“YOU ARE—THE BOSS”
She held out her left hand with a sad little smile. “It is good of you
to come so soon,” she said, simply.
She had begged so earnestly to sit up that Mrs. White had improvised an
invalid’s chair out of a huge old rocker and a cracker box. It did very
well. Then she had partially clothed the girl in a skimpy wrapper of the
sort Langford abominated, throwing a man’s silk handkerchief where the
wrapper failed to meet, and around the injured arm. Mrs. White had then
recalled her husband from the stables where he was on the point of
mounting to join the relief party that was to set off in search of
Williston at ten o’clock. The starting point unanimously agreed upon was
to be the pitiful remnants of Williston’s home. Men shook their heads
dubiously whenever the question of a possible leading trail was
broached. The soil was hard and dry from an almost rainless July and
August. The fugitives might strike across country anywhere with meagre
chances of their trail being traced by any.
Mrs. White and her husband, kindly souls both, lifted the girl as gently
as might be from the bed to the rudely constructed invalid’s chair by
the sitting-room window. Then they had left her—the woman to putter
around her kitchen, the man to make good his appointment. But the
exertion had been too much for Mary. She had counted on strength that
she did not possess. Where had she lost it all? she wondered, lacking
comprehension of her exceeding weakness. To be sure, her arm alternately
ached and smarted, but one’s arm was really such a small part of one,
and she had been so strong—always. She tried to shake off the faintness
creeping over her. It was effort thrown away. She lay back on her
pillow, very white and worn, her pretty hair tangled and loosened from
its coils.
Paul came. He was dusty and travel-stained. He had been almost
continuously in his saddle since near midnight of the night before. He
was here, big, strong, and worthy. Mary did not cry, but she remembered
how she had wanted to a few hours ago and she wondered that she could
not now. Strangely enough, it was Paul who wanted to cry now—but he
didn’t. He only swallowed hard and held her poor hand with all
gentleness, afraid to let go lest he also let go his mastery over the
almost insurmountable lump in his throat.
“I tried to come sooner,” he said, huskily, at last, releasing her hand
and standing before her. “But I’ve been riding all over—for men, you
know,—and I had a talk with Gordon, too. It took time. He is coming out
to see you this afternoon. He is coming with Doc. Don’t you think you
had better go back to bed now? You are so—so white. Let me carry you
back to bed before I go.”
“Are you going, too?” asked Mary, looking at him with wide eyes of
gratitude.
“Surely,” he responded, quickly. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I—I—didn’t know. I thought—there were a lot going—there would be
enough without you. But—I am glad. If you go, it will be all right.
You will find him if any one can.”
“Won’t you let me carry you back to bed till Doc comes?” said Langford,
brokenly.
“I could not bear it in bed,” she said, clearly. Her brown eyes were
beginning to shine with fever, and red spots had broken out in her pale
cheeks. “If you make me go, I shall die. I hear it all the time when I
am lying down—galloping, galloping, galloping. They never stop. They
always begin all over again.”
“What galloping, little girl?” asked Langford, soothingly. He saw she
was becoming delirious. If Doc and Dick would only come before he had to
go. But they were not coming until after dinner. He gazed down the dusty
road. They would wait for him, the others. He was their leader by the
natural-born right of push and energy, as well as by his having been the
sole participant, with his own cowboys, in the last night’s tragedy. But
would he do well to keep them waiting? They had already delayed too
long. And yet how could he leave Williston’s little girl like this—even
to find Williston?
“They are carrying my father away,” she said, with startling
distinctness. “Don’t you hear them? If you would listen, you could hear
them. Do listen! They are getting faint now—you can hardly hear them.
They are fainter—fainter—fainter—”
She had raised her head. There was an alert look on her face. She leaned
slightly toward the window.
“Good God! A man can’t stand everything!” cried Langford, hoarsely. He
tore the knotted handkerchief from his throat. It was as if he was
choking. Then he put his cool, strong hand to her burning forehead and
gently smoothed back the rough hair. Gradually, the fixed look of an
indescribable horror passed away from her face. The strained, hard eyes
softened, became dewy. She looked at him, a clinging helplessness in her
eyes, but sweet and sane.
“Don’t you worry, child,” he said, comfortingly. “They can’t help
finding him. Twenty men with the sheriff start on the trail. There’ll be
fifty before night. They can’t help finding him. I’m going to stay right
here with you till Doc comes. I’ll catch up with them before they’ve
gone far. I’ll send word to the boys not to wait. Must be somebody
around the house, I reckon, besides the old lady.”
