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diff --git a/1014-0.txt b/1014-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0afcb1a --- /dev/null +++ b/1014-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3080 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1014 *** + +THE LURE OF THE DIM TRAILS + +By B. M. Bower + + + + +CHAPTER I. IN SEARCH OF THE WESTERN TONE + +“What do you care, anyway?” asked Reeve-Howard philosophically. “It +isn't as if you depended on the work for a living. Why worry over the +fact that a mere pastime fails to be financially a success. You don't +need to write--” + +“Neither do you need to slave over those dry-point things,” Thurston +retorted, in none the best humor with his comforter “You've an income +bigger than mine; yet you toil over Grecian-nosed women with untidy hair +as if each one meant a meal and a bed.” + +“A meal and a bed--that's good; you must think I live like a king.” + +“And I notice you hate like the mischief to fail, even though.” + +“Only I never have failed,” put in Reeve-Howard, with the amused +complacency born of much adulation. + +Thurston kicked a foot-rest out of his way. “Well, I have. The fashion +now is for swashbuckling tales with a haze of powder smoke rising +to high heaven. The public taste runs to gore and more gore, and +kidnappings of beautiful maidens-bah!” + +“Follow the fashion then--if you must write. Get out of your pink tea +and orchid atmosphere, and take your heroines out West--away out, beyond +the Mississippi, and let them be kidnapped. Or New Mexico would do.” + +“New Mexico is also beyond the Mississippi, I believe,” Thurston hinted. + +“Perhaps it is. What I mean is, write what the public wants, since you +don't relish failure. Why don't you do things about the plains? It +ought to be easy, and you were born out there somewhere. It should come +natural.” + +“I have,” Thurston sighed. “My last rejection states that the local +color is weak and unconvincing. Hang the local color!” The foot-rest +suffered again. + +Reeve-Howard was getting into his topcoat languidly, as he did +everything else. “The thing to do, then,” he drawled, “is to go out and +study up on it. Get in touch with that country, and your local color +will convince. Personally though, I like those little society skits you +do--” + +“Skits!” exploded Thurston. “My last was a four-part serial. I never did +a skit in my life.” + +“Beg pardon-which is more than you did after accusing my studies of +having untidy hair. Don't look so glum, Phil. Go out and learn your +West; a month or so will put you up to date--and by Jove! I half envy +you the trip.” + +That is what put the idea into Thurston's head; and as Thurston's ideas +generally bore fruit of one sort or another, he went out that very day +and ordered from his tailor a complete riding outfit, and because he +was a good customer the tailor consented to rush the work. It seemed to +Thurston, looking over cuts of the very latest styles in riding clothes, +that already he was breathing the atmosphere of the plains. + +That night he stayed at home and dreamed, of the West. His memory, +coupled with what he had heard and idealized by his imagination, +conjured dim visions of what he had once known had known and forgotten; +of a land here men and conditions harked back to the raw foundations +of civilization; where wide plains flecked with sage-brush and ribboned +with faint, brown trails, spread away and away to a far sky-line. For +Phil Thurston was range-born, if not range-bred, His father had chosen +always to live out on the edge of things--out where the trails of men +are dim and far apart-and the silent prairie bequeaths a heritage of +distance-hunger to her sons. + +While he brooded grew a keen longing to see again the little town +huddled under the bare, brown hills that shut out the world; to see the +gay-blanketed Indians who stole like painted shadows about the place, +and the broad river always hurrying away to the sunrise. He had been +afraid of the river and of the bare hills and the Indians. He felt that +his mother, also, had been afraid. He pictured again--and he picture was +blurred and indistinct-the day when strange men had brought his father +mysteriously home; men who were silent save for the shuffling of their +feet, and who carried their big hats awkwardly in their hands. + +There had been a day of hushed voices and much weeping and gloom, and +he had been afraid to play. Then they had carried his father as +mysteriously away again, and his mother had hugged him close and cried +bitterly and long. The rest was blank. When one is only five, the +present quickly blurs what is past, and he wondered that, after +all these years, he should feel the grip of something very like +homesickness--and for something more than half forgotten. But though +he did not realize it, in his veins flowed the adventurous blood of his +father, and to it the dim trails were calling. + +In four days he set his face eagerly toward the dun deserts and the +sage-brush gray. + +At Chicago a man took the upper berth in Thurston's section, and settled +into the seat with a deep sigh--presumably of thankfulness. Thurston, +with the quick eye of those who write, observed the whiteness of his +ungloved hands, the coppery tan of cheeks and throat, the clear keenness +of his eyes, and the four dimples in the crown of his soft, gray hat, +and recognized him as a fine specimen of the Western type of farmer, +returning home from the stockman's Mecca. After that he went calmly back +to his magazine and forgot all about him. + +Twenty miles out, the stranger leaned forward and tapped him lightly on +the knee. “Say, I hate to interrupt yuh,” he began in a whimsical drawl, +evidently characteristic of the man, “but I'd like to know where it is +I've seen yuh before.” + +Thurston glanced up impersonally, hesitated between annoyance and a +natural desire to, be courteous, and replied that he had no memory of +any previous meeting. + +“Mebby not,” admitted the other, and searched the face of Thurston with +his keen eyes. It came to Phil that they were also a bit wistful, but he +went unsympathetically back to his reading. + +Five miles more and be touched Thurston again, apologetically yet +insistently. “Say,” he drawled, “ain't your name Thurston? I'll bet +a carload uh steers it is--Bud Thurston. And your home range is Fort +Benton.” + +Phil stared and confessed to all but the “Bud.” + +“That's what me and your dad always called yuh,” the man asserted. +“Well, I'll be hanged! But I knew it. I knew I'd run acrost yuh +somewheres. You're the dead image uh your dad, Bill Thurston. And me and +Bill freighted together from Whoop-up to Benton along in the seventies. +Before yuh was born we was chums. I don't reckon you'd remember me? Hank +Graves, that used to pack yuh around on his back, and fill yuh up on +dried prunes--when dried prunes was worth money? Yuh used to call 'em +'frumes,' and--Why, it was me with your dad when the Indians pot-shot +him at Chimney Rock; and it was me helped your mother straighten things +up so she could pull out, back where she come from. She never took to +the West much. How is she? Dead? Too bad; she was a mighty fine woman, +your mother was. + +“Well, I'll-be-hanged! Bud Thurston little, tow-headed Bud that used to +holler for 'frumes' if he seen me coming a mile off. Doggone your measly +hide, where's all them pink apurns yuh used to wear?” He leaned back and +laughed--a silent, inner convulsion of pure gladness. + +Philip Thurston was, generally speaking, a conservative young man +and one slow to make friends; slower still to discard them. He was +astonished to feel a choky sensation in his throat and a stinging of +eyelids, and a leap in his blood. To be thus taken possession of by +a blunt-speaking stranger not at all in his class; to be addressed +as “Bud,” and informed that he once devoured dried prunes; to be told +“Doggone your measly hide” should have affronted him much. Instead, he +seemed to be swept mysteriously back into the primitive past, and to +feel akin to this stranger with the drawl and the keen eyes. It was the +blood of his father coming to its own. + +From that hour the two were friends. Hank Graves, in his whimsical +drawl, told Phil things about his father that made his blood tingle +with pride; his father, whom he had almost forgotten, yet who had lived +bravely his life, daring where other men quailed, going steadfastly upon +his way when other men hesitated. + +So, borne swiftly into the West they talked, and the time seemed short. +The train had long since been racing noisily over the silent prairies +spread invitingly with tender green--great, lonely, inscrutable, luring +men with a spell as sure and as strong as is the spell of the sea. + +The train reeled across a trestle that spanned a deep, dry gash in the +earth. In the green bottom huddled a cluster of pygmy cattle and mounted +men; farther down were two white flakes of tents, like huge snowflakes +left unmelted in the green canyon. + +“That's the Lazy Eight--my outfit,” Graves informed Thurston with the +unconscious pride of possession, pointing a forefinger as they whirled +on. “I've got to get off, next station. Yuh want to remember, Bud, the +Lazy Eight's your home from now on. We'll make a cow-puncher of yuh in +no time; you've got it in yuh, or yuh wouldn't look so much like your +dad. And you can write stories about us all yuh want--we won't kick. +The way I've got the summer planned out, you'll waller chin-deep in +material; all yuh got to do is foller the Lazy Eight through till +shipping time.” + +Thurston had not intended learning to be a cow-puncher, or following +the Lazy Eight or any other hieroglyphic through 'till shipping +time--whenever that was. + +But facing Hank Graves, he had not the heart to tell him so, or that he +had planned to spend only a month--or six weeks at most--in the West, +gathering local color and perhaps a plot or two? and a few types. +Thurston was great on types. + +The train slowed at a little station with a dismal red section house in +the immediate background and a red-fronted saloon close beside. “Here +we are,” cried Graves, “and I ain't sorry; only I wisht you was going +to stop right now. But I'll look for yuh in three or four days at the +outside. So-long, Bud. Remember, the Lazy Eight's your hang-out.” + + + +CHAPTER II. LOCAL COLOR IN THE RAW + +For the rest of the way Thurston watched the green hills slide by--and +the greener hollows--and gave himself up to visions of Fort Benton; +visions of creaking bull-trains crawling slowly, like giant brown worms, +up and down the long hill; of many high-piled bales of buffalo hides +upon the river bank, and clamorous little steamers churning up against +the current; the Fort Benton that had, for many rushing miles, filled +and colored the speech of Hank Graves and stimulated his childish +half-memory. + +But when he reached the place and wandered aimlessly about the streets, +the vision faded into half-resentful realization that these things were +no more forever. For the bull-trains, a roundup outfit clattered +noisily out of town and disappeared in an elusive dust-cloud; for the +gay-blanketed Indians slipping like painted shadows from view, stray +cow-boys galloped into town, slid from their saddles and clanked with +dragging rowels into the nearest saloon, or the post-office. Between +whiles the town cuddled luxuriously down in the deep little valley +and slept while the river, undisturbed by pompous steamers, murmured a +lullaby. + +It was not the Fort Benton he had come far to see, so that on the second +day he went away up the long hill that shut out the world and, until the +east-bound train came from over the prairies, paced the depot platform +impatiently with never a vision to keep him company. + +For a long time the gaze of Thurston clung fascinated to the wide +prairie land, feeling again the stir in his blood. Then, when a deep cut +shut from him the sight of the wilderness, he chanced to turn his head, +and looked straight into the clear, blue-gray eyes of a girl across +the aisle. Thurston considered himself immune from blue-gray--or any +other-eyes, so that he permitted himself to regard her calmly and +judicially, his mind reverting to the fact that he would need a heroine +to be kidnapped, and wondering if she would do. She was a Western girl, +he could tell that by the tan and by her various little departures from +the Eastern styles--such as doing her hair low rather than high. Where +he had been used to seeing the hair of woman piled high and skewered +with many pins, hers was brushed smoothly back-smoothly save for little, +irresponsible waves here and there. Thurston decided that the style was +becoming to her. He wondered if the fellow beside her were her brother; +and then reminded himself sagely that brothers do not, as a rule, devote +their time quite so assiduously to the entertainment of their sisters. +He could not stare at her forever, and so he gave over his speculations +and went back to the prairies. + +Another hour, and Thurston was stiffing a yawn when the coaches bumped +sharply together and, with wheels screeching protest as the brakes +clutched them, the train, grinding protest in every joint, came, with a +final heavy jar, to a dead stop. Thurston thought it was a wreck, until +out ahead came the sharp crackling of rifles. A passenger behind him +leaned out of the window and a bullet shattered the glass above his +head; he drew back hastily. + +Some one hurried through the front vestibule, the door was pushed +unceremoniously open and a man--a giant, he seemed to Thurston--stopped +just inside, glared down the length of the coach through slits in the +black cloth over his face and bawled, “Hands up!” + +Thurston was so utterly surprised that his hands jerked themselves +involuntarily above his head, though he did not feel particularly +frightened; he was filled with a stupefied sort of curiosity to know +what would come next. The coach, so far as he could see, seemed filled +with uplifted, trembling hands, so that he did not feel ashamed of his +own. The man behind him put up his hands with the other--but one of them +held a revolver that barked savagely and unexpectedly close against the +car of Thurston. Thurston ducked. There was an echo from the front, and +the man behind, who risked so much on one shot, lurched into the aisle, +swaying uncertainly between the seats. He of the mask fired again, +viciously, and the other collapsed into a still, awkwardly huddled heap +on the floor. The revolver dropped from his fingers and struck against +Thurston's foot, making him wince. + +Thurston had never before seen death come to a man, and the very +suddenness of it unnerved him. All his faculties were numbed before that +terrible, pitiless form in the door, and the limp, dead body at his feet +in the aisle. He did not even remember that here was the savage +local color he had come far a-seeking. He quite forgot to improve the +opportunity by making mental note of all the little, convincing details, +as was his wont. + +Presently he awoke to the realization of certain words spoken +insistently close beside him. He turned his eyes and saw that the girl, +her eyes staring straight before her, her slim, brown hands uplifted, +was yet commanding him imperiously, her voice holding to that murmuring +monotone more discreet than a whisper. + +“The gun--drop down--and get it. He can't see to shoot for the seat in +front. Get the gun. Get the gun!” was what she was saying. + +Thurston looked at her helplessly, imploringly. In truth, he had never +fired a gun in all his peaceful life. + +“The gun--get it--and shoot!” Her eyes moved quickly in a cautious, +side-long glance that commanded impatiently. Her straight eyebrows drew +together imperiously. Then, when he met her eyes with that same helpless +look, she said another word that hurt. It was “Coward!” + +Thurston looked down at the gun, and at the huddled form. A tiny river +of blood was creeping toward him. Already it had reached his foot, and +his shoe was red along the sole. He moved his foot quickly away from it, +and shuddered. + +“Coward!” murmured the girl contemptuously again, and a splotch of anger +showed under the tan of her cheek. + +Thurston caught his breath and wondered if he could do it; he looked +toward the door and thought how far it was to send a bullet straight +when a man has never, in all his life, fired a gun. And without looking +he could see that horrible, red stream creeping toward him like some +monster in a nightmare. His flesh crimpled with physical repulsion, but +he meant to try; perhaps he could shoot the man in the mask, so that +there would be another huddled, lifeless Thing on the floor, and another +creeping red stream. + +At that instant the tawny-haired young fellow beside the girl gathered +himself for a spring, flung himself headlong before her and into the +aisle; caught the dead man's pistol from the floor and fired, seemingly +with one movement. Then he sprang up, still firing as fast as the +trigger could move. From the door came answer, shot for shot, and the +car was filled with the stifling odor of burnt powder. A woman screamed +hysterically. + +Then a puff of cool, prairie breeze came in through the shattered window +behind Thurston, and the smoke-cloud lifted like a curtain blown upward +in the wind. The tawny-haired young fellow was walking coolly down the +aisle, the smoking revolver pointing like an accusing finger toward the +outlaw who lay stretched upon his face, his fingers twitching. + +Outside, rifles were crackling like corn in a giant popper. Presently +it slackened to an occasional shot. A brakeman, followed by two coatless +mail-clerks with Winchesters, ran down the length of the train calling +out that there was no danger. The thud of their running feet, and the +wholesome mingling of their shouting struck sharply in the silence after +the shooting. One of the men swung up on the steps of the day coach and +came in. + +“Hello, Park,” he cried to the tawny haired boy. “Got one, did yuh? +That's good. We did, too got him alive. Think uh the nerve uh that +Wagner bunch! to go up against a train in broad daylight. Made an easy +getaway, too, except the feller we gloomed in the express car. How's +this one? Dead?” + +“No. I reckon he'll get well enough to stretch a rope; he killed a man, +in here.” He motioned toward the huddled figure in the aisle. They came +together, lifted the dead man and carried him away to the baggage car. +A brakeman came with a cloth and wiped up the red pool, and Thurston +pressed his lips tightly together and turned away his head; he could not +remember when the sight of anything had made him so deathly sick. Once +he glanced slyly at the girl opposite, and saw that she was very white +under her tan, and that the hands in her lap were clasped tightly and +yet shook. But she met his eyes squarely, and Thurston did not look at +her again; he did not like the expression of her mouth. + +News of the holdup had been telegraphed ahead, and all Shellanne--which +was not much of a crowd--gathered at the station to meet the train and +congratulate the heroes. Thurston alighted almost shamefacedly into the +midst of the loud-voiced commotion. While he was looking uncertainly +about him, wondering where to go and what to do, a voice he knew hailed +him with drawling welcome. + +“Hello, Bud. Got back quicker than you expected, didn't yuh? It's lucky +I happened to be in town--yuh can ride out with me. Say, yuh got quite +a bunch uh local color for a story, didn't yuh? You'll be writing +blood-and-thunder for a month on the strength of this little episode, I +reckon.” his twinkling eyes teased, though his face was quite serious, +as was his voice. + +She of the blue-gray eyes turned and measured Thurston with a +deliberate, leisurely glance, and her mouth still had that unpleasant +expression. Thurston colored guiltily, but Hank Graves lifted his hat +and called her Mona, and asked her if she wasn't scared stiff, and if +she were home to stay. Then he beckoned to the tawny-haired fellow with +his finger, and winked at Mona--a proceeding which shocked Thurston +considerably. + +“Mona--here, hold on a minute, can't