CONCERNING BRANDS.
A few days after Jim Reid's evening visit to the Dean two cowboys from
the Diamond-and-a-Half outfit, on their way to Cherry Creek, stopped at
the ranch for dinner.
The well-known, open-handed Baldwin hospitality led many a passing rider
thus aside from the main valley road and through the long meadow lane to
the Cross-Triangle table. Always there was good food for man and horse,
with a bed for those who came late in the day; and always there was a
hearty welcome and talk under the walnut trees with the Dean. And in all
that broad land there was scarce a cowboy who, when riding the range,
would not look out for the Dean's cattle with almost the same interest
and care that he gave to the animals bearing the brand of his own
employer.
So it was that these riders from the Tonto Flats country told the Dean
that in looking over the Cross-Triangle cattle watering at Toohey they
had seen several cases of screwworms.
"We doped a couple of the worst, and branded a calf for you," said
"Shorty" Myers.
And his companion, Bert Wilson, added, as though apologizing, "We
couldn't stop any longer because we got to make it over to Wheeler's
before mornin'."
"Much obliged, boys," returned the Dean. Then, with his ever-ready jest,
"Sure you put the right brand on that calf?"
"We-all ain't ridin' for no Tailholt Mountain outfit this season,"
retorted Bert dryly, as they all laughed at the Dean's question.
And at the cowboy's words Patches, wondering, saw the laughing faces
change and looks of grim significance flash from man to man.
"Anybody seen anything over your way lately?" asked the Dean quietly.
In the moment of silence that followed the visitors looked questioningly
from the face of Patches to the Dean and then to Phil. Phil smiled his
endorsement of the stranger, and "Shorty" said, "We found a couple of
fresh-branded calves what didn't seem to have no mothers last week, and
Bud Stillwell says some things look kind o' funny over in the D.1
neighborhood."
Another significant silence followed. To Patches, it seemed as the
brooding hush that often precedes a storm. He had not missed those
questioning looks of the visitors, and had seen Phil's smiling
endorsement, but he could not, of course, understand. He could only
wonder and wait, for he felt intuitively that he must not speak. It was
as though these strong men who had received him so generously into
their lives put him, now, outside their circle, while they considered
business of grave moment to themselves.
"Well, boys," said the Dean, as if to dismiss the subject, "I've been in
this cow business a good many years, now, an' I've seen all kinds of men
come an' go, but I ain't never seen the man yet that could get ahead
very far without payin' for what he got. Some time, one way or another,
whether he's so minded or not, a man's just naturally got to pay."
"That law is not peculiar to the cattle business, either, is it, Mr.
Baldwin?" The words came from Patches, and as they saw his face, it was
their turn to wonder.
The Dean looked straight into the dark eyes that were so filled with
painful memories, and wistful desire. "Sir?"
"I mean," said Patches, embarrassed, as though he had spoken
involuntarily, "that what you say applies to those who live idly--doing
no useful work whatever--as well as to those who are dishonest in
business of any kind, or who deliberately steal outright. Don't you
think so?"
The Dean--his eyes still fixed on the face of the new man--answered
slowly, "I reckon that's so, Patches. When you come to think about it,
it _must_ be so. One way or another every man that takes what he ain't
earned has to pay for it."
"Who is he?" asked the visitors of Curly and Bob, as they went for their
horses, when the meal was over.
The Cross-Triangle men shook their heads.
"Just blew in one day, and the Dean hired him," said Bob.
"But he's the handiest man with his fists that's ever been in this neck
of the woods. If you don't believe it, just you start something," added
Curly with enthusiasm.
"Found it out, did you?" laughed Bert.
"In something less than a minute," admitted Curly.
"Funny name!" mused "Shorty."
Bob grinned. "That's what Curly thought--at first."
"And then he took another think, huh?"
"Yep," agreed Curly, "he sure carries the proper credentials to make any
name that he wants to wear good enough for me."
The visitors mounted their horses, and sat looking appraisingly at the
tall figure of Honorable Patches, as that gentleman passed them at a
little distance, on his way to the barn.
