The Seventh Man by Max Brand (books to read romance .TXT) 📕

Since the night when old Joe Cumberland died and Kate Cumberland rode off after her wild man, Ben Swann, the foreman of the Cumberland ranch, had lived in the big house. He would have been vastly more comfortable in the bunkhouse playing cards with the other hands, but Ben Swann felt vaguely that it was a shame for so much space in the ranch house to go to waste, and besides, Ben's natural dignity was at home in the place even if his mind grew lonely. It was Ben Swann, therefore, who ran down and flung open the door, on which a heavy hand was beating. Outside stood two men, very tall, taller than himself, and one of them a giant. They had about them a strong scent of horses.

“Get a light” said one of these. “Run for it. Get a light. Start a fire, and be damned quick about it!”

“And who the hell might you gents be?” queried Ben Swann, leaning against the side of the doorway to dicker.

“Throw that fool on his head,” said one of the strangers, “and go on in, Lee!”

“Stand aside,” said the other, and swept the doorknob out of Ben's grip, flattening Ben himself against the wall. While he struggled there, gasping, a man and a woman slipped past him.

“Tell him who we are,” said the woman's voice. “We'll go to the living-room, Buck, and start a fire.”

The strangers apparently knew their way even in the dark, for presently he heard the scraping of wood on the hearth in the living-room. It bewildered Ben Swann. It was dream-like, this sudden invasion.

“Now, who the devil are you?”

A match was scratched and held under his very nose, until Ben shrank back for fear that his splendid mustaches might ignite. He found himself confronted by one of the largest men he had ever seen, a leonine face, vaguely familiar.

“You Lee Haines!” he gasped. “What are you doin' here?”

“You're Swann, the foreman, aren't you?” said Haines. “Well, come out of your dream, man. The owner of the ranch is in the living-room.”

“Joe Cumberland's dead,” stammered Ben Swann.

“Kate Cumberland.”

“Her! And—Barry—the Killing at Alder—”

“Shut up!” ordered Haines, and his face grew ugly. “Don't let that chatter get to Kate's ears. Barry ain't with her. Only his kid. Now stir about.”

After the first surprise was over, Ben Swann did very well. He found the fire already started in the living-room and on the rug before the hearth a yellow-haired little girl wrapped in a tawny hide. She was sound asleep, worn out by the long ride, and she seemed to Ben Swann a very pretty picture. Surely there could be in her little of the father of whom he had heard so much—of whom that story of the Killing at Alder was lately told. He took in that picture at a glance and then went to rustle food; afterward he went down to sleep in the bunkhouse and at breakfast he recounted the events of the night with a relish. Not one of the men had been more than three years on the place, and therefore their minds were clean slates on which Swann could write his own impressions.

“Appearances is deceivin'” concluded the foreman. “Look at Mrs. Dan Barry. They tell you around these parts that she's pretty, but they don't tell you how damned fine lookin' she is. She's got a soft look and you'd never pick her for the sort that would run clean off with a gent like Barry. Barry himself wasn't so bad for looks, but they'll tell you in Elkhead how bad he is in action, and maybe they's some widders in Alder that could put in a word. Take even the kid. She looks no more'n a baby, but what d'you know is inside of her?

“Speakin' personal, gents, I don't put no kind of trust in that houseful yonder. Here they come in the middle of the night like there was a posse after 'em. They climb that house and sit down and eat like they'd ridden all day. Maybe they had. Even while they was eatin' they didn't seem none too happy.

“That loose shutter upstairs come around in the wind with a bang and Buck Daniels comes out of his chair as fast as powder could blow him. He didn't say nothin'. Just sat down lookin' kind of sick, and the other two was the same way. When they talked, they'd bust off in the middle of a word and let their eyes go trailin' into some corner of the room that was plumb full of shadow. Then Lee Haines gets up and walks up and down.

“'Swann,' says he, 'how many good men have you got on the place?'

“'Why,' says I, 'they're all good!'

“'Huh,' says Haines, and he puts a hand on my shoulder, 'Just how good are they, Swann?'”

“I seen what he wanted. He wanted to know how many scrappy gents was punchin' cows here; maybe them three up there figures that they might need help. From what? What was they runnin' away from?”

“Hey!” broke in one of the cowpunchers, pointing with a dramatic fork through the window.

It was a bright spot of gold that disappeared over the top of the nearest hill; then it came into view again, the whole body of a yellow-haired child, clothed in a wisp of white, and running steadily toward the north.

“The kid!” gasped the foreman. “Boys, grab her. No, you'd bust her; I know how to handle her!”

He was gone through the door with gigantic leaps and shot over the crest of the low hill. Then those in the cookhouse heard a small, tingling