"Judy, I'm so--you've made me feel so--you're such a good--"

"Hush," whispered the woman of the yellow hair, and all the gay affectation was gone from her. "Let us be thankful he's all right. If he'll only stay--good-by, dear--we can only hope and pray G.o.d."

CHAPTER XXIX

LAFE HELPS A DESERTER

After this experience, Johnson settled to hard work for Horne, and hard work on a range means unremitting toil. When everything moved smoothly, he would act as Horne's trail boss. At this time the cowman was buying large herds in Mexico, princ.i.p.ally yearling steers and cows and calves.

He would throw these cattle across the line and pasture them until a rising market offered the profits he had set his mind on. Success had so puffed up Horne that nothing less than sixty per cent would tempt his investment.

At the setting-in of winter again, Lafe took his outfit far down below Arizpe and purchased a herd of nine hundred head. Then the American authorities declared a quarantine and the cattle could not be brought up until it was lifted. Johnson started back. His party camped on the San Pedro, and just before they crawled under the blankets, they were joined by a native outfit. Of course the Mexicans had no beef or anything to eat. The boss gave them a quarter from the yearling they had killed that evening.

Five of them began to shoot dice on a saddle blanket in a decent, gentlemanly manner--two of the cowboys, the Chinese cook, a Yaqui vaquero and a Mexican horse thief from the Cuitaca valley. The boss smoked and watched the game. Another man lay under the wagon with his collar bone broken and at times his plaints became a nuisance.

"Come a eight," the Celestial invoked. "Heap b.u.m thlow. Me ketchum soon.

You wait."

Presently they became aware that somebody was ministering to their injured companion. His moans ceased. "Feel any better, now?" a voice asked. There followed murmurings and a movement as if the newcomer were easing the sufferer's position.

"Well," he said, "if you can swear that way, you shouldn't ought to be dying. Keep it up. You're doing fine."

A tall man walked into the group around the lantern. He surveyed each face in turn. The Yaqui was blowing on the dice to bring luck and was fearfully disgusted at the interruption. Addressing himself to Johnson, as though somebody had told him that he was the leader, the stranger said: "h.e.l.lo! Got anything to eat?"

"Sure," Lafe answered readily. "Here, you, Charlie--go get this gentleman some cold beef and bread. Drag it now; ketchum quick. Fly at it, pardner."

The visitor was ravenous and bolted the beef in hunks. Lafe judged that he had walked into camp, but refrained from asking why, although the man is poor indeed who cannot obtain a horse to ride in that country.

Bedding was scarce, for they were traveling light, and the best that Johnson could offer was that he should double up with the Chinaman.

Their guest appeared no whit abashed by the prospect.

"Well, me for the hay," he said at once. "I'm all in. Lordy, hark to my joints creak. I bet I've footed it a million miles through the sand, Mr.

Johnson. Your name's Johnson, ain't it? Mine's Wilkins. Say, if this here c.h.i.n.k snores, you'll be burying a cook in the morning, sure as you're alive."

They headed for the Border at daybreak. It was a long thirty miles, and Lafe impressed a horse and the injured man's saddle for Wilkins' use. He noted that Wilkins' overalls and shirt were trying to forsake him and that his toes were taking the air, so when he perceived Charlie measuring him with a comparative eye, in which lurked a gleam of satisfaction, he sent the cook sharply about his business. Lafe held that superiority of race should ever be maintained.

For the most part they rode in silence, as men do at the beginning of day. Their eyes were heavy with sleep. Wilkins seemed sullen and gave no explanation of his presence in that region. He sat stiffly erect in the saddle with his right arm hanging straight at his side. A cowboy or a native westerner crooks his elbows and lets them jog.

"He's a soldier," Lafe concluded, and because he entertained an undefined contempt for soldiers, he trotted ten yards ahead of his guest throughout the morning.

The sun was high when they sighted a white stone monument on a ridge below the Huachucas. A wire fence ran past it. They could see it stretch for miles and miles in a straight line. On their side of the fence was Mexico. Beyond lay the United States.

They reached a gate. Johnson got down and held it open for his men to pa.s.s through. Wilkins stopped and remained a dozen yards within the Mexican Border.

"I don't reckon I'll go on with you," said he; "I'll just stick around here for a spell. Here's your horse, Mr. Johnson. Much obliged. He's sure some horse."

"All right," Lafe answered, and ordered one of his men to throw the horse in with the saddle bunch, which they were driving loosely ahead of them. It struck him as curious that a man should voluntarily go afoot in that unsettled mountain country, but he never abandoned the tenet that a man's business is his own. Consequently he showed no surprise, nor did his men, but they moved off northward, leaving Wilkins gazing after them from the far side of the fence.

