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diff --git a/old/rowdy10.txt b/old/rowdy10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a79a416 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rowdy10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2918 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext Rowdy of the Cross L, by B. M. Bower +#9 in our series by B. M. Bower + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Rowdy of the Cross L + +by B. M. Bower (B.M. 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Rowdy in a Tough Place +8. Pink in a Threatening Mood +9. Moving the Herd +10. Harry Conroy at Home +11. Rowdy Promoted +12. "You Can Tell Jessie" +13. Rowdy Finds Happiness + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +Lost in a Blizzard. + +"Rowdy" Vaughan--he had been christened Rowland by his mother, and +rechristened Rowdy by his cowboy friends, who are prone to treat with much +irreverence the names bestowed by mothers--was not happy. He stood in the +stirrups and shook off the thick layer of snow which clung, damp and +close-packed, to his coat. The dull yellow folds were full of it; his gray +hat, pulled low over his purple ears, was heaped with it. He reached up a +gloved hand and scraped away as much as he could, wrapped the long-skirted, +"sour-dough" coat around his numbed legs, then settled into the saddle with +a shiver of distaste at the plight he was in, and wished himself back at the +Horseshoe Bar. + +Dixie, standing knee-deep in a drift, shook himself much after the manner of +his master; perhaps he, also, wished himself back at the Horseshoe Bar. He +turned his head to look back, blinking at the snow which beat insistently in +his eyes; he could not hold them open long enough to see anything, however, +so he twitched his ears pettishly and gave over the attempt. + +"It's up to you, old boy," Rowdy told him resignedly. "I'm plumb lost; I +never was in this damn country before, anyhow--and I sure wish I wasn't here +now. If you've any idea where we're at, I'm dead willing to have you pilot +the layout. Never mind Chub; locating his feed when it's stuck under his +nose is his limit." + +Chub lifted an ear dispiritedly when his name was spoken; but, as was +usually the case, he heard no good of himself, and dropped his head again. +No one took heed of him; no one ever did. His part was to carry Vaughan's +bed, and to follow unquestionably where Vaughan and Dixie might lead. He was +cold and tired and hungry, but his faith in his master was strong; the +responsibility of finding shelter before the dark came down rested not with +him. + +Vaughan pressed his chilled knees against Dixie's ribs, but the hand upon +the reins was carefully non-committal; so that Dixie, having no suggestion +of his master's wish, ventured to indulge his own. He turned tail squarely +to the storm and went straight ahead. Vaughan put his hands deep into his +pockets, snuggled farther down into the sheepskin collar of his coat, and +rode passive, enduring. + +They brought up against a wire fence, and Vaughan, rousing from his apathy, +tried to peer through the white, shifting wall of the storm. "You're a swell +guide--not," he remarked to the horse. "Now you, you hike down this fence +till you locate a gate or a corner, or any darned thing; and I don't give a +cuss if the snow does get in your eyes. It's your own fault." + +Dixie, sneezing the snow from his nostrils, turned obediently; Chub, his +feet dragging wearily in the snow, trailed patiently behind. Half an hour of +this, and it seemed as if it would go on forever. + +Through the swirl Vaughan could see the posts standing forlornly in the +snow, with sixteen feet of blizzard between; at no time could he distinguish +more than two or three at once, and there were long minutes when the wall +stood, blank and shifting, just beyond the first post. + +Then Dixie lifted his head and gazed questioningly before him, his ears +pointed forward--sentient, strained--and whinnied shrill challenge. He +hurried his steps, dragging Chub out of the beginnings of a dream. Vaughan +straightened and took his hands from his pockets. + +Out beyond the dim, wavering outline of the farthest post came answer to the +challenge. A mysterious, vague shape grew impalpably upon the strained +vision; a horse sneezed, then nickered eagerly. Vaughan drew up and waited. + +"Hello!" he called cheerfully. "Pleasant day, this. Out for your health?" + +The shape hesitated, as though taken aback by the greeting, and there was no +answer. Vaughan, puzzled, rode closer. + +"Say, don't talk so fast!" he yelled. "I can't follow yuh." + +"Who--who is it?" The voice sounded perturbed; and it was, moreover, the +voice of a woman. + +Vaughan pulled up short and swore into his collar. Women are not, as a rule, +to be met out on the blank prairie in a blizzard. His voice, when he spoke +again, was not ironical, as it had been; it was placating. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I thought it was a man. I'm looking for the +Cross L; you don't happen to know where it is, do yuh?" + +"No--I don't," she declared dismally. "I don't know where any place is. I'm +teaching school in this neighborhood--or in some other. I was going to spend +Sunday with a friend, but this storm came up, and I'm--lost." + +"Same here," said Rowdy pleasantly, as though being lost was a matter for +congratulation. + +"Oh! I was in hopes--" + +"So was I, so we're even there. We'll have to pool our chances, I guess. Any +gate down that way--or haven't you followed the fence?" + +"I followed it for miles and miles--it seemed. It must be some big field of +the Cross L; but they have so very many big fields!" + +"And you couldn't give a rough guess at how far it is to the Cross +L?"--insinuatingly. + +He could vaguely see her shake of head. "Ordinarily it should be about six +miles beyond Rodway's, where I board. But I haven't the haziest idea of +where Rodway's place is, you see; so that won't help you much. I'm all at +sea in this snow." Her voice was rueful. + +"Well, if you came up the fence, there's no use going back that way; and +there's sure nothing made by going away from it.--that's the way I came. Why +not go on the way you're headed?" + +"We might as well, I suppose," she assented; and Rowdy turned and rode by +her side, grateful for the plurality of the pronoun which tacitly included +him in her wanderings, and meditating many things. For one, he wondered if +she were as nice a girl as her voice sounded. He could not see much of her +face, because it was muffled in a white silk scarf. Only her eyes showed, +and they were dark and bright. + +When he awoke to the fact that the wind, grown colder, beat upon her +cruelly, he dropped behind a pace and took the windy side, that he might +shield her with his body. But if she observed the action she gave no sign; +her face was turned from him and the wind, and she rode without speaking. +After long plodding, the line of posts turned unexpectedly a right angle, +and Vaughan took a long, relieved breath. + +"We'll have the wind on our backs now," he remarked. "I guess we may as well +keep on and see where this fence goes to." + +His tone was too elaborately cheerful to be very cheering.He was wondering +if the girl was dressed warmly. It had been so warm and sunny before the +blizzard struck, but now the wind searched out the thin places in one's +clothing and ran lead in one's bones, where should be simply marrow. He +fancied that her voice, when she spoke, gave evidence of actual +suffering--and the heart of Rowdy Vaughan was ever soft toward a woman. + +"If you're cold," he began, "I'll open up my bed and get out a blanket." He +held Dixie in tentatively. + +"Oh, don't trouble to do that," she protested; but there was that in her +voice which hardened his impulse into fixed resolution. + +"I ought to have thought of it before," he lamented, and swung down stiffly +into the snow. + +Her eyes followed his movement with a very evident interest while he +unbuckled the pack Chub had carried since sunrise and drew out a blanket. + +"Stand in your stirrup," he commanded briskly "and I'll wrap you up. It's a +Navajo, and the wind will have a time trying to find a thin spot." + +"You're thoughtful." She snuggled into it thankfully. "I was cold." + +Vaughan tucked it around her with more care than haste. He was pretty +uncomfortable himself, and for that reason he was the more anxious that the +girl should be warm. It came to him that she was a cute little schoolma'am, +all right; he was glad she belonged close around the Cross L. He also wished +he knew her name--and so he set about finding it out, with much guile. + +"How's that?" he wanted to know, when he had made sure that her feet--such +tiny feet--were well covered. He thought it lucky that she did not ride +astride, after the manner of the latter-day young woman, because then he +could not have covered her so completely. "Hold on! That windy side's going +to make trouble." He unbuckled the strap he wore to hold his own coat snug +about him, and put it around the girl's slim waist, feeling idiotically +happy and guilty the while. "It don't come within a mile of you," he +complained; "but it'll help some." + +Sheltered in the thick folds of the Navajo, she laughed, and the sound of it +sent the blood galloping through Rowdy Vaughan's body so that he was almost +warm. He went and scraped the snow out of his saddle, and swung up, feeling +that, after all, there are worse things in the world than being lost and +hungry in a blizzard, with a sweet-voiced, bright-eyed little schoolma'am +who can laugh like that. + +"I don't want to have you think I may be a bold, bad robber-man," he said, +when they got going again. "My name's Rowdy Vaughan--for which I beg your +pardon. Mother named me Rowland, never knowing I'd get out here and have her +nice, pretty name mutilated that way. I won't say that my behavior never +suggested the change, though. I'm from the Horseshoe Bar, over the line, and +if I have my way, I'll be a Cross L man before another day." Then he waited +expectantly. + +"For fear you may think I'm a--a robber-woman," she answered him +solemnly--he felt sure her eyes twinkled, if only he could have seen them-- +"I'm Jessie Conroy. And if you're from over the line, maybe you know my +brother Harry. He was over there a year or two." + +Rowdy hunched his shoulders--presumably at the wind. Harry Conroy's sister, +was she? And he swore. "I may have met him," he parried, in a tone you'd +never notice as being painstakingly careless. "I think I did, come to think +of it." + +Miss Conroy seemed displeased, and presently the cause was forthcoming. "If +you'd ever met him," she said, "you'd hardly forget him." (Rowdy mentally +agreed profanely.) "He's the best rider in the whole country--and the +handsomest. He--he's splendid! And he's the only brother I've got. It's a +pity you never got acquainted with him." + +"Yes," lied Rowdy, and thought a good deal in a very short time. Harry +Conroy's sister! Well, she wasn't to blame for that, of course; nor for +thinking her brother a white man. "I remember I did see him ride once," he +observed. "He was a whirlwind, all right--and he sure was handsome, too." + +Miss Conroy turned her face toward him and smiled her pleasure, and Rowdy +hovered between heaven and--another place. He was glad she smiled, and he +was afraid of what that subject might discover for his straightforward +tongue in the way of pitfalls. It would not be nice to let her know what he +really thought of her brother. + +"This looks to me like a lane," he said diplomatically. "We must be getting +somewhere; don't you recognize any landmarks?" + +Miss Conroy leaned forward and peered through the clouds of snow dust. +Already the night was creeping down upon the land, stealthily turning the +blank white of the blizzard into as blank a gray--which was as near darkness +as it could get, because of the snow which fell and fell, and yet seemed +never to find an abiding-place, but danced and swirled giddily in the wind +as the cold froze it dry. There would be no more damp, clinging masses that +night; it was sifting down like flour from a giant sieve; and +of the supply there seemed no end. + +"I don't know of any lanes around here," she began dubiously, "unless +it's--" + +Vaughan looked sharply at her muffled figure and wondered why she broke off +so suddenly. She was staring hard at the few, faint traces of landmarks; +and, bundled in the red-and-yellow Navajo blanket, with her bright, dark +eyes, she might easily have passed for a slim young squaw. + +Out ahead, a dog began barking vaguely, and Rowdy turned eagerly to the +sound. Dixie, scenting human habitation, stepped out more briskly through +the snow, and even Chub lifted an ear briefly to show he heard. + +"It may not be any one you know," Vaughan remarked, and his voice showed his +longing; "but it'll be shelter and a warm fire--and supper. Can you +appreciate such blessings, Miss Conroy? I can. I've been in the saddle since +sunrise; and I was so sure I'd strike the Cross L by dinner-time that I +didn't bring a bite to eat. It was a sheep-camp where I stopped, and the +grub didn't look good to me, anyway--I've called myself bad names all the +afternoon for being more dainty than sensible. But it's all right now, I +guess." + +CHAPTER 2 + +Miss Conroy Refuses Shelter. + +The storm lifted suddenly, as storms have a way of doing, and a low, squat +ranch-house stood dimly revealed against the bleak expanse of wind-tortured +prairie. Rowdy gave an exultant little whoop and made for the gate, leaned +and swung it open and rode through, dragging Chub after him by main +strength, as usual. When he turned to close the gate after Miss Conroy he +found her standing still in the lane. + +"Come on in," he called, with a trace of impatience born of his weariness +and hunger. + +"Thank you, no." Miss Conroy's voice was as crisply cold as the wind which +fluttered the Navajo blanket around her face. "I much prefer the blizzard." + + +For a moment Rowdy found nothing to say; he just stared. Miss Conroy shifted +uneasily in the saddle. + +"This is old Bill Brown's place," she explained reluctantly. "He--I'd rather +freeze than go in!" + +"Well, I guess that won't be hard to do," he retorted curtly, "if you stay +out much longer." + +The dog was growing hysterical over their presence, and Bill Brown himself +came out to see what it was all about. He could see two dim figures at the +gate. + +"Hello!" he shouted. "Why don't yuh come on in? What yuh standing there +chewing the rag for?" + +Vaughan hesitated, his eyes upon Miss Conroy. + +"Go in," she commanded imperiously, quite as if he were a refractory pupil. +"You're tired out, and hungry. I'm neither. Besides, I know where I am now. +I can find my way without any trouble. Go in, I tell you!" + +But Rowdy stayed where he was, with the gate creaking to and fro between +them. Dixie circled till his back was to the wind. "I hope you don't think +you're going to mill around out here alone," Rowdy said tartly. + +"I can manage very well. I'm not lost now, I tell you. Rodway's is only +three miles from here, and I know the direction." + +Bill Brown waded out to them, wondering what weighty discussion was keeping +them there in the cold. Vaughan he passed by with the cursory glance of a +disinterested stranger, and went on to where Miss Conroy waited stubbornly +in the lane. + +"Oh, it's you!" he said grimly. "Well, come in and thaw out; I hope yuh +didn't think yuh wouldn't be welcome yuh knew better. You got lost, I +reckon. Come on--" + +Miss Conroy struck Badger sharply across the flank and disappeared into the +night. "When I ask shelter of you," she flung back, "you'll know it." + +Rowdy started after, and met Bill Brown squarely in the gate. Bill eyed him +sharply. "Say, young fellow, how'd you come by that packhorse?" he demanded, +as Chub brushed past him. + +"None of your damn' business," snapped Rowdy, and drove the spurs into +Dixie's ribs. But Chub was a handicap at any time; now, when he was tired, +there was no getting anything like speed out of him; he clung to his +shuffling trot, which was really no better than a walk. After five minutes +spent alternately in spurring Dixie and yanking at Chub's lead-rope, Rowdy +grew frightened and took to shouting. While they were in the lane Miss +Conroy must perforce ride straight ahead, but the lane would not last +always. As though with malicious intent, the snow swooped down again and the +world became an unreal, nightmare world, wherein was nothing