Down through the pass came two riders, drenched with the storm that had
lasted through the day, with intermittent gusts of booming wind and
vicious lightning, then long, steady down-pours as if the whole heavens
were awash and there would be no end to the falling water. From the
window overlooking the Basin Bud saw them lope heavily into the meadow
trail, small geysers of clean rain water thrown up into the sunset glow
whenever the horses galloped into a hollow. Bud lounged across the room
and put his head into the kitchen.
"Two riders coming, Maw. Better keep that kid out of sight."
Maw nodded, clicking the china white teeth she wore to please Lark. Bud
closed the door, glanced toward another behind which Lark was sleeping
heavily, and opened it.
"Oh, Lark! Riders coming. What time did you get in last night--if
anybody wants to know?"
Lark landed in the middle of the floor, wide-awake as a startled
mountain lion. One slim hand went up to pat his hair down into place,
the other reached for his gun.
"Left Smoky Ford about three o'clock in the afternoon. Got here along
about midnight, didn't I? Maw ought to know." Then he sat down on the
edge of the bed and yawned widely. "You go on out, Bud. If it's the boy
they're after, you holler to Maw and ask if supper's ready, soon as you
hit the porch. Maw and I will look after the kid."
"Craziest thing a man could do," young Bud muttered, as he left the
house and walked down the path to meet the riders. His hat was tilted
a bit to one side, a cigarette was in his mouth and tilted to the
same angle, his thumbs were hooked negligently inside his belt and
his three-inch boot heels pegged little holes in the sodden path as
he went. Mildly hospitable he looked, with no more interest in their
coming than custom demanded of him. But he saw their eyes go slanting
this way and that as they approached, and he saw the ganted flanks of
their wet horses and the flare of nostrils that told of long, hard
riding.
"Howdy, cowboys," he greeted, lounging closer. "Been out in the dew,
haven't you?" He grinned as youth will always grin at the mischance of
his fellows.
One lean, unshaven fellow slid out of the saddle and walked stiffly up
to Bud, leaving the reins dragging in the wet, steamy muck of the yard.
He did not answer the smile.
"We want you folks to get out and help hunt a lost kid," he stated
flatly. "Palmer's grandson, it is. Or mebbe your Lark seen him
yesterday. Some said he left town yesterday, comin' this way, and
he musta passed by the Palmer place 'long about the time the kid
disappeared. He might of saw him. He here?"
Bud jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the house.
"Put up your horses, boys. Jake, over there forking hay, will feed
them after you've pulled your saddles. Supper must be about ready. Oh,
Jake!" he called, "take care of these horses, will you?" He turned back
to the two who were jerking impatiently at wet latigo straps. "Lark
didn't say anything about any lost kid, but you can talk to him about
it. How about the town folks turning out? They're closer than we are.
We'll go, of course."
"The town is out," the short man told him, grunting a little as he
heaved his saddle to a dry spot under the shed. "Been out all night.
Old man sent us over here because he seen Lark ride past right where
the kid was workin' in the field. Looked like he stopped an' talked to
the kid, he said, but it was so fur off he couldn't tell."
Bud turned and walked ahead of them up the path, and now he glanced
over his shoulder at the speaker, a curious light in his eyes.
"A kid old enough to work in the field wouldn't get lost, would he?"
The thin man shook his head.
"That's what looked damn queer to me," he assented. "But it's about the
only thing that could of happened--unless he was made away with," he
added as an afterthought.
"How old a kid is he?" Bud's interest grew a bit keener.
"Eight--mebby nine. Too little to get anywhere on foot."
Bud considered this, shook his head as if the question was beyond him,
and stepped upon the porch. "Oh, Maw! Supper ready? Two extra," he
shouted, and turned squarely about to scrape his bootsoles across the
edge of the porch.
"I'd run away," he said soberly, "if I wasn't more than eight or nine
and had to do a man's work. Doesn't sound right to me." Having scraped
all the mud from one boot, he began meticulously to scrape the other.
The two from Palmer's followed his example and scraped and scraped, in
evident fear of offending a careful housewife.
