The Great Trek Page 7

  “I was going to ride in after Beryl. But it isn’t necessary. There she is,” said Leslie, and, waving a gauntletted hand, she called. She was answered, and presently Sterl saw a fair-faced, fair-haired girl, distinguished by grace even in what evidently was the workaday dress of the moment.

  “Pard, don’t you reckon I oughta pull leather out of heah?” Red whispered in perturbation.

  “I should smile you should,” returned Sterl. “And me, too!”

  “Stand to your colors, men,” Leslie retorted, who certainly had heard. Somehow her tone stimulated Sterl and augmented his interest. Presently he was doffing his sombrero and gallantly bowing to a handsome girl, some years Leslie’s senior, whose poise permitted a graciousness and hid curiosity, if she felt any.

  “Beryl, let me introduce Dad’s new hands, Mister Krehl and Mister Hazelton, cowboys from America. This is Miss Beryl Dann, of whom I have spoken. She is going with us.”

  Sterl made his pleasant little speech, in response to the girl’s greetings, and then Red cut in with his Southern drawl, as cool and easy as if he had been home on the range.

  “Wal, Miss Dann, I shore am glad to meet another Australian girl. I reckon two oughta be about enough. My pard heah, Sterl an’ me, have been sorta worried over this long trek an’ thought of backin’ out. But not no more.”

  Beryl Dann was neither too dignified nor grown up not to be pleased and flattered by what Sterl divined was an extraordinary speech to her. He did not fail to feel the distance between the only daughter of a rich Englishman and American cowboys; nevertheless, she was as thoroughbred as she was attractive, and he liked her.

  The girls fell at once into mutual excitement about the trek, what they could pack and what leave home, and how wonderful and terrible the prospect. Red leaned over, all eyes on the girl, whose fair face flushed and whose blue eyes showed she did not lack spirit. Sterl managed to get a word in, and presently recalled Leslie to herself.

  “Oh, Beryl, we must ride on to town,” she cried. “Dad is there waiting. Isn’t it wonderful? I won’t believe it until we’re out on the trek. Then I’ll be…be…I don’t know what. Good bye.”

  As Sterl rode on with Leslie, he observed without looking back that Red did not accompany them.

  “Did you like her?” queried Leslie, a dark flash of her hazel eyes on Sterl. She was a woman, like all the rest of the female creatures, still Sterl could not react to the situation with teasing duplicity, as one impulse prompted him to.

  “Yes, of course,” he said frankly. “Pretty and gracious, if a little haughty. I wonder…has she lived out here long?”

  “Yes. The Danns have been here all of five years. But Beryl went to school in Sydney. She visits there often. If haughty implies she looks down upon me a little…well, you’re right. But she’s lovely. All the young men court her. Didn’t you fall in love with her at first sight?”

  “My child, I did not.”

  “Don’t call me child,” she flashed quickly. “I’m grown up. Old enough to get married!”

  “You don’t say. I wouldn’t have thought it,” replied Sterl teasingly.

  “Yes. Dad thought so. He wanted to give me to a station man over here. But I wouldn’t. Red has not escaped Beryl…that’s obvious. Look back.”

  Sterl did so, to be amused as well as dismayed to see the cowboy still leaning over his saddle, gazing down upon the fair-haired girl.

  “Sterl, I like Red,” Leslie went on confidentially. “But I’d never let him see it. I don’t know cowboys, of course. But I know young men who are devils after women. And he’s one. I could feel it. But I guess you’re different. You must be, not to fall head over heels in love with Beryl Dann. I’m glad you’re like that. I had a brother once. How I needed him after I grew up! Sterl, I’m crazy to take this trek. But I’m frightened. There will be twenty young men with us. I know how they can be even trekking into Brisbane. Eight days! My mother and Stanley Dann’s sister, Emily, the only women. Beryl and I. Won’t it be terrible?”

  “Leslie, I’m bound to admit it looks pretty serious for you girls. Your fathers never should take you.”

  “But I want to go. Beryl does, too. It means new homes, new friends, new lives. Sterl, I hope you’ll be a big brother to me. Will you?”

