Trailin'!

CHAPTER VIII
MARTY WILKES

The motion of the train, during those first two days gave Anthony Bard a strange feeling that he was travelling from the present into the past. He felt as if it was not miles that he placed behind him, but days, weeks, months, years, that unrolled and carried him nearer and nearer to the beginning of himself. He heard nothing about him; he saw nothing of the territory which whirled past the window. They were already far West before a man boarded the train and carried to Bard the whole atmosphere of the mountain desert.

He got on the train at a Nebraska station and Anthony sat up to watch, for a man of importance does not need size in order to have a mien. Napoleon struck awe through the most gallant of his hero marshals, and even the porter treated this little brown man with a respect that was ludicrous at first glimpse.

He was so ugly that one smiled on glancing at him. His face, built on the plan of a wedge, was extremely narrow in front, with a long, high-bridged nose, slanting forehead, thin-lipped mouth, and a chin that jutted out to a point, but going back all the lines flared out like a reversed vista. A ridge of muscle crested each side of the broad jaws and the ears flaunted out behind so that he seemed to have been built for travelling through the wind.

The same wind, perhaps, had blown the hair away from the upper part of his forehead, leaving him quite bald half way back on his head, where a veritable forest of hair began, and continued, growing thicker and longer, until it brushed the collar of his coat behind.

When he entered the car he stood eying his seat for a long moment like a dog choosing the softest place on the floor before it lies down. Then he took his place and sat with his hands folded in his lap, moveless, speechless, with the little keen eyes straight before him—three hours that state continued. Then he got up and Anthony followed him to the diner. They sat at the same table.

"The journey," said Anthony, "is pretty tiresome through monotonous scenery like this."

The little keen eyes surveyed him a moment before the man spoke.

"There was buffalo on them plains once."

If someone had said to an ignorant questioner, "This little knoll is called Bunker Hill," he could not have been more abashed than was Anthony, who glanced through the window at the dreary prospect, looked back again, and found that the sharp eyes once more looked straight ahead without the slightest light of triumph in his coup. Silence, apparently, did not in the least abash this man.

"Know a good deal about buffaloes?"

"Yes."

It was not the insulting curtness of one who wishes to be left in peace, but simply a statement of bald fact.

"Really?" queried Anthony. "I didn't think you were as old as that!"

It appeared that this remark was worthy of no answer whatever. The little man turned his attention to his order of ham and eggs, cut off the first egg, manoeuvred it carefully into position on his knife, and raised it toward a mouth that stretched to astonishing proportions; but at the critical moment the egg slipped and flopped back on the plate.

"Missed!" said Anthony.

He couldn't help it; the ejaculation popped out of its own accord. The other regarded him with grave displeasure.

"If you had your bead drawed an' somebody jogged your arm jest as you pulled the trigger, would you call it a miss?"

"Excuse me. I've no doubt you're extremely accurate."

"I ne'er miss," said the other, and proved it by disposing of the egg at the next imposing mouthful.

"I should like to know you. My name is Anthony Bard."

"I'm Marty Wilkes. H'ware ye?"

They shook hands.

"Westerner, Mr. Wilkes?"

"This is my furthest East."

"Have a pleasant time?"

A gesture indicated the barren, brown waste of prairie.

"Too much civilization."

"Really?"

"Even the cattle got no fight in 'em." He added, "That sounds like I'm a fighter. I ain't."

"Till you're stirred up, Mr. Wilkes?"

"Heat me up an' I'll burn. Soil wood."

"You're pretty familiar with the Western country?"

"I get around."

"Perhaps you'd recognize this."

He took a scroll from his breast pocket and unrolled the photograph of the forest and the ranchhouse with the two mountains in the distance. Wilkes considered it unperturbed.

"Them are the Little Brothers."

"Ah! Then all I have to do is to travel to the foot of the Little Brothers?"

"No, about sixty miles from 'em." "Impossible! Why, the mountains almost overhang that house."

