The Texan Part 21

The man shook his head: "I'll be goin' now," he said. "You'd better make you some coffee."

"You're going to--to----"

Tex nodded: "Yes. To find the pilgrim. If he's alive I'll find him.

An' if he ain't I'll find him. An' when I do, I'll bring him back to you." He turned abruptly, swung onto his horse, and Alice watched him as he disappeared down the valley, keeping to the higher ground. Not until she was alone did the girl realize how miserably cold and uncomfortable she was. She rose stiffly, and walking slowly to the edge of the bank, looked out over the little valley. The great reservoir had run out in that first wild rush of water and now the last rays of moonlight showed only wide, glistening pools, and the creek subsided to nearly its normal proportions. With a shudder she turned toward the fire. Its warmth felt grateful. She removed the slicker and riding costume and, wrapping herself, squaw-like, in a blanket, sat down in the little shelter tent. She found that the Texan had filled the coffee pot and, throwing in some coffee, she set it to boil.

"He's so thoughtful, and self-reliant, and--and competent," she murmured. "And he's brave, and--and picturesque. Winthrop is brave, too--just as brave as he is, but--he isn't a bit picturesque." She relapsed into silence as she rummaged in the bag for a cup, and the sugar, and a can of milk. The moon sank behind the ridge and the girl replenished her fire from the pile of wood the Texan had left within reach of her hand. She drank her coffee and her eyes sought to penetrate the blackness beyond the firelight. Somewhere out there in the dark--she shuddered as she attempted to visualize _what_ was somewhere out there in the dark. And then a flash of memory brought with it a ray of hope that cheered her immeasurably. "Why, he was a champion swimmer in college," she said aloud. "He was always winning cups and things. And he's strong, and brave--and yet----" Vividly to her mind came the picture of the wildly rushing flood with its burden of tossing trees, and the man being swept straight into the gurge of it. "I'll tell him he's brave--and he'll spoil it all by saying that it was the only _practical_ thing to do." "Oh," she cried aloud, "I could love him if it were not for his deadly practicability--even if I should have to live in Cincinnati." And straightway fell to comparing the two men. "Tex is absurdly unconventional in speech and actions, and he has an adorable disregard for laws and things. He's just a big, irresponsible boy--and yet, he makes you feel as if he always knew exactly what to do and how to do it. And he is brave, too, with a reckless, devil-may-care sort of bravery that takes no thought of cost or consequences. He knew, when he let go his bridle reins, that he couldn't swim a stroke--and he smiled and didn't care. And he's gentle and considerate, too." She remembered the look in his eyes when he said: "You are cold," and blushed furiously.

It seemed hours she sat there staring into the little fire and listening for sounds from the dark. But the only sounds that came to her were the sounds of the feeding horses, and in utter weariness she lay back with her head upon a folded blanket, and slept.

When the Texan swung onto his horse after having made the girl comfortable for her long vigil, a scant half-hour of moonlight was left to him. He gave the horse his head and the animal picked his way among the loose rocks and scrub timber that capped the ridge. When darkness overtook him he dismounted, unsaddled, and groped about for firewood.

Despite its recent soaking the resinous bull pine flared up at the touch of a match, and with his back to a rock-wall, the cowboy sat and watched the little flames shoot upward. Once more he felt for his "makings" and with infinite pains dried out his papers and tobacco.

"It's the chance I be'n aimin' to make for myself," he mused, as he drew the grey smoke of a cigarette deep into his lungs, "to get Bat an'

the pilgrim away--an' I ride off and leave it." The cigarette was consumed and he rolled another. "Takin' a slant at himself from the inside, a man kind of gets a line on how d.a.m.ned ornery folks can get.

Purdy got shot, an' everyone said he got just what was comin' to him---- Me, an' everyone else--an' he did. But when you get down to cases, he wasn't no h.e.l.l of a lot worse'n me, at that. We was both after the same thing--only his work was coa.r.s.er." For hours the man sat staring into his fire, the while he rolled and smoked many cigarettes.

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" he exclaimed, aloud. "I can't turn nester, an' even if I did, she couldn't live out in no mud-roof shack in the bottom of some coulee! Still, she---- There I go again, over the same old trail.

This here little girl has sure gone to my head--like a couple of jolts of hundred-proof on an empty stummick. Anyhow, she's a d.a.m.n sight safer'n ever she was before, an'--I'll bet the old man _would_ let me take that Eagle Creek ranch off his hands, an' stake me to a little bunch of stock besides, if I went at him right. If it wasn't for that d.a.m.n pilgrim! Bat was right. He holds the edge on me--but he's a man." The cowboy glanced anxiously toward the east where the sky was beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn. He rose, trampled out his fire, and threw the saddle onto his horse. "I've got to find him," he muttered, "if Bat ain't found him already. I don't know much about this swimmin' business but if he could have got holt of a tree or somethin' he might have made her through."

Now riding, now dismounting to lead his horse over some particularly rough outcropping of rocks, or through an almost impenetrable tangle of scrub, the man made his way over the divide and came down into the valley amid a shower of loose rock and gravel, at a point some distance below the lower end of the canyon.

