A STEADY HAND
IN the two weeks which elapsed between Ross's visit to his father and
his start for Wyoming he planned hopefully for the year.
"Father has given me a free hand," he told his uncle. "As soon as I can
get the work done and the claims patented I am at liberty to come back
home, and I tell you I shall hustle. I shall hire as many men as are
necessary in Miners' Camp, and take 'em over to Meadow Creek, where
the claims are located, and just rush that work through."
"I wonder," remarked Dr. Grant thoughtfully, "why that man Weimer
doesn't hire it done instead of sending East for some one to manage
the matter."
Ross frowned into the open grate before which the two were sitting.
"Why, uncle, I never thought of that, and father didn't mention it. In
fact, he knows but very little about Miners' Camp or Weimer's work,
and you know he hasn't seen Weimer in years. All he knows about the
business is contained in a letter that Weimer got a man named Amos Steele
to write. Weimer, it seems, can't use his eyes to read or write. The
letter is very short. That man Steele is a mine-superintendent out there.
Father knows about the company which he works for."
"The very idea," cried Aunt Anne a few moments later in tearful
indignation, "of Ross Grant's sending that boy away out West to the
jumping-off place into the wilderness without knowing the conditions
into which he's sending him! It's a shame. He's our boy, and I
don't want him to go."
The doctor made no reply, but retired precipitately to the office, where
he had occupied himself at intervals all day with fitting up an emergency
chest for Ross.
The chest was a little oblong, hair-covered strong trunk, which had held
all of the doctor's worldly possessions when, thirty years before, he
had started to the medical college just as his brother, Ross's father,
had started West for his financial "start." Into this chest uncle and
nephew fitted all sorts of objects medical, from books to bandages.
"When you're eighty miles from a physician, Ross, and shut in by
snow-drifted mountains at that, it's well to have a few remedies
and appliances on hand."
"And, when you're several Sabbath days' journey from civilization,
with time to burn on your hands, it's also well to have some light
literature along," laughed Ross, tucking into the chest Piersol's
"Histology." "I intend to make my time count for myself, as well as
for Weimer and father."
Aunt Anne, meantime, was packing another and more modern chest, her tears
besprinkling the contents.
"I have put your winter shirts and chamois-skin vest right on top of the
tray, Ross," she sobbed as she bade him good-bye. "You better put 'em
on as soon as you reach the mountains, as it will be cold there."
"All right, aunt; I shall." Ross's voice was a little husky as he turned
to his uncle.
Dr. Grant was standing beside the vacated breakfast table absorbed in
filling a glass of water. Carefully he brimmed it drop by drop.
Aunt Anne peered through her tears. "Why, Fred," she exclaimed, "what
are you up to? Don't make Ross miss his train."
Calmly the doctor added a few more drops, and then turned to his nephew.
His eyes narrowed intently as he motioned toward the glass.
"I want to test your nerves, Ross. Hold it out," he directed.
The boy smiled confidently, raised the glass, carried it from him the
length of a long, steady arm, and held it there. Then he returned it to
the table without spilling a drop.
The doctor grasped the hand that had held the glass, looking earnestly
into the boy's eyes.
"Ross, the hand that holds the surgeon's knife successfully must _keep
as steady as this_."
For a long, silent moment uncle and nephew looked into each other's
faces as their hands gripped. Ross made no reply, but in the expression
which leaped to his eyes the older man read the resolution which
satisfied him, and which seemed a part of this slow, steady nephew of his.
An hour later the boy was being borne westward on the way to Chicago and
the "jumping-off place into the wilderness."
At the same time his father sat behind his desk on Broadway reading a
letter postmarked Cody, Wyo., and signed D. H. Leonard. It was written
in reply to a recent communication from Ross Grant, Senior.
"Of course I shall be glad to do anything in my power for your son,"
the letter read, "along the lines you have suggested. I see the wisdom
of your move, too. It doesn't always do to refuse a boy's demands
point-blank. It's far better to turn him from his purpose as you are
doing--or trying to do, I should say, because, if young Ross is anything
like old Ross, he will not be so easily turned. Yet, as you say, a
little stirring up and jostling out of his uncle's beaten tracks may
put some new ideas into his head. This country certainly bids fair to
be stirring enough now to fascinate any young man. It's a good idea
also to give him a half-share in your share of the claims; and I'm
sure, if the railroad makes good its promise of a way up to Miners'
Camp, the claims will be worth working for. And, as a real estate
dealer, I don't need to be urged to do my best to interest him in the
business of this vast land, the country of the future."
In Chicago a telegram overtook Ross. It was from his father. "Stop
overnight at Hotel Irma, Cody," it read. "Leonard will meet you there."
