So she climbed. And then everything looked so different that she believed she had climbed another hill entirely. So she went down again and turned into a gorge which seemed to lead in the direction where she had seen the little lost boy. She followed that quite a long way—and that one petered out like the first.
Miss Allen found the gorges filling up with shadow, and she looked up and saw the sky crimson and gold, and she knew then without any doubts that she was lost. Miss Allen was a brave young woman, or she would not have been down in that country in the first place; but just the same she sat down with her back against a clay bank and cried because of the eeriness and the silence, and because she was hungry and she knew she was going to be cold before morning—but mostly because she could not find that poor, brave little baby boy who had waved his hat when she left him, and shouted that he was not a baby.
In a few minutes she pulled herself together and went on; there was nothing to be gained by sitting in one place and worrying. She walked until it was too dark to see, and then, because she had come upon a little, level canyon bottom—though one that was perfectly strange—she stopped there where a high bank sheltered her from the wind that was too cool for comfort. She called, a few times, until she was sure that the child was not within hearing. After that she repeated poetry to keep her mind off the loneliness and the pity of that poor baby alone like herself. She would not think of him if she could help it.
When she began to shiver so that her teeth chattered, she would walk up and down before the bank until she felt warm again; then she would sit with her back against the clay and close her eyes and try to sleep. It was not a pleasant way in which to pass a whole night, but Miss Allen endured it as best she could. When the sun tinged the hill-tops she got up stiffly and dragged herself out of the canyon where she could get the direction straight in her mind, and then set off resolutely to find the Kid. She no longer had much thought of finding her horse, though she missed him terribly, and wished she had the lunch that was tied to the saddle.
This, remember, was the fourth day since the Kid rode down through the little pasture and stood on a piece of fence-post so that he could fasten the gate. Men had given up hope of finding him alive and unharmed. They searched now for his body. And then the three women who lived with Miss Allen began to inquire about the girl, and so the warning went out that Miss Allen was lost; and they began looking for her also.
Miss Allen, along towards noon of that fourth day, found a small stream of water that was fit to drink. Beside the stream she found the footprints of a child, and they looked quite fresh—as if they had been made that day. She whipped up her flagging energy and went on hopefully.
It was a long while afterwards that she met him coming down a canyon on his horse. It must have been past three o’clock, and Miss Allen could scarcely drag herself along. When she saw him she turned faint, and sat down heavily on the steep-sloping bank.
The Kid rode up and stopped beside her. His face was terribly dirty and streaked with the marks of tears he would never acknowledge afterwards. He seemed to be all right, though, and because of his ignorance of the danger he had been in he did not seem to have suffered half as much as had Miss Allen.
“Howdy do,” he greeted her, and smiled his adorable little smile that was like the Little Doctor’s. “Are you the lady up on the hill? Do you know where the bunch is? I’m—lookin’ for the bunch.”
Miss Allen found strength enough to stand up and put her arms around him as he sat very straight in his little stock saddle; she hugged him tight.
“You poor baby!” she cried, and her eyes were blurred with tears. “You poor little lost baby!”
“I ain’t a baby!” The Kid pulled himself free. “I’m six years old goin’ on thirty. I’m a rell ole cowpuncher. I can slap a saddle on my string and ride like a son-a-gun. And I can put the bridle on him my own self and everything. I—I was lookin’ for the bunch. I had to make a dry-camp and my doughnuts is smashed up and the jelly glass broke but I never cried when a skink came. I shooed him away and I never cried once. I’m a rell ole cowpuncher, ain’t I? I ain’t afraid of skinks. I frowed a rock at him and I said, git outa here, you damn old skink or I’ll knock your block off!’ You oughter seen him go! I—I sure made him hard to ketch, by cripes!”
Miss Allen stepped back and the twinkle came into her eyes and the whimsical twist to her lips. She knew children. Not for the world would she offend this manchild.
“Well, I should say you are a real old cowpuncher!” she exclaimed admiringly. “Now I’m afraid of skinks. I never would dare knock his block off! And last night when I was lost and hungry and it got dark, I—cried!”
“Hunh!” The Kid studied her with a condescending pity. “Oh, well—you’re just a woman. Us fellers have to take care of women. Daddy Chip takes care of Doctor Dell—I guess she’d cry if she couldn’t find the bunch and had to make dry-camp and skinks come around—but I never.”
“Of course you never!” Miss Allen agreed emphatically, trying not to look conscious of any tear-marks on the Kid’s sunburned cheeks. “Women are regular cry babies, aren’t they? I suppose,” she added guilefully: “I’d cry again if you rode off to find the bunch an left me down here all alone. I’ve lost my horse, an I’ve lost my lunch, and I’ve lost myself, and I’m awful afraid of skunks—skinks.”
“Oh, I’ll take care of you,” the Kid comforted. “I’ll give you a doughnut if you’re hungry. I’ve got some left, but you’ll have to pick out the glass where the jelly broke on it.” He reined closer to the bank and slid off and began untying the sadly depleted bag from behind the cantle. Miss Allen offered to do it for him, and was beautifully snubbed. The Kid may have been just a frightened, lost little boy before he met her—but that was a secret hidden in the silences of the deep canyons. Now he was a real old cowpuncher, and he was going to take care of Miss Allen because men always had to take care of women.
Miss Allen offended him deeply when she called him Claude. She was told bluntly that he was Buck, and that he belonged to the Flying U outfit, and was riding down here to help the bunch gather some cattle. “But I can’t find the brakes,” he admitted grudgingly. “That’s where the bunch is—down in the brakes; I can’t seem to locate them brakes.”
“Don’t you think you ought to go home to your mother?” Miss Allen asked him while he was struggling with the knot he had tied in the bag.
“I’ve got to find the bunch. The bunch needs me,” said the Kid. “I—I guess Doctor Dell is s’prised—”
“Who’s Doctor Dell? Your mother? Your mother has just about cried herself sick, she’s so lonesome without you.”
The Kid looked at her wide-eyed. “Aw, gwan!” he retorted after a minute, imitating Happy Jack’s disbelief of any unpleasant news. “I guess you’re jest loadin’ me. Daddy Chip is takin’ care of her. He wouldn’t let her be lonesome.”
The Kid got the sack open and reached an arm in to the shoulder. He groped there for a minute and drew out a battered doughnut smeared liberally with wild currant jelly, and gave it to Miss Allen with an air of princely generosity and all the chivalry of all the Happy Family rolled into one baby gesture. Miss Allen took the doughnut meekly and did not spoil the Kid’s pleasure by hugging him as she would have liked to do. Instead she said: “Thank you, Buck of the Flying U,” quite humbly. Then something choked Miss Allen and she turned her back upon him abruptly.
“I’ve got one, two, free, fourteen left,” said the Kid, counting them gravely. “If I had ’membered to bring matches,” he added regretfully, “I could have a fire and toast rabbit legs. I guess you got some glass, didn’t you? I got some and it cutted my tongue so the bleed came—but I never cried,” he made haste to deny stoutly. “I’m a rell ole cowpuncher now. I just cussed.” He looked at her gravely. “You can’t cuss where women can hear,” he told Miss Allen reassuringly. “Bud says—”
“Let me see the doughnuts,” said miss Allen abruptly. “I think you ought to let me keep the lunch. That’s the woman’s part. Men can’t bother with lunch—”