Overland Red Part 37

"Anybody see you come across yesterday?"

"Not that I know of. I kept away from the town."

"Your hoss shod?"

"Yes. All around. Why?"

"Nothin'. I'm sufferin' glad to see you again. When we get on top of the hills, you take the left trail and keep on down. You can't miss the canon. I'll leave you here. I got to stay here a spell to see that nothin' else comes up but the sun this mornin'."

"All right, Red. Your pardner down there?"

"Yep. Whistle when you get up to the meadow in the canon. Billy'll be lookin' for you."

"Any trouble lately?"

"Nope. But Billy's got a hunch, though. He says he feels it in the air."

At the crest Collie rode on down the winding trail, or rather way, for no regular trail existed. At the foot of the range he turned to the right and entered the narrow canon, following the stream until he came to the meadow, where he picketed the pony.

He continued on up the canon on foot. When he arrived at the camp, Overland was there waiting. Winthrop and he greeted Collie cordially.

"Short cut," explained Overland, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

"No hoss trail, though. Too steep."

Faint dawn lights were s.h.i.+fting along the canon walls as they had breakfast. As the morning sunlight spread to their camp Collie's natural curiosity in regard to Overland's pardner was satisfied. He saw a straight, slender figure, in flannel s.h.i.+rt and khaki. The gray eyes were peculiarly keen and humorous. Winthrop was not a little like his sister Anne in poise and coloring. The hands were nervously slender and aristocratic, albeit roughened and scarred by toil. There was a suggestion of dash and go about Winthrop that appealed to Collie. Even in repose the Easterner seemed to be alert. Undoubtedly he would make a good companion in any circ.u.mstance.

"There's spare blankets in the tent. Roll in for a snooze, Collie. Billy and me'll pack your saddle and stuff up here later."

"I guess I will. You might sponge Yuma's back a little, Red. She's brought me close to two hundred miles in the last three days."

"Sure, Bo! I'll brush her teeth and manicure her toe-nails if you say the word. I guess that hoss has kind of made a hit with you."

Collie yawned. "Mebby. But it isn't in it with the hit she'll make with you if you try to take up her feet. She's half-sister to a shot of dynamite. I'm only telling you so she won't kick your fool head off."

"You talk like most a full-size man," said Overland.

Down at the meadow, Overland looked at the colt and shook his head. "He is correct," he said succinctly. "That hoss don't welcome handlin' worth a bean."

Winthrop's silence rather stirred Overland's sensitive pride in his horsemans.h.i.+p. "'Course I broke and rode hundreds like her, down in Mex.

But then I was paid for doin' it. It was my business then. Now, minin'

and educatin' Collie is my business, and a busted neck wouldn't help any."

Winthrop realized for the first time that Overland's supreme interest in life was Collie's welfare. Heretofore the paternal note had not been evident. Winthrop had imagined them chums, friends, tramps together.

They were more than that. Overland considered Collie an adopted son.

The Easterner glanced at Overland's broad shoulders stooped beneath the weight of the heavy stock saddle. Something in the man's humorous simplicity, his entire willingness to serve those whom he liked and his stiff indifference to all others, appealed to Winthrop. So this flotsam of the range, this erstwhile tramp, this paradox of coa.r.s.eness and sentiment, had an object in life? A laudable object: that of serving with his sincerest effort the boy friend he had picked up on the desert, a castaway.

As they toiled up the stream toward the camp, Winthrop recalled their former chats by the night-fire. Now he began to see the drift of Overland's then frequent references to Collie. And there was a girl,--mentioned by Overland almost reverently,--the Rose Girl, Louise Lacharme, of whom Anne Marshall had written much in eulogy to him. And Winthrop himself?

His swift introspection left him aware that of them all he alone seemed to lack a definite aim. Making money--mining--was still to him a game, interesting and healthful, but play. To Overland it was life. Winthrop saw himself as he was. His improved health scoffed at the idea of becoming sentimental about it. He laughed, and Overland, turning, regarded him with bushy, interrogative brows.

"Nothing," said Winthrop.

"Ain't you feelin' good lately, Billy?"

"I'm all right."

"Glad of that. It's good to forget you got such a thing as health if you want to keep it. If you get to lookin' for it, like as not you'll find it's gone."

