A GREAT hush rested on the crowd below. The Squaw Valley men had drawn apart, their faces grave. Their wives stood with them now, their shopping done—women old before their time with the never-ending drudgery that is a ranch-woman’s life.
Man and wife, they resented Henry Stall’s presence there. In him they recognized their common enemy, come to dash the cup of hope from their hands even as they were raising it to their lips. Because they came of a race of stout-hearted fighting men, even hopelessness could not strike fear in their hearts, and as they faced old Slick-ear and his men, lounging in the shade at the side of the sheriff’s office, there was a smouldering defiance in their eyes and the set of their mouths that said they would not bow their heads to any oppressor.
Their hostility included Letty as well as her father. The fineness of her clothes, her air of self-possession embittered them. She felt it, too. It was as though she had wronged them. It made her wonder how much truth there was in what Montana had said. Upstairs, she had championed her father’s cause and said he was always fair. In her heart, she knew he could be ruthless, brooking no opposition when he’d set his mind on something.
Under a spreading box-elder, just beyond the steps, a young woman was trying to get her baby to sleep. Three other children, the oldest not over six, hovered about her, their eyes big and staring.
The girl was not much older than Letty, but already there was a pinched, hunted look in her eyes. There was something proud and defiant about her that made one forget her shabby clothes and hands, red and rough from hard work.
“Just getting by,” Montana had said. The words came back to Letty, and she felt her heart go out to the woman. Impulsively she tried to caress the oldest child, a boy. He drew back, afraid. His mother caught him by the arm and drew him to her side.
“You stay right here, Jess,” she scolded. “I don’t want you takin’ up with no strangers.”
Letty turned away, pretending not to have heard. But everywhere she looked she met the same distrust and hostility. She knew their enmity was not personal to her; she was a stranger to them. But she was her father’s daughter, and they hated her accordingly. It drove home the realization that for all his talk of fair-play, the business about to be enacted had an ugly side.
Montana came out then. The charged silence deepened as he walked over to the big map. His manner was solemn. Letty thought he seemed embarrassed at finding himself the center of attention.
“If you’ll step nearer, we’ll begin,” he said.
Quantrell, tall and saturnine, stood with the Squaw Valley men. He moved forward and the others followed him. Old Slick-ear mounted the steps alone, unabashed by the glances levelled at him.
Montana read the letter authorizing the sale.
“The land will be sold to the highest bidder,” he went on. “The terms: twenty-five per cent now and the balance when title is given.” He turned and pointed to the map. “The map has been divided into quarter sections. I cannot accept a bid for any parcel less than one hundred and sixty acres. I will begin the sale with section one, offering it first as a whole section. Are there any offers?”
“Just a minute, Montana,” Old Henry interrupted. “You are authorized to accept bids on this property as a whole.”
It was the very thing Montana had been waiting for him to say.
“That’s correct,” he admitted, his tone guileless. “If anybody cares to make a bid on the reservation as a whole I am compelled to accept that bid.”
An angry murmur broke from the Squaw Valley men. They knew Montana and regarded him as their friend. They had not expected him to sell them out without a protest.
“Are there any bids on the property as a whole?”
“Three dollars an acre!” Old Slick-ear clipped the words off short.
“A man can’t come in here and hog it like that!” Quantrell burst out angrily. “Where do we come in, Montana?”
“You’re right, Quantrell! We don’t aim to be cheated like that!” It was Dan Crockett. The other Squaw Valley men rallied about him instantly.
Montana continued to gaze at the old man.
“That’s the minimum bid, Mr. Stall,” he said. “It’s a ridiculous price.”
“It’s my bid!”
The Bar S men had got to their feet and drawn closer. Over their heads came the creaking of leather as the horses fought the flies.
“The law compels me to accept it,” Jim droned tonelessly. “Are there any other bids?”
Dan Crockett stepped up to him, his face grim and determined.
“There’s going to be trouble here, Montana, if you go through with this,” he warned. “We all thought you was our friend.”
“I am your friend, Dan, but my hands are tied; I’ve got to take this bid. If there’s any trouble here, don’t you start it.” He raised his voice. “Are there any other bids?”
There were none.
“Sold to Stall and Matlack!”
It was a moment pregnant with tragedy. There were a hundred armed men in that crowd. It needed only a word to start the conflagration.
Quantrell was beside himself. In the emergency, he elected to become the self-appointed leader of the Squaw Valley faction. Crockett and the others were too stunned by the sudden turn of events to object.
“It ain’t no more than you’d expect from a man who’d let an Indian call him a liar and get away with it,” he bellowed as he started up the steps.
Montana kept his head. A few seconds now would tell the tale. The form he was filling out was about ready. Quantrell pushed in between him and the old man.
“There’ll be blood spilled here if you go through with this, Montana,” he spit out threateningly.
“And there’ll be a lynching as well as a land sale,” Jim murmured calmly as he finished the form. “If you think I’m bluffing—call my hand.”
