The long drive was nearly over. Even Thurston's eyes brightened when
he saw, away upon the sky-line, the hills that squatted behind the home
ranch of the Lazy Eight. The past month had been one of rapid living
under new conditions, and at sight of them it seemed only a few days
since he had first glimpsed that broken line of hills and the bachelor
household in the coulee below.
As the travel-weary herd swung down the long hill into the valley of the
Milk River, stepping out briskly as they sighted the cool water in the
near distance, the past month dropped away from Thurston, and what had
gone just before came back fresh as the happenings of the morning.
There was the Stevens ranch, a scant half mile away from where the tents
already gleamed on their last camp of the long trail; the smoke from
the cook-tent telling of savory meats and puddings, the bare thought of
which made one hurry his horse.
His eyes dwelt longest, however, upon the Stevens house half hidden
among the giant cottonwoods, and he wondered if Mona would still smile
at him with that unpleasant uplift at the corner of her red mouth. He
would take care that she did not get the chance to smile at him in any
fashion, he told himself with decision.
He wondered if those train-robbers had been captured, and if the one
Park wounded was still alive. He shivered when he thought of the dead
man in the aisle, and hoped he would never witness another death;
involuntarily he glanced down at his right stirrup, half expecting to
see his boot red with human blood. It was not nice to remember that
scene, and he gave his shoulders an impatient hitch and tried to think
of something else.
Mindful of his vow, he had bought a gun in Billings, but he had not yet
learned to hit anything he aimed at; for firearms are hushed in roundup
camps, except when dire necessity breeds a law of its own. Range cattle
do not take kindly to the popping of pistols. So Thurston's revolver was
yet unstained with powder grime, and was packed away inside his bed.
He was promising his pride that he would go up on the hill, back of the
Lazy Eight corrals, and shoot until even Mona Stevens must respect his
marksmanship, when Park galloped back to him--“The world has moved some
while we was gone,” he announced in the tone of one who has news to tell
and enjoys thoroughly the telling. “Yuh mind the fellow I laid out in
the hold-up? He got all right again, and they stuck him in jail along
with another one old Lauman, the sheriff, glommed a week ago. Well, they
didn't do a thing last night but knock a deputy in the head, annex his
gun, swipe a Winchester and a box uh shells out uh the office and hit
the high places. Old Lauman is hot on their trail, but he ain't met
up with 'em yet, that anybody's heard. When he does, there'll sure be
something doing! They say the deputy's about all in; they smashed his
skull with a big iron poker.”
“I wish I could handle a gun,” Thurston said between his teeth. “I'd
go after them myself. I wish I'd been left to grow up out here where I
belong. I'm all West but the training--and I never knew it till a month
ago! I ought to ride and rope and shoot with the best of you, and I
can't do a thing. All I know is books. I can criticize an opera and a
new play, and I'm considered something of an authority on clothes, but I
can't shoot.”
“Aw, go easy,” Park laughed at him. “What if yuh can't do the
double-roll? Riding and shooting and roping's all right--we couldn't
very well get along without them accomplishments. But that's all they
are; just accomplishments. We know a man when we see him, and it don't
matter whether he can ride a bronk straight up, or don't know which way
a saddle sets on a horse. If he's a man he gets as square a deal as we
can give him.” Park reached for his cigarette book. “And as for hunting
outlaws,” he finished, “we've got old Lauman paid to do that. And he's
dead onto his job, you bet; when he goes out after a man he comes pretty
near getting him, m'son. But I sure do wish I'd killed that jasper while
I was about it; it would have saved Lauman a lot uh hard riding.”
Thurston could scarcely explain to Park that his desire to hunt
train-robbers was born of a half-defiant wish to vindicate to Mona
Stevens his courage, and so he said nothing at all. He wondered if Park
had heard her whisper, that day, and knew how he had failed to obey
her commands; and if he had heard her call him a coward. He had often
wondered that, but Park had a way of keeping things to himself, and
Thurston could never quite bring himself to open the subject boldly. At
any rate, if Park had heard, he hoped that he understood how it was and
did not secretly despise him for it. Women, he told himself bitterly,
are never quite just.
After the four o'clock supper he and Bob MacGregor went up the valley
to relieve the men on herd. There was one nice thing about Park as a
foreman: he tried to pair off his crew according to their congeniality.
That was why Thurston usually stood guard with Bob, whom he liked better
than any of the others-always excepting Park himself.
