Tex laughed: "I don't aim to stick around no great while. Fact is, I'm in somethin' of a hurry myself. I just stopped in to give you a chanct to do me a good turn. I happened to be down this way an': 'there's Johnson,' I says to myself, 'he's so free an' open-handed, a man's welcome to anything he's got,' so I stopped in."
The ranchman regarded him with an intent scowl: "'Sth' matter with you, you drunk?"
"Not yet. But I got a friend out here in the hills which he's lost his slippers, an' tore his pants, an' got his shirt all dirty, an' mislaid his hat; an' knowin' you'd be glad to stake him to an outfit I come over, him bein' about your size an' build."
The ranchman's face flushed with anger: "What the hell do I care about you an' your friends. Git offen this ranch, I tell you!"
"Oh, yes, an' while you're gettin' the outfit together just you slip in a cinch, an' a quart or two ofhooch, case we might get snake-bit."
Beside himself with rage, the man raised his foot to the stirrup. As if suddenly remembering something he paused, lowered his foot, and regarded the cowboy with an evil leer: "Ah-ha, I've got it now!" he moved a step nearer. "I was at the dance night before last to Wolf River." He waited to note the effect of the words on his hearer.
"Did you have a good time? Or did the dollar you had to shell out for the ticket spoil all the fun?"
"Never mind what kind of atimeI had. But they's plenty of us knows you was the head leader of the gang that took an' lynched that pilgrim."
"That's right," smiled the man coolly. "Beats the devil, how things gets spread around, don't it? An' speakin' of news spreading that way—I just came up the creek from down below the canyon. You must have had quite a bit of water in your reservoir when she let go, Johnson, judgin' by results."
"What do you mean?"
"You ain't be'n down the creek, then?"
"No, I ain't. I'm goin' now. I had to git the men to work fixin' the dam."
"What I mean is this! There's about fifty head of cattle, more or less, that's layin' sprinkled around on top of the mud. Amongst which I seen T U brands, and I X, an' D bar C, an' quite a few nester brands. When your reservoir let go she sure raised hell with other folks' property. Of course, bein' away down there where there ain't any folks, if I hadn't happened along it might have been two or three weeks before any one would have rode through, an' you could have run a bunch of ranch hands down an' buried 'em an' no one would have be'n any wiser——"
"You're lyin'!" There was a look of fear in the man's eyes,
Tex shrugged: "You'll only waste a half a day ridin' down to see for yourself," he replied indifferently.
Johnson appeared to consider, then stepped close to the Texan's side: "They say one good turn deserves another. Meanin' that you shet up about them cattle an' I'll shet up about seein' you."
"That way, it wouldn't cost you nothin' would it, Johnson? Well, it's a trade, if you throw in the aforementioned articles of outfit I specified, to boot."
"Not by a damn sight! You got the best end of it the way it is.Lynchin' is murder!"
"So it is," agreed the Texan. "An' likewise, maintainin' weak reservoirs that lets go an' drowns other folks' cattle is a public nuisance, an' a jury's liable to figger up them damages kind of high—'specially again' you, Johnson, bein' ornery an' rotten-hearted, an' tight-fisted, that way, folks don't like you."
"It means hangin' fer you!"
"Yes. But it means catchin' first. I can be a thousan' miles away from here, in a week, but you're different. All they got to do is grab the ranch, it's good for five or six thousan' in damages, all right. Still if you don't want to trade, I'll be goin'." He gathered up his reins.
"Hold on! It's a damned hold-up, but what was it you wanted?"
The Texan checked off the items on his gloved fingers: "One pair of pants, one shirt, one hat, one pair of boots, same size as yourn, one pair of spurs, one silk muffler, that one you've got on'll do, one cinch, half a dozen packages of tobacco, an' one bottle of whiskey. All to be in good order an' delivered right here within ten minutes. An' you might fetch a war-bag to pack 'em in. Hurry up now! 'Cause if you ain't back in ten minutes, I'll be movin' along, an' when I pass the word to the owners of them cattle it's goin' to raise their asperity some obnoxious."
With a growl the man disappeared into the house to return a few minutes later with a sack whose sides bulged.
"Dump 'em out an' we'll look 'em over!" ordered the Texan and the man complied.
"All right. Throw 'em in again an' hand 'em up."
When he had secured the load by means of his pack strings he turned to the rancher.
"So long, Johnson, an' if I was you I wouldn't lose no time in attendin' to the last solemn obsequies of them defunk dogies. I'll never squeal, but you can't tell how soon someone else might come a-ridin' along through the foot-hills."
It was well past the middle of the afternoon when the Texan rode up the steep incline and unsaddled his horse. The occupants of the camp were all asleep, the girl in her little shelter tent, and Bat and Endicott with their blankets spread at some little distance away. Tex carried the outfit he had procured from Johnson into the timber, then crawled cautiously to the pilgrim's side, and awoke him without arousing the others.
"Hey, Win, wake up," he whispered as the man regarded him through a pair of sleepy eyes. "Come on with me. I got somethin' to show you." Tex led the way to the war-bag. "Them clothes of yourn is plum despisable to look at," he imparted, "so I borrowed an outfit offen a friend of mine that's about your size. Just crawl into 'em an' see how they fit."
Five minutes later the cowboy viewed with approval the figure that stood before him, booted and spurred, with his mud-caked garments replaced by corduroy trousers and a shirt of blue flannel against which the red silk muffler made a splotch of vivid colouring.
"You look like a sure enough top hand, now," grinned the Texan. "We'll just take a drink on that." He drew the cork from the bottle and tendered it to Endicott, who shook his head.
"No, thanks. I never use it."
The Texan stared at him in surprise. "Do you mean you've got the regular habit of not drinkin', or is it only a temporary lapse of duty?"
Endicott laughed: "Regular habit," he answered.
The other drank deeply of the liquor and returned the cork. "You ought to break yourself of that habit, Win, there's no tellin' where it'll lead to. A fellow insulted me once when I was sober an' I never noticed it. But laying aside your moral defects, them whiskers of yourn is sure onornamental to a scandalous degree. Wait, I'll fetch my razor, an' you can mow 'em." He disappeared, to return a few moments later with a razor, a cake of hand-soap, and a shaving brush.
"I never have shaved my self," admitted Endicott, eyeing the articles dubiously.
"Who have you shaved?"
"I mean, I have always been shaved by a barber."
"Oh!" The cowboy took another long pull at the bottle. "Well, Win, the fact is them whiskers looks like hell an' has got to come off." He rolled up his sleeves. "I ain't no barber, an' never shaved a man in my life, except myself, but I'm willin' to take a chance. After what you've done for me I'd be a damn coward not to risk it. Wait now 'til I get another drink an' I'll tackle the job an' get it over with. A man can't never tell what he can do 'til he tries."
Endicott viewed the cowboy's enthusiasm with alarm. "That's just what I was thinking, Tex," he hastened to say, as the other drew the cork from the bottle. "And it is high time I learned to shave myself, anyway. I have never been where it was necessary before. If you will just sit there and tell me how, I will begin right now."
