Her Prairie Knight, Lonesome Land & The Uphill Climb: Complete Western Trilogy. B. M. Bower

halted and reached for his glass. “It’s lucky I brought it along,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking, at the time; I just slung it over my shoulder from habit.”

      “It’s a good habit, I think,” she answered, trying to smile; but her lips would only quiver, for the thought of her blame tortured her. “Can you see—anything?” she ventured wistfully.

      Keith shook his head, and continued his search. “There are so many little washouts and coulees, down there, you know. That’s the trouble with a glass—it looks only on a level. But we’ll find him. Don’t you worry about that. He couldn’t go far.”

      “There isn’t any real danger, is there?”

      “Oh, no,” Keith said. “Except—” He bit his lip angrily.

      “Except what?” she demanded. “I’m not silly, Mr. Cameron—tell me.”

      Keith took the glass from his eyes, looked at her, and paid her the compliment of deciding to tell her, just as if she were a man.

      “Nothing, only—he might run across a snake,” he said. “Rattlers.”

      Beatrice drew her breath hard, but she was plucky. Keith thought he had never seen a pluckier girl, and the West can rightfully boast brave women.

      She touched Rex with the whip. “Come,” she commanded. “We must not stand here. It has been more than three hours.”

      Keith put away the glass, and shot ahead to guide her.

      “We must have missed him, somewhere.” The eyes of Beatrice were heavy with the weariness born of anxiety and suspense. They stood at the very edge of the steep bluff which rimmed the river. “You don’t think he could have—” Her eyes, shuddering down at the mocking, blue-gray ripples, finished the thought.

      “He couldn’t have got this far,” said Keith. “His legs would give out, climbing up and down. We’ll go back by a little different way, and look.”

      “There’s something moving, off there.” Beatrice pointed with her whip.

      “That’s a coyote,” Keith told her; and then, seeing the look on her face: “They won’t hurt any one. They’re the rankest cowards on the range.”

      “But the snakes—”

      “Oh, well, he might wander around for a week, and not run across one. We won’t borrow trouble, anyway.”

      “No,” she agreed languidly. The sun was hot, and she had not had anything to eat since early breakfast, and the river mocked her parched throat with its cool glimmer below. She looked down at it wistfully, and Keith, watchful of every passing change in her face, led her back to where a cold, little spring crept from beneath a rock; there, lifting her down, he taught her how to drink from her hand.

      For himself, he threw himself down, pushed back his hat, and drank long and leisurely. A brown lock of hair, clinging softly together with moisture, fell from his forehead and trailed in the clear water, and Beatrice felt oddly tempted to push it back where it belonged. Standing quietly watching his picturesque figure, she forgot, for the moment, that a little boy was lost among these peaceful, sunbathed hills; she remembered only the man at her feet, drinking long, satisfying drafts, while the lock of hair floated in the spring.

      “Now we’ll go on.” He stood up and pushed back the wet lock, which trickled a tiny stream down his cheek, and settled his gray hat in place.

      Again that day he felt her foot in his palm, and the touch went over him in thrills. She was tired, he knew; her foot pressed heavier than it had before. He would have liked to take her in his arms and lift her bodily into the saddle, but he hardly dared think of such a blissful proceeding.

      He set the pace slower, however, and avoided the steepest places, and he halted often on the higher ground, to scan sharply the coulees. And so they searched, these two, together, and grew to know each other better than in a month of casual meetings. And the grass nodded, and the winds laughed, and the stern hills looked on, quizzically silent. If they knew aught of a small boy with a wealth of yellow curls and white collar, they gave no sign, and the two rode on, always seeking hopefully.

      A snake buzzed sharply on a gravelly slope, and Keith, sending Beatrice back a safe distance, took down his rope and gave battle, beating the sinister, gray-spotted coil with the loop until it straightened and was still. He dismounted then, and pinched off the rattles—nine, there were, and a “button”—and gave them to Beatrice, who handled them gingerly, and begged Keith to carry them for her. He slipped them into his pocket, and they went on, saying little.

      Back near the ranch they met Dick and Sir Redmond. They exchanged sharp looks, and Dick shook his head.

      “We haven’t found him—yet. The boys are riding circle around the ranch; they’re bound to find him, some of them, if we don’t.”

      “You had better go home,” Sir Redmond told her, with a note of authority in his voice which set Keith’s teeth on edge. “You look done to death; this is men’s work.”

      Beatrice bit her lip, and barely glanced at him. “I’ll go—when Dorman is found. What shall we do now, Dick?”

      “Go down to the house and get some hot coffee, you two. We all snatched a bite to eat, and you need it. After that, you can look along the south side of the coulee, if you like.”

      Beatrice obediently turned Rex toward home, and Keith followed. The ranch seemed very still and lonesome. Some chickens were rolling in the dust by the gate, and scattered, cackling indignantly, when they rode up. Off to the left a colt whinnied wistfully in a corral. Beatrice, riding listlessly to the house, stopped her horse with a jerk.

      “I heard—where is he?”

      Keith stopped Redcloud, and listened. Came a thumping noise, and a wail, not loud, but unmistakable.

      “Aunt-ie!”

      Beatrice was on the ground as soon as Keith, and together they ran to the place—the bunk-house. The thumping continued vigorously; evidently a small boy was kicking, with all his might, upon a closed door; it was not a new sound to the ears of Beatrice, since the arrival in America of her young nephew. Keith flung the door wide open, upsetting the small boy, who howled.

      Beatrice swooped down upon him and gathered him so close she came near choking him. “You darling. Oh, Dorman!”

      Dorman squirmed away from her. “I los’ one shiny penny, Be’trice—and I couldn’t open de door. Help me find my shiny penny.”

      Keith picked him up and set him upon one square shoulder. “We’ll take you up to your auntie, first thing, young man.”

      “I want my one shiny penny. I want it!” Dorman showed symptoms of howling again.

      “We’ll come back and find it. Your auntie wants you now, and grandmama.”

      Beatrice, following after, was treated to a rather unusual spectacle; that of a tall, sun-browned fellow, with fringed chaps and brightly gleaming spurs, racing down the path; upon his shoulder, the wriggling form of an extremely disreputable small boy, with cobwebs in his curls, and his once white collar a dirty rag streaming out behind.

Chapter 6. Mrs. Lansell’s Lecture

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      When the excitement had somewhat abated, and Miss Hayes was convinced that her idol was really there, safe, and with his usual healthy appetite, and when a messenger had been started out to recall the searchers, Dorman was placed upon a chair before a select and attentive audience, and invited to explain, which he did.

      He had decided to borrow some little wheels from the bunkhouse, so he could ride his big, high pony home. Mr. Cameron had little wheels on his feet, and so did Uncle Dick, and all the mens. (The audience gravely nodded assent.) Well, and the knob wasn’t too