The mountains were behind him. Only an occasional b.u.t.te reared its head above the sea of low foothills that stretched away into the bad lands to the southward. The sides of the valley flattened and became ill-defined. Low ridges and sage-topped foothills broke up its continuity, so that the little creek that started so bravely from the mountains ended nowhere, its waters being sucked in by the parched and thirsting alkali soil long before it reached the bad lands.

As his horse toiled ankle-deep in the soft whitish mud, Tex's eyes roved over the broadened expanse of the valley. Everywhere were evidences of the destructive force of the flood. Uprooted trees scattered singly and in groups, high-flung ma.s.ses of brush, hay, and inextricably tangled barbed-wire from which dangled fence-posts marked every bend of the creek bed. And on every hand the bodies of drowned cattle dotted the valley.

"If I was Johnson," he mused, as his eyes swept the valley, "I'd head a right smart of ranch hands down here heeled with a spade an' a s.e.xton's commission. These here late lamented dogies'll cost him somethin' in damages." From force of habit the man read the brands of the dead cattle as he rode slowly down the valley. "D bar C, that's old Dave Cromley's steer. An' there's a T U, an' an I X cow, an' there's one of Charlie Green's, an' a yearlin' of Jerry Keerful's, an' a quarter-circle M,--that belongs over the other side, they don't need to bother with that one, an' there's a----"

Suddenly he drew himself erect, and rising to stand in the stirrups, gazed long and intently toward a spot a quarter of a mile below, where a thin column of smoke curled over the crest of a low ridge. Abruptly he lost interest in the brands of dead cattle and headed his horse at a run toward a coulee, that gave between two sage covered foothills only a short distance from the faint column of smoke. "That might be Bat, an' then again it mightn't," he muttered. "It can't be the pilgrim without Bat's along, 'cause he wouldn't have no dry matches. An' if it's any one else--" he drew up sharply in the shelter of a thicket, dismounted, and made his way on foot to the summit of the ridge.

Removing his hat, he thrust his head through a narrow opening between two sage bushes, and peered into the hollow beyond. Beside a little fire sat Bat and the pilgrim, the latter arrayed in a suit of underwear much abbreviated as to arms and legs, while from the branches of a broken tree-top drawn close beside the blaze depended a pair of mud-caked trousers and a disreputably dirty silk shirt. The Texan picked his way down the hill, slipping and sliding in the soft mud.

"Breakfast about ready?" he asked, with a grin.

"Breakfas'! _Voila_! A'm lak' A'm got som' breakfas', you bet!

Me--A'm gon' for cut de chonk of meat out de dead steer but de pilgrim say: '_Non_, dat bes' we don' eat de d.a.m.n drownded cattle--dat better we sta've firs'!"

Tex laughed: "Can't stand for the drownded ones, eh? Well I don't know as I blame you none, they might be some soggy." Reaching into his shirt-front he produced a salt bag which he tossed to Endicott.

"Here's some sinkers I fetched along. Divide 'em up. I've et. It ain't no great ways back to camp----"

"How is she--Miss Marc.u.m? Did she suffer from the shock?"

"Nary suffer. I fixed her up a camp last night back in the timber where we all landed, an' then came away."

"She spent the night alone in the timber!" cried Endicott.

The Texan nodded. "Yes. There ain't nothin' will bother her. I judged it to be the best way." Endicott's hand shot out and the cowboy's met it in a firm grip. "I reckon we're fifty-fifty on that,"

he said gravely. "How's the swimmin'?"

Endicott laughed: "Fine--only I didn't have to do a great deal of it.

I staged a little riding contest all my own, part of the way on a dead cow, and the rest of it on this tree-trunk. I didn't mind that part of it--that was fun, but it didn't last over twenty minutes. After the tree grounded, I had to tramp up and down through this ankle-deep mud to keep from freezing. I didn't dare to go any place for fear of getting lost. I thought at first, when the water went down I would follow back up the valley, but I couldn't find the sides and after one or two false starts I gave it up. Then Bat showed up at daylight and we managed to build a fire." Endicott divided the biscuits and proceeded to devour his share.

Tex rolled a cigarette. "Say," he drawled, when he had lighted it with a twig from the fire, "what the h.e.l.l did you whallop me in the jaw for?

I seen it comin' but I couldn't dodge, an' when she hit--it seemed like I was all tucked away in my little crib, an' somewhere, sweet voices was singin'."

"I had to do it," laughed Endicott. "It was that, or both of us going to the bottom. You were grabbing for my arms and legs."

"I ain't holdin' it against you," grinned Tex. "The arms an' legs is yours, an' you're welcome to 'em. Also I'm obliged to you for permittin' me to tarry a spell longer on this mundane spear, as the fellow says, even if I can't chew nothin' harder'n soup."

"Would you mind rolling me a cigarette," grinned Endicott, as he finished the last of the biscuits. "I never tried it, and I am afraid I would bungle the job." Without hesitation the Texan complied, deftly interposing his body so that the pilgrim could not see that the tobacco he poured into the paper was the last in his sack. He extended the little cylinder. "When you get that lit, you better crawl into them clothes of yours an' we'll be hittin' the back-trail. Out here in the open ain't no place for us to be."

