Shoe-Bar Stratton

CHAPTER XXI
WHAT MARY THORNE FOUND

A few hundred yards away from the fence strung along the western side of middle pasture, Mary Thorne pulled her horse down to a walk and straightened her hat mechanically. Her cheeks were flushed becomingly and her eyes shone, but at the end of that sharp little canter much of the brightness faded and her face clouded.

For the last week or more it had grown increasingly difficult to keep up a cheerful front and prevent the doubts and troubles which harassed her from causing comment. This morning she had reached the limit of suppression. Stella got on her nerves more than usual; Alf annoyed her with his superior air and those frequent little intimate mannerisms which, though unnoticed during all the years of their friendship, had lately grown curiously irksome to the girl. Even Mrs. Archer’s calm placidity weighed on her spirits, and when that happened Mary knew that it was high time for her to get away by herself for a few hours and make a vigorous effort to recover her wonted serenity of mind.

She told herself that she was tired and jaded, and that a solitary ride would soothe her ragged nerves. And so, at the first opportunity after breakfast, she slipped quietly away, saddled her favorite horse, Freckles, and leaving word with Pedro that she would be back by dinner-time, departed hastily.

It was rather curious behavior in a girl usually so frank and open, and free from even a suspicion of guile, but she deliberately gave the Mexican an impression that she was going to join the men down in south pasture, and as long as she remained within sight of the ranch-house she kept her horse headed in that direction. Furthermore, before abruptly changing her course to the northwest, she pulled up and glanced sharply around to make certain she was not observed.

As a matter of fact one of the things which had lately puzzled and troubled her was a growing impression of surveillance. Several times she had surprised Pedro or his wife in attitudes which seemed suspiciously as if they had been spying. McCabe, too, and some of the other men were inclined to pop up when she least expected them. Indeed, looking back on the last two weeks she realized how very little she had been alone except in the close confines of the ranch-house. If she rode forth to inspect the work or merely to take a little canter, Tex or one of the punchers was almost sure to join her. They always had a good excuse, but equally always they were there; and though Mary Thorne had not the remotest notion of the meaning of it all, she had grown convinced that there must be some hidden motive beneath their actions, and the thought troubled her.

Tex Lynch’s altered manner gave her even greater cause for anxiety. It would have been difficult to put into words exactly where the change lay, but she was sure that there was a difference. Up to a short time ago she had regarded him impersonally as merely an efficient foreman whom she had inherited from her father along with the ranch. She did so still, but she could not remain blind to the fact that the man himself was deliberately striving to inject a more intimate note into their intercourse. His methods were subtle enough, but Mary Thorne was far from dull, and the alteration in his manner made her at once indignant and a little frightened.

“I suppose it’s silly to feel that way, especially with Alf here,” she murmured as she reached the fence and swung herself out of the saddle. “But I do wish I hadn’t taken his word about – Buck Green.”

She took a small pair of pliers from her saddle-pocket and deftly untwisted the strands of wire from one of the posts, while Freckles looked on with an expression of intelligent interest. When the gap was opened in the fence, he walked through and waited quietly on the other side until the wire had been replaced. It was not the first time he had done this trick, for the trail through the mountains was a favorite retreat of the girl’s. She had discovered it long ago, and returned to it frequently, through her own private break in the fence, especially on occasions like this when she wanted to get away from everybody and be quite alone.

Having remounted and headed northward along the edge of the hills, her thoughts flashed back to the discharged cow-puncher, and her brow puckered. The whole subject affected her in a curiously complicated fashion. From the first she had been conscious of having done the young man an injustice. And yet, as often as she went over their final interview in her mind – which was not seldom – she did not see how she could have done otherwise. Her woman’s intuition told her over and over again that he could not possibly be a common thief; but if this was so, why had he refused her the simple assurance she asked for?

That was the stumbling-block. If he had only been frank and open, she felt that she would have believed him, even in the face of Lynch’s conviction of his guilt, though she was frank enough to admit that the foreman’s attitude would probably have influenced her much more strongly a week ago than it did at present. It was this thought which brought her mind around to another of her worries.

Not only did she intensely dislike Lynch’s present manner toward herself, but there had lately grown up in her mind a vague distrust of the man generally. She could not put her finger on anything really definite. There were moments, indeed, when she wondered if she was not a silly little fool making bogies out of shadows. But the feeling persisted, growing on unconsidered trifles, that Tex was playing at some subtle, secret game, of the character of which she had not even the most remote conception.

