by Bower, B M
"You mean, have I any imagination whatever?" Bud looked away from her eyes—toward the uncurtained, high little window. A face appeared there, as if a tall man had glanced in as he was passing by and halted for a second to look. Bud's eyes met full the eyes of the man outside, who tilted his head backward in a significant movement and passed on. Marian turned her head and caught the signal, looked at Bud quickly, a little flush creeping into her cheeks.
"I hope you have a little imagination," she said, lowering her voice instinctively. "It doesn't require much to see that Jerry is right. The conventions are strictly observed at Little Lost—in the kitchen, at least," she added, under her breath, with a flash of resentment. "Run along—and the next time Honey asks you to play the piano, will you please play Lotusblume? And when you have thrown open the prison windows with that, will you play Schubert's Ave Maria—the way you play it—to send a breath of cool night air in?"
She put out the tips of her fingers and pressed them lightly against Bud's shoulder, turning toward the door. Bud started, stepped into the kitchen, wheeled about and stood regarding her with a stubborn look in his eyes.
"I might kick the door down, too," he said. "I don't like prisons nohow."
"No-just a window, thank you," she laughed.
Bud thought the laugh did not go very deep. "Jerry wants to talk to you. He's the whitest of the lot, if you can call that—" she stopped abruptly, put out a hand to the door, gave him a moment to look into her deep, troubled eyes, and closed the door gently but inexorably in his face.
Jerry was standing at the corner of the house smoking negligently. He waited until Bud had come close alongside him, then led the way slowly down the path to the corrals.
"I thought I heard the horses fighting," he remarked. "There was a noise down this way."
"Is that why you called me outside?" asked Bud, who scorned subterfuge.
"Yeah. I saw you wasn't dancing or singing or playing the piano—and I knew Honey'd likely be looking you up to do one or the other, in a minute. She sure likes you, Bud. She don't, everybody that comes along."
Bud did not want to discuss Honey, wherefore he made no reply, and they walked along in silence, the cool, heavy darkness grateful after the oil lamps and the heat of crowded rooms. As they neared the corrals a stable door creaked open and shut, yet there was no wind. Jerry halted, one hand going to Bud's arm. They stood for a minute, and heard the swish of the bushes behind the corral, as if a horse were passing through. Jerry turned back, leading Bud by the arm. They were fifty feet away and the bushes were still again before Jerry spoke guardedly.
"I guess I made a mistake. There wasn't nothing," he said, and dropped Bud's arm.
Bud stopped. "There was a man riding off in the brush," he said bluntly, "and all the folks that came to the dance rode in through the front gate. I reckon I'll just take a look where I left my saddle, anyway."
"That might have been some loose stock," Jerry argued, but Bud went back, wondering a little at Jerry's manner.
The saddle was all right, and so was everything else, so far as Bud could determine in the dark, but he was not satisfied. He thought he understood Jerry's reason for bringing him down to the corrals, but he could not understand Jerry's attitude toward an incident which any man would have called suspicious.
Bud quietly counted noses when he returned to the house and found that supper was being served, but he could not recall any man who was missing now. Every guest and every man on the ranch was present except old Pop, who had a little shack to himself and went to bed at dark every night.
Bud was mystified, and he hated mysteries. Moreover, he was working for Dave Truman, and whatever might concern Little Lost concerned him also. But the men had begun to talk openly of their various "running horses", and to exchange jibes and boasts and to bet a little on Sunday's races. Bud wanted to miss nothing of that, and Jerry's indifference to the incident at the stable served to reassure him for the time being. He edged close to the group where the talk was loudest, and listened.
A man they called Jeff was trying to jeer his neighbors into betting against a horse called Skeeter, and was finding them too cautious for his liking. He laughed and, happening to catch Bud's eyes upon him, strode forward with an empty tin cup in his hand and slapped Bud friendliwise on the shoulder.
"Why, I bet this singin' kid, that don't know wha I got ner what you fellers has got, ain't scared to take, a chance. Are yuh, kid? What d' yuh think of this pikin' bunch here that has seen Skeeter come in second and third more times 'n what he beat, and yet is afraid to take a chance on rosin' two bits? Whatd' yuh think of 'em? Ain't they an onery bunch?"