Two days later, early in the morning, the west bound express dropped
Ross Grant and half a dozen other passengers at Toluca, in southern
Montana, a station with a water-tank and some cattle corrals attached.
Here stood the train which by day plied over the branch road to Cody,
and by night returned to Toluca. It was a mixed train consisting of
freight and express cars with a sleeper at the end.
The half dozen passengers, reenforced by others left by the east bound
express, all men, transferred themselves to this coach. Every one
except Ross seemed to be more or less acquainted with every one else.
Ross sat silent, listening and looking out on as much of the great
West as was visible from the slowly moving car. Across the windswept,
sun-cracked plain grumbled the old engine. On either side were herds of
cattle fattening on the dusty dried grass, which looked to Ross dead
and worthless. Not a tree met his eyes, and not a house.
"Got the Western fever yet?" drawled a voice behind him finally, and Ross
looked around into the good-natured face of a man who had boarded the
north bound express at Omaha.
Ross shook his head decidedly. "There's nothing here to give a fellow
the Western fever," he returned, pointing to the flat yellow plain
overlaid by the dull yellow sunshine.
The man lounged forward, his elbows on the back of Ross's seat, and
grinned. He was apparently about thirty, short and fair, with sandy
hair and mustache. He wore corduroy trousers and coat, with a dark
flannel shirt and turn-over collar under which was knotted carelessly a
broad green silk tie. Hanging to the back of his head was a brown,
broad-brimmed hat, the crown encircled with a narrow band of intricately
woven hair dyed in all the colors of the rainbow.
"I'll tell ye what's out there that gives most of us the Western
fever," he declared; "and that's money prospects. Sort of a yellow
fever, ye know, it is, except that no one wants to be cured."
"Then I don't want to catch it in the first place," declared Ross,
looking out of the window again.
Presently some one in the rear of the car lowered a newspaper, and
rumbled over the top of it:
"You fellers rec'lect old man Quinn?"
Some did; some did not. To the latter, the speaker explained.
"Used to live in Cody. Friend of Buffalo Bill, old man Quinn was. Went
down to Oklahomy five years ago, and bought a sheep ranch. He and some
of the cattlemen around him got by the ears over how much of the range
belonged to the sheep----"
Here an inarticulate murmur sounded through the car. There was a "cattle
war" on in Wyoming at that time.
"Wall, one night two years ago about now, after a big round-up at
North Fork, one thousand of old man Quinn's sheep was driven over the
bluffs into North Fork River. All that old man Quinn could find out
was that four men done it. But he kept a-tryin' to find out, and got
a _de_tective down from Kansas City, feller who used to be a cow puncher
himself; and he nabbed three of 'em. They had had the gall to stay right
there on the range all this time."
"Good reason," volunteered some one, "why it took so long to land 'em. I
suppose old man Quinn was lookin' for 'em among the punchers that had
left after the round-up."
"Jest so," declared the informant. "He was tryin' to track up every one
who cleared out after the round-up--jest so."
"How long did they git?" asked some one further up the aisle.
"Two years."
"Sandy," some one across the aisle said to the man behind Ross, "wa'n't
you down t' Oklahomy punchin' two year ago?"
There was a perceptible pause. Then a note of irritation spoke through
Sandy's drawl as he answered briefly, "No, north Texas."
And, while the rest continued the discussion concerning old man Quinn,
he leaned forward and devoted himself to Ross.
Presently they came to the hills whose barrenness and sombreness were
relieved at intervals by the brilliant coloring of the rocks.
"Well," asked Sandy, "what do ye think of this? It ain't every day East
that ye can walk around the crater of an old volcano."
"Is this----" began Ross, his head out of the window.
"This is!" chuckled he of the sandy hair.
The train was crawling slowly around the edge of a wide, shallow well, on
all sides of which the hills frowned darkly, stripped of every vestige
of verdure.
"An extinct volcano!" ejaculated Ross.
"Yep,"--the other sagged forward until his laughing face was close to
Ross's,--"but just let me tell ye right here, young man, that volcanoes
is the only thing in the West that's extinct. Everything else is pretty
lively."
Ross joined in the laugh which greeted this sally all around him. The
man opposite lowered his paper, and looked over his glasses.
"Volcanoes _and_ hopes, Sandy," he amended quickly, instantly retiring
again behind his paper.
Ross did not understand the significance of the retort, but he noticed
that several men around exchanged glances and that Sandy's face lost a
fraction of its good nature. And when Sandy's face lost its humorous
expression, it was not pleasing.
Dusk and Cody drew near together. The train dropped over the "rim," and
steamed along through the Big Horn Basin, coming to a final standstill in
front of another station and water-tank.
