Twice Jones had ridden away in the evening taking one or more of the harness-broken horses with him and had returned some days later without them. Harry supposed that he had sold them. Neither Rob nor Jones ever talked about the horses in her presence and she had soon understood that she was not expected to ask questions about them.
One morning Rob asked his sister to put up some lunch for Jones and himself because they were going down the valley on business.
Harry put up the lunch and stood watching while they mounted and rode off. Among the string of horses which Jones had brought in were two well broken to saddle, a black and a sorrel, and to-day the boys each rode one of them. These two horses had run loose for so long a time that they were as frisky and spirited as the colts. As the little party swept away across the wild prairie the girl longed ardently to be with them. She liked to ride—Rob had been teaching her—and it did seem hard that she should not be allowed to go along on such trips as these, simply because she was not considered a proper person to share a secret.
Hurt pride mingled with resentment struggled together in her breast. It was hard to think that she was still outside Rob's deeper interests. Her life had, for the moment, lost its zest. She finished tidying up the tent, then went down to the garden determined to be interested in her own tasks, for the planting and weeding of the vegetables that Rob, overwhelmed in the press of work, had been forced to leave to her.
She put in several rows of root vegetables, a second planting of peas and beans and was trying to feel enthusiastic about planting corn when a soft crooning call made her turn.
At first nothing living was to be seen. Then a quiver amongst the tall weeds and grass along the stream caught her eye, and there came into sight a sage hen leading her brood of five chicks. Advancing sedately, craning her long neck to keep watch on every side, pausing to strip the seeds from various weeds, crooning her furtive call to her young, the mother bird moved upstream toward the cool shade of the cañon. Suddenly her black, inquiring eye met Harry's friendly but eager stare. For an instant the hen stood motionless, her gray-brown coloring blending her confusingly with the sand and sagebrush of the hillside behind her. Then, with a short, whistling call she dropped low and Harry saw her and the baby chickens slither off toward the willows.
With a sudden determination to follow and have a closer look at these, her nearest neighbors, Harry dropped her hoe in the fence corner, shut 'Thello inside the garden so he could not chase the birds, and slipped quietly up the draw after them.
CHAPTER IV
For some minutes Harry walked along the stream without seeing or hearing the sage hen. But this bit of discouragement only increased her interest. How could they hide so quickly without flying? The chicks were too young to fly and surely the hen would not desert them! No, there they were now!
Harry felt her blood quicken with interest as the covey of bark-gray birds slid across a sun patch beyond the willows and vanished again amongst the quaking asps higher up. So absorbed did she become in this game of hide and seek that she never once thought of the meadow pasture and it was only as she made a detour to avoid a great patch of fire-weed that she came alongside the fence. At the same moment, she saw a man come riding slowly across the shoulder of the hill. He appeared to be watching for something, for he rode slowly and looked about.
Harry stood perfectly still, hoping he would not catch sight of her. But her light dress at once caught the rider's eyes and before she could move he was riding toward her.
He was a tall, big-shouldered young fellow, dressed in cowboy fashion.
"Seen any strays round here, ma'am?" he asked, lifting his hat. "I'm looking for one."
"Strays? Horses, you mean?" Harry stammered.
The sound of the stranger's voice had recalled something to the girl's mind. She had seen this man before. His voice, his smooth, freckled face, his blue eyes—she knew them. She blushed with confusion, for the young man was looking at her intently.
"I don't believe there've been any strays here," she said. "My brother might know."
"Your brother down at the tent yonder?"
"No, not now. He's gone off with—with another man."
"You ain't got no horses of your own here that mine could ha' got in with?"
"No—yes—I mean we're boarding some horses, but they're colts and inside the pasture, and I'm sure there are no strays among them."
The stranger had dismounted and, leading his horse, was walking beside her.
"Excuse me, ma'am. Ain't I seen you before?" he asked.
"That's what I was wondering," Harry laughed. "But I can't remember your name. Mine is Harriet Holliday."
"Sure thing! It was comin' up in the train, wasn't it? Mine's Chris Garnett."
At once Harry remembered. After telling each other that they were glad to meet again, they walked on toward the tent. "Whose horses are those?" Garnett asked, pointing at the big team in the corral.
"Oh, that's the work team!"
"I thought you said your brother was off."
"Yes, he's riding one of the horses we're boarding."
"A colt?"
"No, you see there were two old—I mean good, broken horses in the bunch. Rob and the fellow who owns the horses are riding them."
Harry's explanation was somewhat jerky. The subject of Jones and his horses still rankled in her, and she could not speak of them naturally. Garnett looked at her gravely. She felt the color rush into her face and her eyes fell.
"You must stay and have some lunch," she said at last, trying to turn the conversation away from the painful subject. "I haven't a hot dinner, because the boys aren't going to be home, but I'd like to have you stay."
To her surprise Garnett readily accepted her invitation. While she was setting the table, she kept stealing glances at him, and tried to harmonize her memory of the very boyish person she had met on the train with this quiet young man. He was the same big, friendly fellow, with the same laughter-wrinkled eyes; but now there was something beneath his reserve that she could not quite understand. Sitting cross-legged on the grass outside the tent, he played with 'Thello, and talked casually to Harry while she moved about inside. All the restraint of the first moments had apparently passed; Garnett said nothing more about the horses until he left, an hour later.
