start, he laughed all the time he was re-tying the door in the same kind
of knot Johnny had used, and all the while he was returning to the
corral.
"Fell for it, all right. Nothing can beat having a cold right handy," he
chuckled when he had turned out the stock, whistled for the sentinel, and
mounted his horse. "Guess I better happen around to-morrow evening. They
won't be back--not if they bring it with 'em."
While he waited for the guard to come in, he eyed the corral and its
immediate neighborhood, and afterward inspected the cloud-flecked sky.
"Corral shows a bunch of stock has been penned here," he muttered. "But
the wind'll raise before sun-up. I guess it'll be all right."
The sentinel came trotting around the corner. "How many?" he asked,
riding alongside the other.
"Fifteen, all told. To-morrow night we'll cull that bunch that ranges
west of here. Won't do to trim out too many at a time, and they may be
back here to-morrow night. They will if they can't get it over. I don't
much expect they will, at that--unless they bring it in pieces. Still,
yuh can't tell what a crazy kid'll take a notion to do; not when he's got
a bug like Tex says this one has got."
"Tex is pretty cute, aw-right. Me, I'd never a thought of that."
The boss grunted. "Tex is paid for being cute. He's on the inside, where
he's got a chance to know these things. He wouldn't be worth a nickel to
us if he wasn't cute."
"And it's us that takes the chances," readily agreed the guard.
"Yeah--look at the chance I took jus' now! Talked to old Sudden over the
'phone, stalling along like I was the kid. Got away with it, at that. I'd
like to see Tex--"
"Aw, Tex ain't in it with _you_. When it comes right down to fine
work--" So, feeding the vanity of the boss with tidbits of crude
flattery, which the boss swallowed greedily as nine tenths of us would
do, they jogged along down the pebbly bottom of Sinkhole Creek where
it had gone dry, turned into the first rocky draw that pointed
southeastward, and so passed on and away from the camp where Tex's
thoughts were clinging anxiously.
When they had carefully mended the fence that had been opened, and had
obliterated all traces of horses passing through, they rode home to their
beds perfectly satisfied with the night's work, and looking forward to
the next night.
A hot, windy day went over the arid range; a day filled with contented
labor for some, strenuous activity for some others--Johnny Jewel among
these--and more or less anxious waiting for a very few.
That day the fifteen stolen horses, urged forward by grimy, swearing
Mexicans and a white man or two, trotted heavily southward, keeping
always to the sheltered draws and never showing upon a ridge until after
a lookout had waved that all was well.
That day Mary V rode aimlessly to the western hills, because she saw
three of the boys hiking off toward the south and she did not know where
they were going.
That day Johnny Jewel suffered chronic heart jumpings, lest the four
wide-blinkered mules look around again and, seeing themselves still
pursued by the great, ungainly contraption on the lengthened wagon they
drew, run away and upset their precariously balanced load.
That day the man who had so obligingly answered the telephone for Johnny
busied himself with various plans and preparations for the night, and
retraced the trail down the rocky draws to the fence where horses and
riders had crossed, to make sure, by daylight, that no trace had been
left of their passing, and met Tex over by Snake Ridge for a brief and
very satisfactory conference.
So the day blew itself red in the face, and then purple, with a tender,
rose-violet haze under its one crimson, lazily drooping eye. And at last
it wrapped itself in its royal, gemmed robe, and settled quietly down to
sleep. Night came stepping softly across the hills and the sandy plains,
carrying her full-lighted lantern that painted black shadows beside every
rock and bush and cut-bank.
With the deepening of the shadows and the rising drone of night sounds
and the whispering of the breeze which was all that was left of the wind,
the man came riding cautiously up through a draw to the willow growth
just below Sinkhole watering place. He tied his horse there and went on
afoot, stepping on rocks and grass tufts and gravelly spots as easily
as though he had practiced that mode of travel.
Sinkhole cabin was dark and quiet and lonesome, but still he waited for
awhile in the shadow and watched the place before he ventured forth. He
did not go at once to the cabin, but always treading carefully where
imprints would be lightest, he made a further inspection of the corral.
The wind had done its work there, and hoofprints were practically
obliterated. Satisfied, he returned to the cabin and sat down on the
bench beside the door, where he could watch the trail while he waited.
