by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MARY V WILL NOT BE BLUFFED
Old Sudden in the ranch Ford, and Bill and Mary V on horseback, overtookthe jogging cavalcade of riders and loose horses. Sudden looked painedand full of determination, as he always did when necessity called himforth upon the range in a lurching mechanical conveyance where once hehad ridden with the best of them. Too many winters had been spentluxuriously in the towns; a mile or two, at a comfortable trail trot, wasall that Sudden cared to attempt nowadays on horseback. But that did notlessen his dislike of negotiating sand and rocks and washes and roughslopes with an automobile. Every mile that he traveled added somethingto his condemnation of that young reprobate, Johnny Jewel, who had letthe Rolling R in for all this trouble.
A bend in the trail brought him close to the boys, who had riddenstraight across country. Mary V and Bill had just joined the group, andSudden gave a snort when he saw Mary V maneuver Jake so that he sidled inalongside Tex, who rode a little apart with his hat pulled over his eyes,evidently in deep thought. Sudden had all the arrogance of a strong manwho has managed his life and his business successfully. He wanted toattend to Tex himself, without any meddling from Mary V.
He squawked the horn to attract her attention, and caused a wave ofturbulence among the horses that made more than one of his men sayunpleasant things about him. Mary V looked back, and he beckoned with onesweeping gesture that could scarcely be mistaken. Mary V turned to rideup to him, advanced a rod or two and abruptly retreated, bolting straightthrough the group of riders and careening away across the level, withBill and Tex tearing after her. Presently they slowed, and later Bill wasseen to lag behind. Tex and Mary V kept straight on, a furlong in advanceof the others.
The road swung away to the right, to avoid a rough stretch of rocks andgullies, and Sudden perforce followed it, feelingly speaking his mindupon the subjects of spoiled daughters and good-for-nothing employees,and horses and the men that bestrode them, and Fords, and the roads ofArizona, and the curse of being too well fed and growing a paunch thatmade riding a martyrdom. He would put that girl in a convent, and hewould see that she stayed there till she was old enough to have somesense. He would have that young hound at Sinkhole arrested as anaccomplice of the horse thieves. He would put a bullet through that foolof a horse, Jake, and he would lynch Tex if he ever got his hands on him.He would sell out, by glory, and buy himself a prune orchard.
And then he had a blow-out while he was down in a hollow a mile from theoutfit. And some darned fool had lost the handle to the jack, and thebest of the two extra tires was a darn poor excuse and wouldn't last amile, probably, and he got hold of a tube that had a leaky valve, and hadto hunt out another one after he had worked half an hour trying to pumpup the first one. And what in the blinkety blink did any darn fool wantto live in such a country for, anyway?
Thus it happened that Mary V was not forbidden to ride with Tex. And, notbeing forbidden, Mary V carried out her own ideas of diplomacy and tact.Her idea was to make Tex believe that she liked him better than the otherboys. Just what she would gain by that, Mary V did not stop to wonder. Itwas the approved form of diplomacy, employed by all the leading heroinesof ancient and modern fiction and of film drama, and was warranted toproduce results in the way of information, guilty secrets, stolen wills,plots and plans and papers.
Tex was inclined to eye her askance, just at first. He was also verycurious about her riding Jake, and he seemed inquisitive about whetherthat was the first time she had ever ridden him. He was, too, veryabsent-minded at times, and would go off into vacant-eyed reveries thatsealed his ears against her artfully artless chatter.
Some girls would have been discouraged. Mary V was merely stimulated tofurther efforts. Tex did not mention the stealing of any horses atSinkhole. He seemed to take it for granted that they were going to workthe range to get horses for breaking, and Mary V wondered if perhaps herdad had not thought it best to confine the knowledge of horse-stealing tohimself and Bill--at least until he had made an investigation. That wouldbe like dad--and also like Bill Hayden. Mary V was glad that she had notsaid anything about it. She thought she would try Tex out first on thesubject of airplanes. None of the boys knew that Johnny had one, and shewas perfectly sure that she would detect any guilty knowledge of it inthe mind of Tex. She had just read a long article in a magazine about"How our Faces Betray our Thoughts," and this seemed a splendid chanceto put it to the test.
