Cow Country

B >> B. M. Bower >> Cow Country

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To-morrow morning Pop showed that he was taking Bud's advice.
When the crowd began to gather--much earlier than usual, by
the way, and much larger than any crowd Bud had seen in the
valley--Pop was trotting here and there, listening and
pulling his whiskers and eyeing Bud sharply whenever that
young man appeared in his vicinity.

Bud led Smoky up at noon--and Smoky was still lame. Dave
looked at him and at Bud, and grinned. "I guess that forfeit
money's mine," he said in his laconic way. "No use running
that horse. I could beat him afoot."

This was but the beginning. Others began to banter and jeer
Bud, Jeff's crowd taunting him with malicious glee. The
singin' kid was going to have some of the swelling taken out
of his head, they chortled. He had been crazy enough to put
up a forfeit on to-day's race, and now his horse had just
three legs to run on.

"Git out afoot, kid!" Jeff Hall yelled. "If you kin run half
as fast as you kin talk, you'll beat Boise four lengths in
the first quarter!"

Bud retorted in kind, and led Smoky around the corral as if
he hoped that the horse would recover miraculously just to
save his master's pride. The crowd hooted to see how Smoky
hobbled along, barely touching the toe of his lame foot to
the ground. Bud led him back to the manger piled with new
hay, and faced the jeering crowd belligerently. Bud noticed
several of the Muleshoe men in the crowd, no doubt drawn to
Little Lost by the talk of Bud's spectacular winnings for two
Sundays. Hen was there, and Day Masters and Cub. Also there
were strangers who had ridden a long way, judging by their
sweaty horses. In the midst of the talk and laughter Dave led
out Boise freshly curried and brushed and arching his neck
proudly.

"No use, Bud," he said tolerantly. "I guess you're set back
that forfeit money--unless you want to go through the motions
of running a lame horse."

"No, sir, I'm not going to hand over any forfeit money
without making a fight for it!" Bud told him, anger showing
in his voice. "I'm no such piker as that. I won't run Smoky,
lame as he is "--Bud probably nudged his own ribs when he
said that!--"but if you'll make it a mile, I'll catch up my
old buckskin packhorse and run the race with him, by thunder!
He's not the quickest horse in the world, but he sure can run
a long while!"

They yelled and slapped one another on the back, and
otherwise comported themselves as though a great joke had
been told them; never dreaming, poor fools, that a costly
joke was being perpetrated.

"Go it, kid. You run your packhorse, and I'll rive yuh five
to one on him!" a friend of Jeff Hall's yelled derisively.

"I'll just take you up on that, and I'll make it one hundred
dollars," Bud shouted back. "I'd run a turtle for a quarter,
at those odds!"

The crowd was having hysterics when Bud straddled a Little
Lost horse and, loudly declaring that he would bring back
Sunfish, led Smoky limping back to he pasture. He returned
soon, leading the buckskin. The crowd surged closer, gave
Sunfish a glance and whooped again. Bud's face was red with
apparent anger, his eyes snapped. He faced them defiantly,
his hand on Sunfish's thin, straggling mane.

"You're such good sports, you'll surely appreciate my
feelings when I say that this horse is mine, and I'm going to
run him and back him to win!" he cried. "I may be a darn
fool, but I'm no piker. I know what this horse can do when I
try to catch him up on a frosty morning--and I'm going to see
if he can't go just as fast and just as long when I'm on him
as he can when I'm after him."

"We'll go yuh, kid! I'll bet yuh five to one," a man
shouted. "You name the amount yourself."

"Fifty," said Bud, and the man nodded and jotted down the
amount.

"Bud, you're a damn fool. I'll bet you a hundred and make it
ten to one," drawled Dave, stroking Boise's face
affectionately while he looked superciliously at Sunfish
standing half asleep in the clamor, with his head sagging at
the end of his long, ewe neck. "But if you'll take my advice,
go turn that fool horse back in the pasture and run the bay
if you must run something."

"The bay's a rope horse. I don't want to spoil him by running
him. That little horse saved my life, down in the Sinks. No,
Sunfish has run times enough from me--now he 's got to run
for me, by thunder. I'll bet on him, too!"

Jeff pushed his way through to Bud. He was smiling with that
crafty look in his eyes which should have warned a child that
the smile went no deeper than his lips.

"Bud, doggone it, I like yore nerve. Besides, you owe me
something for the way you trimmed me last Sunday. I'll just
give you fifteen to one, and you put up Skeeter at seventy-
five, and as much money as yo're a mind to. A pile of it come
out of my pocket, so-"

"Well, don't holler your head off, Jeff. How's two hundred?"

