I Shake Hands with Old Man King.
For the second time in my irresponsible career I stood on the station
platform at Osage and watched the train slide off to the East. It's a
blamed fool who never learns anything by experience, and I never have
accused myself of being a fool--except at odd times--so I didn't land
broke. I had money to pay for several meals, and I looked around for
somebody I knew; Frosty, I hoped.
For the sodden land I had looked upon with such disgust when first I had
seen it, the range lay dimpled in all the enticement of spring. Where
first I had seen dirty snow-banks, the green was bright as our lawn at
home. The hilltops were lighter in shade, and the jagged line of hills in
the far distance was a soft, soft blue, just stopping short of
reddish-purple. I'm not the sort of human that goes wading to his chin in
lights and shades and dim perspectives, and names every tone he can think
of--especially mauve; they do go it strong on mauve--before he's through.
But I did lift my hat to that dimply green reach of prairie, and thanked
God I was there.
I turned toward the hill that hid the town, and there came Frosty driving
the same disreputable rig that had taken me first to the Bay State.
I dropped my suit-case and gripped his hand almost before he had pulled up
at the platform. Lord! but I was glad to see that thin, brown face of his.
"Looks like we'd got to be afflicted with your presence another summer,"
he grinned. "I hope yuh ain't going to claim I coaxed yuh back, because
I took particular pains not to. And, uh course, the boys are just dreading
the sight of yuh. Where's your war-bag, darn yuh?"
How was that for a greeting? It suited me, all right. I just thumped
Frosty on the back and called him a name that it would make a lady faint
to hear, and we laughed like a couple of fools.
I'm not on oath, perhaps, but still I feel somehow bound to tell
all the truth, and not to pass myself off for a saint. So I will say
that Frosty and I had a celebration, that night; an Osage, Montana,
celebration, with all the fixings. Know the brand--because if you don't,
I'd hang before I'd tell just how many shots we put through ceilings,
or how we rent the atmosphere outside. You see, I was glad to get back,
and Frosty was glad to have me back; and since neither of us are
the fall-on-your-neck-and-put-a-ring-on-your-finger kind, we had
to exuberate some other way; and, as Frosty, would put it, "We sure did."
I can't say we felt quite so exuberant next morning, but we were willing
to take our medicine, and started for the ranch all serene. I won't say a
word about mauves and faint ambers and umbras, but I do want to give that
country a good word, as it looked that morning to me. It was great.
There are plenty of places can put it all over that Osage country for
straight scenery, but I never saw such a contented-looking place as that
big prairie-land was that morning. I've seen it with the tears running
down its face, and pretty well draggled and seedy; but when we started out
with the sun shining against our cheeks and the hills looking so warm and
lazy and the hollows kind of smiling to themselves over something, and the
prairie-dogs gossiping worse than a ladies' self-culture meeting, I tell
you, it all looked good to me, and I told Frosty so.
"I'd rather be a forty-dollar puncher in this man's land," I enthused,
"than a lily-of-the-field somewhere in civilization."
"In other words," Frosty retorted sarcastically, "you _think_ you prefer
the canned vegetables and contentment, as the Bible says, to corn-fed
beefsteak and homesickness thereby. But you wait till yuh get to the ranch
and old Perry Potter puts yuh through your paces. You'll thank the Lord
every Sundown that yuh _ain't_ a forty-dollar man that has got to drill
right along or get fired; you'll pat yourself on the back more than once
that you've got a cinch on your job and can lay off whenever yuh feel like
it. From all the signs and tokens, us Ragged H punchers'll be wise to
trade our beds off for lanterns to ride by. Your dad's bought a lot more
cattle, and they've drifted like hell; we've got to cover mighty near the
whole State uh Montana and part uh South Africa to gather them in."
"You're a blamed pessimist," I told him, "and you can't give me cold feet
that easy. If you knew how I ache to get a good horse under me--"
"Thought they had horses out your way," Frosty cut in.