"Alright, Win, you can't never learn any younger. First off, you wet your face in the creek an' then soap it good. That soap ain't regular shavin' soap, but it'll do. Then you take the brush an' work it into a lather, an' then you shave."
"But," inquired the man dubiously, "don't you have towels soaked in hot water, and——"
"Towels an' hot water, hell! This ain't no barber shop, an' there ain't no gin, or whatever they rub on your face after you get through, either. You just shave an' knock the soap off your ears an' that's all there is to it."
After much effort Endicott succeeded in smearing his face with a thin, stringy lather, and gingerly picked up the razor. The Texan looked on in owlish solemnity as the man sat holding the blade helplessly.
"What you doin', Win, sayin' the blessin'? Just whet her on your boot an' sail in."
"But where do I begin?"
The Texan snorted disgustedly. "Your face ain't so damn big but what an hour or two reminiscence ought to take you back to where it starts. Begin at your hat an' work down over your jaw 'til you come to your shirt, an' the same on the other side, takin' in your lip an' chin in transit, as the feller says. An' hold it like a razor, an' not like a pitchfork. Now you got to lather all over again, 'cause it's dry."
Once more Endicott laboriously coaxed a thin lather out of the brown hand-soap, and again he grasped the razor, this time with a do-or-die determination.
"Oughtn't I have a mirror?" he asked doubtfully.
"A mirror! Don't you know where your own face is at? You don't need no mirror to eat with, do you? Well, it's the same way with shavin'. But if you got to have ocular evidence, just hang out over the creek there where it's still."
The operation was slow and painful. It seemed to Endicott as though each separate hair were being dragged out by its roots, and more than once the razor edge drew blood. At last the job was finished, he bathed his smarting face in the cold water, and turned to the Texan for approval.
"You look like the second best bet in a two-handed cat fight," he opined, and producing his book of cigarette papers, proceeded to stick patches of tissue over various cuts and gashes. "Takin' it by an' large, though, it ain't so bad. There's about as many places where you didn't go close enough as there is where you went too close, so's it'll average somewhere around the skin level. Anyway it shows you tried to look respectable—an' you do, from your neck down—an' your hat, too."
"I am certainly obliged to you," laughed Endicott, "for going to all that trouble to provide me with clothing. And by the way, did you learn anything—in regard to posses, I mean?"
The Texan nodded sombrely: "Yep. I did. This here friend of mine was on his way back from Wolf River when I met up with him. 'Tex,' he says, 'where's the pilgrim?' I remains noncommital, an' he continues, 'I layed over yesterday to enjoy Purdy's funeral, which it was the biggest one ever pulled off in Wolf River—not that any one give a damn about Purdy, but they've drug politics into it, an' furthermore, his'n was the only corpse to show for the whole celebration, it bein' plumb devoid of further casualties.'" The cowpuncher paused, referred to his bottle, and continued: "It's just like I told you before. There can't no one's election get predjudiced by hangin' you, an' they've made a kind of issue out of it. There's four candidates for sheriff this fall an' folks has kind of let it be known, sub rosy, that the one that brings you in, gathers the votes. In the absence of any corpse delecti, which in this case means yourn, folks refuses to assume you was hung, so each one of them four candidates is right now scouring the country with a posse. All this he imparts to me while he was throwin' that outfit of clothes together an' further he adds that I'm under suspicion for aidin' an' abettin', an' that means life with hard labour if I'm caught with the goods—an', Win, you're the goods. Therefore, you'll confer a favour on me by not getting caught, an' incidentally save yourself a hangin'. Once we get into the bad lands we're all to the good, but even then you've got to keep shy of folks. Duck out of sight when you first see any one. Don't have nothin' to say to no one under no circumstances. If you do chance onto someone where you can't do nothin' else you'll have to lie to 'em. Personal, I don't favour lyin' only as a last resort, an' then in moderation. Of course, down in the bad lands, most of the folks will be on the run like we are, an' not no more anxious for to hold a caucus than us. You don't have to be so particular there, 'cause likely all they'll do when they run onto you will be to take a shot at you, an' beat it. We've got to lay low in the bad lands about a week or so, an' after that folks will have somethin' else on their mind an' we can slip acrost to the N. P."
"See here, Tex, this thing has gone far enough." There was a note of determination in Endicott's voice as he continued: "I cannot permit you to further jeopardize yourself on my account. You have already neglected your business, incurred no end of hard work, and risked life, limb, and freedom to get me out of a scrape. I fully appreciate that I am already under heavier obligation to you than I can ever repay. But from here on, I am going it alone. Just indicate the general direction of the N. P. and I will find it. I know that you and Bat will see that Miss Marcum reaches the railway in safety, and——"
"Hold on, Win! That oration of yourn ain't got us no hell of a ways, an' already it's wandered about four school-sections off the trail. In the first place, it's me an' not you that does the permittin' for this outfit. I've undertook to get you acrost to the N. P. I never started anythin' yet that I ain't finished. Take this bottle ofhoochhere—I've started her, an' I'll finish her. There's just as much chance I won't take you acrost to the N. P., as that I won't finish that bottle—an' that's damn little.
"About neglectin' my business, as you mentioned, that ain't worryin' me none, because the wagon boss specified particular an' onmistakeable that if any of us misguided sons of guns didn't show up on the job the mornin' followin' the dance, we might's well keep on ridin' as far as that outfit was concerned, so it's undoubtable that the cow business is bein' carried on satisfactory durin' my temporary absence.
"Concernin' the general direction of the N. P., I'll enlighten you that if you was to line out straight for Texas, it would be the first railroad you'd cross. But you wouldn't never cross it because interposed between it an' here is a right smart stretch of country which for want of a worse name is called the bad lands. They's some several thousan' square miles in which there's only seven water-holes that a man can drink out of, an' generally speakin' about five of them is dry. There's plenty of water-holes but they're poison. Some is gyp an' some is arsnic. Also these here bad lands ain't laid out on no general plan. The coulees run hell-west an' crossways at their littlest end an' wind up in a mud crack. There ain't no trails, an' the inhabitants is renegades an' horse-thieves which loves their solitude to a murderous extent. If a man ain't acquainted with the country an' the horse-thieves, an' the water-holes, his sojourn would be discouragin' an' short.
"All of which circumlocutin' brings us to the main point which is thatshewouldn't stand for no such proceedin'. As far as I can see that settles the case. The pros an' cons that you an' me could set here an' chew about, bein' merely incidental, irreverent, an' by way of passin' the time."
Endicott laughed: "You are a philosopher, Tex."
"A cow-hand has got to be."
"But seriously, I could slip away without her knowing it, then the only thing you could do would be to take her to the railway."
"Yes. Well, you try that an' you'll find out who's runnin' this outfit. I'll trail out after you an' when I catch you, I'll just naturally knock hell out of you, an' that's all there'll be to it. You had the edge on me in the water but you ain't on land. An' now that's settled to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, suppose me an' you slip over to camp an' cook supper so we can pull out right after sundown."
The two made their way through the timber to find Alice blowing herself red in the face in a vain effort to coax a blaze out of a few smouldering coals she had scraped from beneath the ashes of the fire.