"Suits me, kid." He winked at the others, who knew how sure a
thing he had to back his wager. "It 'll be a lot of money if
I should lose--" He turned suddenly to Dave. "How much was
that you put up agin the kid, Dave?"

"One hundred dollars, and a ten-to-one shot I win," Dave
drawled. "That ought to satisfy yuh it ain't a frame-up. The
kid's crazy, that's all."

"Oh! Am I?" Bud turned hotly."Well, I've bet half of all the
money I have in the world. And I'm game for the other half--"
He stopped abruptly, cast one look at Sunfish and another at
Boise, stepping about uneasily, his shiny coat rippling,
beautiful. He turned and combed Sunfish's scanty mane with
his gloved fingers. Those nearest saw that his lips were
trembling a little and mistook his hidden emotion for anger.

"You got him going," a man whispered in Jeff's ear."The kid's
crazy mad. He'll bet the shirt off his back if yuh egg him on
a little more."

Jeff must have decided to "egg" Bud on. By the time the crowd
had reached the course, and the first, more commonplace races
were over, the other half of his money was in the hands of
the stake-holder, who happened on this day to be Jerry. And
the odds varied from four to one up to Jeff Hall's scornful
fifteen.

"Bet yuh five hundred dollars against your bay horse,"Lew
offered when Bud confessed that he had not another dollar to
bet.--

"All right, it's a go with me," Bud answered recklessly.
"Get his hundred, Jerry, and put down Stopper."

"What's that saddle worth?" another asked meaningly.

"One hundred dollars," snapped Bud. "And if you want to go
further, there are my chaps and spurs and this silver-mounted
bridle-and my boots and hat-and I'll throw in Sunfish for
whatever you say his hide's worth. Who wants the outfit?"

"I'll take 'em," said Jeff, and permitted Jerry and Dave to
appraise the outfit, which Bud piled contemptuously in a
heap.

He mounted Sunfish bareback with a rope halter. Bud was
bareheaded and in his sock feet. His eyes were terribly blue
and bright, and his face was flushed as a drunken man's. He
glanced over to the bank where the women and children were
watching. It seemed to him that one woman fluttered her
handkerchief, and his heart beat unevenly for a minute.

Then he was riding at a walk down the course to the farthest
post, and the crowd was laughing at the contrast between the
two horses. Boise stepped springily, tossing his head, his
eyes ablaze with ardor for the race. Beside him Sunfish
walked steadily as if he were carrying a pack. He was not a
pretty horse to look at. His neck was long and thin, his mane
and tail scanty and uneven, a nondescript sorrel. His head
looked large, set on the end of that neck, his nose was
dished in and his eyes had a certain veiled look, as if he
were hiding a bad disposition under those droopy lids.
Without a saddle he betrayed his high, thin withers, the sway
in his back, his high hip bones. His front legs were flat,
with long, stringy-looking muscles under his unkempt buckskin
hide. Even the women laughed at Sunfish.

Beside them two men rode, the starter and another to see that
the start was fair. So they receded down the flat, yellow
course and dwindled to mere miniature figures against the
sand, so that one could not tell one horse from another.

The crowd bunched, still laughing at how the singin' kid was
going to feel when he rode again to meet them. It would cure
him of racing, they said. It would be a good lesson; serve
him right for coming in there and thinking, because he had
cleaned up once or twice, that he could not be beaten.

"Here they come," Jeff Hall announced satisfiedly, and spat
into the sand as a tiny blue puff of smoke showed beside one
of the dots, and two other dots began to grow perceptibly
larger within a yellow cloud which rolled along the earth.

Men reined this way and that, or stood on their toes if they
were afoot, the better to see the two rolling dots. In a
moment one dot seemed larger than the other. One could
glimpse the upflinging of knees as two horses leaped closer
and closer.

"Well-l-he's keepin' Dave in sight--that's more than what I
expected he'd do," Jeff observed.

It was Pop who suddenly gave a whoop that cracked and
shrilled into falsetto.

"Shucks a'mighty! Dave, he's a-whippin' up to keep the KID in
sight!" he quavered. "Shucks--a'MIGHTY, he 's a-comin'!"

He was. Lying forward flattened along Sunfish's hard-muscled
shoulders, Bud was gaining and gaining--one length, then two
lengths as he shot under the wire, slowed and rode back to
find a silent crowd watching him.

He was clothed safely again in chaps, boots, spurs, hat--
except that I have named the articles backward; cowpuncher
that he was, Bud put on his hat before he even reached for
his boots--and was collecting his wagers relentlessly as
Shylock ever took his toll, before he paid any attention to
the atmosphere around him. Then, because someone shouted a
question three inches from his ear, Bud turned and laughed as
he faced them.