Implacable hatred blazed in Quantrell’s eyes. He wanted to go through with the play he had started, but wisdom warned him that the very men who were backing him up now would be the first to turn against him if they learned that it was his babbling that had wrecked their hopes.
Old Slick-ear thought he understood Montana’s answer; but it was no affair of his. He had won easier than he expected, and he was content. He looked the form over. It was in order. He got out a pencil and made some figures on the back of his notebook.
“Twenty-five per cent will be eight thousand, two hundred dollars—right?”
“That’s right, Mr. Stall,” Jim agreed. “Eight thousand, two hundred dollars.”
The old man brought out a Stall and Matlack script-book as well-known as money in that country. Wages, bills, taxes—every Stall and Matlack transaction was paid in that familiar green script with the bull’s head adorning it.
“If you’ll step up to your office,” he said, “I’ll fill out this script.”
The moment had arrived. Jim shook his head. The eyes of the crowd were on them.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stall,” he declared thoughtfully, “but I can’t take your script.”
“You can’t take it? What do you mean you can’t take it?”
“The terms of this sale are cash.”
“Cash?” Old Slick-ear’s face was purple with rage. “My script’s as good as cash! Any bank will take it. The government recognizes it as legal tender.”
The crowd had quickly sensed that something was amiss. They swarmed up the steps, the Bar S men alert and the others on guard.
“You’re not quite right about that. The government has accepted your script as legal tender, but it has never expressly recognized it as such.”
“Say, don’t be a damned fool, Montana!” Reb Russell exclaimed angrily. “You know the Bar S script is as good as cash. We ain’t goin’ to let you get away with any nonsense like that.”
Jim was well acquainted with the freckle-faced foreman of Furnace Creek.
“Listen, Reb,” he said, and his voice was velvety, “I got an awful idea you’re trying to force my hand. If that’s the case, you’d better forget it. You ought to know by this time that I don’t bluff worth a cent. My business is with Mr. Stall—and it’s almost finished.” He turned to the old man again. “You insisted on the full letter of the law. Now it’s my turn. I know your script is all right; but it isn’t cash, and I refuse to accept it.”
A cheer arose from the Squaw Valley men. Even Quantrell dared to join in it.
“Why, you young fool, I’ll run you out of the country for this!” old Slick-ear roared. “There’s courts in this state that will protect me. I bought this land in good faith, and I want my rights.”
“You’re getting your rights, the same as any other man here.”
“Well, give me ten minutes then. I’ll make Longyear open the bank. He’ll cash my script.”
“I won’t give you one minute, Mr. Stall!” Montana answered unhesitatingly. “I told you upstairs I would do anything I could to keep you out of Squaw Valley. I meant it . . . The sale will go on!”
“You idiot, you!” the old man trembled as though he had the palsy. “Do you realize what you’re doing?”
“I think I do,” Jim answered tensely.
“I don’t think so! You talk about befriending these people. I warn you you’ll never do it this way. The minute the courts recognize my rights in Squaw Valley, I’m moving in—and I’m moving in to stay! You’re forcing a war to the finish on all of us!”
“That may be,” Jim admitted. “God knows they’d rather go down fighting than wait for you to crush them.” He picked up his yardstick again. “The sale will continue!” he cried. “Section one, the northeast quarter! What am I bid?”
Joe Tracey, Judd Case and Reb gathered about the old man and Letty.
“The sale won’t go on if you want it stopped,” Reb informed him. “We can stampede this crowd.”
The old man was biting his mustache nervously. For once he seemed not to know his own mind.
“Father—we’re going!” Letty exclaimed. “I can’t stand any more of this!” She got her arm around his. “Please——”
“Might as well,” he decided grudgingly. “I’ll fight this in my own way. We’ll let this smart aleck have his little party to-day.”
If Montana noticed that the Bar S was leaving en masse, he gave no sign of it. The sale proceeded satisfactorily. Everybody seemed to get what they wanted, except Quantrell. He had to be satisfied with half a loaf. But prices were cheap, the land good. They knew they’d never give it up without a struggle.
Finding himself near a post-office, old Slick-ear had to tarry to write his usual stack of letters, included in which were his voluminous epistles to his foremen, apprising them when and where to meet him, or not to expect him at all, and going into the minutest details about a hundred things he expected them to take care of before he should next see them.
By the time he had finished, he had so far recovered his temper as to suggest that they have dinner before starting their long ride back to the South Fork and Willow Vista.
Letty had no desire for food, but to humor him, she accompanied him to the dining-room of the hotel. He ate as slowly and methodically as he did everything else. Busy with his thoughts, he kept his eyes on his plate as he munched his food, and said nothing. Letty was equally engrossed in her own musing.
They had almost finished when he surprised her by saying:
“I made a mistake in not making Montana a foreman last year. There wouldn’t have been any of this nonsense to-day if I had. But like as not he would have done something else just as foolish. A man that can’t mind his own business isn’t worth his salt. He certainly made a spectacle of himself to-day, the contemptible ingrate!”
“Not to me,” Letty murmured tremulously, her eyes fixed on the crowd moving away from the court-house. “I—I thought he was magnificent.”