"I'm looking for something entirely different. Something you have--something that I never possessed."

"I don't know anything I got that you haven't 'less it's that new Stetson I got in Los. You can have her, Billy, and welcome. Your lid _is_ gettin' on the b.u.m."

"Not that," laughed Winthrop. "Something you keep under it."

"'T ain't me hair. I'm plumb sure of that."

"No."

"Mebby you're jealous of some of me highbrow ideas?"

"Add an 'l' and you have it."

"I-d-e-a-l-s. Oh, ideals, eh? Never owned none except that little electric do-diddle-um of the Guzzuh what makes the spark to keep the machinery goin'. That's called the 'Ideal.'"

"The spark to keep the machinery going--that's it," said Winthrop.

At the camp he prepared to make his trip to the Moonstone Ranch. He read his sister's letter over and over again. Finally he sauntered up the canon to where Overland was at work. "I'll lend a hand," he said, in answer to Overland's questioning face. "I don't believe I'll go before to-morrow night. It is hardly right to leave the minute my new pardner arrives. I want to talk with him."

Overland nodded. "Guess you're right. It won't hurt to keep in the shadow of the hills for a day or two. Can't tell who might 'a' spotted Collie ridin' out this way."

That afternoon, toward evening, Collie arose, refreshed, and eager to inspect the claim. He could hear the faint click of pick and shovel up the canon. He stretched himself, drank from the stream, and sauntered toward the meadow. He would see to his pony first.

He found the horse had been picketed afresh by Overland when he had come for the saddle. He was returning toward camp when he heard a slight noise behind him--the noise a man's boot makes stepping on a pebble that turns beneath his weight.

Collie wheeled quickly, saw nothing unusual, and turned again toward the camp. Then he hesitated. He would look down the canon. He realized that he was unarmed. Then he grew ashamed of his hesitancy. He picked his way down the stream. A buzzard circled far above the cliffs. The air hummed with invisible bees in the rank wild clover. He peered past the next bend. A short distance below stood a riderless horse. The bridle was trailing. For an instant Collie did not realize the significance of the animal waiting patiently for its rider. Then, like the flash of a speeding film, he saw it all--his pony's tracks up the canon--the rider who had undoubtedly seen him crossing to the water-hole, and who had waited until daylight to follow the tracks; who had dismounted, and was probably in ambush watching him. He summoned all his reserve courage.

Turning away, he remarked, distinctly, naturally, casually, "Thought I heard something. Must have been the water."

He walked slowly back to the notch in the canon walls. Stepping through it, he continued on up the stream. A few paces beyond the notch, and a face appeared in the cleft rock, watching him. The watcher seemed in doubt. Collie's action had been natural enough. Had he seen the horse?

The hidden face grew crafty. The eyes grew cold. The watcher tapped the side of the cliff with his revolver b.u.t.t. The noise was slight, but in that place of sensitive echoes, loud enough to be heard a long way up the canon. Then it was that Collie made a courageous but terrible mistake. He heard the sound, and seemed to realize that it was made intentionally--to attract his attention. Yet he was not sure. He kept on, ignoring the sound. Had he not suspected some one was in the canon, to have glanced back would have been the most natural thing in the world. The watcher realized this. He knew that the other had heard him--suspected his presence, and was making a daring bluff.

"Got to stop that," muttered the watcher, and he raised his hand.

The imprisoned report rolled and reechoed like mountain thunder. Collie threw up his arms and lurched forward.

Below in the canon clattered the hoofs of the speeding horse. The rider, still holding his six-gun, muzzle up, glanced back. "I didn't care partic'lar about gettin' _him_, but gettin' the kid hits the red-head between the eyes. I guess I'm about even now." And Silent Saunders holstered his gun, swung out of the canon, and spurred down the mountain, not toward the desert town, but toward Gophertown, some thirty miles to the north. He had found the claim. The desert town folk he had used to good advantage. They had paid his expenses while he trailed Overland and Collie. They had even guaranteed him protection from the law--such as it was on the Mojave. He had every reason to be grateful to them, but he was just a step or two above them in criminal artistry. He had been a "killer." Like the lone wolf that calls the pack to the hunt, he turned instinctively to Gophertown, a settlement in the hills not unknown to a few of the authorities, but unmolested by them. The atmosphere of Gophertown was not conducive to long life.