Cow Country

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

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"Winners may be losers.
Empty pockets, safe owner."

And that was all. Bud sifted tobacco into the paper, rolled
it into a cigarette and smoked it to so short a stub that he
burnt his lips. Then he dropped it beside his foot and ground
it into the sand while he talked.

He would run Smoky no more that day, he declared, but next
Sunday he would give them all a chance to settle their minds
and win back their losings, providing his horse's ankle
didn't go bad again with to-day's running. Pop, Dave, Jeff
and a few other wise ones examined the weak ankle and
disagreed over the exact cause and nature of the weakness. It
seemed all right. Smoky did not flinch from rubbing, though
he did lift his foot away from strange hands. They questioned
Bud, who could offer no positive information on the subject,
except that once he and Smoky had rolled down a bluff
together, and Smoky had been lame for a while afterwards.

It did not occur to anyone to ask Bud which leg had been
lamed, and Bud did not volunteer the detail. An old sprain,
they finally decided, and Bud replaced his saddle, got his
chaps and coat from Jerry, who was smiling over an extra
twenty-five dollars, and rode over to give the girls their
winnings.

He stayed for several minutes talking with them and hoping
for a chance to thank Marian for her friendly warning. But
there was none, and he rode away dissatisfied and wondering
uneasily if Marian thought he was really as friendly with
Honey as that young lady made him appear to be.

He was one of the first to ride back to the ranch, and he
turned Smoky in the pasture and caught up Stopper to ride
with Honey, who said she was going for a ride when the races
were over, and that if he liked to go along she would show
him the Sinks. Bud had professed an eagerness to see the
Sinks which he did not feel until Marian had turned her head
toward Honey and said in her quiet voice:

"Why the Sinks? You know that isn't safe country to ride in,
Honey."

"That's why I want to ride there," Honey retorted flippantly.
"I hate safe places and safe things."

Marian had glanced at Bud--and it was that glance which he
was remembering now with a puzzled sense that, like the note,
it had meant something definite, something vital to his own
welfare if he could only find the key. First it was Hen, then
Jerry, and now Marian, all warning him vaguely of danger into
which he might stumble if he were not careful.

Bud was no fool, but on the other hand he was not one to
stampede easily. He had that steadfast courage, perhaps,
which could face danger and still maintain his natural calm--
just as his mother had corrected grammatical slips in the
very sentences which told her of an impending outbreak of
Indians long ago Bud saddled Stopper and the horse which
Honey was to ride, led them to the house and went inside to
wait until the girl was ready. While he waited he played--and
hoped that Marian, hearing, would know that he played for
her; and that she would come and explain the cryptic message.
Whether Marian heard and appreciated the music or not, she
failed to appear and let him know. It seemed to him that she
might easily have come into the room for a minute when she
knew he was there, and let him have a chance to thank her and
ask her just what she meant.

He was just finishing the AVE MARIA which Marian had likened
to a breath of cool air, when Honey appeared in riding skirt
and light shirtwaist. She looked very trim and attractive,
and Bud smiled upon her approvingly, and cut short the last
strain by four beats, which was one way of letting Marian
know that he considered her rather unappreciative.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE SINKS

"We can go through the pasture and cut off a couple of
miles," said Honey when they were mounted. "I hope you don't
think I'm crazy, wanting a ride at this time of day, after
all the excitement we've had. But every Sunday is taken up
with horse-racing till late in the afternoon, and during the
week no one has time to go. And," she added with a sidelong
look at him, "there's something about the Sinks that makes me
love to go there. Uncle Dave won't let me go alone."

Bud dismounted to pull down the two top bars of the pasture
gate so that their horses could step over. A little way down
the grassy slope Smoky and Sunfish fed together, the Little
Lost horses grouped nearer the creek.

"I love that little horse of yours--why, he's gone lame
again!" exclaimed Honey. "Isn't that a shame! You oughtn't
to run him if it does that to him."

"He likes it," said Bud carelessly as he remounted. "And so
do I, when I can clean up the way I did today. I'm over three
hundred dollars richer right now than I was this morning."

"And next Sunday, maybe you'll be broke," Honey added
significantly. "You never know how you are coming out. I
think Jeff let you win to-day on purpose, so you'd bet it all
again and lose. He's like that. He don't care how much he
loses one day, because he gets it back some other time. I
don't like it. Some of the boys never do get ahead, and
you'll be in the same fix if you don't look out."

"You didn't bring me along to lecture me, I know," said Bud
with a good-natured smile. "What about the Sinks ? Is it a
dangerous place as--Mrs. Morris says?"

