Will Lillibridge - Ben Blair

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[Illustration: Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben,
forgive me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.]

BEN BLAIR
THE STORY OF A PLAINSMAN

By WILL LILLIBRIDGE

Author of "Where the Trail Divides," etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK

* * * * *

COPYRIGHT BY
A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
A. D. 1905

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

_All rights reserved_

Published October 21, 1905
Second Edition October 28, 1905
Third Edition November 29, 1905
Fourth Edition December 9, 1905
Fifth Edition December 14, 1905
Sixth Edition February 28, 1907

* * * * *

_To My Wife_

* * * * *

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. IN RUDE BORDER-LAND 1
II. DESOLATION 9
III. THE BOX R RANCH 23
IV. BEN'S NEW HOME 37
V. THE EXOTICS 44
VI. THE SOIL AND THE SEED 53
VII. THE SANITY OF THE WILD 66
VIII. THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN 74
IX. A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE 83
X. THE DOMINANT ANIMAL 94
XI. LOVE'S AVOWAL 106
XII. A DEFERRED RECKONING 117
XIII. A SHOT IN THE DARK 134
XIV. THE INEXORABLE TRAIL 148
XV. IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW 164
XVI. THE QUICK AND THE DEAD 185
XVII. GLITTER AND TINSEL 193
XVIII. PAINTER AND PICTURE 204
XIX. A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS 217
XX. CLUB CONFIDENCES 230
XXI. LOVE IN CONFLICT 242
XXII. TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT 258
XXIII. THE BACK-FIRE 270
XXIV. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES 287
XXV. OF WHAT AVAIL? 304
XXVI. LOVE'S SURRENDER 318

* * * * *

BEN BLAIR

CHAPTER I

IN RUDE BORDER-LAND

Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick
Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his
establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved
character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation
calls the falling apple, came from afar and near--mainly from afar--the
malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking--instinctively
gregarious--the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the
temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor.

Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful,
strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance;
devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy
at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the
saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking
likewise of constant contact with sun and storm.

By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The
heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had no more elegance than the rude sod
shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at
extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and
liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely
suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a
lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through
which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without.
When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled
with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued;
it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which
new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by
_habitues_ of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to
the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared
whence they had come.

But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points
of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of
prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but
radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust,
penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from
cheap glassware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the
sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an
imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of
bartender Mick, with its stiff unshaven red beard and its single
eye,--merciless as an electric headlight,--its broad flaming scar
leading down from the blank socket of its mate, became less repulsive
under the softened light.

With the coming of Fall frosts, the premonition of Winter, the
frequenters of the place gathered earlier, remained later, emptied more
of the showily labelled bottles behind the bar, and augmented when
possible their well-established reputation for recklessness. About the
soiled tables the fringe of bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes was
more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker-chips lasted longer,
frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning
had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks.

On such a morning, early in November, daylight broadened upon a
characteristic scene. Only one table was in use, and around it sat four
men. One by one the other players had cashed out and left the game. One
of them was snoring in a corner, his head resting upon the sawdust.
Another leaned heavily upon the bar, a half-drained glass before him.
Even the four at the table were not as upon the night before. The hands
which held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were
steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk
eyes were bloodshot.

A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vandyke,
was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces
downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table.

"Pass, damn it!" growled the man at the left.

"Pass," came from the next man.

"Pass," echoed the last of the quartette.

Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth.

"I open it."

The dealer took up the pack lovingly.

"Cards?"

The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in
his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots.

"Give me five."

The point of the Vandyke beard was aimed straight past the speaker.

"Cards?" repeated the dealer.

"Five! Can't you hear?"

The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask
of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the
face of the dealer turned.

"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe
me forty blues, Blair."

The long figure stiffened, the face went pale.

"You--mean--you--" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?"

For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the
player next beyond.

"Cards?" for the third time.

Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors.

"Three."

A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt
throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt;
then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed
an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar.

"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the
immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!"

Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes
in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board
with a mighty crash.

"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of
'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself."

Another pause, momentary but effective.

"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest
change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing
out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."

Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of
poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was
trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.

"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order
drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"

The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged
away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move.
Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked
unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.

