“I declare I’d forgotten them! I should get a scolding for sure if I didn’t get some for her pie. But I can soon fill the pail.”
“With me to help,” said Fred; “let’s go to the patch across the creek where they’re thick.”
In a few moments they were among the currant brush, chatting merrily as they worked away. The pail was soon filled with golden-brown currants. Fred placed the lid on securely and helped Alta mount her pony.
“Oh, thank you ever so much,” she said, as she turned to ride away.
“It is fun to help you,” he responded; “come again.”
“Four o’clock next Saturday; I’ll remember,” she called back.
Another pair of eager ears caught her parting words, too. Dick, returning from a fruitless quest after the work horses that morning, had come upon the two unawares. Seeing that they had not noticed him, he slipped back into the grove, where for the last few moments he had sat on his horse, eyes and ears alive to catch what was going on. But nothing significant came till he heard this good-by sentence.
It made him furiously jealous, but he held down his feelings until Alta had disappeared; then, breaking from the brush, he rode up to Fred with his usual bravado and said sneeringly,
“Hello, cow-baby! Tendin’ to business well to-day?”
With this cutting remark, he struck spurs to his horse and dashed away over the flat, leaving Fred too astonished to reply. He hurried to gather up his scattered herd, and found one of his fattest heifers missing. All the afternoon he searched for her, but night came and the animal was still gone. The boy was sorely worried.