Lost Child
: The Flying U's Last Stand"Djuh find 'im?" The Old Man had limped down to the big gate and stood
there bare headed under the stars, waiting, hoping--fearing to hear the
answer.
"Hasn't he showed up yet?" Chip and the Little Doctor rode out of the
gloom and stopped before the gate. Chip did not wait for an answer. One
question answered the other and there was no need for more. "I brought
Dell home," he said. "She's about all in--an
come back himself as we are to run across him. Silver'll bring him home,
all right. He can't be--yuh can't lose a horse. You go up to the house
and lie down, Dell. I--the Kid's all right."
His voice held all the tenderness of the lover, and all the
protectiveness of the husband and all the agony of a father--but Chip
managed to keep it firm and even for all that. He lifted the Little
Doctor bodily from the saddle, held her very close in his arms for a
minute, kissed her twice and pushed her gently through the gate.
"You better stay right here," he said authoritatively, "and rest and
look after J.G. You can't do any good riding--and you don't want to be
gone when he comes." He reached over the gate, got hold of her arm and
pulled her towards him. "Buck up, old girl," he whispered, and kissed
her lingeringly. "Now's the time to show the stuff you're made of. You
needn't worry one minute about that kid. He's the goods, all right. Yuh
couldn't lose him if you tried. Go up and go to bed."
"Go to bed!" echoed the Little Doctor and sardonically. "J.G., are you
sure he didn't say anything about going anywhere?"
"No. He was settin' there on the porch tormenting the cat." The Old
Man swallowed a lump. "I told him to quit. He set there a while after
that--I was talkin'' to Blake. I dunno where he went to. I was--"
"'S that you, Dell? Did yuh find 'im?" The Countess came flapping down
the path in a faded, red kimono. "What under the shinin' sun's went with
him, do yuh s'pose? Yuh never know what a day's got up its sleeve--'n
I always said it. Man plans and God displans--the poor little tad'll be
scairt plumb to death, out all alone in the dark--"
"Oh, for heaven's sake shut up!" cried the tortured Little Doctor, and
fled past her up the path as though she had some hope of running away
from the tormenting thoughts also. "Poor little tad, all alone in the
dark,"--the words followed her and were like sword thrusts through the
mother heart of her. Then Chip overtook her, knowing too well the hurt
which the Countess had given with her blundering anxiety. Just at the
porch he caught up with her, and she clung to him, sobbing wildly.
"You don't want to mind what that old hen says," he told her brusquely.
"She's got to do just so much cackling or she'd choke, I reckon. The
Kid's all right. Some of the boys have run across him by this time, most
likely, and are bringing him in. He'll be good and hungry, and the scare
will do him good." He forced himself to speak as though the Kid had
merely fallen on the corral fence, or something like that. "You've got
to make up your mind to these things," he argued, "if you tackle raising
a boy, Dell. Why, I'll bet I ran off and scared my folks into fits fifty
times when I was a kid."
"But--he's--just a baby!" sobbed the Little Doctor with her face pressed
hard against Chip's strong, comforting shoulder.
"He's a little devil!" amended Chip fiercely. "He ought to be walloped
for scaring you like this. He's just as capable of looking after himself
as most kids twice his size. He'll get hungry and head for home--and if
he don't know the way, Silver does; so he can't--"
"But he may have fallen and--"
"Come, now! Haven't you got any more sense than the Countess? If you
insist of thinking up horrors to scare yourself with, I don't know
as anybody can stop you. Dell! Brace up and quit worrying. I tell
you--he's--all right!"
That did well enough--seeing the Little Doctor did not get a look
at Chip's face, which was white and drawn, with sunken, haggard eyes
staring into the dark over her head. He kissed her hastily and told her
he must go, and that he'd hurry back as soon as he could. So he went
half running down the path and passed the Countess and the Old Man
without a word; piled onto his horse and went off up the hill road
again.
