Cow-Country by B. M. Bower (best color ereader txt) 📗

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