yuh? Mona, this is a friend uh +mine; Bud Thurston's his name. He's come out to study us up and round up +a hunch uh real Western atmosphere. He's a story-writer. I used to whack +bulls all over the country with his father. Bud, this is Mona Stevens; +she ranges down close to the Lazy Eight, so the sooner yuh git +acquainted, the quicker.” He did not explain what would be the quicker, +and Thurston's embarrassment was only aggravated by the introduction. + +Miss Stevens gave him a chilly smile, the kind that is worse than none +at all and turned her back, thinly pretending that she heard her brother +calling her, which she did not. Her brother was loudly explaining what +would have happened if he had been on that train and had got a whack at +the robbers, and his sister was far from his mind. + +Graves slapped the shoulder of the fellow they had called Park. +“You young devil, next time I leave the place for a week--yes, or +overnight--I'll lock yuh up in the blacksmith shop. Have yuh got to be +Mona's special escort, these days?” + +“Wish I was,” Park retorted, unmoved. + +“Different here--yuh ain't much account, as it is. Bud, this here's my +wagon-boss, Park Holloway; one of 'em, that is. I'm going to turn yuh +over to him and let him wise yuh up. Say, you young bucks ought to get +along together pretty smooth. Your dads run buffalo together before +either of yuh was born. Well, let's be moving--we ain't home yet. Got a +war-bag, Bud?” + +Late that night Thurston lay upon a home-made bed and listened to the +frogs croaking monotonously in the hollow behind the house, and to +the lone coyote which harped upon the subject of his wrongs away on a +distant hillside, and to the subdued snoring of Hank Graves in the room +beyond. He was trying to adjust himself to this new condition of things, +and the new condition refused utterly to be measured by his accepted +standard. + +According to that standard, he should feel repulsed and annoyed by the +familiarity of strangers who persisted in calling him “Bud” without +taking the trouble to find out whether or not he liked it. And what +puzzled Thurston and put him all at sea was the consciousness that he +did like it, and that it struck familiarly upon his ears as something to +which he had been accustomed in the past. + +Also, according to his well-ordered past, he should hate this raw life +and rawer country where could occur such brutal things as he had that +day witnessed. He should dislike a man like Park Holloway who, having +wounded a man unto death, had calmly dismissed the subject with the +regret that his aim had not been better, so that he could have saved the +county the expense of trying and hanging the fellow. Thurston was amazed +to find that, down in the inner man of him, he admired Park Holloway +exceedingly, and privately resolved to perfect himself in the use of +fire-arms, he who had been wont to deplore the thinly veneered savagery +of men who liked such things. + +After much speculation he decided that Mona Stevens would not do for a +kidnapped heroine. He could not seem to “see” her in such a position, +and, besides, he told himself that such a type of girl did not attract +him at all. She had called him a coward--and why? simply because he, +straight from the trammels of civilization, had not been prepared to +meet the situation thrust upon him-which she had thrust upon him. She +had demanded of him something he had not the power to accomplish, and +she had called him a coward. And in his heart Thurston knew that it was +unjust, and that he was not a coward. + + + +CHAPTER III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS + +Thurston, dressed immaculately in riding clothes of the latest English +cut, went airily down the stairs and discovered that he was not early, +as he had imagined. Seven o'clock, he had told himself proudly, was not +bad for a beginner; and he had smiled in anticipation of Hank Graves' +surprise which was fortunate, since he would otherwise have been cheated +of smiling at all. For Hank Graves, he learned from the cook, had eaten +breakfast at five and had left the ranch more than an hour before; the +men also were scattered to their work. + +Properly humbled in spirit, he sat down to the kitchen table and ate his +belated breakfast, while the cook kneaded bread at the other end of the +same table and eyed Thurston with frank amusement. Thurston had never +before been conscious of feeling ill at ease in the presence of a +servant, and hurried through the meal so that he could escape into the +clear sunshine, feeling a bit foolish in the unaccustomed bagginess of +his riding breeches and the snugness of his leggings; for he had never +taken to outdoor sports, except as an onlooker from the shade of a grand +stand or piazza. + +While he was debating the wisdom of writing a detailed description of +yesterday's tragedy while it was still fresh in his mind and stowing it +away for future “color,” Park Holloway rode into the yard and on to the +stables. He nodded at Thurston and grinned without apparent cause, as +the cook had done. Thurston followed him to the corral and watched him +pull the saddle off his horse, and throw it carelessly to one side. It +looked cumbersome, that saddle; quite unlike the ones he had inspected +in the New York shops. He grasped the horn, lifted upon it and said, +“Jove!” + +“Heavy, ain't it?” Park laughed, and slipped the bridle down over the +ears of his horse and dismissed him with a slap on the rump. “Don't yuh +like the looks of it?” he added indulgently. + +Thurston, engaged in wondering what all those little strings were for, +felt the indulgence and straightened. “How should I know?” he retorted. +“Anyone can see that my ignorance is absolute. I expect you to laugh at +me, Mr. Holloway.” + +“Call me Park,” said he of the tawny hair, and leaned against the fence +looking extremely boyish and utterly incapable of walking calmly down +upon a barking revolver and shooting as he went. “You're bound to learn +all about saddles and what they're made for,” he went on. “So long as +yuh don't get swell-headed the first time yuh stick on a horse that +side-steps a little, or back down from a few hard knocks, you'll be all +right.” + +Thurston had not intended getting out and actually living the life he +had come to observe, but something got in his nerves and his blood and +bred an impulse to which he yielded without reserve. “Park, see +here,” he said eagerly. “Graves said he'd turn me over to you, so you +could--er--teach me wisdom. It's deuced rough on you, but I hope you +won't refuse to be bothered with me. I want to learn--everything. And I +want you to find fault like the mischief, and--er--knock me into shape, +if it's possible.” He was very modest over his ignorance, and his voice +rang true. + +Park studied him gravely. “Bud,” he said at last, “you'll do. You're +greener right now than a blue-joint meadow in June, but yuh got the +right stuff in yuh, and it's a go with me. You come along with us after +that trail-herd, and you'll get knocked into shape fast enough. Smoke?” + +Thurston shook his head. “Not those.” + +“I dunno I'm afraid yuh can't be the real thing unless yuh fan your +lungs with cigarette smoke regular.” The twinkle belied him, though. +“Say, where did you pick them bloomers?” + +“They were made in New York.” Thurston smiled in sickly fashion. He had +all along been uncomfortably aware of the sharp contrast between his own +modish attire and the somewhat disreputable leathern chaps of his host's +foreman. + +“Well,” commented Park, “you told me to find fault like the mischief, +and I'm going to call your bluff. This here's Montana, recollect, and I +raise the long howl over them habiliments. The best thing you can do is +pace along to the house and discard before the boys get sight of yuh. +They'd queer yuh with the whole outfit, sure. Uh course,” he went on +soothingly when he saw the resentment in Thurston's eyes, “I expect +they're real stylish--back East--but the boys ain't educated to stand +for anything like that; they'd likely tell yuh they set like the hide +on the hind legs of an elephant--which is a fact. I hate to say it, Kid, +but they sure do look like the devil.” + +“So would you, in New York,” Thurston flung back at him. + +“Why, sure. But this ain't New York; this here's the Lazy Eight corral, +and I'm doing yuh a favor. You wouldn't like to have the boys shooting +holes through the slack, would yuh? You amble right along and get some +pants on--and when you've wised up some you'll thank me a lot. I'm going +on a little jaunt down the creek, before dinner, and you might go along; +you'll need to get hardened to the saddle anyway, before we start for +Billings, or you'll do most uh riding on the mess-wagon.” + +Thurston, albeit in resentful mood, went meekly and did as he was +commanded to do; and no man save Park and the cook ever glimpsed those +smart riding clothes of English cut. + +“Now yuh look a heap more human,” was the way Park signified his +approval of the change. “Here's a little horse that's easy to ride and +dead gentle if yuh don't spur him in the neck, which you ain't liable +to do at present; and Hank says you can have this saddle for keeps. Hank +used to ride it, but he out-growed it and got one longer in the seat. +When we start for Billings to trail up them cattle, of course you'll get +a string of your own to ride.” + +“A string? I'm afraid I don't quite understand.” + +“Yuh don't savvy riding a string? A string, m'son, is ten or a dozen +saddle-horses that yuh ride turn about, and nobody else has got any +right to top one; every fellow has got his own string, yuh see.” + +Thurston eyed his horse distrustfully. “I think,” he ventured, “one will +be enough for me. I'll scarcely need a dozen.” The truth was that he +thought Park was laughing at him. + +Park slid sidewise in the saddle and proceeded to roll another +cigarette. “I'd be willing to bet that by fall you'll have a good-sized +string rode down to a whisper. You wait; wait till it gets in your +blood. Why, I'd die if you took me off the range. Wait till yuh set out +in the dark, on your horse, and count the stars and watch the big dipper +swing around towards morning, and listen to the cattle breathing close +by--sleeping while you ride around 'em playing guardian angel over their +dreams. Wait till yuh get up at daybreak and are in the saddle with +the pink uh sunrise, and know you'll sleep fifteen or twenty miles from +there that night; and yuh lay down at night with the smell of new grass +in your nostrils where your bed had bruised it. + +“Why, Bud, if you're a man, you'll be plumb spoiled for your little +old East.” Then he swung back his feet and the horses broke into a lope +which jarred the unaccustomed frame of Thurston mightily, though he kept +the pace doggedly. + +“I've got to go down to the Stevens place,” Park informed him. “You +met Mona yesterday--it was her come down on the train with me, yuh +remember.” Thurston did remember very distinctly. “Hank says yuh compose +stories. Is that right?” + +Thurston's mind came back from wondering how Mona Stevens' mouth looked +when she was pleased with one, and he nodded. + +“Well, there's a lot in this country that ain't ever been wrote about, I +guess; at least if it was I never read it, and I read considerable. But +the trouble is, them that know ain't in the writing business, and them +that write don't know. The way I've figured it, they set back East +somewhere and write it like they think maybe it is; and it's a hell of a +job they make of it.” + +Thurston, remembering the time when he, too, “set back East” and wrote +it like he thought maybe it was, blushed guiltily. He was thankful that +his stories of the West had, without exception, been rejected as of +little worth. He shuddered to think of one of them falling into the +hands of Park Holloway. + +“I came out to learn, and I want to learn it thoroughly,” he said, in +the face of much physical discomfort. Just then the horses slowed for a +climb, and he breathed thanks. “In the first place,” he began again when +he had readjusted himself carefully in the saddle, “I wish you'd tell me +just where you are going with the wagons, and what you mean by trailing +a herd.” + +“Why, I thought I said we were going to Billings,” Park answered, +surprised. “What we're going to do when we get there is to receive a +shipment of cattle young steer that's coming up from the Panhandle which +is a part uh Texas. And we trail 'em up here and turn 'em loose this +side the river. After that we'll start the calf roundup. The Lazy Eight +runs two wagons, yuh know. I run one, and Deacon Smith runs the other; +we work together, though, most of the time. It makes quite a crew, +twenty-five or thirty men.” + +“I didn't know,” said Thurston dubiously, “that you ever shipped cattle +into this country. I supposed you shipped them out. Is Mr. Graves buying +some?” + +“Hank? I guess yes! six thousand head uh yearlings and two year-olds, +this spring; some seasons it's more. We get in young stock every year +and turn 'em loose on the range till they're ready to ship. It's cheaper +than raising calves, yuh know. When yuh get to Billings, Bud, you'll see +some cattle! Why, our bunch alone will make seven trains, and that ain't +a commencement. Cattle's cheap down South, this year, and seems like +everybody's buying. Hank didn't buy as much as some, because he runs +quite a bunch uh cows; we'll brand six or seven thousand calves this +spring. Hank sure knows how to rake in the coin.” + +Thurston agreed as politely as he could for the jolting. They had +again struck the level and seven miles, at Park's usual pace, was +heartbreaking to a man not accustomed to the saddle. Thurston had +written, just before leaving home, a musical bit of verse born of his +luring dreams, about “the joy of speeding fleetly where the grassland +meets the sky,” and he was gritting his teeth now over the idiotic +lines. + +When they reached the ranch and Mona's mother came to the door and +invited them in, he declined almost rudely, for he had a feeling that +once out of the saddle he would have difficulty in getting into it +again. Besides, Mona was not at home, according to her mother. + +So they did not tarry, and Thurston reached the Lazy Eight alive, but +with the glamour quite gone from his West. If he had not been the son of +his father, he would have taken the first train which pointed its +nose to the East, and he would never again have essayed the writing +of Western stories or musical verse which sung the joys of galloping +blithely off to the sky-line. He had just been galloping off to a +sky-line that was always just before and he had not been blithe; nor did +the memory of it charm. Of a truth, the very thought of things Western +made him swear mild, city-bred oaths. + +He choked back his awe of the cook and asked him, quite humbly, what +was good to take the soreness from one's muscles; afterward he had crept +painfully up the stairs, clasping to his bosom a beer bottle filled with +pungent, home-made liniment which the cook had gravely declared “out uh +sight for saddle-galls.” + +Hank Graves, when he heard the story, with artistic touches from the +cook, slapped his thigh and laughed one of his soundless chuckles. “The +son-of-a-gun! He's the right stuff. Never whined, eh? I knew it. He's +his dad over again, from the ground up.” And loved him the better. + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE TRAIL-HERD + +Thurston tucked the bulb of his camera down beside the bellows and +closed the box with a snap. “I wonder what old Reeve would say to that +view,” he mused aloud. + +“Old who?” + +“Oh, a fellow back in New York. Jove! he'd throw up his dry-point heads +and take to oils and landscapes if he could see this.” + +The “this” was a panoramic view of the town and surrounding valley of +Billings. The day was sunlit and still, and far objects stood up with +sharp outlines in the clear atmosphere. Here and there the white tents +of waiting trail-outfits splotched the bright green of the prairie. +Horsemen galloped to and from the town at top speed, and a long, grimy +red stock train had just snorted out on a siding by the stockyards where +the bellowing of thirsty cattle came faintly like the roar of pounding +surf in the distance. + +Thurston--quite a different Thurston from the trim, pale young man who +had followed the lure of the West two weeks before--drew a long breath +and looked out over the hurrying waters of the Yellowstone. It was good +to be alive and young, and to live the tented life of the plains; it +was good even to be “speeding fleetly where the grassland meets the sky +“--for two weeks in the saddle had changed considerably his view-point. +He turned again to the dust and roar of the stockyards a mile or so +away. + +“Perhaps,” he remarked hopefully, “the next train will be ours.” Strange +how soon a man may identify himself with new conditions and new aims. He +had come West to look upon the life from the outside, and now his chief +thought was of the coming steers, which he referred to unblushingly as +“our cattle.” Such is the spell of the range. + +“Let's ride on over, Bud,” Park proposed. “That's likely the Circle Bar +shipment. Their bunch comes from the same place ours does, and I want to +see how they stack up.” + +Thurston agreed and went to saddle up. He had mastered the art of +saddling and could, on lucky days and when he was in what he called +“form,” rope the horse he wanted; to say nothing of the times when his +loop settled unexpectedly over the wrong victim. Park Holloway, for +instance, who once got it neatly under his chin, much to his disgust and +the astonishment of Thurston. + +“I'm going to take my Kodak,” said he. “I like to watch them unload, and +I can get some good pictures, with this sunlight.” + +“When you've hollered 'em up and down the chutes as many times as I +have,” Park told him, “yuh won't need no pictures to help yuh remember +what it's like.” + +It was an old story with Park, and Thurston's enthusiasm struck him as +a bit funny. He perched upon a corner of the fence out of the way, and +smoked cigarettes while he watched the cattle and shouted pleasantries +to the men who prodded and swore and gesticulated at the wild-eyed +huddle in the pens. Soon his turn would come, but just now he was +content to look on and take his ease. + +“For the life of me,” cried Thurston, sidling gingerly over to him, “I +can't see where they all come from. For two days these yards have never +been empty. The country will soon be one vast herd.” + +“Two days--huh! this thing'll go on for weeks, m'son. And after all is +over, you'll wonder where the dickens they all went to. Montana is some +bigger than you realize, I guess. And next fall, when shipping starts, +you'll think you're seeing raw porterhouse steaks for the whole world. +Let's drift out uh this dust; you'll have time to get a carload uh +pictures before our bunch rolls in.” + +As a matter of fact, it was two weeks before the Lazy Eight consignment +arrived. Thurston haunted the stockyards with his Kodak, but after the +first two or three days he took no pictures. For every day was but a +repetition of those that had gone before: a great, grimy engine shunting +cars back and forth on the siding; an endless stream of weary, young +cattle flowing down the steep chutes into the pens, from the pens to the +branding chutes, where they were burned deep with the mark of their new +owners; then out through the great gate, crowding, pushing, wild to flee +from restraint, yet held in and guided by mounted cowboys; out upon the +green prairie where they could feast once more upon sweet grasses and +drink their fill from the river of clear, mountain water; out upon the +weary march of the trail, on and on for long days until some boundary +which their drivers hailed with joy was passed, and they were free at +last to roam at will over the wind-brushed range land; to lie down in +some cool, sweet-scented swale and chew their cuds in peace. + +Two weeks, and then came a telegram for Park. In the reading of it he +shuffled off his attitude of boyish irresponsibility and became in a +breath the cool, business-like leader of men. Holding the envelope