Harry was beginning to think that she had lost her way, when suddenly,
as she topped a rise in the road, she saw the Robinson ranch lying
below her beside the mouth of a coulee. Barns, sheds, corrals, pens,
haystacks, and ranch house lay scattered along the fence near the road.
The buildings, which were of unpainted boards, weathered to the gray of
the desert, reminded her of the houses she had seen from the train; but
the path from the gate to the door of the ranch house was bordered with
flowers, and the yard, which was separated from the farm fields by a
fence, was neatly planted with vegetables and fruit trees.
A chorus of loud barks announced Harry's arrival. At once the door of
the house was opened a crack and several children, with yellow, tousled
heads, peered out. As Harry approached, the children promptly shut the
door, but at her knock a young woman with a fat, smiling baby on her
arm, opened it.
"How do? Come in, won't you?" said the woman.
"Is this Mrs. Robinson?" asked Harry, on the threshold. "I'm Miss
Holliday."
"Glad to make your acquaintance. Set down. You look tired. Norma,
let the lady set in that chair." She drew a small girl from a plush
rocking-chair and dragged it forward.
"Thank you, I can't stop. My brother has been hurt terribly. A sheep
herder attacked him and beat him almost to death. He must have a doctor
at once. Can you send to town for me?"
Harry spoke rapidly. She was spent with weariness and heartache, and
the mention of Rob brought a strangling sob to her throat.
"How about! Mr. Holliday hurt!" Mrs. Robinson set the baby on the
floor, and putting her hands on her hips, stared in mingled curiosity
and sympathy at her visitor, and poured out questions and exclamations.
Wiping her forehead nervously with her handkerchief, Harry had turned
abruptly away. She shrank from the eager interest of a stranger,
and had to force herself to answer the woman's questions. "It's an
imposition, I know, to ask you to send to town for the doctor," she
said, "but I can't leave my brother alone long enough to go, and I
don't know how to ride very well, anyway."
"Sakes alive, girlie! Nobody don't have to ride to git him. You kin
just phone over. There's the phone right there. P'r'aps I better ring
him up for you. Like's not he's at the hotel gassin', 'stead of in his
office."
Harry was only too glad not to have to repeat her troubles to the
doctor; she sat limply in the rocking-chair and fanned herself with her
hat, while Mrs. Robinson hunted vocally among the front stoops in town
for "Doc" Bundy.
"If a body was to wait for him to come to his office," declared Mrs.
Robinson, "we could all die of old age before ever seein' him. I got
him, though. He's to the drug store gittin' him some sody. Hello, that
you, Doc? Yep, Mrs. Robinson. 'Tain't for us. Listen while I tell you,
so's you can come on."
When she had finished a lengthy description of Rob, his ranch, the
quarrel, and Rob's injuries, and had adjured the doctor to hurry and to
bring the sheriff with him, Mrs. Robinson dropped into her chair and
prepared to enjoy her visitor's call; but when she looked at Harry's
face, she exclaimed:
"You pore thing! You're all beat out, 'ain't you? You're as white as
curdled milk. See here! You catch hold of the young one and I'll hook
up the rig and carry you back home. Vashti can look out for the others
and get her dad's supper. I'll call her now."
Mrs. Robinson left the room followed by three or four tow-headed
youngsters, who were clamoring for bread and jam. Harry, with the baby
on her knee, leaned back in the plush rocking-chair and looked vaguely
about her. Evidently this was the room where the family lived, for
besides the big cookstove and the table covered with oilcloth, there
were a plush-covered lounge, a phonograph, and a very new, shiny bureau
with an immense plate-glass mirror. The Robinsons had money to spend
if not good taste in spending it, she decided; at the same time she
noticed the unpapered board walls, which were decorated with gaudy
calendars and advertising posters, and the china, which had evidently
been recruited from "prize package" cereal boxes.
Although Mrs. Robinson might be ignorant and crude, Harry gratefully
admitted that she was kind-hearted to drive her home at that time of
day. Hearing the rumble of wheels and the voice of her hostess giving
swift and numerous orders, she went to the door and looked out. The
"rig," as Mrs. Robinson had called it, was a light, mud-spattered
mountain wagon, drawn by a team of half-broken ponies that laid their
ears back and showed the whites of their eyes alarmingly. Mrs. Robinson
sat in the front seat, with one foot on the brake.