"Mebby you're right," admitted "Shorty," "but he sure talks like a
schoolmarm, don't he?"
"He sure ain't no puncher," commented Bert.
"No, but I'm gamblin' that he's goin' to be," retorted Curly, ignoring
the reference to Patches' culture.
"Me, too," agreed Bob.
"Well, we'll all try him out this fall rodeo"; and "better not let him
drift far from the home ranch for a while," laughed the visitors. "So
long!" and they were away.
Before breakfast the next morning Phil said to Patches, "Catch up Snip,
and give him a feed of grain. You'll ride with me to-day."
At Patches' look of surprise he explained laughingly, "I'm going to give
my school a little vacation, and Uncle Will thinks it's time you were
out of the kindergarten."
Later, as they were crossing the big pasture toward the country that
lies to the south, the foreman volunteered the further information that
for the next few weeks they would ride the range.
"May I ask what for?" said Patches, encouraged by the cowboy's manner.
It was one of the man's peculiarities that he rarely entered into the
talk of his new friends when their work was the topic of conversation.
And he never asked questions except when alone with Phil or the Dean,
and then only when led on by them. It was not that he sought to hide his
ignorance, for he made no pretenses whatever, but his reticence seemed,
rather, the result of a curious feeling of shame that he had so little
in common with these men whose lives were so filled with useful labor.
And this, if he had known, was one of the things that made them like
him. Men who live in such close daily touch with the primitive realities
of life, and who thereby acquire a simple directness, with a certain
native modesty, have no place in their hearts for--to use their own
picturesque vernacular--a "four-flusher."
Phil tactfully did not even smile at the question, but answered in a
matter-of-fact tone. "To look out for screw-worms, brand a calf here
and there, keep the water holes open, and look out for the stock
generally."
"And you mean," questioned Patches doubtfully, "that _I_ am to ride with
you?"
"Sure. You see, Uncle Will thinks you are too good a man to waste on the
odd jobs around the place, and so I'm going to get you in shape for the
rodeo this fall."
The effect of his words was peculiar. A deep red colored Patches' face,
and his eyes shone with a glad light, as he faced his companion. "And
you--what do you think about it, Phil?" he demanded.
The cowboy laughed at the man's eagerness. "Me? Oh, I think just as I
have thought all the time--ever since you asked for a job that day in
the corral."
Patches drew a long breath, and, sitting very straight in the saddle,
looked away toward Granite Mountain; while Phil, watching him curiously,
felt something like kindly pity in his heart for this man who seemed to
hunger so for a man's work, and a place among men.
Just outside the Deep Wash gate of the big pasture, a few cattle were
grazing in the open flat. As the men rode toward them, Phil took down
his riata while Patches watched him questioningly.
"We may as well begin right here," said the cowboy. "Do you see anything
peculiar about anything in that bunch?"
Patches studied the cattle in vain.
"What about that calf yonder?" suggested Phil, leisurely opening the
loop of his rope. "I mean that six-months youngster with the white
face."
Still Patches hesitated.
Phil helped him again. "Look at his ears."
"They're not marked," exclaimed Patches.
"And what should they be marked?" asked the teacher.
"Under-bit right and a split left, if he belongs to the
Cross-Triangle," returned the pupil proudly, and in the same breath he
exclaimed, "He is not branded either."
Phil smiled approval. "That's right, and we'll just fix him now, before
somebody else beats us to him." He moved his horse slowly toward the
cattle as he spoke.
"But," exclaimed Patches, "how do you know that he belongs to the
Cross-Triangle?"
"He doesn't," returned Phil, laughing. "He belongs to me."
"But I don't see how you can tell."
"I know because I know the stock," Phil explained, "and because I happen
to remember that particular calf, in the rodeo last spring. He got away
from us, with his mother, in the cedars and brush over near the head of
Mint Wash. That's one of the things that you have to learn in this
business, you see. But, to be sure we're right, you watch him a minute,
and you'll see him go to a Five-Bar cow. The Five-Bar is my iron, you
know--I have a few head running with Uncle Will's."
