A woman was stooping at the woodpile, filling her arms with crooked sticks of rough-barked sage. From the color of her hair Bud knew that she was not Honey, and that she was therefore a stranger to him. But he swung off the path and went over to her as naturally as he would go to pick up a baby that had fallen.
“I'll carry that in for you,” he said, and put out his hand to help her to her feet.
Before he touched her she was on her feet and looking at him. Bud could not remember afterwards that she had done anything else; he seemed to have seen only her eyes, and into them and beyond them to a soul that somehow made his heart tremble.
What she said, what he answered, was of no moment. He could not have told afterwards what it was. He stooped and filled his arms with wood, and walked ahead of her up the pathway to the kitchen door, and stopped when she flitted past him to show him where the wood-box stood. He was conscious then of her slenderness and of the lightness of her steps. He dropped the wood into the box behind the stove on which kettles were steaming. There was the smell of chicken stewing, and the odor of fresh-baked pies.
She smiled up at him and offered him a crisp, warn cookie with sugared top, and he saw her eyes again and felt the same tremor at his heart. He pulled himself together and smiled back at her, thanked her and went out, stumbling a little on the doorstep, the cookie untasted in his fingers.
He walked down to the corral and began fumbling at his pack, his thoughts hushed before the revelation that had come to him.
“Her hands—her poor, little, red hands!” he said in a whisper as the memory of them came suddenly. But it was her eyes that he was seeing with his mind; her eyes, and what lay deep within. They troubled him, shook him, made him want to use his man-strength against something that was hurting her. He did not know what it could be; he did not know that there was anything—but oddly the memory of his mother's white face back in the long ago, and of her tone when she said, “Oh, God, please!” came back and fitted themselves to the look in this woman's eyes.
Bud sat down on his canvas-wrapped bed and lifted his hat to rumple his hair and then smooth it again, as was his habit when worried. He looked at the cookie, and because he was hungry he ate it with a foolish feeling that he was being sentimental as the very devil, thinking how her hands had touched it. He rolled and smoked a cigarette afterwards, and wondered who she was and whether she was married, and what her first name was.
A quiet smoke will bring a fellow to his senses sometimes when nothing else will, and Bud managed, by smoking two cigarettes in rapid succession, to restore himself to some degree of sanity.
“Funny how she made me think of mother, back when I was a kid coming up from Texas,” he mused. “Mother'd like her.” It was the first time he had ever thought just that about a girl. “She's no relation to Honey,” he added. “I'd bet a horse on that.” He recalled how white and soft were Honey's hands, and he swore a little. “Wouldn't hurt her to get out there in the kitchen and help with the cooking,” he criticised. Then suddenly he laughed. “Shucks a'mighty, as Pop says! with those two girls on the ranch I'll gamble Dave Truman has a full crew of men that are plumb willing to work for their board!”
The stage came, and Bud turned to it relievedly. After that, here came Dave Truman on a deep-cheated roan. Bud knew him by his resemblance to the old man, who came shuffling bent-backed from the machine-shed as Dave passed.
Pop beckoned, and Dave reined his horse that way and stopped at the shed door. The two talked for a minute and Dave rode on, passing Bud with a curt nod. Pop came over to where Bud stood leaning against the corral.
“How are you feeling, dad?” Bud grinned absently.
“Purty stiff an' sore, boy—my rheumatics is bad to-day.” Pop winked solemnly. “I spoke to Dave about you wantin' a job, and I guess likely Dave'll put you on. They's plenty to do—hayin' comin' on and all that.” He lowered his voice mysteriously, though there was no man save Bud within a hundred feet of him. “Don't ye go 'n talk horses—not yet. Don't let on like yore interested much. I'll tell yuh when to take 'em up.”
The men came riding in from the hayfield, some in wagons, two astride harnessed work-horses, and one long-legged fellow in chaps on a mower, driving a sweaty team that still had life enough to jump sidewise when they spied Bud's pack by the corral. The stage driver sauntered up and spoke to the men. Bud went over and began to help unhitch the team from the mower, and the driver eyed him sharply while he grinned his greeting across the backs of the horses.
“Pop says you're looking for work,” Dave Truman observed, coming up. “Well, if you ain't scared of it, I'll stake yuh to a hayfork after dinner. Where yuh from?”
“Just right now, I'm from the Muleshoe. Bud Birnie's my name. I was telling dad why I quit.”
“Tell me,” Dave directed briefly. “Pop ain't as reliable as he used to be. He'd never get it out straight.”
“I quit,” said Bud, “by special request.” He pulled off his gloves carefully and held up his puffed knuckles. “I got that on Dirk Tracy.”
The driver of the mower shot a quick, meaning glance at Dave, and laughed shortly. Dave grinned a little, but he did not ask what had been the trouble, as Bud had half expected him to do. Apparently Dave felt that he had received all the information he needed, for his next remark had to do with the heat. The day was a “weather breeder”, he declared, and he was glad to have another man to put at the hauling.
An iron triangle beside the kitchen door clamored then, and Bud, looking quickly, saw the slim little woman with the big, troubled eyes striking the iron bar vigorously. Dave glanced at his watch and led the way to the house, the hay crew hurrying after him.
Fourteen men sat down to a long table with a great shuffling of feet and scraping of benches, and immediately began a voracious attack upon the heaped platters of chicken and dumplings and the bowls of vegetables. Bud found a place at the end where he could look into the kitchen, and his eyes went that way as often as they dared, following the swift motions of the little woman who poured coffee and filled empty dishes and said never a word to anyone.
He was on the point of believing her a daughter of the house when a square-jawed man of thirty, or thereabout, who sat at Bud's right hand, called her to him as he might have called his dog, by snapping his fingers.
She came and stood beside Bud while the man spoke to her in an arrogant undertone.
