CHAPTER XVII.
"And so yuh see," Spider's voice droned in soft monologue, "it wasn't anything anybody could help. Burney, he done all anybody could do; he'd 'a' prevented it if he could. Burney's a fine man, Vida. He's big—big-hearted as well as big-bodied. I wisht you'd try and like him. He ain't to blame for what that idiot thing done. He feels pretty bad about it. He feels shut off from folks, kinda—as if he didn't have no friends or anything. I wish"
"My foot hurts something awful," Vida interrupted, groaning a little. She moved her head restlessly in the crook of Spider's arm. "I stepped in a hole when I was running and gave it an awful twist. He—it was coming right after me when I fell. I—I remember I heard a horse, too—and Burney hollering. But I was too scared to look back or think that maybe there was two of 'em. I'm—glad It's dead! I'm glad and thankful. Ain't you?"
"I'm—thankful," said Spider, and pressed his lips tight together. The cold-steel look was in his eyes, and something else. He pressed the girl closer, and bent his head and kissed her with a grave tenderness.
"You mustn't feel bad about it," she told him, comprehending a little of what was in his mind. "You saved my life."
"No, I never," Spider disclaimed quickly. "Burney done that. You've got him to thank for that."
"But you said he would 'a' killed Burney. You said you shot because he was going to kill"
"I know—let's not talk about it. You owe Burney a whole lot. I want you to remember that, and I want you to be good to him and not treat him any different just because he's big. Where's your horse?"
"Oh!" Vida shivered in his arms. "It—killed my pony. Just the way it—did"
"Never mind." Spider was pitifully anxious to dodge discussion of the subject. "We'll say it fell, or something, and broke its neck. And that's how you got hurt—sabe? Your horse fell with you. Whereabouts was it? We better go back down that way, I guess, in case Shep comes prowlin' around. You want to be careful what you tell Shep. He's a good kid, but mouthy. He'd let the whole thing out to the first feller he talked with."
"Anyway, he'd write it home to his folks," supplemented Vida, with a pain-twisted smile. "He won't get anything from me."
Spider eased her shoulders gently back against a rock, and stood up, scanning the high-piled ridges and the deep-gashed cañons anxiously. It would be just as well if they got off that ridge before Shep or some other prowler came within sight of them, he was thinking. With that end in view he went around the cluster of bowlders to where the big brown horse of Burney's browsed apathetically upon the tender twigs of a stunted currant bush. He came back to Vida, leading the horse by the bridle.
"I oughta take Burney's horse down off the ridge to where mine is," he explained in a worried tone. "Shep's such an inquisitive kinda cuss he'd want to know what we was doing up here—and you crippled so you can't stand. You see, don't you? It won't do atall for Shep to spot us up here. I won't be gone but a few minutes—you ain't afraid, are yuh?"
Vida was, but she lacked the courage to admit it; instead she dissembled in the most feminine manner and deceived Spider to the extent that his eyes brightened with pride in her.
"You've got them all skinned for nerve," he told her in a whisper, and kissed again the lips that tempted him. "If Burney comes back before I do, you tell him I'll bring both our horses around the point and up the gulch where you—got hurt." He grinned mirthlessly over the stratagem. "He can help you down the bluff—say, you ain't afraid of him, are you, little girl?"
"No," lied Vida faintly, "I ain't afraid."
"You hadn't oughta be. Burney's a prince. I'd like to carry yuh down myself, but you better not wait. We got to think of Burney, and if we're going to keep this thing quiet we can't take any chances—see? So I'll meet you around there just as quick as I can, and if you ain't there," he hurried on, because of her anxious eyes, "I'll come back up here after you pronto." He held her close, hating to let her go even for a few minutes after the terrors of the past hour. "You like me, don't you?" he whispered close to her cheek.
Vida held him tight, and it was not altogether love that strengthened her clasp. She was afraid; horribly afraid. But she was more afraid that Spider would suspect her fear and love her less because of it. She forced herself to laugh a little, and she reached up a brown hand and straightened his hat and pinched his ear, and then pushed him from her.