Even as he spoke, the calf, frightened at their closer approach, ran to
a cow that was branded as Phil had said, and the cow, with unmistakable
maternal interest in her offspring, proved the ownership of the calf.
"You see?" said Phil. "We'll get that fellow now, because before the
next rodeo he'll be big enough to leave his mother, and then; if he
isn't branded, he'll be a maverick, and will belong to anybody that puts
an iron on him."
"But couldn't someone brand him now, with their brand, and drive him
away from his mother?" asked Patches.
"Such things have been known to happen, and that not a thousand miles
from here, either," returned Phil dryly. "But, really, you know, Mr.
Patches, it isn't done among the best people."
Patches laughed aloud at his companion's attempt at a simpering
affectation. Then he watched with admiration while the cowboy sent his
horse after the calf and, too quickly for an inexperienced eye to see
just how it was done, the deft riata stretched the animal by the heels.
With a short "hogging" rope, which he carried looped through a hole cut
in the edge of his chaps near the belt, Phil tied the feet of his
victim, before the animal had recovered from the shock of the fall; and
then, with Patches helping, proceeded to build a small fire of dry grass
and leaves and sticks from a near-by bush. From his saddle, Phil took a
small iron rod, flattened at one end, and only long enough to permit its
being held in the gloved hand when the flattened end was hot--a running
iron, he called it, and explained to his interested pupil, as he thrust
it into the fire, how some of the boys used an iron ring for range
branding.
"And is there no way to change or erase a brand?" asked Patches, while
the iron was heating.
"Sure there is," replied Phil. And sitting on his heels, cowboy fashion,
he marked on the ground with a stick.
"Look! This is the Cross-Triangle brand: [Illustration]; and this:
[Illustration], the Four-Bar-M, happens to be Nick Cambert's iron, over
at Tailholt Mountain. Now, can't you see how, supposing I were Nick, and
this calf were branded with the Cross-Triangle, I could work the iron
over into my brand?"
Patches nodded. "But is there no way to detect such a fraud?"
"It's a mighty hard thing to prove that an iron has bees worked over,"
Phil answered slowly. "About the only sure way is to catch the thief in
the act."
"But there are the earmarks," said Patches, a few moments later, when
Phil had released the branded and marked calf--"the earmarks and the
brand wouldn't agree."
"They would if I were Nick," said the cowboy. Then he added quickly, as
if regretting his remark, "Our earmark is an under-bit right and a split
left, you said. Well, the Four-Bar-M earmark is a crop and an under-bit
right and a swallow-fork left." With the point of his iron now he again
marked in the dirt. "Here's your Cross-Triangle: [Illustration]; and
here's your Pour-Bar-M: [Illustration]."
"And if a calf branded with a Tailholt iron were to be found following a
Cross-Triangle cow, then what?" came Patches' very natural question.
"Then," returned the foreman of the Cross-Triangle grimly, "there would
be a mighty good chance for trouble."
"But it seems to me," said Patches, as they rode on, "that it would be
easily possible for a man to brand another man's calf by mistake."
"A man always makes a mistake when he puts his iron on another man's
property," returned the cowboy shortly.
"But might it not be done innocently, just the same!" persisted Patches.
"Yes, it might," admitted Phil.
"Well, then, what would you do if you found a calf, that you knew
belonged to the Dean, branded with some other man's brand? I mean, how
would you proceed?"
"Oh, I see what you are driving at," said Phil in quite a different
tone. "If you ever run on to a case, the first thing for you to do is to
be dead sure that the misbranded calf belongs to one of our cows. Then,
if you are right, and it's not too far, drive the cow and calf into the
nearest corral and report it. If you can't get them to a corral without
too much trouble, just put the Cross-Triangle on the calf's ribs. When
he shows up in the next rodeo, with the right brand on his ribs, and
some other brand where the right brand ought to be--you'll take pains to
remember his natural markings, of course--you will explain the
circumstances, and the owner of the iron that was put on him by mistake
will be asked to vent his brand. A brand is vented by putting the same
brand on the animal's shoulder. Look! There's one now." He pointed to an
animal a short distance away. "See, that steer is branded
Diamond-and-a-Half on hip and shoulder, and Cross-Triangle on his ribs.