save +shifting, blinding snowfloury and wind and bitter, numbing cold. + +Rowdy stood in his stirrups, cupped his chilled fingers around his numbed +lips, and sent a longdrawn "Who-ee!" shrilling weirdly into the night. + +It seemed to him, after long listening, that from the right came faint +reply, and he turned and rode recklessly, swearing at Chub for his slowness. +He called again, and the answer, though faint, was unmistakable. He settled +heavily into the saddle--too weak, from sheer relief, to call again. He had +not known till then just how frightened he had been, and he was somewhat +disconcerted at the discovery. In a minute the reaction passed and he +shouted a loud hello. + +"Hello?" came the voice of Miss Conroy, tantalizingly calm, and as superior +as the greeting of Central. "Were you looking for me, Mr. Vaughan?" + +She was close to him--so close that she had not needed to raise her voice +perceptibly. Rowdy rode up alongside, remembering uncomfortably his +prolonged shouting. + +"I sure was," he admitted. And then: "You rode off with my blanket on." He +was very proud of his matter-of-fact tone. + +"Oh!" Miss Conroy was almost deceived, and a bit disappointed. "I'll give it +to you now, and you can go back--if you know the way." + +"No hurry," said Rowdy politely. "I'll go on and see if you can find a place +that looks good to you. You seem pretty particular." + +Miss Conroy may have blushed, in the shelter of the blanket. "I suppose it +did look strange to you," she confessed, but defiantly. "Bill Brown is an +enemy to--Harry. He--because he lost a horse or two out of a field, one +time, he--he actually accused Harry of taking them! He lied, of course, and +nobody believed him; nobody could believe a thing like that about Harry. It +was perfectly absurd. But he did his best to hurt Harry's name, and I would +rather freeze than ask shelter of him. Wouldn't you--in my place, I mean?" + +"I always stand up for my friends," evaded Rowdy. "And if I had a brother--" + +"Of course you'd be loyal," approved Miss Conroy warmly. "But I didn't want +you to come on; it isn't your quarrel. And I know the way now. You needn't +have come any farther " + +"You forgot the blanket," Rowdy reminded wickedly. "I think a lot of that +Navajo." + +"You insisted upon my taking it," she retorted, and took refuge in silence. + +For a long hour they plodded blindly. Rowdy beat his hands often about his +body to start the blood, and meditated yearnigly upon hot coffee and the +things he liked best to eat. Also, a good long pull at a flask wouldn't be +had, either, he thought. And he hoped this little schoolma'am knew where she +was going--truth to tell, he doubted it. + +After a while, it seemed that Miss Conroy doubted it also. She took to +leaning forward and straining her eyes to see through the gray wall before. + +"There should be a gate here," she said dubiously, at last. + +"It seems to me," Rowdy ventured mildly, "if there were a gate, it would +have some kind of a fence hitched to it; wouldn't it?" + +Miss Conroy was in no mood for facetiousness, and refused to answer his +question. "I surely can't have made a mistake," she observed uneasily. + +"It would be a wonder if you didn't, such a night as this," he consoled. "I +wouldn't bank on traveling straight myself, even if I knew the +country--which I don't. And I've been in more blizzards than I'm years old." + +"Rodway's place can't be far away," she said, brightening. "It may be +farther to the east; shall we try that way--if you know which is east?" + +"Sure, we'll try. It's all we can do. My packhorse is about all in, from the +way he hangs back; if we don't strike something pretty soon I'll have to +turn him loose." + +"Oh, don't do that," she begged. "It would be too cruel. We're sure to reach +Rodway's very soon." + +More plodding through drifts high and drifts low; more leaning from saddles +to search anxiously for trace of something besides snow and wind and biting +cold. Then, far to the right, a yellow eye glowed briefly when the storm +paused to take breath. Miss Conroy gave a glad little cry and turned Badger +sharply. + +"Did you see? It was the light from a window. We were going the wrong way. +I'm sure that is Rodway's." + +Rowdy thanked the Lord and followed her. They came up against a fence, found +a gate, and passed through. While they hurried toward it, the light winked +welcome; as they drew near, some one stirred the fire and sent sparks and +rose-hued smoke rushing up into the smother of snow. Rowdy watched them +wistfully, and wondered if there would be supper, and strong, hot coffee. He +lifted Miss Conroy out of the saddle, carried her two long strides, and +deposited her upon the door-step; rapped imperatively, and when a voice +replied, lifted the latch and pushed her in before him. + +For a minute they stood blinking, just within the door. The change from +numbing cold and darkness to the light of the overheated room was +stupefying. + +Then Miss Conroy went over and held her little, gloved hands to the heat of +the stove, but she did not take the chair which some one pushed toward her. +She stood, the blanket shrouding her face and her slim young figure, and +looked about her curiously. It was not Rodway's house, after all. She +thought she knew what place it was--the shack where Rodway's hay-balers +bached. + +From the first, Rowdy did not like the look of things--though for himself it +did not matter; he was used to such scenes. It was the presence of the girl +which made him uncomfortable. He unbuttoned his coat that the warmth might +reach his chilled body, and frowned. + +Four men sat around a small, dirty table; evidently the arrivals had +interrupted an exciting game of seven-up. A glance told Rowdy, even if his +nose had not, that the four round, ribbed bottles had not been nearly +emptied without effect. + +"Have one on the house," the man nearest him cried, and shoved a bottle +toward him. + +Involuntarily Rowdy reached for it. Now that he was inside, he realized all +at once how weary he was, and cold and hungry. Each abused muscle and nerve +seemed to have a distinct grievance against him. His fingers closed around +the bottle before he remembered and dropped it. He looked up, hoping Miss +Conroy had not observed the action; met her wide, questioning eyes, and the +blood flew guiltily to his cheeks. + +"Thanks, boys--not any for me," he said, and apologized to Miss Conroy with +his eyes. + +The man rose and confronted him unsteadily. "Dat's a hell off a way! You too +proud for drink weeth us? You drink, now! By Gar, I make you drink!" + +Rowdy's eyelids drooped, which was a bad sign for those who knew him. +"You're forgetting there's a lady present," he reminded warningly. + +The man turned a brief, contemptuous glance toward the stove. "You got the +damn' queer way to talk. I don't call no squaw no lady. You drink queeck, +now!" + +"Aw, shut up, Frenchy," the man at his elbow abjured him. "He don't have to +drink if he don't want to." + +"You keep the face close," the other retorted majestically; and cursed loud +and long and incoherently. + +Rowdy drew back his arm, with a fist that meant trouble for somebody; but +there were others before him who pinned the importunate host to the table, +where he squirmed unavailingly. + +Rowdy buttoned up his coat the while he eyed the group disgustedly. "I guess +we'll drift," he remarked. "You don't look good to me, and that's no dream." + +"Aw, stay and warm up," the fourth man expostulated. "Yuh don't need t' mind +Le Febre; he's drunk.' + +But Rowdy opened the door decisively, and Miss Conroy, her cheeks like two +storm-buffeted poppies, followed him out with dignity--albeit trailing a +yard of red-and-yellow Navajo blanket behind her. Rowdy lifted her into the +saddle, tucked her feet carefully under the blanket, and said never a word. + +"Mr. Vaughan," she began hesitatingly, "this is too bad; you need not have +left. I--I wasn't afraid." + +"I know you weren't," conceded Rowdy. "But it was a hard formation--for a +woman. Are there any more places on this flat marked Unavailable?" + +Miss Conroy replied misanthropically that if there were they would be sure +to find them. + +They took up their weary wanderings again, while the yellow eye of the +window winked after them. They missed Rodway's by a scant hundred yards, and +didn't know it, because the side of the house next them had no lighted +windows. They traveled in a wide, half circle, and thought that they were +leaving a straight trail behind them. More than once Rowdy was urged by his +aching arm to drop the lead-rope and leave Chub to shift by himself, but +habit was strong and his heart was soft. Then he felt an odd twitching at +the lead-rope, as if Chub were minded to rebel against their leadership. +Rowdy yanked him into remembrance of his duty, and wondered. Bill Brown's +question came insistently to mind; he wondered the more. + +Two minutes and the lead-rope was sawing against the small of his back +again. Rowdy turned Dixie's head, and spoke for the first time in an hour. + +"My packhorse seems to have an idea about where he wants to go," he said. "I +guess we might as well follow him as anybody; he ain't often taken with a +rush of brains to the head. And we can't be any worse lost than we are now, +can we?" + +Miss Conroy said no dispiritedly, and they swung about and followed Chub's +leadership apathetically. It took Chub just five minutes to demonstrate that +he knew what he was about. When he stopped, it was with his nose against a +corral gate; not content with that, he whinnied, and a new, exultant note +was in the sound. A deep-voiced dog bayed loudly, and a shrill yelp cut in +and clamored for recognition. + +Miss Conroy gasped. "It's Lion and Skeesicks. We're at Rodway's, Mr. +Vaughan." + +Rowdy, for the second time, thanked the Lord. But when he was stripping the +pack off Chub's back, ten minutes later, he was thinking many things he +would not have cared to say aloud. It might be all right, but it sure was +strange, he told himself, that Chub belonged here at Rodway's when Harry +Conroy claimed that he was an Oregon horse. Rowdy had thought his account +against Harry Conroy long enough, but it looked now as though another item +must be added to the list. He went in and ate his supper thoughtfully, and +when he got into bed he did not fall asleep within two minutes, as he might +be expected to do. His last conscious thought was not of stolen horses, +however. It was: "And she's Harry Conroy's sister! Now, what do you think of +that? But all the same, she's sure a nice little schoolma'am." + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +Rowdy Hires a New Boss. + +Next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Rodway followed Vaughan out to the +stable, and repeated Bill Brown's question. + +"I'd like to know where yuh got this horse," he began, with an apologetic +sort of determination in his tone. "He happens to belong to me. He was run +off with a bunch three years ago, and this is the first trace anybody has +ever got of 'em. I see the brand's been worked. It was a Roman four--that's +my brand; now it looks like a map of Texas; but I'd swear to the +horse--raised him from a colt." + +Rowdy had expected something of the sort, and he knew quite well what he was +going to do; he had settled that the night before, with the memory of Miss +Conroy's eyes fresh in his mind. + +"I got him in a deal across the line," he said. "I was told he came from +east Oregon. But last night, when he piloted us straight to your corral +gate, I guessed he'd been here before. He's yours, all right, if you say +so." + +"Uh course he ain't worth such a pile uh money, apologized Rodway, "but the +kids thought a heap of him. I'd rather locate some of the horses that was +with him--or the man yuh got him of. They was some mighty good horses run +out uh this country then, but they was all out on the range, so we didn't +miss 'em in time to do any good. Do yu know who took 'em across the line?" + +"No," said Rowdy deliberately. "The man I got Chub from went north, and I +heard he got killed. I don't know of any other in the deal." + +Rodway grunted, and Vaughan began vigorously brushing Dixie's roughened +coat. "If you don't mind," he said, after a minute, "I'd like to borrow Chub +to pack my bed over to the Cross L. I can bring him back again." + +"Why, sure!" assented Rodway eagerly. "I hate to take him from yuh, but the +kids--" + +"Oh, that's all right," interrupted Rowdy cheerfully. "It's all in the game, +and I should 'a' looked up his pedigree, for I knew--. Anyway, was worth the +price of him to have him along last night. We'd have milled around till +daylight, I guess, only for him." + +"That's what," agreed Rodway. "Jessie's horse is one she brought from home +lately, and he ain't located yet; I dunno as he'd 'a' piloted her home. +Billy--that's what the kids named him--was born and raised here, yuh see. +I'll bet he's glad to get back--and the kids'll be plumb wild." + +Rowdy did not answer; there seemed nothing in particular to say, and he was +wondering if he would see Miss Conroy before he left. She had not eaten +breakfast with the others; from their manner, he judged that no one expected +her to. He was not well informed upon the subject of schoolma'ams, but he +had a hazy impression that late rising was a distinguishing +characteristic--and he did not know how late. He saddled leisurely, and +packed his bed for the last time upon Chub. The red-and-yellow Navajo +blanket he folded tenderly, with an unconscious smile for the service it had +done, and laid it in its accustomed place in the bed. Then, having no +plausible excuse for going back to the house, he mounted and rode away into +the brilliant white world, watching wistfully the house from the tail of his +eye. + +She might have got up in time to see him off, he thought discontentedly; but +he supposed one cowpuncher more or less made little difference to her. +Anyway, he didn't know as he had any license to moon around her. She +probably had a fellow; she might even be engaged, for all he knew. And--she +was Harry Conroy's sister; and from his experience with the breed, good +looks didn't count for anything. Harry was good-looking, and he was a snake, +if ever there was one. He had never expected to lie for him--but he +had done it, all right --and because Harry's sister happened to have nice +eyes and a pretty little foot!