Dan Quinlan
In the years of Lightning’s service at the Marton farm he had only
penetrated the greater foothills to the south-west as far as Dan
Quinlan’s homestead on two or three occasions.
His real reason for avoiding Dan Quinlan was his cold opinion that the
man was unfit for white man’s association. The thing that was anathema
to his ideas of manhood was that Dan lived with a squaw. There were
always to be found loafing about his place a number of his wife’s
coloured relations; and then there were offspring which he claimed
no white man had the right to bring into the world--little dusky,
happy, laughing, wild creatures, with all the potentialities for evil
resulting from the mixture of colour.
Then his farm was such as no white man need take joy in. A log dug-out
on a hillside, overlooking a poor corral that was just sufficient
for his ten mean cows; a ramshackle barn which stabled a small bunch
of saddle choyeuses; and a patch of ploughing that barely provided
sufficient feed, with a few cabbages, and a supply of potatoes thrown
in. And, added to the rest, the whole place was completely overrun by
savage trail dogs.
In Lightning’s view, whatever he might choose to call himself, there
was only one designation to which Dan Quinlan was entitled. The man
lived by trapping and pelt-hunting, and any other means that offered
itself. He had become a white Indian. In short, he had “taken the
blanket,” and was no longer entitled to associate with white men or
claim their respect. Lightning’s opinion was characteristic, and in
consequence of it he had not been near the Irishman since the death of
George Marton.
Had he done so, the scene he would have discovered would still have
been, to all outward appearance, much about the same. There stood the
dishevelled dug-out, that was sufficiently stout, and supplied all the
man’s needs and those of his dusky family. The barn looked to have
been slightly enlarged, but had gained nothing else by the change. The
corral still accommodated the ten mean cows which grazed over the flat
of grass which filled the valley below. The wolfish dog pack still
beset the place.
But the change was there, and he would no doubt have discovered it.
It lay within the forest which clothed the whole hillside about the
dug-out. Less than half a mile from the Irishman’s home a clearing
had been made. It had a winding roadway cut through the trees. Four
ring corrals had been set up, and in connection with them was all the
paraphernalia of the cattle-raiser. There was the branding “pinch.”
There was the smith’s forge, and the searing-irons. There were great
stackings of hay for feed. And several soundly built huts of log and
thatch dotted the outer ring of the clearing for use in the work
amongst the cattle.
The place was basking under a blaze of spring sunshine that was only
little short of the full heat of summer. The forest had already set
forth its paler shades of green, and the stark arms of deciduous trees
were donning their delicate spring costumes. The mountain stream, in
the heart of the valley, was a boisterous, rushing torrent, and the
grass in the open was leaping by inches with every passing day.
Two men were standing near by, overlooking the work of branding the
cattle with which the corrals were teeming. The men in the corrals, and
at the forge, and working the cumbersome “pinch,” were not ordinary
cattlemen. They were not even white men. They were relatives of Cama,
the wife of Dan Quinlan, and the Irishman had pressed them into his
service without scruple.
Standing with his white-haired companion, Dan’s eyes were alight with
humour. His big body was clad in the buckskin which the faithful
Cama prepared for it. The only thing with which to distinguish him
from his dusky relatives by marriage was his white face, rugged and
weather-beaten, his enormous size, his mass of curling, fair hair, and
his laughing blue eyes.
“Say, Jim,” he cried, as he watched one of his many “in-laws”
struggling furiously with a roped steer, “I want to laff. I surely do.
Say, look at that guy hanging to that pore critter’s stumps of horns.
Now, how in hell does he guess that beast’s to reckon he wants it to
move ahead while he’s smotherin’ its fool head with his darn sight more
foolish body? Can you beat it?”
He moved off on the run, and laid a hand on the top bar of the corral
opening. The next moment he had vaulted it, and became lost amidst the
teeming throng.
Jim Pryse smilingly awaited his return. The Irishman amused him almost
as much as did his “in-laws.” And when Dan came back to him his face
was beaming with good-nature.
“Gee! They’re an outfit!” he cried, with a great laugh. “Did you ever
see such a play? They got a Dago bull-fight skinned to death. Get a
look at ’em. They’re the whole darn tally of Cama’s brothers, an’
cousins, an’ uncles. I feed the bunch, an’ talk Blackfoot to ’em from
daylight to dark. They’d eat that bunch of steers in a week, but it
takes their whole darn combination o’ brain to handle ’em right. I
surely want to laff. They guess they’re showing the white man. They’re
the queerest crowd of darn-foolishness you could locate outside a
bughouse.”
Pryse laughed delightedly.
“It’s no wonder they’re a dying race,” he said.
Dan nodded and chuckled.
“They’re Reserve-raised,” he said significantly. “They know all about
doctors’ dope an’ pie-faced religion. They can talk and read ‘white.’
They can count dollars to beat the band, but cents better. They got a
hell of a notion for soap they fancy looking at, but ’ud hate to use.
But set em to the work their old folk reckoned was natural to ’em, an
you’ve got ’em hatin’ it like the devil hates holy water. But they’re
a good crew, an’ I’ve got no kick comin’. They’d commit murder fer
me, an’ I sort o’ feel they’re like a bunch of silly kids that need
beating over the head with a club when they do wrong. Ther’ it is.