Well, when he was a yearling he belonged to the Diamond-and-a-Half
outfit. We picked him up in the rodeo, away over toward Mud Tanks. He
was running with our stock, and Stillwell didn't want to go to the
trouble of taking him home--about thirty miles it is--so he sold him to
Uncle Will, and vented his brand, as you see."
"I see," said Patches, "but that's different from finding a calf
misbranded."
"Sure. There was no question of ownership there," agreed Phil.
"But in the case of the calf," the cowboy's pupil persisted, "if it had
left its mother when the man owning the iron was asked to vent it, there
would be no way of proving the real ownership."
"Nothing but the word of the man who found the calf with its mother,
and, perhaps, the knowledge of the men who knew the stock."
"What I am getting at," smiled Patches, "is this: it would come down at
last to a question of men, wouldn't it?"
"That's where most things come to in, the end in this country, Patches.
But you're right. With owners like Uncle Will, and Jim Reid, and
Stillwell, and dozens of others; and with cowboys like Curly and Bob and
Bert and 'Shorty,' there would be no trouble at all about the matter."
"But with others," suggested Patches.
"Well," said Phil slowly, "there are men in this country, who, if they
refused to vent a brand under such circumstances, would be seeing
trouble, and mighty quick, too."
"There's another thing that we've got to watch out for, just now," Phil
continued, a few minutes later, "and that is, 'sleepers'. We'll
suppose," he explained, "that I want to build up my, bunch of Five-Bars,
and that I am not too particular about how I do it. Well, I run on to an
unbranded Pot-Hook-S calf that looks good to me, but I don't dare put my
iron on him because he's too young to leave his mother. If I let him go
until he is older, some of Jim Reid's riders will brand him, and, you
see, I never could work over the Pot-Hook-S iron into my Five-Bar. So I
earmark the calf with the owner's marks, and don't brand him at all.
Then he's a sleeper. If the Pot-Hook-S boys see him, they'll notice that
he's earmarked all right, and very likely they'll take it for granted
that he's branded, or, perhaps let him go anyway. Before the next rodeo
I run on to my sleeper again, and he's big enough now to take away from
the cow, so all I have to do is to change the earmarks and brand him
with my iron. Of course, I wouldn't get all my sleepers, but--the
percentage would be in my favor. If too many sleepers show up in the
rodeo, though, folks would get mighty suspicious that someone was too
handy with his knife. We got a lot of sleepers in the last rodeo," he
concluded quietly.
And Patches, remembering what Little Billy had said about Nick Cambert
and Yavapai Joe, and with the talk of the visiting cowboys still fresh
in his mind, realized that he was making progress in his education.
Riding leisurely, and turning frequently aside for a nearer view of the
cattle they sighted here and there, they reached Toohey a little before
noon. Here, in a rocky hollow of the hills, a small stream wells from
under the granite walls, only to lose itself a few hundred yards away in
the sands and gravel of the wash. But, short as its run in the daylight
is, the water never fails. And many cattle come from the open range that
lies on every side, to drink, and, in summer time, to spend the heat of
the day, standing in the cool, wet sands or lying in the shade of the
giant sycamores that line the bank opposite the bluff. There are corrals
near-by and a rude cook-shack under the wide-spreading branches of an
old walnut tree; and the ground of the flat open space, a little back
from the water, is beaten bare and hard by the thousands upon thousands
of cattle that have at many a past rodeo-time been gathered there.
The two men found, as the Diamond-and-a-Half riders had said, several
animals suffering from those pests of the Arizona ranges, the
screwworms. As Phil explained to Patches while they watered their
horses, the screwworm is the larva of a blowfly bred in sores on living
animals. The unhealed wounds of the branding iron made the calves by far
the most numerous among the sufferers, and were the afflicted animals
not treated the loss during the season would amount to considerable.
"Look here, Patches," said the cowboy, as his practiced eyes noted the
number needing attention. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll just run
this hospital bunch into the corral, and you can limber up that riata of
yours."