“But if that’s so – if he can’t be trusted any longer,” she said aloud, stung by a sudden, sharp realization of the gravity of such a situation, “what am I to do?”

Of his own accord Freckles had turned aside into the little curved depression in the cliffs and was plodding slowly up the trail. Staring blindly at the rough, ragged cliffs and peaks ahead of her, the girl was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness. If Lynch failed her, what could she do? Whom could she turn to for help or even for counsel? There was Alf Manning, but Alf knew nothing whatever of range conditions, and besides neither he nor Stella expected to stay on indefinitely. Her mind ranged swiftly over other more or less remote possibilities, but save for a few distant cousins with whom they had never been on intimate terms, she could think of no one. She even considered for a moment Jim Tenny of the Rocking-R, whom she had met and liked, or Dr. Blanchard, but a sudden reviving burst of spirit caused her quickly to dismiss the thought.

“They’d think I was a silly, hysterical idiot,” she murmured. “Why, I couldn’t even tell them what I was afraid of. I wonder if it can possibly be just nerves? It doesn’t seem as if – ”

She broke off abruptly and tightened on her reins. Freckles had carried her over the summit of the trail and had almost reached the hollow on the other side, formed by the bottom of a gully that crossed the path. Mary had once explored it and knew that to the left it deepened into a gloomy gulch that hugged the cliff for some distance and then curved abruptly to the south. So far as she knew, it led nowhere, and yet, to her astonishment, not a hundred feet away a saddled horse, with bridle-reins trailing, stood cropping the leaves of a stunted mesquite.

“That’s funny,” she said aloud in a low tone.

As she spoke the horse threw up his head and stared at her, ears pointed inquiringly. When Freckles nickered, the strange animal gave an answering whinny, but did not move.

Puzzled and a little nervous, Mary glanced sharply to right and left amongst the scattered rocks. In her experience a saddled horse meant that the owner was not far away; but she could see no signs of any one, and at length, taking courage from the silence, she rode slowly forward.

As she came closer the horse backed away a foot or two and half turned, exposing a brand on his shoulder. The girl stared at it with a puckered frown, wondering what on earth any one from the Rocking-R was doing here. Then her glance strayed to the saddle, flittered indifferently over cantle and skirts, to pause abruptly, with a sudden keen attention, on the flap of the right-hand pocket, which bore the initials “R. S.” cut with some skill on the smooth leather.

With eyes widening, the girl bent forward, studying the flap intently. She was not mistaken; the initials were R. S., and in a flash there came back to her a memory of that afternoon, which seemed so long ago, when she and Buck Green rode out together to the south pasture. She had noticed those initials then on his saddle-pocket, and knowing how unusual it was for a cow-man to touch his precious saddle with a knife, she made some casual comment, and learned how it had come into Buck’s possession.

What did it mean? What was he doing here on a Rocking-R horse? Above all, where was he?

Suddenly her heart began to beat unevenly and her frightened eyes stared down the gulch to where an out-thrust buttress provokingly hid the greater part of it from view. Her glance shifted again to the horse, who stood motionless, regarding her with liquid, intelligent eyes, and for the first time she noticed that the ends of the trailing reins were scratched and torn and ragged.

How still the place was! She fumbled in her blouse, and drawing forth a handkerchief, passed it mechanically over her damp forehead. Then abruptly her slight figure straightened, and tightening the reins she urged Freckles along the rock-strewn bottom of the gulch.

The distance to the rocky buttress seemed at once interminable and incredibly short. As she reached it she held her breath and her teeth dug into her colorless lips. But when another section of the winding gorge lay before her, silent, empty save for scattered boulders and a few scanty bits of stunted vegetation, one small, gloved hand fluttered to her breast, then dropped, clenched, against the saddle-horn.

A rounded mass of rock, fallen in ages past from the cliffs above, blocked her path, and mechanically the girl reined Freckles around it. An instant later the horse stopped of his own accord, and the girl found herself staring down with horror-stricken eyes at the body of a man stretched out on the further side of the boulders. Motionless he lay there, a long length of brown chaps and torn, disordered shirt. His face was hidden in his crooked arms; the tumbled mass of brown hair was matted with ominous dark clots. But in that single, stricken second Mary Thorne knew whom she had found.

“Oh!” she choked, fighting desperately against a wave of faintness that threatened to overwhelm her. “O-h!”

