Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Part 20

"Empty!" she said. "Hard luck! Water will have to do. We were careless to forget our drinking-cups. Rinse this flask, and get some water from the spring, Vivian."

Vivian, still waving the fan in the air, brought the water, which Virginia tried to pour between the man's lips. It seemed to arouse him, for he drank some gratefully, though without opening his eyes.

"I ought to wash some of this blood away," said Virginia, "but I guess I won't take the time. You can do that after I'm gone. There's only one thing to do. We can't leave this man here in this condition. He might die before any one found him. I'll take Pedro and ride on to Michner's as fast as I can for help. Or," she added, seeing Vivian's eyes open wider, "_you_ take him, and I'll stay here. Either you like, only we must decide at once. Maybe we'll meet somebody or somebody'll come, or maybe there'll be somebody at the homesteader's cabin. Which will you do, ride or stay?"

Vivian had decided before she looked at Pedro. She always felt that Pedro entertained scorn for her, contempt that wild gallops through the sagebrush should, together with his youth and speed, present terrors. She knew that he despised her for preferring Siwash to him.

"I'll stay," she said firmly. "Pedro will do more for you than for me.

When will you be back?"

Virginia was already in the saddle.

"Probably in little more than an hour, if I find folks," she said. "Keep giving him some water if he needs it, and fan him. He may come to.

Good-by."

The sound of Pedro's feet died away all too quickly. The stillness which followed was deeper than ever. It fairly sang in the air. For fully five minutes Vivian stood motionless, loath to believe that Virginia had gone.

She did not want to be alone! Something inside of her cried out against it. But she _was_ alone--she, Vivian Winters, alone with a dying cow boy on a limitless Wyoming plain. Since the relentless knowledge pushed itself upon her, she might as well accept it. _She was alone!_ And there was the cow boy!

Virginia had said that he might come to! For her own sake she hoped he didn't. He was awful enough as he was--blood-smeared and dirty--but at least he did not realize the situation, and that was a scant comfort. If he came to, he might be insane. Blows on the head often made persons so.

Given insanity and a gun, what would be the demonstration?

A low groan from the quaking-asp thicket brought Vivian to herself.

Imagination had no place here. This man was hurt, and she was strong and well. There was a spring of water near by, and she had extra handkerchiefs in her pocket. It was plainly up to her!

The stillness was less persistent after she had gone to the spring for water. She forgot all about it as she knelt beside the wounded man and washed the blood from his pain-distorted face. He opened his eyes as he felt the cold cloths, and Vivian saw that they were good, blue eyes. They, together with the absence of blood and dirt, told her that her patient was young--only a boy, in fact! The cut on his head was ugly! Something fluttered inside of her as she parted his hair to place a clean handkerchief upon it, and for a moment she was ill and faint. The cow boy's "Thank you, miss," brought her to herself. Perhaps he was coming to! It was not so awful as she had thought.

But he again fell asleep, cleaner and more comfortable than before. The buckskin whinnied her thanks, and put her nose against Vivian's arm as she went to the spring for more water. For the first time in her life Vivian felt the comrades.h.i.+p, the dumb understanding of a horse. Then Siwash became glorified. He was something more than a ragged, decrepit old pony.

He was a companion, and Vivian stopped to pat him before she hurried back to her patient.

Upon her return from her third journey after water, she found the cow boy's eyes again open. This time he had raised himself on his elbow and was looking at her. He had come to, and it was not horrible at all. Her only feeling was one of alarm lest his sitting up should cause his wound to bleed again, and she hurried to him.

"You're feeling better, aren't you?" she faltered. "But you'd better lie down. You've got a pretty bad cut on your head."

The boy smiled in a puzzled way.

"I don't seem to remember much," he said, "except the header. My horse fell when I wa'n't expectin' it, and I went on a rock. 'Twas the only one on the prairie, I guess, but it got me for sure. What are you doin' here, miss? I don't seem to remember you."

Vivian explained as simply as possible. She and her friend had been resting when his horse brought him to the quaking-asps. One of them had gone for help, and the other had stayed. She was the other.

"You're not from these parts, I take it," said the boy, still puzzled.

"You don't speak like us folks."

"No," Vivian told him, "I'm from the East. I came out here six weeks ago to visit my friend."

Her patient looked surprised and raised himself again on his elbow in spite of Vivian's restraining hand.

"So much of a tenderfoot as that?" he said, gazing at her. "They ain't usually such good sports as you are, miss. Yes, thank you, I'll have some more water. It's right good, I tell you!"

Then he fell asleep again, and left Vivian to the companions.h.i.+p of Siwash and the buckskin. Her patient comfortable, she fed them the remaining cookies, wondering as she did so where the awful sense of loneliness had gone. She should welcome Virginia--already it was time for her--but the knowledge that she must stay another hour would not present such terrors to her.

It was Siwash who first caught the sound of returning hoofs--Siwash and the relieved buckskin. They neighed and told Vivian, who ran from the thicket to see if they were right. Yes, there was Virginia, with Pedro still in the lead, and two men on horseback behind her. She had luckily met them a mile this side of Michner's, and hurried them back with her.

The cow boy had again raised himself, as they rode up to him and dismounted. He was better, for he could look sheepis.h.!.+ This being thrown from one's horse was a foolish thing!

They would stay with him, the men said. They knew him well. He was called "Sc.r.a.pes" at Michner's because he was always getting into trouble. This last was the worst yet. They would camp there that night, and in the morning he could ride home, they felt sure. They were grateful to the girls. Sc.r.a.pes was a likeable chap, and no one wanted him hurt.