They could not get it out of their minds that the Kid must have ridden
up on the bluff to meet his mother, had been too early to meet her--for
the Little Doctor had come home rather later than she expected to
do--and had wandered off to visit the boys, perhaps, or to meet his
Daddy Chip who was over there some where on the bench trying to figure
out a system of ditches that might logically be expected to water the
desert claims of the Happy Family--if they could get the water.
They firmly believed that the kid had gone up on the hill, and so they
hunted for him up there. The Honorable Blake had gone to Dry Lake and
taken the train for Great Falls, before ever the Kid had been really
missed. The Old Man had not seen the Kid ride up the hill--but he
had been sitting with his chair turned away from the road, and he was
worried about other things and so might easily have missed seeing him.
The Countess had been taking a nap, and she was not expected to know
anything about his departure. And she had not looked into the doughnut
jar--indeed, she was so upset by supper time that, had she looked, she
would not have missed the doughnuts. For the same reason Ole did not
miss his blanket. Ole had not been near his bed; he was out riding and
searching and calling through the coulee and up toward the old Denson
place.
No one dreamed that the Kid had started out with a camp-outfit--if one
might call it that--and with the intention of joining the Happy Family
in the breaks, and of helping them gather their cattle. How could they
dream that? How could they realize that a child who still liked to
be told bedtime stories and to be rocked to sleep, should harbor such
man-size thoughts and ambitions? How could they know that the Kid was
being "a rell ole cowpuncher"?
That night the whole Happy Family, just returned from the Badlands and
warned by Chip at dusk that the Kid was missing, hunted the coulees that
bordered the benchland. A few of the nesters who had horses and could
ride them hunted also. The men who worked at the Flying U hunted, and
Chip hunted frantically. Chip just about worshipped that kid, and in
spite of his calmness and his optimism when he talked to the Little
Doctor, you can imagine the state of mind he was in.
At sunrise they straggled in to the ranch, caught up fresh horses,
swallowed a cup of coffee and what food they could choke down and
started out again. At nine o'clock a party came out from Dry Lake,
learned that the Kid was not yet found, and went out under a captain to
comb systematically through the hills and the coulees.
Before night all the able-bodied men in the country and some who were
not--were searching. It is astonishing how quickly a small army will
volunteer in such an emergency; and it doesn't seem to matter very much
that the country seems big and empty of people ordinarily. They come
from somewhere, when they're needed.
The Little Doctor--oh, let us not talk about the Little Doctor. Such
agonies as she suffered go too deep for words.
The next day after that, Chip saddled a horse and let her ride beside
him. Chip was afraid to leave her at the ranch--afraid that she would
go mad. So he let her ride--they rode together. They did not go far from
the ranch. There was always the fear that someone might bring him in
while they were gone. That fear drove them back, every hour or two. Then
another fear would drive them forth again.
Up in another county there is a creek called Lost Child Creek. A child
was lost--or was it two children?--and men hunted and hunted and hunted,
and it was months before anything was found. Then a cowboy riding that
way found--just bones. Chip knew about that creek which is called Lost
Child. He had been there and he had heard the story, and he had seen
the--father and had shuddered--and that was long before he had known the
feeling a father has for his child. What he was deadly afraid of now
was that the Little Doctor would hear about that creek, and how it had
gotten its name.
What he dreaded most for himself was to think of that creek. He kept
the Little Doctor beside him and away from that Job's comforter, the
Countess, and tried to keep her hope alive while the hours dragged their
leaden feet over the hearts of them all.
A camp was hastily organized in One Man Coulee and another out beyond
Denson's place, and men went there to the camps for a little food and
a little rest, when they could hold out no longer. Chip and the Little
Doctor rode from camp to camp, intercepted every party of searchers they
glimpsed on the horizon, and came back to the ranch, hollow-eyed and
silent for the most part. They would rest an hour, perhaps. Then they
would ride out again.
The Happy Family seemed never to think of eating, never to want sleep.
Two days--three days--four days--the days became a nightmare. Irish,
with a warrant out for his arrest, rode with the constable, perhaps--if
the search chanced to lead them together. Or with Big Medicine, whom he
had left in hot anger. H. J. Owens and these other claim-jumpers hunted
with the Happy Family and apparently gave not a thought to claims.
