Waring's voice answered faintly. Ramon stepped from the door and found his way to the stable. Dex, placidly munching alfalfa, turned his head as Ramon came in.

"The Senor Jim is not dead," he told the horse.

And, leaning against Dex, he wept softly, as women weep, with a happiness too great to bear. The big horse nuzzled his shoulder with his velvet-smooth nose, as though he would sympathize. Then he turned to munching alfalfa again in huge content. He had had a weary journey. And though his master had not come to feed him, here was the gentle, low-voiced Ramon, whom he knew as a friend.

CHAPTER XX

_City Folks_

Bud Shoop's new duties kept him exceedingly busy. As the days went by he found himself more and more tied to office detail. Fortunately Torrance had left a well-organized corps of rangers, each with his own special work mapped out, work that Shoop understood, with the exception of seeding and planting experiments, which Lundy, the expert, attended to as though the reserve were his own and his life depended upon successful results along his special line.

Shoop had long since given up trying to dictate letters. Instead he wrote what he wished to say on slips of paper which his clerk cast into conventional form. The genial Bud's written directions were brief and to the point.

Among the many letters received was one from a writer of Western stories, applying for a lease upon which to build a summer camp. His daughter's health was none too good, and he wanted to be in the mountains. Shoop studied the letter. He had a vague recollection of having heard of the writer. The request was legitimate. There was no reason for not granting it.

Shoop called in his stenographer. "Ever read any of that fella's books?"

"Who? Bronson? Yes. He writes bang-up Western stories."

"He does, eh? Well, you get hold of one of them stories. I want to read it. I've lived in the West a few minutes myself."

A week later Shoop had made his decision. He returned a shiny, new volume to the clerk.

"I never took to writin' folks reg'lar," he told the clerk. "Mebby I got the wrong idee of 'em. Now I reckon some of them is human, same as you and me. Why, do you know I been through lots of them things he writes about. And, by gollies, when I read that there gun-fight down in Texas, I ketched myself feelin' along my hip, like I was packin' a gun. And when I read about that cowboy's hoss,--the one with the sarko eye and the white legs,--why, I ketched myself feelin' for my ole bandanna to blow my nose. An' I seen dead hosses a-plenty. But you needn't to say nothin' about that in the letter. Just tell him to mosey over and we'll talk it out. If a man what knows hosses and folks like he does wa'n't raised in the West, he ought to been. Heard anything from Adams?"

"He was in last week. He's up on Baldy. Packed some stuff up to the lookout."

"Uh-uh. Now, the land next to my shack on the Blue ain't a bad place for this here writer. I got the plat, and we can line out the five acres this fella wants from my corner post. But he's comin' in kind of late to build a camp."

"It will be good weather till December," said the clerk.

"Well, you write and tell him to come over. Seen anything of Hardy and his men lately?"

"Not since last Tuesday."

"Uh-uh. They're millin' around like a lot of burros--and gettin'

nowhere. But Jim Waring's out after that bunch that got Pat. If I wasn't so hefty, I'd 'a' gone with him. I tell you the man that got Pat ain't goin' to live long to brag on it."

"They say it was the Brewster boys," ventured the stenographer.

"They say lots of things, son. But Jim Waring _knows_. G.o.d help the man that shot Pat when Jim Waring meets up with him. And I want to tell you somethin'. Be kind of careful about repeatin' what 'they say' to anybody. You got nothin' to back you up if somebody calls your hand.

'They' ain't goin' to see you through. And you named the Brewster boys.

Now, just suppose one of the Brewster boys heard of it and come over askin' you what you meant? I bet you a new hat Jim Waring ain't said Brewster's name to a soul--and he _knows_. I'm goin' over to Stacey. Any mail the stage didn't get?"

"Letter for Mrs. Adams."

"Uh-uh. Lorry writes to his ma like he was her beau--reg'lar and plenty. Funny thing, you can't get a word out of him about wimmin-folk, neither. He ain't that kind of a colt. But I reckon when he sees the gal he wants he'll saddle up and ride out and take her." And Bud chuckled.

Bondsman rapped the floor with his tail. Bondsman never failed to express a sympathetic mood when his master chuckled.

"Now, look at that," said Shoop, grinning. "He knows I'm goin' over to Stacey. He heard me say it. And he says I got to take him along, 'cause he knows I ain't goin' on a hoss. That there dog bosses me around somethin' scandalous."

The stenographer smiled as Shoop waddled from the office with Bondsman at his heels. There was something humorous, almost pathetic, in the gaunt and grizzled Airedale's affection for his rotund master. And Shoop's broad back, with the shoulders stooped slightly and the set stride as he plodded here and there, often made the clerk smile. Yet there was nothing humorous about Shoop's face when he flashed to anger or studied some one who tried to mask a lie, or when he reprimanded his clerk for naming folk that it was hazardous to name.

The typewriter clicked; a fly buzzed on the screen door; a beam of sunlight flickered through the window. The letter ran:--

Yours of the 4th inst. received and contents noted. In answer would state that Supervisor Shoop would be glad to have you call at your earliest convenience in regard to leasing a camp-site on the White Mountain Reserve.

Essentially a business letter of the correspondence-school type.

But the stenographer was not thinking of style. He was wondering what the girl would be like. There was to be a girl. The writer had said that he wished to build a camp to which he could bring his daughter, who was not strong. The clerk thought that a writer's daughter might be an interesting sort of person. Possibly she was like some of the heroines in the writer's stories. It would be interesting to meet her. He had written a poem once himself. It was about spring, and had been published in the local paper. He wondered if the writer's daughter liked poetry.

