BUD TAKES A TRAIL OF HIS OWN
Have you ever watched a herd of horses come streaming down a hill at the end of a hard day's travel? There's a thrill in it such as comes when soldiers are marching by. First a drifting haze which is the dust kicked up by the traveling herd; then the faint, muffled sound of hoof beats; the heads of the point riders seen dimly through the cloud, and after them the upflung heads of the leaders.
As the freshly branded horses sighted the delectable green of the Basin, smelled the river rushing out of the encircling wall of rugged hills, they came streaming down through the pass in sudden forgetfulness of the weary miles behind them. At the foot of the hill riders spurred out from the veil of dust, swinging closed loops and shouting, forcing the eager band close to the bluff and away from the alluring green of the meadows. Tired muscles tensed again. Heads went up, dusty nostrils belled and quivered with the mingled scents of the valley. The leg-weary colts, dusty, lagging behind and then making sudden, shrill uproar when they missed their mothers, were sought with frantic whinnyings by the mares. Once found, they were torn from eager nuzzlings by the light thwacks of rope ends and the insistent, "Hi! Hi-yee!" from the hoarse throats of the tired riders; the cry that all day long without ceasing had dogged the laggards on the trail.
Even Maw left her endless pottering around the house and waddled down to the corral where Lark was already propping open the big gate, when Skookum came running with his body slanted perilously forward while he yelled that the horses were coming. Marge went back for her notebook and pencil, because you never know when cowboys are going to say something odd or picturesque, or a killing may take place—as she confided to her brother in passing.
(As a matter of fact, Marge was beginning to complain at the paucity of dramatic happenings on the ranch where she had confidently expected to find adventure galore. For however much the boys might boldly proclaim their gallant intentions, Marge saw them mostly at a distance and found them hopelessly shy when brought face to face with her. Young Bud talked with her gravely and misleadingly upon occasion, wherefore she called Bud bashful and slow—when in reality Bud was anything else, and was mostly preoccupied with other matters. So the coming of the new horses loomed before her as an event that promised something in the way of Western color and, possibly, drama.)
With a last flurry of hard riding and hoarse shouts, the leaders swung away from the tempting meadows and inside the wing fence that slanted down from the corrals to the road, the precipitous bluff forming the other barrier. The herd galloped in mass formation to the very gate before they realized that here they faced another one of those hated periods of captivity. They swerved toward the bluff, hurtled back along it and met the implacable Meadowlark riders; milled briefly and thundered again down the throat of the wings toward the corral. With a flick of heels, a last surge of upflung dust, they dodged inside. The big gate slammed shut behind them and the chain was pulled around the great post that looked as though rats had gnawed it just there—the hook rattled into a heavy link and that particular horse deal was completed. The horses were safe at home and milling inside the corral just as they had circled round and round within the Frying Pan enclosure that morning.
Six tired cowboys rode over to the open space beside the shed where saddles were kept, and with a backward swing of saddle-stiffened legs over the cantles they thankfully dismounted. A hot, windy ride—and the wind in their backs most of the way. Their throats were parched and raw from the dust and shouting.
"Me, I'm goin' to put sideboards on my chin, to-morra, and plug up my ears. That way I can hold more beer." This from Tony, who wished his world to know how dry he was.
"Yeah—if we git to go," Jack Rosen qualified pessimistically. "Lark may not let us off."
"Say, he'll let me off, if he has to fire me!" Bob Leverett threatened with a surface vehemence not meant to be taken too seriously.
"I'll see that you boys get a couple of days off, all right." Bud had ridden up and swung from the saddle, his face a gritty gray mask from riding point in the thick of the dust. "I'll fix it up with Lark this evening. Now's a good time to find out just what all this talk amounts to, and where it started. Of course, we think we know, but by the time you boys put a little gold into circulation, we ought to be dead sure we know. All I ask is that you boys keep your ears open and let me know what you pick up."
"Nice bunch of horses, Bud." Lark walked over from the corral and stood among them. "I s'pose you boys are framin' a trip in to the Ford, about to-morra. Better not say anything to Lightfoot about goin'. He's just fool enough to be game for anything that comes up, but he can't ride with you bunch of hellions yet. I'd hate to tell him he can't go, so if you'll leave without hollerin' it all over the ranch it'll suit me just as well. I'll be over to the bunk house after a while; you can draw what money you want then."