He started cheerily for the door.
“Mr. Langford!”
“Yes?”
“Please come back.”
He came quickly to her.
“What is it?”
“Mr. Langford, will you grant me a favor?”
“Certainly, Miss Mary. Anything in this world that I can do for you, I
will do. You know that, don’t you?”
“I am all right now. I don’t think I shall get crazy again if you will
let me sit here by this window and look out. If I can watch for him, it
will give me something to do. You see, I could be watching all the time
for the party to come back over that little rise up the road. I want you
to promise me,” she went on, steadily, “that I may sit here and wait for
you—to come back.”
“God knows you may, little girl, anyway till Doc comes.”
“You are wiser than Doc,” pursued the girl. “He is a good fellow, but
foolish, you know, sometimes. He might not understand. He might like to
use authority over me because I am his patient—when he did not
understand. Promise that I may sit up till you come back.”
“I do promise, little girl. Tell him I said so. Tell him—”
“I will tell him you are—the Boss,” she said, with a pitiful little
attempt at a jest, and smiling wanly. “He will mind—the Boss.”
Langford was in agony. Perspiration was springing out on his forehead
though August was wearing away peacefully in soft coolness with drifting
depths of white cloud as a lounging-robe,—a blessed reprieve from the
blazing sun of the long weeks which had gone before.
“And then I want you to promise me,” went on Mary, quietly, “that you
will not think any more of staying behind. I could not bear that. I
trust you to go. You will, won’t you?”
“Yes, I will go. I will do anything you say. And I want you to believe
that everything will be all right. They would not dare to kill him now,
knowing that we are after them. If we are not back to-night, you will
not worry, will you? They had so much the start of us.”
“I will try not to worry.”
“Well, good-bye. Be a good girl, won’t you?”
“I will try,” she answered, wearily.
With a last look into the brave, sweet face, and smothering a mad,
uncowman-like desire to stay and comfort this dear little woman while
others rode away in stirring quest, Langford strode from the sick-room
into the kitchen.
“Don’t let her be alone any more than you can help, Mother White,” he
said, brusquely, “and don’t worry her about going to bed.”
“Have a bite afore you start, Mr. Langford, do,” urged the good woman,
hospitably. “You’re that worn out you’re white around the gills. I’ll
bet you haven’t had ary bite o’ breakfast.”
“I had forgotten—but you are right. No, thank you, I’ll not stop for
anything now. I’ll have to ride like Kingdom come. I’m late. Be good to
her, Mother White,” this last over his shoulder as he sprang to his
mount from the kitchen stoop.
The long day wore along. Mother White was baking. The men would be
ravenous when they came back. Many would stop there for something to eat
before going on to their homes. It might be to-night, it might be
to-morrow, it might not be until the day after, but whenever the time
did come, knowing the men of the range country, she must have something
“by her.” The pleasant fragrance of new bread just from the oven, mixed
with the faint, spicy odor of cinnamon rolls, floated into the cheerless
sitting-room. Mary, idly watching Mother White through the open door as
she bustled about in a wholesome-looking blue-checked gingham apron,
longed with a childish intensity to be out where there were human warmth
and companionship. It was such a weary struggle to keep cobwebs out of
her head in that lonely, carpetless sitting-room, and to keep the pipe
that reared itself above the squat stove, from changing into a
cottonwood tree. Some calamity seemed to hover over her all the time.
She was about to grasp the terrible truth,—she knew she must look
around. Now some one was creeping toward her from under the bed. Unless
she stared it out of countenance, something awful would surely come to
pass.
Mother White came to the door from time to time to ask her how she was,
with floury hands, and stove smutch on her plump cheek. She never failed
to break the evil spell. But Mary was weak, and Mrs. White on one of her
periodical pauses at the door found her sobbing in pitiful
self-abandonment. She went to her quickly, her face full of concern.
“My dear, my dear,” she cried, anxiously, “what is it? Tell me. Mr.
Langford will never forgive me. I didn’t mean to neglect you, child.
It’s only that I’m plumb a-foot for time. Tell me what ails you—that’s a
dearie.”
Mary laid her head on the motherly shoulder and cried quietly for a
while. Then she looked up with the faintest ghost of a smile.
