After dinner the Professor announced his intention of strolling across to his friends at the cook-house, but learned from Cockney that only Bean Slade was about the place, the rest having gone out on the ranges for a few days. Bean was finishing some needed repairs about the ranch buildings, and was going to town in a couple of days for the staples.
"Dakota has made a place for your team in the stables," Cockney said casually. "He's afraid to let strange horses loose in the corrals at night: they might hurt themselves."
"That's thoughtful of Dakota," replied the Professor. "I don't know what Inspector Barker would say—he lent them to me, you know, as the safest in Medicine Hat—because it must be stifling some nights in the stables. If I relieved Dakota of all personal responsibility I suppose he'd let them run loose in the corrals? Gee-Gee seems to have a temperament that requires airing."
"The stables are not stifling," said Cockney shortly. "Besides, Dakota looks after that part of the ranch; I don't interfere."
Stamford took it outside and thought it over.
"I'd almost forgotten my daily ride," he said, entering the sitting-room a few minutes later. "I have a premonition that should Hobbles lose track of me for a day she'll forget my weaknesses. Will you come and see I get fair-play, Miss Bulkeley?"
"Hobbles is in the stable, too," said Cockney, "also Miss Bulkeley's horse. The key's hanging inside my bedroom door. Help yourself."
Bean Slade suggested that he, as teacher, accompany the two, but Stamford waved him away with mock rudeness.
"You make me blush, Bean. I'm taking Miss Bulkeley for an evening ride—showing her the sights. One of them may be when Hobbles decides to trot, but I must chance that. I usually last only three trots. Hobbles has the habit now of stopping at the third to let me remount."
He bumped away, the perfect seat of his companion giving his inexperience the laugh.
"I don't see how you do it, Miss Bulkeley, but if I could ride like that I'd be a Mounted Policeman—if they'd take me in. Too bad to waste it in Washington. If everyone in your city rides like you——"
"Don't talk about civilisation, Mr. Stamford," she rebuked. "It sounds so funny out here."
"Can I really be funny so easily? Speaking about civilisation, did you ever see anything to beat this locking up of our horses? What's Dakota afraid of anyway? I'm a funny critter, Miss Bulkeley. I never had an ambition to ride Hobbles out of hours before. Now I'm wild to tear about this lonesome prairie at the most unconventional hours. If you'll turn your back you won't be accessory to a crime. I'd ride away and turn my back to you, only Hobbles wouldn't leave your horse now, and I couldn't make her. I'm making a drawing of this stable key. Yours not to reason why."
He turned himself from her as much as he could and outlined the key in his notebook.
"I was watching the sunset all the time," she told him when he had finished, "and wondering."
"Don't wonder," he warned, with a sigh. "I've started to, and I'm getting more tangled every day. Life was never like this before."
That night he made arrangements with Bean to go to town with him two days later, and retired to bed with a virtuous satisfaction at having beaten his favourite enemy, though when he thought of Cockney he had twinges of conscience.
The second day of fossil-hunting with the Professor was even less interesting and more wearying than the first. There was a limit to the hours Stamford could sleep, and the scorching heat among the rocks made eyes and face sting. After lunch he ended an uncomfortable hour of dozing by hunting up the Professor.
He found him curled in the shadow of a rock, sound asleep, hammer and chisel by his side. Stamford struck the rock a ringing blow with the hammer. With a bound the Professor was on his feet.
"Oh—you, Stamford! This heat—I guess I must have succumbed to it—that and the drone of the mosquitoes. Did you ever feel such a blistering heat, or see such armies of mosquitoes? I believe they've been here all these years probing into these old bones under the impression that they're succulent. They've discovered their mistake since I came," he added ruefully. "Six weeks ago one must have had to hack a way through them in this Edmonton formation. In one short week I've learned that the guiding star to some antediluvian monster is the modern mosquito."
He seized his tools and began to hack a crevice.
"There's a rib here, a big fellow. I'm having a great time tickling it—but the big brute never quivers a hair—if he ever had any. Down there is a tooth. Would you mind taking a look and reporting on the quality of dentistry prevailing in B.C. a million?" He sat back on his heels. "I envy the advantages of those to whom my bones will be fossils. Present palæontological graveyards have not to date yielded up a single gold filling. If you wouldn't mind chalking off any outlines of bones on that patch of rock down there, you could feel that your day was not wasted."
Stamford yawned, made a few desultory marks, and sat down. The Professor continued his hacking without bothering him further.
