WATER AT RAGTOWN
JACK MONTGOMERY proved himself to be an affable young man, admittedly
wise in the ways of the world, distinctly of the earth, earthy.
Joshua inferred from his conversation that the contracting firm of
which his father was the head was struggling along bravely without
meddlesome advice from him. He spent a great deal of his time out of
the mountains, and had much to say about recent plays, repeated many
golf-links stories, and claimed that if he hadn’t returned to the
mountains when he did he would have danced his head off. When in the
mountains he rode about on horseback from camp to camp, “kidding” his
friends, and visiting Shanty Madge. He was older than Joshua. He had
been graduated from an Eastern college, and considered the achievement
sufficient laurels on which to rest.
There were two distinct reasons why Joshua Cole did not like him:
He was insincere, and he thought himself in love with Shanty Madge.
Montgomery laughed at Joshua’s theory of life on Mars, and though
it was plain that he recognized in the young astronomer a man with
the capacity for deep thinking, he treated him with a sort of polite
tolerance which Joshua found hard to bear.
Montgomery considered himself a modern gentleman. Joshua Cole was the
scion of a long and illustrious line of gentlemen. With no social
training whatever beyond what his mother had given him before he was
sent to the House of Refuge, the instinct with which Joshua had been
endowed at birth gave him an air which convinced others that he was
a man of culture. Montgomery was patently puzzled at this, especially
after he learned that Joshua had been a hammerman for Demarest, Spruce
and Tillou until he had stopped the slide.
Madge and Montgomery talked about many things that did not concern or
interest Joshua, so he gave his attentions to Mrs. Mundy, and together
they planned their future on the homesteads. When Joshua took his
leave, an hour after the noonday meal, he was unable to interpret
Madge’s attitude toward Jack Montgomery. He realized fully, however,
that Jack had many things to offer her, which, if Joshua were to
attempt an offer of the same, would call for sacrifices too great
for him to make. It would mean his complete abandonment of the study
of astronomy and his immediate acceptance of Demarest’s impulsive
offer--in short, Montgomery’s offerings spelled money with a capital M.
Now Joshua became a busy man. First, he mailed his check to a Los
Angeles bank and opened an account. Next, he sent two thousand dollars
to the publishers of a scientific journal, in which he had seen
advertised a second-hand eight-inch telescope. It had been the property
of an astronomer who had recently died, and his family, having no use
for the instrument and finding themselves in need of money, had made an
offer to dispose of it at an astonishing sacrifice. If the publishers
considered the telescope all that it should be, Joshua’s letter
authorized them to turn over the check to the owners and to at once
ship the instrument to him. His great fear was that the bargain had
been snapped up long ago, for when he first saw the advertisement his
longing heart had not dared to hope that in less than a month he would
be in a position to avail himself of the opportunity. And his next move
was to gather together his pitifully few belongings--including the
half-constructed telescope which was now become a mockery--and, with a
small tent and camp outfit, which California Bill freighted in for him,
go to his claim and establish residence.
Then when his tent was pitched under the sprawling junipers, and his
provisions cached, he took stage for Spur and train for Los Angeles,
where he notified the land office that he had taken up residence on his
claim. But another matter had brought him to the city, for he could
have notified the land office in the form of a letter. The next morning
after his arrival found him in a saddlery store, where he gave in to a
natural inclination to emulate a drunken sailor and bought a saddle, a
bridle, and a set of martingales.
For Joshua Cole, despite his seriousness, still cherished the boyish
ambition to ride in a picturesque saddle and appear as a picturesque
son of the West. Great thinkers invariably have tucked away in their
brains a little spring, which, when unexpectedly released, reveals a
flaw in their mental equilibrium. The flaw is always some delightfully,
laughably human conceit, trait, hobby, or perhaps merely a great
longing for something unattainable and amusingly foreign to what they
have set out to do in life. And the flaw in the brain of Joshua Cole
demanded a prancing horse, a hand-carved saddle with low-swinging
tapaderos, a plaited, silver-mounted bridle with martingales to match,
and some one to stare at him open-mouthed as he rode by. Can Joshua be
forgiven for this, when we remember that Ben Jonson took great delight
in counting the pickets of a fence as he walked along, and, if he made
a mistake, retraced his course to rectify the error, and that Edgar
Allen Poe was inordinately proud of the small size of his feet?
