inquired the interested Bolles.
“Why, they’ve gone home!” said the boy, in disgust.
“I was hoping so,” said the school-master.
“Hoping? Why, it’s sad, Bolles. Four miles farther and I’d have had them lost.”
“Oh!” said Bolles.
“I wanted them to keep after us,” complained Drake. “Soon as we had a good lead I coaxed them. Coaxed them along on purpose by a trail they knew, and four miles from here I’d have swung south into the mountains they don’t know. There they’d have been good and far from home in the snow without supper, like you and me, Bolles. But after all my trouble they’ve gone back snug to that fireside. Well, let us be as cosey as we can.”
He built a bright fire, and he whistled as he kicked the snow from his boots, busying over the horses and the blankets. “Take a rest,” he said to Bolles. “One man’s enough to do the work. Be with you soon to share our little cottage.” Presently Bolles heard him reciting confidentially to his horse, “Twas the night after Christmas, and all in the house—only we are not all in the house!” He slapped the belly of his horse Tyee, who gambolled away to the limit of his picket-rope.
“Appreciating the moon, Bolles?” said he, returning at length to the fire. “What are you so gazeful about, father?”
“This is all my own doing,” lamented the school-master.
“What, the moon is?”
“It has just come over me,” Bolles continued. “It was before you got in the stage at Nampa. I was talking. I told Uncle Pasco that I was glad no whiskey was to be allowed on the ranch. It all comes from my folly!”
“Why, you hungry old New England conscience!” cried the boy, clapping him on the shoulder. “How in the world could you foresee the crookedness of that hoary Beelzebub?”
“That’s all very well,” said Bolles, miserably. “You would never have mentioned it yourself to him.”
“You and I, Bolles, are different. I was raised on miscellaneous wickedness. A look at my insides would be liable to make you say your prayers.”
The school-master smiled. “If I said any prayers,” he replied, “you would be in them.”
Drake looked moodily at the fire. “The Lord helps those who help themselves,” said he. “I’ve prospered. For a nineteen-year-old I’ve hooked my claw fairly deep here and there. As for to-day—why, that’s in the game too. It was their deal. Could they have won it on their own play? A joker dropped into their hand. It’s my deal now, and I have some jokers myself. Go to sleep, Bolles. We’ve a ride ahead of us.”
The boy rolled himself in his blanket skillfully. Bolles heard him say once or twice in a sort of judicial conversation with the blanket—“and all in the house—but we were not all in the house. Not all. Not a full house—” His tones drowsed comfortably into murmur, and then to quiet breathing. Bolles fed the fire, thatched the unneeded wind-break (for the calm, dry night was breathless), and for a long while watched the moon and a tuft of the sleeping boy’s hair.
“If he is blamed,” said the school-master, “I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never forgive myself anyhow.”
A paternal, or rather maternal, expression came over Bolles’s face, and he removed his large, serious glasses. He did not sleep very well.
The boy did. “I’m feeling like a bird,” said he, as they crossed through the mountains next morning on a short cut to the Owybee. “Breakfast will brace you up, Bolles. There’ll be a cabin pretty soon after we strike the other road. Keep thinking hard about coffee.”
“I wish I could,” said poor Bolles. He was forgiving himself less and less.
Their start had been very early; as Drake bid the school-master observe, to have nothing to detain you, nothing to eat and nothing to pack, is a great help in journeys of haste. The warming day, and Indian Creek well behind them, brought Drake to whistling again, but depression sat upon the self-accusing Bolles. Even when they sighted the Owyhee road below them, no cheerfulness waked in him; not at the nearing coffee, nor yet at the companionable tinkle of sleigh-bells dancing faintly upward through the bright, silent air.
“Why, if it ain’t Uncle Pasco!” said Drake, peering down through a gap in the foot-hill. “We’ll get breakfast sooner than I expected. Quick! Give me Baby Bunting!”
“Are you going to kill him?” whispered the school-master, with a beaming countenance. And he scuffled with his pocket to hand over his hitherto belittled weapon.
Drake considered him. “Bolles, Bolles,” said he, “you have got the New England conscience rank. Plymouth Rock is a pudding to your heart. Remind me to pray for you first spare minute I get. Now follow me close. He’ll be much more useful to us alive.”
They slipped from their horses, stole swiftly down a shoulder of the hill, and waited among some brush. The bells jingled unsuspectingly onward to this ambush.
“Only hear ’em!” said Drake. “All full of silver and Merry Christmas. Don’t gaze at me like that, Bolles, or I’ll laugh and give the whole snap away. See him come! The old man’s breath streams out so calm. He’s not worried with New England conscience. One, two, three” Just before the sleigh came opposite, Dean Drake stepped out. “Morning, Uncle!” said he. “Throw up your hands!”
Uncle Pasco stopped dead, his eyes blinking. Then he stood up in the sleigh among his blankets. “H’m,” said he, “the kid.”
“Throw up your hands! Quit fooling with that blanket!” Drake spoke dangerously now. “Bolles,” he continued, “pitch everything out of the sleigh while I cover him. He’s got a shot-gun under that blanket. Sling it out.”
It was slung. The wraps followed. Uncle Pasco stepped obediently down, and soon the chattels of the emptied sleigh littered the snow. The old gentleman was invited to undress until they reached the six-shooter that Drake suspected. Then they ate his lunch, drank some whiskey that he had not sold to the buccaroos, told him to repack the sleigh, allowed him to wrap up again, bade him take the reins, and they would use his six-shooter and shot-gun to point out the road to him.
He had said very little, had Uncle Pasco, but stood blinking, obedient and malignant. “H’m,” said he now, “goin’ to ride with me, are you?”
He was told yes, that for the present he was their coachman. Their horses were tired and would follow, tied behind. “We’re weary, too,” said Drake, getting in. “Take your legs out of my way or I’ll kick off your shins. Bolles, are you fixed warm and comfortable? Now start her up for Harper ranch, Uncle.”
“What are you proposing to do with me?” inquired Uncle Pasco.
“Not going to wring your neck, and that’s enough for the present. Faster, Uncle. Get a gait on. Bolles, here’s Baby Bunting. Much obliged to you for the loan of it, old man.”
Uncle Pasco’s eye fell on the 22-caliber pistol. “Did you hold me up with that lemonade straw?” he asked, huskily.
“Yep,” said Drake. “That’s what.”
“Oh,