Slowly the man’s face lifted, and two bloodshot eyes regarded her dully through a matted lock of hair that lay stiffly plastered against his forehead. With a curious, stealthy movement, one hand twisted back to his side and fumbled there for an instant. Then the man groaned softly.

“I forgot,” he mumbled. “It’s gone. You – you’ve got me this time, I reckon.”

Face drained to paper-white and lips quivering, Mary Thorne slid out of her saddle, steadied herself against the horse for a second, and then dropped on her knees beside him.

“Buck!” she cried in a shaking voice. “You – you’re hurt! What – what is it?”

A puzzled look came into his face, and as he stared into the wide, frightened hazel eyes so close to his, recognition slowly dawned.

“You!” he muttered. “What – How – ”

She twined her fingers together to stop their trembling. “I was riding through the pass,” she told him briefly. “I saw your horse and I – I was – afraid – ”

A faint gleam came into the bloodshot eyes. “My – my horse? You mean a – a Rocking-R cayuse?”

“Yes.”

He tried to sit up, but the effort turned him so white that the girl cried out protestingly.

“You mustn’t. You’re badly hurt. I – I’ll ride back for help.” She sprang to her feet. “But first I must get you water.”

He stared at her as one regards a desert mirage. “Water!” he repeated unbelievingly. “You know where – If you could – ”

A sudden moisture dimmed her eyes, but she winked it resolutely back. “There’s a little spring the other side of the trail,” she explained. “You lie quietly and I’ll be back in just a minute.”

Stumbling in her haste, she turned and ran past the buttress and on toward the trail. Not a hundred feet beyond, a tiny spring bubbled up in the rocks, and dropping down beside it, the girl jerked the pins from her hat and let the cool water trickle into the capacious crown of the Stetson. It seemed to take an eternity to fill, but at length the water ran over the brim, and carefully guarding her precious burden, she hurried back again.

The man was watching for her – eagerly, longingly, with an underlying touch of apprehensive doubt, as if he half feared to find her merely one of those dreamlike phantoms that had haunted him through the long, painful hours. As the girl sank down beside him, there was a look in his eyes that sent a strange thrill through her and caused her hands to tremble, sending a little stream of water trickling over the soggy hat-brim to the ground.

She steadied herself resolutely and bending forward held the hat against Buck’s lips. As he plunged his face into it and began to suck up the water in great, famished gulps, the girl’s lips quivered, and her eyes, resting on the matted tangle of dark hair, filled with sudden tears.

CHAPTER XXII
NERVE

With a deep sigh, Buck lifted his face from the water and regarded her gratefully.

“That just about saved my life,” he murmured.

Mary Thorne carefully set down the improvised water-bucket, its contents much depleted, and taking out her handkerchief, soaked it thoroughly.

“I’m awfully stupid about first aid,” she said. “But your head must be badly cut, and – ”

“Don’t,” he protested, as the moist bit of cambric touched his hair. “You’ll spoil it.”

“As if that mattered!” she retorted. “Just rest your head on your arms; it’ll be easier.”

With deft, gentle touches, she cleaned away the blood and grime, parting his thick hair now and then with delicate care. Her hands were steady now, and having steeled herself for anything, the sight of a jagged, ugly-looking cut on his scalp did not make her flinch. She even bent forward a little to examine it more closely, and saw that a ridge of clotted blood had temporarily stopped its oozing.

“I think I’d better let it alone,” she said aloud. “I might start it bleeding again. How – how did it happen?”

Buck raised his head and regarded her with a slow, thoughtful stare.

“I fell off the cliff back there,” he replied at length.

Her eyes widened. “You – fell off the cliff!” she gasped. “It’s a wonder – But is this the only place you’re hurt?”

His lips twisted in a grim smile. “Oh, no! I’ve got a sprained ankle and what feels like a broken rib, though it may be only bruises. But as you’re thinking, I’m darned lucky to get off alive. I must have struck a ledge or something part way down, but how I managed from there I haven’t the least idea.”

Hands clenched together in her lap, she stared at him in dismay.

“I thought perhaps you might be strong enough in a little while to ride back with me to the ranch. I – I could help you mount, and we could go very slowly. But of course that’s impossible. I’d better start at once and bring back some of the men.”

She made a move to rise, but he stopped her with a quick, imperative gesture. “No, you mustn’t,” he said firmly. “That won’t do at all. I can’t go to the ranch.” He paused, his forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. “You may not have guessed it, but Lynch and I don’t pull together at all,” he finished, with a whimsical intonation.

“But surely that wouldn’t make any difference – now!” she protested.

