HE STRUCK THE TRAIL
HE STRUCK THE TRAIL
"Things are sort of righting themselves," he reported over a hot elk steak. "I’m getting Weimer down to work in dead earnest," chuckling. "I hold the McKenzie boys before his mind’s eye continually, and roll that car out, and dump it so quickly that he has to step lively to get enough ore picked out and blasted out to fill it."
Steele whistled when Ross told him how many cubic feet had been taken out of the Weimer-Grant tunnel during the week. He took from his pocket a paper and pencil, and fell to figuring. Ross pushed aside the empty dishes, and, leaning across the table, looked on with interest. He, too, had figured extensively since work began on Meadow Creek, but only during the last week had the figures satisfied him.
"Why, man alive!" cried Steele after a few moments’ silent work, "you’ll fetch it, at this rate." He stretched his hand across the table impetuously, and gripped Ross’s, adding, "I thought you could never do it–even with a backbone."
Ross’s shoulders straightened, and his face flushed boyishly. "Wemustfetch it!"
Steele leaned back, and drummed on the table. "What about the McKenzies? Of course they must know what progress you’ve made."
"Well," exclaimed Ross, "I hope I can keep ’em so interested guessing that they’ll stay all winter. They come over as socially as you pleaseabout every evening. Weimer doesn’t like it much. He has no use for ’em, but I have, you bet! I’m glad to have ’em around, especially now when I can estimate that at the present rate of speed the tunnel will be ready so we can apply for a patent by June."
To Dr. and Mrs. Grant, Ross wrote: "It’s going to be a long pull and a strong pull, but I shall stick to the ship and show father that I can do something else besides setting a bone.
"And what’s more and queerer, I’m in danger of getting interested in gold mining for itself. Every time I push our little car out to the end of the dump and unload the ore I wonder how much gold I’m watching roll away down the incline. Aunt Anne, you said in your last that it seems such a waste to throw away the ore. Well, if you were here you’d find it a greater waste of good money to try to get money out of the quartz under present conditions. You see there are only a few dollars’ worth of gold in a ton of rock. That ton would have to be ’packed,’ as they say here, eighty miles over the roughest of trails to Cody, and there loaded on cars and sent clear to Omaha, our nearest smelter. And I guess you know more than I do about the costly process of crushing ore and extracting gold from it in a smelter. It’s not like mining for ’pay dirt,’ as the men here callplacer mining, where you gather up sand and wash it out yourself and find the particles of gold in the bottom of your pan. This quartz digging is the most expensive kind of mining there is. But when the Burlington gets the branch road up into Miners’ the ore can be loaded at the mines and unloaded in Omaha without change of cars. Then we’ll dig out the dumps and send them to the smelter, and back will come the gold jingling into our pockets. But whenever I’m moved to give you information I feel small, for I believe, in spite of all you write, that you both know more than I do about it now.
"I haven’t had a book in my hand, Uncle Fred. When it comes night, I am too tired to understand the newspapers that I bring over from Miners’, to say nothing of delving in histology. I expect I shall forget all I ever knew, but never mind! If I can get those claims patented, and so satisfy father, then next year I’ll begin over again to fit myself for college–guess what I knew once will come back when I’ve studied a little. Anyway, I’m not going to worry about it now."
Ross underscored those last words to convince himself that he was not worrying, and handed the letter over to Bill Travers to be mailed at Meeteetse.
To his father Ross proudly wrote of the week’sprogress in the tunnel, adding in reply to a rather longer letter than usual, which he found awaiting him in Camp, "No, I have no intention of throwing up the job."
His father had opened the way wide for him to "throw up the job" after receiving the letter he had requested Steele to fill with exact information. That part of the information which stated that Ross must necessarily be shut up in Meadow Creek Valley for months with a more or less weak-headed partner had led to the letter which Ross found awaiting him. But Ross, Junior, was not well enough acquainted with Ross, Senior, to understand that this letter was an invitation for him to return East.
"He thinks I’m just chicken-hearted enough to be ready to cut and run at the first obstacle," was Ross’s thought when he read what his father had written. His chin came up, and his eyes narrowed. "I’d stay and work here a year before I’d show the white feather now."
Ever since his last visit to New York, Ross had dwelt with secret pride on the respect and confidence that his father had shown him, and the sensation was so new and pleasant that he had no intention of forfeiting it.
And thus it happened that, with Grant, Senior, and Dr. Grant and Aunt Anne all desiring Ross’spresence at home, and with Ross’s wishes coinciding exactly with theirs, he remained at the "jumping-off place" into the wilderness.
In his private office on Broadway, Grant, Senior, read and reread, "No, I have no intention of throwing up the job." He twisted uneasily in his swivel-chair. He pulled Steele’s last letter out of a pigeonhole, read it, frowned, and replaced it. Then he leaned back and admitted aloud:
"I wish the boy was safely entered in medical college."
But, even as he considered the matter, "the boy" with a small pack on his back, candy and a few apples to eat as a relish with the canned stuff, was plodding through the snow, light and easily brushed aside as yet, over the trail between Miners’ Camp and Meadow Creek. And the boy’s heart was growing as courageous as his muscles were strong.
Itwas dark that night when Ross arrived at the Weimer shack. The candles were lighted, and as he passed the window, he saw Leslie Jones within, sitting on a box on the opposite side of the room. His elbows were on the table, and he was listening to Weimer, or rather, pretending to listen. At a glance, Ross saw that his thoughts were far afield, his eyes being fixed on the speaker with an absent stare. He appeared more unkempt than on the occasion of his first call, and his face was thinner. There was also about him an air of collapse that made him a different person from the overbearing young man who had issued lofty orders at Sagehen Roost.
It was the second time that Ross had seen him since coming into the valley. The week before he had gone with the McKenzies one evening to the Jones claims, but the two boys had exchanged few remarks, both being too tired to talk.
As Ross entered the shack a sudden thought struck him. He stopped in the doorway and greeted Jones with, "See here! Why haven’t Ithought to get your mail Sundays? You haven’t been over to Camp at all, have you?"
Leslie moved uneasily. He picked up his cap and pulled at the rim. "Aw–it’s bully of you to think of my mail, but I’m not expecting–why, yes, you might inquire," he added lamely. Then, "What’s going on in Camp? I’d like to hear something about people once more," with a wry smile.
Ross unstrapped a pack from his back and threw the contents on the table. Sorting out the week’s papers, he tossed them across the table. "’Omaha News.’ Want to see it?"
The blood came in an unexpected rush to Leslie’s face and his hand trembled as he reached for the papers. Ross watched him as he took them and scanned the headings, column by column. Then he glanced keenly over the advertisements, and without reading further threw the papers aside and rested his elbows despondently on the table.
Weimer, satisfied with the tobacco and candy that Ross had brought, retired to his bunk, dozing and smoking by turns. Ross had seated himself at the table opposite Leslie and reread his letters. Now, as the other cast the papers aside, he looked up and met misery in the eyes leveled at him from beneath his caller’s lengthening hair.
