“Pride or no pride, he’ll do as I say,” Burt answered, with an obstinacy of tone which made the farmer’s wife comment mentally that it was not difficult to see from whom the boy had inherited that trait.
But it was the only one, since, save in coloring and features, they were totally dissimilar, and Burt seemed to have no understanding of his passionate, warm-hearted, imaginative son. Perhaps, unknown to himself, he harbored a secret resentment that Bruce had not been the little girl whose picture had been as fixed and clear in his mind before Bruce came as though she were already an actuality. She was to have had flaxen hair, with blue ribbons in it, and teeth like tiny, sharp pearls. She was to have come dancing to meet him on her toes, and to have snuggled contentedly on his lap when he returned from long rides on the range. Boys were all right, but he had a vague notion that they belonged to their mothers. Bruce was distinctly “his mother’s boy,” and this was tacitly understood. It was to her he went with his hurts for caresses, and with his confidences for sympathy and understanding.
Now there was nothing in Bruce’s mind but to get to his mother. While his breath lasted and he burned with outraged pride and humiliation, the boy ran, his thought a confused jumble of mortification that Mrs. Mosher should know that he got “lickings,” of regret for the gizzard and mashed potatoes and lemon pie, of wonder as to what his mother would say when he came home in the middle of the night and told her that he had walked all the way alone.
He dropped to a trot, and then to a walk, for it was hot, and even a hurt and angry boy cannot run forever. The tears dried to grimy streaks on his cheeks, and the sun blistered his face and neck, while he discovered that stretches of stony road were mighty hard on the soles of the feet. But he walked on purposefully, with no thought of going back, thinking of the comforting arms and shoulder that awaited him at the other end. After all, nobody took any interest in rocks, except mother; nobody cared about the things he really liked, except mother.
Toward the end of the afternoon his footsteps lagged, and sunset found him resting by the roadside. He was so hungry! He felt so little, so alone, and the coming darkness brought disturbing thoughts of coyotes and prairie wolves, of robbers and ghosts that the hired man said he had seen when he had stayed out too late o’ nights.
Ravines, with their still, eloquent darkness, are fearsome places for imaginative boys to pass alone. Hobgoblins—the very name sent chills up and down Bruce’s spine—would be most apt to lurk in some such place, waiting, waiting to jump on his back! He broke and ran.
The stars came out, and a late moon found him trudging still. He limped and his sturdy shoulders sagged. He was tired, and, oh, so sleepy, but the prolonged howl of a wolf, coming from somewhere a long way off, kept him from dropping to the ground. Who would have believed that twenty-five miles was such a distance? He stopped short, and how hard his heart pumped blood! Stock-still and listening, he heard the clatter of hoofs coming down the road ahead of him. Who would be out this time of night but robbers? He looked about him; there was no place on the flat prairie to hide except a particularly dark ravine some little way back which had taken all his courage to go through without running.
Between robbers and hobgoblins there seemed small choice, but he chose robbers. With his fists clenched and the cold sweat on his forehead, he waited by the roadside for the dark rider, who was coming like the wind.
“Hello!” The puffing horse was pulled sharply to a standstill.
“Oh, Wess!” His determination to die without a sound ended in a broken cry of gladness, and he wrapped an arm around the hired man’s leg to hold him.
“Bruce! What you doin’ here?”
“They plagued me. I’m going home.”
“You keep on goin’, boy. I’m after you and your father.” There was something queer in the hired man’s voice—something that frightened him. “Your mother’s taken awful sick. Don’t waste no time; it’s four miles yet; you hustle!” The big horse jumped into the air and was gone.
It was not so much what the hired man said that scared him so, but the way he said it. Bruce had never known him not to laugh and joke, or seen him run his horse like that.
“Oh, mamma, mamma!” he panted as he stumbled on, wishing that he could fly.
When he dragged himself into the room, she was lying on her bed, raised high among the pillows. Her eyes were closed, and the face which was so beautiful to him looked heavy with the strange stupor in which she lay.
“Mamma, I’m here! Mamma, I’ve come!” He flung himself upon the soft, warm shoulder, but it was still, and the comforting arms lay limp upon the counterpane.
“Mamma, what’s the matter? Say something! Look at me!” he cried. But the gray eyes that always beamed upon him with such glad welcome did not open, and the parted lips were unresponsive to his own. There was no movement of her chest to tell him that she even breathed.
A fearful chill struck to his heart. What if she was dying—dead! Other boys’ mothers sometimes died, he knew, but his mother—his mother! He tugged gently at one long, silken braid of hair that lay in his grimy hand like a golden rope, calling her in a voice that shook with fright.
The cry penetrated her dulled senses. It brought her back from the borderland of that far country into which she had almost slipped. Slowly, painfully, with the last faint remnant of her will power, she tried to speak—to answer that beloved, boyish voice.
“My—little boy——” The words came thickly, and her lips did not seem to move.
But it was her voice; she had spoken; she was not dead! He hugged her hard in wild ecstasy and relief.
“I’m glad—you came. I—can’t stay—long. I’ve had—such hopes—for you—little boy. I’ve dreamed—such dreams—for you—I wanted to see—them all come true. If I can—I’ll help you—from—the other side. There’s so much—more I want to say—if only—I had known—— Oh, Bruce—my—li—ttle boy——” Her voice ended in a breath, and stopped.
II
“Pardners”
“Looks like you’d say somethin’ about them pancakes instead of settin’ there shovelin’.”
“Haven’t I told you regular every morning for six months that they was great pancakes? Couldn’t you let me off for once?”
The two partners glared at each other across the clumsy table of hewn pine. They looked like two wild men, as black eyes flashed anger, even hate, into black eyes. Their hair was long and uneven, their features disguised by black beards of many weeks’ growth. Their miners’ boots were but ludicrous remnants tied on with buckskin thongs. Their clothes hung in rags, and they ate with the animal-like haste and carelessness of those who live alone.
The smaller of the two men rose abruptly, and, with a vicious kick at the box upon which he had been sitting, landed it halfway across the room. His cheeks and nose were pallid above his beard, his thin nostrils dilated, and his hand shook as he reached for his rifle in the gun rack made of deer horns nailed above the kitchen door. He was slender and wiry of build, quick and nervous in his movements, yet they were almost noiseless, and he walked with the padded soft-footedness of the preying animal.
Bruce Burt lounged to the cabin door and looked after “Slim” Naudain as he went to the river. Then he stepped outside, stooping to avoid striking his head. He leaned his broad shoulder against the door jamb and watched “Slim” bail the leaky boat and untie it