still +in his hand he sought out Thurston, who was practicing with a rope. As +Park approached him he whirled the noose and cast it neatly over the +peak of the night-hawk's teepee. + +“Good shot,” Park encouraged, “but I'd advise yuh to take another +target. You'll have the tent down over Scotty's ears, and then you'll +think yuh stirred up a mess uh hornets. + +“Say, Bud, our cattle are coming, and I'm going to be short uh men. If +you'd like a job I'll take yuh on, and take chances on licking yuh into +shape. Maybe the wages won't appeal to yuh, but I'm willing to throw in +heaps uh valuable experience that won't cost yuh a cent.” He lowered an +eyelid toward the cook-tent, although no one was visible. + +Thurston studied the matter while he coiled his rope, and no longer. +Secretly he had wanted all along to be a part of the life instead of an +onlooker. “I'll take the job, Park--if you think I can hold it down.” + The speech would doubtless have astonished Reeve-Howard in more ways +than one; but Reeve-Howard was already a part of the past in Thurston's +mind. He was for living the present. + +“Well,” Park retorted, “it'll be your own funeral if yuh get fired. +Better stake yourself to a pair uh chaps; you'll need 'em on the trip.” + +“Also a large, rainbow-hued silk handkerchief if I want to look the +part,” Thurston bantered. + +“If yuh don't want your darned neck blistered, yuh mean,” Park flung +over his shoulders. “Your wages and schooling start in to-morrow at +sunup.” + +It was early in the morning when the first train arrived, hungry, +thirsty, tired, bawling a general protest against fate and man's mode +of travel. Thurston, with a long pole in his hand, stood on the narrow +plank near the top of a chute wall and prodded vaguely at an endless, +moving incline of backs. Incidentally he took his cue from his +neighbors, and shouted till his voice was a croak-though he could +not see that he accomplished anything either by his prodding or his +shouting. + +Below him surged the sea of hide and horns which was barely suggestive +of the animals as individuals. Out in the corrals the dust-cloud hung +low, just as it had hovered every day for more than two weeks; just as +it would hover every day for two weeks longer. Across the yards near the +big, outer gate Deacon Smith's crew was already beginning to brand. The +first train was barely unloaded when the second trailed in and out +on the siding; and so the third came also. Then came a lull, for the +consignment had been split in two and the second section was several +hours behind the first. + +Thurston rode out to camp, aching with the strain and ravenously hungry, +after toiling with his muscles for the first time in his life; for his +had been days of physical ease. He had yet to learn the art of working +so that every movement counted something accomplished, as did the +others; besides, he had been in constant fear of losing his hold on the +fence and plunging headlong amongst the trampling hoofs below, a fate +that he shuddered to contemplate. He did not, however, mention that +fear, or his muscle ache, to any man; he might be green, but he was not +the man to whine. + +When he went back into the dust and roar, Park ordered him curtly to +tend the branding fire, since both crews would brand that afternoon and +get the corrals cleared for the next shipment. Thurston thanked Park +mentally; tending branding-fire sounded very much like child's play. + +Soon the gray dust-cloud took on a shade of blue in places where the +smoke from the fires cut through; a new tang smote the nostrils: the +rank odor of burning hair and searing hides; a new note crept into the +clamoring roar: the low-keyed blat of pain and fright. + +Thurston turned away his head from the sight and the smell, and piled +on wood until Park stopped him with. “Say, Bud, we ain't celebrating any +election! It ain't a bonfire we want, it's heat; just keep her going and +save wood all yuh can.” After an hour of fire-tending Thurston decided +that there were things more wearisome than “hollering 'em down the +chutes.” His eyes were smarting intolerably with smoke and heat, and the +smell of the branding was not nice; but through the long afternoon he +stuck to the work, shrewdly guessing that the others were not having any +fun either. Park and “the Deacon” worked as hard as any, branding the +steers as they were squeezed, one by one, fast in the little branding +chutes. The setting sun shone redly through the smoke before Thurston +was free to kick the half-burnt sticks apart and pour water upon them as +directed by Park. + +“Think yuh earned your little old dollar and thirty three cents, Bud?” + Park asked him. And Thurston smiled a tired, sooty smile that seemed all +teeth. + +“I hope so; at any rate, I have a deep, inner knowledge of the joys of +branding cattle.” + +“Wait 'till yuh burn Lazy Eights on wriggling, blatting calves for two +or three hours at a stretch before yuh talk about the joys uh branding.” + Park rubbed eloquently his aching biceps. + +At dusk Thurston crept into his blankets, feeling that he would like the +night to be at least thirty six hours long. He was just settling into +a luxurious, leather-upholstered dream chair preparatory to telling +Reeve-Howard his Western experiences when Park's voice bellowed into the +tent: + +“Roll out, boys--we got a train pulling in!” + +There was hurried dressing in the dark of the bed-tent, hasty mounting, +and a hastier ride through the cool night air. There were long hours at +the chutes, prodding down at a wavering line of moving shadows, while +the “big dipper” hung bright in the sky and lighted lanterns bobbed back +and forth along the train waving signals to one another. At intervals +Park's voice cut crisply through the turmoil, giving orders to men whom +he could not see. + +The east was lightening to a pale yellow when the men climbed at last +into their saddles and galloped out to camp for a hurried breakfast. +Thurston had been comforting his aching body with the promise of rest +and sleep; but three thousand cattle were milling impatiently in the +stockyards, so presently he found himself fanning a sickly little blaze +with his hat while he endeavored to keep the smoke from his tired eyes. +Of a truth, Reeve-Howard would have stared mightily at sight of him. + +Once Park, passing by, smiled down upon him grimly. “Here's where yuh +get the real thing in local color,” he taunted, but Thurston was +too busy to answer. The stress of living had dimmed his eye for the +picturesque. + +That night, one Philip Thurston slept as sleeps the dead. But he awoke +with the others and thanked the Lord there were no more cattle to unload +and brand. + +When he went out on day-herd that afternoon he fancied that he was +getting into the midst of things and taking his place with the veterans. +He would have been filled with resentment had he suspected the truth: +that Park carefully eased those first days of his novitiate. That was +why none of the night-guarding fell to him until they had left Billings +many miles behind them. + + + +CHAPTER V. THE STORM + +The third night he was detailed to stand with Bob MacGregor on the +middle guard, which lasts from eleven o'clock until two. The outfit had +camped near the head of a long, shallow basin that had a creek running +through; down the winding banks of it lay the white-tented camps of +seven other trail-herds, the cattle making great brown blotches against +the green at sundown. Thurston hoped they would all be there in the +morning when the sun came up, so that he could get a picture. + +“Aw, they'll be miles away by then,” Bob assured him unfeelingly. “By +the signs, you can take snap-shots by lightning in another hour. Got +your slicker, Bud?” + +Thurston said he hadn't, and Bob shook his head prophetically. “You'll +sure wish yuh had it before yuh hit camp again; when yuh get wise, +you'll ride with your slicker behind the cantle, rain or shine. They'll +need singing to, to-night.” + +Thurston prudently kept silent, since he knew nothing whatever about it, +and Bob gave him minute directions about riding his rounds, and how to +turn a stray animal back into the herd without disturbing the others. + +The man they relieved met them silently and rode away to camp. Off +to the right an animal coughed, and a black shape moved out from the +shadows. + +Bob swung towards it, and the shape melted again into the splotch of +shade which was the sleeping herd. He motioned to the left. “Yuh can go +that way; and yuh want to sing something, or whistle, so they'll know +what yuh are.” His tone was subdued, as it had not been before. He +seemed to drift away into the darkness, and soon his voice rose, away +across the herd, singing. As he drew nearer Thurston caught the words, +at first disjointed and indistinct, then plainer as they met. It was a +song he had never heard before, because its first popularity had swept +far below his social plane. + + “She's o-only a bird in a gil-ded cage, + A beautiful sight to see-e-e; + You may think she seems ha-a-aappy and free from ca-a-re..” + +The singer passed on and away, and only the high notes floated across to +Thurston, who whistled softly under his breath while he listened. Then, +as they neared again on the second round, the words came pensively: + + “Her beauty was so-o-old + For an old man's go-o-old, She's a bird in a gilded ca-a-age.” + +Thurston rode slowly like one in a dream, and the lure of the range-land +was strong upon him. The deep breathing of three thousand sleeping +cattle; the strong, animal odor; the black night which grew each moment +blacker, and the rhythmic ebb and flow of the clear, untrained voice +of a cowboy singing to his charge. If he could put it into words; if +he could but picture the broody stillness, with frogs cr-ekk, er-ekking +along the reedy creek-bank and a coyote yapping weirdly upon a distant +hilltop! From the southwest came mutterings half-defiant and ominous. +A breeze whispered something to the grasses as it crept away down the +valley. + + “I stood in a church-yard just at ee-eve, + While the sunset adorned the west.” + +It was Bob, drawing close out of the night. “You're doing fine, Kid; +keep her a-going,” he commended, in an undertone as he passed, and +Thurston moistened his unaccustomed lips and began industriously +whistling “The Heart Bowed Down,” and from that jumped to Faust. Fifteen +minutes exhausted his memory of the whistleable parts, and he was not +given to tiresome repetitions. He stopped for a moment, and Bob's voice +chanted admonishingly from somewhere, “Keep her a-go-o-ing, Bud, old +boy!” So Thurston took breath and began on “The Holy City,” and came +near laughing at the incongruity of the song; only he remembered that he +must not frighten the cattle, and checked the impulse. + +“Say,” Bob began when he came near enough, “do yuh know the words uh +that piece? It's a peach; I wisht you'd sing it.” He rode on, still +humming the woes of the lady who married for gold. + +Thurston obeyed while the high-piled thunder-heads rumbled deep +accompaniment, like the resonant lower tones of a bass viol. + + “Last night I lay a-sleeping, there came a dream so fair; + I stood in old Jerusalem, beside the temple there.” + +A steer stepped restlessly out of the herd, and Thurston's horse, +trained to the work, of his own accord turned him gently back. + + “I heard the children singing; and ever as they sang, + Me thought the voice of angels from heaven in answer rang.” + +From the west the thunder boomed, drowning the words in its +deep-throated growl. + + “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing.” + +“Hit her up a little faster, Bud, or we'll lose some. They're getting on +their feet with that thunder.” + +Sunfish, in answer to Thurston's touch on the reins, quickened to a +trot. The joggling was not conducive to the best vocal expression, but +the singer persevered: + + “Hosanna in the highest, + Hosanna to your King!” + +Flash! the lightning cut through the storm-clouds, and Bob, who had +contented himself with a subdued whistling while he listened, took up +the refrain: + + “Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” + +It was as if a battery of heavy field pieces boomed overhead. The entire +herd was on its feet and stood close-huddled, their tails to the coming +storm. Now the horses were loping steadily in their endless circling--a +pace they could hold for hours if need be. For one blinding instant +Thurston saw far down the valley; then the black curtain dropped as +suddenly as it had lifted. + +“Keep a-hollering, Bud!” came the command, and after it Bob's voice +trilled high above the thunder-growl: + + “Hosanna in the high-est. + Hosanna to your King!” + +A strange thrill of excitement came to Thurston. It was all new to him; +for his life had been sheltered from the rages of nature. He had never +before been out under the night sky when it was threatening as now. He +flinched when came an ear-splitting crash that once again lifted the +black curtain and showed him, white-lighted, the plain. In the dark that +followed came a rhythmic thud of hoofs far up the creek, and the rattle +of living castanets. Sunfish threw up his head and listened, muscles +a-quiver. + +“There's a bunch a-running,” called Bob from across the frightened herd. +“If they hit us, give Sunfish his head, he's been there before--and keep +on the outside!” + +Thurston yelled “All right!” but the pounding roar of the stampede +drowned his voice. A whirlwind of frenzied steers bore down upon +him--twenty-five hundred Panhandle two-year-olds, though he did not know +it then, his mind was all a daze, with one sentence zigzagging through +it like the lightning over his head, “Give Sunfish his head, and keep on +the outside!” + +That was what saved him, for he had the sense to obey. After a few +minutes of breathless racing, with a roar as of breakers in his ears and +the crackle of clashing horns and the gleaming of rolling eyeballs close +upon his horse's heels, he found himself washed high and dry, as it +were, while the tumult swept by. Presently he was galloping along behind +and wondering dully how he got there, though perhaps Sunfish knew well +enough. + +In his story of the West--the one that had failed to be convincing--he +had in his ignorance described a stampede, and it had not been in the +least like this one. He blushed at the memory, and wondered if he should +ever again feel qualified to write of these things. + +Great drops of rain pounded him on the back as he rode--chill drops, +that went to the skin. He thought of his new canary-colored slicker in +the bed-tent, and before he knew it swore just as any of the other +men would have done under similar provocation; it was the first real, +able-bodied oath he had ever uttered. He was becoming assimilated with +the raw conditions of life. + +He heard a man's voice calling to him, and distinguished the dim shape +of a rider close by. He shouted that password of the range, “Hello!” + +“What outfit is this?” the man cried again. + +“The Lazy Eight!” snapped Thurston, sure that the other had come with +the stampede. Then, feeling the anger of temporary authority, “What in +hell are you up to, letting your cattle run?” If Park could have heard +him say that for Reeve-Howard! + +Down the long length of the valley they swept, gathering to themselves +other herds and other riders as incensed as were themselves. It is not +pretty work, nor amusing, to gallop madly in the wake of a stampede at +night, keeping up the stragglers and taking the chance of a broken neck +with the rain to make matters worse. + +Bob MacGregor sought Thurston with much shouting, and having found him +they rode side by side. And always the thunder boomed overhead, and by +the lightning flashes they glimpsed the turbulent sea of cattle fleeing, +they knew not where or why, with blind fear crowding their heels. + +The noise of it roused the camps as they thundered by; men rose up, +peered out from bed-tents as the stampede swept past, cursed the delay +it would probably make, hoped none of the boys got hurt, and thanked the +Lord the tents were pitched close to the creek and out of the track of +the maddened herds. + +Then they went back to bed to wait philosophically for daylight. + +When Sunfish, between flashes, stumbled into a shallow washout, and sent +Thurston sailing unbeautifully over his head, Bob pulled up and slid off +his horse in a hurry. + +“Yuh hurt, Bud?” he cried anxiously, bending over him. For Thurston, +from the very frankness of his verdant ignorance, had won for himself +the indulgent protectiveness of the whole outfit; not a man but watched +unobtrusively over his welfare--and Bob MacGregor went farther and +loved him whole-heartedly. His voice, when he spoke, was unequivocally +frightened. + +Thurston sat up and wiped a handful of mud off his face; if it had not +been so dark Bob would have shouted at the spectacle. “I'm 'kinda sorter +shuck up like,”' he quoted ruefully. “And my nose is skinned, thank you. +Where's that devil of a horse?” + +Bob stood over him and grinned. “My, I'm surprised at yuh, Bud! What +would your Sunday-school teacher say if she heard yuh? Anyway, yuh ain't +got any call to cuss Sunfish; he ain't to blame. He's used to fellows +that can ride.” + +“Shut up!” Thurston commanded inelegantly. “I'd like to see you ride a +horse when he's upside down!” + +“Aw, come on,” urged Bob, giving up the argument. “We'll be plumb lost +from the herd if we don't hustle.” + +They got into their saddles again and went on, riding by sound and the +rare glimpses the lightning gave them as it flared through the storm +away to the east. + +“Wet?” Bob sung out sympathetically from the streaming shelter of his +slicker. Thurston, wriggling away from his soaked clothing, grunted a +sarcastic negative. + +The cattle were drifting now before the storm which had settled to a +monotonous downpour. The riders--two or three men for every herd that +had joined in the panic--circled, a veritable picket line without the +password. There would be no relief ride out to them that night, and they +knew it and settled to the long wait for morning. + +Thurston took up his station next to Bob; rode until he met the next +man, and then retraced his steps till he faced Bob again; rode until the +world seemed unreal and far away, with nothing left but the night and +the riding back and forth on his beat, and the rain that oozed through +his clothes and trickled uncomfortably down inside his collar. He lost +all count of time, and was startled when at last came gray dawn. + +As the light grew brighter his eyes widened and forgot their +sleep-hunger; he had not thought it would be like this. He was riding +part way across one end of a herd larger than his imagination had ever +pictured; three thousand cattle had seemed to him a multitude--yet +here were more than twenty thousand, wet, draggled, their backs humped +miserably from the rain which but a half hour since had ceased. He was +still gazing and wondering when Park rode up to him. + +“Lord! Bud, you're a sight! Did the bunch walk over yuh?” he greeted. + +“No, only Sunfish,” snapped Thurston crossly. Time was when Philip +Thurston would not have answered any man abruptly, however great the +provocation. He was only lately getting down to the real, elemental man +of him; to the son of Bill Thurston, bull-whacker, prospector, +follower of dim trails. He rode silently back to camp with Bob, ate +his breakfast, got into dry clothes and went out and tied his slicker +deliberately and securely behind the cantle of his saddle, though the +sun was shining straight into his eyes and the sky fairly twinkled, it +was so clean of clouds. + +Bob watched him with eyes that laughed. “My, you're an ambitious +son-of-a-gun,” he chuckled. “And you've got the slicker question settled +in your mind, I see; yuh learn easy; it takes two or three soakings to +learn some folks.” + +“We've got to go back and help with the herd, haven't we?” Thurston +asked. “The horses are all out.” + +“Yep. They'll stay out, too, till noon, m'son. We hike to bed, if +anybody should ask yuh.” + +So it was not till after dinner that he rode back to the great +herd--with his Kodak in his pocket--to