The Ranch at the Wolverine

Billy Louise pondered a minute. "Ward, you aren't going into debt, are you?" Her tone was anxious. "It's so beastly hard to get out, once you're in!"

"I don't owe anybody a red cent, William Louisa. Honest."

"Well, but – " Billy Louise looked at him from under puckered brows.

Ward laughed oddly. "I've been working, William. Last spring I – hunted wolves for awhile; old ones and dens. They'd killed a couple of calves for me, and I got out after them. I – made good at it; the bounty counts up pretty fast, you know."

"Yes-s, it does." Billy Louise bit her lips thoughtfully, turned and looked back at the haystack, at the long line of new, wire fence, and at the two heavy-set mares feeding contentedly along the creek. "There must be money in wolves," she remarked evenly.

"There is. At least, I made good money hunting them." The smile was hiding behind Ward's lips again and threatening to come boldly to the surface. "They haven't bothered you any, I hope?"

"No," said Billy Louise, "they haven't. I guess they must be all up your way."

For the life of him Ward could not tell to a certainty whether there was sarcasm in her tone or whether she spoke in perfect innocence. The shrewdest of us deceive ourselves sometimes. Ward might have known he could not fool Billy Louise, who had careworn experience of the cost of ranch improvements and could figure almost the exact number of wolf-bounties it would take to pay for what he had put into his claim. Still, he was right in thinking she would not quiz him beyond a certain point. She seemed to have reached that point quite suddenly, for she did not say another word about Ward's affairs.

"What all's been happening in the world, anyway?" he asked, when they had exhausted some very trivial subjects. "Your world, I mean. Anything new or startling taken place?"

"Not a thing. Marthy was down last week and spent the day with us. I never saw anybody change as much as she has. She looks almost neat, these days. And she can't talk about anything but Charlie and how well he's doing. She lets him do most of the managing, I think. And he had some money left to him, this spring, and has put it into cattle. He bought quite a lot of mixed stock from Seabeck and some from Winters and Nelson, Marthy says. I passed some of his cattle coming up."

"Going to have a rival in the business, am I?" Ward laughed. "I was figuring on being the only thriving young cattle-king in this neck of the woods, myself."

"Well, Charlie's in a fair way to beat you to it. I wish," sighed Billy Louise, "some kind person would leave me a bunch of money. Don't you? Cattle are coming up a little all the time. I'd like to own a lot more than I do."

"Well, we – " Ward stopped and reconsidered. "If wolfing continues to pay like it has done," he said, with a twitch of the lips, "I intend to stick my little Y6 monogram on a few more cowhides before snow flies, William. And when you've had enough of this friend business – "

"Oh, by that time we'll all be rich!" Billy Louise declared lightly, and for a wonder Ward was wise enough to let that close the subject.

"We're getting neighbors down below, too," she observed later. "I didn't tell you that. Down the river a few miles. The country is settling up all the time," she sighed. "Pretty soon there won't be any more wilderness left. I like it up where you've located. That will stay wild forever, won't it? They can't plant spuds on those hills, anyway.

"And – did you hear, Ward? Seabeck and some of the others have been losing stock, they say. You know Marthy lost four calves last fall, by some means. Charlie Fox was terribly worried about it, though it was his own fault, and – well, I thought at the time someone had taken them, and I think so still. And just the other day one of Seabeck's men stopped at the ranch, and he told me they're shy some cows and calves. They can't imagine what went with them, and they're lying low and not saying anything much about it. You haven't heard or seen anything, have you, Ward?"

"I've stuck so close to the hills I haven't heard or seen anything," Ward affirmed. "It's amazing, the way the days slip by when a fellow's busy all the time. Except for two trips out the other way, to Hardup, I haven't been three miles from my claim all spring."

"Hardup! That's where the bank was robbed, a few weeks ago, isn't it? The stage-driver told me about it."

"I don't know; I hadn't heard anything about it. I haven't been there for a month and more," said Ward easily. "Nearer two months, come to think of it. I was there after a mower and rake and some wire."

"Oh!" Billy Louise glanced at him sidelong and added several more wolves to the number she had mentally put down to Ward's credit.