"If that pony of mine should come in here," he said, turning in his saddle, "I'd be a lot obliged to you if you'd send me a line. Soldier's my post office. That horse of mine is about six years old, sorrel, ring-and-arrow brand. You'd notice him in a bunch of cayuses."
A sorrel! Harry's thoughts flashed to the sorrel horse which Rob had ridden away that morning. She felt a pang of vague apprehension, and wondered whether Garnett had noticed her startled look.
When Garnett had gone, she tried to reassure herself. Of course anything that Rob took an interest in was all right; but why did he keep it a secret from her? Suppose that sorrel horse should prove to have the ring-and-arrow brand? There might be many sorrels with that brand, yet her heart beat more nervously and her lips grew dry.
An idea came to her, and she ran up the glen toward the pasture where the colts were hidden. She knew that the sorrel was not there, but she wanted to see whether the colts were branded.
When she reached the upper end of the glen she crawled through the barbed wire, and was just emerging from the shelter of the trees when she saw Garnett ride along the fence and look at the bunch of colts inside.
Harry stepped back, instinctively afraid of his seeing her. Why? She demanded it of herself fiercely. Why should she feel guilty because Rob was concealing something from her? She had done nothing wrong. But Garnett suspected something; he had not believed her.
Humiliation swept over her. Even after Garnett, satisfied that his horse was not there, had ridden away, and after she had returned to the tent, her cheeks burned at the thought, "He did not believe me."
She determined to tell Rob about the whole affair and to make him explain the mystery. Also, she would look at the brand on that sorrel horse.
But Rob and Jones did not get home until ten o'clock. They were very tired and hungry, and Harry was so busy getting supper for them that she did not have a chance to go into the matter.
The next morning Jones rode away on the black horse. When Rob had gone down to the brush to work on the fence, Harry ran out to the corral and looked at the sorrel. The brand was perfectly plain—ring and arrow!
Her first impulse was to go out to Rob and tell him all about Garnett's visit; but when she thought of how completely Rob's work always absorbed him, she hesitated. After all, what was the use of breaking into his morning's toil with her story? She might just as well wait until noon.
As she stood, irresolute, her gaze wandered to the distant prairie. Now, early in June, every minute of the day brought some new and lovelier expression of nature's magic to view; the color that filled the valley was slowly deepening with the unfolding year. Far down the prairie spread the green wheat fields, the squares of alfalfa and plowed land, the pale clouds of pink where the fruit trees were in bloom. Through the crystalline air the curve of hill and hollow shimmered resplendent.
Harry's eyes grew vague while she pondered. For the first time her heart went out to her new surroundings. She had been stupid to shut herself out from partaking of this land. She turned restlessly back into the tent.
Regret for not having filed on the land next to Rob's and the thought of Jones and the sorrel horse worried her. It was intolerable to think of settling down to humdrum tasks of housework or garden. Calling 'Thello she set off up the draw in the dumb desire of "working it off" outdoors.
The narrow vale between the towering buttes was now at its loveliest. Bees buzzed in the wild rose thickets; wild flowers of vivid colors—scarlet, blue, violet and yellow—dappled the earth at her feet and even splashed the sides of the barren buttes. Along the stream, where the ground was always moist, a dense tangle of weeds and vines had sprung up and, with the willows, made it difficult to get through except in certain places.
Harry followed the same course she had taken the day before when following the sage hen. But this morning she noticed how differently the ground appeared. The willows had been broken through; the vines had been torn away; and the stream had been trodden into a slough by countless hoofs. Some cattle had come through on their way to the hills, but they had kept to the draw farther east. 'Thello sniffed suspiciously and Harry wondered what had been there; but as she crossed the brook for the last time and came out onto the meadow she stopped short. A great flock of sheep were feeding. Spread out round the verdant basin they were eating silently, steadily, greedily, with short, close-cropping nibbles that would leave nothing but the bare ground of the rich pasture before them. At sight of her, one or two ewes "blatted" and moved on, but the others were too busy feeding to notice her.
Harry's first astonishment flared suddenly into sharp indignation. She looked round and saw the herder watching her from a rocky knoll near by. "Please come down here!" she called sharply, and then added to herself, "It's that Boykin—the one Rob ordered off before. Miserable creature!"
He came down very slowly and stood before her much as he had stood before Rob, with his eyes smouldering under his half-shut lids.
"Well, come to fetch me my dog?" he drawled.
"Your dog! Didn't my brother tell you not to feed down here? This is our pasture."
"Is it?"
"Yes, you know it is. And you had better drive your sheep off right away, too."
"Had I?"
"Yes, at once." Even as she spoke Harry felt how empty her words were. "You know perfectly well that you have no right on our land. You're spoiling the pasture, and the stream, too. I wondered what had made the water taste so queer. It's because your sheep have been in it."
"If you don't like it, I reckon you can dip out of another spring. There's plenty in these hills."