-- + +He had half a mind to go back and tell Rodway all he knew about those +horses; it was only a matter of time, anyway, till Harry Conroy overshot the +mark and got what was coming to him. He sure didn't owe Harry anything, that +he had need to shield him like he had done. Still, Rodway would wonder why +he hadn't told it at first; and that little girl believed in Harry, and said +he was "splendid!" Humph! He wondered if she really meant that. If she +did-- + +He squared his back to the house--and the memory of Miss Conroy's eyes--and +plodded across the field to the gate. Now the sun was shining, and there was +no possibility of getting lost. The way to the Cross L lay straight and +plain before him. + +Rowdy rode leisurely up over the crest of a ridge beyond which lay the home +ranch of the Cross L. Whether it was henceforth to be his home he had yet to +discover--though there was reason for hoping that it would be. Even so +venturesome a man as Rowdy Vaughan would scarce ride a long hundred miles +through unpeopled prairie, in the tricky month of March, without some reason +for expecting a welcome at the end of his journey. In this case, a previous +acquaintance with "Wooden Shoes" Mielke, foreman of the Cross L, was Rowdy's +trump-card. Wooden Shoes, whenever chance had brought them together in the +last two or three years, was ever urging Rowdy to come over and unroll his +soogans in the Cross L bed-tent, and promising the best string in the outfit +to ride--besides other things alluring to a cow-puncher. So that, when his +relations with the Horseshoe Bar became strained, Rowdy remembered his +friend of the Cross L and the promises, and had drifted south. + +Just now he hoped that Wooden Shoes would be home to greet him, and his eyes +searched wishfully the huddle of low-eaved cabins and the assortment of +sheds and corrals for the bulky form of the foreman. But no one seemed to be +about--except a bigbodied, bandy-legged individual, who appeared to be +playfully chasing a big, bright bay stallion inside the large enclosure +where stood the cabins. + +Rowdy watched them impersonally; a glance proved that the man was not Wooden +Shoes, and so he was not particularly interested in him or his doings. It +did occur to him, however, that if the fellow wanted to catch that brute, he +ought to have sense enough to get a horse. No one but a plumb idiot would +mill around in that snow afoot. He jogged down the slope at a shuffling +trot, grinning tolerantly at the pantomime below. + +He of the bandy-legs stopped, evidently out of breath; the stallion stopped +also, snorting defiance. Rowdy heard him plainly, even at that distance. The +horse arched his neck and watched the man warily, ready to be off at the +first symptom of hostilities--and Rowdy observed that a short rope hung from +his halter, swaying as he moved. + +Bandy-legs seemed to have an idea; he turned and scuttled to the nearest +cabin, returning with what seemed a basin of oats, for he shook it +enticingly and edged cautiously toward the horse. Rowdy could imagine him +coaxing, with hypocritically endearing names, such as "Good old boy!" and +"Steady now, Billy"--or whatever the horse's name might be. Rowdy chuckled +to himself, and hoped the horse saw through the subterfuge. + +Perhaps the horse chuckled also; at any rate, he stood quite still, equally +prepared to bounce away on the instant or to don the mask of docility. +Bandy-legs drew nearer and nearer, shaking the basin briskly, like an old +woman sifting meal. The horse waited, his nostrils quivering hungrily at the +smell of the oats, and with an occasional low nicker. + +Bandy-legs went on tiptoes--or as nearly as he could in the snow--the basin +at arm's length before. The dainty, flaring nostrils sniffed tentatively, +dipped into the basin, and snuffed the oats about luxuriously--till he felt +a stealthy hand seize the dangling rope. At the touch he snorted protest, +and was off and away, upsetting Bandy-legs and the basin ignominiously into +a high-piled drift. + +Bandy-legs sat up, scraped the snow out of his collar and his ears, and +swore. It was then that Rowdy appeared like an angel of deliverance. + +"Want that horse caught?" he yelled cheerfully. + +Bandy-legs lifted up his voice and bellowed things I should not like to +repeat verbatim. But Rowdy gathered that the man emphatically did want that +so-and-so-and-then-some horse caught, and that it couldn't be done a blessed +minute too soon. Whereat Rowdy smiled anew, with his face discreetly turned +away from Bandy-legs, and took down his rope and widened the loop. Also, he +turned Chub loose. + +The stallion evidently sensed what new danger threatened his stolen freedom, +and circled the yard with high, springy strides. Rowdy circled after, saw +his chance, swirled the loop twice over his head, and hazarded a long throw. + +Rowdy knew it for pure good luck that it landed right, but to this day +Bandy-legs looks upon him as a Wonder with a rope--and Bandy-legs would +insist upon the capital. + +"Where shall I take him?" Rowdy asked, coming up with his captive, and with +nothing but his eyes to show how he was laughing inwardly. + +Bandy-legs crawled from the drift, still scraping snow from inside his +collar, and gave many directions about going through a certain gate into +such-and-such a corral; from there into a stable; and by seeming devious +ways into a minutely described stall. + +"All right," said Rowdy, cutting short the last needless details. "I guess I +can find the trail;" and started off, leading the stallion. Bandy-legs +followed, and Chub, observing the departure of Dixie, ambled faithfully in +the rear. + +"Much obliged," conceded Bandy-legs, when the stallion was safely housed and +tied securely. "Where yuh headed for, young man?" + +"Right here," Rowdy told him calmly, loosening Dixie's cinch. "I'm the +long-lost top hand that the Cross L's been watching the sky-line for, lo! +these many moons, a-yearning for the privilege of handing me forty plunks +about twice as fast as I've got 'em coming. Where's the boss?" + +"Er--I'm him," confessed Bandy-legs meekly, and circled the two dubiously. +"I guess you've heard uh Eagle Creek Smith--I'm him. The Cross L belongs to +me." + +Rowdy let out an explosive, and showed a row of nice teeth. "Well, I ain't +hard to please," he added. "I won't kick on that, I guess. I like your looks +tolerable well, and I'm willing to take yuh on for a boss. If yuh do your +part, I bet we'll get along fine." His tone was banteringly patronizing +"Anyway, I'll try yuh for a spell. You can put my name down as Rowdy +Vaughan, lately canned from the Horseshoe Bar." + +"What for?" ventured Bandy-legs--rather, Eagle Creek--still circling Rowdy +dubiously. + +"What for was I canned?" repeated Rowdy easily. "Being a modest youth, I +hate t' tell yuh. But the old man's son and me, we disagreed, and one of his +eyes swelled some; so did mine, a little." He stood head and shoulders above +Eagle Creek, and he smiled down upon him engagingly. Eagle Creek capitulated +before the smile. + +"Well, I ain't got any sons--that I know of," he grinned. "So I guess yuh +can consider yourself a Cross L man till further notice." + +"Why, sure!" The teeth gleamed again briefly. "That's what I've been telling +you right along. Where's old Wooden Shoes? He's responsible for me being +here." + +"Gone to Chinook. He'll be back in a day or two." Eagle Creek shifted his +feet awkwardly. "Say"--he glanced uneasily behind him--"yuh don't want t' +let it get around that yuh sort of-- hired me--see?" + +"Of course not," Rowdy assured him. "I was only joshing. If you don't want +me, just tell me to hit the sod." + +"You stay right where you're at!" commanded Eagle Creek with returned +confidence in himself and his authority. Of a truth, this self-assured, +straight-limbed young man had rather dazed him. "Take your bed and war-bag +up to the bunk-house and make yourself t' home till the boys get back, +and--say, where'd yuh git that pack-horse?" + +The laugh went out of Rowdy's tawny eyes. The question hit a spot that was +becoming sore. "I borrowed him this morning from Mr. Rodway," he said +evenly. "I'm to take him back to-day. I stopped there last night." + +"Oh!" Eagle Creek coughed apologetically, and said no word, while Rowdy led +Chub back to the cabin which he had pointed out as the bunk-house; he stood +by while Rowdy loosened the pack and dragged it inside. + +"I guess you can get located here," he said. "I ain't workin' more'n three +or four men just now, but there's quite a few uh the boys stopping here; the +Cross L's a regular hang-out for cow-punchers. You're a little early for the +season, but I'll see that yuh have something t' do--just t' keep yuh out uh +devilment." + +Rowdy's brows unbent; it would seem that Eagle Creek was capable of +"joshing" also. "It's up t' you, old-timer," he retorted. "I'm strong and +willing, and don't shy at anything but pitchforks." + +Eagle Creek grinned. "This ain't no blamed cowhospital," he gave as a +parting shot. "All the hay that's shoveled on this ranch needn't hurt +nobody's feelings." With that he shut the door, and left Rowdy to acquaint +himself with his new home. + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +Pink as "Chappyrone." + +Rowdy was sprawled ungracefully upon somebody's bunk--he neither knew nor +cared whose--and he was snoring unmelodiously, and not dreaming a thing; for +when a cow-puncher has nothing in particular to do, he sleeps to atone for +the weary hours when he must be very wide-awake. An avalanche descended upon +his unwarned middle, and checked the rhythmic ebb and flow of sound. He +squawked and came to life clawing viciously. + +"I'd like t' know where the devil yuh come from," a voice remarked +plaintively in a soft treble. + +Rowdy opened his eyes with a snap. "Pink! by all that's good and bad! Get up +off my diaphragm, you little fiend." + +Pink absent-mindedly kneaded Rowdy's stomach with his knuckles, and +immediately found himself in a far corner. He came back, dimpling +mischievously. He looked much more an angel than a fiend, for all his Angora +chaps and flame-colored scarf. + +"Your bed and war-bag's on my bunk; you're on Smoky's; and Dixie's makin' +himself to home in the corral. By all them signs and tokens, I give a +reckless guess you're here t' stay a while. That right?" He prodded again at +Rowdy's ribs. + +"It sure is, Pink. And if I'd known you was holding out here, I'd 'a' come +sooner, maybe. You sure look good to me, you darned little cuss!" Rowdy sat +up and took a lightning inventory of the four or five other fellows lounging +about. He must have slept pretty sound, he thought, not to hear them come +in. + +Pink read the look, and bethought him of the necessary introductions. "This +is my side-kicker over the line that--you've heard about till you're plumb +weary, boys," he announced musically. "His name is Rowdy +Vaughan--bronco-peeler, crap fiend, and all-round bad man. He ain't a safe +companion, and yuh want t' sleep with your six-guns cuddled under your right +ear, and never, on no account, show him your backs. He's a real wolf, he is, +and the only reason I live t' tell the tale is because he respects +m' size. Boys, I'm afraid for yuh--but I wish yuh well." + +"Pink, you need killing, and I'm tempted to live up to my rep," grinned +Rowdy indulgently. "Read me the pedigree of your friends." + +"Oh, they ain't no worse--when yuh git used to 'em. That long-legged jasper +with the far-away look in his eyes is the Silent One--if he takes a notion +t' you, he'll maybe tell yuh the name his mother calls him. He may have seen +better days; but here's hoping he won't see no worse! He once was a +tenderfoot; but he's convalescing." + +The Silent One nodded carelessly, but with a quick, measuring glance that +Rowdy liked. + +"This unshaved savage is Smoky. He's harmless, if yuh don't mention +socialism in his presence; and if yuh do, he'll +down-with-the-trust-and-long-live-the-sons-uh-toil, all hours uh the night, +and keep folks awake. Then him and the fellow that started him off 'll +likely get chapped good and plenty. Over there's Jim Ellis and Bob Nevin; +they've both turned a cow or two, and I've seen worse specimens running +around loose--plenty of 'em. That man hidin' behind the grin--you can see +him if yuh look close--is Sunny Sam. Yuh needn't take no notice of him, +unless you're a mind to. He won't care--he's dead gentle. + +"Say," he broke off, "how'd you happen t' stray onto this range, anyhow? Yuh +used t' belong t the Horseshoe Bar so solid the assessor always t' yuh down +on the personal-property list." + +"They won't pay taxes on me no more, son." Rowdy's eyes dwelt fondly upon +Pink's cupid-bow mouth and dimples. He had never dreamed of finding Pink +here; though, when he came to think of it there was no reason why he +shouldn't. + +Pink was not like any one else. He was slight and girlish to look at. But +you mustn't trust appearances; for Pink was all muscle strung on steel wire, +according to the belief of those who tried to handle him. He had little +white hands, and feet that looked quite comfortable in a number four boot, +and his hair was a tawny gold and curled in distracting, damp rings on his +forehead. His eyes were blue and long-lashed and beautiful, and they looked +at the world with baby innocence--whereas a more sophisticated +little devil never jangled spurs at his heels. He was everything but +insipid, and men liked him--unless he chose to dislike them, when they +thought of him with grating teeth. To find him bullying the Cross L boys +brought a warmth to Rowdy's heart. + +Pink made a cigarette, and then offered Rowdy his tobacco-sack, and asked +questions about the Cypress Hills country. How was this girl?--and was that +one married yet?--and did the other still grieve for him? As a matter of +fact, he had yet to see the girl who could quicken his pulse a single beat, +and for that reason it sometimes pleased him to affect susceptibility beyond +that of other men. + +It was after dinner when he and Rowdy went humming down to the stables, +gossiping like a couple of old women over a back fence. + +"I see you've got Conroy's Chub yet," Pink observed carelessly. + +"Oh, for Heaven's sake let up on that cayuse!" Rowdy cried petulantly. "I +wish I'd never got sight of the little buzzard-head; I've had him crammed +down my throat the last day or two till it's getting plumb monotonous. Pink, +that cayuse never saw Oregon. He was raised right on this flat, and he +belongs to old Rodway. I've got to lead him back there and turn him over +to-day." + +Pink took three puffs at his cigarette, and lifted his long lashes to +Rowdy's gloom-filled face. "Stole?" he asked briefly. + +"Stole," Rowdy repeated disgustedly. "So was the whole blame' bunch, as near +as I can make out." + +"We might 'a' knowed it. We might 'a' guessed Harry Conroy wouldn't have a +straight title to anything if he could make it crooked. I bet he never +finished paying back that money yuh lent him--out uh the kindness uh your +heart. Did he?" Pink leaned against the corral fence and kicked meditatively +at a snow-covered rock. + +"He did not, m' son. Chub's all I ever got out uh the deal--and I haven't +even got him. I borrowed him from Rodway to pack my bed over--borrowed the +blame' little runty cayuse that cost me sixty-four hard-earned dollars; +that's what Harry borrowed of me. And every blame' gazabo on the flat wanted +to know what I was doing with him!" + +"I can tell yuh where t' find Conroy, Rowdy. He's working for an outfit down +on the river. I'd sure fix him for this! Yuh got plenty of evidence; you can +send him up like a charm. It was different when he cut your latigo strap in +that rough-riding contest; yuh couldn't prove it on him. But this--why, man, +it's a cinch!" + +"I haven't lost Harry Conroy, so I ain't looking for him just now," growled +Rowdy. "So long as he keeps out uh reach, I won't ask no more of him. + +And, Pink, I wish you'd keep this quiet--about him having Chub. I told +Rodway I couldn't put him next to the fellow that brought that bunch across +the line. I told him the fellow went north and got killed. He did go +north--fifty miles or so; and he'd ought to been killed, if he wasn't. Let +it go that way, Pink." + +Pink looked like a cherub-faced child when he has been told there's no Santa +Claus. "Sure, if yuh say so," he stammered dubiously. He eyed Rowdy +reproachfully, and then looked away to the horizon. He kicked the rock out +of place, and then poked it painstakingly back with his toe--and from the +look of him, he did not know there was a rock there at all. + +"How'd yuh happen to run across Rodway?" he asked guilelessly. + +"I stopped there last night. I got to milling around in that storm, and ran +across the schoolma'am that boards at Rodway's, She was plumb lost, too, so +we dubbed around together for a while, and finally got inside Rodway's +field. Then Chub come alive and piloted us to the house. This morning Rodway +claimed him--says the brand has been worked from a Roman four. Oh, it's all +straight goods," he added hastily. "Old Eagle Creek here knew him, too." + +But Pink was not thinking of Chub. He hunched his chap-belt higher and spat +viciously into the snow. "I knowed it," he declared, with melancholy +triumph. "It's school-ma'amitis that's gave yuh softening uh the vitals, and +not no Christian charity play. How comes it you're took that way, all +unbeknown t' your friends? Yuh never used t' bother about no female girls. +It's a cinch you're wise that she's Harry's sister; and I admit she's a +swell looker. But so's he; and I should think, Rowdy, you'd had about enough +uh that brand uh snake." + +"There's nothing so snaky about her that I could see," defended Rowdy. He +did not particularly relish having his own mental argument against Miss +Conroy thrown back at him from another. "She seemed to be all right; and if +you'd seen how plucky she was in that blizzard--" + +"Well, I never heard anybody stand up and call Harry white-livered, when yuh +come t' that," Pink cut in tartly. "Anyway, you're a blame fool. If she was +a little white-winged angel, yuh wouldn't stand no kind uh show; and I tell +yuh why. She's got a little tin god that she says prayers to regular. + +That's Harry. And wouldn't he be the fine brother-in-law? He could borrow +all your wages off'n yuh, and when yuh went t' make a pretty ride, he'd up +and cut your latigo, and give yuh a fall. And he could work stolen horses +off onto yuh--and yuh wouldn't give a damn, 'cause Jessie wears a number two +shoe--" + +"You must have done some rimrock riding after her yourself!" jeered Rowdy. + +"And has got shiny brown eyes, just like Harry's--" + +"They're