"Thank you, Mr. Adams, I only play to amuse myself now."
Lorry fancied there was a note of regret in her last word. He glanced at her. She was gazing wistfully out of the window. It hurt him to see that tinge of hopelessness on her young face.
"This here chicken is fine!" he asserted.
The girl's eyes were turned to him. She smiled and glanced roguishly at her father. Lorry laughed outright.
"What is the joke?" she demanded.
"Nothin'; only my plate is empty, Miss Bronson."
Bronson grabbed up carving-knife and fork. "Great Caesar! I must have been dreaming. I was dreaming. I was recalling a turkey hunt down in Virginia with Colonel Stillwell and his man Plato. Plato was a good caller—but we didn't get a turkey. Now, this is as tender as—as it ought to be. A little more gravy? And as we came home, the colonel, who was of the real mint-julep type, proposed as a joke that Plato see what he could do toward getting some kind of bird for dinner that night. And when Plato lifted the covers, sure enough there was a fine, fat roast chicken. The colonel, who lived in town and did not keep chickens, asked Plato how much he had paid for it. Plato almost dropped the cover. 'Mars' George,' he said with real solicitude in his voice,' is you sick?' And speaking of turkeys—"
"Who was speaking of turkeys?" asked Dorothy.
"Why, I think this chicken is superior to any domestic turkey I ever tasted," concluded Bronson.
"Was you ever in politics?" queried Lorry. And they all laughed heartily.
After dinner Lorry asked for an apron.
Dorothy shook her finger at him. "It's nice of you—but you don't mean it."
"Now, ma wouldn't 'a' said that, miss. She'd 'a' just tied one of her aprons on me and turned me loose on the dishes. I used to help her like that when I was a kid. Ma runs the hotel at Stacey."
"Why, didn't we stop there for dinner?" asked Dorothy.
"Yes, indeed. All right, Adams, I'll wash 'em and you can dry 'em, and
Dorothy can rest."
"It's a right smilin' little apron," commented Lorry as Dorothy handed it to him.
"And you do look funny! My, I didn't know you were so big! I'll have to get a pin."
"I reckon it's the apron looks funny," said Lorry.
"I made it," she said, teasing him.
"Then that's why it is so pretty," said Lorry gravely.
Dorothy decided to change the subject. "I think you should let me wash the dishes, father."
"You cooked the dinner, Peter Pan."
"Then I'll go over and try the piano. May I?"
"If you'll play for us when we come over, Miss Bronson."
Bronson and Lorry sat on the veranda and smoked. Dorothy was playing a sprightly melody. She ceased to play, and presently the sweet old tune "Annie Laurie" came to them. Lorry, with cigarette poised in his fingers, hummed the words to himself. Bronson was watching him curiously. The melody came to an end. Lorry sighed.
"Sounds like that ole piano was just singin' its heart out all by itself," he said. "I wish Bud could hear that."
Almost immediately came the sprightly notes of "Anitra's Dance."
"And that's these here woods—and the water prancin' down the rocks, and a slim kind of a girl dancin' in the sunshine and then runnin' away to hide in the woods again." And Lorry laughed softly at his own conceit.
"Do you know the tune?" queried Bronson.
"Nope. I was just makin' that up."
"That's just Dorothy," said Bronson.
Lorry turned and gazed at him. And without knowing how it came about, Lorry understood that there had been another Dorothy who had played and sung and danced in the sunshine. And that this sprightly, slender girl was a bud of that vanished flower, a bud whose unfolding Bronson watched with such deep solicitude.
Chapter XXII
A Tune for Uncle Bud
Lorry had ridden to Jason, delivered his reports to the office, and received instructions to ride to the southern line of the reservation. He would be out many days. He had brought down a pack-horse, and he returned to camp late that night with provisions and some mail for the Bronsons.
The next day he delayed starting until Dorothy had appeared. Bronson told him frankly that he was sorry to see him go, especially for such a length of time.
"But I'm glad," said Dorothy.
Lorry stared at her. Her face was grave, but there was a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. She laughed.
"Because it will be such fun welcoming you home again."
"Oh, I thought it might be that piano—"
"Now I shan't touch it!" she pouted, making a deliberate face at him.
He laughed. She did such unexpected things, did them so unaffectedly.
Bronson put his arms about her shoulders.
"We're keeping Mr. Adams, Peter Pan. He is anxious to be off. He has been ready for quite a while and I think he has been waiting till you appeared so that he could say good-bye."
"Are you anxious to be off?" she queried.
"Yes, ma'am. It's twenty miles over the ridge to good grass and water."
"Why, twenty miles isn't so far!"
"They's considerable up and down in them twenty miles, Miss Bronson.
Now, it wouldn't be so far for a turkey. He could fly most of the way.
But a horse is different, and I'm packin' a right fair jag of stuff."
"Well, good-bye, ranger man. Good-bye, Gray Leg,—and you two poor horses that have to carry the packs. Don't stay away all winter."
Lorry swung up and started the pack-horses. At the edge of the timber he turned and waved his hat. Dorothy and her father answered with a hearty Good-bye that echoed through the slumbering wood lands.
One of Bronson's horses raised his head and nickered. "Chinook is saying
'Adios,' too. Isn't the air good? And we're right on top of the world.
There is Jason, and there is St. Johns, and 'way over there ought to be
the railroad, but I can't see it."
Bronson smiled down at her.
She reached up and pinched his cheek. "Let's stay here forever, daddy."
"We'll see how my girl is by September. And next year, if you want to come back—"
"Come back! Why, I don't want to go away—ever!"
"But the snow, Peter Pan."
"I forgot that. We'd be frozen in tight, shouldn't we?"
"I'm afraid we should. Shall we look at the mail? Then I'll have to go to work."
"Mr. Adams thinks quite a lot of his horses, doesn't he?" she queried.
"He has to. He depends on them, and they depend on him. He has to take good care of them."
"I shouldn't like it a bit if I thought he took care of them just because he had to."
"Oh, Adams is all right, Peter. I have noticed one or two things about him."
"Well, I have noticed that he has a tremendous appetite," laughed
Dorothy.
"And you're going to have, before we leave here, Peter Pan."
"Then you'd better hurry and get that story written. I want a new saddle and, oh, lots of things!"
Bronson patted her hand as she walked with him to the cabin. He sat down to his typewriter, and she came out with a book.
She glanced up occasionally to watch the ponies grazing on the mesa. She was deeply absorbed in her story when some one called to her. She jumped up, dropping her book.
Bud Shoop was sitting his horse a few paces away, smiling. He had ridden up quietly to surprise her.
"A right lovely mornin', Miss Bronson. I reckon your daddy is busy."
"Here I am," said Bronson, striding out and shaking hands with the supervisor. "Won't you come in?"
"About that lease," said Shoop, dismounting. "If you got time to talk business."
"Most certainly. Dorothy will excuse us."
"Is Adams gone?"
"He left this morning."
"Uh-uh. Here, Bondsman, quit botherin' the young lady."
"He isn't bothering. I know what he wants." And she ran to the kitchen.
Shoop's face grew grave. "I didn't want to scare the little lady,
Bronson, but Lorry's father—Jim Waring—has been shot up bad over to
Criswell. He went in after that Brewster outfit that killed Pat. I
reckon he got 'em—but I ain't heard."
"Adams's father!"
"Yes, Jim Waring. Here comes the little missy. I'll tell you later. Now
Bondsman is sure happy."
And Bud forced a smile as Dorothy gave the dog a pan of something that looked suspiciously like bones and shreds of turkey meat.
A little later Bud found excuse to call Bronson aside to show him a good place to fence-in the corral. Dorothy was playing with Bondsman.
"Jim's been shot up bad. I was goin' to tell you that Annie Adams, over to Stacey, is his wife. She left him when they was livin' down in Mexico. Lorry is their boy. Now, Jim is as straight as a ruler; I don't know just why she left him. But let that rest. I got a telegram from the marshal of Criswell. Reads like Jim was livin', but livin' mighty clost to the edge. Now, if I was to send word to Lorry he'd just nacherally buckle on a gun and go after them Brewster boys, if they's any of 'em left. He might listen to me if I could talk to him. Writin' is no good. And I ain't rigged up to follow him across the ridge. It's bad country over there. I reckon I better leave word with you. If he gets word of the shootin' while he's out there, he'll just up and cut across the hills to Criswell a-smokin'. But if he gets this far back he's like to come through Jason—and I can cool him down, mebby."
"He ought to know; if his father is—"
"That's just it. But I'm thinkin' of the boy. Jim Waring's lived a big chunk of his life. But they ain't no use of the kid gettin' shot up. It figures fifty that I ought to get word to him, and fifty that I ought to keep him out of trouble—"
"I didn't know he was that kind of a chap: that is, that he would go out after those men—"
"He's Jim Waring's boy," said Bud.
"It's too bad. I heard of that other killing."
"Yes. And I've a darned good mind to fly over to Criswell myself. I knowed Pat better than I did Jim. But I can't ride like I used to. But"—and the supervisor sighed heavily—"I reckon I'll go just the same."
"I'll give your message to Adams, Mr. Shoop."
"All right. And tell him I want to see him. How's the little lady these days?"
"She seems to be much stronger, and she is in love with the hills and cañons."
"I'm right glad of that. Kind of wish I was up here myself. Why, already they're houndin' me down there to go into politics. I guess they want to get me out of this job, 'cause I can't hear crooked money jingle. My hands feels sticky ever' time I think of politics. And even if a fella's hands ain't sticky—politics money is. Why, it's like to stick to his feet if he ain't right careful where he walks!"
"I wish you would stay to dinner, Mr. Shoop."
"So I'll set and talk my fool notions—and you with a writin' machine handy? Thanks, but I reckon I'll light a shuck for Jason. See my piano?"
"Yes, indeed. Dorothy was trying it a few nights ago."
"Then she can play. Missy," and he called to Dorothy, who was having an extravagant romp with Bondsman, "could you play a tune for your Uncle Bud?"
"Of course." And she came to them.
They walked to the cabin. Bondsman did not follow. He had had a hard play, and was willing to rest.
Dorothy drew up the piano stool and touched the keys. Bud sank into his big chair. Bronson stood in the doorway. By some happy chance Dorothy played Bud's beloved "Annie Laurie."
When she had finished, Bud blew his nose sonorously. "I know that tune," he said, gazing at Dorothy in a sort of huge wonderment. "But I never knowed all that you made it say."
He rose and shuffled to the doorway, stopping abruptly as he saw Bondsman. Could it be possible that Bondsman had not recognized his own tune? Bud shook his head. There was something wrong somewhere. Bondsman had not offered to come in and accompany the pianist. He must have been asleep. But Bondsman had not been asleep. He rose and padded to Shoop's horse, where he stood, a statue of rugged patience, waiting for Shoop to start back toward home.
"Now, look at that!" exclaimed Bud. "He's tellin' me if I want to get back to Jason in time to catch the stage to-morrow mornin' I got to hustle. That there dog bosses me around somethin' scandalous."
When Shoop had gone, Dorothy turned to her father. "Mr. Shoop didn't ask me to play very much. He seemed in a hurry."
"That's all right, Peter Pan. He liked your playing. But he has a very important matter to attend to."
"He's really just delicious, isn't he?"
"If you like that word, Peter. He is big and sincere and kind."
"Oh, so were some of the saints for that matter," said Dorothy, making a humorous mouth at her father.
Chapter XXIII
Like One Who Sleeps
Bondsman sat in the doorway of the supervisor's office, gazing dejectedly at the store across the street. He knew that his master had gone to St. Johns and would go to Stacey. He had been told all about that, and had followed Shoop to the automobile stage, where it stood, sand-scarred, muddy, and ragged as to tires, in front of the post-office. Bondsman had watched the driver rope the lean mail bags to the running-board, crank up the sturdy old road warrior of the desert, and step in beside the supervisor. There had been no other passengers. And while Shoop had told Bondsman that he would be away some little time, Bondsman would have known it without the telling. His master had worn a coat—a black coat—and a new black Stetson. Moreover, he had donned a white shirt and a narrow hint of a collar with a black "shoe-string" necktie. If Bondsman had lacked any further proof of his master's intention to journey far, the canvas telescope suitcase would have been conclusive evidence.
The dog sat in the doorway of the office, oblivious to the clerk's friendly assurances that his master would return poco tiempo. Bondsman was not deceived by this kindly attempt to soothe his loneliness.
Toward evening the up-stage buzzed into town. Bondsman trotted over to it, watched a rancher and his wife alight, sniffed at them incuriously, and trotted back to the office. That settled it. His master would be away indefinitely.
When the clerk locked up that evening, Bondsman had disappeared.
As Bronson stepped from his cabin the following morning he was startled to see the big Airedale leap from the veranda of Shoop's cabin and bound toward him. Then he understood. The camp had been Bondsman's home. The supervisor had gone to Criswell. Evidently the dog preferred the lonely freedom of the Blue Mesa to the monotonous confines of town.
Bronson called to his daughter. "We have a visitor this morning,
Dorothy."
"Why, it's Bondsman! Where is Mr. Shoop?"
"Most natural question. Mr. Shoop had to leave Jason on business.
Bondsman couldn't go, so he trotted up here to pay us a visit."
"He's hungry. I know it. Come, Bondsman."
From that moment he attached himself to Dorothy, following her about that day and the next and the next. But when night came he invariably trotted over to Shoop's cabin and slept on the veranda. Dorothy wondered why he would not sleep at their camp.
"He's very friendly," she told her father. "He will play and chase sticks and growl, and pretend to bite when I tickle him, but he does it all with a kind of mental reservation. Yesterday, when we were having our regular frolic after breakfast, he stopped suddenly and stood looking out across the mesa, and it was only my pony, just coming from the edge of the woods. Bondsman tries to be polite, but he is really just passing the time while he is waiting for Mr. Shoop."
"You don't feel flattered, perhaps. But don't you admire him all the more for it?"
"I believe I do. Poor Bondsman! It's just like being a social pet, isn't it? Have to appear happy whether you are or not."
Bondsman knew that she proffered sympathy, and he licked her hand lazily, gazing up at her with bright, unreadable eyes.
* * * * *
Bud Shoop wasted no time in Stacey. He puffed into the hotel, indecision behind him and a definite object in view.
"No use talkin'," he said to Mrs. Adams. "We got to go and take care of
Jim. I couldn't get word to Lorry. No tellin' where to locate him just
now. Mebby it's just as well. They's a train west along about midnight.
Now, you get somebody to stay here till we get back—"
"But, Mr. Shoop! I can't leave like this. I haven't a thing ready. Anita can't manage alone."
"Well, if that's all, I admire to say that I'll set right down and run this here hotel myself till you get back. But it ain't right, your travelin' down there alone. We used to be right good friends, Annie. Do you reckon I'd tell you to go see Jim if it wa'n't right? If he ever needed you, it's right now. If he's goin' to get well, your bein' there'll help him a pow'ful sight. And if he ain't, you ought to be there, anyhow."
"I know it, Bud. I wish Lorry was here."
"I don't. I'm mighty glad he's out there where he is. What do you think he'd do if he knowed Jim was shot up?"
"He would go to his father—"
"Uh-uh?"
"And—"
"Go ahead. You wa'n't born yesterday."
"He would listen to me," she concluded weakly.
"Yep. But only while you was talkin'. That boy is your boy all right, but he's got a lot of Jim Waring under his hide. And if you want to keep that there hide from gettin' shot full of holes by a no-account outlaw, you'll just pack up and come along."
Bud wiped his forehead, and puffed. This sort of thing was not exactly in his line.
"Here's the point, Annie," he continued. "If I get there afore Lorry, and you're there, he won't get into trouble. Mebby you could hold him with your hand on the bridle, but he's runnin' loose right where he is. Can't you get some lady in town to run the place?"
"I don't know. I'll see."
Bud heaved a sigh. It was noticeably warmer in Stacey than at Jason.
Bud's reasoning, while rough, had appealed to Mrs. Adams. She felt that she ought to go. She had only needed some such impetus to send her straight to Waring. The town marshal's telegram had stunned her. She knew that her husband had followed the Brewsters, but she had not anticipated the awful result of his quest. In former times he had always come back to her, taking up the routine of their home life quietly. But this time he had not come back. If only he had listened to her! And deep in her heart she felt that old jealousy for the lure which had so often called him from her to ride the grim trails of his profession. But this time he had not come back. She would go to him, and never leave him again.
Anita thought she knew of a woman who would take charge of the hotel during Mrs. Adams's absence. Without waiting for an assurance of this, Bud purchased tickets, sent a letter to his clerk, and spent half an hour in the barber shop.
"Somebody dead?" queried the barber as Bud settled himself in the chair.
"Not that I heard of. Why?"
"Oh, nothing, Mr. Shoop. I seen that you was dressed in black and had on a black tie—"
Later, as Bud surveyed himself in the glass, trying ineffectually to dodge the barber's persistent whisk-broom, he decided that he did look a bit funereal. And when he appeared at the supper table that evening he wore an ambitious four-in-hand tie of red and yellow. There was going to be no funeral or anything that looked like it, if he knew it.
Aboard the midnight train he made Mrs. Adams comfortable in the chair car. It was but a few hours' run to The Junction. He went to the smoker, took off his coat, and lit a cigar. Around him men sprawled in all sorts of awkward attitudes, sleeping or trying to sleep. He had heard nothing further about Waring's fight with the Brewsters. They might still be at large. But he doubted it. If they were—Shoop recalled the friendly shooting contest with High-Chin Bob. If High Chin were riding the country, doubtless he would be headed south. But if he should happen to cross Shoop's trail by accident—Bud shook his head. He would not look for trouble, but if it came his way it would bump into something solid.
Shoop had buckled on his gun before leaving Jason. His position as supervisor made him automatically a deputy sheriff. But had he been nothing more than a citizen homesteader, his aim would have been quite as sincere.
