AND HIS SQUIRREL STORY
The upper range of the Bat Wing was a country by itself. To reach it
they rode due north from Chula Vista, following an old road that had
been fenced so many times that Gloomy Gus became discouraged. Twisting
and turning, driving around through new-made lanes, or jerking a world
of staples and laying the wire on the ground, he toiled on in the wake
of the outfit, which was rounding up spare corners of the unfenced
range. Behind him came the horse wrangler and his helper, doing their
best to keep the remuda out of the barbed-wire, and jerking up more
fence with their ropes than Gus laid down with his nail-puller.
Certainly in that wide, windmill-dotted valley, the open range was a
thing of the past. It was only thirty feet to water, and the nesters
were settling everywhere.
"One more day like that," observed Gloomy Gus as he threw together a
late supper, "and I quit!"
"Me too!" chimed in the wrangler; and the punchers felt much the same.
"A few more years like this last," remarked Henry Lee, gazing gloomily
out across his former estate, "and we'll all quit. But, thank God, they
can't farm the Black Mesa."
On the second day they turned east, crossing the boggy river and
mounting up on a great plateau, and then Bowles saw why Henry Lee's
remark was true. The Black Mesa was high and level, with a wealth of
coarse grass on the flats and wooded hills behind; but hills and flats
alike were covered with a layer of loose rocks that made the land a
wilderness. Even the wagon road on which they traveled was a mere rut
across the rock patch, and from a distance it looked like a ruined stone
wall where the rocks had been thrown to both sides. And the rocks were
black, a scorched, volcanic black, with square corners and uneroded
edges that gashed at the horses' ankles. Deep-cut canons wound
tortuously across the level mesa, their existence unsuspected until the
rider stopped at their brink; and, hidden in their sullen depths, the
scant supply of water was lost to all but the birds.
Yet to the cowboys the landscape was cheering, for there was bunch-grass
between the rocks and not a house in sight. It is hard to please
everybody in this world, but cowboys are easily pleased. All they want
is a good horse and plenty of swing room, and a landscape gardener
couldn't make it better. To Bowles the lower valley had been a wild and
unsettled country, but he found that even the Black Mesa was tame to
these seasoned nomads.
"Jest wait till I take you to the White Mountains," said Brig, as he
rode by his side. "This country has all been fed off till they's nothin'
much left but the rocks--no game nor nothin'. But the Sierra Blancas are
different--that's them over that far ridge."
He pointed at a filmy point of white, half lost between the blue of the
pine-clad mountains and the blue of the sky beyond, and Bowles' heart
leaped up at the sight. At last he was in the Far West--that strange,
elusive country of which so many speak and which is yet so hard to
find--and the untrod wilderness lay before him. The Sierra Blancas, home
of the deer and the bear and the wolf and the savage Apache Indians!
Even in his age and time, there was still a wilderness to conquer and
the terrors of the old frontier to stir the blood.
"How far is it?" he inquired, his eyes questing out the way; and when
Brig told him he reached over and clutched his hand. "Brig," he cried,
"I want to go there. I'd like to go right now!"
He looked across at his partner, but Brigham did not answer, and Bowles
knew what was in his mind.
"Of course, now that you're made foreman----" he began; but Brig smiled
a cynical smile.
"Don't you let that worry you none," he growled. "The way these Texicans
is takin' on, I don't reckon I'll last very long. Hardy Atkins is the
leader of this bunch, and he's bound to git his job back--I'm jest
holdin' on fer spite."
"But how can he get it back?" protested Bowles. "Mr. Lee told me you
were one of the best cowmen he ever knew, and you certainly know the
range all right----"
"Yes, but that ain't it," put in Brig. "Here's the proposition. Henry
Lee is gittin' old--he can't be his own wagon-boss forever, and he's
lookin' round for a man. The man that gits the job will git more than
that--he'll marry Dixie Lee."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried Bowles. "Why should he?"
"Don't know why," answered Brigham doggedly. "Only that's the way it
always goes--and Hardy, he wants Dixie."
"But surely, after the way he conducted himself down at Chula Vista----"
"Oh, that's nothin'," asserted Brigham.
"You think she would marry him?"
"Don't know," grumbled Brig. "She's got us all a-guessin'. All I know
is, I won't last long as a straw-boss. You wait till we git up in the
mountains where old Henry can't git no more hands, and then watch the
fur begin to fly. Didn't they all eat dirt to git took back fer green
hands? Didn't you see 'em talkin' it over? All they got to do now is to
git _us_ fired, and then _they'll_ be the top hands. Huh! That's easy!"
The second-in-command would say no more, but a few days gave token of
the coming storm. As they pulled in at the upper ranch, where cowboys
and "station-men" did duty all the year, the stray men from other
outfits threw in with them again and increased their number to a scant
twenty. Bar Seven was there, after a return to his own headquarters, and
several of the other men; but the men who dwelt in the hills were of a
different breed, with hair long and beards scrubby, and overalls greasy
from lonely cooking; and they looked at Bowles askance.