The horse he bought upon his return to the desert, one of which
California Bill had told him, a dapple gray five years old, half
broncho, quarter Kentucky thoroughbred, and quarter just horse. And
Joshua was five hundred dollars poorer, but gloriously content, as he
rode into Ragtown, bought a sack of tobacco--though he had a full sack
in his pocket and a carton of them in camp--and then galloped on around
the lake toward home. The erstwhile owner of the gray had called him
Prince, but Joshua had changed his name to Argo. He could sail over the
desert, his fine white mane and tail a-stream in the wind, like the
mythical ship that sailed with the Argonauts questing for the golden
fleece. But there was another reason why Joshua called him Argo!
Joshua did not at once buy lumber with which to build his shacks,
for he was waiting until the Mundys had settled their affairs with
Demarest, Spruce and Tillou, when they would order together, and
perhaps he would haul the loads with such equipment as the Mundys could
manage to save. So for the present he occupied his time by sinking a
shallow well and beginning his trail up Spyglass Mountain.
Unfortunately there was no spring on Joshua’s land, but the piece taken
by Mrs. Mundy boasted one. However, Joshua struck good water twelve
feet from the surface. He lined his well with stones and covered it
with brush until such time as he could build a wellcurb over it.
Argo was content on a picket rope down by the lake, where the saltgrass
grew. The wandering cattle did not disturb him, but their constant
cropping of the grass made it necessary to move the horse quite
frequently. When the well was lined Joshua began mapping out his trail
to the top of the mountain, and while he was engaged in this Madge rode
up one day and shouted to him to come down.
Joshua discarded his pick and shovel and retraced that part of the
trail already made. Madge had dismounted before his tent, and was
sitting on her heels, cowpuncher fashion, holding the black’s reins in
her hand.
“Well, Joshua, here you are,” she said. “We’ve been wondering why you
have deserted us, but I suppose you’ve been busy.”
“I intended to ride around to-morrow,” he explained, and proudly
pointed to his new equestrian outfit and the dapple gray at graze
beside the lake.
“My! My!” she cried. “What a spendthrift! But I haven’t time to stop
long. I just rode over to tell you that we’ve paid our pound of flesh
and are almost ready to move onto the homestead. We’ll have about two
thousand dollars in the bank, and I saved two span of my best mules,
with harness, a couple of good wagons, a few slips and a scraper, all
of the blacksmith tools, lots of hand tools, and--oh, a lot of junk! We
feel quite prosperous. And now we’re through. Ma and I have nobody to
depend on now but you. So whenever you’re ready, we’ll appreciate it if
you will come over and help us move.”
“I’ll be over to-morrow morning,” he told her. “Are you glad it’s over
with, Madge? Will you be content?”
“I’m glad it’s all over--yes. And as to my being content, you’ll have
to take a shrug for an answer. Couldn’t you ride over to-night with me,
so we can get to work early in the morning?”
“You bet!” cried Joshua, and grasped his saddle by the horn to shoulder
it. “Let’s go!”
At ten o’clock the following morning Joshua drove a team of mules
hitched to a laden wagon from the camp that the Mundys were deserting
forever. Argo and Madge’s black gelding followed the wagon on
lead-ropes. Shanty Madge, with her mother on the seat beside her, drove
the other wagon and followed Joshua, and behind her trailed a wheeler.
The white-aproned cook came out as they passed and waved his cap. A
flunky at the woodpile lowered his ax and called good-by. Up at the
works some of the men spied them, and a long shout of good will came
down to them. The new manager, a Demarest, Spruce and Tillou man,
hurried from his office tent, and, finding himself too late to offer
his hand, stood spread-legged and waved his wide-brimmed hat.
There were tears in the reddish-brown eyes of Shanty Madge as she waved
back right and left, but she straightened her sturdy shoulders and
shouted ahead, a little tremblingly, to Joshua:
“Push ’em in the collar, old-timer! It’s a long trip, and we’ve got a
load!”
“You poor dear brave child!” said her mother. “This is breaking your
heart, yet you’re taking defeat like your father always did--with a
shrug of the shoulders, and up and at ’em again!”