Wilkes handed back the picture and resumed his eating without reply. It was not a sullen resentment; it was hunger and a lack of curiosity. He was not "heated up."

"Any one," said Anthony, to lure the other on, "could see that."

"Sure; any one with bad eyes."

"But how can you tell it's sixty miles?"

"I've been there."

"Well, at least the big tree there and the ranchhouse will not be very hard to find. But I suppose I'll have to travel in a circle around the Little Brothers, keeping a sixty-mile radius?"

"If you want to waste a pile of time. Yes."

"I suppose you could lead me right to the spot?"

"I could."

"How?"

"That's about fifty-five miles straight north-east of the Little Brothers."

"How the devil can you tell that, man?"

"That ain't hard. They's a pretty steady north wind that blows in them parts. It's cold and it's strong. Now when you been out there long enough and get the idea that the only things that live is because God loves 'em. Mostly it's jest plain sand and rock. The trees live because they got protection from that north wind. Nature puts moss on 'em on the north side to shelter 'em from that same wind. Look at that picture close. You see that rough place on the side of that tree—jest a shadow like the whiskers of a man that ain't shaved for a week? That's the moss. Now if that's north, the rest is easy. That place is north-east of the Little Brothers."

"By Jove! how did you get such eyes?"

"Used 'em."

"The reason I'd like to find the house is because—"

"Reasons ain't none too popular with me."

"Well, you're pretty sure that your suggestion will take me to the spot?"

"I'm sure of nothing except my gun when the weather's hot."

"Reasonably sure, however? The pine trees and the house—if I don't find one I'll find the other."

"The house'll be in ruins, probably."

"Why?"

"That picture was taken a long time ago."

"Do you read the mind of a picture, Mr. Wilkes?"

"No."

"The tree, however, will be there."

"No, that's chopped down."

"That's going a bit too far. Do you mean to say you know that this particular tree is down?"

"That's first growth. All that country's been cut over. D'you think they'd pass up a tree the size of that?"

"It's going to be hard," said Anthony with a frown, "for me to get used to the West."

"Maybe not."

"I can ride and shoot pretty well, but I don't know the people, I haven't worn their clothes, and I can't talk their lingo."

"The country's mostly rocks when it ain't ground; the people is pretty generally men and women; the clothes they wear is cotton and wool, the lingo they talk is English."

It was like a paragraph out of some book of ultimate knowledge. He was not entirely contented with his statement, however, for now he qualified it as follows: "Maybe some of 'em don't talk good book English. Quite a pile ain't had much eddication; in fact there ain't awful many like me. But they can tell you how much you owe 'em an' they'll understand you when you say you're hungry. What's your business? Excuse me; I don't generally ask questions."

"That's all right. You've probably caught the habit from me. I'm simply going out to look about for excitement."

"A feller gener'ly finds what he's lookin' for. Maybe you won't be disappointed. I've knowed places on the range where excitement growed like fruit on a tree. It was like that there manna in the Bible. You didn't have to work none for it. You jest laid still an' it sort of dropped in your mouth."

He added with a sigh: "But them times ain't no more."

"That's hard on me, eh?"

"Don't start complainin' till you miss your feed. Things are gettin' pretty crowded, but there's ways of gettin' elbow room—even at a bar."

"And you really think there's nothing which distinguishes the Westerner from the Easterner?"

"Just the Western feeling, partner. Get that an' you'll be at home."

"If you were a little further East and said that, people might be inclined to smile a bit."

"Partner, if they did, they wouldn't finish their smile. But I heard a feller say once that the funny thing about men east and west of the Rockies was that they was all—"

He paused as if trying to remember.

"Well?"

"Americans, Mr. Bard."

CHAPTER IX
"THIS PLACE FOR REST"

As the white heat of midday passed and the shadows lengthened more and more rapidly to the east, the sheep moved out from the shade and from the tangle of the brush to feed in the open, and the dogs, which had laid one on either side of the man, rose and trotted out to recommence their vigil; but the shepherd did not change his position where he sat cross-legged under the tree.

