Hope Hathaway Part 23

She finally left her old friend and turned her horse's head back toward Harris' still as much perturbed in heart as when McCullen knocked at her school-house door. She tormented herself with unanswerable questions, arriving always at the same conclusion--that after all it only seemed reasonable to suppose Livingston should be married. It explained his conduct toward her perfectly. She wondered what the woman, Helene, had done to deserve such unforgiveness from one who, above all men, was the most tender and thoughtful. She concluded that it must have been something dreadful, and, oddly for her, began to feel sorry for him. She saw him when she reached the top of the divide, riding half a mile away toward his ranch buildings. Then a certain feeling of ownership, of pride, took possession of her, crowding everything before it. How well he sat his horse, in his English fashion, she thought. What a physique, what grace of strength! Then he disappeared from her sight as his horse plunged into the brush of the creek-bottom, and Hope, drawing a long breath, spurred up her own horse until she was safely out of sight of ranch and ranch-buildings. A bend in the road brought her face to face with Long Bill and Shorty Smith.

"h.e.l.lo," said Shorty Smith, drawing rein beside her. "I was a lookin'

for you."

"Really," said the girl, stopping beside him and calmly contemplating both men.

"Yep," nodded Long Bill politely, "we was huntin' fer you, Miss Hathaway."

"You see it's like this," explained Shorty Smith; "the old man, he ain't a-doin' very well. I reckon it's his age. That there wound of his'n won't heal, so we thought mebby you had some arnica salve er something sort o' soothin' to dope him with."

"I haven't the salve, but I might go over there myself if you want an anodyne," replied Hope, unsmiling at the men's blank faces.

"I'm goin' to ride to town to-morrow and I reckoned if you didn't have no salve you could send in for it."

"Oh, I see!" Hope's exclamation came involuntarily. "What do you want to get for him and how much money do you want for it?"

"Well, you see, he needs considerable. Ain't got nothin' comfortable over there; nothin' to eat, wear--nothin' at all."

"All right," replied the girl in her cool, even tone. "I'll see that he is supplied with everything, but will attend to the matter myself.

Good-evening!" She rode past them rapidly, and they, outwitted in their little scheme for whisky-money, rode on their way toward old Peter's basin.

Sydney's horse stood outside of Harris'. He left a group of men who were waiting the call for supper, and came out in the road to meet the girl when she rode up.

"I have been waiting for you," he said.

"And I have been over to camp and around the cattle with Jim," she replied.

"Then come on and ride back up the road with me a ways, I want to see you," said Carter, picking up the bridle reins from the ground.

"But Louisa----" she demurred.

"Louisa's all right," he answered. "I've had her out for a ride, and now she's gone in the house with that breed girl--Mary, I think she called her. So you see she's in excellent hands."

Hope turned her horse about and rode away with him silently.

"I want to talk with you, anyway," he said, when they had gone a short distance. "I haven't had a chance in a dog's age, you're always so hemmed in lately."

"Well, what is it?" she questioned.

"There's some rumors going around that I don't exactly understand, Hope.

Have you been doing anything since you've been up here to raise a commotion among these breeds?"

She turned to him with a shrug of contempt.

"You'll have to tell me what you're driving at before I can enlighten you," she replied.

"Wait a minute," he said, "I want to light a cigarette." This accomplished, he continued: "I saw one of the boys from Bill Henry's outfit yesterday and he told me that he was afraid you were getting mixed up in some row up here."

"_Who_ said so?" she demanded.

"Well, it was Peterson. You know he'll say what he's got to say, if he dies for it." He waited a moment.

"If it was Peterson, go on. He's a friend, if he is a fool. What did he have to say about me?" She flecked some dust from her skirt with the end of her reins.

Sydney watched her carefully.

"He didn't say anything, exactly, about you," he replied. "That's what I'm going to try to find out. He said there had been some kind of a rumpus up here when you first came--that shooting at Livingston's corral, you remember, and that it was rumored there had been some sharp-shooting done, and you had been mixed up in it."

"Who told Peterson?" demanded the girl.

"Well, it seems that McCullen laid Long Bill out one evening over at Bill Henry's wagon, for something or other, and this old squaw back here, old Mother White Blanket, happened along in time to view the fallen hero, who, it seems, is her son-in-law. She immediately fell into a rage and denounced a certain school-ma'am as a deep-dyed villain."

"Villainess," corrected Hope serenely.

"Yes, I believe that was it," continued Sydney. "Anyway, she rated you roundly and said you had been at the bottom of all the trouble, that you had shot Long Bill through the hand, wounded several others, and mentioned the herder who was killed."

"She lied!" said the girl with sudden whiteness of face. "That was a cold-blooded lie about the herder!"

"I know that!" a.s.sured her cousin. "You don't suppose I ever thought for a minute you were mixed up in it, Hopie, do you? I only wanted to know how it happened that all these people are set against you."

"Because they know I'm on to their deviltry," she replied savagely. "I'd like to have that old squaw right here between my hands, _so_, and hear her bones crackle. How dare they say _I_ shot Louisa's poor, poor sweetheart! Oh, I could exterminate the whole tribe!"

"But that wouldn't be lawful, Hopie," remarked Carter.

She turned to him with a half smile, resting one hand confidingly upon his arm.

"Syd, dear, I don't care a bit about the whole concern, really, but please don't mention it to anyone, will you?"

"You mean not to tell Livingston," he smiled.

"I mean not _anyone_. I shouldn't want my father to hear such talk.

Neither would you. What wouldn't he do!"

"Of course not," he agreed. "You'd get special summons, immediately, if not sooner. But there's something more I wanted to ask you about. How was it you happened to shoot old Peter?"

"How did you know?" she asked quickly.

"Now I promised I wouldn't mention the matter," he replied.

She studied for a moment.

"There's only one way you could have heard it," she finally decided in some anger. "That person had no right to tell you."

"It was told with the best intentions, and for your own good, Hope, so that I could look after you more carefully in the future."

"Look after me!" she retorted. "Well, I guess he found out there was one time I could look out for myself, didn't he?"

"He seemed to think that more a miracle or an accident than anything else, until I told him something about how quick you were with a gun. He told me the old man was crazy, and had pulled his gun on you, but that you had in some remarkable manner shot it out of his hand, shattering the old fellow's arm. I a.s.sured him that I would see that the proper authorities took care of old Peter, as soon as he had recovered sufficiently. Now what'll we do with him, Hope?" She did not reply. Then he continued: "I knew in a minute that you'd kept the real facts of the case from Livingston. But you're not going to keep them from me."