"Look!" said a cowboy. "What's that girl doing here?"

A young woman was fording the river some distance to their left, just below the Palomino. Johnson recognized her mount and made as if to hail her. Then a sudden remembrance of Wilkins waiting beyond the gate caused him to pull up. He grinned and grew solemn abruptly, because she was a friend of his wife's, and her brother worked for Horne.

Of course he told Hetty all about it on his return home and of course she refused to see the matter from his standpoint at all and exhibited the liveliest sympathy and understanding of the case. Lafe need not try to tell her that she was indiscreet; Mary Lou Hardin could afford to be indiscreet. Hetty had never known a sweeter, nicer girl. To this Lafe grunted. He had not much faith in women's estimates of their own s.e.x and he considered that any girl who would go to meet a soldier who dare not enter his own country were better off under careful surveillance.

"Nonsense!" cried Hetty. "I tell you it's all right. Anything Mary Lou does must be all right. I'll ride over to-morrow and see her. I bet she tells me all about it."

When Johnson returned to the Canon next night from a day of horse-breaking, he found Hetty simply bursting with news. Yes, Mary Lou had told her all about it. Wilkins had been a trooper--a corporal or a colonel or something--and he and Mary Lou had been sweethearts for over a year. But Mr. Hardin would not hear of her marrying a soldier, so Mr.

Wilkins had done the only thing possible under the circ.u.mstances--he had gone over into Mexico to make a fortune in the mines. It would appear, however, that something ailed the price of copper. The company closed down one of its shafts and Mr. Wilkins was released. He had grown lonely for Mary Lou and homesick for his own country. Wasn't it n.o.ble of him?

The whole tangle was perfectly clear to Hetty.

"n.o.ble, my foot!" said Lafe. "The feller's a deserter. And here I done lent him a horse!"

That was not all Hetty had to say. She had a clever scheme, concocted by herself and Mary Lou while they mingled their tears over this recital of self-sacrifice. It was this--Wilkins wanted to come back. If he did so without preliminary negotiation, they would be apt to lock him in a cell and then he would not be able to see Mary Lou at all. Wasn't it inhuman?

There were some silly rules or regulations Mr. Wilkins had overlooked when he departed, and Mary Lou said that the commandant would probably not see the thing in the right light and would give no consideration whatever to their feelings. Mary Lou was sure that the commandant had a pick on Mr. Wilkins.

"I reckon he'd ought to give this here Wilkins a better job and present him with a purse, hey?" Lafe sneered. "I reckon they'd ought to make him boss of all them soldiers. Then him and Mary Lou could get married and everything would be lovely. Yes, I reckon that's the nicest way to treat a deserter."

"Why, Lafe," Hetty remonstrated, "don't you see? He just left to make enough money to marry Mary Lou. He did it all for her. Wasn't it grand of him?"

The boss threw up his hands and walked off to the spring, where he could smoke and clear his brain of the cobwebs of sentiment. He was not to be allowed to dismiss the matter so lightly. When she had him in the house, Hetty pounced upon him again. Hardly had he taken a chair, than she came to sit on his knee and began stroking his hair. Lafe would not have had a citizen of Badger see this ridiculous performance for all the wealth stored in the depths of the mountains, but he nevertheless submitted to it with a sort of reluctant enjoyment.

"Mary Lou and I," said Hetty, "we thought that if you would speak to Mr.

Horne, he would speak to that soldier man."

"Would he, now? And what has ol' Horne got to say to that general, or whatever he is?"

"Why, you baby, don't you see? Mr. Horne and that man who runs the fort are friends. Now, Mary Lou and I thought that if Mr. Horne would only say something nice about Wilkins, he'd let him go. Don't you think he would?"

"Oh, sure. He'd pin a medal on that feller. It's like he'd put it on with a sword, though, to make it stick."

"Oh, Lafe," Hetty said, almost in tears.

Lafe groaned and gave up the fight. It would be utterly useless, he told her--who ever heard of such a proposition made to serious men? But, of course, if Hetty wanted her husband to make an idiot of himself, he supposed he would have to do so.

"It won't be much trouble," Hetty coaxed. She added: "There, I knew my boy would help me."

Her boy approached the task with much misgiving and very shamefacedly.

He was not a skillful pleader at any time, being accustomed to take what he wanted, instead of asking for it. As a result, old Horne bellowed: "Haw, haw," and slapped his leg and rolled about in his chair, gurgling that Lafe would be the death of him yet. Then Mrs. Horne came into the room.

"What's this all about?" she inquired.

Johnson told her and withdrew. The cowman was still chortling.