One evening in May, a tall lithe figure crept the southern base of the mountain range, following its curves with cautious feet as if fearful of discovery. It was a young man of twenty-one or two, bronzed, free of movement, agile of step. His face was firm, handsome and open, although at present a wish to escape observation caused the hazel eyes to dart here and there restlessly, while the mouth tightened in an aspect of sternness. This air of wild resolution was heightened by the cowboy's ordinary garments, and the cowboy's indispensable belt well-stocked with weapons.
On reaching the spur that formed the western jaw of the horseshoe, he crept on hands and knees, but satisfied by searching glances that the inner expanse was deserted, he half rose and stole shadow-like along the granite wall, until he had reached the hill-island that concealed the cove. Again falling on hands and knees, he drew himself slowly up among the huge flat rocks that covered the hill in all directions. In a brief time he had traversed it, and a view of the cove was suddenly unrolled below. A few yards from Brick Willock's dugout, now stood a neat log cabin, and not far from the door of this cabin was a girl of about fifteen, seated on the grass.
She had been reading, but her book had slipped to her feet. With hands clasped about her knee, and head tilted back, she was watching the lazy white clouds that stretched like wisps of scattered cotton across the blue field of the sky. At first the young man was startled by the impression that she had discovered his presence and was scrutinizing his position, but a second glance reassured him, and he stretched himself where a block of granite and, below it, a cedar tree, effectually protected him from discovery. Thus hidden, he stared at the girl unblinkingly.
He was like a thirsty traveler drinking at a cool well unexpectedly discovered in a desert country. For two years he had led the life of the cowboy, exiled from his kind, going with the boys from lower Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail, overseeing great herds of cattle, caring for them day and night, scarcely ever under a roof, even that of a dugout. Through rain and storm, the ground had been his bed, and many a blistering summer day a pony captured wild from the plains, and broken to stand like a dog, had been his only shade. During these two years of hard life, reckless companions and exacting duties, he had easily slipped into the grooves of speech and thought common to his fellows. Only his face, his unconscious movements and accents, distinguished him from the other boys of "Old Man Walker"—the boss of the "G-Bar Outfit." On no other condition but that of apparent assimilation could he have retained his place with Walker's ranchmen; and in his efforts to remove as quickly as possible the reproach of tender-foot it was not his fault that he had retained the features of a different world, or that a certain air, not of the desert, was always breaking through the crust under which he would have kept his real self out of sight. He himself was the least conscious that this was so.
For two years he had seen no one like the girl of the cove, none—though he had seen women and girls of the settlements, often enough—who even suggested her kind. Her dress, indeed, was plain enough, and obviously chosen in cheerful ignorance of forms and conventions, though the color, a delicate pink, was all he could have wished. After all, the clothes revealed nothing except absence from city shops and city standards.
That was wonderful hair, its brown tresses gleaming though untouched by the sun, as if in it were enmeshed innumerable particles of light. It seemed to glow from its very fineness, its silkiness—the kind of hair one is prompted to touch, to feel if it is really that way! The face was more wonderful, because it told many things that can not be expressed in mere hair-language. There was the seal of innocence on the lips, the proof of fearlessness in the eyes, the touch of thought on the brow, the sign of purpose about the resolute little chin. The slender brown hands spoke of life in the open air, and the glow of the cheeks told of burning suns. Her form, her attitude, spoke not only of instinctive grace, but of a certain wildness in admirable harmony with the surrounding scene. Somehow, the ruggedness of the mountains and the desolate solitudes of the plains were reflected from her face.
The young man gazed as if his thirst would never be appeased. The flavor of nights about the camp-fire and other nights spent in driving sleet, also days when the first flowers come and the wide beds of the desert rivers are swollen with overbrimming floods; the cruel exposure of winter, the thrilling balminess of early spring—all spoke to him again from that motionless figure. He recalled companions of his boyhood and youth, but they were not akin to this child of the desert mountains. Still more alien were those of the saloon stations, the haunts at the outskirts of civilization. It seemed to him that in this young girl, who bad the look and poise of a woman, he had found what hitherto he had vainly sought in the wilderness—the beauty and the charm of it, refined and separated from its sordidness and its uncouthness—in a word, from all that was base and ugly. It was for this that he had left his home in the East. Here was typified that loveliness of the unbroken wilderness without its profanity, its drunkenness, its obscenity, its terrible hardships.
At last he tore himself away, retraced his steps as cautiously as he had conic, and flung himself upon the pony left waiting at a sheltered nook far from the cove. As he sped over the plains toward the distant herd, it came to him suddenly in a way not before experienced, that it was May, that the air was balmy and fragrant, and that the land, softly lighted in the clear twilight, was singularly beautiful. He seemed breathing the roses back home—which recalled another face, but not for long. The last time he had seen that eastern face, the dew had lain on the early morning roses—how could a face so different make him think of them? But imagination is sometimes a bold robber, and now it did not hesitate to steal those memories of sweet scents to encloud the picture of the mountain-girl.