"How dare you talk so!" Harry was trembling nervously. "You shall see whether we'll put up with such lawlessness!"
She flew home, with her cheeks hot with anger, and with the sheep herder's laugh echoing in her ears. When she entered the tent she found Rob there.
"Oh," she cried breathlessly, "you remember that herder you told not to come in here? He's up in the glen now. I've just seen him. I told him to go, but he won't. He laughed."
Rob walked to the door. "Will dinner be ready by twelve, sis?"
"I guess so. Why?"
"I'm hungry," he said quietly. "It's eleven now."
Harry stared at him. "You aren't going up there?"
"Yes, after dinner. He'll be there until then, won't he? If I knew where to find the camp tender, I'd tell him a thing or two about that herder—make the whole outfit clear out. I don't care if Joyce has put him on the next homestead, I filed here first, and he has no right to put the man on there, anyway. I don't know whether there's any law in this country, but if there is——"
He left the tent abruptly.
Harry began mechanically to get dinner. When it was ready, she blew the horn and Rob came in. He said nothing about the sheep herder, but ate his dinner calmly. At the end of the noon hour he rose, went to the door, and stood looking out.
"I don't know how I'm going to keep those fellows off," he said, half to himself. "I can't let my work go, to be chasing them all the time." He pushed up his hat and scratched his head dubiously.
"Of course not; but if they're going to ruin our drinking water and eat all the grass——"
"Oh, I'm going to drive this outfit away!" he said, as he went out.
In her anger and excitement over the sheep, Harry had completely forgotten Garnett and his horse. She began to gather up the dishes, and then, leaving everything, ran outside. A queer excitement filled her. She wondered what Rob would do. He had disappeared beyond the willows and for some minutes all was silent. From where she stood she could see, above the top of the grove, the rocky slope of the hillside running across the end of the cañon. Suddenly, from that hillside a cloud of dust began to rise. Harry could hear nothing, but in a few moments she saw the sheep spread up over the hill and scatter in all directions. The dust rose in blinding clouds; the sheep, catching the panic from their leaders, fled wildly, and finally disappeared round the hilltop. Harry sighed contentedly and went back to her dishes. Rob would soon come in and tell her what had happened. Absorbed in her work, she quite forgot Rob. Not until some time later, when she had hung up her apron and was putting on her hat with the idea of joining him at his work, did she remember where he had gone.
"Something must have happened!" she exclaimed. "He's been gone almost an hour." She went outside and looked up toward the glen. All was quiet; she could see no sheep or dust. "He's probably gone on over the hills," she decided, "driving them off so far that they cannot come back."
Satisfying herself with that explanation, she went inside and sat down to do some mending. In a few moments her brother came slowly into the tent.
"Rob!" she cried out. "What is it?"
His face looked strange, and he stared at her without answering. She took a quick step forward and drew a terrified breath. His hair was matted with blood; blood oozed from a gash on his forehead; and as she felt him over with trembling hands, she touched a bruise, swollen and dark, at the base of his skull.
"Oh, Bobs! What has happened to you, dear? Oh, he's fainting! Bobs, don't! Oh, what shall I do!"
Rob had turned very white; he swayed dizzily, and then caught himself.
"I'll lie down a while!" he muttered. "Feel pretty mean. That fellow beat me up. Jumped out on me from the bushes before I saw him. I'd run the sheep up the hill—was waiting to see if they'd come back. He knocked me over—kept beating me. Must have fainted."
His words trailed away and his face grew moist with sweat. Stumbling to the bed, he dropped down on it.
Harry had never seen a person faint, and for a moment she hung over Rob, staring at him. The sight of his familiar face, bloodless under the tan, so solemn, quiet, and strange, filled her heart with a passion of remorse. What ought she to do?
The only restorative at hand was cold water. She bathed Rob's forehead, rubbed his hands, and tried to force a drink between his teeth.
Then unexpectedly Rob stirred, opened his eyes, drew a slow breath, and smiled.
"All right, sis," he murmured. "—Just rest a while."
Harry smiled back; then she ran outside the tent and burst into tears.
"I must get a doctor," she murmured, when she got control of herself.
Returning to the tent, she bathed and bandaged her brother's wounds. The cut on his scalp was bleeding steadily, though slowly; the bruise at the base of his skull was swollen and throbbing. He was quite conscious now, but very weak and dizzy from pain; and, although he answered her when she spoke, he evidently wanted to rest and sleep.
"How in the world am I ever to go after a doctor?" she thought desperately. "I can't harness the team or even put a saddle on the pony. If I had only, only learned! I suppose I shall have to walk to Robinson's and get them to go to Soldier for me. It means leaving Rob alone for hours. How can I ever do it?"
Tears blinded her as she stared down at him.
"And it's all my fault!" she groaned. "It would never have happened if I hadn't been so hateful—hadn't made him go, had taken the homestead, hadn't kept 'Thello in the first place!"
She felt very remorseful and penitent. When she had made Rob as comfortable as she could, and had put water close beside him, she set out. The fear that Rob would die haunted her. Sometimes so sharp and heavy was the pain of leaving him there alone, and so dreadful the fear of what she might have to face on her return, that she wavered and looked back.
