Collection 1988 - Lonigan (v5.0) Read Free Page A

distance east. What a waste to think their herd was passing over that miserable brown and dusty plain when all this was going to waste! It was too bad Hoey did not know of this.
    She pushed on to the bottom of the valley and toward a water hole, the tracks for the moment forgotten. And then at the water hole she saw them again. Here the rider had stopped, a tall man with rundown bootheels and Mexican spurs, judging by the tracks in the sand.
    She was lying on her stomach drinking when her eyes lifted in response to the sudden falling of a shadow. She saw shabby boots and the Mexican spurs, dark leather chaps, and then a slim-waisted man wearing a faded red shirt and a black kerchief around his throat. His hat was gray, dusty, and battered.
    â€œHello,” he said, smiling at her. “You’ve got water on your chin.”
    She sprang to her feet irritably and dashed a quick hand across her mouth and chin. “Suppose I have? What business is it of yours?”
    His face was browned from sun and wind, his eyes faintly whimsical. He wore, she noticed suddenly, two guns. He was rolling a cigarette, and now he placed it carefully in the corner of his mouth and struck a match left handed. For some idiotic reason she suddenly wished the wind would blow it out. It didn’t.
    His eyes slanted from her to her horse and the brand. “Circle G,” he murmured thoughtfully, “I reckon that’s a Texas outfit.”
    â€œIf you were from Texas,” she replied with asperity, “you would know. There wasn’t a better known cattleman in Texas than Tom Gurney!”
    â€œRelative of his?”
    â€œHis daughter. And my herd is just a few miles east of here.”
    â€œYeah,” his voice was suddenly sarcastic, “that’s what comes of a woman ramroddin’ a herd. You got your stock on dry grass with this valley offerin’ shelter, graze, and plenty of water.”
    â€œFor your information,” she said coldly, “I’m not ramrodding the herd. My trail boss is. He evidently did not know of this valley.”
    â€œAnd evidently he didn’t try very hard to find out about it. You got a lousy trail boss, ma’am.”
    â€œI didn’t ask you! Mr. Ives is—” She was startled by the way his head came up.
    â€œDid you say…
Ives
? You don’t mean Hoey Ives?”
    â€œI do. You…you know him?”
    â€œI should smile. Your dad must be dead, then…for he’d never let an Ives ramrod a trail herd of his, else.”
    â€œWho are you?” she demanded. “You talk like you knew my father?”
    He shrugged. “You know this country. Folks pass stories along from camp to camp. A man can know a lot about a country without ever bein’ there. I’m just from Wyoming.”
    Suddenly, he glanced up. “Cloudin’ up for sure. You’ll never make it back to the herd now before the rain comes. Mount up and we’ll go down to the cabin.”
    She looked at him coldly, then cast an apprehensive glance at the sky. “I’ll race the storm to the herd,” she said coolly. “Thanks just the same.”
    â€œNo,” he said, “you’d never make it. I know these prairie thunderstorms. There may be hail, and sometimes the stones are big enough to beat your brains out. The cabin is closer.”

----
    E VEN AS HE spoke, there was a rumble of thunder and a few spattering drops landed near them. Worriedly, she glanced at the sky. It was dark and lowering. She had been so preoccupied by the tracks and then by the valley that she had not noticed the rising clouds. Now she saw that there was indeed a bad storm coming, and recalling some of the gullies she had traversed she knew that the trail back would be fraught with danger. She glanced once at the strange rider, hesitated, then said swiftly, “All right, we’ll go.”
    â€œWe’d better make a run for it!” he said, swinging