Point. His arrival caused Lank Peters to suspend peeling the potatoes
for dinner and demand explanation.
"Who's the hoss for, Cap'n?" asked Lank.
It was a question that Captain Bean had been dreading for two hours.
When he had given up coasting, bought the strip of Massachusetts
seashore known as Sculpin Point, built a comfortable cottage on it and
settled down within sight and sound of the salt water, he had brought
with him Lank Peters, who for a dozen years had presided over the galley
in the Captain's ship.
More than a mere sea-cook was Lank Peters to Captain Bean. He was
confidential friend, advising philosopher, and mate of Sculpin Point.
Yet from Lank had the Captain carefully concealed all knowledge of his
affair with the Widow Buckett. The time of confession was at hand.
In his own way and with a directness peculiar to all his acts, did
Captain Bean admit the full sum of his rashness, adding, thoughtfully:
"I s'pose you won't have to do much cookin' after Stashia comes; but
you'll still be mate, Lank, and there'll be plenty to keep you busy on
the P'int."
Quietly and with no show of emotion, as befitted a sea-cook and a
philosopher, Melankthon Peters heard these revelations. If he had his
prejudices as to the wisdom or folly of marrying widows, he said no
word. But in the matter of Barnacles he felt more free to express
something of his uneasiness.
"I didn't ship for no hostler, Cap'n, an' I guess I'll make a poor fist
at it, but I'll do my best," he said.
"Guess we'll manage him between us, Lank," cheerfully responded the
Captain. "I ain't got much use for horses myself; but as I said,
Stashia, she's down on boats."
"Kinder sot in her idees, ain't she, Cap'n?" insinuated Lank.
"Well, kinder," the Captain admitted.
Lank permitted himself to chuckle guardedly. Captain Bastabol Bean, as
an innumerable number of sailor-men had learned, was a person who
generally had his own way. Intuitively the Captain understood that Lank
had guessed of his surrender. A grim smile was barely suggested by the
wrinkles about his mouth and eyes.
"Lank," he said, "the Widow Buckett an' me had some little argument over
this horse business an'--an'--I give in. She told me flat she wouldn't
come to the P'int if I tried to fetch her by water in the dory. Well, I
want Stashia mighty bad; for she's a fine woman, Lank, a mighty fine
woman, as you'll say when you know her. So I promised to bring her home
by land and with a horse. I'm bound to do it, too. But by time!" Here
the Captain suddenly slapped his knee. "I've just been struck with a
notion. Lank, I'm going to see what you think of it."
For an hour Captain and mate sat in the sun, smoked their pipes and
talked earnestly. Then they separated. Lank began a close study of
Barnacles's complicated rigging. The Captain tramped off toward the
village.
Late in the afternoon the Captain returned riding in a sidebar buggy
with a man. Behind the buggy they towed a skeleton lumber wagon--four
wheels connected by an extension pole. The man drove away in the sidebar
leaving the Captain and the lumber wagon.
Barnacles, who had been moored to a kedge-anchor, watched the next day's
proceedings with interest. He saw the Captain and Lank drag up from the
beach the twenty-foot dory and hoist it up between the wheels. Through
the forward part of the keelson they bored a hole for the king-bolt.
With nut-bolts they fastened the stern to the rear axle, adding some
very seamanlike lashings to stay the boat in place. As finishing touches
they painted the upper strakes of the dory white, giving to the lower
part and to the running-gear of the cart a coat of sea-green.
Barnacles was experienced, but a vehicle such as this amphibious product
of Sculpin Point he had never before seen. With ears pointed and
nostrils palpitating from curiosity, he was led up to the boat-bodied
wagon. Reluctantly he backed under the raised shafts. The practice-hitch
was enlivened by a monologue, on the part of Captain Bean, which ran
something like this:
"Now, Lank, pass aft that backstay [the trace] and belay; no, not there!
Belay to that little yard-arm [whiffle-tree]. Got it through the
lazy-jack [trace-bearer]? Now reeve your jib-sheets [lines] through them
dead-eyes [hame rings] and pass 'em aft. Now where in Tophet does this
thingumbob [holdback] go? Give it a turn around the port bowsprit
[shaft]. There, guess everything's taut."
The Captain stood off to take an admiring glance at the turnout.
"She's down by the bow some, Lank, but I guess she'll lighten when we
get aboard. See what you think."