Miss Allen started out on the second day and hunted through all the
coulees and gulches in the neighborhood of her claim--coulees and
gulches that had been searched frantically two or three times before.
She had no time to make whimsical speeches to Andy Green, nor he to
listen. When they met, each asked the other for news, and separated
without a thought for each other. The Kid--they must find him--they
must.
The third day, Miss Allen put up a lunch, told her three claim partners
that she should not come back until night unless that poor child was
found, and that they need not look for her before dark and set out with
the twinkle all gone from her humorous brown eyes and her mouth very
determined.
She met Pink and the Native Son and was struck with the change which two
days of killing anxiety had made in them. True, they had not slept for
forty-eight hours, except an hour or two after they had been forced to
stop and eat. True, they had not eaten except in snatches. But it was
not that alone which made their faces look haggard and old and haunted.
They, too, were thinking of Lost Child Creek and How it had gotten its
name.
Miss Allen gleaned a little information from them regarding the general
whereabouts of the various searching parties. And then, having learned
that the foothills of the mountains were being searched minutely because
the Kid might have taken a notion to visit Meeker's; and that the
country around Wolf Butte was being searched, because he had once told
Big Medicine that when he got bigger and his dad would let him, he was
going over there and kill wolves to make Doctor Dell some rugs: and that
the country toward the river was being searched because the Kid always
wanted to see where the Happy Family drove the sheep to, that time
when Happy Jack got shot under the arm; that all the places the Kid had
seemed most interested in were being searched minutely--if it could be
possible to; search minutely a country the size of that! Having learned
all that, Miss Allen struck off by herself, straight down into the
Badlands where nobody seemed to have done much searching.
The reason for that was, that the Happy Family had come out of the
breaks on the day that the Kid was lost. They had not ridden together,
but in twos and threes because they drove out several small bunches of
cattle that they had gleaned, to a common centre in One Man Coulee. They
had traveled by the most feasible routes through that rough country, and
they had seen no sign of the Kid or any other rider.
They did not believe that he had come over that far, or even in that
direction; because a horseman would almost certainly have been sighted
by some of them in crossing a ridge somewhere.
It never occurred to anyone that the Kid might go down Flying U Creek
and so into the breaks and the Badlands. Flying U Creek was fenced, and
the wire gate was in its place--Chip had looked down along there, the
first night, and had found the gate up just as it always was kept. Why
should he suspect that the Kid had managed to open that gate and to
close it after him? A little fellow like that?
So the searching parties, having no clue to that one incident which
would at least have sent them in the right direction, kept to the
outlying fringe of gulches which led into the broken edge of the
benchland, and to the country west and north and south of these gulches.
At that, there was enough broken country to keep them busy for several
days, even when you consider the number of searchers.
Miss Allen did not want to go tagging along with some party. She did
not feel as if she could do any good that way, and she wanted to do some
good. She wanted to find that poor little fellow and take him to his
mother. She had met his mother, just the day before, and had ridden with
her for several miles. The look in the Little Doctor's eyes haunted
Miss Allen until she felt sometimes as if she must scream curses to the
heavens for so torturing a mother. And that was not all; she had looked
into Chip's face, last night--and she had gone home and cried until she
could cry no more, just with the pity of it.
She left the more open valley and rode down a long, twisting canyon
that was lined with cliffs so that it was impossible to climb out with a
horse. She was sure she could not get lost or turned around, in a place
like that, and it seemed to her as hopeful a place to search as any.
When you came to that, they all had to ride at random and trust to
luck, for there was not the faintest clue to guide them. So Miss Allen
considered that she could do no better than search all the patches of
brush in the canyon, and keep on going.
The canyon ended abruptly in a little flat, which she crossed. She had
not seen the tracks of any horse going down, but when she was almost
across the flat she discovered tracks of cattle, and now and then
the print of a shod hoof. Miss Allen began to pride herself on her
astuteness in reading these signs. They meant that some of the Happy
Family had driven cattle this way; which meant that they would have seen
little Claude Bennett--that was the Kid's real name, which no one except
perfect strangers ever used--they would have seen the Kid or his tracks,
if he had ridden down here.
