"Aw, Tex ain't in it with _you_. When it comes right down to fine work--" So, feeding the vanity of the boss with tidbits of crude flattery, which the boss swallowed greedily as nine tenths of us would do, they jogged along down the pebbly bottom of Sinkhole Creek where it had gone dry, turned into the first rocky draw that pointed southeastward, and so pa.s.sed on and away from the camp where Tex's thoughts were clinging anxiously.

When they had carefully mended the fence that had been opened, and had obliterated all traces of horses pa.s.sing through, they rode home to their beds perfectly satisfied with the night's work, and looking forward to the next night.

A hot, windy day went over the arid range; a day filled with contented labor for some, strenuous activity for some others--Johnny Jewel among these--and more or less anxious waiting for a very few.

That day the fifteen stolen horses, urged forward by grimy, swearing Mexicans and a white man or two, trotted heavily southward, keeping always to the sheltered draws and never showing upon a ridge until after a lookout had waved that all was well.

That day Mary V rode aimlessly to the western hills, because she saw three of the boys hiking off toward the south and she did not know where they were going.

That day Johnny Jewel suffered chronic heart jumpings, lest the four wide-blinkered mules look around again and, seeing themselves still pursued by the great, ungainly contraption on the lengthened wagon they drew, run away and upset their precariously balanced load.

That day the man who had so obligingly answered the telephone for Johnny busied himself with various plans and preparations for the night, and retraced the trail down the rocky draws to the fence where horses and riders had crossed, to make sure, by daylight, that no trace had been left of their pa.s.sing, and met Tex over by Snake Ridge for a brief and very satisfactory conference.

So the day blew itself red in the face, and then purple, with a tender, rose-violet haze under its one crimson, lazily drooping eye. And at last it wrapped itself in its royal, gemmed robe, and settled quietly down to sleep. Night came stepping softly across the hills and the sandy plains, carrying her full-lighted lantern that painted black shadows beside every rock and bush and cut-bank.

With the deepening of the shadows and the rising drone of night sounds and the whispering of the breeze which was all that was left of the wind, the man came riding cautiously up through a draw to the willow growth just below Sinkhole watering place. He tied his horse there and went on afoot, stepping on rocks and gra.s.s tufts and gravelly spots as easily as though he had practiced that mode of travel.

Sinkhole cabin was dark and quiet and lonesome, but still he waited for awhile in the shadow and watched the place before he ventured forth. He did not go at once to the cabin, but always treading carefully where imprints would be lightest, he made a further inspection of the corral.

The wind had done its work there, and hoofprints were practically obliterated. Satisfied, he returned to the cabin and sat down on the bench beside the door, where he could watch the trail while he waited.

The telephone rang. The man untied the door, went in, and answered it hoa.r.s.ely. Everything was all right, he reported. He had ridden the fence and tightened one or two loose wires. Yes, the water was holding out all right, and the horses came to water every night about sundown, or else early in the morning before the flies got too bad. His cold was better, and he didn't need a thing that he knew of. And good-bye, Mr. Selmer.

He went out, very well satisfied with himself; re-tied the door carefully with Johnny's own peculiar kind of hitch, stooped and felt the hard-packed earth to make sure he had not inadvertently dropped a cigarette b.u.t.t that might possibly betray him, and rolled a fresh smoke before leaving for home. He had just lighted it and was moving away toward the creek when the telephone jingled a second summons. He would have to answer it, of course. Old Sudden knew he couldn't be far away, and would ring until he did answer. He unfastened the door again, cursing to himself and wondering if the Rolling R people were in the habit of calling Johnny Jewel every ten minutes or so. He stumbled over a box that he had missed before, swore, and called a gruff h.e.l.lo.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, cowboy!" Unmistakably feminine, that voice; unmistakably provocative, too--subdued, demure, on guard, as though it were ready to adopt any one of several tones when it spoke again.

"Oh--er--h.e.l.lo! That you, Mr. Selmer?" The man did not forget his hoa.r.s.eness. He even coughed discreetly.

"Why, _no_! This is Venus speaking. May I ask if you expected Miss Selmer to call you up?" Raised eyebrows would harmonize perfectly with that tone, which was sugary, icily gracious.

"Oh--er--h.e.l.lo! That you, Miss Selmer? Beg your pardon--my mistake.

Er--ah--how are yuh this evenin'?"

"Oh--lonesome." A sigh seemed to waft over the wire. "You see, I have quarreled with Mars again. He _would_ drink out of your big dipper in spite of me! I knew you wouldn't like that--"

"Oh--why no, of course not!" The hoa.r.s.eness broke slightly, here and there. A worried tone was faintly manifesting itself.

"And I was wondering when you are coming to take me for another ride!"

"Why--ah--just as soon as I can, Miss Venus. You know my time ain't my own--but maybe Sunday I could git off."

"How nice! What a bad cold you have! How did you catch, it?" Sweetly solicitous now, that voice.

"Why, I dunno--"

"Was it from going without your coat when we were riding last time?"

