Billy Magee was coming home.
During the five months that had elapsed he had picked up enough shekels
to last him through another seven months of vigil. He had bought
groceries, tobacco, magazines and a ukulele; and as soon as he could get
a wagon he would hitch up and go for his provender. In the meantime he
was bound for his homestead.
Billy was a musical cuss; that’s why he had bought the ukulele. As he
loped along on the patient Pinhead he warbled the air full of music; it
was melody, sweet and rich and tuned to the joy of home: for that was
his nature--and the why of the homestead--just a place that he could
call his own and a place where he could hang his hat.
“If we only had a wife,” he confided to Pinhead, “we’d make this little
old homestead a place worth while.”
He had come up through the sagebrush; at the last turn below the knoll
he came into view of the side of the house; and he stopped.
“Well, I’ll be dog-goned!” exclaimed Billy Magee.
Upon a clothesline, stretched from one corner of the house to a juniper
post in the yard were a number of garments that had never been worn by
Billy Magee; to wit--a calico dress, three pairs of silk stockings, some
fluffy bits of lingerie, together with handkerchiefs and other articles.
He took a long breath. Though he was a handsome man he was anything but
a gallant; he would do anything rather than face a woman. Which was
perfectly natural considering the mode of life to which he had been
accustomed. Bunk houses do not make for polish; and Billy was a
confirmed bachelor. Girls were fairy creatures to be thought of--beings
dreamy, distant, illusive--to be longed for! And here was one on his own
homestead! For a moment he felt like giving up and returning whence he
had come. But he had still the leaven of curiosity. He had quite
forgotten Holman. Anyway, he would see what she looked like.
He left the pinto at the gate and entered the enclosure that he had
fenced off the year before. It was the same and yet so different. From
an open window there came a fragrance that made him hungry--not the
bacon and eggs nor the ham and coffee of the confirmed desert rat; but
the sweet irritating odor of apple pies. Surely, there was a woman. The
stockings upon the line were of silk--somehow it seemed proper for them
to be there. She would be young; and he set his mind that she would be
pretty. Oh, yes, she would be that, and she could sing--from the house
came the sweet flood of a love song.
Billy knocked at the door--his own door. Upon the panel was a piece of
paper. He read:
Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts in despair are aching,
That’s where the West begins.
Where there’s more of singing and less of sighing,
Where there’s more of giving, and less of buying,
Where a man makes friends without half trying,
That’s where the West begins.
“By golly,” said Billy, half to himself and half to the poem, “that’s
where she begins, all right.”
Then he smiled and took off his hat; for the maker of the tantalizing
pies was looking at him through the screen door. She was about as good
as anything he had ever looked at. No wonder the pies smelled good! She
was a demure little brunette, with cheery red lips and laughter; hair
waving and done in a fashion half girlish and half womanish.
“Oh!” she said.
Billy traced his finger over the poem; he held his sombrero in the other
hand.
“How do y’ do?” he answered.
She nodded pleasantly; her black eyes were not critical like those of
most girls; her smile was encouraging.
“I was just reading this here poem. The fellow that wrote it sure had an
idee about the West.”
She was frank and kindly.
“Do you like it?” She looked down at his chaps and at his high-heeled
boots. It was as if he had walked out of the poem.
“‘Out where the West begins,’” she quoted.
“Who wrote it?”
“Chapman. He was a Denver newspaper man. Some one had started a dispute
as to where the real West begins; so he sat down one day just before the
paper went to press and typed out the answer. I think he got it just
right. Won’t you come in?”
Evidently she was practicing the spirit of the verse. Billy stepped into
his own house. And he noted the difference; everything had been
renovated and feminized by the coy hands of the girl before him. His own
furniture was gone. In its place was a new outfit--a small range,
shining tinware on the walls, a table with a white spread--everything
spic and span in tidy shape. After getting him a chair she opened the
door to take a peep at the pies. In the interval Billy had time to
think.
“You must excuse me,” she said when she had finished her inspection. “I
didn’t want them to burn. They are the first pies I have cooked on our
new homestead.”
Billy nodded. “You have taken up a homestead?”
“Oh, yes. Isn’t it dandy? You must excuse my diction; but I’d rather
talk like this now that we are in the real West. I always did want to go
homesteading, even when I was a little girl; but I never thought that I
was to have the chance. You see, up to a year ago I was teaching school
back in Ohio. I always loved the West--loved to read about it and wonder
what it was really like. I had a pet dream of a real homestead where we
could go out all by ourselves, like our forefathers--or Robinson
Crusoe--and build up everything from nothing. I think it just the most
fun! The very first thing I did when we came here was to nail Chapman’s
verse to the door. Don’t you think that the men of the West are
different?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Billy. “Most of them are, I guess; but I am
afraid that there are some who get across the line without knowing it.
