CHAPTER 13

Milly Fayre rode out of Sprague’s Post on the front of a freighter’s wagon, sitting between Jett and his wife. The rest of Jett’s outfit followed close behind, Follonsbee and Pruitt in the second wagon, and Catlee driving the last.

For as long as Milly could see the Hudnalls she waved her red scarf in farewell. Then when her friends passed out of sight Milly turned slowly to face the boundless prairie, barren of life, suddenly fearful in its meaning, and she sank down, stricken in heart. What she had dreaded was now an actuality. The courage that had inspired her when she wrote the letter to Tom Doan, leaving it with Mrs. Hudnall, was a courage inspired by love, not by hope. So it seemed now.

“Milly, you ain’t actin’ much like a boy, spite them boy’s clothes,” said Jett, with attempt at levity. “Pile over in the back of the wagon an’ lay down.”

Kindness from Jett was astounding, and was gratefully received by Milly. Doing as she was bidden, she found a comfortable place on the unrolled packs of bedding, with her head in a shade of the wagon seat. It developed then that Jett’s apparent kindness had been only a ruse to get her away so he could converse with his wife in low, earnest tones. Milly might have heard all or part of that conversation, but she was not interested and did not listen.

Dejectedly she lay there while the steady trot of the horses carried her back toward the distant buffalo range. To be torn from her kind and loving friends at the post and drawn back into the raw hard life led by her stepfather was a bitter and sickening blow. Her sufferings were acute; and as she had become used to hope and happiness she was now ill fitted to cope with misery and dread. She did not think of the future or plan to meet it; she lived in the present and felt the encroaching of an old morbid and fatalistic mood, long a stranger to her.

The hours passed, and Jett’s deep, low voice appeared never to rest or cease. He did not make a noon stop, as was customary among the buffalo-hunters. And he drove until sunset.

“Forty miles, bedam!” he said, with satisfaction, as he threw the reins.

Whether Milly would have it so or not, she dropped at once back into the old camp life, with its tasks. How well she remembered! The smoke of the camp fire made her eyes smart and brought tingling as well as hateful memories.

The other wagons drove up rather late, and once more Milly found herself under the hawk eyes of Follonsbee and the half-veiled hidden look of the crooked-faced Pruitt. Her masculine garb, emphasizing her shapely slenderness, manifestly drew the gaze of these men. They seemed fascinated by it, as if they both had discovered something. Neither of them spoke to her. Catlee, however, gave her a kindly nod. He seemed more plodding in mind than she remembered him.

One by one the old associations returned to her, and presently her fleeting happiness with the Hudnalls had the remoteness and unreality of a dream and she was again Jett’s stepdaughter, quick to start at his harsh voice. Was that harshness the same? She seemed to have a vague impression of a difference in his voice, in him, in all of his outfit, in the atmosphere around them.

A stopping place had been chosen at one of the stream crossings where hundreds of buffalo-hunters had camped that year, a fact Jett growled about, complaining of the lack of grass and wood. Water was plentiful, and it was cold, a welcome circumstance to the travelers. Jett had an inordinate thirst, probably owing to his addiction to rum at Sprague’s.

“Fetch some more drinkin’ water,” he ordered Milly.

She took the pail and went down the bank under the big, rustling, green cottonwoods. Catlee was at the stream, watering the horses.

“I seen you comin’, an’ I says who’s that boy?” he said, with a grin. “I forgot.”

“I forgot, too,” she replied, dubiously. “I don’t like these–these pants. But I’ve made a discovery, Catlee. I’m more comfortable round camp.”

“Don’t wonder. You used to drag your skirts round… Gimme your bucket. I’ll fill it where the water’s clear.”

He waded in beyond where the horses were drinking and dipped the pail. “Nothin’ like good cold water after a day’s hot ride.”

“Jett drank nearly all I got before and sent me for more.”

“He’s burnin’ up inside with red liquor,” returned Catlee, bluntly.

Milly did not have any reply to make to that, but she thanked Catlee, and taking the pail she poured out a little water, so she would not spill it as she walked.