And so Patches learned not only the unpleasant work of cleaning the
worm-infested sores with chloroform, but received his first lesson in
the use of the cowboy's indispensable tool, the riata.
"What next?" asked Patches, as the last calf escaped through the gate
which he had just opened, and ran to find the waiting and anxious
mother.
Phil looked at his companion, and laughed. Honorable Patches showed the
effect of his strenuous and bungling efforts to learn the rudiments of
the apparently simple trick of roping a calf. His face was streaked with
sweat and dust, his hair disheveled, and his clothing soiled and
stained. But his eyes were bright, and his bearing eager and ready.
"What's the matter?" he demanded, grinning happily at his teacher. "What
fool thing have I done now?"
"You're doing fine," Phil returned. "I was only thinking that you don't
look much like the man I met up on the Divide that evening."
"I don't feel much like him, either, as far as that goes," returned
Patches.
Phil glanced up at the sun. "What do you say to dinner? It must be about
that time."
"Dinner?"
"Sure. I brought some jerky--there on my saddle--and some coffee. There
ought to be an old pot in the shack yonder. Some of the boys don't
bother, but I never like to miss a feed unless it's necessary." He did
not explain that the dinner was really a thoughtful concession to his
companion.
"Ugh!" ejaculated Patches, with a shrug of disgust, the work they had
been doing still fresh in his mind. "I couldn't eat a bite."
"You think that now," retorted Phil, "but you just go down to the creek,
drink all you can hold, wash up, and see how quick you'll change your
mind when you smell the coffee."
And thus Patches received yet another lesson--a lesson in the art of
forgetting promptly the most disagreeable features of his work--an art
very necessary to those who aspire to master real work of any sort
whatever.
When they had finished their simple meal, and lay stretched full length
beneath the overhanging limbs of the age-old tree that had witnessed so
many stirring scenes, and listened to so many camp-fire tales of ranch
and range, they talked of things other than their work. In low tones, as
men who feel a mystic and not-to-be-explained bond of fellowship--with
half-closed eyes looking out into the untamed world that lay before
them--they spoke of life, of its mystery and meaning. And Phil, usually
so silent when any conversation touched himself, and so timid always in
expressing his own self thoughts, was strangely moved to permit this man
to look upon the carefully hidden and deeper things of his life. But
upon his cherished dream--upon his great ambition--he kept the door fast
closed. The time for that revelation of himself was not yet.
"By the way, Phil," said Patches, when at last his companion signified
that it was time for them to go. "Where were you educated? I don't think
that I have heard you say."
"I have no education," returned the young man, with a laugh that, to
Patches, sounded a bitter note. "I'm just a common cow-puncher, that's
all."
"I beg your pardon," returned the other, "but I thought from the books
you mentioned--"
"Oh, the books! Why, you see, some four years ago a real,
honest-to-goodness book man came out to this country for his health, and
brought his disease along with him."
"His disease?" questioned Patches.
Phil smiled. "His books, I mean. They killed him, and I fell heir to
his trouble. He was a good fellow, all right--we all liked him--might
have been a man if he hadn't been so much of a scholar. I was curious,
at first, just to see what it was that had got such a grip on him; and
then I got interested myself. About that time, too, there was a reason
why I thought it might be a good thing for me; so I sent for more, and
have made a fairly good job of it in the past three years. I don't think
that there's any danger, though, of the habit getting the grip on me
that it had on him," he reflected with a whimsical grin. "It was our
book friend who first called Uncle Will the Dean."
"The title certainly fits him well," remarked Patches. "I don't wonder
that it stuck. I suppose you received yours for your riding?"
"Mine?"
"'Wild Horse Phil,' I mean," smiled the other.
Phil laughed. "Haven't you heard that yarn yet? I reckon I may as well
tell you. No, wait!" he exclaimed eagerly. "We have lots of time. We'll
ride south a little way and perhaps I can show you."
As they rode away up the creek, Patches wondered much at his companion's
words and at his manner, but the cowboy shook his head at every
question, answering, simply, "Wait."