"Now, ain't that hell?" cried Tony after an eloquent pause. "Here we been gittin' ready to appoint a committee to approach the throne—aw, shucks. Lark, yo're a good boss, in some ways, but you'd keep men on the payroll longer if you was kind to 'em!"
Since no man ever left the Meadowlark of his own free will, even the weariest puncher laughed at that, Lark with the others; but his eyes held a shadow as he walked toward the house with Bud.
"What do you think of my two blacks? Aren't they peaches?" For the first time Bud's tone betrayed the fact that the black bronchos were not absorbing his full thought, but were being used to make conversation.
Lark grunted. They walked farther before he spoke.
"Horses are all right, I guess. Say, Bud, did you meet a feller ridin' a chunky little bay with the Acorn brand on its hip? He rode in here yesterday and stopped all night. Snoopy kinda cuss. Claimed to be a stock buyer, but he didn't show me no credentials, nor talk like he wanted to buy anything in p'ticular. Ast questions of everybody but me, seems like—mostly things that wasn't none of his business. He left right after dinner and said he was ridin' over Landusky way and would mebbe meet you boys somewheres on the trail. He didn't, hunh?"
"Never saw him at all, Lark. I don't see how we could have missed him, either, if he kept to the trail. How did you grade him, Lark? A detective?"
"Had the earmarks, son. Sicked onto us by some of them damn' granny-gossips in town, I take it. You goin' in with the boys to-morra?"
"No-o—well, I thought I'd take a ride around and see what sign I can pick up; on the quiet, Lark. I want to take Jelly with me, and I don't want the boys to know anything about it. They'll proceed to tarry with the wine cup, the first thing they do, and what they don't know they can't let slip when their tongues loosen a bit. I hope they stir things up and keep the town interested enough so Jelly and I won't be missed."
"Purty late to pick up anything on the range, Bud. Seven days now, it's been. That alleged stock buyer said they ain't got the first clew yet. He might of lied, though. Prob'ly did. You goin' to take a look around Palmer's place?"
"I thought we would, if we get the chance. I want to let the boys ride in ahead of us. I want to use them for a decoy. I believe Palmer and his men will follow them in if they see a bunch of Meadowlark boys go riding into town. They'll want to see what's taking place, and guilty or innocent, I believe their mental reactions will send them after the boys."
"Mebbe." Lark lifted his hat while he pawed at his hair. "I never went into fizzyology much, so I can't say what reactions will do to a feller. If you say they'll act that way, I ain't goin' to contradict. But what's the rule fer perventin' a killin' if our boys run into Palmer whilst they're lit up? I got a nice bunch of boys, now, and I don't want to see 'em killed off ner sent to the pen."
"Oh, you work that out by the rule of subtraction," Bud grinned. "Have the boys leave their guns with the bartender when they take their first drink."
"Hunh? No, sir, I won't ast the boys to do what I wouldn't do m'self. I'd ruther leave my pants with the bartender! You musta got that idee in school. What's the use of havin' a gun, if you got to hand it over to some slick-haired bar-wiper just when it looks like you may want it? I'd go in myself, but"—he paused to glance over his shoulder—"I'm goin' to fix up the Nest again. My old dad would raise up in his grave if he knowed how things has been let run down that way. The Lookout needs some work on it too.
"You go on and carry out what's in yore mind, son. I'll buy in later on, if it's necessary. But you kin make this yore fight, for the present, and if things look like they're comin' to a head, you kin send one of the boys back after me. I'll be workin' here, puttin' things in shape fer a show-down. Once these things start, they's no tellin' where they'll wind up. Callin' us a hard outfit to monkey with is one thing—that's somethin' to be proud of. But when it comes to sayin' we killed a man so as to rob the bank where we do our business—my Jonah, but that's damn' hard to swaller!"
"We aren't going to swallow it," Bud declared, promptly. "Where's Maw? I'm about half starved!"
Maw was coming, taking short, quick steps and waving the mosquitoes off with her apron. Behind her, Marge was walking with many short halts while she wrote something in her notebook, while whooping along in the rear came Skookum, driving Lightfoot and flailing him with a tall weed to keep him at a high gallop. Bud's eyes lingered on the bent head of Marge, and he loitered, waiting for her. Then, his glance going to the boy, his face hardened again with the purpose that filled his mind.
