The Dude Wrangler Part 38

Miss Gaskett "heeled" Wallie with flattering faithfulness and incidentally imparted the information that a friend from Zanesville, Ohio, Miss Mercy Lane was to join their party in Prouty when the date was definitely set for their tour of the Yellowstone.

"She's a dear, sweet girl whom I knew at boarding-school, and," archly, "you must tell me that you will not fall in love with her."

Wallie, who now thought of even "dear, sweet girls" in terms of dollars and cents, felt that he could safely promise.

It was a relief when the triangle jangled for dinner, and Wallie looked forward to the ride afterward, although it had its attendant irritations--chief of which was the propensity of J. Harry Stott to gallop ahead and then gallop back to see if the party was coming: rare sport for Mr. Stott, but less so for the buckskin. As soon as that sterling young fellow had discovered that he could ride at a gallop without falling off he lost no opportunity to do so, and his horse was already showing the result of it.

Boosting Aunt Lizzie Philbrick on and off her horse to enable her to pick flowers and examine rocks was a part of the routine, as was recovering Mrs. Budlong's hairpins when her hair came down and she lost her hat. Mr. Budlong, too, never failed to lag behind and become separated from the rest of the party, so that he had to be hunted. He persisted in riding in moccasins and said that his insteps "ached him"

so that he could not keep up.

Reasoning that every occupation has drawbacks of some kind, Wallie bore these small annoyances with patience, though there were times when he confessed that The Happy Family of The Colonial were not altogether so charming and amiable as he had thought.

He never would have suspected, for instance, that J. Harry Stott, who in his own environment was a person of some little consequence, in another could appear a complete and unmitigated a.s.s. Or that Mrs. Budlong had such a wolfish appet.i.te, or that ten cents looked larger to Mr. Appel than a dollar did to Pink, or that Old Penrose was vain as a peac.o.c.k about his looks. Still, Wallie consoled himself, everyone had his idiosyncrasies, and if they had not had these they might have had worse ones.

To-day there was the usual commotion over getting off, and then when Wallie was ready to boost Aunt Lizzie on her horse she was nowhere to be found. She was not in her tent, nor had she fallen over the embankment, and the fact that she set great store by her afternoon rides deepened the mystery.

Old Mr. Penrose, who had unslung his field-gla.s.ses, declared he saw something that might be the top of Aunt Lizzie's head moving above a small "draw" over on Canby's lease. Mr. Penrose, who had sought ranch life chiefly because he said he was sick of cities and mobs of people, when not riding now spent most of his time with his high-power gla.s.ses watching the road in the hope of seeing someone pa.s.sing and he had come to be as excited when he saw a load of hay as if he had discovered a planet.

He pa.s.sed the gla.s.ses to Wallie, who adjusted them and immediately nodded:

"That's somebody in the draw; it must be Aunt Lizzie."

There was no doubt about it when she came out and started walking slowly along the top, searching, as she went, for moss-agates. Wallie gave a sharp exclamation, for, in the moment that they watched her, a small herd of the Texas cattle came around a hill and also saw her. They stopped short, and looked at the strange figure. Then, like a band of curious antelope, they edged a little closer. It might be that they would not attack her, but, if they did, it was certain they would gore her to death unless someone was there to prevent it.

Leading his own horse and dragging Aunt Lizzie's stubborn white pony behind him, Wallie threw down the wire gate opening into the Canby lease and sprang into the saddle.

He kept his eyes fixed on the cattle as he rode toward Aunt Lizzie, making the best time he could, with her cayuse pulling back obstinately on the bridle, but, in any case, he could not have seen Helene Spenceley and Canby riding from the opposite direction, for they were still on the other side of a small ridge which hid them.

Helene had stopped at the Canby ranch for luncheon on her way to pay her long-deferred visit to her whilom acquaintances of The Colonial, and though Canby had not relished the thought that she was going there, he had asked to accompany her across the leases. Pleased that she had stopped without an invitation, he was more likable than ever she had seen him, and he made no pretense of concealing the fact that she could be mistress of the most pretentious house in the country if she chose to.

Helene could not well have been otherwise than impressed by its magnificence. She was aware that with Canby's money and her personal popularity she could make an enviable position for herself very easily, and she was nothing if not ambitious. The traits in Canby which so frequently antagonized her, his arrogance, his selfish egotism and disregard of others' rights and feelings, to-day were not in evidence.

He was spontaneous, genial, boyish almost, and she never had felt so kindly disposed toward him nor so tolerant of his failings.

She looked at him speculatively now as he rode beside her and wondered if a.s.sociation would beget an affection that would do as well as love if supplemented by the many things he had to offer?