How did you happen to start homesteading?”
“Oh, as to that”--she sat down and began to pat her hair, as if she
could make herself look even prettier--“as to that--it was on account of
my brother Arthur. He was a bookkeeper. The work in the office had
undermined his health and the doctor advised him to try out of doors, to
go West if he could. We had saved some money; so we decided to go
homesteading.”
“What brought you to this particular section?”
“Well, I suppose it was an accident. We first came to Los Angeles to
look around. Then we purchased an old car and started exploring. One day
Arthur was at the land office for this district, going over the books,
and ran across this quarter section.”
It puzzled Billy Magee.
“I see,” he said. “You located the land through the books and then you
came here?”
“Yes. But we took the precaution to have a surveyor come with us. We
stopped the first night at the Holman place. Do you know Mr. Holman?”
“I have seen him,” said Billy.
“I think he is very nice. He said he would do all he could for us. He
said that he knew the location--that a mongrel horse thief had lived on
it once but had been run out of the country. Just imagine--romance from
the very start! A real horse thief--and I living in his house! Wouldn’t
it be terrible if he should come back?” She laughed. “I always thought
that they hanged the horse thieves from the bridges.”
Billy was itching under the skin but he held back his feelings. He said:
“Perhaps they would have hanged this fellow had they had a bridge. I
have an idea that Holman would build one out of his own pocket if he
could get a chance at him.”
“That’s what he said.”
Billy grinned.
“Supposin’ you met this black fellow--he must be black to be a horse
thief, you know--would you be afraid?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. Mr. Holman gave me a pistol with which to
protect myself; but I don’t think that I’d use it.”
“Why?”
“Well, because: First, I’d kind of like to know a real Western horse
thief--he must be wonderful to keep living, if the West is what they say
it is--and second, because I don’t believe that any girl, if she is a
real girl, has need to be afraid of a mere man. Most any man can be
talked into good humor if you just know how. I’d like the chance of
subduing a real horse thief, bare-handed.”
Certainly she was subduing Billy. The cowboy was ready to give up his
homestead; but he wanted, first, to get at the motive of Holman. Surely
the big man must have known that Billy would return at the expiration of
his leave of absence. Low as he held him he did not think that the
cattle king would stoop so low as to deceive this girl. Perhaps--the
thought startled--perhaps he had been able to so manipulate the land
office that the land had been thrown open to entry. Mistakes are
sometimes made. A clerical error would be very convenient to Holman.
“When did you file on this land?”
“About a month ago. Why? Is there anything wrong?”
“Oh, no. Only I am a cowboy and have lived in this country all my life.
I know a great deal about homesteads. For instance, it is sometimes
convenient to have witnesses who knew you at, or about, the time of
entry. Have you received your notice of allowance?”
“It came about three days ago. Do you wish to see it? Shall I get it?”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt if I took a peep at it.”
In a moment she had the piece of paper. Billy took it and read it. It
was the regulation notice from the department of the interior, giving the
name, Jennie Ross--serial number--township--range--meridian--everything;
and signed by the register and receiver of the land office.
“Isn’t it all right?”
“All accordin’ to Hoyle, Miss Ross. Not a thing wrong with it.” He
sniffed and looked at the oven; at the same instant the girl jumped up
with a towel.
“My pies!” she exclaimed. “I was so interested. Supposing they had
burned!”
During the interval Billy had a chance to take a piece of paper from his
pocket; when she had the pies on the table he gave her back the notice
of allowance.
“Well,” he said, “I must be going.”
She looked up at him, laughing.
“Without eating any of my pie? Shame on you. I thought you were a real
cowboy!”
“Best cowboy ever was,” grinned Billy. “Do you test them all with apple
pies? Better not let it be known. I know about a million cow-punchers
who’d be standing in line.”
“I’ll just bet that you could eat a whole pie,” she teased.
“I’m not going to call you,” returned the man. “We’ll split the pot. Cut
one in half and we’ll go evens. There now--I’ll take this one and start
over in this corner.”
“All right,” she answered. “You start over there--where the West
begins!”
There’s a time that comes to every man when he meets a girl on an even
footing. Billy was usually bashful; it was the first time that he had
ever met a real girl without stepping on his own feet or doing something
equally ridiculous and self-conscious. Before he knew it he was telling
Jennie Ross his whole history--outside his homestead experience--and
almost everything that he knew.
“Then you are a real Western cowboy,” she exclaimed. “All my life I have
wanted to know one, one who lived on the range, who lived out in the
open and thought the great free things of nature. You must meet my
brother and get acquainted.”
