Cow-Country

ables and sheds. He stopped there and waited to see if his new boss was anywhere in sight and would come to tell him where to unpack his belongings. A sandy

rs beneath and rusty, run-down shoes that proved he was not a rider. His hat was peppered with

d speech without being intelligible. Bud cocked an ear toward him inquiringly, made nothing of the jumble and rode off to the cabin, leading Sunfish aft

ted, "Hello!" twice. The door opened then and Bart Nelson put out h

r guessing that his slightest motion had been carefully observed from th

ving his hand at the group around the table and saying, "

mean future embarrassment, and he was so far from home that his father would never hear of him anyway. But his hesitation served to convince every man there that Birnie

ng too much interest in the musical instruments until Bud himself took them out of their cases that eve

eted. "Hen's loco on music. If you can sing and play both, Hen'l

's face stood vividly before him for an instant, leaving him with a queer tightening of the throat and the feeling that he had been rebuked. He nodded to Hen, laid down the

-havin' trouble-Well, Ah think

shless eyes never winking, his jaw dropped so that his mouth hung half open. Day nudged Dirk Tracy, who parted his droopy mustache and smiled his unlovely smile, lowering his le

like." Dirk confided behind his hand to Short

rodded Dirk into silence so that

was asked to do so-accepting without question his mother's doctrine that it was unkind and ill-bred to refuse when he really could do those things well, because on the cattle ranges indoor amusements were few, and those who could furnish real e

his Adam's apple and listened again as raptly to the next one. The others forgot all about having fun watching Hen, and named old favorites and new

d thing to-night," he lamented. "She's made to keep

derstood the joke. He closed his mouth and sighed

d horses, Stopper and Smoky and Sunfish, as if they were stall-kept thoroughbreds. He had them coming up to the p

g together. And he tempered the statement by adding that Hen was trusty enough, even if he didn't have

y and looked at him inquiringly.

like that in a feller. A man never got into trouble yet by keepin' his mouth shut; but th

nce of inquiry, and Dirk ca

from the corn belt to the Pacific Ocean, mighty near takes in Jackson's Hole, and a lot uh country I know." He parted his mustache and spat carefully into the sand. "I'm willin' to tie to a man, specially a young feller, that can play the game the way you been playin' it, Bud. Most always," he complai

chanted softly, his eyes stubbo

lyly. "The boys, they took that all in, too. And Bart, he wasn't asleep, neither. You sure are smooth as they make 'em, Bud. I guess," he leaned close

y flashed back unerringly to the day when he had watched that Indian gallop toward the rive

likeness to a fleeing enemy; yet it was plain enough that he was trying in a bungling way

ight have done both, he reflected; he had sung one song after another for about four hours that night, and unless he sang with his eyes shut h

ty as a cow-hand. And he could see no valid reason why the boss should contemplate "raising" him. So far, he had been doing no more than the rest of the boys, except when there was ro

hat no man ever got into trouble by keeping his mouth shut. Bud closed his for a good half

tains back of that peak?" he asked. "Seems to be a stoc

That there crosses over into the Black Rim country. Yeah-There's a big wide range country o

between Sheepeater peak and this one ahead of us-Gospel, you call it. What I referred to is that blind trai

yons all through the mountains; they all lead up to water, or feed, or something like that, and then quit, most gen'rally; jest peter out, like." And he a

id, a "blind" trail; that is, the trail lost itself in the creek which watered a string of corrals. Moreover, Bud had very keen eyes, and he had seen how a panel of the corral directly ac

was unusual. The upper corral had been built to fit snugly into a rocky recess in the base of the peak called Gospel. It was larger than some of the others, since it followed the contour

he corrals, and even that one was not apparent to one looking at the face of the steep slope. Stock had been over that canyon trail within the last month

ally. "A person'd think, short-handed as the Muleshoe is this spring, 't

ht the emphasis which Dirk had placed on the word aimless, and his thoughts paused and took another look at Dirk's whole conversation. There

he laughed-at himsel

e said. "If I were you, Dirk, I wouldn't blister my hands shovelling that grub into myself for a while. You're bilious, old-

uldn't talk the kinda talk you've been talkie' unless they wa

rinned, amiably, although his face had flushed at D

"I been edgin' yuh along to see what-f'r brand yuh carried. And I've got ye now, you damned snoopin'

nd reader, I don'

to look out for himself. Remember, too, that he must have acquired something of a vocabular

saw that he was "covered." Bud leaned, pulled Dirk's six-shooter from its holster and sent it spinning into a clump of bushes. He snatched a wi

eined away, out of Dirk's reach, took his handkerchief and wrapped his own gun tightly to protect it fro

mned spy! And I kin lick yuh an' lass'

strength and his skill and the unquestionable righteousness of his cause. Instead he had three bruised knuckles and a rapidly swelling ear, and when his anger had cooled a little he felt rather foolish and wondered what had started them off th

e time he reached the ranch his left eye was closed completely. He was taller and h

to him, Dirk was half tempted to shoot. But he did not-perhaps because Bud had unwrapped his o

ed his worldly goods on Sunfish and departed from the Muleshoe-"by special request", he admitted to himse

thought that perhaps Dirk Tracy had some hold on the Muleshoe not apparent to the outsider, and that he had lied about h

st where to go for his next job. So for want of something better, he rode down to the little stream which he now knew was called One Creek, and prepared to spend the night there