The Uphill Climb Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  "I Can Spare this Particular Girl"

  Ford's range-trained vision told him, while yet afar off, that the lonehorse feeding upon a side hill was saddled and bridled, with reinsdragging; the telltale, upward toss of its head when it started on tofind a sweeter morsel was evidence enough of the impeding bridle, evenbefore he was near enough to distinguish the saddle.

  Your true range man owns blood-relationship with the original GoodSamaritan; Ford swung out of the trail and untied his rope as a matterof course. The master of the animal might have turned him loose to feed,but if that were the case, he had strayed farther than was everintended; the chances, since no human being was in sight, were allagainst design and in favor of accident. At any rate Ford did nothesitate. It is not good to let a horse run loose upon the range with asaddle cinched upon its back, as every one knows.

  Ford was riding along the sheer edge of a water-worn gully, seeking aplace where he might safely jump it--or better, a spot where the bankssloped so that he might ride down into it and climb the bankbeyond--when he saw a head and pair of shoulders moving slowly along,just over the brow of the hill where fed the stray. He watched, and whenthe figure topped the ridge and started down the slope which faced him,his eyes widened a trifle in surprise.

  Skirts to the tops of her shoes betrayed her a woman. She limpedpainfully, so that Ford immediately pictured to himself puckeredeyebrows and lips pressed tightly together. "And I'll bet she's crying,too," he summed up aloud. While he was speaking, she stumbled and fellheadlong.

  When he saw that she made no attempt to rise, but lay still just as shehad fallen, Ford looked no longer for an easy crossing. He glanced upand down the washout, saw no more promising point than where he was,wheeled and rode back twenty yards or so, turned and drove deep hisspurs.

  It was a nasty jump, and he knew it all along. When Rambler rose gamelyto it, with tensed muscles and forefeet flung forward to catch the bankbeyond, he knew it better. And when, after a sickening minute offrenzied scrambling at the crumbling edge, they slid helplessly to thebottom, he cursed his idiocy for ever attempting it.

  Rambler got up with a pronounced limp, but Ford had thrown himself fromthe saddle and escaped with nothing worse than a skinned elbow. Theywere penned, however, in a box-like gully ten feet deep, and there wasnothing to do but follow it to where they might climb out. Ford wasworried about the girl, and made a futile attempt to stand in the saddleand from there climb up to the level. But Rambler, lame as he was,plunged so that Ford finally gave it up and started down the gulch,leading Rambler by the reins.

  There were many sharp turns and temper-trying windings, and though itnarrowed in many places so that there was barely room for them to pass,it never grew shallower; indeed, it grew always deeper; and then,without any warning, it stopped abruptly upon a coulee's rim, withjumbled rocks and between them a sheer descent to the slope below. Fordguessed then that he was boxed up in one of the main waterways of thefoot-hills he had been skirting for the past hour or so, and that heshould have ridden up the gulch instead of down it.

  He turned, though the place was so narrow that Rambler's four feetalmost touched one another and his rump scraped the bank, as Ford pulledhim round, and retraced his steps. It was too rough for riding, even ifhe had not wanted to save the horse, and he had no idea how far he mustgo before he could get out. Ford, at that time, was not particularlycheerful.

  He must have gone a mile and more before he reached the point where, byhard scrambling, he attained level ground upon the same side as thegirl. Ten minutes he spent in urging Rambler up the bank, and when thehorse stood breathing heavily beside him, Ford knew that, for all thegood there was in him at present, he might as well have left him at thebottom. He walked around him, rubbing leg and shoulder muscles until helocated the hurt, and shook his head when all was done. Then he startedon slowly, with Rambler hobbling painfully after him. Ford knew thatevery rod would aggravate that strained shoulder and that a stop wouldprobably make it impossible for the horse to go on at all.

  He was not quite sure, after all those windings where he could not see,just where it was he had seen the girl, but he recognized at last theundulating outline of the ridge over which she had appeared, and madewhat haste he could up the slope. The grazing horse was no longer insight, though he knew it might be feeding in a hollow near by.

  He had almost given up hope of finding her, when he turned his head andsaw her off to one side, lying half concealed by a clump of low rosebushes. She was not unconscious, as he had thought, but was cryingsilently, with her face upon her folded arms and her hat askew over oneear. He stooped and touched her upon the shoulder.