It was nearly daylight when they arrived at The Junction. Shoop accompanied Mrs. Adams to a hotel. After breakfast he went out to get a buck-board and team. Criswell was not on the line of the railroad.
They arrived in Criswell that evening, and were directed to the marshal's house, where Ramon met them.
"How's Jim?" was Shoop's immediate query.
"The Señor Jim is like one who sleeps," said Ramon.
Mrs. Adams grasped Shoop's arm.
"He wakens only when the doctor is come. He has spoken your name, señora."
The marshal's wife, a thin, worried-looking woman, apologized for the untidy condition of her home, the reason for which she wished to make obvious. She was of the type which Shoop designated to himself as "vinegar and salt."
"Reckon I better go in first, Annie?"
"No." And Mrs. Adams opened the door indicated by the other woman.
Shoop caught a glimpse of a white face. The door closed softly. Shoop turned to Ramon.
"Let's go take a smoke, eh?"
Ramon led the way down the street and on out toward the desert. At the edge of town, he paused and pointed across the spaces.
"It was out there, señor. I found him. The others were not found until the morning. I did not know that they were there."
"The others? How many?"
"Three. One will live, but he will never ride again. The others, High of the Chin and his brother, were buried by the marshal. None came to claim them."
"Were you in it?"
"No, señor. It was alone that Señor Jim fought them. He followed them out there alone. I come and I ask where he is gone. I find him that night. I do not know that he is alive."
"What became of his horse?"
"Dex he come back with no one on him. It is then that I tell Dex to find for me the Señor Jim."
"And he trailed back to where Jim went down, eh? Uh-uh! I got a dog myself."
"Will the Señor Jim ride again?" queried Ramon.
"I dunno, boy, I dunno. But if you and me and the doc and the señora—and mebby God—get busy, why, mebby he'll stand a chance. How many times was he hit?"
"Two times they shot him."
"Two, eh? Well, speakin' from experience, they was three mighty fast guns ag'in' him. Say five shots in each gun, which is fifteen. And he had to reload, most-like, for he can empty a gun quicker than you can think. Fifteen to five for a starter, and comin' at him from three ways to once. And he got the whole three of 'em! Do you know what that means, boy? But shucks! I'm forgettin' times has changed. How they been usin' you down here?"
"I am sleep in the hay by Dex."
"Uh-uh. Let that rest. Mebby it's a good thing, anyhow. Got any money?"
"No, señor. I have use all."
"Where d' you eat?"
"I have buy the can and the crackers at the store."
"Can and crackers, eh? Bet you ain't had a square meal for a week. But we'll fix that. Here, go 'long and buy some chuck till I get organized."
"Gracias, señor. But I can pray better when I do not eat so much."
"Good Lord! But, that's some idee! Well, if wishin' and hopin' and such is prayin', I reckon Jim'll pull through. I reckon it's up to the missus now."
"Lorry is not come?"
"Nope. Couldn't get to him. When does the mail go out of this bone-hill?"
"I do not know. To-morrow or perhaps the next day."
"Uh-uh. Well, you get somethin' to eat, and then throw a saddle on Dex and I'll give you a couple of letters to take to The Junction. And, come to think, you might as well keep right on fannin' it for Stacey and home. They can use you over to the ranch. The missus and me'll take care of Señor Jim."
"I take the letter," said Ramon, "but I am come back. I am with the
Señor Jim where he goes."
"Oh, very well, amigo. Might as well give a duck a bar of soap and ask him to take a bath as to tell you to leave Jim. Such is wastin' talk."
Chapter XXIV
The Genial Bud
"And just as soon as he can be moved, his wife aims to take him over to
Stacey."
So Bud told the Marshal of Criswell, who, for want of better accommodations, had his office in the rear of the general store.
The marshal, a gaunt individual with a watery blue eye and a soiled goatee, shook his head. "The law is the law," he stated sententiously.
"And a gun's a gun," said Shoop. "But what evidence you got that Jim
Waring killed Bob Brewster and his brother Tony?"
"All I need, pardner. When I thought Andy Brewster was goin' to pass over, I took his antimortim. But he's livin'. And he is bound over to appear ag'in' Waring. What you say about the killin' over by Stacey ain't got nothin' to do with this here case. I got no orders to hold Andy Brewster, but I'm holdin' him for evidence. And I'm holdin' Waring for premeditated contempt and shootin' to death of said Bob Brewster and his brother Tony. And I got said gun what did it."
"So you pinched Jim's gun, eh? And when he couldn't lift a finger or say a word to stop you. Do you want to know what would happen if you was to try to get a holt of said gun if Jim Waring was on his two feet? Well, Jim Waring would pull said trigger, and Criswell would bury said city marshal."
"The law is the law. This town's payin' me to do my duty, and I'm goin' to do it."
"Speakin' in general, how much do you owe the town so far?"
"Look-a-here! You can't run no whizzer like that on me. I've heard tell of you, Mr. Shoop. No dinky little ole forest ranger can come cantelopin' round here tellin' me my business!"
"Mebby I'm dinky, and mebby, I'm old, but your eyesight wants fixin' if you callin' me little, old hoss. An' I ain't tryin' to tell you your business. I'm tellin' you mine, which is that Jim Waring goes to Stacey just the first minute he can put his foot in a buck-board. And he's goin' peaceful. I got a gun on me that says so."
"The law is the law. I can run you in for packin' concealed weapons, Mr.
Shoop."
"Run me in!" chuckled Shoop. "Nope. You'd spile the door. But let me tell you. A supervisor is a deputy sheriff—and that goes anywhere they's a American flag. I don't see none here, but I reckon Criswell is in America. What's the use of your actin' like a goat just because you got chin whiskers? I'm tellin' you Jim Waring done a good job when he beefed them coyotes."
The marshal's pale-blue eyes blinked at the allusion to the goat. "Now, don't you get pussonel, neighbor. The law is the law, and they ain't no use you talkin'."