"Why, sure he's from running stock! I never said he wasn't--
because none of you make-believe horsemen had sense enough to
see the speed in him and get curious. You bush-racers never
saw a real race-horse before, I guess. They aren't always
pretty to look at, you know. Sunfish has all the earmarks of
speed if you know how to look for them. He's thoroughbred;
sired by Trump, out of Kansas Chippy--if that means anything
to you fellows." He looked them over, eyes meeting eyes until
his glance rested on Jeff Hall."I've got his registration
papers in my grip, if you aren't convinced. And," he added by
way of rubbing it in, "I guess I've got about all the money
there is in this valley."

"No, you ain't!" Pop Truman cackled, teetering backward and
forward while he counted his winnings. "I bet on ye, young
feller. Brought me in something, too. It did so!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: WHILE THE GOING'S GOOD

At supper Bud noticed that Marian, standing at his right
side, set down his cup of coffee with her right hand, and at
the same instant he felt her left hand fumble in his pocket
and then touch his elbow. She went on, and Bud in his haste
to get outside drank his coffee so hot that it scalded his
mouth. Jerry rose up and stepped backward over the bench as
Bud passed him, and went out at his heels.

"Go play the piano for half an hour and then meet me where
you got them mushrooms. And when you quit playing, duck
quick. Tell Honey you'll be back in a minute. Have her hunt
for music for yuh while you're out--or something like that.
Don't let on."

Bud might have questioned Jerry, but that cautious young man
was already turning back to call something--to Dave, so Bud
went around the corner, glancing into the pantry window as he
passed. Marian was not in sight, nor was Honey at the moment
when he stood beside the step of the post-office.

Boldness carries its own talisman against danger. Bud went
in--without slamming the door behind him, you may be sure--
and drew his small notebook from his inside pocket. With that
to consult frequently, he sat down by the window where the
failing light was strongest, and proceeded to jot down
imaginary figures on the paper he pulled from his coat pocket
and unfolded as if it were of no value whatever to him. The
piano playing ordered by Jerry could wait.

What Marian had to say on this occasion could not be written
upon a cigarette paper. In effect her note was a preface to
Jerry's commands. Bud saw where she had written words and
erased them so thoroughly that the cheap paper was almost
worn through. She had been afraid, poor lady, but her fear
could not prevent the writing.

"You must leave to-night for Crater and cash the checks given
you to pay the bets. Go to Crater. If you don't know the way,
keep due north after you have crossed Gold Gap. There's the
stage road, but they'll watch that, I'm afraid. They mean to
stop payment on the checks. But first they will kill you if
they can. They say you cheated with that thoroughbred horse.
They took their losses so calmly--I knew that they meant to
rob you. To show you how I know, it was Lew you shot on the
ridge that night. His rheumatism was caused by your bullet
that nicked his shoulder. So you see what sort we are--go.
Don't wait--go now."

Bud looked up, and there was Honey leaning over the counter,
smiling at him.

"Well, how much is it?" she teased when she saw he had
discovered her.

Bud drew a line across the note and added imaginary columns
of figures, his hat-brim hiding his face.

"Over eleven thousand dollars," he announced, and twisted the
paper in his fingers while he went over to her. "Almost
enough to start housekeeping!"

Honey blushed and leaned to look for something which she
pretended to have dropped and Bud seized the opportunity to
tuck the paper out of sight. "I feel pretty much intoxicated
to-night, Honey," he said. "I think I need soothing, or
something--and you know what music does to the savage breast.
Let 's play."

"All right. You've been staying away lately till I thought
you were mad," Honey assented rather eagerly, and opened the
little gate in the half partition just as Bud was vaulting
the counter, which gave her a great laugh and a chance for
playful scuffling. Bud kissed her and immediately regretted
the caress.

Jerry had told him to play the piano, but Bud took his
mandolin and played that while Honey thumped out chords for
him. As he had half expected, most of the men strayed in and
perched here and there listening just as if there had not
been a most unusual horserace to discuss before they slept.
Indeed, Bud had never seen the Little Lost boys so
thoughtful, and this silence struck him all at once as
something sinister, like a beast of prey stalking its kill.

Two waltzes he played--and then, in the middle of a favorite
two-step, a mandolin string snapped with a sharp twang, and
Bud came as close to swearing as a well-behaved young man may
come in the presence of a lady.