“Pooh!” sniffled Madge. “One has to experience a setback now and then,
Ma, to get new adventures out of life and keep from growing stale. This
is gonta be good! Hey, Joshua!” she shouted ahead. “I feel like an
old-time pioneer! Thus was the wilderness subdued! Hey, old-timer?”
“Thus was she subdued!” Joshua shouted back.
Philip Demarest had been considerate in settling up with Shanty Madge,
and to cover her indebtedness had selected such articles as would be
of no use to her as a homesteader. So Madge had been permitted to help
herself to commissary supplies and baled hay, and there were three more
loads to be hauled after they were settled. Demarest’s thoughtfulness
had made it possible for the homesteaders to fill their larder for
many months to come, but there were a few things still needed, and to
buy them Joshua stopped his little wagon train at Ragtown about one
o’clock.
While he was watering the stock Madge made the few purchases that were
necessary. It was Ragtown’s quietest hour, for the revelers were still
sleeping off the drunkenness of the night before and the gambling games
had not yet opened up. From the doors of saloons here and there came
an occasional loud voice or a burst of throaty laughter, breaking in
harshly on the mountain stillness.
As Joshua was leading his team from the trough to make room for
Madge’s he saw, leaning against the corrugated-iron front of The
Silver Dollar, his kid enemy of the House of Refuge, Felix Wolfgang.
He was the picture of lassitude. A brown-paper cigarette hung from
his lower lip. He wore a fancy striped-silk shirt and a vest made of
green billiard-table topping, with six five-dollar gold pieces for
buttons. The vest was open, showing the flowing ends of a black-satin
tie, its knot held firm by a diamond stickpin. A broad-brimmed Stetson
hat, carefully creased to a Mexican peak, looked enormous above his
cadaverous face and seemed to cause his many freckles to stand out
more plainly. His eyes were insolent, as always, as he gazed with
half-interest at Joshua, which interest was quickened as Shanty Madge’s
lithe figure came from the store and post office and crossed toward the
wagons.
She was scarce ten feet from The Silver Dollar when several men
appeared behind her in the door. They watched her as she crossed the
street and mounted to the elevated seat beside her mother. Then a man
slightly behind the rest pushed his way through and came staggering
after her.
“Lee, c’mere! C’mon back here, Sweet! Get onto yerself!” called several
voices in semi-guarded tones, but the man paid no heed and kept on
across the road.
He was such a man as one seldom sees in cities. He was a tall, burly
giant, well proportioned and with a stride that was confident for all
its present wobbliness. His face was large and red, and a half-moon
of leonine whiskers, coarse and curly as a frayed-out hempen rope,
encompassed his jaw. He wore a Columbia-shape black Stetson, a
purple-and-green-plaid flannel shirt, a black-silk neckerchief with
a silver clasp, fringed leather chaps, and high-heeled cowboy boots
with fancy quilted tops of morocco leather, on the counters of which
hung large-roweled silver-mounted spurs. Petulant, domineering brown
eyes were set deep in his unsymmetrical skull, and the corners of them
displayed “sleepy men,” caused by a night of drinking and a morning of
fortification against repentant hours to come.
Once more some man called to him to come back and “’tend to his own
business,” but his chap-clad legs whistled on until he swayed before
the astonished Joshua.
“So you’re the Ike they’re callin’ Cole of Spyglass Mountain, are ye?”
he wanted to know, and he made no effort to drive sarcasm from his
tones.
“I believe I’m to be called that,” Joshua replied good-naturedly. “But
I didn’t know it had got around as yet.”
“Huh! Fancy bird, ain’t ye?”
Joshua smiled tolerantly. “You’d better go back to The Silver Dollar,
hadn’t you?” he asked. “Your friends want you, I think.”
“Ye do, eh? Well, ye ain’t supposed to think. D’ye know who I am?”
“I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance,” said Joshua in an amused
drawl.
“Haven’t th’ pleasure, eh? Well, then, I’ll interdooce myself. I’m Lee
Sweet, owner o’ Box-R Ranch, halfway from here to Spur. Now d’ye know
me?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of you,” Joshua told him. “If you’ll please stand to
one side, Mr. Sweet, I’d like to lead that other team to the water
trough.”
