Wilderness Trek (1988) Page 7

  "Wal, my dear, we can see it," returned Red, persuasively. "I'm not as all-fired stuck on Beryl as I was, at thet. But let's give her a chance."

  "Sterl...won't you see me...later?" implored Leslie. "I know you've been angry with me for days. I deserve it. I'm sorry. I told Red to tell you I'd been a cat. Sterl, I couldn't bear to have you despise me longer."

  "Leslie, how silly! I never despised you!" replied Sterl, with a smile. "I'll come to see you later."

  A light illumined her troubled face. She wheeled to bound away like a deer.

  "Pard, shore you see how it is with Leslie?" queried Red.

  "I'm afraid I do," reluctantly admitted Sterl.

  "Red, what's Ormiston's game?"

  "Easy to say, far as the girls air concerned. Shore, he didn't mean marriage with her. But he might with Beryl. If Dann gets to the Kimberleys with half his cattle he'll be rich, an' richer pronto."

  "It's a cinch he'll never end this trek with us."

  "I've a hunch he doesn't mean to."

  Sterl gave Red a searching gaze, comprehending, and indicative of swiftly revolving thoughts. "We're up against the deepest, hardest game we ever struck. Listen, let's try a trick that has worked before. Tip off Slyter and Stanley Dann that you and I will pretend to quarrel--fall out--and you'll drink and hobnob with Ormiston's drivers, in order to spy on Ormiston."

  "Thet'll queer me with Beryl. Not thet I care about it now."

  "No, it'll make a hero out of you, if through this you save her father."

  "Dog-gone!" ejaculated Red, his face lighting. "You always could outfigger me. Settled, pard, an' the cards air stacked. Tomorrow night you an' me will have a helluva fight, savvy? Only be careful where an' how you sock me."

  "Righto. There's Friday. Red, I'm going to try to make that black understand our game."

  "Go ahaid. Another good idee. I'll tell Slyter, an' then talk to Leslie a bit."

  Friday and Sterl stood on the brink of the river. "Friday, you sit down alonga me," said Sterl. "Me bad here. Trouble," he went on, touching his forehead. With a map drawn in the sand, in the argot which Friday understood, he set forth the difference of opinion regarding routes to the Kimberleys.

  "Me savvy," replied the black, and tracing the gulf-line on the sand he shook his head vehemently, then tracing a line along the big river and across the big land he nodded just as vehemently.

  "Good, Friday," rejoined Sterl, strongly stirred. "You know country up alonga here?"

  The aborigine shook his head. "Might be black fella tellum."

  "Friday get black fella tell?"

  "Might be. Some black fella good--some bad."

  "Some white fella bad," went on Sterl, intensely. "Ormiston bad. Him wanta go this way. No good. Him make some white fella afraid. Savvy, Friday?"

  The native nodded. He encouraged Sterl greatly. If he understood, then it did not matter that he could talk only a little.

  "Ormiston bad along missy," continued Sterl. "Alonga big boss missy, too. Friday, watchum all time. Me watchum all time. Savvy, Friday?"

  The aborigine nodded his black head instantly, with the mien of an Indian chief damning an enemy to destruction. "Friday savvy. Friday watchum. Friday no afraid!"

  Sterl forgot to call for Leslie, but when she stole upon him it was certain that she had not forgotten, and that with the moonlight on her rippling hair, and sweet grave face, she was lovely.

  "I waited and waited, but you didn't come," she said, taking his arm and leaning on him.

  "Leslie, the talk I just had with Friday would make anyone forget. I'm sorry."

  He looked down upon her with stirring of his pulse. In another year Leslie would be a beautiful woman, and irresistible.

  "You've forgiven me?"

  "Really, Leslie, I didn't have anything to forgive."

  "Oh, but I think you had. I don't know what was the matter with me that day. Or now, for that matter. Today has been a little too much for your cowgirl. Red told me about cowgirls. Oh, he's the finest, strangest boy I ever knew. I adore him, Sterl."

  "Well, I'm not so sure I'll allow you to adore Red," rejoined Sterl. "And see here, Leslie, now that we've made up, and you're my charge on this trek..."

  "How did you guess I longed for that?" she interposed frankly.

  "I didn't. But as you seemed upset this afternoon and put such store on my friendship, why I decided to sort of boss you."

  "I need it. Since we got to this camp, and I saw Ormiston again--I'm just scared out of my wits. Silly of me!"

