DICKSIE
The wreckers, drifting in the blaze of the sun across the broad alkali
valley, saw the smoke of the wreck-fire behind them. No breath of wind
stirred it. With the stillness of a signal column it rose, thin and
black, and high in the air spread motionless, like a huge umbrella,
above Smoky Creek. Reed Young had gone with an engine to wire
reenforcements, and McCloud, active among the trackmen until the
conflagration spent itself, had retired to the shade of the hill.
Reclining against a rock with his legs crossed, he had clasped his
hands behind his head and sat looking at the iron writhing in the
dying heat of the fire. The sound of hoofs aroused him, and looking
below he saw a horsewoman reining up near his men at the wreck. She
rode an American horse, thin and rangy, and the experienced way in
which she checked him drew him back almost to his haunches. But
McCloud's eyes were fixed on the slender figure of the rider. He was
wholly at a loss to account, at such a time and in such a place, for
a visitor in gauntleted gloves and a banded Panama hat. He studied her
with growing amazement. Her hair coiled low on her neck supported the
very free roll of the hat-brim. Her black riding-skirt clung to her
waist to form its own girdle, and her white stock, rolled high on her
neck, rose above a heavy shirtwaist of white linen, and gave her an
air of confident erectness. The trackmen stopped work to look, but her
attitude in their gaze was one of impatience rather than of
embarrassment. Her boot flashed in the stirrup while she spoke to the
nearest man, and her horse stretched his neck and nosed the brown
alkali-grass that spread thinly along the road.
To McCloud she was something like an apparition. He sat spellbound
until the trackman indiscreetly pointed him out, and the eyes of the
visitor, turning his way, caught him with his hands on the rock in an
attitude openly curious. She turned immediately away, but McCloud rose
and started down the hill. The horse's head was pulled up, and there
were signs of departure. He quickened his steps. Once he saw, or
thought he saw, the rider's head so turned that her eyes might have
commanded one approaching from his quarter; yet he could catch no
further glimpse of her face. A second surprise awaited him. Just as
she seemed about to ride away, she dropped lightly from the horse to
the ground, and he saw how confident in figure she was. As she began
to try her saddle-girths, McCloud attempted a greeting. She could not
ignore his hat, held rather high above his head as he approached, but
she gave him the slightest nod in return--one that made no attempt to
explain why she was there or where she had come from.
"Pardon me," ventured McCloud, "have you lost your way?"
He was immediately conscious that he had said the wrong thing. The
expression of her eyes implied that it was foolish to suppose she was
lost but she only answered, "I saw the smoke and feared the bridge was
on fire."
Something in her voice made him almost sorry he had intervened; if she
stood in need of help of any sort it was not apparent, and her gaze
was confusing. He became conscious that he was at the worst for an
inspection; his face felt streaky with smoke, his hat and shirt had
suffered severely in directing the fire, and his hands were black. He
said to himself in revenge that she was not pretty, despite the fact
that she seemed completely to take away his consequence. He felt,
while she inspected him, like a brakeman.
"I presume Mr. Sinclair is here?" she said presently.
"I am sorry to say he is not."
"He usually has charge of the wrecks, I think. What a dreadful fire!"
she murmured, looking down the track. She stood beside the horse with
one hand resting on her girdle. Around the hand that held the bridle
her quirt lay coiled in the folds of her glove, and, though seemingly
undecided as to what to do, her composure did not lessen. As she
looked at the wreckage, a breath of wind lifted the hair that curled
around her ear. The mountain wind playing on her neck had left it
brown, and above, the pulse of her ride rose red in her cheek. "Was it
a passenger wreck?" She turned abruptly on McCloud to ask the
question. Her eyes were brown, too, he saw, and a doubt assailed him.
Was she pretty?
"Only a freight wreck," he answered.
"I thought if there were passengers hurt I could send help from the
ranch. Were you the conductor?"
"Fortunately not."
"And no one was hurt?"
"Only a tramp. We are burning the wreck to clear the track."
"From the divide it looked like a mountain on fire. I'm sorry Mr.
Sinclair is not here."
"Why, indeed, yes, so am I."
"Because I know him. You are one of his men, I presume."
"Not exactly; but is there anything I can do----"
"Oh, thank you, nothing, except that you might tell him the pretty bay
colt he sent over to us has sprung his shoulder."
"He will be sorry to hear it, I'm sure."
"But we are doing everything possible for him. He is going to make a
perfectly lovely horse."
"And whom may I say the message is from?" Though disconcerted, McCloud
was regaining his wits. He felt perfectly certain there was no danger,
if she knew Sinclair and lived in the mountains, but that she would
sometime find out he was not a conductor. When he asked his question
she appeared slightly surprised and answered easily, "Mr. Sinclair
will know it is from Dicksie Dunning."
McCloud knew her then. Every one knew Dicksie Dunning in the high
country. This was Dicksie Dunning of the great Crawling Stone ranch,
most widely known of all the mountain ranches. While his stupidity in
not guessing her identity before overwhelmed him, he resolved to
exhaust the last effort to win her interest.
