Starr, of the Desert Part 14

Starr took the gla.s.ses down from his eyes and let them dangle by their cord while he walked over the nose of the ridge to where she was waiting for him.

Half-way there, a streak of fire seemed to sear his arm near his shoulder. Starr knew the feeling well enough. He staggered and went down headlong in a clump of greasewood, and at the same instant the report of a rifle came clearly from the high pinnacle at the head of Sunlight Basin.

Helen May came running, her face white with horror, for she had seen Starr fall just as the sound of the shot came to tell her why. She did not cry out, but she rushed to where he lay half concealed in the bushes.

When she came near him, she stopped short. For Starr was lying on his stomach with his head up and elbows in the sand, steadying the gla.s.ses to his eyes that he might search that pinnacle.

"W-what made you fall down like that?" Helen May cried exasperatedly.

"I--I thought you were shot!"

"I am, to a certain extent," Starr told her unconcernedly. "Kneel down here beside me and act scared, will you? And in a minute I want you to climb on the pinto and ride around behind them rocks and wait for me.

Take Rabbit with you. Act like you was going for help, or was scared and running away from a corpse. You get me? I'll crawl over there after a little."

"W-why? Are you hurt so you can't walk?"

Helen May did not have to act; she was scared quite enough for Starr's purpose.

"Oh, I could walk, but walking ain't healthy right now. Jump up now and climb your horse like you was expecting to ride him down to a whisper. Go on--beat it. And when you get outa sight of the pinnacle, stay outa sight. Run!"

There were several questions which Helen May wanted to ask, but she only gave him a hasty, imploring glance which Starr did not see at all, since his eyes were focussed on the pinnacle. She ran to the pinto and scared him so that he jumped away from her. Starr heard and glanced impatiently back at her. He saw that she had managed to get the reins and was mounting with all the haste and all the awkwardness he could possibly expect of her, and he grinned and returned to his scrutiny of the peak.

Whatever he saw he kept to himself; but presently he began to wriggle backward, keeping the greasewood clump, and afterwards certain rocks and little ridges, between himself and a view of the point he had fixed upon as the spot where the shooter had stood.

When he had rounded the first rock ledge he got up and looked for Helen May, and found her standing a couple of rods off, watching him anxiously.

He smiled rea.s.suringly at her while he dusted his trousers with the flat of his hands.

"Fine and dandy," he said. "Whoever took a pot-shot at me thinks he got me first crack. See? Now listen, lady. That maybe was some herder out gunning for coyotes, and maybe he was gunning for me. I licked a herder that ranges over that way, and he maybe thought he'd play even. But anyway, don't say anything about it to anybody, will you. I kinda--"

"Why not? If he shot at you, he wanted to kill you. And that's murder; he ought to be--"

"Now, you know you said yourself that herders go crazy. I don't want to get the poor b.o.o.b into trouble. Let's not say anything about it. I've got to go now; I've stayed longer than I meant to, as it is. Have Vic put that halter that's on the saddle on the pinto, and tie the rope to it and let it drag. He won't go away, and you can catch him without any bother.

If Vic don't know how to set the saddle, you take notice just how it's fixed when you take it off. I meant to show you how, but I can't stop now. And don't go anywhere, not even to the mail box, without Pat or your six-gun, or both. Come here, Rabbit, you old scoundrel!

"I wish I could stay," he added, swinging up to the saddle and looking down at her anxiously. "Don't let Vic monkey with that automatic till I come and show him how to use it. I--"

"You said you were shot," said Helen May, staring at him enigmatically from under her lashes. "Are you?"

"Not much; burnt a streak on my arm, nothing to bother about. Now remember and don't leave your gun--"

"I don't believe it was because you licked a herder. What made somebody shoot at you? Was it--on account of Pat?"

"Pat? No, I don't see what the dog would have to do with it. It was some half-baked herder, shooting maybe because he heard us shoot and thought we was using him for a target. You can't," Starr declared firmly, "tell what fool idea they'll get into their heads. It was our shooting, most likely. Now I must go. Adios, I'll see yuh before long."

"Well, but what--"

Helen May found herself speaking to the scenery. Starr was gone with Rabbit at a sliding trot down the slope that kept the ridge between him and the pinnacle. She stood staring after him blankly, her hat askew on the back of her head, and her lips parted in futile astonishment. She did not in the least realize just what Starr's extreme caution had meant. She had no inkling of the real gravity of the situation, for her ignorance of the lawless possibilities of that big, bare country insulated her against understanding.

What struck her most forcibly was the cool manner in which he had ordered her to act a part, and the unhesitating manner in which she had obeyed him. He ordered her about, she thought, as though he had a right; and she obeyed as though she recognized that right.

She watched him as long as he was in sight, and tried to guess where he was going and what he meant to do, and what was his business--what he did for a living. He must be a rancher, since he had said he was looking for stock; but it was queer he had never told her where his ranch lay, or how far off it was, or anything about it.

After a little it occurred to her that Starr would want the man who had shot at him to think she had left that neighborhood, so she called to Pat and had him drive the goats around where they could not be seen from the pinnacle.

