The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories | Page 4

I've got a girl in town."
"Same here," grinned Bert. "It's after four, now."
Chip, who at that time hadn't a girl--and didn't want one--let Silver out
for another long gallop, seeing it was Weary. Then he, too, gave up the
chase and turned back.
Glory settled to a long lope and kept steadily on, gleefully rattling the
broken bit which dangled beneath his jaws. Weary, helpless and
amused and triumphant because the race was his, sat unconcernedly in
the saddle and laid imaginary bets with himself on the outcome.
Without doubt, Glory was headed for home. Weary figured that,
barring accidents, he could catch up Blazes, in the little pasture, and

ride back to Dry Lake by the time the dance was in full swing--for the
dancing before dark would be desultory and without much spirit.
But the gate into the big field was closed and tied securely with a rope.
Glory comprehended the fact with one roll of his knowing eyes, turned
away to the left and took the trail which wound like a snake into the
foothills. Clinging warily to the level where choice was given him,
trotting where the way was rough, mile after mile he covered till even
Weary's patience showed signs of weakening.
Just then Glory turned, where a wire gate lay flat upon the ground,
crossed a pebbly creek and galloped stiffly up to the very steps of a
squat, vine-covered ranch-house where, like the Discontented
Pendulum in the fable, he suddenly stopped.
"Damn you, Glory--I could kill yuh for this!" gritted Weary, and slid
reluctantly from the saddle. For while the place seemed deserted, it was
not. There was a girl.
She lay in a hammock; sprawled would come nearer describing her
position. She had some magazines scattered around upon the porch, and
her hair hung down to the floor in a thick, dark braid. She was dressed
in a dark skirt and what, to Weary's untrained, masculine eyes, looked
like a pink gunny sack. In reality it was a kimono. She appeared to be
asleep.
Weary saw a chance of leading Glory quietly to the corral before she
woke. There he could borrow a bridle and ride back whence he came,
and he could explain about the bridle to Joe Meeker in town. Joe was
always good about lending things, anyway. He gathered the fragments
of the bit in one hand and clucked under his breath, in an agony lest his
spurs should jingle.
Glory turned upon him his beautiful, brown eyes, reproachfully
questioning.
Weary pulled steadily. Glory stretched neck and nose obediently, but as
to feet, they were down to stay.
Weary glanced anxiously toward the hammock and perspired, then
stood back and whispered language it would be a sin to repeat. Glory,
listening with unruffled calm, stood perfectly still, like a red statue in
the sunshine.
The face of the girl was hidden under one round, loose-sleeved arm.
She did not move. A faint breeze, freshening in spasmodic puffs, seized

upon the hammock, and set it swaying gently.
"Oh, damn you, Glory!" whispered Weary through his teeth. But Glory,
accustomed to being damned since he was a yearling, displayed
absolutely no interest. Indeed, he seemed inclined to doze there in the
sun.
Taking his hat--his best hat--from his head, he belabored Glory
viciously over the jaws with it; silently except for the soft thud and slap
of felt on flesh. And the mood of him was as near murder as Weary
could come. Glory had been belabored with worse things than hats
during his eventful career; he laid back his ears, shut his eyes tight and
took it meekly.
There came a gasping gurgle from the hammock, and Weary's hand
stopped in mid-air. The girl's head was burrowed in a pillow and her
slippers tapped the floor while she laughed and laughed.
Weary delivered a parting whack, put on his hat and looked at her
uncertainly; grinned sheepishly when the humor of the thing came to
him slowly, and finally sat down upon the porch steps and laughed with
her.
"Oh, gee! It was too funny," gasped the girl, sitting up and wiping her
eyes.
Weary gasped also, though it was a small matter--a common little word
of three letters. In all the messages sent him by the schoolma'am, it was
the precise, school-grammar wording of them which had irritated him
most and impressed him insensibly with the belief that she was too
prim to be quite human. The Happy Family had felt all along that they
were artists in that line, and they knew that the precise sentences ever
carried conviction of their truth. Weary mopped his perspiring face
upon a white silk handkerchief and meditated wonderingly.
"You aren't a train-robber or a horsethief, or--anything, are you?" she
asked him