Rowdy of the Cross L

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ROWDY OF THE "CROSS L."

by

B. M. BOWER

CONTENTS

1. Lost in a Blizzard
2. Miss Conroy Refuses Shelter
3. Rowdy Hires a New Boss
4. Pink as "Chappyrone"
5. At Home at Cross L
6. A Shot From the Dark
7. Rowdy in a Tough Place
8. Pink in a Threatening Mood
9. Moving the Herd
10. Harry Conroy at Home
11. Rowdy Promoted
12. "You Can Tell Jessie"
13. Rowdy Finds Happiness

CHAPTER 1

Lost in a Blizzard.

"Rowdy" Vaughan--he had been christened Rowland by his mother, and
rechristened Rowdy by his cowboy friends, who are prone to treat with much
irreverence the names bestowed by mothers--was not happy. He stood in the
stirrups and shook off the thick layer of snow which clung, damp and
close-packed, to his coat. The dull yellow folds were full of it; his gray
hat, pulled low over his purple ears, was heaped with it. He reached up a
gloved hand and scraped away as much as he could, wrapped the long-skirted,
"sour-dough" coat around his numbed legs, then settled into the saddle with
a shiver of distaste at the plight he was in, and wished himself back at the
Horseshoe Bar.

Dixie, standing knee-deep in a drift, shook himself much after the manner of
his master; perhaps he, also, wished himself back at the Horseshoe Bar. He
turned his head to look back, blinking at the snow which beat insistently in
his eyes; he could not hold them open long enough to see anything, however,
so he twitched his ears pettishly and gave over the attempt.

"It's up to you, old boy," Rowdy told him resignedly. "I'm plumb lost; I
never was in this damn country before, anyhow--and I sure wish I wasn't here
now. If you've any idea where we're at, I'm dead willing to have you pilot
the layout. Never mind Chub; locating his feed when it's stuck under his
nose is his limit."

Chub lifted an ear dispiritedly when his name was spoken; but, as was
usually the case, he heard no good of himself, and dropped his head again.
No one took heed of him; no one ever did. His part was to carry Vaughan's
bed, and to follow unquestionably where Vaughan and Dixie might lead. He was
cold and tired and hungry, but his faith in his master was strong; the
responsibility of finding shelter before the dark came down rested not with
him.

Vaughan pressed his chilled knees against Dixie's ribs, but the hand upon
the reins was carefully non-committal; so that Dixie, having no suggestion
of his master's wish, ventured to indulge his own. He turned tail squarely
to the storm and went straight ahead. Vaughan put his hands deep into his
pockets, snuggled farther down into the sheepskin collar of his coat, and
rode passive, enduring.

They brought up against a wire fence, and Vaughan, rousing from his apathy,
tried to peer through the white, shifting wall of the storm. "You're a swell
guide--not," he remarked to the horse. "Now you, you hike down this fence
till you locate a gate or a corner, or any darned thing; and I don't give a
cuss if the snow does get in your eyes. It's your own fault."

Dixie, sneezing the snow from his nostrils, turned obediently; Chub, his
feet dragging wearily in the snow, trailed patiently behind. Half an hour of
this, and it seemed as if it would go on forever.

Through the swirl Vaughan could see the posts standing forlornly in the
snow, with sixteen feet of blizzard between; at no time could he distinguish
more than two or three at once, and there were long minutes when the wall
stood, blank and shifting, just beyond the first post.

Then Dixie lifted his head and gazed questioningly before him, his ears
pointed forward--sentient, strained--and whinnied shrill challenge. He
hurried his steps, dragging Chub out of the beginnings of a dream. Vaughan
straightened and took his hands from his pockets.

Out beyond the dim, wavering outline of the farthest post came answer to the
challenge. A mysterious, vague shape grew impalpably upon the strained
vision; a horse sneezed, then nickered eagerly. Vaughan drew up and waited.

"Hello!" he called cheerfully. "Pleasant day, this. Out for your health?"

The shape hesitated, as though taken aback by the greeting, and there was no
answer. Vaughan, puzzled, rode closer.

"Say, don't talk so fast!" he yelled. "I can't follow yuh."

"Who--who is it?" The voice sounded perturbed; and it was, moreover, the
voice of a woman.

Vaughan pulled up short and swore into his collar. Women are not, as a rule,
to be met out on the blank prairie in a blizzard. His voice, when he spoke
again, was not ironical, as it had been; it was placating.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I thought it was a man. I'm looking for the
Cross L; you don't happen to know where it is, do yuh?"

"No--I don't," she declared dismally. "I don't know where any place is. I'm
teaching school in this neighborhood--or in some other. I was going to spend
Sunday with a friend, but this storm came up, and I'm--lost."

