by Zane Grey
“But you are holding me too — too tight,” objected Harriet, in a smothered voice.
“Shore. I heahed yu say thet when we danced together. An’ there was no cause for it atall.”
“You are a liar, Laramie Nelson,” retorted Harriet, anger coming to her rescue. “I know when I’m hugged.”
“Wal, Lonesome said he’d bet yu’d been hugged a lot. But I kinda reckoned — —”
“Put me down this instant,” commanded Harriet, who realized that if he did not she would give up abjectly.
“Aw now, Lady.”
“I’ll yell,” she threatened.
“Wal, so yu take me for the Luke Arlidge brand?” drawled Laramie, coolly setting her upon her feet. “I’m tellin’ yu flat thet yu can crawl home for all I care.”
By this time they had reached the foot of the zigzag trail at the head of the valley. Harriet found that she would not have to crawl. She was unsteady on her feet and had to stop to catch her breath, but she climbed to the fringe of sage and oak-brush just under the rim without any assistance. At the last step or so, however, Laramie’s iron hand detained her.
“Wal, look there, Lady,” he whispered, and his icy tone like his clutch on her arm sent a cold stiffness all though her.
Harriet gazed out between two sections of brush in the direction indicated by Laramie’s leveled hand. She saw a horse close under a window of the ranch-house, then a rider leaning away from the saddle, his sleek dark head halfway inside the bars. She gazed spellbound. That was Lenta’s window. Stuart! Then she espied two little brown hands clasped around the rider’s neck. Lenta was kissing Stuart through the bars.
“What shall I do, Lady?” whispered Laramie.
“Send him — away,” choked Harriet.
“Wal, yu step down the road a little, for this hombre may throw a gun on me,” advised Laramie.
A hot bursting gush of blood raced over Harriet, liberating she did not know what.
“If he does—” she flashed, and then broke off. But it was not fright. Strangely she realized that it was not fear that gripped her. Stepping out she hurried down the road — hesitated — stopped. Lenta and her latest admirer were oblivious to their surroundings. Suddenly a voice with a cold ringing drawl broke the silence.
“Hey, Stuart.”
The rider jerked as if he had been lashed, and breaking the clasp of the girl’s arms he whirled and straightened up with face flashing pale.
“Don’t draw, boy,” called Laramie, sharp and quick. “If yu’re half decent yu won’t force me to kill yu before her eyes.”
“Aw, I — ain’t drawin’, Nelson,” cried the rider, hoarsely.
“Wal then, rustle pronto. An’ if I meet yu again around heah yu’ll have to draw.”
Stuart let out a mirthless laugh, and spurring his horse rode around the ranch house out of sight.
“Lent, I reckon yu’re no good,” declared Laramie, in profound regret.
“Howdy, Romeo and Juliet,” replied the girl, flippantly. But her face was distinctly red, with either anger or shame. “I’ll bet you’ve been spooning yourselves. . . . Hallie, you shore look mauled.”
Harriet ran to get into the courtyard. If she had been furious at sight of Lenta’s action, what was she after such an insinuation? Never in her life had she been so possessed with wrath. She feared to trust herself on the moment. Repairing to her room, she removed her garments and washed the dust and dirt from her person. Then she discovered some bruises, a skinned elbow and sprained wrist. All the while what mental force she was capable of had been directed to the restoration of calm. She could not attain it. Nevertheless, she refused to wait longer. As soon as she had dressed she hurried across to obtain the key of Lenta’s room from her father. But he was out and her mother said she thought he had the key in his pocket. Harriet went to Lenta’s door, anyway, and pounded upon it with no gentle hand.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Harriet. I’ve a word to say to you, young lady,” replied Harriet.
“You don’t say? Well, I can’t let you in and I wouldn’t if I could,” drawled the girl, insolently.
“Lenta, I really don’t care to see you,” returned Harriet, striving for steady deliberate scorn. “You can hear me. . . . I think your conduct disgraceful. I think you are a shameless little hussy. . . . Laramie had it right. You are no good. You have turned out bad. . . . My hopes for you, my prayers are ended. I don’t want anything more to do with you.”
Harriet stopped. She expected a tirade of abuse. But all was significantly silent. She hurried away to the seclusion of her room. And she did not present herself at the supper table this day.