Miss Allen, then, must look farther than this. She hesitated before
three or four feasible outlets to the little flat, and chose the one
farthest to the right. That carried her farther south, and deeper into a
maze of gulches and gorges and small, hidden valleys. She did not stop,
but she began to see that it was going to be pure chance, or the guiding
hand of a tender Providence, if one ever did find anybody in this
horrible jumble. She had never seen such a mess. She believed that poor
little tot had come down in here, after all; she could not see why,
but then you seldom did know why children took a notion to do certain
unbelievable things. Miss Allen had taught the primary grade in a city
school, and she knew a little about small boys and girls and the big
ideas they sometimes harbored.
She rode and rode, trying to put herself mentally in the Kid's place.
Trying to pick up the thread of logical thought--children were logical
sometimes--startlingly so.
"I wonder," she thought suddenly, "if he started out with the idea of
hunting cattle! I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he did--living on
a cattle ranch, and probably knowing that the men were down here
somewhere." Miss Allen, you see, came pretty close to the truth with her
guess.
Still, that did not help her find the Kid. She saw a high, bald peak
standing up at the mouth of the gorge down which she was at that time
picking her way, and she made up her mind to climb that peak and see
if she might not find him by looking from that point of vantage. So she
rode to the foot of the pinnacle, tied her horse to a bush and began to
climb.
Peaks like that are very deceptive in their height Miss Allen was slim
and her lungs were perfect, and she climbed steadily and as fast as
she dared. For all that it took her a long while to reach the top--much
longer than she expected. When she reached the black rock that looked,
from the bottom, like the highest point of the hill, she found that she
had not gone much more than two-thirds of the way up, and that the real
peak sloped back so that it could not be seen from below at all.
Miss Allen was a persistent young woman. She kept climbing until she
did finally reach the highest point, and could look down into gorges
and flats and tiny basins and canyons and upon peaks and ridges and
worm-like windings, and patches of timber and patches of grass and
patches of barren earth and patches of rocks all jumbled up together--.
Miss Allen gasped from something more than the climb, and sat down upon
a rock, stricken with a sudden, overpowering weakness. "God in heaven!"
she whispered, appalled. "What a place to get lost in!"
She sat there a while and stared dejectedly down upon that wild orgy of
the earth's upheaval which is the Badlands. She felt as though it was
sheer madness even to think of finding anybody in there. It was worse
than a mountain country, because in the mountains there is a certain
semblance of some system in the canyons and high ridges and peaks. Here
every thing--peaks, gorges, tiny valleys and all--seemed to be just
dumped down together. Peaks rose from the middle of canyons; canyons
were half the time blind pockets that ended abruptly against a cliff.
"Oh!" she cried aloud, jumpin up and gesticulating wildly. "Baby!
Little Claude! Here! Look up this way!" She saw him, down below, on the
opposite side from where she had left her horse.
The Kid was riding slowly up a gorge. Silver was picking his way
carefully over the rocks--they looked tiny, down there! And they were
not going toward home, by any means. They were headed directly away from
home.
The cheeks of Miss Allen were wet while she shouted and called and waved
her hands. He was alive, anyway. Oh, if his mother could only be told
that he was alive! Oh, why weren't there telephones or something where
they were needed! If his poor mother could see him!
Miss Allen called again, and the Kid heard her. She was sure that he
heard her, because he stopped--that pitiful, tiny speck down there on
the horse!--and she thought he looked up at her. Yes, she was sure he
heard her, and that finally he saw her; because he took off his hat and
waved it over his head--just like a man, the poor baby!
Miss Allen considered going straight down to him, and then walking
around to where her horse was tied. She was afraid to leave him while
she went for the horse and rode around to where he was. She was afraid
she might miss him somehow the Badlands had stamped that fear deep into
her soul.
