"Oh, don"t do that," she begged. "It would be too cruel. We"re sure to reach Rodway"s very soon."
More plodding through drifts high and drifts low; more leaning from saddles to search anxiously for trace of something besides snow and wind and biting cold. Then, far to the right, a yellow eye glowed briefly when the storm paused to take breath. Miss Conroy gave a glad little cry and turned Badger sharply.
"Did you see? It was the light from a window. We were going the wrong way. I"m sure that is Rodway"s."
Rowdy thanked the Lord and followed her. They came up against a fence, found a gate, and pa.s.sed through. While they hurried toward it, the light winked welcome; as they drew near, some one stirred the fire and sent sparks and rose-hued smoke rushing up into the smother of snow.
Rowdy watched them wistfully, and wondered if there would be supper, and strong, hot coffee. He lifted Miss Conroy out of the saddle, carried her two long strides, and deposited her upon the door-step; rapped imperatively, and when a voice replied, lifted the latch and pushed her in before him.
For a minute they stood blinking, just within the door. The change from numbing cold and darkness to the light of the overheated room was stupefying.
Then Miss Conroy went over and held her little, gloved hands to the heat of the stove, but she did not take the chair which some one pushed toward her. She stood, the blanket shrouding her face and her slim young figure, and looked about her curiously. It was not Rodway"s house, after all. She thought she knew what place it was--the shack where Rodway"s hay-balers bached.
From the first, Rowdy did not like the look of things--though for himself it did not matter; he was used to such scenes. It was the presence of the girl which made him uncomfortable. He unb.u.t.toned his coat that the warmth might reach his chilled body, and frowned.
Four men sat around a small, dirty table; evidently the arrivals had interrupted an exciting game of seven-up. A glance told Rowdy, even if his nose had not, that the four round, ribbed bottles had not been nearly emptied without effect.
"Have one on the house," the man nearest him cried, and shoved a bottle toward him.
Involuntarily Rowdy reached for it. Now that he was inside, he realized all at once how weary he was, and cold and hungry. Each abused muscle and nerve seemed to have a distinct grievance against him. His fingers closed around the bottle before he remembered and dropped it. He looked up, hoping Miss Conroy had not observed the action; met her wide, questioning eyes, and the blood flew guiltily to his cheeks.
"Thanks, boys--not any for me," he said, and apologized to Miss Conroy with his eyes.
The man rose and confronted him unsteadily. "Dat"s a h.e.l.l off a way! You too proud for drink weeth us? You drink, now! By Gar, I make you drink!"
Rowdy"s eyelids drooped, which was a bad sign for those who knew him.
"You"re forgetting there"s a lady present," he reminded warningly.
The man turned a brief, contemptuous glance toward the stove. "You got the d.a.m.n" queer way to talk. I don"t call no squaw no lady. You drink queeck, now!"
"Aw, shut up, Frenchy," the man at his elbow abjured him. "He don"t have to drink if he don"t want to."
"You keep the face close," the other retorted majestically; and cursed loud and long and incoherently.
Rowdy drew back his arm, with a fist that meant trouble for somebody; but there were others before him who pinned the importunate host to the table, where he squirmed unavailingly.
Rowdy b.u.t.toned up his coat the while he eyed the group disgustedly. "I guess we"ll drift," he remarked. "You don"t look good to me, and that"s no dream."
"Aw, stay and warm up," the fourth man expostulated. "Yuh don"t need t"
mind Le Febre; he"s drunk."
But Rowdy opened the door decisively, and Miss Conroy, her cheeks like two storm-buffeted poppies, followed him out with dignity--albeit trailing a yard of red-and-yellow Navajo blanket behind her. Rowdy lifted her into the saddle, tucked her feet carefully under the blanket, and said never a word.
"Mr. Vaughan," she began hesitatingly, "this is too bad; you need not have left. I--I wasn"t afraid."
"I know you weren"t," conceded Rowdy. "But it was a hard formation--for a woman. Are there any more places on this flat marked Unavailable?"
Miss Conroy replied misanthropically that if there were they would be sure to find them.
They took up their weary wanderings again, while the yellow eye of the window winked after them. They missed Rodway"s by a scant hundred yards, and didn"t know it, because the side of the house next them had no lighted windows. They traveled in a wide, half circle, and thought that they were leaving a straight trail behind them. More than once Rowdy was urged by his aching arm to drop the lead-rope and leave Chub to shift by himself, but habit was strong and his heart was soft. Then he felt an odd twitching at the lead-rope, as if Chub were minded to rebel against their leadership. Rowdy yanked him into remembrance of his duty, and wondered. Bill Brown"s question came insistently to mind; he wondered the more.
Two minutes and the lead-rope was sawing against the small of his back again. Rowdy turned Dixie"s head, and spoke for the first time in an hour.
"My packhorse seems to have an idea about where he wants to go," he said. "I guess we might as well follow him as anybody; he ain"t often taken with a rush of brains to the head. And we can"t be any worse lost than we are now, can we?"
Miss Conroy said no dispiritedly, and they swung about and followed Chub"s leadership apathetically. It took Chub just five minutes to demonstrate that he knew what he was about. When he stopped, it was with his nose against a corral gate; not content with that, he whinnied, and a new, exultant note was in the sound. A deep-voiced dog bayed loudly, and a shrill yelp cut in and clamored for recognition.
Miss Conroy gasped. "It"s Lion and Skeesicks. We"re at Rodway"s, Mr.