“I’m ashamed to tell you, Mother White,” she half whispered. “It
is—only—that I was afraid you hadn’t put enough cinnamon in the rolls. I
like cinnamon rolls.”
“Lord love the child!” gasped Mrs. White, but without the least
inclination to laugh. “Why, I lit’rally buried ’em in cinnamon. I
couldn’t afford not to. If I do say it who shouldn’t, my rolls is pretty
well known in Kemah County. The boys wouldn’t stand for no economizin’
in spice. No, sirree.”
She hastened wonderingly back to her kitchen, only to return with a
heaped-up plate of sweet-smelling rolls.
“Here you are, honey, and they wont hurt you a mite. I can’t think what
keeps that fool Doc.” She was getting worried. It was nearly four and he
was not even in sight.
Now that she had them, Mary did not want the rolls. She felt they would
choke her. She waited until her kindly neighbor had trotted back to her
household cares, and pushed the plate away. She turned to her window
with an exaggerated feeling of relief. It was hard to watch ceaselessly
for some one to top that little rise out yonder and yet for no one ever
to do it. But there were compensations. It is really better sometimes
not to see things than to see—some things. And it was easier to keep her
head clear when she was watching the road.
A younger White, an over-grown lad of twelve, came in from far afield.
He carried a shot-gun in one hand and a gunny-sack thrown over his
shoulder. He slouched up and deposited the contents of the bag in front
of Mary’s window with a bashful, but sociable grin. Mary nodded
approvingly, and the boy was soon absorbed in dressing the fowls. What a
feast there would be that night if the men got back!
At last came the doctor and Gordon, driving up in the doctor’s
top-buggy, weather-stained, mud-bedaubed with the mud of last Spring, of
many Springs. The doctor was a badly dressed, pleasant-eyed man, past
middle age, with a fringe of gray whiskers. He was a sort of journeyman
doctor, and he had drifted hither one day two Summers ago from the Lake
Andes country in this selfsame travel-worn conveyance with its same bony
sorrel. He had found good picking, he had often jovially remarked since,
chewing serenely away on a brand of vile plug the while. He had elected
to remain. He was part and parcel of the cattle country now. He was an
established condition. People had learned to accept him as he was and be
grateful. Haste was a mental and physical impossibility to him. He took
his own time. All must perforce acquiesce.
But as he took Mary’s wrist between well-shaped fingers disfigured with
long, black nails, he had not been able as yet to readjust himself to
old conditions after last night’s grewsome experience. He was still
walking in a maze. He occasionally even forgot the automatic movement of
his jaws. Ah, little doctor, something untoward must have happened to
cause you to forget that! What that something was he was thinking about
now, and that was what made his blue eyes twinkle so merrily.
Last night,—was it only last night?—oh, way, way in the night, when
ghosts and goblins stalked abroad and all good people were safely housed
and deeply asleep, there had come a goblin to his door in the hotel, and
cried for admittance with devilish persistence and wealth of language.
When he, the doctor, had desired information as to the needs of his
untimely visitant, the shoulders of some prehistoric giant had been put
to the door, and it had fallen open as to the touch of magic. A dazzling
and nether-world light had flamed up in his room, and this
Hercules-goblin with lock-destroying tendencies had commanded him to
clothe himself, with such insistency that the mantle of nimbleness had
descended upon all the little doctor’s movements. That this marvellous
agility was the result, pure and simple, of black arts, was shown by the
fact that the little doctor was in a daze all the rest of the night. He
did not even make show of undue astonishment or nervousness when,
clothed in some wonderful and haphazard fashion, he was escorted through
the dimly lit hall, down the dark stairway, past the office where a
night-lamp burned dully, out into the cool night air and into the
yawning depths of a mysterious vehicle which rattled with a suspiciously
familiar rattle when it suddenly plunged into what seemed like
everlasting darkness ahead. He had felt a trifle more like himself after
he had unconsciously rammed his hand through the rent in the cushion
where the hair stuffing was coming out. But he had not been permitted
the reins, so he could not be sure if they were tied together with a
piece of old suspender or not; and if that was Old Sorrel, he certainly
had powers of speed hitherto unsuspected.
