Read Ebook: The Lone Trail by Allan Luke

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Ebook has 1723 lines and 62567 words, and 35 pages

A stodgy little broncho was loping easily along, a woman seated astride its broad back. At such a distance Stamford's only impression was of a perfect equestrienne, mingled with some surprise that a woman should appear in such a scene. Then he became aware of her perfect physique, an overflowing vitality, and an intense pleasure in the very act of riding. It attracted him strangely, for modesty of stature had all his life imposed an undue modesty of manner in his relationship with the other sex. The uncouth shouts of the cowboys, the rumbling trample of the cattle up the gangways and in the sand-strewn cars, the threatened explosion of the past minute, sank into the background of his mind as he watched.

The longer the silence in his little group, the more the approaching woman looked to him like a studio arrangement that must utterly fail, in the incongruity of its essential parts, to melt into a natural picture. It was impossible to fit her into that background of untilled hills, dead grass, barren waste, though there could never be awkwardness where she was concerned.

Cockney Aikens raised his head with a jerk and stared, frowning in a puzzled way.

Dakota merely glanced at the supple rider and transferred his eyes to Cockney's lace.

"Here's your Yankee, Mr. Aikens," he grinned, and lounged across the tracks to the loading pens, laughing as he went.

The look on Cockney's face warned Stamford to silence, but he trotted to the end of the platform and offered his hand to assist the woman to alight. With a quick flick of her body she stood beside him, rewarding him with a gentle smile as she rearranged her skirts.

"Thank you. Matana will stand by herself."

Her eyes had scarcely paused on Stamford before passing on to the big rancher. Aikens had not moved. With lowered head he was staring at her. She stooped in some confusion and brushed her skirt to smoother lines about her limbs. Then her head went up, and with a nervous laugh she moved swiftly along the platform.

"Mary, what are you doing here?"

"I got tired waiting out there, Jim," she pouted. "It's so lonesome."

Her voice was appealing, yet charged with a nervous independence. Cockney's reply was to stare down on her for a few moments, and turn his back without another word and follow Dakota to the loading cars.

Never had Stamford longed so intensely for the physique to squeeze an apology from a bully's throat, but the greater desire to hide from the hurt wife what he was thinking made him turn to her with a smile.

"These must be trying days to the shippers--ah--Mrs. Aikens, isn't it? I suppose you've had breakfast? I have, I believe, a bit of chewing gum in my pocket."

"I stopped in town for breakfast," she replied dully, her eyes on the big man climbing lazily to the roof of one of the cars before the gangways. "When I need more I'll go out to our mess-wagon. It'll be out there somewhere with the cattle."

"They've just commenced loading," Stamford went on eagerly. "This is my first experience. You see, I'm the sample tenderfoot in this district. I believe," he added, with a whimsical smile, "I've been that ever since I came."

Her eyes were on him now, and Stamford saw a gleaming smile, behind which lay an ever-gnawing worry.

"You seem to enjoy the distinction so well as to be jealous already of your successor," she said.

"Thrusts them at you, in fact," she smiled.

"I trust my news sense culls out the wheat."

"That's the first encouragement I've had since my arrival. Might I give such commendation a fitting place on the front page?"

He extracted an enormous notebook from a capacious pocket.

Her laugh tinkled spontaneously, so that Cockney rolled over on his elbow to look at her, and a couple of cowboys peeped shyly round the end of the cars and ducked to cover when they realised they were seen.

"A course in ranch-life is what you need, Mr. Stamford. It's only a case of nerves. At the H-Lazy Z, for instance, we have air that can't be beaten, food that will certainly sustain--even salads now and then--and there are a million square miles of soft grass to fall on. Let the collecting out to someone who totes a gun."

"The suggestion is so good," he replied solemnly, "that I take it as an invitation. When the worst threatens, I'll remember the H-Lazy Z--and its--ah--charming mistress."

"Right-o!" she laughed.

"That's your husband speaking," he said. "I suppose living with even an Englishman is contagious."

Her face suddenly went wistful.

"Yes," she agreed absent-mindedly.

Stamford thought he had never before heard so much in a single innocent word.

