Hope Hathaway Part 13

Hope looked dubiously at the soft-voiced twin, she thought of the supper at Sydney's camp, then fired with the fun of the thing rode gayly away with the boys.

The hounds leaped after them, clearing the ground with long, easy bounds. The girl watched them glide along, yelping, barking, filling the air with their voices. Her horse loped neck to neck with the soft-voiced twin's. She pointed at the dogs, drawing the boy's attention to them.

"Why did you bring them?" she asked. "They'll warn your old ones and they'll be far away by the time we get there. You're usually so quick-witted, Dan, I wonder you did not think of it!"

The boy made no reply, but gave her a look filled with cunning, cool intent.

So this was his revenge--his twin was to dig into a rocky ledge for an empty coyote's den! She marveled at the boy's deliberate scheming, and rode gayly along to see the outcome. To this sort of revenge she had no actual objection.

They rode up over the top of a high divide, then followed down a narrow draw until it widened into a tiny basin, and there, in the center of vivid green, like a smooth, well-kept lawn, nestled old Peter's cabin.

Surrounding this pretty basin were steep, high ridges and hills, smooth-carpeted, too, except the ever narrow terraced "buffalo trails,"

and here and there a broken line where sharp crags of sandstone jutted out. To the base of one of these ridges of rock, back of the old hermit's one-roomed log shack, the soft-voiced twin led the way, followed closely by his eager brother.

The twins left their horses at the foot of the hill and climbed up about thirty feet to a narrow ledge, where a shovel and pickax marked the small entrance of a coyote's den.

Dave set immediately at work plying the pickax with vigor, and shoveling out the stones and the hardened sand about the opening, while his twin superintended the job and occasionally offered words of encouragement.

Hope watched them from below. Evidently the soft-voiced boy was enjoying himself immensely. He sat on one end of the ledge, his blue-overalled legs dangling over the side, while Dave worked industriously, hopefully on.

The hounds evidently had found a trail of some kind, for after sniffing about busily for a moment they made a straight line along the hill, disappearing over the high ridge. Hope watched them out of sight, feeling an impulse to follow, but changed her mind and rode over to old Peter's cabin instead. The old man limped to the door and peered out cautiously.

He was a squat-figured, broad-shouldered, grizzled little man, with unkempt beard and a s.h.a.ggy sheaf of iron-gray hair, beneath which peered bright, s.h.i.+fting blue eyes. He added to his natural stoop-shouldered posture by a rude crutch of hasty manufacture much too short for him, which he leaned heavily upon. He opened the door only wide enough to put out his head, which he did cautiously, holding his hand upon the wooden latch.

"How d'!" he said in a deep, gruff voice that seemed to come from somewhere between his shoulders.

She nodded brightly, remembering to have seen the old fellow around Harris'.

"You have no objection to our digging out a den of coyotes back here, have you?" she asked.

"Umph! There ain't no den 'round here that I know about," he replied, still retaining his position in the door.

"But see here," pointing toward the side hill, "the boys have found one and are at work up there right now."

"More fools they, then," declared old Peter, limping cautiously outside the door. "I cleaned out that den three year ago, an' I never knowed a coyote to come an' live in a place that'd been monkeyed with. Too much sense fer that. I always said a coyote had more sense 'n them boys!

Better go tell 'em they'd as well dig fer water on the top o' that peak, Miss!" He shook his tousled head dubiously, watched the boys on the hill for a moment, then limped back again, taking up his first position, half in, half out the door. His att.i.tude invited her to be gone, but she held in her uneasy horse and proceeded in a friendly manner to encourage some more deep-seated, guttural tones from the old man.

"Do you live here all alone?"

"Humph! I reckon I do."

"Have you lived here long?"

"Reckon I have."

"Are those your cattle up on the divide?"

"I reckon they be."

"It must be awful lonesome for you here all by yourself. Do coyotes or wolves trouble you much? Whoa, Rowdy!"

"They're a plumb nuisance, Miss. Better kill off a few of 'em while you're here. I reckon you kin use yer gun."

"I _reckon_ I can, a little," she replied.

"When I was in the war," he continued, "they had some sharpshooters along, but they wan't no wimmen among 'em. I reckon you're right handy with a gun."

"Who told you?" she asked suddenly.

"I reckon I know from the way you hold that 'ere gun."

