Out Of The Depths Part 9

Unheeded by Ashton, she had guided him off to the left, away from Dry Fork, across the angle above its junction with Plum Creek. They were now coming up over the divide between the two streams. Ashton failed to locate the haystack until its two mates and the long, half-open shelter-sheds came into view.

A moment later he was looking at the horse corral and the group of log ranch houses. Below and beyond them the scattered groves of Plum Creek stretched away up across the mesa--green bouquets on the slender silver ribbon of the creek's midsummer rill.

"Well?" she asked. "What do you think of my home?"

"Your summer home," he suggested.

"No, my real home," she insisted. "Auntie couldn't be nicer or fonder than she is; but her house is a residence, not a home, even to her.

Anyway, here, where I have Daddy and Kid--I do so hope you and Kid will become friends."

"Since you wish it, I shall try to do my part. But it is a matter that might take time, and--" he smiled ruefully and concluded with seeming irrelevance--"I have no home."

She gazed at him with the look of tender motherly sympathy that he had been too distraught to really feel the previous day. "Do not say that, Mr. Ashton! Though a ranch house is hardly the kind of home to which you are accustomed, you will find that we range folks retain the old-fashioned Western ideas of hospitality."

"My dear Miss Knowles!" he exclaimed with ardent gallantry, "the mere thought of being under the same sky with you--"

"Don't, please," she begged. "This _is_ the blue sky we are under, not a stuccoed ceiling."

"Well, I really meant it," he protested, greatly dashed.

"Kid often says nice things to me. But he speaks with his hands," she remarked.

"Deaf and dumb alphabet?" he queried wonderingly.

"Hardly," she answered, dimpling under his puzzled gaze. "Actions speak louder than words, you know."

"Ah!" he murmured, and his look indicated that she had given him food for thought.

They were now cantering down the long easy slope towards the ranch buildings. The girl's quick eye perceived a horseman riding towards the ranch from one of the groves up Plum Creek.

"There's Kid coming in," she remarked. "He went out early this morning after a big wolf that had killed a calf. He reported last evening that he found the carca.s.s over near the head of Plum Creek. A wolf that gets to killing calves this time of year is a pretty costly neighbor.

Daddy told Kid to go out and try to get him."

"I'm glad you didn't let him get _this_ calf-killer," observed Ashton.

"Oh, as soon as we saw your tenderfoot riding togs--!" she rejoined.

"Seriously, though, you must not mind if the men poke a little fun at you. Most of them are more farmhands than cowboys, but Kid will be apt to lead off. I do so want you to be agreeable to Kid. He is almost a member of the family, not a hired man."

"I shall try to be agreeable to him," replied Ashton, a trifle stiffly.

The puncher had seen them probably before they saw him. He was riding at a pace that brought him to the horse corral a few moments ahead of them. When they came up he nodded carelessly in response to Ashton's studiously polite greeting, "Good day, Mr. Gowan," and turned to loosen the cinch of his saddle.

"You've been riding some," remarked the girl, looking at the puncher's heaving, lathered horse.

"Jumped that wolf--ran him," replied Gowan, as he lifted off his saddle and deftly tossed it up on the top rail of the corral.

"You're in luck," congratulated Miss Isobel. She explained to Ashton: "The cattlemen in this county pay fifteen dollars for wolf scalps.

That's in addition to the state bounty."

Ashton sprang off to offer her his hand. But she was on the ground as soon as he. Gowan stared at him between narrowed lids, and replied to the girl somewhat shortly: "I didn't get him this time, Miss Chuckie."

"You didn't? That's too bad! You don't often miss. I wish you had been with me, to run down the scoundrel who tried to murder Mr. Ashton."

Gowan burst into the harsh, strained laughter of one who seldom gives way to mirth. He checked himself abruptly and cast a hostile look at Ashton. "By--James, Miss Chuckie, you don't mean to say you let a tenderfoot string you?"

"How about this?" asked the girl. She held out the silver flask, which she had not returned to Ashton.

Gowan gave it a casual glance, and answered almost jeeringly: "Easy enough for him to set it up and plug it--if he didn't get too far away."

"His rifle is a thirty-two. This was done by a thirty-eight," she replied.

"Thirty-eight?" he repeated. "Let's see." He took the flask from her, drew a rifle cartridge from his belt, and fitted the steel-jacketed bullet into the clean, small hole. "You're right, Miss Chuckie. It sh.o.r.e was a thirty-eight." He turned sharply on Ashton. "Where'd it happen? Who was it?"

"Over on that dry stream," answered Ashton. "Unfortunately the fellow was too far away for me to be able to describe him."

"But we think it may have been his guide," explained the girl.

"Guide?" muttered Gowan, staring intently at Ashton.

"Yes. You see, if he was mean enough to help steal Mr. Ashton's outfit, he--"

"Sh.o.r.e, I savvy!" exclaimed the puncher. "I'll rope a couple of fresh hawsses, and go out with Mr. Ashton after the two-legged wolf."

"That's like you, Kid! But you must wait at least until you've both had dinner. Mr. Ashton, I'm sure, is half starved."

"Me, too, Miss Chuckie. But you know I'd rather eat a wolf or a rustler or even a daring desperado than sinkers and beans, any day."

"You'll come in with us and see what Daddy has to say about it," the girl insisted.

She started to loosen her saddle-cinch. Gowan handed back the silver flask, and stripping off saddle and bridle from her horse, placed them on the rail beside his own. Ashton waited, as if expecting a like service. The puncher started off beside Miss Isobel without looking at him. Ashton flushed hotly, and hastened to do his own unsaddling.

CHAPTER VII

THE CHANCE OF RECLAMATION

Beyond the bunkhouse, which was the nearest building to the corral, stood the low but roomy log structure of the main ranch house. As Ashton came around the front corner, close behind Gowan and the girl, Knowles rose from his comfortable chair in the rustic porch, knocked out the half burned contents of his pipe and extended a freckled, corded hand to the stranger.

"Howdy, Mr. Ashton! Glad to see you!" he said with hearty hospitality.

"Hope you've come to ease up our lonesomeness by a month or two's visit."

"Why, I--You're too kind, really!" replied Ashton, his voice quavering and breaking at the unexpected cordiality of the welcome. "If you--I shall take advantage of your generous offer. You see, I'm rather in a box, owing to my--" He caught himself up, and tightened his slackening lip. "But you'll pardon me if I ask you to let me do something in return for your hospitality."

"We don't sell our hospitality on the range," brusquely replied the cowman.