“Marian, I told yuh I wanted tea for dinner after this. D'you bring me coffee on purpose, just to be onery? I thought I told yuh to straighten up and quit that sulkin'. I ain't going to have folks think——”
“Oh, be quiet! Shame on you, before everyone!” she whispered fiercely while she lifted the cup and saucer.
Bud went hot all over. He did not look up when she returned presently with a cup of tea, but he felt her presence poignantly, as he had never before sensed the presence of a woman. When he was able to swallow his wrath and meet calmly the glances of these strangers he turned his head casually and looked the man over.
Her husband, he guessed the fellow to be. No other relationship could account for that tone of proprietorship, and there was no physical resemblance between the two. A mean devil, Bud called him mentally, with a narrow forehead, eyes set too far apart and the mouth of a brute. Someone spoke to the man, calling him Lew, and he answered with rough good humor, repeating a stale witticism and laughing at it just as though he had not heard others say it a hundred times.
Bud looked at him again and hated him, but he did not glance again at the little woman named Marian; for his own peace of mind he did not dare. He thought that he knew now what it was he had seen in the depth of her eyes, but there seemed to be nothing that he could do to help.
That evening after supper Honey Krause called to him when he was starting down to the bunk-house with the other men. What she said was that she still had his guitar and mandolin, and that they needed exercise. What she looked was the challenge of a born coquette. In the kitchen dishes were rattling, but after they were washed there would be a little leisure, perhaps, for the kitchen drudge. Bud's impulse to make his sore hands an excuse for refusing evaporated. It might not be wise to place himself deliberately in the way of getting a hurt—but youth never did stop to consult a sage before following the lure of a woman's eyes.
He called back to Honey that those instruments ought to have been put in the hayfield, where there was more exercise than the men could use. “You boys ought to come and see me safe through with it,” he added to the loitering group around him. “I'm afraid of women.”
They laughed and two or three went with him. Lew went on to the corral and presently appeared on horseback, riding up to the kitchen and leaving his horse standing at the corner while he went inside and talked to the woman he had called Marian.
Bud was carrying his guitar outside, where it was cooler, when he heard the fellow's arrogant voice. The dishes ceased rattling for a minute, and there was a sharp exclamation, stifled but unmistakable. Involuntarily Bud made a movement in that direction, when Honey's voice stopped him with a subdued laugh.
“That's only Lew and Mary Ann,” she explained carelessly. “They have a spat every time they come within gunshot of each other.”
The lean fellow who had driven the mower, and whose name was Jerry Myers, edged carelessly close to Bud and gave him a nudge with his elbow, and a glance from under his eyebrows by way of emphasis. He turned his head slightly, saw that Honey had gone into the house, and muttered just above a whisper, “Don't see or hear anything. It's all the help you can give her. And for Lord's sake don't let on to Honey like you—give a cuss whether it rains or not, so long 's it don't pour too hard the night of the dance.”
Bud looked up at the darkening sky speculatively, and tried not to hear the voices in the kitchen, one of which was brutally harsh while the other told of hate and fear suppressed under gentle forbearance. The harsh voice was almost continuous, the other infrequent, reluctant to speak at all. Bud wanted to go in and smash his guitar over the fellow's head, but Jerry's warning held him. There were other ways, however, to help; if he must not drive off the tormentor, then he would call him away. He ignored his bruised knuckles and plucked the guitar strings as if he held a grudge against them, and then began to sing the first song that came into his mind—one that started in a rollicky fashion.
Men came straggling up from the bunk-house before he had finished the first chorus, and squatted on their heels to listen, their cigarettes glowing like red fingertips in the dusk. But the voice in the kitchen talked on. Bud tried another—one of those old-time favorites, a “laughing coon” song, though he felt little enough in the mood for it. In the middle of the first laugh he heard the kitchen door slam, and Lew's footsteps coming around the corner. He listened until the song was done, then mounted and rode away, Bud's laugh following him triumphantly—though Lew could not have guessed its meaning.
Bud sang for two hours expectantly, but Marian did not appear, and Bud went off to the bunk-house feeling that his attempt to hearten her had been a failure. Of Honey he did not think at all, except to wonder if the two women were related in any way, and to feel that if they were Marian was to be pitied. At that point Jerry overtook him and asked for a match, which gave him an excuse to hold Bud behind the others.
“Honey like to have caught me, to-night,” Jerry observed guardedly. “I had to think quick. I'll tell you the lay of the land, Bud, seeing you're a stranger here. Marian's man, Lew, he's a damned bully and somebody is going to draw a fine bead on him some day when he ain't looking. But he stands in, so the less yuh take notice the better. Marian, she's a fine little woman that minds her own business, but she's getting a cold deck slipped into the game right along. Honey's jealous of her and afraid somebody'll give her a pleasant look. Lew's jealous, and he watches her like a cat watches a mouse it's caught and wants to play with. Between the two of 'em Marian has a real nice time of it. I'm wising you up so you won't hand her any more misery by trying to take her part. Us boys have learned to keep our mouths shut.”
“Glad you told me,” Bud muttered. “Otherwise——”
“Exactly,” Jerry agreed understandingly. “Otherwise any of us would.”
He stopped and then spoke in a different tone. “If Lew stays off the ranch long enough, maybe you'll get to hear her sing. Wow-ee, but that lady has sure got the meadow-larks whipped! But look out for Honey, old-timer.”
Bud laughed unmirthfully. “Looks to me as if you aren't crazy over Honey,” he ventured. “What has she done to you?”
“Her?” Jerry inspected his cigarette, listened to the whisper of prudence in his ear, and turned away. “Forget it. I never said a word.” He swept the whole subject from him with a comprehensive gesture, and snorted. “I'm gettin' as bad as Pop,” he grinned. “But lemme tell yuh something. Honey Krause runs more 'n the post-office.”