Alternately he stroked the drooping moustache to the right and then to the left, with a little twist each time, which turned the hair to a sharp point in its furthest downward reach near his chin. To the right, to the left, to the right, to the left, while his eyes, sad with a perpetual mist, looked over the lake and far away to the white tops of the Little Brothers, now growing blue with shadow.

Finally with a brown forefinger he lifted the brush of moustache on his upper lip, leaned a little, and spat. After that he leaned back with a sigh of content; the brown juice had struck fairly and squarely on the centre of the little stone which for the past two hours he had been endeavouring vainly to hit. The wind had been against him.

All was well. The spindling tops of the second-growth forest pointed against the pale blue of a stainless sky, and through that clear air the blatting of the most distant sheep sounded close, mingled with the light clangour of the bells. But the perfect peace was broken rudely now by the form of a horseman looming black and large against the eastern sky. He trotted his horse down the slope, scattered a group of noisy sheep from side to side before him, and drew rein before the shepherd.

"Evening."

"Evening, stranger."

"Own this land?"

"No; rent it."

"Could I camp here?"

The shepherd lifted his moustache again and spat; when he spoke his eyes held steadily and sadly on the little stone, which he had missed again.

"Can't think of nobody who'd stop you."

"That your house over there? You rent that?"

He pointed to a broken-backed ruin which stood on the point of land that jutted out onto the waters of the lake, a crumbling structure slowly blackening with time.

"Nope."

A shadow of a frown crossed the face of the stranger and was gone again more quickly than a cloud shadow brushed over the window on a windy city in March.

"Well," he said, "this place looks pretty good to me. Ever fish those streams?"

"Don't eat fish."

"I'll wager you're missing some first-class trout, though. By Jove, I'd like to cast a couple of times over some of the pools I've passed in the last hour! By the way, who owns that house over there?"

"Same feller that owns this land."

"That so? What's his name?"

The other lifted his shaggy eyebrows and stared at the stranger.

"Ain't been long around here, eh?"

"No."

"William Drew, he owns that house."

"William Drew?" repeated the rider, as though imprinting the word on his memory. "Is he home?"

"Maybe."

"I'll ride over and ask him if he can put me up."

"Wait a minute. He may be home, but he lives on the other side of the range."

"Very far from here?"

"Apiece."

"How'll I know him when I see him?"

"Big feller—grey—broad shoulders."

"Ah!" murmured the other, and smiled as though the picture pleased him. "I'll hunt him up and ask him if I can camp out in this house of his for a while."

"Well, that's your party."

"Don't you think he'd let me?"

"Maybe; but the house ain't lucky."

"That so?"

"Sure. There's a grave in front of it."

"A grave? Whose?"

"Dunno."

"Well, it doesn't worry me. I'll drop over the hill and see Drew."

"Maybe you'd better wait. You'll be passin' him on the road, like as not."

"How's that?"

"He comes over here on Tuesdays once a month; to-morrow he's about due."

"Good. In the meantime I can camp over there by that stream, eh?"

"Don't know of nobody who'd stop you."

"By the way, what brings Drew over here every month?"

"Never asked him. I was brung up not to ask questions."

The stranger accepted this subtle rebuke with such an open, infectious laugh that the shepherd smiled in the very act of spitting at the stone, with the result that he missed it by whole inches.

"I'll answer some of the questions you haven't asked, then. My name is Anthony Bard and I'm out here seeing the mountains and having a bully time in general with my rod and gun."

The sad eyes regarded him without interest, but Bard swung from his horse and advanced with outstretched hand.

"I may be about here for a few days and we might as well get acquainted, eh? I'll promise to lay off the questions."

"I'm Logan."

"Glad to know you, Mr. Logan."

"Same t'you. Don't happen to have no fine-cut about you?"

"No. Sorry."

"So'm I. Ran out an' now all I've got is plug. Kind of hard on the teeth an' full of molasses."

