"Dad's not back yet," she shouted.
"Oh, hell, is that you Miss? I didn't know it was you."
"Never mind. Rollout and get busy. We're goin' to find him if we have to ride to Boston," she cried.
Luke Jensen, being the youngest man in the outfit, both in years and point of service; was first from the bunk house, it being his duty to bring the saddle horses in from pasture. At the barn, he found that Wichita had already bridled the horse that was kept up for the purpose of bringing the others in and was on the point of swinging the heavy saddle to its back.
He greeted her cheerily, took the saddle from her, and completed its adjustment.
"You worried about your Paw, Miss?" he asked as he drew the latigo through the cinch ring.
"Something might have happened to him," she replied. "It wont hurt to look for him."
"No, it wont do no hurt, though I reckon he kin take keer o' hisself about as good as the next man. I wouldn't worry none, Miss," he concluded, reassuringly, as he stepped into the stirrup and swung his leg over the horse's rump.
Wichita stood by the corral gate watching Luke riding down into the east pasture at an easy lope. She saw him disappear among the willows that grow along the draw a mile from the corrals and two thirds of the way across the pasture; and then "Smooth" Kreff, her father's foreman. joined her.
"Mornin', Miss," he greeted her. He looked at her sharply. "You-all been up all night, aint you?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"Pshaw! Why didn't you rout us out? We'd a-gone lookin' fer him any time."
"There wouldn't have been much use looking for him at night."
"No, and there aint much use lookin' fer him now; but it would a-made you-all feel easier," replied the man.
"Why isn't there any now?" she demanded.
"Because the Boss kin take keer of himself. He aint a-goin' to thank us none, I'm figgerin'."
"No, if he's all right, he wont; but if he isn't all right we'll be glad we did."
"Them hosses must a-gone plumb to the fer end of the pasture," remarked Kreff.
"They always do, if we're in a particular hurry to get them up," said Wichita.
The other men had come from the bunk house by now and were standing around waiting.
"Thet dog-gone 'cavvy' must a-knowed we wanted 'em bad," said one.
"Like as not they seed Luke comin' an' hid out in the willows," suggested another.
"They shore are an ornery bunch," admitted a third.
"I could of ridden down there backwards on a bicycle an' rounded 'em up before this," boasted a fourth.
"Here they come now," exclaimed Wichita, as several horses broke from the willows and trotted toward the corrals.
In twos and threes they emerged from the dense foliage until some forty or fifty horses were strung out on the trail to the corrals, and then Luke Jensen rode into sight from out the willows.
"What's thet critter he's leadin'?" demanded one of the men.
"It's saddled," volunteered another.
"It's Scar Foot," said Kreff.
After that there was silence. Some of the men glanced at Wichita; but most of them stood looking away, embarrassed. Scar Foot was Billings' favorite horse--the animal he had ridden out on the previous day.
The men walked out of the corral into the pasture to head the horses through the bars that had been let down to receive them. No one said anything. Kreff walked forward toward Luke; and the latter reined in and, leaning down, spoke to the foreman in a low voice. Wichita approached them.
"Where did you find Scar Foot?" she asked. "Where is Dad?"
"Scar Foot was jest outside the east gate, Miss," explained Jensen. "The other hosses was all up there by him, jest inside the fence."
"Did you see anything of Dad?" she demanded again.
"We-all's goin' to ride right out an' look fer him, Miss," said Kreff.
Inside the corral two men were roping, and the others were busy saddling their horses as they were caught.
Wichita climbed to the top of the corral. "I'll ride Two Spot," she called to one of the ropers.
Finally all the horses they needed had been caught and the others turned back into the pasture. One of the men who had been among the first to saddle was saddling Two Spot for Wichita. Luke Jensen, who had transferred his outfit to one of his own string, kept as far from Wichita as he could; but as she was about to mount, Kreff approached her, leading his own horse. "I wouldn't come along, Miss, ef I was you," he advised. "We may have some hard ridin'."
"When did I get so I couldn't ride with any of you?" she asked, quietly.
"There may be some fightin'," he insisted, "an' I wouldn't want you-all to. get hurted;"
The girl smiled, ever so slightly. "It's good of you, 'Smooth,'" she said; "but I understand, I think." She swung into the saddle, and Kreff said no more.
Luke Jensen leading, they rode at a run down through the pasture, scattering the "cavvy," and into the dense willows, emerging upon the opposite side, climbing the steep bank of the draw, and away again at top speed toward the east gate. In, silence they rode, with grim faces.
There, just beyond the fence; they found Billings--where Luke Jensen had found him. Wichita knelt beside her father and felt of his hands and face. She did not cry. Dry eyed she arose and for the first time saw that one of the men who had brought up the rear had led Scar Foot back with them; but even had she known when they started she would not have been surprised, for almost from the moment that she had seen Luke Jensen leading the horse back toward the corrals and had seen him whisper to Kreff she had expected to find just what she had found.
Tenderly the rough men lifted all that was mortal of Jeffrson Billings across the saddle in which he had ridden to hls death, and many were the muttered curses that would have been vented vehemently and aloud had it not been for the presence of the girl, for Billings had been shot in the back and--scalped.On walking horses the cortege filed slowly toward the ranch house, the men deferentially falling behind the led horse that bore the body of the "Boss" directly in rear of the girl who could not cry.
"He never had a chanct," growled one of the men. "Plugged right in the back between the shoulders!"
"God damned dirty Siwashes!" muttered another.
"I seen an Injun here yestiddy evenin'," said Luke.
"Why the Hell didn't you say so before?" demanded Kreff .
"I told Miss Chita," replied the young man; "but, Lor', it warnt him did it."
"Wot makes you-all think it warnt?" asked Kreff.
"He's a friend of hern. He wouldn't have hurted her old man."
"What Injun was it?"
"Thet Shoz-Dijiji fellow what saved me thet time I was hurted an' lost. I know he wouldn't hev done it. They must hev been some others around, too."
Kreff snorted. "Fer a bloke wot's supposed to hail from Texas you-all shore are simple about Injuns. Thet Siwash is a Cheeracow Apache an' a Cheeracow Apache'd kill his grandmother fer a lead nickel."
"I don't believe thet Injun would. Why didn't he plug me when he had the chancet?" demanded Jensen.
"Say!" exclaimed Kreff. "Thet there pinto stallion thet thet there greaser brung up from Chihuahua fer King warnt with the 'cavvy' this mornin'. By gum! There's the answer. Thet there pony belonged to Shoz-Dijiji. He was a-gettin' it when the Boss rid up."
"They had words last time the Siwash was around here," yolunteered another.
"Sure! The Boss said he'd plug him if he ever seen him hangin' around here again," recalled one of the men.
At the ranch house they laid Jefferson Billings on his bed and covered him with a sheet, and then "Smooth" Kreff went to Wichita and told her of his deductions and the premises upon which they were based.
"I don't believe it," said the girl. "Shoz-Dijiji has always been friendly to us. I ran across him by accident in the hills yesterday, and he rode home with me because, he said, there were other renegades around and it might not be safe for me to ride alone. It must have been some other Indian who did it."