Ward twisted in the saddle so that he faced her, and his eyes were dancing with mischief. "Honest, William, I'm not wading into debt. Every cent I've put into that place this summer I made hunting wolves. That's a fact, Wilhemina."

"I wish you'd tell me how, so I can do it, too," Billy Louise sighed, convinced by his tone and flat statement, yet feeling certain there was some "catch" to it, after all. It was exactly like a riddle that sounds perfectly plain and simple to the ears, and to the reason utterly impossible.

"Well, I will – when you're through playing pals," he assured her cruelly. Ward did not know women very well, but he believed curiosity to be one of the strongest traits in the sex. "That's a bargain, William Louisa, and I'll shake hands on it if you like. When you've had enough of this just-friend business, I'll show you how I dig dollars outa wolf-dens." He grinned at the puzzled face of her. It was a riddle, and he had practically put the answer before her, and still she could not see it. There was a little streak of devilment in Ward, and happiness was uncovering the streak.

"I never said I was crazy to know," Billy Louise squelched him promptly. "Not that crazy, anyway. I'll live quite as long without knowing, I reckon."

She almost won her point – because Ward did not know women very well. He hesitated, gave her a quick, questioning glance, and actually opened his lips to tell her all about it. He got as far as, "Oh, well, I suppose I'll have to – " when Billy Louise saw a rattlesnake in the trail ahead and spurred up to kill it with her rope. She really was crazy to know the answer to the riddle, but a rattlesnake will interrupt anything from a proposal of marriage to a murder.

Ward's fingers had gone into the pocket in his shirt where the nugget he had found that morning was sagging the cloth a little. He had been on the point of giving it to Billy Louise, but he let it stay where it was and instead took down his own rope to get after the snake, that had crawled under a bush and there showed a disposition to fight. And since Blue was no fonder of rattlesnakes than he was of mud, Billy Louise could not bring him close enough for a direct blow.

"Get back, and I'll show you why I named this cayuse Rattler," Ward shouted. "I'll bet I've killed five hundred snakes with him – "

"Almost as many as you have wolves!" Billy Louise snapped back at him and so lost her point just when she had practically gained it. Ward certainly would not tell her, after that stab.

Rattler perked his ears forward toward the strident buzzing which once heard is never forgotten, and which is never heard without a tensing of nerves. He sighted the snake, coiled and ready for war in the small shade of a rabbit-bush. He circled the spot warily, his head turned sidewise, and his eyes fixed upon the flattened, ugly head with its thread of a darting tongue.

Ward pulled his gun, "threw down" on the snake, and cut off its head with a bullet.

"I could have done that myself," Billy Louise asserted jealously.

"Well, I forgot. Next time I'll let you do the shooting. I was going to show you how Rattler helps. He'll circle around just right so I can make one swing of the rope do. But Mr. Snake stuck too close to that rabbit brush; and I was afraid if I drove him out of there with my rope, he'd get under those rocks. I'm sorry, Wilhemina. I didn't think."

"Oh, I can get all the snake-shooting I want, any time." Billy Louise laughed good-humoredly. "I wish you'd give Blue a few lessons – the old sinner!"

"Not on your life, I won't." Ward leaned from the saddle, picked up the snake by the tail, pinched off the rattles, and dropped the repulsive thing to the ground with a slight shiver of relief. He gave the rattles to Billy Louise. "I'm glad Blue does feel a wholesome respect for rattlers; he'll take better care of himself – and his mistress. With me it doesn't matter."

"Oh – doesn't it?" asked Billy Louise, and there was that in her tone that made Ward's heart give a flop. "There's some of Marthy's cattle right ahead," she added hurriedly, seizing the first trifle with which to neutralize the effect of that tone.

"MK monogram," said Ward absently, reading the brand mechanically, as is the habit of your true range man. "Pretty fresh, too. Must have just bought them."

"He got them a month or so ago," said Billy Louise. "Marthy says – "

"A month?" Ward turned and gave the cow nearest him a keener look. "Pretty good condition," he observed, quite idly. "Say, William, when these hills get filled up with Y6es and big Ds, all these other scrub critters will have to hunt new range, won't they?"

"It will be a long while before the big Ds crowd out so much as a crippled calf," Billy Louise answered pessimistically. "I lost two nice heifers, a week or so ago. They broke through the upper fence into the alfalfa and started to fill up, of course. They were dead when I found them."