"Come right in, boys." Maw herself pulled open the door and stood
there, smiling and showing the three yellow teeth like stripes dividing
the glaring white ones. "Supper's about ready. What's these gentlemen's
names, Buddy?"
"You'll have to ask them," Bud replied evenly. "They're in a hurry and
upset, and didn't introduce themselves. Bat and Ed, the boys call them.
Come on in, boys. They're out hunting a lost child, Maw. They think
maybe Lark might have seen him last evening as he was riding out from
town."
"Johnson's my name," the thin man introduced himself perfunctorily to
maw. "This other man is named White. Is Mr. Larkin in?"
"Come right into the kitchen. Yes, Lark's here, going over his guns
after the rain; leaky roof to the closet--Bud, you'd ought to patch
that roof right away to-morrow. It was just an accident Lark went into
the closet for something and found all the guns soaking wet. A child
lost, did you say?"
"Don't seem to worry folks over this way very much," Johnson observed
suspiciously. "How d' do, Lark; seen you in Smoky Ford, you remember."
"_Hel_-lo!" Lark, entrenched behind a table littered with guns, greasy
rags, cleaning rods and odorous bottles, looked up and grinned a
welcome. "Excuse me for not shakin' hands--coal-oil and bear's grease
all over me. What was that, Maw, about a lost child?"
"They want to know if you saw anything of a boy back at Palmer's ranch.
Old Palmer saw you ride past there about the time they missed the kid."
Bud, pulling chairs to the supper table, spoke more rapidly than was
his habit.
"I'll tell it," Johnson interrupted. "It's Palmer's grandson--Dick
Palmer's boy. He was out in the field, and the horses come in without
'im. Palmer claims he seen you ride past, and he says you stopped an'
talked to the boy. He wasn't seen after that, and the hull country's
out lookin' through the hills for 'im. It seemed like you'd oughta
know somethin' about 'im." Johnson's eyes clung tenaciously to the
ivory-handled, silver-mounted six-shooter that lay close to Lark's
hand on the table. The gun which Lark was working on at the moment was
a shotgun, double-barreled and ominous.
"Yeah, I remember that kid." Lark spoke without haste, his eyes on
the gunstock he was polishing. "Pore little devil, I rode along and
found him hung up at the edge of the field, with the drag caught on a
rock when he tried to turn around. He couldn't lift it off, and the
team wouldn't pull it off, an' there he was, cryin' because he'd get a
lickin' if he broke any teeth outa the harrer, an' if he didn't finish
the draggin' along that end of the field, he'd get a lickin'--way he
figured it, he was due for a whalin' any way the cat jumped." Lark
inspected his work, broke open the gun and shoved in two pinkish
cartridges.
"Too small a boy to be away out there, half a mile from the house,
tryin' to do a man's work. I got off my horse and heaved the drag off
the rock for him, and gave him a bag of gumdrops I was bringin' home
to maw." He glanced at the old lady and smiled. "That's why you never
got any candy this trip, Maw," he explained apologetically. "I gave the
whole bag to the boy. It was worth it, too--way he began to put 'em
away, two at a time. Mebbe he run off and hid from that lickin'," he
added hopefully, picking up a rifle.
"The team come home," Johnson pointed out impatiently, "and the hull
country for ten mile around has been combed. He never got off afoot."
But he said it mildly and stared uneasily at the way Lark was handling
the rifle; not pointing it at any one, but holding it so that any man
there could look down its muzzle if he but turned his wrist a bit.
"Set up to the table, folks," Maw invited briskly. "Larkie, can't you
leave them smelly old guns long enough to eat?" Then she sighed, almost
as an afterthought. "My, my, it's terrible to think of a child like
that."
"Might as well finish this job, Maw. Hands all stunk up, now. You folks
go ahead. Well, a kid like that can only be crowded just so far," he
returned to the subject. "I know he was scared of somebody that would
give him a lickin', and I know what a horse will do when it gets the
notion it ain't being treated right. It'll quit the range, give it a
chance. That boy was a mile from his lickin', just about, and he wasn't
more than twenty rods from the hills. I expect a pound of gumdrops
would look to him like supplies enough to carry him a hundred miles.