  She lifted her head and looked at him, and drew away with a faint,withdrawing gesture, which was very slight in itself but none the lesseloquent and unmistakable. Ford backed a step when he saw it and closedhis lips without speaking the words he had meant to say.

  She lifted her head and looked at him, and drew away.]

  "Well, what do you want?" the girl asked ungraciously, after a minutespent in fumbling unseen hairpins and in straightening her hat. "I don'tknow why you're standing there like that, staring at me. I don't needany help."

  "Appearances are deceitful, then," Ford retorted. "I saw you limpingover the hill, after your horse, and I saw you fall down and stay down.I had an idea that a little help would be acceptable, but of course--"

  "That was an hour ago," she interrupted accusingly, with a measuringglance at the sun, which was settling toward the sky-line.

  "I had trouble getting across that washout down there. I don't knowthis part of the country, and I went down it instead of up. What are youcrying about--if you don't need any help?"

  She eyed him askance, and chewed upon a corner of her lip, and flippedthe upturned hem of her riding skirt down over one spurred foot with atruly feminine instinct, before she answered him. She seemed to bethinking hard and fast, and she hesitated even while she spoke. Fordwondered at the latent antagonism in her manner.

  "I was crying because my foot hurts so and because I don't see how I'mgoing to get back to the ranch. I suppose they'll hunt me up if I stayaway long enough--but it's getting toward night, and--I'm scared todeath of coyotes, if you must know!"

  Ford laughed--at her defiance, in the face of her absolute helplessness,more than at what she said. "And you tell me you don't need any help?"he bantered.

  "I might borrow your horse," she suggested coldly, as if she grudgedyielding even that much to circumstance. "Or you might catch mine forme, I suppose."

  "Sure. But you needn't hate me because you're in trouble," he hintedirrelevantly. "I'm not to blame, you know."

  "I--I hate to ask help from--a stranger," she said, watching him fromunder her lashes. "And I can't help showing what I feel. I hate to feelunder an obligation--"

  "If that's all, forget it," he assured her calmly. "It's a law of theopen--to help a fellow out in a pinch. When I headed for here, I thoughtit was a man had been set afoot."

  She eyed him curiously. "Then you didn't know--"

  "I thought you were a man," he repeated. "I didn't come just because Isaw it was a girl. You needn't feel under any obligation whatever. I'm astranger in the country and a stranger to you. I'm perfectly willing tostay that way, if you prefer. I'm not trying to scrape acquaintance onthe strength of your being in trouble; but you surely don't expect aman to ride on and leave a woman out here on the bald prairie--do you?Especially when she's confessed she's afraid of the dark--and coyotes!"

  She was staring at him while he spoke, and she continued to stare afterhe had finished; the introspective look which sees without seeing, itbecame at last, and Ford gave a shrug at her apparent obstinacy andturned away to where Rambler stood with his head drooped and his eyeshalf closed. He picked up the reins and chirped to him, and the horsehesitated, swung his left foot painfully forward, hobbled a step, andlooked at Ford reproachfully.

  "Your horse is crippled as badly as I am, it wou
ld seem," the girlobserved, from where she sat watching them.

  "I strained his shoulder, trying to make him jump that washout. That waswhen I first got sight of you over here. We went to the bottom and ittook me quite a while to find a way out. That's why I was so longgetting here." Ford explained indifferently, with his back to her,while he rubbed commiseratingly the swelling shoulder.

  "Oh." The girl waited. "It seems to me you need help yourself. I don'tsee how you expect to help any one else, with your horse in thatcondition," she added. And when he still did not speak, she asked: "Doyou know how far it is to the nearest ranch?"

  "No. I told you I'm a stranger in this country. I was heading for theDouble Cross, but I don't know just--"

  "We're eight miles, straight across, from there; ten, the way we wouldhave to go to get there. There are other washouts in this country--whichit is unwise to attempt jumping, Mr.--"

  "Campbell," Ford supplied shortly.

  "I beg your pardon? You mumbled--"

  "Campbell!" Ford was tempted to shout it but contented himself with atart distinctness. A late, untoward incident had made him somewhattouchy over his name, and he had not mumbled.

  "Oh. Did you skin your face and blacken your eye, Mr. Campbell, whenyou tried to jump that washout?"

