The Flying U's Last Stand

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER 17. "LOST CHILD"

  "Djuh find 'im?" The Old Man had limped down to the big gate and stoodthere bare headed under the stars, waiting, hoping--fearing to hear theanswer.

  "Hasn't he showed up yet?" Chip and the Little Doctor rode out of thegloom and stopped before the gate. Chip did not wait for an answer. Onequestion answered the other and there was no need for more. "I broughtDell home," he said. "She's about all in--and he's just as likely tocome back himself as we are to run across him. Silver'll bring him home,all right. He can't be--yuh can't lose a horse. You go up to the houseand lie down, Dell. I--the Kid's all right."

  His voice held all the tenderness of the lover, and all theprotectiveness of the husband and all the agony of a father--but Chipmanaged to keep it firm and even for all that. He lifted the LittleDoctor bodily from the saddle, held her very close in his arms for aminute, kissed her twice and pushed her gently through the gate.

  "You better stay right here," he said authoritatively, "and rest andlook after J.G. You can't do any good riding--and you don't want to begone when he comes." He reached over the gate, got hold of her arm andpulled her towards him. "Buck up, old girl," he whispered, and kissedher lingeringly. "Now's the time to show the stuff you're made of. Youneedn't worry one minute about that kid. He's the goods, all right. Yuhcouldn't lose him if you tried. Go up and go to bed."

  "Go to bed!" echoed the Little Doctor and sardonically. "J.G., are yousure he didn't say anything about going anywhere?"

  "No. He was settin' there on the porch tormenting the cat." The OldMan swallowed a lump. "I told him to quit. He set there a while afterthat--I was talkin'' to Blake. I dunno where he went to. I was--"

  "'S that you, Dell? Did yuh find 'im?" The Countess came flapping downthe path in a faded, red kimono. "What under the shinin' sun's went withhim, do yuh s'pose? Yuh never know what a day's got up its sleeve--'nI always said it. Man plans and God displans--the poor little tad'll bescairt plumb to death, out all alone in the dark--"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake shut up!" cried the tortured Little Doctor, andfled past her up the path as though she had some hope of running awayfrom the tormenting thoughts also. "Poor little tad, all alone in thedark,"--the words followed her and were like sword thrusts through themother heart of her. Then Chip overtook her, knowing too well the hurtwhich the Countess had given with her blundering anxiety. Just at theporch he caught up with her, and she clung to him, sobbing wildly.

  "You don't want to mind what that old hen says," he told her brusquely."She's got to do just so much cackling or she'd choke, I reckon. TheKid's all right. Some of the boys have run across him by this time, mostlikely, and are bringing him in. He'll be good and hungry, and the scarewill do him good." He forced himself to speak as though the Kid hadmerely fallen on the corral fence, or something like that. "You've gotto make up your mind to these things," he argued, "if you tackle raisinga boy, Dell. Why, I'll bet I ran off and scared my folks into fits fiftytimes when I was a kid."

  "But--he's--just a baby!" sobbed the Little Doctor with her face pressedhard against Chip's strong, comforting shoulder.

  "He's a little devil!" amended Chip fiercely. "He ought to be wallopedfor scaring you like this. He's just as capable of looking after himselfas most kids twice his size. He'll get hungry and head for home--and ifhe don't know the way, Silver does; so he can't--"

  "But he may have fallen and--"

  "Come, now! Haven't you got any more sense than the Countess? If youinsist of thinking up horrors to scare yourself with, I don't knowas anybody can stop you. Dell! Brace up and quit worrying. I tellyou--he's--all right!"

  That did well enough--seeing the Little Doctor did not get a lookat Chip's face, which was white and drawn, with sunken, haggard eyesstaring into the dark over her head. He kissed her hastily and told herhe must go, and that he'd hurry back as soon as he could. So he wenthalf running down the path and passed the Countess and the Old Manwithout a word; piled onto his horse and went off up the hill roadagain.

  They could not get it out of their minds that the Kid must have riddenup on the bluff to meet his mother, had been too early to meet her--forthe Little Doctor had come home rather later than she expected todo--and had wandered off to visit the boys, perhaps, or to meet hisDaddy Chip who was over there some where on the bench trying to figureout a system of ditches that might logically be expected to water thedesert claims of the Happy Family--if they could get the water.