“Milly, I’m sorry you had to come back with Jett,” said Catlee.

She paused, turning to look at him, surprised at his tone. His bronze face lacked the heat, the dissolute shades common to Jett and the other men. Milly remembered then that Catlee in her opinion had not seemed like the rest of Jett’s outfit.

“Sorry? Why?” she asked.

“I know Sprague. He’s from Missouri. He told me about you, an’ your friend Tom Doan.”

“Sprague told you–about–about Tom!” faltered Milly, suddenly blushing. “Why, who told him?”

“Mrs. Hudnall, he said. Sprague took interest in you, it ‘pears. An’ his wife is thick with the Hudnall women. Anyway, he was sorry Jett took you away –an’ so’m I.”

Milly’s confusion and pain at the mention of Tom did not quite render her blind to this man’s sympathy. She forced away the wave of emotion. Her mind quickened to the actuality of her being once more in Jett’s power and that she had only her wits and courage to rely upon. This hard-faced, apparently dull and somber man might befriend her. Milly suddenly conceived the inspiration to win him to her cause.

“So am I sorry, Catlee,” she said sadly, and her quick tears were genuine. Indeed, they had started to flow at mention of Tom’s name. “I–I’m engaged to Tom Doan… I was–so–so happy. And I’d never had –any happy times before… Now I’ve been dragged away. Jett’s my stepfather. I’m not of age. I had to come… And I’m terribly afraid of him.”

“I reckon,” rejoined Catlee, darkly, “you’ve reason to be. He an’ the woman quarreled at Sprague’s. He wanted to leave her behind. For that matter, the four of them drank a good deal, an’ fought over the hide money.”

“For pity’s sake, be my friend!” appealed Milly.

The man stared at her, as if uncomprehending, yet somehow stirred.

“Catlee,” she said, seeing her advantage and stepping back to lay a hand softly on his arm, “did you ever have a sister or a sweetheart?”

“I reckon not or I’d been another kind of man,” he returned, with something of pathos.

“But you’re not bad,” she went on, swiftly.

“Me not bad! Child, you’re crazy! I never was anythin’ else. An’ now I’m a hide thief.”

“Oh, it’s true, then? Jett is a hide thief. I knew something was terribly wrong.”

“Girl, don’t you tell Jett I said that,” replied Catlee, almost harshly.

“No, I won’t. I promise. You can trust me,” she returned, hurriedly. “And I could trust you. I don’t think you’re really bad. Jett has led you into this. He’s bad. I hate him.”

“Yes, Jett’s bad all right, an’ he means bad by you. I reckon I thought you knowed an’ didn’t care.”

“Care! If he harms me I’ll kill him and myself,” she whispered, passionately.

The man seemed to be confronted with something new in his experience, and it was dissipating a dull apathy to all that concerned others.

“So that’s how a good girl feels!” he muttered.

“Yes. And I ask you–beg you to be a man–a friend –”

“There comes Pruitt,” interrupted Catlee, turning to his horses. “Don’t let him or any of them see you talkin’ to me.”

Milly bent over the heavy bucket and, avoiding the dust raised by Pruitt with his horses, she hurried back to camp. Her return manifestly checked hard words between Jett and his wife. Milly took up her tasks where they had been interrupted, but with this difference, that she had become alive to the situation among these hide thieves. Jett’s status had been defined, and the woman was no doubt culpable with him. Catlee’s blunt corroboration of Milly’s fears had awakened her spirit; and the possibility of winning this hardened man to help her in her extremity had inspired courage and resolve. All in a flash, then, it seemed she was the girl who had written that brave letter to Tom Doan.

Supper was cooked and eaten. The men, except Catlee, were not hungry as usual, and appeared to be wearing off the effects of hard drinking. They spoke but seldom, and then only to ask for something out of reach on the spread canvas. Darkness settled down while Milly dried the pans and cups. Catlee came up with a huge armload of wood, which he dropped with a crash, a little too near Pruitt to suit his irascible mood.

“Say, you Missouri hay seed, can’t you see my feet?” he demanded.

