Out Of The Depths Part 18

"So that's your idea," he replied. "Of course, honey, you meant well.

But he's a pretty big man, according to all the reports. What if he--"

The cowman stopped, unable to state the calamity he dreaded.

"Yes, what if?" bravely declared his daughter. "Isn't it best to know the worst, and have it over?"

"Well--I don't know but what you're right, honey."

"It's your say, Mr. Knowles," put in Gowan. "If you want the tenderfeet on your range, all right. If you don't, I'll engage to head back any bunch of engineers agoing, and I don't care whether they're dogies or longhorns."

"There is to be no surveying party," explained Isobel. "Mr. Blake is coming to visit us with his wife and baby. Here is his letter."

"Hey?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Knowles. He read the letter with frowning deliberation, and pa.s.sed it on to Gowan. "Well, he seems to be square enough. Guess we'll have to send over for him, honey, long as you asked him to come."

"Oh, you will, Daddy!" she cried. She gave him a delicious kiss and cuddled against his shoulder coaxingly. "You'll let me go over in the buckboard for them, won't you?"

"Kind of early in the season for you to begin hankering after city folks," he sought to tease her.

"But think of the baby!" she exclaimed as excitedly as a little girl over the prospect of a doll. "A baby on our ranch! I simply must see it at the earliest possible moment! Besides, it will look better for our hospitality for me to meet Mrs. Blake at the train, since she--That's something I meant to ask you, Lafe. What does Mr. Blake mean by saying they will leave the servants in the car?"

"I presume they are traveling in Mr. Leslie's private car, and will have it sidetracked at Stockchute," answered Ashton.

"_Whee-ew!_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Knowles. "Private car! And we're supposed to feed them!"

"It is just because of the change we will give them that they are coming out here," surmised Isobel. "Look at the letter again. Mr.

Blake expressly writes that his wife wishes to rough-it. Of course she cannot know what real roughing-it means. But if she is coming to us without a maid, we shall like her as much as--as Mr. Blake."

CHAPTER XI

SELF-DEFENSE

Nothing more was said about the trip to town until late Wednesday evening. As Knowles slammed shut his book and the young men rose to withdraw to the bunkhouse, he asked Gowan casually: "Got those harness hawsses in the corral?"

"Brought 'em in this afternoon. Greased the buckboard and overhauled the harness. Everything's in shape," answered the puncher.

Knowles merely nodded. Yet in the morning, immediately after the usual early breakfast, Gowan went up to the corral and returned driving a lively pair of broncos to the old buckboard. Ashton happened to come around the house as Knowles stepped from the front door. The cowman was followed by his daughter, attired in a new riding habit and a fas.h.i.+onable hat with a veil.

"You're just in time, Lafe," said Knowles. "Saddle a couple of hawsses and follow Chuckie to town. I mis...o...b.. that seat is cramped for three, and a baby to boot."

"But I--it looks quite wide to me," said Ashton, flus.h.i.+ng and drawing back.

"You know the size of Blake and his lady--I don't," replied the cowman. "Just the same, I want you to go along with Chuckie. There's not a puncher in this section would harm her, drunk or sober; but the fellows that come in and go out on the railroad are sometimes another sort."

"Of course I--if necessary," stammered Ashton. "Yet may I ask you to excuse me? In the event of trouble, Mr. Gowan, you know--"

"Great snakes!" called Gowan from the buckboard. "Needn't ask _me_ to go, twice!"

"Can't spare you today," said Knowles, his keen eyes fixed on Ashton in unconcealed amazement.

It was inconceivable. For the first time in his career as an employe, the tenderfoot was attempting to evade a duty,--a duty that comprised a fifty-mile ride in company with Miss Isobel Knowles!

The girl looked at Ashton with a perfect composure that betrayed no trace of her feelings.

"I'm sure there's no reason whatever why Lafe should go, if he does not wish to," she remarked. "Any of my hawsses will lead to the buckboard."

"He's going to town with you," said Knowles, his jaw setting hard with stubborn determination.

