STAMFORD GOES FOSSIL-HUNTING
They did not go fossil-hunting on the morrow. Instead, the Professor
preferred to spend much of the day with his countrymen at the
cook-house, while Isabel hunted Dakota up and took her first lesson
in an art of which she had little to learn. Stamford, feeling
unaccountably out of things, sulked under the pretext of reading.
He was oppressed with a sense of the futility of his mission, where
so many side-issues were so much more vital than the purpose of his
visit. Just what that purpose was he had to revive by sundry
uninteresting reminders. Of mysteries about the H-Lazy Z there were
enough to encourage the hope that some day the big thing he was
searching for would stumble into the light--and he must be there to
see it. Cockney's innocence was not so assertive now as it once was;
perhaps in his foolish idea of proving the Police wrong he would only
convict himself.
The Professor was frankly extending his information about ranch-life,
and the humorous twists to his queries and replies immediately made
him a favourite with the cowboys. They tried to express their
approval by teaching him to ride, hunting out Stamford at last to put
him through his paces as a sample of one week's lessons. The
Professor shook his head.
"The difference between us is in the results of failure. A man of
his size scarcely ruffles the grass where he lights. The
seismometers at my own Institute would record my unseating as my only
epitaph worthy of note."
Dakota and Isabel whirled down the slope, Dakota liberally applying
his whip without gaining ground. Right on top of the group about
Hobbles and Stamford they drew up, so close that Hobbles herself
reared a little. Stamford promptly slid off on his back.
"Hobbles," he chided, "we were showing off. I'm disappointed....
I'm also surprised. I'd clean forgotten a horse rears, though I've
seen it in pictures. Dakota, should I wrap myself round the pommel
when she does that?"
But Dakota was too busy with troubles of his own. When the two
riders pulled up, Isabel was off first. With an angry flush she
snatched Dakota's quirt from his unresisting hand.
"If you use your whip once more, Dakota, I'll never ride with you
again. I don't want to call you a brute, but I got quite as much
speed out of my horse without punishing him."
Dakota was staring down into her indignant eyes, too surprised to
speak.
Stamford cocked an eye at him. "When you hang and quarter him, Miss
Bulkeley, I'd like you to save those chaps. I think they'd become
me."
Isabel's anger had already fled before Dakota's helplessness. She
laughed apologetically.
"It's all right, Dakota. I suppose I'm not used to Western ways.
But I won't get used to that."
Dakota took off his Stetson. "Not used to them! By Samson, miss,
there's nothing in the West can beat you! If you could come along
with us on the ranges we'd show you life. We're going to be busy out
there for the next couple of months."
"Couldn't I come?" asked Isabel innocently.
Dakota looked at the other cowboys, and they all laughed, without
explaining.
"Can I come along in my buckboard?" queried the Professor.
Dakota elaborately explained the work of the ranges--_too_
elaborately, it seemed to Stamford--and the Professor and his sister
listened with evident interest, the former asking foolish and wise
questions that brought equally varied replies.
"I'm coming out here to the cook-house often," gushed the Professor,
as the call came to lunch.
"Shore!" chorused a half-dozen voices.
"And bring your sister," said Dakota.
"We're your debtors for the summer," bowed the Professor, backing
away.
"I do love the native," he enthused to Stamford, on the way to the
ranch-house.
"The funny part of it is," laughed Stamford, "that Dakota and the
H-Lazy Z outfit are the only cowboys about who _aren't_ natives.
They're your own countrymen."
"Mr. Stamford," chided Isabel, looking slyly at her brother, "you
have a drab soul. Why can't you let Amos enthuse? It's what he
grows fat on."
"Is it a prescription you're giving me?" asked Stamford.
The next morning, feeling a little foolish in his new rôle of
gallant--as the Professor called it--Stamford stretched his
five-feet-odd on the seat of the buckboard beside the towering
six-feet-three of his tormentor. Down the river trail, and thence
along the edge of the rough beach rock below the corrals, the
skeleton buggy bounced eastward to the only ford west of the Double
Bar-O. The one consolation to the injured pride of the smaller man
was that his companion insisted on letting him drive. Stamford had
always considered his accomplishments with the reins as born of
necessity rather than of experience, but the Professor frankly
refused to expose himself to his own driving.
