Prairie Flowers

by James B. Hendryx

  CHAPTER X

  JANET MCWHORTER

  The Texan stirred uneasily. Vaguely, he sensed that something was wrong.His head ached horribly but he didn't trouble to open his eyes. He wasin the corral lying cramped against the fence where the Red King hadthrown him, and with bared teeth, and forefeet pawing the air, the RedKing was coming toward him. Another moment and those terrible hoofswould be striking, cutting, trampling him into the trodden dirt of thecorral. Why didn't someone haze him off? Would they sit there on thefence and see him killed? "Whoa, boy--Whoa!" In vain he struggled toraise an arm--it was held fast, and his legs were pinned to the groundby a weight! He struggled violently, his eyes flew open and--there wasno Red King, no corral--only a grassed slope strewn with rocks againstone of which his head rested. But why was he tied? With great effort herolled over. The weight that held his legs shifted, and he found thatone of his arms was free. He sat up and stared, and instantlyrecollection of the events of the night, brutally vivid, crowded hisbrain. There was no slow, painful tracing step by step, of thehappenings of the past twelve hours. The whole catenation in propersequence presented itself in one all-embracing vision--a scene paintedon canvas, rather than the logical continuity of a screen picture.

  The unconscious form of the girl lay across his legs. Her temple, andpart of her cheek that lay within range of his vision were white withthe pallor of death, and the hand that stretched upward toward his own,showed blue and swollen from the effect of the tightly knotted scarf.Swiftly the man untied the knots, and staggering to his feet, raised thelimp form and half-carried, half-dragged it to a tiny plateau higher upthe slope. Very gently he laid the girl on the grass, loosened her shirtat the throat, and removed her wet boots. Her hands and feet were icecold, and he chafed them vigorously. Gradually, under the rubbing thesluggish blood flowed. The blue look faded from her hand and a slighttinge of colour crept into her cheeks. With a sigh of relief, the Texangrasped her by the shoulder and shook her roughly. After a few momentsher eyelids fluttered slightly, and her lips moved. The shakingcontinued, and he bent to catch the muttered words:

  "Win----"

  "Yeh, Win'll be 'long, directly. Come, wake up!"

  "Win--dear--I'm--so--sleepy."

  She was asleep again as the words left her lips and the man, squattingon his heels, nodded approval. "That's what I wanted to know--that sheain't drowned. If there'd been any water in her lungs she'd havecoughed."

  He stood up and surveyed his surroundings. At the water's edge, not ahundred feet below the spot where the horse had dragged them against therocks, the flat-boat lay heavily aground. Relieved of its burden, it hadbeen caught in the slowly revolving back current that circled the tinybay, and had drifted ashore. Removing the scarf from his wrist, heknotted it into place and descended to the boat where he fished his hatfrom the half-filled hull. The handle of the ax caught his eye andsearching his pockets, he examined his supply of matches, and cast theworthless sticks from him with an oath: "Heads plumb soaked off, or Icould build her a fire!"

  As he ascended the bank the sun just topped the rim of the bench. Itsrays felt grateful to the chilled man as he stood looking down at thesleeping girl. "It'll dry her, an' warm her up, while I'm huntin' thatdamn cayuse," he muttered. "The quicker she gets to some ranch house,the better it'll be. I wish I knew where I'm at."

  Once more he descended to the water's edge, and searched the ground. Itwas but the work of a moment to pick up the trail of the gallopinghorse, and he followed it up the coulee, making his way gingerly in hisstockinged feet among the loose stones and patches of prickly pears."Wish I'd left my boots in the boat, but I figured old Powder Facewould stop when he got to shore instead of smashin' us again' the rocksan' lightin' out like the devil was after him--he's old enough to knowbetter. An' I wonder how in hell she come to be ridin' him? Powder Faceis one of Dad's own special horses."

  The coulee wound interminably. The cowboy glanced at his feet where atoe protruded from a hole in his sock, and seating himself on a boulderhe removed the socks and crammed them into his pocket. "Wouldn't benothin' left of 'em but legs in a little bit," he grumbled, andinstinctively felt for his tobacco and papers. He scowled at the soggymass and replaced them. "Ain't got a match even if I did dry thetobacco. I sure feel like I'd died an' went to hell!"