  "Well, outside of Ormiston, I reckon there's plenty to be scared about. Ormiston, though--you needn't fear him personally, any more. Keep out of his way. Always ride within sight of us. Never lose sight of me in a jam or any kind. Don't go to Dann's camp unless with us or your dad."

  "Dad would take me, and forget me. Sterl, won't you please let me be with you often like this? I couldn't have slept tonight if you hadn't."

  "Yes, you can be with me all you want," promised Sterl, helpless in the current. "But Red and I must go to bed early. Remember I have to ride herd after two o'clock. That means you're slated for bed right now."

  "Oh, you darling," she cried, happily, and kissing him soundly she ran toward her 41 wagon.

  Chapter 8

  Slyter wanted to keep his mob of cattle intact, so that it would not be lost in the larger mob. It was inevitable, Sterl told him, that sooner or later there would be only one mob. All the cattle except Woolcott's were unbranded.

  Stanley Dann had foreseen this contingency, and his idea was to count the stock of each partner, as accurately as possible, and when they arrived at their destination let him take his percentage.

  Discussion of this detail was held at the end of the next day's trek, in a widening part of the valley, where the stream formed a large pool. Ormiston objected to the idea of percentage; and when Stanley Dann put it to a vote, Red Krehl sided with Ormiston.

  "Red Krehl, I'm ashamed of you," Leslie burst out, when Red approached the Slyter campfire that night.

  "You air. Wal, thet's turrible," drawled Red' in a voice which would have angered anyone.

  "I saw you, after we halted today. You were with Ormiston's drovers. Very jolly! And after that conference at Dann's you were basking in Beryl's smiles. She has won you over for Ormiston."

  "Les, you're a sweet kid, but kinda hothaided an' dotty."

  "I'm nothing of the kind."

  "Me an' Sterl don't agree on some things."

  "Oh, you've been drinking. Drink changes men. I ran from Ormiston when he'd been drinking."

  "You'd better run from me, pronto, or I'll spank the daylights out of you."

  "You--you!..." Leslie was too amazed and furious to find words. She looked around to see how her parents took this offense. Mrs. Slyter called for Leslie to leave the campfire. Leslie found her voice, and her dignity. "Mr. Krehl, some things are evident, and one is that you're no gentleman. You leave my campfire, or I will!"

  Red did not show up at Slyter's camp next morning until time to drive the herd across the stream. The wagons crossed only hub deep at a bar below camp. But the cattle were put to the deep water. The take-off was steep, and many of the steers leaped, to go under. Splashing, cracking horns, bawling, the mob swam across the river, waded out. The horses, following in the deep trough which the cattle had cut into the bank, trooped down to take their plunge.

  It was well Sterl had an oilskin cover over his rifle as King went in, up to his neck. The black loved the water. Leslie came last. She bestrode Duke, who hated a wetting but showed that he could not be left behind. He pranced, he reared.

  "Come on, Les," called Sterl cheerily. "Give him the steel."

  "Okay," trilled the girl, spirited and sure, and Sterl smiled at the thought that she was absorbing American dialect. She spurred the big sorrel, and he plunged to go clear under. She kept her seat. The sorrel came up with a snort and swam powerfully across.

  At last the sun rose high enough to be w
arm, and to dry wet garments. At noon it was hot. By the almost imperceptible increase in temperature and the changing nature of the verdure, Sterl became aware of the tropics. He saw strange trees and flowering shrubs along with those he already knew. No mile passed that he did not observe a beautifully plumaged bird that was new.

  Leslie rode over to offer Sterl a wet biscuit. She had recovered from her shyness, or else in the broad sunlight and mounted on a horse that would jump at a touch, she had something of audacity. Presently he chased her back toward her station. Her eyes were flashing back and her hat swinging.

  He would play square with this kid, he thought, but he had grown more aware of her captivating charm and freshness as the nights and days passed. He had no illusion about any cowboy, even himself. Yet he was disgusted with himself for being wooed so easily from a lamentable love affair. He should hate all women.

  Sunset had come and passed when the main mob ceased to move, indicating that the drovers on the right had halted for camp. Slyter loped in behind his comrades. By the wagon Red sat his horse, waiting.

  "Pard," he said, low-voiced, as Sterl halted close, "I'll eat with thet other outfit tonight. Meet you at the big campfire after supper. Spring the dodge then."

