The Forfeit | Page 5

to help him when he gets bumping into potholes. It's that weakness that sets me crazy when I think. He ain't made for the dreary grind of the life we live. That's why he cut it out when I came here. Well there's no grind for him now, and I want to have him come along and share in with me. That's why I'm talking now. From this moment on we're a great proposition in the ranching world, and I want Ronny to share in with me."
Bud nodded.
"I get it," he said. Then he added: "You're a great feller."
"Great! Cut it out, Bud," Jeff cried sharply. "It's my love for that other half of me that's talking. That merry bit of a--twin."
"An' you're sendin' for him?"
Jeff shrugged, and depression seemed suddenly to descend upon him.
"If I could fix it that way I don't guess I'd have opened my face to hand you all this. But I can't. He's in the Cathills, away a hundred and more miles northwest of us. That's all he says. He don't give a mail address. No, Bud, I'm going to hunt him out. I'm going to find him, and bring him back. I'll find him sure. We're just one mind an' one body, an'," he added thoughtfully, "I don't guess I'll need a detective bureau to locate him. If he was chasin' around the other end of the world I'd find him--sure. You see, he's the other half of me."
Bud nodded in sympathy, but made no verbal reply.
"See, Bud," Jeff went on, a moment later. "The spring round-up's through. We're going to fix this deed right away. When the attorneys have robbed us all they need, and Nat's handed over, there'll be a good month to haying. That month I'm going to spend in the Cathills. I'll be back for the hay."
The other eased himself in his rocker. Then for some moments no sound broke the silence of the room.
"It's been a heavy spring," Bud said at last.
Jeff nodded. His thoughts were away in the Cathills.
"Seems to me," Bud went on. "Work kind o' worries me some these times." He smiled. "Guess the wheels need the dope of leisure. Mebbe I ain't as young as you."
"No."
Jeff's attention was still wandering.
"Guess the Cathills is an a'mighty big piece o' country gropin' around in," Bud went on.
"Sure. A hell of a piece. But--it don't signify."
"No-o," Bud meditated. Then he added: "I was kind o' thinkin'."
"How?"
"Why, mebbe two folks chasin' up a pin in a bunch o' grass is li'ble to halve most o' the chances agin either of 'em jabbin' their hands on the business end of it."
"Two? You mean you're goin' to come along an' help find--Ronny?"
Jeff's eyes were expressing the thanks his lips withheld.
Bud excused himself.
"Them Cathills is plumb full of fur an' things. Say, I ain't handled a gun in weeks."
"Bud, you're----"
The door of the room was abruptly flung open and Jeff's words remained unspoken.
"Supper, folks!"
Nan's smiling eyes glanced from one to the other. She stood in the doorway compelling them. Besides, the memory of Jeff's letter was still with her, and she was anxious to observe its later effect. That which she now beheld was obviously satisfactory, and her smile deepened contentedly.
CHAPTER II
CONFLICTING CURRENTS
They were busy days in Orrville. But business rarely yielded outward display in its citizens. Men talked more. They perhaps moved about more--in their customary leisurely fashion. But any approach to bustle was as foreign to the rule of the township as it would be to a colony of aged snails in a cyclone.
It was the custom of Orrville to rise early and go to bed late. But this by no means implies any excessive activity. On the contrary. These spells of activity lasted just as long as their accomplishment required. In the interim its citizens returned to a slumber little less profound than that which supervened at night after the last roysterer had been ejected, by force, or persuasion, from the salubrious precincts of Ju Penrose's saloon.
Orrville was a ranching township in the northwestern corner of Montana lying roughly some twenty miles west of the foothills of the Cathill Mountains, which, in turn, formed a projecting spur of the main range of the Rockies.
Orrville was the township and Ju Penrose was the pioneer of its commerce. He was a man of keen instincts for commerce of his own especial brand, and rejoiced in a disreputable past. He possessed a thin, hooked nose of some dimensions, which never failed to cut a way for its owner into the shady secrets of his neighbors. He possessed a temper as amiable and mild as a spring lamb when the stream of prosperity and profit flowed his way, and as vitriolic as a she-wolf in winter, when that stream chanced to become diverted