not!" laughed Rowdy, half-angrily. "If you say that again, Pink, +I'll stick your head in a snow-bank. Her eyes are all right. They sure look +good to me." + +"You've sure got 'em," mourned Pink. "Yuh need t' be close-herded by your +friends, and that's no dream. You wait till toward evening before yuh take +that horse back. I'm going along t' chappyrone yuh, Rowdy. Yuh ain't safe +running loose any more." + +Rowdy cursed him companionably and told him to go along, if he wanted to, +and to look out he didn't throw up his own hands; and Pink grumbled and +swore and did go along. But when they got there, Miss Conroy greeted him +like a very good friend; which sent Rowdy sulky, and kept him so all the +evening. It seemed to him that Pink was playing a double game, and when they +started home he told him so. + +But Pink turned in his saddle and smiled so that his dimples showed plainly +in the moonlight. "Chappyrones that set in a corner and look wise are the +rankest kind uh fakes," he explained. "When she was talking to me, she was +letting you alone--see?" + +Rowdy accepted the explanation silently, and stored it away in his memory. +After that, by riding craftily, and by threats, and by much vituperation, he +managed to reach Rodway's unchapperoned at least three times out of +five--which was doing remarkably well, when one considers Pink. + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +At Home at Cross L. + +In two days Rowdy was quite at home with the Cross L. In a month he found +himself transplanted from the smoke-laden air of the bunk-house, and set off +from the world in a line camp, with nothing to do but patrol the boggy banks +of Milk River, where it was still unfenced and unclaimed by small farmers. +The only mitigation of his exile, so far as he could see, lay in +the fact that he had Pink and the Silent One for companions. + +It developed that when he would speak to the Silent One, he must say Jim, or +wait long for a reply. Also, the Silent One was not always silent, and he +was quick to observe the weak points in those around him, and keen at +repartee. When it pleased him so to do, he could handle the English language +in a way that was perfectly amazing--and not always intelligible to the +unschooled. At such times Pink frankly made no attempt to understand him; +Rowdy, having been hustled through grammar school and two-thirds through +high school before he ran away from a brand new stepmother, rather enjoyed +the outbreaks and Pink's consequent disgust. + +Not one of them loved particularly the line camp, and Rowdy least of all, +since it put an extra ten miles between Miss Conroy and himself. Rowdy had +got to that point where his mind dwelt much upon matters domestic, and he +made many secret calculations on the cost of housekeeping for two. More than +that, he put himself upon a rigid allowance for pocket-money--an allowance +barely sufficient to keep him in tobacco and papers. All this without +consulting Miss Conroy's wishes--which only goes to show that Rowdy Vaughan +was a born optimist. + +The Silent One complained that he could not keep supplied with +reading-matter, and Pink bewailed the monotony of inaction. For, beyond +watching the river to keep the cattle from miring in the mud lately released +from frost grip, there was nothing to do. + +According to the calendar, spring was well upon them, and the prairies would +soon be flaunting new dresses of green. The calendar, however, had neglected +to record the rainless heat of the summer gone before, or the searing winds +that burned the grass brown as it grew, or the winter which forgot its part +and permitted prairie-dogs to chip-chip-chip above ground in January, when +they should be sleeping decently in their cellar homes. + +Apart from the brief storm which Rowdy had brought with him, there had been +no snow worth considering. Always the chill winds shaved the barren land +from the north, or veered unexpectedly, and blew dry warmth from the +southwest; but never the snow for which the land yearned. Wind, and bright +sunlight, and more wind, and hypocritical, drifting clouds, and more sun; +lean cattle walking, walking, up-hill and down coulee, nose to the dry +ground, snipping the stray tufts where should be a woolly carpet of sweet, +ripened grasses, eating wildrose bushes level with the sod, and wishing +there was only an abundance even of them; drifting uneasily from hilltop to +farther hilltop, hunger-driven and gaunt, where should be sleek content. +When they sought to continue their quest beyond the river, and the weaker +bogged at its muddy edge, Rowdy and Pink and the Silent One would ride out, +and with their ropes drag them back ignominiously to solid ground and the +very doubtful joy of living. + +May Day found the grass-land brown and lifeless, with a chill wind blowing +over it. The cattle wandered as before except that knock-kneed little calves +trailed beside their lean mothers and clamored for full stomachs. + +The Cross L cattle bore the brunt of the range famine, because Eagle Creek +Smith was a stockman of the old school. His cattle must live on the open +range, because they always had done so. Other men bought or leased large +tracts of grass-land, and fenced them for just such an emergency, but not +he. It is true that he had two or three large fields, as Miss Conroy had +told Rowdy, but it was his boast that all the hay he raised was eaten by his +saddlehorses, and that all the fields he owned were used solely for horse +pastures. The open range was the place for cattle and no Cross L critter +ever fed inside a wire fence. + +Through the dry summer before, when other men read the ominous signs and +hurriedly leased pasture-land and cut down their herds to what the fields +would feed, Eagle Creek went calmly on as he had done always. He shipped +what beef was fit --and that, of a truth, was not much!--and settled down +for the winter, trusting to winter snows and spring rains to refill the +long-dry lakes and waterholes, and coat the levels anew with grass. + +But the winter snows had failed to appear, and with the spring came no rain. +"April showers" became a hideously ironical joke at nature's expense. Always +the wind blew, and sometimes great flocks of clouds would drift +superciliously up from the far sky-line, play with men's hopes, and sail +disdainfully on to some more favored land. + +It is all very well for a man to cling stubbornly to precedent, but if he +clings long enough, there comes a time when to cling becomes akin to crime. +Eagle Creek Smith still stubbornly held that rangecattle should be kept to +the range. He waited until May was fast merging to June, watching, from +sheer habit, for the spring transformation of brown prairies into green. +When it did not come, and only the coulee sides and bottoms showed green +among the brown, he accepted ruefully the unusual conditions which nature +had thrust upon him, and started "Wooden Shoes" out with the wagons on the +horse round-up, which is a preliminary to the roundup proper, as every one +knows. + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +A Shot From the Dark. + +"I call that a bad job well done," Pink remarked, after a long silence, as +he gave over trying to catch a fish in the muddy Milk River. + +"What?" Rowdy, still prone to day-dreams of matters domestic, came back +reluctantly to reality, and inspected his bait. + +"Oh, come alive! I mean the horse round-up. How we're going to keep that +bunch uh skeletons under us all summer is a guessing contest for fair. +Wooden Shoes has got t' give me about forty, instead of a dozen, if he wants +me t' hit 'er up on circle the way I'm used to. I bet their back-bones'll +wear clean up through our saddles." + +"Oh, I guess not," said Rowdy calmly. "They ain't so thin--and they'll pick +up flesh. There's some mighty good ones in the bunch, too. I hope Wooden +Shoes don't forget to give me the first pick. There's one I got my eye +on--that blue roan. Anyway, I guess you can wiggle along with less than +forty." + +Pink shook his head thoughtfully and sighed. Pink loved good mounts, and the +outlook did not please him. The round-up had camped, for the last time, on +the river within easy riding distance of Camas. The next day's drive would +bring them to the home ranch, where Eagle Creek was fuming over the +lateness of the season, the condition of the range, and the June rains, +which had thus far failed even to moisten decently the grass-roots. + +"Let's ride over to Camas; all the other fellows have gone," Pink proposed +listlessly, drawing in his line. + +Rowdy as listlessly consented. Camas as a town was neither interesting nor +important; but when one has spent three long weeks communing with nature in +her sulkiest and most unamiable mood, even a town without a railroad to its +name may serve to relieve the monotony of living. + +The sun was piling gorgeous masses of purple and crimson clouds high about +him, cuddling his fat cheeks against their soft folds till, a Midas, he +turned them to gold at the touch. Those farther away gloomed jealously at +the favoritism of their lord, and huddled closer together--the purple for +rage, perhaps; and the crimson for shame! + +Pink's face was tinged daintily with the glow. and even Rowdy's lean, brown +features were for the moment glorified. They rode knee to knee silently, +thinking each his own thoughts the while they watched the sunset with eyes +grown familiar with its barbaric splendor, but never indifferent. + +Soon the west held none but the deeper tints, and the shadows climbed, with +the stealthy tread of trailing Indians, from the valley, chasing the +after-glow to the very hilltops, where it stood a moment at bay and then +surrendered meekly to the dusk. A meadow-lark near-by cut the silence into +haunting ripples of melody, stopped affrighted at their coming, and flew off +into the dull glow of the west; his little body showed black against a +crimson cloud. Out across the river a lone coyote yapped sharply, then +trailed off into the weird plaint of his kind. + +"Brother-in-law's in town to-day; Bob Nevin saw him," Pink remarked, when +the coyote ceased wailing and held his peace. + +"Who?" Rowdy only half-heard. + +"Bob Nevin," repeated Pink naively. + +"Don't get funny. Who did Bob see?" + +"Brother-in-law. Yours, not mine. Jessie's tin god. If he's there yet, I bid +for an invite to the 'swatfest.' Or maybe"--a horrible possibility forced +itself upon Pink--"maybe you'll kill the fattest maverick and fall on his +neck--" + +"The maverick's?" Rowdy's brows were rather pinched together, but his tone +told nothing. + +"Naw; Harry Conroy's a fellow's liable to do most any fool thing when he's +got schoolma'amitis." + +"That so?" + +Pink snorted. The possibility had grown to black certainty in his mind. He +became suddenly furious. + +"Lord! I hope some kind friend'll lead me out an' knock me in the head, if +ever I get locoed over any darned girl!" + +"Same here," agreed Rowdy, unmoved. + +"Then your days are sure numbered in words uh one syllable, old-timer," +snapped Pink. + +Rowdy leaned and patted him caressingly upon the shoulder--a form of irony +which Pink detested. "Don't get excited, sonny," he soothed. "Did you fetch +your gun?" + +"I sure did!" Pink drew a long breath of relief. "Yuh needn't think I'm +going t' take chances on being no human colander. I've packed a gun for +Harry Conroy ever since that rough-riding contest uh yourn. Yuh mind the way +I took him under the ear with a rock? He's been makin' war-talk behind m' +back ever since. Did I bring m' gun! Well, I guess yes!" He dimpled +distractingly. + +"All the same, it'll suit me not to run up against him," said Rowdy quite +frankly. He knew Pink would understand. Then he lifted his coat +suggestively, to show the weapon concealed beneath, and smiled. + +"Different here. Yuh did have sense enough t' be ready--and if yuh see him, +and don't forget he's got a sister with a number two foot, damned if I don't +fix yuh both a-plenty!" He settled his hat more firmly over his curls, and +eyed Rowdy anxiously from under his lashes. + +Rowdy caught the action and the look from the tail of his eye, and grinned +at his horse's ears. Pink in warlike mood always made him think of a +four-year-old child playing pirate with the difference that Pink was always +in deadly earnest and would fight like a fiend. + +For more reasons than one he hoped they would not meet Harry Conroy. Jessie +was still in ignorance of his real attitude toward her brother, and Rowdy +wanted nothing more than to keep her so. The trouble was that he was quite +certain to forget everything but his grievances, if ever he came face to +face with Harry. Also, Pink would always fight quicker for his friends than +for himself, and he felt very tender toward Pink. So he hoped fervently +that Harry Conroy had already ridden back whence he came, and there would be +no unpleasantness. + +Four or five Cross L horses stood meekly before the Come Again Saloon, so +Rowdy and Pink added theirs to the gathering and went in. The Silent One +looked up from his place at a round table in a far corner, and beckoned. + +"We need another hand here," he said, when they went over to him. "These +gentlemen are worried because they might be taken into high society some +day, and they would be placed in a very embarrassing position through their +ignorance of bridge-whist. I have very magnanimously consented to teach them +the rudiments." + +Bob Nevin looked up, and then lowered an eyelid cautiously. "He's a liar. He +offered to learn us how to play it; we bet him the drinks he didn't savvy +the game himself. Set down, Pink, and I'll have you for my pretty pardner." + +The Silent One shuffled the cards thoughtfully. "To make it seem like +bona-fide bridge," he began, "we should have everybody playing." + +"Aw, the common, ordinary brand is good enough," protested Bob. "I ain't in +on any trimmings." + +The Silent One smiled ever so slightly. "We should have prizes--or favors. +Is there a store in town where one could buy something suitable?" + +"They got codfish up here; I smelt it," suggested Jim Ellis. Him the Silent +One ignored. + +"What do you say, boys, to a real, high society whist-party? I'll invite the +crowd, and be the hostess. And I'll serve punch--" + +"Come on, fellows, and have one with me," called a strange voice near the +door. + +"Meeting's adjourned," cried Jim Ellis, and got up to accept the invitation +and range along the bar with the rest. He had not been particularly +interested in bridge-whist anyway. + +The others remained seated, and the bartender called across to know what +they would have. Pink cut the cards very carefully, and did not look up. +Rowdy thrust both hands in his pockets and turned his square shoulder to the +bar. He did not need to look--he knew that voice, with its shoddy +heartiness. + +Men began to observe his attitude, and looked at one another. When one is +asked to drink with another, he must comply or decline graciously, if he +would not give a direct insult. + +Harry Conroy took three long steps and laid a hand on Rowdy's shoulder--a +hand which Rowdy shook off as though it burned. "Say, stranger, are you too +high-toned t' drink with a common cowpuncher?" he demanded sharply. + +Rowdy half-turned toward him. "No, sir. But I'll be mighty thirsty before I +drink with you." His voice was even, but it cut. + +The room stilled on the instant; it was as if every man of them had turned +to lay figures. Harry Conroy had winced at sight of Rowdy's face--men saw +that, and some of them wondered. Pink leaned back in his chair, every nerve +tightened for the next move, and waited. It was Harry--handsome, sneering, a +certain swaggering defiance in his pose --who first spoke. + +"Oh, it's you, is it? I haven't saw yuh for some time. How's +bronco-fighting? Gone up against any more contests?" He laughed +mockingly--with mouth and eyes maddeningly like Jessie's in teasing mood. + +Rowdy could have killed him for the resemblance alone. His lids drooped +sleepily over eyes that glittered. Harry saw the sign, read it for danger; +but he laughed again. + +"Yuh ought to have seen this bronco-peeler pull leather, boys," he jeered +recklessly "I like to 'a' died. He got piled up the slickest I ever saw; and +there was some feeble-minded Canucks had money up on him, too: He won't +drink with me, 'cause I got off with the purse. He's got a grouch--and I +don't know as I blame him; he did get let down pretty hard, for a fact." + +"Maybe he did pull leather--but he didn't cut none, like you did, you damn' +skunk!" It