"Where I wanted to go was into a ranching country. Mining never took my
fancy. I believe there are some ranches on the Kettle River."
"Oh, a terrible life!" she cried out. "They 're a tough lot, them
Kettle River boys. They 're mostly all fellows that have been
cattle-punching and horse-wrangling all their lives. They come from
other parts where the country is getting filled up with grangers and
sheepmen. I reckon it's because they feel kind o' angry at their job in
life being kind o' took from them by the granger and the sheepmen that
they 're so tough. Oh! they 're a tough lot; and they 've got to be, to
hold their own. Why, only the other day there a flock o' sheep came
along on the range across the Kettle. There was three shepherds with
them, and a couple of Colonel Ney's boys out and held them up. The
sheep-herders shot one, and the other went home for the other boys, all
running blood from another shot, and back they went, and laid out them
three shepherds--just laid them out, my boy (d'ye hear?)--and ran the
whole flock o' sheep over into a canon one atop the other. Ney and the
rest only wants men that can look after their rights that way----"
How long she might have continued, kindly enough, to seek to dissuade
me, I do not know. But I was forced to interrupt her and remind her I
should lose the stage.
"Yes," she said, "I might just have kept my mouth shut and saved my
breath. You lads is all the same. But mind what I say," she cried after
me, "you should stay on here and rustle yourself a good job. You 're
just going away to 'get it in the neck.' Maybe you 'll come back here
again, sick and sorry. But seein' you 're going, God bless you, my lad!"
and I was astonished to see her green eyes moist, and a soft, tender
light on her lean, freckled face.
"So-long, then, lad, and good luck to you," said her better half. "If
you strike into Baker City again--don't forget the Laughlin House."
I was already in the street, half turning to hear their parting words,
and with a final wave I departed, and (between you and me) there was a
lump in my throat, and I thought that the Laughlin House was not such a
bad sort of place at all to tarry in.
In Baker Street, at the very corner, I saw Apache Kid advancing toward
me, but he frowned to me and, when he raised his hand to his mouth to
remove his cigar, for a brief moment he laid a finger on his lip, and as
he passed me, looking on the ground and walking slowly, he said: "You go
aboard the stage yourself and go on."
There was no time to say more in passing, and I wondered what might be
the meaning of this. But when I came to where the stage-coach stood,
there was Canlan among the little knot of idlers who were watching it
preparing for the road. He saw me when I climbed aboard, and, stepping
forward, held out his hand. "Hullo, kid," he said, "pulling out?"
"Yes," said I.
"Goin' to pastures green?"