Only the knowledge that her brother's need of a doctor was greater and more urgent than his need of her drove her on. Through the heat and the dust and the white glare, she hurried, hurried, hurried. As she rounded each butte in succession and saw the empty road curving far ahead round another, she wondered passionately how much farther Robinson's was.
CHAPTER V
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.
CHAPTER VI
It was several days before Rob was able to get about as usual. His head ached when he tried to walk and his muscles were stiff and sore.
On waking the morning after he was hurt, he asked whether Jones had come back again. He seemed a little troubled to learn that he had not yet returned. When the next two days passed without bringing Jones, Rob became plainly disturbed.
"He might at least send me word if anything has gone wrong," he declared.
"Perhaps he's gone after more colts," Harry suggested. "He's sold a good many of those he had here, hasn't he?"
"About half of them; but he wouldn't bring in more—not now, anyhow."
"Why not?"
"Oh, because. He simply wouldn't."
Harry kept silent, for she saw that Rob did not want to say any more about the matter. He seemed so greatly worried over Jones's absence that she restrained her impulse to tell him about Garnett and his sorrel horse.
On the third day Rob got up and announced that he was going to work.
"The first thing you know the cattle will be coming in round here to feed, and if I don't get that extra strand of wire round my fence before they get here, my critters will be up and off with the others."
Harry's heart thumped. "I might as well tell you, Bobs. The cow is gone already."
"Hey?" Rob turned quickly and stared at her. He looked pale and thin now that he was standing. "When did the cow get out?"
"I don't know—exactly. The day you got hurt, I guess."
"She may be in Boise by this time. Did the heifers go, too?"
"No, they are all here."
"Thank goodness! Well, I'll get right out after the other beast. I've heard Dan say a dry cow is a mean critter to keep tabs on. Put me up a lunch, will you, sis, while I'm saddling the pony?"
"Bobs! You aren't going to start out to-day? In this hot sun?"
"The longer I wait the hotter it'll get and the farther I'll have to ride."
"Couldn't you send one of the Robinson boys?"
"And pay him two dollars a day? They couldn't go, anyhow. The whole family is busy irrigating and plowing for fall wheat. Don't worry, sis; that scratch on my scalp looks worse than it feels. I may find the cow right down along the creek."
Rob went up the glen to the pasture to get his saddle horse. He was gone a long time and came back looking much troubled.
"I don't understand it" he said. "The gate is open up there and all the colts are gone. My pony, too."
"Rob—who could have done it? Do you think they were stolen?"
"I don't think so. There's been no horse stealing round here since that gang was rounded up last spring—just when you came, you remember? No, I can't imagine what's happened unless Boykin opened the gate for spite. Do you know when he went out?"
"The day after he attacked you. I heard the sheep crossing the meadow in the morning when I was getting fresh water for you."
"Wait until I find Joyce! If he thinks I'm going to put up with such work he's mistaken. I'll have to ride old Rock. What will Jones say when he finds those colts are gone? And how can we ever round 'em up again?"
"It isn't your fault. Why doesn't he come and take care of his own stock?"
"Something's happened, I suppose. He wouldn't stay off like this for nothing. I ought really to go after the colts instead of the cow."
Rob went down to the corral, and soon Harry saw him riding back, not on Rock, but on the sorrel with the ring-and-arrow brand.
"I'd forgotten we'd left this horse down in the corral," he said, looking much relieved. "Well, now I shan't be gone a week, as I expected to if I rode old Rock."
Harry started to speak and then changed her mind; there could be nothing wrong in Jones's secrets about the horses if Rob did not disapprove of them. Doubtless there were plenty of sorrels with the ring-and-arrow brand, and after keeping this one so long for Jones, there could be no harm in Rob's getting some service from it.
So, instead of telling Rob about Garnett, she said, "That's a pretty good pony, isn't it? About how old is he?"
Rob had just mounted. "About six or seven years, I should think," he said, as he rode off.
He was gone all day, but he found neither the horses nor his cow.
"I'll go out to-morrow," he said at supper, "and stay until I find some of these strays."
"You—you won't come back at night?"
"Probably not. Why?"
"Nothing—much. That is, I only thought you might be able to go to town in a day or two. We need several things."
Harry twisted her fingers together and tried to control her voice. To have Rob stay away—to leave her all alone! She stood silent, looking up at him. She must not let him see that she was afraid, for she had determined never to complain again.
Nevertheless, she waited almost breathlessly for him to answer.
"All right, then," he said, after a moment. "I'll come back to-morrow night, and we'll go to town the day after."
As soon as Rob had ridden off the next morning, Harry began to put the tent in order and to arrange for the journey to town. She prepared a luncheon for the trip, washed a pair of overalls for Rob, got out a clean flannel shirt for him, and sewed a button on his coat. She had by this time learned to regard overalls as "dress-up" garments.
In the afternoon she went out to irrigate the garden. While she was cultivating at one end, a ditch broke at the other and let the water rush down across half the rows. She had hard work repairing the damage, and was so busy that she lost all track of time. In fact, she did not realize that the sun had set until a long-drawn melancholy howl from the butte, answered suddenly by a chorus from the "scab" land, told her that the coyotes were out for the night.