"I've some pipe tobacco, though, which might do."

He produced a pouch which Logan opened, taking from it a generous pinch.

"Looks kind of like fine-cut—smells kind of like the real thing"—here he removed the quid from his mouth and introduced the great pinch of tobacco—"an' I'll be damned if it don't taste a pile the same!"

The misty eyes centred upon Bard and a light grew up in them.

"Maybe you'd put a price on this tobacco, stranger?"

"It's yours," said Bard, "to help you forget all the questions I've asked."

The shepherd acted at once lest the other might change his mind, dumping the contents of the pouch into the breast pocket of his shirt. Afterward his gaze sought the dim summits of the Little Brothers, and a sad, great resolution grew up and hardened the lines of his sallow face.

"You can camp with me if you want—partner."

A cough, hastily summoned, covered Bard's smile.

"Thanks awfully, but I'm used to camping alone—and rather like it that way."

"Which I'd say, the same goes here," responded the shepherd with infinite relief, "I ain't got much use for company—away from a bar. But I could show you a pretty neat spot for a camp, over there by the river."

"Thanks, but I'll explore for myself."

He swung again into the saddle and trotted whistling down the slope toward the creek which Logan had pointed out. But once fairly out of sight in the second-growth forest, he veered sharply to the right, touched his tough cattle-pony with the spurs, and headed at a racing pace straight for the old ruined house.

Even from a distance the house appeared unmistakably done for, but not until he came close at hand could Bard appreciate the full extent of the ruin. Every individual board appeared to be rotting and crumbling toward the ground, awaiting the shake of one fierce gust of wind to disappear in a cloud of mouldy dust. He left his horse with the reins hanging over its head behind the house and entered by the back door. One step past the threshold brought him misadventure, for his foot drove straight through the rotten flooring and his leg disappeared up to the knee.

After that he proceeded more cautiously, following the lines of the beams on which the boards were nailed, but even these shook and groaned under his weight. A whimsical fancy made him think of the fabled boat of Charon which will float a thousand bodiless spirits over the Styx but which sinks to the water-line with the weight of a single human being.

So he passed forward like one in a fabric of spider-webs almost fearing to breathe lest the whole house should puff away to shreds before him. Half the boards, fallen from the ceiling, revealed the bare rafters above; below there were ragged holes in the flooring. In one place a limb, torn by lightning or wind from its overhanging tree, had crashed through the corner of the roof and dropped straight through to the ground.

At last he reached a habitable room in the front of the house. It was a new shell built inside the old wreck, with four stout corner-posts supporting cross-beams, which in turn held up the mouldering roof. In the centre was a rude table and on either side a bunk built against the wall. Perhaps this was where Drew lived on the occasions of his visits to the old ranchhouse.

Out of the gloom of the place, Bard stepped with a shrug of the shoulders, like one who shakes off the spell of a nightmare. He strode through the doorway and took the slant, warm sun of the afternoon full in his face.

He found himself in front of the only spot on the entire premises which showed the slightest care, the mound of a grave under the shelter of two trees whose branches were interwoven overhead in a sort of impromptu roof. From the surface of the mound all the weeds and grasses had been carefully cleared away, and around its edge ran a path covered with gravel and sand. It was a wellbeaten path with the mark of heels still comparatively fresh upon it.

The headstone itself bore not a vestige of moss, but time had cracked it diagonally and the chiselled letters were weathered away. He studied it with painful care, poring intently over each faint impression. He who cared for the grave had apparently been troubled only to keep the stone free from dirt—the lettering he must have known by heart. At length Bard made out this inscription:

HERE SLEEPS

JOAN

WIFE OF WILLIAM DREW

SHE CHOSE THIS PLACE FOR REST

CHAPTER X
A BIT OF STALKING

It seemed as if the peaceful afternoons of Logan were ended forever, for the next day the scene of interruption was repeated under almost identical circumstances, save that the tree under which the shepherd sat was a little larger. Larger also was the man who rode over the brow of the hill to the east. The most durable cattle-pony would have staggered under the bulk of that rider, and therefore he rode a great, patient-eyed bay, with shoulders worthy of shoving against a work-collar; but the neck tapered down small behind a short head, and the legs, for all their breadth at shoulder and hip, slipped away to small hoofs, and ankles which sloped sharply to the rear, the sure sign of the fine saddle-horse.