"I suppose they hate to lose," Bud grinned.
"That's it—money 's more to 'em than the sport of kings, which is runnin' horses. This bunch, kid belly-ached till Dave took his horse Boise outa the game, and now, by gosh, they're backin' up from my Skeeter, that has been beat more times than he won.'
"When you pulled him, Jeff!" a mocking voice drawled. "And that was when you wasn't bettin' yourself."
Jeff turned injuredly to Bud. "Now don't that sound like a piker?" he complained. "It ain't reason to claim I'd pull my own horse. Ain't that the out doinest way to come back at a man that likes a good race?"
Bud swelled his chest and laid his hand on Jeff's shoulder. "Just to show you I'm not a piker," he cried recklessly, "I'll bet you twenty-five dollars I can beat your Skeeter with my Smoky horse that I rode in here. Is it a go?"
Jeff's jaw dropped a little, with surprise. "What fer horse is this here Smoky horse of yourn?" he wanted to know.
Bud winked at the group, which cackled gleeful!, "I love the sport of kings," he said. "I love it so well I don't have to see your Skeeter horse till Sunday. From the way these boys sidestep him, I guess he's a sure-enough running horse. My Smoky's a good little horse, too, but he never scared a bunch till they had cramps in the pockets. Still," he added with a grin, "I'll try anything once. I bet you twenty-five dollars my Smoky can beat your Skeeter."
"Say, kid, honest I hate to take it away from yuh. Honest, I do. The way you can knock the livin' tar outa that pyanny is a caution to cats. I c'd listen all night. But when it comes to runnin' horses—"
"Are you afraid of your money?" Bud asked him arrogantly. "You called this a bunch of pikers—"
"Well, by golly, it'll be your own fault, kid. If I take your money away from yuh, don't go and blame it onto me. Mebbe these fellers has got some cause to sidestep—"
"All right, the bet's on. And I won't blame you if I lose. Smoky's a good little horse. Don't think for a minute I'm giving you my hard earned coin. You'll have to throw up some dust to get it, old-timer. I forgot to say I'd like to make it a quarter dash."
"A quarter dash it is," Jeff agreed derisively as Bud turned to answer the summons of the music which was beginning again.
The racing enthusiasts lingered outside, and Bud smiled to himself while he whirled Honey twice around in an old-fashioned waltz. He had them talking about him, and wondering about his horse. When they saw Smoky they would perhaps call him a chancey kid. He meant to ask Pop about Skeeter, though Pop seemed confident that Smoky would win against anything in the valley.
But on the other hand, he had seen in his short acquaintance with Little Lost that Pop was considered childish—that comprehensive accusation which belittles the wisdom of age. The boys made it a point to humor him without taking him seriously. Honey pampered him and called him Poppy, while in Marian's chill courtesy, in her averted glances, Bud had read her dislike of Pop. He had seen her hand shrink away from contact with his hand when she set his coffee beside his plate.
But Bud had heard others speak respectfully of Boise, and regret that he was too fast to run. Pop might be childish on some subjects, but Bud rather banked on his judgment of horses—and Pop was penurious and anxious to win money.
"What are you thinking about?" Honey demanded when the music stopped. "Something awful important, I guess, to m
ake you want to keep right on dancing!"
"I was thinking of horse-racing," Bud confessed, glad that he could tell her the truth.
"Ah, you! Don't let them make a fool of you. Some of the fellows would bet the shirt off their backs on a horse-race! You look out for them, Bud."
"They wouldn't bet any more than I would," Bud boldly declared. "I've bet already against a horse I've never seen. How 's that?"
"That's crazy. You'll lose, and serve you right." She went off to dance with someone else, and Bud turned smiling to find a passable partner amongst the older women—for he was inclined to caution where strange girls were concerned. Much trouble could come to a stranger who danced with a girl who happened to have a jealous sweetheart, and Bud did not court trouble of that kind. He much preferred to fight over other things. Besides, he had no wish to antagonize Honey.
But his dance with some faded, heavy-footed woman was not to be. Jerry once more signalled him and drew him outside for a little private conference. Jerry was ill at ease and inclined to be reproachful and even condemnatory.