"Say!" ejaculated Ross impulsively, "I bet you find it as awful up in this country as I do!"
"Awful!" echoed Leslie. "It’s––" A sudden working in his throat stopped him. He turned his face away.
"I wouldn’t stay here for all the gold in these mountains if things weren’t just as they are," Ross continued sympathetically, "and I presume you’re caught in some such way, too, or you’d get out."
Leslie hesitated, nodded and again faced Ross, "How are you caught?" he asked eagerly.
Ross told him briefly about his father’s interest in the claims and Weimer’s appeal for help that had led to his, Ross’s, coming.
As he talked Leslie’s eagerness evaporated. He evidently was looking for another sort of explanation, and his response was only half-hearted:
"Then your father sent you. That’s bad luck when you want to be in school." He hesitated and added: "It’s not every fellow that wants to go to school. I hate it!"
"You do!" exclaimed Ross. "Well, I can’t say I waste any love on studying myself, that is, in most studies, but I’m after results. I’m willing to bone down to work because of where the work will take me. The only thing I really like to study is medicine, anatomy and all that sort of thing, you know. But in order to get anywhere in theprofession, I have to take a lot of mathematics and language and things that I detest."
Leslie’s shoulders came up. "I won’t study what I don’t like," he declared arrogantly, "and I can’t be made to–guess they’re finding that out, too!" The last was under his breath.
"Well," Ross began vaguely, "if you want to be a business man it’s not necessary to go through college. Our most successful business men––" His voice trailed into silence as he saw that the other was not listening.
There ensued a few moments of quiet. In the bunk Weimer snored gently. A nickel clock suspended on a peg from the side logs ticked loudly. The pine chunks in the sheet-iron stove cracked and snapped cheerfully. Leslie stared dejectedly at the table, while Ross, his forehead knit into a puzzled frown, stared at Leslie. What could have happened, he asked himself, to rob the other in four weeks of his former desire to turn prospector? Homesickness? Perhaps, but Ross decided the trouble lay deeper. If it were mere homesickness, the boy would be haunting Miners’ Camp and the post-office or else clearing out of the mountains.
"Where’s Wilson?" Ross asked finally.
Leslie aroused himself with difficulty. "He’s over at the McKenzies’. I came here."
"How’s the tunnel going? Are you making headway?"
This question opened the flood-gates of Leslie’s misery. "Headway?" he burst out. "Yes, we’re making headway, but toward what, I’d like to know!"
It was an exclamation rather than a question, and the boy brought his clenched fist down violently on the table.
"Why," stammered Ross, "toward getting the claims patented, I suppose. What else did you expect?"
Leslie’s excitement subsided. He folded his arms on the table. "I came expecting to find gold," he confessed. "I could hardly wait to get here and now–well, I’m here, that’s all, and all my money is spent for supplies."
"But didn’t you understand," Ross began, "that the ore up here had to be smelted in order to release the metal, and that we can never pack the ore on horseback over these trails and––"
"No," cried Leslie fiercely, "I didn’t understand. I understood that I was coming to work claims that would surely prove a perfect Klondike in a short time–I thought in a few weeks."
"Oh, that’s Wilson," broke in Ross. "He’s a perfect promoter, Steele tells me, because he believes in things himself so intensely that he makesyou see his way in spite of yourself. Steele says he has been quartz crazy for years. Every claim that he stakes holds his everlasting fortune in prospect."
"I’ve found that out," assented Leslie bitterly, "and yet I can’t blame Wilson. I foisted myself on him at Omaha–he didn’t get after me. And he has really been square with me. He simply made me believe in his claims as thoroughly as he does, and he believes in them yet, but I don’t. You see," Leslie explained, "he keeps expecting to run across a pocket of free gold, and that he says he’ll turn over to me so I can get back the money I put into the supplies. I’ve got to get that money back pretty soon," he added emphatically.
Ross looked at him commiseratingly. "I’m afraid you can’t."
For a moment Leslie’s lips worked miserably. He took no pains to conceal his emotion from Ross. Finally he burst out, "I must, Grant. I’ve simply got to have that money back." He held out his hands palms up. They were blistered and sore. "That doesn’t matter," he declared. "I’d work ’em to the bone if the work would bring the gold. And a month ago I’d never done an hour’s work in my life. I tell you," in a burst of irrepressible confidence, "everything looks different to me to-day from what it did five weeks ago. Iwish–I wish I could go back those five weeks–why, I’d almost be willing to go to school––"
Approaching sounds stopped the confidence that Ross was so anxious to hear. The door opened unceremoniously, and the McKenzies entered, accompanied by Wilson. The latter was talking excitedly. With a nod at Ross he finished his speech while helping himself to a seat beside the stove.
"I tell you there’s every sign of free gold. Same kind of stun crops out there and in the same layers and at the same angle as when I was working up in Butte. My claims was right next door to a fellow’s named Harrison. One mornin’ he bust through a wall rock slam bang right onto two thousand dollars’ worth of the prettiest yellow ye ever see. And I tell ye I shouldn’t be a mite surprised if our next blast showed us a streak of yellow too."
Sandy laughed unconcernedly. "A streak of yeller in a chap and in a rock mean two different things, I notice. And I’ve also seen more of the yeller in fellers than in rocks," easily dropping on a box and lighting his pipe.
Young Jones, looking at his partner, brightened visibly, despite the knowledge he had recently acquired of Wilson’s optimism. There was about the man such a cock-sureness, such simple sincerity and abiding faith in his own statements that Rossfelt that he could not rest content the following day without knowing the result of that next charge of dynamite.
Steele had told him about these "pockets" that occasionally are concealed in the heart of the veins or "leads" along which mining tunnels are driven. They are uncovered unexpectedly by a blast of dynamite. They consist of small quantities of quartz of such richness that it pays to transport the ore to the smelter. But every prospector dreams of uncovering a pocket of "free gold" ore, quartz through which the gold is scattered in visible particles or streaks and can be extracted in its pure state with the aid of a hammer and a knife blade.
"Come down to-morrow night," Ross said in a low tone across the table, "and report."
Leslie nodded, and Ross, going to his emergency chest, brought out a bottle of liquid and a box of salve. "Here," he said abruptly, "better take some care of those hands of yours if you don’t want blood poisoning to set in. Soak ’em well in hot water with a teaspoonful of this added"–he shoved the bottle of liquid across the table–"and then rub in this salve. And don’t work in the dirt without gloves till those sores are healed."
Humbly and gratefully Leslie took his orders from "Doc Tenderfoot," while the men looked on with interest and many questions.
"Tell ye what," said Sandy heartily, "if I intended t’ winter here I’d feel easier about the trail bein’ closed. If a stick should go off at the wrong time and blow ye int’ pieces, Doc here could put th’ pieces together and patch ye up as good as new. Doc’s all right!"
