The Short Cut Part 8

Rose-bud's smile became radiant immediately. He poured out the black beverage with the air of a magician conjuring a stream of gold from the old coffee pot, and evinced as great a pleasure in watching Wayne dispose of his breakfast as Wayne himself manifested in the act. Garth came back into the room while his cousin was eating.

"Well, Wayne," he said. "What's the bill of fare for the day?"

Shandon nodded, swallowed and bade Garth a cheery "Good morning."

"To-day?" he repeated after his cousin. "I'm just going to get a live horse between my legs and ride! Big Bill tells me that no man has thrown a leg over Lightfoot's back since I left, and that she's just full of h.e.l.l and mustard and aching for a scamper. Bill knows where she is; he's going with me to help round her up and then . . ."

"Well?" questioned Garth drily. "You're going to work on her to-day?"

Shandon laughed.

"Who said anything about work? You're growing to be an awful sobersides, old fellow. Here I haven't been back twenty-four hours and you're already suggesting that I shove my neck into the yoke. Now, you ought to know better than that."

Garth drew deeply at his pipe, his lips tight about the stem.

"You haven't changed much, Wayne," he said presently.

"Who wants to change?" Shandon retorted lightly. "One would think I'd been away ten years and it was time for grey hairs and long hours of sitting still in the sun." He favoured his cousin with a merry, searching glance and added, "You haven't changed much yourself that I can see."

For no apparent reason Conway flushed slightly and then frowned.

"I had a good hard day's work cut out for the boys," he said casually.

"You're finding plenty to keep them busy, I'll bet," grinned Shandon.

"Yes," carelessly. "We're a bit short handed just now and there is always a lot to do. I've let a man go here and there when he was just eating his head off for us. A half day lost means that much more hard work to be made up."

"Get them busy then, will you, Garth? It's decent of you to save all you could for me, but hang it, don't mind putting on a new man when we need him. The boys have had enough sleep by now and I've sort of slipped out of the routine of the work. Will you go ahead and run the outfit for me until I get back into it? It would be a big favour to me."

Conway swung about toward the door eagerly, and so swiftly that Shandon did not see the light that sprang up in his eyes.

"Glad to," he called back as he went out. "Take your time about getting back into the traces, Wayne."

"Good old Garth," Shandon muttered with deep satisfaction. And then he turned his attention again to the biscuits and bacon.

Garth went immediately to the bunk house. He found the men all asleep; he left them all wide awake.

"Tony," he cried sharply, "come alive there and get the boys some breakfast. You men know that Mr. Shandon is back, don't you? Do you want him to think that this is the way we've been attending to his business for him while he was gone? Bill, get a couple of horses saddled while Harris is getting breakfast for you, and as soon as you eat report at the house with them. You are to help find Lightfoot."

The boys scrambled out of their bunks, and Tony Harris in picturesque night raiment was thrusting paper and kindling into his stove before Garth had gone ten steps from the door he had slammed behind him. Did they want Wayne Shandon to think that they had neglected his interests in his absence? Not by a jug full, growled Big Bill. And he wasn't the kind to think it in the first place or to care in the second, he grunted as he jerked on his overalls and shoved his big feet into his shoes. Mister Shandon! Huh!

But they took their cue from Conway's sharp words and did not wait for breakfast to get ready for the day's work. Big Bill was the first in the corral but the others came trooping after him, roping their horses, saddling and bringing them to the bunk house door to be mounted swiftly as soon as the morning meal could be finished. And, as usual little Andy Jennings saddled an extra horse, a graceful, cat-footed mare, cream coloured, with white mane and tail, for Garth Conway.

There were few words spoken in the bunk house as the men made their hurried meal. Steve Dunham demanded to be told if Red was going to let Conway "run things" for him, or if he was going to be his own foreman as his brother had been before him. More than one man lifted his shoulders at the question. And since there was no answer to be given yet, since that was the one thing they were all thinking about, it was almost a wordless meal.

In a little while Garth Conway was back at the bunk house and swung up into the saddle, his perfect animal, his own graceful form, his somewhat picturesque costume, riding breeches, puttees, wide soft hat and gauntlets making a bit of pleasant colour against the commonplaceness of the ranch yard. He waited impatiently a few minutes until the men came out and then rode away toward the lower end of the valley ordering them curtly to follow him. It was Garth's way; they didn't know what the day's work was to be, although they might come close to guessing, until he chose to tell them. Big Bill alone remained behind, making his way with two horses to the house, where Wayne came down the steps to meet him.

"h.e.l.lo, Bill," Wayne greeted him lightly. "Feeling sore this morning?"

"h.e.l.lo, Red," Big Bill retorted with what was meant to be a scowl but which twisted itself in spite of him into a widening grin. "Not sore outside, seein' as I fell easy. Jus' kinda sore inside thinkin' you'd go an' play a low down j.a.p trick on a man. But nex' time . . ."

He shook his head in mock sorrow thinking of the thing that was going to happen to the merry eyed man from whom he took his pay.

Red laughed, strapped on the spurs clinking at the saddle horn, vaulted from the steps to his horse's back and bending suddenly forward shot ahead of Big Bill, and sped toward the upper end of the valley where the unused horses were grazing. The cowboy, racing behind him, watched him with shrewd eyes and a grunted comment that he hadn't forgotten how to ride.

When the horses had "run off" their early morning restlessness the two men drew them down to a swinging walk and riding side by side found much to talk about. Shandon asked about this, that and the other horse, giving each its name as if they were men he spoke of, and Big Bill reported promptly and in full detail. Brown Babe had been sick during the winter; a cold running on until it was touch and go if she'd go down with the pneumonia. Doc Trip had taken a hand though, Bill himself having ridden thirty miles to fetch the cowboy who had a rude skill as a veterinary and no little reputation with it, and Brown Babe had pulled through as good as a two year old. Her colt out of Saxon?

