CHAPTER XX
INDIAN SHOES
They returned along the shadowy bottom of the great gorge to theglaring sunshine of the open creek bed, where they had left the rodand level. Blake placed both upon one of his broad shoulders, and gavehis wife the unencumbered arm to assist her somewhat hurried pace.
As they approached the dike her hasty steps quickened to a run. Shedarted ahead down to the camp. Thomas Herbert Vincent was vociferatingfor his dinner. Blake followed at a walk. He was only a father.
When he came down to the trees he found Isobel and Ashton alone. Thegirl's manner was constrained and her color higher than usual. Ashton,comfortably outstretched on a blanket with her saddle for pillow,frowned petulantly at the intruder. But Isobel sprang up and came tomeet Blake, unable to conceal her relief.
"I was so glad to see Genevieve," she said. "You came back just intime."
"How's that?" asked Blake, his eyes twinkling.
She blushed, but quickly recovered from her confusion to dimple andcast a teasing glance at Ashton. "Baby woke up," she answered. "Youmay not know it, but babies cry when they fail to get what theywant."
"He's getting what he wants--I'm not!" complained Ashton.
"I--I must see if Genevieve needs anything," murmured the girl, andshe fled to the tent.
"I need you!" Ashton called after her without avail.
"How're you feeling?" inquired Blake.
Ashton's frown deepened to a scowl.
"Didn't mean how you feel towards me," added Blake. "I can guess that.My reference was to your head."
"I'm all right," snapped Ashton. "Needn't worry. I'm still weak anddizzy, but I shall be quite able to do my work tomorrow."
"That's fine," said the engineer, with insistent good humor. "However,if you feel at all shaky in the morning, I can perhaps get Gowan, ormaybe Miss Chuckie would like to--"
"No!" broke in Ashton. "She shall not! I will do it, I tell you."
"Very well," said Blake. He put down the level and rod, but retainedthe rifle. "Tell the ladies I shall be back before long. I am goingto look for something I forgot this morning."
Without waiting for the other's reply, he returned up the dike slopeand around the bend of the hill to where Ashton had been shot. Thatfor which he was looking was not here, for he at once turned andstarted up the hill. He climbed direct to the place where the assassinhad lain in wait.
The bare ledge told Blake nothing, but from a crevice nearby he pickedout two long thirty-eight caliber rifle shells. He put them into hispocket and went over to scan the mesa from the top of his lookoutcrag. He could see no sign of the fugitive murderer. Down below themesa side of the hill, however, he saw a man riding up the bank of DryFork, and recognized him as Knowles.
Trained to alert observation by years of life on the range, the cowmanhad already perceived Blake. He wheeled aside and rode towards thehill when the engineer waved his hat and began to descend. The two metat the foot of the rugged slope.
"Howdy, Mr. Blake," greeted the cowman, "I thought I'd just ride up tosee how things are coming along."
"Not so fast as they might, Mr. Knowles. We have stopped forrepairs."
"Haven't broken your level?"
"No. Ashton is laid up for the day with a scalp wound. We were shotat this morning from up there--other side of the crest."
"Shot at, and Lafe hit?"
"Not seriously, though it could not well have been a closer shave. Hesays he will be all right by tomorrow," said Blake, and he gave thebald details of the occurrence in a few words.
Knowles listened without comment, his leathery face stolid, but hiseyes glinting. When Blake had finished, he remarked shortly: "Must bethe same man. Let's see those shells."
Blake handed over the two empty cartridge shells.
"Thirty-eight," confirmed Knowles. "Same as were fired at Lafe before.Kid and Chuckie showed me how a thirty-eight fitted the hole in Lafe'ssilver flask. About where did the snake crawl down the hill?"
"Not far from here. He could not have gone any considerable distancealong the top or side. He was down and riding away when I reached thecrags, and I had not lost much time coming up the other side."
"It'll take an Indian to make out his tracks on this dry ground,"remarked the cowman. "We'll try a look, though, at his hawss's hoofprints. Just keep behind, if you don't mind."
