his cigarette. "Well, I--Holy smoke! what's the matter with _you_,
Blink?" For Blink was leaning forward, half crouched, like a cat about
to pounce, and was glaring fixedly at Andy with lips drawn back in a
snarl. The Happy Family looked, then stared.
Blink relaxed, shrugged his shoulders and grinned unmirthfully. He got
up, pulled up his chaps with the peculiar, hitching gesture which
comes with long practice and grows to be second nature, and stared
back defiantly at the wondering faces lighted by the dancing flames.
He turned his back coolly upon them and walked away to where his horse
stood, took up the reins and stuck his toe in the stirrup, went up and
landed in the saddle ready for anything. Then he wheeled the big
sorrel so that he faced those at the camp-fire.
"A man's a damned fool, Andy Green, to see more than is meant for him
to see. He's plumb crazy to go round blatting all he knows. You won't
tell that tale again, _mi amigo!_"
There was the pop of a pistol, a puff of blue against the gray, and
then the fog reached out and gathered Blink and the sorrel to itself.
Only the clatter of galloping hoofs came to them from behind the damp
curtain. Andy Green was lying on his back in the grass, his cigarette
smoking dully in his fingers, a fast widening red streak trailing down
from his temple.
The Happy Family rose like a covey of frightened chickens before the
echoes were done playing with the gun-bark. On the heels of Blink's
shot came the crack of Happy Jack's "howitzer" as he fired blindly
toward the hoof-beats. There was more shooting while they scurried to
where their horses, snorting excitement, danced uneasily at the edge
of the bushes. Only one man spoke, and that was Pink, who stopped just
as he was about to swing into the saddle.
"Damme for leaving my gun in camp! I'll stay with Andy. Go on--and if
yuh don't get him, I'll--" he turned back, cursing hysterically, and
knelt beside the long figure in the grass. There was a tumult of sound
as the three raced off in pursuit, so close that the flight of the
fugitive was still distinct in the fog.
While they raced they cursed the fog that shielded from their
vengeance their quarry, and made such riding as theirs a blind gamble
with the chances all in favor of broken bones; their only comfort the
knowledge that Blink could see no better than could they. They did not
talk, just at first. They did not even wonder if Andy was dead. Every
nerve, every muscle and every thought was concentrated upon the
pursuit of Blink. It was the instant rising to meet an occasion
undreamed of in advance, to do the only thing possible without loss of
a second in parley. Truly, it were ill for Blink to fall into the
hands of those three in that mood.
They rode with quirt and spur, guided only by the muffled
_pluckety-pluck, pluckety-pluck_ of Blink's horse fleeing always just
before. Whenever the hoof-beats seemed a bit closer, Happy Jack would
lift his long-barreled .45 and send a shot at random toward the sound.
Or Weary or Slim would take a chance with their shorter guns. But
never once did they pull rein for steep or gulley, and never once did
the hoof-beats fail to come back to them from out the fog.
The chase had led afar and the pace was telling on their mounts, which
breathed asthmatically. Slim, best he could do, was falling behind.
Weary's horse stumbled and went to his knees, so that Happy Jack
forged ahead just when the wind, puffing up from the open, blew aside
the gray fog-wall. It was not a minute, nor half that; but it was long
enough for Happy Jack to see, clear and close, Blink pausing
irresolutely upon the edge of a deep, brush-filled gulley. Happy Jack
gave a hoarse croak of triumph and fired, just as the fog-curtain
swayed back maddeningly. Happy Jack nearly wept with pure rage. Weary
and Slim came up, and together they galloped to the place, riding by
instinct of direction, for there was no longer any sound to guide.
Ten minutes they spent searching the gulley's edge. Then they saw
dimly, twenty feet below, a huddled object half-hidden in the brush.
They climbed down none too warily, though they knew well what might be
lying, venomous as a coiled rattler, in wait for them below. Slipping
and sliding in the fog-dampened grass, they reached the spot, to find
the big sorrel crumpled there, dead. They searched anxiously and
futilely for more, but Blink was not there, nor was there anything to
show that he had ever been there. Then not fear, perhaps, but caution,
came to Happy Jack.