"Probably Bobs went farther than he realized," she decided, when at nine o'clock she sat down alone to eat her supper.
At ten o'clock Rob had not yet come. What could be keeping him? Had the pony stumbled and thrown him? Could he have had a sunstroke? Suppose he had fainted out there alone—without water——
Resolutely Harry turned from such thoughts. He had probably lost his way and would get home very late. She would be foolish to sit up for him.
She undressed very slowly, listening, hoping to hear the sound of the pony's hoofs; but soon she grew too sleepy to listen for them.
When she awoke it was broad daylight; the clock had stopped and Rob had not come. She went to the doorway and looked all round. The same silence, the same blaze of sunlight, the same solitude. Was it really another day? In the unbroken quiet everything seemed at a standstill. She did the chores and worked in the garden; but all the time she listened. And Rob did not come.
The day passed, and another night. She slept fitfully. Several times she thought she heard the beat of hoofs, and trembling with hope, hurried out to look. When the third day passed without bringing Rob, Harry knew that something had happened to him.
She sat beside the table in the evening with her head in her hand. She wished that it were not too late to go over and talk with Mrs. Robinson. She felt the instinct to lay her troubles upon some one else. Then she bethought herself and crushed down the impulse. The Robinsons were all busy with the haying. She had no right to call upon them for help, and moreover, she would be ashamed to do it. She must help herself. She would drive the twenty miles to Soldier, and send some one out to look for her brother.
When her alarm clock rang the next morning she hopped resolutely out into the chilly dawn, dressed, and got her breakfast.
No one who is used to handling horses can understand Harry's feelings as she lifted the heavy set of harness from the peg beside Rock's stall and dragged it over his back. She had watched her brother often as he harnessed the team, and remembered something about the way he had done it; but it was mostly by luck that she got the various straps into their proper places. Her heart beat nervously as she led the horses out of the corral and backed them up before the wagon. Suppose they should run away? But Rock and Rye were a steady team, and stood serenely while Harry fastened the tugs. It was only half-past seven o'clock when she left the ranch, but she felt as if she had already done a day's work.
She drove slowly at first, afraid that something would go wrong with the harness or that the horses would run away; but after the first few miles her spirits rose above her worries, and by the time she reached the Robinsons' ranch she was enjoying every moment of the ride.
As she passed the house Vashti burst from the door and, waving a letter, ran toward her.
"You want me to post this?" Harry asked, as she pulled up the horses.
"Oh, no! It's for you," Vashti said, and thrust the envelope into Harry's hand. "Hank Miller fetched it out from Hailey yestiddy."
"It's from Rob!" exclaimed Harry, and laughed with relief. Then, as her eyes flew down the sheet, her face clouded. The note read:
"'Tain't bad news, is it?" Vashti's voice broke Harry's dismayed silence.
"What? O Vashti, I must go to Hailey this minute. Can one of the boys tend the stock while I'm gone? Thanks ever so much. Which is the shortest way to Hailey? I suppose I must go by way of Soldier?"
"No. Cross the river by the lower bridge and then strike for the pike about Willow Creek." Vashti pointed eastward. "You'd ought to make it before dark if you hustle."
"How far is it? I don't know the road at all."
"You don't! Say! You want to watch for the big pillar butte. It's on the right where the road splits to go over the mountains. And say! Keep to the east whenever you hit a fork. Where are you going?" she added, as Harry turned the team homeward.
"I've got to go back and get a paper Rob wants."
"Say!" Vashti called after her suddenly. "Let me go for you. I can ride over there on Geezer and back while you're gettin' turned round."
Without waiting for an answer the little girl ran to the corral, led out the pony, flung a saddle over his back, shoved the bridle over his ears, and came back to Harry on the run.
"Now, where's your paper?" Vashti asked. "You go on toward the bridge," she continued, when Harry had told her where to find the bill of sale. "I'll come across the scab land and meet you."
With envy and admiration and gratitude in her heart Harry watched the small figure in red calico speed away across the sagebrush.
"If I could only go like that!" she thought with a sigh. "Well, I guess I'm not too old to learn, and if Vashti will teach me, maybe I can teach her something she'd like to know."
She had scarcely five minutes to wait at the bridge before Vashti came up with the precious paper. "You'll have to jack them there plugs up some if you're goin' to make it," the little girl remarked. "Wait. I'll get you a willer."
Slipping off her horse, she went down the bank of the river. In a minute she returned with a long, stout willow wand. "'Tain't so good as a blacksnake, but it'll make 'em step along some."
"Thank you, Vashti. If I do get there, it will be entirely owing to you!" Harry's words made the small girl smile with pleasure.
"It's just as Bobs said," Harry confessed to herself. "They're as kind-hearted and friendly as can be when you once know them, and all the 'education' in the world isn't as valuable out here as what they know."
