Shoe-Bar Stratton Part 25

"You mustn't waste your strength talking," she interrupted quietly. "Just tell me which way to go, and we'll start."

"We?" he repeated sharply. "But you're not going."

"Of course I am. Did you think for a moment I'd let you take that ride alone?" She smiled faintly with a brave attempt at lightness. "You'd be falling off and breaking another rib. Please don't make difficulties. I'm going with you, and that's an end of it."

Perhaps the firmness of her manner made Buck realize the futility of further protest, or possibly he was in no condition to argue. At all events he gave in, and when the girl swung herself into the saddle, the slow journey began.

To Mary Thorne the memory of it remained ever afterward in her mind a chaotic medley of strange emotions and impressions, vague yet vivid. At first, where the width of the trail permitted it, she rode beside him, making an effort to talk casually and lightly, yet not too constantly, but continually keeping a watchful eye on the drooping figure at her right, whose hands presently sought and gripped the saddle-horn.

When they left the trail for rougher ground, she dismounted in spite of Buck's protest, and walked beside him, and it was well she did. Once when the horse slipped or stumbled on a loose stone and the man's body swayed perilously in the saddle, she put up both hands swiftly and held him there.

Before they had gone a mile her boots began to hurt her, but the pain was so trifling in comparison with what Buck must be suffering that she scarcely noticed it. He was putting up a brave front, but there were signs that were difficult to conceal, and toward the end of that toilsome journey it was evident that he could not possibly have kept his seat much longer. Indeed, when they had ridden the short length of the little canon and stopped before the overhanging shelf of rocks, he toppled suddenly sidewise, and only the girl's frail body prevented him from crashing roughly to the ground.

She brought him water from the spring, and searching through his belongings found a flask of brandy and forced some between his teeth. When he had recovered from his momentary faintness, she managed somehow to get him over to the blankets spread beneath the ledge. Then she built a fire and set some coffee on it to boil, unsaddled Pete, fed and watered the three horses, finally returning with a cup of steaming liquid to where Buck lay exhausted with closed eyes.

His face was drawn and haggard, and his lashes, long and soft and thick, lay against a skin drained of every particle of color. A sudden choking sob rose to the girl's lips, but she managed to force it back, and when the man's lids slowly lifted, she smiled tremulously.

"Here's some coffee," she said, kneeling down and holding the rim of the cup to his lips.

Buck drank obediently in slow gulps.

"You're all nerve," he murmured when the cup was empty. He lay silent for a few moments. "Don't you think you'd better be starting back?" he asked at length.

"How can I go and leave you like this?" she protested. "You're so weak.

You might get fever. Anything might happen."

"But you certainly can't stay," he retorted with unexpected decision. "Let alone a whole lot of other reasons," he went on, watching her mutinous face, "if you did, Tex would have a posse out hunting for you in no time.

Sooner or later they'd find this place, and you know what that would mean.

I'm feeling better every minute--honest. By to-morrow I'll be able to hobble around and look after myself fine."

His logic was irresistible, and for a time she sat silent, torn by a conflict of emotions. Then all at once her face brightened.

"I've got it!" she cried. "Why can't I send Bud out? He's to be trusted surely?"

Buck's eyes lit up in a way that brought to the girl a curious, jealous pang.

"Bud? Sure, he's all right. That's one fine idea. You'll have to be careful Lynch doesn't know where he's going, though."

"I'll manage that all right."

Reluctant to go, yet feeling that she ought to make haste, the girl got out some crackers and placed them, with a pail of water, within his reach.

Then she listened while Stratton told her of a short cut out to the middle pasture.

"I understand," she nodded. "You'll promise to be careful, won't you? Bud ought to be here in a couple of hours, though he may be delayed a little longer. You'd better not try and move until he comes."

"I won't," Buck answered. "I'm too darn comfortable."

"Well, good-by, then," she said briefly, moving over to her horse.