Bud's lips tightened. The marshal's reiterated reference to the law was becoming irksome. He would be decidedly impersonal henceforth.
"I seen a pair of walkin' overalls once, hitched to a two-bit shirt with a chewin'-tobacco tag on it. All that held that there fella together was his suspenders. I don't recollec' whether he just had goat whiskers or chewed tobacco, but somebody who had been liquorin' up told him he looked like the Emperor Maximilian. And you know what happened to Maxy."
"That's all right, neighbor. But mebby when I put in my bill for board of said prisoner and feed for his hoss and one Mexican, mebby you'll quit talkin' so much, 'less you got friends where you can borrow money."
"Your bill will be paid. Don't you worry about that. What I want to know is: Does Jim Waring leave town peaceful, or have I got to hang around here till he gets well enough to travel, and then show you? I got somethin' else to do besides set on a cracker barrel and swap lies with my friends."
"You can stay or you can go, but the law is the law—"
"And a goat is a goat. All right, hombre, I'll stay."
"As I was sayin'," continued the marshal, ignoring the deepening color of Shoop's face, "you can stay. You're too durned fat to move around safe, anyhow. You might bust."
Shoop smiled. He had stirred the musty marshal to a show of feeling. The marshal, who had keyed himself up to make the thrust, was disappointed. He made that mistake, common to his kind, of imagining that he could continue that sort of thing with impunity.
"You come prancin' into this town with a strange woman, sayin' that she is the wife of the defendant. Can you tell me how her name is Adams and his'n is Waring?"
"I can!" And with a motion so swift that the marshal had no time to help himself, Bud Shoop seized the other's goatee and yanked him from the cracker barrel. "I got a job for you," said Shoop, grinning until his teeth showed.
And without further argument on his part, he led the marshal through the store and up the street to his own house. The marshal back-paddled and struggled, but he had to follow his chin.
Mrs. Adams answered Bud's knock. Bud jerked the marshal to his knees.
"Apologize to this lady—quick!"
"Why, Mr. Shoop!"
"Yes, it's me, Annie. Talk up, you pizen lizard!"
"But, Bud, you're hurting him!"
"Well, I didn't aim to feed him ice-cream. Talk up, you Gila monster—and talk quick!"
"I apologize," mumbled the marshal.
Bud released him and wiped his hand on his trousers.
"Sticky!" he muttered.
The marshal shook his fist at Bud. "You're under arrest for disturbin' the peace. You're under arrest!"
"What does it mean?" queried Mrs. Adams.
"Nothin' what he ain't swallowed, Annie. Gosh 'mighty, but I wasted a lot of steam on that there walkin' clothes-rack! The blamed horn toad says he's holdin' Jim for shootin' the Brewsters."
"But he can't," said Mrs. Adams. "Wait a minute; I'll be right out. Sit down, Bud. You are tired out and nervous."
Bud sat down heavily. "Gosh! I never come so clost to pullin' a gun in my life. If he was a man, I reckon I'd 'a' done it. What makes me mad is that I let him get me mad."
When Mrs. Adams came out to the porch she had a vest in her hand. Inside the vest was pinned the little, round badge of a United States marshal. Bud seized the vest, and without waiting to listen to her he plodded down the street and marched into the general store, where the town marshal was talking to a group of curious natives.
"Can you read?" said Bud, and without waiting for an answer shoved the little silver badge under the marshal's nose. "The law is the law," said Bud. "And that there vest belongs to Jim Waring."
Bud had regained his genial smile. He was too full of the happy discovery to remain silent.
"Gentlemen," he said, assuming a manner, "did your honorable peace officer here tell you what he said about the wife of the man who is layin' wounded and helpless in his own house? And did your honorable peace officer tell you-all that it is her money that is payin' for the board and doctorin' of Tony Brewster, likewise layin' wounded and helpless in your midst? And did your honorable peace officer tell you that Jim Waring is goin' to leave comfortable and peaceful just as soon as the A'mighty and the doc'll turn him loose? Well, I seen he was talkin' to you, and I figured he might 'a' been tellin' you these things, but I wa'n't sure. Was you-all thinkin' of stoppin' me? Such doin's! Why, when I was a kid I used to ride into towns like this frequent, turn 'em bottom side up, spank 'em, and send 'em bawlin' to their—to their city marshal, and I ain't dead yet. Now, I come peaceful and payin' my way, but if they's any one here got any objections to how I wear my vest or eat my pie, why, he can just oil up his objection, load her, and see that she pulls easy and shoots straight. I ain't no charity organization, but I'm handin' you some first-class life insurance free."
That afternoon Buck Hardy arrived, accompanied by a deputy. Andy Brewster again made deposition that without cause Waring had attacked and killed his brothers. Hardy had a long consultation with Shoop, and later notified Brewster that he was under arrest as an accomplice in the murder of Pat and for aiding the murderer to escape. While circumstantial evidence pointed directly toward the Brewsters, who had threatened openly from time to time to "get" Pat, there was valuable evidence missing in Waco, who, it was almost certain, had been an eye-witness of the tragedy. Waco had been traced to the town of Grant, at which place Hardy and his men had lost the trail. The demolished buckboard had been found by the roadside. Hardy had tracked the automobile to Grant.
Shoop suggested that Waco might have taken a freight out of town. Despite Hardy's argument that Waco had nothing to fear so far as the murder was concerned, Shoop realized that the tramp had been afraid to face the law and had left that part of the country.
Such men were born cowards, irresolute, weak, and treacherous even to their own infrequent moments of indecision. There was no question but that Waring had acted within the law in killing the Brewsters. Bob Brewster had fired at him at sight. But the fact that one of the brothers survived to testify against Waring opened up a question that would have to be answered in court. Shoop offered the opinion that possibly Andy Brewster, the youngest of the brothers, was not directly implicated in the murder, only taking sides with his brother Bob when he learned that he was a fugitive. In such a premise it was not unnatural that his bitterness toward Waring should take the angle that it did. And it would be difficult to prove that Andy Brewster was guilty of more than aiding his brother to escape.