"Next time I cash in my wolf – " Ward started to promise, but she cut him short.

"Do you mind if we stop at the Cove, Ward? Mommie wanted me to stop and get some currants. Marthy says they're ripe, and she has more than she knows what to do with."

"I don't mind – if you're dead sure it's the currants."

"You certainly are in a pestering mood to-day," Billy Louise protested, laughing. "You can't jump any game on that trail, smarty. Charlie Fox is a perfectly lovely young man, but he's got a girl in Wyoming. The stage-driver says there's never been a trip in that he didn't take a letter from the Cove box to Miss Gertrude M. Shannon, Elk Valley, Wyoming. So you needn't try – "

"Nice, mouthy stage-driver," Ward commented. "Foxy ought to land on him a few times and see if he'd take the hint."

"Well, I knew it before he told me. Marthy said last winter that Charlie's engaged. He's trying to get prosperous enough to marry her and bring her out to the Cove; it will be his when Marthy dies, anyway. I must say Charlie's a hustler, all right. He keeps a man all the time now, since he bought more cattle. Peter Howling Dog's working for him. Charlie's tried to range-herd his cattle so he and Peter can gather them alone; and he offered to look after mine, too, so I won't have so much riding to do this hot weather. He's awfully nice, Ward, really. I don't care if he is a rah-rah boy. And he isn't a bit in love with me."

"Is it possible," grinned Ward, "that any human man can come out West and not fall in love with the Prairie Flower – "

"Ward Warren, do you want me to – "

"But it's breaking all the rules of romance, Bill-the-Conk!" Ward persisted. "No story-sharp would ever stand for a thing like that. Don't you know that the nice young man from college always takes notice in the second chapter, says 'By Jove! What a little beauty!' in the third, and from there on till the wind-up spends most of his time running around in circles because the beautiful flower of the rancho gives him the bad eye?" He twisted sidewise in the saddle, took a half-hitch with the reins around the saddle-horn, and proceeded to manufacture a cigarette while he went on with the burlesque.

"It opened out according to Hoyle, a year ago, William. Nice young man comes west. Finds Flower of the Rancho first rattle of the box, with brave young buckaroo riding herd on her to beat four of a kind. Looks like there's no chance for our young hero. Brave buckaroo has to hie him forth to toil, however – " Ward paused long enough to light up, and afterwards blow out the match carefully before dropping it in the trail, " – at the humble sum of forty dollars per month. That leaves our young hero on the job temporarily. Stick in a few chapters of heart-burnings on the part of the brave buckaroo – "

"Oh, yes, no doubt!" from Billy Louise, who was trying not to giggle.

"Oh, he had 'em, far as that goes. Brave buckaroo had heart-burnings enough for a Laura Jean Libbey romance. All according to Hoyle. Young hero – Say, Bill, what's the matter with that gazabo, anyway? Hasn't he got good eyesight, or what? Can't the chump see he's overlooking a bet when – "

"Oh, you make me sick!" Billy Louise slashed at a ripening branch of service berries with her quirt and scared Blue so that he lunged against the romancer. "You men seem to think the girl has nothing to say about it! You think we just sit and smile and wait for somebody to snap his fingers, and we jump at him! You – "

"Didn't I say there would be several chapters where the haughty beauty keeps our young hero running around in circles, and the brave buckaroo can't figure out whether he ought to buy a ring or more shells for his six-gun?"

"With the inference that she flops into his arms in the last chapter and hides her maidenly blushes against the pocket where he keeps his sack of Bull Durham and papers – "

"Oh, you Bill-the-Conk! It would be the brave buckaroo in the last chapter then, would it?" Ward leaned close, swift tenderness putting the teasing twinkle to flight from his eyes. "Our young hero smokes a briar, Wilhemina-mine!"

"We-el – don't skip!" cried Billy Louise, backing away from him with more blushes than any girl could hope to hide behind a coat of tan. "There's lots of chapters before the last. And you've got to read them straight through and – no fair skipping!"

"Wilhemina-mine!" Ward repeated the newly invented appellation, which seemed to approach satisfactorily close to the line of forbidden endearments.