He threw the reins over the head of his horse, and dismounted, to walkslowly along the more level ground at the foot of the slope. Blakefollowed, as he had requested, but scrutinizing the ground with agaze no less keenly observant than that of his companion.
"Mighty queer," said Knowles, after they had carried their examinationover a hundred yards. "Either he came down more slanting or else--"
"What do you make of this?" Blake interrupted, bending over a blurredround print in the dust between two grass tufts.
"_Sho!_" exclaimed the cowman as he peered at the mark. "That's why,of course."
"Indian shoes," said Blake.
"You've seen a thing or two. You're no tenderfoot," remarked Knowles.
"I have myself shrunk rawhide shoes on horses' hoofs when short ofiron shoes," Blake explained. "This would make a hard trail to rundown without hounds."
The cowman straightened and looked at his companion, his weather-beatenface set in quiet resolve.
"I know what's better than hounds," he said. "This is one badman whohas played his game once too often. I'm going to run him down if ittakes all year and all the men in the county. There's a couple of Utebucks being held in the jail at Stockchute, to be tried for huntingdeer. I'm going to get the loan of them. The sheriff will turn outwith a posse, and we'll trail that snake, if it takes us clear overinto Utah."
"We'll have a fair chance to get him with Ute trackers," agreedBlake.
Knowles shook his head. "Unless you're particular to come along, Mr.Blake, I'd like you and Lafe to keep on with this survey. I've beenworrying over the chance of losing my range, till it's got on mynerves."
"Certainly, Mr. Knowles. I shall go ahead in the morning, if Ashton isable to rod. It will be best, I suppose, for my wife and Miss Chuckieto remain close at the ranch until you make sure where this trailleads."
"No; he's a snake, but the Indian shoes prove he's Western--He won'tstrike at the ladies. Another thing, I'm going to give you Kid forguard."
"He may prefer to join the posse."
"Of course he'll prefer that. You can count on Kid Gowan when it comesto a man hunt. He'll stay, though, all right. I don't want Mrs. Blaketo think she has to stop indoors. With Kid on the lookout around yourcamp, the ladies can feel free to come and go any time between sunupand sundown, and you and Lafe can do what you want. There won't be anymore shooting, unless it's by Kid."
"Very well," said Blake. "I'm not anxious to play hide and seek with aman who shoots and runs. When can we expect the rope and spikes?"
"That's another thing," replied Knowles. "Kid can be packing them andyour camp outfit up to the canyon while you and Lafe are running yourline of levels. He ought to be home by now. He was gone when the menturned out this morning. Soon as I get back I'll send him up to campwith you. He can bring along Rocket, to be ready for a chase,providing we can find the brute. Queer about that hawss. Wanted toride him this morning. Found he'd got out and gone off the way he usedto before Lafe gentled him."
While talking, the two men had returned to the cowman's horse andstarted around the hill to the camp. They found Isobel and Genevieveand the baby all engaged in entertaining Ashton. Knowles brieflycongratulated the wounded man, and led his pony down to the pool for adrink. Blake had seated himself beside his wife. She handed the babyto him, and remarking that she also wished to drink, she followedKnowles.
The cowman smiled at her reassuringly. "You're not afraid of any moreshooting, ma'am, are you?" he asked. "I've told your husband that Kidis to come up to keep guard. He will stay right along, unless thatscoundrel is trailed down sooner."
"Then I shall have no
fear, Mr. Knowles."
"You needn't, and you and Chuckie can come and go just the same asever. I don't want your visit spoiled. It's a great treat to all of usto have you with us."
"And to my husband and myself to be your guests! I have quite fallenin love with your daughter, Mr. Knowles. If you'll permit me to sayit, you are very fortunate to have so lovely and lovable a girl."
"Don't I know it, ma'am!"
"So beautiful--and her character as beautiful as her face. How youmust prize her!"
"Prize her!" repeated Knowles, his usual stolid face aglow with prideand tenderness. "Why, ma'am, I couldn't hold her more in liking if shewas my own flesh and blood!"
Genevieve suddenly bent down to hide the intense emotion that hadstruck the color from her face. Yet after a moment's pause, she spokein a composed, almost casual tone: "Then Chuckie is not your owndaughter?"
