_City Folks_
Bud Shoop's new duties kept him exceedingly busy. As the days went by he
found himself more and more tied to office detail. Fortunately Torrance
had left a well-organized corps of rangers, each with his own special
work mapped out, work that Shoop understood, with the exception of
seeding and planting experiments, which Lundy, the expert, attended to
as though the reserve were his own and his life depended upon successful
results along his special line.
Shoop had long since given up trying to dictate letters. Instead he
wrote what he wished to say on slips of paper which his clerk cast into
conventional form. The genial Bud's written directions were brief and to
the point.
Among the many letters received was one from a writer of Western
stories, applying for a lease upon which to build a summer camp. His
daughter's health was none too good, and he wanted to be in the
mountains. Shoop studied the letter. He had a vague recollection of
having heard of the writer. The request was legitimate. There was no
reason for not granting it.
Shoop called in his stenographer. "Ever read any of that fella's
books?"
"Who? Bronson? Yes. He writes bang-up Western stories."
"He does, eh? Well, you get hold of one of them stories. I want to read
it. I've lived in the West a few minutes myself."
A week later Shoop had made his decision. He returned a shiny, new
volume to the clerk.
"I never took to writin' folks reg'lar," he told the clerk. "Mebby I got
the wrong idee of 'em. Now I reckon some of them is human, same as you
and me. Why, do you know I been through lots of them things he writes
about. And, by gollies, when I read that there gun-fight down in Texas,
I ketched myself feelin' along my hip, like I was packin' a gun. And
when I read about that cowboy's hoss,--the one with the sarko eye and
the white legs,--why, I ketched myself feelin' for my ole bandanna to
blow my nose. An' I seen dead hosses a-plenty. But you needn't to say
nothin' about that in the letter. Just tell him to mosey over and we'll
talk it out. If a man what knows hosses and folks like he does wa'n't
raised in the West, he ought to been. Heard anything from Adams?"
"He was in last week. He's up on Baldy. Packed some stuff up to the
lookout."
"Uh-uh. Now, the land next to my shack on the Blue ain't a bad place for
this here writer. I got the plat, and we can line out the five acres
this fella wants from my corner post. But he's comin' in kind of late to
build a camp."
"It will be good weather till December," said the clerk.
"Well, you write and tell him to come over. Seen anything of Hardy and
his men lately?"
"Not since last Tuesday."
"Uh-uh. They're millin' around like a lot of burros--and gettin'
nowhere. But Jim Waring's out after that bunch that got Pat. If I wasn't
so hefty, I'd 'a' gone with him. I tell you the man that got Pat ain't
goin' to live long to brag on it."
"They say it was the Brewster boys," ventured the stenographer.
"They say lots of things, son. But Jim Waring _knows_. God help the man
that shot Pat when Jim Waring meets up with him. And I want to tell you
somethin'. Be kind of careful about repeatin' what 'they say' to
anybody. You got nothin' to back you up if somebody calls your hand.
'They' ain't goin' to see you through. And you named the Brewster boys.
Now, just suppose one of the Brewster boys heard of it and come over
askin' you what you meant? I bet you a new hat Jim Waring ain't said
Brewster's name to a soul--and he _knows_. I'm goin' over to Stacey. Any
mail the stage didn't get?"
"Letter for Mrs. Adams."
"Uh-uh. Lorry writes to his ma like he was her beau--reg'lar and
plenty. Funny thing, you can't get a word out of him about wimmin-folk,
neither. He ain't that kind of a colt. But I reckon when he sees the gal
he wants he'll saddle up and ride out and take her." And Bud chuckled.
Bondsman rapped the floor with his tail. Bondsman never failed to
express a sympathetic mood when his master chuckled.
"Now, look at that," said Shoop, grinning. "He knows I'm goin' over to
Stacey. He heard me say it. And he says I got to take him along, 'cause
he knows I ain't goin' on a hoss. That there dog bosses me around
somethin' scandalous."
The stenographer smiled as Shoop waddled from the office with Bondsman
at his heels. There was something humorous, almost pathetic, in the
gaunt and grizzled Airedale's affection for his rotund master. And
Shoop's broad back, with the shoulders stooped slightly and the set
stride as he plodded here and there, often made the clerk smile. Yet
there was nothing humorous about Shoop's face when he flashed to anger
or studied some one who tried to mask a lie, or when he reprimanded his
clerk for naming folk that it was hazardous to name.
The typewriter clicked; a fly buzzed on the screen door; a beam of
sunlight flickered through the window. The letter ran:--
Yours of the 4th inst. received and contents noted. In answer would
state that Supervisor Shoop would be glad to have you call at your
earliest convenience in regard to leasing a camp-site on the White
Mountain Reserve.