"Oh, for pity's sake! I never knew you to act so." Billy Louise scowled unconvincingly at him from a safe distance.

"I never was kissed before," blurted Ward foolhardily, kicking Rattler closer.

"Well, if that's what ails you, I'll see it doesn't happen again," retorted Billy Louise squelchingly, and Ward's self-assurance was not great enough to lift him over the barrier of that rebuff.

They came upon Charlie Fox sitting on his horse beside the crude mail-box, reading avidly a letter of many crisp, close-written pages. Billy Louise flashed Ward an I-told-you-so glance.

"Why, how do you do?" Charlie came out of cloudland with a start and turned to them cordially, while he hastily folded the letter. "Going down into the Cove? That's good. I was just up after the mail. How are things up your way, Warren?"

"Fine as silk." Ward's eyes swung briefly toward what he considered the chief bit of fineness.

"That's good. Trail's a little narrow for three, isn't it? I'll ride ahead and open the gate."

"They've got a new gate down here," said Billy Louise trivially. "I forgot that important bit of news."

"Well, it is important – to us Covers," smiled Charlie, glancing back at them. "No more bars to be left down accidentally. This gate shuts itself, in case someone forgets."

"And you haven't lost any more cattle, have you?" The question was a statement, after Billy Louise's habit.

"Not out of the Cove, at any rate. I – can't speak so positively as to the outside stock – of course."

"You've missed some?" Billy Louise never permitted a tone to slip past her without tagging it immediately with plain English. Charlie's tone had said something to which his words made no reference.

"I don't like to say that, Miss Louise. Very likely they have stray – drifted, I mean – back toward their home ranch. Peter and I can't keep cases very closely, of course."

Billy Louise shifted uneasily in the saddle and pulled her eyebrows together. "If you think you've lost some cattle, for heaven's sake why don't you say so!" (Ward smiled to himself at her tone.) "If there's anything I hate, it's hinting and never coming right out with anything. Have you lost any?"

Charlie turned with a hand on the cantle and faced her with polite reproach. "Peter says we have," he admitted, with very evident reluctance. "I hardly think so myself. I'd have to count them. I know, of course, how many we've bought in the last year."

"Well, Peter knows more about it than you do," Billy Louise told him bluntly. "If he has missed any, they're probably gone."

"I was in hopes you would be on my side, Miss Louise." Charlie smiled deprecatingly. "I've argued with Aunt Martha and Peter until – But I didn't know you were a confirmed pessimist as well!"

"You didn't neglect to put your brand on them, did you?" asked Billy Louise cruelly.

Charlie flushed under the sunburn. "Really, Miss Louise, you've no mercy on a tenderfoot, have you?" he protested. "No, they are all branded, really they are. Peter and Aunt Martha saw to that," he confessed naïvely.

"It seems queer," said Billy Louise, thinking aloud. "Ward, there certainly is rustling going on around here; and no one seems to know a thing beyond the mere fact that they're losing cattle. Seabeck has lost some – "

"Oh, are you sure?" Charlie's eyes widened perceptibly. "I hadn't heard that. By Jove! It sort of makes a fellow feel shaky about going into cattle very strong, doesn't it? It – it knocks off the profits like the very deuce, to keep losing one here and there."

"A fellow has to figure on a certain percentage of loss," said Ward. "This the new gate?"

"Yes." Charlie seemed relieved by the diversion. "Just merely a gate, as you see; but we Covers are proud of every little improvement. Aunt Martha comes up here every day, I verily believe, just to look at it and admire it. The poor old soul never had any conveniences that she couldn't make herself, you know, and she thinks this is great stuff. I put this padlock on it so she can lock herself in, nights when I'm away. She feels better with the gate locked. And then I've got a dog that's as good as a company of soldiers himself. If either of you happen down here when there's no one about, you will have to introduce yourselves to Cerberus – so named because he guards the gates – not the gate to Hades, please remember. Surbus, Aunt Martha calls him, which is good Idahoese and seems to please him as well as any other. Just speak to him by name – Surbus if you like – and he will be all right, I think." He held open the gate for them to ride through and gave them a comradely look and smile as they passed.