Lank's inspection caused him to meditate and scratch his head. Finally
he gave his verdict: "From midships aft she looks as trim as a liner,
but from midships for'ard she looks scousy, like a Norwegian tramp after
a v'yage round The Horn."
"Color of old Barnacles don't suit, eh? No, it don't, that's so. But I
couldn't find no green an' white horse, Lank."
"Couldn't we paint him up a leetle, Cap'n?"
"By Sancho, I never thought of that!" exclaimed Captain Bean. "Course we
can; git a string an' we'll strike a water-line on him."
With no more ado than as if the thing was quite usual, the preparations
for carrying out this indignity were begun. Perhaps the victim thought
it a new kind of grooming, for he made no protest. Half an hour later
old Barnacles, from about the middle of his barrel down to his shoes,
was painted a beautiful sea-green. Like some resplendent marine monster
shone the lower half of him. It may have been a trifle bizarre, but,
with the sun on the fresh paint, the effect was unmistakably striking.
Besides, his color now matched that of the dory's with startling
exactness.
"That's what I call real ship-shape," declared Captain Bean, viewing
the result. "Got any more notions, Lank?"
"Strikes me we ought to ship a mast so's we could rig a sprit-sail in
case the old horse should give out, Cap'n."
"We'll do it, Lank; fust rate idee!"
So a mast and sprit-sail were rigged in the dory. Also the lines were
lengthened with rope, that the Captain might steer from the stern
sheets.
"She's as fine a land-goin' craft as ever I see anywhere," said the
Captain, which was certainly no extravagant statement.
How Captain Bean and his mate steered the equipage from Sculpin Point to
the village, how they were cheered and hooted along the route, how they
ran into the yard of the Metropolitan Livery Stable as a port of refuge,
how the Captain escaped to the home of Widow Buckett, how the "splicin'"
was accomplished--these are details which must be slighted.
The climax came when the newly made Mrs. Bastabol Buckett Bean, her
plump hand resting affectionately on the sleeve of the Captain's best
blue broadcloth coat, said, cooingly: "Now, Cap'n, I'm ready to drive to
Sculpin Point."
"All right, Stashia, Lank's waitin' for us at the front door with the
craft."
At first sight of the boat on wheels Mrs. Bean could do no more than
attempt, by means of indistinct ejaculation, to express her obvious
emotion. She noted the grinning crowd of villagers, Sarepta Tucker among
them. She saw the white and green dory with its mast, and with Lank,
villainously smiling, at the top of a step-ladder which had been leaned
against the boat; she saw the green wheels, and the verdant gorgeousness
of Barnacles's lower half. For a moment she gazed at the fantastic
equipage and spoke not. Then she slammed the front door with an
indignant bang, marched back into the sitting-room and threw herself on
the haircloth sofa with an abandon that carried away half a dozen
springs.
For the first hour she reiterated, between vast sobs, that Captain Bean
was a soulless wretch, that she would never set foot on Sculpin Point,
and that she would die there on the sofa rather than ride in such an
outlandish rig.
Many a time had Captain Bean weathered Hatteras in a southeaster, but
never had he met such a storm of feminine fury as this. However, he
stood by like a man, putting in soothing words of explanation and
endearment whenever a lull gave opportunity.
Toward evening the storm spent itself. The disturbed Stashia became
somewhat calm. Eventually she laughed hysterically at the Captain's
arguments, and in the end she compromised. Not by day would she enter
the dory wagon, but late in the evening she would swallow her pride and
go, just to please the Captain.
Thus it was that soon after ten o'clock, when the village folks had
laughed their fill and gone away, the new Mrs. Bean climbed the
step-ladder, bestowed herself unhandily on the midship thwart and, with
Lank on lookout in the bow, and Captain Bean handling the reins from the
stern sheets, the honeymoon chariot got under way.
By the time they reached the Shell Road the gait of the dejected
Barnacles had dwindled to a deliberate walk which all of Lank's urgings
could not hasten. It was a soft July night with a brisk offshore breeze
and the moon had come up out of the sea to silver the highway and lay a
strip of milk-white carpet over the waves.
"Ahoy there, Lank!" shouted the bridegroom. "Can't we do better'n this?
Ain't hardly got steerage-way on her."
"Can't budge him, Cap'n. Hadn't we better shake-out the sprit-sail;
wind's fair abeam."
"Yes, shake it out, Lank."