CORPORAL FAIRCLOTH ARRIVES

As the loading fell to a routine it quickened its pace. Every seven or eight minutes the two loaded cars were replaced by empty ones whose floors had already been strewn with sand. When the outer yards emptied their live freight into the loading pens, the cowboys whose duty it was galloped off into the low hills for more. Sometimes Dakota Fraley rode with them, but for the most part he busied himself hastening the loading operations.

Brand-Inspector West, small, wiry-haired, nervous, with worry in his eyes and a semi-apologetic manner he tried in vain to conceal, had much to struggle against in the performance of his duty. Wherever he got he was in the way, principally Dakota's. From the edge of the gangways near the car doors Dakota brushed him unceremoniously; on the stockade fence near the gangways he was a nuisance to the prodders. Here and there he darted, peering through the bars, reaching over the railing of the gangways, snatching hasty glances at the jumbled herds in the outer pens, as inefficient as he was conscientious.

Cockney Aikens lounged on the roof of the loading cars, where he overlooked everything, moving lazily from car to car as they filled and were shunted back. He saw the bewildered efforts of the brand-inspector, and his eyes followed Dakota from place to place, altering their focus sometimes to the pens and gangways below him. As the largest shipper, his foreman, Dakota Fraley, had charge of the operations, and all but a couple of the cowboys about the yards were from the H-Lazy Z outfit.

Mrs. Aikens and Stamford crossed the tracks and stationed themselves near the gangways.

Many of the cattle were of Texan breed, their long white horns swaying awkwardly up the gangways to catch now and then in car door or fence, momentarily holding up the line. The faster the loading moved, the more disturbing these breaks in the swing of the work. A tremendous steer, its horns projecting over the gangway railing, lumbered up the slope and paused at the car door, doubting the width of the opening. At a vicious prod from Dakota it dashed forward, jammed the point of one horn in the side of the car, withdrew it, and in a panic drove the other horn in the other side.

The line behind, a solid mass, jammed tighter and tighter. Two cowboys leaped to Dakota's assistance, but the steer only closed its eyes to their blows and stood braced.

Cockney, looking down at first with some amusement, saw what was happening back in the gangway and heaved himself upright. Dropping to the side of the gangway, he tossed Dakota and another cowboy to the ground and reached a hand across to either horn. Without apparent effort he forced the steer's head sideways so that its horns ran diagonally with the opening, and, swinging a leg over the railing, kicked the brute forward into the car.

Catching Stamford's admiring gaze he paused only long enough to thrust an unlit cigarette between his lips, before sidling down the outside of the railing to the stockade. There the brand-inspector had stubbornly installed himself, refusing to make way for the prodders and protesting at the speed of the loading. Cockney, holding to the railing with one hand, reached across the backs of the cattle and lifted the little man clear over the gangway, depositing him laughingly on the ground.

"Such a little fellow," he bantered, "yet so much in the way!"

He winked at Stamford and his wife.

West exploded in a typical volley of Western oaths. Cockney waved a finger at him.

"Oh, fie, West! And before ladies! Mary, that's not part of his duties. It's only an accomplishment that has gained him more notoriety than his official capacity. He wants to give the impression of guarding the Great West from cattle-thieving and rustling." He pointed to West's flaming face. "That's not anger. West never gets mad. It's shame at losing control before ladies."

West's hat came off with a sweeping bow to Mrs. Aikens.

"We don't expect ladies at these little affairs," he apologised. "At the same time"--turning to Cockney--"I must insist on being permitted to do my duty--else I'll order the loading to stop."

Dakota came blustering under the gangway.

"West's got his job to do, Mr. Aikens. Let him alone."

Cockney lolled against the railing, looking with twisted lips down into Dakota's sullen eyes.

"Shall I lift him up where he can see everything, Dakota, and protect him from your bullying?"

Something about it made Dakota's eyes drop.

"Don't mind him, West," soothed the foreman. "You come over here and stand on the fence. As long as you don't get in the way about the gangways you're all right."

Stamford failed to see how any one on the fence, except at the gangways, could see more of the cattle than their backs.

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