JANET MCWHORTER
The Texan stirred uneasily. Vaguely, he sensed that something was wrong.
His head ached horribly but he didn't trouble to open his eyes. He was
in the corral lying cramped against the fence where the Red King had
thrown him, and with bared teeth, and forefeet pawing the air, the Red
King was coming toward him. Another moment and those terrible hoofs
would be striking, cutting, trampling him into the trodden dirt of the
corral. Why didn't someone haze him off? Would they sit there on the
fence and see him killed? "Whoa, boy--Whoa!" In vain he struggled to
raise an arm--it was held fast, and his legs were pinned to the ground
by a weight! He struggled violently, his eyes flew open and--there was
no Red King, no corral--only a grassed slope strewn with rocks against
one of which his head rested. But why was he tied? With great effort he
rolled over. The weight that held his legs shifted, and he found that
one of his arms was free. He sat up and stared, and instantly
recollection of the events of the night, brutally vivid, crowded his
brain. There was no slow, painful tracing step by step, of the
happenings of the past twelve hours. The whole catenation in proper
sequence presented itself in one all-embracing vision--a scene painted
on canvas, rather than the logical continuity of a screen picture.
The unconscious form of the girl lay across his legs. Her temple, and
part of her cheek that lay within range of his vision were white with
the pallor of death, and the hand that stretched upward toward his own,
showed blue and swollen from the effect of the tightly knotted scarf.
Swiftly the man untied the knots, and staggering to his feet, raised the
limp form and half-carried, half-dragged it to a tiny plateau higher up
the slope. Very gently he laid the girl on the grass, loosened her shirt
at the throat, and removed her wet boots. Her hands and feet were ice
cold, and he chafed them vigorously. Gradually, under the rubbing the
sluggish blood flowed. The blue look faded from her hand and a slight
tinge of colour crept into her cheeks. With a sigh of relief, the Texan
grasped her by the shoulder and shook her roughly. After a few moments
her eyelids fluttered slightly, and her lips moved. The shaking
continued, and he bent to catch the muttered words:
"Win----"
"Yeh, Win'll be 'long, directly. Come, wake up!"
"Win--dear--I'm--so--sleepy."
She was asleep again as the words left her lips and the man, squatting
on his heels, nodded approval. "That's what I wanted to know--that she
ain't drowned. If there'd been any water in her lungs she'd have
coughed."
He stood up and surveyed his surroundings. At the water's edge, not a
hundred feet below the spot where the horse had dragged them against the
rocks, the flat-boat lay heavily aground. Relieved of its burden, it had
been caught in the slowly revolving back current that circled the tiny
bay, and had drifted ashore. Removing the scarf from his wrist, he
knotted it into place and descended to the boat where he fished his hat
from the half-filled hull. The handle of the ax caught his eye and
searching his pockets, he examined his supply of matches, and cast the
worthless sticks from him with an oath: "Heads plumb soaked off, or I
could build her a fire!"
As he ascended the bank the sun just topped the rim of the bench. Its
rays felt grateful to the chilled man as he stood looking down at the
sleeping girl. "It'll dry her, an' warm her up, while I'm huntin' that
damn cayuse," he muttered. "The quicker she gets to some ranch house,
the better it'll be. I wish I knew where I'm at."
Once more he descended to the water's edge, and searched the ground. It
was but the work of a moment to pick up the trail of the galloping
horse, and he followed it up the coulee, making his way gingerly in his
stockinged feet among the loose stones and patches of prickly pears.
"Wish I'd left my boots in the boat, but I figured old Powder Face
would stop when he got to shore instead of smashin' us again' the rocks
an' lightin' out like the devil was after him--he's old enough to know
better. An' I wonder how in hell she come to be ridin' him? Powder Face
is one of Dad's own special horses."
The coulee wound interminably. The cowboy glanced at his feet where a
toe protruded from a hole in his sock, and seating himself on a boulder
he removed the socks and crammed them into his pocket. "Wouldn't be
nothin' left of 'em but legs in a little bit," he grumbled, and
instinctively felt for his tobacco and papers. He scowled at the soggy
mass and replaced them. "Ain't got a match even if I did dry the
tobacco. I sure feel like I'd died an' went to hell!"