The G-Bar headquarters was on the western bank of what was then known as Red River, but was really the North Fork of Red River. "Old Man Walker," who was scarcely past middle age, had built his corral on the margin of the plain which extended to that point in an unbroken level from a great distance, and which, having reached that point, dropped without warning, a sheer precipice, to an extensive lake. The lake was fed by springs issuing from the bluffs; not far beyond it and not much lower, was the bed of the river, wide, very red and almost dry. Beyond the river rose the bold hills of the Kiowa country, a white line chiseled across the face of each, as if Time had entertained some thought of their destruction, but finding each a huge block of living rock, had passed on to torture and shift and alter the bed of the river.
The young man reached the corral after a ride of twelve or thirteen miles, most of the distance through a country of difficult sand. He galloped up to the rude enclosure, surrounded by a cloud of dust through which his keen gray eyes discovered Mizzoo on the eve of leaving camp. Mizzoo was one of the men whose duty it was to ride the line all night—the line that the young man had guarded all day—to keep Walker's cattle from drifting.
"Come on, Mizz," called the young man, as the other swung upon his broncho, "I'm going back with you."
The lean, leather-skinned, sandy-mustached cattleman uttered words not meet for print, but expressive of hearty pleasure. "Ain't you had enough of it, Bill?" he added. "I'd think you'd want to lay up for tomorrow's work."
"Oh, I ain't sleepy," the young man declared, as they rode away side by side. "I couldn't close an eye tonight—and I want to talk."
The cattleman chuckled enjoyingly. It was lonely and monotonous work, riding back and forth through the darkness, keeping a sharp lookout for wolves or Indians, driving straggling cattle back to the herd, in brief, doing the picket duty of the plains.
Mizzoo was so called from his habit of attributing his most emphatic aphorisms to "his aunt, Miss Sue of Missouri"—a lady held by his companions to be a purely fictitious character, a convenient "Mrs. Harris" to give weight to sayings worn smooth from centuries of use.
Of all the boys of the ranch, Mizzoo found Wilfred Compton most companionable. When off duty, they were usually to be found near each other, whether awake or asleep; and when Mizzoo, on entering some village at the edge of the desert, sought relaxation from a life of routine by shooting through the windows and spurring his pony into the saloons, it was the young man, commonly known as Bill, who lingered behind to advance money for damages to the windows, or who kept close to the drunken ranger in order to repair the damages Mizzoo had done to his own soul and body.
"I'll talk my head off," Mizzoo declared, "if that'll keep you on the move with me, for it's one thing meeting a ghost in the desert all alone, and quite another when there's a pair of us. Yes, I know you don't believe nothing I say about that spirit, and I only hope we'll come on it tonight! It ain't been a week since I see something creeping along behind me whilst I was riding the line, a little thing as swift as a jack-rabbit and as sly as a coyote—something with long arms and short legs and the face of an Injun—"
"Of course it WAS an Indian," returned the young man carelessly. "He is hanging about here to steal some of our horses. I don't want you to talk about your ghost, I've heard of him a thousand times."
"Bill, the more you talk about a ghost, the more impressive he gets. I tell you that wasn't no live Injun! Didn't I blaze away at him with my six-shooter and empty all my barrels for nothing? No, sir, it's the same spirit that haunts the trail from Vernon, Texas, to Coffeyville. I've shot at that red devil this side of Fort Sill, and at Skeleton Spring, and at Bull Foot Spring, and a mile from Doan's store—always at night, for it never rises except at night, as befits a good ghost. I reckon I'll waste cartridges on that spook as long as I hit the trail, but I don't never expect to draw blood. Others has saw him, too, but me more especial. I reckon I'm the biggest sinner of the G-Bar and has to be plagued most frequent with visitations to make me a better man when I get to be old."
"He's a knowing old ghost if he's found you out, Mizzoo, but if you want my company, tonight, you'll drop the Indian. What I want you to talk about is that little girl you met on the trail down in Texas, seven years ago."
Mizzoo burst out in a hearty laugh. "I reckon it suits you better to take her as a little kid," he cried, his tall form shaking convulsively. "I'll never forget how you looked, Bill, when we tried to run a bluff on her daddy last month!"
The other did not answer with a smile. Apparently the reminiscence pleased him less than it did the older man. He spurred his horse impatiently, and it plunged forward through the drifted banks of white sand.
Mizzoo hastened to overtake him, still chuckling. "Old Man Walker never knowed what a proposition he was handing us when he ordered us to drive the old mountain-lion out of his lair! Looks like the six of us ought to have done the trick. Them other fellows looked as wild as bears, and you was just like a United States soldier marching on a Mexican strongholt, not stopping at nothing, and it ain't for me to say how brave I done. Pity you and me was at the tail-end of the attacking party. Fust thing we knowed, them other four galoots was falling backwards a-getting out of that trap of a cove, and the bullets was whizzing about our ears—"
He broke off to shout with laughter. "And it was all done by one old settler and his gal, them standing out open and free with their breech-loaders, and us hiking out for camp like whipped curs!"