  They firmly believed that the kid had gone up on the hill, and so theyhunted for him up there. The Honorable Blake had gone to Dry Lake andtaken the train for Great Falls, before ever the Kid had been reallymissed. The Old Man had not seen the Kid ride up the hill--but hehad been sitting with his chair turned away from the road, and he wasworried about other things and so might easily have missed seeing him.The Countess had been taking a nap, and she was not expected to knowanything about his departure. And she had not looked into the doughnutjar--indeed, she was so upset by supper time that, had she looked, shewould not have missed the doughnuts. For the same reason Ole did notmiss his blanket. Ole had not been near his bed; he was out riding andsearching and calling through the coulee and up toward the old Densonplace.

  No one dreamed that the Kid had started out with a camp-outfit--if onemight call it that--and with the intention of joining the Happy Familyin the breaks, and of helping them gather their cattle. How could theydream that? How could they realize that a child who still liked tobe told bedtime stories and to be rocked to sleep, should harbor suchman-size thoughts and ambitions? How could they know that the Kid wasbeing "a rell ole cowpuncher"?

  That night the whole Happy Family, just returned from the Badlands andwarned by Chip at dusk that the Kid was missing, hunted the coulees thatbordered the benchland. A few of the nesters who had horses and couldride them hunted also. The men who worked at the Flying U hunted, andChip hunted frantically. Chip just about worshipped that kid, and inspite of his calmness and his optimism when he talked to the LittleDoctor, you can imagine the state of mind he was in.

  At sunrise they straggled in to the ranch, caught up fresh horses,swallowed a cup of coffee and what food they could choke down andstarted out again. At nine o'clock a party came out from Dry Lake,learned that the Kid was not yet found, and went out under a captain tocomb systematically through the hills and the coulees.

  Before night all the able-bodied men in the country and some who werenot--were searching. It is astonishing how quickly a small army willvolunteer in such an emergency; and it doesn't seem to matter very muchthat the country seems big and empty of people ordinarily. They comefrom somewhere, when they're needed.

  The Little Doctor--oh, let us not talk about the Little Doctor. Suchagonies as she suffered go too deep for words.

  The next day after that, Chip saddled a horse and let her ride besidehim. Chip was afraid to leave her at the ranch--afraid that she wouldgo mad. So he let her ride--they rode together. They did not go far fromthe ranch. There was always the fear that someone might bring him inwhile they were gone. That fear drove them back, every hour or two. Thenanother fear would drive them forth again.

  Up in another county there is a creek called Lost Child Creek. A childwas lost--or was it two children?--and men hunted and hunted and hunted,and it was months before anything was found. Then a cowboy riding thatway found--just bones. Chip knew about that creek which is called LostChild. He had been there and he had heard the story, and he had seenthe--father and had shuddered--and that was long before he had known thefeeling a father has for his child. What he was deadly afraid of nowwas that the Little Doctor would hear about that creek, and how it hadgotten its name.

  What he dreaded most for himself was to think of that creek. He keptthe Little Doctor beside him and away from that Job's comforter, theCountess, and tried to keep her hope alive while the hours dragged theirleaden feet over the hearts of them all.

  A camp was hastily organized in One Man Coulee and another out beyondDenson's place, and men we
nt there to the camps for a little food anda little rest, when they could hold out no longer. Chip and the LittleDoctor rode from camp to camp, intercepted every party of searchers theyglimpsed on the horizon, and came back to the ranch, hollow-eyed andsilent for the most part. They would rest an hour, perhaps. Then theywould ride out again.

  The Happy Family seemed never to think of eating, never to want sleep.Two days--three days--four days--the days became a nightmare. Irish,with a warrant out for his arrest, rode with the constable, perhaps--ifthe search chanced to lead them together. Or with Big Medicine, whom hehad left in hot anger. H. J. Owens and these other claim-jumpers huntedwith the Happy Family and apparently gave not a thought to claims.

  Miss Allen started out on the second day and hunted through all thecoulees and gulches in the neighborhood of her claim--coulees andgulches that had been searched frantically two or three times before.She had no time to make whimsical speeches to Andy Green, nor he tolisten. When they met, each asked the other for news, and separatedwithout a thought for each other. The Kid--they must find him--theymust.