As she drove along she kept thinking about the Robinsons, and of her own life on the ranch, and of Rob's present trouble. She was so busy with her thoughts that she did not notice the road, which meandered across the prairies without even a tree or a butte for landmark. This end of the prairie had never been laid off in ranches; it was too rough and too much broken by waves of lava that had at one time poured down through the valley. For miles there was no sign of human existence, no fence, no house, no cattle. The girl did not realize that she ought to be observing all the details that, in the desert, take the place of the signposts of civilized regions. She had grown drowsy with the monotony of the ride, but as the time passed, she glanced at the sun. It was getting low, and the pillar butte had not yet come into view. Feeling sure that she would see it after the next turn, she urged the horses to a trot; then suddenly she drew a sharp breath of dismay. The road had dipped into a small meadow sunk among the buttes, and ended. Harry pulled up the team and stared. Before her lay a long wooden platform. Tent pegs still stood in the ground, which was littered with camp leavings and piles of refuse wool. It was a shearing floor. She had taken the wrong road.
She sat still a moment, wondering what she had better do. She had no idea how far past the right turn she had come. The best plan would be to feed and water the horses here and then turn back. She ate her bread and bacon and drank from the canvas bag slung beneath the wagon; she envied 'Thello, who had promptly laid himself down in the shallow stream that oozed from the meadow.
As she drove back, she watched ahead for the place where the road branched, unaware that, on her way into the hills, she had passed not one but two forks of the road.
By degrees the ridges that inclosed the flats drew nearer. Great chimneys of lava, pillars and obelisks of red granite and blocks of iron-stained quartz crowded the road, which curved and swerved amongst them. Sometimes she drove beneath a threatening stone bridge; sometimes the wagon squeezed between tilted stone slabs; sometimes it bumped over a sharp descent of ledges. The rocks ahead took on weird, fantastic shapes that made them look like the ruins of a fire-swept city—long streets of toppling houses, palaces, towers, dungeons—lighted by the flames of the westering sun.
So hideously real was it that Harry found herself listening for the uproar of cries that would have been part of an actual fire. The silence made it more horrible, and in that silence she began to be afraid. She stopped the horses and sat still. She was lost.
She did not know which way to turn; once astray in this labyrinth of rocks, she might never be able to find her way out. The horses, thirsty and tired, stood with drooping heads. 'Thello, who lay at the roadside softly panting, glanced inquiringly up at her.
"Yes," she said, as if answering his question, "I've got to get out of here somehow. It's absurd. I must get out."
Keeping her eyes on the road, she slowly backed the horses. The sun was setting, and on the hard, thin soil that covered the bed rock, wagon tracks were hard to see. Watching the faint trail fixedly, leaning forward and urging the team on, she wound in and out among the rocks, until gradually they became more scattered, and lost their fantastic shapes.
When at last Harry saw the open road, she felt that the worst was behind her; but, nevertheless, she pulled up and looked slowly about. She was not sure in which direction she ought to turn, and she dreaded the thought of going down the cañon alone in the dark. 'Thello pricked up his ears, stared ahead, and growled.
"What is it, boy?" Harry asked eagerly. "Run him out!" But the dog, growling softly, merely continued to listen.
With a sudden sharpening of her senses, Harry peered into the dusk. Perhaps some one who could help her was passing near by. She listened intently, with every nerve alert.
Suddenly she stood up in the wagon and screamed:
"Help! Help! Help!"
A clamor of echoes answered her ringing cries, and 'Thello challenged them furiously. The girl stood silent. As her voice struck back mockingly at her from barren butte and rock, she realized that she was helpless, and lonely, and afraid. Drawing a deep breath, she shut her hands tight. She would not give up to fear! Steadying her voice, she put all her strength into one more call:
"Help!"
"Coming!" A man's voice answered her.
The shout echoed her cry, a rattle of hoofs swept suddenly near, and Harry saw a horseman appear over the ridge. His figure rose and fell in silhouette as he galloped toward her. "It's Garnett!" Harry thought joyfully.
"Hello, what's doing?" he asked, as he pulled up. "Any one hurt? Who is it?"
"It's Harriet Holliday. I'm lost. I got over into those queer rocks and couldn't get out."
Garnett caught the quaver in her laugh. "Lucky I was riding through this way," he said. "That was the city of rocks you were in. How did you get out? Even fellows that know the country have got balled up in there and come pretty near cashing in before they struck the trail again."
Harry shivered. "I just made up my mind I had to get out, and kept my eyes on the wheel tracks until I found the open road again."
"You've got grit and sense, and you did well. Where are you heading for up here alone?"
"Hailey."
"Hailey! This time of night?" He dismounted and tied his horse to the back of the wagon; then he got into the seat beside her, took up the reins, and whistled to the team.
"Oh, will you really drive me?" Harry sighed in relief. Every tired muscle, every trembling nerve relaxed, and she leaned wearily back against the wagon seat.
"I started this morning," she explained. "I took the wrong turn somewhere. But this is the first time I've been out this way, and so it was easy to get lost."
"The first time! And you're alone!"
"Yes, my brother's in Hailey. That's why I'm going. He's in trouble. I don't know just what, but he sent for me to come."
