Chapter V
The Hill Girl
The Irish cowpuncher guided young Royal Beaudry through Wagon Wheel Gaphimself. They traveled in the night, since it would not do for the twoto be seen together. In the early morning Ryan left the young man andturned back toward Battle Butte. The way to Huerfano Park, even fromhere, was difficult to find, but Roy had a map drawn from memory by Pat.
"I'll not guarantee it," the little rider had cautioned. "It's beenmany a year since I was in to the park and maybe my memory is playingtricks. But it's the best I can do for you."
Beaudry spent the first half of the day in a pine grove far up in thehills. It would stir suspicion if he were seen on the road at dawn,for that would mean that he must have come through the Gap in thenight. So he unsaddled and stretched himself on the sun-dappled groundfor an hour or two's rest. He did not expect to sleep, even though hehad been up all night. He was too uneasy in mind and his nerves weretoo taut.
But it was a perfect day of warm spring sunshine. He looked up into ablue unflecked sky. The tireless hum of insects made murmurous musicall about him. The air was vocal with the notes of nesting birds. Hiseyes closed drowsily.
When he opened them again, the sun was high in the heavens. He saddledand took the trail. Within the hour he knew that he was lost. Eitherhe had mistaken some of the landmarks of Ryan's sketchy map or else thecowpuncher had forgotten the lay of the country.
Still, Roy knew roughly the general direction of Huerfano Park. If hekept going he was bound to get nearer. Perhaps he might run into aroad or meet some sheepherder who would put him on the right way.
He was in the heart of the watershed where Big Creek heads.Occasionally from a hilltop he could see the peaks rising gaunt infront of him. Between him and them were many miles of tangledmesquite, wooded canons, and hills innumerable. Somewhere among therecesses of these land waves Huerfano Park was hidden.
It was three o'clock by Royal's watch when he had worked to the top ofa bluff which looked down upon a wooded valley. His eyes swept thelandscape and came to rest upon an object moving slowly in themesquite. He watched it incuriously, but his interest quickened whenit came out of the bushes into a dry water-course and he discoveredthat the figure was that of a human being. The person walked with anodd, dragging limp. Presently he discerned that the traveler below wasa woman and that she was pulling something after her. For perhapsfifty yards she would keep going and then would stop. Once shecrouched down over her load.
Roy cupped his hands at his mouth and shouted. The figure straightenedalertly and looked around. He called to her again. His voice musthave reached her very faintly. She did not try to answer in words, butfired twice with a revolver. Evidently she had not yet seen him.
That there was something wrong Beaudry felt sure. He did not knowwhat, nor did he waste any time speculating about it. The easiestdescent to the valley was around the rear of the bluff, but Royclambered down a heavily wooded gulch a little to the right. He savedtime by going directly.
When Roy saw the woman again he was close upon her. She was stoopedover something and her back and arms showed tension. At sound of hisapproach she flung up quickly the mass of inky black hair that hadhidden her bent face. As she rose it became apparent that she was talland slender, and that the clear complexion, just now at least, wasquite without color.
Moving forward through the underbrush, Beaudry took stock of this duskynymph with surprise. In her attitude was something wild and free andproud. It was as if she challenged his presence even though she hadsummoned him. Across his mind flashed the thought that this was womanprimeval before the conventions of civilization had tamed her to itsuses.
Her intent eyes watched him steadily as he came into the open.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"I was on the bluff and saw you. I thought you were in trouble. Youlimped as if--"
He stopped, amazed. For the first time he saw that her foot was caughtin a wolf trap. This explained the peculiarity of gait he had noticedfrom above. She had been dragging the heavy Newhouse trap and the clogwith her as she walked. One glance at her face was enough to show howgreatly she was suffering.
Fortunately she was wearing a small pair of high-heeled boots such ascowpunchers use, and the stiff leather had broken the shock of the blowfrom the steel jaws. Otherwise the force of the released spring musthave shattered her ankle.
"I can't quite open the trap," she explained. "If you will help me--"
Roy put his weight on the springs and removed the pressure of the jaws.The girl drew out her numb leg. She straightened herself, swayed, andclutched blindly at him. Next moment her body relaxed and she wasunconscious in his arms.
He laid her on the moss and looked about for water. There was some inhis canteen, but that was attached to the saddle on the top of thebluff. For present purposes it might as well have been at the NorthPole. He could not leave her while she was like this. But since hehad to be giving some first aid, he drew from her foot the boot thathad been in the steel trap, so as to relieve the ankle.
Her eyelids fluttered, she gave a deep sigh, and looked with aperplexed doubt upon the world to which she had just returned.
"You fainted," Roy told her by way of explanation.
The young woman winced and looked at her foot. The angry color flushedinto her cheeks. Her annoyance was at herself, but she visited it uponhim.
"Who told you to take off my boot?"
"I thought it might help the pain."
She snatched up the boot and started to pull it on, but gave this upwith a long breath that was almost a groan.
"I'm a nice kind of a baby," she jeered.
