for a week after the new wire was put on, rob and harry had a respite from fighting off ludlum's herd. once a day harry made a circuit of the place and drove the outside cattle back into the hills; but the rest of the time she and rob were virtually free from them. it was a great relief, for besides the fact that rob had turned water on the wheat, which was beginning to look pretty dry, and that the time had come to cut the alfalfa, two of their steers had gone off with the range cattle and had not come back.
coming up from the barn with the last of the milk, harry paused to look once more through their cattle which had come down to the fence with the milk cows and which now stood in the draw, nibbling the alfalfa that pushed through the fence. rob was coming across the meadow, a hip-deep green expanse, and several times he stopped, pulled a blossom, and glanced critically over the field.
the late frost that rob had dreaded had struck the flat only the week before, and a general lack of water for the second crop would make hay very scarce and high. the foothill ranches, being on the slope, had more or less escaped the frost, and rob's alfalfa had not been touched. looking at it now, swaying quietly as the sea at full tide and crested with its foam of[pg 206] purple bloom, it was hard to realize that there were miles of parched foothill range near by, where cattle wandered, searching every mouthful of grass.
"that hay will be just right to cut on the fourth," he said, when at last he dropped wearily on the porch step.
"on the fourth! the prairie's supreme holiday! i thought the entire valley went fishing on the fourth," said harry.
"i don't believe it will this year. every one that's got any hay at all will cut it the minute it's ready. robinson intends to cut a few days later than i do, and he's going to let me have his mower first, so i've got to work anyhow."
"well, if we've got to work, let's celebrate with a big dinner. how would that appeal to a haying crew? ice cream, chicken fricassee, cherry pie. i thought so!"
rob smacked his lips and grinned broadly. "doesn't sound as if you'd get much fun out of it, though," he said, "cooking for a bunch of haymakers."
"don't worry. the prospect of company well repays the cookery. i mean to have the women folks, too, and the children."
the dinner party now became their chief interest. first harry, then rob, thought of some detail that would contribute to its perfecting, and the two worked like a couple of children building a sand castle. on counting the number of expected guests, they found that[pg 207] they could scarcely seat them all at table at once in the house; but rob had lumber on hand for extra cattle sheds, and from that he built under the balm trees a table of goodly size and two benches.
the day that rob went over for the mower harry cleaned the house. even if they did dine outside, the house must be flawlessly neat. it was nearly five o'clock when at last harry scrubbed her way out of the door and down the porch steps. behind her the cabin twinkled like a new pan, and, when she had shaken out the mop, she stretched her arms and sighed with satisfaction.
then suddenly she wheeled round and listened. somewhere down toward the creek a gun had spoken faintly.
instantly harry was another creature. her languor vanished; she drew up, keen and alert; her eyes moved back and forth along the line of willow bushes that screened the stream. for half a minute she watched, scarcely breathing; the immense silence was broken only by the far, faint bell note of a mourning dove. had she only imagined that other sound? no. there it was again.
suddenly two figures crept into view, moving cautiously, with shotguns held ready. she put two fingers in her mouth, drew a deep breath, and then a screaming whistle split the evening calm.
the sportsmen heard it. harry saw them stop and look her way; but, seeing only a girl, they evidently[pg 208] felt safe, for they started forward again, with guns cocked, and when harry whistled the second time they paid no attention.
"i guess i know what'll make you go!" cried the girl, and she ran into the house. she came out again with the big .32 rifle under her arm and started down the path.
she had gone scarcely a hundred feet when she saw a flock of sage hens rise. at the same instant there was a rattle of shots, and two birds fell. harry threw the rifle to her shoulder, aimed high and fired. instantly one of the men jumped back, shook his fist toward her and shouted. she did not catch the words, but it made no difference, anyhow. he knew he had no business inside the fence, for there was a plainly printed sign warning hunters off. she moved forward slowly, expecting to see the sportsmen get over the fence; but just then another covey of birds rose, and simultaneously both men fired.