  He continued along the coulee limping painfully across stretches ofsharp stones and avoiding the innumerable patches of prickly pears withwhich the floor of the valley was dotted. Rounding a sharp spur of rockthat protruded into the ravine, he halted abruptly and stared at hisboots which lay directly in his path. He grinned as he examined thebroken thong. "I've be'n cussin' busted pack-strings all my life," hemuttered, "but this particular string has wiped out the whole scoreagain' 'em." Removing his leather chaps, he seated himself, drew on hissocks, and inserted a foot into a boot. In vain he pulled and tugged atthe straps. The wet leather gripped the damp sock like a vise. He stoodup and stamped and pulled but the foot stuck fast at the ankle of theboot. Withdrawing the foot, he fished in his hip pocket and withdrew athin piece of soap from the folds of a red cotton handkerchief. Onceagain he sat down and proceeded to rub the soap thickly upon the heelsand insteps of his socks and inside of his boots, whereupon, after muchpulling and stamping, he stood properly shod and drew on his chaps.

  A short distance farther on, a cattle trail zigzagged down the steepside of the coulee. The Texan paused at the foot of it. "Reckon I'lljust climb up onto the bank an' take a look around. With that ropetrailin' along from the saddle horn, that damn cayuse might run his foolhead off."

  From the rim of the coulee, the man gazed about him, searching for afamiliar landmark. A quarter of a mile away, a conical butte rose to aheight of a hundred feet above the level of the broken plain, and theTexan walked over and laboriously climbed its steep side. He sank downupon the topmost pinnacle and studied the country minutely. "Just belowthe edge of the bad lands," he muttered. "The Little Rockies loom upplain, an' the Bear Paws an' Judiths look kind of dim. I'm way off myrange down here. This part of the country don't look like it had nonetoo thick of a population." In vain his eyes swept the vast expanse ofplain for the sight of a ranch house. He rose in disgust. "I've got tofind that damn cayuse an' get _her_ out of this, somehow." As he wasabout to begin the descent his eye caught a thin thread of smoke thatrose, apparently from a coulee some three or four miles to the eastward."Maybe some nester's place, or maybe only an' Injun camp, but whateverit is, my best bet is to hit for it. I might be all day trailin' PowderFace. Whoever it is, they'll have a horse or two, an' believe me,they'll part with 'em." He scrambled quickly down to the bench andstarted in the direction of the smoke, and as he walked, he removed thesix-gun from its holster and after wiping it carefully, made sure thatit was in working condition.

  The Texan's course lay "crossways of the country," that is, in order toreach his objective he must needs cross all the innumerable coulees andbranches that found their way to the Missouri. And as he had nottravelled far back from the river these coulees were deep and theirsteep sides taxed his endurance to the utmost. At the bottom of eachcoulee he drank sparingly of the bitter alkali water, and wet thebandage about his throbbing head. After each climb he was forced torest. A walk of three or four miles in high-heeled riding boots assumesthe proportions of a real journey, even under the most favourablecircumstances, but with the precipitous descents, the steep climbs, andthe alkali flats between the coulees, which in dry weather are dazzlingwhite, and hard and level as a floor, now merely grey greasy beds ofslime into which he sank to the ankles at each step, the trip proved anightmare of torture.

  At the end of an hour he figured that he had covered half the distance.He was plodding doggedly, every muscle aching from the unaccustomedstrain. His feet, which burned and itched where the irritating soaprubbed into his skin, had swollen until the boots held them in avise-like grip of torture. At each step he lifted pounds of glue-likemud which clung to the legs of his leather chaps in a thick grey smear.And each
step was a separate, conscious, painful effort, that required aconcentration of will to consummate.