That night there was music at the H-Lazy Z; the banks of the Red Deer canyon echoed for the first time to sounds prophetic of the day when ranches will give place to farms, farms to towns. Professor Bulkeley played, until he felt every eye fixed breathlessly on him; then he rose in confusion and insisted on Mary Aikens taking his place. To her accompaniment a chorus formed, but in a few minutes it had dwindled to a duet. Stamford and Isabel withdrew to a corner. Cockney sat smoking in gloomy silence. Even the yelping coyotes out on the prairie ceased their shuddering clamour to listen—a space of silence Imp did his resentful best to fill.
Stamford, seated by the screen in his room before climbing between the sheets, heard the voices of brother and sister over his head. After a minute he started to a guilty consciousness that he was straining to hear what they said. Noisily he jerked the window down.
It seemed to him that he had just dropped to sleep when Bean hammered at the screen to waken him for the trip to town.
On the long drive Stamford found the cowboy little more inclined to talk than was the youthful driver who had brought him out. It was a keen disappointment to the self-appointed detective, for he had counted on Bean's affection for him providing the clues that were evading him. The lanky cowboy was willing enough to talk on subjects of no possible interest to Stamford, but of the ranch he had nothing to say.
However, when, the second day afterwards, he and Bean floated on the ferry across the South Saskatchewan and climbed the cut bank toward the northern trail, Stamford felt that his trip was not wasted. For one thing he carried in his pocket a duplicate of the stable key. Also he had had a short conversation with Inspector Barker that clung to the fringes of his consciousness.
"For an invalid, Stamford," mocked the Inspector, "you strike me as no friend of the undertaker's. If I didn't know your holiday was a real loss in dollars and cents, I'd say it was undiluted laziness. I can't imagine anyone, after three months in this dollar-chasing country, sacrificing cash for chronic fatigue. Or is the fair Isabel there?"
"How did you know?" asked Stamford amiably.
"That's the little birdie that tells secrets to us married men. If she hadn't come to the mountain, then the mountain—— How's the Professor getting along with his new friends, the Red Deer dinosaurs? What's more to the point, by the way, have you come across a pair of big dogs that don't seem at home?"
"There's Imp," suggested Stamford.
"Who's Imp?"
"Imp is several degrees short of big—though he certainly doesn't seem at home—unless Dakota's about. Legally he belongs to Mrs. Aikens. As a matter of fact Dakota has him eating out of his hand. The little chap attached himself to our rowdy friend at first glance. Love at first sight. Took to him like a mouse to cheese."
The Inspector was more than amused. He asked so many questions that Stamford realised how easy it was to make the little terrier entertaining. Some of the brightest things he determined to repeat to Isabel Bulkeley.
On the return Bean was more talkative, without saying anything of value for Stamford's purposes.
As they rolled, in the late afternoon, over the gently waving prairie toward the Red Deer, Stamford's weary eyes caught a movement on the top of a rise to the west. It came once, and went, furtively, Stamford was convinced. Without seeming to watch he kept his eyes fixed on the ridge, and after a few minutes was rewarded by the tip of a Stetson, as if someone were lying down, peering over at them. Bean was sleepily flicking the broncos.
When two more Stetsons appeared beside the first, he made his mind up. Calling Bean's wandering senses back to earth, he waved his arms. Instantly the Stetsons disappeared. A moment later Dakota loped over the ridge and down the slope. He drew up several yards away and beckoned Bean to him. From the furtive glances in his direction Stamford knew he was the subject of their early conversation, Dakota questioning, Bean explaining. Then they turned their backs on him. The owners of the other Stetsons did not show themselves.
As Bean clambered back over the wheel Dakota shouted a last word:
"Get cookie to hustle a snack for you. But hurry. We'll wait. You can do it in a couple of hours."
Bean flicked the whip and they started for home on the canter.
"They aren't giving you much rest," sympathised Stamford.
"Naw," replied Bean shortly.
"The work about a ranch is certainly a surprise to me. What does Dakota want you for?"
"It's a hell of a life!" grumbled Bean. Thereafter he kept his lips closed.
An hour later Stamford was eating in the ranch-house, trying to answer with intelligent flippancy the questions poured at him. The promise of the stable key burning a hole in his pocket was filling his mind. To outwit Dakota was his sole ambition at the moment. If he could get Hobbles from the locked stables——
Pleading fatigue, he retired early. For some time he heard the conversation in the sitting-room, subdued for his sake, and then the stair door closed behind the Bulkeleys. The sudden Western night had fallen.