"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered
bully, put up that gun!"

Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,--all but the terrible
Cyclopean eye,--and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar,
his face protruding over it.

"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the
furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it
was a woman, you coward!"

For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of
the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good
dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor;
then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand
dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a
mistake, had sized his man correctly.

"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice.
"Make it as easy as you can."

Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.

"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up
to everybody here for a week on your face."

"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant
to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake?
You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy."

"Not a cent."

"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers
and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without
it!"

"Sell something, then, and pay up."

The man thought a moment and shook his head.

"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the
year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next
Winter--"

"You've got a horse outside."

For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost
dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the
odor of whiskey was in the air.

"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?"

"Seventy dollars."

"He's a good horse, worth a hundred."

"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just
to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season."

"You won't give me more?"

"No."

Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had
returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of
chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor.

"Very well, give me forty," he said at last.

"You accept, do you?"

"Yes."

"All right."

Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he
asked.

Slowly the single eye fixed him as before.

"I didn't know you had anything coming."

"Why, you just said forty dollars!"

There was no relenting in Kennedy's face.

"You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues. I'll
settle with him."

Instinctively, as before, Blair's thin hand went to his throat,
clutching at the coarse flannel. He saw he was beaten.

"Well, give me a drink, anyway!"

Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter
upon the bar. Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled
and drained it--and then again.

"A little drop to take along with me," he whined.

Kennedy selected a pint bottle, filled it from the big flask, and
silently proffered it over the board.

Blair took the extended favor, glanced once more about the room, and
stumbled toward the exit. Mick busied himself wiping the soiled bar with
a towel, if possible, even more filthy. At the threshold, his hand upon
the knob, Blair paused, stiffened, grew livid in the face.

"May Satan blister your scoundrel souls, all of you!" he cursed.

Not a man within sound of his voice gave sign that he had heard, as the
opened door returned to its casing with a crash.

CHAPTER II

DESOLATION

Ten miles out on the prairies,--not lands plane as a table, as they are
usually pictured, but rolling like the sea with waves of tremendous
amplitude--stood a rough shack, called by courtesy a house. Like many a
more pretentious domicile, it was of composite construction, although
consisting of but one room. At the base was the native prairie sod,
piled tier upon tier. Above this the superstructure, like the bar of
Mick Kennedy's resort, was of warping cottonwood. Built out from this
single room and forming a part of it was what the designer had called a
woodshed; but as no tree the size of a man's wrist was within ten miles,
or a railroad within fifty, the term was manifestly a misnomer. Wood in
any form it had never contained; instead, it was filled with that
providential fuel of the frontiersman, found superabundantly upon the
ranges,--buffalo chips.

From the main room there was another and much smaller opening into the
sod foundation, and below it,--a dog-kennel. Slightly apart from the
shack stood a twin structure even less assuming, its walls and roof
being wholly built of sod. It was likewise without partition, and was
used as a barn. Hard by was a corral covering perhaps two acres,
enclosed with a barbed-wire fence. These three excrescences upon the
face of nature comprised the "improvements" of the "Big B Ranch."

Within the house the furnishings accorded with their surroundings. Two
folding bunks, similar in conception to the upper berths of a Pullman
car, were built end to end against the wall; when they were raised to
give room, four supports dangled beneath like paralyzed arms. A
home-made table, suggesting those scattered about country picnic
grounds, a few cheap chairs, a row of chests and cupboards variously
remodelled from a common foundation of dry-goods boxes, and a stove,
ingeniously evolved out of the cylinder and head of a portable engine,
comprised the furniture.

The morning sunlight which dimmed the candles of Mick Kennedy's saloon
drifted through the single high-set window of the Big B Ranch-house,
revealing there a very different scene. From beneath the quilts in one
of the folding bunks appeared the faces of a woman and a little boy. At
the opening of the dog-kennel the head of a mottled yellow-and-white
mongrel dog projected into the room, the sensitive muzzle pointing
directly at the occupied bunk. The eyes of woman, child, and beast were
open and moved restlessly about.

"Mamma," and the small boy wriggled beneath the clothes, "Mamma, I'm
hungry."