"I wish," thought Ross as he saw his guests depart, "that I could say the same about Sandy."
But while he had no faith in the friendly pretentions of Sandy, he dreaded any mention of his leaving the mountains. To feel that he would be left alone with Weimer for months was maddening. If only Wilson and his partner were to remain on the Creek–but they too would go as soon as the trail threatened to become impassable. This careless speech of Sandy’s concerning leaving the valley drove all other ideas out of Ross’s head that night and persisted in the morning. To feel that Weimer and himself were the only human beings in Meadow Creek Valley, to know that there was no escape until the sun thawed away the barrier in the spring was a terrifying thought. It was present that day with Ross like a waking nightmare. As he pushed the little car out of the tunnel and dumped it, he looked up at the cold gray peaks with a wild desire to level them and bring Miners’ Camp–Cody–Pennsylvania–nearer.So absorbing was this desire that he forgot the promised visit from Leslie and was surprised to see him at the door before he had finished washing the supper dishes.
"You wanted to hear about that promised vein," explained the newcomer, reading Ross’s surprise in his face.
"Oh–why, yes! That pocket of free gold!" exclaimed Ross hastily picking up the thread of connection where it had been broken the previous evening by Sandy’s reference to leaving the valley. "Did you uncover it?"
"Uncover nothing!" returned Leslie. He sat on the table and swung his feet restlessly, adding despondently, "And what’s more, we won’t uncover anything in a lifetime up here, either. I’ve lost all hope–except," he added with a shrug of his shoulders, "just the minute that Wilson is talking."
"I never had any hope," said Ross slowly, "but then, I have never given the ore more than a thought. With me it’s simply to get the work done, satisfy my father and–clear out."
"And with me," responded Leslie, "it’s the money now–I’ve got to have the money. Only," he added, "I’ll say this–that when I left Omaha there was more in it for me than the money. You see–I’ll own up–I was crazy to get out of school and, well–see things and do ’em! If I’d gone tosome other place, to Goldfield or even down to Miners’ Camp it would be different. But I’m here and all my money’s spent."
Continually he came back to that last statement. That fact had evidently swallowed up all the lust for adventure, for "getting out and seeing things"–it was the only thing that young Jones could now see in the situation. Ross wondered why but did not like to ask. Finally he said hesitatingly, "I say, Jones, if you want to get out of here I’ll–that is–I have enough on hand to let you have your car-fare back to Omaha."
The blood rushed over Leslie’s face. His head came up proudly. "See here, Grant," he exclaimed briskly, sliding off the table and stuffing his hands into his pockets, "it must sound as if I’m a low-down beggar, but I never thought of such a thing as getting hold of your money!"
"And I never thought of it, either," declared Ross quickly. "I’ve made you the offer on my own hook. Come off your high and mighty perch and talk sense! Take the money and pay it back when you can. I’m a hundred dollars to the good here."
Leslie "came off his perch" instantly and held out his hand repentantly. "Thank you, Grant. That’s awfully white of you, but that won’t do. It’s not car-fare I want, and Omaha is the lastplace I want to strike–or next to the last, at least–without–well, a lot more than car-fare." After a moment he repeated, "I tell you it’s white of you to offer it, though. It makes a fellow feel as if he’d fallen among friends."
The latter expression reminded Ross of something about which he had not thought in three weeks, namely, the behavior of Waymart McKenzie when he first saw Leslie. With the water still dripping from the dish-pan the boy hung it against the logs, tossed the dish-cloth on top of the pan and rolling down his sleeves, asked:
"Jones, do you know the McKenzies?"
Leslie shook his head. "Before coming here, do you mean?"
Ross nodded.
"No, never saw them before. Why?"
"Oh, nothing," returned Ross carelessly, "only when you came in here the first night I thought they acted as though they’d seen you before, or Waymart did, rather."
The effect of this simple statement was unexpected. Leslie gripped the table excitedly. His face paled and he was obliged to clear his throat before asking: "What made you think that? I didn’t–didn’t notice anything. I never thought that they–he––"
"It was just a trifle that made me think that,"Ross hastened to assure his guest in confusion. "Just a little byplay when Waymart first saw you. Nothing to––"
"Tell me exactly what it was," commanded Leslie, and all the boy’s imperiousness leaped to the front. "I want to know all that you saw."
Ross related the incident haltingly. "Sandy didn’t act as though he had ever seen you before. It was only Waymart," he said consolingly, but it was plain to be seen that the other was not consoled.
"It’s possible, very possible that they may have seen me–I wouldn’t have noticed them," he muttered, "if they were–that is, father hired any number of men–they might all see me and I not notice them."
"Maybe I can find out," offered Ross promptly. "I’ll ask them."
"No, no!" hastily; "don’t bother with the matter."
Leslie crossed the room, threw open the door and stood staring across the valley at the McKenzie shack. When next he spoke he did not look around:
"It will be just as well, Grant, if you don’t mention me to ’em until––" There ensued a long pause. Then, "until I talk with you again."
Just before he left he asked abruptly, "Do youbring the Omaha papers back with you every Sunday?"
"I can," replied Ross, "if you want ’em. But, see here, Jones, why don’t you go over to Camp with me next Sunday?"
Leslie hesitated. "Guess I will. Good-night."
A few steps from the door he turned back. "See here, Grant, don’t wait for me Sunday. If I go I’ll be here by eight o’clock. But if I don’t go, I should like to see the Omaha papers."
"All right, I’ll fetch them," returned Ross.
Sunday morning he postponed his start for Miners’ Camp until past eight o’clock, hoping that Leslie would come, but no Leslie appeared. Sandy did, however. He came freshly shaved and combed, with a new kerchief knotted about his neck.
"Want some good company over t’ Camp?" he inquired jocularly. "If ye do, here it is, fer I’m goin’ out."
"Going to stay long or just for the day?" asked Ross.
"Oh, I dunno how long," carelessly. "I’ve got t’ see Cody again. Little old town couldn’t fetch it if I didn’t hang around it about once in so often."
"Is Waymart going?"
"Nope, Mart will hold the cabin and claims down here. Mart don’t like t’ hit th’ trail as oftenas I do. He’s fer his pipe and a soft bunk and a good meal. Mart ’ud be a failure as one of these here globe-trotters. He’s what ye could call domestic in his tastes. The only thing he lacks," here Sandy chuckled at his own wit, "is a blamed thing to be domestic about!"
As they were making their way cautiously around the shoulder of Crosby, Sandy asked suddenly, "Why don’t that young Jones go t’ Camp ever on Sunday? Guess they don’t work Sundays up t’ th’ Wilson claims. I should think he’d be as wild as you be t’ git over this side of Crosby where there’s a post-office and newspapers and things."
"I don’t know," returned Ross in a general denial of knowledge of all Sandy had said.