  "Depends on how mean you get," replied Sterl, with a mirthless laugh. "Red, honest Injun, I don't like the dodge."

  "Hell no! But, pard, it's for them, an' us too," returned Red, sharply. "It's our deal an' I've stacked the cairds. Play the game, you!" And Red rode away at a swinging canter. Darkness descended and the cook pounded a kettle to call all to supper.

  Stanley Dann's community campfire blazed brightly in the center of a circle of bronzed faces. Dann had barbecued a beef. It hung revolving over a pit full of red-hot coals. Sterl appeared purposely late, his soft step inaudible as he came up behind Ormiston to hear him say, "But Leslie, my sweet girl, surely you cannot hold that against me?"

  Sterl smothered an impulse to kick the man with all his might. Probably Red's arrival, more than his restraint, checked the precipitation of an issue that was bound to come. There were two drovers with Red, trying to hold him back, as he wrestled good-naturedly with them, and broke out in loud, lazy voice: "Dog-gone-it, fellers. Lemme be. Wasser masser with you? I'm a ladies' man--I am--an' I've been some punkins in my day."

  His companions let him go, and kept back out of the circle of light. Sterl nerved himself for the prearranged split. Red shouldered Ormiston aside, to bend over Leslie.

  "Les, I been huntin' you all over this heah dog-gone camp," said Red, with a gallant bow.

  "I've been here, Red," replied Leslie, quickly, evidently glad to welcome him, drunk or sober. "Come, sit down."

  "You shore air my sweet lir girl frien'," returned Red.

  What his next move might have been did not transpire, for Ormiston confronted him belligerently. Sterl's alert eye had caught the drover scrutinizing Red, doubtless for the gun usually in plain sight. Tonight it was absent. Ormiston shoved Red violently. "You drunken Yankee pup! This is an Australian girl, not one of your trail drabs to mouth over!"

  Sterl did not risk Red's reaction to that. He leaped between them, facing Ormiston. "Careful, you fool!" he called, piercingly. "Haven't you any sense? Krehl has killed men for less."

  "He's drunk," rejoined the drover. "His familiarity with Leslie is insufferable."

  "Yeah, it is, and I'll handle him," retorted Sterl.

  "Here, men," boomed Dann, striding over. "Can't we have one little hour free from work and fighting?"

  "Boss, there'll not be any fight," returned Sterl. "And Ormiston is not to blame this time, for more than one of his two-faced cracks--It's Red."

  "Boss, I wasn't huntin' trouble," interposed Red, sulkily. "Shore I've had a couple drinks. But whassar masser with thet? I ain't drunk. I jest say a playful word to Leslie, an' I gets insulted by Ormiston heah, an' then my pard. Dog-gone, thet's too much."

  "Red, I'm disgusted with you," declared Sterl, angrily. "This is the second time. I warned you."

  "What'n'll do I care? You make me sick with yore preachin'. I ain't agonna stand it no more."

  "Cowboy, you'd gone to hell long ago but for me."

  "Shore. But I'm on my way again. We'll all be on our way, if we stick to the big boss's idee, an' trek off into thet Never-never."

  Sterl simulated a man working himself into a rage. Laying a powerful left hand on Red's collar he jerked him so hard that the cowboy's head shot forward and back. "Why you double-crossing lowdown greaser!" raged Sterl. "You fail us for a few drinks!"

  "Wal, it shore looks like I got the decidin' vote," rang out the cowboy, with convincing elation.

  Sterl let out a fierce cry of wrath. And he knocked Red flat. Despite his promise not to hit too hard, he feared he had done so.

  Beryl Dann leaped up to run and drop upon her knees beside Red. "Oh, he's terrible hurt!" She glanced up at Sterl, face and eyes flaming in the light. "You!--You are the discord--the villain on this trek!"

  Sterl bowed scornfully and left the campfire for his own tent. Lighting a cigarette Sterl settled down to smoke and think and listen, when rapid footfalls told that someone was coming. He turned round to see Leslie running out of the darkness. At that moment she appeared most distractingly pretty and desirable.

  "Can't you ever walk, like a lady should?" queried Sterl gruffly.

  "I can--but not in--the dark--with Ormiston at large," she panted.

  "After you again?"

  "Yes, he is. Barefaced as--as anything."

  "You have encouraged him."

  "I--have not!"

  "Leslie, I don't believe you," returned Sterl, quite brutally. Somehow that little incident beside Dann's campfire had roused unreasonable jealousy.

