When he sauntered down from the Council Rock in the full flood of
moonlight, left Lark to enter the house alone and continued to the bunk
house, where the boys still lingered by the doorway, Bud did not look
like a man whose life depends upon getting a pair of black bronchos
into his possession. His walk and his softly whistled tune betokened
care-free youth.
Cigarettes pricked little, red stars in the line of shadow before the
long, low-roofed building where the riders of the Meadowlark were
housed and fed to their complete content. The murmur of voices dwindled
so that the frog chorus came sharp to the ears as Bud came up and
squatted on his boot-heels alongside a man whom he identified even in
the shadow as his particular friend, Frank Gelle--called Jelly with a
frank disregard for proper pronunciation.
"Have a good trip, Bud?" Not for a top horse would Gelle have betrayed
his curiosity over the mysterious visitors.
"Pretty fair. Hot as blazes riding across the reservation yesterday.
Oh, by the way, Rosy, I didn't get those socks you wanted if I rode
back through town. I meant to, but when the bank was robbed--"
"Get out!" Gelle exclaimed, as an expression of surprise. "Some of
these days, Bud, somebody's goin' to lose his patience all of a sudden.
He'll just kill you and drag you off somewhere and leave you. I hate to
do it, but you won't be human till somebody asks the question, so who's
the girl you brought in?"
"The girl? Oh, she's Lightfoot's sister. She's going to teach our
school, Jelly."
"School?" chorused six shaken voices.
"Now I _know_ you're lying, Bud," Gelle mourned. "I've got to have a
serious talk with you, I kin see that. This habit of lyin' where there
ain't no cause or provocation--if you'll walk awn over to the Rock with
me now, Bud, I'll tell you what I think about it."
"It's him that'll do the tellin', and that right now," a voice broke in
ominously. "They's a certain Meddalark that won't have a damn' chirp
left in 'im, time we git the pinfeathers plucked out. Us fellers have
stood about all we're goin' to from Bud."
"Just another prophet in his own country," sighed Bud, reaching out a
hand for Gelle's tobacco sack because he was too lazy to reach into his
pocket for his own. "She _is_ Lightfoot's sister. And the bank _was_
robbed, and Charlie Mulholland was killed. I discovered him myself--"
Half an hour went to the telling of the story to the smallest detail,
accurately as if he were talking before a jury. For when all the jokes
were done, Bud appreciated the hunger these young men felt for news of
their world after plugging hard on round-up. They were sick of their
own stale company and they craved action, even the vicarious excitement
of Bud's experiences. He gave them all he knew, and by the time he had
exhausted his store of impressions each man there could visualize the
whole affair so far as Bud knew it.
They discussed at length the mystery of its quiet perpetration on the
edge of banking hours while forty or fifty men foregathered within
gunshot of the place. Then Tony Scarpa, more American than his name
implied, swung to the more immediate event.
"Who's Lightfoot and who's his sister, and what's the joke about
teaching our school?"
"Straight goods." In the narrowing shadow as the moon swam higher they
could see Bud's eyes gleam with mischief. "Lightfoot's a pilgrim; an
artist, so he says. I know he's a darn good dancer, for I saw him
dance. His sister's a pilgress. They went broke when the bank did, and
had to rustle jobs--being perfect strangers in the country and having
a bad habit of eating every day. She wanted a school to teach. That's
the first and only thing a girl from the East ever thinks of when she
comes West; that and marrying some cattle king and wearing diamonds. He
wanted to be a cowboy--and I, being an accommodating cuss, gave them
both jobs. I recalled the fact that there's a lot you fellows don't
know yet, and while you're acquiring useful knowledge she can study
your types. You see--"
"Study our _what_?" A man leaned forward so that the moon shone fully
and clearly on his astonished face.
"Study your types. She's an amateur author and she means to write
stories about cowboys. So she's looking for good types."
"Sa-ay!" Tony's irrepressible drawl cut musically through the amazed
silence. "Loan me your type, will yuh, Bob? I lost mine back there
where I bulldogged that roan steer."
"I will not! I'm goin' to need all the type I got. Is she purty, Bud?"
"She sure is." Bud glanced up at the moon and softly rhapsodized, "Big,
devilish gray eyes--they'd drown a man's troubles so deep he'd swear he
never had one. Her mouth--if her mouth has never been kissed it should
be."
"It's goin' to be," Tony murmured, and made a motion of rising to his
feet. Big Bob Leverett yanked him down.
"You ain't in this, Tony. Bud's givin' _me_ the dope. You gwan to bed.
You ain't got no type, and there ain't nothin' to set up for!"
"Law-zee, _boss_!" cried a tall young man with unbelievably small feet
thrust straight out before him into the moonlight. "Here's one scholar
that'll sure never be tardy!"
"I'm goin' to whisper an' stick out my tongue at you pelicans, and git
to stay after school," Gelle declared.