  “Thank you. I’ll try,” responded Sterl sincerely. The girl’s frank wistfulness touched him deeply. “But I’m a stranger. How can you trust me so soon? I might be what Red calls no good a-tall.”

  “You might be, but I don’t believe it. You’re different. I see a shadow in your face…a far-off look in your eyes. Did you leave a sweetheart back there in America, whom you must go back to?”

  “No, Leslie,” Sterl said, disturbed.

  “Oh, I’m glad. I was afraid…it was that…. I like you, Sterl. I’m not afraid of you. Mum says I’m a hoyden. But I’m sensitive. These Outback fellows court you on sight…hug and kiss you…or try to. They’re not so raw in Brisbane and especially Sydney, so Beryl tells us. They’re English gentlemen. But Outback it’s a fight for love, girls, cattle…for life itself.”

  “Leslie, it’s much like that on the Western ranges where I come from. I understand a little how a young girl feels.”

  “You are going to be a comfort, Sterl,” she concluded happily. “Here we are, right in town. And there comes Red, putting Jester to a canter…. There’s where I went to school. This is the main street. Stores and pubs. Do you drink, Sterl?”

  “Oh, I take one now and then. But I’m not what you would call a drinking cowboy. Neither is Red, though he will get a hide-full, as he calls it, upon occasion to celebrate, whether joyous or grievous.”

  “I’m glad. All the men here drink like fish. It’s an old English custom. And this town will be lively. It looks like all the two hundred inhabitants are out right now. Oh, I forgot something I want to tell you. Do you remember Dad mentioning a drover, Ashley Ormiston?”

  “Yes. He is the man Mister Dann wants your Dad to throw in with.”

  “Sterl, I don’t like the idea at all. This Ormiston is new to Downsville. You’ll meet him today, so I don’t need to describe him. But he has been very much in evidence ever since the races. I met him that day, and to be honest I was fascinated…thrown off my feet. He drove me home. He was worse than our young men…in his hugging and kissing…. Sterl, he…he insulted me that very first night. I didn’t dare tell Dad. But I’ve tried to avoid him ever since. That’s not easy to do. He visits us on Sundays, and Dad and Mum…the fools!…leave us alone.”

  “But why don’t you tell your father?” queried Sterl in a voice that betrayed his anger.

  “I dare not. Dad would kill him,” she replied simply.

  At that moment Red caught up with them. “Say, you, what’d you run off from me for?” he asked, apparently grieved.

  Leslie laughed at him. “Let’s tie up here,” she said, halting. “Red, you forgot all about us…. Now, boys, I’ve got to buy things for Mum. You hunt up Dad. He’ll be somewhere, waiting for you. Stanley Dann wants to meet you. It’s important. Be good. Don’t drink…or forget you’re my cowboys.”

  She left them with a bright smile. Red did not appear to be aware of the curious people, or the wagons, or the charged atmosphere of the town. “Pard, dog-gone it, I gotta confess, I fell harder’n I ever got piled by a hoss in all my life,” said Red with something of poignance.

  “You did? Well! Over what or who?” inquired Sterl tantalizingly.

  “Who’d you think, you dumb-haid? Gosh, she was nice. Sterl…hullo, what the hell have we run into heah?”

  They had passed a corner to reach a point opposite a large store, in front of which had collected a crowd of people, mostly men but a few women and youngsters, all of whom were excited and frightened, trying to get out of the way of a conflict of some kind. Then Sterl saw a white man kick an aborigine into the street. He heard a woman cry out that it was Slyter’s black man, Friday.

  Sterl stepped out of the crowd off the pavement
. The black was down. Then a white man, agile and powerful, leaped into the street to kick the black with vicious, resounding thuds, knocking him flat, accompanying his attacks with curses, prefixed to the word nigger. Striding over, Sterl placed a hard hand against the aggressor and shoved him back, far from gently.

  The man straightened up, adding amazement to fury. He was a dark-browed, handsome fellow of about thirty, garbed as a drover, heavily booted. Sterl had particularly observed the boots.

  “What business…of yours?” he panted hoarsely.

  “I just thought you’d kicked that black enough, unless his offense was heinous, which I doubt,” declared Sterl deliberately.