Vaughan."
Rowdy, for the second time, thanked the Lord. But when he was stripping the pack off Chub"s back, ten minutes later, he was thinking many things he would not have cared to say aloud. It might be all right, but it sure was strange, he told himself, that Chub belonged here at Rodway"s when Harry Conroy claimed that he was an Oregon horse. Rowdy had thought his account against Harry Conroy long enough, but it looked now as though another item must be added to the list. He went in and ate his supper thoughtfully, and when he got into bed he did not fall asleep within two minutes, as he might be expected to do. His last conscious thought was not of stolen horses, however. It was: "And she"s Harry Conroy"s sister!
Now, what do you think of that? But all the same, she"s sure a nice little schoolma"am."
CHAPTER 3. Rowdy Hires a New Boss.
Next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Rodway followed Vaughan out to the stable, and repeated Bill Brown"s question.
"I"d like to know where yuh got this horse," he began, with an apologetic sort of determination in his tone. "He happens to belong to me. He was run off with a bunch three years ago, and this is the first trace anybody has ever got of "em. I see the brand"s been worked. It was a Roman four--that"s my brand; now it looks like a map of Texas; but I"d swear to the horse--raised him from a colt."
Rowdy had expected something of the sort, and he knew quite well what he was going to do; he had settled that the night before, with the memory of Miss Conroy"s eyes fresh in his mind.
"I got him in a deal across the line," he said. "I was told he came from east Oregon. But last night, when he piloted us straight to your corral gate, I guessed he"d been here before. He"s yours, all right, if you say so."
"Uh course he ain"t worth such a pile uh money," apologized Rodway, "but the kids thought a heap of him. I"d rather locate some of the horses that was with him--or the man yuh got him of. They was some mighty good horses run out uh this country then, but they was all out on the range, so we didn"t miss "em in time to do any good. Do yu know who took "em across the line?"
"No," said Rowdy deliberately. "The man I got Chub from went north, and I heard he got killed. I don"t know of any other in the deal."
Rodway grunted, and Vaughan began vigorously brushing Dixie"s roughened coat. "If you don"t mind," he said, after a minute, "I"d like to borrow Chub to pack my bed over to the Cross L. I can bring him back again."
"Why, sure!" a.s.sented Rodway eagerly. "I hate to take him from yuh, but the kids--"
"Oh, that"s all right," interrupted Rowdy cheerfully. "It"s all in the game, and I should "a" looked up his pedigree, for I knew--. Anyway, was worth the price of him to have him along last night. We"d have milled around till daylight, I guess, only for him."
"That"s what," agreed Rodway. "Jessie"s horse is one she brought from home lately, and he ain"t located yet; I dunno as he"d "a" piloted her home. Billy--that"s what the kids named him--was born and raised here, yuh see. I"ll bet he"s glad to get back--and the kids"ll be plumb wild."
Rowdy did not answer; there seemed nothing in particular to say, and he was wondering if he would see Miss Conroy before he left. She had not eaten breakfast with the others; from their manner, he judged that no one expected her to. He was not well informed upon the subject of schoolma"ams, but he had a hazy impression that late rising was a distinguishing characteristic--and he did not know how late. He saddled leisurely, and packed his bed for the last time upon Chub. The red-and-yellow Navajo blanket he folded tenderly, with an unconscious smile for the service it had done, and laid it in its accustomed place in the bed. Then, having no plausible excuse for going back to the house, he mounted and rode away into the brilliant white world, watching wistfully the house from the tail of his eye.
She might have got up in time to see him off, he thought discontentedly; but he supposed one cowpuncher more or less made little difference to her. Anyway, he didn"t know as he had any license to moon around her.
She probably had a fellow; she might even be engaged, for all he knew.
And--she was Harry Conroy"s sister; and from his experience with the breed, good looks didn"t count for anything. Harry was good-looking, and he was a snake, if ever there was one. He had never expected to lie for him--but he had done it, all right--and because Harry"s sister happened to have nice eyes and a pretty little foot!--
He had half a mind to go back and tell Rodway all he knew about those horses; it was only a matter of time, anyway, till Harry Conroy overshot the mark and got what was coming to him. He sure didn"t owe Harry anything, that he had need to shield him like he had done. Still, Rodway would wonder why he hadn"t told it at first; and that little girl believed in Harry, and said he was "splendid!" Humph! He wondered if she really meant that. If she did--
He squared his back to the house--and the memory of Miss Conroy"s eyes--and plodded across the field to the gate. Now the sun was shining, and there was no possibility of getting lost. The way to the Cross L lay straight and plain before him.
Rowdy rode leisurely up over the crest of a ridge beyond which lay the home ranch of the Cross L. Whether it was henceforth to be his home he had yet to discover--though there was reason for hoping that it would be. Even so venturesome a man as Rowdy Vaughan would scarce ride a long hundred miles through unpeopled prairie, in the tricky month of March, without some reason for expecting a welcome at the end of his journey.
In this case, a previous acquaintance with "Wooden Shoes" Mielke, foreman of the Cross L, was Rowdy"s trump-card. Wooden Shoes, whenever chance had brought them together in the last two or three years, was ever urging Rowdy to come over and unroll his soogans in the Cross L bed-tent, and promising the best string in the outfit to ride--besides other things alluring to a cow-puncher. So that, when his relations with the Horseshoe Bar became strained, Rowdy remembered his friend of the Cross L and the promises, and had drifted south.