"It must hurt like sixty," he ventured. Then, after momentaryhesitation: "You'd better let me bind up your ankle. I have water inmy canteen. I'll run up and get some as soon as I'm through."
There was something of sullen suspicion in the glance her dark eyesflashed at him.
"You can get me water if you want to," she told him, a littleungraciously.
He understood that his offer to tie up the ankle had been refused.When he returned with his horse twenty minutes later, he knew why shehad let him go for the water. It had been the easiest way to get ridof him for the time. The fat bulge beneath her stocking showed thatshe had taken advantage of his absence to bind the bruised leg herself.
"Is it better now--less painful?" he asked.
She dismissed his sympathy with a curt little nod. "I'm the biggestfool in Washington County. We've been setting traps for wolves.They've been getting our lambs. I jumped off my horse right into thisone. Blacky is a skittish colt and when the trap went off, he bolted."
He smiled a little at the disgust she heaped upon herself.
"You'll have to ride my horse to your home. How far is it?"
"Five miles, maybe." The girl looked at her ankle resentfully. It wasplain that she did not relish the idea of being under obligations tohim. But to attempt to walk so far was out of the question. Even nowwhen she was not using the foot she suffered a good deal of pain.
"Cornell isn't a bit skittish. He's an old plug. You'll find his gaiteasy," Beaudry told her.
If she had not wanted to keep her weight from the wounded ankle, shewould have rejected scornfully his offer to help her mount, for she wasused to flinging her lithe body into the saddle as easily as herbrothers did. The girl had read in books of men aiding women to reachtheir seat on the back of a horse, but she had not the least idea howthe thing was done. Because of her ignorance she was embarrassed. Theresult was that they boggled the business, and it was only at the thirdattempt that he got her on as gracefully as if she had been a sack ofmeal.
"Sorry. I'm awfully awkward," he apologized.
Again an angry flush stained her cheeks. The stupidity had been hers,not his. She resented it that he was ready to take the blame,--readinto his manner a condescension he did not at all feel.
"I know who
se fault it was. I'm not a fool," she snapped brusquely.
It added to her irritation at making such an exhibition of clumsinessthat she was one of the best horsewomen in the Territory. Her life hadbeen an outdoor one, and she had stuck to the saddle on the back ofmany an outlaw bronco without pulling leather. There were many thingsof which she knew nothing. The ways of sophisticated women, theconventions of society, were alien to her life. She was mountain-bred,brought up among men, an outcast even from the better class of BattleButte. But the life of the ranch she knew. That this soft-cheeked boyfrom town should think she did not know how to get on a horse was alittle too humiliating. Some day, if she ever got a chance, she wouldlet him see her vault into the saddle without touching the stirrups.
The young man walking beside the horse might still be smooth-cheeked,but he had the muscles of an athlete. He took the hills with a light,springy step and breathed easily after stiff climbing. His mind wasbusy making out what manner of girl this was. She was new to hisexperience. He had met none like her. That she was a proud, sulkycreature he could easily guess from her quickness at taking offense.She resented even the appearance of being ridiculous. Her acceptanceof his favors carried always the implication that she hated him foroffering them. It was a safe guess that back of those flashing eyeswere a passionate temper and an imperious will.
It was evident that she knew the country as a teacher knows the primerthrough which she leads her children. In daylight or in darkness, withor without a trail, she could have followed almost an air-line to theranch. The paths she took wound in and out through unsuspected gorgesand over divides that only goats or cow-ponies could have safelyscrambled up and down. Hidden pockets had been cached here soprofusely by nature that the country was a maze. A man might havefound safety from pursuit in one of these for a lifetime if he had beenprovisioned.
"Where were you going when you found me?" the young woman asked.
"Up to the mountain ranches of Big Creek. I was lost, so we ought toput it that you found me," Beaudry answered with the flash of apleasant smile.
"What are you going to do up there?" Her keen suspicious eyes watchedhim warily.
"Sell windmills if I can. I've got the best proposition on the market."
"Why do you come away up here? Don't you know that the Big Creekheadwaters are off the map?"
"That's it exactly," he replied. "I expect no agents get up here.It's too hard to get in. I ought to be able to sell a whole lot easierthan if I took the valleys." He laughed a little, by way of taking herinto his confidence. "I'll tell the ranchers that if they buy mywindmills it will put Big Creek on the map."
"They won't buy them," she added with a sudden flare of temper. "Thiscountry up here is fifty years behind the times. It doesn't want to bemodern."
Over a boulder bed, by rock fissures, they came at last to a sword gashin the top of the world. It cleft a passage through the range toanother gorge, at the foot of which lay a mountain park dotted withranch buildings. On every side the valley was hemmed in by giant peaks.
"Huerfano Park?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You live here?"
"Yes." She pointed to a group of buildings to the left. "That is myfather's place. They call it the 'Horse Ranch.'"
He turned startled eyes upon her. "Then you are--?"
"Beulah Rutherford, the daughter of Hal Rutherford."