"Bill says an aeroplane came and stampeded all you boys yesterday," shebegan with much innocence.
"Yeah. One did fly over our haids. I didn't git to see much of it. Myfool hawse, he started in pitchin' right away, soon as he seen it."
Mary V paused, meditating upon the significance of his words, his tone,his profile. That there was no particular significance did not in theleast affect her deliberate intention.
"I wonder who it could have been!" she said, stealing a glance from underher lashes.
"Hunh? Who? The flyin' machine? Search me!" This time his tone was surelysignificant. It signified, more than anything else, that the mind of Texwas busy with other matters. Contrary to the magazine article, his facedid not betray his thoughts. "Yore dad buy Jake off'n Bill for yo' all toride?" he asked suddenly.
"No. Bill just lent him to me."
"Hnh! Bill, he shore is generous-hearted to lend yuh Jake."
"Yes," said Mary V, smiling at Tex innocently. "Yes, isn't he?"
But Tex did not reiterate, as pleasant converse demanded. He went offagain into meditation so deep that it quite excluded Mary V.
"Yo' all going to help round up?" Tex asked her suddenly. "You shore canride the ridges, with that hawse. I guess yo' all can bring in morehawses than what any two of us kin."
"That's exactly what I mean to do," Mary V assured him promptly. "You'llsee me riding the ridges almost exclusively."
Tex looked at her and grinned, which did not enhance his good looks,because his teeth were badly stained with tobacco.
"Yo' all don't want to ride away over in them breaks toward the southeastcorner," he advised. "That's a long, hard ride to make. It's too much fora girl to tackle--combin' the hawses outa them little brushy draws. Theylike to git in there away from the flies, in the heat uh the day. But yo'all better not tackle it, even if Bill lets yuh. I don't guess he would,though."
"Bill," said Mary V with a little tilt to her chin, "does not enjoy theprivilege of 'letting' me do things. I shall ride wherever I please. Andit is possible that I may please to bring in what horses are in thered-hill end of the range. I'm sure I don't see why I shouldn't, if Ilike."
"Well," said Tex, "that country's plumb hard to ride. It takes real workto bring in hawses from there. I wouldn't tackle that, if I was you; I'dride out where it's easier."
"Oh, would you? Well, thank you very much for the advice, I'm sure." MaryV looked back, saw the other boys jogging closer, and held Jake in towait for them. She did not want to tell Tex that she certainly would makeit a point to ride the red-hill side of the range. There was probablysome sly, secret reason Tex did not want her to go over that way. Sheremembered that she had seen the Mexican coming from that direction bothtimes. Certainly, there must be some secret reason. Tex was afraidshe might find out something.
Mary V waited for the boys, and talked to them prettily, and wonderedaloud where her dad was all this time, and hoped he had not had apuncture or anything. Because, she said, it was bad enough for his temperto have to drive the flivver, without any bad luck to make it worse.
She was particularly nice to Bill, and forced him to confess that shereally got along perfectly all right with Jake. She comported herself soagreeably, in fact, that Bill was reconciled to her coming and paid noattention when she presently swung off to the southeast, saying that shewanted to get a picture of a perfectly ducky giant cactus which she hadseen through her glasses one day. Indeed, the dismal honking of themachine called Bill back to the trail, where Sudden came jouncing alonglike a little, leaky boat laboring t
hrough a choppy sea. Bill rode offwithout noticing Mary V at all.