"Same here," said Rowdy pleasantly, as though being lost was a matter for
congratulation.

"Oh! I was in hopes--"

"So was I, so we're even there. We'll have to pool our chances, I guess. Any
gate down that way--or haven't you followed the fence?"

"I followed it for miles and miles--it seemed. It must be some big field of
the Cross L; but they have so very many big fields!"

"And you couldn't give a rough guess at how far it is to the Cross
L?"--insinuatingly.

He could vaguely see her shake of head. "Ordinarily it should be about six
miles beyond Rodway's, where I board. But I haven't the haziest idea of
where Rodway's place is, you see; so that won't help you much. I'm all at
sea in this snow." Her voice was rueful.

"Well, if you came up the fence, there's no use going back that way; and
there's sure nothing made by going away from it.--that's the way I came. Why
not go on the way you're headed?"

"We might as well, I suppose," she assented; and Rowdy turned and rode by
her side, grateful for the plurality of the pronoun which tacitly included
him in her wanderings, and meditating many things. For one, he wondered if
she were as nice a girl as her voice sounded. He could not see much of her
face, because it was muffled in a white silk scarf. Only her eyes showed,
and they were dark and bright.

When he awoke to the fact that the wind, grown colder, beat upon her
cruelly, he dropped behind a pace and took the windy side, that he might
shield her with his body. But if she observed the action she gave no sign;
her face was turned from him and the wind, and she rode without speaking.
After long plodding, the line of posts turned unexpectedly a right angle,
and Vaughan took a long, relieved breath.

"We'll have the wind on our backs now," he remarked. "I guess we may as well
keep on and see where this fence goes to."

His tone was too elaborately cheerful to be very cheering.He was wondering
if the girl was dressed warmly. It had been so warm and sunny before the
blizzard struck, but now the wind searched out the thin places in one's
clothing and ran lead in one's bones, where should be simply marrow. He
fancied that her voice, when she spoke, gave evidence of actual
suffering--and the heart of Rowdy Vaughan was ever soft toward a woman.

"If you're cold," he began, "I'll open up my bed and get out a blanket." He
held Dixie in tentatively.

"Oh, don't trouble to do that," she protested; but there was that in her
voice which hardened his impulse into fixed resolution.

"I ought to have thought of it before," he lamented, and swung down stiffly
into the snow.

Her eyes followed his movement with a very evident interest while he
unbuckled the pack Chub had carried since sunrise and drew out a blanket.

"Stand in your stirrup," he commanded briskly "and I'll wrap you up. It's a
Navajo, and the wind will have a time trying to find a thin spot."

"You're thoughtful." She snuggled into it thankfully. "I was cold."

Vaughan tucked it around her with more care than haste. He was pretty
uncomfortable himself, and for that reason he was the more anxious that the
girl should be warm. It came to him that she was a cute little schoolma'am,
all right; he was glad she belonged close around the Cross L. He also wished
he knew her name--and so he set about finding it out, with much guile.

"How's that?" he wanted to know, when he had made sure that her feet--such
tiny feet--were well covered. He thought it lucky that she did not ride
astride, after the manner of the latter-day young woman, because then he
could not have covered her so completely. "Hold on! That windy side's going
to make trouble." He unbuckled the strap he wore to hold his own coat snug
about him, and put it around the girl's slim waist, feeling idiotically
happy and guilty the while. "It don't come within a mile of you," he
complained; "but it'll help some."

Sheltered in the thick folds of the Navajo, she laughed, and the sound of it
sent the blood galloping through Rowdy Vaughan's body so that he was almost
warm. He went and scraped the snow out of his saddle, and swung up, feeling
that, after all, there are worse things in the world than being lost and
hungry in a blizzard, with a sweet-voiced, bright-eyed little schoolma'am
who can laugh like that.

"I don't want to have you think I may be a bold, bad robber-man," he said,
when they got going again. "My name's Rowdy Vaughan--for which I beg your
pardon. Mother named me Rowland, never knowing I'd get out here and have her
nice, pretty name mutilated that way. I won't say that my behavior never
suggested the change, though. I'm from the Horseshoe Bar, over the line, and
if I have my way, I'll be a Cross L man before another day." Then he waited
expectantly.

"For fear you may think I'm a--a robber-woman," she answered him
solemnly--he felt sure her eyes twinkled, if only he could have seen them--
"I'm Jessie Conroy. And if you're from over the line, maybe you know my
brother Harry. He was over there a year or two."

