The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
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Wasn’t that it?”
“That was the way of it, Miss Arlie. How did you know?”
“Henry Speed’s note to father said you had broken jail. Dad wasn’t at home. You know, the round-up is on now and he has to be there. So I saddled, and came right away.”
“That was right good of you.”
“Wasn’t it?” There was a softened, almost tender, jeer in her voice. “Since you only saved our lives!”
“I ain’t claiming all that, Miss Arlie.”
“Then I’ll claim it for you. I suppose you gave yourself up to them and explained how it was after we left.”
“Not exactly that. I managed to slip away, through the sage. It was mo’ning before I found the road again. Soon as I did, a deputy tagged me, and said, ‘You’re mine.’ He spoke for me so prompt and seemed so sure about what he was saying, I didn’t argue the matter with him.” He laughed gayly.
“And then?”
“Then he herded me to town, and I was invited to be the county’s guest. Not liking the accommodations, I took the first chance and flew the coop. They missed a knife in my pocket when they searched me, and I chipped the cement away from the window bars, let myself down by the bed linen, and borrowed a cow-pony I found saddled at the edge of town. So, you see, I’m a hawss thief too, ma’am.”
She could not take it so lightly as he did, even though she did not know that he had barely escaped with his life. Something about his debonair, smiling hardihood touched her imagination, as did also the virile competence of the man. If the cool eyes in his weatherbeaten face could be hard as agates, they could also light up with sparkling imps of mischief. Certainly he was no boy, but the close-cut waves of crisp, reddish hair and the ready smile contributed to an impression of youth that came and went.
“Willie Speed is saddling you a horse. The one you came on has been turned loose to go back when it wants to. I’m going to take you home with me,” she told him.
“Well, I’m willing to be kidnapped.”
“I brought your horse Teddy. If you like, you may ride that, and I’ll take the other.”
“Yore a gentleman, ma’am. I sure would.”
When Arlie saw with what pleasure the friends met, how Teddy nickered and rubbed his nose up and down his master’s coat and how the Texan put him through his little repertoire of tricks and fed him a lump of sugar from his coat pocket, she was glad she had ridden Teddy instead of her own pony to the meeting.
They took the road without loss of time. Arlie Dillon knew exactly how to cross this difficult region. She knew the Cedar Mountain district as a grade teacher knows her arithmetic. In daylight or in darkness, with or without a trail, she could have traveled almost a bee line to the point she wanted. Her life had been spent largely in the saddle—at least that part of it which had been lived outdoors. Wherefore she was able to lead her guest by secret trails that wound in and out among the passes and through unsuspected gorges to hazardous descents possible only to goats and cow ponies. No stranger finding his way in would have stood a chance of getting out again unaided.
Among these peaks lay hidden pockets and caches by hundreds, rock fissures which made the country a very maze to the uninitiated. The ranger, himself one of the best trailers in Texas, doubted whether he could retrace his steps to the Speed place.
After several hours of travel, they emerged from a gulch to a little valley known as Beaver Dam Park. The girl pointed out to her companion a narrow brown ribbon that wound through the park.
“There’s the road again. That’s the last we shall see of it—or it will be when we have crossed it. Once we reach the Twin Buttes that are the gateway to French Cañon you are perfectly safe. You can see the buttes from here. No, farther to the right.”
“I thought I’d ridden some tough trails in my time, but this country ce’tainly takes the cake,” Fraser said admiringly, as his gaze swept the horizon. “It puts it over anything I ever met up with. Ain’t that right, Teddy hawss?”
The girl flushed with pleasure at his praise. She was mountain bred, and she loved the country of the great peaks.
They descended the valley, crossed the road, and in an open grassy spot just beyond, came plump upon four men who had unsaddled to eat lunch.
The meeting came too abruptly for Arlie to avoid it. One glance told her that they were deputies from Gimlet Butte. Without the least hesitation she rode forward and gave them the casual greeting of cattleland. Fraser, riding beside her, nodded coolly, drew to a halt, and lit a cigarette.
“Found him yet, gentlemen?” he asked.
“No, nor we ain’t likely to, if he’s reached this far,” one of the men answered.
“It would be some difficult to collect him here,” the Texan admitted impartially.
“Among his friends,” one of the deputies put in, with a snarl.
Fraser laughed easily. “Oh, well, we ain’t his enemies, though he ain’t very well known in the Cedar Mountain country. What might he be like, pardner?”
“Hasn’t he lived up here long?” asked one of the men, busy with some bacon over a fire.
“They say not.”
“He’s a heavy-set fellow, with reddish hair; not so tall as you, I reckon, and some heavier. Was wearing chaps and gauntlets when he made his getaway. From the description, he looks something like you, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Fraser congratulated himself that he had had the foresight to discard as many as possible of these helps to identification before he was three miles from Gimlet Butte. Now he laughed pleasantly.
“Sure he’s heavier than me, and not so tall.”
“It would be a good joke, Bud, if they took you back to town for this man,” cut in Arlie, troubled at the direction the conversation was taking, but not obviously so.
“I ain’t objecting any, sis. About three days of the joys of town would sure agree with my run-down system,” the Texan answered joyously.
“When you cowpunchers do get in, you surely make Rome howl,” one of the deputies agreed, with a grin. “Been in to the Butte lately?”
The Texan met his grin. “It ain’t been so long.”
“Well, you ain’t liable to get in again for a while,” Arlie said emphatically. “Come on, Bud, we’ve got to be moving.”
“Which way is Dead Cow Creek?” one of the men called after them.
Fraser pointed in the direction from which he had just come.
After they had ridden a hundred yards, the girl laughed aloud her relief at their escape. “If they go the way you pointed for Dead Cow Creek, they will have to go clear round the world to get to it. We’re headed for the creek now.”
“A fellow can’t always guess right,” pleaded the Texan. “If he could, what a fiend he would be at playing the wheel! Shall I go back and tell him I misremembered for a moment where the creek is?”
“No, sir. You had me scared badly enough when you drew their attention to yourself. Why did you do it?”
“It was the surest way to disarm any suspicion they might have had. One of them had just said the man they wanted was like me. Presently, one would have been guessing that it was me.” He looked at her drolly, and added: “You played up to me fine, sis.”
A touch of deeper color beat into her dusky cheeks. “We’ll drop the relationship right now, if you please. I said only what you made me say,” she told him, a little stiffly.
But presently she relaxed to the note of friendliness, even of comradeship, habitual to her. She was a singularly frank creature, having been