Essentially a business letter of the correspondence-school type.
But the stenographer was not thinking of style. He was wondering what
the girl would be like. There was to be a girl. The writer had said that
he wished to build a camp to which he could bring his daughter, who was
not strong. The clerk thought that a writer's daughter might be an
interesting sort of person. Possibly she was like some of the heroines
in the writer's stories. It would be interesting to meet her. He had
written a poem once himself. It was about spring, and had been published
in the local paper. He wondered if the writer's daughter liked poetry.
In the meantime, Lorry, with two pack-animals and Gray Leg, rode the
hills and cañons, attending to the many duties of a ranger.
And as he caught his stride in the work he began to feel that he was his
own man. Miles from headquarters, he was often called upon to make a
quick decision that required instant and individual judgment. He made
mistakes, but never failed to report such mistakes to Shoop. Lorry
preferred to give his own version of an affair that he had mishandled
rather than to have to explain some other version later. He was no
epitome of perfection. He was inclined to be arbitrary when he knew he
was in the right. Argument irritated him. He considered his "Yes" or
"No" sufficient, without explanation.
He made Shoop's cabin his headquarters, and spent his spare time cording
wood. He liked his occupation, and felt rather independent with the
comfortable cabin, a good supply of food, a corral and pasture for the
ponies, plenty of clear, cold water, and a hundred trails to ride each
day from dawn to dark as he should choose. Once unfamiliar with the
timber country, he grew to love the twinkling gold of the aspens, the
twilight vistas of the spruce and pines, and the mighty sweep of the
great purple tides of forest that rolled down from the ranges into a
sheer of space that had no boundary save the sky.
He grew a trifle thinner in the high country. The desert tan of his
cheeks and throat deepened to a ruddy bronze.
Aside from pride in his work, he took special pride in his equipment,
keeping his bits and conchas polished and his leather gear oiled.
Reluctantly he discarded his chaps. He found that they hindered him when
working on foot. Only when he rode into Jason for supplies did he wear
his chaps, a bit of cowboy vanity quite pardonable in his years.
If he ever thought of women at all, it was when he lounged and smoked by
the evening fire in the cabin, sometimes recalling "that Eastern girl
with the jim-dandy mother." He wondered if they ever thought of him, and
he wished that they might know he was now a full-fledged ranger with
man-size responsibilities. "And mebby they think I'm ridin' south yet,"
he would say to himself. "I must have looked like I didn't aim to pull
up this side of Texas, from the way I lit out." But, then, women didn't
understand such things.
Occasionally he confided something of the kind to the spluttering fire,
laughing as he recalled the leg of lamb with which he had waved his
hasty farewell.
"And I was scared, all right. But I wasn't so scared I forgot I'd get
hungry." Which conclusion seemed to satisfy him.
When he learned that a writer had leased five acres next to Bud's cabin,
he was skeptical as to how he would get along with "strangers." He liked
elbow-room. Yet, on second thought, it would make no difference to him.
He would not be at the cabin often nor long at a time. The evenings were
lonely sometimes.
But when camped at the edge of the timber on some mountain meadow, with
his ponies grazing in the starlit dusk, when the little, leaping flame
of his night fire flung ruddy shadows that danced in giant mimicry in
the cavernous arches of the pines; when the faint tinkle of the belled
pack-horse rang a faëry cadence in the distance; then there was no such
thing as loneliness in his big, outdoor world. Rather, he was content in
a solid way. An inner glow of satisfaction because of work well done, a
sense of well-being, founded upon perfect physical health and ease,
kept him from feeling the need of companionship other than that of his
horses. Sometimes he sat late into the night watching the pine gum ooze
from a burning log and swell to golden bubbles that puffed into tiny
flames and vanished in smoky whisperings. At such times a companion
would not have been unwelcome, yet he was content to be alone.
Later, when Lorry heard that the writer was to bring his daughter into
the high country, he expressed himself to Shoop's stenographer briefly:
"Oh, hell!" Yet the expletive was not offensive, spoken gently and
merely emphasizing Lorry's attitude toward things feminine.
While Lorry was away with the pack-horses and a week's riding ahead of
him, the writer arrived in Jason, introduced himself and his
daughter,--a rather slender girl of perhaps sixteen or eighteen,--and
later, accompanied by the genial Bud, rode up to the Blue Mesa and
inspected the proposed camp-site. As they rode, Bud discoursed upon the
climate, ways of building a log cabin, wild turkeys, cattle, sheep,
grazing, fuel, and water, and concluded his discourse with a
dissertation upon dogs in general and Airedales in particular. The
writer was fond of dogs and knew something about Airedales. This
appealed to Shoop even more than had the writer's story of the West.