Mrs. Bean's feeble protest was unheeded. As the night wind caught the
sail and rounded it out the flapping caused old Barnacles to cast an
investigating glance behind him. One look at the terrible white thing
which loomed menacingly above him was enough. He decided to bolt. Bolt
he did to the best of his ability, all obstacles being considered. A
down grade in the Shell Road, where it dipped toward the shore, helped
things along. Barnacles tightened the traces, the sprit-sail did its
share, and in an amazingly short time the odd vehicle was spinning
toward Sculpin Point at a ten-knot gait. Desperately Mrs. Bean gripped
the gunwale and lustily she screamed:
"Whoa, whoa! Stop him, Captain, stop him! He'll smash us all to pieces!"
"Set right still, Stashia, an' trim ship. I've got the helm," responded
the Captain, who had set his jaws and was tugging at the rope lines.
"Breakers ahead, sir!" shouted Lank at this juncture.
Sure enough, not fifty yards ahead, the Shell Road turned sharply away
from the edge of the beach to make a detour by which Sculpin Point was
cut off.
"I see 'em, Lank."
"Think we can come about, Cap'n?" asked Lank, anxiously.
"Ain't goin to try, Lank. I'm layin' a straight course for home. Stand
by to bail."
How they could possibly escape capsizing Lank could not understand
until, just as Barnacles was about to make the turn, he saw the Captain
tighten the right-hand rein until it was as taut as a weatherstay. Of
necessity Barnacles made no turn, and there was no upset. Something
equally exciting happened, though.
Leaving the road with a speed which he had not equalled since the days
when he had figured in the "The Grand Hippodrome Races," his sea-green
legs quickened by the impetus of the affair behind him, Barnacles
cleared the narrow strip of beach-grass at a jump. Another leap and he
was hock deep in the surf. Still another, and he split a roller with his
white nose.
With a dull chug, a resonant thump, and an impetuous splash the dory
entered its accustomed element, lifting some three gallons of salt water
neatly over the bows. Lank ducked. The unsuspecting Stashia did not,
and the flying brine struck fairly under her ample chin.
"Ug-g-g-gh! Oh! Oh! H-h-h-elp!" spluttered the startled bride, and tried
to get on her feet.
"Sit down!" roared Captain Bean. Vehemently Stashia sat.
"W-w-w-we'll all b-b-be d-d-drowned, drowned!" she wailed.
"Not much we won't, Stashia. We're all right now, and we ain't goin' to
have our necks broke by no fool horse, either. Trim in the sheet, Lank,
an' then take that bailin' scoop." The Captain was now calmly confident
and thoroughly at home.
Drenched, cowed and trembling, the newly made Mrs. Bean clung
despairingly to the thwart, fully as terrified as the plunging
Barnacles, who struck out wildly with his green legs, and snorted every
time a wave hit him. But the lines held up his head and kept his nose
pointing straight for the little beach on Sculpin Point, perhaps a
quarter of a mile distant.
Somewhat heavy weather the deep-laden dory made of it, and in spite of
Lank's vigorous bailing the water sloshed around Mrs. Bean's boot-tops,
yet in time the sail and Barnacles brought them safely home.
"'Twa'n't exactly the kind of honeymoon trip I'd planned, Stashia,"
commented the Captain, as he and Lank steadied the bride's dripping bulk
down the step-ladder, "and we did do some sailin', spite of ourselves;
but we had a horse in front an' wheels under us all the way, just as I
promised."
BLACK EAGLE
WHO ONCE RULED THE RANGES
Of his sire and dam there is no record. All that is known is that he was
raised on a Kentucky stock farm. Perhaps he was a son of Hanover, but
Hanoverian or no, he was a thoroughbred. In the ordinary course of
events he would have been tried out with the other three-year olds for
the big meet on Churchill Downs. In the hands of a good trainer he might
have carried to victory the silk of some great stable and had his name
printed in the sporting almanacs to this day.
But there was about Black Eagle nothing ordinary, either in his blood
or in his career. He was born for the part he played. So at three,
instead of being entered in his class at Louisville, it happened that he
was shipped West, where his fate waited.
No more comely three year old ever took the Santa Fé trail. Although he
stood but thirteen hands and tipped the beam at scarcely twelve hundred
weight, you might have guessed him to be taller by two hands. The
deception lay in the way he carried his shapely head and in the manner
in which his arched neck tapered from the well-placed shoulders.