It was after he had eaten and Marge was waiting in the living room, hoping Bud would come in and talk to her after the deadly monotony of the past two days, that Bud artfully drew Skookum off by himself and turned the conversation very casually to Butch Cassidy. He wanted to know what it was that Butch had been talking about; but Skookum, unfortunately, had promised not to tell.
"Well, that's all right, pardner. If you promised, don't go back on your word; unless," he added, "it was something mean. In that case, of course, I ought to know."
"It wasn't mean," said Skookum, after a pause for reflection. "If you asked questions like Butch did, I'd tell you more'n I told Butch. I—I didn't tell him any more than—than I had to. I—wouldn't hold out on you that way, Bud. You're my—my pal."
Bud could have hugged the boy. There was a chance, then, that Butch had not learned much more than they all had heard in the bunk house. He did not see just what use Butch could make of the information gleaned in this manner, but he knew what he himself wanted to do. So Bud began to ask questions, and Skookum answered them as carefully and as completely as possible.
When he went to bed that night, Bud kept smiling in the dark until he fell asleep, and even then his lips were curved as if his dreams were pleasant. Skookum smiled also and dreamed of the pinto pony Bud had given him for his very own; a pony that was too small for a full-grown man; a pony with white eyelashes, one blue eye, a doglike devotion to any one who would pet him, and the unusual name of Huckleberry.
The satisfaction of Bud and Skookum must have continued through the night, for both were up and out in the cool, dewy dawn when all the birds were ruffling feathers and puffing throats in rhapsodical melody.
Sooner than would seem humanly possible, Skookum went wading through dew-drenched meadows that straightway wet his feet, a frayed rope end dragging from the coil hung over his arm and in his two hands a battered basin holding oats enough to founder the pinto pony—or so Jake would have told him.
The pinto proved a willing partner to the new alliance, and let Skookum climb on his back and ride to the stable, obeying the guidance of a hand-slap on the neck, just as Bud had said he would. Picture any ranch-bred boy of eight or nine in full possession of a new and gentle pony, and you will have Skookum fully accounted for: riding reckless circles around and between Maw's flower beds to show her how Huckleberry neckreined; sending terror to the heart of a certain mother hen when he galloped full tilt and scattered her brood; roping gate posts, calves, old Jake, Lark—anything upon which a loop could settle. That was Skookum for the next few days.
As for young Bud, he was up and had a rope on one of the blacks before Skookum had so much as glimpsed the pinto pony. There was a certain shady corral with running water and a pole rack for hay, called the bronch corral, where he meant to leave them until his return, but already he was bent on making friends with them. He heard the boys making hectic preparations for the trip to town, and thought they must certainly be faring forth to carry out plans carefully laid in many conferences; whereas no man save Bud had any plan at all. They meant to ride to Smoky Ford and put a stop to the slander against the Meadowlark—how, they did not know.
"Funny Lark wouldn't do something about it," Jake Biddle grumbled, when the boys were saddling after breakfast. "Ain't like the old days—not a damn' bit. Old Bill would 'a' rode into town with a gun in each hand and a booie knife in his teeth, hollerin' his opinion of sech damn' liars. The fellers that started it—"
"I shore wisht he'd of lived to show us how to cuss and hold a knife in our teeth at one and the same time," fleered Tony. "You old broken-down riders makes me tired. Think us boys is kids?"
"Yeah. Where'd you git the idee we're goin' to run home bawlin' fer Lark to come show us what t' do to them bad men that's sayin' mean things about us?" Bob Leverett turned a shade redder. "Mebbe we ain't got the knack of carryin' a knife in our teeth whilst we cuss, but I betcha we can holler our opinions jest about as loud as old Bill ever done. And as fer wavin' a gun in both hands—why, me, I can look scarey enough with one gun to put Smoky Ford on the run. Come on, boys. We're keepin' Jake from settin' in the kitchen weepin' fer the days that is gone."
"Say, ain't Jelly goin' to town?" As they swung to the saddles Tony missed the tall rider. "Hey, Jelly!"
"You boys go awn," Gelle called from the far corral where he was killing time with Bud until the others were gone. "Bud and me'll be along after a while, mebbe. If we don't overtake you, you boys ride awn in and make yoreselves to home."
"Foolin' with them black bronchs," Rosen made indulgent comment. "Let 'em throw away good minutes if they ain't got better sense. Come on, let's be movin'."
They moved to such good purpose that presently a slow-settling dust cloud alone remained to tell of their haste.