She and Rob were riding fast, scarcely speaking to each other. They had rounded the foot of the butte that separated Harry's land from the Bianes' and were almost in front of the Biane house when, as they galloped along the fence, Rob's horse leaped and gave a snort of fright.
"Take care, there!" Rob called back as he regained his seat.
Instinctively Harry reined in and glanced fearfully over her shoulder. There was nothing much to be seen—only the elder Biane loading something into the wagon that stood in front of the door.
"I wonder whether Joe was hurt worse than they wanted to say," Rob remarked to Harry, and then called out, "Hi, there, Biane; need any help? Joe all right this morning?"
"All right, all right! We need not'ting at all." As[Pg 180] Rob halted, the Portuguese started forward and waved his arm with a threatening gesture. "Not'ting is the mattare here! Go on!"
"Polite beggar," Rob commented, laughing as they set spurs to their horses and rode on.
It was nine o'clock when, after crossing the foothills, they sighted, far to the south, the oasis of shadow that indicated the poplar trees of Ludlum's siding. The railway crosses the Snake River there, full forty miles south of Camas Prairie, in the heart of the sand-and-sagebrush desert. When a new irrigation tract was opened, and a rush of settlers came in the siding began to gather a settlement round itself. Their ranches lay below the big ditch along the base of the foothill rise, and their scattered forties and eighties of alfalfa were the first verdure that the travelers from the hills had seen.
As Harry gazed forward along the road winding through the sagebrush toward Ludlum's, she saw in fancy the slow-moving string of cattle that would soon be coming back over that road to her. Her herd! Already she thought of them as hers; for when she had made the second payment in December it would be no time at all until the increase from the herd would pay the rest of the debt.
"Things are getting pretty dry already," Rob remarked, as he gazed at the passing country. "If the irrigation water fails these fellows, and it may easy enough, there was so little snow last winter, they won't get much late hay."
"Why, I think the crops look fine," Harry answered gayly; "and as for us, we have all the water we need. Our springs were never known to fail, now, were they? We've miles of free range that should last into October, and we can certainly buy all the hay we need down on the flat."
"I hope you're right," Rob answered. "Just the same, I'm going to stop at some of the ranches along here and see what they're asking for the first crop of alfalfa."
The next ranch was an eighty-acre square of silk-green, rippling verdure, with a small unpainted frame house at the edge of it, like a raft anchored on the border of turbulent water. Unfortunately, there was only a woman at home, and she explained that the men from that and the next two ranches on the road had gone to put up hay on the Constable place across the river.
"If we can get through with Ludlum in time, I believe I'd better ride across to Constable's," Rob said as they turned the last corner and rode along Ludlum's fence.
Harry assented vaguely. She was absorbed in admiring the splendid ranch before them. The house grounds of the thousand-acre farm lay facing the road; the railway ran along the other side of the place where the new town had been laid out. For half a mile behind the house extended a double row of immense Lombardy poplars, making a windbreak against the violent west winds; and in their shelter were ranged[Pg 182] the orchard, garden and the group of barns, sheds, bunk houses, cookhouse and other out-buildings that pertained to an old-time ranch.
Water was running in the irrigation ditches, a windmill whirred with its pleasant sound of industry, miles of alfalfa and pasture shimmered in the morning sunshine, and in other fields cows with young calves were feeding. The scene gave a feeling of long-settled prosperity, of solid wealth that no "bad year," no "dull market," could affect.
"And all this has been done with cattle!" Harry exclaimed, as she looked around her. "How thankful I am I've started a herd!"
"I wonder, though, how he got his start," Rob remarked. "With one cow or with credit?"
"I dare you to ask him," said Harry.
Rob only laughed and swung out of his saddle in front of the door. Several children ran out and surrounded them with friendly curiosity, and a pretty, smiling little woman followed close behind.
"I thought I recognized Mr. Holliday," Mrs. Ludlum said when Rob had introduced his sister. "The minute I laid eyes on him I knew I'd seen him here before."
