Chapter Twenty-One: Trails End

At the last camp, just north of the Platte, Bud's two black sheep balked. Bud himself, worn by sleepless nights and long hours in the saddle, turned furiously when Jerry announced that he guessed he and Ed wouldn't go any farther.

"Well, damn you both for ungrateful hounds!" grated Bud, hurt to the quick. "I hope you don't think I brought you this far to help hold me in the saddle; I made it north alone, without any mishap. I think I could have come back all right. But if you want to quit here, all right. You can high-tail it back to your outlaws--"

"Well, if you go 'n put it that way!" Jerry expostulated, lifting both hands high in the air in a vain attempt to pull the situation toward the humorous. "You're a depity sheriff, and you got the drop." He grinned, saw that Bud's eyes were still hard and his mouth unyielding, and lowered his hands, looking crestfallen as a kicked pup that had tried to be friendly.

"You can see for yourself we ain't fit to go 'n meet your mother and your father like we was--like we'd went straight," Eddie put in explanatorily. "You've been raised good, and-- say, it makes a man want to be good to see how a feller don't have to be no preacher to live right. But it don't seem square to let you take us right home with you, just because you're so darned kind you'd do it and never think a thing about it. We ain't ungrateful--I know I ain't. But--but--"

"The kid's said it, Bud," Jerry came to the rescue. "We come along because it was a ticklish trip you had ahead. And I've knowed as good riders as you are, that could stand a little holding in the saddle when some freak had tried to shoot 'em out of it. But you're close to home now and you don't need us no more, and so we ain't going to horn in on the prodigal calf's milkbucket. Marian, She's likely there--"

"If Sis ain't with your folks we'll hunt her up," Eddie interrupted eagerly. "Sis is your kind--she--she's good enough for yuh, Bud, and I hope she--ll--well if she's got any sense she will--well, if it comes to the narrying point, I--well, darn it, I'd like to see Sis git as good a man as you are!" Eddie, having bluntered that far, went headlong as if he were afraid to stop. "Sis is educated, and she's an awful good singer and a fine girl, only I'm her brother. But I'm going to live honest from now on, Bud, and I hope you won't hold off on account of me. I ain't going to have sis feel like crying when she thinks about me! You--you--said something that hurt like a knife, Bud, when you told me that, up in Crater. And she wasn't to blame for marryn' Lew--and she done that outa goodness, the kind you showed to Jerry and me. And we don't want to go spoilin' everything by letting your folks see what you're bringin' home with yuh! And it might hurt Sis with your folks, if they found out that I'm--"

Bud