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

The three sat irresolutely on their horses at the tunnel's end of the Gap, staring out over the valley of the Redwater and at the mountains beyond. Bud's face was haggard and the lines of his mouth were hard. It was so vast a country in which to look for one little woman who had not gone back to see Jerry's signal!

“I'll bet yuh Sis cleared out,” Eddie blurted, looking at Bud eagerly, as if he had been searching for some comforting word. “Sis has got lots of sand. She used to call me a 'fraid cat all the time when I didn't want to go where she did. I'll bet she just took Boise and run off with him. She would, if she made up her mind—and I guess she'd had about as much as she could stand, cookin' at Little Lost—”

Bud lifted his head and looked at Eddie like a man newly awakened. “I gave her money to take home for me, to my mother, down Laramie way. I begged her to go if she was liable to be in trouble over leaving the ranch. But she said she wouldn't go—not unless she was missed. She knew I'd come back to the ranch. I just piled her hands full of bills in the dark and told her to use them if she had to—”

“She might have done it,” Jerry hazarded hopefully. “Maybe she did sneak in some other way and get her things. She'd have to take some clothes along. Women folks always have to pack. By gosh, she could hide Boise out somewhere and—”

For a young man in danger of being lynched by his boss for horse stealing and waylaid and robbed by a gang notorious in the country, Bud's appetite for risk seemed insatiable that morning. For he added the extreme possibility of breaking his neck by reckless riding in the next hour.

He swung Sunfish about and jabbed him with the spurs, ducking into the gloom of the Gap as if the two who rode behind were assassins on his trail. Once he spoke, and that was to Sunfish. His tone was savage.

“Damn your lazy hide, you've been through here twice and you've got daylight to help—now pick up your feet and travel!”

Sunfish travelled; and the pace he set sent even Jerry gasping now and then when he came to the worst places, with the sound of galloping hoofs in the distance before him, and Eddie coming along behind and lifting his voice warningly now and then. Even the Catrockers had held the Gap in respect, and had ridden its devious trail cautiously. But caution was a meaningless word to Bud just then while a small flame of hope burned steadily before him.

The last turn, where on the first trip Sunfish lost Boise and balked for a minute, he made so fast that Sunfish left a patch of yellowish hair on a pointed rock and came into the open snorting fire of wrath. He went over the rough ground like a bouncing antelope, simply because he was too mad to care how many legs he broke. At the peak of rocks he showed an inclination to stop, and Bud, who had been thinking and planning while he hoped, pulled him to a stand and waited for the others to come up. They could not go nearer the corrals without incurring the danger of being overheard, and that must not happen.

“You damn fool,” gritted Jerry when he came up with Bud. “If I'd knowed you wanted to commit suicide I'd a caved your head in with a rock and saved myself the craziest ride I ever took in m' life!”

“Oh, shut up!” Bud snapped impatiently. “We're here, aren't we? Now listen to me, boys. You catch up my horses—Jerry, are you coming along with me? You may as well. I'm a deputy sheriff, and if anybody stops you for whatever you've done, I'll show a warrant for your arrest. And by thunder,” he declared with a faint grin, “I'll serve it if I have to to keep you with me. I don't know what you've done, and I don't care. I want you. So catch up my horses—and Jerry, you can pack my war-bag and roll your bed and mine, if I'm too busy while I'm here.”

“You're liable to be busy, all right,” Jerry interpolated grimly.

“Well, they won't bother you. Ed, you better get the horses. Take Sunfish, here, and graze him somewhere outa sight. We'll keep going, and we might have to start suddenly.”

“How about Sis? I thought—”

“I'm going to turn Little Lost upside down to find her, if she's here. If she isn't, I'm kinda hoping she went down to mother. She said there was no other place where she could go. And she'd feel that she had to deliver the money, perhaps—because I must have given her a couple of thousand dollars. It was quite a roll, mostly in fifties and hundreds, and I'm short that much. I'm just gambling that the size of made her feel she must go.”

“That'd be Sis all over, Mr. Birnie.” Eddie glanced around him uneasily. The sun was shining level in his eyes, and sunlight to Eddie had long meant danger. “I guess we better hurry, then. I'll get the horses down outa sight, and come back here afoot and wait.”

“Do that, kid,” said Bud, slipping wearily off Sunfish. He gave the reins into Eddie's hand, motioned Jerry with his head to follow, and hurried down the winding path to the corrals. The cool brilliance of the morning, the cheerful warbling of little, wild canaries in the bushes as he passed, for once failed to thrill him with joy of life. He was wondering whether to go straight to the house and search it if necessary to make sure that she had not been there, or whether Indian cunning would serve him best. His whole being ached for direct action; his heart trembled with fear lest he should jeopardize Marian's safety by his impetuous haste to help her.

Pop, coming from the stable just as Bud was crossing the corral, settled the question for him. Pop peered at him sharply, put a hand to the small of his back and came stepping briskly toward him, his jaw working like a sheep eating hay.

“Afoot, air ye?” he exclaimed curiously. “What-fer idea yuh got in yore head now, young feller? Comin' back here afoot when ye rid two fast horses? Needn't be afraid of ole Pop—not unless yuh lie to 'im and try to git somethin' fur nothin'. Made off with Lew's wife, too, didn't ye? Oh, there ain't much gits past ole Pop, even if he ain't the man he used to be. I seen yuh lookin' at her when yuh oughta been eatin'. I seen yuh! An' her watchin' you when she thought nobuddy'd ketch her at it! Sho! Shucks a'mighty! You been playin' hell all around, now, ain't ye? Needn't lie—I know what my own eyes tells me!”

“You know a lot, then, that I wish I knew. I've been in Crater all the time, Pop. Did you know Lew was mixed up in a bank robbery yesterday, and the cashier of the bank shot him? The rest of the gang is dead or in jail. The sheriff did some good work there for a few minutes.”

Pop pinched in his lips and stared at Bud unwinkingly for a minute. “Don't lie to me,” he warned petulantly. “Went to Crater, did ye? Cashed them checks, I expect.”

Bud pulled his mouth into a rueful grin. “Yes, Pop, I cashed the checks, all right—and here's