“W’y, shucks!” he grumbled. “I bummed around in town there for two weeks, hatin’ myself and makin’ faces at a passel of ornery sheepmen, and what do I git for my trouble? ‘Dear Mister Creede, your letter of umpty-ump received. We have detailed Detective Moriarty on this case and will report later. Yours truly!’ That’s all––keep the change––we make a livin’ off of suckers––and they’s one born every minute. To hell with these detectives! Well, I never received nothin’ more and finally I jumped at a poor little bandy-legged sheep-herder, a cross between a gorilla and a Digger Injun––scared him to death. But I pulled my freight quick before we had any international complications. Don’t mention Mr. Allan Q. Rinkerton to me, boy, or I’ll throw a fit. Say,” he said, changing the subject abruptly, “how many hundred thousand sheep d’ye think I saw, comin’ up from Bender? Well, sir, they was sheep as far as the eye could see––millions of ’em––and 437 they’ve got that plain et down to the original sand and cactus, already. W’y, boy, if we let them sheepmen in on us this Spring we’ll look like a watermelon patch after a nigger picnic; we’ll be cleaned like Pablo Moreno; they won’t be pickin’s for a billy goat! And Jim ’n’ Jasp have been ribbin’ their herders on scandalous. This little bandy-legged son-of-a-goat that I jumped at down in Bender actually had the nerve to say that I killed Juan Alvarez myself. Think of that, will ye, and me twenty miles away at the time! But I reckon if you took Jasp to pieces you’d find out he was mad over them three thousand wethers––value six dollars per––that I stompeded. The dastard! D’ye see how he keeps away from me? Well, I’m goin’ to call the rodéo right away and work that whole upper range, and when the river goes down you’ll find Jeff Creede right there with the goods if Jasp is lookin’ for trouble. Read them letters, boy, and tell me if I’m goin’ to have the old judge on my hands, too.”
According to the letters, he was; and the boss was also looking forward with pleasure to her visit in the Spring.
“Well, wouldn’t that jar you,” commented Creede, and then he laughed slyly. “Cheer up,” he said, “it might be worse––they’s nothin’ said about Kitty Bonnair.”
Sure enough––not a word about Kitty, and the year before Lucy had spoken about her in every letter! There was something mysterious about it, and sinister; they both felt it.
And when at last the wagon came in, bearing only Judge Ware and Lucy, somehow even Jeff’s sore heart was touched by a sense of loss. But while others might dissemble, Bill Lightfoot’s impulsive nature made no concealment of its chiefest thought.
“Where’s Miss Bunnair?” he demanded, as soon as Lucy Ware was free, and there was a sudden lull in the conversation roundabout as the cowboys listened for the answer.
“I’m sorry,” said Miss Ware, politely evasive, “but she wasn’t able to come with me.”
“She’ll be down bimeby, though, won’t she?” persisted Lightfoot; and when Lucy finally answered with a vague “Perhaps” he turned to the assembled cowboys with a triumphant grin. “Um, now, what’d I tell you!” he said; and one and all they scowled and stabbed him with their eyes.
The rodéo camp was already established beneath the big mesquite, and while three or four careless cowmen held the day herd over against the mesa the rest of the outfit was busy raking The Rolls. It was all very different from what Judge Ware and Lucy had anticipated. There was no sign of excitement in their 439 midst, no ostentatious display of arms or posting of patrols, and what surprised the judge most of all was that in their friendly gatherings around the fire there was no one, save Hardy, who would argue against the sheep.