“I brought my gun along,” Bob told him apologetically when they were
left to themselves. “It's a habit I've got when I know there's bad men
rampaging around the country. The boys kinda gave me the laugh when
they seen me haul it out uh my war bag, but I just told 'em to go to
thunder.”
“Do you think those--”
“Naw. Uh course not. I just pack it on general principles, same as an
old woman packs her umbrella.”
“Say, this is dead easy! The bunch is pretty well broke, ain't it? I'm
sure glad to see old Milk River again; this here trailing cattle gets
plumb monotonous.” He got down and settled his back comfortably against
a rock. Below them spread the herd, feeding quietly. “Yes, sir, this is
sure a snap,” he repeated, after he had made himself a smoke. “They's
only two ways a bunch could drift if they wanted to which they don't-up
the river, or down. This hill's a little too steep for 'em to tackle
unless they was crowded hard. Good feed here, too.
“Too bad yuh don't smoke, Bud. There's nothing like a good, smooth rock
to your back and a cigarette in your face, on a nice, lazy day like
this. It's the only kind uh day-herding I got any use for.”
“I'll take the rock to my back, if you'll just slide along and make
room,” Thurston laughed. “I don't hanker for a cigarette, but I do wish
I had my Kodak.”
“Aw, t'ell with your Kodak!” Bob snorted. “Can't yuh carry this layout
in your head? I've got a picture gallery in mine that I wouldn't trade
for a farm; I don't need no Kodak in mine, thankye. You just let this
here view soak into your system, Bud, where yuh can't lose it.”
Thurston did. Long after he could close his eyes and see it in every
detail; the long, green slope with hundreds of cattle loitering in the
rank grass-growth; the winding sweep of the river and the green, rolling
hills beyond; and Bob leaning against the rock beside him, smoking
luxuriously with half-closed eyes, while their horses dozed with
drooping heads a rein-length away.
“Say, Bud,” Bob's voice drawled sleepily, “I wisht you'd sing that
Jerusalem song. I want to learn the words to it; I'm plumb stuck on that
piece. It's different from the general run uh songs, don't yuh think?
Most of 'em's about your old home that yuh left in boyhood's happy days,
and go back to find your girl dead and sleeping in a little church-yard
or else it's your mother; or your girl marries the other man and you get
it handed to yuh right along--and they make a fellow kinda sick to his
stomach when he's got to sing 'em two or three hours at a stretch on
night-guard, just because he's plumb ignorant of anything better. This
here Jerusalem one sounds kinda grand, and--the cattle seems to like it,
too, for a change.”
“The composer would feel flattered if he heard that,” Thurston laughed.
He wanted to be left alone to day-dream and watch the clouds trail
lazily across to meet the hills; and there was an embryonic poem
forming, phrase by phrase, in his mind. But he couldn't refuse Bob
anything, so he sat a bit straighter and cleared his throat. He sang
well--well enough indeed to be sought after at informal affairs among
his set at home. When he came to the refrain Bob took his cigarette from
between his lips and held it in his fingers while he joined his voice
lustily to Thurston's:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
Lift up your gates and sing
Hosanna in the high-est.
Hosanna to your King!”
The near cattle lifted their heads to stare stupidly a moment, then
moved a few steps slowly, nosing for the sweetest grass-tufts. The
horses shifted their weight, resting one leg with the hoof barely
touching the earth, twitched their ears at the flies and slept again.
“And then me thought my dream was changed,
The streets no longer rang,
Hushed were the glad Hosannas
The little children sang--”
Tamale lifted his head and gazed inquiringly up the hill; but Bob was
not observant of signs just then. He was Striving with his recreant
memory for the words that came after:
“The sun grew dark with mystery,
The morn was cold and still,
As the shadow of a cross arose
Upon a lonely hill.”
Tamale stirred restlessly with head uplifted and ears pointed straight
before up the steep bluff. Old Ironsides, Thurston's mount, was not the
sort to worry about anything but his feed, and paid no attention. Bob
turned and glanced the way Tamale was looking; saw nothing, and settled
down again on the small of his back.
“He sees a badger or something,” he Said. “Go on, Bud, with the chorus.”
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
Lift up your gates and sing.”
“Lift up your hands damn quick!” mimicked a voice just behind. “If yuh
ain't got anything to do but lay in the shade of a rock and yawp, we'll
borrow your cayuses. You ain't needin' 'em, by the looks!”
They squirmed around until they could stare into two black
gun-barrels--and then their hands went up; their faces held a
particularly foolish expression that must have been amusing to the men
behind the guns.