"Wait!" she shouted, her hands cupped around her trembling lips, tears
rolling down her cheeks "Wait baby! I'm coming for you." She hoped that
the Kid heard what she said, but she could not be sure, for she did not
hear him reply. But he did not go on at once, and she thought he would
wait.
Miss Allen picked up her skirts away from her ankles and started running
down the steep slope. The Kid, away down below, stared up at her. She
went down a third of the way, and stopped just in time to save herself
from going over a sheer wall of rocks--stopped because a rock which she
dislodged with her foot rolled down the slope a few feet, gave a leap
into space and disappeared.
A step at a time Miss Allen crept down to where the rock had bounced off
into nothingness, and gave one look and crouched close to the earth.
A hundred feet, it must be, straight down. After the first shock she
looked to the right and the left and saw that she must go back, and down
upon the other side.
Away down there at the bottom, the Kid sat still on his horse and stared
up at her. And Miss Allen calling to him that she would come, started
back up to the peak.
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It was only the next day that Bud was the means of helping Lovin Child find a fortune for himself; which eased Bud's mind considerably, and balanced better his half of the responsibility. Cutting out the dramatic frills, then, this is what happened to ... Lovin Child Wriggles In
On the fourth day Bud's conscience pricked him into making a sort of apology to Cash, under the guise of speaking to Lovin Child, for still keeping the baby in camp. "I've got a blame good notion to pack you to town to-day, Boy, and try and find out... Luck Meets An Old Acquaintance
Cullison and his friends proceeded down Papago street to the old plaza where their hotel was located. Their transit was an interrupted one, for these four cattlemen were among the best known in the Southwest. All along the route they scattered nod... Luck's Play
A young man who had just landed in New York from one of the big, adventurous transatlantic liners hailed a taxicab and was quickly drawn away into the glitter and gayety of a bright winter morning. He sat forward eagerly, looking at everything wit... Luis Longorio
"You probably know why I wished to see you," Alaire began. Longorio shook his head in vague denial. "It is regarding my ranch, La Feria." Seeing that the name conveyed nothing, she explained, "I am told that your army confiscated my cattle." ... Luis Rojas Talks
Three days of hiding by day in sequestered little groves or deep, hidden canons, with only Luis Rojas to bear her company--Luis Rojas whom she did not trust and therefore watched always from under her long straight lashes, with oblique glances when ... Lynch Scores
How long she stood there staring fearfully at the empty window of the shed, Mary Thorne had no idea. She seemed frozen and incapable of movement. But at last, with a shiver, she came to herself, and bending out, drew in the heavy wooden, shutters ... M'cay's Recruit
The Texan, after circling the town of Midway, rode in again. It was not his way to leave a job unfinished, with only a threat behind. The cigarette-paper note had aroused his curiosity to a fever heat. He read it by the light of the moon. It con... Man-hunting
As Vic Gregg left the house, the new moon peered at him over a black mountain-top, a sickle of white with a half imaginary line rounding the rest of the circle, and to the shaken mind of Vic it seemed as if a ghostly spectator had come out to watch ... Many Barren Months And Miles
"Well, here come them darn burros, Cash. Cora's colt ain't with 'em though. Poor little devils—say, Cash, they look like hard sleddin', and that's a fact. I'll tell the world they've got about as much pep as a flat tire." "Maybe we better grain 'e... Marie Takes A Desperate Chance
Domestic wrecks may be a subject taboo in polite conversation, but Joe De Barr was not excessively polite, and he had, moreover, a very likely hope that Marie would yet choose to regard him with more favor than she had shown in the past. He did not cha... Marie's Side Of It
We all realize keenly, one time or another, the abject poverty of language. To attempt putting some emotions into words is like trying to play Ave Maria on a toy piano. There are heights and depths utterly beyond the limitation of instrument and speech... Marshaling The Forces
Both herds had watered in the Smoky during the afternoon. The stranger's cattle were not compelled to go down to the crossing, but found an easy passage several miles above the regular ford. After leaving the river, both herds were grazed out during... Meade Burrell Finds A Path In The Moonlight
"No Creek" Lee had come into his own at last, and was a hero, for the story of his long ill-luck was common gossip now, and men praised him for his courage. He had never been praised for anything before and was uncertain just how to take it. "S... Melissy Entertains
The notes of Schumann's "Trauemerei" died away. Melissy glanced over her music, and presently ran lightly into Chopin's "Valse Au Petit Chien." She was, after all, only a girl; and there were moments when she forgot to remember that she was wedded... Mescal
SUMMER gleams of golden sunshine swam under the glistening red walls of the oasis. Shadows from white clouds, like sails on a deep-blue sea, darkened the broad fields of alfalfa. Circling columns of smoke were wafted far above the cottonwoods and ... Midnight Prowlers
Came midnight and moonlight together, and with them came also Good Indian riding somewhat sullenly down the trail to the ranch. Sullen because of Evadna's attitude, which seemed to him permanently antagonistic, and for very slight cause, and which... Miggles
We were eight, including the driver. We had not spoken during the passage of the last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehicle over the roughening road had spoiled the Judge's last poetical quotation. The tall man beside the Judge was asl... Millions!