"Aw, say! he's got away on us--the skunk! He's down there in the
brush, somewheres, waiting for somebody to go in and drag him out by
the ear. I betche he's laying low, right now, waiting for a chance to
pot-shot us. We better git back out uh this." He edged away, his eyes
on the thicket just below. To ride in there was impossible, even to
the Happy Family in whole or in part. To go in afoot was not at all to
the liking of Happy Jack.
Slim gave a comprehensive, round-eyed stare at the unpromising
surroundings, and followed Happy Jack. "By golly, that's right. Yuh
don't git me into no hole like that," he assented.
Weary, foolhardy to the last, stayed longest; but even Weary could not
but admit that the case was hopeless. The brush was thick and filled
the gully, probably from end to end. Riding through it was impossible,
and hunting it through on foot would be nothing but suicide, with a
man like Blink hidden away in its depths. They climbed back to the
rim, remounted and rode, as straight as might be, for the camp-fire
and what lay beside, with Pink on guard.
It was near noon when, through the lightening fog, they reached the
place and discovered that Andy, though unconscious, was not dead. They
found, upon examination of his hurt, that the bullet had ploughed
along the side of his head above his ear; but just how serious it
might be they did not know. Pink, having a fresh horse and aching for
action, mounted and rode in much haste to camp, that the bed-wagon
might be brought out to take Andy in to the ranch and the
ministrations of the Little Doctor. Also, he must notify the crew and
get them out searching for Blink.
All that night and the next day the cowboys rode, and the next. They
raked the foothills, gulley by gulley, their purpose grim. It would
probably be a case of shoot-on-sight with them, and nothing saved
Blink save the all-important fact that never once did any man of the
Flying U gain sight of him. He had vanished completely after that
fleeting glimpse Happy Jack had gained, and in the end the Flying U
was compelled to own defeat.
Upon one point they congratulated themselves: Andy, bandaged as he
was, had escaped with a furrow ploughed through the scalp, though it
was not the fault of Blink that he was alive and able to discuss the
affair with the others--more exactly, to answer the questions they
fired at him.
"Didn't you recognize him as being the murderer?" Weary asked him
curiously.
Andy moved uneasily on his bed. "No, I didn't. By gracious, you must
think I'm a plumb fool!"
"Well, yuh sure hit the mark, whether yuh meant to or not," Pink
asserted. "He was the jasper, all right. Look how he was glaring at
yuh while you were telling about it. _He_ knew he was the party, and
having a guilty conscience, he naturally supposed yuh recognized him
from the start."
"Well, I didn't," snapped Andy ungraciously, and they put it down to
the peevishness of invalidism and overlooked the tone.
"Chip has given his description in to the sheriff," soothed Weary,
"and if he gets off he's sure a good one. And I heard that the sheriff
wired down to the San Simon country and told 'em their man was up
here. Mama! What bad breaks a man will make when he's on the dodge! If
Blink had kept his face closed and acted normal, nobody would have got
next. Andy didn't know he was the fellow that done it. But it sure was
queer, the way the play come up. Wasn't it, Andy?"
Andy merely grunted. He did not like to dwell upon the subject, and he
showed it plainly.
"By golly! he must sure have had it in for that fellow," mused Slim
ponderously, "to kill him the way Andy says he did. By golly, yuh
can't wonder his eyes stuck out when he heard Andy telling us all
about it!"
"I betche he lays for Andy yet, and gits him," predicted Happy Jack
felicitously. "He won't rest whilst an eye-witness is running around
loose. I betche he's cached in the hills right now, watching his
chance."
"Oh, go to hell, the whole lot of yuh!" flared Andy, rising to an
elbow. "What the dickens are yuh roosting around here for? Why don't
yuh go on out to camp where yuh belong? You're a nice bunch to set
around comforting the sick! _Vamos_, darn yuh!"
Whereupon they took the hint and departed, assuring Andy, by way of
farewell, that he was an unappreciative cuss and didn't deserve any
sympathy or sick-calls. They also condoled openly with Pink because he
had been detailed as nurse, and advised him to sit right down on Andy
if he got too sassy and haughty over being shot up by a real outlaw.
They said that any fool could build himself a bunch of trouble with a
homicidal lunatic like Blink, and it wasn't anything to get vain over.
Pink slammed the door upon their jibes and offered Andy a cigarette he
had just rolled; not that Andy was too sick to roll his own, but
because Pink was notably soft-hearted toward a sick man and was prone
to indulge himself in trifling attentions.
