A Daughter of the Dons Part 15

She gave a gesture of annoyance.

"Can't you understand that this is no time for flippancy? Can't you make him see it, sir?" she called to Davis.

That gentleman shook his head.

"He'll go his own way, I expect. He always was that bull-headed."

"Firm--I call it," smiled Gordon.

"I ask you to remember that he has had his warning," the girl called to Steve.

"I've had several," acknowledged d.i.c.k, his eyes again on the hat. "There won't be anybody to blame but myself."

"You know who shot at you. I saw it in your face. Tell me, and I will see that he is punished," she urged.

d.i.c.k shook his head imperturbably.

"No; I reckon that wouldn't do. I'm playing a lone hand. You're on the other side. How can I come and ask you to fight my battles for me? That wouldn't be playing the game. I'll attend to the young man that mistook me for a rabbit."

"Very well. As you like. But you are quite mistaken if you think I asked on your account. He had disobeyed my orders, and he deserved to pay for it. I have no further interest in the matter."

"Certainly. I understand that. What interest could Miss Valdes have in a spy and a cheat?" he drawled negligently.

The young woman flushed, made as if to speak, then turned away abruptly.

She touched her pony with the spur, and as it took the outside of the slanting, narrow trail, its hoof slipped on loose gravel and went over the edge. d.i.c.k's arm went out like a streak of lightning and caught the rein.

For an instant the issue hung in doubt whether he could hold the bronco and save her a nasty fall. The taut muscles of his lean arm and body grew rigid with the strain before the animal found its feet and the path.

"Thank you," the young woman said quietly, and at once disengaged the rein from his fingers by a turn of the pony's head.

Yet a moment, and she had disappeared round a bend in the trail. Gordon had observed with satisfaction that there had been no sign of fear in her eyes at the danger she faced, no screaming or wild clutching at his arm for help. Her word of thanks to him had been as cool and low as the rest of her talk.

"She's that game. Ain't she a thoroughbred, Steve?" demanded d.i.c.k, with deep delight in his fair foe.

"You bet she is. It's a shame for you to be annoying her this way. Why don't you come to an agreement with her?"

"She ain't ready for that yet. When the time comes I'll dictate the terms of the treaty. Don't you think it's about time for us to be heading back home?"

"Then we'll meet your lady of the ranch quicker, won't we?" chuckled Davis. "Funny you didn't think about going back till after she had pa.s.sed."

But if d.i.c.k had hoped to see her again he was disappointed for that day, at least. They reached Corbett's with never another glimpse of her; nor was there any sign of her horse in front of the post office and general store.

"Must have taken that lower trail that leads back to the ranch,"

hazarded Gordon.

"I reckon," agreed his friend. "Seems funny, too; her knowing you was on the upper one."

"Guy me all you like. I can stand it," returned d.i.c.k cheerfully.

For he had scored once in spite of her. He had saved her from a fall, at a place where, to say the least, it would have been dangerous. She had announced herself indifferent to his existence; but the very fact that she had felt called upon to say so gave denial to the statement. She might hate him, and she probably did; at least, she had him on her mind a good deal. The young man was sure of that. He was shrewdly of opinion that his chances were better if she hated him than if she never thought of him at all.

CHAPTER VIII

TAMING AN OUTLAW

"Something doing back of the corral, Mr. Gordon."

Yeager, the horse-wrangler at Corbett's, stopped in front of the porch, and jerked his head, with a twisted grin, in the direction indicated.

Everything about the little stableman was crooked. From the slope of his legs to the set of his bullet head on the narrow shoulders, he was awry.

But he had an instinct about horses that was worth more than the beauty of any slim, tanned _vaquero_ of the lot.

Only one horse had he failed to subdue. That was Teddy, a rakish sorrel that had never yet been ridden. Many had tried it, but none had stuck to the saddle to the finish; and some had been carried from the corral to the hospital.

d.i.c.k got up and strolled back, with his hands in his pockets.

A dozen _vaqueros_ and loungers sat and stood around the mouth of the corral, from which a slim young Mexican was leading the sorrel.

"So, it's you, Master Pedro," thought the young American. "I didn't expect to see you here."

The lad met his eyes quietly as he pa.s.sed, giving him a sullen nod of greeting; evidently he hoped he had not been recognized as the previous day's ambusher.

"Is Pedro going to ride the outcast?" d.i.c.k asked of Yeager, in surprise.

Yeager grinned.

"He's going to try. The boy's slap-up rider, but he ain't got it in him to break Teddy--no, nor any man in New Mexico ain't."

d.i.c.k looked the horse over carefully, as it stood there while the boy tightened the girths--feet wide apart, small head low, and red eyes gleaming wickedly. Deep-chested, with mighty shoulders, barrel-bodied like an Indian pony, Teddy showed power in every line of him. It was easy to guess him for the unbroken outlaw he was.

There was a swift scatter backward of the onlookers as Pedro swung to the saddle. Before his right foot was in the stirrup, the bronco bucked.

The young Mexican, light and graceful, settled to the saddle with a delighted laugh, and drove the spurs home. The animal humped like a camel, head and tail down, went into the air and back to earth, with four feet set like pile-drivers. It was a shock to drive a man's spine together like a concertina; but Pedro took it limply, giving to the jar of the impact as the pony came down again and again.

Teddy tasted the quirt along his quarters, and the pain made him frantic. He went screaming straight into the air, hung there a long instant, and fell over backward. The lad was out of the saddle in time and no more, and back in his seat before the outlaw had scrambled to his feet.

The spur starred him to renewed life. Like a flash of lightning, the brute's head swung round and snapped at the boy's leg. Pedro wrenched the head back in time to save himself; and Teddy went to sun-fishing, and presently to fence-rowing.

The dust flew in clouds. It wrapped them in so that the boy saw nothing but the wicked ears in front of him. His throat became a lime-kiln, his eyes stared like those of a man weary from long wakefulness. The hot sun baked his bare neck and head, the while Teddy rocketed into the sky and pounded into the earth.

Neither rider nor mount had mercy. The quirt went back and forth like a piston-rod, and the outlaw, in screaming fury, leaped and tossed like a small boat in a tremendous sea of cross-currents.

"It's sure h.e.l.l-for-leather. That hawss can tie himself in more knots than any that was ever foaled," commented a tobacco-chewing puncher in a scarlet kerchief.