Chapter 6

WHICH WINS?

He was long of limb, rather loose-jointed; but not ungraceful, except as his simple manner and unassuming rig--neither soiled nor fresh--made him seem so; at all events what he might look like was apparently of slight moment to him. He had a good walk--Kate noticed that when he crossed the platform; not the choppy, high-heeled gait of a man that never does anything but ride, but an easy step that matched the expressions of his eyes. His quick movements seemed, as usual with bronzed Western men, younger than his face; and his twenty-eight years would, as a first impression, have passed for well above thirty, with Kate. She had struggled too long with charcoal and lead pencils not to perceive that his frame was clean and his shoulders good; and his head was well set on them, if the man would carry it where it belonged. But he was plainly not vain; and since we usually accept at sight whatever draft men and women themselves draw on our impressions, Kate would have regarded him ordinarily with no more than he demanded--indifference.

"Any kind of saddle will do me," he answered in response to an inquiry; and he repeated his compliment to the horses. He looked well at his own: "This is a good pony." Kate assumed a little: "All our ponies are good."

"I wish you'd show them to me sometime," was his unassuming request. The remark should have been enough to warn Kate that her deception rested on very thin ice; that it was more than probable he had already penetrated much of it. But, a beginner in deception, she was intent only on her own part and took his good-natured acquiescence at its face value. The moment he saw her ponies he knew they were Doubleday's: yet he seemed willing to forego his scruple rather than to lose the ride.

Kate, too, was disposed to be amiable: "I will show them to you sometime," she said promptly.

But whenever she thawed for an instant she felt directly the necessity of freezing up again. Her remarks were divided as evenly as a mountain April day--one moment spring, the next winter. Happily for her purposes, the day itself was spring. She had mounted her horse but as she spoke, she slipped from her saddle, threw her lines and, walking hurriedly into the dining room, returned with a handful of wrapped sandwiches. She looked at him as she held the package out: "How can we carry them?"

He disposed of the store in a capacious pocket and then hesitated: "I wonder if you'd mind waiting five minutes while I go up to Doubleday's house."

"What for?" she asked, professing surprise.

"To see what I can find out about where he is."

"I've told you all you can find out by going to the house," she returned deprecatingly. He looked at her as if undecided. "When you ask to go riding with me and I get the horses--I come first, don't I?" she asked cavalierly; and before he could help her she was back again in the saddle.

He hesitated no longer: "You come first any time," he said, "and anywhere," he added, swinging up on his own pony.

She looked sidewise at him as they trotted up the street: "You don't mind rather rough riding?"

"Anything the ponies can stand," was all he said.

Kate had given him her dun pony. Spirit-free all the time the trim beast either through instinct knew his rider or meant to cast off care in a long fling. He took the stage the moment his rider touched the saddle. Kate rode Dick, her lighter but faster gray pony. He danced attendance for a time, but the dun kept the spotlight and gave Kate a chance to regard the man just from Medicine Bend critically. She had meant to put him on exhibition--perhaps cherished a hope he might ride only indifferently well--yet in a country where everybody rode, this was much to hope for. At all events, the result, with an added surprise, was a disappointment.

If there be a latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted riotously, the rider's head, rising like a monitor straight from his slender neck, invited his horse to show its paces.

"You take the trail," said Kate's guest tersely, as they swung out on the desert.

"No," she returned, "you."

"We'll take it together," was his reply.

But despite her disclaiming, Kate did the guiding and her object was to get a good way from town. Her companion's frequently repeated effort was to slow down for a talk; hers was to tantalize him by speeding away from one. But she couldn't speed all of the time, and he eyed either her riding, or her habit, pretty closely for a good while without comment. Then a chance offered itself and he put a question: "Where did you learn to ride?"

"All mountain girls ride, don't they?" she suggested.

"You're not a mountain girl."

"It was a mountain girl that taught me to ride,--away back in the Alleghanies--long before I ever saw this country."

"Your mountain girl's pupils don't all ride like that, I'll gamble."

"I wasn't very bright." Kate spurred ahead. The dun pony kept after her.

"Compliments don't set very well on you, do they?" was the shot from her left a moment later.

She turned a full face on her companion: "I hate them," she declared with energy.

In luring this man away from his errand, she had yielded to a really wild impulse and now the spirit of recklessness that ruled her mood seemed to revenge itself by counseling added dangers. She invited riding-hazards, that her victim disdained to comment on, until they must have appeared silly to him. A long way from home they were crossing a high bench above the Falling Wall river, a bench cut by frequent lateral washes--some wide and all very deep. These breaks they jumped one after another without taking serious trouble to head them, though Kate's companion, riding on the river side, gave her every chance to do so.

"I suppose," he suggested at length, "you're pushing into rough country because you like it."