"Hold on!" cried the Texan, striding toward her, "I've always maintained that buildin' fires is a he-chore, like swearin', an' puttin' the baby to sleep. So, if you'll just set to one side a minute while I get this fire a-goin' an' Win fetches some water, you can take holt an' do the cookin' while we-all get the outfit ready for the trail."
Something in the man's voice caused the girl to regard him sharply, and her eyes shifted for a moment to his companion who stood in the background. There was no flash of recognition in the glance, and Endicott, suppressing a laugh, turned his face away, picked up the water pail, and started toward the creek.
"Who is that man?" asked the girl, a trifle nervously, as he disappeared from view.
"Who, him?" The Texan was shaving slivers from a bull pine stick. "He's a friend of mine. Win's his name, an' barrin' a few little irregularities of habit, he ain't so bad." The cowboy burst into mournful song as he collected his shavings and laid them upon the coals:
"It's little Joe, the wrangler, he'll wrangle never more,His days with theremudathey are o'er;'Twas a year ago last April when he rode into our camp,Just a little Texas stray, and all alo-o-o-n-e."
Alice leaned toward the man in sudden anger:
"You've been drinking!" she whispered.
Tex glanced at her in surprise: "That's so," he said, gravely. "It's the only way I can get it down."
She was about to retort when Endicott returned from the creek and placed the water pail beside her.
"Winthrop!" she cried, for the first time recognizing him. "Where in the world did you get those clothes, and what is the matter with your face?"
Endicott grinned: "I shaved myself for the first time."
"What did you do it with, some barbed wire?"
"Looks like somethin' that was left out in the rain an' had started to peel," ventured the irrepressible Tex.
Alice ignored him completely. "But the clothes? Where did you get them?"
Endicott nodded toward the Texan. "He loaned them to me!"
"But—surely they would never fit him."
"Didn't know it was necessary they should," drawled Tex, and having succeeded in building the fire, moved off to help Bat who was busying himself with the horses.
"Where has he been?" asked the girl as the voice of the Texan came from beyond the trees:
"It happened in Jacksboro in the spring of seventy-three,A man by the name of Crego come steppin' up to me,Sayin', 'How do you do, young fellow, an' how would you like to goAn' spend one summer pleasantly, on the range of the buffalo-o-o?'"
"I'm sure I don't know. He came back an hour or so ago and woke me up and gave me this outfit and told me my whiskers looked like the infernal regions and that I had better shave—even offered to shave me, himself."
"But he has been drinking. Where did he get the liquor?"
"The same place he got the clothes, I guess. He said he met a friend and borrowed them," smiled Endicott.
"Well, it's nothing to laugh at. I should think you'd be ashamed to stand there and laugh about it."
The man stared at her in surprise. "I guess he won't drink enough to hurt him any. And—why, it was only a day or two ago that you sat in the dining car and defended their drinking. You even said, I believe, that had you been a man you would have been over in the saloon with them."
"Yes, I did say that! But that was different. Oh, I think men aredisgusting! They're eitherbad, or just plaindumb!"
"We left old Crego's bones to bleach on the range of the buffalo—Went home to our wives an' sweethearts, told others not to go,For God's forsaken the buffalo range, and the damned old buffalo-o-o!"
"At least our friend Tex does not seem to be stricken with dumbness," Endicott smiled as the words of the buffalo skinner's song broke forth anew. "Do you know I have taken a decided fancy to him. He's——"
"I'd run along and play with him then if I were you," was the girl's sarcastic comment. "Maybe if you learn how to swear and sing some of his beautiful songs he'll give you part of his whiskey." She turned away abruptly and became absorbed in the preparation of supper, and Endicott, puzzled as he was piqued, at the girl's attitude, joined the two who were busy with the pack. "He's just perfectly stunning in that outfit," thought Alice as she watched him disappear in the timbers. "Oh, I don't know—sometimes I wish—" but the wish became confused somehow with the sizzling of bacon. And with tight-pressed lips, she got out the tin dishes.
"What's the matter, Win—steal a sheep?" asked the Texan as he paused, blanket in hand, to regard Endicott.
"What?"
"What didyoucatch hell for? You didn't imbibe no embalmin' fluid."Endicott grinned and the cowboy finished rolling his blanket.
"Seems like we're in bad, some way. She didn't say nothin' much, but I managed to gather from the way she looked right through the place where I was standin' that I could be got along without for a spell. Her interruptin' me right in the middle of a song to impart that I'd be'n drinkin' kind of throw'd me under the impression that the pastime was frowned on, but the minute I seen you comin' through the brush like you was sneaking off at recess, I know'd you was included in the boycott an' that lets the booze out. Seein's our conscience is clear, it must be somethin'shedone that she's took umbrage at, as the feller says, an' the best thing we can do is to overlook it. I don't know as I'd advise tellin' her so, but we might just kind of blend into the scenery onobtrusive 'til the thaw comes. In view of which I'll just take a little drink an' sing you a song I heard down on the Rio Grande." Thrusting his arm into the end of his blanket roll, the Texan drew forth his bottle and, taking a drink, carefully replaced it. "This here song isThe Old Chisholm Trail, an' it goes like this:
"Come along; boys, and listen to my tale,I'll tell you of my troubles on the old Chisholm trail.
Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya,Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya.
I started up the trail October twenty-third,I started up the trail with the 2-U herd.
Oh, a ten dollar hoss and a forty dollar saddle—And I'm goin' to punchin' Texas cattle.
I woke up one morning on the old Chisholm trail,Rope in my hand and a cow by the tail.
I'm up in the mornin' afore daylightAnd afore I sleep the moon shines bright.
Old Ben Bolt was a blamed good boss,But he'd go to see the girls on a sore-backed hoss.
Old Ben Bolt was a fine old manAnd you'd know there was whiskey wherever he'd land.
My hoss throwed me off at the creek called Mud,My hoss throwed me off round the 2-U herd.
Last time I saw him he was going cross the levelA-kicking up his heels and a-runnin' like the devil.
It's cloudy in the west, a-lookin' like rain,An' my damned old slicker's in the wagon again.
Crippled my hoss, I don't know how,Ropin' at the horns of a 2-U cow.
We hit Caldwell and we hit her on the fly,We bedded down the cattle on the hill close by.
No chaps, no slicker, and it's pourin' down rain,An' I swear, by God, I'll never night-herd again.
Feet in the stirrups and seat in the saddle,I hung and rattled with them long-horn cattle.
Last night I was on guard and the leader broke the ranks,I hit my horse down the shoulders and I spurred him in the flanks.
The wind commenced to blow, and the rain began to fall.Hit looked, by grab, like we was goin' to lose 'em all.
I jumped in the saddle and grabbed holt the horn,Best blamed cow-puncher ever was born.
I popped my foot in the stirrup and gave a little yell,The tail cattle broke and the leaders went to hell.
I don't give a damn if they never do stop;I'll ride as long as an eight-day clock.
Foot in the stirrup and hand on the horn,Best damned cowboy ever was born.
I herded and I hollered and I done very wellTill the boss said, 'Boys, just let 'em go to hell.'
