Bunch Grass Part 57

"The shoulder's a sight worse than that," said Bud sulkily. Jeff displayed honest concern.

"Pore little Bud," said he, patting the boy's hand which lay in his own. "It is lucky fer me Miss Sadie ain't round. I reckon she _would_ fix me for this. And I shouldn't have a word for her, as I was tellin' ye. She'd think me the biggest kind of a mug."

So speaking, he picked up the photograph and half slipped it into the case.

"Twon't do fer me to look at her," he murmured; "but if ever there was a case----"

"Eh?"

"Never mind."

"What were you going to say?"

"Somethin' very fullish."

"Say it, Jeff. I'll not give ye away to Sadie. Honest, I won't."

"I believe," said Jeff solemnly, "that I've got it where the bottle got the cork. It's a curious sort o' feeling, not unpleasant, but kind o' squirmy."

"What in thunder are you at?"

"It's love, Bud--love at first sight. Now, mind--yer not to give me away. I'm in love end over end with your sister. Don't git mad! She'll never know it."

"Are you often taken this way?"

"Never before, by Jing! That's what's so queer. Mebbee I pitched on my head. Mebbee I'm delirious."

"Mebbee you always were--half-baked. Looks like it, I must say. Give me the case."

"Any more sisters, Bud? I reckon not. The mould must ha' been broke when Miss Sadie was born. One'll make trouble enough for we men. Is there another, Bud?"

"No."

"There's another picture in there."

"Yes--Dad's."

Now it chanced that as Jeff drew the portrait of Bud's father from the case the boy had turned, and so missed the amazing expression of surprise, dismay, horror, that flitted into Jeff's honest face, and for the moment distorted it. But when he spoke his voice was the same, and his features were composed.

"This is your--dad?"

"Yes. I call him a peach." "It's a fine head--sure," murmured Jeff.

Bud bent over him, eager to sing the praises of his sire. But, for the first time since man and boy had met, Jeff's face a.s.sumed a hard, professional look. Bud eyed him interrogatively.

"Does your leg hurt any?"

"N-n-o."

"I'll fetch some more hot water, if you say so."

"I'm feelin' a heap easier--in my leg."

He put the two photographs into the case, closed it, and handed it to Bud with a sigh.

"Maybe you will meet Sadie some day," said Bud, taking the case.

"Maybe," Jeff replied, with an indifference which made the boy stare.

Jeff was gazing across the foothills with a queer steely glint in his blue eyes. Bud ran into the house.

Instantly, Jeff was alert. He pulled a tattered handbill from his pocket, smoothed it out, and read it with darkening brows. The bill offered a handsome reward for any information which would lead to the arrest of one Sillett, a defaulting a.s.sistant-cas.h.i.+er of a Santa Barbara bank. Sillett and his _daughter_ had disappeared in a springboard, drawn by a buckskin horse, and were supposed to have travelled south, in the hope of crossing the border into Mexico. At the head of the bill was a rough woodcut of Sillett. Jeff crumpled up the sheet of paper, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"It's him--sure 'nough," he growled. Then he gasped suddenly, "Jee- roosalem! Bud is a rosebud!"

He smiled, frowned, and tugged at his moustache as Bud appeared with some more hot water. Jeff blushed.

"You're real kind, but I hate to give ye all this trouble."

Bud, after bathing the swollen leg, glanced up sharply.

"You're as red as the king of hearts. You ain't going to have a fever?"

"I do feel kind o' feverish," Jeff admitted.

Bud lightly touched his forehead.

"Why, it's burning hot, I do declare."

Jeff closed his eyes, murmuring confusedly, "I b'lieve it'd help me some if you was to stroke my derned head."

Bud obediently smoothed his crisp curls. Jeff's forehead was certainly hot, and it grew no cooler beneath the touch of Bud's fingers.

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed Bud, a few minutes later.

"Here's Dad coming across the creek."

Sillett advanced leisurely, not seeing the figures under the live-oak.

He carried a tin box and a b.u.t.terfly-net. He was dressed in the brown over-alls of Southern California, stained and discoloured by sun and tar-weed. His face, brown as the over-alls, had, however, a pinched look, and in his eyes lay a curious tenseness familiar enough to deputy-sheriffs. For the rest, he had a mild forehead, which he was wiping as he crossed the creek, a pleasant mouth, and a chin a thought too delicately modelled for a man. He walked soberly, with the dragging stride of a tired pedestrian. He was tall, thin, and angular.

Bud ran to meet him.

"We've comp'ny," he cried, indicating Jeff. Sillett quickened his step.

"Company?"

Sillett met Jeff's glance with a simple bow, and the inevitable remark, "Hurt yourself?"