Ward took in the details of the heavy gate that barred the gorge. He did not know that he betrayed the fact even to the sharp eyes of Billy Louise, but he could not quite bring himself to the point of meeting Charlie Fox anywhere near half-way in his overtures for friendship.

"The weight is so heavy that the gate shuts and latches itself, you see," Charlie went on, mounting on the inside of the barrier and following cheerfully after them. "But that doesn't satisfy Aunt Martha. She and Surbus make a special pilgrimage up here every night."

"She must be pretty nervous." Ward could not quite see why such precautions were necessary in a country where no man locked his door against the world.

"Well, she is, though you wouldn't suspect it, would you? When one thinks of the life she has lived, and how she pioneered in here when the country was straight wilderness, and all that. Of course, I didn't know her before Uncle Jason died – do you think she has changed since, Miss Louise?"

"Lots," Billy Louise assured him briefly. She was wondering why Ward was so stiff and unnatural with Charlie Fox.

"I think myself that the shock of losing him must have made the difference in her. There's Surbus; how's that for a voice? And he's just as blood-thirsty as he sounds, too. I'd hate to have him tackle me in the gorge, on a dark night. He's too savage, though it's only with strangers, and we don't see many of them. He almost ate Peter up, when he first came. And he gave you quite a scare last spring, didn't he, Miss Louise?"

"He came within an ace of getting his head shot off," Billy Louise qualified laconically. "Marthy came out just in the nick of time. I absolutely refuse to be chewed up by any dog; and I don't care who he belongs to."

"Same here, William," approved Ward.

Charlie laughed. "I see Surbus is not going to be popular with the neighbors," he said easily. "I do feel very apologetic over him. But Marthy wanted me to get a dog, and so when a fellow offered me this one, I took him; and as Surbus happened to take a fancy to me, I didn't realize what a savage brute he is, till he tackled Peter – and then Miss Louise."

"Well, Miss Louise was perfectly able to defend herself, so you needn't feel apologetic about that," said Billy Louise a trifle sharply. She hated Surbus, and she was quite open in her hatred. "If he ever comes at me again, and nobody calls him off, I shall shoot him." It was not a threat, as she spoke it, but a plain statement of a fact. "You'd better serve notice too, Ward. He's a nasty beast, and he'd just as soon kill a person as not. He was going to jump for my throat. He was crouched, just ready to spring – and I had my gun out – when Marthy saw us and gave a yell fit to wake the dead. Surbus didn't jump, and I didn't shoot. That's how close he came to being a dead dog."

She glanced at Ward and then furtively at Charlie Fox. If expression meant anything, Surbus was yet in danger of paying for that assault. She caught Ward's truculent eye, smiled, and shook her head at him. "We're pretty fair friends now," she said. "At least, we don't try to kill each other whenever we meet. 'Armed neutrality' fits our case fine."

"I think I'll volunteer under your flag," said Ward. "I'll leave Cerberus alone as long as he leaves me and my friends alone. But I'd advise him not to start anything."

"That's all Surbus or anyone else can ask. Come on, old fellow! Pardon me," he added to his companions and rode past them to meet the great, heavy-jowled dog. "Be still, Surbus. We're all friends, here."

The dog lifted a non-committal glance to Ward's face, growled deep in his chest, and dropped behind, nosing the tracks of Blue and Rattler as if he would identify them and fix them in his memory for future use.

Ward had never seen the Cove in summer. He looked about him curiously, struck by the atmosphere of quiet plenty. Over the crude fence hung fruit-laden branches from the jungle within. There was a smell of ripening plums in the air, and the hum of bees. Somewhere in the orchard a wild canary was singing. If he could live down here, he thought, with Billy Louise and none other near, he would ask no odds of the world or of heaven. He glanced at Charlie Fox enviously. Well, he had a fairly well-sheltered place of his own, up there in the hills. He could set out fruit and plants and things and have a little Eden of his own; though of course it couldn't be like this place, sheltered as it was from harsh winds by that high rock wall, and soaking in sunshine all day long. Still, he could fix his place up a lot, with a little time and thought and a good deal of hard work.

He looked at Billy Louise and saw how the beauty of the place appealed to her, and right there he decided to study horticulture so that he could raise plums and apples and hollyhocks and things.