that was too much. harry raised the rifle and fired six deliberate shots. she aimed high over the heads and well to either side of the trespassers, so that there was no chance of hitting them. nevertheless, when an automobile rolled out from the willows and she saw how easily she might have hit the driver, she felt a thrill of horror.
she stood watching while, the men made a run for the car, scrambled aboard and went swinging out of sight up the road. then slowly she turned back home. her knees felt shaky; she drew a long, unsteady breath and,[pg 209] to her surprise, had to sit down on the ground for a moment.
when rob got home with the mower he brought a general acceptance of the invitation to the fourth of july dinner. "they fell for it as if they'd been expecting it any time in the last three years," he reported.
"it's just as well, then, that i planned to have isita come down and help me," harry answered. she had decided to say nothing about shooting at the hunters. she had realized by this time what a terrible risk she had taken, and she knew it would worry rob to think that she had been so reckless.
"what on earth do you want biane's girl here for?" he asked. "i should think mrs. robinson could help you out."
"she would, of course; but i want an excuse to talk with isita and persuade her to go to school this winter."
"but if we're feeding cattle here this winter, you won't be teaching down on the flat."
"isita can go to school just the same, can't she? besides, i want to advise her to find a place where she can work for her board while she's going to school. her mother would send her if she weren't afraid of old biane."
"better go slow. if you're too friendly, we'll have their hogs down here in the wheat every day instead of twice a week."
but harry insisted on having isita. the one drawback to her life on the ranch had been the lack of girl[pg 210] friends, and her interest in isita had taken the place of other interests.
as she rode over to the bianes' two days before the dinner party, she tried to frame a tactful speech in which to offer the other girl a dress to wear; for probably she had nothing suitable, and harry did not want her to refuse to come, merely because she lacked a dress.
the biane cabin was still not much more than the "prove-up shack" that the original owner had quitted. it was of unpainted boards with only two half windows to break its blank walls, and seemed scarcely to deserve the name of "home." and still, some one had tried to improve the place. a woven-wire fence enclosed a small garden patch in which, among the cabbages, harry recognized bachelor's-buttons and poppies grown from seed she had given isita. some packing boxes had been fitted together for a chicken house, and an attempt had even been made to fence in a few acres of wheat; but the live stock—joe's hogs, half a dozen sheep and several thin cows—wandered loose, rather to the detriment of the crops of neighboring ranchers.
as harry rode up, the morning sunshine was beaming over all; on the chickens scratching in front of the cow shed, on the scarlet poppies beside the path. yet to harry the clutch of poverty seemed actually visible. what a place for a young girl to grow up in! chopping wood, plowing, herding sheep; while the good-for-nothing father and brother went fishing and hunting!
"i'd like to take her to stay with me all winter," harry thought in sympathetic indignation. "if she[pg 211] had half a chance, she'd make something worth while of herself. how thankful i am for my life!"
no one was visible about the place, and harry knocked twice before she got any response. then halting steps came across the room within, the door was unlocked, and isita's mother stood in the narrow opening.
"oh! it's miss holliday. the hogs down bothering you again? i told that joe——"
"no, indeed. the hogs haven't bothered us lately. i came to ask isita to help me with my fourth of july dinner."
harry put all the friendly warmth possible into her voice. she remembered that this work-worn woman who faced her there with a sort of defiant anxiety had been a new england farmer's daughter, and that many a time in her girlhood she must have helped with a big company dinner in honor of the national holiday.
but mrs. biane merely drew back a little and raised her hand in abrupt refusal. "no, thank you. it's kind of you to ask isita, but i wouldn't want her to go."
she began to close the door.
"oh, please don't refuse!" harry begged. she had no intention of yielding so easily. "it would be doing me a real favor to let her come. it's so hard to do everything alone, and isita is the only young girl i know well enough to ask to help me."
she used all her eloquence, her most persuasive warmth, but even while she talked she was aware of[pg 212] something in the woman's silence, a sort of dread, that made her unwilling to let isita go; but at last, won over by harry's friendliness, mrs. biane yielded, saying only that isita must be home before dark.