The telephone rang. The man untied the door, went in, and answered it
hoarsely. Everything was all right, he reported. He had ridden the fence
and tightened one or two loose wires. Yes, the water was holding out all
right, and the horses came to water every night about sundown, or else
early in the morning before the flies got too bad. His cold was better,
and he didn't need a thing that he knew of. And good-bye, Mr. Selmer.
He went out, very well satisfied with himself; re-tied the door carefully
with Johnny's own peculiar kind of hitch, stooped and felt the
hard-packed earth to make sure he had not inadvertently dropped a
cigarette butt that might possibly betray him, and rolled a fresh smoke
before leaving for home. He had just lighted it and was moving away
toward the creek when the telephone jingled a second summons. He would
have to answer it, of course. Old Sudden knew he couldn't be far away,
and would ring until he did answer. He unfastened the door again, cursing
to himself and wondering if the Rolling R people were in the habit of
calling Johnny Jewel every ten minutes or so. He stumbled over a box that
he had missed before, swore, and called a gruff hello.
"Oh, hello, cowboy!" Unmistakably feminine, that voice; unmistakably
provocative, too--subdued, demure, on guard, as though it were ready to
adopt any one of several tones when it spoke again.
"Oh--er--hello! That you, Mr. Selmer?" The man did not forget his
hoarseness. He even coughed discreetly.
"Why, _no_! This is Venus speaking. May I ask if you expected Miss Selmer
to call you up?" Raised eyebrows would harmonize perfectly with that
tone, which was sugary, icily gracious.
"Oh--er--hello! That you, Miss Selmer? Beg your pardon--my mistake.
Er--ah--how are yuh this evenin'?"
"Oh--lonesome." A sigh seemed to waft over the wire. "You see, I have
quarreled with Mars again. He _would_ drink out of your big dipper in
spite of me! I knew you wouldn't like that--"
"Oh--why no, of course not!" The hoarseness broke slightly, here and
there. A worried tone was faintly manifesting itself.
"And I was wondering when you are coming to take me for another ride!"
"Why--ah--just as soon as I can, Miss Venus. You know my time ain't my
own--but maybe Sunday I could git off."
"How nice! What a bad cold you have! How did you catch, it?" Sweetly
solicitous now, that voice.
"Why, I dunno--"
"Was it from going without your coat when we were riding last time?"
"I--yes, I guess it was; but that don't matter. I'd be willing to ketch a
dozen colds riding with you. It don't matter at all."
"Oh, but it does! It matters a great deal--Dearie! Did you really think I
was that nasty Mary V Selmer calling you up?"
"Why, no, I--I was just talking to her father--but as soon as I--I was
thinking maybe the old man had forgot something, and had her--uh course
I knowed your voice right away--sweetheart." That was very daring. The
man's forehead was all beaded with perspiration by this time, and it was
not the heat that caused it. "You know I wouldn't talk to her if I didn't
have to." It is very difficult to speak in honeyed accents that would
still carry a bullfrog hoarseness, but the man tried it, nevertheless.
"Dearie! Honest?"
"You know it!" He was bolder now that he knew endearing terms were
accepted as a matter of course.
"OO-oo! I believe you're fibbing. You kept calling me _Miss_ Venus just
as if--you--liked somebody else better. Just for that, I'm not going
to talk another minute. And you needn't call up, either--for I shall not
answer!"
She hung up the receiver, and the man, once he was sure of it, did
likewise. He wiped his forehead, damned all women impartially as a
thus-and-so nuisance that would queer a man's game every time if he
wasn't sharp enough to meet their plays, and went outside. He still felt
very well satisfied with himself, but his satisfaction was tempered with
thankfulness that he was clever enough to fool that confounded girl. All
the way back to his horse he was trying to "place" the voice and the
name.
Some one within riding distance, it must be--some one visiting in the
country. He sure didn't know of any ranch girl named Venus. After awhile
he felt he could afford to grin over the incident. "Never knowed the
difference," he boasted as he rode away. "Nine men outa ten woulda
overplayed their hand, right there."
Just how far he had overplayed his hand, that man never knew. Far enough
to send Mary V to her room rather white and scared; shaking, too, with
excitement. She stood by the window, looking out at the moon-lighted yard
with its wind-beaten flowers. To save her life she could not help
recalling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, nor could she rid herself
of the odd sensation of having talked with the Wolf. Though she did not,
of course, carry the simile so far as to liken Johnny Jewel to the
Grandmother.