"Oh, Marian? She never does want me to come. She thinks I
ought to stay in the house always, the way she does. The
Sinks is--is--queer. There are caves, and then again deep
holes straight down, and tracks of wildcats and lions. And in
some places you can hear gurgles and rumbles. I love to be
there just at sundown, because the shadows are spooky and it
makes you feel--oh, you know--kind of creepy up your back.
You don't know what might happen. I--do you believe in ghosts
and haunted places, Bud?"

"I'd need a lot of scaring before I did. Are the Sinks
haunted?"

"No-o--but there are funny noises and people have got lost
there. Anyway they never showed up afterwards. The Indians
claim it's haunted." She smiled that baring smile of hers.
"Do you want to turn around and go back?"

"Sure. After we've had our ride, and seen the sights." And he
added with some satisfaction, "The moon 's full to-night, and
no clouds."

"And I brought sandwiches," Honey threw in as especial
blessing. "Uncle Dave will be mad, I expect. But I've never
seen the Sinks at night, with moonlight."

She was quiet while the horses waded Sunk Creek and picked
their way carefully over a particularly rocky stretch beyond.
"But what I'd rather do," she said, speaking from her
thoughts which had evidently carried forward in the silence,
"is explore Catrock Canyon."

"Well, why not, if we have time?" Bud rode up alongside her. "Is
it far?"

Honey looked at him searchingly. "You must be stranger to
these parts," she said disbelievingly. "Do you think you can
make me swallow that?"

Bud looked at her inquiringly, which forced her to go on.

"You must know about Catrock Canyon, Bud Birnie. Don't try to
make me believe you don't."

"I don't. I never heard of it before that I remember. What is
it makes you want to explore it?"

Honey studied him. "You're the queerest specimen I ever did
see," she exclaimed pettishly. "Why, it's not going to hurt
you to admit you know Catrock Canyon is--unexplorable."

"Oh. So you want to explore it because it's unexplorable.
Well, why is it unexplorable?"

Honey looked around her at the dry sageland they were
crossing. "Oh, you make me TIRED!" she said bluntly, with
something of the range roughness in her voice. "Because it
is, that's all."

"Then I'd like to explore it myself," Bud declared.

"For one thing," Honey dilated, "there's no way to get in there.
Up on the ridge this side, where the rock is that throws a
shadow like a cat's head on the opposite wall, you can look
down a ways. But the two sides come so close together at the
top that you can't see the bottom of the canyon at all. I've
been on the ridge where I could see the cat's head."

Bud glanced speculatively up at the sun, and Honey, catching
his meaning, shook her head and smiled.

"If we get into the Sinks and back to-day, they will do
enough talking about it; or Uncle Dave will, and Marian. I--I
thought perhaps you'd be able to tell me about--Catrock
Canyon."

"I'm able to say I don't know a thing about it. If no one can
get into it, I should think that's about all, isn't it?"

"Yes--you'd think so," Honey agreed enigmatically, and began
to talk of the racing that day, and of the dance, and of
other dances and other races yet to come. Bud discussed these
subjects for a while and then asked boldly, "When's Lew
coming back?"

"Lew?" Honey shot a swift glance at him. "Why?" She looked
ahead at the forbidding, craggy hills toward which she had
glanced when she spoke of Catrock. "Why, I don't know. How
should I?"

Bud saw that he had spoken unwisely. "I was thinking he'd
maybe hate to miss another running match like to-day," he
explained guilelessly. "Everybody and his dog seemed to be
there to-day, and everybody had money up. All," he modified,
"except the Muleshoe boys. I didn't see any of them."

"You won't," Honey told him with some emphasis. "Uncle Dave
and the Muleshoe are on the outs. They never come around
except for mail and things from the store. And most always
they send Hen. Uncle Dave and Dirk Tracy had an awful row
last winter. It was next thing to a killing. So of course the
outfits ain't on friendly terms."

This was more than Pop had gossiped to Bud, and since the
whole thing was of no concern to him, and Honey plainly
objected to talking about Marian's husband, he was quite
ready to fix his interest once more upon the Sinks. He was
surprised when they emerged from a cluster of small, sage-
covered knolls, directly upon the edge of what at first sight
seemed to be another dry river bed--sprawled wider, perhaps,
with irregular arms thrust back into the less sterile land.
They rode down a steep, rocky trail and came out into the
Sinks.