Bud liked to have his life run along accustomed lines with a more or less perfect balance of work and play, friendships and enmities. He had grown up with the belief that any mystery is merely a synonym for menace. He had learned to be wary of known enemies such as Indians and outlaws, and to trust implicitly his friends. To feel now, without apparent cause, that his friends might be enemies in disguise, was a new experience that harried him.
He had come to Little Lost on Tuesday, straight from the Muleshoe where his presence was no longer desired for some reason not yet satisfactorily explained to him. You know what happened on Tuesday. That night the land crouched under a terrific electric storm, with crackling swords of white death dazzling from inky black clouds, and ear-splitting thunder close on the heels of it. Bud had known such storms all his life, yet on this night he was uneasy, vaguely disturbed. He caught himself wondering if Lew Morris's wife was frightened, and the realization that he was worrying about her fear worried him more than ever and held him awake long after the fury of the storm had passed.
Next day, when he came in at noon, there was Hen, from the Muleshoe, waiting for dinner before he rode back with the mail. Hen's jaw dropped when he saw Bud riding on a Little Lost hay-wagon, and his eyes bulged with what Bud believed was consternation. All through the meal Bud had caught Hen eyeing him miserably, and looking stealthily from him to the others. No one paid any attention, and for that Bud was rather thankful; he did not want the Little Lost fellows to think that perhaps he had done something which he knew would hang him if it were discovered, which, he decided, was the mildest interpretation a keen observer would be apt to make of Hen's behavior.
When he went out, Hen was at his heels, trying to say something in his futile, tongue-tied gobble. Bud stopped and looked at him tolerantly. “Hen, It's no use—you might as well be talking Chinese, for all I know. If it's important, write it down or I'll never know what's on your mind.”
He pulled a note-book and a pencil from his vest-pocket and gave them to Hen, who looked at him dumbly, worked his Adam's apple violently and retreated to his horse, fumbled the mail which was tied in the bottom of a flour sack for safe keeping, sought a sheltered place where he could sit down, remained there a few minutes, and then returned to his horse He beckoned to Bud, who was watching him curiously; and when Bud went over to him said something unintelligible and handed back the note-book, motioning for caution when Bud would have opened the book at once.
So Bud thanked him gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes, and waited until Hen had gone and he was alone before he read the message. It was mysterious enough, certainly. Hen had written in a fine, cramped, uneven hand:
“You bee carful. bern this up and dent let on like you no anything but i warn you be shure bern this up.”
Bud tore out the page and burned it as requested, and since he was not enlightened by the warning he obeyed Hen's instructions and did not “let on.” But he could not help wondering, and was unconsciously prepared to observe little things which ordinarily would have passed unnoticed.
At the dance on Friday night, for instance, there was a good deal of drinking and mighty little hilarity. Bud had been accustomed to loud talk and much horseplay outside among the men on such occasions, and even a fight or two would be accepted as a matter of course. But though several quart bottles were passed around during the night and thrown away empty into the bushes, the men went in and danced and came out again immediately to converse confidentially in small groups, or to smoke without much speech. The men of Burroback Valley were not running true to form.
The women were much like all the women of cow-country: mothers with small children who early became cross and sleepy and were hushed under shawls on the most convenient bed, a piece of cake in their hands; mothers whose faces were lined too soon with work and ill-health, and with untidy hair that became untidier as the dance progressed. There were daughters—shy and giggling to hide their shyness—Bud knew their type very well and made friends with them easily, and immediately became the centre of a clamoring audience after he had sung a song or two.
There was Honey, with her inscrutable half smile and her veiled eyes, condescending to graciousness and quite plainly assuming a proprietary air toward Bud, whom she put through whatever musical paces pleased her fancy. Bud, I may say, was extremely tractable. When Honey said sing, Bud sang; when she said play, Bud sat down to the piano and played until she asked him to do something else. It was all very pleasant for Honey—and Bud ultimately won his point—Honey decided to extend her graciousness a little.
Why hadn't Bud danced with Marian? He must go right away and ask her to dance. Just because Lew was gone, Marian need not be slighted—and besides, there were other fellows who might want a little of Honey's time.
So Bud went away and found Marian in the pantry, cutting cakes while the coffee boiled, and asked her to dance. Marian was too tired, and' she had not the time to spare; wherefore Bud helped himself to a knife and proceeded to cut cakes with geometrical precision, and ate all the crumbs. With his hands busy, he found the courage to talk to her a little. He made Marian laugh out loud and it was the first time he had ever heard her do that.
Marian disclosed a sense of humor, and even teased Bud a little about Honey. But her teasing lacked that edge of bitterness which Bud had half expected in retaliation for Honey's little air of superiority.
“Your precision in cutting cakes is very much like your accurate fingering of the piano,” she observed irrelevantly, surveying his work with her lips pursed. “A pair of calipers would prove every piece exactly, the same width; and even when you play a Meditation? I'm sure the metronome would waggle in perfect unison with your tempo. I wonder—” She glanced up at him speculatively. “—I wonder if you think with such mathematical precision. Do you always find that two and two make four?”
“You mean, have I any imagination whatever?” Bud looked away from her eyes—toward the uncurtained, high little window. A face appeared there, as if a tall man had glanced in as he was passing by and halted for a second to look. Bud's eyes met full the eyes of the man outside, who tilted his head backward in a significant movement and passed on. Marian turned her head and caught the signal, looked at Bud quickly, a little flush creeping into her cheeks.
“I hope you have a little imagination,” she said, lowering her voice instinctively. “It doesn't require much to see that Jerry is right. The conventions are strictly observed at Little Lost—in the kitchen, at least,” she added, under her breath, with a flash of resentment. “Run along—and the next time Honey asks you to play the piano, will you please play Lotusblume? And when you have thrown open the prison windows with that, will you play Schubert's Ave Maria—the way you play it—to send a breath of cool night air in?”
