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

what's left of the money. I guess,” he went on while he pulled out a small roll of bills and licked his finger preparatory to counting them, “I might better have stuck to running my horses. Poker's sure a fright. The way it can eat into a man's pocket—”

“Went and lost all that money on poker, did ye?” Pop's voice was shrill. “After me tellin' yuh how to git it—and showin' yuh how yuh could beat Boise—” the old man's rage choked him. He thrust his face close to Bud's and glared venomously.

“Yes, and just to show you I appreciate it, I'm going to give you what's left after I've counted off enough to see me through to Spokane. I feel sick, Pop. I want change of air. And as for riding two fast horses to Crater—” he paused while he counted slowly, Pop licking his lips avidly as he watched,—“why I don't know what you mean. I only ride one horse at a time, Pop, when I'm sober. And I was sober till I hit Crater.”

He stopped counting when he reached fifty dollars and gave the rest to Pop, who thumbed the bank notes in a frenzy of greed until he saw that he had two hundred dollars in his possession. The glee which he tried to hide, the crafty suspicion that this was not all of it the returning conviction that Bud was actually almost penniless, and the cunning assumption of senility, was pictured on his face. Pop's poor, miserly soul was for a minute shamelessly revealed. Distraught though he was, Bud stared and shuddered a little at the spectacle.

“I always said 't you're a good, honest, well-meaning boy,” Pop cackled, slyly putting the money out of sight while he patted Bud on the shoulder. “Dave he thought mebby you took and stole Boise—and if I was you, Bud, I'd git to Spokane quick as I could and not let Dave ketch ye. Dave's out now lookin' for ye. If he suspicioned you'd have the gall to come right back to Little Lost, I expect mebby he'd string yuh up, young feller. Dave's got a nasty temper—he has so!”

“There's something else, Pop, that I don't like very well to be accused of. You say Mrs. Morris is gone. I don't know a thing about that, or about the horse being gone. I've been in Crater. I'd just got my money out of the bank when it was held up, and Lew was shot.”

Pop teetered and gummed his tobacco and grinned foxily. “Shucks! I don't care nothin' about Lew's wife goin', ner I don't care nothin' much about the horse. They ain't no funral uh mine, Bud. Dave an' Lew, let 'em look after their own belongin's.”

“They'll have to, far as I'm concerned,” said Bud. “What would I want of a horse I can beat any time I want to run mine? Dave must think I'm scared to ride fast, since Sunday! And Pop, I've got troubles enough without having a woman on my hands. Are you sure Marian's gone?”

“SURE?” Pop snorted. “Honey, she's had to do the cookin' for me an' Jerry—and if I ain't sure—”

Bud did not wait to hear him out. There was Honey, whom he would very much like to avoid meeting; so the sooner he made certain of Marian's deliberate flight the better, since Honey was not an early riser. He went to the house and entered by way of the kitchen, feeling perfectly sure all the while that Pop was watching him. The disorder there was sufficiently convincing that Marian was gone, so he tip-toed across the room to a door through which he had never seen any one pass save Lew and Marian.

It was her bedroom, meagrely furnished, but in perfect order. On the goods-box dresser with a wavy-glassed mirror above it, her hair brush, comb and a few cheap toilet necessities lay, with the comb across a nail file as if she had put it down hurriedly before going out to serve supper to the men. Marian, then, had not stolen home to pack things for the journey, as Jerry had declared a woman would do. Bud sent a lingering glance around the room and closed the door. Hope was still with him, but it was darkened now with doubts.

In the kitchen again he hesitated, wanting his guitar and mandolin and yet aware of the foolishness of burdening himself with them now. Food was a different matter, however. Dave owed him for more than three weeks of hard work in the hayfield, so Bud collected from the pantry as much as he could carry, and left the house like a burglar.

Pop was fiddling with the mower that stood in front of the machine shed, plainly waiting for whatever night transpire. And since the bunk-house door was in plain view and not so far away as Bud wished it, he went boldly over to the old man, carrying his plunder on his shoulder.

“Dave owes me for work, Pop, so I took what grub I needed,” he explained with elaborate candor. “I'll show you what I've got, so you'll know I'm not taking anything that I've no right to.” He set down the sack, opened it and looked up into what appeared to be the largest-muzzled six-shooter he had ever seen in his life. Sheer astonishment held him there gaping, half stooped over the sack.

“No ye don't, young feller!” Pop snarled vindictively. “Yuh think I'd let a horse thief git off 'n this ranch whilst I'm able to pull a trigger? You fork her that money you got on ye, first thing yuh do! it's mine by rights—I told yuh I'd help ye to win money off 'n the valley crowd, and I done it. An' what does you do? Never pay a mite of attention to me after I'd give ye all the inside workin's of the game—never offer to give me my share—no, by Christmas, you go steal a horse of my son's and hide him out somewheres, and go lose mighty near all I helped yuh win, playin' poker! Think I'm goin' to stand for that? Think two hundred dollars is goin' to even things up when I helped ye to win a fortune? Hand over that fifty you got on yuh!”

Very meekly, his face blank, Bud reached into his pocket and got the money. Without a word he pulled two or three dollars in silver from his trousers pockets and added that to the lot. “Now what?” he wanted to know.

“Now You'll wait till Dave gits here to hang yuh fer horse-stealing!” shrilled Pop. “Jerry! Oh, Jerry! Where be yuh? I got 'im, by Christmas—I got the horse thief—caught him carryin good grub right outa the house!”

“Look out, Jerry!” called Bud, glancing quickly toward the bunk-house.

Now, Pop had without doubt been a man difficult to trick in his youth, but he was old, and he was excited, tickled over his easy triumph. He turned to see what was wrong with Jerry.

“Look out, Pop, you old fool, You'll bust a blood-vessel if you don't quiet down,” Bud censured mockingly, wresting the gun from the clawing, struggling old man in his arms. He was surprised at the strength and agility of Pop, and though he was forcing him backward step by step into the machine shed, and knew that he was master of the situation, he had his hands full.

“Wildcats is nothing to Pop when he gets riled,” Jerry grinned, coming up on the run. “I kinda expected something like this. What yuh want done with him, Bud?”

“Gag him so he can't holler his head off,