* * * * *
Her sleep was restless and troubled. She dreamed or imagined she heard horses in the night. As gray dawn approached she sank to deeper slumber. And she awoke late. Somebody was knocking upon her door.
“Yes. Who is it?” cried Harriet, sitting up. The sun shone bright in her window.
“It’s me, Hallie,” replied her father, and his voice heralded calamity. “You needn’t let me in. But — listen. . . .” His speech broke, gathered strength. “Lent ran off last night. Some rider — Stuart we think — broke the bars of her window — got her out. . . . Laramie says it happened before dawn. He took Ted — Lonesome, and I don’t know who else. . . . He said to tell you and ma that the girl was only playing a joke. But he didn’t look like it was a joke. . . . They’ll trail them . . . and I’ve an idea we’re in for — some real West at last.”
CHAPTER XII
TOWARD DAWN LARAMIE awoke with a start. A gray space marked the open door. Some noise had aroused him, or it might have been a dream. Lonesome lay on his side, breathing quietly and regularly. Tracks, of course, no longer shared their quarters. Then a clip-clop of shod hoofs sounded from the far side of the ranch-house.
The sound died away. It had not been unusual for Laramie to hear hoofbeats outside the walls, especially on his side of the old fort. There were always loose horses and strayed horses. These, however, were never shod, and they were always grazing around. But this horse had been shod and he was not grazing. A rider had gone by.
Laramie rolled over to go to sleep. But sleep did not come. He realized after a little while that there had been a regurgitation of one of his old trail habits. Men of his calling slept lightly. Always they heard steps on their trails. Any slight noise around camp brought him instantly wide awake and listening. He had an intuition, an inward ear for unusual steps, as well as untoward events.
Wherefore Laramie sat up in his bunk. The darkest hour had passed some time ago, and the gray light that he had noticed upon awakening had perceptibly increased. Laramie felt for his clothes on the floor, thinking the while that there was no sense in his not responding to this feeling. Since living with the Lindsays he had scarcely been his real self. Old instincts had been gladly lulled. And Hallie Lindsay had made him forget who he was.
Slowly he dressed and pulled on his boots, very quietly, for Lonesome likewise slept with one eye open. Laramie buckled on his gun-belt and slipped out of the room into the courtyard. The brook murmured softly; off on the range a solitary coyote yelped. He walked to the gateway and out on the road.
Daylight was spreading from the eastern horizon, a wonderful soft brightness coming up from the undulating prairie. A faint tinge of rose lighted the sky. He listened. The range still slept. The valley was steeped in gray. Laramie stood a moment, inhaling the fresh cool sage-breath of the morning, running his appreciative gaze far out and down, along the battlements of the distant ranges, and the obscure patches and streaks that meant leagues and leagues of open country. Cattle out there, herds and mavericks, horses and squatters, riders and rustlers, life of the West! But it was to the north that his gaze swept and held. The ruggeder gray north, swelling to the foothills, with the dim Rockies beyond! Months ago Laramie had located menace to the Lindsays there.
He searched the road for fresh hoof tracks and that slow action se
emed to still a restlessness. By that Laramie judged how dissatisfied he was with himself. Finding none, he stood a moment ponderingly, then made his way back toward the gate. As he reached a point even with the wall that ran north he thought he saw something dark projecting from one of the windows. He did see something. That was Lenta’s window. Laramie leaped along the wall.
Before he reached the window he espied one of the iron bars projecting out. It had been bent and broken. On the ground lay pieces of stone and mortar, and a pick. Laramie recognized the tool. Only yesterday he had seen it leaning somewhere down by the stables. Fresh tracks of a shod horse cut up the ground directly under the window.
“Wal, heah we air,” soliloquized Laramie. “Thet awful kid has eloped. All the time I reckoned somethin’ was goin’ to happen. Now what’ll I do?”
Laramie made sure that Lenta could have squeezed out of the window and then of the direction the horse had taken. After which he strode back to awaken Lonesome. He hated to tell his friend of this last proof of Lenta’s waywardness. But it had to be done. Lindsay would send them out on the trail to fetch her back. For that matter, coming to think of it, Lonesome would go of his own accord, and Laramie would not let him go alone. Stuart, besides having a bad repute, was married. Somehow the handsome rider had intrigued the susceptible madcap Lenta and had made off with her. Lonesome would kill him.
Laramie went in and put a reluctant hand upon Lonesome.
“Wake up, pard,” he called, grimly.
“Ahuh.” Lonesome stirred and groaned. His face was swollen and blackened in spots, but he could open his eyes. “What’s the idee, wakin’ me early? I’m gonna stay in bed. My Gawd! ain’t you been mean enough — —”
“Hell to pay, Lonesome,” interrupted Laramie.
His words, his tone fetched Lonesome up in a trice.
“Excoose me, pard. What’s up?”
“Lenta is gone. Run off . . . eloped, I reckon.”
“Aw!” Lonesome let out a great breath. His disfigured face underwent a nameless change.
“I heahed a hawse some time before daylight. I sat up an’ listened. Struck me queer. Yu know what I mean. Wal, after a while I went out. It’d come daylight. I fooled around an’ found Lent’s window bars busted out, a pick on the ground an’ fresh hoof tracks. Reckon I didn’t need to call to see if she was gone.”
“Who with?” queried Lonesome, coolly.
“Stuart, I reckon. He was foolin’ around heah yesterday. Hallie an’ I were comin’ up the trail. . . . An’ we seen him, Lonesome.”
“What doin’?”
“Wal, he was straddlin’ his hawse under the kid’s window. In fact he had his haid in between the bars.”
Lonesome got out of his bunk. “Go tell Lindsay thet Lent broke out last night,” he said, cold and hard. “Say she’s jest playin’ a joke on them an’ thet we’ll fetch her back. Then call Tracks. Rustle now.”
Laramie lost no time striding to the rancher’s door where he rapped softly.
“Who’s there?” called a voice.
“Lindsay, come to the door. Yu needn’t dress. It’s Nelson.”
To do him credit Lindsay complied without undue noise.
“Why, Laramie!” he ejaculated, when he saw the rider.
“Lenta has broken out of her room,” announced Laramie, bluntly. “Somebody helped her. Used a pick on the window. Reckon it was Stuart. The crazy kid was just playin’ a joke on yu. Gettin’ even ‘cause yu locked her in. . . . Tell Miss Hallie — an’ don’t worry, boss. We’ll fetch her back.”
Without waiting for a reply or to look Laramie made haste across the patio to arouse Williams. His knock brought instant response.
“Tracks, get up an’ dress for ridin’,” he called. “Yore honeymoon is over.”
“Nix pard, but I’ll be with you pronto,” replied Ted, with his footfalls thudding on the floor.
“Tell Florence thet Lent has eloped an’ we’re to fetch her back,” concluded Laramie, as he passed on.
“Ho! Ho! Flo, wake up. What you think?”
Laramie heard no more, except a startled sleepy cry from Florence. He found Lonesome putting on his chaps. That worthy appeared unusually quiet.
“Tracks will be heah pronto,” said Laramie, and sat down on his bunk to wait. In a few moments Ted came in, ready to ride, with black fire in his eyes. “Come out, boys, an’ have a look.”
On the way around the wall Ted was the only one to vouchsafe any remark and this was that he had always expected Lenta to do something crazy. Soon they stood under the broken-barred window, where Laramie left them to make their own deductions. He back-trailed the hoof tracks to where Stuart, or whoever had ridden the horse, had come up out of the valley. When Laramie turned to retrace his steps Ted was far out on the level, evidently seeing where the hoof tracks went, and Lonesome had climbed up the wall to look in the window.
Presently they met again.
“He hit straight north,” declared Ted, snorting his disgust. “He aims to get a horse from some of those lousy outfits and then travel west. Denver, likely.”
“Wal, I reckon it makes no bones with us,” added Laramie. “Our job is to ketch him an’ save Lent before he has the damn little fool all night. Thet’ll be easy unless he finds a hawse pronto.”
“Laramie, if it wasn’t for her family I’d say let her go,” replied Ted, bitterly. “We may save her this time. But what good will thet do?”