She put out the tips of her fingers and pressed them lightly against Bud's shoulder, turning toward the door. Bud started, stepped into the kitchen, wheeled about and stood regarding her with a stubborn look in his eyes.
“I might kick the door down, too,” he said. “I don't like prisons nohow.”
“No-just a window, thank you,” she laughed.
Bud thought the laugh did not go very deep. “Jerry wants to talk to you. He's the whitest of the lot, if you can call that—” she stopped abruptly, put out a hand to the door, gave him a moment to look into her deep, troubled eyes, and closed the door gently but inexorably in his face.
Jerry was standing at the corner of the house smoking negligently. He waited until Bud had come close alongside him, then led the way slowly down the path to the corrals.
“I thought I heard the horses fighting,” he remarked. “There was a noise down this way.”
“Is that why you called me outside?” asked Bud, who scorned subterfuge.
“Yeah. I saw you wasn't dancing or singing or playing the piano—and I knew Honey'd likely be looking you up to do one or the other, in a minute. She sure likes you, Bud. She don't, everybody that comes along.”
Bud did not want to discuss Honey, wherefore he made no reply, and they walked along in silence, the cool, heavy darkness grateful after the oil lamps and the heat of crowded rooms. As they neared the corrals a stable door creaked open and shut, yet there was no wind. Jerry halted, one hand going to Bud's arm. They stood for a minute, and heard the swish of the bushes behind the corral, as if a horse were passing through. Jerry turned back, leading Bud by the arm. They were fifty feet away and the bushes were still again before Jerry spoke guardedly.
“I guess I made a mistake. There wasn't nothing,” he said, and dropped Bud's arm.
Bud stopped. “There was a man riding off in the brush,” he said bluntly, “and all the folks that came to the dance rode in through the front gate. I reckon I'll just take a look where I left my saddle, anyway.”
“That might have been some loose stock,” Jerry argued, but Bud went back, wondering a little at Jerry's manner.
The saddle was all right, and so was everything else, so far as Bud could determine in the dark, but he was not satisfied. He thought he understood Jerry's reason for bringing him down to the corrals, but he could not understand Jerry's attitude toward an incident which any man would have called suspicious.
Bud quietly counted noses when he returned to the house and found that supper was being served, but he could not recall any man who was missing now. Every guest and every man on the ranch was present except old Pop, who had a little shack to himself and went to bed at dark every night.
Bud was mystified, and he hated mysteries. Moreover, he was working for Dave Truman, and whatever might concern Little Lost concerned him also. But the men had begun to talk openly of their various “running horses”, and to exchange jibes and boasts and to bet a little on Sunday's races. Bud wanted to miss nothing of that, and Jerry's indifference to the incident at the stable served to reassure him for the time being. He edged close to the group where the talk was loudest, and listened.
A man they called Jeff was trying to jeer his neighbors into betting against a horse called Skeeter, and was finding them too cautious for his liking. He laughed and, happening to catch Bud's eyes upon him, strode forward with an empty tin cup in his hand and slapped Bud friendliwise on the shoulder.
“Why, I bet this singin' kid, that don't know wha I got ner what you fellers has got, ain't scared to take, a chance. Are yuh, kid? What d' yuh think of this pikin' bunch here that has seen Skeeter come in second and third more times 'n what he beat, and yet is afraid to take a chance on rosin' two bits? Whatd' yuh think of 'em? Ain't they an onery bunch?”
“I suppose they hate to lose,” Bud grinned.
“That's it—money 's more to 'em than the sport of kings, which is runnin' horses. This bunch, kid belly-ached till Dave took his horse Boise outa the game, and now, by gosh, they're backin' up from my Skeeter, that has been beat more times than he won.'
“When you pulled him, Jeff!” a mocking voice drawled. “And that was when you wasn't bettin' yourself.”
Jeff turned injuredly to Bud. “Now don't that sound like a piker?” he complained. “It ain't reason to claim I'd pull my own horse. Ain't that the out doinest way to come back at a man that likes a good race?”
Bud swelled his chest and laid his hand on Jeff's shoulder. “Just to show you I'm not a piker,” he cried recklessly, “I'll bet you twenty-five dollars I can beat your Skeeter with my Smoky horse that I rode in here. Is it a go?”
Jeff's jaw dropped a little, with surprise. “What fer horse is this here Smoky horse of yourn?” he wanted to know.
Bud winked at the group, which cackled gleeful!, “I love the sport of kings,” he said. “I love it so well I don't have to see your Skeeter horse till Sunday. From the way these boys sidestep him, I guess he's a sure-enough running horse. My Smoky's a good little horse, too, but he never scared a bunch till they had cramps in the pockets. Still,” he added with a grin, “I'll try anything once. I bet you twenty-five dollars my Smoky can beat your Skeeter.”
“Say, kid, honest I hate to take it away from yuh. Honest, I do. The way you can knock the livin' tar outa that pyanny is a caution to cats. I c'd listen all night. But when it comes to runnin' horses—”
“Are you afraid of your money?” Bud asked him arrogantly. “You called this a bunch of pikers—”
“Well, by golly, it'll be your own fault, kid. If I take your money away from yuh, don't go and blame it onto me. Mebbe these fellers has got some cause to sidestep—”
“All right, the bet's on. And I won't blame you if I lose. Smoky's a good little horse. Don't think for a minute I'm giving you my hard earned coin. You'll have to throw up some dust to get it, old-timer. I forgot to say I'd like to make it a quarter dash.”
“A quarter dash it is,” Jeff agreed derisively as Bud turned to answer the summons of the music which was beginning again.
The racing enthusiasts lingered outside, and Bud smiled to himself while he whirled Honey twice around in an old-fashioned waltz. He had them talking about him, and wondering about his horse. When they saw Smoky they would perhaps call him a chancey kid. He meant to ask Pop about Skeeter, though Pop seemed confident that Smoky would win against anything in the valley.