find the cattle split up +into several bunches. The riders at once went to work separating the +different brands. He was too green a hand to do anything but help hold +the “cut,” and that was so much like ordinary herd-ing that his interest +flagged. He wanted, more than anything, to ride into the bunch and +single out a Lazy Eight steer, skillfully hazing him down the slope to +the cut, as he saw the others do. + +Bob told him it was the biggest mix-up he had ever seen, and Bob had +ridden the range in every State where beef grows wild. He was in the +thickest of the huddle, was Bob, working as if he did not know the +meaning of fatigue. Thurston, watching him thread his way in and out of +the restless, milling herd, only to reappear unexpectedly at the edge +with a steer just before the nose of his horse, rush it out from among +the others--wheeling, darting this way and that, as it tried to dodge +back, and always coming off victor, wondered if he could ever learn to +do it. + +Being in pessimistic mood, he told himself that he would probably always +remain a greenhorn, to be borne with and coached and given boy's work to +do; all because he had been cheated of his legacy of the dim trails and +forced to grow up in a city, hedged about all his life by artificial +conditions, his conscience wedded to convention. + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE BIG DIVIDE + +The long drive was nearly over. Even Thurston's eyes brightened when +he saw, away upon the sky-line, the hills that squatted behind the home +ranch of the Lazy Eight. The past month had been one of rapid living +under new conditions, and at sight of them it seemed only a few days +since he had first glimpsed that broken line of hills and the bachelor +household in the coulee below. + +As the travel-weary herd swung down the long hill into the valley of the +Milk River, stepping out briskly as they sighted the cool water in the +near distance, the past month dropped away from Thurston, and what had +gone just before came back fresh as the happenings of the morning. +There was the Stevens ranch, a scant half mile away from where the tents +already gleamed on their last camp of the long trail; the smoke from +the cook-tent telling of savory meats and puddings, the bare thought of +which made one hurry his horse. + +His eyes dwelt longest, however, upon the Stevens house half hidden +among the giant cottonwoods, and he wondered if Mona would still smile +at him with that unpleasant uplift at the corner of her red mouth. He +would take care that she did not get the chance to smile at him in any +fashion, he told himself with decision. + +He wondered if those train-robbers had been captured, and if the one +Park wounded was still alive. He shivered when he thought of the dead +man in the aisle, and hoped he would never witness another death; +involuntarily he glanced down at his right stirrup, half expecting to +see his boot red with human blood. It was not nice to remember that +scene, and he gave his shoulders an impatient hitch and tried to think +of something else. + +Mindful of his vow, he had bought a gun in Billings, but he had not yet +learned to hit anything he aimed at; for firearms are hushed in roundup +camps, except when dire necessity breeds a law of its own. Range cattle +do not take kindly to the popping of pistols. So Thurston's revolver was +yet unstained with powder grime, and was packed away inside his bed. +He was promising his pride that he would go up on the hill, back of the +Lazy Eight corrals, and shoot until even Mona Stevens must respect his +marksmanship, when Park galloped back to him--“The world has moved some +while we was gone,” he announced in the tone of one who has news to tell +and enjoys thoroughly the telling. “Yuh mind the fellow I laid out in +the hold-up? He got all right again, and they stuck him in jail along +with another one old Lauman, the sheriff, glommed a week ago. Well, they +didn't do a thing last night but knock a deputy in the head, annex his +gun, swipe a Winchester and a box uh shells out uh the office and hit +the high places. Old Lauman is hot on their trail, but he ain't met +up with 'em yet, that anybody's heard. When he does, there'll sure be +something doing! They say the deputy's about all in; they smashed his +skull with a big iron poker.” + +“I wish I could handle a gun,” Thurston said between his teeth. “I'd +go after them myself. I wish I'd been left to grow up out here where I +belong. I'm all West but the training--and I never knew it till a month +ago! I ought to ride and rope and shoot with the best of you, and I +can't do a thing. All I know is books. I can criticize an opera and a +new play, and I'm considered something of an authority on clothes, but I +can't shoot.” + +“Aw, go easy,” Park laughed at him. “What if yuh can't do the +double-roll? Riding and shooting and roping's all right--we couldn't +very well get along without them accomplishments. But that's all they +are; just accomplishments. We know a man when we see him, and it don't +matter whether he can ride a bronk straight up, or don't know which way +a saddle sets on a horse. If he's a man he gets as square a deal as we +can give him.” Park reached for his cigarette book. “And as for hunting +outlaws,” he finished, “we've got old Lauman paid to do that. And he's +dead onto his job, you bet; when he goes out after a man he comes pretty +near getting him, m'son. But I sure do wish I'd killed that jasper while +I was about it; it would have saved Lauman a lot uh hard riding.” + +Thurston could scarcely explain to Park that his desire to hunt +train-robbers was born of a half-defiant wish to vindicate to Mona +Stevens his courage, and so he said nothing at all. He wondered if Park +had heard her whisper, that day, and knew how he had failed to obey +her commands; and if he had heard her call him a coward. He had often +wondered that, but Park had a way of keeping things to himself, and +Thurston could never quite bring himself to open the subject boldly. At +any rate, if Park had heard, he hoped that he understood how it was and +did not secretly despise him for it. Women, he told himself bitterly, +are never quite just. + +After the four o'clock supper he and Bob MacGregor went up the valley +to relieve the men on herd. There was one nice thing about Park as a +foreman: he tried to pair off his crew according to their congeniality. +That was why Thurston usually stood guard with Bob, whom he liked better +than any of the others-always excepting Park himself. + +“I brought my gun along,” Bob told him apologetically when they were +left to themselves. “It's a habit I've got when I know there's bad men +rampaging around the country. The boys kinda gave me the laugh when +they seen me haul it out uh my war bag, but I just told 'em to go to +thunder.” + +“Do you think those--” + +“Naw. Uh course not. I just pack it on general principles, same as an +old woman packs her umbrella.” + +“Say, this is dead easy! The bunch is pretty well broke, ain't it? I'm +sure glad to see old Milk River again; this here trailing cattle gets +plumb monotonous.” He got down and settled his back comfortably against +a rock. Below them spread the herd, feeding quietly. “Yes, sir, this is +sure a snap,” he repeated, after he had made himself a smoke. “They's +only two ways a bunch could drift if they wanted to which they don't-up +the river, or down. This hill's a little too steep for 'em to tackle +unless they was crowded hard. Good feed here, too. + +“Too bad yuh don't smoke, Bud. There's nothing like a good, smooth rock +to your back and a cigarette in your face, on a nice, lazy day like +this. It's the only kind uh day-herding I got any use for.” + +“I'll take the rock to my back, if you'll just slide along and make +room,” Thurston laughed. “I don't hanker for a cigarette, but I do wish +I had my Kodak.” + +“Aw, t'ell with your Kodak!” Bob snorted. “Can't yuh carry this layout +in your head? I've got a picture gallery in mine that I wouldn't trade +for a farm; I don't need no Kodak in mine, thankye. You just let this +here view soak into your system, Bud, where yuh can't lose it.” + +Thurston did. Long after he could close his eyes and see it in every +detail; the long, green slope with hundreds of cattle loitering in the +rank grass-growth; the winding sweep of the river and the green, rolling +hills beyond; and Bob leaning against the rock beside him, smoking +luxuriously with half-closed eyes, while their horses dozed with +drooping heads a rein-length away. + +“Say, Bud,” Bob's voice drawled sleepily, “I wisht you'd sing that +Jerusalem song. I want to learn the words to it; I'm plumb stuck on that +piece. It's different from the general run uh songs, don't yuh think? +Most of 'em's about your old home that yuh left in boyhood's happy days, +and go back to find your girl dead and sleeping in a little church-yard +or else it's your mother; or your girl marries the other man and you get +it handed to yuh right along--and they make a fellow kinda sick to his +stomach when he's got to sing 'em two or three hours at a stretch on +night-guard, just because he's plumb ignorant of anything better. This +here Jerusalem one sounds kinda grand, and--the cattle seems to like it, +too, for a change.” + +“The composer would feel flattered if he heard that,” Thurston laughed. +He wanted to be left alone to day-dream and watch the clouds trail +lazily across to meet the hills; and there was an embryonic poem +forming, phrase by phrase, in his mind. But he couldn't refuse Bob +anything, so he sat a bit straighter and cleared his throat. He sang +well--well enough indeed to be sought after at informal affairs among +his set at home. When he came to the refrain Bob took his cigarette from +between his lips and held it in his fingers while he joined his voice +lustily to Thurston's: + + “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, + Lift up your gates and sing + Hosanna in the high-est. + Hosanna to your King!” + +The near cattle lifted their heads to stare stupidly a moment, then +moved a few steps slowly, nosing for the sweetest grass-tufts. The +horses shifted their weight, resting one leg with the hoof barely +touching the earth, twitched their ears at the flies and slept again. + + “And then me thought my dream was changed, + The streets no longer rang, + Hushed were the glad Hosannas + The little children sang--” + +Tamale lifted his head and gazed inquiringly up the hill; but Bob was +not observant of signs just then. He was Striving with his recreant +memory for the words that came after: + + “The sun grew dark with mystery, + The morn was cold and still, + As the shadow of a cross arose + Upon a lonely hill.” + +Tamale stirred restlessly with head uplifted and ears pointed straight +before up the steep bluff. Old Ironsides, Thurston's mount, was not the +sort to worry about anything but his feed, and paid no attention. Bob +turned and glanced the way Tamale was looking; saw nothing, and settled +down again on the small of his back. + +“He sees a badger or something,” he Said. “Go on, Bud, with the chorus.” + + “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, + Lift up your gates and sing.” + +“Lift up your hands damn quick!” mimicked a voice just behind. “If yuh +ain't got anything to do but lay in the shade of a rock and yawp, we'll +borrow your cayuses. You ain't needin' 'em, by the looks!” + +They squirmed around until they could stare into two black +gun-barrels--and then their hands went up; their faces held a +particularly foolish expression that must have been amusing to the men +behind the guns. + +One of the gun-barrels lowered and a hand reached out and quietly took +possession of Tamale's reins; the owner of the hand got calmly into +Bob's saddle. Bob gritted his teeth. It was evident their movements had +been planned minutely in advance, for, once settled to his liking, the +fellow tested the stirrups to make sure they were the right length, and +raising his gun pointed it at the two in a business-like manner that +left no doubt of his meaning. Whereupon the man behind them came forward +and appropriated Old Ironsides to his own use. + +“Too bad we had to interrupt Sunday-school,” he remarked ironically. +“You can go ahead with the meetin' now--the collection has been took +up.” He laughed without any real mirth in his voice and gathered up the +reins. “If yuh want our horses, they're up on the bench. I don't +reckon they'll ever turn another cow, but such as they are you're quite +welcome. Better set still, boys, till we get out uh sight; one of us'll +keep an eye peeled for yuh. So long, and much obliged.” They turned and +rode warily down the slope. + +“Now, wouldn't that jar yuh?” asked Bob in deep disgust His hands +dropped to his sides; in another second he was up and shooting savagely. +“Get behind the rock, Bud,” he commanded. + +Just then a rifle cracked, and Bob toppled drunkenly and went limply to +the grass. + +“My God!” cried Thurston, and didn't know that he spoke. He snatched up +Bob's revolver and fired shot after shot at the galloping figures. Not +one seemed to do any good; the first shot hit a two-year-old square in +the ribs. After that there were no cattle within rifle range. + +One of the outlaws stopped, took deliberate aim with the stolen +Winchester and fired, meaning to kill; but he miscalculated the range a +bit and Thurston crumpled down with a bullet in his thigh. The revolver +was empty now and fell smoking at his feet. So he lay and cursed +impotently while he watched the marauders ride out of sight up the +valley. + +When the rank timber-growth hid their flying figures he crawled over to +where Bob lay and tried to lift him. + +“Art you hurt?” was the idiotic question he asked. + +Bob opened his eyes and waited a breath, as if to steady his thought. +“Did I get one, Bud?” + +“I'm afraid not,” Thurston confessed, and immediately after wished that +he had lied and said yes. “Are you hurt?” he repeated senselessly. + +“Who, me?” Bob's eyes wavered in their directness. “Don't yuh bother +none about me,” evasively. + +“But you've got to tell me. You--they--” He choked over the words. + +“Well--I guess they got me, all right. But don't let that worry yuh; it +don't me.” He tried to speak carelessly and convincingly, but it was +a miserable failure. He did not want to die, did Bob, however much he +might try to hide the fact. + +Thurston was not in the least imposed upon. He turned away his head, +pretending to look after the outlaws, and set his teeth together tight. +He did not want to act a fool. All at once he grew dizzy and sick, and +lay down heavily till the faintness passed. + +Bob tried to lift himself to his elbow; failing that, he put out a hand +and laid it on Thurston's shoulder. “Did they--get you--too?” he queried +anxiously. + +“The damn coyotes!” + +“It's nothing; just a leg put out of business,” Thurston hurried to +assure him. “Where are you hurt, Bob?” + +“Aw, I ain't any X-ray,” Bob retorted weakly but gamely. “Somewheres +inside uh me. It went in my side but the Lord knows where it wound +up. It hurts, like the devil.” He lay quiet a minute. “I wish--do yuh +feel--like finishing--that song, Bud?” + +Thurston gulped down a lump that was making his throat ache. When he +answered, his voice was very gentle: + +“I'll try a verse, old man.” + +“The last one--we'd just come to the last. It's most like church. I--I +never went--much on religion, Bud; but when a fellow's--going out over +the Big Divide.” + +“You're not!” Thurston contradicted fiercely, as if that could make it +different. He thought he could not bear those jerky sentences. + +“All right--Bud. We won't fight over it. Go ahead. The last verse.” + +Thurston eased his leg to a better position, drew himself up till his +shoulders rested against the rock and began, with an occasional, odd +break in his voice: + + “I saw the holy city + Beside the tideless Sea; + The light of God was on its street + The gates were open wide. + And all who would might enter + And no one was denied.” + +“Wonder if that there--applies--to bone-headed--cowpunchers,” Bob +muttered drowsily. “'And all--who would--” Thurston glanced quickly at +his face; caught his breath sharply at what he saw there written, and +dropped his head upon his arms. + +And so Park and his men, hurrying to the sound of the shooting, found +them in the shadow of the rock. + + + +CHAPTER VII. AT THE STEVENS PLACE + +When the excitement of the outrage had been pushed aside by the +insistent routine of everyday living, Thurston found himself thrust from +the fascination of range life and into the monotony of invalidism, and +he was anything but resigned. To be sure, he was well cared for at the +Stevens ranch, where Park and the boys had taken him that day, and Mrs. +Stevens mothered him as he could not remember being mothered before. + +Hank Graves rode over nearly every day to sit beside the bed and curse +the Wagner gang back to their great-great-grandfathers and down to more +than the third generation yet unborn, and to tell him the news. On the +second visit he started to give him the details of Bob's funeral; but +Thurston would not listen, and told him so plainly. + +“All right then, Bud, I won't talk about it. But we sure done the right +thing by the boy; had the best preacher in Shellanne out, and flowers +till further notice: a cross uh carnations, and the boys sent up to +Minot and had a spur made uh--oh, well, all right; I'll shut up about +it, I know how yuh feel, Bud; it broke us all up to have him go that +way. He sure was a white boy, if ever there was one, and--ahem!” + +“I'd give a thousand dollars, hard coin, to get my hands on them +Wagners. It would uh been all off with them, sure, if the boys had run +acrost 'em. I'd uh let 'em stay out and hunt a while longer, only old +Lauman'll get 'em, all right, and we're late as it is with the calf +roundup. Lauman'll run 'em down--and by the Lord! I'll hire Bowman +myself and ship him out from Helena to help prosecute 'em. They're dead +men if he takes the case against 'em, Bud, and I'll get him, sure--and +to hell with the cost of it! They'll swing for what they done to you and +Bob, if it takes every hoof I own.” + +Thurston told him he hoped they would be caught and--yes, hanged; though +he had never before advocated capital punishment. + +But when he thought of Bob, the care-naught, whole-souled fellow. + +He tried not to think of him, for thinking unmanned him. He had the +softest of hearts where his friends were concerned, and there were +times when he felt that he could with relish officiate at the Wagners' +execution. + +He fought against remembrance of that day; and for sake of diversion he +took to studying a large, pastel portrait of Mona which hung against the +wall opposite his bed. It was rather badly; done, and at first, when he +saw it, he laughed at the thought that even the great, still plains of +the range land cannot protect one against the ubiquitous picture +agent. In the parlor, he supposed there would be crayon pictures of +grandmothers and aunts-further evidence of the agent's glibness. + +He was glad that it was Mona who smiled down at him instead of a +grand-mother or an aunt. For Mona did smile, and in spite of the cheap +crudity the smile was roguish, with little dimply creases at the corners +of the mouth, and not at all unpleasant. If the girl would only look +like that in real life, he told himself, a fellow would probably get to +liking her. He supposed she thought him a greater coward than ever now, +just because he hadn't got killed. If he had, he would be a hero now, +like Bob. Well, Bob was a hero; the way he had jumped up and begun +shooting required courage of the suicidal sort. He had stood up and +shot, also and had succeeded only in being ridiculous; he hoped nobody +had told Mona about his hitting that steer. When he could walk again he +would learn to shoot, so that the range stock wouldn't suffer from his +marksmanship. + +After a week of seeing only Mrs. Stevens or sympathetic men +acquaintances, he began to wonder why Mona stayed so persistently away. +Then one morning she came in to take his breakfast things out. She did +not, however, stay a second longer than was absolutely necessary, and +she was perfectly composed and said good morning in her most impersonal +tone. At least Thurston hoped she had no tone more impersonal than that. +He decided that she had really beautiful eyes and hair; after she had +gone he looked up at the picture, told himself that it did not begin +to do her justice, and sighed a bit. He was very dull, and even her +companionship, he thought, would be pleasant if only she would come down +off her pedestal and be humanly sociable. + +When he wrote a story about a fellow being laid up in the same house +with a girl--a girl with big, blue-gray eyes and ripply brown hair--he +would have the girl treat the fellow at least decently. She would read +poetry to him and bring him flowers, and do ever so many nice things +that would make him hate to get well. He decided that he would write +just that kind of story; he would idealize it, of course, and have the +fellow in love with the girl; you have to, in stories. In real life it +doesn't necessarily follow that, because a fellow admires a girl's hair +and eyes, and wants to be on friendly terms, he is in love with her. +For example, he emphatically was not in love with Mona Stevens. He only +wanted her to be decently civil and to stop holding a foolish grudge +against him for not standing up and letting himself be shot full of +holes because she commanded it. + +In the afternoons, Mrs. Stevens would sit beside him and knit things +and talk to him in a pleasantly garrulous fashion, and he would lie and +listen to her--and to Mona, singing somewhere. Mona sang very well, he +thought; he wondered if she had ever had any training. Also, he wished +he dared ask her not to sing that song about “She's only a bird in a +gilded cage.” It brought back too vividly the nights when he and Bob +stood guard under the quiet stars. + +And then one day he hobbled out into the dining-room and ate dinner with +the family. Since he sat opposite Mona she was obliged to look at +him occasionally, whether she would or no. Thurston had a strain of +obstinacy in his nature, and when he decided that Mona should not only +look at him, but should talk to him as well, he set himself diligently +to attain that end. He was not the man to sit down supinely and let a +girl calmly ignore him; so Mona presently found herself talking to him +with some degree of cordiality; and what is more to the point, listening +to him when he talked. It is probable that Thurston never had tried so +hard in his life to win a girl's attention. + +It was while he was still hobbling with a cane and taxing his +imagination daily to invent excuses for remaining, that Lauman, the +sheriff, rode up to the door with a deputy and asked shelter for +themselves and the two Wagners, who glowered sullenly down from their +weary horses. When they had been safely disposed in Thurston's bedroom, +with one of the ranch hands detailed to guard them, Lauman and his man +gave themselves up to the joy of a good meal. Their own cooking, they +said, got mighty tame especially when they hadn't much to cook and dared +not have a fire. + +They had come upon the outlaws by mere accident, and it is hard telling +which was the most surprised. But Lauman was, perhaps, the quickest man +with a gun in Valley County, else he would not have been serving his +fourth term as sheriff. He got the drop and kept it while his deputy +did the rest. It had been a hard chase, he said, and a long one if you +counted time instead of miles. But he had them now, harmless as rattlers +with their fangs fresh drawn. He wanted to get them to Glasgow before +people got to hear of their capture; he thought they wouldn't be any too +safe if the boys knew he had them. + +If he had known that the Lazy Eight roundup had just pulled in to the +home ranch that afternoon, and that Dick Farney, one of the Stevens +men, had slipped out to the corral and saddled his swiftest horse, it +is quite possible that Lauman would not have lingered so long over his +supper, or drank his third cup of coffee--with real cream in it--with so +great a relish. And if he had known that the Circle Bar boys were camped +just three miles away within hailing distance of the Lazy Eight trail, +he would doubtless have postponed his after-supper smoke. + +He was sitting, revolver in hand, watching the Wagners give a practical +demonstration of the extent of their appetites, when Thurston limped in +from the porch, his eyes darker than usual. “There are a lot of riders +coming, Mr. Lauman,” he announced quietly. “It sounds like a whole +roundup. I thought you ought to know.” + +The prisoners went white, and put down knife and fork. If they had never +feared before, plainly they were afraid then. + +Lauman's face did not in the least change. “Put the hand-cuffs on, +Waller,” he said. “If you've got a room that ain't easy to get at from +the outside, Mrs. Stevens, I guess I'll have to ask yuh for the use of +it.” + +Mrs. Stevens had lived long in Valley County, and had learned how to +meet emergencies. “Put 'em right down cellar,” she invited briskly. +“There's just the trap-door into it, and the windows ain't big enough +for a cat to go through. Mona, get a candle for Mr. Lauman.” She turned +to hurry the girl, and found Mona at her elbow with a light. + +“That's the kind uh woman I like to have around,” Lauman chuckled. “Come +on, boys; hustle down there if yuh want to see Glasgow again.” + +Trembling, all their dare-devil courage sapped from them by the menace +of Thurston's words, they stumbled down the steep stairs, and the +darkness swallowed them. Lauman beckoned to his deputy. + +“You go with 'em, Waller,” he ordered. “If anybody but me offers to lift +this trap, shoot. Don't yuh take any chances. Blow out that candle soon +as you're located.” + +It was then that fifty riders clattered into the yard and up to the +front door, grouping in a way that left no exit unseen. Thurston, +standing in the doorway, knew them almost to a man. Lazy Eight boys, +they were; men who night after night had spread their blankets under the +tent-roof with him and with Bob MacGregor; Bob, who lay silently out +on the hill back of the home ranch-house, waiting for the last, great +round-up. They glanced at him in mute greeting and dismounted without a +word. With them mingled the Circle Bar boys, as silent and grim as their +fellows. Lauman came up and peered into the dusk; Thurston observed that +he carried his Winchester unobtrusively in one hand. + +“Why, hello, boys,” he greeted cheerfully. But for the rifle you never +would have guessed he knew their errand. + +“Hello, Lauman,” answered Park, matching him for cheerfulness. Then: + +“We rode over to hang them Wagners.” Lauman grinned. “I hate to +disappoint yuh, Park, but I've kinda set my heart on doing that little +job myself. I'm the one that caught 'em, and if you'd followed my trail +the last month you'd say I earned the privilege.” + +“Maybe so,” Park admitted pleasantly, “but we've got a little personal +matter to settle up with those jaspers. Bob MacGregor was one of us, yuh +remember.” + +“I'll hang 'em just as dead as you can,” Lauman argued. + +“But yuh won't do it so quick,” Park lashed back. “They're spoiling the +air every breath they draw. We want 'em, and I guess that pretty near +settles it.” + +“Not by a damn sight it don't! I've never had a man took away from me +yet, boys, and I've been your sheriff a good many years. You hike right +back to camp; yuh can't have 'em.” + +Thurston could scarcely realize the deadliness of their purpose. He knew +them for kind-hearted, laughter-loving young fellows, who would give +their last dollar to a friend. He could not believe that they would +resort to violence now. Besides, this was not his idea of a mob; he +had fancied they would howl threats and wave bludgeons, as they did in +stories. Mobs always “howled and seethed with passion” at one's doors; +they did not stand about and talk quietly as though the subject was +trivial and did not greatly concern them. + +But the men were pressing closer, and their very calmness, had he known +it, was ominous. Lauman shifted his rifle ready for instant aim. + +“Boys, look here,” he began more gravely, “I can't say I blame yuh, +looking at it from your view-point. If you'd caught these men when yuh +was out hunting 'em, you could uh strung 'em up--and I'd likely uh had +business somewhere else about that time. But yuh didn't catch 'em; yuh +give up the chase and left 'em to me. And yuh got to remember that I'm +the one that brought 'em in. They're in my care. I'm sworn to protect +'em and turn 'em over to the law--and it ain't a question uh whether +they deserve it or not. That's what I'm paid for, and I expect to go +right ahead according to orders and hang 'em by law. You can't have +'em--unless yuh lay me out first, and I don't reckon any of yuh would go +that far.” + +“There's never been a man hung by law in this county yet,” a voice cried +angrily and impatiently. + +“That ain't saying there never will be,” Lauman flung back. “Don't yuh +worry, they'll get all that's coming to them, all right.” + +“How about the time yuh had 'em in your rotten old jail, and let 'em get +out and run loose around the country, killing off white men?” drawled +another-a Circle-Bar man. + +“Now boys.” + +A hand--the hand of him who had stood guard over the Wagners in the +bedroom during supper--reached out through the doorway and caught his +rifle arm. Taken unawares from behind, he whirled and then went down +under the weight of men used to “wrassling” calves. Even old Lauman was +no match for them, and presently he found himself stretched upon the +porch with three Lazy Eight boys sitting on his person; which, being +inclined to portliness, he found very uncomfortable. + +Moved by an impulse he had no name for, Thurston snatched the sheriff's +revolver from its scabbard. As the heap squirmed pantingly upon the +porch he stepped into the doorway to avoid being tripped, which was the +wisest move he could have made, for it put him in the shadow--and +there were men of the Circle Bar whose trigger-finger would not have +hesitated, just then, had he been in plain sight and had they known his +purpose. + +“Just hold on there, boys,” he called, and they could see the glimmer of +the gun-barrel. Those of the Lazy Eight laughed at him. + +“Aw, put it down, Bud,” Park admonished. “That's too dangerous a toy for +you to be playing with--and yuh know damn well yuh can't hit anything.” + +“I killed a steer once,” Thurston reminded him meekly, whereat the laugh +hushed; for they remembered. + +“I know I can't shoot straight,” he went on frankly, “but you're taking +that much the greater chance. If I have to, I'll cut loose--and there's +no telling where the bullets may strike.” + +“That's right,” Park admitted. “Stand still, boys; he's more dangerous +than a gun that isn't loaded. What d'yuh want, m'son?” + +“I want to talk to you for about five minutes. I've got a game leg, so +that I can neither run nor fight, but I hope you'll listen to me. The +Wagners can't get away--they're locked up, with a deputy standing over +them with a gun; and on top of that they're handcuffed. They're as +helpless, boys, as two trapped coyotes.” He looked down over the crowd, +which shifted uneasily; no one spoke. + +“That's what struck me most,” he continued. “You know what I thought of +Bob, don't you? And I didn't thank them for boring a hole in my leg; it +wasn't any kindness of theirs that it didn't land higher--they weren't +shooting at me for fun. And I'd have killed them both with a clear +conscience, if I could. I tried hard enough. But it was different then; +out in the open, where a man had an even break. I don't believe if I +had shot as straight as I wanted to that I'd ever have felt a moment's +compunction. But now, when they're disarmed and shackled and altogether +helpless, I couldn't walk up to them deliberately and kill them could +you? + +“It could be done, and done easily. You have Lauman where he can't do +anything, and I'm not of much account in a fight; so you've really only +one deputy sheriff and two women to get the best of. You could drag +these men out and hang them in the cottonwoods, and they couldn't raise +a hand to defend themselves. We could do it easily--but when it was done +and the excitement had passed I'd have a picture in my memory that I'd +hate to look at. I'd have an hour in my life that would haunt me. And +so would you. You'd hate to look back and think that one time you helped +kill a couple of men who couldn't fight back. + +“Let the law do it, boys. You don't want them to live, and I don't; +nobody does, for they deserve to die. But it isn't for us to play judge +and jury and hangman here to-night. Let them get what's coming to them +at the hands of the officers you've elected for that purpose. They won't +get off. Hank Graves says they will hang if it takes every hoof he owns. +He said he would bring Bowman down here to help prosecute them. I don't +know Bowman--” + +“I do,” a voice spoke, somewhere in the darkness. “Lawyer from Helena. +Never lost a case.” + +“I'm glad to hear it, for he's the man that will prosecute. They haven't +a ghost of a show to get out of it. Lauman here is responsible for their +safe keeping and I guess, now that he knows them better, we needn't be +afraid they'll escape again. And it's as Lauman said; he'll hang them +quite as dead as you can. He's drawing a salary to do these things, make +him earn it. It's a nasty job, boys, and you wouldn't get anything out +of it but a nasty memory.” + +A hand that did not feel like the hand of a man rested for an instant on +his arm. Mona brushed by him and stepped out where the rising moon shone +on her hair and into her big, blue-gray eyes. + +“I wish you all would please go away,” she said. “You are making mamma +sick. She's got it in her head that you are going to do something awful, +and I can't convince her you're not. I told her you wouldn't do anything +so sneaking, but she's awfully nervous about it. Won't you please go, +right now?” + +They looked sheepishly at one another; every man of them feared the +ridicule of his neighbor. + +“Why, sure we'll go,” cried Park, rallying. “We were going anyway in a +minute. Tell your mother we were just congratulating Lauman on rounding +up these Wagners. Come on, boys. And you, Bud, hurry up and get well +again; we miss yuh round the Lazy Eight.” + +The three who were sitting on Lauman got up, and he gave a sigh of +relief. “Say, yuh darned cowpunchers don't have no mercy on an old man's +carcass at all,” he groaned, in exaggerated self-pity. “Next time yuh +want to congratulate me, I wish you'd put it in writing and send it by +mail.” + +A little ripple of laughter went through the crowd. Then they swung up +on their horses and galloped away in the moonlight. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. A QUESTION OF NERVE + +“That was your victory, Miss Stevens. Allow me to congratulate you.” If +Thurston showed any ill grace in his tone it was without intent. But it +did seem unfortunate that just as he was waxing eloquent and felt sure +of himself and something of a hero, Mona should push him aside as though +he were of no account and disperse a bunch of angry cowboys with half a +dozen words. + +She looked at him with her direct, blue-gray eyes, and smiled. And +her smile had no unpleasant uplift at the corners; it was the dimply, +roguish smile of the pastel portrait only several times nicer. Re could +hardly believe it; he just opened his eyes wide and stared. When he came +to a sense of his rudeness, Mona was back in the kitchen helping with +the supper dishes, just as though nothing had happened--unless one +observed the deep, apple-red of her cheeks--while her mother, who showed +not the faintest symptoms of collapse, flourished a dish towel made of +a bleached flour sack with the stamp showing a faint pink and blue XXXX +across the center. + +“I knew all the time they wouldn't do anything when it came right +to the point,” she declared. “Bless their hearts, they thought they +would--but they're too soft-hearted, even when they are mad. If yuh go +at 'em right yuh can talk 'em over easy. It done me good to hear yuh +talk right up to 'em, Bud.” Mrs. Stevens had called hi Bud from +the first time she laid eyes on him. “That's all under the sun they +needed--just somebody to set 'em thinking about the other side. You're a +real good speaker; seems to me you ought to study to be a preacher.” + +Thurston's face turned red. But presently he forgot everything in his +amazement, for Mona the dignified, Mona of the scornful eyes and the +chilly smile, actually giggled--giggled like any ordinary girl, and shot +him a glance that had in it pure mirth and roguish teasing, and a dash +of coquetry. He sat down and giggled with her, feeling idiotically happy +and for no reason under the sun that he could name. + +He had promised his conscience that he would go home to the Lazy Eight +in the morning, but he didn't; he somehow contrived, overnight, to +invent a brand new excuse for his conscience to swallow or not, as it +liked. Hank Graves had the same privilege; as for the Stevens trio, he +blessed their hospitable souls for not wanting any excuse whatever for +his staying. They were frankly glad to have him there; at least Mrs. +Stevens and Jack were. As for Mona, he was not so sure, but he hoped she +didn't mind. + +This was the reason inspired by his great desire: he was going to write +a story, and Mona was unconsciously to furnish the material for his +heroine, and so, of course, he needed to be there so that he might study +his subject. That sounded very well, to himself, but to Hank Graves, +for some reason, it seemed very funny. When Thurston told him, Hank +was taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. +Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his Sunday +throat--and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's Sunday throat, +eyed him with suspicion. Hank blinked at him with tears still in +his quizzical eyes and slapped him on the back, after the way of the +West--and any other enlightened country where men are not too dignified +to be their real selves--and drawled, in a way peculiar to himself: + +“That's all right, Bud. You stay right here as long as yuh want to. I +don't blame yuh--if I was you I'd want to spend a lot uh time studying +this particular brand uh female girl myself. She's out uh sight, +Bud--and I don't believe any uh the boys has got his loop on her so far; +though I could name a dozen or so that would be tickled to death if they +had. You just go right ahead and file your little, old claim--” + +“You're getting things mixed,” Thurston interrupted, rather testily. +“I'm not in love with her. I, well, it's like this: if you were going to +paint a picture of those mountains off there, you'd want to be where you +could look at them--wouldn't you? You wouldn't necessarily want to--to +own them, just because you felt they'd make a fine picture. Your +interest would be, er, entirely impersonal.” + +“Uh-huh,” Hank agreed, his keen eyes searching Phil's face amusedly. + +“Therefore, it doesn't follow that I'm getting foolish about a girl just +because I--hang it! what the Dickens makes you look at a fellow that +way? You make me?” + +“Uh-huh,” said Hank again, smoothing the lower half of his face with one +hand. “You're a mighty nice little boy, Bud. I'll bet Mona thinks so, +too and when yuh get growed up you'll know a whole lot more than yuh do +right now. Well, I guess I'll be moving. When yuh get that--er--story +done, you'll come back to the ranch, I reckon. Be good.” + +Thurston watched him ride away, and then flounced, oh, men do flounce at +times, in spirit, if not in deed; and there would be no lack of the deed +if only they wore skirts that could rustle indignantly in sympathy with +the wearer--to his room. Plainly, Hank did not swallow the excuse any +more readily than did his conscience. + +To prove the sincerity of his assertion to himself, his conscience, +and to Hank Graves, he straightway got out a thick pad of paper and +sharpened three lead pencils to an exceeding fine point. Then he sat him +down by the window--where he could see the kitchen door, which was the +one most used by the family--and nibbled the tip off one of the pencils +like any school-girl. For ten minutes he bluffed himself into believing +that he was trying to think of a title; the plain truth is, he was +wondering if Mona would go for a ride that afternoon and if so, might he +venture to suggest going with her. + +He thought of the crimply waves in Mona's hair, and pondered what +adjectives would best describe it without seeming commonplace. +“Rippling” was too old, though it did seem to hit the case all right. +He laid down the pad and nearly stood on his head trying to reach his +Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms without getting out of his chair. +While he was clawing after it--it lay on the floor, where he had thrown +it that morning because it refused to divulge some information he +wanted--he heard some one open and close the kitchen door, and came near +kinking his neck trying to get up in time to see who it was. He failed +to see anyone, and returned to the dictionary. + +“'Ripple--to have waves--like running water.'” (That was just the way +her hair looked, especially over the temples and at the nape of her +neck--Jove, what a tempting white neck it was!) “Um-m. 