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V
THE LION HUNT
AS their ponies climbed up the steep acclivity toward the summit of the hogback along which Bryam and his hounds had preceded them, Dora Crowell and Bruce Marvel paused occasionally to rest their mounts and to pursue one of those disjointed conversations that are peculiar to mountain trails.
"I think you're riding better every day, Bruce," said the girl. "If you stay here long enough you ought to make a horseman."
The man smiled. "Perhaps I'd do better if I had my own saddle," he said.
"Now don't be silly, Bruce. A flat saddle is all right in the park, but it would look perfectly ridiculous here."
"Can you rope?" he asked.
"Of course not. Why?" she demanded.
"Then what good is that heavy frame and the big horn on your saddle to you?" he asked.
"Don't be disagreeable," she said.
"I'm not trying to be disagreeable," he told her. "I'm just trying to find out."
"Find out what?"
"Why it would be silly to put a light saddle on your horse and not make him carry twenty-five or thirty pounds extra all day over rough, steep trails."
"What do they have these saddles for then?" she demanded.
"They have them for cowmen to use in their business. They have to be strong enough to hold a wild bull, and nobody needs one unless he can rope and hold a wild creature and expects to have to do it. I'll tell you, Dora, there are a lot of fellows wearing chaps and ten gallon hats who have no business weighting their horses down with a stock saddle and a rope that they wouldn't know how to use if they had to."
"There are a lot of false alarms in the world," she admitted. "I am one myself with all this cowboy scenery; but everyone knows it, including myself; so I am not deceiving anyone, but if I am a false alarm I am not the only one."
"No?"
"No. There is at least one other. He may fool the rest of them, but he doesn't fool me."
"The world is full of false alarms," he said.
"But if people are going to try that they should know every little detail well enough to get away with it."
"Like you posing as a cowgirl," he grinned.
"Or you posing as an Eastern polo player," she retorted.
"Why?" he asked innocently. "What makes you think that of me?"
"There are several things, but one is enough. You have your boot garters on backward."
"I always was careless," he said.
"That's not carelessness, Bruce. That's ignorance, and you know it."
"You couldn't expect me to come out here on a cattle ranch and admit that I'd never seen a horse before, could you?" he demanded.
"You've seen plenty of horses before," she told him. "You may be a good actor, but you're not quite good enough for me. I might not have guessed it, except for the boot garters, before today; but after riding up this mountain behind you where I could watch every move you made, I know."
"What did you expect me to do, fall off?" he asked.
"It's none of my business, Bruce; and I won't say anything more about it. I'm just one of those persons who hate to have anyone think that he is putting anything over on her."
"This isn't hunting mountain lion," he said, and they rode on.
When, at last, they reached the trail that ran along the summit of the hogback, he drew rein again; and as the girl rode up, he pointed across the canyon to the summit of the opposite ridge. "There's Kay and Blaine," he said. "Which one of them is a false alarm? It's not her, I'm sure of that."
"These Western clothes are nothing new to her," said Dora. "Her father owns ranches in California; and she has ridden all her life, Western and English both. It's funny," she added, "how so many of us want to be something else beside what we really are, and after all Kay is no better than the rest of us."
"How's that?" he asked.
"You don't think that she wears overalls and blue work shirts at home, do you?" she demanded.
"Well, now, really, I hadn't thought about it;" he replied, "but she certainly looks mighty cute in them."
"If she had to wear overalls at home she'd be crazy to go somewhere where she could wear fine clothes. There's a little false alarm in all of us. I remember a girl at school like that. Do you recall the night you came to the ranch? We were talking about the murder of a man by the name of Gunderstrom in New Mexico?"
"Yes," he said.
"Well, this girl I'm speaking of was Gunderstrom's daughter. She was about the sweetest and most natural girl I had ever met when she came to the school that I was attending just outside of Philadelphia. She was typically Western; but after awhile she seemed to get ashamed of that and became a regular false alarm, not only in her clothes, but in her manners and her speech. Then last year we roomed together; and I grew very fond of her, though I am afraid she is still a false alarm in some respects and always will be."
"Just what do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that she is trying to pretend to be something that she was not born to be."
"I see," he said.
"Perhaps it was her father's fault. She told me that he would not let her come West after he sent her back East to school. He wanted her to be a fine lady and to forget everything connected with her childhood. I know, though, that at many times she was homesick for the West; and when I heard of her father's death and telegraphed my condolences, I suggested that she come out here to the TF Ranch and spend the rest of the summer with me."
"Is she coming?" asked Marvel, his casual tone masking his eagerness.
"She wired that she was going home first and that if she found that she could get away, she would come."
Their conversation was interrupted by the baying of the hounds far ahead. "They've raised a lion," he said. "We'd better be moving."
The girl, thrilled and excited by the prospect of being in at a kill, spurred her horse into a gallop and brushed past him on the trail. "Careful, Dora," he called after her. "This is no place to run a horse unless you have to."
"Come on," she called back, "I don't want to miss anything." But evidently he did not share her excitement for he moved on slowly at a walk.
His head was bowed in thought, which, however, had nothing to do with lions. Presently he glanced down at his legs, first at one, then at the other; and then presently he reached down and unbuckled one of his boot garters, removed it, held it up and looked at it. After a moment of silent scrutiny, he held it down against his leg, turning it first one way and then another. Then he shook his head sadly and threw it off into the brush, after which he removed the other and threw that away also.
When he finally came up with the rest of the party they were all gathered around a tree in which a mountain lion had come to bay. Kay and Cory were there with Bryam and Butts and the four hounds. They were trying to decide who should have the honor of shooting the quarry.
"Let both girls shoot at him at the same time," said Blaine, "and Hi can be ready to plug him if they miss."
"I don't care anything about shooting him," said Kay White. "I'd much rather see him alive. Doesn't he look free and wild and splendid?"
"He just looks like a deer killer to me,"