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

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СКАЧАТЬ suddenly glancing up at her with a wistful smile, “you’ll have to take me away.”

      “Away!” cried Lucy eagerly, “would you go? You know father and I have talked of it time and again, but you just stick and stick, and nothing will make you leave. But listen –– what was that?”

      A succession of rifle shots, like the popping of wet logs over a fire, came dully to their ears, muffled by the bleating of sheep and the echoing of the cliffs. Hardy leapt to his feet and listened intently, his eyes burning with suppressed excitement; then he stepped reluctantly back into the house and resumed his seat.

      “I guess it’s only those Mexican herders,” he said. “They shoot that way to drive their sheep.”

      “But look!” cried Lucy, pointing out the door, “the Black Butte is afire! Just see that great smoke!”

      Hardy sprang up again and dashed out into the open. The popping of thirty-thirtys had ceased, but from the summit of the square-topped butte a signal fire rose up to heaven, tall and straight and black.

      “Aha!” he muttered, and without looking at her he ran out to the corral to saddle Chapuli. But when he came back he rode slowly, checking the impatience of his horse, until at last he dismounted beside her. For days his eyes had been furtive and evasive, but now at last they were steady.

      “Lucy,” he said, “I haven’t been very honest with you, but I guess you know what this means –– the boys are turning back the sheep.” His voice was low and gentle, and he stood very straight before her, like a soldier. Yet, even though she sensed what was in his mind, Lucy smiled. For a month he had been to her like another man, a man without emotion or human thought, and now in a moment he had come back, the old Rufus that she had known in her heart so long.

      “Yes,” she said, holding out her hand to him, “I knew it. But you are working for me, you know, and I cannot let you go. Listen, Rufus,” she pleaded, as he drew away, “have I ever refused you anything? Tell me what you want to do.”

      “I want to go down there and help turn back those sheep,” he said, bluntly. “You know me, Lucy –– my heart is in this fight –– my friends are in it –– and I must go.”

      He waited for some answer, but Lucy only turned away. There were tears in her eyes when she looked back at him and her lips trembled, but she passed into the house without a word. Hardy gazed wonderingly after her and his heart smote him; she was like some sensitive little child to whom every rough word was a blow, and he had hurt her. He glanced at the signal fire that rolled up black and sombre as the watcher piled green brush upon it, then he dropped his bridle rein and stepped quickly into the house.

      “You must forgive me, Lucy,” he said, standing humbly at the door. “I –– I am changed. But do not think that I will come to any harm –– this is not a battle against men, but sheep. No one will be killed. And now may I go?” Once more his voice became low and gentle and he stood before her like some questing knight before his queen, but she only sat gazing at him with eyes that he could not understand.

      “Listen, Lucy,” he cried, “I will not go unless you tell me –– and now may I go?”

      A smile came over Lucy’s face but she did not speak her thoughts.

      “If you will stay for my sake,” she said, “I shall be very happy, but I will not hold you against your will. Oh, Rufus, Rufus!” she cried, suddenly holding out her hands, “can’t you understand? I can’t set myself against you, and yet –– think what it is to be a woman!” She rose up and stood before him, the soft light glowing in her eyes, and Hardy stepped forward to meet her; but in that moment a drumming of hoofs echoed through the doorway, there was a rush of horsemen leaning forward as they rode, and then Jefferson Creede thundered by, glancing back as he spurred down the cañon to meet the sheep.

      “My God!” whispered Hardy, following his flight with startled eyes, and as the rout of cowboys flashed up over the top of Lookout Point and were gone he bowed his head in silence.

      “Lucy,” he said, at last, “my mind has been far away. I –– I have not seen what was before me, and I shall always be the loser. But look –– I have two friends in all the world, you and Jeff, and you are the dearer by far. But you could see as Jeff went by that he was mad. What he will do at the river I can only guess; he is crazy, and a crazy man will do anything. But if I am with him I can hold him back –– will you let me go?” He held out his hands and as Lucy took them she saw for the first time in his shy eyes –– love. For a moment she gazed at him wistfully, but her heart never faltered. Whatever his will might be she would never oppose it, now that she had his love.

      “Yes, Rufus,” she said, “you may go, but remember –– me.”

      CHAPTER XXIII

       THE LAST CROSSING

       Table of Contents

      The rush and thunder of cow ponies as they hammered over the trail and plunged down through the rocks and trees had hardly lost its echoes in the cliffs when, with a flash of color and a dainty pattering of hoofs, Chapuli came flying over the top of Lookout Point and dashed up the river after them. The cowmen had left their horses in the deep ravine at the end of the malpai bluffs and were already crouched behind the rampart of the rim rocks as close as Indian fighters, each by some loophole in the blackened malpai, with a rifle in his hand. As Hardy crept in from behind, Jeff Creede motioned him to a place at his side greeting him at the same time with a broad grin.

      “Hello, sport,” he said, “couldn’t keep out of it, eh? Well, we need ye, all right. Here, you can hold straighter than I can; take my gun and shoot rainbows around the leaders when they start to come across.”

      “Not much,” answered Hardy, waving the gun away, “I just came down to keep you out of trouble.”

      “Ye-es!” jeered Creede, “first thing I know you’ll be down there fightin’ ’em back with rocks. But say,” he continued, “d’ye notice anything funny up on that cliff? Listen, now!”

      Hardy turned his head, and soon above the clamor of the sheep he made out the faint “Owwp! Owwwp!” of hounds.

      “It’s Bill Johnson, isn’t it?” he said, and Creede nodded significantly.

      “God help them pore sheepmen,” he observed, “if Bill has got his thirty-thirty. Listen to ’em sing, will ye! Ain’t they happy, though? And they don’t give a dam’ for us –– ump-um –– they’re comin’ across anyway. Well, that’s what keeps hell crowded –– let ’er go!”

      There was a glitter of carbines against the opposite cliffs where the spare herders had taken to cover, but out on the rocky point where the chute led into the river a gang of Mexicans and two Americans were leading their wagon cover around a fresh cut of goats and sheep. On the sand bar far below the stragglers from the first cut, turned back in the initial rush, were wandering aimlessly about or plodding back to the herd, but the sheepmen with bullheaded persistence were preparing to try again. Chief among them towered the boss, Jasper Swope, wet to the waist from swimming across the river; and as he motioned to the herders to go ahead he ran back and mounted his mule again. With a barbaric shout the Mexicans surged forward on the tarpaulin, sweeping their cut to the very edge; then, as the goats set their feet and held back, a swarthy herder leapt into the midst and СКАЧАТЬ