Arrived at the mesa, tentative lines were run and corners marked. The
next day two Mormon youths from Jason started out with a load of lumber
and hardware. The evening of the second day following they arrived at
the homestead, pitched a tent, and set to work. That night they unloaded
the lumber. Next morning they cleared a space for the cabin. By the end
of August the camp was finished. The Mormon boys, to whom freighting
over the rugged hills was more of a pastime than real work, brought in a
few pieces of furniture--iron beds, a stove, cooking-utensils, and the
hardware and provisions incidental to the maintenance of a home in the
wilderness.
The writer and his daughter rode up from Jason with the final load of
supplies. Excitement and fatigue had so overtaxed the girl's slender
store of strength that she had to stay in bed for several days.
Meanwhile, her father put things in order. The two saddle-horses,
purchased under the critical eye of Bud Shoop, showed an inclination to
stray back to Jason, so the writer turned them into Lorry's corral each
evening, as his own lease was not entirely fenced.
Riding in from his long journey one night, Lorry passed close to the new
cabin. It loomed strangely raw and white in the moonlight. He had
forgotten that there was to be a camp near his. The surprise rather
irritated him. Heretofore he had considered the Blue Mesa was his by a
kind of natural right. He wondered how he would like the city folks.
They had evidently made themselves at home. Their horses were in his
corral.
As he unsaddled Gray Leg, a light flared up in the strange camp. The
door opened, and a man came toward him.
"Good-evening," said the writer. "I hope my horses are not in your way."
"Sure not," said Lorry as he loosened a pack-rope.
He took off the packs and lugged them to the veranda. The tired horses
rolled, shook themselves, and meandered toward the spring.
"I'm Bronson. My daughter is with me. We are up here for the summer."
"My name is Adams," said Lorry, shaking hands.
"The ranger up here. Yes. Well, I'm glad to meet you, Adams. My daughter
and I get along wonderfully, but it will be rather nice to have a
neighbor. I heard you ride by, and wanted to explain about my horses."
"That's all right, Mr. Bronson. Just help yourself."
"Thank you. Dorothy--my daughter--has been under the weather for a few
days. She'll be up to-morrow, I think. She has been worrying about our
using your corral. I told her you would not mind."
"Sure not. She's sick, did you say?"
"Well, over-tired. She is not very strong."
"Lungs?" queried Lorry, and immediately he could have kicked himself for
saying it.
"I'm afraid so, Adams. I thought this high country might do her good."
"It's right high for some. Folks got to take it easy at first;
'specially wimmin-folk. I'm right sorry your girl ain't well."
"Thank you. I shouldn't have mentioned it. She is really curious to know
how you live, what you do, and, in fact, what a real live ranger looks
like. Mr. Shoop told her something about you while we were in Jason.
They became great friends while the camp was building. She says she
knows all about you, and tries to tease me by keeping it to herself."
"Bud--my boss--is some josher," was all that Lorry could think of to say
at the time.
Bronson went back to his cabin. Lorry, entering his camp, lighted the
lamp and built a fire. The camp looked cozy and cheerful after a week on
the trail.
When he had eaten he sat down to write to his mother. He would tell her
all about the new cabin and the city folks. But before he had written
more than to express himself "that it was too darned bad a girl had to
stay up in the woods without no other wimmin-folks around," he became
drowsy. The letter remained unfinished. He would finish it to-morrow. He
would smoke awhile and then go to bed.
A healthy young animal himself, he could not understand what sickness
meant. And as for lungs--he had forgotten there were such things in a
person's make-up. And sick folks couldn't eat "regular grub." It must be
pretty tough not to be able to eat heartily. Now, there was that wild
turkey he had shot near the Big Spring. He tiptoed to the door. The
lights were out in the other cabin. It was closed season for turkey, but
then a fellow needed a change from bacon and beans once in a while.
He had hidden the turkey in a gunny-sack which hung from a kitchen
rafter. Should he leave it in the sack, hang it from a rafter of their
veranda, out of reach of a chance bobcat or coyote, or--it would be much
more of a real surprise to hang the big bird in front of their door in
all his feathered glory. The sack would spoil the effect.
He took off his boots and walked cautiously to the other cabin. The
first person to come out of that cabin next morning would actually bump
into the turkey. It would be a good joke.
"And if he's the right kind of a hombre he won't talk about it," thought
Lorry as he returned to his camp. "And if he ain't, I am out one fine
bird, and I'll know to watch out for him."