Rowdy hunched his shoulders--presumably at the wind. Harry Conroy's sister,
was she? And he swore. "I may have met him," he parried, in a tone you'd
never notice as being painstakingly careless. "I think I did, come to think
of it."

Miss Conroy seemed displeased, and presently the cause was forthcoming. "If
you'd ever met him," she said, "you'd hardly forget him." (Rowdy mentally
agreed profanely.) "He's the best rider in the whole country--and the
handsomest. He--he's splendid! And he's the only brother I've got. It's a
pity you never got acquainted with him."

"Yes," lied Rowdy, and thought a good deal in a very short time. Harry
Conroy's sister! Well, she wasn't to blame for that, of course; nor for
thinking her brother a white man. "I remember I did see him ride once," he
observed. "He was a whirlwind, all right--and he sure was handsome, too."

Miss Conroy turned her face toward him and smiled her pleasure, and Rowdy
hovered between heaven and--another place. He was glad she smiled, and he
was afraid of what that subject might discover for his straightforward
tongue in the way of pitfalls. It would not be nice to let her know what he
really thought of her brother.

"This looks to me like a lane," he said diplomatically. "We must be getting
somewhere; don't you recognize any landmarks?"

Miss Conroy leaned forward and peered through the clouds of snow dust.
Already the night was creeping down upon the land, stealthily turning the
blank white of the blizzard into as blank a gray--which was as near darkness
as it could get, because of the snow which fell and fell, and yet seemed
never to find an abiding-place, but danced and swirled giddily in the wind
as the cold froze it dry. There would be no more damp, clinging masses that
night; it was sifting down like flour from a giant sieve; and
of the supply there seemed no end.

"I don't know of any lanes around here," she began dubiously, "unless
it's--"

Vaughan looked sharply at her muffled figure and wondered why she broke off
so suddenly. She was staring hard at the few, faint traces of landmarks;
and, bundled in the red-and-yellow Navajo blanket, with her bright, dark
eyes, she might easily have passed for a slim young squaw.

Out ahead, a dog began barking vaguely, and Rowdy turned eagerly to the
sound. Dixie, scenting human habitation, stepped out more briskly through
the snow, and even Chub lifted an ear briefly to show he heard.

"It may not be any one you know," Vaughan remarked, and his voice showed his
longing; "but it'll be shelter and a warm fire--and supper. Can you
appreciate such blessings, Miss Conroy? I can. I've been in the saddle since
sunrise; and I was so sure I'd strike the Cross L by dinner-time that I
didn't bring a bite to eat. It was a sheep-camp where I stopped, and the
grub didn't look good to me, anyway--I've called myself bad names all the
afternoon for being more dainty than sensible. But it's all right now, I
guess."

CHAPTER 2

Miss Conroy Refuses Shelter.

The storm lifted suddenly, as storms have a way of doing, and a low, squat
ranch-house stood dimly revealed against the bleak expanse of wind-tortured
prairie. Rowdy gave an exultant little whoop and made for the gate, leaned
and swung it open and rode through, dragging Chub after him by main
strength, as usual. When he turned to close the gate after Miss Conroy he
found her standing still in the lane.

"Come on in," he called, with a trace of impatience born of his weariness
and hunger.

"Thank you, no." Miss Conroy's voice was as crisply cold as the wind which
fluttered the Navajo blanket around her face. "I much prefer the blizzard."

For a moment Rowdy found nothing to say; he just stared. Miss Conroy shifted
uneasily in the saddle.

"This is old Bill Brown's place," she explained reluctantly. "He--I'd rather
freeze than go in!"

"Well, I guess that won't be hard to do," he retorted curtly, "if you stay
out much longer."

The dog was growing hysterical over their presence, and Bill Brown himself
came out to see what it was all about. He could see two dim figures at the
gate.

"Hello!" he shouted. "Why don't yuh come on in? What yuh standing there
chewing the rag for?"

Vaughan hesitated, his eyes upon Miss Conroy.

"Go in," she commanded imperiously, quite as if he were a refractory pupil.
"You're tired out, and hungry. I'm neither. Besides, I know where I am now.
I can find my way without any trouble. Go in, I tell you!"

But Rowdy stayed where he was, with the gate creaking to and fro between
them. Dixie circled till his back was to the wind. "I hope you don't think
you're going to mill around out here alone," Rowdy said tartly.

"I can manage very well. I'm not lost now, I tell you. Rodway's is only
three miles from here, and I know the direction."

Bill Brown waded out to them, wondering what weighty discussion was keeping
them there in the cold. Vaughan he passed by with the cursory glance of a
disinterested stranger, and went on to where Miss Conroy waited stubbornly
in the lane.