Garnett made no answer, and they were both silent for some moments, while the team jogged on. Harry was wondering whether she ought to tell Garnett that Rob was in jail, when his voice made her start guiltily:
"Your brother been gone long?"
"Long? No; let's see. He started out after the cow—You didn't hear of her, did you?"
"Maybe it was yours some one was telling me about."
"I wonder whether it was ours? Perhaps Rob tried to take it and got into a squabble. And yet that isn't a bit like him."
"Was he afoot?" Garnett asked suddenly.
"Oh, no. On horseback. But it was a strange horse." She stopped.
"One of those you were telling me he was keeping?"
"Yes." In spite of herself her voice became self-conscious.
"Well, maybe some one thought it was his."
"Thought what?"
"Maybe that horse your brother was riding belonged to another fellow, and the other fellow pinched him for stealing it."
"What nonsense!" She laughed faintly.
"It's not nonsense to the fellow that thinks his critter was stolen," he replied.
"Of course not. I don't mean that, I mean the idea that my brother would steal a horse. You don't for a moment think he would, do you?"
"I don't pass judgment on people I don't know right well."
"But you know what sort of people we are. Do you think I would steal?"
"Maybe not."
Harry gasped. "You might as well say yes."
"If I saw you riding one of my horses, say, and I'd lost one, and you couldn't tell me where you'd got it, and wouldn't give it up, perhaps I'd think you stole it. Perhaps I'd run you into the jug until you could tell where you got it."
"And that's what you think has happened to Rob?"
"M-h'm!" he assented.
"What?" Harry's voice rang. She drew herself erect, and in the luminous darkness of the summer night the two in the seat of the jolting wagon stared at each other.
"Tell me," she demanded sharply, "tell me what you know—what you think!" And still staring at him, she waited for his reply.
"I know that your brother was riding my horse. I saw him on it."
CHAPTER VII
For a minute they jogged on in silence. Then, in a voice that was clear with scorn, Harry said:
"So you sent my brother to jail just for riding your miserable old horse!"
But although her voice was cold and hard, there was a note of fatigue and distress in it that Garnett was quick to understand. He flushed hotly, and a wave of sympathy for the girl swept over him. Those few indignant words of hers made him certain that she knew no more who the real horse thief was than he did himself. She was just what she had appeared that first time in the train—a sweet, gay, warm-hearted little girl, amusingly ignorant of everything Western!
"I reckon you think hanging's too good for me," he said. Harry did not answer, and in a moment he went on. "It's like this. My job is up in the reserve—keeping tabs on everything that goes on up there in the timber, where the sheep and cattle men take their herds in summer. You can see I wouldn't keep my job long if I was to believe everything fellows tell me about how honorable and noble-minded they are. I'm deputy sheriff, too—have to be in case of trouble, we're so far from town. I was running down one of those Bascoes when that pony of mine disappeared. I traced it out to the Boise base line,—this road we're on now—when I met a fellow that saw him traveling this way in a string of colts. I was on his trail when I struck your place. You see, I was kind of suspicious about that 'boarding' yarn, and yet I didn't see, honestly, how you could frame up a tale like that yourself."
"Why didn't you come back the next day and ask my brother about your horse?"
"That's what I meant to do; but I got word to go back to the reserve quick. The sheep were coming in, and I didn't have another chance to get down here until the day I met your brother hunting his cow. He had my horse, and I thought the best thing to do was to give him a chance to explain to Judge Raeburn. That's the way of it."
There was a long, strained silence. Garnett had never been so uncomfortable and unhappy in his life. Here he was, showing himself in the worst possible light to the nicest girl he had ever met.
The road, which was cut out of the side of the cliff, was steep and barely wide enough for the team. On one side was the frowning mountain wall, on the other the black abyss. Harry felt the horror of it; but when she looked up into the clear, serene sky she forgot her fear. She felt round her the splendor and immensity of the night and the wilderness, and her annoyances, her troubles and worries, slowly faded away. A delightful sense of rest came upon her. She realized how much she owed to Garnett for coming to her aid as he had done, and she was trying to think of something friendly to say to him, when he spoke.
"I hope you ain't a-cussing me still?" he said with gruff earnestness. "I'm sorry."
"No, indeed," Harry answered quickly. "You couldn't help it. But I wish Rob had never gone in with that fellow Jones—the one he's boarding the horses for. Sometimes I almost hate Jones. He's taken Rob away from me. I meant to have such a good time out here, but one thing after another has gone wrong. Part of it was my fault, I know."
And she told him the whole story of the affair with the sheep herder, how she had insisted upon keeping 'Thello and had refused to file on the homestead, of the herder's attacking Rob, and of the mysterious disappearance of the colts, and Rob's pony, and the cow.
"And if I'd done as Bobs wanted me to, all these troubles would never have happened."
"Oh, now, you mustn't talk that way. Nobody lives that ain't meeting up with something all along the trail. Might be you'll get you a homestead somewhere that you'll like a whole heap better than the one you lost."
"It isn't that. It's because Rob wanted us to have them together. The sheep couldn't have come in then; and now, since Joyce has filed on that place, his sheep will eat out all the grass and ruin the grazing for our cattle. So you see it is all my fault."
