HUNTING FOR GUARD
The ravine was a mile or more in length, and I traversed it rapidly
without coming upon any traces of Guard or the wildcat.
Sooner than I had expected, despite my anxiety, the ravine widened,
the encroaching walls became lower, the light stronger, and, in a
moment more, I came out on a wide, park-like opening, back of Mr.
Horton's house.
I had not met Mrs. Horton since the morning that the wheat crop was
destroyed, although I had seen her passing the house frequently on her
way to and from the store. It was plain that she avoided us, through
no fault or desire of her own, but out of very shame because of the
brand on the cattle that had ruined our crops. Casting about in my
mind for an excuse for calling on her now, I was impelled to go on,
even without an excuse. My conscience told me that I had treated her
with less kindness on that occasion than she deserved. Striking into
the cattle trail that, bordering the park, led to Horton's corral, I
followed it to the corral gate, and was soon after knocking at
Horton's front door. My knock was answered by Mrs. Horton, who
exclaimed in astonishment at sight of me:
"Why, I declare! I thought you'd be gone to town to-day, sure. Has
Jessie gone?"
"Oh yes; and Ralph is at Mrs. Wilson's."
"Well, well! Come right in! And so you didn't go. I don't see how you
managed it, hardly."
"Joe came home in time to drive down, and Mr.--we thought it best not
to leave the homestead alone."
Mrs. Horton nodded her head approvingly.
"That was a good thought; you can't be too careful. I declare, I wish
you had brought Ralph over here--the precious! I've been feeling as
lonesome as an owl this morning. Generally I don't mind being left
alone, not a bit; I'm used to it; but I was feeling disappointed
to-day, and so everything goes against the grain, I s'pose."
I must have looked sympathetic, for she presently broke out:
"I don't feel, Leslie, as if I was an unreasonable or exacting kind of
woman, in general, but Jake talked last night as if he thought I was.
You see, I had set my heart on going to town when it came time for you
girls to prove up. I'd thought of lots of little things that I was
going to mention to the Land Agent, to influence him in your favor,
and I guess there aren't many folks that know better than I do how
you've tried and tried to fill all the requirements. But Jake--"
She paused, her mouth, with its gentle-looking curves, closing as if
she would say no more. But her grievance was too fresh and too bitter
to admit of her keeping silence. In answer to my respectful inquiry as
to why she didn't go, she burst out impatiently:
"Jake wouldn't let me. Said if I did I'd be interfering with what was
none of my business--as if I ever interfered with any one else's
business--and, besides, he said it wasn't convenient to take me. He
went on horseback himself."
"Oh, he's gone, then?"
"Gracious, yes! Gone! He's been in town nearly all night. He was out
somewhere last evening, looking up cattle, he said, and he didn't get
in till almost nine o'clock; then he ate supper and started right off.
I thought it was a rather dark time to be starting for town, but he
said the moon would be rising before he got out on to the plains, and
he didn't care for the dark."
"Why was he so anxious to get to town early this morning?" I asked,
with what I inwardly felt to be almost insolent persistency. Mr.
Horton's good wife suspected nothing, however.
"Why, I suppose, to help you folks, if help was needed," she replied,
readily. "I've felt awfully cut up, Leslie, about the way our cattle
destroyed your crops. It just went to my heart to think that it was
our cattle that did it"--and the tears in her honest blue eyes
attested the sincerity of her words--"I've talked to Jake a good deal
about it. He hasn't said straight out that he'd pay damages, but I've
been thinking maybe he intended to do it in his own way, and his way
was to get to town and help you all he could with the Land Agent. As
he's been known to the claim so long, his word ought to have weight.
Don't you think so?"
"I am afraid--I mean yes, certainly," I stammered. It was not
re-assuring to think of the weight that his word might have.
"When do you look for Mr. Horton to return?" I asked, rising from my
chair as I spoke.
"Oh, not until your business is all settled; he said he'd stay and see
it all through. He said that he'd have a surprise for me when he got
back; but I guess he won't. I imagine that he thought I'd feel
surprised to learn that you'd received your papers, but I'd be
surprised if you didn't, after the way you've kept the faith, so to
speak. Oh, now, sit down! You're not going yet, are you? And after
such a walk as it is from your house here, too!"