Her friendlier mood was not lost on Canby who was quick to take advantage of it. He leaned over and laid his hand on hers as it rested on the saddle horn.

"Your thoughts of me are kinder than usual, aren't they, Helene? You are less critical?" He spoke almost humbly.

She smiled at him as she admitted:

"Perhaps so."

"I wish you could think so of me always, because I should be very happy if--you----" His narrow, selfish face had a softness she never had seen in it as he paused while he groped for the exact words he wished in which to express himself.

There was no need for him to finish, for his meaning was unmistakable, and the colour rose in Helene's cheeks as she averted her eyes from his steady gaze and looked on past him.

Their horses had been climbing slowly and had now reached the top of the ridge which gave an uninterrupted view across the flat stretch which lay between them and the ranch that was such an eyesore to Canby.

As she took in the sweep of country her gaze concentrated upon the moving objects she saw in it. Puzzled at first, her look of perplexity was succeeded by one of consternation, then horror. With swift comprehension she grasped fully the meaning of a scene that was being enacted before her.

Her expression attracted Canby's attention even before she pointed and cried sharply:

"Look!"

Aunt Lizzie was still busy with her pebbles, a tiny, tragic figure she looked, in view of what was happening, as she walked along in leisurely fas.h.i.+on, stopping every step or two to pick up and examine a stone that attracted her attention.

The herd of long-horns had come closer, but one had drawn out from the others and was shaking its head as it trotted down upon her.

Wallie had long since abandoned the pony he was leading, and with all the speed his own was capable of, was doing his best to intercept the animal before it reached her. But he was still a long way off and even as Helene cried out the steer broke into a gallop.

Canby, too, instantly grasped the situation.

"If I only had a rifle!"

"Perhaps we can turn it! We'll have to make an awful run for it but we can try!"

They had already gathered the reins and were spurring their horses down the declivity.

Canby's thoroughbred leaped into the air as the steel p.r.i.c.ked it and Helene was soon left behind. She saw that she could figure only as a spectator, so she slowed down and watched what followed in fascinated horror.

Canby was considerably farther off than Wallie, in the beginning, but the racing blood in the former's horse's veins responded gallantly to the urge of its rider. It stretched out and laid down to its work like a hare with the hounds behind it, quickly equalizing the distance.

Aunt Lizzie was poking at a rock with her toe when she looked up suddenly and saw her danger. The steer with a spread of horns like antlers and tapering to needle points was rus.h.i.+ng down upon her, infuriated.

For a moment she stood, weak with terror, unable to move, until her will a.s.serted itself and then, shrieking, she ran as fast as her stiff old legs could carry her.

Wallie and Canby reached the steer almost together. A goodly distance still intervened between it and Aunt Lizzie, but the gap was shortening with sickening rapidity and Helene grew cold as she saw that, try as they might, they could not head it.

The animal seemed to be conscious only of its fleeing victim. When she ran, her flight appeared to excite and enrage it further, for it bawled with anger. The fluttering petticoats were a challenge, and the steer was bent on reaching and destroying the strange object with the weapons nature had given it. It was accustomed to hors.e.m.e.n and had no fear of them, but it saw a menace in the little old woman screaming just ahead, so it ignored Canby and Wallie, and they could not swerve it.

Helene wrung her hands in a frenzy as she watched their futile efforts.

Wallie always carried a rope on his saddle, why didn't he use it? Was he afraid? Couldn't he? She felt a swift return of her old contempt for him. Was he only a "yellow-back" cowpuncher after all, underneath his Western regalia? Momentarily she despised him. Notwithstanding his brave appearance he was as useless in a crisis like this as Canby. Pinkey was more of a man than either of them. He would stop that steer somehow if he had only his pocketknife to do it. Her lip curled disdainfully for she had an innate contempt of impotency and failure.

She cried out sharply as Aunt Lizzie stumbled and pitched headlong.

Between exhaustion and terror that paralyzed her she was unable to get up, though she tried. The steer, flaming-eyed, was now less than fifty yards from her.

Helene felt herself grow nauseated. She meant to close her eyes when it happened. She had seen a horse gored to death by a bull and it was a sight she did not wish to see repeated.

Canby in advance of Wallie was a little ahead of the steer, slapping at it with his bridle-reins, Wallie behind had been crowding its shoulder.

But nothing could divert it from its purpose.

Helene was about to turn her head away when she saw Wallie lay the reins on his horse's neck and lean from the saddle.

His purpose flashed through Helene's mind instantly. Then she cried aloud--incredulously:

"He's going to try _that_!" And added in a frightened whisper: "He can't do it! He can never do it!"

Wallie's horse, which had been running at the steer's shoulder, missed his hand on the reins and lagged a little, so that the distance between them was such as to make what he meant to attempt seemingly impossible.