But on the other hand, he had seen in his short acquaintance with Little Lost that Pop was considered childish—that comprehensive accusation which belittles the wisdom of age. The boys made it a point to humor him without taking him seriously. Honey pampered him and called him Poppy, while in Marian's chill courtesy, in her averted glances, Bud had read her dislike of Pop. He had seen her hand shrink away from contact with his hand when she set his coffee beside his plate.
But Bud had heard others speak respectfully of Boise, and regret that he was too fast to run. Pop might be childish on some subjects, but Bud rather banked on his judgment of horses—and Pop was penurious and anxious to win money.
“What are you thinking about?” Honey demanded when the music stopped. “Something awful important, I guess, to make you want to keep right on dancing!”
“I was thinking of horse-racing,” Bud confessed, glad that he could tell her the truth.
“Ah, you! Don't let them make a fool of you. Some of the fellows would bet the shirt off their backs on a horse-race! You look out for them, Bud.”
“They wouldn't bet any more than I would,” Bud boldly declared. “I've bet already against a horse I've never seen. How 's that?”
“That's crazy. You'll lose, and serve you right.” She went off to dance with someone else, and Bud turned smiling to find a passable partner amongst the older women—for he was inclined to caution where strange girls were concerned. Much trouble could come to a stranger who danced with a girl who happened to have a jealous sweetheart, and Bud did not court trouble of that kind. He much preferred to fight over other things. Besides, he had no wish to antagonize Honey.
But his dance with some faded, heavy-footed woman was not to be. Jerry once more signalled him and drew him outside for a little private conference. Jerry was ill at ease and inclined to be reproachful and even condemnatory.
He wanted first to know why Bud had been such a many kinds of a fool as to make that bet with Jeff Hall. All the fellows were talking about it. “They was asking me what kind of a horse you've got—and I wouldn't put it past Jeff and his bunch to pull some kind of a dirty trick on you,” he complained. “Bud, on the square, I like you a whole lot. You seem kinda innocent, in some ways, and in other ways you don't. I wish you'd tell me just one thing, so I can sleep comfortable. Have you got some scheme of your own? Or what the devil ails you?”
“Well, I've just got a notion,” Bud admitted. “I'm going to have some fun watching those fellows perform, whether I win or lose. I've spent as much as twenty-five dollars on a circus, before now, and felt that I got the worth of my money, too. I'm going to enjoy myself real well, next Sunday.”
Jerry glanced behind him and lowered his voice, speaking close to Bud's ear. “Well, there's something I'd like to say that it ain't safe to say, Bud. I'd hate like hell to see you get in trouble. Go as far as you like having fun—but—oh, hell! What's the use?” He turned abruptly and went inside, leaving Bud staring after him rather blankly.
Jerry did not strike Bud as being the kind of a man who goes around interfering with every other man's business. He was a quiet, good-natured young fellow with quizzical eyes of that mixed color which we call hazel simply because there is more brown than gray or green. He did not talk much, but he observed much. Bud was strongly inclined to heed Jerry's warning, but it was too vague to have any practical value—“about like Hen's note,” Bud concluded. “Well-meaning but hazy. Like a red danger flag on a railroad crossing where the track is torn up and moved. I saw one, once and my horse threw a fit at it and almost piled me. I figured that the red flag created the danger, where I was concerned. Still, I'd like to oblige Jerry and sidestep something or other, but...”
His thoughts grew less distinct, merged into wordless rememberings and conjectures, clarified again into terse sentences which never reached the medium of speech.
“Well, I'll just make sure they don't try out Smoke when I'm not looking,” he decided, and slipped away in the dark.
By a roundabout way which avoided the trail he managed to reach the pasture fence without being seen. No horses grazed in sight, and he climbed through and went picking his way across the lumpy meadow in the starlight. At the farther side he found the horses standing out on a sandy ridge where the mosquitoes were not quite so pestiferous. The Little Lost horses snorted and took to their heels, his three following for a short distance.
Bud stopped and whistled a peculiar call invented long ago when he was just Buddy, and watched over the Tomahawk REMUDA. Every horse with the Tomahawk brand knew that summons—though not every horse would obey it. But these three had come when they were sucking colts, if Buddy whistled; and in their breaking and training, in the long trip north, they had not questioned its authority. They turned and trotted back to him now and nosed Bud's hands which he held out to them.
He petted them all and talked to them in an affectionate murmur which they answered by sundry lipnibbles and subdued snorts. Smoky he singled out finally, rubbing his back and sides with the flat of his hand from shoulder to flank, and so to the rump and down the thigh to the hock to the scanty fetlock which told, to those who knew, that here was an aristocrat among horses.
Smoky stood quiet, and Bud's hand lingered there, smoothing the slender ankle. Bud's fingers felt the fine-haired tail, then gave a little twitch. He was busy for a minute, kneeling in the sand with one knee, his head bent. Then he stood up, went forward to Smoky's head, and stood rubbing the horse's nose thoughtfully.
“I hate to do it, old boy—but I'm working to make's a home—we've got to work together. And I'm not asking any more of you than I'd be willing to do myself, if I were a horse and you were a man.”
He gave the three horses a hasty pat apiece and started back across the meadow to the fence. They followed him like pet dogs—and when Bud glanced back over his shoulder he saw in the dim light that Smoky walked with a slight limp.
Sunday happened to be fair, with not too strong a wind blowing. Before noon Little Lost ranch was a busy place, and just before dinner it became busier. Horse-racing seemed to be as popular a sport in the valley as dancing. Indeed, men came riding in who had not come to the dance. The dry creek-bed where the horses would run had no road leading to it, so that all vehicles came to Little Lost and remained there while the passengers continued on foot to the races.