“Only the difference that he’d have me just where he wanted me,” he retorted. He was regarding her with a steady, questioning stare, and presently he gave a little sigh. “I’ll have to tell you something I didn’t mean to,” he said. “In my opinion Tex Lynch is pretty much of a scoundrel. He knows I know it, and there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do to shut my mouth – for good.”

To his amazement, instead of showing the indignation he expected, the girl merely stared at him in surprise.

“What!” she cried. “You believe that, too?”

“I’m sure of it. But I thought you trusted – ”

“I don’t any longer.” She was surprised at the immensity of the relief that surged over her at this chance to unburden her soul of the load of perplexity and trouble which harassed her. “For a long time I haven’t – There’ve been a number of things. I still haven’t an idea of what it’s all about, but – ”

“I’m mighty glad you feel that way,” Buck said, as she paused. “I’m not quite sure myself just what he’s up to, but I believe I’m on the right trail.” Very briefly he told her of the steps he had taken since leaving the Shoe-Bar. “You see how impossible it would be to trust myself in his power again,” he concluded.

For a moment or two Mary Thorne sat silent, regarding him with a curious expression.

“So that was the reason,” she murmured at length.

His eyes questioned her mutely, and a slow flush crept into her face.

“The reason you – you couldn’t say you had no – special object in being on the Shoe-Bar,” she explained haltingly. “I’m – sorry I didn’t understand.”

“I couldn’t very well tell you without running the risk of Lynch’s finding out. As it happened, I was trying my best to think up a reasonable excuse for leaving the outfit to do some investigating from this end, so you really did me a good turn.”

“Investigating what? Haven’t you any idea what he’s up to?”

Buck hesitated. “A very little, but it’s too indefinite to put into words just yet. I’ve a feeling I’ll get at the bottom of it soon, though, and then I’ll tell you. In the meantime, when you go back, don’t breathe a word of having seen me, and on no account let any one persuade you to – sell the outfit.”

She stared at him with crinkled brows. “But what are you going to do now?” she asked suddenly, her mind flashing back to the present difficulty.

He dragged himself into a sitting posture. He was evidently feeling stronger and looked much more like himself.

“Try and get back to that camp of mine I told you of,” he explained. “I reckon I’ll have to lay up there a while, but there’s food a-plenty, and a good spring, so – ”

“But I don’t believe you can even stand,” she protested. “And if your ribs are broken – ”

“Likely it’s only one and I can strap that good and tight with a piece of my shirt or something. Then if you could catch Pete and bring him over here, I’ll manage to climb into the saddle some way. It’s only three or four miles, and the going’s not so very bad.”

She made no further protest, but her lips straightened firmly and there was a look of decision in her girlish face as she set about helping him with his preparations.

It was she who tore a broad band from his flannel shirt, roughly fringed the ends with Buck’s knife and tied it so tightly about his body that he had hard work to keep from wincing. She insisted on bandaging his head, and while he rested in the shade went back into the gulch to look for his hat and the Colt that had fallen from his holster.

She finally found them both under a narrow ledge that thrust out a dozen feet below the edge of the trail. A stunted bush, rooted deep in some hidden crevice, grew up before it, and, staring upward at it, the girl guessed that to this little bush alone Buck owed his life. He had been able to give her no further details of his descent, but she saw that it would be possible for a man to crawl along the narrow ledge to where another crossed it at a descending angle, and thence gain the bottom of the gulch.

“I wonder how he ever came to fall,” she murmured, remembering how wide the trail was at the summit.

Returning, however, she asked no questions. In the face of what lay before her, the matter seemed trivial and unimportant. She caught the Rocking-R horse without much trouble and led him back to a broad, flat boulder on which Buck had managed to crawl. Obliged to hold the animal, whose slightest movement might prove disastrous, she could give no further aid, but was forced to stand helpless, watching with troubled, sympathetic eyes the man’s painful struggles to gain the saddle. When at last he succeeded and slumped there, mouth twisted and face bathed in perspiration, her knees were shaking and she felt limp and nerveless.

“We’ll stop at the spring first for more water,” she said, pulling herself together with an effort.

Too exhausted for speech, Buck merely nodded, and the girl, gathering up Freckles’s bridle in her other hand, led the two horses slowly toward the trail. At the spring Buck drank deeply of the water she handed him, and seemed much refreshed.