She looked at him: "Yes," she said, icily, "I do like it. But," she added, "if it's too rough for you, we'll go back." In that much of a challenge she felt safe.

"I'm riding with you," he returned, a little dryly. "I like anything you like."

And at this juncture Kate's luck deserted her; it always seemed to when she most needed it. Ahead, there lay a stretch of smooth bench and she took a run to cross it. But below a slight rise on the near side an ugly break suddenly faced her. Decision was forced. Recklessness said: "Take it." She spurred. The gray hesitated--almost as if to give his wanton mistress a chance to reconsider; but he got the quirt for his pains.

The wiry beast was almost on the brink--he had hardly a moment to coil, but he shot across the gulf with a convulsive leap that carried his rider over, with nothing--absolutely nothing--to spare. He made the farther side with three feet--the left hind foot slumped on the edge of the bank and down went the leg!

Kate never forgot that moment. It was thirty feet, sheer, to the rocks below. And it would have been poor Dick on top of his foolish mistress. Kate really expected nothing better until with a terrific snort the pony scrambled to safety. What a horse will do for thankless man!

The frightened girl hardly dared look around even after she recovered her breath--which she thought would never come back. On the sudden spurt, her companion had been a little behind her. She presumed that the dun with commendable sense had refused the jump for when she glanced half way around--she was afraid her white face would betray her little panic--his rider was galloping him back in an easy circle and heading him the second time for the formidable break. This time, too, the rider was letting his reluctant beast understand who was master; and with enough of authority to force him and enough consideration to give him confidence, he jumped him over the gap as Kate should have jumped Dick--with room and to spare.

Her cheeks were burning again: "You did it much better," she said coolly, as he joined her. "Dick is getting slow."

"That wasn't Dick's fault," he remarked, for he appeared a trifle upset himself by the misadventure. "It was yours," he added bluntly.

Her only answer was to push ahead. She could at least keep the man busy--though she felt somewhat diffident about offering him further lessons in horsemanship.

The trail led up a commanding ridge and her companion scanned the valley lying to the north beyond. Through it they could trace a slender water course. "This should be not far from Falling Wall Canyon," he suggested. "And that creek must be a branch of the Sinking Water."

"Oh, I've heard about that wonderful canyon," she exclaimed. "Tell me about it."

"It breaks through that near range," he said, pointing. "There are elk in the park across the next divide. There isn't a great deal to tell about the canyon--it's just there, that's about all."

"How deep is it?"

"Three to six hundred feet."

"Straight up and down, they say."

"As near as the Lord could make it."

"Is there any way of getting to the bottom of it?"

"The easiest way would be to jump from the rim."

"Oh, could we see it?"

"Not tonight unless you want to camp out; and we're not exactly fixed for that. Up close to the old mine bridge there's a trail into the canyon. It's pretty stiff. A sailor would warp his way down with a rope."

The horses had halted by consent and their riders were contemplating the mountains and valleys surrounding them. Her companion took advantage of the pause to dismount and inspect the legs of the ponies--and while he examined those of his own horse for politeness' sake--he looked more closely at Dick's.

"He must have got a wrench in that jump," confessed Kate, watching. "We were riding pretty fast, weren't we?"

"For that kind of country, yes. I thought for a while," added her companion, in a dry way, "you must be showing me how to ride. Then I figured out you must be showing me how _you_ could ride."

Kate stared straight ahead: "How absurd!" she exclaimed with cold contempt for his conclusions, yet feeble in her sarcasm against his penetration.

"All I want to say is," he continued, remounting, "that I see you can ride. You don't have to cover much country to prove that. You ride like a Western girl--and talk like an Eastern girl. Which are you?"

She unfeelingly closed all inquiries: "Both," she answered indifferently. "Let's head for the bottoms; about two miles from here there's a spring--good water."

He looked skeptical: "If you can show me good water near here, I'll be learning something. I didn't know there was a water hole within ten miles--but I don't know this lower country as well as my own."

"What is your own?"

He pointed to the Northeast to where a range of snow-capped peaks rose above from the desert: "Those are the Lodge Pole mountains. That's where the Falling Wall river begins--where you see that snow. It circles clear around the range, crosses the Reservation to the West and opens South into a high basin--that's my country--the Falling Wall. Then the river cuts out of there through the canyon we're talking about and gets away to the West again." Coming a step nearer to her he pointed again: "Now look close to the left of that strip of timber. You can just see a break above it--that's the high point of the canyon. A long time ago there was a mining camp in those mountains--Horsehead--they started to build a railroad up there--did a lot of grading and put in the abutments for a bridge across the canyon. Before they got the road built the camp played out; they never finished it. All that country below there is the Falling Wall."