Then she went on to tell of their dreams--of a well, and alfalfa, fruit
trees, a mansion, avenues, driveways--a dream that was half homesteader
and half school-teacher; and most of all out of a girlish heart. Billy
listened. They stepped out on the porch; the girl pointed to the
irrigated lands in the distance.
“See,” she spoke. “They tell me that all that country was once
government land just like this--all desert.”
“It sure was,” answered the cowboy. “And it would be desert yet were it
not for the water.”
“That’s what Arthur says. It seems to me that while they were getting
water they could have drilled up here just as well as down there. When
we get our well all our dreams will come true.”
Billy did some thinking. He was no tenderfoot; he knew why the irrigated
belt extended just so far and no farther. He was familiar with the
eccentricities of water. Down there it could be tapped at a reasonable
depth and was at least semi-artesian; while up on the homestead it was
almost inaccessible--the elevation was higher and the water,
consequently, farther from the surface. Even after it was found there
was a two-hundred-foot lift before it could be utilized; and water for
irrigation purposes cannot be profitably pumped more than a hundred
feet.
But he said nothing to discourage her. She was having her dream. If he
could he would make it all come true. He was half sorry and half
doubtful; should he tell her the truth or go after Holman? He did not
care for his homestead; at the very most it had been, with him, merely a
whim--a place to hang his hat, a notion.
At last he took his leave. She stepped out to the gate where he had left
his pinto.
“You must come back and meet my brother some day. I am sure you will
like him--and I’ll have some more pies.”
“Bet you will,” said Billy. “I am going to come back. Don’t forget the
pies.”
She waved her hat at him when he was out in the sagebrush and he
answered with his sombrero. When he was beyond the knoll he reined in
his pony. He was thinking.
From the knoll he could look down at the section line that ran to the
eastward. On the desert side it could be distinguished by the straight
swath that had been cleared of sagebrush; on the other side it was
marked by the fence that ran into the distance. The fence was Holman’s.
Billy had business with Holman. He spoke to his pinto:
“Pinhead,” said Billy Magee, “we have lost our homestead. We ain’t
clever enough to deceive a lady. But we ain’t babes yet, either. You an’
me is goin’ to raise tarnation with Mr. Holman.”
Then he struck out across the country, straight down the section line
toward the irrigated belt that was the patented domain of the Holman
Land and Water Company. There was a road that ran through the desert
parallel to the belt of green. When Billy came to this road he stopped.
A black object was coming toward him--a man on horseback.
“’Lo, Billy Magee,” greeted the man. “When’d y’ get back? How’s the boys
up ‘Pop’ Mobray’s way? Goin’ back t’ nestin’?”
“Thinkin’ of it,” said Billy. “Mebbe. Don’t know what I’ll do. Y’ goin’
by the mines?”
“Yep. Expect to be at the mine to-night. Why?”
“Nothin’. Only I want to write a note. Can y’ wait? I want y’ to give it
to the stage driver. It’s to my old boss, Mobray. It’s kinda special;
seeing as how it has to deal with a funeral.”
“A funeral?”
“Yep. Leastways, almost so. There may be two. I kinda want to get news
to Pop so’s he can be on hand, when they take a certain cow-puncher,
that we know of, off to the calaboose.”
“What’s the rumpus?”
“No rumpus ’tall. It’s just that there’s some in this country that’s
busting with this here stuff what we call chivalry! We ain’t goin’ to
mention no names, nor have no hard feelin’s. Y’ ain’t seen Holman
lately?”
The other squinted one eye and whistled.
“Y’ ain’t goin’ t’ tangle with Holman, Billy?”
The cowboy nodded.
“Yep. But y’ needn’t say nothin’ to nobody. If you see a column of smoke
and sparks comin’ up from that strip of green yonder, you can know that
it’s from Holman and Billy Magee. Him an’ me is goin’ t’ have a little
round-up.”
“Better be careful, Billy. Don’t lose your head. You can’t hurt Holman.
That crowd of Mexicans that he keeps will shoot you down like a rat.
What’s the fuss? If it’s so dog-gone glorious let me in on it.”
Billy grinned. “I’d like to be accommodating but this is kinda special.
I want it all for myself. I’ll take care of the Mexicans. Will you mail
this note?”
“Make it a book. It’s your funeral.”
“That’s what Holman said,” returned Billy Magee. “And it’s the truth.
They’s goin’ to be something happen.”
It took him a long time to write that letter. When he was through he
took an envelope from his pocket. “Just happened to have the makin’s of
a note. Here she is. Can you catch that stage?”
“What’s the game?”
But the cowboy had dug his spurs into the pony and was off down the
straight section line that led through the domain of the Holman Land and
Water Company.
Billy Magee had a reason. He was mad clear through and the more he
thought the madder he got. At last he came to the line fence that marked
the border between the desert and the alfalfa. A broad gate barred his
way. On the top board were the words: