Part 41 (1/2)

Mary, a few feet from the unconscious stranger, was regarding him with the gentle speculative look which Bowers knew to presage mischief. It was not difficult to interpret Mary's intentions, and Bowers was fully aware that it was his duty either to warn the sleeper or reprimand Mary.

His eyes, however, had the fondness of a doting parent who takes a secret pride in his offspring's naughtiness as he watched Mary. He did not like the stranger, anyhow, and the incident of the photograph still rankled.

”The Smart Alec,” he muttered, grinning, ”it won't hurt him.”

The lamb backed off a little, made a run, and with its four feet bunched, landed in the pit of the stranger's stomach.

With an explosive grunt, the stranger's knees and chin came together like the sudden closing of a large pocket knife.

In spite of himself, Bowers snickered, but his grin faded at the expression which came to the stranger's face when he realized the cause of his painful awakening. It was devilish, nothing less than appalling, in its ferocity. Bowers had seen rage before, but the peculiar fiendishness of the man's expression, not knowing himself observed, fascinated him.

The lamb had backed off for another run when the stranger jumped for it.

Bowers called sharply:

”Don't tech that little sheep, pardner!”

The answer was snarled through white teeth:

”I'm goin' to kick its slats in! I'm goin' to break every bone in its body.”

”I wouldn't advise nothin' like that. Come here, Mary!” Bowers endeavored to speak calmly, but he was seized with a tremulous excitement when he saw that the stranger intended to carry out his threat.

”I'll pay you fer it,” he panted as he tried to catch the lamb, ”but I'm aimin' to kill that knot-head!”

Bowers dried his hands on his overalls and stepped inside the wagon. He returned with his shotgun.

”And I aim to blow the top of your head off ef you try it,” Bowers said, breathing heavily. ”That little innercent sheep don't mean no harm to n.o.body. Sence we're speakin' plain, I don't like you nohow. I don't like the way you act; I don't like the way you talk; I don't like the way your face grows on you; I don't like nothin' about you, and ef I never see you agin it'll be soon enough. You'd better go while I'm ca'm, for when I gits mad I breaks in two in the middle and flies both ways!”

Panting from his chase, the stranger stopped and stood looking at Bowers in baffled fury. Then he turned sharply on his heel, caught his horse and swung into the saddle. He hesitated for the part of a second before spurring his horse a little closer.

”You kin take a message to your boss--you locoed sheepherder. Tell her it's from an old friend that knew her when she was kickin' in her cradle. Show her that photygraph of the feller with the runnin' horse and tell her I said it was the picture of her father, and that he's scoured the country for her, spendin' more money to locate her than she'll make if she wrangles woolies till she's a hundred. Tell her a telegram would bring him in twenty-four hours--on a special, probably.

Give her that message, along with the love of an old, old friend what was well acquainted with her at the Sand Coulee!” He laughed mockingly, and with a malevolent look at Bowers, plunged into the quaking asp and vanished.

Bowers stared after him open-mouthed and round-eyed. He had placed his visitor. ”The feller that smelled like a Injun tepee in the drug store the night Mormon Joe was murdered!”

The discovery that his visitor was the malodorous stranger of the drug store impressed Bowers far more than his mocking message to Kate concerning her father. That might or might not be true, but he was entirely sure about the other.

His first impulse was to deliver the message, but upon second thought he decided that nothing would be accomplished by it, and it might disturb her. He argued that with a range war pending she already had enough worries. If only he could get word to Teeters somehow--or Lingle, even--to keep a lookout for the fellow, but since he was many miles off the line of travel and he dared not leave his sheep, there was small chance of notifying either.

It was a good many days before the incident was out of Bowers's mind for any length of time. He kept his shotgun handy and was on the alert constantly, listening, searching the surrounding country for a moving object, and muttering frequently, ”What was he doin' here, anyhow--moggin' round the mountains--comin' from nowhur, goin' nowhur!”

But a month pa.s.sed and nothing happened, either in Bowers's camp or at the others. Since the warning had implied that any attempt to move further would be stopped immediately, and yet all the wagons were now well up the mountain, both Kate and Bowers concluded that the threatening scrawl was intended only to annoy her.

”Ma-aa-aa!” Mary bleated like a fretful teething child, and held up his head for Bowers to rub the feverish horns as his foster parent sat on a box beside the wagon one lazy afternoon.

”I declare, Mary, I'll be most as glad when them horns cut through as if they growed on me! I could raise a baby by hand 'thout any more trouble than it's took to bring you up.” The lamb stood stock still as he yielded to his importunities, and Bowers continued whimsically: ”I been a father and mother to you, Mary, an' you might a-been an orphing through your own orn'riness if I hadn't throwed down on that feller pretty p.r.o.nto.

”No denyin' 'twould have made a preacher peevish to have you land in the pit of his stummick with them sharp hoofs of yourn. But you're only an innercent little sheep, and they wan't no sense in his tryin' to stomp on you.

”Well, I got to be stirrin' up them woolies. Sorry I got to tie you, but you're gittin' such a durned nuisance, with playin' half the night and slidin' down my tepee. I'll give you the big feed when I come down in the mornin', so say your prayers and go to bed like a good lamb orta.”