The Range Dwellers Read online

  CHAPTER V.

  Into the Lion's Mouth.

  Perry Potter, when he had read the foreman's note, asked how long sinceI left camp; when I told him that I was there at daylight, he looked at mequeerly and walked off without a word. I didn't say anything, either.

  I stayed at the ranch overnight, intending to start back the next morning.The round-up would be west of where I had left them, according to theforeman--or wagon-boss, as he is called. Logically, then, I should takethe trail that led through Kenmore, the mining-camp owned by King, andwhich lay in the heart of White Divide ten miles west of King's Highway.That, I say, was the logical route--but I wasn't going to take it.I wasn't a bit stuck on that huddle of corrals and sheds, with the trailwinding blindly between, and I wasn't in love with the girl or with oldKing; but, all the same, I meant to go back the way I came, just for myown private satisfaction.

  While I was saddling Shylock, in the opal-tinted sunrise, Potter came downand gave me the letter to the wagon-boss, an answer to the one I hadbrought.

  "Here's some chuck the cook put up for yuh," he remarked, handing me abundle tied up in a flour-sack. "You'll need it 'fore yuh get through tocamp; you'll likely be longer going than yuh was comin'."

  "Think so?" I smiled knowingly to myself and left him staringdisapprovingly after me. I could easily give a straight guess at what hewas thinking.

  I jogged along as leisurely as I could without fretting Shylock, and, onceclear of the home field, headed straight for King's Highway. It wasn't thewisest course I could take, perhaps, but it was like to prove the mostexciting, and I never was remarkable for my wisdom. It seemed to me thatit was necessary to my self-respect to return the way I came--and I may aswell confess that I hoped Miss King was an early riser. As it was,I killed what time I could, and so spent a couple of hours where one wouldhave sufficed.

  Half a mile out from the mouth of the pass, I observed a human formcrowning the peak of a sharp-pointed little butte that rose up out of theprairie; since the form seemed to be in skirts, I made for the spot.Shylock puffed up the steep slope, and at last stopped still and lookedback at me in utter disgust; so I took the hint and got off, and led himup the rest of the way.

  "Good morning. We meet on neutral ground," I greeted when I was closebehind her. "I propose a truce."

  She jumped a bit, and looked very much astonished to see me there soclose. If it had been some other girl--say Ethel Mapleton--I'd havesuspected the genuineness of that surprise; as it was, I could only thinkshe had been very much absorbed not to hear me scrambling up there.

  "You're an early bird," she said dryly, "to be so far from home." Sheglanced toward the pass, as though she would like to cut and run, buthated to give me the satisfaction.

  "Well," I told her with inane complacency, "you will remember that 'it'sthe early bird that catches the worm.'"

  "What a pretty speech!" she commented, and I saw what I'd done, and feltmyself turn a beautiful purple. Compare her to a worm!

  But she laughed when she saw how uncomfortable I was, and after that I wasalmost glad I'd said it; she _did_ have dimples--two of them--and--

  The laugh, however, was no sign of incipient amiability, as I very soondiscovered. She turned her back on me and went imperturbably on with hersketching; she was trying to put on paper the lights and shades of WhiteDivide--and even a desire to be chivalrous will not permit me to lie andsay that she was making any great success of it. I don't believe the Lordever intended her for an artist.

  "Aren't you giving King's Highway a much wider mouth than it's entitledto?" I asked mildly, after watching her for a minute.

  "I should not be surprised," she told me haughtily, "if you some daywished it still wider."

  "There wouldn't be the chance for fighting, if it was; and I take greatpleasure in keeping the feud going."

  "I thought you were anxious for a truce," she said recklessly, shading aslope so that it looked like the peak of a roof.

  "I am," I retorted shamelessly. "I'm anxious for anything under the sunthat will keep you talking to me. People might call that a flirtatiousremark, but I plead not guilty; I wouldn't know how to flirt, even ifI wanted to do so."

  She turned her head and looked at me in a way that I could notmisunderstand; it was plain, unvarnished scorn, and a ladylike anger, anda few other unpleasant things.

  It made me think of a certain star in "The Taming of the Shrew."

  "Fie, fie! unknit that threatening, unkind brow, And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, To wound thy neighbor and thine enemy,"

  I declaimed, with rather a free adaptation to my own need.

