning Fossil back toward the ford. “When you invite me next time to go riding with you, I’d prefer you to make it mules!”
After Hugh with his saddle gun had silenced the screams and stilled the tossing legs that marked the crimson welter by the river, he turned his attention to the wandering herd. He had gathered up fifty trembling mares and was about to drive them across the bridge to the railroad corral when Billy Chamberlain appeared with Pink.
“Hear there’s a bunch of wild horses to be picked up here!” shouted Billy.
“Poor old Red Wolf is out of luck!” replied Hugh. “You fellows take these over to the railroad corral and I’ll bring in another bunch.”
“How many did the plane get?” asked Pink, a huge figure on his big bay, in the gathering dusk.
“Twenty, including those I had to shoot. An awful mess. Take the gray stallion on a lead rope. He’s a fiend.”
“He’s some horse. Looks like a standard-bred at first glance,” said Billy. “I’ll take charge of him, myself.”
Hugh grunted and trotted off on the still vastly excited Fossil. It was moonlight when he turned the last of the herd into the corral, and, after a wash-up, went into the hotel for his supper. The meal had been cleared away long since, but Mrs. Morgan fluttered into the dining room as soon as he appeared, and to his great discomfort insisted on waiting on him herself.
“I’ll just bring it in from the kitchen,” she said, in answer to his protests.
“Where did they put Fred and Red Wolf?” asked Hugh.
“They’re both upstairs, but I told ’em to put Red Wolf over in The Lariat later. You don’t mind him, but I don’t want a dirty Indian around me. Besides, I can’t spare a room.”
Hugh stared at his mother-in-law in angry wonderment. He had, he thought, sounded all her meannesses years ago. But here was a new one.
“You may be a first-class politician, Mrs. Morgan,” he said stiffly, “but you are mighty limited in your sense of hospitality.”
Mrs. Morgan bristled, but Pink came in before she could reply. Mrs. Ellis and one or two other of the committee women followed him.
“Say, Hughie,” exclaimed Pink, “these ladies act like they think you’d done something more than be a average good rider this afternoon.”
“Well, I haven’t!” said Hugh, hastily, seeming not to hear the chorus of protests from Mrs. Ellis and her friends. “What did you do with the gray stallion, Pink? I couldn’t find him in the railroad corral.”
Pink grinned. “O I put him where he’d be safe! He’s too good for an Indian. Guess I’ll keep him to square old Red Wolf’s board bill.”
“Your wife has already circumvented that by arranging to have him put in The Lariat tonight,” returned Hugh, grimly. “Don’t try any of your funny work about the gray, Pink. I won’t stand for it.”
“Want him for yourself, Hughie?” Pink still was grinning, but his eyes were hard.
“That gray stallion is worth all the rest of the herd put together,” insisted Hugh. “He belongs to Red Wolf.”
“The hell he does! Red Wolf picked him up on range. Let’s see him prove his right to him.”
Hugh rose from his half-finished meal. “Look here, Pink,” he said, his low voice full of anger, “I’ve stood a good deal from you and yours, and right here is where we break. Old Red Wolf has been a friend of mine ever since I can remember. I’ve eaten and slept and worked with him, and he’s a man, every inch of him. That’s why I won’t let you steal his horse and why I’m sore at your wife’s throwing him out of your house. I’m not going to stand for it.”
“My God, Hughie!” shouted Pink, “you wouldn’t get so lathered up over a lousy Indian, would you? Why you and the Missis and me has weathered through fights over real things. That horse is too good for an Injun, and you know it.”
Hugh stooped and took his hat from under his chair. “I’m through!” he exclaimed, as he straightened himself, “and Red Wolf shall keep that horse if I carry the matter to the supreme court.”
His head was stiffly erect and his gray eyes were burning with a controlled fury that even the controversy over the proposed dam had not revealed there. Mrs. Ellis and her friends watched him without speaking, Mrs. Ellis particularly showing a keenness that even the watchful Mrs. Morgan was too engrossed to observe. That astute politician exclaimed, unbelievingly:
“Hughie, you aren’t going to quit the fight for the Old Sioux Tract?”
“I am as far as you’re concerned,” replied Hugh.
He bowed to the members of the committee and strode out of the room and up the stairs. He found Red Wolf in a little back room at the end of the upper hall. The old Indian was alone. He opened his eyes feebly as Hugh came in.
“Where’s Eagle Wing, old chap?” asked Hugh.
“Gone tell squaw.”
“Then he won’t be back until midnight,” said Hugh. “Look here, Red Wolf, I want you to come over to The Lariat and let me take care of you.”
Red Wolf sat up slowly. “We go now,” he said. “White squaw don’t want me here.”
Hugh nodded, and a few moments later the group of people in the hotel office saw the old Sioux, carefully supported by Hugh’s arm under his shoulders, slowly descend the stairs, shuffle across the hall and pass out of the door into the moon-drenched night.
Hugh put his old friend to bed on Bookie’s cot. And Red Wolf gave a gigantic sigh as Hugh tucked the blanket round him.