The sheriff and Shoop talked the matter over, with the result that Hardy dispatched a telegram from The Junction to all the Southern cities to keep a sharp watch for Waco.
Next morning Shoop left for Jason with Hardy and his deputy.
Several days later Waring was taken to The Junction by Mrs. Adams and Ramon, where Ramon left them waiting for the east-bound. The Mexican rode the big buckskin. He had instructions to return to the ranch.
Late that evening, Waring was assisted from the train to the hotel at Stacey. He was given Lorry's old room. It would be many weeks before he would be strong enough to walk again.
For the first time in his life Waring relinquished the initiative. His wife planned for the future, and Waring only asserted himself when she took it for granted that the hotel would be his permanent home.
"There's the ranch, Annie," he told her. "I can't give that up."
"And you can't go back there till I let you," she asserted, smiling.
"I'll get Lorry to talk to you about that. I'm thinking of making him an offer of partnership. He may want to set up for himself some day. I married young."
"I'd like to see the girl that's good enough for my Lorry."
Waring smiled. "Or good enough to call you 'mother.'"
"Jim, you're trying to plague me."
"But you will some day. There's always some girl. And Lorry is a pretty live boy. He isn't going to ride a lone trail forever."
Mrs. Adams affected an indifference that she by no means felt.
"You're a lot better to-day, Jim."
"And that's all your fault, Annie."
She left the room, closing the door slowly. In her own room at the end of the hall, she glanced at herself in the glass. A rosy face and dark-brown eyes smiled back at her.
But there were many things to attend to downstairs. She had been away more than a week. And there was evidence of her absence in every room in the place.
Chapter XXV
The Little Fires
With the coming of winter the Blue Mesa reclaimed its primordial solitude. Mount Baldy's smooth, glittering roundness topped a world that swept down in long waves of dark blue frosted with silver; the serried minarets of spruce and pine bulked close and sprinkled with snow. Blanketed in white, the upland mesas lay like great, tideless lakes, silent and desolate from green-edged shore to shore. The shadowy caverns of the timberlands, touched here and there with a ray of sunlight, thrilled to the creeping fingers of the cold. Tough fibers of the stiff-ranked pines parted with a crackling groan, as though unable to bear silently the reiterant stabbing of the frost needles. The frozen gum of the black spruce glowed like frosted topaz. The naked whips of the quaking asp were brittle traceries against the hard blue of the sky.
Below the rounded shoulders of the peaks ran an incessant whispering as thin swirls of powdered snow spun down the wind and sifted through the moving branches below.
The tawny lynx and the mist-gray mountain lion hunted along snow-banked ranger trails. The blue grouse sat stiff and close to the tree-trunk, while gray squirrels with quaintly tufted ears peered curiously at sinuous forms that nosed from side to side of the hidden trail below.
The two cabins of the Blue Mesa, hooded in white, thrust their lean stovepipes skyward through two feet of snow. The corrals were shallow fortifications, banked breast-high. The silence seemed not the silence of slumber, but that of a tense waiting, as though the whole winter world yearned for the warmth of spring.
No creak of saddle or plod of hoof broke the bleak stillness, save when some wandering Apache hunted the wild turkey or the deer, knowing that winter had locked the trails to his ancient heritage; that the white man's law of boundaries was void until the snows were thin upon the highest peaks.
Thirty miles north of this white isolation the low country glowed in a sun that made golden the far buttes and sparkled on the clay-red waters of the Little Colorado. Four thousand feet below the hills cattle drifted across the open lands.
Across the ranges, to the south, the barren sands lay shimmering in a blur of summer heat waves; the winter desert, beautiful in its golden lights and purple, changing shadows. And in that Southern desert, where the old Apache Trail melts into the made roads of ranchland and town, Bronson toiled at his writing. And Dorothy, less slender, more sprightly, growing stronger in the clean, clear air and the sun, dreamed of her "ranger man" and the blue hills of her autumn wonderland. With the warmth of summer around her, the lizards on the rocks, and the chaparral still green, she could hardly realize that the Blue Mesa could be desolate, white, and cold. As yet she had not lived long enough in the desert to love it as she loved the wooded hills, where to her each tree was a companion and each whisper of the wind a song.
She often wondered what Lorry was doing, and whether Bondsman would come to visit her when they returned to their cabin on the mesa. She often recalled, with a kind of happy wonderment, Bondsman's singular visit and how he had left suddenly one morning, heedless of her coaxing. The big Airedale had appeared in Jason the day after Bud Shoop had returned from Criswell. That Bondsman should know, miles from the town, that his master had returned was a mystery to her. She had read of such happenings; her father had written of them. But to know them for the very truth! That was, indeed, the magic, and her mountains were towering citadels of the true Romance.
Long before Bronson ventured to return to his mountain camp, Lorry was riding the hill trails again as spring loosened the upland snows and filled the cañons and arroyos with a red turbulence of waters bearing driftwood and dead leaves. With a companion ranger he mended trail and rode along the telephone lines, searching for sagging wires; made notes of fresh down timber and the effect of the snow-fed torrents on the major trails.
Each day the air grew warmer. Tiny green shoots appeared in the rusty tangle of last season's mesa grasses. Imperceptibly the dull-hued mesas became fresh carpeted with green across which the wind bore a subtly soft fragrance of sun-warmed spruce and pine.
To Lorry the coming of the Bronsons was like the return of old friends. Although he had known them but a short summer season, isolation had brought them all close together. Their reunion was celebrated with an old-fashioned dinner of roast beef and potatoes, hot biscuit and honey, an apple pie that would have made a New England farmer dream of his ancestors, and the inevitable coffee of the high country.
And Dorothy had so much to tell him of the wonderful winter desert; the old Mexican who looked after their horses, and his wife who cooked for them. Of sunshine and sandstorms, the ruins of ancient pueblos in which they discovered fragments of pottery, arrowheads, beads, and trinkets, of the lean, bronzed cowboys of the South, of the cattle and sheep, until in her enthusiasm she forgot that Lorry had always known of these things. And Lorry, gravely attentive, listened without interrupting her until she asked why he was so silent.