  Her brow positively refused to unknit. "Have you nothing to do but spoutbad quotations from Shakespeare on a hilltop?" she wanted to know, in aparticularly disagreeable tone.

  "Plenty; I have yet to win that narrow pass," I said.

  "Hardly to-day," she told me, with more than a shade of triumph. "Fatheris at home, and he heard of your trip yesterday."

  If she expected to scare me by that! "Must our feud include your father?When I met him a month ago, he gave me a cordial invitation to stop, ifI ever happened this way."

  She lifted those heavy lashes, and her eyes plainly spoke unbelief.

  "It's a fact," I assured her calmly. "I met him one day in Laurel, and wasfortunate enough to perform a service which earned his gratitude. AsI say, he invited me to come and see him; I told him I should be glad tohave him visit me at the Bay State Ranch, and we embraced each other withmuch fervor."

  "Indeed!" I could see that she persisted in doubting my veracity.

  "Ask your father if we didn't," I said, much injured. I knew she wouldn't,though.

  A scrambling behind us made me turn, and there was Perry Potter climbingup to us, his eyes sharper than ever, and his face so absolutely devoid ofexpression that it told me a good deal. I'll lay all I own he was a goodbit astonished at what he saw! As for me, I could have kicked him back tothe bottom of the hill--and I probably looked it.

  "There was something I forgot to put in that note," he said evenly, justtouching the brim of his hat in acknowledgment of the girl's presence. "Iwrote another one. I'd like Ballard to get it as soon as you can makecamp--conveniently." His eyes looked through me almost as if I weren'tthere.

  My desire to kick him grew almost into mania. I took the note, saw at aglance that it was addressed to me, and said: "All right," in a tone quitedifferent from the one I had been using to tease Miss King.

  He gave me another sharp look, and went back the way he had come, leavingme standing there glaring after him. Miss King, I noticed, was sketchingfor dear life, and her cheeks were crimson.

  When Potter had got to the bottom and was riding away, I unfolded the noteand read:

  Don't be a fool. For God's sake, have some sense and keep away from King's Highway.

  I laughed, and Miss King looked up inquiringly. Following an impulse I'venever yet been able to classify, I showed her the note.

  She read it calmly--I might say indifferently. "He is quite right," shesaid coldly. "I, too--if I cared enough--would advise you to keep awayfrom King's Highway."

  "But you don't care enough to advise me, and so I shall go," I said--andI had the satisfaction of seeing her teeth come down sharply on her lowerlip. I waited a minute, watching her.

  "You're very foolish," she said icily, and went at her sketching again.

  I waited another minute; during that time she succeeded in making the passlook weird indeed, and a fearsome place to enter. I got reckless.

  "You've spoiled that sketch," I said, stooping and taking it gently fromher. "Give it to me, and it shall be a flag of truce with which I shallwin my way through unscathed."

  She started to her feet then, and her anger was worth facing for the glowit brought to eyes and cheeks, and the tremble that came to her lips.

  "Mr. Carleton, you are perfectly detestable!" she cried.

  "Miss King, you are perfectly adorable!" I retu
rned, folding the sketchvery carefully, so that it would slip easily into my pocket. "With soauthentic a map of the enemy's stronghold, what need I fear? I go--but,on my honor, I shall shortly return."

  She stood with her fingers clasped tightly in front of her, and watched melead Shylock down that butte--on the side toward the pass, if you arestill in doubt of my intentions. When I say she watched me, I am making aguess; but I felt that she was, and it would be hard to disabuse my mindof that belief. And when I started, her fingers had been clinging tightlytogether. At the bottom I turned and waved my hat--and I know she sawthat, for she immediately whirled and took to studying the southernsky-line. So I left her and galloped straight into the lion's den--to usean old simile.

  I passed through the gate and up to the house, Shylock pacing easily alongas though we both felt assured of a welcome. Old King met me at his dooras I was going by; I pulled up and gave him my very cheeriest goodmorning. He looked at me from under shaggy, gray eyebrows.

  "You've got your gall, young man, to come this way twice in twenty-fourhours," he said grimly.

  "You can turn around and go back the way you came in."