It was an odd, forbidding place, and the farther up the
gravelly bottom they rode, the more forbidding it became. Bud
thought that in the time when Indians were dangerous as she-
bears the Sinks would not be a place where a man would want
to ride. There were too many jutting crags, too many
unsuspected, black holes that led back--no one knew just
where.

Honey led the way to an irregular circle of waterwashed
cobbles and Bud peered down fifty feet to another dry,
gravelly bottom seemingly a duplicate of the upper surface.
She rode on past other caves, and let him look down into
other holes. There were faint rumblings in some of these, but
in none was there any water showing save in stagnant pools in
the rock where the rain had fallen.

"There's one cave I like to go into," said Honey at last.
"It's a little farther on, but we have time enough. There's a
spring inside, and we can eat our sandwiches. It isn't dark-
there are openings to the top, and lots of funny, winding
passages. That," she finished thrillingly, "is the place the
Indians claim is haunted."

Bud did not shudder convincingly, and they rode slowly
forward, picking their way among the rocks. The cave yawned
wide open to the sun, which hung on the top of Catrock Peak.
They dismounted, anchored the reins with rocks and went
inside.

When Bud had been investigative Buddy, he had explored more
caves than he could count. He had filched candles from his
mother and had crept back and back until the candle flame
flickered warning that he was nearing the "damps" Indians
always did believe caves were haunted, probably because they
did not understand the "damps", and thought evil spirits had
taken those who went in and never returned. Buddy had once
been lost in a cave for four harrowing hours, and had found
his way out by sheer luck, passing the skeleton of an Indian
and taking the tomahawk as a souvenir.

Wherefore this particular cave, with a spring back fifty feet
from the entrance where a shaft of sunlight struck the rock
through some obscure slit in the rock, had no thrill for him.
But the floor was of fine, white sand, and the ceiling was
knobby and grotesque, and he was quite willing to sit there
beside the spring and eat two sandwiches and talk foolishness
with Honey, using that part of his mind which was not busy
with the complexities of winning money on the speed of his
horses when three horses represented his entire business
capital, and with wondering what was wrong with Burroback
Valley, that three persons of widely different viewpoints had
felt it necessary to caution him,--and had couched their
admonitions in such general terms that he could not feel the
force of their warning.

He was thinking back along his life to where false alarms of
Indian outbreaks had played a very large part in the
Tomahawk's affairs, and how little of the ranch work would
ever have been done had they listened to every calamity
howler that came along. Honey was talking, and he was
answering partly at random, when she suddenly laughed and got
up.

"You must be in love, Bud Birnie. You just said 'yes' when I
asked you if you didn't think water snakes would be coming
out this fall with their stripes running round them instead
of lengthwise! You didn't hear a word--now, did you?"

"I heard music," Bud lied gallantly, "and I knew it was your
voice. I'd probably say yes if you asked me whether the moon
wouldn't look better with a ruffle around it."

"I'll say the moon will be wondering where we are, if we
don't start back. The sun's down."

Bud got up from sitting cross-legged like a Turk, helped
Honey to her feet--and felt her fingers clinging warmly to
his own. He led the way to the cave's mouth, not looking at
her. "Great sunset," he observed carelessly, glancing up at
the ridge while he held her horse for her to mount.

Honey showed that she was perfectly at home in the saddle.
She rode on ahead, leaving Bud to mount and follow. He was
just swinging leisurely into the saddle when Stopper threw
his head around, glancing back toward the level just beyond
the cave. At the same instant Bud heard the familiar,
unmistakable swish of a rope headed his way.

He flattened himself along Stopper's left shoulder as the
loop settled and tightened on the saddle horn, and dropped on
to the ground as Stopper whirled automatically to the right
and braced himself against the strain. Bud turned half
kneeling, his gun in his hand ready for the shot he expected
would follow the rope. But Stopper was in action-the best
ropehorse the Tomahawk had ever owned. For a few seconds he
stood braced, his neck arched, his eyes bright and watchful.
Then he leaped forward, straight at the horse and the rider
who was in the act of leveling his gun. The horse hesitated,
taken unaware by the onslaught. When he started to run
Stopper was already passing him, turning sharply to the right
again so that the rope raked the horse's front legs. Two
jumps and Stopper had stopped, faced the horse and stood
braced again, his ears perked knowingly while he waited for
the flop.

It came--just as it always did come when Stopper got action
on the end of a rope. Horse and rider came down together.
They would not get up until Bud wished it--he could trust
Stopper for that--so Bud walked over to the heap, his gun
ready for action--and that, too, could be trusted to perform
with what speed and precision was necessary. There would be
no hasty shooting, however; Buddy had learned to save his
bullets for real need when ammunition was not to be had for
the asking, and grown-up Bud had never outgrown the habit.