At the corral fresh shaven men, in clean shirts to distinguish this as a dress-up occasion, foregathered, looking over the horses and making bets and arguing. Pop shambled here and there, smoking cigarettes furiously and keeping a keen ear toward the loudest betting. He came sidling up to Bud, who was leading Smoky out of the stable, and his sharp eyes took in every inch of the horse and went inquiringly to Bud's face.
“Goin' to run him, young feller—lame as what he is?” he demanded sharply.
“Going to try, anyway,” said Bud. “I've got a bet up on him, dad.”
“Sho! Fixin' to lose, air ye? You kin call it off, like as not. Jeff ain't so onreason'ble 't he'd make yuh run a lame horse. Air yuh, Jeff?”
Jeff strolled up and looked Smoky over with critical eyes. “What's the matter? Ain't the kid game to run him? Looks to me like a good little goer.”
“He's got a limp—but I'll run him anyway.” Bud glanced up. “Maybe when he's warmed up he'll forget about it.”
“Seen my Skeeter?”
“Good horse, I should judge,” Bud observed indifferently. “But I ain't worrying any.”
“Well, neither am I,” Jeff grinned.
Pop stood teetering back and forth, plainly uneasy. “I'd rub him right good with liniment,” he advised Bud. “I'll git some't I know ought t' help.”
“What's the matter, Pop? You got money up on that cayuse?” Jeff laughed.
Pop whirled on him. “I ain't got money up on him, no. But if he wasn't lame I'd have some! I'd show ye 't I admire gameness in a kid. I would so.”
Jeff nudged his neighbor into laughter. “There ain't a gamer old bird in the valley than Pop,” Jeff cried. “C'm awn, Pop, I'll bet yuh ten dollars the kid beats me!”
Pop was shuffling hurriedly out of the corral after the liniment. To Jeff's challenge he made no reply whatever. The group around Jeff shooed Smoky gently toward the other side of the corral, thereby convincing themselves of the limp in his right hind foot. While not so pronounced as to be crippling, it certainly was no asset to a running horse, and the wise ones conferred together in undertones.
“That there kid's a born fool,” Dave Truman stated positively. “The horse can't run. He's got the look of a speedy little animal—but shucks! The kid don't know anything about running horses. I've been talking to him, and I know. Jeff, you're taking the money away from him if you run that race.”
“Well, I'm giving the kid a chance to back out,” Jeff hastened to declare. “He can put it off till his horse gits well, if he wants to. I ain't going to hold him to it. I never said I was.”
“That's mighty kind of you,” Bud said, coming up from behind with a bottle of liniment, and with Pop at his heels. “But I'll run him just the same. Smoky has favored this foot before, and it never seemed to hurt him any. You needn't think I'm going to crawfish. You must think I'm a whining cuss—say! I'll bet another ten dollars that I don't come in more than a neck behind, lame horse or not!”
“Now, kid, don't git chancey,” Pop admonished uneasily. “Twenty-five is enough money to donate to Jeff.”
“That's right, kid. I like your nerve,” Jeff cut in, emphasizing his approval with a slap on Bud's shoulder as he bent to lift Smoky's leg. “I've saw worse horses than this one come in ahead—it wouldn't be no sport o' kings if nobody took a chance.”
“I'm taking chance enough,” Bud retorted without looking up. “If I don't win this time I will the next, maybe.”
“That's right,” Jeff agreed heartily, winking broadly at the others behind Bud's back.
Bud rubbed Smoky's ankle with liniment, listened to various and sundry self-appointed advisers and, without seeming to think how the sums would total, took several other small bets on the race. They were small—Pop began to teeter back and forth and lift his shoulders and pull his beard—sure signs of perturbation.
“By Christmas, I'll just put up ten dollars on the kid,” Pop finally cackled. “I ain't got much to lose—but I'll show yuh old Pop ain't going to see the young feller stand alone.” He tried to catch Bud's eye, but that young man was busy saddling Smoky and returning jibe for jibe with the men around him, and did not glance toward Pop at all.
“I'll take this bottle in my pocket, Pop,” he said with his back toward the old man, and mounted carelessly. “I'll ride him around a little and give him another good rubbing before we run. I'm betting,” he added to the others frankly, “on the chance that exercise and the liniment will take the soreness out of that ankle. I don't believe it amounts to anything at all. So if any of you fellows want to bet—”
“Shucks! Don't go 'n-” Pop began, and bit the sentence in two, dropping immediately into a deep study. The kid was getting beyond Pop's understanding.
A crowd of perhaps a hundred men and women—with a generous sprinkling of unruly juveniles—lined the sheer bank of the creek-bed and watched the horses run, and screamed their cheap witticisms at the losers, and their approval of those who won. The youngster with the mysterious past and the foolhardiness to bet on a lame horse they watched and discussed, the women plainly wishing he would win—because he was handsome and young, and such a wonderful musician. The men were more cold-blooded. They could not see that Bud's good looks or the haunting melody of his voice had any bearing whatever upon his winning a race. They called him a fool, and either refused to bet at all on such a freak proposition as a lame horse running against Skeeter, or bet against him. A few of the wise ones wondered if Jeff and his bunch were merely “stringing the kid along “; if they might not let him win a little, just to make him more “chancey.” But they did not think it wise to bet on that probability.
While three races were being run Bud rode with the Little Lost men, and Smoky still limped a little. Jerry Myers, still self-appointed guardian of Bud, herded him apart and called him a fool and implored him to call the race off and keep his money in his own pocket.
Bud was thinking just then about a certain little woman who sat on the creek bank with a wide-brimmed straw hat shading her wonderful eyes, and a pair of little, high-arched feet tapping heels absently against the bank wall. Honey sat beside her, and a couple of the valley women whom Bud had met at the dance. He had ridden close and paused for a few friendly sentences with the quartette, careful to give Honey the attention she plainly expected. But it was not Honey who wore the wide hat and owned the pretty little feet. Bud pulled his thoughts back from a fruitless wish that he might in some way help that little woman whose trouble looked from her eyes, and whose lips smiled so bravely. He did not think of possession when he thought of her; it was the look in her eyes, and the slighting tones in which Honey spoke of her.
