"Name of Howard," he announced breezily. "Alan Howard of the old Diaz Rancho. Glad to know you both."
"It is a pleasure, I am sure, Mr. Howard," said the professor. "But, if you will pardon me, at this particular time of day----"
Alan Howard laughed his understanding.
"I"ll chase up to the pool and give Helen a drink of real water," he said lightly. "Funny my mare"s name should be Helen, too, isn"t it?"
This directly into a pair of eyes which the growing light showed to be grey and attractive, but just now hostile. "Then, if you say the word, I"ll romp back and take you up on a cup of coffee. And we"ll talk things over."
He stooped forward in the saddle a fraction of an inch; his mare caught the familiar signal and leaped; they were gone, racing away across the sand which was flung up after them like spray.
"Of all the fresh propositions!" gasped Helen.
But she knew that he would not long delay his return, and so slipped quickly from under her blanket and hurried down to the water-hole to bathe her hands and face and set herself in order. Her flying fingers found her little mirror; there wasn"t any smudge on her face, after all, and her hair wasn"t so terribly unbecoming that way; tousled, to be sure, but then, nice, curly hair can be tousled and still not make one a perfect hag. It _was_ odd about his mare being named Helen. He must have thought the name pretty, for obviously he and his horse were both intimate and affectionate. "Alan Howard." Here, too, was rather a nice name for a man met by chance out in the desert. She paused in the act of brushing her hair. Was she to get an explanation of last night"s puzzle? Was Mr. Howard the man who had lighted the other fire?
The professor"s taciturnity was of a p.r.o.nounced order this morning.
Now and then as he made his own brief and customarily untidy toilet, he turned a look of accusation upon the big Colt lying on his bed. Before drawing on his boots he bestowed upon his toe a long glance of affection; the bullet that had pa.s.sed within a very few inches of this adjunct of his anatomy had emphasized a toe"s importance. He had never realized how pleasant it was to have two big toes, all one"s own and unmarred. By the time the foot had been coaxed and jammed down into his new boot the professor"s good humour was on the way to being restored; a man of one thought at the time, due to his long habit of concentration, his emotion was now one of a subdued rejoicing. It needed but the morning cup of coffee to set him beaming upon the world.
Alan Howard"s sudden call: "Can I come in now, folks?" from across a brief s.p.a.ce of sand and brush, found Professor Longstreet on his knees feeding twigs to a tiny blaze, and hastened Helen through the final touches of her dressing. Helen was humming softly to herself, her back to him, her mind obviously concentrated upon the bread she was slicing, when the stranger swung down from his saddle and came forward. He stood a moment just behind her, looking at her with very evident interest in his eyes.
"How do you like our part of the world?" he asked friendliwise.
Helen ignored him briefly. Had Mr. Alan Howard been a bashful young man of the type that reddens and twists its hat in big nervous hands and looks guilty in general. Miss Helen Longstreet would have been swiftly all that was sweet and kind to him. Now, however, from some vague reason or clouded instinct, she was prepared to be as stiff as the fanged stalk of a cactus. Having ignored him the proper length of time, she replied coolly:
"Father and I are very much pleased with the desert country. But, may I ask just why you speak of it as your part of the world rather than ours? Are we trespa.s.sing, pray?" The afterthought was accompanied by an upflashing look that was little less than outright challenge.
"Trespa.s.sing? Lord, no," conceded Howard heartily. "The land is wide, the trail open at both ends. But you know what I meant."
Helen shrugged and laid aside the half-loaf. Since she gave him no answer, Howard went on serenely:
"I mean a man sort of acquires a feeling of ownership in the place in which he has lived a long time. You and your father are Eastern, not Western. If I came tramping into your neck of the woods--you see I call it _yours_. Right enough, too, don"t you think, professor?"
"In a way of speaking, yes," answered the professor. "In another way, no. We have given up the old haunts and the old way of living. We are rather inclined, my dear young sir, to look upon this as our country, too."
"Bully for you!" cried Howard warmly. "You"re sure welcome." His eyes came back from the father to rest upon the daughter"s bronze tresses.
"Welcome as a water-hole in a hot land," he added emphatically.