  The third day, Miss Allen put up a lunch, told her three claim partnersthat she should not come back until night unless that poor child wasfound, and that they need not look for her before dark and set out withthe twinkle all gone from her humorous brown eyes and her mouth verydetermined.

  She met Pink and the Native Son and was struck with the change which twodays of killing anxiety had made in them. True, they had not slept forforty-eight hours, except an hour or two after they had been forced tostop and eat. True, they had not eaten except in snatches. But it wasnot that alone which made their faces look haggard and old and haunted.They, too, were thinking of Lost Child Creek and How it had gotten itsname.

  Miss Allen gleaned a little information from them regarding the generalwhereabouts of the various searching parties. And then, having learnedthat the foothills of the mountains were being searched minutely becausethe Kid might have taken a notion to visit Meeker's; and that thecountry around Wolf Butte was being searched, because he had once toldBig Medicine that when he got bigger and his dad would let him, he wasgoing over there and kill wolves to make Doctor Dell some rugs: and thatthe country toward the river was being searched because the Kid alwayswanted to see where the Happy Family drove the sheep to, that timewhen Happy Jack got shot under the arm; that all the places the Kid hadseemed most interested in were being searched minutely--if it could bepossible to; search minutely a country the size of that! Having learnedall that, Miss Allen struck off by herself, straight down into theBadlands where nobody seemed to have done much searching.

  The reason for that was, that the Happy Family had come out of thebreaks on the day that the Kid was lost. They had not ridden together,but in twos and threes because they drove out several small bunches ofcattle that they had gleaned, to a common centre in One Man Coulee. Theyhad traveled by the most feasible routes through that rough country, andthey had seen no sign of the Kid or any other rider.

  They did not believe that he had come over that far, or even in thatdirection; because a horseman would almost certainly have been sightedby some of them in crossing a ridge somewhere.

  It never occurred to anyone that the Kid might go down Flying U Creekand so into the breaks and the Badlands. Flying U Creek was fenced, andthe wire gate was in its place--Chip had looked down along there, thefirst night, and had found the gate up just as it always was kept. Whyshould he suspect that the Kid had managed to open that gate and toclose it after him? A little fellow like that?

  So the searching parties, having no clue to that one incident whichwould at least have sent them in the right direction, kept to theoutlying fringe of gulches which led into the broken edge of thebenchland, and to the country west and north and south of these gulches.At that, there was enough broken country to keep them busy for severaldays, even when you consider the number of searchers.

  Miss Allen did not want to go tagging along with some party. She didnot feel as if she could do any good that way, and she wanted to do somegood. She wanted to find that poor little fellow and take him to hismother. She had met his mother, just the day before, and had ridden withher for several miles. The look in the Little Doctor's eyes hauntedMiss Allen until she felt sometimes as if she must scream curses to theheavens for so torturing a mother. And that was not all; she had lookedinto Chip's face, last night--and she had gone home and cried until shecould cry no more, just with the pity of it.

  She left the more open valley and rode down a long, twisting canyonthat was lined with cliffs so that it was impossible to climb out with ahorse. She was sure she could not get lost or turned around, in a placelike that, and it seemed to her as hopeful a place to search as any.When you came to that, they all had to ride at random and trust toluck, for there was not the faintest clue to guide them. So Miss Allenconsidered that she could do no better than search all the patches ofbrush in the canyon, and keep on going.

  The canyon ended abruptly in a little flat, which she crossed. She hadnot seen the tracks of any horse going down, but when she was almostacross the flat she discovered tracks of cattle, and now and thenthe print of a shod hoof. Miss Allen began to pride herself on herastuteness in reading these signs. They meant that some of the HappyFamily had driven cattle this way; which meant that they would have seenlittle Claude Bennett--that was the Kid's real name, which no one exceptperfect strangers ever used--they would have seen the Kid or his tracks,if he had ridden down here.

  Miss Allen, then, must look farther than this. She hesitated beforethree or four feasible outlets to the little flat, and chose the onefarthest to the right. That carried her farther south, and deeper into amaze of gulches and gorges and small, hidden valleys. She did not stop,but she began to see that it was going to be pure chance, or the guidinghand of a tender Providence, if one ever did find anybody in thishorrible jumble. She had never seen such a mess. She believed that poorlittle tot had come down in here, after all; she could not see why,but then you seldom did know why children took a notion to do certainunbelievable things. Miss Allen had taught the primary grade in a cityschool, and she knew a little about small boys and girls and the bigideas they sometimes harbored.