  And so he plodded, this Texan, who would have cursed the petty mishap ofan ill-thrown loop to the imminent damnation of his soul, enduring thephysical torture in stoic silence. Once or twice he smiled grimly, thecynical smile that added years to the boyish face. "When I see her safeat some ranch, I'll beat it," he muttered thickly. "I'll go somewherean' finish my jamboree an' then I'll hit fer some fresh range." To hissurprise he suddenly found that the mere thought of whisky wasnauseating to him. His memory took him back to a college town in hisnative State. "It used to be that way," he grinned, "when I'd getsoused, I couldn't look at a drink for a week. I reckon stayin' off ofit for a whole year has about set me back where I started."

  He half-climbed, half-fell down the steep side of a coulee and dippedhis aching head in the cool water at the bottom. With a stick he scrapedthe thick smear of grey mud from his chaps and boots, and washed them inthe creek. He rose to his feet and stood looking down into a clearlittle pool. "By God, I can't go--like that!" he said aloud. "I've gotto stay an' face Win! I've got to know that he don't think there'sanything--wrong--with her!"

  Instead of climbing the opposite slope, he followed down the coulee, forhe had seen from the edge that it led into a creek valley ofconsiderable width, above the rim of which rose the thin grey plume ofsmoke. Near the mouth of the coulee he crawled through a wire fence."First time a nester's fence ever looked good to me," he grinned, and ata shallow pool, paused to remove the last trace of mud from his chaps,wash his face and hands, box his hat into the proper peak, and jerk thebrilliant scarf into place.

  "She can rest up here till I find Win," he said aloud, and stepped intothe valley, trying not to limp as he picked his way among the scatteredrocks. "Sheep outfit," he muttered, as he noted the close-cropped grass,and the stacked panels of a lambing pen. Then, rounding a thicket ofscrub willows, he came suddenly upon the outfit, itself.

  He halted abruptly, as his eyes took in every detail of the scene. Alittle dirt roofed cabin of logs, a rambling straw thatched sheep shed,a small log barn, and a pole corral in which two horses dozed dreamily.The haystacks were behind the barn, and even as he looked, a generousforkful of hay rolled over the top of the corral fence, and the horsescrossed over and thrust their muzzles into its fragrant depths. Ahalf-dozen weak old ewes snipped half-heartedly at the short buffalograss, and three or four young lambs frisked awkwardly about thedoor-yard on their ungainly legs.

  Another forkful of hay rolled over the corral fence, and making his wayaround the barn, the Texan came abruptly face to face with Miss JanetMcWhorter. The girl stood, pitchfork in hand, upon a ledge of thehalf-depleted haystack and surveyed him calmly, as a startled expressionswiftly faded from her large, blue-black eyes. "Well you're the secondone this morning; what do _you_ want?"

  The Texan noticed that the voice was rich, with low throaty tones andalso he noticed that it held a repellent note. There was veiledhostility--even contempt in the peculiar emphasis of the "you." He sweptthe Stetson from his head: "I'm afoot," he answered, simply, "I'd liketo borrow a horse."

  The girl jabbed the fork into the hay, gathered her skirts about her,and slipped gracefully from the stack. She walked over and stooddirectly before him. "This is McWhorter's outfit," she announced, as ifthe statement were a good and sufficient answer to his plea.

  The cowboy looking straight into the blue-black eyes, detected a faintgleam of surprise in their depths, that her statement apparently meantnothing to him. He smiled: "Benton's my name--Tex Benton, range foremanof the Y Bar. And, is this Mrs. McWhorter?"

  "The Y Bar!" exclaimed the girl, and Tex noticed that the gleam andsurprise hardened into a glance of open skepticism. "Who owns the Y Bar,now?"

  "Same man that's owned it for the last twenty years--Mr. Colston."

  "You must know him pretty well if you're his foreman?"

  "Tolerable," answered the man, "I've been with him most every day for ayear."

  A swift smile curved the red lips--a smile that hinted of craft ratherthan levity. "I wonder what's worrying him most, nowadays--Mr. Colston,I mean."

  "Worryin' him?" The Texan's eyes twinkled. "Well, a man runnin' anoutfit like the Y Bar has got plenty on his mind, but the only thingthat right down worries him is the hair on his head--an' just betweenyou an' me, he ain't goin' to have to worry long."