“That’s good,” he murmured, with an effort to straighten his bent body. “Well, I reckon I’d better be starting. I – I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done, Miss – Thorne. It was mighty plucky – ”

“You mustn’t waste your strength talking,” she interrupted quietly. “Just tell me which way to go, and we’ll start.”

“We?” he repeated sharply. “But you’re not going.”

“Of course I am. Did you think for a moment I’d let you take that ride alone?” She smiled faintly with a brave attempt at lightness. “You’d be falling off and breaking another rib. Please don’t make difficulties. I’m going with you, and that’s an end of it.”

Perhaps the firmness of her manner made Buck realize the futility of further protest, or possibly he was in no condition to argue. At all events he gave in, and when the girl swung herself into the saddle, the slow journey began.

To Mary Thorne the memory of it remained ever afterward in her mind a chaotic medley of strange emotions and impressions, vague yet vivid. At first, where the width of the trail permitted it, she rode beside him, making an effort to talk casually and lightly, yet not too constantly, but continually keeping a watchful eye on the drooping figure at her right, whose hands presently sought and gripped the saddle-horn.

When they left the trail for rougher ground, she dismounted in spite of Buck’s protest, and walked beside him, and it was well she did. Once when the horse slipped or stumbled on a loose stone and the man’s body swayed perilously in the saddle, she put up both hands swiftly and held him there.

Before they had gone a mile her boots began to hurt her, but the pain was so trifling in comparison with what Buck must be suffering that she scarcely noticed it. He was putting up a brave front, but there were signs that were difficult to conceal, and toward the end of that toilsome journey it was evident that he could not possibly have kept his seat much longer. Indeed, when they had ridden the short length of the little cañon and stopped before the overhanging shelf of rocks, he toppled suddenly sidewise, and only the girl’s frail body prevented him from crashing roughly to the ground.

She brought him water from the spring, and searching through his belongings found a flask of brandy and forced some between his teeth. When he had recovered from his momentary faintness, she managed somehow to get him over to the blankets spread beneath the ledge. Then she built a fire and set some coffee on it to boil, unsaddled Pete, fed and watered the three horses, finally returning with a cup of steaming liquid to where Buck lay exhausted with closed eyes.

His face was drawn and haggard, and his lashes, long and soft and thick, lay against a skin drained of every particle of color. A sudden choking sob rose to the girl’s lips, but she managed to force it back, and when the man’s lids slowly lifted, she smiled tremulously.

“Here’s some coffee,” she said, kneeling down and holding the rim of the cup to his lips.

Buck drank obediently in slow gulps.

“You’re all nerve,” he murmured when the cup was empty. He lay silent for a few moments. “Don’t you think you’d better be starting back?” he asked at length.

“How can I go and leave you like this?” she protested. “You’re so weak. You might get fever. Anything might happen.”

“But you certainly can’t stay,” he retorted with unexpected decision. “Let alone a whole lot of other reasons,” he went on, watching her mutinous face, “if you did, Tex would have a posse out hunting for you in no time. Sooner or later they’d find this place, and you know what that would mean. I’m feeling better every minute – honest. By to-morrow I’ll be able to hobble around and look after myself fine.”

His logic was irresistible, and for a time she sat silent, torn by a conflict of emotions. Then all at once her face brightened.

“I’ve got it!” she cried. “Why can’t I send Bud out? He’s to be trusted surely?”

Buck’s eyes lit up in a way that brought to the girl a curious, jealous pang.

“Bud? Sure, he’s all right. That’s one fine idea. You’ll have to be careful Lynch doesn’t know where he’s going, though.”

“I’ll manage that all right.”

Reluctant to go, yet feeling that she ought to make haste, the girl got out some crackers and placed them, with a pail of water, within his reach. Then she listened while Stratton told her of a short cut out to the middle pasture.

“I understand,” she nodded. “You’ll promise to be careful, won’t you? Bud ought to be here in a couple of hours, though he may be delayed a little longer. You’d better not try and move until he comes.”

“I won’t,” Buck answered. “I’m too darn comfortable.”

“Well, good-by, then,” she said briefly, moving over to her horse.

“Good-by; and – thank you a thousand times!”

She made no answer, but a faint, enigmatic smile quivered for an instant on her lips as she turned the stirrup and swung herself into the saddle. When Freckles had reached a little distance, she glanced back and waved her hand. From where he lay Stratton could see almost the whole length of the little cañon, and as long as the slight figure on the big gray horse remained in sight, his eyes followed her intently, a sort of wistful hunger in their depths. But when she disappeared, the man’s head fell back limply on the blankets and his eyes closed.