One of the gun-barrels lowered and a hand reached out and quietly took
possession of Tamale's reins; the owner of the hand got calmly into
Bob's saddle. Bob gritted his teeth. It was evident their movements had
been planned minutely in advance, for, once settled to his liking, the
fellow tested the stirrups to make sure they were the right length, and
raising his gun pointed it at the two in a business-like manner that
left no doubt of his meaning. Whereupon the man behind them came forward
and appropriated Old Ironsides to his own use.
“Too bad we had to interrupt Sunday-school,” he remarked ironically.
“You can go ahead with the meetin' now--the collection has been took
up.” He laughed without any real mirth in his voice and gathered up the
reins. “If yuh want our horses, they're up on the bench. I don't
reckon they'll ever turn another cow, but such as they are you're quite
welcome. Better set still, boys, till we get out uh sight; one of us'll
keep an eye peeled for yuh. So long, and much obliged.” They turned and
rode warily down the slope.
“Now, wouldn't that jar yuh?” asked Bob in deep disgust His hands
dropped to his sides; in another second he was up and shooting savagely.
“Get behind the rock, Bud,” he commanded.
Just then a rifle cracked, and Bob toppled drunkenly and went limply to
the grass.
“My God!” cried Thurston, and didn't know that he spoke. He snatched up
Bob's revolver and fired shot after shot at the galloping figures. Not
one seemed to do any good; the first shot hit a two-year-old square in
the ribs. After that there were no cattle within rifle range.
One of the outlaws stopped, took deliberate aim with the stolen
Winchester and fired, meaning to kill; but he miscalculated the range a
bit and Thurston crumpled down with a bullet in his thigh. The revolver
was empty now and fell smoking at his feet. So he lay and cursed
impotently while he watched the marauders ride out of sight up the
valley.
When the rank timber-growth hid their flying figures he crawled over to
where Bob lay and tried to lift him.
“Art you hurt?” was the idiotic question he asked.
Bob opened his eyes and waited a breath, as if to steady his thought.
“Did I get one, Bud?”
“I'm afraid not,” Thurston confessed, and immediately after wished that
he had lied and said yes. “Are you hurt?” he repeated senselessly.
“Who, me?” Bob's eyes wavered in their directness. “Don't yuh bother
none about me,” evasively.
“But you've got to tell me. You--they--” He choked over the words.
“Well--I guess they got me, all right. But don't let that worry yuh; it
don't me.” He tried to speak carelessly and convincingly, but it was
a miserable failure. He did not want to die, did Bob, however much he
might try to hide the fact.
Thurston was not in the least imposed upon. He turned away his head,
pretending to look after the outlaws, and set his teeth together tight.
He did not want to act a fool. All at once he grew dizzy and sick, and
lay down heavily till the faintness passed.
Bob tried to lift himself to his elbow; failing that, he put out a hand
and laid it on Thurston's shoulder. “Did they--get you--too?” he queried
anxiously.
“The damn coyotes!”
“It's nothing; just a leg put out of business,” Thurston hurried to
assure him. “Where are you hurt, Bob?”
“Aw, I ain't any X-ray,” Bob retorted weakly but gamely. “Somewheres
inside uh me. It went in my side but the Lord knows where it wound
up. It hurts, like the devil.” He lay quiet a minute. “I wish--do yuh
feel--like finishing--that song, Bud?”
Thurston gulped down a lump that was making his throat ache. When he
answered, his voice was very gentle:
“I'll try a verse, old man.”
“The last one--we'd just come to the last. It's most like church. I--I
never went--much on religion, Bud; but when a fellow's--going out over
the Big Divide.”
“You're not!” Thurston contradicted fiercely, as if that could make it
different. He thought he could not bear those jerky sentences.
“All right--Bud. We won't fight over it. Go ahead. The last verse.”
Thurston eased his leg to a better position, drew himself up till his
shoulders rested against the rock and began, with an occasional, odd
break in his voice:
“I saw the holy city
Beside the tideless Sea;
The light of God was on its street
The gates were open wide.
And all who would might enter
And no one was denied.”
“Wonder if that there--applies--to bone-headed--cowpunchers,” Bob
muttered drowsily. “'And all--who would--” Thurston glanced quickly at
his face; caught his breath sharply at what he saw there written, and
dropped his head upon his arms.
And so Park and his men, hurrying to the sound of the shooting, found
them in the shadow of the rock.