"Who's that feller?" they asked; and the answer was always the same, if
they asked it of a Texan.
"Oh, that's a young English dude," they said. "He's got his eye on
Dixie."
Strange how these men of the frontier were so quick to read his
heart--Bowles had talked with Dixie Lee only twice in a month but they
had read him like a book. Or perhaps it was just plain jealousy, since
they, too, had their eyes on Dixie--jealousy and a sneaking knowledge
that he had a chance to win. They cast appraising glances at his
expensive saddle, his silver-mounted spurs and eleven-dollar Stetson,
and hated him for his prosperity; they watched him work in the corral,
and scoffed at him for his horsemanship; and when he talked, they
listened to his broad "a's," his soft "r's" and his purling "er's" with
wonder and contempt. Not that they listened very much, for they took
pains to break in on him as grown folks do when a child is speaking; but
they curled their lips at his coming, and exchanged glances behind his
back, and finally, as the work progressed, their hostility began to take
form.
For three days the outfit lay at headquarters while fresh horses were
caught and shod; and here Hardy Atkins and his followers suffered the
humiliation of losing their mounts. As top hands they had taken the pick
of the remuda, the fleetest runners, the gentlest night horses, the
best-reined cutting horses; but now in the reapportionment they found
themselves reduced to "skates and bronks." Three days of shoeing the
skates, and especially the bronks, did not tend to sweeten their tempers
any, and as they moved up to Warm Springs and began to rake the range
the spirit of rebellion broke loose.
Warm Springs lies at the bottom of a gash in the face of the mesa, and
the cow-trails lead to it for miles. Above there is no water, below it
is shut in by the rim of the canon, and the cattle file down the long
trail day and night. Consequently the nearby grass is fed down to the
roots, and the remuda had to be held up on the high mesa. All day the
horse wrangler grazed his charges in distant swales, bringing them in
for water and the horse-changing morning and noon; and at night the
cowboys watched them beneath the cold stars--that is, when they kept
awake.
On the second morning three horses were missing, the next day two more,
and on the next eight horses more were gone and several men were
practically afoot.
"Who let those horses get away?" demanded Henry Lee, as he rounded up
his night herders by the corral.
"Not me!" said the members of the first guard.
"We never stopped ridin'," said the second guard.
"They was gone when we come on," said the third guard.
And the fourth guard swore they were innocent.
"Well, somebody's been asleep--that's all I know!" said Henry Lee; and
he sent off two mountain men on their best mounts to trail the runaways
down and bring them back. Then he listened to the mutual recriminations
of the night herders, and guessed shrewdly at who was at fault. For when
the night herders get to quarreling among themselves, waking each other
up ahead of time, and sleeping on one hand till it slips and wakes them
up, that is a sure sign and precursor of greater troubles to come, and
it calls for an iron hand. Even as he was listening, a row broke out in
the round corral, where the cowboys were roping their mounts.
"Turn that hawse loose!" roared Brigham, suddenly mounting up on the
fence.
"I will not!" retorted the voice of Hardy Atkins from within.
"He belongs to my mount!" protested Brigham with appropriate oaths.
"I don't care whose mount he belongs to!" snarled the ex-straw-boss,
dragging the horse out by the neck. "You top hands mash yore ear all
night and let my hawses drift--and then expect me to walk. You bet yore
boots that don't go--I'll take the best I can find. You can't put _me_
afoot!"
"I'll put you on yore back," rumbled Brigham, dropping truculently down
from his perch, "if you try to git gay with me. You may be from Bitter
Crick, Texas, but you got to whip me before you break into my mount!"
"Well, he's got the Bat Wing brand on 'im," sulked Atkins; "that's all I
know. And as long as they's a hawse left in the remuda----"
"Here, here!" said Henry Lee, walking in on the squabble. "What's all
this about? What are you doing with Brig's hawse, Hardy? Why don't you
ride your own?"
"Well, these hyer nester kids and Mormons went to sleep on guard and let
my top hawses pull--now I got nothin' but bronks to ride!"
"Well, ride 'em, then!" commanded Henry Lee severely. "And, another
thing, Mr. Atkins! Next time you've got a grievance, come to me--don't
try to correct it yourself!"
He regarded his former straw-boss with narrowing eyes, and Atkins roped
out a bronk; but in the evening he took the first occasion to pick a
quarrel with Brigham. They were gathered about the fire in the scant
hour between branding and first guard, and Brigham was telling a story.
As was his custom, Henry Lee had pitched his tent to one side, for he
never mixed with his men; and Brig had the stage to himself.
