The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
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did ample justice to the sandwiches and lemonade the lad set in front of him, but he ate with a wary eye on a possible insurrection on the part of his prisoner.
“I'm a new man,” he announced briskly, when he had finished. “That veal loaf sandwich went sure to the right spot. If you had been a young lady instead of a boy you couldn't fix things up more appetizing.”
The lad's face flushed with embarrassment, apparently at the ranger's compliment, and the latter, noticed how delicate the small face was. It made an instinctive, wistful appeal for protection, and Bucky felt an odd little stirring at his tender Irish heart.
“Might think I was the kid's father to see what an interest I take in him,” the young man told himself reprovingly. “It's all tommyrot, too. A boy had ought to have more grit. I expect he needed that licking all right I saved him from.”
When Bucky had eaten, the camp things were repacked for travel. Epitaph was only twenty-three miles away, and the ranger preferred to ride in the cool of the night rather than sit up till daybreak with his prisoner. Besides, he could then catch the morning train from that town and save almost a day.
So hour after hour they plodded on, the prisoner in front, O'Connor in the center, and Frank Hardman bringing up the rear. It was an Arizona night of countless stars, with that peculiar soft, velvety atmosphere that belongs to no other land or time. In the distance the jagged, violet line of mountains rose in silhouette against a sky not many shades lighter, while nearer the cool moonlight flooded a land grown magical under its divine touch.
The ranger rode with a limp ease that made for rest, his body shifting now and again in the saddle, so as to change the weight and avoid stiffness.
It must have been well past midnight that he caught the long breath of a sigh behind him. The trail had broadened at that point, for they were now down in the rolling plain, so that two could ride abreast in the road. Bucky fell back and put a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the boy.
“Plumb fagged out, kid?” he asked.
“I am tired. Is it far?”
“About four miles. Stick it out, and we'll be there in no time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don't call me sir. Call me Bucky.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bucky laughed. “You're ce'tainly the queerest kid I've run up against. I guess you didn't scramble up in this rough-and-tumble West like I did. You're too soft for this country.” He let his firm brown fingers travel over the lad's curly hair and down the smooth cheek. “There it is again. Shrinking away as if I was going to hurt you. I'll bet a biscuit you never licked the stuffing out of another fellow in your life.”
“No, sir,” murmured the youth, and Bucky almost thought he detected a little, chuckling laugh.
“Well, you ought to be ashamed of it. When come back from old Mexico I'm going to teach you how to put up your dukes. You're going to ride the range with me, son, and learn to stick to your saddle when the bronc and you disagrees. Oh, I'll bet all you need is training. I'll make a man out of you yet,” the ranger assured his charge cheerfully. “Will you?” came the innocent reply, but Bucky for a moment had the sense of being laughed at.
“Yes, I 'will you,' sissy,” he retorted, without the least exasperation. “Don't think you know it all. Right now you're riding like a wooden man. You want to take it easy in the saddle. There's about a dozen different positions you can take to rest yourself.” And Bucky put him through a course of sprouts. “Don't sit there laughing at folks that knows a heap more than you ever will get in your noodle, and perhaps you won't be so done up at the end of a little jaunt like this,” he concluded. And to his conclusion he presently added a postscript: “Why, I know kids your age can ride day and night for a week on the round-up without being all in. How old are you, son?”
“Eighteen.”
“That's a lie,” retorted the ranger, with immediate frankness. “You're not a day over fifteen, I'll bet.”
“I meant to say fifteen,” meekly corrected the youth.
“That's another of them. You meant to say eighteen, but you found I wouldn't swallow it. Now, Master Frank, you want to learn one thing prompt if you and I are to travel together. I can't stand a liar. You tell the truth, or I'll give you the best licking you ever had in your life.”
“You're as bad a bully as he is,” the boy burst out, flushing angrily.
“Oh, no, I'm not,” came the ranger's prompt unmoved answer. “But just because you're such a weak little kid that I could break you in two isn't any reason why I should put up with any foolishness from you. I mean to see that you act proper, the way an honest kid ought to do. Savvy?”
“I'd like to know who made you my master?” demanded the boy hotly.
“You've ce'tainly been good and spoiled, but you needn't ride your high hawss with me. Here's the long and the short of it. To tell lies ain't square. If I ask you anything you don't want to answer tell me to go to hell, but don't lie to me. If you do I'll punish you the same as if you were my brother, so long as you trail with me. If you don't like it, cut loose and hit the pike for yourself.”
“I've a good mind to go.”
Bucky waved a hand easily into space. “That's all right, too, son. There's a heap of directions you can hit from here. Take any one you like. But if I was as beat as you are, I think I'd keep on the Epitaph road.” He laughed his warm, friendly laugh, before the geniality of which discord seemed to melt, and again his arm went round the other's weary shoulders with a caressing gesture that was infinitely protecting.
The boy laughed tremulously. “You're awfully good to me. I know I'm a cry-baby, sissy boy, but if you'll be patient with me I'll try to be gamer.”
It certainly was strange the way Bucky's pulse quickened and his blood tingled when he touched the little fellow and heard that velvet voice's soft murmur. Yes, it surely was strange, but perhaps the young Irishman's explanation was not the correct one, after all. The cause he offered to himself for this odd joy and tender excitement was perfectly simple.
“I'm surely plumb locoed, or else gone soft in the haid,” he told himself grimly.
But the reason for those queer little electric shocks that pulsed through him was probably a more elemental and primeval one than even madness.
Arrived at Epitaph, Bucky turned loose his prisoner with a caution and made his preparations to leave immediately for Chihuahua. Collins had returned to Tucson, but was in touch with the situation and ready to set out for any point where he was needed.
Bucky, having packed, was confronted with a difficulty. He looked at it, and voiced his perplexity.
“Now, what am I going to do with you, Curly Haid? I expect I had better ship you back to the Rocking Chair.”
“I don't want to go back there. He'll come out again and find me after you leave.”
“Where do you want to go, then? If you were a girl I could put you in the convent school here,” he reflected aloud.
Again that swift, deep blush irradiated the youth's cheeks. “Why can't I go with you?” he asked shyly.
The ranger laughed. “Mebbe you think I'm going on a picnic. Why, I'm starting out to knock the chip off Old Man Trouble's shoulder. Like as not some greaser will collect Mr. Bucky's scalp down in manyana land. No, sir, this doesn't threaten to be a Y. P. S. C. E. excursion.”
“If it is so dangerous as that, you will need help. I'm awful good at making up, and I can speak Spanish like a native.”
“Sho! You don't want to go running your neck into a noose. It's a jail-break I'm planning, son. There may be guns a-popping before we get back to God's country—if we ever do. Add to that, trouble and then some, for there's a revolution scheduled for old Chihuahua just now, as your uncle happens to know from