"No use trying to fool a real Westerner," Rob answered laughing. "Once you're seen in this country you're a marked man."
"Oh, now, I wouldn't call you that, yet. You ain't never done nothing worse, so far's I know, than turn in here once for the night when your team ran away from you, and then offer to pay for your bed and board."
[Pg 183]
"You'll never forgive that, will you?" said Rob. "Well, this time we've come to carry off several square meals at once without paying—except with promises. In other words, we're here for cattle. Is Mr. Ludlum round?"
"Well, there! He just ain't," said Mrs. Ludlum, who had seated her guests in the big veranda rocking-chairs. "Ludlum's went out to the South Side to look up his hay, but he'll be back for dinner. You'll stay overnight anyhow. Oh, yes, now! It ain't so often you come this way, and we've always wanted to get acquainted with your sister. We've heard how smart she is; teaching school and milking and doing chores like she was born to it."
"Yes, sis keeps the traces stiff pretty well," Rob assured her.
"Our ranch isn't much after seeing this one," Harry said quickly, pleased yet embarrassed by her brother's praise.
"Well, now. Don't let that give you a set-back," said Mrs. Ludlum. "Why, when we come here, twenty-five years ago, we had the same layout as you. Raw sagebrush and no water, except the river. You've got us beat there. Didn't I live in the sheep wagon, too, for a year, until we got ahead enough to build us a shack? All this you see now didn't come in one jump."
Such words were food and drink to Harry. As she listened to the accounts of the Ludlums' trials, mistakes and bad luck, she saw that she and Rob were not the only ones who had made blunders. By dinner time they[Pg 184] were exchanging experiences as if they had known one another for years. Harry was almost sorry when Ludlum came in and the topic of conversation changed.
Rob, on the contrary, was glad to see the stockman. "It may save me a trip over to the South Side," he said, "if you can tell me what sort of hay crop they've got over there."
"It's a good crop, all right, but it's about all contracted for."
"Already!" Rob exclaimed. "What's the hurry?"
"Nothing. The sheepmen always buy early, and this year there's some extra cattle in the country, and some of 'em'll have to be fed this winter—those that ain't fat enough to ship by fall."
"From what we've heard of them they won't ever be fat enough," said Rob, and he went on to tell what Garnett had reported.
"I've seen 'em worse than that and come off the range fat," Ludlum said, laughing. "You needn't worry about them taking all the hay."
Nevertheless, Rob decided to ride out. "If we can get this business of ours settled up early," he suggested, "I'll leave Harry here for the night and go over there."
"Sure," Ludlum answered promptly. "We'll go and take a look at the stock on pasture, and you can pick what you like. Yes, come along," he said to his wife, and added, grinning, to the others, "That woman has to have a finger in everything; you'd think she'd raised the whole outfit herself."
"Well, I guess I did raise the start of it!" his wife[Pg 185] exclaimed. "I fed a dozen calves by hand until they could eat grass, and it's from them he got his real start of a herd. Come on, Miss Holliday. I'll tell you which ones to pick." And, putting her arm through Harry's she led the way down the path.
It was done at last. Rob and Harry had chosen thirty Durham cows, calves, yearlings and two "coming two's." The price was to be one thousand dollars, one fourth down, one fourth on December 1, when, if all went well, the loan would be renewed. The afternoon was only half gone when they came out of the notary public's office.
"I'll leave you here," Rob said, mounting his horse as the others got into Ludlum's automobile. "Don't forget, sis, if I'm not back to-night, that you are to start on in the morning and meet me up the road near that ranch we stopped at on our way down."
"I've half a mind not to let you go inside a week," Mrs. Ludlum declared as they started back to the house. "Men folks always take it for granted that a woman's got to be home every minute, whether she's needed or not. I'll bet you haven't slept away from home two nights running since you filed on your homestead. Have you, now?"
"Plenty of times," said Harry gayly. "You forget that I taught school on the flat for three winters."
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