"I wonder about that young feller now," pursued Sandy affably.
"So do I!" thought Ross. He said nothing.
"I wonder how he come t’ drop out of nowhere with money enough t’ grub-stake the two of ’em fer six months–and then have nothin’ further t’ draw on!"
Sandy, walking now shoulder to shoulder with Ross, looked at him keenly.
"Don’t know anything about it," returned Ross shortly, but he could not rid himself of the insinuation in Sandy’s words.
When he returned that night to Meadow Creek,Ross was disappointed at finding Wilson awaiting him as well as Leslie. He had hoped that Leslie would come for the papers alone and would continue the conversation of his previous visit.
In a loud and jovial voice Wilson informed Doc that his pard had started out in good shape that morning to go over to Camp and had then backed out.
"Must have got clean over here," Wilson added.
Leslie gathered up the newspapers which Ross had brought and fitted them together without meeting Ross’s eyes. "I found I was too tired to go on," was all the explanation he made. "I slept pretty much all day and am going to turn in early to-night."
Ross nodded speechlessly, wondering how much Sandy’s going had to do with Leslie’s staying. Would the latter avoid the McKenzies now that he knew they had seemed to recognize him, and why? Before the evening was far spent Ross began to suspect that Leslie would like to avoid him also, if it were possible. The boy looked more despondent than ever, but he shielded his despondency behind a proud reserve that shut Ross out, much to the latter’s disappointment.
"Perhaps," Ross told himself, "if I hadn’t been such an idiot as to offer him money, he wouldn’t act so offish now. I never had any more tact thana goat, anyhow! Wish I had minded my own business and let him do all the talking!"
"Vas ist de matter mit dot poy?" Weimer asked as soon as the door closed on their visitors. "He vas such a talker oder time he vas here und now he talks nicht at all."
"Guess he’s homesick."
Weimer rubbed his great hands together thoughtfully. "Und sick of de mountains, I tink," he added shrewdly. "Ven dot poy come here he fooled himself!"
The last of the week saw Sandy’s return. He came strolling along the trail one night just as the sunlight was fading from the tops of the mountains. He was whistling, apparently in high spirits. Stopping at the door of Weimer’s shack he paused to call:
"Hi, in there, Grant! I saw your friend Leonard at Cody. I set you up in fine shape t’ ’im. ’No grass,’ says I, ’will turn t’ hay while he’s gittin’ things done.’"
Ross laughed. Despite the fact that he knew Sandy’s praise covered an abyss of insincerity, it was pleasant, none the less.
After the supper dishes were washed, he decided to visit the McKenzies. "Want to go along, Uncle Weimer?" he asked, well knowing what the reply would be.
"Go mit dem McKenzies?" gesticulated Weimer. "Ven I do it vill pe ven my legs von’t carry me avay from dem!"
Ross laughed. "Well, Uncle Weimer, my legs seem to want to carry me where I can get the Cody news. I want to hear about Mr. Leonard. Perhaps he has heard from father more recently than I."
There was no moon that night, and the sky had become suddenly overcast so that Ross faced a dense darkness pierced only by the candle-light from the window of the McKenzie shack. He stumbled toward this, feeling his way so slowly along the narrow trail that he unwittingly approached the cabin silently and surprised an altercation within. Sandy’s voice was raised in vehement assertion and Waymart’s lower rumble in protest. As he was groping for the door, he heard Sandy say:
"I tell ye, Mart, wild hosses won’t drag ’im up here s’ long as that young feller is in these mountings, and we may want ’im here."
Then Waymart’s response, "Well, what be ye aimin’ to do about it? Don’t bite off more’n ye can swaller. Ye do that too often. He’ll be out of here in a few weeks. What’s eatin’ ye? ’Let well enough alone.’"
"Yes," scornfully from Sandy. "Ye maverick! They won’t go till we––"
Ross, his hand on the door, had stubbed his toe against a stone.
"Sh," came Sandy’s warning in lowered tones. "What’s that?"
There was a step across the floor. Ross instinctively fell back into the darkness and slipped behind a tree. The door was jerked open and Sandy’s figure appeared. An instant he looked out and then turning back, said disgustedly, "Nobudy, but guess we don’t need t’ yell loud enough t’ be heard up t’ Wilson’s."
As the door closed on Sandy, Ross beat a hasty retreat. His first thought was that the brothers were discussing him. The fact that they were in the valley to watch the progress of work on the Weimer-Grant claims and that they were interested in his being there and not anxious to have him remain, all aided in the interpretation of the McKenzies’ speeches.
"But who on earth is it that won’t come as long as I am here and why not?" he asked himself as he stumbled back in the direction of the light in Weimer’s cabin.
"Vat’s you pack for alreddy?" demanded Weimer from his bunk as Ross opened the door. "Ist dem McKenzies mit Wilson, hein?"
"No," returned Ross, "but I decided that I am tired enough to turn in instead of going visiting," and he forthwith "turned in," but did not go to sleep immediately.
Truth to tell, he was uneasy. He felt that Sandy, behind that good-natured, friendlyexterior, was full of schemes. The McKenzies wanted the claims, and Ross had unexpectedly interposed himself between them and their desires. Therefore, their schemes must include him. What was on foot now?
He tossed restlessly in his bunk assailed with qualms of fear that he tried to conceal from himself. "Ah, what you afraid of?" he asked himself disgustedly. "They won’t shoot you nor yet tie you hand and foot and throw you over the Crosby trail. As Steele says, I haven’t a thing to fear personally from ’em. That’s not their way. Go to sleep."
This command he issued to himself in an angry mutter and at once scrambled up in his bunk wider awake than ever. His mental horizon unexpectedly cleared. "Of course he’s the one they meant and not me!" he exclaimed aloud.
"Vat’s dat you say?" asked Weimer sleepily. "Hein?"
"A waking nightmare," returned Ross and lay down again.
Of course it was Leslie. "’He’s to be here only a few weeks,’" Waymart had said. "’Let well enough alone.’" He, Ross, expected to winter in the valley, and the McKenzies knew it. Yes, they were referring to Leslie. That calmed Ross, but deepened the mystery.
The following morning he thought over the situation while he was at work. It was a blind enough situation, but he felt that he ought to repeat to Leslie the scraps of conversation that he had overheard. They might mean much to the boy, and in spite of his reserve and his overbearing manners Ross liked Leslie.
At noon he ate dinner hastily, and telling Weimer that he would be back in an hour, set out for the upper claims. Snow had fallen the night before and the trail had filled, making walking tiresome, for Ross had not yet accustomed himself to the use of snow-shoes. With his hands in his pockets and his cap drawn down over his eyes he plunged through the drifts in the teeth of a sharp east wind. Up the side of the mountains he struggled, through the pass between two peaks where Meadow Creek had cut a channel and into a hollow sheltered from the wind and exposed to the sun.
"Hello, Grant!" A voice greeted him from the upper side of the trail.
Ross pushed his cap back and looked up. In the sunshine, his back against a warm rock, his feet buried in the dry loam and pine needles, sat Leslie Jones. He had eaten his dinner and wandered along the trail until he had found a warm spot in which to spend the noon hour. Rosspromptly climbed the steep mountainside and dropped down beside him.
"The McKenzies say," began Leslie curiously, "that you don’t stop work long enough to eat and sleep. Yet here you are two miles from home in the middle of the day."
"It’s because of what the McKenzies have said that I’m here now," Ross returned swiftly. "It may not be worth a picayune to you, and then again, maybe, it will be," and he related the events of the previous evening.
Leslie bent a troubled face over a stick that he was idly whittling. "Are you sure, Grant, that they meant me? I haven’t an idea who they are nor who could be so afraid of me that he wouldn’t come up here with me here. I don’t know of a soul that’s afraid of me, but," with a short, mirthless laugh, "I do know of some one that I’m afraid of. It’s not the McKenzies, although they might–if they know me––"
Suddenly he flung the stick from him and faced Ross impulsively. "Grant, did you ever do something that you’d give anything you possessed to undo–and that you’d justgotto undo?"
Ross, startled at the sudden change in his companion, at the latter’s intensity and evident unhappiness, merely shook his head awkwardly, avoiding the misery-filled eyes. He turned awayand began piling up stones, bits of shining quartz that had been thrown, at some time, out of a discovery hole above them.
Presently Leslie regained his self-possession. "I say, Grant," he began again abruptly, "to tell you the truth, I have started to go over to see you half a dozen times within a week and got this far every time. I’m going to ask a favor of you."
"All right," said Ross with a gruffness that did not conceal his sympathy. "Fire ahead!"
"The other day you–you offered me money," Leslie began with difficulty.
"Yes, and I do to-day," Ross interrupted.
Leslie shook his head. "Hold on till I get to it. I can’t take your money–not that way. But the other day I heard the McKenzies tell Wilson that you tried to hire men in Miners’ Camp. Will you hire me?"
"Will I!" Ross leaped to his feet. He grabbed his cap and tossed it in the air and then fell to pommeling Leslie in pure exuberance of joy. "Hire you? I wish there were half a dozen of you to hire! Bully for you! But––"
His exuberance died out. He replaced his cap and looked down on the other, his lips pursed ready for a whistle.
"Well?"
"See here!" Ross burst out. "What about Wilson?"
"That’s all right," Leslie answered quickly. "I told him a couple of days ago that I’d got to get money. I told him I’d leave him the grub, of course. I agreed to furnish it, and I’ll stick to my word," doggedly, "but I must also light out and earn some money. And all I can do is to work with my hands. I–well, I’ve always hated to make my head work, and I’ve never had to do any other kind until now. You’ll find I’m soft yet, but I’ll do my best."
The boy spoke humbly.
Ross sent his cap spinning into the air once more. "I’ll risk you! You’re not as soft as you were six weeks ago! Not by half! When can you come?"
Leslie considered. "Wilson says he’ll go below to the coal claims in a couple of weeks. I’ll talk it over with him and let you know."
"Come to-morrow, if you can," Ross shouted back as he slid down to the trail.
Work went easily for a few days in view of Leslie’s coming. The thought of his companionship robbed the prospective loneliness of Meadow Creek Valley of its terrors. He whistled and sang about the shack as he hunted up the material out of which to make a third bunk. He washammering away on this the second evening after his talk with Leslie, when the McKenzies dropped in. They had been over on the Divide hunting and had been out of Ross’s sight and mind since his talk with Leslie. Not until Sandy pushed the door open unceremoniously and walked in did Ross recall the comments that had so disturbed him and wondered once more to whom they had referred, himself or Leslie, and what the reference meant.
"Hello, Grant!" Sandy exclaimed, stopping abruptly just inside the door. "What’s up? Why another bunk? Goin’ t’ take boarders? Any relations droppin’ in t’ attend our festivities up here?"
Ross looked over his shoulder laughingly. "Nope. Give another guess."
Sandy came nearer. Waymart shut the door and sat down beside the stove. Weimer turned his back on "dem darned McKenzies," and put on his goggles that he might not be tormented by a view of their faces. It was a never-ending source of vexation to him that they came sociably to his shack.
"I haven’t any more guesses in stock," declared Sandy, but the smile on his face was succeeded by a frown and he bit his red beard restlessly.
"Hired man is coming to-morrow," Rossformed him as the hammer sent another nail home in the side wall.
"Hired man!" exploded Sandy. "Where the deuce will you get a hired man?"
"Right here in the valley," exulted Ross. "Leslie Jones."
"Leslie Jones!" repeated Sandy.
"Leslie Jones," muttered Waymart.
"By and by," Ross confessed, "when all you fellows go below, it will seem a little more livable up here to have a third one around. I’d pay a man wages just to stay here to say nothing of working for me."
Neither Sandy nor Waymart made any comment. Sandy stood watching the work in silence, while Waymart allowed his pipe to go out. Then both departed. They said they were going up to see Wilson, but Ross noticed that they returned to their own cabin instead.
"Something doesn’t seem to please our friends the enemy," he chuckled after their departure. "They see the Weimer-Grant claims getting further and further from their reach."
"Ve vill peat dem McKenzies yet," gloated Weimer rubbing his hands gently on his knees. "Ven dot oder poy comes de work vill run und jump!"
Ross did not see the McKenzies again until Leslie was occupying the third bunk, Wilsonhaving, good-naturedly, sent him down within a week after the boys had completed their bargain.
"Clear out if ye want to," Wilson had said kindly. "It’s white of ye t’ leave the grub. I hain’t a cent t’ pay fer it. There’s a fortune in these claims of mine, but it’s too late t’ dig it out this year. Next summer––" and he was launched on the glowing prospects for the next season.
Leslie entered on his task with a grim determination which seemed foreign to his disposition.
"I don’t want you to get sick of your bargain the first week," he said one day in answer to Ross’s remonstrance when he refused to stop work on account of a bruise on his wrist. "You open up that little emergency chest and I can go on digging just the same. I don’t want any delayed wages in mine!"
With the advent of Leslie, life fell into pleasanter grooves in Weimer’s cabin. Despite the anxiety ever present with the newcomer, and despite his natural reserve, Ross’s exuberance of spirits caused by his presence and work affected him, and after the supper dishes were washed, the two boys wrestled, chaffed each other or talked, Ross about his father and uncle and aunt, Leslie about his school life in Omaha.
"It’s a boys’ school," he explained one day, "a military academy. I’ve had to go there ever sinceI was knee high to a grasshopper. Discipline is fierce. I hate it, and this year I made up my mind I’d not stand it, so I’m here."
"And wish," ventured Ross, "that you were back in school again."
"Yes–almost," Leslie began impulsively and then paused, adding quietly, "Lots of things I wish, and wish ’em hard."