A horseman would have said that he had a "perfect barrel," meaning that
his ribs were well rounded. His very gait was an embodied essay on
graceful pride. As for his coat, save for a white star just in the
middle of his forehead, it was as black and sleek as the nap on a new
silk hat. After a good rubbing he was so shiny that at a distance you
might have thought him starched and ironed and newly come from the
laundry.
His arrival at Bar L Ranch made no great stir, however. They were not
connoisseurs of good blood and sleek coats at the Bar L outfit. They
were busy folks who most needed tough animals that could lope off fifty
miles at a stretch. They wanted horses whose education included the fine
art of knowing when to settle back on the rope and dig in toes. It was
not a question as to how fast you could do your seven furlongs. It was
more important to know if you could make yourself useful at a round-up.
"'Nother bunch o' them green Eastern horses," grumbled the ranch boss as
the lot was turned into a corral. "But that black fellow'd make a
rustler's mouth water, eh, Lefty?" In answer to which the said Lefty,
being a man little given to speech, grunted.
"We'll brand 'em in the mornin'," added the ranch boss.
Now most steers and all horses object to the branding process. Even the
spiritless little Indian ponies, accustomed to many ingenious kinds of
abuse, rebel at this. A meek-eyed mule, on whom humility rests as an
all-covering robe, must be properly roped before submitting.
In branding they first get a rope over your neck and shut off your wind.
Then they trip your feet by roping your forelegs while you are on the
jump. This brings you down hard and with much abruptness. A cowboy sits
on your head while others pin you to the ground from various
vantage-points. Next someone holds a red-hot iron on your rump until it
has sunk deep into your skin. That is branding.
Well, this thing they did to the black thoroughbred, who had up to that
time felt not so much as the touch of a whip. They did it, but not
before a full dozen cow-punchers had worked themselves into such a fury
of exasperation that no shred of picturesque profanity was left unused
among them.
Quivering with fear and anger, the black, as soon as the ropes were
taken off, dashed madly about the corral looking in vain for a way of
escape from his torturers. Corrals, however, are built to resist just
such dashes. The burn of a branding iron is supposed to heal almost
immediately. Cowboys will tell you that a horse is always more
frightened than hurt during the operation, and that the day after he
feels none the worse.
All this you need not credit. A burn is a burn, whether made purposely
with a branding iron or by accident in any other way. The scorched
flesh puckers and smarts. It hurts every time a leg is moved. It seems
as if a thousand needles were playing a tattoo on the exposed surface.
Neither is this the worst of the business. To a high-strung animal the
roping, throwing, and burning is a tremendous nervous shock. For days
after branding a horse will jump and start, quivering with expectant
agony, at the slightest cause.
It was fully a week before the black thoroughbred was himself again. In
that time he had conceived such a deep and lasting hatred for all men,
cowboys in particular, as only a high-spirited, blue-blooded horse can
acquire. With deep contempt he watched the scrubby little cow ponies as
they doggedly carried about those wild, fierce men who threw their
circling, whistling, hateful ropes, who wore such big, sharp spurs and
who were viciously handy in using their rawhide quirts.
So when a cowboy put a breaking-bit into the black's mouth there was
another lively scene. It was somewhat confused, this scene, but at
intervals one could make out that the man, holding stubbornly to mane
and forelock, was being slatted and slammed and jerked, now with his
feet on the ground, now thrown high in the air and now dangling
perilously and at various angles as the stallion raced away.
In the end, of course, came the whistle of the choking, foot-tangling
ropes, and the black was saddled. For a fierce half hour he took
punishment from bit and spur and quirt. Then, although he gave it up, it
was not that his spirit was broken, but because his wind was gone. Quite
passively he allowed himself to be ridden out on the prairie to where
the herds were grazing.
Undeceived by this apparent docility, the cowboy, when the time came for
him to bunk down under the chuck wagon for a few hours of sleep,
tethered his mount quite securely to a deep-driven stake. Before the
cattleman had taken more than a round dozen of winks the black had
tested his tether to the limit of his strength. The tether stood the
test. A cow pony might have done this much. There he would have stopped.
But the black was a Kentucky thoroughbred, blessed with the inherited
intelligence of noble sires, some of whom had been household pets. So he
investigated the tether at close range.