"Because I'm right happy, miss, to see you lookin' so spry and pretty.
I'm thinkin' Arizona has been kind of a heaven for you."
"And you?" she queried, laughing.
"Well, it wasn't the heat that would make me call it what it was up here last winter. I rode up once while you was gone. Gray Leg could just make it to the cabin. It wasn't so bad in the timber. But comin' across the mesa the cinchas sure scraped snow."
"Right here on our mesa?"
"Right here, miss. From the edge of the timber over there to this side it was four feet deep on the level."
"And now," she said, gesturing toward the wavering grasses. "But why did you risk it?"
Lorry laughed. He had not considered it a risk. "You remember that book you lent me. Well, I left it in my cabin. There was one piece that kep' botherin' me. I couldn't recollect the last part about those 'Little Fires.' I was plumb worried tryin' to remember them verses. When I got it, I sure learned that piece from the jump to the finish."
"The 'Little Fires'? I'm glad you like it. I do.
"'From East to West they're burning in tower and forge
and home,
And on beyond the outlands, across the ocean foam;
On mountain crest and mesa, on land and sea and height,
The little fires along the trail that twinkle down the night.'
"And about the sheep-herder; do you remember how—
"'The Andalusian herder rolls a smoke and points the way,
As he murmurs, "Caliente," "San Clemente," "Santa Fé,"
Till the very names are music, waking memoried desires,
And we turn and foot it down the trail to find the little fires.
Adventuring! Adventuring! And, oh, the sights to see!
And little fires along the trail that wink at you and me.'"
"That's it! But I couldn't say it like that. But I know some of them little fires."
"We must make one some day. Won't it be fun!"
"It sure is when a fella ain't hustlin' to get grub. That poem sounds better after grub, at night, when the stars are shinin' and the horses grazin' and mebby the pack-horse bell jinglin' 'way off somewhere. Then one of them little fires is sure friendly."
"Have you been reading this winter?"
"Oh, some. Mostly forestry and about the war. Bud was tellin' me to read up on forestry. He's goin' to put me over west—and a bigger job this summer."
"You mean—to stay?"
"About as much as I stay anywhere."
Dorothy pouted. She had thought that the Blue Mesa and the timberlands were more beautiful than ever that spring, but to think that the neighboring cabin would be vacant all summer! No cheery whistling and no wood smoke curling from the chimney and no blithe voice talking to the ponies. No jolly "Good-mornin', miss, and the day is sure startin' out proud to see you." Well, Dorothy had considered Mr. Shoop a friend. She would have a very serious talk with Mr. Shoop when she saw him.
She had read of Waring's fight in the desert and of his slow recovery, and that Waring was Lorry's father; matters that she could not speak of to Lorry, but the knowledge of them lent a kind of romance to her ranger man. At times she studied Lorry, endeavoring to find in him some trace of his father's qualities. She had not met Waring, but she imagined much from what she had heard and read. And could Lorry, who had such kind gray eyes and such a pleasant face, deliberately go out and kill men as his father had done? Why should men kill each other? The world was so beautiful, and there was so much to live for.
Although the trail across the great forest terraces below was open clear up to the Blue Mesa, the trails on the northern side of the range were still impassable. The lookout man would not occupy his lonely cabin on Mount Baldy for several weeks to come, and Lorry's work kept him within a moderate radius of the home camp.
Several times Dorothy and her father rode with Lorry, spending the day searching for new vistas while he mended trail or repaired the telephone line that ran from Mount Baldy to the main office. Frequently they would have their evening meal in Bronson's camp, after which Lorry always asked them to his cabin, where Dorothy would play for them while they smoked contentedly in front of the log fire. To Dorothy it seemed that they had always lived in a cabin on the Blue Mesa and that Lorry had always been their neighbor, whom it was a joy to tease because he never showed impatience, and whose attitude toward her was that of a brother.
And without realizing it, Lorry grew to love the sprightly, slender Dorothy with a wholesome, boyish affection. When she was well, he was happy. When she became over-tired, and was obliged to stay in her room, he was miserable, blaming himself for suggesting some expedition that had been too much for her strength, so often buoyed above its natural level by enthusiasm. At such times he would blame himself roundly. And if there seemed no cause for her depression, he warred silently with the power that stooped to harm so frail a creature. His own physical freedom knew no such check. He could not quite understand sickness, save when it came through some obvious physical injury.
Bronson was glad that there was a Lorry; both as a companion to himself and as a tower of strength to Dorothy. Her depression vanished in the young ranger's presence. It was a case of the thoroughbred endeavoring to live up to the thoroughbred standard. And Bronson considered anything thoroughbred that was true to type. Yet the writer had known men physically inconsequent who possessed a fine strain of courage, loyalty, honor. The shell might be misshapen, malformed, and yet the spirit burn high and clear. And Bronson reasoned that there was a divinity of blood, despite the patents of democracy.
Bronson found that he had to go to Jason for supplies. Dorothy asked to go with him. Bronson hesitated. It was a long ride, although Dorothy had made it upon occasion. She teased prettily. Lorry was away. She wasn't afraid to stay alone, but she would be lonesome. If she kissed him three times, one right on top of the other, would he let her come? Bronson gave in to this argument. They would ride slowly, and stay a day longer in Jason to rest.
When they arrived at Jason, Dorothy immediately went to bed. She wanted to be at her best on the following day. She was going to talk with Mr. Shoop. It was a very serious matter.
And next morning she excused herself while her father bought supplies. She called at the supervisor's office. Bud Shoop beamed. She was so alert, so vivacious, and so charming in her quick slenderness. The genial Bud placed a chair for her with grandiloquent courtesy.
"I'm going to ask a terrible favor," she began, crossing her legs and clasping her knee.
"I'm pow'ful scared," said Bud.
"I don't want favors that way. I want you to like me, and then I will tell you."
"My goodness, missy! Like you! Who said I didn't?"
"No one. But you have ordered Lorry Adams to close up his camp and go over to work right near the Apache Reservation."
"I sure did."
"Well, Mr. Shoop, I don't like Apaches."