He wanted first to know why Bud had been such a many kinds of a fool as to make that bet with Jeff Hall. All the fellows were talking about it. "They was asking me what kind of a horse you've got—and I wouldn't put it past Jeff and his bunch to pull some kind of a dirty trick on you," he complained. "Bud, on the square, I like you a whole lot. You seem kinda innocent, in some ways, and in other ways you don't. I wish you'd tell me just one thing, so I can sleep comfortable. Have you got some scheme of your own? Or what the devil ails you?"
"Well, I've just got a notion," Bud admitted. "I'm going to have some fun watching those fellows perform, whether I win or lose. I've spent as much as twenty-five dollars on a circus, before now, and felt that I got the worth of my money, too. I'm going to enjoy myself real well, next Sunday."
Jerry glanced behind him and lowered his voice, speaking close to Bud's ear. "Well, there's something I'd like to say that it ain't safe to say, Bud. I'd hate like hell to see you get in trouble. Go as far as you like having fun—but—oh, hell! What's the use?" He turned abruptly and went inside, leaving Bud staring after him rather blankly.
Jerry did not strike Bud as being the kind of a man who goes around interfering with every other man's business. He was a quiet, good-natured young fellow with quizzical eyes of that mixed color which we call hazel simply because there is more brown than gray or green. He did not talk much, but he observed much. Bud was strongly inclined to heed Jerry's warning, but it was too vague to have any practical value—"about like Hen's note," Bud concluded. "Well-meaning but hazy. Like a red danger flag on a railroad crossing where the track is torn up and moved. I saw one, once and my horse threw a fit at it and almost piled me. I figured that the red flag created the danger, where I was concerned. Still, I'd like to oblige Jerry and sidestep something or other, but..."
His thoughts grew less distinct, merged into wordless rememberings and conjectures, clarified again into terse sentences which never reached the medium of speech.
"Well, I'll just make sure they don't try out Smoke when I'm not looking," he decided, and slipped away in the dark.
By a roundabout way which avoided the trail he managed to reach the pasture fence without being seen. No horses grazed in sight, and he climbed through and went picking his way across the lumpy meadow in the starlight. At the farther side he found the horses standing out on a sandy ridge where the mosquitoes were not quite so pestiferous. The Little Lost horses snorted and took to their heels, his three following for a short distance.
Bud stopped and whistled a peculiar call invented long ago when he was just Buddy, and watched over the Tomahawk REMUDA. Every horse with the Tomahawk brand knew that summons—though not every horse would obey it. But these three had come when they were sucking colts, if Buddy whistled; and in their breaking and training, in the long trip north, they had not questioned its authority. They turned and trotted back to him now and nosed Bud's hands which he held out to them.
He petted them all and talked to them in an affectionate murmur which they answered by sundry lipnibbles and subdued snorts. Smoky he singled out finally, rubbing his back and sides with the flat of his hand from shoulder to flank, and so to the rump and down the thigh to the hock to the scanty fetlock which told, to those who knew, that here was an aristocrat among horses.
Smoky stood quiet, and Bud's hand lingered there, smoothing the slender ankle. Bud's fingers felt the fine-haired tail, then gave a little twitch. He was busy for a minute, kneeling in the sand with one knee, his head bent. Then he stood up, went forward to Smoky's head, and stood rubbing the horse's nose thoughtfully.
"I hate to do it, old boy—but I'm working to make's a home—we've got to work together. And I'm not asking any more of you than I'd be willing to do myself, if I were a horse and you were a man."
He gave the three horses a hasty pat apiece and started back across the meadow to the fence. They followed him like pet dogs—and when Bud glanced back over his shoulder he saw in the dim light that Smoky walked with a slight limp.
CHAPTER TWELVE: SPORT O' KINGS
Sunday happened to be fair, with not too strong a wind blowing. Before noon Little Lost ranch was a busy place, and just before dinner it became busier. Horse-racing seemed to be as popular a sport in the valley as dancing. Indeed, men came riding in who had not come to the dance. The dry creek-bed where the horses would run had no road leading to it, so that all vehicles came to Little Lost and remained there while the passengers continued on foot to the races.