"You--you fellers can go to her darned old school, but I won't," a
young, rebellious voice cried from within the open door.
"Skookum?" Bud leaned and peered into the dark. "Come on out here,
pardner. Why aren't you in bed?"
"How'd the kid git in?" Gelle swung his lean body sidewise, reached
a long arm into the house and plucked the boy expertly by his middle.
"Here he is, Bud. Clumb through the window, I reckon."
Skookum wriggled free and sat down in the dirt, crossing his legs and
folding his arms in exact imitation of Bud's favorite pose when at
ease among his fellows. He glanced up and down the row of cowpunchers
leaning against the wall, and the moonlight gilded his hair like a halo
and made of his eyes two deep, dark pools.
"I don't like her," he stated flatly. "She turned up her nose at--at
Maw, and she asked her brother if he s'posed that hid-hid-e-ous
creature was any relation to--to Bud. She said she couldn't bear to--to
eat Maw's cookin' 'cause it was 'pulsive. And it was chicken dumpluns
and--and pie!"
Dead silence for a space; then Gelle spoke diffidently, uncertain
between apology and resentment.
"We get you, Skookum. But you see, Maw--well, she needs to be took
kinda gradual, right at first. You know Maw's a kinda hard looker till
you git used to her--"
"Maw's the purtiest woman in--in Montana!" Skookum declared hotly.
"She's cute and--and sweet. When I get big, I'm agoin' to--to marry
Maw. I asked her, and she said she--she would. You shut up about Maw.
She's purtier than that darned old girl! Ain't she, Bud?"
"Handsome is as handsome does makes Maw the most beautiful woman in
the world. You're right about that, pardner." Bud's voice had a queer
note in it. "You stand up for Maw, Skookum, and I'm right with you.
But I don't believe Maw would want you to pass up a chance to learn
something. She thought it would be just fine to have a school here.
It's that, or go to a boarding school where all the boys would laugh at
you, and I don't believe Maw could stand that, pardner. It seems to me
that your duty to Maw would make you want to learn just as fast as you
can from Miss Brunelle."
"I don't care! She's a mean old--"
"Careful, Skookum. Never call a woman names--and besides, in this case
it isn't fair. Miss Brunelle's an orphan, and she's among strangers,
and she was all tired out--and you know yourself that even Lark
can't stand it to see Maw with her teeth out and laid up on a shelf
somewhere. I couldn't get her off to one side and speak to her about
it before strangers, and neither could Lark. But Maw ought to have
thought of it herself and put in her teeth when she saw company coming."
"Well, maybe she's purtier with--with her teeth on. But I bet if that
old girl's teeth wabbled like--like Maw's teeth do, she wouldn't wear
'em, either. They tip up on the side and--and pinch. Maw showed me!"
"Well, then, we'll let Maw suit herself about it. Miss Brunelle
will gentle down and get used to her, teeth or no teeth. It's like
a horse getting accustomed to a yellow slicker," he went on. "He
always stampedes at first. He'll pitch and strike and raise Cain
generally--but there always comes a time when that same old yellow
slicker feels mighty good spread over his back when he's humped up in
a cold rain. We won't say a word, pardner. We'll just go along as if
we didn't notice anything, and you'll see how soon Miss Brunelle will
learn to love Maw."
"And--and Maw needn't wear her teeth if--if she don't want to," Skookum
stipulated earnestly, "unless Lark ketches her w-without 'em."
"That's the idea, exactly," Bud assured him as man to man. "You see,
Lark feels sensitive about Maw's teeth, because he took a beeswax
impression himself and sent it to a dentist that advertised pretty
extensively and wrote that teeth could be made by what Lark called
absent treatment. He'd hate like thunder to admit he'd made a fizzle of
the job, and Maw wouldn't for the world hurt his feelings by telling
him straight out that they don't fit. So there you are, and we'll just
have to let them manage the affair themselves, and show Miss Brunelle
what we think of Maw, teeth or no teeth."
Skookum nodded acquiescence, heaving a great sigh of relief.
"I was goin' to--to tell Maw what that girl said. But--but I'm glad I
never."
"Real men don't repeat things that may cause hard feelings. You
remember that, Skookum. If you'd gone tattling that, Maw would have
felt badly and cried."
In the moonlight they could see how the boy's big eyes brimmed suddenly.
"Maw does--every time I change my shirt. It's where grandpa quirted me,
and--and the marks is there."
"Grandpa--hunh! I'll grandpa that old devil if I ever run across him,"
Frank Gelle rapped out viciously.
"You leave grandpa alone! I'm waitin' till--till I get big as Bud, and
then grandpa's--my meat!"
"There's Maw calling you to go to bed," Bud reminded him hastily--and
unnecessarily, since Maw's voice was full size and not to be ignored.
