The Freebooters of the Wilderness | Page 9

things
beautiful; good-natured, smiling, easy-going, soft-speaking; the
embodiment of vested rights done up in a white waist-coat. Soldiers of
the firing line had fought dragons in the shape of savages and white
bandits in the early days; but this dragon had neither horns nor hoofs. It
was a courtly glossy-faced pursuer of gainful occupations according to
a limited light and very much according to a belief that freedom meant
freedom to make and take and break independent of the other fellow's
rights. In fact, as Eleanor looked over the dragon with its wide strong
jaw and plausible eyes and big gripping hand she very much doubted
whether the conception had ever dawned on the big dome head that the
other fellow had any rights. The man was not the baby-eating monster
of the muck-rakers. Neither was he a gentleman--he had had a narrow
escape from that--the next generation of him would probably be one.
He gave the impression of a passion for only one thing--getting. If
people or things or laws came in the way of that getting, so much the
worse for them.
Strident laughter blew up on the wind from the cow camp of the
Arizona drovers in the Valley.
"Rough rascals," ejaculated Moyese fanning himself with his hat. "I
wish you wouldn't wander round too much alone when these drover
fellows are here from Arizona. Birds of passage, you know? Sheriff
can't pursue 'em into another State! When it's pay day, whiskey flows
pretty free--pretty free! Wish you wouldn't wander alone too much
when they're up this way."
"Mr. Senator, I move we come to business, and leave poetry and
flowers and palaver out of it--"
The Senator turned suavely and faced the impatient sheep-rancher.

"To be sure! Let us get down to business, MacDonald, by all means;
but before we go any farther, let me ask you a straight question!
Clearing the field before action, Miss Eleanor! Bat come over here and
entertain Miss Eleanor. Miss MacDonald, this is my man
Friday--Brydges, Miss MacDonald: it's Brydges, you know, sets us all
down fools to posterity by reporting our speeches for the newspapers."
Brydges winked as he got his limp collar back to his neck. It wasn't his
part to tell how many speeches came in reported before delivered; how
many were never delivered at all.
The Senator had stopped fanning himself. He was caressing his shaven
chin and taking the measure of the rancher; a tall man, straight and lithe
as a whip, lean and clean-limbed and swarthy.
"MacDonald, why don't you take out your naturalization papers so you
can vote at election? In the eyes of the law, you're still an alien."
"Alien? What has that to do with paying grazing fees for sheep on the
Forest Range?" MacDonald's black eyes closed to a tiny slit of shiny
light. "Mr. Senator," he said tersely, "how much do you want?"
Mr. Senator refused to be perturbed by the edge of that question.
"You ask Wayland how much the grazing fee is. You know it's my
belief there ought to be no grazing fee. We stockmen can take care of
ourselves without Washington worrying--"
"Yes," interrupted Williams, "you took such good care of the sheep
herders last spring, some of you put them to eternal sleep."
"We're not living in Paradise or Utopia," assented Moyese. "We can
take care of our own. Men who won't listen to warning must look out
for stronger arguments; and it's a great deal quicker than carrying
long-drawn legal cases up to the Supreme Court. You sheepmen are
asking us to take care of you. I'm asking MacDonald to vote so he can
take care of us. Majority rules. What I'm trying to get at is which side
you are on! We're not taking care of neutrals and aliens--"

"Aliens." The low tense voice bit into the word like acid. "And I
suppose you're not taking care of pea-nut politicians either. My
ancestors have lived in this country since 1759. Mr. Senator, how many
generations have your people lived in this country?"
Eleanor became conscious that a question had been asked fraught with
explosion; but the Senator smiled the big soft voiceless smile down in
his waist-coat as if not one of the group knew that memories of the
ghetto had not faded from his own generation.
"We're not strong on ancestry out West," he rubbed his whiskerless
chin. "It goes back too often to--" he looked up quietly at MacDonald,
"to bow and arrow aristocracy, scalps, in fact; but as for myself," if a
little oily, still the smile remained genial, "for myself, from what my
name means in French, I should judge we were Hugenots--what do you
call 'em?--Psalm singing lot that came over in that big boat, growing
bigger every year;