“I could if I’d looked. They’re big enough,” retorted Catlee. “I ain’t wonderin’ you have such a care of them.”

“Ain’t you? Shore I’d like to know why?” queried Pruitt.

“I reckon what little brains you’ve got are in them.”

“You damn Yank!” ejaculated the little rebel, as amazed as enraged. “I’ve shot men for less’n thet.”

“Reckon you have,” rejoined Catlee with slow, cool sarcasm. “But in the back!… An’ I’m lookin’ at you.”

There was not the slightest doubt of Catlee’s emergence from the character of a stolid dull teamster into something incalculably otherwise. Jett rolled out his loud, harsh laughter. It amused him, this revolt of the stupid farmer.

Likewise it showed his subtle change. Was there reason for him to invite antagonism among his men? Assuredly there was strong antagonism toward him. Follonsbee gazed in genuine amaze at Catlee, and slowly nodded his lean buzzard- like head, as if he had before in his life seen queer things in men. As for the fiery little rebel, he was instantly transformed, in his attitude toward Catlee, from a man who had felt a raw irritation, to one who hated and who doubted. However Follonsbee read the erstwhile Missouri farmer, Pruitt got only so far as a cold and waking doubt. Enmity was thus established and it seemed to be Pruitt’s natural mental attitude, and to suit Catlee better than friendliness.

Milly heard and saw this byplay from the shadow beyond the camp-fire circle. If that were Catlee’s answer to her appeal, it was a change, sudden and bewildering. The thrill she sustained was more like a shudder. In that moment she sensed a far-reaching influence, a something which had to do with future events. Catlee stalked off into the gloom of the cottonwood, where he had made his bed.

“Rand, are you sure thet feller is what you said he was–a Missouri farm hand, tired of workin’ for nothin’?” demanded Follonsbee.

“Hank, I ain’t sure of anythin’ an’ I don’t give a whoop,” replied the leader.

“Thet’s natural, for you,” said the other, with sarcasm. “You don’t know the West as I know it. Catlee struck me queer… When he called Pruitt, so cool- like, I had come to mind men of the Cole Younger stripe. If so –”

“Aw, it’s nothin’,” cut in Pruitt. “Jett spoke my sentiments aboot our Yankee pard. It riles me to think of him gettin’ a share of our hide money.”

Jett coughed, an unusual thing for him to do. “Who said Catlee got a share?” he queried, gruffly.

Follonsbee lifted his lean head to peer at the leader. Pruitt, who was sitting back to a stump, his distorted face gleaming red in the camp-fire light, moved slowly forward to gaze in turn. Both men were silent; both of them questioned with their whole bodies. But Jett had no answer. He calmly lit his pipe and flipped the match into the fire.

“Shore, now I tax myself, I cain’t remember thet anybody said Catlee got a share,” replied Pruitt, with deliberation. “But I thought he did. An’ I know Hank thought so.”

“I’d have gambled on it,” said Follonsbee.

“Catlee gets wages, that’s all,” asserted the leader.

“Ahuh!… An’ who gets his share of the hide money?” demanded Pruitt.

“I do,” rejoined Jett, shortly.

“Jett, I’m tellin’ you that’s in line with your holdin’ out money for supplies at Sprague,” said Follonsbee, earnestly. “You was to furnish outfit, grub, everythin’, an’ share even with all of us, includin’ your woman. You got your share, an’ her share, an’ now Catlee’s share.”

“I’m willin’ to argue it with you, but not on an equal divvy basis.”

There followed a long silence. The men smoked. The fire burned down, so that their faces were but pale gleams. Milly sought her bed, which she had made in the wagon. Jett had sacrificed tents to make room for equal weight of buffalo hides. He had unrolled his blankets under the wagon, where the sullen woman had repaired soon after dark. Milly took off her boy’s shoes and folded the coat for a pillow, then slipping under the blankets she stretched out, glad for the relief.

How different, lying out under the open starry sky! She liked it. The immense blue dome was alight, mysterious, beautiful, comforting. Milly said her short prayer, childish and loyal, somehow more than ever helpful on this eventful night. Often, before she had met the Hudnalls and Tom Doan, she had omitted that little prayer, but never since she had learned from them the meaning of friendship and love.

