“There wasn’t no one with me,” explained Luke. “There wasn’t no one around but me when I left, and I didn’t want to waste time waiting fer someone to show up. Anyways, I kin see alone jest as fer as I kin with help.” “Well, I reckon he’ll be coming along pretty soon, Luke,” said Wichita. “Good night.” “Good night, Miss,” replied Jensen. Chapter Thirteen Back To Sonora =D=AWN broke and Wichita Billings still sat fully dressed waiting for her father. It was the first time that she had ever worried greatly over his absence, and she could not explain why she worried now. She had always thought of her father as absolutely able to take care of himself in any emergency. He was a masterful man, utterly fearless, and yet not prone to take unnecessary chances. A dozen times she had been upon the point of going to the bunk house and sending the entire outfit out to search for him, but each time she had shrunk from the ridicule that she well knew would be slyly heaped upon both her father and herself if she did so without good warrant; but now with a new day come and no word from him, she determined to swallow her pride and carry out her plan, however foolish it might appear. Persistent knocking on the bunk house door finally elicited a profane request for information as to what was “eating” her. “Dad’s not back yet,” she shouted. “Oh, hell, is that you Miss? I didn’t know it was you.” “Never mind. Roll out 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 won’t hurt to look for him.” “No, it won’t 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, ain’t 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.”