It’s the civilisin’ play of our races--the old dames who sit around
in steam heat figgerin’ out the best med’cine fer their own useless
souls. I’m tryin’ to make men of ’em. But it’s mighty hard work after
the missioners are through with ’em. I tell you, civilisation beats out
of a boy all those things God A’mighty set out as right fer him. An’
it drives home a bunch of sloppy junk that any man worth the name gets
worryin’ around to lose quick.”
“It was something of that set me yearning for Alaska seven or eight
years back,” Pryse chuckled quietly. “But you couldn’t lose it there.
The townships, even there, are up to their necks in automobiles, and
’phones, and wireless, and all the rest. Why, they got societies
up there for every darn thing, from a Chink Labour Union to an
Anti-Natural Fur Society. I guess the anti-fur bunch has tough work
ahead in Alaska.”
Dan drew a deep breath, and his eyes sobered.
“Give me these hills,” he cried. “It’s peace here, Jim. It’s peace
an’--if you ain’t yearning for fancy feeding--plenty. We’re out of it
all, an’ up against all the things God A’mighty reckoned was good
fer us. Taste the mountain air, look at the sun, see the grass grow,
an’ the woods packed with every pelt and feed a boy needs. There’s no
by-your-leave here. Ther’s no crazy say-so. Act the man or go plumb
under. If ther’s any kickin’ get after it quick. It’s peace here, the
only peace I’ve ever known. Ther’s folks in Hartspool an’ Calford, when
I get around with cattle, pass a whisper all the time. I know it. I
bin told. I’ve ‘taken the blanket.’ I’m ‘white Injun.’ An’ all because
I married Cama right, an’ she’s raised a dandy bunch of kids to me. I
don’t care a curse. Why shouldn’t I? Ain’t haf the whole world mongrels
of colour? If they ain’t they were oncet. Psha! I ain’t lookin’ fer
no halo. I got some three-score an’ ten to put in on this crazy old
earth, an’ I’m goin’ to do it the best way that suits me. I ken scratch
a livin’ right here fer myself an’ my whole bunch. I got Cama, an’
I’m happy. Ther’ ain’t a saloon fer miles, which is God’s blessin’
to a crazy Irishman like me. An’ then, things bein’ so, I’ll go down
when the time comes singin’ thanks to the good God who’s passed me
the peace an’ happiness I never found under the electric sky signs of
civilisation. Say, I’ll hold up this bunch till fall, an’ then run ’em
right over the border into Montana without making any pow-wow with the
United States border folk. We got to go slow Calford way. Folks there
are pushing their noses our way.”
Pryse’s interest in the branding had passed. Dan Quinlan had absorbed
it all. The man’s philosophy suited his own mood. Somehow he felt that
deep inside that burly ruffian dwelt a great, strong, human spirit--a
reckless, untamed spirit, whose genuine good almost completely
smothered the weakness he sometimes saw peeping out.
“I was wondering that way, Dan,” he said quietly. “The curiosity of
folk was one of the things I didn’t search closely enough. Yes, we must
surely spread our market. I’ve been thinking hard. Our bluff isn’t
all it needs to be. We’ve got to bluff harder. You’ve got your brand
registered. That’s all right. Now we must play right up to it with a
‘full house.’ Do you get me? We got to set up a swell sort of ranch
place right here for you, and your Cama, and her folk to live in. It
must be big and good. And we’ll need bloodstock ranging this valley.
Then, when folks get around, as they surely will, they’ll see the
meaning of things as we want ’em to see. You’ve built yourself into a
swell stock-raising proposition. Then they’ll rub their foolish eyes
and forget their talk of ‘taking the blanket,’ and they’ll lift their
hats to Dan Quinlan, and we can trade our stock all we please down at
Calford and Hartspool.”
Dan hawked and spat. He was watching an Indian approaching the
“pinch” from the forge. The man was flourishing a nearly white-hot
branding-iron. He let out a shout.
“What in hell?” he cried. “Quit it, Ash-te! Quit it, you seven sorts of
darn fool! Are you lookin’ to roast the poor crittur? Cool it down, you
crazy son of a goat. Fer the sake of Holy Mary! Ah, to hell wid ye!”
His moment of angry disgust passed, and his smile broke out at once.
And, as the Indian scuttled back to the forge, he turned again to the
man beside him.
“Sure an’ you’re right, Jim,” he cried, with a laugh. “You’ll set Cama
crazy fer joy building her a swell home. And these boys, too. Gee! I
wish I could lick ’em into the things they were before the missioner
got after ’em,” he added regretfully. Then: “How’s things going inside?”
Pryse laughed.
“Why, fine,” he said. Then he added significantly: “I got more hands
than I can pass work to. They come from the cities east, and west, and
south. They’re all sorts, from crook politicians right down to the
boys who’ve skidded on the main trail. It’s just wonderful. There’s
a great estate there, and well-nigh a settlement. And I’ve just had
to case-harden myself to hold a discipline of sheer steel. We’ll be
shipping grain this year as well as stock. And if nothing goes amiss
I’d say it’ll come in a flood. I must get right back now. It needs me
all the time.”
“Yep. I guess that’s so. Well, so long, Jim,” Dan said, as the other
turned to go. “I’ll start right in building--out in the open. We can’t
be too quick with it. I’ll stop right here now. I can’t leave these
fool boys. You’ll look in on Cama an’ the kids before you quit?”
“I surely will. So long Dan.”
“So long.”
Dan watched the white-haired figure till it was swallowed up by
the forest. Then he turned again to his hopeless task of guiding,
instructing, and blaspheming his dark-skinned relatives.