“Somethin’ happened,” observed Hank Peters, “and if the boss says it was a steer on the prod, I sure reckon it was. But the thing that’s troublin’ me most is what started them critters off. I didn’t see or hear a blamed thing likely to set ’em goin’. Did any of you?”
“I didn’t,” Texas Bill spoke up; “but Andy was there first. Did you see what it was, Andy?”
Andy Miller, the new hand, stopped to draw several deep whiffs from his newly lighted pipe before he replied. “No; I couldn’t make out anything, and I was right at the edge of ’em, too. They jumped and started all at once, as crazy as I ever see a bunch of critters.”
“Mebbe you skeered ’em some, they not bein’ used to you,” suggested Billy Kid.
Andy grinned. “Well, I sure ain’t boastin’ none about the beauty of my phiz, but no gal ain’t told me yet that I was ugly enough to stampede a herd of cow-brutes,” and the subject was dropped with the laugh that followed.
Conrad’s mare, larger and of better breed than the cow ponies, put the ground rapidly under her feet throughout the early morning. Though never trained for range work and used only for riding, he always took her on the round-up, in readiness for emergencies. His habit of talking to himself, engendered by much solitary riding, was often varied by one-sided conversations with the mare, and whatever the subject which occupied his thoughts and found fragmentary utterance in speech, his sentences were interspersed with frequent remarks to Brown Betty. Apparently she found this custom as companionable as he did, for she was sure to protest at a long period of silence.
“So, ho, my pretty Brown B.,” said Conrad gently, as he patted the mare’s sleek neck, “that’s the pace to give ’em!” A sharp twinge in his shoulder set his lips together, and an oath, having Congressman Baxter as its objective, came from between his teeth. “I’ll write that damned Baxter a letter,” he broke out savagely, “that will singe his eyelashes when he reads it!”
His thoughts went back to the subject which so frequently occupied them—his lifelong, vengeful quest of the man who had despoiled his father, wrought destruction upon their home, and changed the current of his own life. His heart waxed hot as he recalled his interview with Rutherford Jenkins. Never for an instant had he doubted that Jenkins’s statement was a deliberate lie. Smiling grimly, he stroked the mare’s mane. “I was a fool, wasn’t I, Betty, to suppose I’d get straight goods out of him. It cost me five hundred dollars to find out that he’s a skunk,—which I knew before. I deserved all I got, didn’t I, Betty, for not having more gumption.”
The frontiersman’s caution, which grows almost instinctive in one who rides much alone over plain and mountain, sent his eyes now and again to search the long stretch of road that trailed its faint gray band across the hills behind and before him and to scan the sun-flooded reach from horizon to horizon. A red stain accentuated the meeting line of sky and plain in the west.
“Betty Brown, do you see that red mark yonder?” he said, gently pulling her ear. “That means a sand-storm, and we’ve got to hike along at a pretty stiff pace while we can. What do you think about it, my lady?” The mare raised her head and gave a little snort. “Smell it, don’t you?” he went on as he patted her approvingly. “Well, that’s where you’re smarter than I am, for I reckon I shan’t be able to do that for another hour.”