"Come on--I feel like rolling in, myself. Let's go pound our ears, as
Shakespeare says."
But when Skookum had been safely delivered to Maw, Bud strolled back
to the Council Rock, which was usually free from the humming hordes
of mosquitoes, and where the acrid smoke of the smudges were but a
pleasantly faint aroma. Thinking was not a popular pastime with young
Bud Larkin as a rule, but nevertheless there were times when he felt
the need of a quiet hour to meditate upon late impressions and events,
especially when they came thick and fast, as the last two days had
brought them.
For one thing, he was depressed over the murder of the bank cashier and
he felt more responsibility in the matter than he had owned to Lark.
There was no getting around the fact that he might have prevented the
whole thing had he gone straight to the bank instead of stopping at
the Elkhorn. When he thought how that one glass of beer had cost a
man's life, Bud felt as if he never wanted another drink. He rolled
and smoked a cigarette while he recalled each incident of yesterday
afternoon.
Palmer's peculiar look when Bud had first tried to open the saloon
door, for instance. Did that mean anything more than a natural enmity
toward a Meadowlark man and a malicious satisfaction in knowing that
the door was locked? According to his own voluntary statement at the
inquest, Palmer had just come from the bank where he had made a deposit
of five thousand dollars, the price of a herd of cattle which he had
sold to the Government for the Indians; so he said, and two men present
had borne out the statement regarding the sale. The pass book which he
exhibited showed the amount, in Charlie's meticulous figures--perhaps
the last he had written. Palmer, of course, couldn't have robbed the
bank, for Bud felt sure that Charlie had not been dead so long when he
discovered him.
The locking of the saloon door might have been a suspicious
circumstance, but there also Bud felt baffled by the plausibility of
the incident. Steve Godfrey frequently "bought" whatever place he
chanced to celebrate in after a sale of stock that made him feel rich
for a day or two. He too had sold cattle for use on the reservation.
Buying a place in which to entertain all the loose men in town was
merely a figurative purchase, meaning that all drinks were free for
an hour or two, and that Steve would pay double for everything and
waken next morning with a head the size of a barrel--according to his
belief--and would forswear strong drink for a month or two thereafter.
No, Bud decided, the locking of the Elkhorn door had been merely a
coincidence that facilitated the murder and robbery.
But there was the mysterious incident of the four shod horses which
had no riders, galloping out across the river to mingle unrecognizably
with the herd on the high plateau, mostly saddle horses and half-broken
bronchos turned loose after the spring round-up to fatten on the sweet
bunch grass of the higher ground until September brought shipping time
and another strenuous season of work.
The Meadowlark horses had grazing grounds across the river, and so had
several other outfits. Bud had not won close enough to read the brands
on the herd which the four had joined, but he felt certain that they
were not Meadowlark horses. Indeed, he could recognize their own herd
as far as he could distinguish the individual animals.
But why had four riderless horses left the outskirts of town at that
particular time and scurried out across the range to the west? To
hide for a time the route taken by the robbers, Bud was certain; and
admitted that it was a clever ruse, spoiled only by the quick action he
himself had taken. Or had the robbers ridden the horses out of town and
turned them loose to seek their own herd later on, hiding themselves
and their saddles in some rocky gulch where the tracks would not show?
Bud wished that he had thought of that sooner, though it seemed a
far-fetched possibility.
Then there was Bat Johnson, a Palmer man and the only person Bud had
seen in the vicinity of the bank. But Bat had made no attempt to
escape, and he had volunteered the information about the horses that
crossed the river. Bat had not taken the trail through the dry wash
back of town where the four horses must have been concealed, because,
as he explained at the inquest, his pack horse was barefooted, which
Bud knew was the truth. The wash was gravel and loose rocks, and Bat
had taken the longer trail through the sand grass and the willows.
According to his statement to Bud and at the inquest, Bat had a glimpse
of the horses moving out of sight among the willows near the ford,
and had taken it for granted that riders bestrode them. But his pack
horse, a little pinto, was hard to lead at the beginning of a trip, and
Bat had been busy arguing the matter--Bat's side of the argument being
the end of the lead rope or a quirt, Bud shrewdly guessed.
"I guess that lets him out," Bud muttered finally. "And I can't sleuth
it out to-night. But there's another day coming. Marge will have to
be blindfolded, I expect, to get her into what we'll have to call a
schoolroom. Hm-m-m. Asked me where the town is, when we started down
the pass. Wonder what time Lark wants to start in the morning? Have to
explain to Lightfoot what a horse is, in the morning, and initiate him
into the mysteries of a saddle. I like that geezer, somehow. He's the
stuff, even if he is green. Wel-l--I guess I'll go to bed."
This, merely to show you that Bud could smile into a pretty girl's
eyes and still keep his head clear for other things, and go about his
business untroubled by dreams and fancies.