"I wouldn't say that, now. I might say it was mine, because I hadn't any business to lose my horse; but I ain't saying it. Things happen, that's all. And it's as likely to turn and happen right for you as it did the other way. We ain't ready to call this job off yet. Looks now as if your brother wasn't a horse thief, after all; and as he ain't, it looks up to me to get him out of the jug."
"I wish, when you have got him out, that you would put that sheep herder in. Running the horses off! As if he hadn't already done enough in beating Rob the way he did! I'd like to show that old Joyce, too, that he can't have all the grass, even if his herder has filed on the homestead next to ours."
"I reckon there wouldn't be much trouble running in the herder. The law's got a plain case against him—assault and trespass; but it's Joyce that ought to get jugged first."
"Joyce!"
"Sure. He's got fifty more homesteads than he has any right to."
"Yes, that's what Dan Brannan told us," Harry said slowly. "But no one can prove anything against him, and you could make his herder have some regard for our rights."
"I'll do that, anyhow. I'll hunt him out as soon as I get back to the range. What sort of a looking fellow is he?"
"Big and heavy-looking, yet rather handsome, in a way. Looks like a spoilt, sulky child.
"Not a Mex?"
"Oh, no. That's what makes it seem so much worse."
"Name Hunter?"
"No, Boykin."
"Boykin? Are you dead certain? There's one of Joyce's herder's that's this fellow's twin brother, if he ain't closer still—the meanest man that ever followed a bunch of woollies—but his name's Hunter. I've got him in the jug right now, too."
"Oh, if it only were Boykin!"
"I'll look him up," Garnett said. He was silent for a moment, and then he exclaimed:
"Say, I want you or your brother to take a look at that fellow Hunter to-morrow! It's got into my head that he and your man Boykin favor each other a whole lot more than they'd ought to."
"I don't see that it makes any difference how much alike they look," Harry said.
Garnett chuckled. "It might make a whole lot of difference to you."
"How?"
He was silent a moment. "If you'll excuse me ma'am, I reckon I'd better not say too much until you've had a peek at Hunter."
Harry did not urge him to explain, and when they began to talk again it was of other things. Harry told Garnett about her life back East, and about her comradeship with Rob in the old days: she told him, too, how disappointed Rob was because she did not like the West as he had hoped she would. She admitted that she had not tried very hard to like it.
As they drove on through the darkness they chatted freely, and exchanged the simple confidences that lay the foundation for a true friendship.
At last they left the cañon and rumbled over the hard, smooth road toward town. Little by little the lights of Hailey grew brighter, and at last the wagon drove under the big blue arc light on the edge of the town. It was Saturday night, and all the stores were open; the streets were crowded with people.
Garnett proposed that they should go first to the hotel and have some supper; but Harry was almost nervously eager to give Rob the paper she had brought to him, and so Garnett acquiesced.
"I reckon I'd better go along," he said. "It's after hours for visitors, but as deputy sheriff I can fix it up. And I'd like to see your brother myself. If he'll give me the straight story of this affair, I reckon I can straighten things out pretty quick."
Harry's heart beat unevenly as she followed Garnett up the steps of the jail and into the office. The dreary room, lighted by the glaring electric light, meant something indescribably mean and shameful to her. Her heart sank as she waited for Garnett to attend to certain necessary formalities. When Pedersen, the big Swede jailer, stared at her in smiling, stupid curiosity, she was thankful for the protection of Garnett's presence.
Garnett let Harry go to her brother's cell alone. As the door clicked, the light flashed up and flooded the narrow, whitewashed room. Rob turned from the window where he had been standing.
"Hello, sis!" he said listlessly. "Just get in?"
"Bobs, dear! You poor thing! Isn't this horrible?" She ran to him, slid her hand through his arm and kissed him.
"You look as if you had been ill!" she exclaimed, looking up at him anxiously.
"I do feel seedy." He passed a hand over his unshaven cheek and glanced down at his rumpled clothes. "Being shut up here without a change of clothes for several days is the limit. Did you bring that bill of sale?"
"Yes, here it is." She handed him the paper. Rob glanced at it, and then put it into his pocket. "If I'd only had that along the other day when that chump pinched me! Smarty! I'd like to have him fined for false arrest—putting me in here!"
"Why, Bobs! He didn't know you were all right. He'd never seen you before. He had to do it; but he's awfully sorry."
"He is? How do you know?"
"He told me so. He drove me over here. If it hadn't been for him, I'd probably be wandering round in the hills or lying at the bottom of that awful cañon on the edge of the road." She went on to tell him about her journey and her talk with Garnett. "He's outside now, Bob," she said, a little timidly, for Rob's face had darkened. "He wants to see you and have you tell him who Jones is and where he got those horses."
"I don't want to see him. And I've nothing to say about Jones."
"But, Bobs, if you don't tell how Jones came to have Garnett's horse, they'll simply hunt up Jones and make him tell. Won't you see Garnett? I've already convinced him that you were only boarding the colts for Jones, and Garnett's really our friend now, only of course he wants to clear this matter up. I wish you'd talk frankly with him, Rob, dear."