  "No." Ford did not offer any explanation. He remembered the scars ofbattle which were still plainly visible upon his countenance, and heturned red while he bent over the fore ankles of Rambler, trying todiscover other sprains. He felt that he was going to dislike this girlvery much before he succeeded in getting her to shelter. He could notremember ever meeting before a woman under forty with so unpleasant amanner and with such a talent for disagreeable utterances.

  "Then you must have been fighting a wildcat," she hazarded.

  "Pardon me; is this a Methodist experience meeting?" he retorted,looking full at her with lowering brows. "It seems to me the onlysubject which concerns us mutually is the problem of getting to a ranchbefore dark."

  "You'll have to solve it yourself. I never attempt puzzles." The girl,somewhat to his surprise, showed no resentment at his rebuff. Indeed, hebegan to suspect her of being secretly amused. He began also mentallyto accuse her of not being too badly hurt to walk, if she wanted to;indeed, his skepticism went so far as to accuse her of deliberatelybaiting him--though why, he did not try to conjecture. Women were queer.Witness his own late experience with one.

  Being thus in a finely soured mood, Ford suggested that, as she no doubtknew the shortest way to the nearest ranch, they at least make a startin that direction.

  "How?" asked the girl, staring up at him from where she sat beside therose bushes.

  "By walking, I suppose--unless you expect me to carry you." Ford's tonewas not in any degree affable.

  "I fancy it would be asking too great a favor to suggest that you catchmy horse for me?"

  Ford dropped Rambler's reins and turned to her, irritated to the pointwhere he felt a distinct desire to shake her.

  "I'd far rather catch your horse, even if I had to haze him all overthe country, than carry you," he stated bluntly.

  "Yes. I suspected that much." She had plucked a red seed-ball off thebush nearest her and was nibbling daintily the sweet pulp off theoutside.

  "Where is the horse?" Ford was holding himself rigidly hack from anoutburst of temper.

  "Oh, I don't know, I'm sure." She picked another seed-ball and beganupon it. "He should be somewhere around, unless he has taken a notion togo home."

  Ford said something under his breath and untied his rope from thesaddle. He knew about where the horse had been feeding when he saw him,and he judged that it would naturally graze in the direction ofhome--which would probably be somewhere off to the southeast, since thetrail ran more or less in that direction. Without a word to the girl, ora glance toward her, he started up the hill, hoping to get his bearingsand a sight of the horse from the top. He could not remember when he hadbeen so angry with a woman. "If she was a man," he gritted as heclimbed, "I'd give her a thrashing or leave her out there, just as shedeserves. That's the worst of dealing with a woman--she can always handit to you, and you've got to give her a grin and thank-you, because sheain't a man."

  He glanced back, then, and saw her sitting with her head dropped forwardupon her hands. There was something infinitely pitiful and lonely in herattitude, and he knitted his brows over the contrast between it and hermanner when he left her. "I don't suppose a woman knows, herself, whatshe means, half the time," he hazarded impatiently. "She certainlydidn't have any excuse for throwing it into me the way she did; maybeshe's sorry for it now."

  After that his anger cooled imperceptibly, and he hurried a littlefaster because the day was waning with the chill haste of mid-autumn,and he recalled what she had said at first about being afraid ofcoyotes. And, although the storm of three days ago had been swept intomere memory by that sudden chinook wind, and the days were once moreinvitingly warm and hazily tranquil, night came shiveringly upon theland and the unhoused thought longingly of hot suppers and the glow of afire.

  The girl's horse was, he believed, just disappearing into a deepdepression half a mile farther on; but when he reached the place wherehe had seen it, there was nothing in sight save a few head of cattle anda coyote trotting leisurely up the farther slope. He went farther downthe shallow coulee, then up to the high level beyond, his rope coiledloosely over one arm with the end dragging a foot behind him. But therewas nothing to be seen from up there, except that the sun was just a reddisk upon the far-off hills, and that the night was going to beuncomfortably cool if that wind kept blowing from the northwest.

  He began to feel slightly uneasy about the girl, and to regret wastingany time over her horse, and to fear that he might not be able to getclose enough to rope the beast, even if he did see him.