'Ripple; wave; +undulate; uneven; irregular.'” (Lord, what fools are the men who write +dictionaries!) “'Antonym--hang the antonyms!” + +The kitchen door slammed. He craned again. It was Jack--going to town +most likely. Thurston shrewdly guessed that Mrs. Stevens leaned far more +upon Mona than she did upon Jack, although he could hardly accuse her +of leaning on anyone. But he observed that the men looked to her for +orders. + +He perceived that the point was gone from his pencil, and proceeded to +sharpen it. Then he heard Mona singing in the kitchen, and recollected +that Mrs. Stevens had promised him warm doughnuts for supper. Perhaps +Mona was frying them at that identical moment--and he had never seen +anyone frying doughnuts. He caught up his cane and limped out to +investigate. That is how much his heart just then was set upon writing a +story that would breathe of the plains. + +One great hindrance to the progress of his story was the difficulty he +had in selecting a hero for his heroine. Hank Graves suggested that he +use Park, and even went so far as to supply Thurston with considerable +data which went to prove that Park would not be averse to figuring in +a love story with Mona. But Thurston was not what one might call +enthusiastic, and Hank laughed his deep, inner laugh when he was well +away from the house. + +Thurston, on the contrary, glowered at the world for two hours after. +Park was a fine fellow, and Thurston liked him about as well as any man +he knew in the West, but--And thus it went. On each and every visit to +the Stevens ranch--and they were many--Hank, learning by direct inquiry +that the story still suffered for lack of a hero, suggested some fellow +whom he had at one time and another caught “shining” around Mona. And +with each suggestion Thurston would draw down his eyebrows till he came +near getting a permanent frown. + +A love story without a hero, while it would no doubt be original and +all that, would hardly appeal to an editor. Phil tried heroes wholly +imaginary, but he had a trick of making his characters seem very real +to himself and sometimes to other people as well. So that, after a few +passages of more or less ardent love-making, he would in a sense grow +jealous and spoil the story by annihilating the hero thereof. + +Heaven only knows how long the thing would have gone on if he hadn't, +one temptingly beautiful evening, reverted to the day of the hold-up and +apologized for not obeying her command. He explained as well as he could +just why he sat petrified with his hands in the air. + +And then having brought the thing freshly to her mind, he somehow lost +control of his wits and told her he loved her. He told her a good deal +in the next two minutes that he might better have kept to himself just +then. But a man generally makes a glorious fool of himself once or twice +in his life and it seems the more sensible the man the more thorough a +job he makes of it. + +Mona moved a little farther away from him, and when she answered she +did not choose her words. “Of all things,” she said, evenly, “I admire +a brave man and despise a coward. You were chicken-hearted that day, and +you know it; you've just admitted it. Why, in another minute I'd have +had that gun myself, and I'd have shown you--but Park got it before +I really had a chance. I hated to seem spectacular, but it served you +right. If you'd had any nerve I wouldn't have had to sit there and tell +you what to do. If ever I marry anybody, Mr. Thurston, it will be a +man.” + +“Which means, I suppose, that I'm not one?” he asked angrily. + +“I don't know yet.” Mona smiled her unpleasant smile--the one that +did not belong in the story he was going to write. “You're new to the +country, you see. Maybe you've got nerve; you haven't shown much, so far +as I know--except when you talked to the boys that night. But you must +have known that they wouldn't hurt you anyway. A man must have a little +courage as much as I have; which isn't asking much--or I'd never marry +him in the world.” + +“Not even if you--liked him?” his smile was wistful. + +“Not even if I loved him!” Mona declared, and fled into the house. + +Thurston gathered himself together and went down to the stable and +borrowed a horse of Jack, who had just got back from town, and rode home +to the Lazy Eight. + +When Hank heard that he was home to stay--at least until he could join +the roundup again--he didn't say a word for full five minutes. Then, +“Got your story done?” he drawled, and his eyes twinkled. + +Thurston was going up the stairs to his old room, and Hank could not +swear positively to the reply he got. But he thought it sounded like, +“Oh, damn the story!” + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE DRIFT OF THE HERDS + +Weeks slipped by, and to Thurston they seemed but days. His +world-weariness and cynicism disappeared the first time he met Mona +after he had left there so unceremoniously; for Mona, not being aware of +his cynicism, received him on the old, friendly footing, and seemed to +have quite forgotten that she had ever called him a coward, or refused +to marry him. So Thurston forgot it also--so long as he was with her. + +How he filled in the hours he could scarcely have told; certain it +is that he accomplished nothing at all so far as Western stories were +concerned. Reeve-Howard wrote in slightly shocked phrases to ask what +was keeping him so long; and assured him that he was missing much by +staying away. Thurston mentally agreed with him long enough to begin +packing his trunk; it was idiotic to keep staying on when he was clearly +receiving no benefit thereby. When, however, he picked up a book which +he had told Mona he would take over to her the next time he went, he +stopped and considered: + +There was the Wagner trial coming off in a month or so; he couldn't get +out of attending it, for he had been subpoenaed as a witness for the +prosecution. And there was the beef roundup going to start before +long--he really ought to stay and take that in; there would be some fine +chances for pictures. And really he didn't care so much for the Barry +Wilson bunch and the long list of festivities which trailed ever in +its wake; at any rate, they weren't worth rushing two-thirds across the +continent for. + +He sat down and wrote at length to Reeve-Howard, explaining very +carefully--and not altogether convincingly--just why he could not +possibly go home at present. After that he saddled and rode over to the +Stevens place with the book, leaving his trunk yawning emptily in the +middle of his badly jumbled belongings. + +After that he spent three weeks on the beef roundup. At first he was +full of enthusiasm, and worked quite as if he had need of the wages, but +after two or three big drives the novelty wore off quite suddenly, and +nothing then remained but a lot of hard work. For instance, standing +guard on long, rainy nights when the cattle walked and walked might at +first seem picturesque and all that, but must at length, cease to be +amusing. + +Likewise the long hours which he spent on day-herd, when the wind +was raw and penetrating and like to blow him out of the saddle; also +standing at the stockyard chutes and forcing an unwilling stream of +rollicky, wild-eyed steers up into the cars that would carry them to +Chicago. + +After three weeks of it he awoke one particularly nasty morning and +thanked the Lord he was not obliged to earn his bread at all, to say +nothing of earning it in so distressful a fashion. There was a lull +in the shipping because cars were not then available. He promptly took +advantage of it and rode by the very shortest trail to the ranch--and +Mona. But Mona was visiting friends in Chinook, and there was no telling +when she would return. Thurston, in the next few days, owned to himself +that there was no good reason for his tarrying longer in the big, +un-peopled West, and that the proper thing for him to do was go back +home to New York. + +He had come to stay a month, and he had stayed five. He could ride and +rope like an old-timer, and he was well qualified to put up a stiff +gun-fight had the necessity ever arisen--which it had not. + +He had three hundred and seventy-one pictures of different phases of +range life, not counting as many that were over-exposed or under-exposed +or out of focus. He had six unfinished stories, in each of which the +heroine had big, blue-gray eyes and crimply hair, and the title and bare +skeleton of a seventh, in which the same sort of eyes and hair would +probably develop later. He had proposed to Mona three times, and had +been three times rebuffed--though not, it must be owned, with that tone +of finality which precludes hope. + +He was tanned a fine brown, which became him well. His eyes had lost the +dreamy, introspective look of the student and author, and had grown keen +with the habit of studying objects at long range. He walked with that +peculiar, stiff-legged gait which betrays long hours spent in the +saddle, and he wore a silk handkerchief around his neck habitually and +had forgotten the feel of a dress-suit. + +He answered to the name “Bud” more readily than to his own, and he made +practical use of the slang and colloquialisms of the plains without any +mental quotation marks. + +By all these signs and tokens he had learned his West, and should have +taken himself back to civilization when came the frost. He had come to +get into touch with his chosen field of fiction, that he might write +as one knowing whereof he spoke. So far as he had gone, he was in touch +with it; he was steeped to the eyes in local color--and there was the +rub The lure of it was strong upon him, and he might not loosen its +hold. He was the son of his father; he had found himself, and knew that, +like him, he loved best to travel the dim trails. + +Gene Wasson came in and slammed the door emphatically shut after him. +“She's sure coming,” he complained, while he pulled the icicles from +his mustache and cast them into the fire. “She's going to be a real, old +howler by the signs. What yuh doing, Bud? Writing poetry?” + +Thurston nodded assent with certain mental reservations; so far the +editors couldn't seem to make up their minds that it was poetry. + +“Well, say, I wish you'd slap in a lot uh things about hazy, lazy, daisy +days in the spring--that jingles fine!--and green grass and the +sun shining and making the hills all goldy yellow, and prairie dogs +chip-chip-chipping on the 'dobe flats. (Prairie dogs would go all right +in poetry, wouldn't they? They're sassy little cusses, and I don't know +of anything that would rhyme with 'em, but maybe you do.) And read it +all out to me after supper. Maybe it'll make me kinda forget there's a +blizzard on.” + +“Another one?” Thurston got up to scratch a trench in the half-inch +layer of frost on the cabin window. “Why, it only cleared up this +morning after three days of it.” + +“Can't help that. This is just another chapter uh that same story. When +these here Klondike Chinooks gets to lapping over each other they never +know when to quit. Every darn one has got to be continued tacked onto +the tail of it the winter. All the difference is, you can't read the +writing; but I can.” + +“I've got some mail for yuh, Bud. And old Hank wanted me to ask yuh if +you'd like to go to Glasgow next Thursday and watch old Lauman start the +Wagner boys for wherever's hot enough. He can get yuh in, you being in +the writing business. He says to tell yuh it's a good chance to take +notes, so yuh can write a real stylish story, with lots uh murder and +sudden death in it. We don't hang folks out here very often, and yuh +might have to go back East after pointers, if yuh pass this up.” + +“Oh, go easy. It turns me sick when I think about it; how they looked +when they got their sentence, and all that. I certainly don't care to +see them hanged, though they do deserve it. Where are the letters?” + Thurston sprawled across the table for them. One was from Reeve-Howard; +he put it by. Another had a printed address in the corner--an address +that started his pulse a beat or two faster; for he had not yet reached +that blase stage where he could receive a personal letter from one of +the “Eight Leading” without the flicker of an eye-lash. He still gloated +over his successes, and was cast into the deeps by his failures. + +He held the envelope to the light, shook it tentatively, like any woman, +guessed hastily and hopefully at the contents, and tore off an end +impatiently. From the great fireplace Gene watched him curiously and +half enviously. He wished he could get important-looking letters from +New York every few days. It must make a fellow feel that he amounted to +something. + +“Gene, you remember that story I read to you one night--that yarn about +the fellow that lived alone in the hills, and how the wolves used to +come and sit on the ridge and howl o' nights--you know, the one you +said was 'out uh sight'? They took it, all right, and--here, what do you +think of that?” He tossed the letter over to Gene, who caught it just as +it was about to be swept into the flame with the draught in Thurston, in +the days which he spent one of the half-dozen Lazy Eight line-camps with +Gene, down by the river, had been writing of the West--writing in +fear and trembling, for now he knew how great was his subject and his +ignorance of it. In the long evenings, while the fire crackled and the +flames played a game they had invented, a game where they tried which +could leap highest up the great chimney; while the north wind whoo-ooed +around the eaves and fine, frozen snow meal swished against the one +little window; while shivering, drifting range cattle tramped restlessly +through the sparse willow-growth seeking comfort where was naught but +cold and snow and bitter, driving wind; while the gray wolves hunted in +packs and had not long to wait for their supper, Thurston had written +better than he knew. He had sent the cold of the blizzards and the howl +of the wolves; he had sent bits of the wind-swept plains back to New +York in long, white envelopes. And the editors were beginning to watch +for his white envelopes and to seize them eagerly when they came, greedy +for what was within. Not every day can they look upon a few typewritten +pages and see the range-land spread, now frowning, now smiling, before +them. + +“Gee! they say here they want a lot the same brand, and at any old price +yuh might name. I wouldn't mind writing stories myself.” Gene kicked +a log back into the flame where it would do the most good. His big, +square-shouldered figure stood out sharply against the glow. + +Thurston, watching him meditatively, wanted to tell him that he was +the sort of whom good stories are made. But for men like Gene--strong, +purposeful, brave, the West would lose half its charm. He was like Bob +in many ways, and for that Thurston liked him and, stayed with him in +the line-camp when he might have been taking his ease at the home ranch. + +It was wild and lonely down there between the bare hills and the frozen +river, but the wildness and the loneliness appealed to him. It was +primitive and at times uncomfortable. He slept in a bunk built against +the wall, with hard boards under him and a sod roof over his head. There +were times when the wind blew its fiercest and rattled dirt down into +his face unless he covered it with a blanket. And every other day he +had to wash the dishes and cook, and when it was Gene's turn to cook, +Thurston chopped great armloads of wood for the fireplace to eat o' +nights. Also he must fare forth, wrapped to the eyes, and help Gene +drive back the cattle which drifted into the river bottom, lest they +cross the river on the ice and range where they should not. + +But in the evenings he could sit in the fire-glow and listen to the wind +and to the coyotes and the gray wolves, and weave stories that even the +most hyper-critical of editors could not fail to find convincing. By +day he could push the coffee-box that held his typewriter over by the +frosted window--when he had an hour or two to spare--and whang away at +a rate which filled Gene with wonder. Sometimes he rode over to the home +ranch for a day or two, but Mona was away studying music, so he found no +inducement to remain, and drifted back to the little, sod-roofed cabin +by the river, and to Gene. + +The winter settled down with bared teeth like a bull-dog, and never +a chinook came to temper the cold and give respite to man or beast. +Blizzards that held them, in fear of their lives, close to shelter for +days, came down from the north; and with them came the drifting herds. +By hundreds they came, hurrying miserably before the storms. When the +wind lashed them without mercy even in the bottom-land, they pushed +reluctantly out upon the snow-covered ice of the Missouri. Then Gene and +Thurston watching from their cabin window would ride out and turn them +pitilessly back into the teeth of the storm. + +They came by hundreds--thin, gaunt from cold and hunger. They came by +thousands, lowing their misery as they wandered aimlessly, seeking that +which none might find: food and shelter and warmth for their chilled +bodies. When the Canada herds pushed down upon them the boys gave over +trying to keep them north of the river; while they turned one bunch a +dozen others were straggling out from shore, the timid following +single file behind a leader more venturesome or more desperate than his +fellows. + +So the march went on and on: big, Southern-bred steer grappling the +problem of his first Northern winter; thin-flanked cow with shivering, +rough-coated calf trailing at her heels; humpbacked yearling with little +nubs of horns telling that he was lately in his calfhood; red cattle, +spotted cattle, white cattle, black cattle; white-faced Herefords, +Short-horns, scrubs; Texas longhorns--of the sort invariably pictured +in stampedes--still they came drifting out of the cold wilderness and on +into wilderness as cold. + +Through the shifting wall of the worst blizzard that season Thurston +watched the weary, fruitless, endless march of the range. “Where do they +all come from?” he exclaimed once when the snow-veil lifted and showed +the river black with cattle. + +“Lord! I dunno,” Gene answered, shrugging his shoulders against the +pity of it. “I seen some brands yesterday that I know belongs up in the +Cypress Hills country. If things don't loosen up pretty soon, the whole +darned range will be swept clean uh stock as far north as cattle run. +I'm looking for reindeer next.” + +“Something ought to be done,” Thurston declared uneasily, turning away +from the sight. “I've had the bellowing of starving cattle in my ears +day and night for nearly a month. The thing's getting on my nerves.” + +“It's getting on the nerves uh them that own 'em a heap worse,” Gene +told him grimly, and piled more wood on the fire; for the cold bit +through even the thick walls of the cabin when the flames in the +fireplace died, and the door hinges were crusted deep with ice. “There's +going to be the biggest loss