Endicott surveyed his sorry outfit with disfavour. "I would rather stick to the B.V.D.'s, if it were practical."

"B.V.D., B.V.D.," repeated the Texan. "There ain't no such brand on this range. Must be some outfit south of here--what did you say about it?"

"I said my B.V.D.'s," he indicated his under-garments; "these would be preferable to those muddy trousers and that shirt."

"Oh, that's the brand of your longerie. Don't wear none myself, except in winter, an' then thick ones. I've scrutinized them kind, though, more or less thorough--hangin' on lines around nesters' places an' home ranches, when I'd be ridin' through. Never noticed none with B.V.D. on 'em, though. The brand most favoured around here has got x.x.xX FLOUR printed acrost the broad of 'em, an' I've always judged 'em as belongin' to the opposin' sect."

Endicott chuckled as he gingerly arrayed himself in the damp garments and when he was dressed, Tex regarded him quizzically: "Them belongin's of yourn sure do show neglect, Win." Endicott started at the word. It was the first time any one had abbreviated his name, and instantly he remembered the words of Alice Marc.u.m: "If you keep on improving some day somebody is going to call you Win." He smiled grimly. "I must be improving," he muttered, under his breath, "I would pa.s.s anywhere for a tramp." From beyond the fire Tex continued his scrutiny, the while he communed with himself: "Everything's fair, et cetry, as the fellow says, an' it's a cinch there ain't no girl goin' to fall no h.e.l.l of a ways for any one rigged out like a last year's sheepherder. But, d.a.m.n it! he done me a good turn--an' one that took guts to do. 'Tain't no use in chasin' the devil around the stump---- If I can get that girl I'm a-goin' to get her! If I do I'll wire in some creek an' turn nester or do any other d.a.m.ned thing that's likewise mean an' debasin'

that she wants me to--except run sheep. But if the pilgrim's got the edge, accordin' to Bat's surmise, he's got it fair an' square. The cards is on the table. It's him or me for it--but from now on the game's on the level."

Aloud he said: "Hope you don't mind havin' your name took in vain like I done, but it's a habit of mine to get names down to a workin' basis when I've got to use 'em frequent. Bat, there, his folks started him off with a name that sounded like the Nicene Creed, but we bobbed her down for handy reference, an' likewise I ain't be'n called Horatio since the paternal roof-tree quit sproutin' the punitive switch. But, to get down to cases, you fellows have got to hike back to the camp an'

hole up 'til dark. There's bound to be someone ridin' this here coulee an' you got to keep out of sight. I'm goin' to do a little scoutin', an' I'll join you later. It ain't only a couple of miles or so an' you better hit for the high ground an' cross the divide. Don't risk goin'

through the canyon."

Endicott glanced apprehensively at his mud encased silk socks, the feet of which were already worn through in a dozen places.

"Where's your slippers!" asked Tex, catching the glance.

"My shoes? I threw them away last night before I took to the water."

"It's just as well. They wasn't any good anyhow. The ground's soft with the rain, all you got to watch out for is p.r.i.c.kly pears an'

rattlesnakes. You'll be close to camp before the rocks get bad an'

then Bat can go hunt up your slippers an' fetch 'em out to you." The Texan started for his horse. At the top of the ridge he turned: "I'll stop an' tell her that you'll be along in a little bit," he called, and swinging into the saddle, struck off up the creek.

The habitual cynical smile that curled his lips broadened as he rode.

"This here Johnson, now, he likes me like he likes a saddle-galded boil, ever since I maintained that a rider was hired to ride, an' not to moil, an' quit his post-hole-diggin', hay-pitchin', tea-drinkin'

outfit, short-handed. I ain't had no chance to aggravate him real good, outside of askin' him how his post-holes was winterin' through, when I'd meet up with him on the trail, an' invitin' him to go over to the Long Horn to have a snort of tea, a time or two, down to Wolf River."

At the up-slanting bank where they had sought refuge from the valley he dismounted, wrenched his own saddle out of the mud, and examined the broken cinch. "If the pilgrim hadn't saved me the trouble, I'd of sure had to get Purdy for that," he muttered, and looked up to encounter the eyes of the girl, who was watching him from the top of the bank. Her face was very white, and the sight stirred a strange discomfort within him. "I bet she wouldn't turn no such colour for me, if I'd be'n drowned for a week," he thought, bitterly.

"You--didn't find him?" The words came with an effort.

The Texan forced a smile: "I wouldn't have be'n here if I hadn't. Or rather Bat did, an' I found the two of 'em. He's all to the mustard an' none the worse for wear, except his clothes--they won't never look quite the same, an' his socks need mendin' in sixty or seventy spots.

They'll be along directly. You run along and fix 'em up some breakfast an' keep out of sight. I'm goin' to do a little scoutin' an', maybe, won't be back 'til pretty near dark."

"But you! Surely, you must be nearly starved!" The relief that flashed into her face at the news of Endicott's safety changed to sincere concern.