“Did the dresses have anything to do with it?” he asked himself, standing there in the darkness. “New dresses might have—puttin’ foolish notions in her head. But I reckon the man—” He laughed grimly. He had thought it all over before, back there on the path when he had been talking to Masten and Hagar. He reflected again on it now. “Lookin’ it square in the face, it’s human nature. We’ll allow that. We’ll say a man has feelin’s. But a man ought to have sense, too—or he ain’t a man. If Masten was a boy, now, not realizin’, there’d be excuses. But he’s wised up.... If his intentions had been honorable—but he’s engaged to Ruth, an’ they couldn’t. I reckon he’ll pull his freight now. Catherson would sure muss him up some.”
He mounted his pony and rode toward the Flying W ranchhouse. Halfway there he passed Masten. The moon had risen; by its light he could see the Easterner, who had halted his horse and was standing beside it, watching him. Randerson paid no heed to him.
“Thinkin’ it over, I reckon,” he decided, as he rode on. Looking back, when he reached the house, he saw that Masten was still standing beside his horse.
At the sound of hoof beats, Uncle Jepson came out on the porch and peered at the rider. Randerson could see Aunt Martha close behind him. Uncle Jepson was excited. He started off the porch toward Randerson.
“It’s Randerson, mother!” he called shrilly back to Aunt Martha, who was now on the porch.
In a brief time Randerson learned that Ruth had gone riding—alone—about noon, and had not returned. Randerson also discovered that the girl had questioned a puncher who had ridden in—asking him about Chavis’ shack and the basin. Randerson’s face, red from the blows that had landed on it, paled quickly.
“I reckon she’s takin’ her time about comin’ in,” he said. “Mebbe her cayuse has broke a leg—or somethin’.” He grinned at Uncle Jepson. “I expect there ain’t nothin’ to worry about. I’ll go look for her.”
He climbed slowly into the saddle, and with a wave of the hand to the elderly couple rode his pony down past the bunkhouse at a pace that was little faster than a walk. He urged Patches to slightly greater speed as he skirted the corral fence, but once out on the plains he loosened the reins, spoke sharply to the pony and began to ride in earnest.
Patches responded nobly to the grim note in his master’s voice. With stretching neck and flying hoofs he swooped with long, smooth undulations that sent him, looking like a splotched streak, splitting the night. He ran at his own will, his rider tall and loose in the saddle, speaking no further word, but thinking thoughts that narrowed his eyes, made them glint with steely hardness whenever the moonlight struck them, and caused his lips to part, showing the clenched teeth between them, and shoved his chin forward with the queer set that marks the fighting man.
For he did not believe that Ruth’s pony had broken a leg. She had gone to see Chavis’ shack, and Chavis—