The Flying U's Last Stand by B. M. Bower (good books to read for teens .txt) 📗
- Author: B. M. Bower
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Miss Allen was a persistent young woman. She kept climbing until she did finally reach the highest point, and could look down into gorges and flats and tiny basins and canyons and upon peaks and ridges and worm-like windings, and patches of timber and patches of grass and patches of barren earth and patches of rocks all jumbled up together—. Miss Allen gasped from something more than the climb, and sat down upon a rock, stricken with a sudden, overpowering weakness. “God in heaven!” she whispered, appalled. “What a place to get lost in!”
She sat there a while and stared dejectedly down upon that wild orgy of the earth's upheaval which is the Badlands. She felt as though it was sheer madness even to think of finding anybody in there. It was worse than a mountain country, because in the mountains there is a certain semblance of some system in the canyons and high ridges and peaks. Here every thing—peaks, gorges, tiny valleys and all—seemed to be just dumped down together. Peaks rose from the middle of canyons; canyons were half the time blind pockets that ended abruptly against a cliff.
“Oh!” she cried aloud, jumpin up and gesticulating wildly. “Baby! Little Claude! Here! Look up this way!” She saw him, down below, on the opposite side from where she had left her horse.
The Kid was riding slowly up a gorge. Silver was picking his way carefully over the rocks—they looked tiny, down there! And they were not going toward home, by any means. They were headed directly away from home.
The cheeks of Miss Allen were wet while she shouted and called and waved her hands. He was alive, anyway. Oh, if his mother could only be told that he was alive! Oh, why weren't there telephones or something where they were needed! If his poor mother could see him!
Miss Allen called again, and the Kid heard her. She was sure that he heard her, because he stopped—that pitiful, tiny speck down there on the horse!—and she thought he looked up at her. Yes, she was sure he heard her, and that finally he saw her; because he took off his hat and waved it over his head—just like a man, the poor baby!
Miss Allen considered going straight down to him, and then walking around to where her horse was tied. She was afraid to leave him while she went for the horse and rode around to where he was. She was afraid she might miss him somehow the Badlands had stamped that fear deep into her soul.
“Wait!” she shouted, her hands cupped around her trembling lips, tears rolling down her cheeks “Wait baby! I'm coming for you.” She hoped that the Kid heard what she said, but she could not be sure, for she did not hear him reply. But he did not go on at once, and she thought he would wait.
Miss Allen picked up her skirts away from her ankles and started running down the steep slope. The Kid, away down below, stared up at her. She went down a third of the way, and stopped just in time to save herself from going over a sheer wall of rocks—stopped because a rock which she dislodged with her foot rolled down the slope a few feet, gave a leap into space and disappeared.
A step at a time Miss Allen crept down to where the rock had bounced off into nothingness, and gave one look and crouched close to the earth. A hundred feet, it must be, straight down. After the first shock she looked to the right and the left and saw that she must go back, and down upon the other side.
Away down there at the bottom, the Kid sat still on his horse and stared up at her. And Miss Allen calling to him that she would come, started back up to the peak.
CHAPTER 18. THE LONG WAY ROUND
Miss Allen turned to yell encouragingly to the Kid, and she saw that he was going on slowly, his head turned to watch her. She told him to wait where he was, and she would come around the mountain and get him and take him home. “Do you hear me, baby?” she asked imploringly after she had told him just what she meant to do. “Answer me, baby!”
“I ain't a baby!” his voice came faintly shrill after a minute. “I'm a rell ole cowpuncher.”
Miss Allen thought that was what he said, but at the time she did not quite understand, except his denial of being a baby; that was clear enough. She turned to the climb, feeling that she must hurry if she expected to get him and take him home before dark. She knew that every minute was precious and must not be wasted. It was well after noon—she had forgotten to eat her lunch, but her watch said it was nearly one o'clock already. She had no idea how far she had ridden, but she thought it must be twelve miles at least.
She had no idea, either, how far she had run down the butte to the cliff—until she began to climb back. Every rod or so she stopped to rest and to look back and to call to the Kid who seemed such a tiny mite of humanity among these huge peaks and fearsome gorges. He seemed to be watching her very closely always when she looked she could see the pink blur of his little upturned face. She must hurry. Oh, if she could only send a wireless to his mother! Human inventions fell far short of the big needs, after all, she thought as she toiled upward.
From the top of the peak she could see the hazy outline of the Bear Paws, and she knew just about where the Flying U Coulee lay. She imagined that she could distinguish the line of its bluff in the far distance. It was not so very far—but she could not get any word of cheer across the quivering air lanes. She turned and looked wishfully down at the Kid, a tinier speck now than before—for she had climbed quite a distance She waved her hand to him, and her warm brown eyes held a maternal tenderness. He waved his hat—just like a man; he must be brave! she thought. She turned reluctantly and went hurrying down the other side, her blood racing with the joy of having found him, and of knowing that he was safe.
It seemed to take a long time to climb down that peak; much longer than she thought it would take. She looked at her watch nervously—two o'clock, almost! She must hurry, or they would be in the dark getting home. That did not worry her very much, However, for there would be searching parties—she would be sure to strike one somewhere in the hills before dark.
She came finally down to the level—except that it was not level at all, but a trough-shaped gulch that looked unfamiliar. Still, it was the same one she had used as a starting point when she began to climb—of course it was the same one. How in the world could a person get turned around going straight up the side of a hill and straight down again in the very same place. This was the gorge where her horse
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