Betcha a broke horse the kid beat it. And if he did I hope he makes it
outa the country."
White and Johnson ate uncomfortably, more than half their attention
given to the nonchalant handling of the guns across the room. Just
behind Lark's chair was a closed door, and from behind that closed door
came the sound of footsteps; rather, the creaking of boards beneath the
weight of some person.
"Old man Palmer," Lark stated emphatically, "is the kinda man that
would skin a louse for its hide and tallow. He'd likely keep every man
in the country riding the hills and neglecting his work, huntin' down
a little shaver of a boy that he can drive to a man's work and save,
mebby, two dollars a day. Betcha a beef critter he won't say thank-yuh
or go-ta-hell for the ridin'. No, sir, I don't feel called upon to put
any Meddalark horses under the saddle for that kinda slave-chasin'. If
the kid had the spunk to drift outa there, he's got my good wishes. And
you can go tell him I said so."
"Ain't it struck yuh that might look kinda bad?" Johnson was stirring
his coffee with his left hand, his right hand under the edge of the
table.
"Think it does?" Lark very casually laid down the rifle--with his
left hand--and picked up the six-shooter with his right. He seemed to
be studying the W L filed on the metal behind the trigger, and while
he was looking at that the muzzle pointed at the wall two feet behind
Johnson.
"My Jonah, this gun of dad's is all specked with tarnish!" Lark
exclaimed, interrupting himself. "Four of the notches is plumb rusty,
which they wouldn't be if my old dad was alive to-day. My Lord, how he
could shoot! I've seen him wing a horsefly at forty yards and never
ruffle the hair on the horse. Fact. Makes me think of what he used to
say about how things _look_. He always told me to let my conscience
and cartridges guide me, and tahell with the _looks_. Dad would likely
ride over and beef the man that made that little kid stand and cry
because he couldn't lift a heavy drag off a rock for fear a tooth might
be broke and he'd get a beatin'. What I'd ought to of done is ride on
up to the house and call old man Palmer out and shoot him. What do you
think, Johnson?"
Johnson's hand came up and rested ostentatiously on the table. He
shuffled his feet and nodded, his eyes on his plate. White cleared his
throat and glanced sidewise toward the door that would let him out of
the house by the shortest route.
"Have some goozeberry pie," Maw urged, and sucked her new teeth into
place with a click of her tongue. "I hope they never catch that poor
little feller. If they do, and I ever hear of old Palmer whippin' him
again, I'll walk right over there with a black-snake and give him a
good horsewhipping. I'll teach him!"
"I'll hold him for you, Maw." Bud Larkin reached out and patted her
approvingly on the shoulder.
"Buddy, you go in and ask Mr. Smith if he could drink a cup of tea. You
was vaccinated whilst you were off to school--"
"Somebody sick?" Johnson looked up, poising a knife loaded with mashed
potatoes. "You ain't got smallpox here, have you?"
"No!" Lark spoke sharply. "Been a long time since I've saw a case,
and I don't hardly believe this is smallpox. Sores break out on the
forehead first, as I've heard it. These are on the back--back and
shoulders, mostly. You take a close look, Bud, when you go in, and see
if there's anything showin' on his face. And, my Jonah, be careful you
don't pull down that sheet!"
Bud took the cup of tea that Maw had ready and walked to the door
behind Lark. He opened it, letting out a whiff of carbolic acid from
the soaked sheet hung straight across the doorway.
"Feller rode in here to-day in pretty bad shape," Lark observed
soberly. "Couldn't turn him out, couldn't put him in the bunk house
with the boys, couldn't do a darn thing but fix him up comfortable
where we could watch him. But I don't hardly think it's smallpox. All
the cases I ever seen, the sores--"
Johnson pushed back his chair with a loud scraping sound on the white
boards of the floor. White duplicated the sound and the haste.
"I guess we better be goin'," said Mr. Johnson, stooping to retrieve
his hat from the floor. "I--you folks better not ride over with us,
seein' as you've got sickness. Might spread somethin'--with everybody
millin' around."
