Six Feet Four Part 7

Then slowly the gravity left his eyes and a slow smile came into them.

He surprised his horse with a touch of the spurs.

"Get into it, you long-legged wooden horse, you!" he chuckled. "We've got something to ride for now! We're going to see Miss Grey Eyes again.

There's something besides stick-up men worth a man's thinking about, little horse!"

He reined back into the trail, rode through the little valley, climbed the ridge beyond and so pushed on deeper and ever deeper into the long sweep of flat country upon the other side. Often his eyes ran far ahead, seeking swiftly for the slender figure he constantly expected to see riding eastward before him; often they dropped to the trail underfoot to see that her horse's tracks had not turned to right or left should she leave this main horseman's highway for some one of the countless cross trails.

The afternoon wore on, the miles dropped away behind him; and he came to the end of the flat country and again was in low rolling hills. Her horse's tracks were there always before him, and yet he had had no sight of any rider that day since leaving the county road. Again much gravity came back into his eyes.

"Where's she going?" he asked himself again. "It looks like she was headed for Harte's Camp too. And then on to Hill's Corners? All alone?

It's funny."

Twenty miles he had come from Dry Town. He was again riding slowly, remembering that his horse had carried the great weight of him many long miles yesterday and today. Now the hills grew steep and shot up high and rugged against the sky. The trail was harder, steeper, narrower where it wound along the edges of the many ravines. Again and again the ground was so flinty that it held no sign to show whether shod horse had pa.s.sed over it or not. But he told himself that there was scant likelihood of her having turned out here; there was but the one trail now. And then, suddenly when he came down into another little valley through which a small drying stream wandered, he came upon the tracks he had been so long following. And he noted, with a little lift to the eyebrows, that here were the fresh hoof marks of two horses leading on toward the Camp.

"Somebody else has cut in from the side," he pondered. "Lordy, but this cattle country is sure getting shot all to pieces with folks. Who'd you suppose this new pilgrim is?"

Once or twice he drew rein, studying the signs of the trail. The tracks he had picked up at the stream with the print of the tiny boot were the small marks of a pony. This second horse for which he was seeking to account was certainly a larger animal, leaving bigger tracks, deeper sunk. There was little difficulty in distinguishing one from the other.

And there was as little trouble in reading that the larger horse had followed the pony, for again and again the big, deep track lay over the other, now and then blotting it out.

A man, with a long solitary ride ahead of him, has much time for conjecture, idle and otherwise. Here lay the hint of a story; who was the second rider, what was his business? Whence had he come and whither was he riding? And did his following the girl mean anything?

Thornton came at last, in the late afternoon, to the last stream he would ford before reaching Harte's Camp. Another half mile, the pa.s.sing over a slight rise, and he would be in sight of the end of his day's ride. He crossed the stream, and then, looking for the tracks he had been following, he saw that again the pony was pushing on ahead of him, that the horseman had turned aside. He jerked his horse back seeking for the lost tracks. And presently he found them, turning to the south and leading off into the mountains.

With thoughtful eyes he returned to his trail. He rode over the little ridge and so came into sight of the three log cabins under the oaks of Harte's place. Beyond was the barn. He would go there, find her horse at the manger. Then he would go up to the cabin in which the Hartes'

lived and there find her.

Twenty minutes later, his face and hands washed at the well, his short cropped hair brushed back with the palm of his hand, he went to the main cabin. The door was shut but the smoke from the rough stone chimney spoke eloquently of supper being cooked within. But he was not thinking a great deal of the supper. He had found the pony in the barn, had even seen a quirt which he remembered, knew that he had not been mistaken in the matter of ownership of the trim boots that had left their marks at the spring, and realized that he was rather gladder of the circ.u.mstance than the mere facts of the case would seem to warrant. And then, with brows lifted and mouth puckered into a silent whistle, he read the words on a bit of paper tacked to the cabin door:

"We've gone over to Dave Wendells. The old woman is took sick. Back in the morning most likely make yourself to home. W. HARTE."