Would the car never come--would it never come! Helen walked once more to the corner from the shelter of a building in one of the outlying mill districts where an assignment had taken her. The day was bitterly cold with a wind blowing which went ... Mingling With The Exodus
By noon the herd had grazed out five miles on its way. The boys were so anxious to get off that on my return the camp was deserted with the exception of the cook and the horse-wrangler, none even returning for dinner. Before leaving I had lunched at... Miss Conroy Refuses Shelter
The storm lifted suddenly, as storms have a way of doing, and a low, squat ranch-house stood dimly revealed against the bleak expanse of wind-tortured prairie. Rowdy gave an exultant little whoop and made for the gate, leaned and swung it open and r... Miss Darling Arrives
Miss Messiter clung to civilization enough, at least, to prefer that her chambermaid should be a woman rather than a Chinese. It did not suit her preconceived idea of the proper thing that Lee Ming should sweep floors, dust bric-a-brac, and make the... Miss Georgie Also Makes A Call
Saunders, limp and apathetic and colorless, shuffled over to the station with a wheelbarrow which had a decrepit wheel, that left an undulating imprint of its drunken progress in the dust as it went. He loaded the boxes of freight with the abused ai... Miss Georgie Howard Operator
"Where is the delightful Mr. Good Indian off to?" Evadna stopped drumming upon the gatepost and turned toward the person she heard coming up behind her, who happened to be Gene. He stopped to light a match upon the gate and put his cigarette to work... Mistress And Maid
Now that it was safely concluded, Helen thought the adventure almost worthwhile for the spontaneous expressions of good will it had drawn forth from her adherents. Mrs. Winslow and Nora had taken her to their arms and wept and laughed over her in tu... Mistress Mary - Quite Contrary
But Stratton's mind was too full of the amazing information he had gleaned from the old storekeeper to leave much room for minor reflections. He had been stunned at first--so completely floored that anyone save the garrulous old man intent on maki... Mliss
CHAPTER I Just where the Sierra Nevada begins to subside in gentler undulations, and the rivers grow less rapid and yellow, on the side of a great red mountain, stands "Smith's Pocket." Seen from the red road at sunset, in the red light and the... Moccasin Tracks
When Mr. Blakely left the post that afternoon he went afoot. When he returned, just after the sounding of retreat, he came in saddle. Purposely he avoided the road that led in front of the long line of officers' quarters and chose instead the wate... Mollie Takes Charge
Bear Cat was a cow-town, still in its frankest, most exuberant youth. Big cattle outfits had settled on the river and ran stock almost to the Utah line. Every night the saloons and gambling-houses were filled with punchers from the Diamond K, the ... Monk Bethune
"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be, When the devil got well, the devil a monk was he." Pippin Larue chanted tipsily, as he strummed softly the strings of a muffled banjo. And Raoul Bethune, with the flush of liquor upon ...