Her Prairie Knight Part 16

"I thought so," grinned Keith joyously. "You're pointing straight toward Claggett."

"It doesn't matter," said Beatrice, "since you know, and you're here.

The important thing is to get to the top of that hill."

"What for?" Keith questioned.

"Why, to be there!" Beatrice opened her big eyes at him. "That," she declared whimsically, "is the top of the world, and it is mine. I found it. I want to go up there and look down."

"It's an unmerciful climb," Keith demurred hypocritically, to strengthen her resolution.

"All the better. I don't value what comes easily."

"You won't see anything, except more hills."

"I love hills--and more hills."

"You're a long way from home, and it's after one o'clock."

"I have a lunch with me, and I often stay out until dinner time."

Keith gave a sigh that shook the saddle, making up, in volume, what it lacked in sincerity. The blood in him was a-jump at the prospect of leading his Heart's Desire up next the clouds--up where the world was yet young. A man in love is fond of self-torture.

"I have not said you must go." Beatrice answered with the sigh.

"You don't have to," he retorted. "It is a self evident fact. Who wants to go prowling around these hills by night, with a lantern that smokes an' has an evil smell, losing sleep and yowling like a bunch of coyotes, hunting a misguided young woman who thinks north is south, and can't point straight up?"

"You draw a flattering picture, Mr. Cameron."

"It's realistic. Do you still insist upon getting up there, for the doubtful pleasure of looking down?" Secretly, he hoped so.

"Certainly."

"Then I shall go with you."

"You need not. I can go very well by myself, Mr. Cameron."

Beatrice was something of a hypocrite herself.

"I shall go where duty points the way."

"I hope it points toward home, then."

"It doesn't, though. It takes the trail you take."

"I never yet allowed my wishes to masquerade as Disagreeable Duty, with two big D's," she told him tartly, and started off.

"Say! If you're going up that hill, this is the trail. You'll b.u.mp up against a straight cliff if you follow that path."

Beatrice turned with seeming reluctance and allowed him to guide her, just as she had intended he should do.

"d.i.c.k tells me you have been away," she began suavely.

"Yes. I've just got back from Fort Belknap," he explained quietly, though he must have known his absence had been construed differently.

"I've rented pasturage on the reservation for every hoof I own. Great gra.s.s over there--the whole prairie like a hay meadow, almost, and little streams everywhere."

"You are very fortunate," Beatrice remarked politely.

"Luck ought to come my way once in a while. I don't seem to get more than my share, though."

"d.i.c.k will be glad to know you have a good range for your cattle, Mr.

Cameron."

"I expect he will. You may tell him, for me, that Jim Worthington--he's the agent over there, and was in college with us--says I can have my cattle there as long as he's running the place."

"Why not tell him yourself?" Beatrice asked.

"I don't expect to be over to the Pool ranch for a while." Keith's tone was significant, and Beatrice dropped the subject.

"Been fis.h.i.+ng lately?" he asked easily, as though he had not left her that day in a miff. "No. Dorman is fickle, like all male creatures.

d.i.c.k brought him two little brown puppies the other day, and now he can hardly be dragged from the woodshed to his meals. I believe he would eat and sleep with them if his auntie would allow him to."

The trail narrowed there, and they were obliged to ride single file, which was not favorable to conversation. Thus far, Beatrice thought, she was a long way from winning her wager; but she did not worry--she looked up to where the hill towered above them, and smiled.

"We'll have to get off and lead our horses over this spur," he told her, at last. "Once on the other side, we can begin to climb. Still in the humor to tackle it?"

"To be sure I am. After all this trouble I shall not turn back."

"All right," said Keith, inwardly shouting. If his Heart's Desire wished to take a climb that would last a good two hours, he was not there to object. He led her up a steep, rock-strewn ridge and into a hollow. From there the hill sloped smoothly upward.

"I'll just anchor these cayuses to a rock, to make dead-sure of them,"

Keith remarked. "It wouldn't be fun to be set afoot out here; now, would it? How would you like the job of walking home, eh?"

"I don't think I'd enjoy it much," Beatrice said, showing her one dimple conspicuously. "I'd rather ride."

"Throw up your hands!" growled a voice from somewhere.

Keith wheeled toward the sound, and a bullet spatted into the yellow clay, two inches from the toe of his boot. Also, a rifle cracked sharply. He took the hint, and put his hands immediately on a level with his hat crown.

"No use," he called out ruefully. "I haven't anything to return the compliment with."

"Well, I've got t' have the papers fur that, mister," retorted the voice, and a man appeared from the shelter of a rock and came slowly down to them--a man, long-legged and lank, with haggard, unshaven face and eyes that had hunger and dogged endurance looking out. He picked his way carefully with his feet, his eyes and the rifle fixed unswervingly at the two. Beatrice was too astonished to make a sound.

"What sort of a hold-up do you call this?" demanded Keith hotly, his hands itching to be down and busy. "We don't carry rolls of money around in the hills, you fool!"

"Oh, d.a.m.n your money!" the man said roughly. "I've got money t' burn.

I want t' trade horses with yuh. That roan, there, looks like a stayer.

I'll take him."

"Well, seeing you seem to be head push here, I guess it's a trade,"