"A range-horse, you idiot, and a range-saddle. I did ride some on a
fancy-gaited steed with a saddle that resembled a porus plaster and
stirrups like a lady's bracelet; it didn't fill the aching void a little
bit."
"Well, maybe yuh won't feel any aching void out here," he said, "but if
yuh follow round-up this season you'll sure have plenty of other brands of
ache."
I told him I'd be right with them at the finish, and he needn't to worry
any about me. Pretty soon I'll show you how well I kept my word. We rode
and rode, and handed out our experiences to each other, and got to
Pochette's that night. I couldn't help remembering the last time I'd been
over that trail, and how rocky I felt about things. Frosty said he wasn't
worried about that walk of his into Pochette's growing dim in his memory,
either.
Well, then, we got to Pochette's--I think I have remarked the fact. And at
Pochette's, just unharnessing his team, limped my friend of White Divide,
old King. Funny how a man's view-point will change when there's a girl
cached somewhere in the background. Not even the memory of Shylock's
stiffening limbs could bring me to a mood for war. On the contrary, I felt
more like rushing up and asking him how were all the folks, and when did
Beryl expect to come home. But not Frosty; he drove phlegmatically up so
that there was just comfortable space for a man to squeeze between our rig
and King's, hopped out, and began unhooking the traces as if there wasn't
a soul but us around. King was looping up the lines of his team, and he
glared at us across the backs of his horses as if we were--well,
caterpillars at a picnic and he was a girl with nice clothes and a fellow
and a set of nerves. His next logical move would be to let out a squawk
and faint, I thought; in which case I should have started in to do the
comforting, with a dipper of water from the pump. He didn't faint, though.
I walked around and let down the neck-yoke, and his eyes followed me with
suspicion. "Hello, Mr. King," I sang out in a brazen attempt to hypnotize
him into the belief we were friends. "How's the world using you, these
days?"
"Huh!" grunted the unhypnotized one, deep in his chest.
Frosty straightened up and looked at me queerly; he said afterward that he
couldn't make out whether I was trying to pull off a gun fight, or had
gone dippy.
But I was only in the last throes of exuberance at being in the country at
all, and I didn't give a damn what King thought; I'd made up my mind to be
sociable, and that settled it.
"Range is looking fine," I remarked, snapping the inside checks back into
the hame-rings. "Stock come through the winter in good shape?" Oh, I had
my nerve right along with me.
"You go to hell," advised King, bringing out each word fresh-coined and
shiny with feeling.
"I was headed that way," I smiled across at him, "but at the last minute
I gave Montana first choice; I knew you were still here, you see."
He let go the bridle of the horse he was about to lead away to the stable,
and limped around so that he stood within two feet of me. "Yuh want to--"
he began, and then his mouth stayed open and silent.
I had reached out and got him by the hand, and gave him a grip--the grip
that made all the fellows quit offering their paws to me in Frisco.
"Put it there, King!" I cried idiotically and as heartily as I knew how.
"Glad to see you. Dad's well and busy as usual, and sends regards. How's
your good health?"
He was squirming good and plenty, by that time, and I let him go. I acted
the fool, all right, and I don't tell it to have any one think I was a
smart young sprig; I'm just putting it out straight as it happened.
Frosty stood back, and I noticed, out of the tail of my eye, that he was
ready for trouble and expecting it to come in bunches; and I didn't know,
myself, but what I was due for new ventilators in my system.
But King never did a thing but stand and hold his hand and look at me.
I couldn't even guess at what he thought. In half a minute or less he got
his horse by the bridle again--with his left hand--and went limping off
ahead of us to the stable, saying things in his collar.
"You blasted fool," Frosty muttered to me. "You've done it real pretty,
this time. That old Siwash'll cut your throat, like as not, to pay for all
those insulting remarks and that hand-shake."
"First time I ever insulted a man by shaking hands and telling him I was
glad to see him," I retorted. "And I don't think it will be necessary for
you to stand guard over my jugular to-night, either. That old boy will
take a lot of time to study out the situation, if I'm any judge. You won't
hear a peep out of him, and I'll bet money on it."