“Heap much long time friends, huh, Hughie?” he grunted.
“Yes,” agreed Hugh. “We’ll show ’em, won’t we, old timer?”
Red Wolf nodded and closed his eyes in utter content.
Hugh renewed the fire in the heater, shaded the lamp from his patient’s eyes, and then went out to find the doctor and receive instructions as to the care of the wounded man. He was gone for an hour. Doc Olson was a busy man. When he returned to The Lariat, Mrs. Ellis was giving Red Wolf a drink of water. Hugh paused by the stove. Mrs. Ellis in a moment joined him and sank with a sigh into one of the waiting chairs.
“You’ll need some one to help you, I guess,” she said. “He’s going to be very sick before he’s better. I declare I’m tired! I feel as if I’d had a heavy day.”
“I’m sorry I had to start a row going before you all,” said Hugh. “The truth is, I’m in a desperate frame of mind and the Morgans happened to touch me on a spot that won’t stand rough handling.”
Mrs. Ellis nodded. “I saw that. How are you feeling, now? Too done up to talk?”
“I’m not done up at all. I’ve got to keep Red Wolf’s wounds wet with this jar of solution Doc Olson gave me, and if you want to help wear away the hours for an ugly-tempered fossil digger, here’s your chance.”
Mrs. Ellis laughed. “Can’t say it sounds attractive!” she exclaimed. “But I’ll risk it! You light up your pipe and shove that box over for me to rest my feet on—I’m so fat I sit short—and we’ll finish what we began this afternoon.”
“But that is finished,” protested Hugh, as he obeyed his guest’s instructions.
“It might have sounded that way to an amateur,” admitted Mrs. Ellis, “but when you’ve been in politics as long as I have, you’ll realize that no statement, however final, ever really ends anything. However, have you by any chance formulated a campaign of your own?”
“Yes, I’m going after Governor Eli,” replied Hugh.
“You can try him, of course, but I’ll warn you that you’ll have your trouble for your pains. He’s absolutely committed to the proposition of squeezing every ounce of water power out of every river, creek and spring in the state. He’s probably already made his personal arrangements with the Eastern Electric Corporation. But you go up to Cheyenne and have a conference with him. You’ll have no difficulty in seeing him.”
“I certainly shall try him out,” stated Hugh, “and every member of the Public Utilities Commission, too. After that I’ll tour the state and speak in every town and every cross-trail. Then I’ll go to Washington and camp down in the Department of the Interior.”
Mrs. Ellis nodded. “Not bad. But, of course, that’s slow work and, once the Corporation gets its charter, it will start condemnatory proceedings on your land.”
“That, too, is slow work,” suggested Hugh.
“There might be ways of blocking them for a time, but the proceedings would grind along. So you have turned Mrs. Morgan down. Was Red Wolf the real reason?”
Hugh thought for a moment. “Red Wolf was the final reason. I love that old Indian. He’s all mixed up in my mind with my boyhood and my mother and Bookie and my work—and it’s more than that.” He tamped down the tobacco in his pipe, and went on. “He’s a fine man, and he’s one of the few real friends I have. After all, you can’t dissect friendship—Pink’ll return that stallion, believe me, he will.”
“I believe you” Mrs. Ellis’ voice was serious. “But, Mr. Stewart, if Red Wolf was the final reason, what were some that preceded it?”
Hugh hesitated. “I wouldn’t care to go into details about them. But in general, Mrs. Morgan has fought my sticking to my work, and Pink is hand in glove with the Eastern Electric Corporation. And this afternoon my gorge rose in my throat at the idea of depending on a lot of women to help me out in what is a real man’s fight. No, ma’am! I’m on my own now, thanks to Red Wolf.”
“So the old Sioux made you do what you’ve never done for yourself,” said Mrs. Ellis.
“I guess that’s about it,” agreed Hugh. “I love that old Indian.”
He rose and went back to wet the bandages on the quiet figure which looked so unfamiliar on his Uncle Bookie’s cot. But he was inexplicably glad to have his old friend there. He returned slowly to his place by the fire.
“Mr. Stewart,” began Mrs. Ellis, “I think I was wrong about you this morning. I didn’t understand.”
“Didn’t understand what?” asked Hugh, wonderingly.
“Well,” patiently, “perhaps I can make you understand by risking hurting you about your work. I still don’t understand why paleontology should be at all important to Wyoming. I do appreciate, however, the kind of independence of mind a man must have to have suffered for his work as you’ve been made to suffer for yours.”
“I’d rather you’d appreciate what paleontology can do for Wyoming,” interposed Hugh, grimly.
“Maybe I shall, when you’ve finished educating all of us,” said Mrs. Ellis, seriously. “But the real point is that I was in the jitney on the bridge this afternoon, and I was in the Indian Massacre dining room this evening.”
“Poor old Fred did mix things up, didn’t he?” nodded Hugh. “But the poor scout didn’t mean a thing but to show off like a kid. He’s all broken up. Thinks he’s hurt the campaign. I was trying to cheer him up while I was waiting for the doctor. But he’s given up being an ace! I’m certainly fond of that nervy little devil.”