"Yuh don't want to mind that bunch," he placated. "They mean all
right, but they just can't help joshing a man to death."
Andy accepted also a light for the cigarette, and smoked moodily. "It
ain't their joshing," he explained after a minute "It's puzzling over
what I can't understand that gets on my nerves. I can't see through
the thing, Pink, no way I look at it."
"Looks plain enough to me," Pink answered. "Uh course, it's funny
Blink should be the man, and be setting there listening--"
"Yes, but darn it all, Pink, there's a funnier side to it than that,
and it's near driving me crazy trying to figure it out. Yuh needn't
tell anybody, Pink, but it's like this: I was just merely and simply
romancing when I told that there blood-curdling tale! I never was
south uh the Wyoming line except when I was riding in a circus and
toured through, and that's the truth. I never was down in the San
Simon basin. I never set on no pinnacle with no field glasses--" Andy
stopped short his labored confession to gaze, with deep disgust, upon
Pink's convulsed figure. "Well," he snapped, settling back on the
pillow, "_laugh_, darn yuh! and show your ignorance! By gracious, I
wish _I_ could see the joke!" He reached up gingerly and readjusted
the bandage on his head, eyed Pink sourly a moment, and with a grunt
eloquent of the mood he was in turned his face to the wall.
* * * * *
MISS MARTIN'S MISSION
When Andy Green, fresh-combed and shining with soap and towel polish,
walked into the dining-room of the Dry Lake Hotel, he felt not the
slightest premonition of what was about to befall. His chief sensation
was the hunger which comes of early rising and of many hours spent in
the open, and beyond that he was hoping that the Chinaman cook had
made some meat-pie, like he had the week before. His eyes, searching
unobtrusively the long table bearing the unmistakable signs of many
other hungry men gone before--for Andy was late--failed to warn him.
He pulled out his chair and sat down, still looking for meat-pie.
"Good after_noon!_" cried an eager, feminine voice just across the
table.
Andy started guiltily. He had been dimly aware that some one was
sitting there, but, being occupied with other things, had not given a
thought to the sitter, or a glance. Now he did both while he said good
afternoon with perfunctory politeness.
"Such a _beau_tiful day, isn't it? _so_ invigorating, like rare, old
wine!"
Andy assented somewhat dubiously; it had never just struck him that
way; he thought fleetingly that perhaps it was because he had never
come across any rare, old wine. He ventured another glance. She was
not young, and she wore glasses, behind which twinkled very bright
eyes of a shade of brown. She had unpleasantly regular hair waves on
her temples, and underneath the waves showed streaks of gray. Also,
she wore a black silk waist, and somebody's picture made into a brooch
at her throat. Further, Andy dared not observe. It was enough for one
glance. He looked again for the much-desired meat-pie.
The strange lady ingratiatingly passed him the bread. "You're a
cowboy, aren't you?" was the disconcerting question that accompanied
the bread.
"Well, I--er--I punch cows," he admitted guardedly, his gaze elsewhere
than on her face.
"I _knew_ you were a cowboy, the moment you entered the door! I could
tell by the tan and the straight, elastic walk, and the silk
handkerchief knotted around your throat in that picturesque fashion.
(Oh, I'm older than you, and dare speak as I think!) I've read a great
deal about cowboys, and I do admire you all as a type of free,
great-hearted, noble manhood!"
Andy looked exactly as if someone had caught him at something
exceedingly foolish. He tried to sugar his coffee calmly, and so sent
it sloshing all over the saucer.
"Do you live near here?" she asked next, beaming upon him in the
orthodox, motherly fashion.
"Yes, ma'am, not very near," he was betrayed into saying--and she
might make what she could of it. He had not said "ma'am" before since
he had gone to school.
"Oh, I've heard how you Western folks measure distances," she teased.
"About how many miles?"
"About twenty."
"I suppose that is not far, to you knights of the plains. At home it
would be called a _dreadfully_ long journey. Why, I have known numbers
of old men and women who have never been so far from their own doors
in their lives! What would you think, I wonder, of their little forty
acre farms?"
Andy had been brought to his sixteenth tumultuous birthday on a
half-acre in the edge of a good-sized town, but he did not say so. He
shook his head vaguely and said he didn't know. Andy Green, however,
was not famous for clinging ever to the truth.