"All right," said Frosty, and his tone sounded dubious. "But you're the
first Ragged H man that has ever walked up and shook hands with the old
devil. Perry Potter himself wouldn't have the nerve."
Now, that was a compliment, but I don't believe I took it just the way
Frosty meant I should. I was proud as thunder to have him call me a
"Ragged H man" so unconsciously. It showed that he really thought of me
simply as one of the boys; that the "son and heir" view-point--oh, that
had always rankled, deep down where we bury unpleasant things in our
memory--had been utterly forgotten. So the tribute to my nerve didn't go
for anything beside that. I was a "Ragged H man," on the same footing as
the rest of them. It's silly owning it, but it gave me a little tingle of
pleasure to have one of dad's men call dad's son and heir "a blasted
fool." I don't believe the Lord made me an aristocrat.
We didn't see anything more of King till supper was called. At Pochette's
you sit down to a long table covered with dark-red mottled oilcloth and
sprinkled with things to eat, and watch that your elbow doesn't cause your
nearest neighbor to do the sword-swallowing act involuntarily and
disastrously with his knife, or--you don't eat. Frosty and I had walked
down to the ferry-crossing while we waited, and then were late getting
into the game when we heard the summons.
We went in and sat down just as the Chinaman was handing thick cups of
coffee around rather sloppily. From force of habit I looked for my napkin,
remembered that I was in a napkinless region, and glanced up to see if any
one had noticed.
Just across from me old King was pushing back his chair and getting
stiffly upon his feet. He met my eyes squarely--friend or enemy, I like a
man to do that--and scowled.
"Through already?" I reached for the sugar-bowl.
"What's it to you, damn yuh?" he snapped, but we could see at a glance
that King had not begun his meal.
I looked at Frosty, and he seemed waiting for me to say something. So
I said: "Too bad--we Ragged H men are such mighty slow eaters. If it's on
my account, sit right down and make yourself comfortable. I don't mind;
I dare say I've eaten in worse company."
He went off growling, and I leaned back and stirred my coffee as leisurely
as if I were killing time over a bit of crab in the Palace, waiting for my
order to come. Frosty, I observed, had also slowed down perceptibly; and
so we "toyed with the viands" just like a girl in a story--in real life,
I've noticed, girls develop full-grown appetites and aren't ashamed of
them. King went outside to wait, and I'm sure I hope he enjoyed it; I know
we did. We drank three cups of coffee apiece, ate a platter of fried fish,
and took plenty of time over the bones, got into an argument over who was
Lazarus with the fellow at the end of the table, and were too engrossed to
eat a mouthful while it lasted. We had the bad manners to pick our teeth
thoroughly with the wooden toothpicks, and Frosty showed me how to balance
a knife and fork on a toothpick--or, perhaps, it was two--on the edge of
his cup. I tried it several times, but couldn't make it work.
The others had finished long ago and were sitting around next the wall
watching us while they smoked. About that time King put his head in at the
door, and looked at us.
"Just a minute," I cheered him. Frosty began cracking his prune-pits and
eating the meats, and I went at it, too. I don't like prune-pits a little
bit.
The pits finished, Frosty looked anxiously around the table. There was
nothing more except some butter that we hadn't the nerve to tackle
single-handed, and some salt and a bottle of ketchup and the toothpicks.
We went at the toothpicks again; until Frosty got a splinter stuck
between his teeth, and had a deuce of a time getting it out.
"I've heard," he sighed, when the splinter lay in his palm, "that some
state dinners last three or four hours; blamed if I see how they work it.
I'm through. I lay down my hand right here--unless you're willing to
tackle the ketchup. If you are, I stay with you, and I'll eat half." He
sighed again when he promised.
For answer I pushed back my chair. Frosty smiled and followed me out. For
the satisfaction of the righteous I will say that we both suffered from
indigestion that night, which I suppose was just and right.