The Texan Part 19

"The dude, or dictionary, names for the above specified commodities is bacon, biscuits, an' b.u.t.ter. An' referrin' back to your own etymological spasm, the word 'grub' shows a decided improvement over anything you have uttered previous. I had expected 'food' an' wouldn't have hardly batted an' eye at 'viands,' an' the caliginous part of it is good, only, if you aim to obfuscate my convolutions you'll have to dig a little deeper. Entirely irrelevant to syntax an' the allied trades, as the feller says, I'll add that them leggin's of yourn is on the wrong legs, an' here comes Winthrup with a chip."

Turning abruptly, the man made his way toward the horses, and as Endicott approached with an armful of firewood, the contrast between the men was brought sharply to the girl's notice. The Texan, easy and lithe of movement as an animal born to the wild, the very tilt of his soft-brimmed hat and the set of his clothing bespeaking conscious mastery of his environment--a mastery that the girl knew was not confined to the subduing of wild cattle and horses and the following of obscure trails in the nighttime. Never for a moment had the air of self-confidence deserted him. With the same easy a.s.surance that he had flung his loop about the shoulders of the Mayor of Wolf River he had carried off the honours of the tournament, insulted Purdy to his face, dictated to the deputy sheriff, and planned and carried out the release of Endicott from the grip of the law. And what was most surprising of all, never had he shown a trace of the boorish embarra.s.sment or self-consciousness which, up to the moment of his brutal attack upon her, had characterized the att.i.tude of Purdy. And the girl realized that beneath his picturesque slurring and slashing of English, was a familiarity with words that had never been picked up in the cow-country.

Endicott tossed down his wood, and Alice could not help but notice the sorry appearance of the erstwhile faultlessly dressed gentleman who stood collarless and unshaven, the once delicately lined silk shirt filthy with trail dust, and the tailored suit wrinkled and misshapen as the clothing of a tramp. She noted, too, that his movements were awkward and slow with the pain of overtaxed muscles, and that the stiff derby hat he had been forced to jam down almost to the tops of his ears had left a grimy red band across his forehead. She smiled as her eyes swept the dishevelled and uncouth figure.

"I am glad," said Endicott with asperity, as he brushed the dirt and bits of bark from his coat, "that you find the situation so humorous.

It must be highly gratifying to know that it is of your own making."

The tone roused the girl's anger and she glanced up as she finished lacing her leggings.

"Yes," she answered, sweetly, "it is--very. And one of the most amusing features is to watch how a man's disposition crabs with the mussing of his clothing. No wonder the men who live out here wear things that won't muss, or there wouldn't be but one left and he'd be just a concentrated chunk of unadulterated venom. Really, Winthrop, you do look horrid, and your disposition is perfectly nasty. But, cheer up, the worst is yet to come, and if you will go down to the creek and wash your hands, you can come back and help me with the grub.

You can get busy and dig the dough-G.o.ds and salve out of that sack while I sizzle up the sow-belly."

Endicott regarded her with a frown of disapproval: "Why this preposterous and vulgar talk?"

"Adaptability to environment," piped the girl, glibly. "You can't get along by speaking New York in Montana, any easier than you can with English in Cincinnati."

Endicott turned away with a sniff of disgust, and the girl's lips drew into a smile which she meant to be an exact replica of the Texan's as she proceeded to slice strips of bacon into the frying-pan.

The meal was a silent affair, and during its progress the moon rose clear of the divide and hung, a great orange ball, above the high-flung peaks. Almost simultaneously with the rising of the moon, the wind rose, and scuds of cloud-vapour pa.s.sed, low down, blurring the higher peaks.

"We got to get a move on," opined the Texan, with an eye on the clouds.

"Throw them dishes into the pack the way they are, an' we'll clean 'em when we've got more time. There's a storm brewin' west of here an' we want to get as far as we can before she hits."

By the time the others were in the saddle, Bat was throwing the final hitch on his pack outfit, and with the Texan in the lead, the little cavalcade headed southward.

An hour's climb, during which they skirted patches of scrub pine, clattered over the loose rocks of ridges, and followed narrow, brush-choked coulees to their sources, found them on the crest of the Cow Creek divide.

The wind, blowing half a gale from the south-east, whipped about their faces and roared and whistled among the rocks and scrub timber.

Alice's eyes followed the Texan's glance toward the west and there, low down on the serried horizon she could see the black ma.s.s of a cloud bank.

"You can't tell nothin' about those thunderheads. They might hold off 'til along towards mornin', they might pile up on us in an hour, and they might not break at all," vouchsafed the man, as Alice reined in her horse close beside his.

"But the wind is from the other direction!"

"Yes, it generally is when the thunder-storms get in their work. If we can get past the Johnson fences we can take it easy an' camp most anywhere when the storm hits, but if we get caught on this side without no moonlight to travel by an' have to camp over tomorrow in some coulee, there's no tellin' who'll run onto us. This south slope's infested some plentiful by the riders of three or four outfits." He headed his horse down the steep descent, the others following in single file.

As the coulee widened Alice found herself riding by the Texan's side.