"Are they all thieves and outlaws over there?"

He started a little in spite of himself and took his time to reply: "It must have been a thief or an outlaw that put that idea in your head," he observed finally.

"Oh, no, it was Tom Stone."

His expression changed into contempt: "I didn't need but one guess."

Kate asked him to explain, but he did not and she was not in a position to object. She found the trail to the spring. Van Horn had taken her there once. Dismounting at a little distance, the two made their way down to it. "Score one for the rough rider," said her companion after he had drunk. "And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country."

He produced the sandwiches and they sat down. Kate could judge the hour of the day only from the sun and dared not mention "time." Her companion asked as many questions as he could think of, and she managed her answers with a minimum of information. And she asked herself one question that did not occur to him: "Why was she not frightened to death?" It must have been the duel she felt she was fighting with this man to keep him away from her father that banished her fears. In the saddle, events moved too rapidly to admit of extended misgivings, and she had purposely assigned to him the slower horse.

It was only when they were taking the almost enforced moment of rest together at the water hole--which might as well have been a thousand miles from help as ten--that little chills did run up and down her back. As for her companion, it was useless to try to read him from his face or manner; if she were playing one game, he might well be playing another as far as anything she could gather from his features was concerned. But she had to confess there was never a look in his eyes--when she did look into them--that frightened her.

And as she cautiously regarded him munching a sandwich and keeping his own eyes rather away from than on her own, she asked herself whether she had undertaken too much, and whether this sphinx-like face might hide danger for her. She at least knew it was far from being possible to tell by looking at the outside of a man's head what might be going on inside. Only the plight of her father's affairs had seemed to justify her; even this did not seem to now, but it was too late to wish herself out of it. Besides--for most extraordinary notions will come into foolish girls' minds--was she not in the company of a great Federal court; and shouldn't she feel safe on that score?

He certainly ate slowly. His appetite was astonishing. He invited Kate more than once to continue eating with him, but her first hasty sandwich and her latent uneasiness had more than satisfied her.

"It must be very exciting, to be a deputy marshal," she remarked once, when she could think of no other earthly thing to say, and was still afraid they might get back in time for the train.

"It must be sometimes."

"How does it feel to be chasing men all the time?"

"I've had more experience myself in getting chased."

She attempted to laugh: "Do they ever chase deputy marshals?"

He took up, gravely, the last sandwich: "I expect they do once in a while."

"You ought to know, I should think."

He offered her the sandwich and on her refusal bit into it: "No," he returned simply, "for I'm not a deputy marshal."

Kate was stunned: "Why, you said you were! What do you mean?" she demanded when she could speak. He ate so deliberately! She thought he never would finish his mouthful and answer: "I mean--not regularly. Once or twice I've been deputized to serve papers--when the job went begging. Farrell Kennedy, the marshal at Medicine Bend, is a friend of mine--that's the nearest I come to working for him."

"But if you're not a deputy marshal, what are you?" demanded Kate, uneasily.

His face reflected the suspicion of a smile: "I guess the answer to that would depend a good deal on who told the story."

"I could hardly imagine anyone chasing you," she continued, not knowing in her confusion what to say.

"You ought to see me run sometime," he returned.

"Oh, there's a prairie dog!" she exclaimed. She was looking to the farther side of the water hole. "See? Over there by that bush! I wonder if I could hit it?" She put her hand to her scabbard: "I've lost my revolver!" She looked at him blankly. "Had it when you started, didn't you?" inquired her companion, undisturbed. Her hand rested on the empty scabbard in dismay: "I must have lost it on the way."

He plunged his left hand into a capacious side pocket and drew out her revolver. But instead of handing it to her he began to examine it as if he might return it or might not. She was on pins in an instant. Now she _was_ at his mercy. "Is that mine?" she asked, frightened.

"It is."

"Where did you get it?" she demanded. Was she to get it back? He made no move to let her know; just fingered the toy curiously. "Where you dropped it--before you made your leap for life." And looking up at her, he added: "We ought to've eaten our sandwiches first and drank afterward."

"I don't understand--what did I do?" Kate knew her voice quivered a bit though she was bound she would not show fear. "And while we are talking"--she pointed--"the prairie dog is gone."

"He'll be back," predicted her companion with slow confidence. "The gun bounced from your scabbard when you were running your horse along the bench. So I picked it up for you." He presented it on the palm of his hand.

"How odd!" she exclaimed, trying to take it without appearing in a hurry. "How stupid of me!" She knew her face, in spite of herself, flushed under his gaze.

"You were going a pretty good clip," he continued.

"But a man would never do such a thing as to drop a revolver--you never would."

"It might be a whole lot worse for me to do it than it would for you--though if I carried a nice little gun like that it maybe wouldn't make so very much difference. There's your prairie dog again," he added, looking across the hole.