was Pink--Pink, with big, long-lashed eyes purple with rage, and +with a dead-white streak around his mouth, and a gun in his hand. + +Harry wheeled toward him, and if a new light of fear crept into his eyes, +his lips belied it in a sneer. "Two of a kind!" he laughed. "So that's the +story yuh brought over here, is it? Hell of a lot uh good it'll do yuh!" + +Something in Pink's face warned Rowdy. Harry's face turned watchfully from +one to the other. Evidently he considered Pink the more uncertain of the +two; and he was quite justified in so thinking. Pink was only waiting for a +cue before using his gun; and when Pink once began, there was no telling +where or when he would leave off. + +While Harry stood uncertain, Rowdy's fist suddenly spatted against his cheek +with considerable force. He tumbled, a cursing heap, against the foot-rail +of the bar, scrambled up like a cat--a particularly vicious cat--and came at +Rowdy murderously. The Come Again would shortly have been filled with the +pungent haze of burned powder, only that the bartender was a man-of-action. +He hated brawls, and it did not matter to him how just might be the quarrel; +he slapped the gaping barrels of a sawed-off shotgun across the bar--and from +the look of it one might imagine many disagreeable things. + +"Drop it! Cut it out!" he bellowed. "Yuh ain't going t' make no +slaughter-pen out uh this joint, I tell yuh. Put up them guns or else take +'em outside. If you fellers are hell-bent on smokin' each other up, they's +all kinds uh room outdoors. Git! Vamose! Hike!" + +Conroy wheeled and walked, straight-backed and venomous, to the door. "Come +on out, if yuh ain't scared," he sneered. "It's two agin' one and then some, +by the look uh things. But I'll take yuh singly or in bunches. I'm ready for +the whole damn' Cross L bunch uh coyotes. Come on, you white-livered--!" + +Rowdy rushed for him, with Pink and the Silent One at his heels. He had +forgotten that Harry Conroy ever had a sister of any sort whatsoever. All he +knew was that Harry had done him much wrong, of the sort which comes near to +being unforgivable, and that he had sneered insults that no man may +overlook. All he thought of was to get his hands on him. + +Outside, the dusky stillness made all sounds seem out of place; the faint +starlight made all objects black and unfamiliar. Rowdy stopped, just off the +threshold, blinking at the darkness which held his enemy. It was strange +that he did not find him at his elbow, he thought--and a suspicion came to +him that Harry was lying in wait; it would be like him. He stepped out of +the yellow glare from a window and stood in more friendly shade. Behind him, +on the door-step, stood the other two, blinking as he had done. + +A form which he did not recognize rushed up out of the darkness and +confronted the three belligerently. "You're a-disturbin' the peace," he +yelled. "We don't stand for nothing like that in Camas. You're my +prisoners--all uh yuh." The edict seemed to include even the bartender, +peering over the shoulder of Bob Nevin, who struggled with several others +for immediate passage through the doorway. + +"I guess not, pardner," retorted Pink, facing him as defiantly as though the +marshal were not twice his size. + +The marshal lunged for him; but the Silent One, reaching a long arm from the +door-step, rapped him smartly on the head with his gun. The marshal squawked +and went down in a formless heap. + +"Come on, boys," said the Silent One coolly. "I think we'd better go. Your +friend seems to have vanished in thin air." + +Rowdy, grumbling mightily over what looked unpleasantly like retreat, was +pushed toward his horse and mounted under protest. Likewise Pink, who was +for staying and cleaning up the whole town. But the Silent One was firm, and +there was that in his manner which compelled obedience. + +Harry Conroy might have been an optical--and aural--illusion, for all the +trace there was of him. But when the three rode out into the little street, +a bullet pinged close to Rowdy's left ear, and the red bark of a revolver +spat viciously from a black shadow beside the Come Again. + +Rowdy and the two turned and rode back, shooting blindly at the place, but +the shadow yawned silently before them and gave no sign. Then the Silent +One, observing that the marshal was getting upon a pair of very unsteady +legs, again assumed the leadership, and fairly forced Rowdy and Pink into +the homeward trail. + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +Rowdy in a Tough Place. + +Rowdy, with nice calculation, met Miss Conroy just as she had left the +school-house, and noted with much satisfaction that she was riding alone. +Miss Conroy, if she had been at all observant, must have seen the light of +some fixed purpose shining in his eyes; for Rowdy was resolved to make her a +partner in his dreams of matters domestic. And, of a truth, his easy +assurance was the thinnest of cloaks to hide his inner agitation. + +"The round-up just got in yesterday afternoon," he told her, as he swung +into the trail beside her. "We're going to start out again to-morrow, so +this is about the only chance I'll have to see you for a while." + +"I knew the round-up must be in," said Miss Conroy calmly. "I heard that you +were in Camas a night or two ago." + +Inwardly, Rowdy dodged. "We camped close to Camas," he conceded guardedly. +"A lot of us fellows rode into town." + +"Yes, so Harry told me," she said. "He came over to see me yesterday. He is +going to leave--has already, in fact. He has had a fine position offered him +by the Indian agent at Belknap. The agent used to be a friend of father's." +She looked at Rowdy sidelong, and then went straight at what was in the +minds of both. + +"I'm sorry to hear, Mr. Vaughan, that you are on bad terms with Harry. What +was the trouble?" She turned her head and smiled at him--but the smile did +not bring his lips to answer; it was unpleasantly like the way Harry smiled +when he had some deviltry in mind. + +Rowdy scented trouble and parried. "Men can't always get along agreeably +together." + +"And you disagree with a man rather emphatically, I should judge. Harry said +you knocked him down." Politeness ruled her voice, but cheeks and eyes were +aflame. + +"I did. And of course he told you how he took a shot at me from a dark +corner, outside." Rowdy's eyes, it would seem, had kindled from the fire in +hers. + +"No, he didn't--but I--you struck him first." + +"Hitting a man with your fist is one thing," said Rowdy with decision. +"Shooting at him from ambush is another." + +"Harry shouldn't have done that," she admitted with dignity. "But why +wouldn't you take a drink with him? Not that I approve of drinking--I wish +Harry wouldn't do such things--but he said it was an insult the way you +refused." + +"Jessie--" + +"Miss Conroy, please." + +"Jessie"--he repeated the name stubbornly--"I think we'd better drop that +subject. You don't understand the case; and, anyway, I didn't come here to +discuss Harry. Our trouble is long standing, and if I insulted him you ought +to know I had a reason. I never came whining to you about him, and it don't +speak well for him that he hot-footed over to you with his version. I +suppose he'd heard about me--er--going to see you, and wanted to queer me. +I hope you'll take my word for it, Jessie, that I've never harmed him; all +the trouble he's made for himself, one way and another. + +"But what I came over for to-day concerns just you and me. I wanted to tell +you that--to ask you if you'll marry me. I might put it more artistic, +Jessie, but that's what I mean, and--I mean all the things I'd like to say +and can't." He stopped and smiled at her, wistfully whimsical. "I've been +three weeks getting my feelings into proper words, little girl, and coming +over here I had a speech thought out that sure done justice to my subject. +But all I can remember of it is just that--that I want you for always." + +Miss Conroy looked away from him, but he could see a deeper tint of red in +her cheek. It seemed a long time before she said anything. Then: "But you've +forgotten about Harry. He's my brother, and he'd be--er--you wouldn't want +him related-- to you." + +"Harry! Well, I pass him up. I've got a pretty long account against him; but +I'll cross it off. It won't be hard to do--for you. I've thought of all +that; and a man can forgive a whole lot in the brother of the woman he +loves." He leaned toward her and added honestly: "I can't promise you I'll +ever get to like him, Jessie; but I'll keep my hands off him, and I'll treat +him civil; and when you consider all he's done, that's quite a large-sized +contract." + +Miss Conroy became much interested in the ears of her horse. + +"The only thing to decide is whether you like me enough. If you do, we'll +sure be happy. Never mind Harry." + +"You're very generous," she flared, "telling me to never mind Harry. And +Harry's my own brother, and the only near relative I've got. I know +he's--impulsive, and quick-tempered, perhaps. But he needs me all the more. +Do you think I'll turn against him, even for you?" + +That "even" may have been a slip, but it heartened Rowdy immensely. "I don't +ask you to," he told her gently. "I only want you to not turn against me." + +"I do wish you two would be sensible, and stop quarreling." She glanced at +him briefly. + +"I'm willing to cut it out--I told you that. I can't answer for him, +though." Rowdy sighed, wishing Harry Conroy in Australia, or some place +equally remote. + +Miss Conroy suddenly resolved to be strictly just; and when a young woman +sets about being deliberately just, the Lord pity him whom she judges! + +"Before I answer you, I must know just what all this is about," she said +firmly. "I want to hear both sides; I'm sure Harry wouldn't do anything +mean. Do you think he would?" + +Rowdy was dissentingly silent. + +"Do you really, in your heart, believe that Harry would--knowingly--be +guilty of anything mean?" Her eyes plainly told the answer she wanted to +hear. + +Rowdy looked into them, hesitated, and clung tenaciously to his +convictions. "Yes, I do; and I know Harry pretty well, Jessie." His face +showed how much he hated to say it. + +"I'm afraid you are very prejudiced," she sighed. "But go on; tell me just +what you have against Harry. I'm sure it can all be explained away, only I +must hear what it is." + +Rowdy regarded her, puzzled. How he was to comply he did not know. It would +be simply brutal to tell her. He would feel like a hangman. And she believed +so in Harry, she wouldn't listen; even if she did, he thought bitterly, she +would hate him for destroying her faith. A woman's justice--ah, me! + +"Don't you see you're putting me in a mighty hard position, girlie?" he +protested. "You're a heap better off not to know. He's your brother. I wish +you'd take my word that I'll drop the whole thing right where it is. Harry's +had all the best of it, so far; let it stand that way." + +Her eyes met his coldly. "Are you afraid to let me judge between you? What +did he do? Daren't you tell?" + +Rowdy's lids drooped ominously. "If you call that a dare," he said grimly, +"I'll tell you, fast enough. I was a friend to him when he needed one mighty +bad. I helped him when he was dead broke and out uh work. I kept him going +all winter--and to show his gratitude, he gave me the doublecross, in more +ways than one. I won't go into details." He decided that he simply could not +tell her bluntly that Harry had worked off stolen horses on him, and worse. + +"Oh--you won't go into details!" Scorn filled eyes and voice. "Are they so +trivial, then? You tell me what you did for Harry--playing Good Samaritan. +Harry, let me tell you, has property of his own; I can't see why he should +ever be in need of charity. You're like all the rest; you hint things +against him--but I believe it's just jealousy. You can't come out honestly +and tell me a single instance where he has harmed you, or done anything +worse than other high-spirited young men." + +"It wouldn't do any good to tell you," he retorted. "You think he's just +lacking wings to be an angel. I hope to God you'll always be able to think +so! I'm sure I don't want to jar your faith." + +"I must say your actions don't bear out your words. You've just been trying +to turn me against him." + +"I haven't. I've been trying to convince you that I want you, anyway, and +Harry needn't come between us." + +"In other words, you're willing to overlook my being Harry's sister. I +appreciate your generosity, I'm sure." She did not look, however, as if she +meant that. + +"I didn't mean that." + +"Then you won't overlook it? How very unfortunate! Because I can't help the +relationship." + +"Would you, if you could?" he asked rashly. + +"Certainly not!" + +"I'm afraid we're getting off the trail," he amended tactfully. "I asked +you, a while back, if you'd marry me." + +"And I said I must hear both sides of your trouble with Harry, before I +could answer." + +"What's the use? You'd take his part, anyway." + +"Not if I found he was guilty of all you--insinuate. I should be perfectly +just." She really believed that. + +"Can't you tell me yes or no, anyway? Don't let him come between us." + +"I can't help it. We'd never agree, or be happy. He'd keep on coming between +us, whether we meant him to or not," she said dispiritedly. + +"That's a cinch," Rowdy muttered, thinking of Harry's trouble-breeding +talents. + +"Then there's no more to be said. Until you and Harry settle your +difficulties amicably, or I am convinced that he's in the wrong, we'll just +be friends, Mr. Vaughan. Good afternoon." She rode into the Rodway yard, +feeling very just and virtuous, no doubt. But she left Rowdy with some +rather unpleasant thoughts, and with a sentiment toward her precious brother +which was not far from manslaughter. + + +CHAPTER 8 + +Pink in a Threatening Mood. + +Eagle Creek Smith had at last reached the point where he must face new +conditions and change established customs. He could no longer ignore the +barrenness of the range, or close his eyes to the grim fact that his cattle +were facing starvation--and that in June, when they should be taking on +flesh. + +When he finally did confess to himself that things couldn't go on like that, +others had been before him in leasing and buying land, until only the dry +benches were left to him and his hungry herds. + +But Eagle Creek was a man of resource. When the round-up pulled in and +Wooden Shoes reported to him the general state of the cattle, and told of +the water-holes newly fenced and of creek bottoms gobbled by men more +farseeing than he, Eagle Creek took twenty-four hours to adjust himself to +the situation and to meet the crisis before him. His own land, as compared +to his twenty thousand cattle, was too pitifully inadequate for a second +thought. + +He must look elsewhere for the correct answer to his problem. + +When Rowdy rode apathetically up to the stable, Pink came out of the +bunk-house to meet him, big with news. "Oh, doctor! We're up against it +a-plenty now," he greeted, with his dimples at their deepest. + +"Huh!" grunted Rowdy crossly. "What's hurting you, Pink?" + +"Forecasting the future," Pink retorted. "Eagle Creek has come alive, and +has wised up sudden to the fact that this ain't going t' be any Noah's flood +brand uh summer, and that his cattle look like the tailings of a wash-board +factory. He's got busy--and we're sure going to. We're due t' hit the grit +out uh here in the first beams uh rosy morn, and do a record stunt at +gathering cattle." + +"Well, we were going to, anyhow," Rowdy cut in. + +"But that's only the prelude, old-timer. We've got t' take 'em across +country to the Belknap reservation. Eagle Creek went t' town and +telegraphed, and got the refusal of it for pasturage; he ain't so slow, +oncet he gets started. But if you've ever rode over them dried-up benches, +you savvy the merry party we'll be when we git there. I've saw jack-rabbits +packing their lunch along over there." + +"Belknap"--Rowdy dropped his saddle spitefully to the ground--"is where our +friend Conroy has just gone to fill a splendid position." + +Pink thoughtfully blew the ashes from his cigarette. "Harry Conroy would +fill one position fine. So one uh these days I'll offer it to him. I don't +know anybody that'd look nicer in a coffin than that jasper--and if he's +gone t' Belknap, that's likely the position he'll fill, all right." + +Rowdy said nothing, but his very silence told Pink much. + +"How'd yuh make out with Jessie?" Pink asked frankly, though he was not +supposed to know where Rowdy had been. + +Rowdy knew from experience that it was useless trying to keep anything from +Pink that Pink wanted to know; besides, there was a certain comfort in +telling his troubles to so stanch a friend. "Harry got his work in there, +too," he said bitterly. "He beat me to her and queered me for good, by the +looks." + +"Huh!" said Pink. "I wouldn't waste much time worrying over her, if she's +that easy turned." + +"She's all right," defended Rowdy quickly. "I don't know as I blame her; she +takes the stand any sister would take. She wants to know all about the +trouble--hear both sides, she said, so she could judge which was to blame. I +guess she's got her heart set on being peacemaker. I know one thing: +she--likes me, all right." + +"I don't see how he queered yuh any, then," puzzled Pink. "She sure couldn't +take his part after you'd told her all he done." + +Rowdy turned on him savagely. "You little fool, do you think I told her? +Right there's the trouble. He told his story; and when she asked for mine, I +couldn't say anything. She's his sister." + +"You--didn't--tell!" Pink leaned against the stable and stared. "Rowdy +Vaughan, there's times when even your friend can't disguise the fact that +yuh act plumb batty. Yuh let Harry do yuh dirt that any other man'd 'a' +killed him on bare suspicion uh doing; and yuh never told her when she asked +yuh to! How yuh lent him money, and let him steal some right out uh your +pocket--" + +"I couldn't prove that," Rowdy objected. + +"And yuh never told her about his cutting your latigo--" + +"Oh, cut it out!" Rowdy glowered down at him. "I guess I don't need to be +reminded of all those things. But are they the things a man can tell a girl +about her brother? Pink, you're about as unfeeling a little devil as I ever +run across. Maybe you'd have told her; but I couldn't. So it's all off." + +He turned away and stared unseeingly at the rim of hills that hid the place +where she lived. She seemed very far away from him just then--and very, very +desirable. He thought then that he had never before realized just how much +he cared. + +"You can jest bet I'd 'a' told her!" gritted Pink, watching furtively +Rowdy's averted face. "She ain't goin' t' be bowed down by no load of +ignorance much longer, either. If she don't get Harry Conroy's pedigree +straight out, without the varnish, it'll be because I ain't next to all his +past." + +But Rowdy, glooming among the debris of certain pet air-castles, neither +heard nor wanted to hear Pink's wrathful mutterings.As a matter of fact, it +was not till Pink clattered out of the yard on Mascot that he remembered +where he was. Even then it did not occur to him to wonder where Pink was +going. + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +Moving the Herd. + +Four thousand weary cattle crawled up the long ridge which divides Chin +Coulee from Quitter Creek. Pink, riding point, opposite the Silent One, +twisted round in his saddle and looked back at the slow-moving river of +horns and backs veiled in a gray dust-cloud. Down the line at intervals rode +the others, humped listlessly in their saddles, their hat brims pulled low +over tired eyes that smarted with dust and wind and burning heat. + +Pink sighed, and wished lonesomely that it was Rowdy riding point with him, +instead of the Silent One, who grew even more silent as the day dragged +leadenly to mid-afternoon; Pink could endure anything better than being left +to his thoughts and to the complaining herd for company. + +He took off his hat, pushed back his curls--dripping wet they were and +flattened unbecomingly in pasty, yellow rings on his forehead--and eyed with +disfavor a line-backed, dry cow, with one horn tipped rakishly toward her +speckled nose; she blinked silently at wind and heat, and forged steadily +ahead, up-hill and down coulee,always in the lead, always walking, walking, +like an automaton. Her energy, in the face of all the dry, dreary days, +rasped Pink's nerves unbearably. For nearly a week he had +ridden left point, and always that line-backed cow with the down-crumpled +horn walked and walked and walked, a length ahead of her most intrepid +followers. + +He leaned from his saddle, picked up a rock from the barren, yellow +hillside, and threw it at the cow spitefully. The rock bounced off her lean +rump; she blinked and broke into a shuffling trot, her dragging hoofs +kicking up an extra amount of dust, which blew straight into Pink's face. + +"Aw, cut it out!" he shouted petulantly. "You're sure the limit, without +doing any stunts at sprinting up-hill. Ain't yuh got any nerves, yuh blamed +old skate? Yuh act like it was milkin'-time, and yuh was headed straight for +the bars and a bran mash. Can't yuh realize the kind uh deal you're up +against? Here's cattle that's got you skinned for looks, old girl, and they +know it's coming blamed tough; and you just bat your eyes and peg along +like yuh enjoyed it. Bawl, or something, can't yuh? Drop back a foot and act +human!" + +The Silent One looked across at him with a tired smile. "Let her go, Pink, +and pray for more like her," he called amusedly. "There'll be enough of them +dropping back presently." + +Pink threw one leg over the horn and rode sidewise, made him a cigarette, +and tried to forget the cow--or, at least, to forgive her for not acting as +dog-tired as he felt. + +They were on the very peak of the ridge now, and the hill sloped smoothly +down before them to the bluff which bounded Quitter Creek. Far down, a tiny +black speck in the coulee-bottom, they could see Wooden Shoes riding along +the creek-bank, scouting for water. From the way he rode, and from the fact +that camp was nowhere in sight, Pink guessed shrewdly that his quest was in +vain. He shrugged his shoulders at what that meant, and gave his attention +to the herd. + +The marching line split at the brow of the bluff. The line-backed cow +lowered her head a bit and went unfaltering down the parched, gravel-coated +hill, followed by a few hundred of the freshest. Then the stream stopped +flowing, and Pink and the Silent One rode back up the bluff to where the +bulk of the footsore herd, their senses dulled by hunger and weariness and +choking thirst, sniffed at the gravel that promised agony to their bruised +feet, and balked at the ordeal. Others straggled up, bunched against the +rebels, and stood stolidly where they were. + +Pink galloped on down the crawling line. "Forward, the Standard Oil +Brigade!" he yelled whimsically as he went. + +The cowboys heard--and understood. They left their places and went forward +at a lope, and Pink rode back to the coulee edge, untying his slicker as he +went. The Silent One was already off his horse and shouting hoarsely as he +whacked with his slicker at the sulky mass. Pink rode in and did the same. +It was not the first time this thing had happened, and from a diversion it +was verging closely on the monotonous. Presently, even a rank tenderfoot +must have caught the significance of Pink's military expression. The +Standard Oil Brigade was at the front in force. + +Cowboys, swinging five-gallon oil-cans, picked up from scattered sheep camps +and carried many a weary mile for just such an emergency, were charging the +bunch intrepidly. Others made shift with flat sirup-cans with pebbles +inside. A few, like Pink and the Silent One, flapped their slickers till +their arms ached. Anything, everything that would make a din and startle the +cattle out of their lethargy, was pressed into service. + +But they might have been raised in a barnyard and fed cabbage leaves from +back door-steps, for all the excitement they showed. Cattle that three +months ago--or a month--would run, head and tail high in air, at sight of a +man on foot, backed away from a rattling, banging cube of gleaming tin, +turned and faced the thing dull-eyed and apathetic. + +In time, however, they gave way dogedly before the onslaught. A few were +forced shrinkingly down the hill; others followed gingerly, until the line +lengthened and flowed, a sluggish, brown-red stream, into the coulee and +across to Quitter Creek. + +Here the leaders were browsing greedily along the banks. They had emptied +the few holes that had still held a meager store of brackish water and so +the mutinous bulk of the herd snuffed at the trampled, muddy spots and +bellowed their disappointment. + +Wooden Shoes rode up and surveyed the half maddened animals gloomily. "Push +'em on, boys," he said. "They's nothings for 'em here. I've sent the wagons +on to Red Willow; we'll try that next. Push 'em along all yuh can, while I +go on ahead and see." + +With tin-cans, slickers, and much vituperation, they forced the herd up the +coulee side and strung them out again on trail. The line-backed cow walked +and walked in the lead before Pink's querulous gaze, and the others plodded +listlessly after. The gray dust-cloud formed anew over their slowmoving +backs, and the cowboys humped over in their saddles and rode and rode, with +the hot sun beating aslant in their dirt-grimed faces, and with the wind +blowing and blowing. + +If this had been the first herd to make that dreary trip, things would not +have been quite so disheartening. But it was the third. Seven thousand lean +kine had passed that way before them, eating the scant grass growth and +drinking what water they could find among those barren, sun-baked coulees. + +The Cross L boys, on this third trip, were become a jaded lot of +hollow-eyed men, whose nerves were rasped raw with long hours and longer +days in the saddle. Pink's cheeks no longer made his name appropriate, and +he was not the only one who grew fretful over small things. Rowdy had been +heard, more than once lately, to anathematize viciously the prairie-dogs for +standing on their tails and chipchip-chipping at them as they went by. And +though the Silent One did not swear, he carried rocks in his pockets, +and threw them with venomous precision at every "dog" that showed his +impertinent nose out of a burrow within range. For Pink, he vented his +spleen on the line-backed cow. + +So they walked and walked and walked. + +The cattle balked at another hill, and all the tincans and slickers in the +crowd could scarcely move them. The wind dropped with the sun, and the +clouds glowed gorgeously above them, getting scant notice, except that they +told eloquently of the coming night; and there were yet miles--long, rough, +heartbreaking miles--to put behind them before they could hope for the +things their tired bodies craved: supper and dreamless sleep. + +When the last of the herd had sidled, under protest, down the long hill to +the flat, dusk was pushing the horizon closer upon them, mile by mile. When +they crawled sinuously out upon the welcome level, the hill loomed ghostly +and black behind them. A mile out, Wooden Shoes rode out of the gloom and +met the point. He turned and rode beside Pink. + +"Yuh'll have t' swing 'em north," he greeted. + +"Red Willow's dry as hell--all but in the Rockin' R field. No use askin' ole +Mullen to let us in there; we'll just go. I sent the wagons through the +fence, an' yuh'll find camp about a mile up from the mouth uh the big +coulee. You swing 'em round the end uh this bench, an' hit that big coulee +at the head. When you come t' the fence, tear it down. They's awful good +grass in that field!" + +"All right," said Pink cheerfully. It was in open defiance of range +etiquette; but their need was desperate. The only thing about it Pink did +not like was the long detour they must make. He called the news across to +the Silent One, after Wooden Shoes had gone on down the line, and they swung +the point gradually to the left. + +Before that drive was over, Pink had vowed many times to leave the range +forever and never to turn another cow--besides a good many other foolish +things which would be forgotten, once he had a good sleep. And Rowdy, +plodding half-way down the herd, had grown exceedingly pessimistic regarding +Jessie Conroy, and decided that there was no sense in thinking about her all +the time, the way he had been doing. Also, he told himself savagely that if +Harry ever crossed his trail again, there would be something doing. This +thing of letting a cur like that run roughshod over a man on account of a +girl that didn't care was plumb idiotic. And beside him the cattle walked +and walked and walked, a dim, moving mass in the quiet July night. + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +Harry Conroy at Home. + +It was late next morning when they got under way; for they had not reached +camp until long after midnight, and Wooden Shoes was determined the cattle +should have one good feed, and all the water they wanted, to requite them +for the hard drive of the day before. + +Pink rode out with Rowdy to the herd--a heavylidded, gloomy Rowdy he was, +and not amiably inclined toward the small talk of the range. But Pink had +slept five whole hours and was almost his normal self; which means that +speech was not to be denied him. + +"What yuh mourning over?" he bantered. "Mad 'cause the reservation's so +close?" + +"Sure," assented Rowdy, with deep sarcasm. + +"That's what I thought. Studying up the nicest way uh giving brother-in-law +the glad hand, ain't yuh?" + +"He's no relation uh mine--and never will be," said Rowdy curtly. "And I'll +thank you, Pink, to drop that subject for good and all." + +"Down she goes," assented Pink, quite unperturbed. "But the cards ain't all +turned yet, yuh want to remember, I wouldn't pass on no hand like you've +got. If I wanted a girl right bad, Rowdy, I'd wait till I got refused before +I'd quit." + +"Seems to me you've changed your politics lately," Rowdy retorted. "A while +back you was cussing the whole business; and now you're worse than an old +maid aunt. Pink, you may not be wise to the fact, but you sure are an +inconsistent little devil." + +"Are yuh going t' hunt Harry up and--" + +"I thought I told you to drop that." + +"Did yuh? All right, then--only I hope yuh didn't leave your gun packed away +in your bed," he insinuated. + +"You can take a look to-night, if you want to." + +Pink laughed in a particularly infectious way he had, and, before he quite +knew it, Rowdy was laughing, also. After that the world did not look quite +so forlorn as it had, nor the day's work so distasteful. So Pink, having +accomplished his purpose, was content to turn the subject. + +"There's old Liney"--he pointed her out to Rowdy--"fresh as a meadow-lark. I +had a big grouch against her yesterday, just because she batted her eyes and +kept putting one foot ahead uh the other. I could 'a' killed her. But she's +all right, that old girl. The way she led out down that black coulee last +night wasn't slow! Say, she's an ambitious old party. I wish you was riding +point with me, Rowdy. The Silent One talks just about as much as +that old cow. He sure loves to live up to his rep." + +"Oh, go on to work," Rowdy admonished. "You make me think of a magpie." All +the same, he looked after him with smiling lips, and eyes that forgot their +gloom. He even whistled while he helped round up the scattered herd, ready +for that last day's drive. + +Every man in the outfit comforted himself with the thought that it was the +last day's drive. After long weeks of trailing lean herds over barren, +windbrushed hills, the last day meant much to them. Even the Silent One sang +something they had never heard before, about "If Only I Knew You Were True." + +They crossed the Rocking R field, took down four panels of fence, passed +out, and carefully put them up again behind them. Before them stretched +level plain for two miles; beyond that a high, rocky ridge that promised +some trouble with the herd, and after that more plain and a couleee or two, +and then, on a far slope--the reservation. + +The cattle were rested and fed, and walked out briskly; the ridge neared +perceptibly. Pink's shrill whistle carried far back down the line and +mingled pleasantly with voices calling to one another across the herd. Not a +man was humped listlessly in his saddle; instead, they rode with shoulders +back and hats at divers jaunty angles to keep the sun from shining in eyes +that faced the future cheerfully. + +The herd steadily climbed the ridge, choosing the smoothest path and the +easiest slope. Pink assured the line-backed cow that she was a peach, and +told her to "go to it, old girl." The Silent One's pockets were quite empty +of rocks, and the prairiedogs chipped and flirted their funny little tails +unassailed. And Rowdy, from wondering what had made Pink change his attitude +so