The Lookout Man by B. M. Bower (electronic reader txt) 📕

I've seen lots of tracks up around this way, and up towards Taylor Kock. But I never thought they were made by feet as little as what yours are."

"Why, forevermore! I suppose I ought to thank you for that. I make pretty healthy looking tracks, let me tell you. And I don't claim all the tracks, because so many hunters come up here."

Hank looked at her from under his slant eyebrows. "Guess they's some that ain't crazy about huntin' too," he observed shrewdly. "Feller that had the lookout last summer, guess he hangs out somewhere around here, don't he? Must, or you wouldn't be calling him. Got a claim, maybe."

"Why do you think so? I go all over these hills, and I—"

"I was kinder wonderin'," said Hank. "I guess you must know 'im purty well. I just happened to notice how clost them two sets of tracks are, over by that big tree. Like as if somebody with kinda little feet had stood around talking to a feller for quite a spell. I kinda make a study of tracks, you see—'cause I hunt a good deal. Ever study tracks?"

"Why, no—" Marion's smile became set and superficial. "I do wish you'd teach me, Mr. Brown."

"Well, come on over here and I'll show yuh somethin'." He reached over and laid his hand on her arm, and after an involuntarily shrinking, Marion thought it wisest to let it pass. Very likely he did not mean anything at all beyond eagerness to show her the tracks. Why in the world had they forgotten to be careful, she wondered. But it was hard to remember that this wilderness was not really so untrodden as it looked when she and Jack found themselves alone in some remote spot. She went fearfully, with uneasy laughter, where Hank led. They stopped beside the tree where she and Jack had talked the other day. Hank pointed down at the telltale snow.

"It's dead easy to read tracks," he drawled, "when they's fresh and plain as what these are. They's four cigarette butts, even, to show how long the feller stood here talkin' to the girl. And behind the tree it's all tromped up, where he waited fer her to come, most likely. You kin see where his tracks comes right out from behind the tree to the place where they stood talkin'. An' behind the tree there ain't no cigarette butts a-tall—an' that's when a feller most generally smokes—when he's passin' the time waitin' fer somebody. An' here's a string—like as if it had been pulled offn a package an' throwed away. An' over there on that bush is the paper the string was tied aroun'—wind blowed it over there, I guess." He waded through the snow to where the paper had lodged, and picked it up. "It's even got a pos'mark onto it," he announced, "and part of the address. It must a'been quite a sizable package, 'cause it took foteen cents to send it from Los Angeles to Miss Marion—"

"Why, what do you know about that!" cried Marion abruptly, bringing her hands together animatedly. "All that's left of my opera fudge that one of the girls sent me!" She took the paper and glanced at it ruefully. "I remember now—that was the time Fred was sure he'd get a—" she stopped herself and looked at him archly—"a jack-rabbit. And I said I'd come out and help him carry it home. But he didn't have any luck at all—why, of course, I remember! Meeting the professor with the mail, and bringing the candy along to eat if we got hungry—and we did too. And Fred hid behind the tree and scared me—why, Mr. Brown, I think you're perfectly wonderful, to figure that all out just from the tracks! I should think you'd be a detective. I'm sure there isn't a detective in the country that could beat you—really, they are stupid alongside of such work as this. But I hope the tracks won't tell you what Fred said about not getting the—er—the rabbit he shot at!" She laughed up into his face. "You might tell," she accused him playfully, "and get us all into trouble. I'm awfully afraid of you, Mr. Brown. I am really."

Hank Brown could read tracks fairly well, but he could not read women at all. His puzzled gaze went from Marion's laughing face to the tracks in the snow; from there to the paper in his hand; to the tree, and back again to her face.

"The man's tracks went back towards Taylor Rock," he drawled out half apologetically. "That's what made me kinda think maybe—"

"Oh, you know that, too! You know how he said he was going up there and see if he couldn't run across a bear before sundown, and for me to go straight home. And I'll bet," she added breathlessly, "you can tell me exactly where it was that Kate waited for me across the gulley, and which ankle it was that she sprained so I had to almost carry her back to the house, and—why, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if you could tell me what I put on it!"

"No," Hank confessed feebly, "I guess I couldn't just figure all that out, not offhand like."

"But you knew about Fred forgetting his cigarettes, and about my bringing him some so he wouldn't be grouchy all the way home," Marion reminded him demurely. "I—I do think you are the cleverest boy!"

That finished Hank. Never within his recollection had a young woman so much as hinted that she thought him wonderful or clever. Besides, Hank was well past thirty, and it tickles a man of that age to be called a boy.

He began to leer at her with amorous eyes when he spoke, and he began to find frequent occasions for taking hold of her arm. He managed to make himself odious in the extreme, so that in sheer self-defense Marion made haste to bring his thoughts back to Jack.

"Did you say that lookout man has a claim up here somewhere?" She started back to the road, Hank keeping close to her heels.

"I dunno—I just said maybe he had. He's up here, I know that—an' you know it, too." He took her arm to help her up the hill, and Marion felt as though a toad was touching her; yet she dared not show too plainly her repulsion for fear of stirring his anger. She had a feeling that Hank's anger would be worse than his boorish gallantry. "I figure he's on the dodge. Ain't no other reason why he ain't never been to town sence I packed him up to the lookout station las' spring. 'F he had a claim he'd be goin' to town sometime, anyway. He'd go in to record his claim, an' he ain't never done that. I'll bet," he added, walking close alongside, "you could tell more'n you let on. Couldn't you, ay?"

"I could, if I knew anything to tell." Marion tried to free her arm without actually jerking it, and failed.

"But you don't, ay? Say, you're pretty cute. What'll yuh give me if I tell yuh what I do think?"

The fool was actually trying to slip his arm around her without being too abrupt about it; as if he were taming some creature of the wild which he wished not to frighten. Marion was drawing herself together,