“N-not f-for worlds,” he said, “but d-d-dear—” Through all her pain she heard that soft term of endearment, “He’s left the lariat. Couldn’t stop to get it. Come, we’ll get it. It may furnish a clue.”
Back at the gate, they untied the knotted lariat and Cheerio recoiled it and attached it to his own saddle.
“We’ll keep this as a memento. Maybe there’s a man at O Bar O short a lariat.”
“No man at O Bar O would do a coyote’s trick like that,” said Hilda, faintly.
She had recovered somewhat of her composure, though she still felt the near influence of the man walking beside her, leading his horse with one hand, and holding her arm with the other. Her own mount had gone free and would not be recovered till the morning. She would not follow his suggestion to mount his horse.
And so they came down over the hill together. Just before they passed into the ranch yard, Cheerio controlled his fluttering tongue and stammered something that he had been trying to say to her all of the way down the hill.
“Hilda, I’m a f-f-f-fortunate d-dog. I’m jolly glad I w-w-went out to look for you to-night.”
“Were you looking for me, then? Why?”
“C-can’t explain it. S-something m-made me go. I had to f-find you, Hilda.”
Now they were at the steps of the ranch house. Hilda went up one step, paused, went up another and stopped, unable to go further. Cheerio leaned up and tried to see her face in the semi-light that was now silvering the land from the broad moon above. What he saw in Hilda’s face brought the word bursting to his lips: