When she had finished, Bud blew his nose sonorously. "I know that tune,"

he said, gazing at Dorothy in a sort of huge wonderment. "But I never knowed all that you made it say."

He rose and shuffled to the doorway, stopping abruptly as he saw Bondsman. Could it be possible that Bondsman had not recognized his own tune? Bud shook his head. There was something wrong somewhere. Bondsman had not offered to come in and accompany the pianist. He must have been asleep. But Bondsman had not been asleep. He rose and padded to Shoop's horse, where he stood, a statue of rugged patience, waiting for Shoop to start back toward home.

"Now, look at that!" exclaimed Bud. "He's tellin' me if I want to get back to Jason in time to catch the stage to-morrow mornin' I got to hustle. That there dog bosses me around somethin' scandalous."

When Shoop had gone, Dorothy turned to her father. "Mr. Shoop didn't ask me to play very much. He seemed in a hurry."

"That's all right, Peter Pan. He liked your playing. But he has a very important matter to attend to."

"He's really just delicious, isn't he?"

"If you like that word, Peter. He is big and sincere and kind."

"Oh, so were some of the saints for that matter," said Dorothy, making a humorous mouth at her father.

Chapter XXIII

_Like One Who Sleeps_

Bondsman sat in the doorway of the supervisor's office, gazing dejectedly at the store across the street. He knew that his master had gone to St. Johns and would go to Stacey. He had been told all about that, and had followed Shoop to the automobile stage, where it stood, sand-scarred, muddy, and ragged as to tires, in front of the post-office. Bondsman had watched the driver rope the lean mail bags to the running-board, crank up the st.u.r.dy old road warrior of the desert, and step in beside the supervisor. There had been no other pa.s.sengers.

And while Shoop had told Bondsman that he would be away some little time, Bondsman would have known it without the telling. His master had worn a coat--a black coat--and a new black Stetson. Moreover, he had donned a white shirt and a narrow hint of a collar with a black "shoe-string" necktie. If Bondsman had lacked any further proof of his master's intention to journey far, the canvas telescope suitcase would have been conclusive evidence.

The dog sat in the doorway of the office, oblivious to the clerk's friendly a.s.surances that his master would return poco tiempo. Bondsman was not deceived by this kindly attempt to soothe his loneliness.

Toward evening the up-stage buzzed into town. Bondsman trotted over to it, watched a rancher and his wife alight, sniffed at them incuriously, and trotted back to the office. That settled it. His master would be away indefinitely.

When the clerk locked up that evening, Bondsman had disappeared.

As Bronson stepped from his cabin the following morning he was startled to see the big Airedale leap from the veranda of Shoop's cabin and bound toward him. Then he understood. The camp had been Bondsman's home. The supervisor had gone to Criswell. Evidently the dog preferred the lonely freedom of the Blue Mesa to the monotonous confines of town.

Bronson called to his daughter. "We have a visitor this morning, Dorothy."

"Why, it's Bondsman! Where is Mr. Shoop?"

"Most natural question. Mr. Shoop had to leave Jason on business.

Bondsman couldn't go, so he trotted up here to pay us a visit."

"He's hungry. I know it. Come, Bondsman."

From that moment he attached himself to Dorothy, following her about that day and the next and the next. But when night came he invariably trotted over to Shoop's cabin and slept on the veranda. Dorothy wondered why he would not sleep at their camp.

"He's very friendly," she told her father. "He will play and chase sticks and growl, and pretend to bite when I tickle him, but he does it all with a kind of mental reservation. Yesterday, when we were having our regular frolic after breakfast, he stopped suddenly and stood looking out across the mesa, and it was only my pony, just coming from the edge of the woods. Bondsman tries to be polite, but he is really just pa.s.sing the time while he is waiting for Mr. Shoop."

"You don't feel flattered, perhaps. But don't you admire him all the more for it?"

"I believe I do. Poor Bondsman! It's just like being a social pet, isn't it? Have to appear happy whether you are or not."

Bondsman knew that she proffered sympathy, and he licked her hand lazily, gazing up at her with bright, unreadable eyes.

Bud Shoop wasted no time in Stacey. He puffed into the hotel, indecision behind him and a definite object in view.

"No use talkin'," he said to Mrs. Adams. "We got to go and take care of Jim. I couldn't get word to Lorry. No tellin' where to locate him just now. Mebby it's just as well. They's a train west along about midnight.

Now, you get somebody to stay here till we get back--"

"But, Mr. Shoop! I can't leave like this. I haven't a thing ready. Anita can't manage alone."

"Well, if that's all, I admire to say that I'll set right down and run this here hotel myself till you get back. But it ain't right, your travelin' down there alone. We used to be right good friends, Annie. Do you reckon I'd tell you to go see Jim if it wa'n't right? If he ever needed you, it's right now. If he's goin' to get well, your bein'

there'll help him a pow'ful sight. And if he ain't, you ought to be there, anyhow."

"I know it, Bud. I wish Lorry was here."

"I don't. I'm mighty glad he's out there where he is. What do you think he'd do if he knowed Jim was shot up?"

"He would go to his father--"

"Uh-uh?"

"And--"

"Go ahead. You wa'n't born yesterday."

"He would listen to me," she concluded weakly.

"Yep. But only while you was talkin'. That boy is your boy all right, but he's got a lot of Jim Waring under his hide. And if you want to keep that there hide from gettin' shot full of holes by a no-account outlaw, you'll just pack up and come along."

Bud wiped his forehead, and puffed. This sort of thing was not exactly in his line.

"Here's the point, Annie," he continued. "If I get there afore Lorry, and you're there, he won't get into trouble. Mebby you could hold him with your hand on the bridle, but he's runnin' loose right where he is.

Can't you get some lady in town to run the place?"

"I don't know. I'll see."

Bud heaved a sigh. It was noticeably warmer in Stacey than at Jason.

Bud's reasoning, while rough, had appealed to Mrs. Adams. She felt that she ought to go. She had only needed some such impetus to send her straight to Waring. The town marshal's telegram had stunned her. She knew that her husband had followed the Brewsters, but she had not antic.i.p.ated the awful result of his quest. In former times he had always come back to her, taking up the routine of their home life quietly. But this time he had not come back. If only he had listened to her! And deep in her heart she felt that old jealousy for the lure which had so often called him from her to ride the grim trails of his profession. But this time he had not come back. She would go to him, and never leave him again.

Anita thought she knew of a woman who would take charge of the hotel during Mrs. Adams's absence. Without waiting for an a.s.surance of this, Bud purchased tickets, sent a letter to his clerk, and spent half an hour in the barber shop.

"Somebody dead?" queried the barber as Bud settled himself in the chair.

"Not that I heard of. Why?"