He continued along the coulee limping painfully across stretches of
sharp stones and avoiding the innumerable patches of prickly pears with
which the floor of the valley was dotted. Rounding a sharp spur of rock
that protruded into the ravine, he halted abruptly and stared at his
boots which lay directly in his path. He grinned as he examined the
broken thong. "I've be'n cussin' busted pack-strings all my life," he
muttered, "but this particular string has wiped out the whole score
again' 'em." Removing his leather chaps, he seated himself, drew on his
socks, and inserted a foot into a boot. In vain he pulled and tugged at
the straps. The wet leather gripped the damp sock like a vise. He stood
up and stamped and pulled but the foot stuck fast at the ankle of the
boot. Withdrawing the foot, he fished in his hip pocket and withdrew a
thin piece of soap from the folds of a red cotton handkerchief. Once
again he sat down and proceeded to rub the soap thickly upon the heels
and insteps of his socks and inside of his boots, whereupon, after much
pulling and stamping, he stood properly shod and drew on his chaps.
A short distance farther on, a cattle trail zigzagged down the steep
side of the coulee. The Texan paused at the foot of it. "Reckon I'll
just climb up onto the bank an' take a look around. With that rope
trailin' along from the saddle horn, that damn cayuse might run his fool
head off."
From the rim of the coulee, the man gazed about him, searching for a
familiar landmark. A quarter of a mile away, a conical butte rose to a
height of a hundred feet above the level of the broken plain, and the
Texan walked over and laboriously climbed its steep side. He sank down
upon the topmost pinnacle and studied the country minutely. "Just below
the edge of the bad lands," he muttered. "The Little Rockies loom up
plain, an' the Bear Paws an' Judiths look kind of dim. I'm way off my
range down here. This part of the country don't look like it had none
too thick of a population." In vain his eyes swept the vast expanse of
plain for the sight of a ranch house. He rose in disgust. "I've got to
find that damn cayuse an' get _her_ out of this, somehow." As he was
about to begin the descent his eye caught a thin thread of smoke that
rose, apparently from a coulee some three or four miles to the eastward.
"Maybe some nester's place, or maybe only an' Injun camp, but whatever
it is, my best bet is to hit for it. I might be all day trailin' Powder
Face. Whoever it is, they'll have a horse or two, an' believe me,
they'll part with 'em." He scrambled quickly down to the bench and
started in the direction of the smoke, and as he walked, he removed the
six-gun from its holster and after wiping it carefully, made sure that
it was in working condition.
The Texan's course lay "crossways of the country," that is, in order to
reach his objective he must needs cross all the innumerable coulees and
branches that found their way to the Missouri. And as he had not
travelled far back from the river these coulees were deep and their
steep sides taxed his endurance to the utmost. At the bottom of each
coulee he drank sparingly of the bitter alkali water, and wet the
bandage about his throbbing head. After each climb he was forced to
rest. A walk of three or four miles in high-heeled riding boots assumes
the proportions of a real journey, even under the most favourable
circumstances, but with the precipitous descents, the steep climbs, and
the alkali flats between the coulees, which in dry weather are dazzling
white, and hard and level as a floor, now merely grey greasy beds of
slime into which he sank to the ankles at each step, the trip proved a
nightmare of torture.
At the end of an hour he figured that he had covered half the distance.
He was plodding doggedly, every muscle aching from the unaccustomed
strain. His feet, which burned and itched where the irritating soap
rubbed into his skin, had swollen until the boots held them in a
vise-like grip of torture. At each step he lifted pounds of glue-like
mud which clung to the legs of his leather chaps in a thick grey smear.
And each step was a separate, conscious, painful effort, that required a
concentration of will to consummate.
