Jeff looked ruefully at the hot dusty road which curled upward and in
front of him like a great white snake. At the top of the grade, where
some pines stood out against the blue sky, hung a small reek of dust
concealing the figure of his late companion. As Jeff gazed, the reek
melted away. The young man told himself that he was alone in the brush
foothills, with a lame horse, and a body (his own) so bruised and
battered that it seemed to belong to somebody else.
"Hello!" said a voice.
Jeff stared into the chaparral. Wild lilac and big sage bushes,
flowering lupins and gilias, bordered the road, for spring was abroad
in San Lorenzo county. A boy slipped through the lilacs.
"Jee-whiz!" said the boy. "You've hurt yourself."
"That's right," Jeff replied.
"How did it happen?"
"The plug crossed his feet in the dip yonder, and rolled plum over me.
Say--do you want to earn an honest dollar?"
The adjective was emphasised, for none knew better than Jeff that the
foothills harboured queer folk. The boy nodded.
"You must get a buggy, sonny."
"A buggy? Anything else? As if buggies grew in the brush-hills!"
Just then Jeff's sanguine complexion turned grey, and his eyes seemed
to slip back into his head. The boy perceived a bulging pocket, out of
which he whipped a flask. Jeff took a long drink; then he gasped out:
"Thunder! you was smart to find that flask. Ah-h-h!"
"You're in a real bad fix," said the boy.
"I _am_ in bad shape," Jeff admitted. "If I'd known I was going
to lose the use o' myself like this, I wouldn't ha' been so doggoned
keen about my friend leavin' me."
"Your friend must be in a partic'lar hurry."
"He was that," Jeff murmured. A queer buzzing in his ears and an
overpowering feeling of giddiness made him close his eyes. When he
opened them, the boy had disappeared. Jeff saw that his horse had been
tied up in the shade of a scrub-oak.
"That boy seems to have some sense," he reflected. "This is a knock-
out, sure."
Again he closed his eyes. A blue jay began to chatter; and when he had
finished his screed, a cock-quail challenged the silence. Very soon
the wilderness was uttering all its familiar sounds. Jeff, lying flat
on his back, could hear the rabbits scurrying through the chaparral.
After an interminable delay his ears caught the crackle of dry twigs
snapped beneath a human foot.
"Feelin' lonesome?"
"I'm mighty glad to see you again," Jeff admitted. "Ah, water! That's
a sight better'n whisky."
He drank thirstily, for the sun was high in the heavens, and the road
as hot as an oven.
"I reckoned you'd come back," Jeff continued.
"Why?"
"To earn that dollar." He eyed the lad's somewhat ragged overalls.
"Say--what do they call ye to home?"
"Bud."
"Bud, eh? Short for brother. Folks got a fam'ly." He reflected that
Bud's sister, if he had one, might be nice-looking. "Well, Bud, I'm
under obligations to ye, for hitchin' up the plug in the shade. 'Twas
thoughtful. Where ha' ye been?"
"I've been hunting Dad. But he's off in the hills. If I could get ye
to our camp----"
"The plug'll have to do it. Unhitch him."
Bud untied the animal, who limped even more acutely than his master.
Perhaps he lacked his master's grit. Jeff was the colour of parchment
when he found himself in the saddle, whereon he sat huddled up,
gripping the horn.
"Freeze on," said the boy.
"You bet," Jeff replied laconically.
Bud led the horse a few yards down the road, passing from it into the
chaparral. Thence, through a tangled wilderness of scrub-oak and
manzanita, down a steep slope, into a pretty cañon.
"Here we are."
A sudden turn of the trail revealed a squatter's hut built of rough
lumber, and standing beneath a live-oak. A small creek was babbling
its way to the Salinas River. The clearing in front of the hut was
strewn with empty tins. A tumble-down shed encircled by a corral was
on the other side of the creek. Jeff knew at once that he was looking
at one of the innumerable mountain-claims taken up by Eastern settlers
in the days of the great land boom, and forsaken by them a couple of
years afterwards.
Jeff slid from the saddle on to his sound leg; then, counting rapidly
the shining tins, he said reflectively:--
"Bin here about a month, I reckon."
"Yes--Mister--Sherlock--Holmes."