  She rode and rode, trying to put herself mentally in the Kid's place.Trying to pick up the thread of logical thought--children were logicalsometimes--startlingly so.

  "I wonder," she thought suddenly, "if he started out with the idea ofhunting cattle! I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he did--living ona cattle ranch, and probably knowing that the men were down heresomewhere." Miss Allen, you see, came pretty close to the truth with herguess.

  Still, that did not help her find the Kid. She saw a high, bald peakstanding up at the mouth of the gorge down which she was at that timepicking her way, and she made up her mind to climb that peak and seeif she might not find him by looking from that point of vantage. So sherode to the foot of the pinnacle, tied her horse to a bush and began toclimb.

  Peaks like that are very deceptive in their height Miss Allen was slimand her lungs were perfect, and she climbed steadily and as fast asshe dared. For all that it took her a long while to reach the top--muchlonger than she expected. When she reached the black rock that looked,from the bottom, like the highest point of the hill, she found that shehad not gone much more than two-thirds of the way up, and that the realpeak sloped back so that it could not be seen from below at all.

  Miss Allen was a persistent young woman. She kept climbing until shedid finally reach the highest point, and could look down into gorgesand flats and tiny basins and canyons and upon peaks and ridges andworm-like windings, and patches of timber and patches of grass andpatches of barren earth and patches of rocks all jumbled up together--.Miss Allen gasped from something more than the climb, and sat down upona rock, stricken with a sudden, overpowering weakness. "God in heaven!"she whispered, appalled. "What a place to get lost in!"

  She sat there a while and stared dejectedly down upon that wild orgy ofthe earth's upheaval whi
ch is the Badlands. She felt as though it wassheer madness even to think of finding anybody in there. It was worsethan a mountain country, because in the mountains there is a certainsemblance of some system in the canyons and high ridges and peaks. Hereevery thing--peaks, gorges, tiny valleys and all--seemed to be justdumped down together. Peaks rose from the middle of canyons; canyonswere half the time blind pockets that ended abruptly against a cliff.

  "Oh!" she cried aloud, jumpin up and gesticulating wildly. "Baby!Little Claude! Here! Look up this way!" She saw him, down below, on theopposite side from where she had left her horse.

  The Kid was riding slowly up a gorge. Silver was picking his waycarefully over the rocks--they looked tiny, down there! And they werenot going toward home, by any means. They were headed directly away fromhome.

  The cheeks of Miss Allen were wet while she shouted and called and wavedher hands. He was alive, anyway. Oh, if his mother could only be toldthat he was alive! Oh, why weren't there telephones or something wherethey were needed! If his poor mother could see him!

  Miss Allen called again, and the Kid heard her. She was sure that heheard her, because he stopped--that pitiful, tiny speck down there onthe horse!--and she thought he looked up at her. Yes, she was sure heheard her, and that finally he saw her; because he took off his hat andwaved it over his head--just like a man, the poor baby!

  Miss Allen considered going straight down to him, and then walkingaround to where her horse was tied. She was afraid to leave him whileshe went for the horse and rode around to where he was. She was afraidshe might miss him somehow the Badlands had stamped that fear deep intoher soul.

  "Wait!" she shouted, her hands cupped around her trembling lips, tearsrolling down her cheeks "Wait baby! I'm coming for you." She hoped thatthe Kid heard what she said, but she could not be sure, for she did nothear him reply. But he did not go on at once, and she thought he wouldwait.

  Miss Allen picked up her skirts away from her ankles and started runningdown the steep slope. The Kid, away down below, stared up at her. Shewent down a third of the way, and stopped just in time to save herselffrom going over a sheer wall of rocks--stopped because a rock which shedislodged with her foot rolled down the slope a few feet, gave a leapinto space and disappeared.

  A step at a time Miss Allen crept down to where the rock had bounced offinto nothingness, and gave one look and crouched close to the earth.A hundred feet, it must be, straight down. After the first shock shelooked to the right and the left and saw that she must go back, and downupon the other side.

  Away down there at the bottom, the Kid sat still on his horse and staredup at her. And Miss Allen calling to him that she would come, startedback up to the peak.