"I--yes, I guess it was; but that don't matter. I'd be willing to ketch a dozen colds riding with you. It don't matter at all."

"Oh, but it does! It matters a great deal--Dearie! Did you really think I was that nasty Mary V Selmer calling you up?"

"Why, no, I--I was just talking to her father--but as soon as I--I was thinking maybe the old man had forgot something, and had her--uh course I knowed your voice right away--sweetheart." That was very daring. The man's forehead was all beaded with perspiration by this time, and it was not the heat that caused it. "You know I wouldn't talk to her if I didn't have to." It is very difficult to speak in honeyed accents that would still carry a bullfrog hoa.r.s.eness, but the man tried it, nevertheless.

"Dearie! Honest?"

"You know it!" He was bolder now that he knew endearing terms were accepted as a matter of course.

"OO-oo! I believe you're fibbing. You kept calling me _Miss_ Venus just as if--you--liked somebody else better. Just for that, I'm not going to talk another minute. And you needn't call up, either--for I shall not answer!"

She hung up the receiver, and the man, once he was sure of it, did likewise. He wiped his forehead, d.a.m.ned all women impartially as a thus-and-so nuisance that would queer a man's game every time if he wasn't sharp enough to meet their plays, and went outside. He still felt very well satisfied with himself, but his satisfaction was tempered with thankfulness that he was clever enough to fool that confounded girl. All the way back to his horse he was trying to "place" the voice and the name.

Some one within riding distance, it must be--some one visiting in the country. He sure didn't know of any ranch girl named Venus. After awhile he felt he could afford to grin over the incident. "Never knowed the difference," he boasted as he rode away. "Nine men outa ten woulda overplayed their hand, right there."

Just how far he had overplayed his hand, that man never knew. Far enough to send Mary V to her room rather white and scared; shaking, too, with excitement. She stood by the window, looking out at the moon-lighted yard with its wind-beaten flowers. To save her life she could not help recalling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, nor could she rid herself of the odd sensation of having talked with the Wolf. Though she did not, of course, carry the simile so far as to liken Johnny Jewel to the Grandmother.

She did not know what to do--a strange sensation for Mary V, I a.s.sure you. Once she got as far as the door, meaning to go out on the porch and tell her dad that somebody was down at Sinkhole Camp pretending that he was Johnny Jewel when he was nothing of the sort, and that the boys had better go right straight down there and see what was the matter.

She did not get farther than the door, however, and for what would seem a very trifling reason; she did not want her dad to know that she had been trying to talk to Johnny over the 'phone.

She went back to the window. _Who_ was down there pretending to be Johnny Jewel? And what, in heaven's name, was he doing it for? She remembered the Mexican who had ridden up that day and pretended that he wanted matches, and how he had returned to the camp almost as soon as she had left. But the man who had talked with her was not a Mexican. No one but a white man--and a range man, she added to herself--would say, "Uh course I knowed yore voice." And he had not really had a cold. Mary V's ears were sharper than her dad's, for she had caught the make-believe in the hoa.r.s.eness. She knew perfectly well that Johnny Jewel might be hoa.r.s.e as a crow and never talk that way. Johnny never said "Uh course I knowed,"

and Johnny would choke before he'd ever call her sweetheart. He wouldn't have let that man do it, either, had Johnny been present in the cabin, she suspected shrewdly.

Being an impulsive young person who acted first and did her thinking afterwards, Mary V did exactly what she should not have done. She decided forthwith that she would take a long moonlight ride.

CHAPTER NINE

A MIDNIGHT RIDE

"Mary V, what are you doing in the kitchen? Remember, I told you you shouldn't make any more fudge for a week. I don't want any more sessions with Bedelia like I had last time you left the kitchen all messed up with your candy. What are you _doing_?"

Mary V licked a dab of loganberry jelly from her left thumb and answered with her face turned toward the open window nearest the porch where her mother sat rocking peacefully.

"Oh, for gracious _sake_, mom! I'm only putting up a little lunch before I go to bed. I'm going to take my rides earlier, after this, and it wouldn't be kind for me to wake the whole house up at daybreak, getting my lunch ready--"

"If you're going at daybreak, why do you need a lunch? If you think I'll permit you to stay out in the heat all day without any breakfast--"

"Well, mom! I can't take pictures at daybreak, can I? I've _got_ to stay out till the light is strong enough. And there's a special place I want, and if I go early, I can get back early; before lunch, at the very latest. Do you _want_ me to go without anything to eat?"

"Seems to me you're running them 'Desert Glimpses' into the ground," her mother grumbled comfortably. "You've got a stack higher than your head, now. And some of these days you'll get bit with a snake or a centipede or--"

"Centipedes don't bite. They grab with their toes. My goodness, mom!

A person's got to do _something_! I don't see what harm there is in my riding horseback in the early morning. It's a healthful form of exercise--"

"It's a darn fad, and you'll go back to school looking like a squaw--and serve you right. It's getting along towards the time when snakes go blind. You want to be careful, Mary V--"