In the meantime, Lorry, with two pack-animals and Gray Leg, rode the hills and canons, attending to the many duties of a ranger.

And as he caught his stride in the work he began to feel that he was his own man. Miles from headquarters, he was often called upon to make a quick decision that required instant and individual judgment. He made mistakes, but never failed to report such mistakes to Shoop. Lorry preferred to give his own version of an affair that he had mishandled rather than to have to explain some other version later. He was no epitome of perfection. He was inclined to be arbitrary when he knew he was in the right. Argument irritated him. He considered his "Yes" or "No" sufficient, without explanation.

He made Shoop's cabin his headquarters, and spent his spare time cording wood. He liked his occupation, and felt rather independent with the comfortable cabin, a good supply of food, a corral and pasture for the ponies, plenty of clear, cold water, and a hundred trails to ride each day from dawn to dark as he should choose. Once unfamiliar with the timber country, he grew to love the twinkling gold of the aspens, the twilight vistas of the spruce and pines, and the mighty sweep of the great purple tides of forest that rolled down from the ranges into a sheer of s.p.a.ce that had no boundary save the sky.

He grew a trifle thinner in the high country. The desert tan of his cheeks and throat deepened to a ruddy bronze.

Aside from pride in his work, he took special pride in his equipment, keeping his bits and conchas polished and his leather gear oiled.

Reluctantly he discarded his chaps. He found that they hindered him when working on foot. Only when he rode into Jason for supplies did he wear his chaps, a bit of cowboy vanity quite pardonable in his years.

If he ever thought of women at all, it was when he lounged and smoked by the evening fire in the cabin, sometimes recalling "that Eastern girl with the jim-dandy mother." He wondered if they ever thought of him, and he wished that they might know he was now a full-fledged ranger with man-size responsibilities. "And mebby they think I'm ridin' south yet,"

he would say to himself. "I must have looked like I didn't aim to pull up this side of Texas, from the way I lit out." But, then, women didn't understand such things.

Occasionally he confided something of the kind to the spluttering fire, laughing as he recalled the leg of lamb with which he had waved his hasty farewell.

"And I was scared, all right. But I wasn't so scared I forgot I'd get hungry." Which conclusion seemed to satisfy him.

When he learned that a writer had leased five acres next to Bud's cabin, he was skeptical as to how he would get along with "strangers." He liked elbow-room. Yet, on second thought, it would make no difference to him.

He would not be at the cabin often nor long at a time. The evenings were lonely sometimes.

But when camped at the edge of the timber on some mountain meadow, with his ponies grazing in the starlit dusk, when the little, leaping flame of his night fire flung ruddy shadows that danced in giant mimicry in the cavernous arches of the pines; when the faint tinkle of the belled pack-horse rang a faery cadence in the distance; then there was no such thing as loneliness in his big, outdoor world. Rather, he was content in a solid way. An inner glow of satisfaction because of work well done, a sense of well-being, founded upon perfect physical health and ease, kept him from feeling the need of companionship other than that of his horses. Sometimes he sat late into the night watching the pine gum ooze from a burning log and swell to golden bubbles that puffed into tiny flames and vanished in smoky whisperings. At such times a companion would not have been unwelcome, yet he was content to be alone.

Later, when Lorry heard that the writer was to bring his daughter into the high country, he expressed himself to Shoop's stenographer briefly: "Oh, h.e.l.l!" Yet the expletive was not offensive, spoken gently and merely emphasizing Lorry's att.i.tude toward things feminine.

While Lorry was away with the pack-horses and a week's riding ahead of him, the writer arrived in Jason, introduced himself and his daughter,--a rather slender girl of perhaps sixteen or eighteen,--and later, accompanied by the genial Bud, rode up to the Blue Mesa and inspected the proposed camp-site. As they rode, Bud discoursed upon the climate, ways of building a log cabin, wild turkeys, cattle, sheep, grazing, fuel, and water, and concluded his discourse with a dissertation upon dogs in general and Airedales in particular. The writer was fond of dogs and knew something about Airedales. This appealed to Shoop even more than had the writer's story of the West.

Arrived at the mesa, tentative lines were run and corners marked. The next day two Mormon youths from Jason started out with a load of lumber and hardware. The evening of the second day following they arrived at the homestead, pitched a tent, and set to work. That night they unloaded the lumber. Next morning they cleared a s.p.a.ce for the cabin. By the end of August the camp was finished. The Mormon boys, to whom freighting over the rugged hills was more of a pastime than real work, brought in a few pieces of furniture--iron beds, a stove, cooking-utensils, and the hardware and provisions incidental to the maintenance of a home in the wilderness.

The writer and his daughter rode up from Jason with the final load of supplies. Excitement and fatigue had so overtaxed the girl's slender store of strength that she had to stay in bed for several days.

Meanwhile, her father put things in order. The two saddle-horses, purchased under the critical eye of Bud Shoop, showed an inclination to stray back to Jason, so the writer turned them into Lorry's corral each evening, as his own lease was not entirely fenced.

Riding in from his long journey one night, Lorry pa.s.sed close to the new cabin. It loomed strangely raw and white in the moonlight. He had forgotten that there was to be a camp near his. The surprise rather irritated him. Heretofore he had considered the Blue Mesa was his by a kind of natural right. He wondered how he would like the city folks.