But Sc.r.a.pes himself was the most grateful. He staggered to his feet as Vivian went up to tell him good-by and shook hands with her, and then with Virginia. But his eyes were for Vivian.

"You're the best tenderfoot I ever knew, miss," he said. "You was sure some good sport to take care o' me. Would you take my quirt? It's bran new, and I made it all myself. Get it off my horn, Jim. Yes, I want you to have it. Good-by!"

"Sc.r.a.pes is right," said Virginia, as they left the thicket and started homeward. "I said a while ago that you were getting to be one, Vivian, but now I know you've got there--for sure!"

CHAPTER XIX

CARVER STANDISH III FITS IN

Carver Standish III hated the world, himself, and everybody else--at least, he thought he did. In fact, he had been so sure of it all day that no one had attempted any argument on the subject. Jack, unable to maneuver a fis.h.i.+ng-trip and secretly glad of an escape, had ridden over to Mary with some much-needed mending; Donald had been glad to ride on the range on an errand for his father; Mr. Keith was in town; the whereabouts of Malcolm could easily be guessed.

Carver, in white trousers and a crimson Gordon sweater, was idly roaming about the ranch in search of any diversion which might present itself, and which did not require any too much exertion. For two weeks and more things had not been going well with him. His stay in Wyoming was not closing so happily as it had begun--all due, he admitted to himself, to a missed opportunity. For had he seized the chance when it was given him on the morning after that disastrous night on the mountain, and taken the laugh he had so richly deserved, by now the incident, like Vivian's affair with Mr. Crusoe, would be forgotten. Instead, he had accepted ill-gotten commendation, and received with it the well-disguised scorn of Virginia.

This last was the worst of all.

He wandered down to the corral. If there were a horse around he might change his clothes and ride. Dave was there, repairing some harnesses.

There were no horses down, he said, except old Ned. They were all on the range. Carver might ride Ned, or take him to round up the others. For a moment Carver thought of asking Dave to do the service for him, but the determined set of the old Scotchman's jaw warned him in time. Dave was averse to taking orders from a tenderfoot. It was too much like work, Carver concluded, to round up a decent horse, and to ride Ned would not alleviate his present mood. He would walk.

Old Dave, intent on his harnesses, did not see Carver jump the farther boundary of the corral. Had he done so, he would have shouted a warning not to stray too far on foot across the range. The cattle were being driven farther down toward the ranch, and they were often averse to solitary persons on foot.

Carver, all unperceived, climbed the foot-hills, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. It was all a bad mess, he thought, and how to get out of it, he didn't know. Of one thing he was certain: the West was not the place for him. The dreams in which he had lived only three weeks ago--dreams of opening a branch of his father's business in the West when he should have finished college--had vanished. He had now decided he was born to remain a New Englander. There were things about the West which he didn't like--blunt, unpolished, new things. Of course these ranchers didn't mind crudities. They could fraternize with ordinary cow-punchers. Even Donald could do that. But _he_ had been reared differently. He struck his toe against a rock, which he kicked savagely out of his way. No, the Standishes were New Englanders, and there they would remain!

He reached the brow of the first foot-hills, crossed an open s.p.a.ce, and climbed others to the open range above. When he again reached a level he stopped in surprise. Never had he seen so many cattle. There were literally hundreds of them. Where had they all come from? He stood still and stared at them, and they with one accord stopped browsing and stared at him. They were unaccustomed to persons strolling on foot across their preserves. For an instant Carver Standish felt a strange sense of fear.

There was something portentous in the way a big red and white bull in the foreground was staring at him. Then he saw Donald on horseback off to the right, and waved his hand. But Donald, spying the white trousers and the red sweater in the same instant, did not stop to wave. Instead, he struck MacDuff with his spur, skirted the cattle nearest him, and rode madly down toward Carver and those ahead.

"He's crazy," he said to himself, "coming up here in that rig and afoot.

Old Rex will never stand it for a moment."

He was right. Old Rex had not the slightest inention of standing it. He ate no more, but with lowered head gazed at this curiously clad intruder, who was hesitating, not knowing whether to advance or to turn back. Old Rex decided for him. He did the advancing. One shake of his heavy head, crowned with long, sharp horns, one cloud of dust as he pawed the ground, and one tremendous bellow warned Carver Standish III to do no tarrying in that locality.

A shout from Donald following Old Rex's roar determined Carver's direction. He fled toward MacDuff at a speed which would have won any twenty-five yard cup in New England! Old Rex followed. The other cattle, curiously enough and much to Donald's relief, let their champion fight it out alone.

Donald, every moment drawing nearer, freed his left foot from the stirrup.

Carver must somehow be made to jump behind the saddle, and jump quick!

There was not an instant to lose. Old Rex was gaining, and Carver was growing tired. It was too hot up there for a red sweater. With the bull a scant thirty feet away Donald pulled in MacDuff, and yelled to Carver to jump, which he did, aided by the stirrup, Donald's arm, and the last bit of ancestral nerve he possessed. When Old Rex, baffled and defeated, saw his foe being championed by one whom he full well knew, it took but a yell from Donald and a mighty crack of his quirt to send him back among the herd.

There seemed little enough to say as MacDuff bore his double load down over the hills to the lower range, where white trousers and red sweaters might be countenanced. But something had returned to Carver, something which for two weeks had been on a vacation. As they neared the home foot-hills, he slid from MacDuff.

"If you're not in a hurry, Don," he said, "let's rest here a minute.