Say there was a bit of horse flesh for you! Close to three year old now and never a rope on him. Little Saxon they called him. Little?

Big Bill laughed softly. The name had stuck since he had been a colt.

He was bigger than his dad already, although not so heavy, of course, and he had more speed right now than his mother ever thought of having.

If they ever did put on a race--Endymion, Little Saxon's full brother?

Big Bill shook his head and spat thoughtfully. Sold six months ago.

"Sold?" cried Shandon sharply. "Who sold him?"

"Conway, of course. He's the only man as has sold any Bar L-M stock."

Shandon started to speak, then closed his lips tightly. Big Bill looked at him quickly, then drew his eyes away and let them rest upon his horse's bobbing ears.

"Of course Garth couldn't know that I didn't want any of the horses, the best horses, sold," Shandon said quietly after a moment. "I wrote to him to use his own judgment in all things, to sell and buy as he thought best. It isn't his fault but-- Hang it, I'm just a little sorry I didn't think to tell him. Who bought Endymion, Bill?"

"Sledge Hume," answered Big Bill. "He was crazy stuck on the colt the firs' time he ever laid eyes on him. I guess Conway held him up for a pretty stiff price too. He sure had the chance."

"So Hume bought Endymion," said Shandon thoughtfully. And he seemed less pleased than before. "Oh, well, we'll see what we can do with Little Saxon."

"Little Saxon's a better horse any day in the week," cried Big Bill loyally. "He ain't got the stren'th yet, of course, an' he ain't got the savvy as comes with trainin'. But he's got the speed an' he's got the spirit. Lord, Red, you've got a horse there! Wait ontil you see him runnin' with the herd. He don't eat dust off n.o.body's heels."

Shandon's eyes brightened. He had seen possibilities in the two year old before he went away, when the colt belonged to Arthur, and it was good to know that Little Saxon had fulfilled the promise of youth. And he saw too, a morning's work ahead of him, such work as the leaping spirit of Red Reckless loved. A wild scamper across the upper end of the narrow valley, skirting the lake perhaps; a headlong race after a horse born of Brown Babe and the high spirited stallion Saxon; the swinging of a rope in a hand that had not known the feel of one for a year; and the final conquest that would come when at last that rope settled about the defiant neck.

"For we'll get Lightfoot first, Bill," he said eagerly. "Little Saxon'll have to go some when I've got Lady Lightfoot under me. And then we'll take the three year old in and begin breaking him."

Big Bill chuckled joyously. And as Garth had said before him he muttered that Wayne Shandon hadn't changed much.

As they rode the valley widened for a little before them, the steep wall of cliffs and crags drawing back upon the right, lifting their crests ever higher, topped by few scattering pines, firs and tamaracks.

Here and there a giant cedar flourished in isolated majesty, lifting its delicately formed cones a hundred and fifty feet above its ancient, gnarled roots. The valley itself was for the most part clear of timber and scrub. The herds had not yet come up here this year, and would not come until the lower end had been thoroughly fed off. For here there would be grazing land in abundance until the winter came and all herds must be moved to the pastures far down the mountains where the snow fall was never more than a few thawing inches.

Conversation between the two men died down as they pushed deeper into the solitudes. When they had ridden a couple of miles, the valley narrowed again, the timber line crept in closer at every yard, the mountains drew in abruptly and rose more precipitously in sheer, frowning, dominant majesty, the river shot hissing down its rocky course, a wild thing plunging madly toward freedom and an open world.

So with few words, each man's thoughts wandering as chance and the river and mountains directed them, Shandon and Big Bill rode slowly.

That trail brought them at last down close to the edge of the stream as the banks on either hand drew closer together until finally the water choked and fumed and thundered through a narrow pa.s.s. Here they must turn away from its course, climbing a steep shoulder of the mountain, making a difficult way along a seldom used trail, until they came to the crest of the ridge which shot down from the right. Another fifty yards, almost level going, a steep descent and suddenly the fury of the river was but a faint rumbling in their ears, the stillness of the mountains crept down on them and they were at the margin of Laughter Lake.

With a sigh long, deep, lung filling, Wayne Shandon curbed his horse to a standstill. Big Bill turned his head away and a little hurriedly sought for his "makings." For Big Bill had a memory, as so many sons of the frontier places have, a memory that filed and kept record of little things as well as of what the world calls big things. He remembered the day when Wayne Shandon had last ridden here, just the day before Arthur was killed. Wayne and Arthur had come here together; Arthur with some business reason, of course; equally of course Wayne in a mere spirit of idling. The younger brother had ridden along to try out a new rifle he had bought--

"Come on, Bill. Let's find the horses."

Wayne leaned forward suddenly in the saddle, loosened his reins and touched his horse's sides with his spurred heels. And so they raced along the side of the lake as they had raced from the range house, Red Reckless sitting straight in the saddle, his head lifted, his broad hat pushed far back, his tall, powerful body swaying gracefully, easily with his horse's stride.

They found Lady Lightfoot with a herd of half wild animals in a little hollow beyond the head of the lake. A great snorting and stamping, a flinging aloft of proud heads upon arching necks, the flurry of manes and tails, black, red, white, all confused in a rush of colour, the hammering thud of unshod hoofs on soft gra.s.sy soil and the herd had followed Lady Lightfoot's lead in wild flight toward the far end of the tiny valley. A wonderful creature was Lady Lightfoot, trim and slender and graceful as a maiden, her coat a little rough from her year in the woods, her silken mane snarled, but her spirit showing in the toss of her head, the c.o.c.k of her ears, the flare of her nostrils, the fire of her eyes.