He paused a moment, frowning, his hat in his hand. It seemed to be in his thought to go back to his horse. While he hesitated the door was flung open and a pair of troubled grey eyes looked out at him searchingly; a pair of red lips tremulously trying to be firm smiled at him, and a very low voice faltered, albeit with a brave attempt to be steady:

"Won't you come in... Mr. Thornton? And ... and make yourself at home, too? I've done it. I suppose it's all right...."

And then when still he hesitated, and his embarra.s.sment began to grow and hers seemed to melt away, she added brightly and quite coolly:

"Supper is ready ... and waiting. And I'm simply starved. Aren't you?"

Thornton laughed.

"Come to think of it," he admitted, "I believe I am."

CHAPTER VIII

IN HARTE'S CABIN

There was a rough board table, oilcloth-covered, in front of the fireplace. There were coffee, bread and b.u.t.ter, crisp slices of bacon, a dish of steaming tinned corn. There were two plates with knife and fork at the side, two cups, two chairs drawn up to the table.

"You see," she said, gaily and lightly enough, "you _have_ kept me waiting."

He glanced swiftly at her as she stood by the fireplace, and away. For though twilight in the wooded country had crept out upon them he could see the look in her eyes, the set of the red lipped mouth. And he knew downright fear when he saw it, though it be fear bravely masked.

"Let's eat," he answered, having many things in his mind, but no other single thing to say to her just yet.

She flashed him a quick look and sat down. Thornton dragged back the other chair, flung his hat to the bunk in the corner of the room, and disposed his long legs uncomfortably under the small table. Inwardly he was devoutly cursing Dave Wendell for allowing anybody at his place to choose this particular time to get sick and the Hartes for going to the a.s.sistance of a ten-mile distant neighbour.

He watched the girl's quick fingers busy with the blackened coffee pot, realized at one and the same time that she had no ring upon a particular finger and that it was idiotic for him to so much as look for it, never allowed his glance to wander higher than her hands and attacked his bread and b.u.t.ter as though its immediate consumption were the most important thing in all the world. And she, when she felt that he was not watching her, when his silence was almost a tangible thing, looked at him with quick furtiveness. The something in her expression which had spoken of terror began to give place to the look of amus.e.m.e.nt which twitched at her lips and flickered up in the soft grey of her eyes. And since still he gave no sign of breaking the silence which had fallen over them, she said at last:

"Didn't you know all the time who I was?"

Then he looked up at her inquiringly. And when he saw that she was smiling, a little of his sudden restraint fled from him and his eyes smiled back gently a little and rea.s.suringly into hers.

"All the time?" he asked. "Meaning when?"

"Back there. On the trail," she told him.

"Well," he admitted slowly, "I guess I was pretty sure. Of course I couldn't be dead certain. It might have been anybody's tracks ... that is," he corrected with a quick broadening of the smile, "anybody with a foot the right size to fit into a boot like that."

"Like what?" she asked in turn.

"Like the one that made the tracks by the creek where you came into the main trail, where you stopped to drink."

"You saw that?"

"If I hadn't seen it how was I to guess that it was you ahead of me?" he demanded. And when she frowned a little and did not answer for a moment he gave his attention to the black coffee which she had poured for him.

"You sure know how to make coffee _right_," he complimented her with a vast show of sincerity. "This is the best I ever tasted."

"I'm glad you like it," she retorted as the frown fled before a hint of laughter. "I found it already made in the pot and just warmed it over!"

"Oh," said Thornton. And then with much gravity of tone but with twinkling eyes, "Come to think of it it isn't the _taste_ of it that a man notices; it's the being just hot enough. I never had any coffee better warmed-up than this."

"Thank you." She stirred the sugar in her own cup of muddy looking beverage and without glancing up at him this time, went on, "You mean that you didn't know who I was when you saw me?"

"At the bank in Dry Town?"

"Of course not. Back there on the trail."

"I didn't see you," he told her.

Now she flashed another quick upward glance at him as though seeking for a reason lying back of his words.

"I saw you" she said steadily. "Twice. First from the top of a hill half a dozen miles back when you got down to look at your horse's foot.

Did he pick up a stone?"

His eyes opened in surprise.