He glanced down toward Flying U Coulee again--toward where the trail stretched like a brown ribbon through the grass. He seemed to be in something of a hurry now--if impatient movement meant anything--yet he did not leave the place at once. He kept looking off there toward the southwest--off beyond Antelope Coulee and the sparsely dotted shacks of the settlers.
A smudge of smoke rose thinly there, behind a hill. Unless one had been watching the place, one would scarcely have noticed it, but H. J. Owens saw it at once and smiled his twisted smile and went running down the hill to where his horse was tied. He mounted and rode down to the level, skirted the knoll and came out on the trail, down which he rode at an easy lope until he met the Kid.
The Kid was going to see Rosemary Allen and take a ride with her along the new fence; but he pulled up with the air of condescension which was his usual attitude toward "nesters," and in response to the twisted smile of H. J. Owens he grinned amiably.
"Want to go on a bear-hunt with me, Buck?" began H. J. Owens with just the right tone of comradeship, to win the undivided attention of the Kid.
"I was goin' to ride fence with Miss Allen," the Kid declined regretfully. "There ain't any bears got very close, there ain't. I guess you musta swallered something Andy told you."
He looked at H. J. Owens tolerantly.
"No sir. I never talked to Andy about this." Had he been perfectly truthful he would have added that he had not talked with Andy about anything whatever, but he let it go. "This is a bear den I found myself; There's two little baby cubs, Buck, and I was wondering if you wouldn't like to go along and get one for a pet. You could learn it to dance and play soldier, and all kinds of stunts."
The Kid's eyes shone, but he was wary. This man was a nester, so it would be just at well to be careful "Where 'bouts is it?" he therefore demanded in a tone of doubt that would have done credit to Happy Jack.
"Oh, down over there in the hills. It's a secret, though, till we get them out. Some fellows are after them for themselves, Buck. They want to--skin 'em."
"The mean devils!" condemned the Kid promptly. "I'd take a fall outa them if I ketched 'em skinning any baby bear cubs while I was around."
H. J. Owens glanced behind him with an uneasiness not altogether assumed.
"Let's go down into this next gully to talk it over, Buck," he suggested with an air of secretiveness that fired the Kid's imagination. "They started out to follow me, and I don't want 'em to see me talking to you, you know."
The Kid went with him unsuspectingly. In all the six years of his life, no man had ever offered him injury. Fear had not yet become associated with those who spoke him fair. Nesters he did not consider friends because they were not friends with his bunch. Personally he did not know anything about enemies. This man was a nester--but he called him Buck, and he talked very nice and friendly, and he said he knew where there were some little baby bear cubs. The Kid had never before realized how much he wanted a bear cub for a pet. So do our wants grow to meet our opportunities.
H. J. Owens led the way into a shallow draw between two low hills, glancing often behind him and around him until they were shielded by the higher ground. He was careful to keep where the grass was thickest and would hold no hoofprints to betray them, but the Kid never noticed. He was thinking how nice it would be to have a bear cub for a pet. But it was funny that the Happy Family had never found him one, if there were any in the country.
He turned to put the question direct to H. J. Owens, I but that gentleman forestalled him.
"You wait here a minute, Buck, while I ride back on this hill a little ways to see if those fellows are on our trail," he said, and rode off before the Kid could ask him the question.
The Kid waited obediently. He saw H. J. Owens get off his horse and go sneaking up to the brow of the hill, and take some field glasses out of his pocket and look all around over the prairie with them. The sight tingled the Kid's blood so that he almost forgot about the bear cub. It was almost exactly like fighting Injuns, like Uncle Gee-gee told about when he wasn't cross.
In a few minutes Owens came back to the Kid, and they went on slowly, keeping always in the low, grassy places where there would be no tracks left to tell of their passing that way.