"Oughtn't the baby to have something more on?" asked Harry, glancing at
the child's bare feet and gingham slip.
"How about! Vashti," Mrs. Robinson called to the big-boned girl of
twelve who watched them from the doorstep, "you fetch ma's shawl off
the bed. And remember now, the beans is all cooked; there's pie, and
your dad likes plenty of lard in his hot bread. And be sure to get them
young ones to bed early, or I'll warm their jackets for 'em when I get
back."
As they drove out of the gate, Mrs. Robinson left an ever louder stream
of directions flowing behind her, until a drop in the road hid the
house from sight. Then she sighed abruptly and became silent.
"It's very kind of you to drive me home," began Harry. "I appreciate it
immensely; but what will your husband think?"
"Oh, he won't care. He can do for hisself as good as any woman. Men
folks in this country most always learn to housekeep when they're
bachin' it. Why, we were married when I was fifteen, and came out here
from Nebrasky, and there wasn't another woman in twenty miles to turn
to for help. But Robinson, he could show me hisself!"
"At fifteen!" exclaimed Harry. "Why, you were just a child! Weren't you
lonely?"
"I guess not! There was too much to do. I was likely to be called on
any day to finish seedin', or hayin', or help butcher, or what not, so
be he was short-handed."
"But now, with all your little children to take care of," Harry began,
but she stopped short.
She had been watching the little cayuse ponies, divided between fear
of their suddenly running away and admiration of the cool steadiness
with which Mrs. Robinson held them in check; but as they went down
the bank of a creek that had been dug out deep by the spring freshet,
the woman's foot slipped from the brake and the wagon rolled upon the
ponies' heels. Mrs. Robinson pulled up hard on the reins, but the
ponies plunged, clattered across the shallow ford, and, with their ears
back, dashed up the opposite bank.
"Now, you ornery varmints! Quit it! Quit it! Yes, you will, too! Whoa,
you! If I don't beat the buttons off you for that!"
Pouring a vivid flood of language upon the ponies, Mrs. Robinson threw
the brake and sawed sharply at their mouths. Suddenly there was a jerk
and a snap; the cheek strap of the off horse's bridle swung loose.
Harry saw the leather strap fly back, and saw the pony shake its head
and shy; involuntarily she pressed the baby close to her. But Mrs.
Robinson was too quick for the cayuse. Pulling the ponies square across
the road, she faced them toward the boulders that marked the edge of
the "bench"; then, whipping the lines round the brake, she stepped over
the dashboard and out along the pole, and swung herself down at the
horses' heads.
"Now, if that ain't the meanest team you ever saw, tell _me_!" she
drawled, as she wiped her face with her apron and looked contemptuously
at the ponies. "To bust up the harness when there ain't a thing handy
for me to mend it with! I suppose there ain't an inch of balin' wire in
the wagon. You couldn't look, could you, girlie? I don't want to leave
this fool pony."
"Here's something! I don't know whether it's baling wire," Harry said,
after making a careful survey of the wagon box, "but there's a piece of
wire round the whip socket."
"Sure thing, I'd forgot that. Lay the young one down and get it for me,
will you?"
Harry obeyed, and Mrs. Robinson, cool and unconcerned, mended the
bridle. Then she climbed into the wagon, started the horses, and took
up the conversation as if it had never been broken off.
Ashamed to reveal her fear, Harry forced herself to listen and to talk;
but when they drew near the ranch her thoughts rushed forward, and she
could think only of Rob. The moment they stopped at the corral she was
out of the wagon, and with an apology to Mrs. Robinson for leaving her
to unharness alone, she hurried across the slope. Her brother lay as
she had left him, with one arm up, shielding his face from the flies
that swarmed in the hot, sunny tent. He was awake, but feverish and in
pain. Bringing a basin of water, Harry began to change the bandages.
While she was busy, Mrs. Robinson appeared, with the baby in her arms.