At the corral fresh shaven men, in clean shirts to distinguish this as a dress-up occasion, foregathered, looking over the horses and making bets and arguing. Pop shambled here and there, smoking cigarettes furiously and keeping a keen ear toward the loudest betting. He came sidling up to Bud, who was leading Smoky out of the stable, and his sharp eyes took in every inch of the horse and went inquiringly to Bud's face.
"Goin' to run him, young feller—lame as what he is?" he demanded sharply.
"Going to try, anyway," said Bud. "I've got a bet up on him, dad."
"Sho! Fixin' to lose, air ye? You kin call it off, like as not. Jeff ain't so onreason'ble 't he'd make yuh run a lame horse. Air yuh, Jeff?"
Jeff strolled up and looked Smoky over with critical eyes. "What's the matter? Ain't the kid game to run him? Looks to me like a good little goer."
"He's got a limp—but I'll run him anyway." Bud glanced up. "Maybe when he's warmed up he'll forget about it."
"Seen my Skeeter?"
"Good horse, I should judge," Bud observed indifferently. "But I ain't worrying any."
"Well, neither am I," Jeff grinned.
Pop stood teetering back and forth, plainly uneasy. "I'd rub him right good with liniment," he advised Bud. "I'll git some't I know ought t' help."
"What's the matter, Pop? You got money up on that cayuse?" Jeff laughed.
Pop whirled on him. "I ain't got money up on him, no. But if he wasn't lame I'd have some! I'd show ye 't I admire gameness in a kid. I would so."
Jeff nudged his neighbor into laughter. "There ain't a gamer old bird in the valley than Pop," Jeff cried. "C'm awn, Pop, I'll bet yuh ten dollars the kid beats me!"
Pop was shuffling hurriedly out of the corral after the liniment. To Jeff's challenge he made no reply whatever. The group around Jeff shooed Smoky gently toward the other side of the corral, thereby convincing themselves of the limp in his right hind foot. While not so pronounced as to be crippling, it certainly was no asset to a running horse, and the wise ones conferred together in undertones.
"That there kid's a born fool," Dave Truman stated positively. "The horse can't run. He's got the look of a speedy little animal—but shucks! The kid don't know anything about running horses. I've been talking to him, and I know. Jeff, you're taking the money away from him if you run that race."
"Well, I'm giving the kid a chance to back out," Jeff hastened to declare. "He can put it off till his
horse gits well, if he wants to. I ain't going to hold him to it. I never said I was."
"That's mighty kind of you," Bud said, coming up from behind with a bottle of liniment, and with Pop at his heels. "But I'll run him just the same. Smoky has favored this foot before, and it never seemed to hurt him any. You needn't think I'm going to crawfish. You must think I'm a whining cuss—say! I'll bet another ten dollars that I don't come in more than a neck behind, lame horse or not!"
"Now, kid, don't git chancey," Pop admonished uneasily. "Twenty-five is enough money to donate to Jeff."
"That's right, kid. I like your nerve," Jeff cut in, emphasizing his approval with a slap on Bud's shoulder as he bent to lift Smoky's leg. "I've saw worse horses than this one come in ahead—it wouldn't be no sport o' kings if nobody took a chance."
"I'm taking chance enough," Bud retorted without looking up. "If I don't win this time I will the next, maybe."
"That's right," Jeff agreed heartily, winking broadly at the others behind Bud's back.
Bud rubbed Smoky's ankle with liniment, listened to various and sundry self-appointed advisers and, without seeming to think how the sums would total, took several other small bets on the race. They were small—Pop began to teeter back and forth and lift his shoulders and pull his beard—sure signs of perturbation.
"By Christmas, I'll just put up ten dollars on the kid," Pop finally cackled. "I ain't got much to lose—but I'll show yuh old Pop ain't going to see the young feller stand alone." He tried to catch Bud's eye, but that young man was busy saddling Smoky and returning jibe for jibe with the men around him, and did not glance toward Pop at all.
"I'll take this bottle in my pocket, Pop," he said with his back toward the old man, and mounted carelessly. "I'll ride him around a little and give him another good rubbing before we run. I'm betting," he added to the others frankly, "on the chance that exercise and the liniment will take the soreness out of that ankle. I don't believe it amounts to anything at all. So if any of you fellows want to bet—"