Yet the strong horse was winded by the burden he bore, a mighty figure, deep-chested, amply shouldered, an ideal cavalier for the days when youths rode out in armour-plate to seek adventures and when men of fifty still lifted the lance to run a "friendly" course or two in the lists.

At sight of him Logan so far bestirred himself as to uncoil his long legs, rise, and stand with one shoulder propped against the tree.

"Evening, Mr. Drew," he called.

"Hello, Logan. How's everything with you?"

He would have ridden on, but at Logan's reply he checked his horse to a slow walk.

"Busy. Lots of company lately, Mr. Drew."

"Company?"

"Yes, there's a young feller come along who says he wants to see you. He's over there by the creek now, fishin' I think. I told him I'd holler if I seen you, but I guess you wouldn't mind ridin' over that way yourself."

Drew brought his horse to a halt.

"What does he want of me?"

"Dunno. Something about wanting to hunt and fish on your streams here."

"Why didn't you tell him he was welcome to do what he liked? Must be an Easterner, Logan."

"Wants to bunk in the old house, too. Seems sort of interested in it."

"That so? What sort of a fellow is he?"

"All right. A bit talky. Green; but he rides damn well, an' he smokes good tobacco."

His hand automatically rose and touched his breast pocket.

"I'll go over to him," said Drew, and swung his horse to the left, but only to come again to a halt.

He called over his shoulder: "What sort of a looking fellow?"

"Pretty keen—dark," answered Logan, slipping down into his original position. "Thin face; black eyes."

"Ah, yes," murmured Drew, and started at a trot for the creek.

Once more he imitated the actions of Bard the day before, however, for no sooner had the trees screened him thoroughly from the eyes of Logan than he abandoned his direct course for the creek. He swung from the saddle with an ease surprising in a man of such age and bulk and tossed the reins over the head of the horse.

Then he commenced a cautious stalking through the woods, silent as an Indian, stealthy of foot, with eyes that glanced sharply in all directions. Once a twig snapped under foot, and after that he remained motionless through a long moment, shrinking against the trunk of a tree and scanning the forest anxiously in all directions. At length he ventured out again, grown doubly cautious. In this manner he worked his way up the course of the stream, always keeping the waters just within sight but never passing out on the banks, where the walking would have been tenfold easier. So he came in sight of a figure far off through the trees.

If he had been cautious before, he became now as still as night. Dropping to hands and knees, or crouching almost as prone, he moved from the shadow of one tree to the next, now and then venturing a glance to make sure that he was pursuing the right course, until he manoeuvred to a point of vantage which commanded a clear view of Bard.

The latter was fishing, with his back to Drew. Again and again he cast his fly out under an overhanging limb which shadowed a deep pool. The big grey man set his teeth and waited with the patience of a stalking beast of prey, or a cat which will sit half the day waiting for the mouse to show above the opening of its hole.

Apparently there was a bite at length. The pole bent almost double and the reel played back and forth rapidly as the fisher wore down his victim. Finally he came close to the edge of the stream, dipped his net into the water, and jerked it up at once bearing a twisting, shining trout enwrapped in the meshes. Swinging about as he did so, Drew caught his first full glimpse of Anthony's face, and knew him for the man who had ridden the wild horse at Madison Square Garden those weeks before.

Perhaps it was astonishment that moved the big man—surely it could not have been fear—yet he knelt there behind the sheltering tree grey-faced, wide, and blank of eye, as a man might look who dreamed and awoke to see his vision standing before him in full sunlit life. What his expression became then could not be said, for he buried his face in his hands and his great body shook with a tremor. If this was not fear it was something very like.