  The air of reserve--of veiled hostility dropped from the girl like amask, and she laughed--a spontaneous outburst of mirth that kindled newlights in the blue-black eyes, and caused a fanlike array of littlewrinkles to radiate from their corners: "I'll answer your question now,"she said. "I'm Mrs. Nobody, thank you--I'm Janet McWhorter. But whatare you doing on this side of the river? And how's Mr. Colston?"

  "He's just the finest ever," replied the cowboy, and the girl was quickto note the deep feeling behind the words. "An' I--two of us--weretryin' to cross on the Long Bill's ferry from Timber City, an' the driftpiled up again' us so we had to cut the cable, an' we got throw'd intoshore against the bench three or four miles above here."

  "Where's your friend? Is he hurt?" Her eyes rested with a puzzledexpression upon the edge of the white bandage that showed beneath thebrim of his hat.

  The Texan shook his head: "No, not hurt I reckon. Just plumb wore out,an' layin' asleep on the bank. I've got to go back."

  "You'll need two horses."

  The man shook his head: "No, only one. We had our horses with us. Welost one in the river, an' the other pulled us ashore, an' then beat itup the coulee. I can catch him up all right, if I can get holt of ahorse."

  "Of course you can have a horse! But, you must eat first----"

  "I can't stop. There'll be time for that later. I'm goin' to bring--myfriend back here."

  "Of course you're going to bring him back here! But you are about all inyourself. Three or four miles through the mud and across the coulees inhigh-heeled boots, and with your head hurt, and sopping wet, and nobreakfast, and--I bet you haven't even had a smoke! Come on, you can eata bite while I fix up something for your friend, and then you can tacklesome of Dad's tobacco. I guess it's awful strong but it will makesmoke--clouds of it!"

  She turned and led the way to the house and as the Texan followed hiseyes rested with a suddenly awakened interest upon the girl. "Curiousshe'd think of me not havin' a smoke," he thought, as his glance strayedfrom the shapely ankles to the well-rounded forearms from which thesleeves of her grey flannel shirt had been rolled back, and then to themass of jet black hair that lay coiled in thick braids upon her head. Hewas conscious that a feeling of contentment--a certain warm glow ofwell-being pervaded him, and he wondered vaguely why this should be.

  "Come right on in," she called over her shoulder as she entered thedoor. "I'll have things ready in a jiffy?" As she spoke, she slid a lidfrom the top of the stove, jammed in a stick of firewood, set thecoffee-pot directly on to the fire, and placed a frying pan beside it.From a nail she took a slab of bacon and sliced it rapidly. In thedoorway the Texan stood watching, in open admiration, the swift, sureprecision of her every move. She glanced up, a slice of bacon held abovethe pan, and their eyes met. During a long moment of silence the man'sheart beat wildly. The girl's eyes dropped suddenly: "Crisp, or limber?"she asked, and to the cowboy's ears, the voice sounded even richer anddeeper of tone than before.

  "Limber, please." His own words seemed to boom harshly, and he wasconscious that he was blushing to the ears.

  The girl laid the strips side by side in the pan and crossed swiftly toa cupboard. The next moment she was pouring something from a bottle intoa glass. She returned the bottle and, passing around the table, extendedthe half-filled tumbler. The liquid in it was brown, and to the man'snostrils came the rich bouquet of good whisky. He extended his hand,then let it drop to his side.

  "No, thanks," he said, "none for me."

  She regarded him in frank surprise. "You don't drink?" she cried."Why--oh, I'm glad! I hate the stuff
! Father--sometimes--Oh, I hate it!But, a cowboy that don't drink! I thought they all drank!"

  The Texan stepped to her side and, reaching for the glass, set it gentlyupon the table. As his hand touched hers a thrill shot through hisveins, and with it came a sudden longing to take the hand in his own--togather this girl into his arms and to hold her tight against his wildlythrobbing heart. The next moment he was speaking in slow measured words."They all do--me along with the rest. But, I ain't drinkin' now."