And so he plodded, this Texan, who would have cursed the petty mishap of
an ill-thrown loop to the imminent damnation of his soul, enduring the
physical torture in stoic silence. Once or twice he smiled grimly, the
cynical smile that added years to the boyish face. "When I see her safe
at some ranch, I'll beat it," he muttered thickly. "I'll go somewhere
an' finish my jamboree an' then I'll hit fer some fresh range." To his
surprise he suddenly found that the mere thought of whisky was
nauseating to him. His memory took him back to a college town in his
native State. "It used to be that way," he grinned, "when I'd get
soused, I couldn't look at a drink for a week. I reckon stayin' off of
it for a whole year has about set me back where I started."
He half-climbed, half-fell down the steep side of a coulee and dipped
his aching head in the cool water at the bottom. With a stick he scraped
the thick smear of grey mud from his chaps and boots, and washed them in
the creek. He rose to his feet and stood looking down into a clear
little pool. "By God, I can't go--like that!" he said aloud. "I've got
to stay an' face Win! I've got to know that he don't think there's
anything--wrong--with her!"
Instead of climbing the opposite slope, he followed down the coulee, for
he had seen from the edge that it led into a creek valley of
considerable width, above the rim of which rose the thin grey plume of
smoke. Near the mouth of the coulee he crawled through a wire fence.
"First time a nester's fence ever looked good to me," he grinned, and at
a shallow pool, paused to remove the last trace of mud from his chaps,
wash his face and hands, box his hat into the proper peak, and jerk the
brilliant scarf into place.
"She can rest up here till I find Win," he said aloud, and stepped into
the valley, trying not to limp as he picked his way among the scattered
rocks. "Sheep outfit," he muttered, as he noted the close-cropped grass,
and the stacked panels of a lambing pen. Then, rounding a thicket of
scrub willows, he came suddenly upon the outfit, itself.
He halted abruptly, as his eyes took in every detail of the scene. A
little dirt roofed cabin of logs, a rambling straw thatched sheep shed,
a small log barn, and a pole corral in which two horses dozed dreamily.
The haystacks were behind the barn, and even as he looked, a generous
forkful of hay rolled over the top of the corral fence, and the horses
crossed over and thrust their muzzles into its fragrant depths. A
half-dozen weak old ewes snipped half-heartedly at the short buffalo
grass, and three or four young lambs frisked awkwardly about the
door-yard on their ungainly legs.
Another forkful of hay rolled over the corral fence, and making his way
around the barn, the Texan came abruptly face to face with Miss Janet
McWhorter. The girl stood, pitchfork in hand, upon a ledge of the
half-depleted haystack and surveyed him calmly, as a startled expression
swiftly faded from her large, blue-black eyes. "Well you're the second
one this morning; what do _you_ want?"
The Texan noticed that the voice was rich, with low throaty tones and
also he noticed that it held a repellent note. There was veiled
hostility--even contempt in the peculiar emphasis of the "you." He swept
the Stetson from his head: "I'm afoot," he answered, simply, "I'd like
to borrow a horse."
The girl jabbed the fork into the hay, gathered her skirts about her,
and slipped gracefully from the stack. She walked over and stood
directly before him. "This is McWhorter's outfit," she announced, as if
the statement were a good and sufficient answer to his plea.
The cowboy looking straight into the blue-black eyes, detected a faint
gleam of surprise in their depths, that her statement apparently meant
nothing to him. He smiled: "Benton's my name--Tex Benton, range foreman
of the Y Bar. And, is this Mrs. McWhorter?"
"The Y Bar!" exclaimed the girl, and Tex noticed that the gleam and
surprise hardened into a glance of open skepticism. "Who owns the Y Bar,
now?"
"Same man that's owned it for the last twenty years--Mr. Colston."
"You must know him pretty well if you're his foreman?"
"Tolerable," answered the man, "I've been with him most every day for a
year."
A swift smile curved the red lips--a smile that hinted of craft rather
than levity. "I wonder what's worrying him most, nowadays--Mr. Colston,
I mean."
"Worryin' him?" The Texan's eyes twinkled. "Well, a man runnin' an
outfit like the Y Bar has got plenty on his mind, but the only thing
that right down worries him is the hair on his head--an' just between
you an' me, he ain't goin' to have to worry long."