"Now I'll have to go get a new E string," he complained. "You
play the Danube for the boys--the way I taught you--while I
get this fixed. I've an extra string down in the bunk-house;
it won't take five minutes to get it." He laid the mandolin
down on his chair, bolted out through the screen door which
he slammed after him to let Jerry know that he was coming,
and walked halfway to the bunk-house before he veered off
around the corner of the machine shed and ran.

Jerry was waiting by the old shed, and without a word he led
Bud behind it where Sunfish was standing saddled and bridled.

"You got to go, Bud, while the going's good. "I'd go with yuh
if I dared," Jerry mumbled guardedly. "You hit for Crater,
Bud, and put that money in the bank. You can cut into the
stage road where it crosses Oldman Creek, if you go straight
up the race track to the far end, and follow the trail from
there. You can't miss it--there ain't but one way to go. I
got yuh this horse because he's worth more'n what the other
two are, and he's faster. And Bud, if anybody rides up on
yuh, shoot. Don't monkey around about it. And you RIDE!"

"All right," Bud muttered. "But I'll have to go down in the
pasture and get my money, first. I've got my own private bank
down there, and I haven't enough in my pockets to play penny
ante more than one round."

"Hell!" Jerry's hand lifted to Bud's shoulder and gripped it
for a minute. "That's right on the road to the Sinks, man!"
He stood biting his lips, thinking deeply, turning his head
now and then as little sounds came from the house: the waltz
Honey was playing, the post-office door slamming shut.

"You tell me where that money's cached, Bud, and I'll go
after it. I guess you'll have to trust me--I sure wouldn't
let yuh go down to the pasture yourself right now. Where is
it?"

"Look under that flat rock right by the gate post, where the
top bars hit the ground. "It's wrapped up in a handkerchief,
so just bring the package. "It's been easy to tuck things
under the rock when I was putting up the bars. I'll wait
here."

"Good enough--I'd sure have felt easier if I'd known you
wasn't carrying all that money." Whereupon Jerry disappeared,
and his going made no sound.

Bud stood beside Sunfish, wondering if he had been a fool to
trust Jerry. By his own admission Jerry was living without
the law, and this might easily be a smooth scheme of robbery.
He turned and strained his eyes into the dusk, listening,
trying to hear some sound that would show which way Jerry had
gone. He was on the point of following him--suspicion getting
the better of his faith--when Sunfish moved his head abruptly
to one side, bumping Bud's head with his cheek. At the same
instant a hand touched Bud's arm.

"I saw you from the kitchen window," Marian whispered
tensely. "I was afraid you hadn't read my note, or perhaps
wouldn't pay any attention to it. I heard you and Jerry--of
course he won't dare go with you and show you the short-cut,
even if he knows it. There's a quicker way than up the creek-
bed. I have Boise out in the bushes, and a saddle. I was
afraid to wait at the barn long enough to saddle him. You
go--he's behind that great pile of rocks, back of the
corrals. I'll wait for Jerry." She gave him a push, and Bud
was so astonished that he made no reply whatever, but did
exactly as she had told him to do.

Boise was standing behind the peaked outcropping of rock, and
beside him was a stock-saddle which must have taxed Marian's
strength to carry. Indeed, Bud thought she must have had
wings, to do so much in so short a space of time; though when
he came to estimate that time he decided that he must have
been away from the house ten minutes, at least. If Marian
followed him closely enough to see him duck behind the
machine shed and meet Jerry, she could run behind the corral
and get Boise out by way of the back door of the stable.
There was a path, screened from the corral by a fringe of
brush, which went that way. The truth flashed upon him that
one could ride unseen all around Little Lost.

He was just dropping the stirrup down from the saddle horn
when Marian appeared with Jerry and Sunfish close behind her.
Jerry held out the package.

"She says she'll show you a short cut," he whispered. "She
says I don't know anything about it. I guess she's right--
there's a lot I don't know. Lew 's gone, and she says she'll
be back before daylight. If they miss Boise they'll think you
stole him. But they won't look. Dave wouldn't slam around in
the night on Boise--he thinks too much of him. Well--beat it,
and I sure wish yuh luck. You be careful, Marian. Come back
this way, and if you see a man's handkerchief hanging on this
bush right here where I'm standing, it'll mean you've been
missed."

"Thank you, Jerry," Marian whispered."I'll look for it. Come,
Bud--keep close behind me, and don't make any noise."

Bud would have protested, but Marian did not give him a
chance. She took up the reins, grasped the saddle horn, stuck
her slipper toe in the stirrup and mounted Boise as quickly
as Bud could have done it--as easily, too, making allowance
for the difference in their height. Bud mounted Sunfish and
followed her down the trail which led to the race track; but
when they had gone through the brush and could see starlight
beyond, she turned sharply to the left, let Boise pick his
way carefully over a rocky stretch and plunged into the brush
again, leaning low in the saddle so that the higher branches
would not claw at her hair and face.