The following evening after supper, Weimer tumbled into his bunk at once and began snoring. The two boys washed the dishes, in silence at first. Outside, snow was falling heavily. Through the drifting flakes the McKenzies’ light shone fitfully. The brothers had been away again hunting and had just returned.
As Leslie set the dishes on their shelf above the stove he glanced uneasily out of the window. He had not seen the McKenzies for some time. Ever since they had crossed the valley that noon on their snow-shoes, their hunting trophies on their shoulders, he had watched their cabin with that same air of uneasy abstraction.
"Ross," he broke out at last, "I’ve got to tell you something. I hate like a dog to tell it, but it’s got to break loose some time and it may as well be right now."
He turned from the shelf, glanced at the snoring Weimer, lowered his voice, and, standing besidethe stove, worked restlessly at the damper in the pipe. Ross, without looking at him, slowly scrubbed the dish-pan and then the table.
"It’s like this," Leslie began. "When I met Wilson I had five hundred dollars in my pocket and a grouch against my father. Always before then, father had sent the Academy a check to pay for the semester–you have to pay there in advance for half the year–but this year he had business on hand that couldn’t be interrupted and so he called me into his office in a great hurry the morning I left home and handed over the check to me. It was made out to me and it was for five hundred dollars. That’s the price of the half year, you see. Dad handed it over and just said, ’Here, pay your own bill,’ and got out. That’s about all that’s ever between us, anyway. Well, I went up to Omaha. We’d had it out about school all summer. I was bound not to go this year, and he swore that I should go and go through college if he had to rope me and tie me and take me himself, as he put it! Father is a whirlwind of a man. But I was bound not to go, and the money let me out. I took the check and cashed it at the bank and went to the ’Hill House,’ where I met Wilson. I reasoned that the money was mine because it was to be spent on me. You see, Ross, I was mad enough to reason anything my way that I wanted."
Leslie turned the damper absently, sending smoke in gusts into the room, but neither boy noticed it. Ross wiped out his dish-pan, hung it on its nail, and sitting down on a box, took his chin between his hands and stared at the fire.
"I thought," Leslie went on, "that I’d invest that money and surprise dad. Well," grimly, "he’s probably as surprised by this time as I am. You’ve heard Wilson tell about my meeting him and agreeing to go with him. I spent the entire five hundred on our outfit and car-fare in the expectation that in six weeks I could write to dad and tell him what a success I’d made of it! I had six weeks’ grace."
Ross looked up inquiringly. "What do you mean?"
"Father and I never have corresponded extensively, but he always looks sharply after my reports. The first report goes out from the Academy in six weeks after school opens. I reckoned from what Wilson said that we’d strike it rich up here in a month more or less, and so about the time father would be looking into the reason why no report was sent from the Academy, he’d be receiving one from me up here and, you know, Ross, ’nothing succeeds as well as success,’ and success of this sort would get dad right under the collar. Well, he probably knows by this time that I’veturned up missing at school, and he has not received a letter from Meadow Creek telling about the discovery of free gold!"
Leslie gave the damper a final twist and sat down on a pile of fire-wood. "Ross," he exclaimed violently, "I am about seven ways an everlasting fool!"
Ross grinned cheerfully. "Aunt Anne always says that to find out that you’re a fool ’is the best cure for the disease of foolishness.’ So you see you’re headed toward the cure already."
Leslie shook his head. "There’s that money, Ross. It wasn’t mine, and you know it and I know it. I can’t face dad again without it in my hand. Why, I wouldn’t see him until I’d earned it for–well, wild horses wouldn’t drag me," he concluded passionately. "I tell you, Ross, I’ve let myself in for a heap of trouble. I know father."
"Now that he finds out you’ve skipped, Leslie, won’t he be hunting you up?"
Leslie stirred uneasily and turning stretched up and looked in the direction of the McKenzies. "That’s what I’m expecting, or else he’ll not think me worth while. I tell you, Ross, I’ve made dad no end of trouble both at home and in school. Things look sort of different up here. I’ve–well–I’ve never been up against it before."
"Are you going to send your father word?"
"Send him word before I get back that five hundred!" cried Leslie aghast. "You don’t know dad. I can’t face him without it. Not much."
"But he’d see that you feel different––" Ross began.
"You don’t know dad," Leslie cut in harshly. "With the men it’s just the same. It’s ’stand and deliver’ or get out, and he’d treat me just the same."
The coming of the McKenzies put an end to further conversation. They came to announce their departure on the morrow.
"Any little thing you’d like us t’ git fer you?" Sandy asked the boys lazily. "Want us t’ bring ye any biled shirts or one of these here coats with long handled tails? If you fellers lay out t’ stay here all winter ye better lay in a stock of society rags, ’n’ dancin’ shoes."
"About the most useful dancing shoes we’ll need will be snow-shoes, I guess," Ross retorted.
Leslie, from the wood-pile, said little but watched the brothers closely. Neither paid more than a passing attention to him, concentrating their remarks on Ross. They left early and went up the Creek with the intention of paying a farewell call on Wilson.
"I don’t believe," said Leslie the following morning as he watched them take the trail leadingover Crosby, "that they have ever seen me before. They don’t act as though they have, do they?"
"Haven’t seen a sign of it since that first night," declared Ross, "and yet what I overheard, you know––"
"Must have referred to you," returned Leslie with conviction.
The next three days passed quietly enough. The inhabitants of Weimer’s cabin heard an occasional blast from Wilson’s claims, but did not see Wilson. Steadily the two boys worked and steadily Ross held Weimer to his labors. Usually it was Weimer who got the meals, either Ross or Leslie leading him down to the shack, in case the sun shone, about half-past eleven. In three-quarters of an hour the boys would leave work and sit down to a substantial meal of hot bread, potatoes and all sorts of canned meats and vegetables. But the third day after the McKenzies’ departure it chanced that when eleven o’clock came, Weimer and Leslie were in the far end of the tunnel drilling the "cut in" holes for a new blast, and Ross, pushing the little car back into the tunnel, sang out:
"Hey, you fellows, keep on and I’ll go down and shake up the grub this time."
He ran down the trail to the cabin, and soon had a roaring fire in the heater. A kettle of beanshad been left simmering on the back of the stove. This Ross pulled forward, and then, delving among the canned goods, he proceeded to set out various edibles, all the while whistling cheerfully.
"M-m, tomatoes," he interrupted himself to mutter, "we haven’t had tomatoes in two days. And corn–sweet corn. Guess Weimer has overlooked the corn entirely. We’ll have corn. Soup! Jiminy! We haven’t had soup in an age. Vegetable. That means a little of everything, and that taken boiling hot. Here goes soup."
"Whoa!" came a deep voice from the trail outside the door, then the voice was raised, "Hello! Who’s t’ home?"
