Shoe-Bar Stratton Part 24

The man was watching for her--eagerly, longingly, with an underlying touch of apprehensive doubt, as if he half feared to find her merely one of those dreamlike phantoms that had haunted him through the long, painful hours. As the girl sank down beside him, there was a look in his eyes that sent a strange thrill through her and caused her hands to tremble, sending a little stream of water trickling over the soggy hat-brim to the ground.

She steadied herself resolutely and bending forward held the hat against Buck's lips. As he plunged his face into it and began to suck up the water in great, famished gulps, the girl's lips quivered, and her eyes, resting on the matted tangle of dark hair, filled with sudden tears.

CHAPTER XXII

NERVE

With a deep sigh, Buck lifted his face from the water and regarded her gratefully.

"That just about saved my life," he murmured.

Mary Thorne carefully set down the improvised water-bucket, its contents much depleted, and taking out her handkerchief, soaked it thoroughly.

"I'm awfully stupid about first aid," she said. "But your head must be badly cut, and--"

"Don't," he protested, as the moist bit of cambric touched his hair.

"You'll spoil it."

"As if that mattered!" she retorted. "Just rest your head on your arms; it'll be easier."

With deft, gentle touches, she cleaned away the blood and grime, parting his thick hair now and then with delicate care. Her hands were steady now, and having steeled herself for anything, the sight of a jagged, ugly-looking cut on his scalp did not make her flinch. She even bent forward a little to examine it more closely, and saw that a ridge of clotted blood had temporarily stopped its oozing.

"I think I'd better let it alone," she said aloud. "I might start it bleeding again. How--how did it happen?"

Buck raised his head and regarded her with a slow, thoughtful stare.

"I fell off the cliff back there," he replied at length.

Her eyes widened. "You--fell off the cliff!" she gasped. "It's a wonder-- But is this the only place you're hurt?"

His lips twisted in a grim smile. "Oh, no! I've got a sprained ankle and what feels like a broken rib, though it may be only bruises. But as you're thinking, I'm darned lucky to get off alive. I must have struck a ledge or something part way down, but how I managed from there I haven't the least idea."

Hands clenched together in her lap, she stared at him in dismay.

"I thought perhaps you might be strong enough in a little while to ride back with me to the ranch. I--I could help you mount, and we could go very slowly. But of course that's impossible. I'd better start at once and bring back some of the men."

She made a move to rise, but he stopped her with a quick, imperative gesture. "No, you mustn't," he said firmly. "That won't do at all. I can't go to the ranch." He paused, his forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. "You may not have guessed it, but Lynch and I don't pull together at all," he finished, with a whimsical intonation.

"But surely that wouldn't make any difference--now!" she protested.

"Only the difference that he'd have me just where he wanted me," he retorted. He was regarding her with a steady, questioning stare, and presently he gave a little sigh. "I'll have to tell you something I didn't mean to," he said. "In my opinion Tex Lynch is pretty much of a scoundrel.

He knows I know it, and there isn't anything he wouldn't do to shut my mouth--for good."

To his amazement, instead of showing the indignation he expected, the girl merely stared at him in surprise.

"What!" she cried. "You believe that, too?"

"I'm sure of it. But I thought you trusted--"

"I don't any longer." She was surprised at the immensity of the relief that surged over her at this chance to unburden her soul of the load of perplexity and trouble which hara.s.sed her. "For a long time I haven't--There've been a number of things. I still haven't an idea of what it's all about, but--"

"I'm mighty glad you feel that way," Buck said, as she paused. "I'm not quite sure myself just what he's up to, but I believe I'm on the right trail." Very briefly he told her of the steps he had taken since leaving the Shoe-Bar. "You see how impossible it would be to trust myself in his power again," he concluded.

For a moment or two Mary Thorne sat silent, regarding him with a curious expression.

"So that was the reason," she murmured at length.

His eyes questioned her mutely, and a slow flush crept into her face.

"The reason you--you couldn't say you had no--special object in being on the Shoe-Bar," she explained haltingly. "I'm--sorry I didn't understand."

"I couldn't very well tell you without running the risk of Lynch's finding out. As it happened, I was trying my best to think up a reasonable excuse for leaving the outfit to do some investigating from this end, so you really did me a good turn."

"Investigating what? Haven't you any idea what he's up to?"

Buck hesitated. "A very little, but it's too indefinite to put into words just yet. I've a feeling I'll get at the bottom of it soon, though, and then I'll tell you. In the meantime, when you go back, don't breathe a word of having seen me, and on no account let any one persuade you to--sell the outfit."

She stared at him with crinkled brows. "But what are you going to do now?"

she asked suddenly, her mind flashing back to the present difficulty.

He dragged himself into a sitting posture. He was evidently feeling stronger and looked much more like himself.

"Try and get back to that camp of mine I told you of," he explained. "I reckon I'll have to lay up there a while, but there's food a-plenty, and a good spring, so--"

"But I don't believe you can even stand," she protested. "And if your ribs are broken--"

"Likely it's only one and I can strap that good and tight with a piece of my shirt or something. Then if you could catch Pete and bring him over here, I'll manage to climb into the saddle some way. It's only three or four miles, and the going's not so very bad."

She made no further protest, but her lips straightened firmly and there was a look of decision in her girlish face as she set about helping him with his preparations.

It was she who tore a broad band from his flannel shirt, roughly fringed the ends with Buck's knife and tied it so tightly about his body that he had hard work to keep from wincing. She insisted on bandaging his head, and while he rested in the shade went back into the gulch to look for his hat and the Colt that had fallen from his holster.

She finally found them both under a narrow ledge that thrust out a dozen feet below the edge of the trail. A stunted bush, rooted deep in some hidden crevice, grew up before it, and, staring upward at it, the girl guessed that to this little bush alone Buck owed his life. He had been able to give her no further details of his descent, but she saw that it would be possible for a man to crawl along the narrow ledge to where another crossed it at a descending angle, and thence gain the bottom of the gulch.

"I wonder how he ever came to fall," she murmured, remembering how wide the trail was at the summit.

Returning, however, she asked no questions. In the face of what lay before her, the matter seemed trivial and unimportant. She caught the Rocking-R horse without much trouble and led him back to a broad, flat boulder on which Buck had managed to crawl. Obliged to hold the animal, whose slightest movement might prove disastrous, she could give no further aid, but was forced to stand helpless, watching with troubled, sympathetic eyes the man's painful struggles to gain the saddle. When at last he succeeded and slumped there, mouth twisted and face bathed in perspiration, her knees were shaking and she felt limp and nerveless.

"We'll stop at the spring first for more water," she said, pulling herself together with an effort.

Too exhausted for speech, Buck merely nodded, and the girl, gathering up Freckles's bridle in her other hand, led the two horses slowly toward the trail. At the spring Buck drank deeply of the water she handed him, and seemed much refreshed.

"That's good," he murmured, with an effort to straighten his bent body.

"Well, I reckon I'd better be starting. I--I can't thank you enough for all you've done, Miss--Thorne. It was mighty plucky--"