The night was warm; the leaves of the cottonwoods near by rustled softly in the breeze; insects were chirping and a night bird was uttering plaintive notes.

Jett, Follonsbee, and Pruitt remained around the camp fire, quarreling in low voices; and that sound was the last Milly heard as slumber claimed her.

Milly’s eyes opened to the bright light of day, and pale-blue sky seemed canopied over her. Not the canvas roof of her tent! Where was she? The smell of cottonwood smoke brought her with surging shock to realization. Then Jett’s harsh voice, that had always made her shrink with fear, sent a creeping fire along her veins.

She lay a moment longer, calling to the spirit that had awakened last night; and it augmented while she seemed to grow strangely older. She would endure; she would fight; she would think. So that when she presented herself at the camp fire she was outwardly a quiet, obedient, impassive girl, inwardly a cunning, daring woman.

Not half a dozen words were spoken around the breakfast canvas. Jett rushed the tasks. Sunrise shone on the three wagons moving south at a brisk trot.

Milly had asked Catlee to fix her a comfortable place in the back of Jett’s wagon. He had done so, adding of his own accord an improvised sun shade of canvas. She had watched him from the wagon seat, hoping he would speak to her or look at her in a way that would confirm her hopes. But the teamster was silent and kept his head lowered. Nevertheless, Milly did not regard his taciturnity as unfavorable to her. There had been about Catlee, last night when he had muttered: “So that’s how a good girl feels,” a something which spoke to Milly’s intuition. She could not prove anything. But she felt. This man would befriend her. A subtle unconscious influence was working on his mind. It was her presence, her plight, her appeal.

Milly thought of a thousand plans to escape, to get word to Doan, to acquaint buffalo-hunters with the fact of her being practically a prisoner, to betray that Jett was a hide thief. Nothing definitely clear and satisfactory occurred to her. But the fact of her new knowledge of Jett stood out tremendously. It was an infallible weapon to employ, if the right opportunity presented. But a futile attempt at that would result fatally for her. Jett would most surely kill her.

It seemed to Milly as she revolved in mind plan after plan that the wisest thing to do would be to play submissive slave to Jett until he reached the end of the drive south; and there to persuade Catlee to take her at once to Hudnall’s camp, where she would betray Jett. If Catlee would not help her, then she must go alone, or, failing that, wait for Tom Doan to find her.

Before the morning was far advanced Jett gave wide berth to an oncoming outfit. Milly was not aware of this until the unusual jolting caused her to rise to her knees and look out. Jett had driven off the main road, taking a low place, where other drivers had made short cuts. Four freight wagons, heavily laden with hides, were passing at some distance to the right. The foremost team of horses was white–Milly thought she recognized it as Hudnall’s. Her heart rushed to her lips. But she had seen many white teams, and all of them had affected her that way. If she leaped out and ran to find she was mistaken, she would lose every chance she had. Besides, as she gazed, she imagined she was wrong. So with a deep sigh she dropped back to her seat.

The hours passed quickly. Milly pondered until she was weary, then fell asleep, and did not awaken until another camp was reached. And the first words she heard were Jett’s speaking to Follonsbee as he drove up abreast the leader, “Wasn’t that Hudnall’s outfit we passed?”

“First two teams was,” replied Follonsbee. “That young skinner of Hudnall’s was leadin’, an’ that ugly-face cuss was drivin’ the second team. I didn’t know the other outfits.”

Milly had to bite her lips to repress a scream. Jett was clambering down from the seat above. The woman, grumbling under her breath, threw out the canvas bags of utensils, that clinked on the ground. Milly hid her face as Mrs. Jett descended from the seat. Then, for a moment, she shook like a leaf with the violence of her emotions. So near Tom! Not to see his face! It was heart- rending. She lay prostrate, with her mind in a whirl. Of the many thoughts one returned–that Tom would reach Sprague’s Post next day and get her letter. That thought had strength to impart. He would lose no time following, perhaps would catch up with Jett before he got to the Pease River, and if not then, soon afterward. This thought sustained her in a trying moment.

