The Range Boss

by Charles Alden Seltzer

“I feel quite sure that Mr. Vickers said to turn to the right after passing the middle, Willard,” came the girl’s voice.

“I certainly ought to be able to remember that, Ruth!” said the driver, gruffly. “I heard him distinctly!”

“Well,” returned the girl with a nervous little laugh, “perhaps I was mistaken, after all.” She placed a hand lightly on the driver’s arm. And the words she spoke then were not audible to the rider, so softly were they uttered. And the driver laughed with satisfaction. “You’ve said it!” he declared. “I’m certainly able to pilot this ship to safety!” He pulled on the reins and spoke sharply to the blacks. They responded with a jerk that threw the occupants of the buckboard against the backs of the seats.

The rider’s eyes gleamed. “Hush!” he said, addressing no one in particular. “Calamity’s goin’ to claim another victim!” He raised one hand to his lips, making a funnel of it. He was about to shout at the driver, but thought better of the idea and let the hand drop. “Shucks,” he said, “I reckon there ain’t any real danger. But I expect the boss gasser of the outfit will be gettin’ his’n pretty quick now.” He leaned forward and watched the buckboard, his lean under jaw thrown forward, a grim smile on his lips. He noted with satisfaction that the elderly couple in the rear seat, and the girl in the front one, were holding on tightly, and that the driver, busy with the reins, was swaying from one side to the other as the wagon bumped over the impeding stones of the river bed.

The blacks reached the middle of the stream safely and were crowding of their own accord to the right, when the driver threw his weight on the left rein and swung them sharply in that direction. For a few feet they traveled evenly enough but when they were still some distance from the bank, the horse on the left sank quickly to his shoulders, lunged, stood on his hind legs and pawed the air impotently, and then settled back, snorting and trembling.

Too late the driver saw his error. As the left horse sank he threw his weight on the right rein as though to remedy the accident. This movement threw him off his balance, and he slipped off the seat, clawing and scrambling; at the instant the front of the buckboard dipped and sank, disappearing with a splash into the muddy water. It had gone down awry, the girl’s side high out of the water, the girl herself clinging to the edge of the seat, out of the water’s reach, the elderly couple in the rear also safe and dry, but plainly frightened.

The girl did not scream; the rider on the mesa noted this with satisfaction. She was talking, though, to the driver, who at first had disappeared, only to reappear an instant later, blowing and cursing, his head and shoulders out of the water, his ridiculous hat floating serenely down stream, the reins still in his hands.

“I reckon he’s discovered that Vickers told him to swing to the right,” grinned the rider from his elevation. He watched the driver until he gained the bank and stood there, dripping, gesticulating, impotent rage consuming him. The buckboard could not be moved without endangering the comfort of the remaining occupants, and without assistance they must inevitably stay where they were. And so the rider on the mesa wheeled his pony and sent it toward the edge of the mesa where a gentle slope swept downward to the plains.

“I reckon I’ve sure got to rescue her,” he said, grinning with some embarrassment, “though I’m mighty sorry that Willard had to get his new clothes wet.”

He spoke coaxingly to the pony; it stepped gingerly over the edge of the mesa and began the descent, sending stones and sand helter-skelter before it, the rider sitting tall and loose in the saddle, the reins hanging, he trusting entirely to the pony’s wisdom.