The Full of the Moon/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
A Rustler Is Cornered
"You are not nearly so supercilious and superior as I was afraid you would be," Nan told Bob when, one afternoon, he rode to the bars to tell her that he was off for the Longhorn bosque to join Ben Evans and ride the range with him in that vicinity.
"Good!" Bob exclaimed in mock delight. "I'm more than repaid for any slight—er—well—inconveniences I may suffer under the hospitable roof of my friend Riley. Perhaps you don't know that Riley and I 'aim' to wash to-morrow if we can find out who borrowed his wash-board."
Nan laughed immoderately. She suspected that in private Bob made wry faces over the salt pork and sour-dough bread which was Riley's daily fare, but in public Bob spoke of Riley's domestic accomplishments with an enthusiasm so nearly genuine that it deceived all save Nan.
But she liked him for it. The good nature with which he adapted himself to the people and surroundings so utterly foreign to his own was a constant surprise to her. She was still laughing as Bob rode away, but there was approval in her dancing eyes.
He sighed and his face set in lines of grimness as he lifted his horse to a gallop. He was her comrade, a good chum, that was all.
The suggestion that he should ride the range that afternoon with Ben Evans was his own. Ben merely had acquiesced with as much cordiality as he could summon.
Unaccustomed as he was to concealing his moods and his feelings, the best he could give Bob was a grudging civility. He realized with sullen and awkward resentment that this agreeable stranger, always so courteous and at his ease, was cast in a different mold from himself.
He used words which Ben had never heard; he was familiar with subjects that were vague as dreams in the cowboy's mind, and they, Nan and this stranger, had so much in common while he was an outsider.
He was irritable from a smoldering jealousy when he saw them together, but never for a moment self-disparaging. Unlike Bob, he never thought of his shortcomings with humility, because he did not see that he had any.
Bob's wider knowledge made Ben petulant, but never envious or regretful that he lacked it. He regarded it as superfluous and unimportant save for the single reason that thereby he claimed a larger share of Nan's conversation.
And Bob bore Ben's surly manner with patience for Nan's sake, and because he wished to learn exactly what manner of man he was to whom Nan might have given what was to him the most precious thing in the world—her love.
"Won't you 'light and rest yoah hat?" inquired Mrs. Blakely affably, as Bob rode up to the stockade where he and Ben had arranged to meet. "Clytie, run open the gate for the gennelman."
"Regina, run open the gate for the gennelman."
"Luna"
Ben rose from the log at the wood-pile where he had been sitting with. Edith and untied his horse.
"I'll keep an eye skinned for your cattle, Edie, but I reckon it's not much use. They're a long way from this range by now."
"Come soon again, won't you, Ben?" Her voice was plaintive with its note of entreaty.
"When I can."
"She doesn't look very happy," Bob commented as they rode away.
"They're losin' lots of stock." Ben added: "Edie's a good girl."
When they were out of hearing Mrs. Blakely, with a display of energy so rare as to startle, took Miss Clytie Blakely by each shoulder and shook her with a vigor which threatened to dislocate her neck.
"Why didn't you do as I tole you and open that gate?"
"Wha' for?"
"Wha' for? Wha' for! Ain't the stars and the kyards, and the bumps on yoah haid, and yoah pa'm all said you was goin' to have a chanst to ketch a rich husband? And now you let him slip through yoah fingers and you goin' on sixteen and ready to come out!"
"Lemme be!" howled the débutante. "He never looked at me!"
"Never took his eyes off'n you."
Which assertion was quite true, as, through a gap in the stockade Bob had watched, with fascinated eyes, the endeavors of the hope of the Blakely family to expectorate through the space between her front teeth.
"Let her alone, mother," said Edith impatiently, "haven't I told you he's in love with Nan."
Mrs. Blakely reached for her gum under the lamp shelf and chewed in an abandonment of despair.
"Is the whole worl' in love with that Nan?" she asked sarcastically. "I couldn't see nothin' to her myself."
Edith made no answer, and she demanded:
"Have you used that charm? Did you sprinkle him yet?"
"I've had no good chance."
"You'll get him." Hope never died in Mrs. Blakely's sanguine bosom, and she now shook a prophetic finger. "He'll be back here inside of two days when that charm gets workin'."
"I hope you're right, mother," Edith replied wistfully.
Several miles from the Longhorn bosque Ben drew rein and looked long and intently at a horseman in pursuit of a cow and calf.
"That ain't Blakely," he said finally.
"Like as not it's one of them dog-gone cattle thieves, and he's got his dog-gone nerve to work as bold as this."
Cow, calf, and rider were lost to sight in an arroyo, and Ben, as he kept his eyes on the spot where they had disappeared, mechanically drew his rifle from its leather sheath where it swung beneath his leg.
The cow reappeared, threw up her head and disappeared again into the draw.
"She's bellowin' for her calf; he's roped it. Come on." Ben urged his horse to a gallop. "If he's seen us it's not likely we can get up to him for he'll throw down on us and I don't aim to get punctured for a thirty-dollar cow. But we can get close enough to find out who's doin' this rustlin'." He added: "There's something uncommon familiar about the way that feller sets in the saddle."
Bob and Ben galloped in silence through the heavy sand, slowing up as they neared the arroyo. Ben chuckled:
"I don't believe that hombre saw us; he was too busy gettin' the rope on the calf to take a look around. We'd 'a' seen his head a bobbin' up by this time if he was expectin' us, and a wavin' of us off. Of course," he added, "there's a chance that he's brandin' his own stock."
Their horses' feet made no sound in the sand, and they rode to the edge before they checked them, where they stood looking down at Kansas Ed industriously fanning a small collection of sticks into flame while he kept an eye on the cow, who had more than half a mind to charge him. The brand she wore was Blakely's.
"I thought so." Ben nodded grimly, then called: "Hello there!"
Instinctively Kansas Ed's hand sought his hip. Then his first startled look changed to a grin, which was half embarrassment, half bravado.
"Oh, hello! Kinda got the drop on me, Ben."
Ben replied dryly:
"Kinda. Just turn that calf loose, Kansas."
The rustler made no motion to obey.
Ben urged his horse forward. It bunched its feet, bent its hind legs, and slid down the side of the arroyo.
"Have you quit taking orders?"
Kansas Ed answered stubbornly:
"I've got my orders."
"You never got any orders from me to brand other people's stock. I'm not the foreman of a bunch of rustlers yet. You're fired, right now! Take your blankets, get your time and vamose. Sabe?"
"I sabe, all right," the cowboy sneered, "but you can't fire me!"
"We'll settle that when we get back to the ranch, but I can make you cut that calf loose or ride all night with a couple of turns of rope around your waist."
Kansas Ed saw that Ben was right in that particular, and sullenly obeyed. The sidelong look he cast at Ben as he rode away was full of malice, and Ben felt that his boast was true, that he could not fire the rustling cowboy, though stealing daily from Ben's friends.