He picked up the fellow's six-shooter which he had dropped
when he fell, and stood sizing up the situation.

By the neckerchief drawn across his face it was a straight
case of holdup. Bud stooped and yanked off the mask and
looked into the glaring eyes of one whom he had never before
seen.

"Well, how d'yuh like it, far as you've got?" Bud asked
curiously. "Think you were holding up a pilgrim, or what?"

Just then, BING-GG sang a rifle bullet from the ridge above
the cave. Bud looked that way and spied a man standing half
revealed against the rosy clouds that were already dulling as
dusk crept up from the low ground. It was a long shot for a
six-shooter, but Buddy used to shoot antelope almost that
far, so Bud lifted his arm and straightened it, just as if he
were pointing a finger at the man, and fired. He had the
satisfaction of seeing the figure jerk backward and go off
over the ridge in a stooping kind of run.

"He'd better hurry back if he wants another shot at me," Bud
grinned. "It'll be so dark down here in a minute he couldn't
pick me up with his front sight if I was--as big a fool as
you are. How about it? I'll just lead you into camp, I
think--but you sure as hell couldn't get a job roping
gateposts, on the strength of this little exhibition."

He went over to Stopper and untied his own rope, giving an
approving pat to that business-like animal. "Hope your leg
isn't broken or anything," he said to the man when he
returned and passed the loop over the fellow's head and
shoulders, drawing it rather snugly around his body and
pinning his arms at the elbows. "It would be kind of
unpleasant if they happen to take a notion to make you walk
all the way to jail."

He beckoned Stopper, who immediately moved up, slackening the
rope. The thrown horse drew up his knees, gave a preliminary
heave and scrambled to his feet, Bud taking care that the man
was pulled free and safe. The fellow stood up sulkily
defiant, unable to rest much of his weight on his left leg.

Bud had ten busy minutes, and it was not until they were both
mounted and headed for Little Lost, the captive with his arms
tied behind him, his feet tied together under the horse,
which Bud led, that Bud had time to wonder what it was all
about. Then he began to look for Honey, who had disappeared.
But in the softened light of the rising moon mingling with
the afterglow of sunset, he saw the deep imprints of her
horse's hoofs where he had galloped homeward. Bud did not
think she ran away because she was frightened; she had seemed
too sure of herself for that. She had probably gone for help.

A swift suspicion that the attack might have been made from
jealousy died when Bud looked again at his prisoner. The man
was swarthy, low of brow--part Indian, by the look of him.
Honey would never give the fellow a second thought. So that
brought him to the supposition that robbery had been
intended, and the inference was made more logical when Bud
remembered that Marian had warned him against something of
the sort. Probably he and Honey had been followed into the
Sinks, and even though Bud had not seen this man at the
races, his partner up on the ridge might have been there. It
was all very simple, and Bud, having arrived at the obvious
conclusion, touched Stopper into a lope and arrived at Little
Lost just as Dave Truman and three of his men were riding
down into Sunk Creek ford on their way to the Sinks. They
pulled up, staring hard at Dave and his captive. Dave spoke
first.

"Honey said you was waylaid and robbed or killed--both, we
took it, from her account. How'd yuh come to get the best of
it so quick?"

"Why, his horse got tangled up in the rope and fell down, and
fell on top of him," Bud explained cheerfully. "I was
bringing him in. He's a bad citizen, I should judge, but he
didn't do me any damage, as it turned out, so I don't know
what to do with him. I'll just turn him over to you, I
think."

"Hell! I don't want him," Dave protested. I'll pass him along
to the sheriff--he may know something about him. Nelse and
Charlie, you take and run him in to Crater and turn him over
to Kline. You tell Kline what he done--or tried to do. Was he
alone, Bud?"

"He had a partner up on the ridge, so far off I couldn't
swear to him if I saw him face to face. I took a shot at him,
and I think I nicked him. He ducked, and there weren't any
more rifle bullets coming my way."

"You nicked him with your six-shooter? And him so far off you
couldn't recognize him again?" Dave looked at Bud sharply.
"That's purty good shootin', strikes me."

"Well, he stood up against the sky-line, and he wasn't more
than seventy-five yards," Bud explained. "I've dropped
antelope that far, plenty of times. The light was bad, this
evening."