"Cody," announced the brakeman. "All out."
Ross, suitcase in hand, his top-coat over his arm, stumbled out of the
train, still swaying with the perpetual motion of the last few days. A
big open wagon with side seats stood beside the platform. At the call of
the driver Ross looked around interrogatively at Sandy, who was still
beside him.
"Oh, we're two miles from the town yet," Sandy replied to the look.
"Pile in. Train can't make it over the shelves between here and
Stinkin' Water."
Ross silently "piled in." Sandy sat down beside him, and the wagon filled
with the other passengers.
Behind them, stretching back into the darkness, their heads sagging
sleepily, was a row of teams, their neck-yokes joined by a chain, their
heads connected by a single rein running through the ring at the left
side of the bit.
"Hey, there," called one of the men in the wagon, "does Grasshopper
strike the trail to-night for Meeteetse?"
"Yep," came a voice beside a lantern which was traveling to and fro.
"There's a lot of freight to pack up to Miners' Camp; and, if it gits
there ahead of the snow, these freighters have got to hit the pike more
rapid than they have been doin'."
A horseman dashed past the wagon and into the circle of light from the
lantern hung in front of the station. Dropping the reins to the ground,
he swung his leather-enveloped legs off the horse, and yelled at the
station agent:
"Have those boxes of apples come yet?"
"Just here," replied the holder of the moving light.
"Can't you start 'em up by the Meeteetse stage to-night?" demanded the
newcomer. "The boys are about famished."
"Them surveyors," complained the agent, "are always hollerin' for more
grub. 'N' no matter how much ye fill 'em, they don't go faster than
molasses in January. Ain't got beyond Sagehen Roost this minute, and
they'll probably be a-quittin' in a month."
Ross pricked up his ears. The same interest was manifested by Sandy.
"Don't you worry about our quitting," the newcomer returned brusquely;
"if the Burlington Railroad starts out to run a track up to Miners'
Camp, why, it will run one, that's all, if the track has to go under
snow-sheds all the way up from the Meadows."
At this point the big open bus rumbled off over the dust-choked "shelf"
toward Cody. An unwieldy swaying coach drawn by four horses passed them
on its way to the station.
"Meeteetse stage is late to-night," remarked Sandy.
On rumbled the wagon. Its brake screamed against the wheel as the horses
plunged down the steep inclines which marked the descent from one "shelf"
to another. Presently a vile odor greeted Ross's nostrils, and at the
same time the wagon struck the bridge over the sulphurated waters of
the Shoshone, and began the climb on the other side.
Ross was keenly alive to this strange new world in which the convenience
of the East met the newness and crudeness of the West. Brilliant
electric lights illuminated dust-deep, unpaved, unsprinkled streets.
Tents stood beside pretentious homes, and stone business blocks were
rising beside offices located in canvas wagons with rounded tops. And
to and fro past the wagon flashed horsemen, cowboys dressed like Sandy
except that their corduroy trousers were incased in leather "chaps."
Sandy, watching Ross out of the corner of his eye, grinned at the boy's
expression.
"Buck up here, tenderfoot," he advised good-naturedly. "This here is
'The Irma'; and, if you've got any better hotels in the East, why,
don't tell Colonel Cody of it, at any rate, for 'The Irma' is the
Colonel's pet."
Then Ross found himself in the foyer of "The Irma," the hotel that
"Buffalo Bill" erected to honor his home town, which bears his name,
a comfortable, modernly equipped house decorated with hundreds of
paintings, water colors, and etchings, all picturing the scenes in
Colonel Cody's life as represented in his "Wild West Show."
Sandy had registered in advance of Ross, and stepped to a swinging door
at the end of the counter. There he stopped and turned back. "Come on
and have a drink, tenderfoot," he invited good-naturedly.
Ross was writing his name, and did not look up. "No, thank you," he
returned quietly. "I don't drink."
Several men lounging about glanced curiously at the boy. Sandy thrust
his hands into his pockets, and, leaning against the counter, looked at
him in open interest.
After Ross had registered, he drew a nickel from his pocket and laid it
on the counter. "A two-cent stamp, please."
The clerk, impatient with the deliberation of his movements, cast the
nickel hurriedly into the cash drawer and handed out a stamp. Ross
waited for the change, while three men behind him pressed forward to
the register.
Sandy grinned broadly. "There's no change comin', tenderfoot," he said
with a chuckle. "You've reached a land where nothin' less'n a nickel
can be got outside a post-office."
"Pennies don't grow in the Rocky Mountains," added the clerk in a tone
which plainly invited the boy to move on.