Jeff stared. The ragamuffins of the foothills are not in the habit of
reading fiction, although lying comes easy to them.
"Kin you read?" said Jeff.
"I--_kin_," replied Bud, grinning (he had nice teeth). "Kin you?"
"I can cuff a cheeky kid," said Jeff, scowling.
"But you've got to catch him first."
The boy laughed gaily, and ran into the house, as Jeff sat down
propping his broad back against a tree.
"Things here are not what they seem," Jeff murmured to his horse, who
twitched an intelligent ear, as if he, too, was well aware that this
was no home of squatter or miner. And who else of honest men would
choose to live in such a desolate spot?
Presently the boy came back, carrying a feed of crushed barley. Then
he unsaddled the horse, watered him, and fed him. Jeff grunted
approval.
"You're earnin' that dollar--every cent of it." A delightful fragrance
of bacon floated to Jeff's nostrils. Evidently provision had been made
for man as well as beast.
"That smells mighty good," said Jeff.
Bud helped him to rise, but after one effort Jeff sank back, groaning.
"It's my boot," he explained. "See--I'm wearing a number eight on a
number fifteen hoof. W-w-what? Pull it off? Not for ten thousand
dollars. We'll cut it off."
Jeff produced a knife and felt its edge.
"It's sharp," he said, "sharp as you, Bud; but-doggone it! I can't use
it."
Bud saw the sweat start on his skin as he tried to pull the injured
foot towards him.
"S'pose I do it?" the boy suggested.
"You've not got the nerve, Bud. Why, you're yaller as cheese, you poor
little cuss."
"I'm not," said the boy, flushing suddenly.
He took the knife and began to cut the tough leather: a delicate
operation, for Jeff's leg from knee to ankle was terribly swollen.
Slowly and delicately the knife did its work. Finally, a horribly
contused limb was revealed.
"Cold water--and plenty of it," murmured Jeff.
"Or hot?"
"Mebbee hot'd be better."
Bud disappeared, whistling.
"That boy's earning a five-dollar bill," said Jeff. "I'm a liar if he
ain't as bright as they make 'em."
The hot water was brought and some linen.
"I feel a heap better," Jeff declared presently.
"How about dinner?"
"Bud, if ever I hev a son I hope he'll be jest like you. Say--you're
earning big money--d'ye know it?--and my everlastin' gratitude."
"That's all right. Hadn't I better bring the grub out here? It's nice
and cool under this tree."
Jeff nodded. The bacon and beans were brought out and consumed. Bud,
however, refused to eat. He preferred to wait for his father. Jeff
asked some questions, as he stowed away the bacon and beans.
"Your dad must be an awful nice man," said he.
"He's the best and smartest man in the State," said Bud proudly.
"Is he! And you two are campin' out for yer health--eh? Ye can't fool
me, Bud."
"Oh!"
"I sized you up at once as a city boy."
"You're more than half right."
"I'm all right, Bud. In my business I have to be all right. Bless you,
it don't do to make mistakes in my business."
"And what is your business?"
Jeff beamed. He was certainly a good-looking fellow, and warmed by
food and, comparatively speaking, free from pain, he was worthy of
more than a passing glance.
"I'm deputy-sheriff of San Lorenzo County," he declared, "and mighty
proud of it."
"Proud of this yere county?" said the boy, "or proud of being dep'ty-
sheriff?"
"By Jing! I'm proud o' both. The county's comin' along fine, and so'm
I, Bud. It's a fact, sonny, that I'm held in high esteem as an
officer. Why, my boss said to me this very day: 'Jeff,' says he, 'yer
makin' a record.'"
"What sort o' record?"
Jeff flushed slightly. He was not in the habit of "tooting his own
horn," as he would have put it, but the boy's face invited confidence.
"A record for dooin' my duty," he answered slowly. "'Tain't as easy as
you might think for."
"No?"
"Not by no means. Ye see, Bud, in a new country 'tisn't only the real
bad eggs that worries us. The community can deal with them. No, no,
it's the good fellers gone wrong, the straight 'uns grown crooked, who
keep us stirrin'. And, sometimes, when a friend, a neighbour, flies
the track, an officer is kind o' tempted to look the other way. See?"
"And you don't look the other way?"