"Antelope," Dave repeated meditatively, and winked at his
men. "All right, Bud--we'll let it stand at antelope. Boys,
you hit for Crater with this fellow. You ought to make it
there and back by tomorrow noon, all right."

Nelse took the lead rope from Bud and the two started off up
the creek, meaning to strike the road from Little Lost to
Crater, the county seat beyond Gold Gap mountains. Bud rode
on to the ranch with his boss, and tried to answer Dave's
questions satisfactorily without relating his own prowess or
divulging too much of Stopper's skill; which was something of
a problem for his wits.

Honey ran out to meet him and had to be assured over and over
that he was not hurt, and that he had lost nothing but his
temper and the ride home with her in the moonlight. She was
plainly upset and anxious that he should not think her
cowardly, to leave him that way.

"I looked back and saw a man throwing his rope, and you--it
looked as if he had dragged you off the horse. I was sure I
saw you falling. So I ran my horse all the way home, to get
Uncle Dave and the boys," she told him tremulously. And then
she added, with her tantalizing half smile, "I believe that
horse of mine could beat Smoky or Skeeter, if I was scared
that bad at the beginning of a race."

Bud, in sheer gratitude for her anxiety over him, patted
Honey's hand and told her she must have broken the record,
all right, and that she had done exactly the right thing. And
Honey went to bed happy that night.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: EVEN MUSHROOMS HELP

Bud wanted to have a little confidential talk with Marian. He
hoped that she would be willing to tell him a great deal more
than could be written on one side of a cigarette paper, and
he was curious to hear what it was. On the other hand, he
wanted somehow to let her know that he was anxious to help
her in any way possible. She needed help, of that he was
sure.

Lew returned on Tuesday, with a vile temper and rheumatism in
his left shoulder so that he could not work, but stayed
around the house and too evidently made his wife miserable by
his presence. On Wednesday morning Marian had her hair
dressed so low over her ears that she resembled a lady of old
Colonial days--but she did not quite conceal from Bud's keen
eyes the ugly bruise on her temple. She was pale and her lips
were compressed as if she were afraid to relax lest she burst
out in tears or in a violent denunciation of some kind. Bud
dared not look at her, nor at Lew, who sat glowering at Bud's
right hand. He tried to eat, tried to swallow his coffee, and
finally gave up the attempt and left the table.

In getting up he touched Lew's shoulder with his elbow, and
Lew let out a bellow of pain and an oath, and leaned away
from him, his right hand up to ward off another hurt.

"Pardon me. I forgot your rheumatism," Bud apologized
perfunctorily, his face going red at the epithet. Marian,
coming toward him with a plate of biscuits, looked him full
in the eyes and turned her glance to her husband's back while
her lips curled in the bitterest, the most scornful smile Bud
had ever seen on a woman's face. She did not speak--speech
was impossible before that tableful of men--but Bud went out
feeling as though she had told him that her contempt for Lew
was beyond words, and that his rheumatism brought no pity
whatever.

Wednesday passed, Thursday came, and still there was no
chance to speak a word in private. The kitchen drudge was
hedged about by open ears and curious eyes, and save at meal-
time she was invisible to the men unless they glimpsed her
for a moment in the kitchen door.

Thursday brought a thunder storm with plenty of rain, and in
the drizzle that held over until Friday noon Bud went out to
an old calf shed which he had discovered in the edge of the
pasture, and gathered his neckerchief full of mushrooms. Bud
hated mushrooms, but he carried them to the machine shed and
waited until he was sure that Honey was in the sitting room
playing the piano--and hitting what Bud called a blue note
now and then--and that Lew was in the bunk-house with the
other men, and Dave and old Pop were in Pop's shack. Then,
and then only, Bud took long steps to the kitchen door,
carrying his mushrooms as tenderly as though they were eggs
for hatching.

Marian was up to her dimpled elbows in bread dough when he
went in. Honey was still groping her way lumpily through the
Blue Danube Waltz, and Bud stood so that he could look out
through the white-curtained window over the kitchen table and
make sure that no one approached the house unseen.

"Here are some mushrooms," he said guardedly, lest his voice
should carry to Honey. "They're just an excuse. Far as I'm
concerned you can feed them to the hogs. I like things clean
and natural and wholesome, myself. I came to find out what's
the matter, Mrs. Morris. Is there anything I can do? I took
the hint you gave me in the note, Sunday, and I discovered
right away you knew what you were talking about. That was a
holdup down in the Sinks. It couldn't have been anything
else. But they wouldn't have got anything. I didn't have more
than a dollar in my pocket."

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