Ross stepped to the door and faced a middle aged man, clad in leather "chaps" and short fur coat. A fur cap was drawn down over his ears and his hands were encased in huge fur gloves. He sat easily on a gray horse and was leading another, a mottled brown and white. As Ross appeared, he drew off one glove and slipped the hand carelessly under the tail of his coat at the same time squaring about in his saddle so that he faced the doorway.
Ross, in his shirt sleeves, stepped out and greeted the newcomer hospitably. "Hello! Come in to dinner."
"Had mine down in Miners’ Camp," returned the other with a backward jerk of his head.
He touched his mount with his spur and came close to Ross. The brown and white horse pulled back obstinately on the leading rope. The animal was saddled.
"Are you the young chap that’s workin’ for Weimer?"
"Yes."
"All right." The stranger withdrew his hand from the tail of his coat. It held a gun. "No monkey-shines now! You’re the boy I’m after. I’m the sheriff of Big Horn County, and I have a warrant here for your arrest. Your father is honin’ to meet up with you and settle a little account of money taken in Omaha."
Fora moment Ross was stunned. His hands fell nervelessly at his side, and he stared up at the stranger with expressionless eyes. Then, as the situation dawned on him, his eyes suddenly narrowed and into them leaped a light that caused the other to move the gun suggestively and say warningly:
"No monkeying allowed, understand. Swallow a bite right now and climb up here on this other horse."
Ross looked over his shoulder speculatively. From his position he could see the mouth of the tunnel on the mountainside behind the cabin. The mouth showed up black and empty and from its depth came the muffled sound of the hand drills wielded by Weimer and Leslie. The trail leading over the mountain to Miners’ Camp was screened from the mouth of the tunnel by hemlocks. It could be seen only from the end of the dump. Ross thought fast.
"All right," he said finally. "I’ll go with younow–and quietly. There’s no objection, I suppose, to my leaving a note for–Weimer?"
No doubt existed in his mind as to the legality of the warrant and the seriousness of purpose in the man before him; therefore, he asked no further questions. Moreover, he wished above all things to avoid question and get off before Leslie appeared on the scene.
"Leave a note, yes, or see ’im," assented the sheriff. "I’m willin’. Where is he?"
"At work," hastily. "I’ll just leave a note."
The sheriff dismounted, dropped his bridle reins beside his horse’s head, hitched the second animal’s rope about the pommel of his saddle, and followed Ross into the shack, repeating, "Where at work?"
"In the tunnel," mumbled Ross. "I would rather write a line than call him."
He picked up some cold biscuits left over from breakfast and stuffed them into his pockets. Then, drawing a box up to the table, he sat down with paper and pencil to write a note. To his confusion, the sheriff stood over him looking on. He moistened the point of his pencil slowly. What on earth could he say that would make Leslie understand and yet not give the situation away to the sheriff? To gain time he gnawed on one of Weimer’s hard biscuits.
"Where is my–father?" he asked finally, stumbling guiltily over the word.
The sheriff spat out of the doorway and twirled his gun impatiently. "You’ll see ’im before I leave you, all right," was his ambiguous reply. "And the sooner that is the better it’ll suit me. Git busy, young man, with that pencil. I don’t aim to go int’ winter quarters here. We’ve got to go on to Cody."
Ross bit his lips and laid the biscuit aside. His eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. Grasping his pencil with a firmness he was far from feeling he began to write without preface.
"The sheriff is here arresting me for stealing money from my father in Omaha. He is taking me to him in Cody now. I don’t know when I can get back. Keep the work going sure, and don’t worry. I think I will be able––"
He paused and moistened the pencil again, then crossed out the last sentence and substituted:
"I shall try to reason with him and make him see that he had better let me keep on doing what I am doing and earn the money to pay him back."
Another instant Ross paused and thought. Then he added the singular explanation which he believed would make the foregoing more lucid to Leslie:
"As I write the sheriff is standing over me,"and then bethought himself just in time to avoid signing his name.
"Huh!" grunted the sheriff reading the last sentence. "So he is; and now hustle!"
Ross hustled most willingly. Seizing his top-coat and cap he was ready in a few moments for the perilous journey over the Crosby trail. Silently he mounted the brown and white horse, all the time glancing anxiously at the mouth of the tunnel. He rode in front of the sheriff and slyly urged his horse forward until the intervening trees hid the mouth of the tunnel from which still issued the steady grind and thud of the drills.
It was not until the two horses were cautiously feeling their way down the perilous trail, and Ross saw far below him the shacks of Miners’ Camp that some of the difficulties of his sudden venture began to present themselves to him. His decision had been made so hurriedly that he had had no time to think all around the subject of the arrest and his own action. It had seemed to him outrageous that a father should arrest his own son even though that boy had done wrong. Ross revolted at the idea.
"I don’t wonder," he thought, "that Less is afraid of his father. But his fear wouldn’t sit so hard on his temper but what there’d be noend of explosions, and then where would they both get to?"
It was the thought of this state of affairs that had led Ross to the impulsive determination to go to that father and ask for a few months of grace for the son. In this, as he acknowledged to himself, he had a mixed motive and part of the mixture was not unselfish.
"If he’ll only let Leslie stay and help me through the winter and earn the money," was his thought, "if I can make him see that Leslie’s no quitter, and that he knows he has made a big mistake and is willing to bone down and undo it–if I can only make him see!"
It was here that Ross’s misgivings began. He knew he was no talker and evidently, as Leslie said, the father was a man of violent temper.
"I’ll probably have my little trip under arrest for nothing," Ross told himself as they reached the foot of Crosby. "Mr. Jones will blow my head off and send back for Leslie. Queer father not to come himself instead of sending a sheriff and a warrant and so disgrace his own son!"
As to who was responsible for notifying the father of the whereabouts of his son, Ross did not for a moment doubt. Sandy’s trip to Cody and the departure a few days before of both brothers answered that question to his satisfaction.
At the foot of Crosby the trail of horsemen turned into the wagon trail leading past Gale’s Ridge. On foot approaching them was a man whom Ross had met often in Steele’s shack, and the sight of him awoke the boy with a shock to another phase of the situation that he had not, so far, had time to consider. Of course, it would not be possible for him to reach Cody and Mr. Jones without betraying his identity to the sheriff! There were the men of Gale’s Ridge, the hotel at Meeteetse, and above all, there was Sagehen Roost and Hank. He turned in his saddle. It was a waste of time to go on. He might as well own up and let the sheriff go back after Leslie.
"I was foolish to think of coming!" he muttered aloud and reined in his horse.
The sheriff, coming on behind with his head bent, looked up questioningly and rode alongside. The two had not exchanged a word since leaving the Creek, the sheriff being silent by nature and Ross by choice. At that instant, the footman passed them. On the sheriff he bestowed an unrecognizing nod, on Ross a broad and cordial grin.
"Hello, there, Doc!" he greeted and passed on.