"I'd even let Isabel do the driving," he confided, "if it weren't
that I'd rather die a man's death than live a male baby with a female
chaperon."
The ford was used only at long intervals as access to pastures across
the river. It was plain enough at its southern entrance to the river
flood, but to those who did not know it the course thereafter was a
matter of conjecture. Stamford drove into the water with more
trepidation than he allowed himself to show, anxiously searching the
torrent ahead. Mid-stream the water bubbled through the slats of the
buckboard, and the team, terrified by the prospect, pulled up.
Stamford urged them on, but Gee-Gee leaped against his mate, forcing
him into deep water. The buckboard would have overturned were it not
built for almost any situation into which a horse might force it.
Stamford stood up to get a shorter hold of the lines, but the
Professor swept him back to the seat with one strong arm and took
control. Immediately the team seemed to find bottom and courage
together.
As they climbed the gently sloping grade on the north side, the
Professor lifted his hands and stared at the reins.
"Goodness! How did I get them? Did you--did you give them to me? I
hope I didn't use force. Honest, Mr. Stamford, I never did such a
thing in my life before. Was I very frightened? Don't tell the
women, please. I'm horribly and disgustingly proud." He squared his
shoulders. "Say! with practice I believe I could get on to the hang
of the thing. Let's get the practice right now when my spirits are
high. We'll do that crossing again. It looks shallower up this way."
Before Stamford could voice his protest the team was around and
re-entering the water. With much waving of arms and shouting they
completed the double passage of the river in safety by a better route.
"There!" The Professor handed the reins back and mopped his forehead
with the big handkerchief. "I'm more puffed up than when they
Ph.D.'ed me. Will you be good enough to steer for that bulge in the
cliff? I like the looks of the flexure there."
All day Stamford yawned and slept and tried to read, and opened his
eyes to the blazing sky and heated rocks. The Professor, his round
spectacles pressed close to the ground, poked off among the rocks.
At lunch-time he reported his delight at the prospects and could
scarcely stop to eat, though he managed his share easily enough when
he started. In the evening they drove back over the ford, Stamford
hot and irritated, the Professor gushing with anticipation.
"You know," he said, "I wonder _more_ neurasthenics don't give this
climate a chance at them."
"Good heavens! You don't think I'm a neurasthenic?"
"No offence, I hope. I knew you were here for your health, and I
couldn't see---- You'll forgive me, my dear fellow, but I've dabbled
a little in medicine too."
Stamford had not prepared for enquiry into his symptoms.
"I'm just generally run down--overworked, I suppose, trying to
stiffen the legs of a dying newspaper."
"You were lucky to have such old friends as the Aikens to see you
through."
"But they're _not_ old friends--very new, in fact. I happened to
meet Mrs. Aikens one day at a railway station; she invited me out."
"Ah, Mr. Stamford! Those railway stations!" The Professor's big
finger was wagging in his face. "Must I remind you that Mrs. Aikens
is married? Oh, you bachelors!"
Stamford jumped. "Great Scott, man! What in thunder has that to do
with it?"
The Professor coughed apologetically.
"I thought--well, anyone can see that Mr. Aikens is none too--too
eager, shall we say, for visitors. I'm sure it can't be for fear of
his wife. She seems much more--more thoughtful of him than he of
her--if one may be permitted to discuss his host and hostess. I'm
sure I'd rather pay--or live in a tent, and be independent. Dakota,
too--though he's a countryman of mine, doesn't seem overjoyed at our
presence. May I ask if you received the same impression?"
Stamford chuckled. "_You_ were lucky. I had to face Dakota alone.
I'm sure my hair went a shade lighter from the first impressions _I_
received."
"Ah--I thought so."
The big fellow settled back in deep thought. Stamford tried to
reassure him.
"There's no need to mind Dakota. He's only a third partner and
doesn't really count when it comes to a show-down."
"But I'm vastly interested in Dakota," murmured the Professor. "He
seems to have something on his mind--some worry."
"They _all_ do," Stamford blurted out.
"Ah!"
Stamford glanced from the corner of his eye at the Professor. He
wanted to confide in someone. Dare he tell his suspicions to the
simple friend beside him, who seemed to be stumbling on things. He
decided against it; it would be no relief to himself and only add to
the Professor's worry.