It was a little after noon, and the boys were eating dinner at the campset up close to the creek at Sinkhole cabin. Sudden, sprawled in theshade of the wagon, was staring glumly at the sluggish little stream,smoking his after-dinner cigar and trying to formulate some plan thatwould promise results where results were most vital to his bank account.It would, of course, take two or three days to gather in all the horseson Sinkhole range, and the restless lot in the corral yonder might be alarge or a small part of the entire number down there. Sudden was notworrying so much over those that were left, as he was over what had beenstolen. It seemed to him that there ought to be some way of getting thosehorses back. He was trying to think of the way.
"Oh, Bill!" he called, getting stiffly to his feet. "Let's get into thecabin and go over those tally books." Which was merely a subterfuge toget Bill away from the wagon without letting the boys know something waswrong. Bill got up, brushed the dirt off his trousers with a flick of hisfingers, lighted the cigarette he had just rolled and followed the boss.
"Bill, what's your idea about this horse-stealing, anyway? If they weregoing to steal horses, why didn't they run off a whole herd and be donewith it?"
Bill seated himself on Johnny's bunk, spat toward the stove, pulled asplinter off the rough board of the bunk's side, and began carefullynipping off tiny shreds with his finger nails. Bill, by all these signsand tokens, was limbering up his keen old range-bred wits for action.
"Well, I'll tell yuh. The way to get at the thing is to figger out whyyou'd do it, s'posin' you was in their place. Now if it was _me_ that wasstealin' these hawses--say, s'posin' I was aimin' to sell 'em over acrossthe line--I'd aim to take the best I could git holt of, because I'd bewanting 'em for good, all-round, tough saddle hawses. Them greasers, theway they're hellin' around over the country shootin' and fightin', theygot to have good hawses under 'em. Er they want good hawses, if they cangit 'em.
"Well, s'posin' 't I was out to furnish what I could. Chances is Iwouldn't have a very big bunch in with me--say five or six of us, jestenough to handle a few head at a time. I'd aim to git 'em over acrostthe line first shot. Anybody would do that. Well, s'posin' I didn'thave a place that'd take care of very many at a time. Feed's pore, overthere, and a hawse has got to eat. These here hawses are in purty faircondition, and I'd aim to keep 'em in flesh whilst I was breakin''em--I'd git better prices. And then again, mebby I wouldn't want toomany on hand at once, in case some party come along with the gall to loot'em instead of buy 'em.
"I figger I'd be plumb content if I could take over a few at a time, andlet the rest go ahead eatin' grass here till I was ready for 'em. Thelonger I could keep that up, the better I'd like it. Same as we beendoin' at the home ranch, y' see. We didn't go t' work and haze in thehull bunch and keep 'em up, eatin' their heads off, waitin' till we gotready for 'em. No, sir, we go out and bring in half a dozen, or a dozenat most and cut out what we want. We bust them, and git more.
"I figger, Mr. Selmer, that these geezers down here have been doin' thatvery same way. They had the kid baited with that flyin' machine, so hewouldn't have no eyes for anything else. And he was _here_, so youwouldn't be worryin' none about the stock. And they've been helpin'theirselves at their own convenience--like Mary V would put it. I dunno,but that's the way I figger it. And I don't guess, Mr. Selmer, you'll seenone of yore hawses again, unless mebby it's the last ones they took. AndI don't guess there's very much chance of gittin' them back, either,because we don't know whereabouts they took 'em to. Way I look at it,you're doin' about the only thing that can be did--cleanin' out thisrange and drivin' the hawses all up on the north range. That kinda leavesthe jam pot empty when they come lickin' their lips for more of thesame."
"Well, I guess you're right, Bill. And how do you figure young Jewel notbeing here? His saddle is out there in the shed, and all his horses arehere."
"Him?" Bill laughed a little. "Me, I don't aim to do no figgerin' aboutSkyrider. He's got his flyin' machine workin', though, accordin' to MaryV. I guess Skyrider has mebby flew the country. He'd likely think it wasabout time--way he gummed things up around here."