The young man was impatient, but he compelled himself to speak calmly. "As I never got around the spur of the mountain before you fellows were in full retreat, I object to being classed with the whipped curs, and you'll bear that in mind, Mizzoo. You saw the girl all right, didn't you?"
"You bet I did, and as soon as I see her, I knowed it was the same I'd came across on the trail, seven year ago. I'd have knowed it from her daddy, of course, but there wasn't no mistaking HER. Her daddy give it to us plain that if he ever catched one of us inside his cove he'd kill us like so many coyotes, and I reckon he would. Well, he's got as much right to his claim as anybody else—this land don't belong to nobody, and there he's been a-squatting considerable longer than we've laid out this ranch. He was in the right of it, but what I admire was his being able to hold his rights. Lots of folks has rights but they ain't man enough to hold 'em. And if von could have seen that gal, her eyes like two big burning suns, and her mouth closed like a steel-trap, and her hand as steady on that trigger as the mountain rock behind her! Lord, Bill! what a trembly, knock-kneed, meaching sort of a husband she's a-going to fashion to her hand, one of these days! But PRETTY? None more so. And a-going all to waste out here in the desert!"
They rode on for some time in silence, save for the intermittent chuckling of the cattleman as visions of his companions' pale faces and scurrying forms rose before his mind.
"And now about that child, seven years ago," the young man said, when the last hoarse sound of mirth had died away.
"Why, yes, me and the boys was bringing about two thousand head up to Abiline when we come on to this same pardner and another man walking the trail, with a little gal coming behind 'em on her pony. And it was this same gal. I reckon she was seven or eight year old, then. Well, sir, I just thought as I looked at her, that I never seen a prettier sight in this world and I reckon I ain't, for when I looked at the same gal the other day, the gun she was holding up to her eye sort of dazzled me so I couldn't take stock of all her good points. But seeing that little gal out there in the plains it was like hearing an old-fashioned hymn at the country meeting-house and knowing a big basket dinner was to follow. I can't express it more deep than that. We went into camp that evening, and all of us got pretty soft and mellow, what from the unusualness of the meeting, and we asked the old codger if we could all come over to his camp and shake hands with the gal—he'd drawed back from us about a mile, he was that skeered to be sociable. So after considerable haggling and jawing, he said we could, and here we come, just about sundown, all of us looking sheepish enough to be carved for mutton, but everlasting determined to take that gal by the paw."
"Well?" said the young man who had often heard this story, but had never been treated to the sequel, "what happened then, Mizzoo? You always stop at the same place. Didn't you shake hands with her?"
The other ruminated in deep silence for some time, then rejoined, "I don't know how it is—a fellow can talk about the worst devilment in creation with a free rein, and no words hot enough to blister his tongue, but let him run up against something simple like that, and the bottom of his lungs seems to fall out. I guess they ain't no more to be told. That was all there was to it, though I might add that the next day we come along by old Whisky Simeon's joint that sets out on the sand-hills, you know, and we put spurs to our bronks and went whooping by, with old Whisky Sim a-staring and a-hollering after us like he thought we was crazy. I don't know as I had missed a drunk before for five year, when the materials was ready-found for its making. And I ain't never forgot the little kid with the brown hair and the eyes that seen to your bottom layer, like a water-witch a-penetrating the ground with a glance, seeing through dirt and clay and rocks to what water they is."
Mizzoo relapsed into meditative silence, and the young man, in sympathy with his mood, kept at his side, no longer asking questions. Darkness came on and the hour grew late but few words were exchanged as they rode the weary miles that marked the limit of the range. There were the usual incidents of such work, each bringing its customary comments. The midnight luncheon beside a small fire, over which the coffee steamed, roused something like cheerful conversation which, however, flickered and flared uncertainly like the bonfire. On the whole the young man was unwontedly reserved, and the other, perceiving it, fell back contentedly on his own resources—pleasant memories and rank tobacco.
"Guess I'll leave you now," remarked the young man, when the fire had died away.
"Yes, better turn in, for you're most uncommon dull you know," Mizzoo replied frankly. "'Twould be just about as much company for me if you'd hike out and leave me your picture to carry along."
Instead of taking the direction toward the river, the young man set out at a gallop for the distant mountain range which, in the gloom, seemed not far away. After an hour's hard riding, he reached it. His impatience bad made that hour seem almost interminable, yet it had not been long enough to furnish him with any clear reason for having come. If, as Mizzoo had declared, he needed sleep, he would surely not think of finding it near the cove from which his companions had been warned under penalty of death. If drawn by longing for another glimpse of the girl of the cove he could not expect to see her an hour or two after midnight. Yet here he was, attracted, and still urged on, by impulses he did not attempt to resist.
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