this range has ever known.” + +“It's the owners' fault,” snapped Thurston, whose nerves were in +that irritable state which calls loudly for a vent of some sort. Even +argument with Gene, fruitless though it perforce must be, would be a +relief. “It's their own fault. I don't pity them any--why don't they +take care of their stock? If I owned cattle, do you think I'd sit in the +house and watch them starve through the winter?” + +“What if yuh owned more than yuh could feed? It'd be a case uh have-to +then. There's fifty thousand Lazy Eight cattle walking the range +somewhere today. How the dickens is old Hank going to feed them fifty +thousand? or five thousand? It takes every spear uh hay he's got to feed +his calves.” + +“He could buy hay,” Thurston persisted. + +“Buy hay for fifty thousand cattle? Where would he get it? Say, Bud, I +guess yuh don't realize that's some cattle. All ails you is, yuh don't +savvy the size uh the thing. I'll bet yuh there won't be less than three +hundred thousand head cross this river before spring.” + +“Some of them belong in Canada--you said so yourself.” + +“I know it, but look at all the country south of us: all the other cow +States. Why, Bud, when yuh talk about feeding every critter that runs +the range, you're plumb foolish.” + +“Anyway, it's a damnable pity!” Thurston asserted petulantly. + +“Sure it is. The grass is there, but it's under fourteen inches uh snow +right now, and more coming; they say it's twelve feet deep up in the +mountains. You'll see some great old times in the spring, Bud, if yuh +stay. You will, won't yuh?” + +Thurston laughed shortly. “I suppose it's safe to say I will,” he +answered. “I ought to have gone last fall, but I didn't. It will +probably be the same thing over again; I ought to go in the spring, but +I won't.” + +“You bet you won't. Talk about big roundups! what yuh seen last spring +wasn't a commencement. Every hoof that crosses this river and lives till +spring will have to be rounded up and brought back again. They'll be +scattered clean down to the Yellowstone, and every Northern outfit has +got to go down and help work the range from there back. I tell yuh, Bud, +yuh want to lay in a car-load uh films and throw away all them little, +jerk-water snap-shots yuh got. There's going to be roundups like these +old Panhandle rannies tell about, when the green grass comes.” Gene, +thinking blissfully of the tented life, sprawled his long legs toward +the snapping blaze and crooned dreamily, while without the blizzard +raged more fiercely, a verse from an old camp song: + + “Out on the roundup, boys, I tell yuh what yuh get + Little chunk uh bread and a little chunk uh meat; + Little black coffee, boys, chuck full uh alkali, + Dust in your throat, boys, and gravel in your eye! + So polish up your saddles, oil your slickers and your guns, + For we're bound for Lonesome Prairie when the green grass comes.” + + + +CHAPTER X. THE CHINOOK + +One night in late March a sullen, faraway roar awakened Thurston in +his bunk. He turned over and listened, wondering what on earth was the +matter. More than anything it sounded like a hurrying freight train only +the railroad lay many miles to the north, and trains do not run at large +over the prairie. Gene snored peacefully an arm's length away. Outside +the snow lay deep on the levels, while in the hollows were great, white +drifts that at bedtime had glittered frostily in the moonlight. On the +hill-tops the gray wolves howled across coulees to their neighbors, and +slinking coyotes yapped foolishly at the moon. + +Thurston drew the blanket up over his ears, for the fire had died to a +heap of whitening embers and the cold of the cabin made the nose of +him tingle. The roar grew louder and nearer-then the cabin shivered and +creaked in the suddenness of the blast that struck it. A clod of dirt +plumbed down upon his shoulder, bringing with it a shower of finer +particles. “Another blizzard!” he groaned, “and the worst we've had yet, +by the sound.” + +The wind shrieked down the chimney and sought the places where the +chinking was loose. It howled up the coulees, putting the wolves +themselves to shame. Gene flopped over like a newly landed fish, grunted +some unintelligible words and slept again. + +For an hour Thurston lay and listened to the blast and selfishly thanked +heaven it was his turn at the cooking. If the storm kept up like that, +he told himself, he was glad he did not have to chop the wood. He +lifted the blanket and sniffed tentatively, then cuddled back into cover +swearing that a thermometer would register zero at that very moment on +his pillow. + +The storm came in gusts as the worst blizzards do at times. It made him +think of the nursery story about the fifth little pig who built a cabin +of rocks, and how the wolf threatened: “I'll huff and I'll puff, and +I'll blow your house down!” It was as if he himself were the fifth +little pig, and as if the wind were the wolf. The wolf-wind would stop +for whole minutes, gather his great lungs full of air and then without +warning would “huff and puff” his hardest. But though the cabin was +not built of rocks, it was nevertheless a staunch little shelter and +sturdily withstood the shocks. + +He pitied the poor cattle still fighting famine and frost as only +range-bred stock can fight. He pictured them drifting miserably before +the fury of the wind or crowding for shelter under some friendly +cutback, their tails to the storm, waiting stolidly for the dawn that +would bring no relief. Then, with the roar and rattle in his ears, he +fell asleep. + +In that particular line-camp on the Missouri the cook's duties began +with building a fire in the morning. Thurston waked reluctantly, +shivered in anticipation under the blankets, gathered together his +fortitude and crept out of his bunk. While he was dressing his teeth +chattered like castanets in a minstrel show. He lighted the fire +hurriedly and stood backed close before it, listening to the rage of the +wind. He was growing very tired of the monotony of winter; he could no +longer see any beauty in the high-turreted, snow-clad hills, nor the +bare, red faces of the cliffs frowning down upon him. + +“I don't suppose you could see to the river bank,” he mused, “and Gene +will certainly tear the third commandment to shreds before he gets the +water-hole open.” + +He went over to the window, meaning to scratch a peep-hole in the frost, +just as he had done every day for the past three months; lifted a hand, +then stopped bewildered. For instead of frost there was only steam with +ridges of ice yet clinging to the sash and dripping water in a tiny +rivulet. He wiped the steam hastily away with his palm and looked out. + +“Good heavens, Gene!” he shouted in a voice to wake the Seven Sleepers. +“The world's gone mad overnight. Are you dead, man? Get up and look out. +The whole damn country is running water, and the hills are bare as this +floor!” + +“Uh-huh!” Gene knuckled his eyes and sat up. “Chinook struck us in the +night. Didn't yuh hear it?” + +Thurston pulled open the door and stood face to face with the miracle of +the West. He had seen Mother Nature in many a changeful mood, but never +like this. The wind blew warm from the southwest and carried hints of +green things growing and the song of birds; he breathed it gratefully +into his lungs and let it riot in his hair. The sky was purplish and +soft, with heavy, drifting clouds high-piled like a summer storm. It +looked like rain, he thought. + +The bare hills were sodden with snow-water, and the drifts in the +coulees were dirt-grimed and forbidding. The great river lay, a gray +stretch of water-soaked snow over the ice, with little, clear pools +reflecting the drab clouds above. A crow flapped lazily across the +foreground and perched like a blot of fresh-spilled ink on the top of a +dead cottonwood and cawed raucous greeting to the spring. + +The wonder of it dazed Thurston and made him do unusual things that +morning. All winter he had been puffed with pride over his cooking, but +now he scorched the oatmeal, let the coffee boil over, and blackened the +bacon, and committed divers other grievous sins against Gene's clamoring +appetite. Nor did he feel the shame that he should have felt. He simply +could not stay in the cabin five minutes at a time, and for it he had no +apology. + +After breakfast he left the dishes un-washed upon the table and went out +and made merry with nature. He could scarce believe that yesterday he +had frosted his left ear while he brought a bucket of water up from the +river, and that it had made his lungs ache to breathe the chill air. Now +the path to the river was black and dry and steamed with warmth. Across +the water cattle were feeding greedily upon the brown grasses that only +a few hours before had been locked away under a crust of frozen snow. + +“They won't starve now,” he exulted, pointing them out to Gene. + +“No, you bet not!” Gene answered. “If this don't freeze up on us the +wagons 'll be starting in a month or so. I guess we can be thinking +about hitting the trail for home pretty soon now. The river'll break up +if this keeps going a week. Say, this is out uh sight! It's warmer out +uh doors than it is in the house. Darn the old shack, anyway! I'm plumb +sick uh the sight of it. It looked all right to me in a blizzard, but +now--it's me for the range, m'son.” He went off to the stable with long, +swinging strides that matched all nature for gladness, singing cheerily: + + “So polish up your saddles, oil your slickers and your guns, + For we're hound for Lonesome Prairie when the green grass comes.” + + + +CHAPTER XI. FOLLOWING THE DIM TRAILS! + +Thurston did not go on the horse roundup. He explained to the boys, +when they clamored against his staying, that he had a host of things to +write, and it would keep him busy till they were ready to start with +the wagons for the big rendezvous on the Yellowstone, the exact point of +which had yet to be decided upon by the Stock Association when it met. +The editors were after him, he said, and if he ever expected to get +anywhere, in a literary sense, it be-hooved him to keep on the smiley +side of the editors. + +That sounded all right as far as it went, but unfortunately it did +not go far. The boys winked at one another gravely behind his back and +jerked their thumbs knowingly toward Milk River; by which pantomime they +reminded one another--quite unnecessarily that Mona Stevens had come +home. However, they kept their skepticism from becoming obtrusive, so +that Thurston believed his excuses passed on their face value. The boys, +it would seem, realized that it is against human nature for a man to +declare openly to his fellows his intention of laying last, desperate +siege to the heart of a girl who has already refused him three times, +and to ask her for the fourth time if she will reconsider her former +decisions and marry him. + +That is really what kept Thurston at the Lazy Eight. His writing became +once more a mere incident in his life. During the winter, when he did +not see her, he could bring himself to think occasionally of other +things; and it is a fact that the stories he wrote with no heroine at +all hit the mark the straightest. + +Now, when he was once again under the spell of big, clear, blue gray +eyes and crimply brown hair, his stories lost something of their +virility and verged upon the sentimental in tone. And since he was not a +fool he realized the falling off and chafed against it and wondered why +it was. Surely a man who is in love should be well qualified to write +convincingly of the obsession but Thurston did not. He came near going +to the other extreme and refusing to write at all. + +The wagons were out two weeks--which is quite long enough for a crisis +to arise in the love affair of any man. By the time the horse roundup +was over, one Philip Thurston was in pessimistic mood and quite ready +to follow the wagons, the farther the better. Also, they could not start +too soon to please him. His thoughts still ran to blue-gray eyes and +ripply hair, but he made no attempt to put them into a story. + +He packed his trunk carefully with everything he would not need on +the roundup, and his typewriter he put in the middle. He told himself +bitterly that he had done with crimply haired girls, and with every +other sort of girl. If he could figure in something heroic--only he +said melodramatic--he might possibly force her to think well of him. +But heroic situations and opportunities come not every day to a man, and +girls who demand that their knights shall be brave in face of death need +not complain if they are left knightless at the last. + +He wrote to Reeve-Howard, the night before they were to start, and +apologized gracefully for having neglected him during the past three +weeks and told him he would certainly be home in another month. He said +that he was “in danger of being satiated with the Western tone” and +would be glad to shake the hand of civilized man once more. This was +distinctly unfair, because he had no quarrel with the masculine portion +of the West. If he had said civilized woman it would have been more just +and more illuminating to Reeve-Howard who wondered what scrape Phil had +gotten himself into with those savages. + +For the first few days of the trip Thurston was in that frame of mind +which makes a man want to ride by himself, with shoulders hunched +moodily and eyes staring straight before the nose of his horse. + +But the sky was soft and seemed to smile down at him, and the clouds +loitered in the blue of it and drifted aimlessly with no thought of +reaching harbor on the sky-line. From under his horse's feet the prairie +sod sent up sweet, earthy odors into his nostrils and the tinkle of the +bells in the saddle-bunch behind him made music in his ears--the sort of +music a true cowboy loves. Yellow-throated meadow larks perched swaying +in the top of gray sage bushes and sang to him that the world was good. +Sober gray curlews circled over his head, their long, funny bills thrust +out straight as if to point the way for their bodies to follow and +cried, “Kor-r-eck, kor-r-eck!”--which means just what the meadow larks +sang. So Thurston, hearing it all about him, seeing it and smelling it +and feeling the riot of Spring in his blood, straightened the hunch out +of his shoulders and admitted that it was all true: that the world was +good. + +At Miles City he found himself in the midst of a small army, the +regulars of the range---which grew hourly larger as the outfits rolled +in. The rattle of mess-wagons, driven by the camp cook and followed by +the bed-wagon, was heard from all directions. Jingling cavvies (herds of +saddle horses they were, driven and watched over by the horse wrangler) +came out of the wilderness in the wake of the wagons. Thurston got out +his camera and took pictures of the scene. In the first, ten different +camps appeared; he mourned because two others were perforced omitted. +Two hours later he snapped the Kodak upon fifteen, and there were four +beyond range of the lens. + +Park came along, saw what he was doing and laughed. “Yuh better wait +till they commence to come,” he said. “When yuh can stand on this little +hill and count fifty or sixty outfits camped within two or three miles +uh here, yuh might begin taking pictures.” + +“I think you're loading me,” Thurston retorted calmly, winding up the +roll for another exposure. + +“All right--suit yourself about it.” Park walked off and left him +peering into the view-finder. + +Still they came. From Swift Current to the Cypress Hills the Canadian +cattlemen sent their wagons to join the big meet. From the Sweet Grass +Hills to the mouth of Milk River not a stock-grower but was represented. +From the upper Musselshell they came, and from out the Judith Basin; +from Shellanne east to Fort Buford. Truly it was a gathering of the +clans such as eastern Montana had never before seen. + +For a day and a night the cowboys made merry in town while their foremen +consulted and the captains appointed by the Association mapped out the +different routes. At times like these, foremen such as Park and Deacon +Smith were shorn of their accustomed power, and worked under orders as +strict as those they gave their men. + +Their future movements thoroughly understood, the army moved down upon +the range in companies of five and six crews, and the long summer's work +began; each rider a unit in the war against the chaos which the winter +had wrought; in the fight of the stockmen to wrest back their fortunes +from the wilderness, and to hold once more their sway over the +range-land. + +Their method called for concerted action, although it was simple enough. +Two of the Lazy Eight wagons, under Park and Gene Wasson (for Hank that +spring was running four crews and had promoted Gene wagon-boss of one), +joined forces with the Circle-Bar, the Flying U, and a Yellowstone +outfit whose wagon-boss, knowing best the range, was captain of the five +crews; and drove north, gathering and holding all stock which properly +ranged beyond the Missouri. + +That meant day after day of “riding circle”--which is, being +interpreted, riding out ten or twelve miles from camp, then turning and +driving everything before them to a point near the center of the circle +thus formed. When they met the cattle were bunched, and all stock which +belonged on that range was cut out, leaving only those which had crossed +the river during the storms of winter. These were driven on to the +next camping place and held, which meant constant day-herding and +night-guarding work which cowboys hate more than anything else. + +There would be no calf roundup proper that spring, for all calves were +branded as they were gathered. Many there were among the she-stock that +would not cross the river again; their carcasses made unsightly blots in +the coulee-bottoms and on the wind-swept levels. Of the calves that had +followed their mothers on the long trail, hundreds had dropped out of +the march and been left behind for the wolves. But not all. Range-bred +cattle are blessed with rugged constitutions and can bear much of cold +and hunger. The cow that can turn tail to a biting wind the while she +ploughs to the eyes in snow and roots out a very satisfactory living +for herself breeds calves that will in time do likewise and grow fat and +strong in the doing. He is a sturdy, self-reliant little rascal, is the +range-bred calf. + +When fifteen hundred head of mixed stock, bearing Northern brands, were +in the hands of the day-herders, Park and his crew were detailed to take +them on and turn them loose upon their own range north of Milk River. +Thurston felt that he had gleaned about all the experience he needed, +and more than enough hard riding and short sleeping and hurried eating. +He announced that he was ready to bid good-by to the range. He would +help take the herd home, he told Park, and then he intended to hit the +trail for little, old New York. + +He still agreed with the meadow larks that the world was good, but he +had made himself believe that he really thought the civilized portion +of it was better, especially when the uncivilized part holds a girl who +persists in saying no when she should undoubtedly say yes, and insists +that a man must be a hero, else she will have none of him. + + + +CHAPTER XII. HIGH WATER + +It was nearing the middle of June, and it was getting to be a very hot +June at that. For two days the trail-herd had toiled wearily over the +hills and across the coulees between the Missouri and Milk River. Then +the sky threatened for a day, and after that they plodded in the rain. + +“Thank the Lord that's done with,” sighed Park when he saw the last +of the herd climb, all dripping, up the north bank of the Milk River. +“To-morrow we can turn 'em loose. And I tell yuh, Bud, we didn't get +across none too soon. Yuh notice how the river's coming up? A day later +and we'd have had to hold the herd on the other side, no telling how +long.” + +“It is higher than usual; I noticed that,” Thurston agreed absently. He +was thinking more of Mona just then than of the river. He wondered if +she would be at home. He could easily ride down there and find out. +It wasn't far; not a quarter