Soon they had left the creek bed--passing through a rock gateway at the
beginning of the little stream--and were riding up a long, gently
sloping hollow between two low but rugged ridges. The crest of the rocky
wall on their left was somewhat higher than the ridge on their right,
but, as the floor of the long, narrow hollow ascended, the sides of the
little valley became correspondingly lower. Patches noticed that his
companion was now keenly alert and watchful. He sat his horse easily,
but there was a certain air of readiness in his poise, as though he
anticipated sudden action, while his eyes searched the mountain sides
with eager expectancy.
They had nearly reached the upper end of the long slope when Phil
abruptly reined his horse to the left and rode straight up that rugged,
rock-strewn mountain wall. To Patches it seemed impossible that a horse
could climb such a place; but he said nothing, and wisely gave Snip his
head. They were nearly at the top--so near, in fact, that Phil could see
over the narrow crest--when the cowboy suddenly checked his horse and
slipped from the saddle. With a gesture he bade his companion follow his
example, and in a moment Patches stood beside him. Leaving their horses,
they crept the few remaining feet to the summit. Crouching low, then
lying prone, they worked their way to the top of a huge rounded rock,
from which they could look over and down upon the country that lies
beyond.
Patches uttered a low exclamation, but Phil's instant grip on his arm
checked further speech.
From where they lay, they looked down upon a great mountain basin of
gently rolling, native grass land. From the foot of that rocky ridge,
the beautiful pasture stretches away, several miles, to the bold, gray
cliffs and mighty, towering battlements of Granite Mountain. On the
south, a range of dark hills, and to the north, a series of sharp
peaks, form the natural boundaries.
"Do you see them?" whispered Phil.
Patches looked at him inquiringly. The stranger's interest in that
wonderful scene had led him to overlook that which held his companion's
attention.
"There," whispered Phil impatiently, "on the side of that hill
there--they're not more than four hundred yards away, and they're
working toward us."
"Do you mean those horses?" whispered Patches, amazed at his companion's
manner.
Phil nodded.
"Do they belong to the Cross-Triangle?" asked Patches, still mystified.
"The Cross-Triangle!" Phil chuckled. Then, with a note of genuine
reverence in his voice, he added softly, "They belong to God, Mr.
Honorable Patches."
Then Patches understood. "Wild horses!" he ejaculated softly.
There are few men, I think, who can look without admiration upon a
beautifully formed, noble spirited horse. The glorious pride and
strength and courage of these most kingly of God's creatures--even when
they are in harness and subject to their often inferior masters--compel
respect and a degree of appreciation. But seen as they roam free in
those pastures that, since the creation, have never been marred by plow
or fence--pastures that are theirs by divine right, and the sunny slopes
and shady groves and rocky nooks of which constitute their
kingdom--where, in their lordly strength, they are subject only to the
dictates of their own being, and, unmutilated by human cruelty, rule by
the power and authority of Nature's laws--they stir the blood of the
coldest heart to a quicker flow, and thrill the mind of the dullest with
admiring awe.
"There's twenty-eight in that bunch," whispered Phil. "Do you see that
big black stallion on guard--the one that throws up his head every
minute or two for a look around?"
Patches nodded. There was no mistaking the watchful leader of the band.
"He's the chap that gave me my title, as you call it," chuckled Phil.
"Come on, now, and we'll see them in action; then I'll tell you about
it."
He slipped from the rock and led the way back to the saddle horses.
Riding along the ridge, just under the crest, they soon reached the
point where the chain of low peaks merges into the hills that form the
southern boundary of the basin, and so came suddenly into full view of
the wild horses that were feeding on the slopes a little below.
As the two horsemen appeared, the leader of the band threw up his head
with a warning call to his fellows.
Phil reined in his horse and motioned for Patches to do the same.
For several minutes, the black stallion held his place, as motionless as
the very rocks of the mountain side, gazing straight at the mounted men
as though challenging their right to cross the boundary of his kingdom,
while his retainers stood as still, waiting his leadership. With his
long, black mane and tail rippling and waving in the breeze that swept
down from Blair Pass and across the Basin, with his raven-black coat
glistening in the sunlight with the sheen of richest satin where the
swelling muscles curved and rounded from shadow to high light, and with
his poise of perfect strength and freedom, he looked, as indeed he was,
a prince of his kind--a lord of the untamed life that homes in those
God-cultivated fields.