“Ne’mind th’ other team, young fella. I got somethin’ to tell ye. An’
it’s this here: You’re th’ bird that started this here homesteadin’
around th’ lake, and now a lotta folks are comin’ in an’ takin’ up good
grazin’ land. Ye can’t raise nothin’ on that soil--it’s plumb full o’
alkali. Ye’ll all starve to death. An’ ye might’s well make up yer
mind to beat it. That land ain’t good for anythin’ but grazin’ cows in
summer, an’ at that the pickins is poor enough. But all that’s neither
here ner there. My point is that ye gotta get outa there before I drive
ye out. Do I make myself pretty plain, pardner?”
“But you wouldn’t stop me from watering those mules, would you?”
laughed Joshua in an attempt to humor him. “Won’t you please stand
aside a little? Then when you’re feeling better, come over and see me
and we’ll talk about this matter.”
“I’m feelin’ fine right now,” Sweet declared. “An’ right now’s the time
for me to tell ye I won’t stand fer ye buttin’ in on my summer pasture.”
“Well,” said Joshua, “the government has allowed our homestead claims
and we’ve made some rather extensive arrangements to go ahead and
develop them. I think you’d better see the land office, Mr. Sweet, if
you have any complaint to make. Really, now, I must be watering this
team so that we can be getting on. We’ve a pile of work to do before
nighttime comes.”
“Ne’mind waterin’ the team now”--and the cattleman placed himself
between Joshua and Madge’s mules. “What’re ye gonta do?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Joshua: “If you don’t get out of my way right
now, so that I can lead that team to the water, I’m going to shove you
out of the way. I’ve stood about all of the browbeating that I usually
contract to stand from anybody. Will you let me water this team, now?”
“T’ hell with yer team! You get yer things an’ pack up, and beat it
outa--”
But at this point Mr. Lee Sweet was pushed violently backward by Joshua
Cole, and he lost his balance and sat down in a very undignified manner.
Unconcernedly Joshua started toward the heads of Madge’s span of mules,
and then the girl shouted a warning from her seat:
“Look out, Joshua! He’s up and--”
Joshua swung about just in time to ward off a blow from one of the
stockman’s heavy fists, but before he could retaliate a stubby-fingered
hand fell on Sweet’s shoulder, and from then on he had to deal with
California Bill.
“Tut-tut-tut!” came Bill’s soothing drawl. “Lee, I’m ashamed of ye, all
lickered up before these here ladies, an’ carryin’ on plumb _cultus_,
like ye’re doin’! An’ you with a wife an’ a couple o’ th’ nicest
kids this side th’ Tehachapi! Lee, ye don’t carry yer licker like ye
usta--seems. Come on back to Th’ Silver Dollar an’ try to get a little
sleep.”
The big bewhiskered cattleman stood stock-still and made no move to
show his resentment over the interference of California Bill. Over
in front of The Silver Dollar a crowd had gathered, watching the
altercation in silence. Slim Wolfgang continued to lean listlessly
against the building, his hat drawn down low over his eyes of faded
blue, the cigarette still drooping from his thin and sallow lips.
“You mind yer own business, Californy!” Lee Sweet said to the
freighter, but he said it in a way that convinced nobody that he meant
to follow the implied threat with physical action.
“You darned ole fool!” chuckled California Bill, slapping the cowman
on the back. “C’mon over to Th’ Dollar now, an’ try an’ get on yer
feet. These here folks ain’t botherin’ ye, Lee. Why,--why, I’m jest
naturally surprised at ye, ol’-timer! Here’s you, th’ king o’ the
mountains, ye might say, tryin’ to start a quarrel with these here
people on th’ public highway. Le’s you’n’me go h’ist a couple f’r
ole-times’ sake, Lee!”
The big fellow looked into Bill’s genial face for a moment or two, and
then an expression came over his own that twisted his features as if
he had tasted alum water. His bearded lips trembled, and began working
spasmodically, like the lips of a burro sorting bunchgrass from a nest
of spiny cactus. And behold, two great tears streamed down into his
beard, and his voice broke into a tremulous boo-hooing that brought a
fit of laughter from Shanty Madge.