Stray in the herd and the boss said kill it,So I shot him in the rump with the handle of the skillet.
We rounded 'em up and put 'em on the cars,And that was the last of the old Two Bars.
Oh, it's bacon and beans most every day,—I'd as soon be a-eatin' prairie hay.
I'm on my best horse and I'm goin' at a run,I'm the quickest shootin' cowboy that ever pulled a gun.
I went to the wagon to get my roll,To come back to Texas, dad-burn my soul.
I went to the boss to draw my roll,He had it figgered out I was nine dollars in the hole.
I'll sell my outfit just as soon as I can,I won't punch cattle for no damned man.
Goin' back to town to draw my money,Goin' back home to see my honey.
With my knees in the saddle and my seat in the sky,I'll quit punchin' cows in the sweet by and by.
Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya,Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya."
As the last words of the chorus died away both men started at the sound of the girl's voice.
"Whenever you can spare the time you will find your supper ready," she announced, coldly, and without waiting for a reply, turned toward the camp. Endicott looked at Tex, and Tex looked at Endicott.
"Seems like you done raised hell again, Win. Standin' around listenin' to ribald songs, like you done, ain't helped our case none. Well, we better go eat it before she throws it away. Come on, Bat, you're included in the general gloom. Your face looks like a last year's circus bill, Win, with them patches of paper hangin' to it. Maybe that's what riled her. If I thought it was I'd yank 'em off an' let them cuts bleed no matter how bad they stung, just to show her my heart's in the right place. But that might not suit, neither, so there you are."
Alice sat well back from the fire as the three men poured their coffee and helped themselves to the food.
"Ain't you goin' to join us in this here repast?" asked Tex, with a smile.
"I have eaten, thank you."
"You're welcome—like eight dollars change for a five-spot."
In vain Endicott signalled the cowboy to keep silent. "Shove over, Win, you're proddin' me in the ribs with your elbow! Ain't Choteau County big enough to eat in without crowdin'? 'Tain't as big as Tom Green County, at that, no more'n Montana is as big as Texas—nor as good, either; not but what the rest of the United States has got somethin' to be said in its favour, though. But comparisons are ordorous, as the Dutchman said about the cheese. Come on, Win, me an' you'll just wash up these dishes so Bat can pack 'em while we saddle up."
A half-hour later, just as the moon topped the crest of a high ridge, the four mounted and made their way down into the valley.
"We got to go kind of easy for a few miles 'cause I shouldn't wonder if old man Johnson had got a gang out interrin' defunck bovines. I'll just scout out ahead an' see if I can locate their camp so we can slip past without incurrin' notoriety."
"I should think," said Alice, with more than a trace of acid in her tone, "that you had done quite enough scouting for one day."
"In which case," smiled the unabashed Texan, "I'll delegate the duty to my trustworthy retainer an' side-kicker, the ubiquitous an' iniquitous Baterino St. Cecelia Julius Caesar Napoleon Lajune. Here, Bat, fork over that pack-horse an' take a siyou out ahead, keepin' a lookout for posses, post holes, and grave-diggers. It's up to you to see that we pass down this vale of tears, unsight an' unsung, as the poet says, or off comes your hind legs. Amen."
The half-breed grinned his understanding and handed over the lead-rope with a bit of homely advice. "You no lak' you git find, dat better you don' talk mooch. You ain' got to sing no mor', neider, or ba Goss! A'm tak' you down an' stick you mout' full of rags, lak' I done down to Chinook dat tam'. Dathoochshe mak' noise 'nough for wan night,sabe?"
"That's right, Bat. Tombstones and oysters is plumb raucous institutions to what I'll be from now on." He turned to the others with the utmost gravity. "You folks will pardon any seemin' reticence on my part, I hope. But there's times when Bat takes holt an' runs the outfit—an' this is one of 'em."
After the departure of Bat it was a very silent little cavalcade that made its way down the valley. Tex, with the lead-horse in tow, rode ahead, his attention fixed on the trail, and the others followed, single file.
Alice's eyes strayed from the backs of her two companions to the mountains that rolled upward from the little valley, their massive peaks and buttresses converted by the wizardry of moonlight into a fairyland of wondrous grandeur. The cool night air was fragrant with the breath of growing things, and the feel of her horse beneath her caused the red blood to surge through her veins.
"Oh, it's grand!" she whispered, "the mountains, and the moonlight, and the spring. I love it all—and yet—" She frowned at the jarring note that crept in, to mar the fulness of her joy. "It's the most wonderful adventure I ever had—and romantic. And it'sreal, and I ought to be enjoying it more than I ever enjoyed anything in all my life. But, I'm not, and it's all because—I don't see why he had to go and drink!" The soft sound of the horses' feet in the mud changed to a series of sharp clicks as their iron shoes encountered the bare rocks of the floor of the canyon whose precipitous rock walls towered far above, shutting off the flood of moonlight and plunging the trail into darkness. The figures of the two men were hardly discernible, and the girl started nervously as her horse splashed into the water of the creek that foamed noisily over the canyon floor. She shivered slightly in the wind that sucked chill through the winding passage, although back there in the moonlight the night had been still. Gradually the canyon widened. Its walls grew lower and slanted from the perpendicular. Moonlight illumined the wider bends and flashed in silver scintillations from the broken waters of the creek. The click of the horses' feet again gave place to the softer trampling of mud, and the valley once more spread before them, broader now, and flanked by an endless succession of foothills.
Bat appeared mysteriously from nowhere, and after a whispered colloquy with Tex, led off toward the west, leaving the valley behind and winding into the maze of foothills. A few miles farther on they came again into the valley and Alice saw that the creek had dwindled into a succession of shallow pools between which flowed a tiny trickle of the water. On and on they rode, following the shallow valley. Lush grass overran the pools and clogged the feeble trickle of the creek. Farther on, even the green patches disappeared and white alkali soil showed between the gnarled sage bushes. Gradually the aspect of the country changed. High, grass-covered foothills gave place to sharp pinnacles of black lava rock, the sides of the valley once more drew together, low, and broken into ugly cutbanks of dirty grey. Sagebrush and prickly pears furnished the only vegetation, and the rough, broken surface of the country took on a starved, gaunt appearance.
Alice knew instinctively that they were at the gateway of the bad lands, and the forbidding aspect that greeted her on every side as her eyes swept the restricted horizon caused a feeling of depression. Even the name "bad lands" seemed to hold a foreboding of evil. She had not noticed this when the Texan had spoken it. If she had thought of it at all, it was impersonally—an undesirable strip of country, as one mentions the Sahara Desert. But, now, when she herself was entering it—was seeing with her own eyes the grey mud walls, the bare black rocks, and the stunted sage and cactus—the name held much of sinister portent.
From a nearby hillock came a thin weird scream—long-drawn and broken into a series of horrible cackles. Instantly, as though it were the signal that loosed the discordant chorus of hell, the sound was caught up, intensified and prolonged until the demonical screams seemed to belch from every hill and from the depths of the coulees between.