"Speaking of water-holes," suggested Longstreet, sitting back upon his boot heels in a manner to suggest the favourite squatting position of the cowboys of whom he and his daughter had seen much during these last few weeks, "was it you who made camp right over yonder?" He pointed.
Helen looked up curiously for Howard"s answer and thus met the eyes he had not withdrawn from her. He smiled at her, a frank, open sort of smile, and thereafter turned to his questioner.
"When?" he asked briefly.
"Last night. Just before we came."
"What makes you think some one made camp there?"
"There was a fire; bacon was frying, coffee boiling."
"And you didn"t step across to take a squint at your next-door neighbour?"
"We did," said the professor. "But he had gone, leaving his fire burning, his meal cooking."
Howard"s eyes travelled swiftly to Helen, then back to her father.
"And he didn"t come back?"
"He did not," said Longstreet. "Otherwise I should not have asked if you were he."
Even yet Howard gave no direct answer. Instead he turned his back and strode away to the deserted camp site. Helen watched him through the bushes and noted how he made a quick but evidently thorough examination of the spot. She saw him stoop, pick up frying-pan and cup, drop them and pa.s.s around the spring, his eyes on the ground. Abruptly he turned away and pushed through a clump of bushes, disappearing. In five minutes he returned, his face thoughtful.
"What time did you get here?" he asked. And when he had his answer he pondered it a moment before he went on: "The gent didn"t leave his card. But he broke camp in a regular blue-blazes hurry; saddled his horse over yonder and struck out the shortest way toward King Canon.
He went as if the devil himself and his one best bet in h.e.l.l hounds was running at his stirrups."
"How do you know?" queried Longstreet"s insatiable curiosity. "You didn"t see him?"
"You saw the fire and the things he left stewing," countered Howard.
"They spelled hurry, didn"t they? Didn"t they shout into your ears that he was on the lively scamper for some otherwhere?"
"Not necessarily," maintained Longstreet eagerly. "Reasoning from the scant evidence before us, a man would say that while the stranger may have left his camp to hurry on, he may on the other hand have just dodged back when he heard us coming and hidden somewhere close by."
Again Howard pondered briefly.
"There are other signs you did not see," he said in a moment. "The soil where he had his horse staked out shows tracks, and they are the tracks of a horse going some from the first jump. Horse and man took the straightest trail and went ripping through a patch of mesquite that a man would generally go round. Then there"s something else. Want to see?"
They went with him, the professor with alacrity, Helen with a studied pretence at indifference. By the spring where Helen had found the willow rod and the bluebird feather, Howard stopped and pointed down.
"There"s a set of tracks for you," he announced triumphantly. "Suppose you spell "em out, professor; what do you make of them?"
The professor studied them gravely. In the end he shook his head.
"Coyote?" he suggested.
Howard shook his head.
"No coyote," he said with positiveness. "That track shows a foot four times as big as any coyote"s that ever scratched fleas. Wolf? Maybe.
It would be a whopper of a wolf at that. Look at the size of it, man!
Why, the ugly brute would be big enough to scare my prize shorthorn bull into taking out life insurance. And that isn"t all. That"s just the front foot. Now look at the hind foot. Smaller, longer, and leaving a lighter imprint. All belonging to the same animal." He scratched his head in frank bewilderment. "It"s a new one on me," he confessed frankly. Then he chuckled. "I"d bet a man that the gent who left on the hasty foot just got one squint at this little beastie and at that had all sorts of good reasons for streaking out."
A big lizard went rustling through a pile of dead leaves and all three of them started. Howard laughed.
"We"re right near Superst.i.tion Pool!" he informed them with suddenly a.s.sumed gravity. "Down in Poco Poco they tell some great tales about the old Indian G.o.ds going man-hunting by moonlight. _Quien sabe_, huh?"
Professor Longstreet snorted. Helen cast a quick, interested look at the stranger and one of near triumph upon her father.
"I smell somebody"s coffee boiling," said the cattleman abruptly. "Am I invited in for a cup? Or shall I mosey on? Don"t be bashful in saying I"m not wanted if I"m not."
"Of course you are welcome," said Longstreet heartily. But Howard turned to Helen and waited for her to speak.
"Of course." said Helen carelessly.