The Flying U's Last Stand by B. M. Bower (good books to read for teens .txt) 📗

alone. I've lost my horse, an I've lost my lunch, and I've lost myself, and I'm awful afraid of skunks—skinks.”

“Oh, I'll take care of you,” the Kid comforted. “I'll give you a doughnut if you're hungry. I've got some left, but you'll have to pick out the glass where the jelly broke on it.” He reined closer to the bank and slid off and began untying the sadly depleted bag from behind the cantle. Miss Allen offered to do it for him, and was beautifully snubbed. The Kid may have been just a frightened, lost little boy before he met her—but that was a secret hidden in the silences of the deep canyons. Now he was a real old cowpuncher, and he was going to take care of Miss Allen because men always had to take care of women.

Miss Allen offended him deeply when she called him Claude. She was told bluntly that he was Buck, and that he belonged to the Flying U outfit, and was riding down here to help the bunch gather some cattle. “But I can't find the brakes,” he admitted grudgingly. “That's where the bunch is—down in the brakes; I can't seem to locate them brakes.”

“Don't you think you ought to go home to your mother?” Miss Allen asked him while he was struggling with the knot he had tied in the bag.

“I've got to find the bunch. The bunch needs me,” said the Kid. “I—I guess Doctor Dell is s'prised—”

“Who's Doctor Dell? Your mother? Your mother has just about cried herself sick, she's so lonesome without you.”

The Kid looked at her wide-eyed. “Aw, gwan!” he retorted after a minute, imitating Happy Jack's disbelief of any unpleasant news. “I guess you're jest loadin' me. Daddy Chip is takin' care of her. He wouldn't let her be lonesome.”

The Kid got the sack open and reached an arm in to the shoulder. He groped there for a minute and drew out a battered doughnut smeared liberally with wild currant jelly, and gave it to Miss Allen with an air of princely generosity and all the chivalry of all the Happy Family rolled into one baby gesture. Miss Allen took the doughnut meekly and did not spoil the Kid's pleasure by hugging him as she would have liked to do. Instead she said: “Thank you, Buck of the Flying U,” quite humbly. Then something choked Miss Allen and she turned her back upon him abruptly.

“I've got one, two, free, fourteen left,” said the Kid, counting them gravely. “If I had 'membered to bring matches,” he added regretfully, “I could have a fire and toast rabbit legs. I guess you got some glass, didn't you? I got some and it cutted my tongue so the bleed came—but I never cried,” he made haste to deny stoutly. “I'm a rell ole cowpuncher now. I just cussed.” He looked at her gravely. “You can't cuss where women can hear,” he told Miss Allen reassuringly. “Bud says—”

“Let me see the doughnuts,” said miss Allen abruptly. “I think you ought to let me keep the lunch. That's the woman's part. Men can't bother with lunch—”

“It ain't lunch, it's grub,” corrected the Kid. But he let her have the bag, and Miss Allen looked inside. There were some dried prunes that looked like lumps of dirty dough, and six dilapidated doughnuts in a mess of jelly, and a small glass jar of honey.

“I couldn't get the cover off,” the Kid explained, “'theut I busted it, and then it would all spill like the jelly. Gee I-I wish I had a beefsteak under my belt!”

Miss Allen leaned over with her elbows on the bank and laughed and laughed. Miss Allen was closer to hysterics than she had ever been in her life. The Kid looked at her in astonishment and turned to Silver, standing with drooping head beside the bank. Miss Allen pulled herself together and asked him what he was going to do.

“I'm going to LOCATE your horse,” he said, “and then I'm going to take you home.” He looked at her disapprovingly. “I don't like you so very much,” he added. “It ain't p'lite to laugh at a feller all the time.”

“I won't laugh any more. I think we had better go home right away,” said Miss Allen contritely. “You see, Buck, the bunch came home. They—they aren't hunting cattle now. They want to find you and tell you. And your father and mother need you awfully bad, Buck. They've been looking all over for you, everywhere, and wishing you'd come home.”

Buck looked wistfully up and down the canyon. His face at that moment was not the face of a real old cowpuncher, but the sweet, dirty, mother-hungry face of a child. “It's a far ways,” he said plaintively. “It's a million miles, I guess I wanted to go home, but I couldn't des' 'zactly 'member—and I thought I could find the bunch, and they'd know the trail better. Do you know the trail?”

Miss Allen evaded that question and the Kid's wide, wistful eyes. “I think if we start out, Buck, we can find it. We must go toward the sun, now. That will be towards home. Shall I put you on your horse?”

The Kid gave her a withering glance and squirmed up into the saddle with the help of both horn and cantle and by the grace of good luck. Miss Allen gasped while she watched him.

The Kid looked down at her triumphantly. He frowned a little and flushed guiltily when he remembered something. “'Scuse me,” he said. “I guess you better ride my horse. I guess I better walk. It ain't p'lite for ladies to walk and men ride.”

“No, no!” Miss Allen reached up with both hands and held the Kid from dismounting. “I'll walk, Buck. I'd rather. I—why, I wouldn't dare ride that horse of yours. I'd be afraid he might buck me off.” She pinched her eyebrows together and pursed up her lips in a most convincing manner.

“Hunh!” Scorn of her cowardice was in his tone. “Well, a course I ain't scared to ride him.”

So with Miss Allen walking close to the Kid's stirrup and trying her best to keep up and to be cheerful and to remember that she must not treat him like a little, lost boy but like a real old cowpuncher, they started up the canyon toward the sun which hung low above a dark, pine-covered hill.