Unconsciously, the girl spurred her horse which leaped past Endicott and Bat and drew up beside the Texan, who was riding alone in the forefront.
The man glanced into the white frightened face: "Coyotes," he said, gravely. "They won't bother any one."
The girl shuddered. "There must be a million of them. What makes them howl that way?"
"Most any other way would be better, wouldn't it. But I reckon that's the way they've learnt to, so they just keep on that way."
Alice glanced at him sharply, but in the moonlight his clean-cut profile gave no hint of levity.
"You are making fun of me!"
He turned his head and regarded her thoughtfully. "No. I wouldn't do that, really. I was thinkin' of somethin' else."
"You are a very disconcerting young man. You are unspeakably rude, andI ought to be furiously angry."
The Texan appeared to consider. "No. You oughtn't to do that because when something important comes up you ain't got anything back, an' folks won't regard you serious. But you wouldn't have been even peeved if you knew what I was thinkin' about."
"What was it?" The instant the question left her lips the girl wished she could have recalled it.
There was a long pause and Alice began to hope that the man had not heard her question. Then he turned a very grave face toward her and his eyes met hers squarely. "I was thinkin' that maybe, sometime, you'd get to care enough about me to marry me. Sounds kind of abrupt an' off-hand, don't it? But it ain't. I've been thinkin' about it a lot. You're the first woman I've seen since—well, since way back yonder, that I'd ever marry. The only one that stacks up to the kind of people mine are, an' that I was back there. Of course, there'd be a lot of readjustin' but that would work out—it always does when the right kind of folks takes holt to put anything through. I've got some recreations an' pastimes that ain't condoned by the pious. I gamble, an' swear, an' smoke, an' lie, an' drink. But I gamble square, swear decent an' hearty, lie for fun, but never in earnest, an' drink to a reasonable degree of hilarity. My word is good with every man, woman, an' child in the cow country. I never yet went back on a friend, nor let up on an enemy. I never took underhand advantage of man or woman, an' I know the cow business. For the rest of it, I'll go to the old man an' offer to take the Eagle Creek ranch off his hands an' turn nester. It's a good ranch, an' one that rightly handled would make a man rich—provided he was a married man an' had somethin' to get rich for. I don't want you to tell me now, you won't, or you will. We've got a week or so yet to get acquainted in. An', here's another thing. I know, an' you know, down deep in your heart, that you're goin' to marry either Win, or me. Maybe you know which. I don't. But if it is him, you'll get a damned good man. He's square an' clean. He's got nerve—an' there ain't no bluff about it, neither. Wise men don't fool with a man with an eye like his. An' he wants you as bad as I do. As I said, we've got a week or more to get acquainted. It will be a week that may take us through some mighty tough sleddin', but that ain't goin' to help you none in choosin', because neither one of us will break—an' you can bet your last stack of blue ones on that."
The girl's lips were pressed very tight, and for some moments she rode in silence.
"Do you suppose I would ever marry a man who deliberately gets so drunk he sings and talks incessantly——"
"You'd be safer marryin' one that got drunk deliberately, than one who done it inadvertent when he aimed to stay sober. Besides, there's various degrees of drunkenness, the term bein' relative. But for the sake of argument admittin' I was drunk, if you object to the singin' and talkin', what do you recommend a man to do when he's drunk?"
"I utterly despise a man that gets drunk!" The words came with an angry vehemence, and for many minutes the Texan rode in silence while the bit chains clinked and the horses' hoofs thudded the ground dully. He leaned forward and his gloved hand gently smoothed his horse's mane. "You don't mean just exactly that," he said, with his eyes on the dim outline of a butte that rose high in the distance. Alice noticed that the bantering tone was gone from his voice, and that his words fell with a peculiar softness. "I reckon, though, I know what you do mean. An' I reckon that barrin' some little difference in viewpoint, we think about alike. . . . Yonder's Antelope Butte. We'll be safe to camp there till we find out which way the wind blows before we strike across."
Deeper and deeper they pushed into the bad lands, the huge bulk of Antelope Butte looming always before them, its outline showing distinctly in the light of the sinking moon. As far as the eye could see on every side the moonlight revealed only black lava-rock, deep black shadows that marked the courses of dry coulees, and enormous mud-cracks—and Antelope Butte.
As the girl rode beside the cowboy she noticed that the cynical smile was gone from the clean-cut profile. For miles he did not speak. Antelope Butte was near, now.
"I am thirsty," she said. A gauntleted hand fumbled for a moment with the slicker behind the cantle, and extended a flask.
"It's water. I figured someone would get thirsty."
The girl drank from the flask and returned it: "If there are posses out won't they watch the water-holes? You said there are only a few in the bad lands."
"Yes, they'll watch the water-holes. That's why we're goin' to camp onAntelope Butte—right up on top of it."
"But, how will we get water?"
"It's there."
"Have you been up there?" The girl glanced upward. They were already ascending the first slope, and the huge mass of the detached mountain towered above them in a series of unscaleable precipices.
"No. But the water's there. The top of the Butte hollows out like a saucer, an' in the bowl there's a little sunk spring. No one much ever goes up there. There's a little scragglin' timber, an' the trail—it's an old game trail—is hard to find if you don't know where to look for it. A horse-thief told me about it."
"A horse-thief! Surely, you are not risking all our lives on the word of a horse-thief!"
"Yes. He was a pretty good fellow. They killed him, afterwards, over near the Mission. He was runnin' off a bunch of Flourey horses."
"But a man who would steal would lie!"
"He didn't lie to me. He judged I done him a good turn once. Over on the Marias, it was—an' he said: 'If you're ever on the run, hit for Antelope Butte.' Then he told me about the trail, an' the spring that you've got to dig for among the rocks. He's got a grubcachethere, too. He won't be needin' it, now." The cowboy glanced toward the west. "The moon ought to just about hold 'til we get to the top. He said you could ride all the way up." Without an instant's hesitation he headed his horse for a huge mass of rock fragments that lay at the base of an almost perpendicular wall. The others followed in single file. Bat bringing up the rear driving the pack-horse before him. Alice kept her horse close behind the Texan's which wormed and twisted in and out among the rock fragments that skirted the wall. For a quarter of a mile they proceeded with scarcely a perceptible rise and then the cowboy turned his horse into a deep fissure that slanted upward at a most precarious angle seemingly straight into the heart of the mountain. Just when it seemed that the trail must end in a blind pocket, the Texan swung into a cross fissure so narrow that the stirrups brushed either side. So dark was it between the towering rock walls that Alice could scarcely make out the cowboy's horse, although at no time was he more than ten or fifteen feet in advance. After innumerable windings the fissure led once more to the face of the mountain and Tex headed his horse out upon a ledge that had not been discernible from below. Alice gasped, and for a moment it seemed as though she could not go on. Spread out before her like a huge relief map were the ridges and black coulees of the bad lands, and directly below—hundreds of feet below—the gigantic rock fragments lay strewn along the base of the cliff like the abandoned blocks of a child. She closed her eyes and shuddered. A loose piece of rock on the narrow trail, a stumble, and—she could feel herself whirling down, down, down. It was the voice of the Texan—confident, firm, reassuring—that brought her once more to her senses.