The air of reserve--of veiled hostility dropped from the girl like a
mask, and she laughed--a spontaneous outburst of mirth that kindled new
lights in the blue-black eyes, and caused a fanlike array of little
wrinkles to radiate from their corners: "I'll answer your question now,"
she said. "I'm Mrs. Nobody, thank you--I'm Janet McWhorter. But what
are you doing on this side of the river? And how's Mr. Colston?"
"He's just the finest ever," replied the cowboy, and the girl was quick
to note the deep feeling behind the words. "An' I--two of us--were
tryin' to cross on the Long Bill's ferry from Timber City, an' the drift
piled up again' us so we had to cut the cable, an' we got throw'd into
shore against the bench three or four miles above here."
"Where's your friend? Is he hurt?" Her eyes rested with a puzzled
expression upon the edge of the white bandage that showed beneath the
brim of his hat.
The Texan shook his head: "No, not hurt I reckon. Just plumb wore out,
an' layin' asleep on the bank. I've got to go back."
"You'll need two horses."
The man shook his head: "No, only one. We had our horses with us. We
lost one in the river, an' the other pulled us ashore, an' then beat it
up the coulee. I can catch him up all right, if I can get holt of a
horse."
"Of course you can have a horse! But, you must eat first----"
"I can't stop. There'll be time for that later. I'm goin' to bring--my
friend back here."
"Of course you're going to bring him back here! But you are about all in
yourself. Three or four miles through the mud and across the coulees in
high-heeled boots, and with your head hurt, and sopping wet, and no
breakfast, and--I bet you haven't even had a smoke! Come on, you can eat
a bite while I fix up something for your friend, and then you can tackle
some of Dad's tobacco. I guess it's awful strong but it will make
smoke--clouds of it!"
She turned and led the way to the house and as the Texan followed his
eyes rested with a suddenly awakened interest upon the girl. "Curious
she'd think of me not havin' a smoke," he thought, as his glance strayed
from the shapely ankles to the well-rounded forearms from which the
sleeves of her grey flannel shirt had been rolled back, and then to the
mass of jet black hair that lay coiled in thick braids upon her head. He
was conscious that a feeling of contentment--a certain warm glow of
well-being pervaded him, and he wondered vaguely why this should be.
"Come right on in," she called over her shoulder as she entered the
door. "I'll have things ready in a jiffy?" As she spoke, she slid a lid
from the top of the stove, jammed in a stick of firewood, set the
coffee-pot directly on to the fire, and placed a frying pan beside it.
From a nail she took a slab of bacon and sliced it rapidly. In the
doorway the Texan stood watching, in open admiration, the swift, sure
precision of her every move. She glanced up, a slice of bacon held above
the pan, and their eyes met. During a long moment of silence the man's
heart beat wildly. The girl's eyes dropped suddenly: "Crisp, or limber?"
she asked, and to the cowboy's ears, the voice sounded even richer and
deeper of tone than before.
"Limber, please." His own words seemed to boom harshly, and he was
conscious that he was blushing to the ears.
The girl laid the strips side by side in the pan and crossed swiftly to
a cupboard. The next moment she was pouring something from a bottle into
a glass. She returned the bottle and, passing around the table, extended
the half-filled tumbler. The liquid in it was brown, and to the man's
nostrils came the rich bouquet of good whisky. He extended his hand,
then let it drop to his side.
"No, thanks," he said, "none for me."
She regarded him in frank surprise. "You don't drink?" she cried.
"Why--oh, I'm glad! I hate the stuff! Father--sometimes--Oh, I hate it!
But, a cowboy that don't drink! I thought they all drank!"
The Texan stepped to her side and, reaching for the glass, set it gently
upon the table. As his hand touched hers a thrill shot through his
veins, and with it came a sudden longing to take the hand in his own--to
gather this girl into his arms and to hold her tight against his wildly
throbbing heart. The next moment he was speaking in slow measured words.
"They all do--me along with the rest. But, I ain't drinkin' now."