“Say, come alive! What yuh going off in a trance for, when I'm talking to yuh for your own good?” Jerry smiled whimsically, but his eyes were worried.
Bud pulled himself together and reined closer.
“Don't bet anything on this race, Jerry,” he advised “Or if you do, don't bet on Skeeter. But—well, I'll just trade you a little advice for all you've given me. Don't bet!”
“What the hell!” surprise jolted out of Jerry.
“It's my funeral,” Bud laughed. “I'm a chancey kid, you see—but I'd hate to see you bet on me.” He pulled up to watch the next race—four nervy little cow-horses of true range breeding, going down to the quarter post.
“They 're going to make false starts aplenty,” Bud remarked after the first fluke. “Jeff and I have it out next. I'll just give Smoke another treatment.” He dismounted, looked at Jerry undecidedly and slapped him on the knee. “I'm glad to have a friend like you,” he said impulsively. “There's a lot of two-faced sinners around here that would steal a man blind. Don't think I'm altogether a fool.”
Jerry looked at him queerly, opened his mouth and shut it again so tightly that his jawbones stood out a little. He watched Bud bathing Smoky's ankle. When Bud was through and handed Jerry the bottle to keep for him, Jerry held him for an instant by the hand.
“Say, for Gawdsake don't talk like that promiscuous, Bud,” he begged. “You might hit too close—”
“Ay, Jerry! Ever hear that old Armenian proverb, 'He who tells the truth should have one foot in the stirrup'? I learned that in school.”
Jerry let go Bud's hand and took the bottle, Bud's watch that had his mother's picture pasted in the back, and his vest, a pocket of which contained a memorandum of his wagers. Bud was stepping out of his chaps, and he looked up and grinned. “Cheer up, Jerry. You're going to laugh in a minute.” When Jerry still remained thoughtful, Bud added soberly, “I appreciate you and old Pop standing by me. I don't know just what you've got on your mind, but the fact that there's something is hint enough for me.” Whereupon Jerry's eyes lightened a little.
The four horses came thundering down the track, throwing tiny pebbles high into the air as they passed. A trim little sorrel won, and there was the usual confusion of voices upraised in an effort to be heard. When that had subsided, interest once more centered on Skeeter and Smoky, who seemed to have recovered somewhat from his lameness.
Not a man save Pop and Bud had placed a bet on Smoky, yet every man there seemed keenly interested in the race. They joshed Bud, who grinned and took it good-naturedly, and found another five dollars in—his pocket to bet—this time with Pop, who kept eyeing him sharply—and it seemed to Bud warningly. But Bud wanted to play his own game, this time, and he avoided Pop's eyes.
The two men rode down the hoof-scored sand to the quarter post, Skeeter dancing sidewise at the prospect of a race, Smoky now and then tentatively against Bud's steady pressure of the bit.
“He's not limping now,” Bud gloated as they rode. But Jeff only laughed tolerantly and made no reply.
Dave Truman started them with a pistol shot, and the two horses darted away, Smoky half a jump in the lead. His limp was forgotten, and for half the distance he ran neck and neck with Skeeter. Then he dropped to Skeeter's middle, to his flank—then ran with his black nose even with Skeeter's rump. Even so it was a closer race than the crowd had expected, and all the cowboys began to yell themselves purple.
But when they were yet a few leaps from the wire clothes-line stretched high, from post to post, Bud leaned forward until he lay flat alongside Smoky's neck, and gave a real Indian war-whoop. Smoky lifted and lengthened his stride, came up again to Skeeter's middle, to his shoulder, to his ears—and with the next leap thrust his nose past Skeeter's as they finished.
Well, then there was the usual noise, everyone trying to shout louder than his fellows. Bud rode to where Pop was sitting apart on a pacing gray horse that he always rode, and paused to say guardedly,
“I pulled him, Pop. But at that I won, so if I can pry another race out of this bunch to-day, you can bet all you like. And you owe me five dollars,” he added thriftily.
“Sho! Shucks almighty!” spluttered Pop, reaching reluctantly into his pocket for the money. “Jeff, he done some pullin' himself—I wish I knowed,” he added pettishly, “just how big a fool you air.”
“Hey, come over here!” shouted Jeff. “What yuh nagging ole Pop about?”
“Pop lost five dollars on that race,” Bud called back, and loped over to the crowd. “But he isn't the only one. Seems to me I've got quite a bunch of money coming to me, from this crowd!”
“Jeff, he'd a beat him a mile if his bridle rein had busted,” an arrogant voice shouted recklessly. “Jeff, you old fox, you know damn well you pulled Skeeter. You must love to lose, doggone yuh.”
“If you think I didn't run right,” Jeff retorted, as if a little nettled, “someone else can ride the horse. That is, if the kid here ain't scared off with your talk. How about it, Bud? Think you won fair?”
Bud was collecting his money, and he did not immediately answer the challenge. When he did it was to offer them another race. He would not, he said, back down from anyone. He would bet his last cent on little Smoky. He became slightly vociferative and more than a little vain-glorious, and within half an hour he had once more staked all the money he had in the world. The number of men who wanted to bet with him surprised him a little. Also the fact that the Little Lost men were betting on Smoky.
Honey called him over to the bank and scolded him in tones much like her name, and finally gave him ten dollars which she wanted to wager on his winning. As he whirled away, Marian beckoned impulsively and leaned forward, stretching out to him her closed hand.
“Here's ten,” she smiled, “just to show that the Little Lost stands by its men—and horses. Put it on Smoky, please.” When Bud was almost out of easy hearing, she called to him. “Oh—was that a five or a ten dollar bill I gave you?”