"It's all right. Just follow right along. Shut your eyes, or keep 'em to the wall. We're half-way up. It ain't so steep from here on, an' she widens toward the top. I'm dizzy-headed, too, in high places an' I shut mine. Just give the horse a loose rein an' he'll keep the trail. There ain't nowhere else for him to go."
With a deadly fear in her heart, the girl fastened her eyes upon the cowboy's back and gave her horse his head. And as she rode she wondered at this man who unhesitatingly risked his life upon the word of a horse-thief.
Almost before she realized it the ordeal was over and her horse was following its leader through a sparse grove of bull pine. The ascent was still rather sharp, and the way strewn with boulders, and fallen trees, but the awful precipice, with its sheer drop of many hundreds of feet to the black rocks below, no longer yawned at her stirrup's edge, and it was with a deep-drawn breath of relief that she allowed her eyes once again to travel out over the vast sweep of waste toward the west where the moon hung low and red above the distant rim of the bad lands.
The summit of Antelope Butte was, as the horse-thief had said, an ideal camping place for any one who was "on the run." The edges of the little plateau, which was roughly circular in form, rose on every side to a height of thirty or forty feet, at some points in an easy slope, and at others in a sheer rise of rock wall. The surface of the little plane showed no trace of the black of the lava rock of the lower levels but was of the character of the open bench and covered with buffalo grass and bunch grass with here and there a sprinkling of prickly pears. The four dismounted and, in the last light of the moon, surveyed their surroundings.
"You make camp, Bat," ordered the Texan, "while me an' Win hunt up the spring. He said it was on the east side where there was a lot of loose rock along the edge of the bull pine. We'll make the camp there, too, where the wood an' water will be handy."
Skirting the plateau, Tex led the way toward a point where a few straggling pines showed gaunt and lean in the rapidly waning moonlight.
"It ought to be somewheres around here," he said, as he stopped to examine the ground more closely. "He said you had to pile off the rocks 'til you come to the water an' then mud up a catch-basin." As he talked, the cowboy groped among the loose rocks on his hands and knees, pausing frequently to lay his ear to the ground. "Here she is!" he exclaimed at length. "I can hear her drip! Come on, Win, we'll build our well."
Alice stood close beside her horse watching every move with intense interest.
"Who would have thought to look for water there?" she exclaimed.
"I knew we'd find it just as he said," answered the Texan gravely. "He was a good man, in his way—never run off no horses except from outfits that could afford to lose 'em. Why, they say, he could have got plumb away if he'd shot the posse man that run onto him over by the Mission. But he knew the man was a nester with a wife an' two kids, so he took a chance—an' the nester got him."
"How could he?" cried the girl, "after——"
The Texan regarded her gravely. "It was tough. An' he probably hated to do it. But he was a sworn-in posse man, an' the other was a horse-thief. It was just one of those things a man's got to do. Like Jim Larkin, when he was sheriff, havin' to shoot his own brother, an' him hardly more'n a kid that Jim had raised. But he'd gone plumb bad an' swore never to be taken alive, so Jim killed him—an' then he resigned. There ain't a man that knows Jim, that don't know he'd rather a thousan' times over had the killin' happen the other way 'round. But he was a man. He had it to do—an' he done it."
Alice shuddered: "And then—what became of him, then?"
"Why, then, he went back to ranchin'. He owns the Bar X horse outfit over on the White Mud. This here, Owen—that was his brother's name—was just like a son to him. Jim tried to steer him straight, but the kid was just naturally a bad egg. Feelin' it the way he does, a lesser man might of squinted down the muzzle of his own gun, or gone the whiskey route. But not him. To all appearances he's the same as he always was. But some of us that know him best—we can see that he ain'tquitethe same as before—an' he never will be."
There were tears in the girl's eyes as the man finished.
"Oh, it's all wrong! It's cruel, and hard, and brutal, and wrong!"
"No. It ain't wrong. It's hard, an' it's cruel, maybe, an' brutal. But it's right. It ain't a country for weaklings—the cow country ain't. It's a country where, every now an' then, a man comes square up against something that he's got to do. An' that something is apt as not to be just what he don't want to do. If he does it, he's a man, an' the cow country needs him. If he don't do it, he passes on to where there's room for his kind—an' the cow country don't miss him. A man earns his place here, it ain't made for him—often he earns the name by which he's called. I reckon it's the same all over—only this is rawer."
"Here's the water! And it is cold and sweet," called Endicott who had been busily removing the loose rock fragments beneath which the spring lay concealed.
The Texan's interest centred on matters at hand: "You Bat, you make a fire when you've finished with the horses." He turned again to the girl: "If you'll be the cook, Win an' I'll mud up a catch-basin an' rustle some firewood while Bat makes camp. We got to do all our cookin' at night up here. A fire won't show above the rim yonder, but in the daytime someone might see the smoke from ten mile off."
"Of course, I'll do the cooking!" assented the girl, and began to carry the camp utensils from the pack that the half-breed had thrown upon the ground. "The dough-gods are all gone!" she exclaimed in dismay, peering into a canvas bag.
"Mix up some bakin'-powder ones. There's flour an' stuff in that brown sack."
"But—I don't know how!"
"All right. Wait 'til I get Win strung out on this job, an' I'll make up a batch."
He watched Endicott arrange some stones: "Hey, you got to fit those rocks in better'n that. Mud ain't goin' to hold without a good backin'."
The cowboy washed his hands in the overflow trickle and wiped them upon his handkerchief. "I don't know what folks does all their lives back East," he grinned; "Win, there, ain't barbered none to speak of, an' the Lord knows he ain't no stone-mason."
Alice did not return the smile, and the Texan noticed that her face was grave in the pale starlight. For the first time in her life the girl felt ashamed of her own incompetence.
"And I can't cook, and——"
"Well, that's so," drawled Tex, "but it won't be so tomorrow. No one but a fool would blame any one for not doin' a thing they've never learnt to do. They might wonder a little how-come they never learnt, but they wouldn't hold it against 'em—not 'til they've had the chance." Bat was still busy with the horses and the cowboy collected sticks and lighted a small fire, talking, as he worked with swift movements that accomplished much without the least show of haste. "It generally don't take long in the cow country for folks to get their chance. Take Win, there. Day before yesterday he was about the greenest pilgrim that ever straddled a horse. Not only he didn't know anything worth while knowin', but he was prejudiced. The first time I looked at him I sized him up—almost. 'There's a specimen,' I says to myself—while you an' Purdy was gossipin' about the handkerchief, an' the dance, an' what a beautiful rider he was—'that's gone on gatherin' refinement 'til it's crusted onto him so thick it's probably struck through.' But just as I was losin' interest in him, he slanted a glance at Purdy that made me look him over again. There he stood, just the same as before—only different." The Texan poured some flour into a pan and threw in a couple of liberal pinches of baking-powder.
Alice's eyes followed his every movement, and she glanced toward the spring that Endicott had churned into a mud hole. The cowboy noted her glance. "It would be riled too much even if we strained it," he smiled, "so we'll just use what's left in that flask. It don't take much water an' the spring will clear in time for the coffee."