"Well, you fellers talk about gittin' lost," he was saying; "you ought
to be up in that Malapai country. We had a land-sharp along--claimed to
know the world by sections--and he----"
"Aw, what do you know about the Malapai country?" broke in Atkins
rudely. "You cain't even lead a circle on the Black Mesa and git back to
camp the same day! My hawse give out this mornin' tryin' to----"
"Say," interposed Brigham peaceably, "you know what the boss said this
mornin'--if you got any grievance, tell it to him. I'm tellin' these
gentlemen a story."
"A dam' lie would come nearer to it!" sneered Hardy, curling his lips
with spleen; and at the word Brigham rose swiftly to his feet.
"If you're lookin' fer trouble, Mr. Atkins," he said, taking off his hat
and laying it carefully to one side, "you don't need to go no further.
And if you _ain't_," he cried, suddenly advancing with blood in his eye,
"you take back what you said, or I'll slap yore face off!"
The astounding ease with which he got a rise out of his adversary seemed
to take all the fight out of Hardy Atkins, and he mumbled some vague
words of apology; but Brigham was hard to mollify.
"Well, that's all right," he grumbled. "It ain't my fault if you go on a
drunk and lose yore job, and it ain't my fault if the boss makes me
straw--but don't you try to crowd me, Hardy Atkins, or I'll make you
match yore words. The man never lived that can call me a liar and git
away with it, and I'll thank you to let me alone."
He went back and sat down by the fire, puffing and panting with the
violence of his emotions; but as he gazed thoughtfully into the fire and
no one interrupted his mood he fell into a cynical philosophy.
"Mighty funny about these Tee-hannos," he said, glancing around at the
respectful company. "They say, back in Texas, when a man gits where he
can count fifty they set him to teachin' school--and when he can count
up to a hundred he gits on to himse'f and leaves the cussed country.
Ordinary folks kin only count to twenty--ten fingers and ten toes, like
an Injun. It's sure a fine country to emigrate from."
He looked about with a superior smile, and Buck Buchanan took up the
cudgels for Texas.
"They tell me, Brig," he said, "that them Mormons down on the river
cain't talk no mo'--jest kinder git along by signs and a kind of
sheep-blat they have."
"Nope," answered Brigham; "they is sech people, but they don't live
along the Heely. Them fellers you're thinkin' of is in the goat
business--they don't say _baaa_, like a sheep; they go _maaa_ like a
goat. I've heard tell of them, too. It seems they don't wear no
pants--nothin' but shirts. They live on them goat ranches back in
western Texas."
He paused and looked around for appreciation, but only the nester kids
smiled.
"I was drivin' a bunch of strays down through that Mormon country one
time," explained Buck Buchanan; "that's where I got the idee. That's a
great country, ain't it, Brig? Lots of houses, too. I remember I stopped
one time at a street crossin' and they was houses on all four corners.
They was a lot of kids playin' around, and I asked one of 'em whose
houses they were, and he says: 'My father's.'
"'How comes yore father to have so many houses?' I says. 'Does he rent
'em?'
"'No, sir,' the kid says, 'he lives in 'em. Don't you know him? He's the
bishop!'"
A roar of laughter followed this brutal innuendo, but Brigham was not
set back. His mind had become accustomed to all such jests.
"Aw, you're jealous," he grunted, and let the Gentiles rage until, as
the talk ran on, he gradually assumed the lead.
"That's one thing you'll never find around a Mormon town," he began,
still speaking with philosophical calm; "you'll never find no Texican.
Of course, a Mormon has to work, and that bars most of 'em at the start;
but, I dunno, seems like the first settlers took a prejudice ag'inst
'em. I remember my old man tellin' how it come that way--course they
must be mistaken, but the Mormons think a Texan ain't got no sense.
"It seems the Mormons was the first folks to settle along the Heely, and
my grandpaw was one of the leaders--he killed a lot of Injuns, believe
me! But one day when he was gittin' kinder old and feeble-like, he got a
notion in his head that he wanted a squirrel-skin, and so he called in
my father and said:
"'Son, you take yore rifle and go out and git me a gray squirrel; and be
careful not to shoot 'im in the head, because I want the brains to tan
the skin with.'
"So my father he went up in the pines and hunted around; but the only
squirrel he could find was stickin' his head over the limb, and rather
than not git nothin' he shot him anyhow. Well, he brought him back to
the old man and he said to 'im:
"'I'm mighty sorry, Dad; the squirrels was awful scarce, and rather than
not git any I had to shoot this one through the head.'
"'Oh, that's all right,' the old man says. 'You got a nice skin anyway,
and I reckon we can fix it somehow. I tell you what you do. They's a
bunch of Texans camped down by the lower water--you go down and kill one
of them, and mebbe we can use _his_ brains.'"
Brigham paused and looked around with squinched-up, twinkling eyes; and
at last Buck Buchanan broke the dramatic silence.
"Well," he demanded roughly, "what's the joke?"
"Well, sir," ran on Brig, "you wouldn't hardly believe it, but my old
man had to kill six of them Texicans to git brains enough to tan that
squirrel-skin! That's why they won't take 'em into the church."