"Oh, don't you just love the wild country!" she exclaimed, breaking a long interval of silence. "The plains and the mountains, the woods and the creeks, and the wonderful air----"

"An' the rattlesnakes, an' the alkali, an' the soap-holes, an' the quicksand, an' the cactus, an' the blisterin' sun, an' the lightnin', an' the rain, an' the snow, an' the ice, an' the sleet----"

The girl interrupted him with a laugh: "Were you born a pessimist, or has your pessimism been acquired?"

The Texan did not lift his eyes from the trail: "Earnt, I reckon, would be a better word. An' I don't know as it's pessimism, at that, to look in under the crust of your pie before you bite it. If you'd et flies for blueberries as long as I have, you'd----"

"I'd ask for flies, and then if there were any blueberries the surprise would be a pleasant one."

"Chances are, there wouldn't be enough berries to surprise you none pleasant. Anyhow, that would be kind of forcin' your luck. Follerin'

the same line of reasoning a man ort to hunt out a cactus to set on so's he could be surprised pleasant if it turned out to be a Burbank one."

"You're hopeless," laughed the girl. "But look--the moonlight on the peaks! Isn't it wonderful! See how it distorts outlines, and throws a mysterious glamour over the dark patches of timber. Corot would have loved it."

The Texan shook his head: "No. It wouldn't have got _to him_. He couldn't never have got into the feel of stuff like that. Meakin did, and Remington, but it takes old Charlie Russell to pick it right out of the air an' slop it onto canvas."

Alice regarded the man in wonder. "You do love it!" she said. "Why should you be here if you didn't love it?"

"Bein' a cow-hand, it's easier to make a livin' here than in New York or Boston. I've never be'n there, but I judge that's the case."

"But you are a cow-hand from choice. You have an education and you could----"

"No. All the education I've got you could pile onto a dime, an' it wouldn't kill more'n a dozen men. Me an' the higher education flirted for a couple of years or so, way back yonder in Austin, but owin' to certain an' sundry eccentricities of mine that was frowned on by civilization, I took to the brush an' learnt the cow business. Then after a short but onmonotonous sojourn in Las Vegas, me an' Bat came north for our health. . . . Here's Johnson's horse pasture. We've got to slip through here an' past the home ranch in a quiet an'

on.o.bstrusive manner if we aim to preserve the continuity of Winthrup's spinal column."

"Can't we go around?" queried the girl.

"No. The coulee is fenced clean acrost an' way up to where even a goat couldn't edge past. We've got to slip through. Once we get past the big reservoir we're all right. I'll scout on ahead."

The cowboy swung to the ground and threw open the barbed-wire gate.

"Keep straight on through, Bat, unless you hear from me. I'll be waitin' by the bunk-house. Chances are, them salamanders will all be poundin' their ear pretty heavy, bein' up all last night to the dance."

He galloped away and the others followed at a walk. For an hour no one spoke.

"I thought that fence enclosed a pasture, not a county," growled Endicott, as he clumsily shifted his weight to bear on a spot less sore.

"_Oui_, dat hoss pasture she 'bout seven mile long. Den we com' by de ranch, an' den de reservoir, an' de hay fences." The half-breed opened a gate and a short distance down the creek Alice made out the dark buildings of the ranch. As they drew nearer the girl felt her heart race madly, and the soft thud of the horse's feet on the sod sounded like the thunder of a cavalry charge. Grim and forbidding loomed the buildings. Not a light showed, and she pictured them peopled with lurking forms that waited to leap out as they pa.s.sed and throttle the man who had rescued her from the brutish Purdy. She was sorry she had been nasty to Endicott. She wanted to tell him so, but it was too late. She thought of the revolver that Jennie had given her, and slipping her hand into her pocket she grasped it by the b.u.t.t. At least, she could do for him what he had done for her. She could shoot the first man to lay hands on him.

Suddenly her heart stood still and her lips pressed tight. A rider emerged from the black shadow of the bunk-house.

"Hands up!" The girl's revolver was levelled at the man's head, and the next instant she heard the Texan laugh softly.

"Just point it the other way, please, if it's loaded. A fellow shot me with one of those once an' I had a headache all the rest of the evenin'." His horse nosed in beside hers. "It's just as I thought,"

he explained. "Everyone around the outfit's dead to the world. Bein'

up all night dancin', an' most of the next day trailin' home, you couldn't get 'em up for a poker game--let alone hangin' a pilgrim."

Alice's fear vanished the moment the Texan appeared. His air of absolute self-confidence in his ability to handle a situation compelled the confidence of others.

"Aren't your nerves ever shaken? Aren't you ever afraid?" she asked.

Tex smiled: "Nerve ain't in not bein' afraid," he answered evasively, "but in not lettin' folks know when you're afraid."

Another gate was opened, and as they pa.s.sed around the scrub-capped spur of a ridge that projected into the widening valley, the girl drew her horse up sharply and pointed ahead.

"Oh! A little lake!" she cried enthusiastically. "See how the moonlight shimmers on the tiny waves."

Heavy and low from the westward came an ominous growl of thunder.

"Yes. An' there'll be somethin' besides moonlight a-shimmerin' around here directly. That ain't exactly a lake. It's Johnson's irrigation reservoir. If we could get about ten miles below here before the storm hits, we can hole up in a rock cave 'til she blows over. The creek valley narrows down to a canyon where it cuts through the last ridge of mountains.