The Long Dim Trail Part 18

"You boys have certainly run into a bunch of trouble," she laughed as she nimbly climbed from the rig. "I told Limber that I might be able to help you, for I've done all my own papering, you know."

Limber extricated a sack that held flour, and joined the procession to the room they were now sure would be decorated with pink roses.

Mrs. Burns looked at the remnant of paste in the tub before she asked, "What on earth did you use?"

"Everything we could find," confessed Bronco humbly. "We did leave out eggs, sugar and pepper."

"All you need is flour, hot water and a little thin glue water," she laughed.

"Glue!" they echoed.

"I told you Larry said it was a short word," triumphed Bronco. "Why didn't some of you muttonheads think of glue?"

"You said he told you to make a thin biscuit dough, an thar ain't no glue in that," retorted Holy, but further argument was avoided as Mrs.

Burns began issuing business-like orders.

By the time the sun was setting the papered room was p.r.o.nounced a thorough success, and Mrs. Burns made her way to the stables followed by four cowboys whose hair and clothes spattered with dry paste, testified to an honest day's labour.

Mrs. Burns surveyed them as she picked up the reins, ready to start home, while Limber mounted Peanut to accompany her. It was eight miles to Eureka Springs.

"I've heard of lost prospectors eating their boots," she said, "but if you boys ate your clothes, you would need anti-fat. Tell the Boss I will be over soon to call on the bride. Adios!" and with a flourish of the whip she drove away, followed by the grat.i.tude of the paste-daubed, tired group.

It required numerous trips to the kitchen for buckets of hot water before the boys removed the greater part of the concoction that clung tenaciously to faces, hands and hair; then began a more vigorous attack on their boots and clothes.

"It's durned lucky that Bronc disremembered about the glue,"

congratulated Roarer. "We'd a never got that off."

Bronco slumped into a rickety chair, tipping it against the wall to ease its weakest leg, "It takes a woman to round up a stampede like our'n and get the bunch headed right when it gets to millin'. I'm derned glad the Boss is married, for this outfit needs female purtection."

"I never worked so hard in my life," sighed Holy, flopping on his bunk.

Bronco grinned across the room. "Ain't you forgot the time you wrote a letter to Bill Johnson's sister? You sure worked that time--Set around the bunkhouse till daylight tearin' up paper."

"Well, she asked all of us to write her," snapped Holy, "but none of you fellers had the nerve to do it, and when you bet I couldn't, I called your bluff and won out, didn't I?"

"You sure did," agreed the others, recalling the historic missive which had been read aloud and duly admired before it was mailed.

_Dere Miss Johnson_

as I hav northin mutch to do I wil rite you a few lines we are al wel hear but my pony has a soar back and we hope you are the same

as i have northin mutch to say i wil now clos

yours truly

HOLY.

None of the Diamond H knew that Holy's letter, neatly framed, hung in Miss Johnson's room at a fashionable girls' school, where it was the centre of attraction; and a valued souvenir of her summer visit to her brother's ranch, which included the episode of a dance at Willc.o.x.

The silence of the prairie brooded over the Diamond H ranch. Inside the bunkhouse four cowpunchers slept serenely unconscious of the odour of freshly baking bread that drifted from the ranch kitchen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jamie was tucked comfortably between his sister and the big, new brother, and as they drove swiftly along the smooth prairie road behind the high-headed trotters, the boy forgot his shyness in constant wonder.

"This is a prairie-dog town," explained Traynor to the child, but Nell was equally interested. "Those holes are where they live, and when a rain is coming they all get busy heaping up the earth to prevent water going down into their homes and drowning them out. They are good weather prophets."

"Oh, look! It's sitting up!" cried the child in delight, pointing at a tiny brown-furred animal squatted on its hind legs and barking shrilly.

"Watch him when we get nearer," suggested Traynor. "See, they are stationed at regular intervals, just like soldiers. They are the sentinels who warn the others of approaching enemies." The prairie-dog nearest the carriage, gave a final bark of defiance, wiggled its short tail and dodged into the hole. The next nearest dog then took up the warning bark.

"What bright little things they are!" Nell smiled at the yapping little animal that shouted pigmy challenge twenty feet distant.

"If they had long tails," Jamie hastened to say, "they'd be like the squirrels we used to feed in the Park."

"We'll get Limber to trap one for you," promised Traynor. "You won't have to keep it in a cage after it knows you, for it will dig a hole close to the house and never leave."

Jamie's shining eyes met Nell's and he gave an ecstatic sigh as he settled against her shoulder. But in an instant he was alert, watching a cotton-tail rabbit dash across the road. It halted by a mesquite bush.

"Maybe I can catch it." Traynor handed the reins to his wife and stepped cautiously until he reached down and picked the cowering creature by its ears. Jamie uttered a cry of delight as his hands closed gently over the rabbit.

"Once in a while you can do that," commented the man as he took the reins again. "The Apaches often catch them that way, but I'd hate to have my dinner depend on the success of getting a rabbit by this method."

The child was holding the quivering captive against his cheek. Its eyes were bright with terror, and when Jamie looked up at Traynor, his eyes held something of the same bright, frightened appeal. "Won't you please let it go home now? I'm afraid it will be lonesome tonight, like I used to be when Nell was away working all day in New York."

Traynor lifted the tiny prisoner and let it slip to the ground. They laughed together as it scurried and leaped across the prairie until it was lost to sight.

"He knew the right way home," said Jamie, clapping his hands, "and it has gone to tell its little boys and girls about the giants that caught it and how it got away. They will be awful glad to see him come home, won't they?" Nell nodded, and the boy went on, "Sometimes I used to think maybe a giant would catch Nell so she couldn't come home to me when it got dark, and it made my throat hurt. But you always did come,"

he finished with a smile at his sister, who thus learned for the first time of his childish fear.

Her arm went about him suddenly and she held him close as she answered, "And the giants didn't catch me, you see. Instead, you and I ran away to a wonderful, new country, where the Prince came and found us, and now he is taking us home to live with him."

"And we won't have to go back again, ever, will we Nell?" he asked in sudden anxiety.

"No, dear," she answered. "It's going to be just like the story books.

Don't you remember? 'And they all lived happily for ever afterward!'"

The child leaned back with a contented sigh, and his closed eyes did not see the look that pa.s.sed between Nell and Traynor. The horses had slowed down to a walk and Traynor's right hand held the reins loosely, but his left hand closed over the girl's ungloved one with its new golden band on the slender finger. He smiled at her, and then her eyes filled with quick tears, as he leaned over to kiss her tenderly.

"Tears, Nell?"

"Tears of happiness," she answered tremulously. "The tears that come when one's heart is too happy for laughter."

Nell had a distinct recollection of her first view of the ranch when she had seen it from the stage coach, but the thought now that this was her home and Allan's lent a different interest to the little village of cream-coloured buildings with red roofs, surrounded by cottonwood and willow trees. Here and there poked windmills that supplied the troughs and ponds with water. That other ride had been filled with anxious uncertainty as to what lay before her, but now, the whole world was a wonderful dream of happiness and love. This was her home.