Patches glanced at his companion, as if to speak, but struck by the
expression on the cowboy's face, remained silent. Phil was leaning a
little forward in his saddle, his body as perfect in its poise of alert
and graceful strength as the body of the wild horse at which he was
gazing with such fixed interest. The clear, deeply tanned skin of his
cheeks glowed warmly with the red of his clean, rich blood, his eyes
shone with suppressed excitement, his lips, slightly parted, curved in a
smile of appreciation, love and reverence for the unspoiled beauty of
the wild creature that he himself, in so many ways, unconsciously
resembled.
And Patches--bred and schooled in a world so far from this world of
primitive things--looking from Phil to the wild horse, and back again
from the stallion to the man, felt the spirit and the power that made
them kin--felt it with a, to him, strange new feeling of reverence, as
though in the perfect, unspoiled life-strength of man and horse he came
in closer touch with the divine than he had ever known before.
Then, without taking his eyes from the object of his almost worship,
Phil said, "Now, watch him, Patches, watch him!"
As he spoke, he moved slowly toward the band, while Patches rode close
by his side.
At their movement, the wild stallion called another warning to his
followers, and went a few graceful paces toward the slowly approaching
men. And then, as they continued their slow advance, he wheeled with the
smooth grace of a swallow, and, with a movement so light and free that
he seemed rather to skim over the surface of the ground than to tread
upon it, circled here and there about his band, assembling them in
closer order, flying, with ears flat and teeth bared and mane and tail
tossing, in lordly fury at the laggards, driving them before him, but
keeping always between his charges and the danger until they were at
what he evidently judged to be, for their inferior strength, a distance
of safety. Then again he halted his company and, moving alone a short
way toward the horsemen, stood motionless, watching their slow approach.
Again Phil checked his horse. "God!" he exclaimed under his breath.
"What a sight! Oh, you beauty! You beauty!"
But Patches was moved less by the royal beauty of the wild stallion than
by the passionate reverence that vibrated in his companion's voice.
Again the two horsemen moved forward; and again the stallion drove his
band to a safe distance, and stood waiting between them and their
enemies.
Then the cowboy laughed aloud--a hearty laugh of clean enjoyment. "All
right, old fellow, I'll just give you a whirl for luck," he said aloud
to the wild horse, apparently forgetting his human companion.
And Patches saw him shorten his reins, and rise a little in his
stirrups, while his horse, as though understanding, gathered himself for
a spring. In a flash Patches was alone, watching as Phil, riding with
every ounce of strength that his mount could command, dashed straight
toward the band.
For a moment, the black stallion stood watching the now rapidly
approaching rider. Then, wheeling, he started his band, driving them
imperiously, now, to their utmost speed, and then, as though he
understood this new maneuver of the cowboy, he swept past his running
companions, with the clean, easy flight of an arrow, and taking his
place at the head of his charges led them away toward Granite Mountain.
Phil stopped, and Patches could see him watching, as the wild horses,
with streaming manes and tails, following their leader, who seemed to
run with less than half his strength, swept away across the rolling
hillsides, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, until, as dark,
swiftly moving dots, they vanished over the sky line.
"Wasn't that great?" cried Phil, when he had loped back to his
companion. "Did you see him go by the bunch like they were standing
still?"
"There didn't seem to be much show for you to catch him," said Patches.
"Catch him!" exclaimed Phil. "Did you think I was trying to catch him? I
just wanted to see him go. The horse doesn't live that could put a man
within roping distance of any one in that bunch on a straightaway run,
and the black can run circles around the whole outfit. I had him once,
though."
"You caught that black!" exclaimed Patches--incredulously.
Phil grinned. "I sure had him for a little while."
"But what is he doing out here running loose, then?" demanded the other.
"Got away, did he?"
"Got away, nothing. Fact is, he belongs to me right now, in a way, and I
wouldn't swap him for any string of cow-horses that I ever saw."
