Essential Western Novels - Volume 4. Max Brand

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      VII

      THE BUR

      IT was a cold morning that broke fair and beautiful as the hunters struck their camp. The horses felt the cinches with humped backs. Baldy was even more convex than usual.

      "Aren't you going to top him for me this morning, Blaine?" asked Marvel, as Cory started to mount his own horse.

      "I guess you don't need nobody to top your horses for you," said Blaine shortly.

      "He looks like he was going to buck for sure this morning," said Marvel.

      "I'll top him for you, Mister," said Butts.

      "Thanks," said Marvel. "I certainly don't want to get an arm or leg broken way up here in the mountains."

      "Here, hold my horse," said Butts.

      He swung gently into Marvel's saddle; and, true to form, Baldy took two or three jumps and bolted for a few hundred yards. Butts rode him on a little farther, and those at the camp saw him dismount and pick something up from the ground. Then he remounted and returned to camp at a lope.

      "What did you find?" asked Marvel.

      "Oh, I thought I seen something," said Butts, "but I didn't." He dismounted and looked to Baldy's cinches, readjusting the saddle and straightening out the blanket back of the cantle, raising the skirt of the saddle to do so; then he turned the horse over to Marvel, but it was noticeable to all that Baldy had more of a hump now than before. In fact, he was moving about nervously, and seemed to be of a mind to start bucking before he was mounted.

      As Butts threw his leg over his own horse, he winked at Bud. "It ought to be a large mornin'," he said.

      Marvel raised the skirt of his saddle and reached under the blanket. When he withdrew his hand he held it out to Butts. "This yours?" he asked, and opening his hand he revealed a bur.

      Butts tried to look innocent. "What do you mean?" he asked.

      "Oh, nothing," said Marvel, dropping the bur to the ground and mounting Baldy, from whose back the hump had immediately disappeared with the removal of the bur.

      The day's ride was to include an excursion to a point of scenic interest that would profitably occupy the time of the mounted members of the party while the chuck wagon was moving by a more direct route to the next camp.

      As they started out, Cory Blaine succeeded in pairing himself off with Kay White. The Talbots rode together, as did Bud and Butts, leaving Dora and Bruce as companions of the trail. Bert Adams rode ignominiously in the chuck wagon.

      "Well, how is the mysterious Mr. Marvel this morning?" asked the girl.

      "Just as mysterious as an old shoe," he replied.

      "Or a ladder," she suggested.

      "I think you must be one of those writer folks," he said.

      "What makes you think that?"

      "You're just hell bent on making a story out of nothing."

      "Now don't disappoint me," she said. "I am thrilled to death with mysteries in real life."

      "Well, you just go on thrilling while you can, Dora," he said with a laugh; "for you're going to find that a tired business man, off on his vacation, aint much of a range to hunt thrills on."

      "Meaning Benson Talbot?" she asked.

      "There's not a thrill in him," said Dora; "but he's the only business man in the outfit."

      "How do you reckon I live, then?" he asked.

      "I don't know," she said, "but if you're a business man, I'm a cowgirl."

      "I don't wonder you're suspicious," he said.

      "Why?" she demanded.

      "I've been reading a lot about politics in Pennsylvania, and I shouldn't blame you if you didn't trust nobody."

      "There you go again," she said.

      "Go again? What do you mean?"

      "When you are off your guard your English slips."

      He flushed slightly. "Maybe that comes from associating with cowgirls and other illiterate people," he said.

      "And maybe that also accounts for the fact that although you are supposed to be a tenderfoot, you knew immediately this morning that Butts had put a bur under Baldy's saddle."

      "Oh, pshaw," he said, "anybody could see that."

      "I didn't," she said, "and I was just as near to him as you."

      "Maybe I am more observing," he suggested.

      "Oh, not so very," she told him, "or you wouldn't have put your boot garters on backwards. By the way, where are they?"

      "I reckon they fell off yesterday when I was chasing Kay's pony."

      "Why don't you tell the truth?" she demanded. "You couldn't figure them out, and so you threw them away."

      "I always did think they were silly things," he said. "I never wear them at home."

      "I'll bet you never did. Come on, Bruce, 'fess up. You're not what you pretend to be, are you?"

      "I don't know what you think I am," he said; "but perhaps it's a good thing that I am not whatever it is, for I have heard tell that in this part of the country curiosity was sometimes a very fatal disease."

      He smiled as he spoke, but the girl caught an undertone of seriousness that sobered her. "Forgive me," she said. "I have been impossible, but really I meant nothing by it. I didn't wish to pry into your private affairs."

      "That's all right, Dora," he said with a laugh, "and you needn't be afraid. I'm not going to knife you in the back."

      "No," she said, "I know you wouldn't; but I should hate to get too curious about Butts, or even Cory Blaine."

      "Why?" he asked.