"You out here in this great, wide, free land, with the free winds ever
blowing and the clouds--"
"Will you pass the butter, please?" Andy hated to interrupt, but he
was hungry.
The strange lady passed the butter and sent with it a smile. "I have
read and heard so much about this wild, free life, and my heart has
gone out to the noble fellows living their lonely life with their
cattle and their faithful dogs, lying beside their camp-fires at night
while the stars stood guard--"
Andy forgot his personal embarrassment and began to perk up his ears.
This was growing interesting.
"--And I have felt how lonely they must be, with their rude fare and
few pleasures, and what a field there must be among them for a great
and noble work; to uplift them and bring into their lonely lives a
broader, deeper meaning; to help them to help themselves to be better,
nobler men and women--"
"We don't have any lady cowpunchers out here," interposed Andy mildly.
The strange lady had merely gone astray a bit, being accustomed to
addressing Mothers' Meetings and the like. She recovered herself
easily. "Nobler men, the bulwarks of our nation." She stopped and eyed
Andy archly. Andy, having observed that her neck was scrawny, with
certain cords down the sides that moved unpleasantly when she talked,
tried not to look.
"I wonder if you can guess what brings me out here, away from home and
friends! Can you guess?"
Andy thought of several things, but he could not feel that it would be
polite to mention them. Agent for complexion stuff, for instance, and
next to that, wanting a husband. He shook his head again and looked at
his potato.
"You _can't guess_?" The tone was the one commonly employed for the
encouragement, and consequent demoralization of, a primary class. Andy
realized that he was being talked down to, and his combativeness
awoke. "Well, away back in my home town, a woman's club has been
thinking of all you lonely fellows, and have felt their hearts swell
with a desire to help you--so far from home and mother's influence,
with only the coarse pleasures of the West, and amid all the
temptations that lie in wait--" She caught herself back from
speech-making--"and they have sent _me_--away out here--to be your
_friend_; to help you to help yourselves become better, truer men
and--" She did not say women, though, poor soul, she came near it.
"So, I am going to be your friend. I want to get in touch with you
all, first; to win your confidence and teach you to look upon me in
the light of a mother. Then, when I have won your confidence, I want
to organize a Cowboys' Mutual Improvement and Social Society, to help
you in the way of self-improvement and to resist the snares laid for
homeless boys like you. Don't you think I'm very--_brave_?" She was
smiling at him again, leaning back in her chair and regarding him
playfully over her glasses.
"You sure are," Andy assented, deliberately refraining from saying
"yes, ma'am," as had been his impulse.
"To come away out here--_all alone_--among all you wild cowboys with
your guns buckled on and your wicked little mustangs--Are you sure you
won't shoot me?"
Andy eyed her pityingly. If she meant it, he thought, she certainly
was wabbly in her mind. If she thought that was the only kind of talk
he could savvy, then she was a blamed idiot; either way, he felt
antagonistic. "The law shall be respected in your case," he told her,
very gravely.
She smiled almost as if she could see the joke; after which she became
twitteringly, eagerly in earnest. "Since you live near here, you must
know the Whitmores. Miss Whitmore came out here, two or three years
ago, and married her brother's coachman, I believe--though I've heard
conflicting stories about it; some have said he was an artist, and
others that he was a jockey, or horse-trainer. I heard too that he was
a cowboy; but Miss Whitmore certainly wrote about this young man
driving her brother's carriage. However, she is married and I have a
letter of introduction to her. The president of our club used to be a
schoolmate of her mother. I shall stop with them--I have heard so much
about the Western hospitality--and shall get into touch with my
cowboys from the vantage point of proximity. Did you say you know
them?"
"I work for them," Andy told her truthfully in his deep amazement, and
immediately repented and wished that he had not been so virtuous. With
Andy, to wish was to do--given the opportunity.
"Then I can go with you out to their farm--ranchero! How nice! And on
the way you can tell me all about yourself and your life and
hopes--because I do want to get in touch with you all, you know--and
I'll tell you all my plans for you; I have some _beau_tiful plans! And
we'll be very good friends by the time we reach our destination, I'm
sure. I want you to feel from the start that I am a true friend, and
that I have your welfare very much at heart. Without the confidence of
my cowboys, I can do nothing. Are there any more at home like you?"