The weakness passed, leaving her somewhat thick witted, so that as she climbed out of the wagon she nearly fell, and later her clumsiness at her assigned camp tasks fetched a reprimand from Mrs. Jett. Soon the men were back from attending to the horses, and this evening they were hungry. Meeting outcoming freighters with buffalo hides had for the moment turned the minds of Jett and his two lieutenants from their differences.

“How many hides in them outfits?” queried Jett.

“It weren’t a big haul,” replied Follonsbee.

“Shore was big enough to make us turn off the road,” said Pruitt, meaningly.

Jett glared at him. Then Catlee drawled: “Funny they didn’t see us. But we went down on our side some. That first driver was Hudnall’s man, Tom Doan.”

“Ahuh! Well, suppose it was?” returned Jett, nonplussed at this remark from the habitually unobserving Catlee.

“Nothin’. I just recognized him,” replied Catlee, casually, as he lowered his eyes.

When he raised them, a moment later, to look across the canvas supper cloth at Milly, she saw them as never before, sharp as a dagger, with a single bright gleam. He wanted her to know that he had seen Tom Doan. Milly dropped her own gaze and she spilled a little of her coffee. She dared not trust her flashing interpretation of this man’s glance. It seemed like a gleam of lightning from what had hitherto been dead ashes. Thereafter he paid no attention to her, nor to any of the others; and upon finishing the meal and finishing his chore of cutting firewood, he vanished.

Jett and his two disgruntled men took up their quarrel and spent a long, noisy, angry hour round the camp fire.

The next day came and passed, with no difference for Milly except that Catlee now avoided her, never seemed to notice her; and that she hung out her red scarf, with a hopeful thrill in its significance. Then one by one the days rolled by, under the wheels of the wagons.

Seven days, and then the straggling lost bands of buffalo! The hot, drowsy summer air was tainted; the gently waving prairie bore heaps of bones; skulking coyotes sneaked back from the road. A thousand times Milly Fayre looked back down the endless road she had traveled. No wagon came in sight!

Noon of the ninth day brought Jett within sight of the prairie-wide herd of buffalo. He halted to point it out to his sullen, unseeing men; and later he reined in again, this time to turn his ear to the hot stinking wind.

“Aha! Listen,” he called back to Follonsbee.

Milly heard the boom-boom-boom-boom of guns, near and far, incessant and potent. Strangely, for once she was glad to hear them!

All that hot midday she reclined on the improvised seat in her wagon, holding her scarf to her nostrils and looking out occasionally at the sordid ugliness of abandoned camp sites. The buffalo-hunters had moved on up the river, that now showed its wandering line of green timber.

Milly took a last backward gaze down the prairie road just as Jett turned off to go into the woods. Far away Milly saw a dot on the horizon–a white and black dot. Maybe it was Tom Doan’s horses and wagon! He could not be far behind. It was as well now, perhaps, that he had not caught up with Jett. The buffalo range had been reached; and it could not be long before her situation was changed.

Jett drove off the prairie, into the timber, along a well-defined shady road where many camps had been pitched, and then down into the brakes. Brutal and fearless driver that he was, he urged his horses right through the tangled undergrowth, that bent with the onslaught of the wagon, to spring back erect after it had passed. Follonsbee came crashing next. Jett drove down into the bottom lands, thick and hot and aromatic with its jungle of foliage. He must have had either wonderful judgment as to where it was possible for horses to go, or an uncanny luck. For he penetrated the heavily wooded brakes clear to a deep shining river.

Milly would not allow herself to be unduly distressed because Jett meant to hide his camp, for she knew that any one hunting wagon tracks and camps would surely not miss his. In a way Milly was glad of the shade, the murmur of the river, the songs of birds, the absence of the stench. A camp on the edge of the prairie, with the rotten carcasses of buffalo close at hand, the dust and heat, the flies and bugs, would be well-nigh unendurable.