"Of course a man would have to make fun of a pistol like this," she answered, the revolver lying in her hand. "Let me see yours." Thus far she had seen no sign of any scabbard or holster. "And shoot that prairie dog for me," she added.

"Mine would be pretty heavy for a prairie dog. You try him."

"Oh, my poor little pistol is in disgrace," she returned, putting it up. "Sec what you can do."

He slipped his left hand under the right lapel of his coat and drew from a breast harness a Colt's revolver. Had she realized it was carried that day in this very unobtrusive manner in anticipation of an unpleasant interview with her father, Kate would have been speechless with fear. As it was, no gun, though she had seen many since coming to the mountains, ever looked so big or formidable. The setting of the scene and her situation may have magnified its impressiveness.

"Why smash the prairie dog?" he asked quietly. "Look at his whiskers--he may be the father of a family."

"You might miss him."

"If I should it would be time for me to quit this country."

"Shoot at something else."

"Why shoot at all?"

"I want to see you."

"We might get a shot at something on the way home."

"You're not obliging." She held out her hand for his revolver. "Let me see."

"It makes me feel kind of foolish," he said defensively, "kind of like an old-fashioned cowboy, to be shooting right and left." On his right hand he held the heavy gun toward Kate.

"How do you get practise?" she asked.

He lifted his eyebrows the least bit: "To tell the truth I haven't had much lately."

"How can you tell then whether you could hit anything if you did shoot at it?"

"That wouldn't be hard. If I didn't hit it, it would most likely hit me."

"How could I practise to learn to shoot the way you do?"

He looked at her inquiringly; "What do you know about the way I shoot?"

"Nothing, of course. I mean the way that men who carry guns like this shoot."

He thought a moment. "Get down into a dark cellar with just one window. Block out all the light from that window except one small circle. Shoot, off-hand, till you can put five bullets through the circle without mussing up the general surroundings."

"That sounds like hard work."

"It's certainly----" He just hesitated and then continued: "hard on the ammunition."

She found by this time she could tolerate the dry smile that lighted his face now and again, and the drawl of words that went with the expression. At times he seemed simple, yet there was shrewdness behind his humor.

"I didn't see you stop back there on the bench to pick anything up," she remarked abruptly, thinking of her own pistol again.

"I circled back to get it."

"Without dismounting?'"

"You wouldn't hardly want to get off to pick up anything as light as that."

"I wish I'd seen you do it."

"If you'd been looking I might've been trying to get hold of it yet."

She examined the Colt's gun curiously. She asked him how to handle it. He obligingly broke it, emptied the cylinders and explained how it was fired. But she was not equal to handling the big thing, and told him so.

"Though if I should want to kill you now it would be easy, wouldn't it?" she reflected, after he had reloaded the gun and laid it in her hand, the muzzle pointing toward himself and her finger resting on the trigger.

"Not without cocking the gun."

"No, but I mean suppose I really _should_ want to kill you----"

"I'll show you." He cocked the revolver and placed it again in her hand and it lay once more with her finger on the trigger.

"Now," he explained, "I'm covered."

"And to kill you all I have to do is to pull the trigger."

"Pulling the trigger, the way things are now, would certainly be a big start in that direction. But"--the dry suspicion of a laugh crossed his eyes--"to point a gun at a man and pull the trigger doesn't always kill him--not, anyways, in this country. If it did, the population would fall off pretty strong in some of these northern counties. And you might be surprised if I told you you couldn't pull the trigger right now, anyway."

"How do you know that?"

"Try it."

"But I might kill you!"

"That's the point."

"Nevertheless," she persisted, "I could if I _wanted_ to."

"No matter how you put it, it's all the same--you can't want to."

"No, but suppose I were bound to keep you from doing something--like serving papers, for instance."

His legs were crossed under him and he was tossing bits of the gravel under his hand: "You'd have a better show to do that if you went at it in another way."

"What way?"

"Well--by asking me not to serve them, for instance."

"Do you mean to say if I asked you not to serve papers you wouldn't do it?" She eyed him with simulated indignation.

He returned her gaze unafraid: "Try it," was his answer.

She took a deep breath. Then she tossed her head: "I probably shouldn't care enough about it for that. Why don't you carry two revolvers?"

"Too much like baggage."

"Wouldn't it be a lot safer?"

He smiled: "If one gun refused to go off promptly, two wouldn't help a lot."

Her eyes and her thoughts returned to the gun in her hand. For a moment she had forgotten it. Suppose her finger, while she was talking, had mechanically closed on the trigger. She blanched. "Take it," she said, holding the gun out in both hands and looking away.

"Shall we let the dog go this time?" she heard him ask as he lowered the hammer.