Then she sat down and ate her sandwiches thoughtfully, with long, meditative intervals between bites. She regarded the pinto curiously, wondering if Starr had really taken him as security for a debt, and wishing that she had asked him what its name was. It was queer, the way he rode up unexpectedly every few days, always bringing something he thought she needed, and seeming to take it for granted that she would accept everything he offered. It was much queerer that she did accept everything without argument or hesitation. For that matter, everything that concerned Starr was queer, from Helen May's point of view.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HELEN MAY UNDERSTANDS

Pat, lying at her feet and licking his lips contentedly after his bone and the crusts of her sandwich, raised his head suddenly and rumbled a growl somewhere deep in his chest. His upper lip lifted and showed his teeth wickedly, and the hair on the back of his neck stood out in a ruff that made him look a different dog.

Helen May felt a cold shiver all up and down her spine. She had never seen Pat, nor any other dog for that matter, look like that. It was much more terrifying than that mysterious shot which had effected Starr so strangely. Pat was staring directly behind her, and his eyes had a greenish tinge in the iris, and the white part was all pink and bloodshot. Helen May thought he must have rabies or something; or else a rabid coyote was up on the ridge behind her. She wanted to scream, but she was afraid; she was afraid to look behind her, even.

Pat got up and stood digging his toe nails into the earth in the most horribly suggestive way imaginable. The green light in his eyes terrified her. His ruff bristled bigger on his neck. He looked ready to spring at something. Helen May was too scared to move so much as a finger. She waited, and her heart began beating so hard in her throat that it nearly suffocated her. She never once thought of the six-shooter which Starr had given her. She did not think of anything, except that a rabid coyote was right behind her, and in a minute Pat would jump at it, if it did not first jump at her! And then Pat would be bitten, and would go mad and bite her and Vic, and they'd all die horribly of hydrophobia.

"Ah--is this a modern, dramatic version of Beauty and the Beast? If so, it is a masterpiece in depicting perfect repose on the part of Beauty, while the Beast vivifies the protective instinct of the stronger toward the weaker. Speaking in the common parlance, if you will call off your dog, Miss Stevenson, I might be persuaded to venture within hand-shaking distance." A little laugh, that was much more humorous than the words, followed the speech.

Helen May felt as though she were going to faint. "Pat!" she tried to say admonishingly; but her voice was a weak whisper that did not carry ten feet. She pulled herself together and tried again. "Pat, lie down!"

Pat turned his bead a trifle and sent her a tolerant glance, but the hair did not lie down on his neck, and the growl did not cease to rumble in his throat.

"Pat!" Helen May began to recover a little from the reaction. "Come here to me! I--don't think he'll bite you, Mr. Sommers. It's--it's only Mexicans that he's supposed to hate. I--I didn't know it was you."

Holman Sommers, being careful to keep a safe distance between himself and Pat, came around to where he could see her face. "As a matter of fact,"

he began, "it's really my sister who came to visit you. Your brother informed us that you were out here, and I came to tell you. Why, did I frighten you so badly, Miss Stevenson? Your face is absolutely colorless.

What did I do to so terrify you? I surely never intended--" His eyes were remorseful as he stood and looked at her.

"It was just the way Pat acted. I--I'd been hearing about rabid coyotes, and I thought one was behind me, Pat acted so queer. Lie down, Pat!"

Holman Sommers spoke to the dog ingratiatingly, but Pat did not exhibit any tail-wagging desire for friendly acquaintance. He slunk over to Helen May and flattened himself on his belly with his nose on his paws, and his eyes, that still showed greenish lights and bloodshot whites, fixed on the man.

"It may be," said Sommers judgmatically, "that he has been taught to resent strangers coming in close proximity to the animals he has in charge. A great many dogs are so trained, and are therefore in no wise to blame for exhibiting a certain degree of ferocity. The canine mind is wholly lacking in the power of deduction, its intelligence consisting rather of a highly developed instinctive faculty for retaining impressions which invariably express themselves in some concrete form such as hate, fear, joy, affection and like primitive emotions. Pat, for instance, has been taught to regard strangers as interlopers. He therefore resents the presence of all strangers, and has no mental faculty for distinguishing between strangers, as such, and actual intruders whose presence is essentially undesirable."

Helen May gave a little, half-hysterical laugh, and Holman Sommers looked at her keenly, as a doctor sometimes looks at a patient.

"I am intensely sorry that my coming frightened you," he said gently.

Then he laughed. "I am also deeply humiliated at the idea of being mistaken, in the broad light of midday, for a rabid coyote. May I ask just wherein lies the resemblance?"

Helen May looked at him, saw the dancing light in his eyes and a mirthful quirk of his lips, and blushed while she smiled.

"It's just that I happened to be thinking about them," she said, instinctively belittling her fear. "And then I never saw Pat act the way he's acting now."

Holman Sommers regarded the dog with the same keen, studying look he had given Helen May. Pat did not take it as calmly, however, as Helen May had done. Pat lifted his upper lip again and snarled with an extremely concrete depiction of the primitive emotion, hate.

"There _are_ such things as rabid coyotes, aren't there? Just--do you know how they act, and how a person could tell when something has caught the disease from them?"