"I came down by the trail, Mrs. Horton." And then I told her about
Guard, thus accounting for the gun, which I had caught her glancing
at, once or twice, rather curiously.
"Young dogs are foolish," was her comment, when she had heard the
story. "If he was older, I should tell you not to be a mite worried,
but as he's a young one, it's different. I've known a young dog to get
on a hot trail, and follow it until he was completely lost. My father
lost a fine deerhound that way once. The dog got on the trail of a
buck, and last we ever heard of him he was twenty miles away, and
still going. I do hope you won't have such bad luck with your dog."
I bade good-by to Mrs. Horton, and started homeward, again taking the
trail through the ravine. I was not much cheered by her words in
regard to Guard, and heavily depressed by the knowledge that Mr.
Horton had, after all, beaten Mr. Wilson and Jessie in his start for
town--though what difference it could make, either way, until the Land
Office was open in the morning no one could have told. Being troubled,
I walked slowly, this time, with my eyes on the ground. Half-way
through the ravine I came to a point where a break in the walls let in
the sunlight. Through this low, ragged depression the light was
streaming in in a long, brilliant shaft as I approached the spot. The
warm, bright column of golden light had so strange an effect, lighting
up the gray rocks and the moist, reeking pathway, that I paused to
admire it. "If it were only a rainbow, now," I thought, "I should look
under the end of it, there, for a bag of gold." My eyes absently
followed the column of light to the point where it seemed suddenly to
end in the darkness of the ravine, and I uttered a startled cry. Under
the warm, bright light I saw the distinct impression of a dog's foot.
It was as clearly defined in the oozy reek as it would have been had
some one purposely taken a cast of it, but after the first start, I
reflected that it did not necessarily follow that the print was made
by Guard. Still, examination showed that it might well be his.
Searching farther, I found more tracks--above the break in the wall,
but none in the ravine below it. The footprints had been a good deal
marred by my own as I came down the ravine, and, what I thought most
singular, supposing the tracks to have been made by Guard, there were
also the hoof-marks of a horse--not a range-horse, for this one wore
shoes, and, developing Indian lore as I studied the trail, I presently
made the important discovery that, while the dog's tracks occasionally
overlaid those of the horse, the horse's tracks never covered the
dog's. Clearly, then, if those footprints belonged to Guard, as I had
a quite unaccountable conviction that they did, he was quietly
following some horseman. For an indignant instant I suspected some
reckless cowboy of having lassoed and stolen him, but a little further
study of the footprints spoiled that theory. Guard would have resisted
such a seizure, and the footprints would have been blurred and
dragging. The clean impressions left by this canine were not those of
an unwilling captive. I followed the tracks along the trail to the
upper end of the ravine for some time, but learning nothing further in
that way, returned again to the break in the wall. Looking attentively
at that, I at length discovered a long, fresh mark on the slippery
rock. Such a mark as might have been made by the iron-shod hoof of a
horse, scrambling up the wall in haste, and slipping dangerously on
the insecure foothold. With the recognition of this, I was scrambling
up the bank myself. Scarcely had my head reached the level of the bank
when a loud, eager whinny broke the silence. Startled, I slipped into
a thicket of scrub-oaks, and, from their friendly shelter, made a
cautious reconnoissance. Not far away, and standing in clear view, a
bay horse was tethered to the over-hanging limb of a pine tree. It did
not need a second glance for me to recognize Don, Mr. Horton's
favorite saddle-horse. That the poor creature had had a long and
tedious wait, his eager whinnying, and the pawing of his impatient
hoof, as he looked over in my direction, plainly told.
I watched him for awhile, breathlessly, and in silence, but he was far
too anxious to keep silent himself. His distress was so apparent that
I felt sorry for him, and finally decided that I might, at least,
venture to approach and speak to him. Leaving my place of concealment
I started toward him, but stopped abruptly with my heart in my mouth,
before I had taken a dozen steps, as a new sound broke the silence. A
new sound, but familiar, and doubly welcome in that wild place. It was
the sharp, excited yelping that Guard was wont to make when he had
treed game and needed help.