Bud turned back, unfolding the banknote. A very tightly folded scrap of paper slid into his palm.
“Oh, all right—I have the five here in my pocket,” called Marian, and laughed quite convincingly. “Go on and run! We won't be able to breathe freely until the race is over.”
Wherefore Bud turned back, puzzled and with his heart jumping. For some reason Marian had taken this means of getting a message into his hands. What it could be he did not conjecture; but he had a vague, unreasoning hope that she trusted him and was asking him to help her somehow. He did not think that it concerned the race, so he did not risk opening the note then, with so many people about.
A slim, narrow-eyed youth of about Bud's weight was chosen to ride Skeeter, and together they went back over the course to the quarter post, with Dave to start them and two or three others to make sure that the race was fair. Smoky was full now of little prancing steps, and held his neck arched while his nostrils flared in excitement, showing pink within. Skeeter persistently danced sidewise, fighting the bit, crazy to run.
Skeeter made two false starts, and when the pistol was fired, jumped high into the air and forward, shaking his head, impatient against the restraint his rider put upon him. Halfway down the stretch he lunged sidewise toward Smoky, but that level-headed little horse swerved and went on, shoulder to shoulder with the other. At the very last Skeeter rolled a pebble under his foot and stumbled—and again Smoky came in with his slaty nose in the lead.
Pop rode into the centre of the yelling crowd, his whiskers bristling. “Shucks almighty!” he cried. “What fer ridin' do yuh call that there? Jeff Hall, that feller held Skeeter in worse'n what you did yourself! I kin prove it! I got a stop watch, an' I timed 'im, I did. An' I kin tell yuh the time yore horse made when he run agin Dave's Boise. He's three seconds—yes, by Christmas, he's four seconds slower t'day 'n what he's ever run before! What fer sport d' you call that?” His voice went up and cracked at the question mark like a boy in his early teens.
Jeff stalked forward to Skeeter's side. “Jake, did you pull Skeeter?” he demanded sternly. “I'll swan if this ain't the belly-achiness bunch I ever seen! How about it, Jake? Did Skeeter do his durndest, or didn't he?
“Shore, he did!” Jake testified warmly. “I'da beat, too, if he hadn't stumbled right at the last. Didn't yuh see him purty near go down? And wasn't he within six inches of beatin'? I leave it to the crowd!”
The crowd was full of argument, and some bets were paid under protest. But they were paid, just the same. Burroback Valley insisted that the main points of racing law should be obeyed to the letter. Bud collected his winnings, the Scotch in him overlooking nothing whatever in the shape of a dollar. Then, under cover of getting his smoking material, he dared bring out Marian's note. There were two lines in a fine, even hand on a cigarette paper, and Bud, relieved at her cleverness, unfolded the paper and read while he opened his bag of tobacco. The lines were like those in an old-fashioned copy book:
“Winners may be losers. Empty pockets, safe owner.”
And that was all. Bud sifted tobacco into the paper, rolled it into a cigarette and smoked it to so short a stub that he burnt his lips. Then he dropped it beside his foot and ground it into the sand while he talked.
He would run Smoky no more that day, he declared, but next Sunday he would give them all a chance to settle their minds and win back their losings, providing his horse's ankle didn't go bad again with to-day's running. Pop, Dave, Jeff and a few other wise ones examined the weak ankle and disagreed over the exact cause and nature of the weakness. It seemed all right. Smoky did not flinch from rubbing, though he did lift his foot away from strange hands. They questioned Bud, who could offer no positive information on the subject, except that once he and Smoky had rolled down a bluff together, and Smoky had been lame for a while afterwards.
It did not occur to anyone to ask Bud which leg had been lamed, and Bud did not volunteer the detail. An old sprain, they finally decided, and Bud replaced his saddle, got his chaps and coat from Jerry, who was smiling over an extra twenty-five dollars, and rode over to give the girls their winnings.
He stayed for several minutes talking with them and hoping for a chance to thank Marian for her friendly warning. But there was none, and he rode away dissatisfied and wondering uneasily if Marian thought he was really as friendly with Honey as that young lady made him appear to be.
He was one of the first to ride back to the ranch, and he turned Smoky in the pasture and caught up Stopper to ride with Honey, who said she was going for a ride when the races were over, and that if he liked to go along she would show him the Sinks. Bud had professed an eagerness to see the Sinks which he did not feel until Marian had turned her head toward Honey and said in her quiet voice:
“Why the Sinks? You know that isn't safe country to ride in, Honey.”
“That's why I want to ride there,” Honey retorted flippantly. “I hate safe places and safe things.”
Marian had glanced at Bud—and it was that glance which he was remembering now with a puzzled sense that, like the note, it had meant something definite, something vital to his own welfare if he could only find the key. First it was Hen, then Jerry, and now Marian, all warning him vaguely of danger into which he might stumble if he were not careful.
Bud was no fool, but on the other hand he was not one to stampede easily. He had that steadfast courage, perhaps, which could face danger and still maintain his natural calm—just as his mother had corrected grammatical slips in the very sentences which told her of an impending outbreak of Indians long ago Bud saddled Stopper and the horse which Honey was to ride, led them to the house and went inside to wait until the girl was ready. While he waited he played—and hoped that Marian, hearing, would know that he played for her; and that she would come and explain the cryptic message. Whether Marian heard and appreciated the music or not, she failed to appear and let him know. It seemed to him that she might easily have come into the room for a minute when she knew he was there, and let him have a chance to thank her and ask her just what she meant.
He was just finishing the AVE MARIA which Marian had likened to a breath of cool air, when Honey appeared in riding skirt and light shirtwaist. She looked very trim and attractive, and Bud smiled upon her approvingly, and cut short the last strain by four beats, which was one way of letting Marian know that he considered her rather unappreciative.