"Oh, it's you!" he said grimly. "Well, come in and thaw out; I hope yuh
didn't think yuh wouldn't be welcome yuh knew better. You got lost, I
reckon. Come on--"

Miss Conroy struck Badger sharply across the flank and disappeared into the
night. "When I ask shelter of you," she flung back, "you'll know it."

Rowdy started after, and met Bill Brown squarely in the gate. Bill eyed him
sharply. "Say, young fellow, how'd you come by that packhorse?" he demanded,
as Chub brushed past him.

"None of your damn' business," snapped Rowdy, and drove the spurs into
Dixie's ribs. But Chub was a handicap at any time; now, when he was tired,
there was no getting anything like speed out of him; he clung to his
shuffling trot, which was really no better than a walk. After five minutes
spent alternately in spurring Dixie and yanking at Chub's lead-rope, Rowdy
grew frightened and took to shouting. While they were in the lane Miss
Conroy must perforce ride straight ahead, but the lane would not last
always. As though with malicious intent, the snow swooped down again and the
world became an unreal, nightmare world, wherein was nothing save
shifting, blinding snowfloury and wind and bitter, numbing cold.

Rowdy stood in his stirrups, cupped his chilled fingers around his numbed
lips, and sent a longdrawn "Who-ee!" shrilling weirdly into the night.

It seemed to him, after long listening, that from the right came faint
reply, and he turned and rode recklessly, swearing at Chub for his slowness.
He called again, and the answer, though faint, was unmistakable. He settled
heavily into the saddle--too weak, from sheer relief, to call again. He had
not known till then just how frightened he had been, and he was somewhat
disconcerted at the discovery. In a minute the reaction passed and he
shouted a loud hello.

"Hello?" came the voice of Miss Conroy, tantalizingly calm, and as superior
as the greeting of Central. "Were you looking for me, Mr. Vaughan?"

She was close to him--so close that she had not needed to raise her voice
perceptibly. Rowdy rode up alongside, remembering uncomfortably his
prolonged shouting.

"I sure was," he admitted. And then: "You rode off with my blanket on." He
was very proud of his matter-of-fact tone.

"Oh!" Miss Conroy was almost deceived, and a bit disappointed. "I'll give it
to you now, and you can go back--if you know the way."

"No hurry," said Rowdy politely. "I'll go on and see if you can find a place
that looks good to you. You seem pretty particular."

Miss Conroy may have blushed, in the shelter of the blanket. "I suppose it
did look strange to you," she confessed, but defiantly. "Bill Brown is an
enemy to--Harry. He--because he lost a horse or two out of a field, one
time, he--he actually accused Harry of taking them! He lied, of course, and
nobody believed him; nobody could believe a thing like that about Harry. It
was perfectly absurd. But he did his best to hurt Harry's name, and I would
rather freeze than ask shelter of him. Wouldn't you--in my place, I mean?"

"I always stand up for my friends," evaded Rowdy. "And if I had a brother--"

"Of course you'd be loyal," approved Miss Conroy warmly. "But I didn't want
you to come on; it isn't your quarrel. And I know the way now. You needn't
have come any farther "

"You forgot the blanket," Rowdy reminded wickedly. "I think a lot of that
Navajo."

"You insisted upon my taking it," she retorted, and took refuge in silence.

For a long hour they plodded blindly. Rowdy beat his hands often about his
body to start the blood, and meditated yearnigly upon hot coffee and the
things he liked best to eat. Also, a good long pull at a flask wouldn't be
had, either, he thought. And he hoped this little schoolma'am knew where she
was going--truth to tell, he doubted it.

After a while, it seemed that Miss Conroy doubted it also. She took to
leaning forward and straining her eyes to see through the gray wall before.

"There should be a gate here," she said dubiously, at last.

"It seems to me," Rowdy ventured mildly, "if there were a gate, it would
have some kind of a fence hitched to it; wouldn't it?"

Miss Conroy was in no mood for facetiousness, and refused to answer his
question. "I surely can't have made a mistake," she observed uneasily.

"It would be a wonder if you didn't, such a night as this," he consoled. "I
wouldn't bank on traveling straight myself, even if I knew the
country--which I don't. And I've been in more blizzards than I'm years old."

"Rodway's place can't be far away," she said, brightening. "It may be
farther to the east; shall we try that way--if you know which is east?"

"Sure, we'll try. It's all we can do. My packhorse is about all in, from the
way he hangs back; if we don't strike something pretty soon I'll have to
turn him loose."

"Oh, don't do that," she begged. "It would be too cruel. We're sure to reach
Rodway's very soon."

