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Updated: June 11, 2025
The willows moved, opened up, and a blond, curly head appeared. Bob's breath was expelled in a long sigh of relief. "Wow! I'm glad to see you. Heard that shot an' thought maybe they'd got you." "Not so you can notice it," Dud replied cheerfully. "But they're all round us. I took a crack at one inquisitive buck who had notions of collectin' me. He ce'tainly hit the dust sudden as he vamosed."
"If I didn't catch another ace or a small pair." The game was breaking up. "Hell! I was playin' poker before you could navigate, young fellow," Bandy boasted. He had lost four dollars and was annoyed. "An' you're still an optimist about hookin' another pair when you need 'em." Dud was counting his winnings placidly. "Six-fifty seven seven and two bits.
Using their spurs to dig with, the cowpunchers deepened the hollow and packed the loose dirt around the rim in order to heighten the rampart. From a distance came the sound of heavy, rapid firing, of far, faint yells. "The boys are attackin' the gulch," Dud guessed. "Sounds like they might be makin' a clean-up too." It was three o'clock by Bob's big silver watch.
Brother Bart was making efforts at conversation with an old French priest returning to his mission in the Canadian forests; Dud had introduced Jim to his fashionable friends, and both boys were enjoying a box of chocolates with pretty little Minnie Foster; Freddy was still "resting" in his stateroom.
"I reckon by noon we can say 'Hello! to yore bronc," Dud prophesied. "No need to trail it. All we got to do is follow the river." An hour later he drew up and swung from the saddle. "Now I wonder who we've had with us this glad mawnin'." Dud stooped and examined carefully tracks in the mud. Bob joined him. "Powder River ain't so lonesome now. Met up with friends, looks like.
Macy took the first watch that night. He turned in at two after he had roused Dud to take his place. The cook had been on duty about an hour when Elliot kicked Holt, who was sleeping beside him, to make sure that he was ready. The old man answered the kick with another. Presently Gordon got up, yawned, and strolled toward the edge of the camp. "Don't go and get lost, young fellow," cautioned Dud.
He wanted to ask Dud a question, but he dared not ask it before anybody else. It hung in his mind all through supper. Afterward he found his chance. He did not look at Hollister while he spoke. "Did did you hear how Miss Tolliver is?" he asked. "Doc says he can't tell a thing yet. She's still mighty sick. But Blister he sent word to you that he'd let you know soon as there is a change."
Soon these, too, would belong to the past. Dud and Bob had vision enough to see this and they were making plans to get a near-pedigreed bull. Dud sighed in reminiscent appreciation of the old days that were vanishing. He might have been seventy-two instead of twenty-two coming February. Behind him lay apparently all his golden youth.
Pretty sailboats were flitting hither and thither on sunny wings; the white stretch of beach was gay with bathers; the full notes of an orchestra came from the band stand on the jutting pier. "Jing!" exclaimed Dan, in amazement at such a festive scene. "Is this Killykinick?" "No," was Dud Fielding's surly answer. "I wish it was. But I mean to cut over here to the Fosters whenever I can.
Dud, now tremendously popular, joined in the dance. As he shuffled past Bob he growled an order at him. "Get up on yore hind laigs an' dance. I got these guys going my way. Hop to it!" Bob danced, at first feebly and with a heart of water. He need not have worried. If Dud had asked to be made a blood member of the tribe he would have been elected by fourteen out of the sixteen votes present.
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