On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane
he had burned with Creede’s, but he never wrote in answer, and his heart seemed still and dead. For years the thought of Kitty Bonnair had haunted him, rising up in the long silence of the desert; in the rush and hurry of the round-up the vision of her supple form, the laughter of her eyes, the succession of her moods, had danced before his eyes in changing pictures, summoned up from the cherished past; but now his mind was filled with other things. Somewhere in the struggle against sheep and the drought he had lost her, as a man loses a keep-sake which he has carried so long against his heart that its absence is as unnoticed as its presence, and he never knows himself the poorer. After the drought had come the sheep, the stampede, fierce quarrels with the Swopes, threats and counter-threats –– and then the preparations for war. The memory of the past faded away and another thought now haunted his mind, though he never spoke it –– when the time came, would he fight, or would he stay with Lucy and let Jeff go out alone? It was a question never answered, but every day he rode out without his gun, and Creede took that for a sign.
As the Rio Salagua, swollen with winter rains, rose up like a writhing yellow serpent and cast itself athwart the land, it drew a line from east to west which neither sheep nor cattle could cross, and the cowmen who had lingered about Hidden Water rode gayly back to their distant ranches, leaving the peaceful Dos S where Sallie Winship had hung her cherished lace curtains and Kitty Bonnair and Lucy Ware had made a home, almost a total wreck. Sheep, drought, and flood had passed over it in six months’ time; the pasture fence was down, the corrals were half dismantled, and the bunk-room looked like a deserted grading camp. For a week Creede and Hardy cleaned up and rebuilt, but every day, in spite of his partner’s efforts to divert his mind, Jeff grew more restless and uneasy. Then one lonely evening he went over to the corner where his money was buried and began to dig.
“What –– the –– hell –– is the matter with this place?” he exclaimed, looking up from his work as if he expected the roof to drop. “Ever since Tommy died it gits on my nerves, bad.” He rooted out his tomato can and stuffed a roll of bills carelessly into his overalls pocket. “Got any mail to go out?” he inquired, coming back to the fire, and Hardy understood without more words that Jeff was going on another drunk.
“Why, yes,” he said, “I might write a letter to the boss. But how’re you going to get across the river –– she’s running high now.”
“Oh, I’ll git across the river, all right,” grumbled Creede. “Born to be hung and ye can’t git drowned, as they say. Well, give the boss my best.” He paused, frowning gloomily into the fire. “Say,” he said, his voice breaking a little, “d’ye ever hear anything from Miss Bonnair?”
For a moment Hardy was silent. Then, reading what was in his partner’s heart, he answered gently:
“Not a word, Jeff.”
The big cowboy sighed and grinned cynically.
“That was a mighty bad case I had,” he observed philosophically. “But d’ye know what was the matter with me? Well, I never tumbled to it till afterward, but it was jest because she was like Sallie –– talked like her and rode like her, straddle, that way. But I wanter tell you, boy,” he added mournfully, “Sal had a heart.”
He sank once more into sombre contemplation, grumbling as he nursed his wounds, and at last Hardy asked him a leading question about Sallie Winship.
“Did I ever hear from ’er?” repeated Creede, rousing up from his reverie. “No, and it ain’t no use to try. I wrote to her three times, but I never got no answer –– I reckon the old lady held ’em out on her. She wouldn’t stand for no bow-legged cowpuncher –– and ye can’t blame her none, the way old man Winship used to make her cook for them rodéo hands –– but Sallie would’ve answered them letters if she’d got ’em.”
“But where were they living in St. Louis?” persisted Hardy. “Maybe you got the wrong address.”
“Nope, I got it straight –– Saint Louie, Mo., jest the way you see it in these money-order catalogues.”
“But didn’t you give any street and number?” cried Hardy, aghast. “Why, for Heaven’s sake, Jeff, there are half a million people in St. Louis –– she’d never get it in the world.”
“No?” inquired Creede apathetically. “Well, it don’t make no difference, then. I don’t amount to a dam’, anyhow –– and this is no place for a woman –– but, by God, Rufe, I do git awful lonely when I see you writin’ them letters to the boss. If I only had somebody that cared for me I’d prize up hell to make good. I’d do anything in God’s world –– turn back them sheep or give up my six-shooter, jest as she said; but, nope, they’s no such luck for Jeff Creede –– he couldn’t make a-winnin’ with a squaw.”
“Jeff,” said Hardy quietly, “how much would you give to get a letter from Sallie?”
“What d’ye mean?” demanded Creede, looking up quickly. Then, seeing the twinkle in his partner’s eye, he made a grab for his money. “My whole wad,” he cried, throwing down the roll. “What’s the deal?”
“All right,” answered Hardy, deliberately counting out the bills, “there’s the ante –– a hundred dollars. The rest I hold back for that trip to St. Louis. This hundred goes to the Rinkerton Detective Agency, St. Louis, Missouri, along with a real nice letter that I’ll help you write; and the minute they deliver that letter into the hands of Miss Sallie Winship, formerly of Hidden Water, Arizona, and return an answer, there’s another hundred coming to ’em. Is it a go?”
“Pardner,” said Creede, rising up solemnly from his place, “I want to shake with you on that.”
The next morning, with a package of letters in the crown of his black hat, Jefferson Creede swam Bat Wings across the swift current of the Salagua, hanging onto his tail from behind, and without even stopping to pour the water out of his boots struck into the long trail for Bender.
One week passed, and then another, and at last he came back, wet and dripping from his tussle with the river, and cursing the very name of detectives.
“W’y, shucks!” he grumbled. “I bummed around in town there for two weeks, hatin’ myself and makin’ faces at a passel of ornery sheepmen, and what do I git for my trouble? ‘Dear Mister Creede, your letter of umpty-ump received. We have detailed Detective Moriarty on this case and will report later. Yours truly!’ That’s all –– keep the change –– we make a livin’ off of suckers –– and they’s one born every minute. To hell with these detectives! Well, I never received nothin’ more and finally I jumped at a poor little bandy-legged sheep-herder, a cross between a gorilla and a Digger Injun –– scared him to death. But I pulled my freight quick before we had any international complications. Don’t mention Mr. Allan Q. Rinkerton to me, boy, or I’ll throw a fit. Say,” he said, changing the subject abruptly, “how many hundred thousand sheep d’ye think I saw, comin’ up from Bender? Well, sir, they was sheep as far as the eye could see –– millions of ’em –– and they’ve got that plain et down to the original sand and cactus, already. W’y, boy, if we let them sheepmen in on us this Spring we’ll look like a watermelon patch after a nigger picnic; we’ll be cleaned like Pablo Moreno; they won’t be pickin’s for a billy goat! And Jim ’n’ Jasp have been ribbin’ their herders on scandalous. This little bandy-legged son-of-a-goat that I jumped at down in Bender actually had the nerve to say that I killed Juan Alvarez myself. Think of that, will ye, and me twenty miles away at the time! But I reckon if you took Jasp to pieces you’d find out he was mad over them three thousand wethers –– value six dollars per –– that I stompeded. The dastard! D’ye see how he keeps away from me? Well, I’m goin’ to call the rodéo right away and work that whole upper range, and when the river goes down you’ll find Jeff Creede right there with the goods if Jasp is lookin’ for trouble. Read them letters, boy, and tell me if I’m goin’ to have the old judge on my hands, too.”
According to the letters, he was; and the boss was also looking forward with pleasure to her visit in the Spring.
“Well,