And very like a man in fear he stole back among the trees as cautiously as he had made his approach. Resuming his horse he rode straight for Logan.

"Couldn't find your young friend," he said, "along the creek."

"Why," said Logan, "I can reach him with a holler from here, I think."

"Never mind; just tell him that he's welcome to do what he pleases on the place; and he can bunk down at the house if he wants to. I'd like to know his name, though."

"That's easy. Anthony Bard."

"Ah," said Drew slowly, "Anthony Bard!"

"That's it," nodded Logan, and fixed a curious eye upon the big grey rider.

As if to escape from that inquiring scrutiny, Drew wheeled his horse and spurred at a sharp gallop up the hill, leaving Logan frowning behind.

"No stay over night," muttered the shepherd. "No fooling about that damned old shack of a house; what's wrong with Drew?"

He answered himself, for all shepherds are forced by the bitter loneliness of their work to talk with themselves. "The old boy's worried. Damned if he isn't! I'll keep an eye on this Bard feller."

And he loosened the revolver in its holster.

He might have been even more concerned had he seen the redoubled speed with which Drew galloped as soon as the hilltop was between him and Logan. Straight on he pushed his horse, not exactly like one who fled but rather more like one too busy with consuming thoughts to pay the slightest heed to the welfare of his mount. It was a spent horse on which he trotted late that night up to the big, yawning door of his barn.

"Where's Nash?" he asked of the man who took his horse.

"Playing a game with the boys in the bunk-house, sir."

So past the bunk-house Drew went on his way to his dwelling, knocked, and threw open the door. Inside, a dozen men, seated at or standing around a table, looked up.

"Nash!"

"Here."

"On the jump, Nash. I'm in a hurry."

There rose a man of a build much prized in pugilistic circles. In those same circles he would have been described as a fellow with a fighting face and a heavy-weight above the hips and a light-weight below—a handsome fellow, except that his eyes were a little too small and his lips a trifle too thin. He rose now in the midst of a general groan of dismay, and scooped in a considerable stack of gold as well as several bright piles of silver; he was undoubtedly taking the glory of the game with him.

"Is this square?" growled one of the men clenching his fist on the edge of the table.

The sardonic smile hardened on the lips of Nash as he answered: "Before you've been here much longer, Pete, you'll find out that about everything I do is square. Sorry to leave you, boys, before you're broke, but orders is orders."

"But one more hand first," pleaded Pete.

"You poor fool," snarled Nash, "d'you think I'll take a chance on keepin' him waiting?"

The last of his winnings passed with a melodious jingling into his pockets and he went hurriedly out of the bunk-house and up to the main building. There he found Drew in the room which the rancher used as an office, and stood at the door hat in hand.

"Come in; sit down," said "him." "Been taking the money from the boys again, Steve? I thought I talked with you about that a month ago?"

"It's this way, Mr. Drew," explained Nash, "with me stayin' away from the cards is like a horse stayin' off its feed. Besides, I done the square thing by the lot of those short-horns."

"How's that?"

"I showed 'em my hand."

"Told them you were a professional gambler?"

"Sure. I explained they didn't have no chance against me."

"And of course that made them throw every cent they had against you?"

"Maybe."

"It can't go on, Nash."

"Look here, Mr. Drew. I told 'em that I wasn't a gambler but just a gold-digger."

The big man could not restrain his smile, though it came like a shadow of mirth rather than the sunlight.

"After all, they might as well lose it to you as to someone else."

"Sure," grinned Nash, "it keeps it in the family, eh?"

"But one of these days, Steve, crooked cards will be the end of you."

"I'm still pretty fast on the draw," said Steve sullenly.

"All right. That's your business. Now I want you to listen to some of mine."

"Real work?"

"Your own line."

"That," said Nash, with a smile of infinite meaning, "sounds like the dinner bell to me. Let her go, sir!"