  “Who are…you?” demanded the other, his dark eyes burning. Sterl caught a strong odor of whiskey, the effect of which appeared further corroborated by the man’s slight unsteadiness.

  “No matter. I’m a newcomer.”

  “Damned meddling Yankee blighter,” shouted the Australian, and with a back-handed sweep he struck Sterl a blow across the mouth that staggered him.

  Recovering his balance, Sterl leaped forward. He gave his antagonist a sudden blow, low down, then swung his right fist hard and fierce between those malignant eyes, and felled him like a bullock under the axe.

  Red jumped down to line up alongside his comrade. “Wal, pard, we’re shore runnin’ true to form.”

  The buzzing circle of people crowded into the street. Sterl, to his dismay, espied Leslie’s pale face. Then her father dragged her back and strode out, accompanied by a tawny-haired giant, leonine in build and mien.

  Slyter gazed at the prostrate man, who was groaning and stirring, and from him to the black.

  “Friday. You’re spitting blood. Who hit you?”

  “Boss, that one fella,” replied the black, and pointed to his brutal attacker.

  “Damn, it’s Ash Ormiston!” Slyter exclaimed.

  “I see. Looks as if a horse kicked him. Here, you, what does this mean?” boomed the giant, wheeling upon Sterl.

  Red intervened, cool and wary. “Watch that hombre, pard. He might have a gun.”

  “Krehl!” shouted Slyter. “Did you slug Ormiston?”

  “No. Sterl did thet. But I’d have liked to.”

  “Stanley, these are my two American cowboys, Krehl and Hazelton.”

  “Drunk and rowing, eh?” queried Dann.

  Sterl confronted Dann, and he was not in a humor to be conciliatory.

  “No, I’m not drunk,” he rang out. “It’s your countryman, Ormiston, who is that. I came upon him kicking this black man, Friday. Kicking him in the face and chest with a heavy boot. I interfered…shoved Ormiston back. He called me a damned meddling Yankee blighter and hit me. Then I soaked him!”

  “Friday, what you do alonga Ormiston?” asked Slyter gruffly. His brown visage showed a tinge of red.

  “Black fella tellum bimeby,” replied Friday, and stalked into the crowd, where Sterl saw Leslie try to stop him and fail.

  Meanwhile Ormiston staggered to his unsteady feet, one of his eyes badly puffed and the other glaring with fierce passion.

  “Where’s that god-damn’ Yankee who hit me?” he bit out.

  Dann laid a restraining hand on him. “Man, you’re drunk.”

  Sterl confronted him. “Go for your gun, if you’ve got one.”

  Ormiston violently threw Dann off.

  Dann waved the crowd back. “Get off the street!” he yelled.

  Chapter Four

  If Ormiston had a gun concealed on his person, of which fact Sterl had an uncanny certainty, he made no move to draw it. Sterl’s hand dropped back to his side.

  “I’ll not exchange shots…with a Yankee tramp,” Ormiston panted, struggling to master his fury. A sickly green hue began to erase the red from his dark face.

  “No. But you’re not above kicking a poor fellow, when he’s down,” replied Sterl scathingly.

  Red again slouched over to Sterl’s side. “Haw! Haw!” His hard, mirthless laugh rang with scorn. “Orful particular, ain’t you, Mister Ormiston, about who you throw a gun on? Wal, you got some sense, at thet.”

  “Dann, you’re a magistrate here,” Ormiston shouted. “Order these Yankees out of town.”

  “You’re drunk, I told you,” replied Dann from the sidewalk. “You start a fight, then fail to go through with it.”

  “No, I didn’t. I only kicked that snooping nigger. This Yankee started it. I’ll not engage in a gun fight with a foreign adventurer,” replied Ormiston in hoarse haste.

  “Yes, and you’re a yellow dog,” Sterl interposed coldly.

  “Mister, why don’t you pull thet gun I see inside yore coat?” drawled Red.

  Ormiston appeared unable to control his rage at being shown up before this crowd. “Dann, order these Yankees to leave,” he asserted stridently.

  “No. You’re making a fool of yourself,” declared Dann. “Slyter has hired these cowboys to help him on the trek.”

  That information evidently completed the sobering influence upon the drover and acted as a check to the expression of tremendous wrath. “Slyter, is that true…you’re taking these cowboys?”

