Her Prairie Knight by B. M. Bower (short novels to read .TXT) 📕

painstaking care, considering the hurry they were in. Dick was in the saddle, and gone, before Keith had finished, and Keith was not a slow young man, as a rule. They ran the two miles without a break, except twice, where there were gates to close. Dick, speeding a furlong before, had obligingly left them open; and a stockman is hard pressed indeed—or very drunk—when he fails to close his gates behind him. It is an unwritten law which becomes second nature.

Almost within sound of the place, Dick raced back and met them, and his face was white.

“It's Dorman!” he cried. “He's lost. They haven't seen him since we left. You know, Trix, he was standing at the gate.”

Beatrice went white as Dick; whiter, for she was untanned. An overwhelming sense of blame squeezed her heart tight. Keith, seeing her shoulders droop limply, reined close, to catch her in his arms if there was the slightest excuse. However, Beatrice was a healthy young woman, with splendid command of her nerves, and she had no intention of fainting. The sickening weakness passed in a moment.

“It's my fault,” she said, speaking rapidly, her eyes seeking Dick's for comfort. “I said 'yes' to everything he asked me, because I was thinking of something else, and not paying attention. He was going to buy your horse, Mr. Cameron, and now he's lost!”

This, though effective, was not particularly illuminating. Dick wanted details, and he got them—for Beatrice, having remorse to stir the dregs of memory, repeated nearly everything Dorman had said, even telling how the big, high pony put up his front hand, and he shaked it, and how Dorman truly needed some little wheels on his feet.

“Poor little devil,” Keith muttered, with wet eyes.

“He—he said you lived over there,” Beatrice finished, pointing, as Dorman had pointed—which was not toward the “Cross” ranch at all, but straight toward the river.

Keith wheeled Redcloud; there was no need to hear more. He took the hill at a pace which would have killed any horse but one bred to race over this rough country. Near the top, the forced breathing of another horse at his heels made him look behind. It was Beatrice following, her eyes like black stars. I do not know if Keith was astonished, but I do know that he was pleased.

“Where's Dick?” was all he said then.

“Dick's going to meet the men—the cowboys. Sir Redmond went after them, when they found Dorman wasn't anywhere about the place.”

Keith nodded understandingly, and slowed to let her come alongside.

“It's no use riding in bunches,” he remarked, after a little. “On circle we always go in pairs. We'll find him, all right.”

“We must,” said Beatrice, simply, and shaded her eyes with her hand. For they had reached the top, and the prairie land lay all about them and below, lazily asleep in the sunshine.

Keith halted and reached for his glass. “It's lucky I brought it along,” he said. “I wasn't thinking, at the time; I just slung it over my shoulder from habit.”

“It's a good habit, I think,” she answered, trying to smile; but her lips would only quiver, for the thought of her blame tortured her. “Can you see—anything?” she ventured wistfully.

Keith shook his head, and continued his search. “There are so many little washouts and coulees, down there, you know. That's the trouble with a glass—it looks only on a level. But we'll find him. Don't you worry about that. He couldn't go far.”

“There isn't any real danger, is there?”

“Oh, no,” Keith said. “Except—” He bit his lip angrily.

“Except what?” she demanded. “I'm not silly, Mr. Cameron—tell me.”

Keith took the glass from his eyes, looked at her, and paid her the compliment of deciding to tell her, just as if she were a man.

“Nothing, only—he might run across a snake,” he said. “Rattlers.”

Beatrice drew her breath hard, but she was plucky. Keith thought he had never seen a pluckier girl, and the West can rightfully boast brave women.

She touched Rex with the whip. “Come,” she commanded. “We must not stand here. It has been more than three hours.”

Keith put away the glass, and shot ahead to guide her.

“We must have missed him, somewhere.” The eyes of Beatrice were heavy with the weariness born of anxiety and suspense. They stood at the very edge of the steep bluff which rimmed the river. “You don't think he could have—” Her eyes, shuddering down at the mocking, blue-gray ripples, finished the thought.

“He couldn't have got this far,” said Keith. “His legs would give out, climbing up and down. We'll go back by a little different way, and look.”

“There's something moving, off there.” Beatrice pointed with her whip.

“That's a coyote,” Keith told her; and then, seeing the look on her face: “They won't hurt any one. They're the rankest cowards on the range.”

“But the snakes—”

“Oh, well, he might wander around for a week, and not run across one. We won't borrow trouble, anyway.”

“No,” she agreed languidly. The sun was hot, and she had not had anything to eat since early breakfast, and the river mocked her parched throat with its cool glimmer below. She looked down at it wistfully, and Keith, watchful of every passing change in her face, led her back to where a cold, little spring crept from beneath a rock; there, lifting her down, he taught her how to drink from her hand.

For himself, he threw himself down, pushed back his hat, and drank long and leisurely. A brown lock of hair, clinging softly together with moisture, fell from his forehead and trailed in the clear water, and Beatrice felt oddly tempted to push it back where it belonged. Standing quietly watching his picturesque figure, she forgot, for the moment, that a little boy was lost among these peaceful, sunbathed hills; she remembered only the man at her feet, drinking long, satisfying drafts, while the lock of hair floated in the spring.

“Now we'll go on.” He stood up and pushed back the wet lock, which trickled a tiny stream down his cheek, and settled his gray hat in place.

Again that day he felt her foot in his palm, and the touch went over him in thrills. She was tired, he knew; her foot pressed heavier than it had before. He would have liked to take her in his arms and lift her bodily into the saddle, but he hardly dared think of such a blissful proceeding.

He set the pace slower, however, and avoided the steepest places, and he halted often on the higher ground, to scan sharply the coulees. And so they searched, these two, together, and grew to know each other better than in a month of casual meetings. And the grass nodded, and the winds laughed, and the stern hills looked on, quizzically silent. If they knew aught of a small boy with a wealth of yellow curls and white collar, they