The Wrong Woman Part 4

"Miss Janet," he said, looking up suddenly, "I would be interested in knowing whether you pa.s.s."

"Well," she said, "I suppose I might easily let you know."

"My address is Thornton, Box 20. I get my mail every day--excepting the last few days, of course;--but I will get it again promptly as soon as I am out of this fix I am in. I don't suppose--"

"Why, are you in some sort of trouble?" she asked, interrupting him.

"Not very serious. I need a herder. I really ought to have two or three for a while now. I don't suppose, Miss Janet, there is any _doubt_ that you will pa.s.s?"

"I think," she said, a playful light now touching her features, "it is quite possible for me not to pa.s.s. I suppose I could have pa.s.sed easily enough four years ago. But after I got out of the Academy, I went to live with my aunt; and women, you know, don't keep up their interest in algebra and things. This winter when Aunt Mary died, in Toledo, I came down here."

She stepped forward again and extended her hand.

He had been seeing more and more of beauty as he gazed into her eyes.

The Truth was in them deeper than words. They were large gray eyes, gentle and quiet and soft as dawn; and they had that fulfilling influence which spread peace upon the waters of his soul.

"Good-bye, Mr. Brown. I am very much obliged to you."

"Well--good-bye, Miss Janet. Be sure and let me know."

She turned at once and proceeded on her way.

With her attention straight ahead, but without any landmark to go by, she went resolutely forward, and when finally she turned to look back she saw him standing just as she had left him. He did not seem to have moved. Again she put forward, widening the distance in imagination; and the next time she turned to view her work, the shack was sinking behind a billow of land. She stood now and gazed back at the flat, flowered expanse; then she turned her back upon it for the last time.

One does not look long upon the gay curtain after it has closed upon the scene.

"I would be interested in knowing whether you pa.s.s." The morning had shed new light upon her situation; and this shed a light upon morning.

And now that she could view her adventure in the light of its outcome, she went back to the moment of their meeting, and did so, recalling what next he said or did. She lived it all over again; this time more understandingly. Meantime the prairie accommodated her with its silence. It was the same sameness as on the day before; but not to her.

With her eyes fixed upon infinity she went buoyantly forward; for this time she was not lost. The sun, already high when she arose, was blazing somewhere in the regions above, and the strong light, flaring in her face and s.h.i.+ning on the broad reaches ahead, was very trying to her eyes. After peering against it ineffectually for a while she took off the three-cornered hat and proceeded to undo her work of the day before, removing the pins and letting down the rim.

The wearing of a man's hat was one of those things which she herself would "never have thought of." But just at a time when she had been having experience with the tribulations of a big leghorn on horseback, she saw a woman with a man's hat turned up at the side; and the next day she had procured one like it, which she turned up in the same manner with a breastpin. And the leghorn, unsuited to trials of wind and weather, was left at home.

The woman--Raymond her name was--was pa.s.sing the school on horseback, and she stopped in to get a drink. Janet noticed the hat more particularly because of its contrast with the woman's hair, which was light like her own; although, as she observed to herself, of quite a different shade. As it was almost noon she stopped for lunch, and Janet found her very good company if not quite to her fancy. She smelled horribly of perfume.

With the brim shading her eyes, Janet could now look forward with a degree of comfort. Presently she was brought to a stop by a small stream. It was a mere brook--probably the water from a single spring such as the one which issued from the knoll; but at this point it spread out and took the form of a wide patch of marsh gra.s.s. Farther down it gathered its laggard waters together and became a brook again.

Janet, keeping clear of the bog, went down here intending to jump across. Finding it too wide for her, she followed it along, its varying width promising to let her pa.s.s. She skirted round other patches of marsh gra.s.s and black boggy places only to find it too wide again. At last she removed her shoes and stockings and waded it.

