Trailin'!

FOOLISH HABITS

A sharp noise of running feet leaped from the dust of the street and clattered through the doorway; the two turned.  A swarthy man, broad of shoulder, was the first, and afterward appeared Nash.

“Conklin?” called Deputy Glendin, and swept the room with his startled glance.  “Where’s Conklin?”

He was not there; only a red stain remained on the floor to show where he had lain.

“Where’s Conklin?” called Nash.

“I’m afraid,” whispered Bard quickly to the girl, “that it was more than a game of suppose.”

He said easily to the other two:  “He had enough.  His share of trouble came to-night; I let him go.”

“Young feller,” growled Glendin, “you ain’t been in town a long while, but I’ve heard a pile too much about you already.  What you mean by takin’ the law into your own hands?”

“Wait,” said Nash, his keen eyes on the two, “I guess I understand.”

“Let’s have it, then.”

Still the steady eyes of Nash passed from Sally Fortune to Bard and back again.

“This feller bein’ a tenderfoot, he don’t understand our ways; maybe he thinks the range is a bit freer than it is.”

“That’s the trouble,” answered Glendin, “he thinks too damned much.”

“And does quite a pile besides thinkin’,” murmured Nash, but too low for the others to hear it.

He hesitated, and then, as if making up his mind by a great effort:  “There ain’t no use blamin’ him; better let it drop, Glendin.”

“Nothin’ else to do, Steve; but it’s funny Sally let him do it.”

“It is,” said Nash with emphasis, “but then women is pretty funny in lots of ways.  Ready to start, Bard?”

“All ready.”

“S’long, Sally.”

“Good-night, Miss Fortune.”

“Evenin’, boys.  We’ll be lookin’ for you back in Eldara to-morrow night, Bard.”

And her eyes fixed with meaning on Nash.

“Certainly,” answered the other, “my business ought not to take longer than that.”

“I’ll take him by the shortest cut,” said Nash, and the two went out to their horses.

They had difficulty in riding the trail side by side, for though the roan was somewhat rested by the delay at Eldara it was impossible to keep him up with Bard’s prancing piebald, which sidestepped at every shadow.  Yet the tenderfoot never allowed his mount to pass entirely ahead of the roan, but kept checking him back hard, turning toward Nash with an apology each time he surged ahead.  It might have been merely that he did not wish to precede the cowpuncher on a trail which he did not know.  It might have been something quite other than this which made him consistently keep to the rear; Nash felt certain that the second possibility was the truth.

In that case his work would be doubly hard.  From all that he had seen the man was dangerous—­the image of the tame puma returned to him again and again.  He could not see him plainly through the dark of the night, but he caught the sway of the body and recognized a perfect horsemanship, not a Western style of riding, but a good one no matter where it was learned.  He rode as if he were sewed to the back of the horse, and, as old William Drew had suggested, he probably did other things up to the same standard.  It would have been hard to fulfil his promise to Drew under any circumstances with such a man as this; but with Bard apparently forewarned and suspicious the thing became almost impossible.

Almost, but not entirely so.  He set himself calmly to the problem; on the horn of his saddle the lariat hung loose; if the Easterner should turn his back for a single instant during all the time they were together old Drew should not be disappointed, and one thousand cash would be deposited for the mutual interest of Sally Fortune and himself.  That is to say, if Sally would consent to become interested.  To the silent persuasion of money, however, Nash trusted many things.

The roan jogged sullenly ahead, giving all the strength of his gallant, ugly body to the work; the piebald mustang pranced like a dancing master beside and behind with a continual jingling of the tossed bridle.

The masters were to a degree like the horses they rode, for Nash kept steadily leaning to the front, his bulldog jaw thrusting out; and Bard was forever shifting in the saddle, settling his hat, humming a tune, whistling, talking to the piebald, or asking idle questions of the things they passed, like a boy starting out for a vacation.  So they reached the old house of which Nash had spoken—­a mere, shapeless, black heap huddling through the night.

In the shed to the rear they tied the horses and unsaddled.  In the single room of the shanty, afterward, Nash lighted a candle, which he produced from his pack, placed it in the centre of the floor, and they unrolled their blankets on the two bunks which were built against the wall on either side of the narrow apartment.

Truly it was a crazy shack—­such a building as two men, having the materials at hand, might put together in a single day.  It was hardly based on a foundation, but rather set on the slope side of the hill, and accordingly had settled down on the lower side toward the door.  Not an old place, but the wind had pried and the rain warped generous cracks between the boards through which the rising storm whistled and sang and through which the chill mist of the coming rain cut at them.

Now and then a feeling came to Anthony that the gale might lift the tottering old shack and roll it on down the hillside to the floor of the valley, for it rocked and swayed under the breath of the storm.  In a way it was as if the night was giving a loud voice to the silent struggle of the two men, who continued pleasant, careless with each other.

But when Nash stepped across the room behind Bard, the latter turned and was busy with the folding of his blankets at the foot of his bunk, his face toward the cowpuncher and when Bard, slipping off his belt, fumbled at his holster, Nash was instantly busy with the cleaning of his own gun.

The cattleman, having removed his boots, his hat, and his belt, was ready for bed, and slipped his legs under the blankets.  He stooped and picked up his lariat, which lay coiled on the floor beside him.

“People gets into foolish habits on the range,” he said, thumbing the strong rope curiously, and so doing, spreading out the noose.

“Yes?” smiled Bard, and he also sat up in his bunk.

“It’s like a kid.  Give him a new toy and he wants to take it to bed with him.  Ever notice?”

“Surely.”

“That’s the way with me.  When I go to bed nothin’ matters with me except that I have my lariat around.  I generally like to have it hangin’ on a nail at the head of my bunk.  The fellers always laugh at me, but I can’t help it; makes me feel more at home.”

And with that, still smiling at his own folly in a rather shamefaced way, he turned in the blankets and dropped the big coil of the lariat over a nail which projected from the boards just over the head of his bunk.  The noose was outermost and could be disengaged from the nail by a single twist of the cowpuncher’s hand as he lay passive in the bunk.

On this noose Bard cast a curious eye.  To cityfolk a piece of rope is a harmless thing with which one may make a trunk secure or on occasion construct a clothes line on the roof of the apartment building, or in the kitchen on rainy Mondays.

To a sailor the rope is nothing and everything at once.  Give a seaman even a piece of string and he will amuse himself all evening making lashings and knots.  A piece of rope calls up in his mind the stout lines which hold the masts steady and the yards true in the gale, the comfortable cable which moors the ship at the end of the dreary voyage, and a thousand things between.

To the Westerner a rope is a different thing.  It is not so much a useful material as a weapon.  An Italian, fighting man to man, would choose a knife; a Westerner would take in preference that same harmless piece of rope.  In his hands it takes on life, it gains a strange and sinister quality.  One instant it lies passive, or slowly whirled in a careless circle—­the next its noose darts out like the head of a striking cobra, the coil falls and fastens, and then it draws tighter and tighter, remorselessly as a boa constrictor, paralyzing life.

Something of all this went through the mind of Bard as he lay watching the limp noose of the cowboy’s lariat, and then he nodded smiling.

“I suppose that seems an odd habit to some men, but I sympathize with it.  I have it myself, in fact.  And whenever I’m out in the wilds and carry a gun I like to have it under my head when I sleep.  That’s even queerer than your fancy, isn’t it?”

And he slipped his revolver under the blankets at the head of his bunk.