The Flying U's Last Stand

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER 26. ROSEMARY ALLEN DOES A SMALL SUM IN ADDITION

  Miss Rosemary Allen, having wielded a wet gunny sack until her eyes werered and smarting and her lungs choked with cinders and her arms so tiredshe could scarcely lift them, was permitted by fate to be almost thefirst person who discovered that her quarter of the four-room shackbuilt upon the four contiguous corners of four claims, was afire in thevery middle of its roof. Miss Rosemary Allen stood still and watched itburn, and was a trifle surprised because she felt so little regret.

  Other shacks had caught fire and burned hotly, and she had wept withsympathy for the owners. But she did not weep when her own shack beganto crackle and show yellow, licking tongues of flame. Those three oldcats--I am using her own term, which was spiteful--would probably giveup now, and go back where they belonged. She hoped so. And for herself--

  "By gracious, I'm glad to see that one go, anyhow!" Andy Green pausedlong enough in his headlong gallop to shout to her. "I was going tosneak up and touch it off myself, if it wouldn't start any other way.Now you and me'll get down to cases, girl, and have a settlement. Andsay!" He had started on, but he pulled up again. "The Little Doctor'sback here, somewhere. You go home with her when she goes, and stay tillI come and get you."

  "I like your nerve!" Rosemary retorted ambiguously.

  "Sure--folks generally do. I'll tell her to stop for you. You knowshe'll be glad enough to have you--and so will the Kid."

  "Where is Buck?" Rosemary was the first person who asked that question."I saw him ride up on the bench just before the fire started. I waswatching for him, through the glasses--"

  "Dunno--haven't seen him. With his mother, I guess." Andy rode on tofind Patsy and send him back down the line with the water wagon. He didnot think anything more about the Kid, though he thought a good dealabout Miss Allen.

  Now that her shack was burned, she would be easier to persuade intogiving up that practically worthless eighty. That was what filled themind of Andy Green to the exclusion of everything else except the fire.He was in a hurry to deliver his message to Patsy, so that he could huntup the Little Doctor and speak her hospitality for the girl he meant tomarry just as soon as he could persuade her to stand with him before apreacher.

  He found the Little Doctor still fighting a dogged battle with death forthe life of the woman who laughed wildly because her home was a heapof smoking embers. The Little Doctor told him to send Rosemary Allen ondown to the ranch, or take her himself, and to tell the Countess to sendup her biggest medicine case immediately. She could not leave, she said,for some time yet. She might have to stay all night--or she would ifthere was any place to stay. She was half decided, she said, to havesomeone take the woman in to Dry Lake right away, and up to the hospitalin Great Falls. She supposed she would have to go along. Would Andy tellJ. G. to send up some money? Clothes didn't matter--she would go the wayshe was; there were plenty of clothes in the stores, she declared. Andwould Andy rustle a team, right away, so they could start? If they wentat all they ought to catch the evening train. The Little Doctor wasmaking her decisions and her plans while she talked, as is the way withthose strong natures who can act promptly and surely in the face of anemergency.

  By the time she had thought of having a team come right away, she haddecided that she would not wait for her medicine-case or for money. Shecould get all the money she needed in Dry Lake; and she had her littleemergency case with her. Since she was going to take the woman to ahospital, she said, there was no great need of more than she had withher. She was a thoughtful Little Doctor. At the last minute she detainedAndy long enough to urge him to see that Miss Allen helped herselfto clothes or anything she needed; and to send a goodbye message toChip--in case he did not show up before she left--and a kiss to hermanchild.

  Andy was lucky. He met a man driving a good team and spring wagon, witha barrel of water in the back. He promptly dismounted and helped the manunload the water-barrel where it was, and sent him bumping swiftly overthe burned sod to where the Little Doctor waited. So Fate was kinder tothe Little Doctor than were those who would wring anew the mother heartof her that their own petty schemes might succeed. She went away withthe sick woman laughing crazily because all the little black shackswere burned and now everything was black so everything matchednicely--nicely, thank you. She was terribly worried over the woman'scondition, and she gave herself wholly to her professional zeal andnever dreamed that her manchild was at that moment riding deeper anddeeper into the Badlands with a tricky devil of a man, looking for ababy bear cub for a pet.

  Neither did Chip dream it, nor any of the Happy Family, nor even MissRosemary Allen, until they rode down into Flying U Coulee at supper-timeand were met squarely by the fact that the Kid was not there. The OldMan threw the bomb that exploded tragedy in the midst of the littlegroup. He heard that "Dell" had gone to take a sick woman to thehospital in Great Falls, and would not be back for a day or so,probably.

  "What'd she do with the Kid?" he demanded. "Take him with her?"