"I wish my foot didn't hurt so—I'd go with you," she said. "Hurry up, won't you? I ain't afraid of Burney, but—I ain't in love with—him." An artful emphasis she put upon the last word—an emphasis that would make Spider grudge every minute that separated them. So did Vida prove herself wholly feminine in spite of her environment and the things she must do because of it. "Go on," she commanded tenderly, "and don't be a big silly. But—hurry back, kid, if you don't want me to change my mind about—liking you."
He went then because he wanted to help Burney with his trouble. A good deal dazed yet was Spider, what with this miracle of a girl's love that had come to him quite suddenly and the amazing solution of the mystery that had grown so sinister. He looked back frequently while he was yet on the ridge, just to assure himself that Vida was real, and to see her brown hand waving him a message, but he could not make that other gruesome happening seem real—not yet.
As for Vida, she watched Spider with sinking courage. She was afraid, up there on the hilltop alone; horribly afraid. Her foot pained her dreadfully, and she was thirsty. Her head throbbed heavily, and she was lucky to get off so lightly. Surely there are not many women who could have borne what she had suffered and borne it so calmly.
Most of all she dreaded Burney's return. It was foolish, but one's nervous system does not adjust itself automatically to changed conditions, and she had been so certain that it was Burney who pursued her up the bluff
She heard a rock kicked loose somewhere behind her, and she turned sick with fresh terror. She heard him coming heavily toward where she lay, his great feet crunching the gravelly soil like the tread of a horse. She shut her eyes—and then, when she felt that he was standing close beside her, she opened them wide and stared up at him. There he was, towering miles above her—so her overwrought nerves told her—and his little, twinkling eyes were fixed anxiously upon her face. He had something in his hands, and while she stared at him she saw his face redden with embarrassment. It had been pale.
"I brought up some water from a spring down there," he said in his high, querulous voice. "I thought maybe you'd like a drink."
"Oh, thanks!" Vida sat up and reached for the leaky old tomato can he carried. She had never dreamed of thanking Burney for anything, but the words came rather easily, after all.
"Where's Spider?" he asked, standing aloof while she drank thirstily.
Vida took a last deep swallow, and set down the can. Burney could not have reassured her so much in an hour of friendly protestations as he had done with that one little thoughtful act. Her eyes lost their fear and antagonism, and became almost friendly.
"He took your horse down the hill. He's going to get his and bring them around up the gulch where—mine is," she explained. "He said—he said we were to meet him down there. He's afraid Shep might come, and he'd wonder about our being away up here."
"Well, it's a good idee. We'll go on down, then." Burney still stood fifteen feet away from her, and he spoke with a timid hesitation oddly at variance with his hugeness. Still, they say an elephant is afraid of a mouse.
Vida eyed him queerly. "I—stepped in a hole and gave my foot a twist," she informed him with an amused quirk of the lips. "I—can't walk." Then she watched him. No, she was no longer afraid of him; she was a woman, you see, and he had betrayed the fact that he was afraid of her. It makes a difference.
"Oh, that's too bad" Burney shifted his weight to the other foot, for all the world like a bashful boy before company.
Vida watched him covertly. "Spider offered to carry me down, but he had to take the horses" she observed demurely.
"Oh, did he?" Burney looked ready to perspire. His little twinkling eyes wandered to the peaks high over her head.
"He said—maybe you wouldn't mind—helping me—a little." Vida reached down and felt her injured foot, and screwed her face into a grimace at the pain of her lightest touch.
"Oh, I—I'll be glad to—help" From collar to hatband Burney was purple with confusion.
"I'm afraid you'll have to—carry me." Vida blushed a little herself, but her lips still had the amused quirk. "If it won't be—too much trouble," she added.
"Oh, no trouble—don't mention it!" Burney grew pale. "I—I hope we can—be friends," he stammered, advancing slowly. "I"
"Never mind hashing things all over," she interrupted him hastily. "I want to forget things. Be—careful not to joggle my foot"
Not much of a reconciliation so far as words went, but Burney's breath became uneven with emotion. Did you ever see a man take a butterfly from his net carefully, so as not to brush the bloom from its wings? Just so gently did Burney lift her into his arms and carry her down the bluff. And all the while he did not speak. He could think of nothing to say that would not sound irreverent.