  “Yes, I’ve hired them.”

  “Will you discharge them? At my earnest solicitation?”

  “No, I certainly will not.”

  “Then I refuse to take my drovers and my mob of cattle on Dann’s trek.”

  Slyter looked aghast and upset at this decision, which no doubt would be grievous to Dann, but after a moment he burst out hotly: “Ormiston, I don’t care a damn what you do.”

  The drover made a forceful and passionate gesture, then shouldered his way through the crowd to disappear. Slyter lost no time getting Sterl and Red, whom manifestly he wanted to leave and so dragged them with him across the pavement into a store. Dann strode after them. And there the four men faced each other.

  “Gentlemen, I’m terribly sorry,” Sterl began poignantly. “It’s just too bad that I had to mess up your plans at the last moment. But I couldn’t help it…I couldn’t. Leslie told me about Friday caring for her horses. That influenced me. But in any case I couldn’t have stood for such dirty, low-down brutality.”

  “Pard, don’t feel so bad about it,” drawled Red, coolly rolling a cigarette. “If you hadn’t been so damn quick, I’d have busted Ormiston myself. We cain’t help how things come out.”

  Dann stroked his golden beard with a massive hand, and his penetrating eyes studied the cowboys, while he evinced none of the agitation that possessed Slyter.

  “It was unfortunate,” Slyter began. “Ormiston had been drinking. But I’ll swear the aborigine absolutely did not deserve that kicking. Friday is the best native I ever knew. He’s honest, loyal, devoted to Leslie, who was good to his gin when she lay dying. Stanley, I had to take Hazelton’s side in this matter.”

  Red eased forward a step in his slow way. “Mister Dann, if you don’t mind, I’d like to put in a word. Slyter needn’t apologize for my pard, an’ stick up for thet black man. Shore, we’re strangers in a strange land. But men air men the world over. I’d like to ask you, without meanin’ offense, if there ain’t Englishmen heah an’ there who’s jest no good a-tall?”

  Dann let out a deep laugh that was convincing. “There are, cowboy, and you can lay to that.”

  “Wal, I’m glad to heah you admit it. You see, me an’ Sterl have ridden the ranges for years…since we were kids. We know men. An’ it’s hard for a bad man, no matter how slick he is, to pull the wool over our eyes. If ever I met a low-down hombre, thet Ormiston is one. Mebbe it wouldn’t have been so easy to see through him but for the drink. But I’ll bet I’d’ve been suspicious of him in any case. No, Ormiston is jest no good a-tall…an’ he come damn’ near bein’ a daid one.”

  “Tell me, Hazelton,” spoke up Dann, his amber eyes full of dancing little glints, “if Ormiston had moved to draw the gun I know he always carries…what would you have done?”

  “I’d have killed the fool,” Sterl declare
d, “and for me it would have been murder. Mister Dann, we cowboys have had to live by our guns. Hard men at a hard time learn to draw a gun swift as lightning. It may not be a worthy gift, but on our frontier you need it to survive.”

  “Indeed! Did you see Ormiston was armed?”

  “No. But I knew he had a gun. I read his mind. Now, Slyter, I think the thing for Red and me to do is to leave town at once.”

  “You will do nothing of the kind,” Slyter rejoined stoutly.

  “Boys, it’s not to be thought of,” added Dann. “Ormiston was bluffing. He won’t quit us. Like all of us he sees a way to wealth. Deep as he is, I grasp that much. And we need him with us. The more drovers, the more cattle, the better our chances for success. He is the last man I could persuade to risk the trek.”

  “Mister Dann, I see the necessity for you. But if Red and I go…we’ll clash with Ormiston. And I’ll kill him, if Red doesn’t beat me to it.”

  “Listen, you young roosters,” went on Dann persuasively. “Outback there will be too much clash with the elements and the blacks for we drovers to fight among ourselves. We’ll all be brothers before we reach the Never Never. Isn’t that so, Bing?”

  “It has been proved by other treks, none so great as this must be,” replied Slyter earnestly. “If you boys are concerned about me or Stanley…just forget that and take the risk.”

  “Boss, we’ll never let you down,” Red said.