  He turned back then and walked swiftly through the dusk toward theridge, beyond which she and Rambler were waiting. But it was a longway--much farther than he had realized until he came to retrace hissteps--and the wind blew up a thin rift of clouds which made thedarkness come quickly. He found it difficult to tell exactly at whichpoint he had crossed the ridge, coming over; and although experience inthe open develops in a man a certain animal instinct for directionshanded down by our primitive ancestry, Ford went wide in his anxiety totake the shortest way back to his unwilling protegee. The westeringslope was lighter, however, and five minutes of wandering along theridge showed him a dim bulk which he knew was Rambler. He hurried to theplace, and the horse whinnied shrilly as he approached.

  "I looked as long as I could see, almost, but I couldn't locate yourhorse," Ford remarked to the dark shadow of the rose bushes. "I'll putyou on mine. It will be slow going, of course--lame as he is--but Iguess we can manage to get somewhere."

  He waited for the chill, impersonal reply. When she did not speak, heleaned and peered at the spot where he knew she must be. "If you want totry it, we'd better be starting," he urged sharply. "It's going to bepretty cold here on this side-hill."

  When there was silence still--and he gave her plenty of time forreply--Ford stooped and felt gropingly for her, thinking she must beasleep. He glanced back at Rambler; unless the horse had moved, sheshould have been just there, under his hands; or, he thought, she mayhave moved to some other spot, and be waiting in the dark to see what hewould do. His palms touched the pressed grasses where she had been, buthe did not say a word. He would not give her that satisfaction; and hetold himself grimly that he had his opinion of a girl who would wastetime in foolery, out here in the cold--with a sprained ankle, to boot.

  He pulled a handful of the long grass which grows best among bushes. Itwas dead now, and dry. He twisted it into a makeshift torch, lighted andheld it high, so that its blaze made a great disk of brightness allaround him. While it burned he looked for her, and when it grew toblack cinders and was near to scorching his hand, he made another andlooked farther. He laid aside his dignity and called, and while hisvoice went booming full-lunged thro
ugh the whispering silence of thatempty land, he twisted the third torch, and stamped the embers of thesecond into the earth that it might not fire the prairie.

  There was no dodging the fact; the girl was gone. When Ford wasperfectly sure of it, he stamped the third torch to death with viciousheels, went back to the horse, and urged him to limp up the hill. He didnot say anything then or think anything much; at least, he did not thinkcoherently. He was so full of a wordless rage against the girl, that hedid not at first feel the need of expression. She had made a fool ofhim.

  He remembered once shooting a big, beautiful, blacktail doe. She haddropped limply in her tracks and lain there, and he had sauntered up andstood looking at her stretched before him. He was out of meat, and thedoe meant all that hot venison steaks and rich, brown gravy can mean toa man meat-hungry. While he unsheathed his hunting knife, he gloatedover the feast he would have, that night. And just when he had laid hisrifle against a rock and knelt to bleed her, the deer leaped from underhis hand and bounded away over the hill. He had not said a word on thatoccasion, either.

  This night, although the case was altogether different and thedisappearance of the girl was in no sense a disaster--rather a relief,if anything--he felt that same wordless rage, the same sense of utterchagrin. She had made a fool of him. After awhile he felt his jawsaching with the vicelike pressure of his teeth together.

  They topped the ridge, Rambler hobbling stiffly. Ford had in mind asheltering rim of sandstone at the nearest point of the coulee he hadcrossed in searching for the girl's horse, and made for it. He hadnoticed a spring there, and while the water might not be good, theshelter would be welcome, at any rate.

  He had the saddle off Rambler, the shoulder bathed with cold water fromthe spring, and was warming his wet hands over a little fire when thefirst gleam of humor struck through his anger and lighted for a momentthe situation.

  "Lordy me! I must be a hoodoo, where women are concerned," he said,kicking the smoking stub of a bush into the blaze. "Soon as one crossesmy trail, she goes and disappears off the face of the earth!" He fumbledfor his tobacco and papers. It was a "dry camp" he was making thatnight, and a smoke would have to serve for a supper. He held his book ofpapers absently while he stared hard at the fire.

  "It ain't such a bad hoodoo," he mused. "I can spare this particulargirl just as easy as not; and the other one, too, for that matter."

  After a minute spent in blowing apart the thin leaves and selecting apaper:

  "Queer where she got to--and it's a darned mean trick to play on a manthat was just trying to help her out of a fix. Why, I wouldn't treat astray dog that way! Darn these women!"