"That's good sense," chirped Maw. "Lark don't think it's anything
ketchin', but that poor feller caught it, didn't he? He don't make no
bones of it. No use exposin' the whole country--and you may be mighty
sure, Mr. Johnson, that we ain't going to take any chances."
"You let Bud Larkin set right at the table with us, and you been
passin' us dishes--that's chances enough for _me_." Mr. Johnson,
herding Mr. White before him, went out and slammed the door.
Maw stood with her head tilted grotesquely to one side, listening. A
closed door, in her experience, did not always mean departure.
"Lark," she cried shrewishly, "what made you go and belittle that poor
man's sickness to them fellers? They mighta stayed around here an' got
exposed, an' you know as well as I do what ails that poor feller we
took in. If they catch something, they needn't blame _me_, for I washed
my hands good before I set the table. You'd oughta told them when they
first come in--"
A board squeaked on the porch. Maw smiled, turned back to the stove and
picked up the coffee-pot; hesitated, put up a furtive hand and pulled
out the new teeth which she slid into her apron pocket.
"Come on and eat your supper, Lark, before it's stone cold," she said
in a relaxed tone. "I guess the gun cleanin' can wait; they're gone."
Lark slid some more cartridges into the cylinder of the notched gun,
slipped it inside his waistband and rose.
"You got a case of smallpox on the ranch now; what you goin' to do
with it, Maw?" he demanded querulously. "A gun fight I can handle; I
was raised on 'em. But how do you expect me to live up to smallpox?
Answer me that!" Then he observed a certain vacancy in Maw's smile and
frowned. "Where's your teeth? Swaller 'em?"
"No, I didn't!" Maw's leathery face showed a tinge of red. "You know
as well as I do that I can't eat with them fillin' up my mouth. And as
fer smallpox, how else you expect to keep folks from snoopin' around,
lookin' fer that boy? Them men suspicioned you, Larkie, you know it as
well as I do. It's a mercy I wrung out that sheet and hung it up--they
heared the boy movin' around in there. Mebby you didn't see 'em wallin'
their eyes that way, but I did. Lucky I could give 'em something for
their pains of stretching their ears--you'd likely have two dead men on
your hands to explain."
"Feller knows where he's at when it's straight shootin'," Lark
contended in a tone of complaining. "This thing of lyin' out of a
scrape--"
"I didn't lie, and neither did you. But I expect we'll all of us do
some tall old falsifying before we're through. They ain't goin' to let
the matter rest where it's at, Lark. You'd ought of thought about these
things--Lark, do you s'pose them fellers will stop and quiz Jake about
our Mr. Smith?"
"My Jonah!" Lark ejaculated under his breath, and went out bareheaded
to see for himself.
He found Jake leaning against the shed wall with his hands in his pants
pockets and his mouth wide open, laughing with a silent quaking of his
whole body. He stopped when Lark walked up to him and pointed to where
two horsemen were making one blurred shadow on the trail down past the
meadow.
"Smoky Ford's goin' t' have a hell of a time supplyin' the demand fer
carbolic acid and such," Jake declared maliciously. "And there goes two
men that'll bile their shirts, I betcha." He gave Lark a facetious poke
in the ribs. "Dunno what the idee is, but I rode right in your dust.
They come down past the bunk house and wanted to know what we done
with the outfit of the feller that rode in here with smallpox, and was
he broke out bad. I played 'er strong, y' betcha. Told 'em I'd burnt
saddle, bridle, blanket an' all the clothes the feller was wearin'
at the time, an' shot an' cremated the hoss--by his consent durin' a
loocid minute. An' as fer bein' broke out, I tells 'em you couldn't put
a burnt match down anywhere on his face without bustin' a sore. Told
'em it was the worst case I ever seen. I kinda had t' play 'er with m'
eyes shet, Lark, but if you'd saw fit t' have a man here that was down
with smallpox, I knowed damn' well he'd oughta have it mighty bad an'
be right down sick with it. Hunh?"
"You shore made 'im sick, all right," Lark grunted, and went off to the
house without another word.