"And some people never do learn?" Alice wanted to hear more from this man's lips concerning the pilgrim. But the Texan mustn't know that she wanted to hear.
"Yes, some don't learn, some only half learn, an' some learn in a way that carries 'em along 'til it comes to a pinch—they're the worst. But, speakin' of Win, after I caught that look, the only surprise I got when I heard he'd killed Purdy was that hecoulddo it—not that hewould. Then later, under certain circumstances that come to pass in a coulee where there was cottonwoods, him an' I got better acquainted yet. An' then in the matter of the reservoir—but you know more about that than I do. You see what I'm gettin' at is this: Win can saddle his own horse, now, an' he climbs onto him from the left side. The next time he tackles it he'll shave, an' the next time he muds up a catch-basin he'll mud it right. Day before yesterday he was about as useless a lookin' piece of bric-a-brac as ever draw'd breath—an' look at him now! There ain't been any real change. The man was there all the time, only he was so well disguised that no one ever know'd it—himself least of all. Yesterday I saw him take a chew off Bat's plug—an' Bat don't offer his plug promiscuous. He'll go back East, an' the refinement will cover him up again—an' that's a damned shame. But he won't be just the same. It won't crust over no more, because the prejudice is gone. He's chewed the meat of the cow country—an' he's found it good."
Later, long after the others had gone to sleep, Alice lay between her blankets in the little shelter tent, thinking.
Bat had pitched the tent upon a little knoll, screened by a jutting shoulder of rock from the sleeping place of the others. When Alice awoke it was broad daylight. She lay for a few moments enjoying the delicious luxury of her blankets which the half-breed had spread upon a foot-thick layer of boughs. The sun beat down upon the white canvas and she realized that it was hot in the tent. The others must have been up for hours and she resented their not having awakened her. She listened for sounds, but outside all was silence and she dressed hurriedly. Stepping from the tent, she saw the dead ashes of the little fire and the contents of the packs apparently undisturbed, covered with the tarp. She glanced at her watch. It was half past nine. Suddenly she remembered that dawn had already began to grey the east when they retired. She was the first one up! She would let the others sleep. They needed it. She remembered the Texan had not slept the day before, but had ridden away to return later with the clothing for Endicott—and the whiskey.
"I don't see why he has to drink!" she muttered, and making her way to the spring, dipped some water from the catch-basin and splashed it over her face and arms. The cold water dispelled the last vestige of sleepiness and she stood erect and breathed deeply of the crystal air. At the farther side of the bowl-like plateau the horses grazed contentedly, and a tiny black and white woodpecker flew from tree to tree pecking busily at the bark. Above the edge of the rim-rocks the high-flung peaks of the Bear Paws belied the half-night's ride that separated them from the isolated Antelope Butte.
"What a view one should get from the edge!" she exclaimed, and turning from the spring, made her way through the scraggly timber to the rock wall beyond. It was not a long climb and five minutes later she stood panting with exertion and leaned against an upstanding pinnacle of jagged rock. For a long time she stood wonder-bound by the mighty grandeur of the panorama that swept before her to lose itself somewhere upon the dim horizon. Her brain grasped for details. It was all too big—too unreal—too unlike the world she had known. In sheer desperation, for sight of some familiar thing, her eyes turned toward the camp. There was the little white tent, and the horses grazing beyond. Her elevation carried her range of vision over the jutting shoulder of rock, and she saw the Texan sitting beside his blankets drawing on his boots. The blankets were mounded over the forms of the others, and without disturbing them, the cowboy put on his hat and started toward the spring. At the sight of the little tent he paused and Alice saw him stand staring at the little patch of white canvas. For a long time he stood unmoving, and then, impulsively, his two arms stretched toward it. The arms were as quickly withdrawn. The Stetson was lifted from his head and once more it seemed a long time that he stood looking at the little tent with the soft brim of his Stetson crushed tightly in his hand.
Evidently, for fear of waking her, the man did not go to the spring, but retraced his steps and Alice saw him stoop and withdraw something from his war-bag. Thrusting the object beneath his shirt, he rose slowly and made his way toward the rim-rock, choosing for his ascent a steep incline which, with the aid of some rock ledges, would bring him to the top at a point not ten yards from where she stood.
It was with a sense of guilt that she realized she had spied upon this man, and her cheeks flushed as she cast about desperately for a means to escape unseen. But no such avenue presented itself, and she drew back into a deep crevice of her rock pinnacle lest he see her.
A grubby, stunted pine somehow managed to gain sustenance from the stray earth among the rock cracks and screened her hiding-place. The man was very close, now. She could hear his heavy breathing and the click of his boot heels upon the bare rocks. Then he crossed to the very verge of the precipice and seated himself with his feet hanging over the edge. For some moments he sat gazing out over the bad lands, and then his hand slipped into the front of his shirt and withdrew a bottle of whiskey.
The girl's lips tightened as she watched him from behind her screen of naked roots and branches. He looked a long time at the bottle, shook it, and held it to the sun as he contemplated the little beads that sparkled at the edge of the liquor line. He read its label, and seemed deeply interested in the lines of fine print contained upon an oval sticker that adorned its back. Still holding the bottle, he once more stared out over the bad lands. Then he drew the cork and smelled of the liquor, breathing deeply of its fragrance, and turning, gazed intently toward the little white tent beside the stunted pines.
Alice saw that his eyes were serious as he set the bottle upon the rock beside him. And then, hardly discernible at first, but gradually assuming distinct form, a whimsical smile curved his lips as he looked at the bottle.
"Gosh!" he breathed, softly, "ain't you an' I had some nonsensical times? I ain't a damned bit sorry, neither. But our trails fork here. Maybe for a while—maybe for ever. But if it is for ever, my average will be right honourable if I live to be a hundred." Alice noticed how boyish the clean-cut features looked when he smiled that way. The other smile—the masking, cynical smile—made him ten years older. The face was once more grave, and he raised the bottle from the rock. "So long," he said, and there was just that touch of honest regret in his voice with which he would have parted from a friend. "So long. I've got a choice to make—an' I don't choose you."
The hand that held the bottle was empty. There was a moment of silence and then from far below came the tinkle of smashing glass. The Texan got up, adjusted the silk scarf at his neck, rolled a cigarette, and clambering down the sharp descent, made his way toward the grazing horses. Alice watched for a moment as he walked up to his own horse, stroked his neck, and lightly cuffed at the ears which the horse laid back as he playfully snapped at his master's hand. Then she scrambled from her hiding-place and hurried unobserved to her tent, where she threw herself upon the blankets with a sound that was somehow very like a sob.
When the breakfast of cold coffee and biscuits was finished the Texan watched Endicott's clumsy efforts to roll a cigarette.