"why didn't her mother want her to come?" harry asked herself as she rode away. "why are they so unfriendly? there's something wrong there. no wonder isita looks scared and unhappy. i wonder where she was. off herding the sheep, probably. that looks like one of them now—near our fence, as usual."
a glimpse of something white moving in the sagebrush had caught her eye. she rode toward it, and discovered, not a sheep, but a young calf.
"what's happened to these scrub cows?" harry exclaimed. "i never saw anything like the way they desert their calves. this is the second i've found left to starve. if rustlers were busy, they'd shoot the cows and carry the calves off."
too young to graze, the calf was gaunt from lack of food and made no effort to escape when harry began to drive it. instead, it merely stumbled forward a few steps and stopped.
"go on," she ordered. "i couldn't let you lie out here and starve, even if ludlum can. how any man can turn a herd of cattle into the hills and not know or care what happens to them for weeks and months is more than i can comprehend. come! move along there."
thus adjured, and helped by an occasional flick of[pg 213] the rawhide, the calf moved ahead until within sight of the gate. harry was just about to get down and open it, when the pony gave a jerk and looked sidewise, and harry had a glimpse of an old felt hat moving behind a ledge of lava that had jutted from the scab land. riding forward, she came face to face with joe biane. he had climbed up through one of the fissures and stood leaning carelessly against the rocks, with his hands behind him. a mischievous smile curled his lips.
"morning, joe!" she said. "will you open the gate for me?"
joe did not move. astonished, she waited a moment. then she noticed that he was hiding his hands. her lips curved in a comprehending smile.
"you needn't be afraid!" she exclaimed. "i won't look at the birds you're hiding. i realize it's useless to try to protect them from you."
joe neither answered nor moved. his derisive grin widened; he looked at the calf and inquired, "lost another critter, have you?"
"another calf? this isn't ours that i know of. i found it starving outside, and i'm bringing it in to feed it."
"sure. of course you want to save it." joe snickered, and then, to her astonishment, he burst into a rude laugh and moved back among the lava ridges out of sight.
harry watched him. he had shifted his hands quickly; nevertheless, she had caught a gleam of [pg 214]something. "his shotgun, of course," she decided. she felt oddly irritated by his impudent stare and laughter. what did he mean by saying "of course" she wanted to save the calf?
"it's just his fresh way of talking," rob said at noon, when she had described the incident to him. "he may think you expect a reward from ludlum for feeding it. it may be ours, of course, though i don't see where the cow can be. we'll have to wait until to-night when the milk cows come in to see if any of them claim this one. it looks too poor to be ours, i think. any time ludlum's riders come looking for strays, we can show them these two and let them decide."
"don't you think we should round our critters up and count them?" harry suggested. "it's a long time since we've been over the yearlings and steers, and we may be losing more of them. those two haven't turned up yet."
"i know," said rob, with a sigh. "i've been meaning to; but there's so everlasting much to do. i ought to be working on that fill for the reservoir right now. and yet, if we want the wheat to make anything, i've got to get more water on it before it's too late. we want to save every bit of feed inside, too, so we can't bring all the stock in until they've cleaned up the range. once haying's over, you bet i'm going to dog off ludlum's scrubs and give our cattle a fair chance at the range. it's a little too much to have him grab everything outside and hold a mortgage on our land, too."
as rob, sitting flat on the porch, with his back against[pg 215] the house and his feet out before him, talked of his plans, harry suddenly noticed two men who were riding toward the gate.
"now what can they want?" she said as they came inside. "i haven't a thing left to offer them for dinner."
"they're not coming to the house," rob said. "they're going west. riders hunting strays, i guess." they watched in silence as the two men rode slowly through the herd, taking note of the cows and calves there; then the riders disappeared round the butte.
"they'll probably go up on top and look through the cattle there and then drop in to supper," rob suggested as he got up to go to work.
but they did not come. it was not until the fourth of july that the men appeared again, and then they came on an unexpected errand.