More plodding through drifts high and drifts low; more leaning from saddles
to search anxiously for trace of something besides snow and wind and biting
cold. Then, far to the right, a yellow eye glowed briefly when the storm
paused to take breath. Miss Conroy gave a glad little cry and turned Badger
sharply.

"Did you see? It was the light from a window. We were going the wrong way.
I'm sure that is Rodway's."

Rowdy thanked the Lord and followed her. They came up against a fence, found
a gate, and passed through. While they hurried toward it, the light winked
welcome; as they drew near, some one stirred the fire and sent sparks and
rose-hued smoke rushing up into the smother of snow. Rowdy watched them
wistfully, and wondered if there would be supper, and strong, hot coffee. He
lifted Miss Conroy out of the saddle, carried her two long strides, and
deposited her upon the door-step; rapped imperatively, and when a voice
replied, lifted the latch and pushed her in before him.

For a minute they stood blinking, just within the door. The change from
numbing cold and darkness to the light of the overheated room was
stupefying.

Then Miss Conroy went over and held her little, gloved hands to the heat of
the stove, but she did not take the chair which some one pushed toward her.
She stood, the blanket shrouding her face and her slim young figure, and
looked about her curiously. It was not Rodway's house, after all. She
thought she knew what place it was--the shack where Rodway's hay-balers
bached.

From the first, Rowdy did not like the look of things--though for himself it
did not matter; he was used to such scenes. It was the presence of the girl
which made him uncomfortable. He unbuttoned his coat that the warmth might
reach his chilled body, and frowned.

Four men sat around a small, dirty table; evidently the arrivals had
interrupted an exciting game of seven-up. A glance told Rowdy, even if his
nose had not, that the four round, ribbed bottles had not been nearly
emptied without effect.

"Have one on the house," the man nearest him cried, and shoved a bottle
toward him.

Involuntarily Rowdy reached for it. Now that he was inside, he realized all
at once how weary he was, and cold and hungry. Each abused muscle and nerve
seemed to have a distinct grievance against him. His fingers closed around
the bottle before he remembered and dropped it. He looked up, hoping Miss
Conroy had not observed the action; met her wide, questioning eyes, and the
blood flew guiltily to his cheeks.

"Thanks, boys--not any for me," he said, and apologized to Miss Conroy with
his eyes.

The man rose and confronted him unsteadily. "Dat's a hell off a way! You too
proud for drink weeth us? You drink, now! By Gar, I make you drink!"

Rowdy's eyelids drooped, which was a bad sign for those who knew him.
"You're forgetting there's a lady present," he reminded warningly.

The man turned a brief, contemptuous glance toward the stove. "You got the
damn' queer way to talk. I don't call no squaw no lady. You drink queeck,
now!"

"Aw, shut up, Frenchy," the man at his elbow abjured him. "He don't have to
drink if he don't want to."

"You keep the face close," the other retorted majestically; and cursed loud
and long and incoherently.

Rowdy drew back his arm, with a fist that meant trouble for somebody; but
there were others before him who pinned the importunate host to the table,
where he squirmed unavailingly.

Rowdy buttoned up his coat the while he eyed the group disgustedly. "I guess
we'll drift," he remarked. "You don't look good to me, and that's no dream."

"Aw, stay and warm up," the fourth man expostulated. "Yuh don't need t' mind
Le Febre; he's drunk.'

But Rowdy opened the door decisively, and Miss Conroy, her cheeks like two
storm-buffeted poppies, followed him out with dignity--albeit trailing a
yard of red-and-yellow Navajo blanket behind her. Rowdy lifted her into the
saddle, tucked her feet carefully under the blanket, and said never a word.

"Mr. Vaughan," she began hesitatingly, "this is too bad; you need not have
left. I--I wasn't afraid."

"I know you weren't," conceded Rowdy. "But it was a hard formation--for a
woman. Are there any more places on this flat marked Unavailable?"

Miss Conroy replied misanthropically that if there were they would be sure
to find them.

They took up their weary wanderings again, while the yellow eye of the
window winked after them. They missed Rodway's by a scant hundred yards, and
didn't know it, because the side of the house next them had no lighted
windows. They traveled in a wide, half circle, and thought that they were
leaving a straight trail behind them. More than once Rowdy was urged by his
aching arm to drop the lead-rope and leave Chub to shift by himself, but
habit was strong and his heart was soft. Then he felt an odd twitching at
the lead-rope, as if Chub were minded to rebel against their leadership.
Rowdy yanked him into remembrance of his duty, and wondered. Bill Brown's
question came insistently to mind; he wondered the more.

Two minutes and the lead-rope was sawing against the small of his back
again. Rowdy turned Dixie's head, and spoke for the first time in an hour.

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