  Chip stared blankly at him, and turned his eyes finally to Andy's face.Andy had not mentioned the Kid to him.

  "He wasn't with her," Andy replied to the look. "She sent him a kiss andword that he was to take care of Miss Allen. He must be somewhere aroundhere."

  "Well, he ain't. I was looking fer him myself," put in the Countesssharply. "Somebody shut the cat up in the flour chest and I didn't studymuch on what it was done it! If I'd a got my hands on 'im--"

  "I saw him ride up on the hill trail just before the fire started,"volunteered Rosemary Allen. "I had my opera glasses and was looking forhim, because I like to meet him and hear him talk. He said yesterdaythat he was coming to see me today. And he rode up on the hill in sightof my claim. I saw him." She stopped and looked from one to the otherwith her eyebrows pinched together and her lips pursed.

  "Listen," she went on hastily. "Maybe it has nothing to do withBuck--but I saw something else that was very puzzling. I was going toinvestigate, but the fire broke out immediately and put everything elseout of my mind. A man was up on that sharp-pointed knoll off east ofthe trail where it leaves this coulee, and he had field glasses andwas looking for something over this way. I thought he was watching thetrail. I just caught him with the glasses by accident as I swung themover the edge of the benchland to get the trail focused. He was watchingsomething--because I kept turning the glasses on him to see what he wasdoing.

  "Then Buck came into sight, and I started to ride out and meet him. Ihate to leave the little mite riding alone anywhere--I'm always afraidsomething may happen. But before I got on my horse I took another lookat this man on the hill. He had a mirror or something bright in hishands. I saw it flash, just exactly as though he was signaling tosomeone--over that way." She pointed to the west. "He kept looking thatway, and then back this way; and he covered up the piece of mirror withhis hand and then took it off and let it shine a minute, and put it inhis pocket. I know he was making signals.

  "I got my horse and started to meet little Buck. He was coming alongthe trail and rode into a little hollow out of sight. I kept looking andlooking toward Dry Lake--because the man looked that way, I guess. Andin a few minutes I saw the smoke of the fire--"

  "Who was that man?" Andy took a step toward her, his eyes hard andbright in their inflamed lids.

  "The man? That Mr. Owens who jumped your south eighty."

  "Good Lord, what fools!" He brushed past her without a look or anotherword, so intent was he upon this fresh disaster. "I'm going after theboys, Chip. You better come along and see if you can pick up the Kid'strail where he left the road. It's too bad Florence Grace Hallman ain'ta man! I'd know better what to do if she was."

  "Oh, do you think--?" Miss Rosemary looked at him wide-eyed.

  "Doggone it, if she's tried any of her schemes with fire and--why,doggone it, being a woman ain't going to help her none!" The Old Man,also, seemed to grasp the meaning of it almost as quickly as had Andy."Chip, you have Ole hitch up the team. I'm going to to
wn myself, bythunder, and see if she's going to play any of her tricks on this outfitand git away with it! Burnt out half her doggoned colony tryin' to gita whack at you boys! Where's my shoes? Doggone it, what yuh all standin'round with your jaws hangin' down for? We'll see about this fire-settin'and this--where's them shoes?"

  The Countess found his shoes, and his hat, and his second-best coat andhis driving gloves which he had not worn for more months than anyonecared to reckon. Miss Rosemary Allen did what she could to help, andwondered at the dominant note struck by this bald old man from themoment when he rose stiffly from his big chair and took the initiativeso long left to others.

  While the team was being made ready the Old Man limped here and there,collecting things he did not need and trying to remember what he musthave, and keeping the Countess moving at a flurried trot. Chip and Andywere not yet up the bluff when the Old Man climbed painfully into thecovered buggy, took the lines and the whip and cut a circle with thewheels on the hard-packed earth as clean and as small as Chip himselfcould have done, and went whirling through the big gate and across thecreek and up the long slope beyond. He shouted to the boys and they rodeslowly until he overtook them--though their nerves were all on edge andhaste seemed to them the most important thing in the world. But habit isstrong--it was their Old Man who called to them to wait.

  "You boys wait to git out after that Owens," he shouted when he passedthem. "If they've got the Kid, killing's too good for 'em!" The brownteam went trotting up the grade with back straightened to the pull ofthe lurching buggy, and nostrils flaring wide with excitement. The OldMan leaned sidewise and called back to the two loping after him in theobscuring dust-cloud he left behind.

  "I'll have that woman arrested on suspicion uh setting prairie fires!"he called. "I'll git Blake after her. You git that Owens if you have-tohaze him to hell and back! Yuh don't want to worry about the Kid,Chip--they ain't goin' to hurt him. All they want is to keep you boyshuntin' high and low and combin' the breaks to find 'im. I see theirscheme, all right."