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How's yer maw?" Billy Louise gasped and went white. "Mommie's dead," she said. "She died the ninth." She drew another gasping breath, pulled herself together, and went on before the others could begin the set speeches of sympathy which the announcement seemed to demand. "Never mind about that, now. I'm talking about those Seabeck cattle you folks stole.
"I mean bigness, too; a bigness that will make a man be more than square; a bigness that will let him see all around a thing and judge it from a bigger viewpoint than mere justice " "Hm-mm if you could trust me enough to " "I'm going to, Mr. Seabeck. I'm going to take it for granted you're bigger than your own squareness.
Billy Louise cried a little and argued a good deal, but Marthy had not lost all her stubbornness, and the will stood unchanged. When Ward understood all of the circumstances, he hobbled into the kitchen and signaled Seabeck to follow him; and there he counted out five hundred dollars from his last gold-harvest and with a few crisp sentences compelled Seabeck to accept the money.
Seabeck was a fine weather prophet, for that time at least. It did storm that night and the next day and the next; a howling, tearing blizzard that carried the snow so far and so fast that it almost wore it out; so that when the spasm was over, the land lay bleaker and raggeder than ever, with hard-packed drifts in all the hollows and bare ground between.
Seabeck, he told John they don't catch nobody yet. That inspector, he come by long time ago. I guess he stopped with Seabeck. He ain't come back yet. I dunno where he's gone. Seabeck, he didn't say nothing to John about him, I guess. Maybe he went out the other way." "I did you do what I told you, Phoebe, about mommie's things?" For once Phoebe did not answer garrulously.
He's just weak. And he's learned his lesson. It's up to you, Mr. Seabeck, to say whether he shall have a chance to profit by the lesson. And there's poor old Marthy in it, too. She just worships Charlie and would do anything even steal for him." Seabeck meditated for a mile, and Billy Louise watched him uneasily from the tail of her eye.
Billy Louise leaned and whispered the question. "I d'no, and I don't care. He's pulled out him an' that breed. I'll have t' pay yuh for seven growed cattle I never seen till yist'day, Seabeck. You can set yer own price on 'em. I ain't sure, but I've got an idee they was shot las' night an' dumped in the river. You c'n set yer price.
It seems he rode very hurriedly up to the depot at Wilmer to take the train. Just as he stepped on, a fellow who knew him by sight noticed a piece of paper pinned on the back of his coat. He jerked it loose. It was a m-m very peculiar document for a man to be wearing on his back." Seabeck pulled at his whiskers, but it was not the pulling which quirked the corners of his lips.
"I heard 'em say that's how they would git rid of 'em, an' I heard 'em shootin' down there." "Hmm-mm, yes! Do you know just what " "Five dry cows 'n' two steers long two-year-oles, I jedged 'em to be." Marthy was certainly prompt enough and explicit enough. And her lips were grim, and her faded blue eyes hard and steady upon the face of Seabeck. "Hmm-mm yes!
"I don't seem to care about nothin'," she remarked tonelessly. "I'd jest as soon die as live. I wisht you'd send word to Seabeck I want t' see him, Billy Louise. Oh, it ain't about Charlie," she added harshly. "He's shet uh me, and I'm shet uh him. I got some other business with Seabeck. Tell him to bring a couple uh men along with him." "Is there any hurry, Marthy?"
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