Feeling the stake with his sensitive upper lip he discovered it to be
firm as a rock. Next he backed away and wrenched tentatively at the
halter until convinced that the throat strap was thoroughly sound. His
last effort must have been an inspiration. Attacking the taut buckskin
rope with his teeth he worked diligently until he had severed three of
the four strands. Then he gathered himself for another lunge. With a
snap the rope parted and the black dashed away into the night, leaving
the cowboy snoring confidently by the camp-fire.
All night he ran, on and on in the darkness, stopping only to listen
tremblingly to the echo of his own hoofs and to sniff suspiciously at
the crouching shadows of innocent bushes. By morning he had left the Bar
L outfit many miles behind, and when the red sun rolled up over the edge
of the prairie he saw that he was alone in a field that stretched
unbroken to the circling sky-line.
Not until noon did the runaway black scent water. Half mad with thirst
he dashed to the edge of a muddy little stream and sucked down a great
draught. As he raised his head he saw standing poised above him on the
opposite bank, with ears laid menacingly flat and nostrils aquiver in
nervous palpitation, a buckskin-colored stallion.
Snorting from fright the black wheeled and ran. He heard behind him a
shrill neigh of challenge and in a moment the thunder of many hoofs.
Looking back he saw fully a score of horses, the buckskin stallion in
the van, charging after him. That was enough. Filling his great lungs
with air he leaped into such a burst of speed that his pursuers soon
tired of the hopeless chase. Finding that he was no longer followed the
black grew curious. Galloping in a circle he gradually approached the
band. The horses had settled down to the cropping of buffalo grass, only
the buckskin stallion, who had taken a position on a little knoll,
remaining on guard.
The surprising thing about this band was that each and every member
seemed riderless. Not until he had taken long up-wind sniffs was the
thoroughbred convinced of this fact. When certain on this point he
cantered toward the band, sniffing inquiringly. Again the buckskin
stallion charged, ears back, eyes gleaming wickedly and snorting
defiantly. This time the black stood his ground until the buckskin's
teeth snapped savagely within a few inches of his throat. Just in time
did he rear and swerve. Twice more--for the paddock-raised black was
slow to understand such behavior--the buckskin charged. Then the black
was roused into aggressiveness.
There ensued such a battle as would have brought delight to the brute
soul of a Nero. With fore-feet and teeth the two stallions engaged,
circling madly about on their hind legs, tearing up great clods of
turf, biting and striking as opportunity offered. At last, by a quick,
desperate rush, the buckskin caught the thoroughbred fairly by the
throat. Here the affair would have ended had not the black stallion,
rearing suddenly on his muscle-ridged haunches and lifting his
opponent's forequarters clear of the ground, showered on his enemy such
a rain of blows from his iron-shod feet that the wild buckskin dropped
to the ground, dazed and vanquished.
Standing over him, with all the fierce pride of a victorious gladiator
showing in every curve of his glistening body, the black thoroughbred
trumpeted out a stentorian call of defiance and command. The band, that
had watched the struggle from a discreet distance, now came galloping
in, whinnying in friendly fashion.
Black Eagle had won his first fight. He had won the leadership. By right
of might he was now chief of this free company of plains rangers. It
was for him to lead whither he chose, to pick the place and hour of
grazing, the time for watering, and his to guard his companions from all
dangers.
As for the buckskin stallion, there remained for him the choice of
humbly following the new leader or of limping off alone to try to raise
a new band. Being a worthy descendant of the chargers which the men of
Cortez rode so fearlessly into the wilds of the New World he chose the
latter course, and, having regained his senses, galloped stiffly toward
the north, his bruised head lowered in defeat.
Some months later Arizona stockmen began to hear tales of a great band
of wild horses, led by a magnificent black stallion which was fleeter
than a scared coyote. There came reports of much mischief. Cattle were
stampeded by day, calves trampled to death, and steers scattered far
and wide over the prairie. By night bunches of tethered cow ponies
disappeared. The exasperated cowboys could only tell that suddenly out
of the darkness had swept down on their quiet camps an avalanche of wild
horses. And generally they caught glimpses of a great black branded
stallion who led the marauders at such a pace that he seemed almost to
fly through the air.
This stallion came to be known as Black Eagle, and to be thoroughly
feared and hated from one end of the cattle country to the other. The
Bar L ranch appeared to be the heaviest loser. Time after time were its
picketed mares run off, again and again were the Bar L herds scattered
by the dash of this mysterious band. Was it that Black Eagle could take
revenge? Cattlemen have queer notions. They put a price on his head. It
was worth six months wages to any cowboy who might kill or capture
Black Eagle.