Vida spoke but once when he had carried her with safe gentleness down the steepest ledge. "It must be an awful comfort to be so strong," she said. "I wish I was as big as you are."
Burney did not answer her, but his eyes lightened gratefully.
Since this story began with Shelton C. Sherman, I suppose it ought to end with him. And since our editor man thinks that you have heard almost enough about these people of the desert, I may not tell you just what happened after that trip down the bluff, or what Shelton did and thought and wanted to do and couldn't. But I'm going to let you do something rude, just for revenge upon the editor man who refuses to let a story go on and on and never stop: I am going to let you read over the shoulder of Shelton C. Sherman while he writes to "the folks."
He is in the bunk house, writing at one end of the table while Spooky plays solitaire upon the other end. The lamp stands between them, and the chimney is foggy for want of washing, so that the light is none too good and Shelton is hunched over with his nose so close to the end of his fountain pen that you will have to lean close also. Pike—we didn't get very much acquainted with old Pike, did we?—Pike is gumming a wad of tobacco while he reads a half-column article in the Boise paper, telling what has not been done toward apprehending the murderer of the sheep-man in the Piute Hills country. Never mind that—we'll just read what Shelton C. Sherman has to say.
Shsh-sh-h—wait now till he takes his fist off the upper half of the page. Well, since he shows no disposition to move his hand—perhaps fearing that Spooky may be rude enough to cast a curious eye over what has been written, and is able to read upside-down writing—we'll begin with that line just below his thumb:
marry Spider, so I'm all out of girls at present. She wasn't my kind, anyway, so I don't care much. There hasn't been anything more happened, since I wrote last. We had a big bunch of excitement, and then it all fizzled out, like the time the town fireworks all went off in a bunch—remember? Excitement a-plenty while it lasted, only it didn't last. Well, that's the way out here. Everything's at a dead level. I don't even hunt rattlesnakes with the girl any more—seeing she got crippled and couldn't, and then got stuck on Spider and wouldn't. We haven't caught the fellow that killed her uncle, either. Nobody seems trying to catch him. I've ridden Spook Hills till I'm sick of the sight of them, and I can't find so much as a bear track any more. I found a cave or two, but there was nothing in them but rat nests.
Burney found that old squaw, that I told you folks about seeing, wandering around in the hills, and he brought her in to the ranch. I wish you girls could see her. I've taken her picture, and will send you one as soon as I get the roll developed, but I'd give anything if you could hear her mumbling around the ranch. She walks with a crooked stick, and she goes hobbling around, looking for something—nobody knows what. Sometimes she gets wandering off in the desert, and then Burney hunts her up and brings her back. He's good to her—makes me think there's something in that story Jim tells, about Burney's father being a squaw man. There can't be any other reason for Burney taking charge of the old hag. She's almost blind, and plumb nutty. Burney never says anything about it, and, of course, nobody would have the nerve to ask him—not little me, anyhow.
Tell sis I haven't given up hope of getting that bearskin rug yet. It'll be a whopper, if I can find the one that made the tracks I saw. Spider did think it wasn't a bear but a man disguising his tracks. But he admits now that it was a bear, most likely. He says, though, that bears have a habit of changing their range every once in a while, and that this one may be a hundred miles from here by this time. I hope not. I've got my heart set on his hide for a rug
"For the Lordy sake, Shep, what you writin'? A novel?" asked Spooky just then, sweeping the cards together with his palm and speaking in a tone of deep disgust. It always makes Spooky cross to have the game run consistently against him when he is playing "Mex." The clerical industry of Shelton C. Sherman has always roused within him a futile irritation. "Honest to gollies, I should think the hind side of a picture postcard would hold all that happens in this derned desert, but some folks can write all day and never say nothing. What yuh tellin' 'em? Did yuh put in how Spider went and cut yuh out with the girl?"