Andy looked at her suspiciously, but it was so evident she never meant
to quote comic opera, that he merely wondered anew. He struggled
feebly against temptation, and fell from grace quite willingly. It
isn't polite to "throw a load" at a lady, but then Andy felt that
neither was it polite for a lady to come out with the avowed intention
of improving him and his fellows; it looked to him like butting in
where she was not wanted, or needed.
"Yes, ma'am, there's quite a bunch, and they're pretty bad. I don't
believe you can do much for 'em." He spoke regretfully.
"Do they--_drink_?" she asked, leaning forward and speaking in the
hushed voice with which some women approach a tabooed subject.
"Yes ma'am, they do. They're hard drinkers. And they"--he eyed her
speculatively, trying to guess the worst sins in her category--"they
play cards--gamble--and swear, and smoke cigarettes and--"
"All the more need of someone to help them overcome," she decided
solemnly. "What you need is a coffee-house and reading room here, so
that the young men will have some place to go other than the saloons.
I shall see to that right away. And with the Mutual Improvement and
Social Society organized and working smoothly, and a library of
standard works for recreation, together with earnest personal efforts
to promote temperance and clean-living, I feel that a _wonderful_ work
can be done. I saw you drive into town, so I know you can take me out
with you; I hope you are going to start soon. I feel very impatient to
reach the field and put my sickle to the harvest."
Andy mentally threw up his hands before this unshakable person. He had
meant to tell her that he had come on horseback, but she had
forestalled him. He had meant to discourage her--head her off, he
called it to himself. But there seemed no way of doing it. He pushed
back his chair and rose, though he had not tasted his pie, and it was
lemon pie at that. He had some faint notion of hurrying out of town
and home before she could have time to get ready; but she followed him
to the door and chirped over his shoulder that it wouldn't take her
two minutes to put on her wraps. Andy groaned.
He tried--or started to try--holding out at Rusty Brown's till she
gave up in despair; but it occurred to him that Chip had asked him to
hurry back. Andy groaned again, and got the team.
She did not wait for him to drive around to the hotel for her;
possibly she suspected his intentions. At any rate, she came nipping
down the street toward the stable just as he was hooking the last
trace, and she was all ready and had a load of bags and bundles.
"I'm not going to begin by making trouble for you," she twittered. "I
thought I could just as well come down here to the wagon as have you
drive back to the hotel. And my trunk did not come on the train with
me, so I'm all ready."
Andy, having nothing in mind that he dared say to a lady, helped her
into the wagon.
At sundown or thereabouts--for the days were short and he had a load
of various things besides care--Andy let himself wearily into the
bunk-house where was assembled the Happy Family. He merely grunted
when they spoke to him, and threw himself heavily down upon his bunk.
"For Heaven's sake, somebody roll me a cigarette! I'm too wore out to
do a thing, and I haven't had a smoke since dinner," he groaned, after
a minute.
"Sick?" asked Pink solicitously.
"Sick as a dog! water, water!" moaned Andy. All at once he rolled over
upon his face and shook with laughter more than a little hysterical,
and to the questioning of the Happy Family gave no answer but howls.
The Happy Family began to look at one another uneasily.
"Aw, let up!" Happy Jack bellowed. "You give a man the creeps just to
listen at yuh."
"I'm going to empty the water-bucket over yuh in a minute," Pink
threatened, "Go get it, Cal; it's half full."
Andy knew well the metal of which the Happy Family was made, and the
night was cool for a ducking. He rolled back so that they could see
his face, and struggled for calm. In a minute he sat up and merely
gurgled.
"Well, say, I had to do something or die," he explained, gasping.
"I've gone through a heap, the last few hours, and I was right where I
couldn't do a thing. By gracious, I struck the ranch about as near
bug-house as a man can get and recover. Where's a cigarette?"
"What you've gone through--and I don't give a cuss what it is--ain't a
marker for what's going to happen if yuh don't loosen up on the
history," said Jack Bates firmly.
Andy smoked hungrily while he surveyed the lot. "How calm and innocent
yuh all look," he observed musingly, "with your hats on and saying
words that's rude, and smoking the vile weed regardless, never
dreaming what's going to drop, pretty soon quick. Yuh make me think of
a hymn-song my step-mother used to sing a lot, about 'They dreamed not
of danger, those sinners of old, whom--"
"Hand me the water bucket," directed Pink musically.