The crest of the watershed separating the flow between the Salt Fork and the Cimarron was also the dividing line between Crowfoot’s range and the leases of the Half Diamond H. Carver crossed over this low divide and angled toward Turkey Creek to intersect its course at a point near Crowfoot’s place. Here the majority of the range stock wore the straggling brand intended to represent a bird’s claw, the badge of Crowfoot’s ownership.
Carver viewed the ranch buildings from the shoulder of a hill, noting particularly the corral which was fashioned as a solid stockade some ten feet high. Crowfoot had entered into a beef contract with the railroad and his slaughtering was conducted within this small enclosure. Carver entertained positive convictions as to the purpose of this arrangement but in common with others of his kind he made a religion of remaining strictly incurious regarding the calling or customs of acquaintances except in so far as they might affect his own immediate affairs.
He turned his horse up the Turkey Creek bottoms and followed that stream for a dozen miles, then angled away to the right toward the Half Diamond H range. When well up the gentle slope he rode out on to the rim of a pocket. The scattering trees in the bottoms indicated the presence of water. A spring branch probably headed in the pocket and drained back toward Turkey Creek, he reflected. He pulled up his horse as a woman’s voice floated up to him. Somewhere down below him a girl was singing, and Carver headed his horse down the slope toward the sound.
A sod house nestled under the hill beside the trickling spring-creek. The singing ceased abruptly and a girl appeared in the door of the sod house at the sound of his horse’s hoofs in the yard.
For the second time Carver saw her framed in a doorway and he was conscious of a sudden pleased conviction that she should always choose a similar setting. The drab surroundings served only as a background to hold her vivid youth and charm in more startling relief. Carver recollected that he had mauled one brother in no gentle fashion and was held accountable for another’s day of transgressions; in consequence he feared a cool reception from the sister. Instead, her face lighted with sudden recognition.
“Oh, it’s you!” she greeted. “Bart will be coming home any time now and he’d be so sorry if he missed you. Won’t you step down off your horse and wait?”
She sat on the doorsill and motioned Carver to a seat on a bench against the cabin. He removed his hat and tilted back against the sod wall as she explained that Bart was even now overdue. As they talked it was quite evident that all her thoughts centered round the younger brother. Carver found the tones of her voice as pleasant to his ear as the sight of her was pleasing to his eyes, and he was content to listen, hoping meanwhile that Bart would never come.
He knew this for a Crowfoot line camp, recently installed, which accounted for the fact that he had not chanced across it the year before. The Lassiters, therefore, must ride for Crowfoot, he decided.
“Bart and I only came down last week,” she said. “We’ve been living in your little house in Caldwell. Did you know?”
“I gave him the key and told him the place was his,” Carver said. “But I’d have straightened it up a bit if I’d known he was going to install you there.”