"It's no good," said Loudon, thickly. "Got to cut the boot off."

Laguerre whipped out his knife and slit the leather from instep to top.

Gently he removed the boot. Loudon peeled off the sock. The ankle was badly swollen.

"Wiggle de toe," commanded Laguerre.

Loudon wriggled his toes and was able to move his ankle slightly, not without a deal of pain, however. He noted with thankfulness that the pain was continuous, and not stabbing as it is when a bone is involved.

"Bone's all right," he observed, cheerfully. "Only a sprain, I guess."

"Dat ees good," said Laguerre. "I geet de odder hoss."

He strode to the dead horse and stripped off saddle and bridle.

"Say," said Loudon, "I can do that while yo're goin' for the hoss.

We'll have to leave 'em here, anyway."

"No, not dees treep, my frien'," Laguerre said, carrying saddle and bridle toward the corral. "Dat feller she leave Dan Smeet's hoss on de odder side de corral. Hoss she pretty tire', but she carry you all right."

On his hands and knees Loudon crawled to the corral and peered between the bars. The corral was a large one. Till recently the gra.s.s had grown thickly within it. But that gra.s.s had been nibbled to the roots, and the marks of shod hoofs were everywhere. From a spring near the shack a small stream ran through one corner of the corral.

"Slick," said Loudon. "Couldn't have been better, could it?"

"No eet could not," agreed Laguerre. "She feex up dees ole corral fine. Dat Ranger hoss she been here mabbeso four day. She have de gra.s.s. She have de watair. She all ready fresh w'en dat feller she come. Un how can we follow wit' de tire' pony? Oh, she have eet figure all out. For w'y? Can you tell me dat, Tom?"

"I dunno. It sh.o.r.e is too many for me."

He painfully made his way to the spring, drank, and then soaked his sprained ankle in the icy stream till Laguerre came to help him into the saddle.

On the bank of the Hatchet they found Laguerre's pony lying where it had fallen. The animal was not dead. It was sound asleep.

"Hear dat?" said Laguerre, late in the afternoon.

Loudon listened. From afar off came a buzzing murmur. It grew louder and louder.

"The boys are some het up," observed Loudon.

The posse straggled into view. The boys were "het up." They were all talking at once. Evidently they had been talking for some time, and they were full of their subject. At sight of Loudon and his bootless leg the clamour stilled.

"Hit bad, Tom?" called Doubleday.

"Hoss fell on me," explained Loudon. "Yuh don't have to say nothin', Doubleday," he added, as the foreman dismounted beside him. "I know just what happened."

"Oh, yuh do, do yuh?" snorted Doubleday, wrathfully. "I might 'a'

knowed there was somethin' up when that gent an' you fellers didn't catch up. An' us ridin' our heads off from h.e.l.l to breakfast! Why, we'd be combin' this country yet only we met some o' the cavalry from Fort Yardley an' they said there ain't been an Injun off the reservation for a month. They sh.o.r.e give us the laugh. ----! That's his hoss! Did yuh get him?"

"We did not. The fellah got away nice as yuh please on my hoss Ranger--yep, the hoss Rufe Cutting stole in the Bend. Gimme the makin's, somebody, an' I'll tell yuh what happened."

CHAPTER XIV

A DETERMINED WOMAN

A long, ragged line of dirty, tired men, and sweat-caked, drooping-headed horses, the posse rode into Paradise Bend in the afternoon of the following day. The men were quiet. Silently they dispersed to the various corrals. Loudon, his right leg dangling free, had suffered increasingly during the long ride. By the time the Bend was reached the pain in his ankle was torturing. At the hotel corral Laguerre and Doubleday helped him to dismount.

"Yuh got to go to bed awhile, Tom," p.r.o.nounced Doubleday. "Grab my shoulder."

"Where was you thinkin' o' takin' him?" demanded the exceedingly cross voice of Mrs. Burr.

"The hotel, ma'am," replied Doubleday, taking off his hat.

Mrs. Burr marched forward and halted in front of the trio. She stuck her arms akimbo and glared at Doubleday.

"The hotel!" she snapped. "The hotel! An' my house close by! What's the matter with you, John Doubleday? My land, it's a good thing I seen you three a-comin' in here. I just knowed yuh was aimin' to put him in the hotel. Yuh'll do nothin' o' the kind. Yuh hear me! I ain't goin'

to have no friend o' mine with a game leg a-roostin' in this hotel.

The beds are bad, an' the grub's worse. What's the matter, Tom? Shot?"

"It's only a sprain, ma'am," said Loudon. "An' I guess if yuh don't mind, I'll go to the hotel. I couldn't think o' troublin' yuh, ma'am.

Thank yuh a lot, but I couldn't, honest."

"Oh, yuh couldn't, couldn't yuh? My land, ain't yuh uppity all of a sudden? Yuh don't know what yo're talkin' about. Men never do nohow an' a sick man don't, special. Yo're a-comin' to my house, an' I'm a-goin' to put yuh to bed an' cure that sprained ankle. Yuh can just bet I am. John Doubleday, you h'ist him aboard that pony right away quick an' fetch him round instanter. If he ain't outside my door in five minutes I'll come back an' know the reason why. Hurry now. I'm goin' ahead an' get some hot water ready."

Twenty minutes later Loudon was sitting in the Burr kitchen. He was smoking a cigarette and soaking his sprained ankle in a bucket of hot water. At the kitchen table stood Mrs. Burr shaking up a bottle of horse liniment.

"What's this John Doubleday tells me about yore ride no'th bein' a joke?" asked Mrs. Burr.

"I dunno no more'n Doubleday," replied Loudon. "It's all beyond me."

"It's sh.o.r.e a heap funny. No feather-dusters, no miner folks a-standin' 'em off, an' that gent who brought the news runnin' off thataway an' shootin' at yuh an' all. It must mean somethin', though.

A feller wouldn't do all that just for a real joke. It's too much."

"I wish I knew what it meant, ma'am."

"Well, it's a queer world, full o' queer folks an' queerer doin's,"

observed the lady, holding the bottle against the light. "Anyhow, this here liniment will fix yuh up fine as frog's hair. Now yuh must just lift yore foot out an' I'll dry it. Shut up! Who's running this, I'd like to know? Land sakes, why shouldn't I dry yore ankle? Shut up, I tell yuh.

"My fathers, Tom, you men make me plumb tired! Idjits, the lot o' yuh.

No more sense than so many fool hens. What yuh all need is wives to think for yuh, tell yuh what to do, an' all that. There now, it's dry.

Where's that cloth? Hold the foot still while I wrap it 'round. Now this liniment's a-goin' to burn. But the burnin's healin'. The harder it burns the quicker yuh'll get well. Sh.o.r.e!

"As I was sayin', Tom, yuh'd ought to get married. Do yuh good. Make yuh steadier--give yuh a new interest in life, an' all that. Ever think of it, Tom?"

Mrs. Burr rose to her feet and beamed down upon Loudon. That young man was beginning to feel strangely weak. First Scotty, and now Mrs. Burr!

What was the matter with everybody? Scotty, of course, was an eccentric. But for Mrs. Burr brazenly to hurl her daughter at his head was incomprehensible. Loudon, red to the ears, mustered a weak smile.

"I dunno, ma'am," he gulped, uncomfortably. "I--I hadn't thought of it, I guess."