The white face of the woman turned away, more pallid than before. An
unfamiliar observer would have been at a loss to guess the age of the
owner. In that haggard, non-committal countenance there was nothing to
indicate whether she was twenty-five or forty.

"It is early yet, son. Go to sleep."

The boy closed his eyes dutifully, and for perhaps five minutes there
was silence; then the blue orbs opened wider than before.

"Mamma, I can't go to sleep. I'm hungry!"

"Never mind, Benjamin. The horses, the rabbits, the birds,--all get
hungry sometimes." A hacking cough interrupted her words. "Snuggle close
up to me, little son, and keep warm."

"But, mamma, I want something to eat. Won't you get it for me?"

"I can't, son."

He waited a moment. "Won't you let me help myself, then, mamma?"

The eyes of the mother moistened.

"Mamma," the child repeated, gently shaking his mother's shoulder,
"won't you let me help myself?"

"There's nothing for you to eat, sonny, nothing at all."

The blue child-eyes widened; the serious little face puckered.

"Why ain't there anything to eat, mamma?"

"Because there isn't, bubby."

The reasoning was conclusive, and the child accepted it without further
parley; but soon another interrogation took form in his active brain.

"It's cold, mamma," he announced. "Aren't you going to build a fire?"

Again the mother coughed, and a flush of red appeared upon her cheeks.

"No," she answered with a sigh.

"Why not, mamma?"

There was not the slightest trace of irritation in the answering voice,
although it was clearly an effort to speak.

"I can't get up this morning, little one."

Mysteries were multiplying, but the small Benjamin was equal to the
occasion. With a spring he was out of bed, and in another moment was
stepping gingerly upon the cold bare floor.

"I'm going to build a fire for you, mamma," he announced.

The homely mongrel whined a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and
with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the
woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering
little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity
born of experience, went about the making of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto
unthought-of possibility flashed into the boy's mind, and leaving his
work he came back to the bunk.

"Are you sick, mamma?" he asked.

Instantly the woman's face softened.

"Yes, laddie," she answered gently.

Carefully as a nurse, the small protector replaced the cover at his
mother's back, where his exit had left a gap; then returned to his work.

"You must have it warm here," he said.

Not until the fire in the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did
he return to his patient; then, standing straight before her, he looked
down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it
been less pathetic.

"Are you very sick, mamma?" he said at last, hesitatingly.

"I am dying, little son." She spoke calmly and impersonally, without
even a quickening of the breath. The thin hand, lying on the tattered
cover, did not stir.

"Mamma!" the old-man face of the boy tightened, as, bending over the
bed, he pressed his warm cheek against hers, now growing cold and white.

At the mouth of the kennel two bright eyes were watching curiously.
Their owner wriggled the tip of his muzzle inquiringly, but the action
brought no response. Then the muzzle went into the air, and a whine,
long-drawn and insistent, broke the silence.

The boy rose. There was not a trace of moisture in his eyes, but the
uncannily aged face seemed older than before. He went over to a peg
where his clothes were hanging and took down the frayed garment that
answered as an overcoat. From the bunk there came another cough, quickly
muffled; but he did not turn. Cap followed coat, mittens cap; then,
suddenly remembering, he turned to the stove and scattered fresh chips
upon the glowing embers.

"Good-bye, mamma," said the boy.

The mother had been watching him, although she gave no sign. "Where are
you going, sonny?" she asked.

"To town, mamma. Someone ought to know you're sick."

There was a moment's pause, wherein the mongrel whined impatiently.

"Aren't you going to kiss me first, Benjamin?"

The little lad retraced his steps, until, bending over, his lips touched
those of his mother. As he did so, the hand which had lain upon the
coverlet shifted to his arm detainingly.

"How were you thinking of going, son?"

A look of surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this,
with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother. He
glanced at her gravely.

"I'm going afoot, mamma."

"It's ten miles to town, Benjamin."

"But you and I walked it once together. Don't you remember?"

An expression the lad did not understand flashed over the white face of
Jennie Blair. Well she remembered that other occasion, one of many like
the present, when she and the little lad had gone in company to the
settlement of which Mick Kennedy's place was a part, in search of
someone whom after ten hours' delay they had succeeded in bringing
home,--the remnant and vestige of what was once a man.

"Yes, I know we did, Bennie."