"Not in the way you mean. Hasn't she told you? I adopted her."
"I see," remarked Genevieve, with a show of polite interest. "But ofcourse, taking her when a young infant, she has always thought of youas her own father."
"No--what I can't get over is that she feels that way, and I feel thesame to her, though I never saw or heard of her till she was going onfourteen."
"Ah!" Genevieve could no longer suppress her agitation. "Then sheis--I'm sure that she must be--You said she came from the East, fromChicago?"
"No, ma'am! I didn't say where she came from," curtly replied thecowman.
The shock of his brusqueness restored the lady to her usual quietcomposure. Looking up into his face, she found it as blank andimpenetrable as a cement wall.
"You must pardon me," she murmured. "I myself am a Chicago girl, soyou must see how natural it is for me to hope that so sweet andbeautiful a girl as Chuckie came from my city."
"Chuckie is my daughter," stated Knowles in a flat tone.
"If you will kindly permit me to explain. My husband--"
"Chuckie is my daughter, legally adopted," repeated the cowman. "Youcan see what she is like. If that is not enough, ma'am, I can'tprevent you from declining our hospitality, though we'd be mightysorry to have you and your husband leave."
The tears started into Genevieve's hazel eyes. "Mr. Knowles! how couldyou think for a moment that I--that we--"
"Excuse me, ma'am!" he hastened to apologize. "I didn't mean to hurtyour feelings. You see, I'm kind of prejudiced along some lines. I'vebeen bred up to the Western idea that it isn't just etiquette to askabout people's antecedents. Real Western, I mean. Our city folks arenearly as bad as you Easterners over family trees. As if a child isn'tas much descended from its mother's maternal grandmother as from itsfather's paternal grandfather!"
Genevieve smiled at this adroit diversion of the subject by theseemingly simple Westerner, and replied: "My father's and mother'sparents were farm people. My husband worked his way up out of theChicago slums."
"He did?" The cowman could not conceal his astonishment. He lookedcuriously into the lady's high-bred face. "Well, now, that sure issomething to be right proud of--not that I'd have exactly expected youto think so. If you'll excuse me, ma'am, I'm more surprised at the wayyou feel about it than that he was able to do such a big thing."
"No one is responsible for what he is born. But we are at least partlyentitled to the credit or discredit of what we become," she observed.
"That's good American doctrine, ma'am--Western American!" approvedKnowles.
"It should apply to women as well as men," she stated.
"It ought," he dryly replied, and he jerked up the head of his pawinghorse. "Here, you! I guess it's high time we were starting in, ma'am.Kid may think he's to lay over at the ranch until morning. We want toget him out here before dusk. I don't reckon there's any show of thatsnake coming back tonight, but it's as well to be on the safe side."
He walked up the slope towards the others, unbuckling his cartridgebelt as he went.
"Sling on your saddle, honey," he called to his daughter.
The girl sprang up from beside Ashton and ran to fetch her own andGenevieve's picketed ponies. Her father held out his belt and revolverto the engineer.
"Here's my Colt's, Mr. Blake," he said. "I have another at home. Youwon't need it, but I may as well leave it. We're going to lope in now,so as to hustle Kid out to you before night. Just swap me thatyearling for my gun. It wouldn't seem natural not to be totingsomething that can make a noise."
"Thomas never cries unless he needs attention," Genevieve sought todefend her infant.
"Yes, ma'am. It's a good thing he knows that much already. You have tomake yourself heard to get what you want in the world generally, aswell as in hostleries and eating-houses."
Blake buckled on the cartridge belt, with its holstered revolver, andwent to help saddle the ponies. Ashton watched him and Isobelnarrowly. He was far from pleased with the familiarity of their talkand manner towards one another. Twice the girl put her hand on Blake'sarm.
In marked contrast to this affectionate intimacy, Isobel was distraitand hurried when she came to take leave of the wounded man. He hadrisen to his feet, and she could not ignore his proffered hand. Butshe avoided his gaze and quickly withdrew her fingers from his warmclasp to hurry off.