Witchcraft? Ay! Had not he, the little doctor, heard ghostly hoof-beats
alongside all the way? It had been nerve-racking. Sometimes he had
thought it might just be a cow pony, but he could not be sure; and when
he had been tossed profanely and with no dignity into the house of one
White, homesteader, with the enigmatical words, “There, damn ye, Doc! I
reckon ye got a move on once in your life, anyway,” the voice had
sounded uncannily like that of one Jim Munson, cow-puncher; but that was
doubtless a hallucination of his, brought about by the unusualness of
the night’s adventures.
“You have worked yourself into a high fever, Miss Williston, that’s what
you’ve done,” he said, with professional mournfulness.
“I know it,” she smiled, wanly. “I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry.”
Gordon drew up a chair and sat down by her, saying with grave kindness,
“You are fretting. We must not let you. I am going to stay with you all
night and shoo the goblins away.”
“You are kind,” said Mary, gratefully. “May I tell you when they come?
If some one speaks to me, they go away.”
“Indeed you may, dear child,” he exclaimed, heartily. He had been half
joking when he spoke of keeping things away. He now perceived that these
things were more serious than he knew.
The doctor administered medicine to reduce the fever, dressed the
wounded arm, with Gordon’s ready assistance, and then called in Mother
White to prepare the bed for his patient; but he paused nonplussed
before the weight of entreaty in Mary’s eyes and voice.
“Please don’t,” she cried out, in actual terror. “Oh, Mr. Gordon, don’t
let him! I see such awful things when I lie down. Please! Please! And
Mr. Langford said I might sit up till he came. Mr. Gordon, you will not
let him put me to bed, will you?”
“I think it will be better to let her have her way, Lockhart,” said
Gordon, in a low voice.
“Mebbe it would, Dick,” said the doctor, with surprising meekness.
“I’ll stay all night and I’ll take good care of her, Lockhart. There’s
Mother White beckoning to supper. You’ll eat before you go? No, I won’t
take any supper now, thank you, mother, I will stay with Mary.”
And he did stay with her all through the long watches of that long
night. He never closed his eyes in sleep. Sometimes, Mary would drop off
into uneasy slumber—always of short duration. When she awakened suddenly
in wide-eyed fright, he soothed her with all tenderness. Sometimes when
he thought she was sleeping, she would clutch his arm desperately and
cry out that there was some one behind the big cottonwood. Again it
would be to ask him in a terrified whisper if he did not hear
hoof-beats, galloping, galloping, galloping, and begged him to listen.
He could always quiet her, and she tried hard to keep from wandering;
but after a short, broken rest, she would cry out again in endless
repetition of the terrors of that awful night.
Mrs. White and several of her small progeny breathed loudly from an
adjoining room. A lamp burned dimly on the table. It grew late—twelve
o’clock and after. At last she rested. She passed from light, broken
slumber to deep sleep without crying out and thus awakening herself.
Gordon was tired and sad. Now that the flush of fever was gone, he saw
how white and miserable she really looked. The circles under her eyes
were so dark they were like bruises. The mantle of his misfortune was
spreading to bring others besides himself into its sombre folds.
The men were coming back. But they were coming quietly, in grim silence.
He dared not awaken Mary for the news he knew they must carry. He
stepped noiselessly to the door to warn them to a yet greater stillness,
and met Langford on the threshold.
The two surveyed each other gravely with clasped hands.
“You tell her, Dick. I—I can’t,” said Langford. His big shoulders
drooped as under a heavy burden.
“Must I?” asked Gordon.
“Dick, I—I can’t,” said Langford, brokenly. “Don’t you see?—if I had
been just a minute sooner—and I promised.”
“Yes, I see, Paul,” said Gordon, quietly. “I will tell her.”
“You need not,” said a sweet clear voice from across the room. “I know.
I heard. I think I knew all the time—but you were all so good to make me
hope. Don’t worry about me any more, dear friends. I am all right now.
It is much better to know. I hope they didn’t hang him. You think they
shot him, don’t you?”
“Little girl, little girl,” cried Langford, on his knees beside her, “it
is not that! It is only that we have not found him. But no news is good
news. That we have found no trace proves that they have to guard him
well because he is alive. We are going on a new tack to-morrow. Believe
me, little girl, and go to bed now, won’t you, and rest?”
“Yes,” she said, wearily, as one in whom no hope was left, “I will go. I
will mind—the Boss.”
As he laid her gently on the bed, while Mrs. White, aroused from sleep,
fluttered aimlessly and drowsily about, he whispered, his breath
caressing her cheek:
“You will go to sleep right away, won’t you?”
“I will try. You are the Boss.”