"How about feedin' the critters?" she asked, as she declared her
sympathy. "The pigs ain't been slopped nor the chickens fed, I expect.
I don't see the cow nowheres. Like's not she's feedin' up in one of
them draws along the hills. 'Slong's you ain't milkin' her it don't
matter. She'll get back when she's thirsty. Now, don't you move," she
added, as Rob tried to rise. "I'll see to the whole outfit."
"I'd forgotten all about the critters!" muttered Rob. He tried to lift
himself, and then, sinking back with a gasp of pain, closed his eyes.
"I certainly feel mean."
"You mustn't think of moving," protested Harry. "Mrs. Robinson is here.
She's looking after everything. She's been awfully kind; telephoned to
the doctor, drove me home, and everything."
A look of relief crossed Rob's face. He smiled, and murmured, "That's
great!" and suddenly Harry realized that under their neighbor's
matter-of-fact manner there had been more genuine kindness and a
greater willingness to help than she had appreciated.
Harry longed to drop down beside Rob and sleep; never had she been so
weary. But she realized that Mrs. Robinson must be hungry, for it was
almost eight o'clock. Harry had built the fire and was moving stiffly
about, trying to think what she could prepare from her meager supply of
groceries, when Mrs. Robinson returned.
"Say now," the woman exclaimed, "you let me get supper! You're wore to
a feather edge. I'll knock up a pan of hot bread and fry a little fat
meat, and that'll do us, bein' as there's no men to cook for."
After supper, Harry and Mrs. Robinson washed the dishes. The doctor had
not yet come, and the girl was worried.
"Well," said Mrs. Robinson, "it's a twenty-mile drive out here, and it
was close on to six when I called him. There, now! Hear that? I guess
that's him this minute."
Both women hurried outside. The silhouette of a horseman showed against
the sky, and a voice called, "This Holliday's?"
"That's right," replied Mrs. Robinson. "We're waitin' for you, Doc."
The next moment the doctor, a sallow-faced Kentuckian, swung from his
saddle and clumped into the tent; he had turned up a wrong trail, he
said, in apology for being late.
Harry held the lamp for him while he cleansed the wound and took a
few stitches in it. He gave Harry directions for caring for it, and
left lint and antiseptics. There was, he said, nothing more that he
could do; fortunately all danger of concussion from the blow at the
base of the skull had passed, and the other injuries were only flesh
wounds. All Rob needed was to keep quiet for a few days. The sheriff,
he explained, had not been able to come, because he had gone to Scalp
Creek to investigate a shooting affair. While the doctor was getting
ready to leave, Mrs. Robinson wrapped the baby in her shawl.
"If it's all the same to you, Doc," she said, "seein' as it's on your
road, I'd be mighty obliged if you'd drive me over. The ponies are that
mean to-night! You can hitch yours on behind the wagon."
Harry went down to the corral with them and stood in the moonlight
holding the sleeping baby while Mrs. Robinson caught and harnessed
the horses. Harry felt a generous impulse of admiration for the
self-reliant, fearless ranchwoman, and when she said good night asked
her cordially to come again.
"If she were only a little more civilized and congenial!" thought
Harry regretfully, looking after them until they had vanished amid the
moonlit ghosts of sagebrush, and the rattle of wheels had died away.
"I guess it would be better, though, if I were more like her," she
suddenly confessed to herself. "Everything she does counts, while I
just rush round and waste my breath. Of course she's learned how, while
I have been learning civilized things; but if I'm to stay out here I'd
better learn how to live here."
She took up her work the next morning with a fresh incentive and in
a happy spirit. Caring for the animals was not such a bore as she
thought it would be. She went first to the chickens and pigs; next she
attended to the horses and heifers in the corral. The cow was nowhere
in sight.
"I wonder when Jones will get back?" she thought. "Now that he might
really be of some use, of course he's not here."
She finished her work, made Rob comfortable, and then went to walk over
the ranch to see in which of the grassy coulees the cow had stayed to
feed.
The hundred and sixty acres that the fence inclosed afforded plenty of
range and good pasture, and there was no apparent reason why the cow
should break out; but although Harry searched every gully and behind
every rock ledge, she could not find her.