"Better get you a piece of twine to do it with, Win," he grinned; "you sure are a long ways from home when it comes to braidin' a smoke. Saw a cow-hand do it once with one hand. In a show, it was in Cheyenne, an' he sure was some cowboy—in the show. Come out onto the flats one day where the boys was breakin' a bunch of Big O Little O horses—'after local colour,' he said." The Texan paused and grinned broadly. "Got it too. He clum up into the middle of a wall-eyed buckskin an' the doc picked local colour out of his face for two hours where he'd slid along on it—but he could roll a cigarette with one hand. There, you got one at last, didn't you? Kind of humped up in the middle like a snake that's swallowed a frog, but she draws all right, an' maybe it'll last longer than a regular one." He turned to Alice who had watched the operation with interest.
"If you-all don't mind a little rough climbin', I reckon, you'd count the view from the rim-rocks yonder worth seein'."
"Oh, I'd love it!" cried the girl, as she scrambled to her feet.
"Come on, Win," called the Texan, "I'll show you where God dumped the tailin's when He finished buildin' the world."
Together the three scaled the steep rock-wall. Alice, scorning assistance, was the first to reach the top, and once more the splendour of the magnificent waste held her speechless.
For some moments they gazed in silence. Before them, bathed in a pale amethyst haze that thickened to purple at the far-off edge of the world, lay the bad lands resplendent under the hot glare of the sun in vivid red and black and pink colouring of the lava rock. Everywhere the eye met the flash and shimmer of mica fragments that sparkled like the facets of a million diamonds, while to the northward the Bear Paws reared cool and green, with the grass of the higher levels reaching almost to the timber line.
"Isn't it wonderful?" breathed the girl. "Why do people stay cooped up in the cities, when out here there is—this?" Endicott's eyes met hers, and in their depths she perceived a newly awakened fire. She was conscious of a strange glow at her heart—a mighty gladness welled up within her, permeating her whole being. "He has awakened," her brain repeated over and over again, "he has——"
The voice of the Texan fell upon her ears softly as from a distance, and she turned her eyes to the boyish faced cow-puncher who viewed life lightly and who, she had learned, was the thorough master of his wilderness, and very much a man.
"I love it too," he was saying. "This bad land best of all. What with the sheep, an' the nesters, the range country must go. But barbed-wire can never change this," his arm swept the vast plain before him. "I suppose God foreseen what the country was comin' to," he speculated, "an' just naturally stuck up His 'keep off' sign on places here an' there—the Sahara Desert, an' Death Valley, an' the bad lands. He wanted somethin' left like He made it. Yonder's the Little Rockies, an' them big black buttes to the south are the Judith, an' you can see—way beyond the Judith—if you look close—the Big Snowy Mountains. They're more than a hundred miles away."
The cowboy ceased speaking suddenly. And Alice, following his gaze, made out far to the north-eastward a moving speck. The Texan crouched and motioned the others into the shelter of a rock. "Wish I had a pair of glasses," he muttered, with his eyes on the moving dot.
"What is it?" asked the girl.
"Rider of some kind. Maybe the I X round-up is workin' the south slope. An' maybe it's just a horse-thief. But it mightn't be either. Guess I'll just throw the hull on that cayuse of mine an' siyou down and see. He's five or six miles off yet, an' I've got plenty of time to slip down there. Glad the trail's on the west side. You two stay up here, but you got to be awful careful not to show yourselves. Folks down below look awful little from here, but if they've got glasses you'd loom up plenty big, an' posse men's apt to pack glasses." The two followed him to camp and a few moments later watched him ride off at a gallop and disappear in the scrub that concealed the mouth of the precipitous trail.
Hardly had he passed from sight than Bat rose and, walking to his saddle, uncoiled his rope.
"Where are you going?" asked Endicott as the half-breed started toward the horses.
"Me, oh, A'm trail long behine. Mebbe-so two kin see better'n wan."
A few minutes later he too was swallowed up in the timber at the head of the trail, and Alice and Endicott returned to the rim-rocks and from a place of concealment watched with breathless interest the course of the lone horseman.
After satisfying himself he was unobserved, the Texan pushed from the shelter of the rocks at the foot of the trail and, circling the butte, struck into a coulee that led south-eastward into the bad lands. A mile away he crossed a ridge and gained another coulee which he followed northward.
"If he's headin' into the bad lands I'll meet up with him, an' if he's just skirtin' 'em, our trails'll cross up here a piece," he reasoned as his horse carried him up the dry ravine at a steady walk. Presently he slanted into a steep side coulee that led upward to the crest of a long flat ridge. For a moment he paused as his eyes swept the landscape and then suddenly a quarter of a mile away a horseman appeared out of another coulee. He, too, paused and, catching sight of the Texan, dug in his spurs and came toward him at a run.
The cowboy's brows drew into a puzzled frown as he studied the rapidly approaching horseman. "Well, I'll be damned!" he grinned, "ain't he the friendly young spirit! His ma had ought to look after him better'n that an' teach him some manners. The idea of any one chargin' up to a stranger that way in the bad lands! One of these days he's a-goin' to run up again' an abrupt foreshortin' of his reckless young career." The rider was close now and the Texan recognized a self-important young jackass who had found work with one of the smaller outfits.
"It's that mouthy young short-horn from the K 2," he muttered, disgustedly. "Well, he'll sure cut loose an' earful of small talk. He hates himself, like a peacock." The cowboy pulled up his horse with a vicious jerk that pinked the foam at the animal's mouth and caused a little cloud of dust to rise into the air. Then, for a moment, he sat and stared.
"If you was in such a hell of a hurry," drawled the Texan, "you could of rode around me. There's room on either side."
The cowboy found his voice. "Well, by gosh, if it ain't Tex! How they stackin', old hand?"
"Howdy," replied the Texan, dryly.
"You take my advice an' lay low here in the bad lands an' they won't ketch you. I said it right in the Long Horn yeste'day mornin'—they was a bunch of us lappin' 'em up. Old Pete was there—an' I says to Pete, I says, 'Take it from me they might ketch all the rest of 'em but they won't never ketch Tex!' An' Pete, he says, 'You're just right there, Joe,' an' then he takes me off to one side, old Pete does, an' he says, 'Joe,' he says, 'I've got a ticklish job to be done, an' I ain't got another man I kin bank on puttin' it through.'"
The Texan happened to know that Mr. Peter G. Kester, owner of the K 2, was a very dignified old gentleman who left the details of his ranch entirely in the hands of his foreman, and the idea of his drinking in the Long Horn with his cowboys was as unique as was hearing him referred to as "Old Pete."
"What's ailin' him?" asked the Texan. "Did he lose a hen, or is he fixin' to steal someone's mewl?"
"It's them Bar A saddle horses," continued the cowboy, without noticing the interruption. "He buys a string of twenty three-year-olds offen the Bar A an' they broke out of the pasture. They range over here on the south slope, an' if them horse-thieves down in the bad lands has got 'em they're a-goin' to think twict before they run off any more K 2 horses, as long as I'm workin' fer the outfit."
"Are you aimin' to drive twenty head of horses off their own range single handed?"
"Sure. You can do it easy if you savvy horses."
The Texan refrained from comment. He wanted to know who was supposed to be interested in catching him, and why. Had someone told the truth about the lynching, and was he really wanted for aiding and abetting the pilgrim's escape?
"I reckon that's true," he opined. "They can't get me here in the bad lands."