The tone brought the blood to Ross's cheek. His eyes suddenly narrowed.
His head went up, and his voice quickened and deepened.
"Very well, then," he returned coolly, "give me another two-cent stamp
and a postal card."
Sandy patted his thigh softly. "You'll pass, tenderfoot," he murmured.
"No flies on you--at least, they don't stick there."
Ross took his trophies, and retired to a desk beside the swinging door.
Just as he had finished directing a letter to his Aunt Anne he noticed
that his new friend was waiting again beside the counter.
When the last man had registered, Sandy pulled the book toward him and
leaned over it. Suddenly he bent lower, and jabbed hard on the page with
his forefinger. When he turned, all the good humor had dropped out of
his face. With a glance of keen interest at the boy beside the desk he
passed on into the barroom.
So marked was the change in his manner that Ross paused in the act of
dipping his pen into the ink-well.
"Guess I'll see who Sandy is," he thought, and, dropping his pen,
crossed to the book.
The name stared up at him in big bold letters directly above his own,
but he had not noticed it at the time of registering.
_"Allen McKenzie, Miners' Camp."_
Ross pursed his thin lips, and nearly whistled aloud as he returned to
his desk.
"It's one of the McKenzies who are after our claims," he wrote at
the end of a long letter to his uncle and aunt; "but he is a funny,
good-natured fellow. I partly like him and partly don't. He has no
six-shooter in sight--in fact, I'm told that six-shooters have gone
more or less out of fashion in Wyoming; and he doesn't look a bit as I
had imagined a 'claim-jumper' would. But one thing he may reckon on;
there will be no chance for him or any one else to jump the Weimer-Grant
claims in a few months."
And, sealing this confident declaration, he slipped the letter into the
mail-box, ate a hearty dinner, and went to bed.
The following morning at nine o'clock D. H. Leonard, his father's
old-time friend, appeared, and greeted the son most cordially. Mr.
Leonard was a man of middle age, hale, red-faced, bald-headed, and
wearing a "boiled" shirt and collar. He was a dealer in real estate, with
offices in both Cody and Basin. It was to his office that he first
took Ross.
"We'll go for a drive by and by," he began, throwing himself back in
his chair and tossing a cigar across the desk. "We have the country of
the future here, and I want you to see it. Perfect gold-mine in this land
once it's irrigated."
Ross picked up the cigar, played with it a moment, and laid it again on
the desk, listening attentively.
The older man drew a match across the woodwork beneath his chair, and
lighted his cigar. "It's _the_ place for young men, Grant, a greater
place than it was when Horace Greeley gave his advice to young men to
go West--here's a match," he interrupted himself to say.
Ross accepted the match, bit on the end of it a moment, and laid it
beside the cigar.
"Don't you smoke?" asked Leonard in some surprise.
Before Ross could reply, some one called Mr. Leonard out into the hall.
As the door closed behind him, Ross arose and stood silently in front
of the open window. Beyond the little town and beyond the level stretch
of "shelves" arose the Big Horn Mountains, miles away, but so sharply
outlined in the clear air that they seemed only a short walk distant.
As Ross leaned against the window-casing, some one in the room adjoining
came to the open window. The stub of a cigar was thrown out, and a voice
exclaimed:
"But if Grant realized the situation, he'd never have sent a boy out
here to look after those claims. And it looks as though it was his
son--same initials. But with such a boy and Weimer you ought to be
able----"
The speaker left the window at this point, and Ross lost the rest of the
sentence. In a few moments, however, some one clattered through the
hall and down the stairs, with spurs jingling. A horse stood on the
street below, tethered only by its bridle-reins dangling to the ground.
From the entrance to the building Sandy McKenzie emerged, clad as on
the previous day, except for a colored handkerchief knotted about his
neck. Mounting his pony, he touched a spur to its flank, and galloped
away in a cloud of dust just as Leonard returned.
"Who's in the next room?" asked Ross.
"Over on the right?" asked Leonard carelessly. "Oh, a lawyer has that
office." He crossed to the window, and glanced out just as McKenzie
disappeared. "Evidently Sandy's pulling out for the mountains," he
observed. "Miners' Camp, that is."
"Are there only two McKenzies?" asked Ross.
Leonard shrugged his shoulders. "Two are all that have ever showed up
around here--Sandy and Waymart; but they say there are half a dozen more
brothers and cousins, some figurin' under names not their own; but where
they put up I don't know."
Here he turned and looked curiously at Ross. "I suppose your father told
you that Sandy and Waymart are sitting up on Meadow Creek waiting to jump
the Grant-Weimer claims."
"Yes, he told me," answered Ross, and hesitated. "Do they use guns in
the jumping process?"