For some time she had been ignoring the troubles of her left foot, the instep of which felt as if some one had been heaping coals of fire on it. It was such a relief to step out of the hot grip of leather into the well-fitting water that she loitered a while in the current; then it occurred to her that here was the place to stop for dinner. With her slicker spread out on the bank she sat down and had lunch, holding her feet in the water while she ate. Being done she sat a while longer, and when the sun had dried her feet she put on the shoes again, lacing them carefully with particular regard to the ailing instep.

Then she folded the slicker.

As she straightened up and turned to go, she beheld a Texas steer of the longhorn variety only a short distance away. He had been grazing toward her, and as she arose he threw up his head. At sight of him--he seemed to be all horns--she turned and made straightway for the other side of the stream. She splashed through it as fast as she could go; and being back where she came from, she turned upstream and ran. She kept on till she came to a particularly wide piece of marsh gra.s.s.

Here, with a good bog between herself and the appalling pair of horns, she came to a stop. Her shoes were now heavy with mud and water.

Janet can hardly be called a coward for acting as she did. A Texas longhorn of the old school was enough to move anybody,--better calculated to do so than either the elk or deer.

Consider the stag raising his antlers in the forest aisle. Held to the spot by this display of headgear you contemplate it in all its branches,--main-beam, brow-tine, bes-tine, royal and surroyal,--they are all beautifully named. To run is only second thought. No particular horn seems aimed at you. Between so many there may be room for escape.

But think of the Texas steer! To right and left of him is one long tapering tine. Each of them, naked as a tusk, has a peculiar twist which suggests that it is perfectly scientific. Immediately you are impressed with the idea of running.

He is a pitchfork on four legs. And so is his wife. With other beasts of horn and antler, it is only the male who is thus favored; he has them to fight out his differences over the ladies; and also, no doubt, to make a grand impression. But Mrs. Longhorn has them as well as he and is quite able to take care of herself. And so, meeting either of them in their native state, you are inclined to regard the horizon as one vast bull-ring. Janet was not at all cowardly when she arose and went.

Having reached a safer place, she turned her attention to the stream again; and as she was now confronted by the bog, she had to find a crossing somewhere else. Naturally she did not turn her steps downstream again.

The steer had grown small in the distance by the time she came to a place where the black bottom looked safe. She stepped in and got to the other side without difficulty.

For quite a while now, Janet's journey might best be described by saying that she walked. The scenery was gra.s.s. Evidently she had missed the road. Still, though the fence was not yet in sight, she did not give up hope; a wire fence does not become visible at a very great distance. Her wet shoes were very annoying. The imprisoned water inwardly sucked and squirted at every step, and made queer sounds.

Unable to endure it longer she sat down and took them off, and while they were draining, upside down, she removed the stockings and wrung them out. Although she did not get them thoroughly dry, the walking was somewhat natural again at least.

Her shadow became long and stretched out indefinitely beside her. The sun came down from above and appeared in its own form; then quickly it sank. She kept steadily on. She knew it could not be far now to the fence; and once she was on the road she would feel safer. But while she walked the gray of evening came on; then somewhere in the distance a coyote barked. Her courage began to depart, as the dusk deepened; it seemed to her as if all the loneliness in the world had come home to roost. It was no use to watch for the fence now; it would apprise her of its presence when she came to it. Regardless of the possibility of running into its iron barbs, she walked faster; at times she ran. A star came out faintly. It was night.

The swish-swish of her feet in the gra.s.s, the rustle of her skirts, became prominent sounds. She missed the company of her watch; she wound it up and got it to ticking; anything to ward off the solitude.

The thought of camping out she did not like to entertain; but thoughts are unavoidable. Once she stood quite still to make a little trial of it, but her pause was not long; she soon got her feet to going again.

She missed the sound of trees, the breezes playing upon them. If there had only been something,--she knew not what,--it would have seemed more world-like. There was an absence of everything familiar.

To stop and rest was now out of the question. It were better to walk and keep thinking of the road. That would be human ground. So she thought of the road and tried to keep her mind flowing in its channel.

