On Saturday Rob returned from haying. Because of the shortage of water for irrigating, Robinson's hundred acres had cut very much less than usual. Every one, Rob said, was complaining of the way in which the stockmen from outside had "hogged" the grazing.
"So far," Rob told Harry, "every one I've talked with is willing to sign for the herd law. It's too late to do us any good this season, but we'll have it ready by the time the beef barons start coming north next spring. Biane is the only man down this way I haven't talked to. When you go up there with these oranges, I wish you'd find out if he's going to be home this evening and I'll go up then."
Immediately after dinner Harry set out with the oranges. She walked, because Rob's saddle horse had a sore foot and he wanted to use Hike. So far Harry had not missed a day in going to see Isita. The fever had broken, leaving the girl weak and wasted, and now especially was the time when she needed the nourishing and dainty food that Harry took to her.
The exhausting languor that follows the spotted fever made it a painful effort for Isita to move. Yet at sight of Harry in the doorway with her basket on her arm, the girl tried to raise herself on her elbow.
"None of that, Miss," Harry warned her, pretending[Pg 246] to look stern, "or I'll go straight back home, and you'll never know whether I had soup or a sermon in this basket."
"It's all one to me," Isita answered, with a faint laugh. "I like whatever you bring; just so's you bring it."
Harry's daily visits had been literally a life-giving happiness to the poor child. Even Mrs. Biane's strange bitterness had softened before Harry's irrepressibly sunny nature. To-day she came in from the kitchen to set a chair beside the bed.
"While you're here, Miss Holliday," she said, "if you don't mind taking charge, I'll go up the road a piece after the hogs. Both the men are away."
"That's all right. I'll be here for a good hour. I've brought a book; if Isita eats her orange nicely, without making a face, I'll read to her."
"Why you're so good to my girl, Miss Holliday, I can't see. You've no reason to be." Mrs. Biane spoke abruptly, as if the words had kept back more than they expressed.
"I think I've the best reason in the world!" Harry exclaimed. "Isita and I are what they call 'side pardners.' And 'side pardners' always stand by each other in trouble."
Mrs. Biane opened her lips to speak, then closed them and went into the kitchen, shutting the door.
Harry pulled her chair close to the bed, took up an orange and spread under Isita's chin the smooth white napkin she had brought. The other girl said not[Pg 247] a word, but drew Harry's warm brown hand into her two thin ones and carried it to her lips.
"Silly child!" Harry said, drawing her hand away, but her throat tightened with emotion.
She began in a most businesslike manner to prepare the orange. As she sat there in the quiet, shaded room, something of the deep serenity of the summer day filled her. It was the realization that the other girl understood—was at last her friend.
When Isita had finished the orange, Harry took the chair over to the window, lifted one corner of the blanket that served as curtain and began to read. She had brought The Lady of the Lake, feeling that its simple language and its rhythmic flow would soothe Isita as much as the magic of the tale would delight her. As she read, she knew without really looking that Isita was watching her. By and by, at the end of a long description, Harry glanced over and saw that the sick girl was asleep.
Harry drew a deep breath of relaxation. Her shoulders ached a little from sitting so long. She stood up, thinking she would go outside and walk about; but the loose boards in the floor creaked so loudly that, fearing to wake Isita, she sat down again. It was so dark and still in the room that presently she found herself nodding. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall, then sat up with a jerk. A man's voice directly outside the window was speaking.
"Don't you ranchers make any mistake about this.[Pg 248] Once let a fellow like him get control here, and you'll be ruined before you know it."
It was Ludlum. She could not mistake that voice. Harry sat rigid, wondering how to get out of the place. Before she could think what to do, Ludlum went on: "Let Holliday put that herd law through, and you'll have all the sheep in southern Idaho cleaning up the feed round you."
"What's the reason they will?" It was Joe Biane who answered, ready as usual to suspect every one and combat all statements. "What's the herd law got to do with lettin' the sheep in? It's to keep critters out."
"Cow critters," Ludlum corrected. "Once you get a herd law in here it'll nullify the two-mile limit that keeps the sheep off now. Holliday didn't tell you that, did he? He's spread the notion that us stockmen are the ranchers' enemies, when the fact is, we're your best friends. You never see one that ain't ready to give you homesteaders a lift, sell you cattle on time. Holliday's sister is buying her a herd on time right now, though mebbe you wouldn't think it from the way she's threatened to shoot up mine. I guess it was them two stampeded the critters here a few nights ago. Nobody but a tenderfoot would 'a' done it. Soon's they've been in this country a month they think it's the proper thing to pull a gun on everything. Why, didn't she go to shootin' at me with a rifle the other day because I'd clumb over their fence to pick[Pg 249] up a grouse I'd winged? No, I tell you, Holliday ain't the kind you want to advise you. They ain't neither of 'em the kind anybody wants round. Well, I'll be moving. Let me know any time you want any help."
"Wait, please!"
At the sharp call both men started guiltily. The front door stood open, and Harry was coming down the path straight toward them.
"I heard you, Mr. Ludlum," she said. "Every word. Some of them weren't true."
At the ugly insinuation the stockman's bland face stiffened. "You heard me, eh? Well, then, young lady, you heard what's good for you. A few hard facts."
"Facts!" Harry's eyes snapped scornfully, and she flung up her head. Joe Biane, who had been edging quietly out of notice, understood this sign and halted, grinning expectantly.
"I don't know what you call facts," Harry went on. "It certainly isn't true that you came inside our fence 'merely to pick up a grouse,' as you say. You and another man were shooting on my land, and even when you heard me warn you, you kept on shooting. I had to fetch the rifle to frighten you off."
As Ludlum pretended to laugh, she hurried on:
"And we didn't stampede your cattle. I wasn't at home when it happened, and my brother was waked up in the middle of the night by hearing our own stock bellowing and running wild. When he had rounded[Pg 250] them up next day four of our best steers were gone; it would be hard to prove it, but I think they've been stolen."
"Stolen. That's bad, too." Ludlum was apparently at his ease once more, amused and tolerant. "Stealing branded cattle in this country is a kind of risky business. Ain't you putting it pretty strong?"
"Not so strong as I'd like to put it, when I've been told by a buckaroo right in these hills that if I dogged a certain stockman's scrubs off our range I was liable to have all my own cattle disappear; without one chance in a hundred of knowing who'd run them off, too."
"Well. You heard that, did you?" Ludlum spoke in a tone of soft surprise, but his eyes gleamed cruelly. "It's going to be pretty hard for you to make anything on your cattle this year, then, ain't it? Can't even make a payment on your mortgage, mebbe."
"You needn't worry about my not paying you, Mr. Ludlum. If we can't do anything else we can bring the stock inside the fence until yours and these other outsiders' cattle have been rounded up. I'll have enough to sell this fall to pay off something by December. There won't be any danger of losing them next year, when the herd law goes through.
"You tell Joe, here, that you're our best friend, yet you try to set him against us. You tell him the herd law will put an end to the two-mile limit, which isn't so. That's not the kind of friend we're used to, Mr. Ludlum. And if we're not the kind of people you[Pg 251] want round here, if you don't like us, why do you come up here? We've got along all right without you."
The moment she said that, she knew that she had made a mistake. Ludlum's eyes narrowed. "Oh," he said slowly, "so you got along all right, did you? Ain't it kind of sudden that you've found that out? Seemed to me you were pretty well pleased to have the old man put up cattle for you on time."
"It was your suggestion that I should buy of you. You weren't doing it because you ............