Leonard laughed. "Not much! They have other and safer methods of getting
their own way in case Weimer doesn't do the work the law requires this
year."
Then he glanced at the unsmoked cigar, and repeated his question of some
time before. "Don't you smoke?"
Ross shook his head shortly.
"Why not?" Leonard looked at his old friend's son in friendly interest.
Ross stretched out his right arm in an unconscious imitation of the test
his uncle had required of him only a few mornings before. "It's apt to
get on a fellow's nerves," was all the reply he made.
There was much to see during the day and much to hear. Leonard took the
boy for a long drive up the canon of the Shoshone, whose densely green
waters have a background of brilliant reds and yellows in the sandstone
sides of the wall through which the river has cut. Up and yet up the
carriage went, with the walls rising higher and higher on either side,
the road a mere thread blasted out of the rocks, up to the great dam
which was beginning to raise its head across the river bed to hold back
the water and distribute it over Big Horn Basin through irrigating canals.
Ross's interest, however, during the drive was divided. He was glad to
see the vast "Shoshone Project," as the government reservoir is called;
but his most active thoughts were following Sandy McKenzie on his way
to Miners' Camp, and his questions were of the Camp and Wyoming mining
laws and the conditions he would meet in this new and strange land.
But Leonard had never been up to Camp, and was not interested in mining,
but in ranch lands; therefore, Ross got but little enlightenment from
him, and finally, ceasing to question, listened in silence while the
older man, in obedience to the senior Grant's request, did his best to
interest the junior Grant in the business prospects of Wyoming.
"I want you to come down to Basin at Christmas," Leonard said cordially
as host and guest sat down to dinner in the dining-room of "The Irma" at
six o'clock that night. "My home is in Basin. It's the county-seat of
Big Horn County, you know; and I want you to come down there. I want to
show you more of this magnificent country."
Ross was grateful for this friendly invitation, but made no promises; and
presently the two were eating in silence, Ross looking with interest on
some of the contrasts which were too familiar for Leonard even to notice.
Under elaborate and gaudy chandeliers was a bare and not overclean floor.
Looking down on the thickest and heaviest of cracked china were pictures
by well-known artists. Seated around the tables spread in linen, were
bearded men in chaps and overalls, flannel shirts and spurs, together
with those in tan oxfords and broadcloth.
At the table opposite Ross, and facing him, was a man to whom his
glance returned again and again. He sat alone. His square, unexpressive
face was relieved by a pair of fine dark-brown eyes. The lower part of
his face was covered by a stubby reddish beard. His hair was brown, and
fell nearly to his eyes, giving him the appearance of having a low
forehead. He wore a coat,--the first of its kind Ross had seen,--a short,
bulky affair, with a high collar laid over the shoulders and lined
throughout with lambskin, the wool badly worn on the collar. His chaps
were of undressed leather, with the long hair trimmed short save from
the thigh to the ankle. High riding boots, spurs, and a sombrero, which
he wore low over his forehead while eating, completed his costume.
"Who is he?" asked Ross.
Mr. Leonard shook his head. "Man next to me here said he rode in this
afternoon on the Yellowstone trail. Don't know who he is."
As if he felt he was under discussion, the stranger raised his head, and
his eyes met Ross's in a quick furtive glance.
After dinner Leonard gripped Ross's hand in farewell, and left. An hour
later there was a rattle of wheels in front of the hotel, the sound of
horses's hoofs, and a rollicking voice called:
"Meeteetse stage. All aboard!"
Ross, with a glance around the office which he expected to see again
before spring, picked up his bag, and went out on the piazza. Here he
stood while his trunk and the emergency chest were swung up behind the
stage and roped. Then he climbed up beside the driver, who was glad to
have some one near to help him keep awake during the long night ride, and
they were off, only to be stopped almost immediately by a man standing
in the doorway of a store.
"Hold up there!" shouted the man. "Steele is here, and wants to go on
to-night."
The name caught Ross's attention. "Is it Amos Steele?" he asked the
driver.
The driver assented. "Yep--superintendent of the Gale's Ridge Mine up
in Camp."
Ross leaned forward and surveyed with interest the pleasant-faced,
well-dressed, squarely-built young man who came out of the store and
climbed into the stage. In his pocket Ross had the letter Steele had
written his father at Weimer's request.
"Git out of this," the driver requested briefly of his four bronchos as
the stage door slammed to, and the four obligingly "got out" on a run.
Just as they left the last house behind them, a figure on horseback
whirled by in a cloud of dust, and Ross recognized in the sheepskin coat
and hairy chaps the stranger who had attracted his attention during
dinner.