The Greatest Adventure Books - MacLeod Raine Edition. William MacLeod Raine

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      Chapter XIV.

       Howard Explains

       Table of Contents

      Two horsemen rode into Millikan’s Draw and drew up in front of the big ranch house. To the girl who stepped to the porch to meet them they gave friendly greeting. One of them asked:

      “How’re things coming, Arlie?”

      “Better and better every day, Dick. Yesterday the doctor said he was out of danger.”

      “It’s been a tough fight for Steve,” the other broke in. “Proper nursing is what pulled him through. Doc says so.”

      “Did he say that, Alec? I’ll always think it was doc. He fought for that life mighty hard, boys.”

      Alec Howard nodded: “Doc Lee’s the stuff. Here he comes now, talking of angels.”

      Doctor Lee dismounted and grinned. “Which of you lads is she making love to now?”

      Arlie laughed. “He can’t understand that I don’t make love to anybody but him,” she explained to the younger men.

      “She never did to me, doc,” Dick said regretfully.

      “No, we were just talking about you, doc.”

      “Fire ahead, young woman,” said the doctor, with assumed severity. “I’m here to defend myself now.”

      “Alec was calling you an angel, and I was laughing at him,” said the girl demurely.

      “An angel—huh!” he snorted.

      “I never knew an angel that chewed tobacco, or one that could swear the way you do when you’re mad,” continued Arlie.

      “I don’t reckon your acquaintance with angels is much greater than mine, Miss Arlie Dillon. How’s the patient?”

      “He’s always wanting something to eat, and he’s cross as a bear.”

      “Good for him! Give him two weeks now and he’ll be ready to whip his weight in wild cats.”

      The doctor disappeared within, and presently they could hear his loud, cheerful voice pretending to berate the patient.

      Arlie sat down on the top step of the porch.

      “Boys, I don’t know what I would have done if he had died. It would have been all my fault. I had no business to tell him the names of you boys that rode in the raid, and afterward to tell you that I told him,” she accused herself.

      “No, you had no business to tell him, though it happens he’s safe as a bank vault,” Howard commented.

      “I don’t know how I came to do it,” the girl continued. “Jed had made me suspicious of him, and then I found out something fine he had done for me. I wanted him to know I trusted him. That was the first thing I thought of, and I told it. He tried to stop me, but I’m such an impulsive little fool.”

      “We all make breaks, Arlie. You’ll not do it again, anyhow,” France comforted.

      Doctor Lee presently came out and pronounced that the wounded man was doing well. “Wants to see you boys. Don’t stay more than half an hour. If they get in your way, sweep ‘em out, Arlie.”

      The cowpunchers entered the sick room with the subdued, gingerly tread of professional undertakers.

      “I ain’t so had as that yet, boys,” the patient laughed. “You’re allowed to speak above a whisper. Doc thinks I’ll last till night, mebbe, if I’m careful.”

      They told him all the gossip of the range—how young Ford had run off with Sallie Laundon and got married to her down at the Butte; how Siegfried had gone up and down the valley swearing he would clean out Jack Rabbit Run if Steve died; how Johnson had had another row with Jed and had chosen to take water rather than draw. Both of his visitors, however, had something on their minds they found some difficulty in expressing.

      Alec Howard finally broached it.

      “Arlie told you the names of some of the boys that were in the Squaw Creek sheep raid. She made a mistake in telling you anything, but we’ll let that go in the discard. It ain’t necessary that you should know the names of the others, but I’m going to tell you one of them, Steve.”

      “No, I don’t want to know.”

      “This is my say-so. His name is Alec Howard.”

      “I’m sorry to hear that, Alec. I don’t know why you have told me.”

      “Because I want you to know the facts of that raid, Steve. No killing was on the program. That came about in a way none of us could foresee.”

      “This is how it was, Steve,” explained Dick. “Word came that Campeau was going to move his sheep into the Squaw Creek district. Sheep never had run there. It was understood the range there was for our cattle. We had set a dead line, and warned them not to cross it. Naturally, it made us sore when we heard about Campeau.

      “So some of us gathered together hastily and rode over. Our intentions were declared. We meant to drive the sheep back and patrol the dead line. It was solemnly agreed that there was to be no shooting, not even of sheep.”

      The story halted here for a moment before Howard took it up again. “Things don’t always come out the way you figure them. We didn’t anticipate any trouble. We outnumbered them two to one. We had the advantage of the surprise. You couldn’t guess that for anything but a cinch, could you?”

      “And it turned out different?”

      “One of us stumbled over a rock as we were creeping forward. СКАЧАТЬ