On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane

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СКАЧАТЬ tree, talking gravely together. They stopped as she approached and Hardy looked up a little sullenly from where he sat. Then he rose, and took off his hat.

      “May I have a few words with you on a matter of business, Rufus?” she asked, with her friendliest smile. “No, don’t go, Mr. Creede; you are interested in this, too. In fact,” she added mysteriously, “I need your assistance.”

      A slow smile crept into the rough cowboy’s eyes as he sat watching her.

      “What can I do for you?” he inquired guardedly.

      “Well,” answered Lucy, “the situation is like this –– and I’m not trying to rope you in on anything, as you say, so you needn’t look suspicious. My father has become so discouraged with the way things are going that he has given the entire Dos S Ranch to me –– if I can manage it. Now I know that you both have quit because you don’t approve of my father’s orders about the sheep. I don’t know what your plans are but I want to get a new superintendent, and that’s where I need your assistance, Mr. Creede.”

      She paused long enough to bestow a confiding smile upon the rodéo boss, and then hurried on to explain her position.

      “Of course you understand how it is with father. He has been a judge, and it wouldn’t do for a man in his position to break the laws. But I want you two men to tell me before you go just what you think I ought to do to save my cattle, and you can say whatever you please. Mr. Creede, if you were a woman and owned the Dos S outfit, what would you do about the sheep?”

      For a minute Creede sat silent, surveying the little lady from beneath his shaggy hair.

      “Well,” he said judicially, “I think I’d do one of two things: I’d either marry some nice kind man whose judgment I could trust, and turn the job over to him,” –– he glanced sideways at Hardy as he spoke, –– “or I’d hire some real mean, plug-ugly feller to wade in and clean ’em out. Failin’ in that, I think I’d turn the whole outfit over to Rufe here and go away and fergit about it.”

      He added these last words with a frank directness which left no doubt as to his own convictions in the matter, and Lucy turned an inquiring eye upon Hardy. He was busily engaged in pounding a hole in the ground with a rock, and Lucy noted for the first time a trace of silver in his hair. The setting sun cast deep shadows in the set lines of his face and when he finally looked up his eyes were bloodshot and haggard.

      “There’s no use in talking to me about that job,” he said morosely. “I’ve got tired of taking orders from a man that doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and I want to use my own judgment for a while. We won’t let anything happen to your cattle, Miss Lucy, and I thank you very much, but I’m afraid I can’t do it.”

      He stopped, and bowed his head, hammering moodily away at his hole in the rocky ground.

      “Excuse me a minute, Miss Ware,” said Creede, rising to his feet as the silence became oppressive. “Come over here, Rufe, I want to talk with you.”

      They stood with their heads together, Jeff tapping the little man on the chest with every word, and still there was the same dogged resistance. “Well, come on and let’s find out,” protested Creede at last, impatiently dragging him back.

      “Miss Ware,” he said politely, “what do you expect of this here supe? I might want that job myself, later on,” he observed importantly.

      Lucy smiled at the bare-faced fraud and hastened to abet it.

      “I expect him to look after my cattle,” she responded promptly, “and to protect my best interests according to his own judgment. The only thing I insist upon is that he leave his gun at home.”

      “I’m sorry,” said Creede briefly. “And I needed the job, too,” he added lugubriously. “How about your foreman?” he inquired, as if snatching at a straw. “Same thing, eh? Well, I’ll go you –– next month.”

      He laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and crowded his big black sombrero down over his eyes until it gave him a comical air of despair.

      “Luck’s gone,” he remarked, reaching parenthetically for a cigarette paper. “See you later.” And, with a last roguish twinkle at Miss Lucy, he slouched off toward the fire.

      His luck indeed had gone, but somewhere in that giant carcass which harbored the vindictive hate of an Apache, and the restless energy of a Texano, there still lingered the exuberant joyousness of a boy, the indomitable spirit of the pioneer, resigned to any fate so long as there is a laugh in it. As he drifted into the crowd Lucy’s heart went out to him; he was so big and strong and manly in this, the final eclipse of his waning fortunes.

      “Mr. Creede is a noble kind of a man, isn’t he?” she said, turning to where Hardy was still standing. “Won’t you sit down, Rufus, and let’s talk this over for a minute. But before you decide anything, I want you to get a good night’s sleep. You are a free man now, you know, and if there’s any worrying to be done it’s my funeral –– isn’t it?”

      If he heard her at all Hardy made no response to the jest. He stood before her, swaying dizzily as he groped about for his hat, which had fallen from his hand. Then at last a faint smile broke through the drawn lines in his face.

      “That’s right,” he said, sinking down at her side, and as he settled back against the tree his eyes closed instantly, like a child whose bedtime has come. “I’m –– I’m so dead tired I can’t talk straight, Lucy –– to say nothing of think. But –– I’ll take care of you. We aren’t sheeped out yet. Only –– only I can’t –– I forget what I’m going to say.” His head fell forward as he spoke, his hands hung heavy, and he slipped slowly to the ground, fast asleep.

      After two days and nights of turmoil and passion his troubles were ended, suddenly; and as she raised him up Lucy Ware bent down quickly under cover of the dusk and kissed his rumpled hair.

      CHAPTER XVI

       THE DEPARTURE

       Table of Contents

      The gentle hand of sleep, which held Hardy in a grip that was akin to death, blotting out the past and dispelling all remembrance of his sorrows, failed utterly to abate the fighting spirit of Jefferson Creede or sap the Spartan grimness of his purpose. Worn by the destroying anger of the previous day, thwarted and apparently defeated, he rose up at the first glow of dawn and set about his preparations with an unemotional directness which augured ill for Jasper Swope. Before the sun was an hour high he had the town herd on the trail for Bender, entrusted to the care of Bill Lightfoot and several others of whom he wanted to be rid. The camp was dismantled, the packs were loaded upon the spare horses, and the outfit was ready to start for Carrizo Creek before breakfast was more than finished in the ranch house. After a final survey to make sure that nothing had been overlooked in the scuffle, the rodéo boss waved his hand to the leaders; then, as the train strung out up the cañon, he rode over to the house to say good-bye. The last farewell is a formality often dispensed with in the Far West; but in this case the boss had business to attend to, and –– well, he had something to say to Kitty Bonnair, too.

      Very quietly, in order not to awaken his partner –– whom he had picked up like a tired baby and stored away in the darkened bunk-room the evening before –– Creede opened the door of the living-room, greeted his lady-love СКАЧАТЬ