“Shore I savvy. All the same if we taught a lesson to one of these gay gazabos thet Lent’s drove wild mebbe it’d stop the rest of them.”
“Stop that kid? Hell no,” replied Ted, snorting again.
“Wal, I been givin’ up about Lent for some time now,” said Laramie, resignedly. “An’ if yu want to know I lost my hopes when Miss Hallie lost hers. Thet was only yesterday.”
Lonesome did not even sag under these combined scornful estimates of his inamorata. “Lent didn’t elope,” he ground out. “She’s jest showin’ her folks they can’t keep her locked up. An’ I don’t blame her. Mebbe after they get a good scare they’ll treat her decent.”
“Pard, yu die hard,” rejoined Laramie, admiringly, ashamed of his opinions.
“Heavens, Mull, do you need any more proof than this?” ejaculated Ted.
“Than what?”
“That she’s gone — run off — eloped with a strange rider.”
“Reckon I do. I wouldn’t go back on Lent any more’n I would on you fellows.”
“Oh, hell! — Would you risk laying off their trail?”
Lonesome pondered that a moment. “I would, yes, if we had only the kid to figger on. She’d come back an’ laugh in our faces. But this fellar Stuart has a bad rep. Lent must trust him, but we can’t.”
“All right. Let’s get going,” replied Ted, impatiently.
“You an’ Laramie light out on their trail. I’ll go down an’ fetch the hawses.”
Lonesome strode off at a rapid pace and quickly disappeared down the road. Ted and Laramie turned away from watching him.
“This will ruin him,” declared Ted. “ —— —— that pretty little imp!”
“Nope. It’ll make a man of Lonesome — if thet’s in him. . . . Come on, Ted. Trackin’ is an old game of ours. We used to bet on it. What’ll we gamble on now?”
“Not on Lent Lindsay, that’s a cinch. It would be throwing money to the winds. . . . Trail is plain enough. . . . He walked his horse.”
At the end of a few hundred yards the tracks turned east to follow the rim of the valley, zigzagging among the patches of brush. This was a surprise to both of the riders. In two distinct spots, not far apart, the horse had been halted long enough to leave a number of extra tracks; and these places appeared significant in that they were screened by trees from the ranch-house. But there were no signs of any one dismounting.
“What yu make of thet, Tracks?” inquired Laramie, in perplexity.
“Damn funny! Looks like they were undecided. . . . Maybe
they stopped to hug and kiss.”
“Wal, if they was set on thet they could do it ridin’.”
Presently the tracks left the rim and took out on the hard gravel floor of the ridge where they could not be followed rapidly. The riders worked across, however, to the head of another intersecting draw, out of which led one of the range trails. Meanwhile the sun had come up hot. Here they waited for Lonesome, pretty sure that he would count on heading them off. They did not have long to wait. Before Ted and Laramie had arrived at a satisfactory opinion as to why the trail did not abruptly leave the valley, Lonesome appeared mounted and leading two saddle horses. He did not evince any surprise at finding them there.
“Huh. Thought you said their trail headed north,” he growled, sarcastically.
“It did. Now it’s haidin’ east,” returned Laramie.
“Heah’s some biscuits an’ meat. An’ I slung on a water-bag.”
Ted led off along the trail, eating as he rode, and bending a little to the left, following the tracks. Progress was slow because the dusty trail showed other horse tracks, and sometimes it was difficult to distinguish the fresher ones. Soon, however, the hunt swerved from the well-trodden path to the grassy upland where it proved no longer easy to follow. Ted had to walk his horse. High ground rose some miles off to the northeast, and cedared ridge-tops showed dark against the sky. This certainly was no direction for a couple to elope. It headed directly away from La Junta or any other settlement. Laramie confessed he was puzzled. He surely remembered that Lenta invariably rode out this way, and had often spoken of the wonderful view to be had from the high ridge-tops.
The morning was far advanced and waxing hot when the three riders ascended the lower slope of a ridge that ended in a wooded escarpment, looking down on the gray gulf of the prairie-land. Laramie, whose gaze kept to the fore, sighted a flock of buzzards soaring low over the end of the escarpment.
“Look. Somethin’ daid up there.”
“Buzzards. . . . Well, what of it? We always see them. Dead cow or calf, likely.”