abruptly, began to plan industriously the next meeting with +Jessie Conroy, and to build a new castle that was higher and airier than any +he had ever before attempted--and perhaps had a more flimsy foundation; for +it rested precariously on Pink's idle remarks. + +The point gained the top of the ridge, and Pink turned and swung his hat +jubilantly at the others. The reservation was in sight, though it lay +several miles distant. But in that clear air one could distinguish the line +fence--if one had the eye of faith and knew just where to look. Presently he +observed a familiar horseman climbing the ridge to meet them. + +"Eagle Creek's coming," he shouted to the man behind. "Come alive, there, +and don't let 'em roam all over the map. Git some style on yuh!" + +Those who heard laughed; no one ever dreamed of being offended at what Pink +said. Those who had not heard had the news passed on to them, in various +forms. Wooden Shoes, who had been loitering in the rear gossiping with the +men, rode on to meet Smith. + +Eagle Creek urged his horse up the last steep place, right in the face of +the leaders, which halted and tried to turn back. Pink, swearing in a +whisper, began to force them forward. + +"Let 'em alone," Eagle Creek bellowed harshly. "They ain't goin' no +farther." + +"W-what?" Pink stopped short and eyed him critically. Eagle Creek could not +justly be called a teetotaler; but Pink had never known him to get worse +than a bit wobbly in his legs; his mind had never fogged perceptibly. Still, +something was wrong with him, that was certain. Pink glanced dubiously +across at the Silent One and saw him shrug his shoulders expressively. + +Eagle Creek rode up and stopped within ten feet of the line-backed cow; she +seemed hurt at being held up in this manner, Pink thought. + +"Yuh'll have t' turn this herd back," Eagle Creek announced bluntly. + +"Where to?" Pink asked, too stunned to take in the meaning of it. + +"T' hell, I guess. It's the only place I know of where everybody's +welcome." Eagle Creek's tone was not pleasant. + +"We just came from there," Pink said simply, thinking of the horrors of that +drive. + +"Where's Wooden Shoes?" snapped the old man; and the foreman's hat-crown +appeared at that instant over the ridge. + +"Well, we're up against it," Eagle Creek greeted. "That damn' agent--or the +fellow he had workin' for him--reported his renting us pasture. Made the +report read about twice as many as we're puttin' on. He's got orders now t' +turn out every hoof but what b'longs there." + +"My Lord!" Wooden Shoes gasped at the catastrophe which faced the Cross L. + +"That's Harry Conroy's work," Pink cut in sharply' "He'd hurt the Cross L if +he could, t' spite me and Rowdy. He--" + +"Don't matter--seein' it's done. Yuh might as well turn the herd loose right +here, an' let 'em go t' the devil. I don't know what else t' do with 'em." + +"Anything gone wrong?" It was Rowdy, who had left his place and ridden +forward to see what was holding the herd back. + +"Naw. We're fired off the reservation, is all. We got orders to take the +herd to hell. Eagle Creek's leased it. Mr. Satan is going to keep house here +in Montana; he says it's better for his trade," Pink informed him, in his +girlish treble. + +Eagle Creek turned on him fiercely, then thought better of it and grinned. +"Them arrangements wouldn't make us any worse off'n what we are," he +commented. "Turn 'em loose, boys." + +"Man, if yuh turn 'em loose here, the first storm that hits 'em, they all +die," Wooden Shoes interposed excitedly. "They ain't nothings for 'em. We +had t' turn 'em into the Rockin' R field last night, t' git water an' feed. +Red Willow's gone dry outside dat field. They ain't--nothings. They'll die!" + +Eagle Creek looked at him dully. For the first time in his life he faced +utter ruin. "Damn 'em, let 'em die, then!" he said. + +"That's what they'll sure do," Wooden Shoes reiterated stubbornly. "If they +don't git feed and water now, yuh needn't start no round-up next spring." + +Pink's eyes went down over the close-huddled backs and the thicket of +polished horns, and his eyelids stung. Would all of them die, he wondered! +Four thousand! He hoped not. There must be some way out. Down the hill, he +knew the cowboys were making cigarettes while they waited and wondered +mightily what it was all about If they only knew, he thought, there would be +more than one rope ready for Harry Conroy. + +"How about the Peck reservation? Couldn't you get them on there?" Rowdy +ventured. + +"Not a hoof!" growled Eagle Creek, with his chin sunk against his chest. +"There's thirty thousand Valley County cattle on there now." He looked down +at the cattle, as Pink had done. "God! It's bad enough t' go broke," he +groaned; "but t' think uh them poor brutes dyin' off in bunches, for want uh +grass an' water! I've run that brand fer over thirty year." + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +Rowdy Promoted. + +Rowdy rode closer. "If you don't mind paying duty," he began tentatively, "I +can put you next to a range over the line, where I'll guarantee feed and +water the year round for every hoof you own." + +Eagle Creek lifted his head and looked at him "Whereabouts?" he demanded +skeptically. + +"Up in the Red Deer country. Pink knows the place. There's range a-plenty, +and creeks running through that never go dry; and the country isn't stocked +and fenced to death, like this is." + +"And would we be ordered off soon as we got there?" + +"Sure not--if you paid duty, which would only be about double what you were +going to pay for one year's pasture." + +Eagle Creek breathed deeply, like a man who has narrowly escaped +suffocation. "Young man, I b'lieve you're a square dealer, and that yuh +savvy the cow business. I've thought it ever since yuh started t' work." His +keen old eyes twinkled at the memory of Rowdy's arrival, and Rowdy grinned. +"I take yuh at your word, and yuh can consider yourself in charge uh this +herd as it stands. Take it t' that cow heaven yuh tell about--and damn it, +yuh won't be none the worse for it!" + +"We'll pass that up," said Rowdy quietly. "I'll take the herd through, +though; and I'd advise you to get the rest on the road as soon as they can +be gathered. It's a three-hundred-mile drive." + +"All right. From now on it's up to you," Eagle Creek told him briskly. "Take +'em back t' the Rockin' R field, and I'll send the wagons back t' you. Old +Mullen'll likely make a roar--but that's most all gove'ment land he's got +fenced, so I guess I can calm him down. Will yuh go near the ranch?" + +"I think so," said Rowdy. "It will be the shortest way." + +"Well, I'll give yuh some blank checks, an' you can load up with grub and +anything else yuh need. I'll be over there by the time you are, and fix up +that duty business. Wooden Shoes'll have t' get another outfit together, and +get another bunch on the trail. One good thing--I got thirty days t' get off +what cattle is on there; and thirty days uh grass and water'll put 'em in +good shape for the trip. Wish this bunch was as well fixed." + +"That's what," Rowdy assented. "But I think they'll make it, all right." + +"I'll likely want yuh to stay up there and keep cases on 'em. Any +objections?" + +"Sure not!" laughed Rowdy. "Only I'll want Pink and the Silent One to stay +with me." + +"Keep what men yuh want. Anything else?" + +"I don't think of anything," said Rowdy. "Only I'd like to have +a--talk--with Conroy." Creek eyed him sharply. "Yuh won't be apt t' meet +him. Old Bill Brown, up home, would like to see him, too. Bill's a +perseverin' old cuss, and wants to see Conroy so bad he's got the sheriff +out lookin' for him. It's about a bunch uh horses that was run off, three +years ago. Yuh brought one of 'em back into the country last spring, yuh +mind." + +Rowdy and Pink looked at one another, but said nothing. + +"Old Bill, he follered your back trail and found out some things he wanted +t' know. Conroy got wind of it, though, and he left the agency kind-a +suddint. No use yuh lookin' for him." + +"Then we're ready to hit the grit, I guess." Rowdy glanced again at Pink who +nodded. + +"Well, I ain't stoppin' yuh," Eagle Creek drawled laconically. "S'-long, and +good luck t' yuh." + +He waited while Pink and the Silent One swung the point back down the hill, +with Rowdy helping them, quite unmoved by his sudden promotion. When the +herd was fairly started on the backward march, Eagle Creek nodded +satisfaction the while he pried off a corner of plug-tobacco. + +"He's all right," he asserted emphatically. "That boy suits me, from the +ground up. If he don't put that deal through in good shape, it'll be becaus' +it can't be did." + +Wooden Shoes, with whom Rowdy had always been a prime favorite, agreed with +Dutch heartiness. Then, leaving the herd to its new guardian they rode +swiftly to overtake and turn back the wagons. + +"Three hundred miles! And part of it across howling desert!" Rowdy drew his +brows together. "It's a big thing for me, all right, Pink; but it's sure a +big contract to take this herd through, if anybody should happen to ask +yuh." + +"Oh, buck up! You'll make good, all right--if only these creeks wasn't so +bone dry!" + +"Well, there's water enough in the Rocking R field for to-day; we'll throw +'em in there till tomorrow. And I've a notion I can find a better trail +across to North Fork than the way we came. I'm going to strike out this +afternoon and see, anyway, if Quitter Creek hasn't got water farther up. +Once we get up north uh the home ranch, I can see my way clear." + +"Go to it, boss," Pink cried heartily. "I don't see how I'm goin t' keep +from sassing yuh, once in a while, though. That's what bothers me. What'll +happen if I turn loose on yuh, some time?" + +"You'll get fired, I expect," laughed Rowdy, and rode off to announce the +news to the rest of the outfit, who were very unhappy in their +mystification. + +If their reception of the change of plans and foreman was a bit profane, and +their manner toward him a bit familiar, Rowdy didn't mind. He knew that they +did not grudge him his good luck, even while they hated the long drive. He +also knew that they watched him furtively; for nothing--not even +misfortune--is as sure a test of a man's character as success. They liked +Rowdy, and they did not believe this would spoil him; still, every man of +them was secretly a bit anxious. + +On the trail, he rode in his accustomed place, and, so far as appearances +went, the party had no foreman. He went forward and helped Pink take down +the fence that had been so carefully put up a few hours before, and he +whistled while he put it in place again, just as if he had no responsibility +in the world. Then the cattle were left to themselves, and the men rode down +to their old campground, marked by empty tin-cans and a trodden place where +had been the horse corral. + +Rowdy swung down and faced the men gravely. Instinctively they stood at +attention, waiting for what he had to say; they felt that the situation was +so far out of the ordinary that a few remarks pertaining to their new +relations would not be out of place. + +He looked them over appraisingly, and met glances as grave as his own. +Straight, capable fellows they were, every man of them. + +"Boys," he began impressively, "you all know that from to-day on you're +working under my orders. I never was boss of anything but the cayuse I +happened to have under me, and I'm going to extract all the honey there is +in the situation. Maybe I'll never be boss again--but at present I'm it. I +want you fellows to remember that important fact, and treat me with proper +respect. From now on you can call me Mr. Vaughan; 'Rowdy' doesn't go, except +on a legal holiday. + +"Furthermore, I'm not going to get out at daylight and catch up my own +horse; I'll let yuh take turns being flunky, and I'll expect yuh to saddle +my horse every morning and noon, and bring him to the cook-tent--and hold my +stirrup for me. Also, you are expected, at all times and places, to +anticipate my wants and fall over yourselves waiting on me. "You're just +common, ordinary, forty-dollar cow-punchers, and if I treat yuh white, it's +because I pity yuh for not being up where I am. Remember, vassals, that I'm +your superior, mentally, morally, socially--" + +"Chap him!" yelled Pink, and made for him "I'll stand for a lot, but don't +yuh ever think I'm a vassal!" + +"Mutiny is strictly prohibited!" he thundered. "Villains, beware! +Gadzooks--er--let's have a swim before the wagons come!" + +They laughed and made for the creek, feeling rather crestfallen and a bit +puzzled. + +"If I had an outfit like this to run, and a three hundred-mile drive to +make," Bob Nevin remarked to the Silent One, "blessed if I'd make a josh of +it! I'd cultivate the corrugated brow and the stiff spine--me!" + +"My friend," the Silent One responded, "don't be too hasty in your +judgment. It's because the corrugated brow will come later that he laughs +now. You'll presently find yourself accomplishing the impossible in +obedience to the flicker of Rowdy Vaughan's eyelids. Man, did you never +observe the set of his head, and the look of his eye? Rowdy Vaughan will get +more out of this crowd than any man ever did; and if he fails, he'll fail +with the band playing 'Hot Time.'" + +"Maybe so," Bob admitted, not quite convinced; "but I wonder if he realizes +what he's up against." At which the Silent One only smiled queerly as he +splashed into the water. + +After dinner Rowdy caught up the blue roan, which was his favorite for a +hard ride--he seemed to have forgotten his speech concerning +"flunkies"--and rode away up the coulee which had brought them into the +field the night before. The boys watched him go, speculated a lot, and went +to sleep as the best way of putting in the afternoon. + +Pink, who knew quite well what was in Rowdy's mind, said nothing at all; it +is possible that he was several degrees more jealous of the dignity of +Rowdy's position than was Rowdy himself, who had no time to think of +anything but the best way of getting the herd to Canada. He would like to +have gone along, only that Rowdy did not ask him to. Pink assured himself +that it was best for Rowdy not to start playing any favorites, and curled +down in the bed-tent with the others and went to sleep. + +It was late that night when Rowdy crept silently into his corner of the +tent; but Pink was awake, and whispered to know if he found water. Rowdy's +"Yes" was a mere breath, but it was enough. + +At sunrise the herd trailed up the Rocking R coulee, and Pink and the Silent +One pointed them north of the old trail. + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +"You Can Tell Jessie." + +In the days that followed Rowdy was much alone. There was water to hunt, far +ahead of the herd, together with the most practicable way of reaching it. He +did not take the shortest way across that arid country and leave the next +day's camping-place to chance--as Wooden Shoes had done. He felt that there +was too much at stake, and the cattle were too thin for any more dry drives; +long drives there were, but such was his generalship that there was always +water at the end. + +He rode miles and miles that he might have shirked, and he never slept until +the next day's move, at least, was clearly defined in his mind and he felt +sure that he could do no better by going another route. + +These lonely rides gave him over to the clutch of thoughts he had never +before harbored in his sunny nature. Grim, ugly thoughts they were, and not +nice to remember afterward. They swung persistently around a central +subject, as the earth revolves around the sun; and, like the earth, they +turned and turned on the axis of his love for a woman. + +In particularly ugly moods he thought that if Harry Conroy were caught and +convicted of horsestealing, Jessie must perforce admit his guilt and general +unworthiness--Rowdy called it general cussedness--and Rowdy be vindicated in +her eyes. Then she would marry him, and go with him to the Red Deer country +and--air-castles for miles! When he awoke to the argument again, he would +tell himself savagely that if he could, by any means, bring +about Conroy's speedy conviction, he would do so." + +This was unlike Rowdy, whose generous charity toward his enemies came near +being a fault. He might feel any amount of resentment for wrong done, but +cold-blooded revenge was not in him; that he had suffered so much at +Conroy's hands was due largely to the fact that Conroy was astute enough to +read Rowdy aright, and unscrupulous enough to take advantage. Add to that a +smallminded jealousy of Rowdy's popularity and horsemanship, one can easily +imagine him doing some rather nasty things. Perhaps the meanest, and the one +which rankled most in Rowdy's memory, was the cutting of Rowdy's latigo just +before a riding contest, in which the purse and the glory of a +championship-belt seemed in danger of going to Rowdy. + +Rowdy had got a fall that crippled him for weeks, and Harry had won the +purse and belt--and the enmity of several men better than he. For though +morally sure of his guilt, no one could prove that he had cut the strap, and +so he got off unpunished, except that Pink thrashed him--a bit +unscientifically, it is true, since he resorted to throwing rocks toward the +last, but with a thoroughness worthy even of Pink. + +But in moods less ugly he shrank from the hurt that must be Jessie's if she +should discover the truth. Jessie's brother a convicted thief serving his +sentence in Deer Lodge! The thought was horrible; it was brutal cruelty. If +he could only know where to look for that lad, he'd help him out of the +country. It was no good shutting him up in jail; that wouldn't help him any, +or make him better. He hoped he would get off--go somewhere, where they +couldn't find him, and stay there. + +He wondered where he was, and if he had money enough to see him through. He +might be no good--he sure wasn't!