How far might it be now? How long?

In the midst of this suspense she sighted a light ahead--a camp-fire.

It was somewhat to the left of her present course. Steadily it drew nearer, straight ahead--her footsteps had bent toward it. When she was beginning to distinguish the play of the flames, it sank from sight; but presently it appeared again, more plainly. Now a lantern was moving about behind a pair of legs. She could see just the legs, scissors-like, cutting off the light at each step. The lantern stopped and burned steadily; then another appeared. Then another.

The open side of a shed became visible, a block of deeper darkness which made the night seem lighter. Janet, scarce knowing her intentions, kept going towards it. The lantern which first stopped now turned red and began ascending. It was a coyote lantern. It was going up to the top of its pole. A sheep _baaed_ with the suddenness of a bagpipe.

Janet halted. She had now gone dangerously near. The fire invited her to come; but many things warned her away. What to do she did not know.

To her dismay, the problem very quickly took itself out of her hands.

The dog, alive to his duty, came out at her with alarming threats. A short distance from her he circled around her to make his attack from the rear, as Scotch dogs wisely do. Janet screamed and ran forward, though not so willingly as a sheep. As the dog desisted, in obedience to a sharp command from his master, she halted again. One of the lanterns was suddenly lifted, and being held up to give a wider light it shone full on the face of the man. It was the countenance of Mr.

Stephen Brown.

"Goodness gracious!" said Janet.

CHAPTER V

Rumor worketh in a thousand ways her wonders to perform.

On the day of Janet's runaway, Tuck Reedy, of Thornton, rode in at the southeast gate and struck out in the direction of certain water-holes, his mission being to look over some B.U.J. cattle which had recently been branded, and see whether their burns had "peeled" properly.

In a good many cases he found that the blow-flies had worked havoc, so that, working single-handed, he had a great deal to do; and by the time he had thrown a number of l.u.s.ty calves and treated their sides with his bottle of maggot medicine, he had pretty well worn-out the day. Being done, he turned his attention to a cow which had become deeply involved in a boggy water-hole. He threw the rope over her horns and pulled with his pony this way and that, but without success. Finally, when the sun was going down on failure, he resolved to kill or cure. He gave the rope another turn round the horn of his saddle and started up at imminent risk to her neck. Her legs were rooted in the tough muck as if they were the fangs of a colossal tooth, but Tuck pulled it; and having now rounded out an honest day's work, his fancy turned toward the fire of the sheep-herding Pete Harding. Pete was a congenial spirit, even if he was not much of a horseman, and he had a pack of cards with which he pa.s.sed much time, trying to beat himself at solitaire.

Tuck did not know that Pete Harding was not at present in charge of the sheep. He eventually made the discovery by the light of Steve's fire; and he made it at remarkably long range. Like others whose vision has been trained on far-off cattle, he was very long-sighted; his eye could reach out and read the half-obliterated brand on a distant cow--a faculty which saves a horse many steps, especially on a ranch where the cattle do not all belong to one owner. Tuck, being one of this kind, was as yet afar off when he saw that there were two persons at the fire. Closer approach making the fact vividly plain, he pulled rein and came to a stop. Sure enough, it was a woman! She was sitting there eating supper!

The extraordinary spectacle quite balked his comprehension. Having taken in all visible details and circ.u.mstances, he very considerately turned his horse and made himself "scarce."

On the following day, while everybody was waiting for the mail to be distributed, Tuck was loitering up and down past the various groups on Thornton's princ.i.p.al thoroughfare. Coming finally to where the subject of horse was being discussed, he joined himself to this mult.i.tude of counselors; and finding Hank Bullen among those present, he related his experience of the night before. While the two speculated and conjectured, others became included in the conversation, a process which requires a story to be several times repeated.

"Did you say this was yesterday?" asked Ed Curtis, who had just caught the drift of it.