  A dark wave of color changed the paleness of her face.

  "Sterl, I lied to Mum--and Dad about Ormiston. I was scared. But I'd not lie to you."

  "Very well then, I apologize!"

  "Sterl, Red said something today...that I didn't know it and you didn't know it--but I--I was your girl."

  "The rattlebrain! Leslie, don't let him bamboozle you."

  "What's bamboozle?"

  "Make a little fool of you."

  "Oh! then it isn't--true?" she whispered, plaintively.

  "Of course it's true, in a way, for this trek," he replied, trying to keep from putting his arm around her, rather than carefully choosing his words.

  "Then I can be happy, in spite of your brutality to Red," she rejoined most earnestly, hanging to his arm and devouring his face with eyes of wonder and sorrow. "Why didn't you hit Ormiston instead of your friend?"

  "I was angry, Leslie. What happened after I left?"

  "Beryl has a tender heart for anyone hurt. And Red was hurt. She bent over him and almost cried. I bent over him, too, and I could see that Red was not only hurt but glorying in it. Then it happened. Ormiston dragged us away. He was perfectly white in the face. Why, the madman thinks he can have us both! Then poor dear Red sat up, his hand to his face, and said: 'Leslie, tell thet pard of mine thet I'll get even for the sock he gave me.' Others were coming, so I ran off."

  "Leslie," flashed Sterl, "you're no kid any more, despite what Red says. You've got to be a woman--to use your wits to help us to be cunning. Listen, can I trust you?"

  She looked up wonderingly. "Yes, Sterl."

  "That fight with Red was all pretense. Red wasn't drunk. Our plan is for him to make it look like he's split with me--to hobnob with those drovers, and find out what the hombre has up his sleeve! I'm confiding in you because I won't have you believing me a brute."

  "Who thought you a brute? Oh, so Red wasn't drunk? How glad I am! Will Beryl be in the secret?"

  "No indeed! Only your Dad, Stanley Dann, and you."

  "So that was it," mused the girl.

  "That was what?"

  "Beryl's sweetness toward Red. The cat! Ormiston has twisted her round his little finger, and now she thinks Red has gone over to Ormiston's side."
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br />   "Righto, Leslie. Now you hide those perfectly human feelings and practice deceit yourself. Be a ninny. Be the little softy who looks up to the proud Miss Dann. But be cunning, and find out through her all that is possible about Ormiston."

  "So that's my part? Ohhh! But it's for Dad, for Mum, for Mr. Dann, for you. Yes, I can do it."

  "Good-o! Run! Here comes Red. From the way he walks, I'd gamble he's mad!"

  Red stalked into the firelight, his eyes like daggers, his hand to his mouth. He removed it to expose a swollen lip.

  "Wal, you--liar!" he said. "You promised not to sock me hard, an' look what you did!"

  "I'm sorry, pard," replied Sterl, stifling a laugh. "Honestly, I didn't mean to. When I swung, you dumbhead, you ducked into it."

  "Pard, I heah somebody comin'. Let's go in our tent an' hit the hay. Then I'll talk."

  Sterl had to strain his eyes to make out Friday's prone form under the low-drooping wattle branches. Somehow he had come to liken the black to a watchdog. He felt how infinitely keener the aborigine was than any white man, and most likely far keener than any Indian scout he had ever known.

  Thirty-one days later--according to Leslie's journal on the twenty-ninth of June--after a prodigious trek through a jungle pass, Stanley Dann called a halt for a rest and repairs to equipment and drovers and mob.

  Ormiston, with the two partners and drovers whom he dominated, broke out of the pass into the open, after a three-mile trek which took more than half a day. The Danns followed on his heels. Styler's cattle and riders found the grass and brush trampled, the tree ferns and sassafras knocked down, the creek banks cut into lanes, making it an easy trek except for the grades.

  An hour's rest on the flat of his back, a bath, a shave, a change of clothes, restored Sterl to some semblance of his former self. He had a short talk with Styler, cheerful and energetic again. Mrs. Styler appeared none the worse for the long wagon rides and the many camps with their incessant tasks. But Leslie showed the wear of six weeks and more of hard riding.

  "Howdy, ragamuffin," said Sterl, coming to her calls.

  "I am, aren't I?" she replied, ruefully, surveying herself. "I've two other suits, but I'll mend these rags and make them go as far as possible. How spic and span you look! Very handsome, Sterl!"