--but he was Jessie's brother, and Jessie +believed in him and thought a lot of him. It would be hard lines for that +little girl if Harry were caught. Bill Brown, the meddlesome old freak!--he +didn't blame Jessie for not wanting to stop there that night. She did just +the right thing. + +With all this going round and round, monotonously persistent in his brain, +and with the care of four thousand lean kine and more than a hundred +saddle-horses--to say nothing of a dozen overworked, fretful +cow-punchers--Rowdy acquired the "corrugated brow" fast enough without any +cultivation. + +The men were as the Silent One had predicted. They made drives that lasted +far into the night, stood guard, and got along with so little sleep that it +was scarce worth mention, and did many things that shaved close the +impossible--just because Rowdy looked at them straightly, with half-closed +lids, and asked them if they thought they could. + +Pink began to speak of their new foreman as "Moses"; and when the curious +asked him why, told them soberly that Rowdy could "hit a rock with his quirt +and start a creek running bank full." When Rowdy heard that, he thought of +the miles of weary searching, and wished that it were true. + +They had left the home ranch a day's drive behind them, and were going +north. Rowdy had denied himself the luxury of riding over to see Jessie, and +he was repenting the sacrifice in deep gloom and sincerity, when two men +rode into camp and dismounted, as if they had a right. The taller one--with +brawn and brain a-plenty, by the look of him--announced that he was the +sheriff, and would like to stop overnight. + +Rowdy gave him welcome half-heartedly, and questioned him craftily. A +sheriff is not a detective, and does not mind giving harmless information; +so Rowdy learned that they had traced Conroy thus far, and believed that he +was ahead of them and making for Canada. He had dodged them cleverly two or +three times, but now they had reason to believe that he was not more than +half a day's ride before them. They wanted to know if the outfit had seen +any one that day, or sign of any one having passed that way. + +Rowdy shook his head. + +"I bet it was Harry Conroy driving that little bunch uh horses up the creek, +just as we come over the ridge," spoke Pink eagerly. + +Rowdy could have choked him. "He wouldn't be driving a lot of horses," he +interposed quickly. + +"Well, he might," argued Pink. "If I was making a quick get-away, and my +horse was about played out--like his was apt t' be--I'd sure round up the +first bunch I seen, and catch me a fresh one--if I was a horse-thief. I'll +bet yuh--" + +The sheriff had put down his cup of coffee. "Is there any place where a man +could corral a bunch on the quiet?" he asked crisply. It was evident that +Pink's theory had impressed him. + +"Yes, there is. There's an old corral up at the ford--Drowning Ford, they +call it--that I'd use, if it was me. It was an old line camp, and there's a +cabin. It's down on the flat by the creek, and it's as God-forsaken a place +as a man'd want t' hide in, or t' change mounts." Pink hitched up his +chapbelt and looked across at Rowdy. He was aching for a sight of Harry +Conroy in handcuffs, and he was certain that Rowdy felt the same. "If it was +me," he added speculatively, "and I thought I was far enough in the lead, +I'd stop there till morning." + +"How far is it from here?" demanded the sheriff, standing up. + +Pink told him he guessed it was five miles. Whereupon the sheriff announced +his intention of going up there at once, and Pink hinted rather strongly +that he would like to go with them. The sheriff did not know Pink; he looked +down at his slimness and at the yellow fringe of curls showing under his hat +brim, at his pink cheeks and dimples and girlish hands, and threw back his +head in a loud ha! ha! + +Pink asked him politely, but rather stiffly, what there was funny about it. +The sheriff laughed louder and longer; then, being the sort of man who likes +a joke now and then, even in the way of business, he solemnly deputized +Pink, and patted him on the shoulder and told him gravely that they couldn't +possibly do without him. + +It looked for a minute as if Pink were going at him with his fists--but he +didn't. He reflected that one must not offer violence to an officer of the +law, and that, being made a deputy, he would have to go, anyway; so he +gritted his teeth and buckled on his gun, and went along sulkily. + +They rode silently, for the most part, and swiftly. + +Even in the dusk they could see where a band of horses had been driven at a +gallop along the creek bank. When they neared the place it was dark. Pink +pulled up and spoke for the first time since leaving the tent. + +"We better tie up our horses here and walk," he said, quite unconscious of +the fact that he was usurping the leadership, and thinking only of their +quest. + +But the sheriff was old at the business, and not too jealous of his +position. He signed to his deputy proper, and they dismounted. + +When they started on, Pink was ahead. The sheriff observed that Pink's gun +still swung in its scabbard at his hip, and he grinned--but that was because +he didn't know Pink. That the gun swung at his hip would have been quite +enough for any one who did know him; it didn't take Pink all day to get into +action + +Ten rods from the corral, which they could distinguish as a black blotch in +the sparse willow growth, Pink turned and stopped them. "I know the layout +here," he whispered. "I'll just sneak ahead and rubber around. You Rubes +sound like the beginning of a stampede, in this brush." + +The sheriff had never before been called a Rube--to his face, at least. The +audacity took his breath; and when he opened his mouth for scathing speech, +Pink was not there. He had slipped away, like a slim, elusive shadow, and +the sheriff did not even know the exact direction of his going. There was +nothing for it but to wait. + +In five minutes Pink appeared with a silent suddenness that startled them +more than they would like to own. + +"He's somewheres around," he announced, in a murmur that would not carry ten +feet. "He's got a horse in the corral, and, from the sound, he's got him all +saddled; and the gate's tied shut with a rope." + +"How d'yuh know?" grunted the sheriff crossly. + +"Felt of it, yuh chump. He's turned the bunch loose and kept up a fresh one, +like I said he would. It's blame dark, but I could see the horse--a big +white devil. It's him yuh hear makin' all that racket. If he gits away +now--" + +"Well, we didn't come for a chin-whackin' bee," snapped the sheriff. "I come +out here t' git him." + +Pink gritted his teeth again, and wished the sheriff was just a man, so he +could lick him. He led them forward without a word, thinking that Rowdy +wanted Harry Conroy captured. + +The sheriff circled warily the corral, peered through the rails at the great +white horse that ran here and there, whinnying occasionally for the band, +and heard the creak of leather and the rattle of the bit. Pink was right; +the horse was saddled, ready for immediate flight. + +"Maybe he's in the cabin," he whispered, coming up where Pink stood +listening tensely at all the little night sounds. Pink turned and crept +silently to the right, keeping in the deepest shade, while the others +followed willingly. They were beginning to see the great advantage of having +Pink along, even if he had called them Rubes. + +The cabin door yawned wide open, and creaked weirdly as the light wind moved +it; the interior was black and silent--suspiciously silent, in the opinion +of the sheriff. He waited for some time before venturing in, fearing an +ambush. Then he caught the flicker of a shielded match, called out to Conroy +to surrender, and leveled his gun at the place. + +There was no answer but the faint shuffle of stealthy feet on the board +floor. The sheriff called another warning, cocked his gun--and came near +shooting Pink, who walked composedly out of the door into the sheriff's +astonished face. The sheriff had been sure that Pink was just behind him. + +"What the hell " began the sheriff explosively. + +"He ain't here," said Pink simply. "I crawled in the window and hunted the +place over." + +The sheriff glared at him dumbly; he could not reconcile Pink's daredevil +behavior with Pink's innocent, girlish appearance. + +"I tell yuh the corral's what we want t' keep cases on," Pink added +insistently. "He's sure somewheres around--I'd gamble on it. He saddled that +horse t' git away on. That horse is sure the key t' this situation, +old-timer. If you fellows'll keep cases on the gate, I'll cover the rear." + +He made his way quietly to the back of the corral, inwardly much amused at +the tractability of the sheriff, who took his deputy obediently to watch the +gate. + +Pink squatted comfortably in the shade of a willow and wished he dared +indulge in a cigarette, and wondered what scheme Harry was trying to play. + +Fifty feet away the big white horse still circled round and round, rattling +his bridle impatiently and shaking the saddle in an occasional access of +rage, and whinnying lonesomely out into the gloom. + +So they waited and waited, and peered into the shadows, and listened to the +trampling horse fretting for freedom and his mates. + +The cook had just called breakfast when Pink dashed up to the tent, flung +himself from his horse, and confronted Rowdy--a hollow-eyed, haggard Rowdy +who had not slept all night, and whose eyes questioned anxiously. + +"Well," Rowdy said, with what passed for composure, "did you get him?" + +Pink leaned against his horse, with one hand reaching up and gripping +tightly the horn of the saddle. His cheeks held not a trace of color, and +his eyes were full of a great horror. + +"They're bringin' him t' camp," he answered huskily. "We found a horse--a +big white horse they call the Fern Outlaw"--the Silent One started and came +closer, listening intently; evidently he knew the horse--"saddled in the +corral, and the gate tied shut. We dubbed around a while, but we didn't +find--Harry. So we camped down by the corral and waited. We set there all +night--and the horse faunching around inside something fierce. When--it +come daybreak--I seen something--by the fence, inside. It was--Harry." Pink +shivered and moistened his dry lips. "That Fern Outlaw--some uh the boys +know--is a devil t' mount. He'd got Harry down--hell, Rowdy! it--it was +sure--awful. He'd been there all night--and that horse stomping. " + +"Shut up!" Rowdy turned all at once deathly sick. He had once seen a man who +had been trampled by a maddened, man-killing horse. It had not been a pretty +sight. He sat down weakly and covered his face with his shaking hands. + +The others stood around horrified, muttering disjointed, shocked sentences. + +Pink lifted his head from where it had fallen upon his arm. "One thing, +Rowdy--I done. You can tell Jessie. I shot that horse." + +Rowdy dropped his hands and stood up. Yes, he must tell Jessie. + +"You'll have to take the herd on," he told Pink in his masterful way. "I'll +catch you to-morrow some time. I've got to go back and tell Jessie. You know +the trail I was going to take--straight across to Wild Horse Lake. From +there you strike across to North Fork--and if I don't overtake you on the +way, I'll hit camp some time in the night. It's all plain sailing." + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +Rowdy Finds Happiness. + +Miss Conroy was rather listlessly endeavoring to persuade the First Reader +class that "catch" should not be pronounced "ketch," when she saw Rowdy ride +past the window. Intuition of something amiss sent her to the door before he +reached it. + +"Can't you give the kids a day off?" he began, without preface. "I've got +such a lot to talk about--and I don't come very often." He thought that his +tone was perfectly natural; but all the same she turned white. He rode on to +a little tree and tied his horse--not that it was necessary to tie him, but +to avoid questions. + +Miss Conroy went in and dismissed the children, although it was only fifteen +minutes after nine. They gathered up their lunch-pails and straggled out +reluctantly, round-eyed, and curious. Rowdy waited until the last one had +gone before he went in. Miss Conroy sat in her chair on the platform, and +she was still white; otherwise she seemed to have herself well in hand. + +"It's about Harry," she asserted, rather sharply. + +"Have they--caught him?" + +Rowdy stopped half-way down the aisle and stared. "How did you know they +were--after him?" + +"He came to me night before last, and--told me." She bit her lip, took firm +hold on her honesty and her courage, and went on steadily. "He came because +he--wanted money. I've wanted to see you since, to tell you that--I +misjudged you. I know all about your--trouble, and I want you to know that I +think you are--that you did quite right. You are to understand that I cannot +honestly uphold--Harry. He is--not the kind of brother--I thought." + +Rowdy went clanking forward till only the table stood between. "Did he tell +you?" he demanded, in a curious, breathless fashion. + +"No, he did not. He denied everything. It was Pink. He told me long +ago--that evening, just after you--the last time I saw you. I told him +he--lied. I tried not to believe it, but I did. Pink knew I would; he said +so. The other night I asked Harry about--those things he did to you. He lied +to me. I'd have forgiven him--but he lied. I--can't forgive that. I--" + +"Hush!" Rowdy threw out a gloved hand quickly. He could not bear to let her +go on like that. + +She looked up at him, and all at once she was shaking. "There's +something--tell me!" + +"They didn't take him," he said slowly, weighing each word and looking down +at her pityingly "They never will. He--had an accident. A horse--fell with +him--and--he was dead when they picked him up." It was as merciful a version +as he could make it, but the words choked him, even then. "Girlie!" He went +around and knelt, with his arms holding her close. + +After a long while he spoke again, smoothing her hair absently, and never +noticing that he had not taken off his gloves. His gray hat was pushed +aslant as his head rested against hers. + +"Perhaps, girlie, it's for the best. We couldn't have saved him from--the +other; and that would have been worse, don't you think? We'll forget all but +the good in him"--he could not help thinking that there would not be much to +remember--"and I'll get a little home ready, and come back and get you +before snow flies--and--you'll be kind of happy, won't you? + +"Maybe you haven't heard--but Eagle Creek has made me foreman of his outfit +that's going to Canada. It's a good position. I can make you comfortable, +girlie--and happy. Anyway, I'll try, mighty hard. You'll be ready for me +when I come--won't you, girlie?" + +Miss Conroy raised her face, all tear-stained, but, with the light of +happiness fighting the sorrow in her eyes, nodded just enough to make the +movement perceptible, and settled her head to a more comfortable +nestling-place on his shoulder. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext Rowdy of the Cross L, by B. M. Bower + |