Jack!
When Polly told the boys in the corral that Slim had returned and was
waiting for them at the mess-wagon, they dropped their work and made
for him with wild whoops and yells. Slim smiled as he heard the coming.
Show Low made a running jump, throwing his arms about the Sheriff's
neck. Parenthesis and Sage-brush each grabbed a hand, pumping up and
down emphatically. The others slapped him on the back. All talked at
once, asking him the news, and whether Jack had returned.
"Did you nip it up with the 'Paches," asked Parenthesis.
"Talk, durn ye, talk!" shouted Show Low, "or we'll hang out your hide."
Slim shook the hands of his comrades, in turn, affectionately.
For each he had his own, particular form of greeting. "No, boys," he
said, when the group became more orderly, "I ain't a-goin' to say a
word 'till I see Mrs. Payson first."
Polly had ridden at once to the house to tell the joyful news of Slim's
return to Echo, who hurried at once to the boys about the wagon.
Parenthesis spied her riding down the trail. "She's comin' now," he
cried.
"Boys," requested Slim, "would you mind herdin' off yonder a bit?"
The cow-punchers strolled over to the cottonwood, leaving Echo to meet
Slim alone.
"Where is he?" was Echo's tearful greeting.
"Well, ma'am, there's a man out yonder that's been through fire and
brimstone for you!"
Echo stared over the prairies. Then Jack was still searching for Dick.
Slim had failed to find him. "Out yonder," she moaned, wringing her
hands.
"Wait a minute," says Slim. "He says to me, says he: 'Break it to
her, Slim; tell her gentle--an' if she wants me--call, and I'll come.'
Ma'am, Dick Lane is dead."
Echo shuddered. "Dead," she repeated. "By his--"
"No, no," interrupted Slim; "not that way. Indians. Jack found Dick,
an' the Indians found 'em both. When I come up with the soldiers from
Fort Grant they was havin' the derndest mixup with Indians you ever did
see. Both men were bad hurted, an' Dick--well, ma'am--I leaned over
him jest in time to hear him say: 'Tell her I know she was true--and
not to mind.' Then he gave a little ketch of his breath, and dropped
back into my arms."
Echo sighed. The tragedy of the desert was very real to her. In the
many months that the two men had been away she had lived through it
with them in poignant imagination.
"Great-hearted Dick," she said. "I was not worthy of his love. And
Jack, where is he?"
"Wait a minute--he wants to know if you can forgive him--if you will
take him back."
"Slim!" was the only word Echo uttered, but the volume of love it
contained told him everything.
"You needn't say nothin' more--I see it shinin' in your eyes," cried
Slim.
"Jack! Jack!" he shouted, "you derned idiot, come a-runnin--"
Payson hurried up from the arroyo within which he had been waiting.
"Echo, I have not altogether failed in my mission. I have not brought
Dick Lane back, but I hope I come from him bearing something of his
loyalty and simple faith. If you ever can learn to trust me again--if
you ever can learn to love me--" he said to Echo humbly.
"Don't be a derned fool, Jack," blurted Slim; "can't you see she ain't
never loved no one else?"
"Echo, is it so?" asked Jack eagerly.
Slim grinned. Going over to Echo's side, he gave her a slight push,
saying: "Go tell him."
"Jack!" was her only cry, as her husband enfolded her in his arms.
* * * * * * *
With the next election for sheriff in Pinal County, William Henry
Harrison Hoover had no opposition, for Buck McKee's nomination for that
office of one Peruna, formerly of the Lazy K outfit, was not ratified
for several reasons, the chief of which was that W. H. H. Hoover, alias
Slim, had, just previous to election, officially declared that the said
Peruna was deceased, having come to his death in the jail-yard of Pinal
County, by a sudden drop at the end of a new hempen rope, which did not
break, as Slim, before the ceremony, had assured the apprehensive
Peruna it would not.
The sudden and successive removals of its two most honored and
influential members, Buck McKee and Peruna, greatly demoralized the
Lazy K outfit, and the demoralization was completed by the pernicious
activity of the reelected Sheriff in interfering with the main purpose
of that industrial organization, which was the merger of the Sweetwater
cattle-business through a gradual amalgamation of all brands into the
Lazy K. One by one the captains or cavaliers of this industry sought
more congenial regions, where public inquisition into such purely
private concerns as theirs was not so vigorously prosecuted.
It must not be thought that the social graces and persuasive abilities
of Sheriff Hoover were confined to the conduct of legalized
necktie-parties and the dispersion of outlaws. In its extended account
of the "Lane-Hope Nuptials," the Florence Kicker devoted much of the
space to the part taken by the "best man" in the ceremony, "our genial
and expansive boniface of the new county apartment hotel." And soon
after it recorded that the same Sheriff Hoover had induced the
"charming Miss Wiggins, sister of our deputy sheriff, to be his partner
for life, as she had been for the dance at the Lane-Hope nuptials,
described in our issue of June 15," and that "the happy couple receive
their friends--which we are instructed our readers is an 'invite' to
the entire county--at their future home, the new county jail, on the
Fourth of July."
And in a "local" paragraph of the issue containing the latter notice,
the editor of the Kicker remarks:
"Remember the Sheriff's Round-up on the Fourth. As ( ), our friend
from the Sweetwater with the 'all round understanding,' says:
'[right curly brace symbol, i.e. "brace"] up,
Slim; all the boys will be there to [right-pointing finger] you a few; you'll
sure see * * * [Updater's note: stars].'"
End of Project Gutenberg's The Round-up, by John Murray and Marion Mills Miller