She did not know what to do--a strange sensation for Mary V, I assure
you. Once she got as far as the door, meaning to go out on the porch and
tell her dad that somebody was down at Sinkhole Camp pretending that he
was Johnny Jewel when he was nothing of the sort, and that the boys had
better go right straight down there and see what was the matter.
She did not get farther than the door, however, and for what would seem a
very trifling reason; she did not want her dad to know that she had been
trying to talk to Johnny over the 'phone.
She went back to the window. _Who_ was down there pretending to be Johnny
Jewel? And what, in heaven's name, was he doing it for? She remembered
the Mexican who had ridden up that day and pretended that he wanted
matches, and how he had returned to the camp almost as soon as she had
left. But the man who had talked with her was not a Mexican. No one but a
white man--and a range man, she added to herself--would say, "Uh course
I knowed yore voice." And he had not really had a cold. Mary V's ears
were sharper than her dad's, for she had caught the make-believe in the
hoarseness. She knew perfectly well that Johnny Jewel might be hoarse as
a crow and never talk that way. Johnny never said "Uh course I knowed,"
and Johnny would choke before he'd ever call her sweetheart. He wouldn't
have let that man do it, either, had Johnny been present in the cabin,
she suspected shrewdly.
Being an impulsive young person who acted first and did her thinking
afterwards, Mary V did exactly what she should not have done. She decided
forthwith that she would take a long moonlight ride.
CHAPTER NINE
A MIDNIGHT RIDE
"Mary V, what are you doing in the kitchen? Remember, I told you you
shouldn't make any more fudge for a week. I don't want any more sessions
with Bedelia like I had last time you left the kitchen all messed up with
your candy. What are you _doing_?"
Mary V licked a dab of loganberry jelly from her left thumb and answered
with her face turned toward the open window nearest the porch where her
mother sat rocking peacefully.
"Oh, for gracious _sake_, mom! I'm only putting up a little lunch before
I go to bed. I'm going to take my rides earlier, after this, and it
wouldn't be kind for me to wake the whole house up at daybreak, getting
my lunch ready--"
"If you're going at daybreak, why do you need a lunch? If you think I'll
permit you to stay out in the heat all day without any breakfast--"
"Well, mom! I can't take pictures at daybreak, can I? I've _got_ to stay
out till the light is strong enough. And there's a special place I want,
and if I go early, I can get back early; before lunch, at the very
latest. Do you _want_ me to go without anything to eat?"
"Seems to me you're running them 'Desert Glimpses' into the ground," her
mother grumbled comfortably. "You've got a stack higher than your head,
now. And some of these days you'll get bit with a snake or a centipede
or--"
"Centipedes don't bite. They grab with their toes. My goodness, mom!
A person's got to do _something_! I don't see what harm there is in
my riding horseback in the early morning. It's a healthful form of
exercise--"
"It's a darn fad, and you'll go back to school looking like a squaw--and
serve you right. It's getting along towards the time when snakes go
blind. You want to be careful, Mary V--"
"Oh, piffle! I've lived here all my life, just about, and I never _saw_ a
person bitten with a snake. And neither did you, mom, and you know it.
But, of course, if you insist on making me sit in the house day in and
day out--" Mary V cut two more slices of bread and began spreading them
liberally with butter. She looked very grieved, and very determined.
"Oh, nobody ever made you sit in the house yet. They'd have to tie you
hand and foot to do it," came the placid retort. "Don't you go helping
yourself to that new jelly, Mary V. The old has got to be used up first.
And you wipe off the sink when you're through messing around. Bedelia's
hinting that she's going to quit when her month is up. It don't help me a
mite to keep her calmed down when you leave a mess for her every time you
go near the kitchen. She says she's sick and tired of cleaning up after
you. You know what'll happen if she does quit, Mary V. You'll be getting
your 'Desert Glimpses' out the kitchen window for a month or so, washing
dishes while we scurrup around after another cook. Bedelia--"
"Oh, plague _take_ Bedelia!" snapped Mary V. But she nevertheless spent
precious minutes wiping the butcher knife on Bedelia's clean dish towel,
and putting away the butter and the bread, and mopping up the splatters
of loganberry jam. Getting her "Desert Glimpses" through the kitchen
window formed no part of Mary V's plans or desires.
They seemed to Mary V to be precious minutes, although they would
otherwise have been spent in the wearisome task of waiting until the
ranch was asleep. She took her jam sandwiches and pickles and cake to her
room, chirping a blithe good-night to her unsuspecting parents. Then,
instead of going to bed as she very plainly indicated to those guileless
parents that she meant to do, she clothed herself in her riding breeches,
shirt, and coat, and was getting her riding shoes and puttees out of the
closet when she heard her mother coming.
A girl can do a good deal in a minute, if she really bestirs herself.
Her mother found Mary V sitting before her dressing table with her hair
hanging down her back. She was enfolded in a very pretty pink silk
kimono, and she was leisurely dabbing cold cream on her chin and cheeks
with her finger tips.
"Be sure you take your goggles with you, Mary V. I notice your eyelids
are all red and inflamed lately when you come in from your rides. And do
put them on and wear them if the wind comes up. It's easier to take a
little trouble preventing sore eyes and sunburn than it is to cure them.
And don't stay out late in the heat."
"All right, mommie." Drawing her kimono closer about her, Mary V put her
face up to be kissed. Her mother hesitated, looking dubiously at the
cream dabs, compromised with a peck on Mary V's forehead, and went away.
Mary V braided her hair, put on a pair of beaded moccasins, buckled on
her six-shooter and gathered together her other paraphernalia. She waited
an hour by her wrist watch, but even that sixty minutes of inaction did
not bring her better judgment to the rescue.
Sober judgment had no place in her thoughts. Instead, she spent the time
in wondering if Tango would let her catch him in the corral; in fretting
because she must wait at all, when there was no telling what might have
happened at Sinkhole; and in giving audience to a temptation that came
with the lagging minutes and began persuading her that Tango was too slow
for the trip she had before her; and in climbing into bed, turning over
three times and climbing out again, leaving the light covering in its
usual heap in the middle.
It was half-past nine when she climbed out of her window with her riding
shoes and puttees, her lunch and her camera and her field glasses, in a
bundle under one arm. She went in her moccasins until she had passed the
bunk house and reached the shed where she kept her saddle.
A dozen horses were dozing over by the feed rack in the corral, and Mary
V's eyes strayed often that way while she was clothing her feet for the
ride. Tango was a good little horse, but he was not the horse for a
heroine to ride when she went out across the desert at midnight to
rescue--er--a good-for-nothing, conceited, quarrelsome, altogether
unbearable young man whom she thoroughly hated, but who was, after all,
a human being and therefore to be rescued when necessary.
Would she dare--? Mary V hurried the last puttee buckle, picked up her
bridle and a battered feed pan, and went quietly across the corral.
Wondering if she would dare made her daring.
Most of the horses sidled off from her approach and began to circle
slowly to the far side of the corral. Tango lifted his head and looked
at her reproachfully, moved his feet as though tempted to retreat, and
thought better of it. What was the use? Mary V always did what she wanted
to do; if not in one way, then in another. Knowing her so well, Tango
stood still.
Mary V smiled. Just beyond him another horse also stood still. A tall,
big-chested, brilliant-eyed brown, with a crinkly mane, forelock, and
tail, and with a reputation that made his name familiar to men in other
counties. His official name was Messenger, but the boys called him Jake
for short. They also asserted pridefully that he had "good blood in him."
He belonged to Bill Hayden, really, but the whole Rolling R outfit felt a
proprietary interest in him because he had "cleaned up" every horse in
southern Arizona outside the professional class.
Ordinarily Mary V would never have thought of such a thing as riding
Jake. She would have considered it as much as her life was worth to put
her saddle on him without first asking Bill. Once she had asked Bill, and
Bill had looked as if she had asked for his toothbrush; shocked,
incredulous, as though he could not believe his ears. "Well, I should
sa-ay not!" Bill had replied when she had made it plain that she expected
an answer.
Ordinarily that would be accepted as final, even by Mary V. But
ordinarily Mary V did not climb out of her bedroom window to ride all
night, even though there was a perfectly intoxicating moon. Certainly not
to a far line-camp where a young man lived alone, just to ask him why
some one else answered his telephone for him.
To-night was her night for extraordinary behavior, evidently. She
certainly showed that she had designs on Jake. She held out the feed pan,
and gritted her teeth when Tango gratefully ducked his nose into it. She
let him have one quivery-lipped nibble, and pushed the pan ingratiatingly
toward the black muzzle beyond.
Jake was not a bronk. Having "good blood" he was tame to a degree. He
knew Mary V very well by sight, and, if horses can talk, he had no doubt
learned a good deal about her from his friend Tango, who usually came
home with a grievance. Jake accepted the feed pan graciously, and he did
not shy off when Mary V pushed Tango out of her way and began to smooth
Jake's crinkly mane and coax him with endearing words. After a little he
permitted her to slip the bridle reins over his head, and to press the
bit gently into his mouth. She set the pan on the ground and so managed
to tuck his stiff, brown ears under the headstall, and to pull out his
forelock comfortably while he nosed the pan. The bridge was too small for
Jake, but Mary V thought it would do, since she was in a great hurry and
the buckles would be stiff and hard to open. The throat latch would not
fasten where Tango always wore it, but went down three holes farther.
Jake was bigger than she had thought.
But she led him over to the shed door and adjusted the saddle blanket
and, standing on her tip-toes, managed to heave her saddle into place.
The cinch had to be let out too. Mary V was trembling with impatience to
be gone, now that she had two heinous sins loaded upon her conscience
instead of one, but she knew better than to start off before her saddle
was right. And, impressed now with the size of Jake, she stood on a box
and let out the headstall two holes.
Jake did not seem to approve of her camera and canteen and field glasses
and rifle, and stepped restlessly away from her when she went to tie them
on. So she compromised on the canteen and field glasses, and hid camera
and rifle under some sacks in the shed. It seemed to her that she would
never get started; as though daylight--and Bill Hayden--would come and
find her still in a nightmare struggle with the details of departure.
Back of all that the thought of that strange, disguised voice talking
for Johnny Jewel nagged at her nerves as something sinister and
mysterious.
She led Jake by a somewhat roundabout way to the gate, opened it and
closed it behind them before she attempted to mount. Jake was very
tall--much taller than he had ever before seemed to be. She had to hunt
a high spot and coax him to stand on the lower ground beside it before
she could feel confidence enough to lift her toe to the stirrup. Bill
Hayden always danced around a good deal on one foot, she remembered,
before he essayed to swing up. Standing on an ant hill did not permit
much of the preliminary dancing around to which Jake was accustomed, so
Mary V caught reins and saddle horn and made a desperate, flying leap.
She landed in the saddle, found the stirrups and cried, "You, Jake!" in a
not altogether convincing tone. Jake was walking on his hind feet by way
of intimating that he objected to so tight a rein. After that he danced
sidewise, fought for his head, munched the strange bit angrily, snorted
and made what the boys called Jake's chain-lightnin' gitaway.
Mary V knew that Jake was running away with her, but since he was running
along the trail to Sinkhole camp she did not mind so much as you might
think. At the worst he would fall down and she would get a "spill." She
knew the sensation, having been spilled several times. So she gripped him
tightly with her strong young knees and let him run. And after the first
shock of dismay, she thrilled to the swift flight, with a guilty
exultation in what she had done.
Jake ran a couple of miles before he showed any symptom of slowing. After
that he straightened out in a long, easy lope that was a sheer delight to
Mary V, though she knew it must not be permitted for very long, because
Jake had a good many miles to cover before daylight. She brought him down
gradually to a swinging, "running walk" that would have kept any ordinary
saddle horse trotting to match for speed, and although he still mouthed
the strange bit pettishly, he carried Mary V over the trail with a kingly
graciousness that instilled a deep respect into that arrogant young lady.
Tango, I think, would have been amazed to see how Mary V refrained
from bullying her mount that night. There was no mane-pulling, no
little, nipping pinches of the neck to imitate the bite of a fly, no
scolding--nothing that Tango had come to take for granted when Mary V
bestrode him.
It was only a little after one o'clock when Mary V, holding Jake down to
a walk, nervously passed the empty corral at Sinkhole Camp. She paused
awhile in the shadows, wondering what she had better do next. After all,
it would be awkward to investigate the interior of the little cabin that
squatted there so silently under the moon. She hesitated to dismount.
Frankly, Mary V felt much safer with a fleet horse under her, and she was
afraid that she might not be so lucky next time in mounting. So she began
to reconnoiter warily on horseback.