Then, as they rode toward the home ranch, Phil told the story that is
known throughout all that country.
"It was when the black was a yearling," he said. "I'd had my eye on him
all the year, and so had some of the other boys who had sighted the
band, for you could see, even when he was a colt, what he was going to
be. The wild horses were getting rather too numerous that season, and we
planned a chase to thin them out a little, as we do every two or three
years. Of course, everybody was after the black; and one day, along
toward the end of the chase, when the different bands had been broken up
and scattered pretty much, I ran onto him. I was trailing an old gray up
that draw--the way we went to-day, you know, and all at once I met him
as he was coming over the top of the hill, right where you and I rode
onto him. It was all so sudden that for a minute he was rattled as bad
as I was; and, believe me, I was shaking like a leaf. I managed to come
to, first, though, and hung my rope on him before he could get started.
I don't know to this day where the old gray that I was after went. Well,
sir; he fought like a devil, and for a spell we had it around and around
until I wasn't dead sure whether I had him or he had me. But he was only
a yearling then, you see, and I finally got him down."
Phil paused, a peculiar expression on his face. Patches waited silently.
"Do you know," said the cowboy, at last, hesitatingly, "I can't explain
it--and I don't talk about it much, for it was the strangest thing that
ever happened to me--but when I looked into that black stallion's eyes,
and he looked me straight in the face, I never felt so sorry for
anything in my life. I was sort of ashamed like--like--well, like I'd
been caught holding up a church, you know, or something like that. We
were all alone up there, just him and me, and while I was getting my
wind, and we were sizing each other up, and I was feeling that way, I
got to thinking what it all meant to him--to be broken and
educated--and--well--civilized, you know; and I thought what a horse he
would be if he was left alone to live as God made him, and so--well--"
He paused again with an embarrassed laugh.
"You let him go?" cried Patches.
"It's God's truth, Patches. I couldn't do anything else--I just
couldn't. One of the boys came up just in time to catch me turning him
loose, and, of course, the whole outfit just naturally raised hell about
it. You see, in a chase like that, we always bunch all we get and sell
them off to the highest bidder, and every man in the outfit shares
alike. The boys figured that the black was worth more than any five
others that were caught, and so you couldn't blame them for feeling
sore. But I fixed it with them by turning all my share into the pot, so
they couldn't kick. That, you see, makes the black belong to me, in a
way, and it's pretty generally understood that I propose to take care of
him. There was a fellow, riding in the rodeo last fall, that took a shot
at him one day, and--well--he left the country right after it happened
and hasn't been seen around here since."
The cowboy grinned as his companion's laugh rang out.
"Do you know," Phil continued in a low tone, a few minutes later, "I
believe that horse knows me yet. Whenever I am over in this part of the
country I always have a look at him, if he happens to be around, and we
visit a little, as we did to-day. I've got a funny notion that he likes
it as much as I do, and, I can't tell how it is, but it sort of makes me
feel good all over just to see him. I reckon you think I'm some fool,"
he finished with another short laugh of embarrassment, "but that's the
way I feel--and that's why they call me 'Wild Horse Phil'."
For a little they rode in silence; then Patches spoke, gravely, "I don't
know how to tell you what I think, Phil, but I understand, and from the
bottom of my heart I envy you."
And the cowboy, looking at his companion, saw in the man's eyes
something that reminded him of that which he had seen in the wild
horse's eyes, that day when he had set him free. Had Patches, too, at
some time in those days that were gone, been caught by the riata of
circumstance or environment, and in some degree robbed of his
God-inheritance? Phil smiled at the fancy, but, smiling, felt its truth;
and with genuine sympathy felt this also to be true, that the man might
yet, by the strength that was deepest within him, regain that which he
had lost.
And so that day, as the man from the ranges and the man from the cities
rode together, the feeling of kinship that each had instinctively
recognized at their first meeting on the Divide was strengthened. They
knew that a mutual understanding which could not have been put into
words of any tongue or land was drawing them closer together.
A few days later the incident occurred that fixed their friendship--as
they thought--for all time to come.