"Why, of course, Mr. Knowles, if you really think it necessary,"

reluctantly acquiesced Ashton. He put his hand into his pocket, shrugged, and asked in a hesitating manner: "May I request--I have only a small amount left from that five dollars. If you consider there are any wages owing me--Going to town, you know."

"Lord!" said the cowman. "So that's what you stuck on. 'Fraid of running out of change with a lady along. Here's the balance of your first month's wages, and more, if you want it."

He drew out a fat wallet and began counting out banknotes.

"Oh, no, not so many," said Ashton. "I wish only what you consider as owing to me now."

"You'll take an even hundred," ordered Knowles, forcing the money on him. "A man doesn't feel just right in town unless he's well heeled.

Only don't show more than a ten at a time in the saloon."

"You have chosen me to act as your daughter's escort," replied Ashton.

Quick to catch the inference of his remark, Isobel flashed him a look of approval, but called banteringly as she darted out to the buckboard: "Better move, if you expect to get near enough to escort me, this side of Stockchute."

Gowan sprang down to hand her into the buckboard. She took the reins from him and spoke to the fidgetting broncos. They plunged forward and started off on a lope. Ashton perceived that she did not intend to wait for him. He caught Gowan's look of mingled exultance and envy, and dashed for the corral. Rocket was outside, but at his call trotted to meet him, whinnying for his morning's lump of sugar. Ashton flung on saddle and bridle, and slipped inside the corral to rope his own pony. Haste made him miss the two first throws. At last he noosed the pony, and slapped on the girl's saddle and bridle.

As he raced off, pounding the pony with his rope to keep him alongside Rocket, Knowles waved to him from the house. He had saddled up in less than twice the time that Gowan could have done it,--which was a record for a tenderfoot. He waved back, but his look was heavy despite the excitement of the pursuit.

He expected to overtake Isobel in a few minutes. This he could have done had he been able to give Rocket free rein. But he had to hold back for the slower-gaited pony. Also, the girl had more of a start than he had at first realized, and she did her best to hold the handicap. Hitched to the light buckboard, her young broncos could have run a good part of the way to Stockchute. She was far out on the flat before she at last tired of the wild b.u.mping over ruts and sagebrush roots, and pulled her horses down to a walk.

"I could have kept ahead clear across to the hills," she flung back at him as he galloped up.

"You shouldn't have been so reckless!" he reproached. "Every moment I've been dreading to see you bounced out."

"That's the fun of it," she declared, her cheeks aglow and eyes sparkling with delight.

"But the road is so rough!" he protested. "Wouldn't it be easier for you to ride my pony? He's like a rocking-chair."

"No," she refused. But she smiled, by no means ill pleased at his solicitude for her comfort. She halted the broncos, and said cordially: "Tie the saddle hawsses to the back rail, and pile in. We may as well be sociable."

He hastened to accept the invitation. She moved over to the left side of the seat and relinquished the lines to him. With most young ladies this would have been a matter-of-course proceeding; from so accomplished a horsewoman it was a tactful compliment. He appreciated it at its full value, and his mood lightened. They rattled gayly along, on across the flats, up and down among the pinon clad hills, and through the sage and greasewood of the valleys.

He had thought the country a desolate wilderness; but now it seemed a Garden of Eden. Never had the girl's loveliness been more intoxicating, never had her manner to him been more charming and gracious. He could not resist the infection of her high spirits. For the greater part of the trip he gave himself over to the delight of her merry eyes and dimpling, rosy cheeks, her adorable blushes and gay repartee.

All earthly journeys and joys have an ending. The buckboard creaked up over the round of the last and highest hill, and they came in sight of the little shack town down across the broad valley. Though five miles away, every house, every telegraph pole, even the thin lines of the railroad rails appeared through the dry clear air as distinct as a miniature painting. Miles beyond, on the far side of the valley, uprose the huge bulk of Split Peak, with its white-mantled shoulders and craggy twin peaks.

But neither Ashton nor Isobel exclaimed on this magnificent view of valley and peak. Each fell silent and gazed soberly down at the dozen scattered shacks that marked the end of their outward trip. Rapidly the gravity of Ashton's face deepened to gloom and from gloom to dejection. The horses would have broken into a lope on the down grade.