of a mile, but he assured himself that he +wasn't going, and that he was not quite a fool, he hoped Even if she +were at home, what good could that possibly do him? Just give him +several bad nights, when he would lie in his corner of the tent and +listen to the boys snoring with a different key for every man. Such +nights were not pleasant, nor were the thoughts that caused them. + +From where they were camped upon a ridge which bounded a broad coulee +on the east, he could look down upon the Stevens ranch nestling in the +bottomland, the house half hidden among the cottonwoods. Through the +last hours of the afternoon he watched it hungrily. The big corral ran +down to the water's edge, and he noted idly that three panels of the +fence extended out into the river, and that the muddy water was creeping +steadily up until at sundown the posts of the first panel barely showed +above the water. + +Park came up to him and looked down upon the little valley. “I never +did see any sense in Jack Stevens building where he did,” he remarked. +“There ain't a June flood that don't put his corral under water, and +some uh these days it's going to get the house. He was too lazy to dig +a well back on high ground; he'd rather take chances on having the whole +business washed off the face uh the earth.” + +“There must be danger of it this year if ever,” Thurston observed +uneasily. “The river is coming up pretty fast, it seems to me. It must +have raised three feet since we crossed this afternoon.” + +“I'll course there's danger, with all that snow coming out uh the +mountains. And like as not Jack's in Shellanne roosting on somebody's +pool table and telling it scary, instead uh staying at home looking +after his stuff. Where yuh going, Bud?” + +“I'm going to ride down there,” Thurston answered constrainedly. “The +women may be all alone.” + +“Well, I'll go along, if you'll hold on a minute. Jack ain't got a lick +uh sense. I don't care if he is Mona's brother.” + +“Half brother,” corrected Thurston, as he swung up into the saddle. He +had a poor opinion of Jack and resented even that slight relation to +Mona. + +The road was soggy with the rain which fell steadily; down in the +bottom, the low places in the road were already under water, and the +river, widening almost perceptibly in its headlong rush down the narrow +valley, crept inch by inch up its low banks. When they galloped into the +yard which sloped from the house gently down to the river fifty yards +away, Mona's face appeared for a moment in the window. Evidently she had +been watching for some one, and Thurston's heart flopped in his chest +as he wondered, fleetingly, if it could be himself. When she opened the +door her eyes greeted him with a certain wistful expression that he had +never seen in them before. He was guilty of wishing that Park had stayed +in camp. + +“Oh, I'm glad you rode over,” she welcomed--but she was careful, after +that first swift glance, to look at Park. “Jack wasn't at camp, was he? +He went to town this morning, and I looked for hi back long before now. +But it's a mistake ever to look for Jack until he's actually in sight.” + +Park smiled vaguely. He was afraid it would not be polite to agree with +her as emphatically as he would like to have done. But Thurston had no +smile ready, polite or otherwise. Instead he drew down his brows in a +way not complimentary to Jack. + +“Where is your mother?” he asked, almost peremptorily. + +“Mamma went to Great Falls last week,” she told him primly, just +grazing him with one of her impersonal glances which nearly drove him to +desperation. “Aunt Mary has typhoid fever--there seems to be so much of +that this spring and they sent for mamma. She's such a splendid nurse, +you know.” + +Thurston did know, but he passed over the subject. “And you're alone?” + he demanded. + +“Certainly not; aren't you two here?” Mona could be very pert when she +tried. “Jack and I are holding down the ranch just now; the boys are all +on roundup, of course. Jack went to town today to see some one. + +“Um-m-yes, of course.” It was Park, still trying to be polite and not +commit himself on the subject of Jack. The “some one” whom Jack went +oftenest to see was the bartender in the Palace saloon, but it was not +necessary to tell her that. + +“The river's coming up pretty fast, Mona,” he ventured. “Don't yuh think +yuh ought to pull out and go visiting?” + +“No, I don't.” Mona's tone was very decided. “I wouldn't drop down on a +neighbor without warning just because the river happens to be coming up. +It has 'come up' every June since we've been living here, and there have +been several of them. At the worst it never came inside the gate.” + +“You can never tell what it might do,” Park argued. “Yuh know yourself +there's never been so much snow in the mountains. This hot weather we've +been having lately, and then the rain, will bring it a-whooping. Can't +yuh ride over to the Jonses? One of us'll go with yuh.” + +“No, I can't.” Mona's chin went up perversely. “I'm no coward, I hope, +even if there was any danger which there isn't.” + +Thurston's chin went up also, and he sat a bit straighter. Whether she +meant it or not, he took her words as a covert stab at himself. Probably +she did not mean it; at any rate the blood flew consciously to her +cheeks after she had spoken, and she caught her under lip sharply +between her teeth. And that did not help matters or make her temper more +yielding. + +“Anyway,” she added hurriedly, “Jack will be here; he's likely to come +any minute now.” + +“Uh course, if Jack's got some new kind of half-hitch he can put on +the river and hold it back yuh'll be all right,” fleered Park, with the +freedom of an old friend. He had known Mona when she wore dresses to her +shoe-tops and her hair in long, brown curls down her back. + +She wrinkled her nose at him also with the freedom of an old friend and +Thurston stirred restlessly in his chair. He did not like even Park to +be too familiar with Mona, though he knew there was a girl in Shellanne +whose name Park sometimes spoke in his sleep. + +She lifted the big glass lamp down from its place on the clock shelf +and lighted it with fingers not quite steady. “You men,” she remarked, +“think women ought to be wrapped in pink cotton and put in a glass +cabinet. If, by any miracle, the river should come up around the house, +I flatter myself I should be able to cope with the situation. I'd just +saddle my horse and ride out to high ground!” + +“Would yuh?” Park grinned skeptically. “The road from here to the hill +is half under water right now; the river's got over the bank above, and +is flooding down through the horse pasture. By the time the water got up +here the river'd be as wide and deep one side uh yuh as the other. Then +where'd yuh be at?” + +“It won't get up here, though,” Mona asserted coolly. “It never has.” + +“No, and the Lazy Eight never had to work the Yellowstone range on +spring roundup before either,” Park told her meaningly. + +Whereupon Mona got upon her pedestal and smiled her unpleasant smile, +against which even Park had no argument ready. + +They lingered till long after all good cowpunchers are supposed to be +in their beds--unless they are standing night-guard--but Jack failed to +appear. The rain drummed upon the roof and the river swished and gurgled +against the crumbling banks, and grumbled audibly to itself because the +hills stood immovably in their places and set bounds which it could not +pass, however much it might rage against their base. + +When the clock struck a wheezy nine Mona glanced at it significantly +and smothered a yawn more than half affected. It was a hint which no man +with an atom of self-respect could overlook. With mutual understanding +the two rose. + +“I guess we'll have to be going,” Park said with some ceremony. “I kept +think ing maybe Jack would show up; it ain't right to leave yuh here +alone like this.” + +“I don't see why not; I'm not the least bit afraid,” Mona said. Her tone +was impersonal and had in it a note of dismissal. + +So, there being nothing else that they could do, they said good-night +and took themselves off. + +“This is sure fierce,” Park grumbled when they struck the lower ground. +“Darn a man like Jack Stevens! He'll hang out there in town and bowl up +on other men's money till plumb daylight. It's a wonder Mona didn't go +with her mother. But no--it'd be awful if Jack had to cook his own grub +for a week. Say, the water has come up a lot, don't yuh think, Bud? +If it raises much more Mona'll sure have a chance to 'cope with the +situation. It'd just about serve her right, too.” + +Thurston did not think so, but he was in too dispirited a mood to argue +the point. It had not been good for his peace of mind to sit and +watch the color come and go in Mona's cheeks, and the laughter spring +unheralded into her dear, big eyes, and the light tangle itself in the +waves of her hair. + +He guided his horse carefully through the deep places, and noted +uneasily how much deeper it was than when they had crossed before. He +cursed the conventions which forbade his staying and watching over the +girl back there in the house which already stood upon an island, cut off +from the safe, high land by a strip of backwater that was widening and +deepening every minute, and, when it rose high enough to flow into the +river below, would have a current that would make a nasty crossing. + +On the first rise he stopped and looked back at the light which shone +out from among the dripping cottonwoods. Even then he was tempted to go +back and brave her anger that he might feel assured of her safety. + +“Oh, come on,” Park cried impatiently. “We can't do any good sitting +out here in the rain. I don't suppose the water will get clear up to +the house; it'll likely do things to the sheds and corrals, though, and +serve Jack right. Come on, Bud. Mona won't have us around, so the sooner +we get under cover the better for us. She's got lots uh nerve; I guess +she'll make out all right.” + +There was common sense in the argument, and Thurston recognized it and +rode on to camp. But instead of unsaddling, as he would naturally have +done, he tied Sunfish to the bed-wagon and threw his slicker over his +back to protect him from the rain. And though Park said nothing, he +followed Thurston's example. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. “I'll STAY--ALWAYS” + +For a long time Thurston lay with wide-open eyes staring up at nothing, +listening to the rain and thinking. By and by the rain ceased and he +could tell by the dim whiteness of the tent roof that the clouds must +have been swept away from before the moon, then just past the full. + +He got up carefully so as not to disturb the others, and crept over two +or three sleeping forms on his way to the opening, untied the flap and +went out. The whole hilltop and the valley below were bathed in mellow +radiance. He studied critically the wide sweep of the river. He might +almost have thought it the Missouri itself, it stretched so far +from bank to bank; indeed, it seemed to know no banks but the hills +themselves. He turned toward where the light had shone among the +cottonwoods below; there was nothing but a great blot of shade that told +him nothing. + +A step sounded just behind. A hand, the hand of Park, rested upon his +shoulder. “Looks kinda dubious, don't it, kid? Was yuh thinking about +riding down there?” + +“Yes,” Thurston answered simply. “Are you coming?” + +“Sure,” Park assented. + +They got upon their horses and headed down the trail to the Stevens +place. Thurston would have put Sunfish to a run, but Park checked him. + +“Go easy,” he admonished. “If there's swimming to be done and it's a +cinch there will be, he's going to need all the wind he's got.” + +Down the hill they stopped at the edge of a raging torrent and strained +their eyes to see what lay on the other side. While they looked, a +light twinkled out from among the tree-tops. Thurston caught his breath +sharply. + +“She's upstairs,” he said, and his voice sounded strained and unnatural. +“It's just a loft where they store stuff.” He started to ride into the +flood. + +“Come on back here, yuh chump!” Park roared. “Get off and loosen the +cinch before yuh go in there, or yuh won't get far. Sunfish'll need +room to breathe, once he gets to bucking that current. He's a good water +horse, just give him his head and don't get rattled and interfere with +him. And we've got to go up a ways before we start in.” + +He led the way upstream, skirting under the bluff, and Thurston, chafing +against the delay, followed obediently. Trees were racing down, their +clean-washed roots reaching up in a tangle from the water, their +branches waving like imploring arms. A black, tar-papered shack went +scudding past, lodged upon a ridge where the water was shallower, and +sat there swaying drunkenly. Upon it a great yellow cat clung and yowled +his fear. + +“That's old Dutch Henry's house,” Park shouted above the roar. “I'll bet +he's cussing things blue on some pinnacle up there.” He laughed at the +picture his imagination conjured, and rode out into the swirl. + +Thurston kept close behind, mindful of Park's command to give Sunfish +his head. Sunfish had carried him safely out of the stampede and he had +no fear of him now. + +His chief thought was a wish that he might do this thing quite alone. +He was jealous of Park's leading, and thought bitterly that Mona would +thank Park alone and pass him by with scant praise and he did so want +to vindicate himself. The next minute he was cursing his damnable +selfishness. A tree had swept down just before him, caught Park and his +horse in its branches and hurried on as if ashamed of what it had done. +Thurston, in that instant, came near jerking Sunfish around to follow; +but he checked the impulse as it was formed and left the reins alone +which was wise. He could not have helped Park, and he could very easily +have drowned himself. Though it was not thought of himself but of Mona +that stayed his hand. + +They landed at the gate. Sunfish scrambled with his feet for secure +footing, found it and waded up to the front door. The water was a foot +deep on the porch. Thurston beat an imperative tattoo upon the door +with the butt of his quirt, and shouted. And Mona's voice, shorn of its +customary assurance, answered faintly from the loft. + +He shouted again, giving directions in a tone of authority which must +have sounded strange to her, but which she did not seem to resent and +obeyed without protest. She had to wade from the stairs to the door and +when Thurston stooped and lifted her up in front of him, she looked as +if she were very glad to have him there. + +“You didn't 'cope with the situation,' after all,” he remarked while she +was settling herself firmly in the saddle. + +“I went to sleep and didn't notice the water till it was coming in at +the door,” she explained. “And then--” She stopped abruptly. + +“Then what?” he demanded maliciously. “Were you afraid?” + +“A little,” she confessed reluctantly. + +Thurston gloated over it in silence--until he remembered Park. After +that he could think of little else. As before, now Sunfish battled as +seemed to him best, for Thurston, astride behind the saddle, held Mona +somewhat tighter than he need to have done, and let the horse go. + +So long as Sunfish had footing he braced himself against the mad rush of +waters and forged ahead. But out where the current ran swimming deep +he floundered desperately under his double burden. While his strength +lasted he kept his head above water, struggling gamely against the flood +that lapped over his back and bubbled in his nostrils. Thurston felt his +laboring and clutched Mona still tighter. Of a sudden the horse's head +went under; the black water came up around Thurston's throat with a +hungry swish, and Sunfish went out from under him like an eel. + +There was a confused roaring in his ears, a horrid sense of suffocation +for a moment. But he had learned to swim when he was a boy at school, +and he freed one hand from its grip on Mona and set to paddling with +much vigor and considerably less skill. And though the under-current +clutched him and the weight of Mona taxed his strength, he managed to +keep them both afloat and to make a little headway until the deepest +part lay behind them. + +How thankful he was when his feet touched bottom, no one but himself +ever knew! His ears hummed from the water in them, and the roar of +the river was to him as the roar of the sea; his eyes smarted from the +clammy touch of the dingy froth that went hurrying by in monster flakes; +his lungs ached and his heart pounded heavily against his ribs when he +stopped, gasping, beyond reach of the water-devils that lapped viciously +behind. + +He stood a minute with his arm still around her, and coughed his voice +clear. “Park went down,” he began, hardly knowing what it was he was +saying. “Park--” He stopped, then shouted the name aloud. “Park! Oh-h, +Park!” + +And from somewhere down the river came a faint reassuring whoop. + +“Thank the Lord!” gasped Thurston, and leaned against her for a second. +Then he straightened. “Are you all right?” he asked, and drew her toward +a rock near at hand--for in truth, the knees of him were shaking. They +sat down, and he looked more closely at her face and discovered that +it was wet with something more than river water. Mona the self-assured, +Mona the strong-hearted, was crying. And instinctively he knew that not +the chill alone made her shiver. He was keeping his arm around her waist +deliberately, and it pleased him that she let it stay. After a minute +she did something which surprised him mightily--and pleased him more: +she dropped her face down against the soaked lapels of his coat, and +left it there. He laid a hand tenderly against her cheek and wondered if +he dared feel so happy. + +“Little girl--oh, little girl,” he said softly, and stopped. For the +crowding emotions in his heart and brain the English language has no +words. + +Mona lifted her face and looked into his eyes. Her own were soft and +shining in the moonlight, and she was smiling a little--the roguish +little smile of the imitation pastel portrait. “You--you'll unpack your +typewriter, won't you please, and--and stay?” + +Thurston crushed her close. “Stay? The range-land will never get rid +of me now,” he cried jubilantly. “Hank wanted to take me into the Lazy +Eight, so now I'll buy an interest, and stay--always.” + +“You dear!” Mona snuggled close and learned how it feels to be kissed, +if she had never known before. + +Sunfish, having scrambled ashore a few yards farther down, came up to +them and stood waiting, as if to be forgiven for his failure to carry +them safe to land, but Thurston, after the first inattentive glance, +ungratefully took no heed of him. + +There was a sound of scrambling foot-steps and Park came dripping up to +them. “Well, say!” he greeted. “Ain't yuh got anything to do but set here +and er--look at the moon? Break away and come up to camp. I'll rout out +the cook and make him boil us some coffee.” + +Thurston turned joyfully toward him. “Park, old fellow, I was afraid.” + +“Yuh better reform and quit being afraid,” Park bantered. “I got out uh +the mix-up fine, but I guess my horse went on down--poor devil. I was +poking around below there looking for him.” + +“Well, Mona, I see yuh was able to 'cope with the situation,' all +right--but yuh needed Bud mighty bad, I reckon. The chances is yuh won't +have no house in the morning, so Bud'll have to get busy and rustle one +for yuh. I guess you'll own up, now, that the water can get through the +gate.” He laughed in his teasing way. + +Mona stood up, and her shining eyes were turned to Thurston. “I don't +care,” she asserted with reddened cheeks. “I'm just glad it did get +through.” + +“Same here,” said Thurston with much emphasis. + +Then, with Mona once more in the saddle, and with Thurston leading +Sunfish by the bridle-rein, they trailed damply and happily up the long +ridge to where the white tents of the roundup gleamed sharply against +the sky-line. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lure of the Dim Trails, by +by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1014 *** |