Sudden permitted himself a snort, probably in agreement with Bill'sstatement that things were "gummed up" at Sinkhole. He went to the doorand stood looking out, his face sour as one may expect a face to be whenthoughts of loss are behind it.
"Where's Mary V?" he turned abruptly to ask of Bill.
"Mary V? Why, I guess she went home. Said something about takin' apicture of some darn thing; she never come on with the boys to camp,anyhow."
"She didn't go foolin' off with Tex, did she?"
"Tex? No, Tex rode after stock. Had some trouble with his hawse. I heardhim tellin' the boys. Said his hawse run away with him. Come in alllathered up."
Sudden turned back, went to the telephone, changed his mind. No useworrying her mother by asking if she had got home, he thought.
"You're sure she went home?" his eyes dwelt rather sharply upon Bill'slean, leathery face. Bill looked up from the slow disintegration of thesplinter. He spat toward the stove again, looked down at the splinter,and then got up quite unexpectedly.
"Hell, no! I ain't shore, but I can quick enough find out." He brushedpast Sudden and took long steps toward the camp. Sudden followed him.
The boys were standing in a group, holding their hat brims down to shieldtheir eyes from the bitter glare of the sun while they gazed up into thesky, their faces turned towards the south. A speck was scudding acrossthe blue--a speck that rapidly grew larger, circled downward in a great,easy spiral. Sudden and Bill perforce turned and held their own hat brimswhile they looked.
"Sa-ay, if that there's Skyrider sailin' around in an airship, he's shoregot the laugh on us fellers," Aleck observed, squinting his nose untilhis gums showed red above his teeth. "Look at 'im come down, would yuh!"
"Wonder where he got it?" little Curley hazarded. "I always told youfellers--"
"Does anybody know where Mary V went?" Sudden's voice brought them allfacing him. They looked at him uncomprehendingly for a minute, thenuncertainly at one another.
"Why--she was going to take a picture of a cactus. I dunno where she wentafter that." This was Bud, a shade of uneasiness creeping into his face.
"Which way did she go? Toward home?"
"She started that way--back toward Snake Ridge--"
"I seen her riding east," Curley broke in. "Jake shore was pickin' 'em upand layin' 'em down too. I thought at first he was running off with her,but he wasn't. He slowed down, climbin' that lava slope--and after thatI didn't see no more of 'er."
Sudden looked at his watch, frowning a little. Mary V probably was allright; there was nothing unusual in her absence. But this country southof Snake Ridge was closer to the lawless land across the boundary than heliked. Their very errand down there gave proof enough of its character.North of Snake Ridge, Sudden would merely have stored away a lecture forMary V. Down here at Sinkhole--
"You boys get out and hunt her up!" he snapped, almost as though theywere to blame for her absence. "I didn't tell you before, but I'm tellingyou now that rustlers have been at work down here, and that's why we'retaking the horses off this range. This is no place for Mary V to beriding around by herself."
"It's a wonder he wouldn't of woke up to that fact before," Bud grumbledto Aleck, while he went limping to the corral. "If she was a girl uhmine, she'd be home with her maw, where she belongs!"
"Rustlers--that sounds like greasers had been at work here. Runnin'hawses acrost the line. For Lord sake, git a faster wiggle on than thatlimp, Bud! If that poor little kid meets up with a bunch of them damnrenegades--"
Bud swore and increased his pace in spite of the pain. Others were beforehim. Already Tex had his loop over the head of a speedy horse, and wasleading it toward his saddle. Curley, the quickest of them all, wasgiving frantic tugs to his latigo. Bill was in the saddle ready to directthe search, and Sudden was standing by hi
s car, wondering whether itwould be possible to negotiate that rough country to the eastward witha "mechanical bronk."
Nothing much was said. You would have thought, to look at them, thatthey were merely in a hurry to get back to the work. Nevertheless, if itshould happen that Mary V was being annoyed or in any danger, it would gohard with the miscreants if the Rolling R boys once came within sight ofthem.