"I don't know just when I shall see Mr. Sinclair," he answered
gravely, "but he shall certainly have your message."
A doubt seemed to steal over Dicksie at the change in McCloud's
manner. "Oh, pardon me--I thought you were working for the company."
"You are quite right, I am; but Mr. Sinclair is not."
Her eyebrows rose a little. "I think you are mistaken, aren't you?"
"It is possible I am; but if he is working for the company, it is
pretty certain that I am not," he continued, heaping mystification on
her. "However, that will not prevent my delivering the message. By the
way, may I ask which shoulder?"
"Shoulder!"
"Which shoulder is sprung."
"Oh, of course! The right shoulder, and it is sprung pretty badly,
too, Cousin Lance says. How very stupid of me to ride over here for a
freight wreck!"
McCloud felt humiliated at having nothing better worth while to offer.
"It was a very bad one," he ventured.
"But not of the kind I can be of any help at, I fear."
McCloud smiled. "We are certainly short of help."
Dicksie brought her horse's head around. She felt again of the girth
as she replied, "Not such as I can supply, I'm afraid." And with the
words she stepped away, as if preparing to mount.
McCloud intervened. "I hope you won't go away without resting
your horse. The sun is so hot. Mayn't I offer you some sort of
refreshment?"
Dicksie Dunning thought not.
"The sun is very warm," persisted McCloud.
Dicksie smoothed her gauntlet in the assured manner natural to her. "I
am pretty well used to it."
But McCloud held on. "Several cars of fruit were destroyed in the
wreck. I can offer you any quantity of grapes--crates of them are
spoiling over there--and pears."
"Thank you, I am just from luncheon."
"And I have cooled water in the car. I hope you won't refuse that, so
far out in the desert."
Dicksie laughed a little. "Do you call this far? I don't; and I don't
call this desert by any means. Thank you ever so much for the water,
but I'm not in the least thirsty."
"It was kind of you even to think of extending help. I wish you would
let me send some fruit over to your ranch. It is only spoiling here."
Dicksie stroked the neck of her horse. "It is about eighteen miles to
the ranch house."
"I don't call that far."
"Oh, it isn't," she returned hastily, professing not to notice the
look that went with the words, "except for perishable things!" Then,
as if acknowledging her disadvantage, she added, swinging her
bridle-rein around, "I am under obligations for the offer, just the
same."
"At least, won't you let your horse drink?" McCloud threw the force of
an appeal into his words, and Dicksie stopped her preparations and
appeared to waver.
"Jim is pretty thirsty, I suppose. Have you plenty of water?"
"A tender full. Had I better lead him down while you wait up on the
hill in the shade?"
"Can't I ride him down?"
"It would be pretty rough riding."
"Oh, Jim goes anywhere," she said, with her attractive indifference to
situations. "If you don't mind helping me mount."
"With pleasure."
She stood waiting for his hand, and McCloud stood, not knowing just
what to do. She glanced at him expectantly. The sun grew intensely
hot.
"You will have to show me how," he stammered at last.
"Don't you know?"
He mentally cursed the technical education that left him helpless at
such a moment, but it was useless to pretend. "Frankly, I don't!"
"Just give me your hand. Oh, not in that way! But never mind, I'll
walk," she suggested, catching up her skirt.
"The rocks will cut your boots all to pieces. Suppose you tell me what
to do this once," he said, assuming some confidence. "I'll never
forget."
"Why, if you will just give me your hand for my foot, I can manage,
you know."
He did not know, but she lifted her skirt graciously, and her crushed
boot rested easily for a moment in his hand. She rose in the air above
him before he could well comprehend. He felt the quick spring from his
supporting hand, and it was an instant of exhilaration. Then she
balanced herself with a flushed laugh in the saddle, and he guided her
ahead among the loose rocks, the horse nosing at his elbow as they
picked their way.
Crossing the track, they gained better ground. As they reached the
switch and passed a box car, Jim shied, and Dicksie spoke sharply to
him. McCloud turned.
In the shade of the car lay the tramp.
"That man lying there frightened him," explained Dicksie. "Oh," she
exclaimed suddenly, "he has been hurt!" She turned away her head. "Is
that the man who was in the wreck?"
"Yes."
"Do something for him. He must be suffering terribly."
"The men gave him some water awhile ago, and when we moved him into
the shade we thought he was dead."
"He isn't dead yet!" Dicksie's face, still averted, had grown white.
"I saw him move. Can't you do something for him?"
She reined up at a little distance. McCloud bent over the man a moment
and spoke to him. When he rose he called to the men on the track. "You
are right," he said, rejoining Dicksie; "he is very much alive. His
name is Wickwire; he is a cowboy."
"A cowboy!"
"A tramp cowboy."
"What can you do with him?"
"I'll have the men put him in the caboose and send him to Barnhardt's
hospital at Medicine Bend when the engine comes back. He may live yet.
If he does, he can thank you for it."
[Illustration: J. P. McGOWAN IN THE TITLE ROLE OF THE PHOTO-PLAY
PRODUCTION OF "WHISPERING SMITH." (C) _American Mutual Studio_.]