Jett halted his team in a shady glade of cottonwoods just back from the river and Milly then discovered that this was the scene of Jett’s previous encampment. His tents and fireplace, boxes and bales, evidently had not been molested during his absence.

“Turn horses loose an’ unload the wagons,” he ordered his men. “I’ll take a look for my saddle horses.”

“No fear of hosses leavin’ grass an’ water,” rejoined Follonsbee. “But there might be hoss thieves on the range.”

“Haw! Haw!” laughed Pruitt, in his mean way. “Shore you know these heah buff-hunters are all honest men.”

Jett strode off into the green brakes. The men unloaded the wagons and set the boxes and bags of supplies under a cottonwood. Mrs. Jett opened a tent near the fireplace.

“Miss,” said Catlee, “the canvas wagon cover you had before got ripped to pieces. There ain’t any tent for you till that one’s mended.”

“Can’t I stay in the wagon?” she asked.

“Don’t see why not. We’ll hardly be movin’ or haulin’ very soon.”

It was late in the afternoon when the rays of the sun began to lose heat. Milly was sorely in need of a little freedom of limbs. She had been cramped and inactive so long. So she walked to and fro under the trees. This camp was the most secluded Jett had ever chosen–far from the prairie, down in the brakes at the edge of the river, hidden by trees from the opposite densely foliaged bank. If it had not hinted of a sinister meaning and was not indeed a prison for Milly she could have reveled in it. If she had to spend much time there she would be grateful for its quiet, cleanliness, and beauty. She strolled along the green bank until Mrs. Jett curtly called her to help get supper.

About the time it was ready Jett returned, with muddy boots and clothes covered with burrs and bits of brush.

“Found all the horses except the bay mare,” he announced. “An’ to-morrow we can go back to work. I’m aimin’ at hard work, men.”

“Huh! I’d like to know what you call all we’ve done,” returned Follonsbee.

“Wal, Jett, there shore won’t be ANY work aboot heah till you settle up,” added Pruitt, crisply.

Jett’s huge frame jerked with the shock of surprise and fury he must have felt.

“So that’s it?” he queried, thickly. “Waited till you got way down here!”

“We shore did, boss,” returned Pruitt.

In sullen silence then Jett began and finished his supper. Plain it was he had received a hard, unexpected blow, that he seemed scarcely prepared to cope with. He had no further words with his men, but he drew his wife aside; and they were in earnest conversation when Milly fell asleep.

Next day brought forward a situation Milly had not calculated upon. Jett had no intercourse whatever with his men, and saddling his horse rode off alone. The woman sulked. Follonsbee and Pruitt, manifestly satisfied with their stand, played cards interminably, now and then halting to talk in low tones over something vital to them. Catlee rigged himself a crude fishing tackle and repaired to the river bank, where he found a shady seat within sight of the camp.

Milly was left to herself. Her first act, after the tasks of the morning were ended, was to hang up her red scarf in a conspicuous place. Then she had nothing to do but kill time. With the men in camp, this was not easy. Apparently she had liberty. No orders had been given her, but perhaps this was owing to the timid meekness she had pretended. She might have wandered away into the brakes or have trailed the wagon tracks up to the prairie. But she could not decide that this was best. For the present she could only wait.

Already the boom of guns floated in on the summer air from all sides, increasing for a while, until along the upriver prairie there was almost continuous detonation. Every boom, perhaps, meant the heart or lungs of a noble animal torn to shreds for the sake of his hide. As Milly settled down again to the actual presence of this slaughter she accepted the fact with melancholy resignation.

In the course of her strolling round the camp Milly gravitated toward Catlee, where he sat contentedly smoking his pipe and fishing. She watched him, trying to make up her mind to approach him on the subject nearest her heart. But she knew the men and Mrs. Jett could see her and that any such action might arouse suspicion. Therefore she desisted. Once Catlee turned, apparently casually, and his gray gaze took her in and the camp. Then he winked at her.

That droll action established anew Milly’s faith in an understanding between her and this man. She had no assurance that he would help her, but there was a secret between them. Milly felt more than she could prove. The incident made the long day supportable.