The smile that Mrs. Ellis gave Hugh was very motherly. “All right, my dear,” she said, “have it your own way.”
Hugh gave her a puzzled glance, but before he could continue his insistence on Fred’s charms, his vis-à-vis interrupted.
“After all, I am a ranch woman, brought up among riders of the range. I know what goes to making that kind of a man. You are not at all the man with a single-track mind you think you are. Mr. Stewart, if you were given the chance to fight for the Children’s Code, would you fight?”
Hugh refilled his pipe, carefully. “I was thinking about that Code this afternoon while I was gathering in Red Wolf’s horses. Curious, isn’t it? It’s building for the future, while I am digging up the past. Yet, I’m hanged if I don’t think it takes the same kind of pipe-dreaming minds to believe in either of them.”
Mrs. Ellis considered this carefully and at length. Hugh was finding her capacity for deliberate thinking very enjoyable.
“I think you are right. But you haven’t answered my question, Mr. Stewart.”
“Why, yes,” said Hugh, “I suppose that if I was educated as to details and I saw that my fighting would put the Code across, I’d jump in up to my neck—if it wouldn’t interfere with my work.”
Mrs. Ellis chuckled. Then she said seriously. “I want to do justice to Mrs. Morgan in one thing. I’m persuaded that her idea is correct, that we must either wait for some years before bringing up the Code again or we must elect a man to the governorship who will go in on some other platform but secretly pledged to force the Children’s Code bill through the legislature. Therefore, Mr. Stewart, I want to ask you to reconsider all your very vehement denials and let the women of this state make you its governor, under these conditions.”
Hugh was deeply puzzled. “What in the world has made you change so?” he demanded, not without irritation in his voice.
“You’ll probably never know, being you,” Mrs. Ellis chuckled again. “But will you reconsider, Mr. Stewart? It seems to me”
She was interrupted by the violent thrusting open of the door. Pink stamped in.
“Look here!” he shouted, “what have you done with that gray stallion?”
Hugh looked up casually. “How should I know where the gray stallion is? I’m not a horse thief!”
“There ain’t any saying what a fellow is that’ll try to wreck the only real chance his home town has had to get on the map,” retorted Pink, advancing belligerently toward the stove. His high-heeled boots were muddy and his face was scratched. “I’ve plowed through every corral and stable in this town. Where’s that gray stallion, Hughie?”
Hugh laughed. “Look here, Pink, don’t be a fool! If I had taken the horse, you don’t suppose I’m going to confess to it, do you?”
“Why wouldn’t it be Eagle Wing who’d taken the stallion along?” asked Mrs. Ellis.
“Because I was with the stallion when Eagle Wing rode out of town, and for an hour after,” growled Pink.
Again Hugh laughed. “But, Pink, the gray belongs to Red Wolf and Eagle Wing. I don’t see where you come in.”
“And I don’t see where you come in,” snapped Pink. “I’ll make you suffer for butting in on this, Hughie! I could stand you running round with a woman that wasn’t my daughter, and I could stand your playing peanut politics with my wife. Both of ’em is a good way to keep you busy while I bring in the bacon on the Old Sioux Tract. But, if you think I’m a-going to stand you getting away with a horse I want, you’ve got another guess coming. Not for no stinking, lousy Injun like Red Wolf.”
Hugh rose slowly. “That is about all, Pink! You’d better leave now, and don't come back again.”
Mrs. Ellis, the veteran witness of many a bitter fight in a country of fighting men, drew a quick breath as she watched Hugh. She knew instinctively that Pink was negligible. But Hugh, towering to his full height, was transformed from the melancholy, absent-minded scientist, the concentrated, swift-moving cowman, to an embodiment of controlled fury. In his muddling insolence, Pink had struck every raw spot in Hugh’s sensitive mind. His eyes were black, his mouth compressed, his jaw rigid. It was not Hugh’s anger that startled Mrs. Ellis. It was his control of it. He did not move for a full moment. Then he said in his low voice, as Pink did not offer to leave:
“I’m afraid you didn’t understand me, Pink.”
“O I guess I understand enough to know my son-in-law is a”
“You’d better go!” said Hugh, without raising his voice.
Pink looked up into the younger man’s eyes, and at what he saw there, his face slowly whitened. He swallowed carefully and audibly twice, and stood silently gazing. Then he turned on one of his high heels and moved very hastily out of The Lariat. Hugh looked at Mrs. Ellis, without seeing her, and walked slowly back to Red Wolf’s cot, where he wet the old chief’s bandages. Mrs. Ellis waited until he returned to his chair opposite hers, then, with a sudden flush of tears to her keen eyes at what she read in the twisted smile on Hugh’s lips, she rose to go.
“I’ll not ask you for an answer tonight,” she said. “Life—O life hangs so inscrutably and so fearfully on the unimportant things! It appalls me!”
“Yes, it does,” replied Hugh, slowly. “I don’t want the nomination, Mrs. Ellis.”
“We’ll not discuss that now! I, at least, am very tired. Good night!” she said, turning toward the door.