“There, there!” soothed California Bill, winking at his friends and
boyishly holding back his laughter with a broad hand placed across his
mouth. “There, there, ol’-timer! Ye didn’t mean what ye was sayin’
a-tall, Lee--jes’ th’ ole licker talkin’, eh? And ye’re sorry an’
all, and these here folks forgive ye ’cause they understand. Now le’s
you’n’me go over to Th’ Silver Dollar and study our blame’ old nerves.
C’mon, Lee--that’s th’ _hi-yu skookum_ thing for us to do.”
And sobbing and sniffling, the brawny cowman allowed himself to be led
across the street by the stocky freighter, whose head came below the
giant’s shoulders. Bill looked back as he guided his charge along and
winked mischievously, and once more placed his unoccupied hand across
his lips like a boy who laughs at his elders behind their backs.
“Can you beat that?” came slangily from Shanty Madge. “I wonder if
that’s the way California Bill took men to the penitentiary when he
was deputy sheriff up in Chaparral?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Joshua, at last able to lead the
thirsting shavetails to the trough. “But I didn’t know we’d created any
enmity. I’m sorry this occurred, but it’s just as well that we know how
matters stand.”
California Bill came rolling across the street before Joshua had
mounted to his wagon seat.
“Hello, there, folks!” he cried, shaking hands all around, the
crow’s-feet dancing under the thick patches of coal-black hair above
his eyes. “Seems like for once I was Johnny-on-th’-spot. He’d ’a’
fought ye, Tony, all right, but they ain’t any harm in ’im when he’s
sober. Jes’ a big blusterer, an’ ye don’t wanta pay any attention to
’im a-tall. He’ll rave an’ faunch about ye’re bein’ th’ one to start
th’ raid on his grazin’, but he’s harmless. He’s weepin’ over th’ bar
now, an’ don’t know I’ve left ’im--seems. An’ so ye’re on yer way to
Spyglass Mountain at last, eh? I gets in last night, an’ was wonderin’
about ye. An’, Tony, ye sure taught yer grandmother to suck eggs when
ye sat down on that slide, didn’t ye? Ye’re th’ most talked-of _hombre_
south o’ th’ Tehachapi right now. Five thousan’ bucks, eh? C’n ye
believe it? I can’t. I never saw that much money in my life.”
“Here’s that forty that you saw not long ago and then lost track of,
anyway,” laughed Joshua, tendering bills to the amount that his friend
had loaned him.
“Well, I’ll take ’er--seein’s it’s you, Tony. An’ look at our new
saddle an’ bridle, will ye? Say, Tony--them are _hi-yu skookum_ an’
no _mis_-take. That’ll make ye a character--that an’ yer doin’s on
Spyglass Mountain. I been spreadin’ that name broadcast from here to
Spur, an’ ag’in th’ trains begin tootin’ on th’ new railroad, they’ll
be runnin’ excursions up here to see Cole o’ Spyglass Mountain. Ye
got a heap o’ taste, my son--a rarin’ _hi-yu skookum_ taste, I’ll say!
Now, them’ll make ye unique, Tony--an’ that’s what ye want. An’ ye jes’
wanta ride into Ragtown on that rarin’ gray I picked fer ye, with this
here lovely outfit on ’im, get off seriouslike an’ walk into th’ post
office, with yer head down an’ lookin’ neither to th’ right ner left,
get yer mail, tell th’ storekeep to give ye a big two-bit Havana seegar
in a low, quiet tone, light up, take a couple puffs, an’ then go out
an’ fork th’ gray ag’in an’ ride off slowlike, with yer head still down
an’ yer thoughts on Mars, never sayin’ a word to nobody.”
“Bill, you’re an old hypocrite,” Madge accused.
“Yes’m, I guess ye’re right, Madge. But I know what a fella’s gotta do
to become a character. I’m one--I oughta know. Well, so-long, folks! Ye
gotta be goin’, I know. Drift ’round an’ see ye next time I ramble in.
So-long, now--be good!”
As the wagons drove out of town Felix Wolfgang continued to lean
against the front of The Silver Dollar and watch them from under his
pulled-down peaked hat.