The boy waited a moment longer, then straightened himself.

"I think I'd better be starting now."

But instead of loosening its hold, the hand upon the boy's shoulder
tightened. The eyes of the two met.

"You're not going, sonny. I'm glad you thought of it, but I can't let
you go."

Again there was silence for so long that the waiting dog, impatient of
the delay, whined in soft protest.

"Why not, mamma?"

"Because, Benjamin, it's too late now. Besides, there wouldn't be a
person there who would come out to help me."

The boy's look of perplexity returned.

"Not if they knew you were very sick, mamma?"

"Not if they knew I was dying, my son."

The boy took off hat, mittens, and coat, and returned them to their
places. Never in his short life had he questioned a statement of his
mother's, and such heresy did not occur to him now. Coming back to the
bunk, he laid his cheek caressingly beside hers.

"Is there anything I can do for you, mamma?" he whispered.

"Nothing but what you are doing now, laddie."

Tired of standing, the mongrel dropped within his tracks flat upon his
belly, and, his head resting upon his fore-paws, lay watching intently.

* * * * *

When the door of Mick Kennedy's saloon closed with an emphasis that
shook the very walls, it shut out a being more ferocious, more evil,
than any beast of the jungle. For the time, Blair's alcohol-saturated
brain evolved but one chain of thought, was capable of but one
emotion--hate. Every object in the universe, from its Creator to
himself, fell under the ban. The language of hate is curses; and as he
moved out over the prairie there dripped from his lips continuously,
monotonously, a trickling, blighting stream of malediction. Swaying,
stumbling, unconscious of his physical motions, instinct kept him upon
the trail; a Providence, sometimes kindest to those least worthy,
preserved him from injury.

Half way out he met a solitary Indian astride a faded-looking mustang,
and the current of his wrath was temporarily diverted by a surly "How!"
Even this measure of friendliness was regretted when the big revolver
came out of the rancher's holster like a flash, and, head low on the
neck of the mustang, heels in the little beast's ribs, the aborigine
retreated with a yell, amid a shower of ill-aimed bullets. Long after
the figure on the pony had passed out of range, Blair stood pulling at
the trigger of the empty repeater and cursing louder than before because
it would not "pop."

Two hours later, when it was past noon, an uncertain hand lifted the
wooden latch of the Big B Ranch-house door, and, heralded by an inrush
of cold outside air, Tom Blair, master and dictator, entered his domain.
The passage of time, the physical exercise, and the prairie air, had
somewhat cleared his brain. Just within the room, he paused and looked
about him with surprise. With premonition of impending trouble, the
mongrel bristled the yellow hair of his neck, and, retreating to the
mouth of his kennel, stood guard; but otherwise the scene was to a
detail as it had been in the morning. The woman lay passive within the
bunk. The child by her side, holding her hand, did not turn. The very
atmosphere of the place tingled with an ominous quiet,--a silence such
as one who has lived through a cyclone connects instinctively with a
whirling oncoming black funnel.

The new-comer was first to make a move. Walking over to the centre of
the room, he stopped and looked upon his subjects.

"Well, of all the infernally lazy people I ever saw!" he commented, "you
beat them, Jennie! Get up and cook something to eat; it's way after
noon, and I'm hungry."

The woman said nothing, but the boy slid to his feet, facing the
intruder.

"Mamma's sick and can't get up," he explained as impersonally as to a
stranger. "Besides, there isn't anything to cook. She said so."

The man's brow contracted into a frown.

"Speak when you're spoken to, young upstart!" he snapped. "Out with you,
Jennie! I don't want to be monkeyed with to-day!"

He hung up his coat and cap, and loosened his belt a hole; but no one
else in the room moved.

"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, looking warningly toward the bunk.

"Yes," she replied.

Autocrat under his own roof, the man paused in surprise. Never before
had a command here been disobeyed. He could scarcely believe his own
senses.

"You know what to do, then," he said sharply.

For the first time a touch of color came into the woman's cheeks, and
catching the man's eyes she looked into them unfalteringly.

"Since when did I become your slave, Tom Blair?" she asked slowly.

The words were a challenge, the tone was that of some wild thing,
wounded, cornered, staring death in the face, but defiant to the end.
"Since when did you become my owner, body and soul?"

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