Just then the soft-voiced twin rode up to the cabin. Hope accosted him.

"Did you get the coyotes _already_?"

"Nope, Dave's still diggin'. I'm goin' home er the old man'll be huntin'

me with the end of his rope."

"Oh, you'd better stay," she coaxed. "Think of the fun you'll miss when Dave gets into the den. It's your find; you ought to stay for the finish."

"I'll stake you to my share," said the boy. "He'll soon find all there is. But I guess I'd better be a-goin'."

"Perhaps you had," Hope replied, thoughtfully; then she rode over to the industrious Dave, while the soft-voiced twin wisely took a straight bee-line across the hills to his father's ranch.

This time Hope herself climbed the hill to the spot where the boy was digging.

"Dave, I'm afraid there are no coyotes in there, aren't you?"

He stopped work, wiped his brow with something that had once been a red bandanna handkerchief, then gravely eyed the girl, who leaned against the rocks beside him.

"But he said," pondering in perplexity. "But he said----" He looked into the ragged entrance of the hole, then at his shovel, then up again at the girl. "What makes you think there ain't no coyotes there?"

She was filled with sympathy for the boy, which perhaps he did not deserve, and she had recollected the supper at Sydney's camp, and concluded that this foolishness had gone far enough. She coaxed the boy to leave it until morning, but he was obdurate.

"No, I'm goin' to _know_ if there's anything in here er not, an' if there _ain't_----" His silence was ominous; then he set to work again with renewed energy and grim determination.

She watched him for awhile, then walked out to the end of the bulging sand-rocks and climbed the gra.s.sy hill. When at length she reached the summit, the jagged rocks below which labored the breed boy seemed but a line in the smooth green of the mountain, while old Peter's cabin and the setting of green carpeted basin looked very small. On the opposite side a fine view presented itself, showing, in all of Nature's magnificent display, soft lines of green ridges, broken chains of gigantic rocks, narrow valleys traced with winding, silvery threads of rus.h.i.+ng water. Such a picture would hold the attention of anyone, but this girl of the West, of freedom and wildness, was one with it--a part of it, and not the least beautiful and wonderful in this lavish display of G.o.d's handiwork.

She stood with bared head upon a high green ridge. A soft, gentle chinook smoothed back from her forehead the waving ma.s.ses of dark hair.

Myriads of wild flowers surrounded her, and from the millions below and about drifted and mingled their combined fragrance. The great orb of setting sun cast its parting rays full on her face, and lingered, while the valleys below darkened into shadow. As the last rays lighted up her hair and departed, the yep! yep! of the hounds attracted her attention, and turning about with quick, alert step she moved out of this picture--forever.

Standing upon a rocky ledge a hundred feet below the summit of the ridge she watched another scene, not the quiet picture of Nature's benevolent hand, but a discord in keeping, yet out of all harmony with it, in which she blended as naturally and completely as she had in the first. It was a race between a little fleet-footed coyote and half a dozen mongrel staghounds; they came toward her, a twisting, turning streak, led by a desperate gray animal, making, to all appearance, for the very rocks upon which she stood. Not ten yards behind the coyote a lank, slate-colored hound, more gray than stag, was closing in inch by inch.

The coyote was doing n.o.bly, so was the mongrel hound, thought Hope, who watched the race with breathless interest. The yellow dogs were falling behind, losing ground at every step, but the blue mongrel was spurting.

On they came--on--on, and the girl in a tremor of excitement lay flat down upon the rocks and watched them. Her heart went out to the dog.

She had seen it kicked around the yard at Harris', noticed it as it slunk about for its scanty food, and now how n.o.bly it was doing! She wondered if any of her thoroughbreds at home could do as well, and thought not. The others were straggling far behind, but now the blue hound was but two lengths from the coyote, and its chances seemed small, but on a sudden it turned and made direct for the rocks from which the girl watched. That instant the dog saw failure, and the light of determination, of victory, died from its eyes. That same instant the coyote saw salvation from a quick end in the narrow crevices of rock so near, and the next it lay stone dead with a bullet through its brain.

The gaunt hound bounded over its body, then stopped short, bewildered, and eyed its fallen foe. Then with a savage snarl he seized it by the throat as if to utterly demolish it, but the girl called him off, and somehow, in his dog's heart, he understood that the game was not his.