When they had once more come into open ground with a shoulder
of Catrock Peak before them, Marian pulled up long enough to
untie her apron and bind it over her hair like a peasant
woman. She glanced back at Bud, and although darkness hid the
expression on her face, he saw her eyes shining in the
starlight. She raised her hand and beckoned, and Bud reined
Sunfish close alongside.

"We're going into a spooky place now," she leaned toward him
to whisper. "Boise knows the way, and your horse will
follow."

"All right," Bud whispered back. "But you'd better tell me
the way and let me go on alone. I'm pretty good at scouting
out new trails. I don't want you to get in trouble--"

She would not listen to more of that, but pushed him back
with the flat of her bare hand and rode ahead of him again.
Straight at the sheer bluff, that lifted its huge, rocky
shape before them, she led the way. So far as Bud could see
she was not following any trail; but was aiming at a certain
point and was sure enough of the ground to avoid detours.

They came out upon the bank of the dry river-bed. Bud knew it
by the flatness of the foreground and the general contour of
the mountains beyond. But immediately they turned at a sharp
angle, travelled for a few minutes with the river-bed at
their backs, and entered a narrow slit in the mountains where
two peaks had been rent asunder in some titanic upheaval when
the world was young. The horses scrambled along the rocky
bottom for a little way, then Boise disappeared.

Sunfish halted, threw his head this way and that, gave a
suspicious sniff and turned carefully around the corner of a
square-faced boulder. In front was blackness. Bud urged him a
little with rein and soft pressure of the spurs, and Sunfish
stepped forward. He seemed reassured to find firm, smooth
sand under his feet, and hurried a little until Boise was
just ahead clicking his feet now and then against a rock.

"Coming?" Marian's voice sounded subdued, muffled by the
close walls of the tunnel-like crevice.

"Coming," Bud assured her quietly "At your heels."

"I always used to feel spooky when I was riding through
here," Marian said, dropping back so that they rode side by
side, stirrups touching. "I was ten when I first made the
trip. It was to get away from Indians. They wouldn't come
into these places. Eddie and I found the way through. We were
afraid they were after us, and so we kept going, and our
horses brought us out. Eddie--is my brother."

"You grew up here?" Bud did not know how much incredulity was
in his voice. "I was raised amongst the Indians in Wyoming. I
thought you were from the East."

"I was in Chicago for three years," Marian explained. "I
studied every waking minute, I think. I wanted to be a
singer. Then--I came home to help bury mother. Father--Lew
and father were partners, and I--married Lew. I didn't know--
it seemed as though I must. Father put it that way. The old
story, Bud. I used to laugh at it in novels, but it does
happen. Lew had a hold over father and Eddie, and he wanted
me. I married him, but it did no good, for father was killed
just a little more than a month afterwards. We had a ranch,
up here in the Redwater Valley, about halfway to Crater. But
it went--Lew gambled and drank and--so he took me to Little
Lost. I've been there for two years."

The words of pity--and more--that crowded forward for
utterance, Bud knew he must not speak. So he said nothing at
all.

"Lew has always held Eddie over my head," she went on pouring
out her troubles to him. "There's a gang, called the Catrock
Gang, and Lew is one of them. I told you Lew is the man you
shot. I think Dave Truman is in with them--at any rate he
shuts his eyes to whatever goes on, and gets part of the
stealings, I feel sure. That's why Lew is such a favorite.
You see, Eddie is one--I'm trusting you with my life, almost,
when I tell you this.

"But I couldn't stand by and not lift a hand to save you. I
knew they would kill you. They'd have to, because I felt that
you would fight and never give up. And you are too fine a man
for those beasts to murder for the money you have. I knew,
the minute I saw Jeff paying you his losings with a check,
and some of the others doing the same, just what would
happen. Jeff is almost as bad as the Catrockers, except that
he is too cowardly to come out into the open. He gave you a
check; and everyone who was there knew he would hurry up to
Crater and stop payment on it, if he could do it and keep out
of your sight. Those cronies of his would do the same--so
they paid with checks.

"And the Catrock gang knew that. They mean to get hold of
you, rob and-and-kill you, and forge the endorsement on the
checks and let one man cash them in Crater before payment can
be stopped. Indeed, the gang will see to it that Jeff stays
away from Crater. Lew hinted that while they were about it
they might as well clean out the bank. It wouldn't be the
first time," she added bitterly.

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