Fred hesitated a moment, full of trouble. “No,” he said decidedly, “I’ll find that heifer first. You can help or not, just as you please. It’s all your fault.” He struck off in the direction the heifer had taken.
“All my fault, eh!” bawled Dick after him; “well, you’ll hunt your own cows for that cut, kid”; and giving a whoop, he struck for camp, leaving Fred to wrestle with his trouble alone.
The boy beat about the savage brush till darkness forced him to quit; then he turned to rally the rest of his scattered herd. Luck served him better here, for they had gathered themselves after their chasing and were slowly trailing across the flat toward home. A ray of hope came that he might find the missing heifer among them; but the hope was vain. He was up early next morning, expectant to see that she had wandered back. She was not there. He planned to spend the day searching; but Cap Hanks ordered the herd to the pasture that morning, and set Fred helping get the roundup outfit into shape.
“I’d like to hunt up a heifer that was missing last night,” Fred suggested rather nervously.
“Heifer missin’—hell you say! You oughter watched ’em closer. Never mind, let ’er go. You help Pat sling things together; the boys’ll pick the straggler up.”
Fred was prompted right then to make a clean breast of the business, but the echo of these words flashed over him: “Don’t be a cow-baby, don’t beller.” He held down his impulse and turned to his new work.
Dick knew that he had played a mean trick. His conscience stung him a little as he dashed away, leaving Fred to hunt in the darkness, but his foolish pride kept his manliness from asserting itself. He would not turn back.
In happy-go-lucky fashion Dick drifted along in the easier currents of life, trusting to luck to bring things out for him.
“Let ’er go; she’ll turn up all right,” was expressive of his attitude toward life. The thought of harm coming to the poor beast might have crossed his mind; but if it did, he did not care. And as to further trouble for himself,—“Oh, well, even if the kid does beller,” he thought, “I’ll get out of it all right. The rope ain’t mine.”
But he had no need to fear. Fred was fully determined not to tell on him.