Linder quickly converted the apparent chaos of horses, wagons and implements into order; Transley had a last word with Y.D., and the rancher, shouting "Good luck, boys! Make it a thousand tons or more,"

waved them away.

Linder glanced back at the house. The bright sunshine had not awakened it; it lay dreaming in its grove of cool, green trees.

The trail lay, not up the valley, but across the wedge of foothills which divided the South Y.D. from the parent stream. The a.s.sent was therefore much more rapid than the trails which followed the general course of the stream. Huge hills, shouldering together, left at times only wagon-track room between; at other places they skirted dangerous cutbanks worn by spring freshets, and again trekked for long distances over gently curving uplands. In an hour the horses were showing the strain of it, and Linder halted them for a momentary rest.

It was at that moment that Drazk rode up, his face a study in obvious annoyance.

"Danged if I ain't left that Pete-horse's blanket down at the Y.D.," he exclaimed.

"Oh, well, you can easily ride back for it and catch up on us this afternoon," said Linder, who was not in the least deceived.

"Thanks, Lin," said Drazk. "I'll beat it down an' catch up on you this afternoon, sure," and he was off down the trail as fast as "that Pete-horse" could carry him.

At the Y.D. George conducted the search for his horse blanket in the strangest places. It took him mainly about the yard of the house, and even to the kitchen door, where he interviewed the Chinese boy.

"You catchee horse blanket around here?" he inquired, with appropriate gesticulations.

"You losee hoss blanket?"

"Yep."

"What kind hoss blanket?"

"Jus' a brown blanket for that Pete-horse."

"Whose hoss?"

"Mine," proudly.

"Where you catchee?"

"Raised him."

"Good hoss?"

"You betcha."

"Huh!"

Pause.

"You no catchee horse blanket, hey?"

"No!" said the Chinaman, whose manner instantly changed. In this brief conversation he had cla.s.sified Drazk, and cla.s.sified him correctly. "You catchee him, though--some h.e.l.l, too--you stickee lound here. Beat it,"

and Drazk found the kitchen door closed in his face.

Drazk wandered slowly around the side of the house, and was not above a surrept.i.tious glance through the windows. They revealed nothing. He followed a path out by a little gate. His ruse had proven a blind trail, and there was nothing to do but go down to the stables, take the horse blanket from the peg where he had hung it, and set out again for the South Y.D.

As he turned a corner of the fence the sight of a young woman burst upon him. She was hatless and facing the sun. Drazk, for all his admiration of the s.e.x, had little eye for detail. "A sort of chestnut, about sixteen hands high, and with the look of a thoroughbred," he afterwards described her to Linder.

She turned at the sound of his footsteps, and Drazk instantly summoned a smirk which set his homely face beaming with good humor.

"Pardon me, ma'am," he said, with an elaborate bow. "I am Mr. Drazk--Mr.

George Drazk--Mr. Transley's a.s.sistant. No doubt he spoke of me."

She was inside the enclosure formed by the fence, and he outside. She turned on him eyes which set Drazk's pulses strangely a-tingle, and subjected him to a deliberate but not unfriendly inspection.

"No, I don't believe he did," she said at length. Drazk cautiously approached, as though wondering how near he could come without frightening her away. He reached the fence and leaned his elbows on it.

She showed no disposition to move. He cautiously raised one foot and rested it on the lower rail.

"It's a fine morning, ma'am," he ventured.

"Rather," she replied. "Why aren't you with Mr. Transley's gang?"

The question gave George an opening. "Well, you see," he said, "it's all on account of that Pete-horse. That's him down there. I rode away this morning and plumb forgot his blanket. So when Mr. Transley seen it he says, 'Drazk, take the day off an' go back for your blanket,' he says.

'There's no hurry,' he says. 'Linder an' me'll manage,' he says."

"Oh!"

"So here I am." He glanced at her again. She was showing no disposition to run away. She was about two yards from him, along the fence. Drazk wondered how long it would take him to bridge that distance. Even as he looked she leaned her elbows on the fence and rested one of her feet on the lower rail. Drazk fancied he saw the muscles about her mouth pulling her face into little, laughing curves, but she was gazing soberly into the distance.

"He's some horse, that Pete-horse," he said, taking up the subject which lay most ready to his tongue. "He's sure some horse."

"I have no doubt."

"Yep," Drazk continued. "Him an' me has seen some times. Whew! Things I couldn't tell you about, at all."

"Well, aren't you going to?"

Drazk glanced at her curiously. This girl showed signs of leading him out of his depth. But it was a very delightful sensation to feel one's self being led out of his depth by such a girl. Her face was motionless; her eyes fixed dreamily upon the brown prairies that swept up the flanks of the foothills to the south. Far and away on their curving crests the dark snake-line of Transley's outfit could be seen apparently motionless on the rim of the horizon.

Drazk changed his foot on the rail and the motion brought him six inches nearer her.

"Well, f'r instance," he said, spurring his imagination into action, "there was the fellow I run down an' shot in the Cypress Hills."

"Shot!" she exclaimed, and the note of admiration in her voice stirred him to further flights.

"Yep," he continued, proudly. "Shot an' buried him there, right by the road where he fell. Only me an' that Pete-horse knows the spot."

George sighed sentimentally. "It's awful sad, havin' to kill a man,"

he went on, "an' it makes you feel strange an' creepy, 'specially at nights. That is, the first one affects you that way, but you soon get used to it. You see, he insulted--"

"The first one? Have you killed more than one?"

"Oh yes, lots of them. A man like me, what knocks around all over with all sorts of people, has to do it.

"Then there's the police. After you kill a few men nat'rally the police begins to worry you. I always hate to kill a policeman."