The sheriff glanced in surprise from the man to Ross. The latter drew a deep breath, and squaring about on his saddle shook the bridle reins. "That’sa nickname they’ve given me," he muttered and rode on.
The sheriff nodded and fell back, leaving Ross determined to play the game as far as he was able. He had forgotten that he was known from Cody to Meeteetse as "Doc Tenderfoot." In a few moments they had passed through camp and, rounding the shoulder of old Dundee, settled down to the eighteen mile ride to the half-way house between Miners’ Camp and Meeteetse. This house, as Ross knew, had changed hands since his arrival in the mountains, and the change would lessen the chances that he would be recognized there. As it turned out, the sheriff was not recognized either, the family being newcomers in Wyoming, and the two ate in silence, the sheriff introducing neither himself nor Ross.
"Luck is with me so far," Ross thought as they saddled and rode away from the ranch, "but how can I ever get past Meeteetse and Sagehen Roost?"
The moon shone brilliantly, and they pushed ahead rapidly, Ross exulting over the sheriff’s determination to get on to Meeteetse that night. They rode as silently as before, Ross in advance. The black hills met the trail on either side, and beside the trail flowed the shallow waters of Wood River until it merged into the Grey Bull. Half-way to Meeteetse, the sheriff’s horse stumbled andlimped thereafter, necessitating a slower pace, so that it was nearly midnight before they drew rein in front of the "Weller House."
To Ross’s relief, the place was dark with the exception of a single lamp in the office. Even the barroom was deserted. Ross left the sheriff to register for both, and then followed the sleepy clerk down to a lunch of cold "come-backs" which that individual "rustled" from the kitchen himself.
"If fortune will favor me as well to-morrow as it did to-day," Ross thought as he listened to the sheriff’s first snores, "I’ll be next to Jones by this time to-morrow night and try to do some talking for Leslie!"
He knew that his roommate was no wiser concerning him than when they started from Meadow Creek, and he most heartily desired a continuation of that ignorance.
In the morning the two were up early and down to breakfast. Ross looked about apprehensively for some one who had seen him on his way into the mountains. He slunk into the dining-room in the wake of the bulkier sheriff and pushing himself unobtrusively into a corner seat bent low over his plate as befitted a young man under arrest. But no sooner was he seated than the proprietor of the house spied him from the otherend of the dining-room, and with never a suspicion that he was talking to the sheriff’s prisoner, strode across the room. He slapped the sheriff familiarly on the shoulder:
"What the dickens are you doing up this way? Why don’t ye stay in Basin where ye belong?"
Then he grasped Ross’s hand cordially:
"Bless us if here ain’t Doc back again. Got them claims cleaned up yet, Doc?"
Ross, encountering the puzzled eyes of the sheriff, quaked. "No, we haven’t yet," he muttered and glancing toward the dining-room door, exclaimed in sudden inspiration, "Wonder if that man is motioning to you?"
The proprietor looked around. Several men were in the hall outside the dining-room. "I’ll go and see," he exclaimed.
The sheriff continued to look at Ross. "Bluff!" he announced briefly and understandingly.
The blood flooded Ross’s face guiltily. "It was," he confessed, adding quickly, "Say, don’t give my arrest away where I’m known, will you?"
His request and confusion satisfied the sheriff. The puzzled expression died out of his face. "All right," he assented and fell on his breakfast.
The proprietor did not see Ross again until he was riding away. Then he ran out of the barroombareheaded and called, "Steele’s in Cody, Doc. He said you was pannin’ out more like an old prospector than a tenderfoot."
The sheriff rode up beside his prisoner with a quick inquiry: "How long have ye worked for Weimer?"
"Long enough to be sick of it and want to quit," returned Ross gruffly, giving his horse a quick slap that set the animal to loping. It was no part of his plan to hold any unnecessary conversation with the sheriff that day.
"I guess," the latter called as he came galloping after, "that you’ll quit now all right, all right!"
Ross made no reply, but took care to keep well in advance of his captor. Although his plan had, so far, succeeded, he was far from feeling triumphant because of a distressing sense of guilt at the deception he was obliged to practice. Nor was he able to dispel this sense by the knowledge that he was acting for the good of all concerned.
"I may be only messing things up more than they are already," he thought dejectedly as they approached Sagehen Roost. "What under the sun led me to think I was equal to such a job, anyway?"
Then, suddenly, his eyes narrowed, his chin raised itself determinedly and he turned his attentionto the half-way house and the loquacious Hank. How could he ever get past Hank and remain Leslie Jones in the sheriff’s eyes? If only he could get a moment’s speech with Hank alone. But the sheriff was ever at his elbow. They had made good time from Meeteetse, and so approached Dry Creek and Sagehen Roost a full hour ahead of the stage from Cody. This fact gave Ross courage. With the stage-driver eliminated he had only Hank to deal with.
"Hello, Hank!" shouted the sheriff as they dismounted in front of the corral. "Shake us up some grub right away, will ye?"
Hank appeared at the door. Ross dodged behind the sheriff’s horse, and stooping over noted the approach of Hank’s legs. When they had borne their owner to the corral gate he straightened up and saying loudly: "Hello, Hank!" scratched the flank of the horse sharply with a pin he had found under the lapel of his coat.
"Wall, if there ain’t Doc Tenderfoot!" shouted Hank, but got no further.
The horse leaped forward, and, as the sheriff sprang for its head, Ross managed to get Hank’s ear for an instant:
"Don’t give me away, Hank. Talk to him and let me alone–understand–no names called. Don’t talk to me nor about me."
Hank stared his amazement, helped the sheriff catch his mount, scratched his head until Ross’s words had soaked in, and then obeyed them so literally that when, half an hour later, Ross leaped to his horse’s back, he was still Leslie Jones to the taciturn sheriff, and Hank, tongue-tied for once, was left standing beside the corral gate with a multitude of questions unasked.
Ross’s spirits arose. They were on the home stretch now to Cody. There was not a house on the way and only the stage to meet. Ross, forgetting his rôle as a shamefaced prisoner, began to whistle and plan what he should say to Leslie’s father. His buoyancy was checked only when he chanced to look over his shoulder and discovered the sheriff looking at him not only with the puzzled air which he had worn at Meeteetse, but, Ross thought, with suspicion also.
"I never seen a sober man arrested that took arrest as you do," the sheriff declared riding to Ross’s side. "Think this is a little picnic, don’t ye?"
"I’m trying to think just how it will turn out," answered the boy seriously. "There’s the Cody stage, isn’t it?"
The sheriff reined his horse back, and, with a flourish, the four horses swept past with Andy’s foot jammed hard on the brake and Andy’s whipcracking over the wheelers’ heads. Just in the nick of time he recognized Ross.
"Hi, there!" he shouted. "Doc, where’s yer patient? And how is he?"
Then, before any answer could be returned, the stage was beyond reach of Ross’s voice, disappearing in a cloud of dust.