"You got comp'ny, missy. But what's that got to do with Lorry?"
"Oh, I suppose he doesn't care. But what do you think his mother would say to you if he—well, if he got scalped?"
A slow grin spread across Bud's broad face. Dorothy looked solemn disapproval. "I can't help it," he said as he shook all over. Two tears welled in the corner of his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. "I can't help it, missy. I ain't laughin' at you. But Lorry gettin' scalped! Why, here you been livin' up here, not five miles from the Apache line, and I ain't heard you tell of bein' scared of Injuns. And you ain't no bigger than a minute at that."
"That's just it! Suppose the Apaches did come over the line? What could we do if Lorry were gone?"
"Well, you might repo't their trespassin' to me. And I reckon your daddy might have somethin' to say to 'em. He's been around some."
"Oh, I suppose so. But there is a lot of work to do in Lorry's district,
I noticed, coming down. The trails are in very bad condition."
"I know it. But he's worth more to the Service doin' bigger work. I got a young college man wished onto me that can mend trails."
"Will he live at Lorry's cabin?"
"No. He'll head in from here. I ain't givin' the use of my cabin and my piano to everybody."
Dorothy's eyes twinkled. "If Lorry were away some one might steal your piano."
"Now, see here, missy; you're joshin' your Uncle Bud. Do you know that you're tryin' to bribe a Gov'ment officer? That means a pow'ful big penalty if I was to repo't to Washington."
Dorothy wrinkled her nose. "I don't care if you do! You'd get what-for, too."
"Well, I'll tell you, missy. Let's ask Bondsman about this here hocus.
Are you willin' to stand by what he says?"
"Oh, that's not fair! He's your dog."
"But he's plumb square in his jedgments, missy. Now, I'll tell you. We'll call him in and say nothin'. Then you ask him if he thinks I ought to put Lorry Adams over west or leave him to my camp this summer. Now, if Bondsman wiggles that stub tail of his, it means, 'yes.' If he don't wiggle his tail, he says, 'no,'—huh?"
"Of course he'll wiggle his tail. He always does when I talk to him."
"Then suppose I do the talkin'?"
"Oh, you can make him do just as you wish. But all right, Mr. Shoop.
And you will really let Bondsman decide?"
"'Tain't accordin' to rules, but seein' it's you—"
Bud called to the big Airedale. Bondsman trotted in, nosed Dorothy's hand, and looked up at his master.
"Come 'ere!" commanded Shoop brusquely. "Stand right there! Now, quit tryin' to guess what's goin' on and listen to the boss. Accordin' to your jedgment, which is plumb solid, do I put Lorry to work over on the line this summer?"
Bondsman cocked his ears, blinked, and a slight quiver began at his shoulders, which would undoubtedly accentuate to the affirmative when it reached his tail.
"Rats!" cried Dorothy.
The Airedale grew rigid, and his spike of a tail cocked up straight and stiff.
Bud Shoop waved his hands helplessly. "I might 'a' knowed it! A lady can always get a man steppin' on his own foot when he tries to walk around a argument with her. You done bribed me and corrupted Bondsman. But I'm stayin' right by what I said."
Dorothy jumped up and took Bud's big hand in her slender ones. "You're just lovely to us!" And her brown eyes glowed softly.
Bud coughed. His shirt-collar seemed tight. He tugged at it, and coughed again.
"Missy," he said, leaning forward and patting her hand,—"missy, I would send Lorry plumb to—to—Phoenix and tell the Service to go find him, just to see them brown eyes of yours lookin' at me like that. But don't you say nothin' about this here committee meetin' to nobody. I reckon you played a trick on me for teasin' you. So you think Lorry is a right smart hombre, eh?"
"Oh," indifferently, "he's rather nice at times. He's company for father."
"Then I reckon you set a whole lot of store by your daddy. Now, I wonder if I was a young, bow-legged cow-puncher with kind of curly hair and lookin' fierce and noble, and they was a gal whose daddy was plumb lonesome for company, and I was to get notice from the boss that I was to vamose the diggin's and go to work,—now, I wonder who'd ride twenty miles of trail to talk up for me?"
"Why, I would!"
"You got everything off of me but my watch," laughed Bud. "I reckon you'll let me keep that?"
"Is it a good watch?" she asked, and her eyes sparkled with a great idea.
"Tol'able. Cost a dollar. I lost my old watch in Criswell. I reckon the city marshal got it when I wa'n't lookin'."
"Well, you may keep it—for a while yet. When are you coming up to visit us?"
"Just as soon as I can, missy. Here's your daddy. I want to talk to him a minute."
Three weeks later, when the wheels of the local stage were beginning to throw a fine dust, instead of mud, as they whirred from St. Johns to Jason, Bud Shoop received a tiny flat package addressed in an unfamiliar hand. He laid it aside until he had read the mail. Then he opened it. In a nest of cotton batting gleamed a plain gold watch. A thin watch, reflecting something aristocratic in its well-proportioned simplicity. As he examined it his genial face expressed a sort of childish wonderment. There was no card to show from where it had come. He opened the back of the case, and read a brief inscription.
"And the little lady would be sendin' this to me! And it's that slim and smooth; nothin' fancy, but a reg'lar thoroughbred, just like her."
He laid the watch carefully on his desk, and sat for a while gazing out of the window. It was the first time in his life that a woman had made him a present. Turning to replace the watch in the box, he saw something glitter in the cotton. He pulled out a layer of batting, and discovered a plain gold chain of strong, serviceable pattern.
That afternoon, as Bud came from luncheon at the hotel, a townsman accosted him in the street. During their chat the townsman commented upon the watch-chain. Bud drew the watch from his pocket and exhibited it proudly.
"Just a little present from a lady friend. And her name is inside the cover, along with mine."
"A lady friend, eh? Now, I thought it was politics mebby?"
"Nope. Strictly pussonel."
"Well, Bud, you want to watch out."
"If you're meanin' that for a joke," retorted Bud, "it's that kind of a joke what's foundered in its front laigs and can't do nothin' but walk around itself. I got the same almanac over to my office."