"Good-by; and--thank you a thousand times!"

She made no answer, but a faint, enigmatic smile quivered for an instant on her lips as she turned the stirrup and swung herself into the saddle.

When Freckles had reached a little distance, she glanced back and waved her hand. From where he lay Stratton could see almost the whole length of the little canon, and as long as the slight figure on the big gray horse remained in sight, his eyes followed her intently, a sort of wistful hunger in their depths. But when she disappeared, the man's head fell back limply on the blankets and his eyes closed.

CHAPTER XXIII

WHERE THE WHEEL TRACKS LED

Bud Jessup removed a battered stew-pan from the fire and set it aside to cool a little.

"Well, by this time I reckon friend Tex is all worked up over what's become of me," he remarked in a tone of satisfaction, deftly shifting the coffee-pot to a bed of deeper coals. "He's sure tried often enough to get rid of me, but I don't guess he quite relishes my droppin' out of sight like this."

Buck Stratton, his back resting comfortably against a rock a little way from the fire, nodded absently.

"You're sure you didn't leave any trace they could pick up?" he asked with a touch of anxiety.

"Certain sure," returned Jessup confidently. "When Miss Mary came in around four, I was in the wagon-shed, the rest of the crowd bein' down in south pasture. Like I told yuh before, she had a good-sized package all done up nice in her hand, an' it didn't take her long to tell me what was up. Then we walks out together an' stops by the kitchen door.

"'Yuh better get yore supper at the hotel,' she says, an' ride back afterwards. 'I meant to send in right after dinner to mail the package, but I got held up out on the range.'

"Then she seems to catch sight of the greaser for the first time jest inside the door, though I noticed him snoopin' there when we first come up.

"'I hope yuh got somethin' left from dinner, Pedro,' she says, with one of them careless natural smiles of hers, like as if she hadn't a care on her mind except food. 'I'm half starved.'"

Bud sighed and finished with a note of admiration. "Some girl, all right!"

"You've said it," agreed Buck fervently.

His appearance had improved surprisingly in the ten days that had pa.s.sed since his accident. The head-bandage was gone, and his swollen ankle, though still tender at times, had been reduced to almost normal size by constant applications of cold water. His body was still tightly strapped up with yards and yards of bandage, which Mary Thorne had thoughtfully packed, with a number of other first-aid necessities, in the parcel which was Bud's excuse for making a trip to town.

Stratton was not certain that a rib had been broken after all. When Jessup came to examine him he found the flesh terribly bruised and refrained from any unnecessary prodding. It was still somewhat painful to the touch, but from the ease with which he could get about, Buck had a notion that at the worst the bone was merely cracked.

"They wouldn't be likely to notice where you left the Paloma trail, would they?" Buck asked, after a brief retrospective silence.

"Not unless they're a whole lot better trackers than I think for," Jessup a.s.sured him. "I picked a rocky place this side of the gully, an' cut around the north end of middle pasture, where the land slopes down a bit, an' yuh can't be seen from the south more 'n a quarter of a mile. I kept my eyes peeled, believe me! an' didn't glimpse a soul all the way. I wouldn't fret none about their followin' me here."

"I reckon it is foolish," admitted Stratton. "But lying around not able to do anything makes a fellow think up all kinds of trouble. Lynch isn't a fool, and there's no doubt when you didn't come back that night he'd begin to smell a rat right off."

"Sure. An' next day he likely sent in to town, where he'd find out from old Pop that I never showed up there at all. After that, accordin' to my figgerin', he'd be up against it hard. Yuh can bank on Miss Mary playin'

the game, an' registerin' surprise an' worry an' all the rest of it. There ain't a chance in the world of his thinkin' to look for me here."

"I reckon that's true. Of course we've got to remember that so far as he knows I'm out of the way for good."

Bud took up coffee-pot and stew-pan and set them down beside Stratton, where the rest of the meal was spread.