Rowdy of the Cross L by B. M. Bower (classic fiction .TXT) 📕

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROWDY OF THE CROSS L *** Produced by Mary Starr, and David Widger

ROWDY OF THE “CROSS L.”

By B.M. Sinclair (AKA B. M. Bower)

Contents

CHAPTER 1. Lost in a Blizzard.

CHAPTER 2. Miss Conroy Refuses Shelter.

CHAPTER 3. Rowdy Hires a New Boss.

CHAPTER 4. Pink as “Chappyrone.”

CHAPTER 5. At Home at Cross L.

CHAPTER 6. A Shot From the Dark.

CHAPTER 7. Rowdy in a Tough Place.

CHAPTER 8. Pink in a Threatening Mood.

CHAPTER 9. Moving the Herd.

CHAPTER 10. Harry Conroy at Home.

CHAPTER 11. Rowdy Promoted.

CHAPTER 12. “You Can Tell Jessie.”

CHAPTER 13. Rowdy Finds Happiness.

CHAPTER 1. Lost in a Blizzard.

“Rowdy” Vaughan—he had been christened Rowland by his mother, and rechristened Rowdy by his cowboy friends, who are prone to treat with much irreverence the names bestowed by mothers—was not happy. He stood in the stirrups and shook off the thick layer of snow which clung, damp and close-packed, to his coat. The dull yellow folds were full of it; his gray hat, pulled low over his purple ears, was heaped with it. He reached up a gloved hand and scraped away as much as he could, wrapped the long-skirted, “sour-dough” coat around his numbed legs, then settled into the saddle with a shiver of distaste at the plight he was in, and wished himself back at the Horseshoe Bar.

Dixie, standing knee-deep in a drift, shook himself much after the manner of his master; perhaps he, also, wished himself back at the Horseshoe Bar. He turned his head to look back, blinking at the snow which beat insistently in his eyes; he could not hold them open long enough to see anything, however, so he twitched his ears pettishly and gave over the attempt.

“It's up to you, old boy,” Rowdy told him resignedly. “I'm plumb lost; I never was in this damn country before, anyhow—and I sure wish I wasn't here now. If you've any idea where we're at, I'm dead willing to have you pilot the layout. Never mind Chub; locating his feed when it's stuck under his nose is his limit.”

Chub lifted an ear dispiritedly when his name was spoken; but, as was usually the case, he heard no good of himself, and dropped his head again. No one took heed of him; no one ever did. His part was to carry Vaughan's bed, and to follow unquestionably where Vaughan and Dixie might lead. He was cold and tired and hungry, but his faith in his master was strong; the responsibility of finding shelter before the dark came down rested not with him.

Vaughan pressed his chilled knees against Dixie's ribs, but the hand upon the reins was carefully non-committal; so that Dixie, having no suggestion of his master's wish, ventured to indulge his own. He turned tail squarely to the storm and went straight ahead. Vaughan put his hands deep into his pockets, snuggled farther down into the sheepskin collar of his coat, and rode passive, enduring.

They brought up against a wire fence, and Vaughan, rousing from his apathy, tried to peer through the white, shifting wall of the storm. “You're a swell guide—not,” he remarked to the horse. “Now you, you hike down this fence till you locate a gate or a corner, or any darned thing; and I don't give a cuss if the snow does get in your eyes. It's your own fault.”

Dixie, sneezing the snow from his nostrils, turned obediently; Chub, his feet dragging wearily in the snow, trailed patiently behind. Half an hour of this, and it seemed as if it would go on forever.

Through the swirl Vaughan could see the posts standing forlornly in the snow, with sixteen feet of blizzard between; at no time could he distinguish more than two or three at once, and there were long minutes when the wall stood, blank and shifting, just beyond the first post.

Then Dixie lifted his head and gazed questioningly before him, his ears pointed forward—sentient, strained—and whinnied shrill challenge. He hurried his steps, dragging Chub out of the beginnings of a dream. Vaughan straightened and took his hands from his pockets.

Out beyond the dim, wavering outline of the farthest post came answer to the challenge. A mysterious, vague shape grew impalpably upon the strained vision; a horse sneezed, then nickered eagerly. Vaughan drew up and waited.

“Hello!” he called cheerfully. “Pleasant day, this. Out for your health?”

The shape hesitated, as though taken aback by the greeting, and there was no answer. Vaughan, puzzled, rode closer.

“Say, don't talk so fast!” he yelled. “I can't follow yuh.”

“Who—who is it?” The voice sounded perturbed; and it was, moreover, the voice of a woman.

Vaughan pulled up short and swore into his collar. Women are not, as a rule, to be met out on the blank prairie in a blizzard. His voice, when he spoke again, was not ironical, as it had been; it was placating.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I thought it was a man. I'm looking