  "You asked me to call," I reminded him mildly. "You were not at homeyesterday, so I came again."

  He glanced uneasily over his shoulder, and drew the door shut betweenhimself and whoever was within. "You damn' cur," he growled, "yuh know yuhain't no friend uh the Kings."

  "I know you're all mighty unneighborly," I said, making me a cigarette inthe way that cowboys do. "I asked a young lady--your daughter,I suppose--for a drink of water. She told me to go to the creek."

  He laughed at that; evidently he approved of his daughter's attitude."Beryl knows how to deal with the likes uh you," he muttered relishfully."And she hates the Carletons bad as I do. Get off my place, young man, anddo it quick!"

  "Sure!" I assented cheerfully, and jabbed the spurs into Shylock--takinggood care that he was beaded north instead of south. And it's a fact that,ticklish as was the situation, my first thought was: "So her name'sBeryl, is it? Mighty pretty name, and fits her, too."

  King wasn't thinking anything so sentimental, I'll wager. He yelled to twoor three fellows, as I shot by them near the first corral: "Round up thatthus-and-how"--I hate to say the words right out--"and bring him backhere!" Then he sent a bullet zipping past my ear, and from the house camea high, nasal squawk which, I gathered, came from the old party I had seenthe day before.

  I went clippety-clip around those sheds and corrals, till I like to havesnapped my head off; I knew Shylock could take first money over anyordinary cayuse, and I let him out; but, for all that, I heard themcoming, and it sounded as if they were about to ride all over me, theywere so close.

  Past the last shed I went streaking it, and my heart remembered what itwas made for, and went to work. I don't feel that, under thecircumstances, it's any disgrace to own that I was scared. I didn't hearany more little singing birds fly past, so I straightened up enough tolook around and see what was doing in the way of pursuit.

  One glance convinced me that my pursuers weren't going to sleep in theirsaddles. One of them, on a little buckskin that was running with his earslaid so flat it looked as if he hadn't any, was widening the loop in hisrope, and yelling unfriendly things as he spurred after me; the otherswere a length behind, and I mentally put them out of the race. Thegentleman with the businesslike air was all I wanted to see, and I laidlow as I could and slapped Shylock along the neck, and told him to bestirhimself.

  He did. We skimmed up that trail like a winner on the home--stretch, andbefore I had time to think of what lay ahead, I saw that fence with thehigh, board gate that was padlocked. Right there I swore abominably--butit didn't loosen the gate. I looked back and decided that this was nooccasion for pulling wires loose and leading my horse over them. It was nooccasion for anything that required more than a second; my friend of therope was not more than five long jumps behind, and he was swinging thatloop suggestively over his head.

  I reined Shylock sharply out of the trail, saw a place where the fencelooked a bit lower than the average, and put him straight at it with quirtand spurs. He would have swung off, but I've ridden to hounds, and I hadseen hunters go over worse places; I held him to it without mercy. He laidback his ears, then, and went over--and his hind feet caught the top wireand snapped it like thread. I heard it hum through the air, and I heardthose behind me shout as though something unlooked-for had happened.I turned, saw them gathered on the other side looking after me blankly, andI waved my hat airily in farewell and went on about my business.

  "His hind feet caught the top wire and snapped it likethread."]

  I felt that they would scarcely chase me the whole twelve or fifteen milesof the pass, and I was right; after I turned the first bend I saw them nomore.

  At camp I was received with much astonishment, particularly when Ballardsaw that I had brought an answer to his note.

  "Yuh must 'a' rode King's Highway," he said, looking at me much as PerryPotter had done the night before.

  I told him I did, and the boys gathered round and wanted to know how I didit. I told them about jumping the fence, and my conceit got a hard blowthere; with one accord they made it plain that I had done a very foolishthing. Range horses, they assured me, are not much at jumping, as a rule;and wire-fences are their special abhorrence. Frosty Miller told me, inconfidence, that he didn't know which was the bigger fool, Shylock or me,and he hoped I'd never be guilty of another trick like that.

  That rather took the bloom off my adventure, and I decided, after muchthought, that I agreed with Frosty: King's Highway was bad medicine.I amended that a bit, and excepted Beryl King; I did not think she was "badmedicine," however acid might be her flavor.