OLD SAM PAUL MAKES A PROPOSITION
Jean arrived on the next boat three days later, with a tragic tale of
missed connections. It seemed to Angus that the few months of absence
had made quite a difference. She seemed, in fact, almost a young lady,
even to his brotherly eye.
But however she had changed she had not lost her grip on practical
things, and when she began to look around the house Angus and Turkey
found that their trouble in cleaning up had been wasted. For Jean dug
into corners, and under and behind things where, as Turkey said, nobody
but a girl would ever think of looking; and in such obscure and
out-of-the-way places she found some dirt, some articles discarded or
lost, and the more or less permanent abode of Tom and Matilda.
Tom and Matilda were mice, which had become thoroughly tame and
domesticated. In the evenings Rennie fed them oatmeal and scraps of
cheese, chuckling to see them sit up on their hunkers and polish their
whiskers and wink their beady, little eyes, and all hands had united in
keeping the cats out. Everybody had regarded Tom and Matilda as good
citizens; and they had developed a simple and touching trust in mankind.
But Jean broke up their home ruthlessly, with exclamations of disgust;
and commandeering all the men for a day, turned the house inside out,
beat, swept, washed and scrubbed; and then put everything back again.
She professed to see a great difference, but nobody else agreed with
her.
"The only difference I see," said Turkey, "is that I don't know where to
find a darn thing."
"Well, you won't find it on the floor, or under a heap of rubbish six
months old," Jean told him.
"Oh, all right," Turkey grumbled. "Now you've got all our things mixed
up maybe you'll be satisfied."
Jean appealed to Angus, who agreed with Turkey. Whereat Jean sniffed and
left them to their opinions.
Angus was a little apprehensive of his first meeting Blake French, but
to his relief the latter chose to ignore what had occurred. Rather to
his surprise Kathleen rode over to call on Jean, and the two girls
struck up a certain friendship. Thus Angus saw more of Kathleen and her
people than he had ever done before, including the head of the family,
Godfrey French himself.
Godfrey French, though well on in years, was still erect and spare. He
had a cold, blue eye, much like Gavin's, but now a trifle weary, and a
slightly bent cynical mouth beneath a white moustach. He was invariably
courteous and dignified, and whatever might be said of his sons, there
was no doubt that the father possessed the ingrained manner of a
gentleman. Yet Angus did not like him, and he thought that old French
had little or no use for him. Somehow, French put him in mind of a
gray-muzzled old fox.
One day in mid-summer as Angus sat in the shade of the workshop mending
a broken harness, old Paul Sam on his single-footing pony drew up at the
door.
"'Al-lo!" he greeted.
"Hello, Paul Sam," Angus returned. "You feel skookum to-day?"
"Skookum, me," the Indian replied. "Skookum, you?"
"Skookum, me," Angus told him.
The old man got off his pony, sat down on an empty box, and drew out an
old buckskin, bead-worked fire-bag. From this he produced a stone pipe
bowl and a reed stem. Fitting the two together he filled the bowl and
smoked.
This, Angus knew, was diplomacy. Whatever the Indian had come for, not a
word concerning it would he say till he had had his smoke. Then it would
probably be unimportant. So Angus waited in silence, and Paul Sam smoked
in silence. Finally the latter tapped out and unjointed his pipe and put
it away in his fire-bag.
"Me got cooley kuitan," he announced.
"Cooley" is apparently a corruption of the French word "courir," to run.
"Kuitan" is a horse. Hence a "cooley kuitan" in Chinook signifies a race
horse.
Angus shook his head. He knew very well what Sam Paul intended doing
with this race horse. There was a local race meet each year, in
connection with the local fair. The race meet outsized the fair, dwarfed
it in interest. It drew tin horns and sure-thing gamblers as fresh meat
draws flies. These gentry ran various games, open when they could and
under cover when they could not. Then there were men with a seasoned old
ringer under a new name, or a couple of skates with which to pull off a
faked match race. There were various races, but the big event was a mile
for horses locally owned. There was some excellent stock in the country,
and great rivalry developed.
In this race each year the Indians had entered some alleged running
horse and backed it gamely. But each year they lost, their horses being
neither trained nor ridden properly, and being completely outclassed as
well; for as a rule they were merely good saddle cayuses and
overweighted at that. This year French's horse, a beautiful, bright bay
named Flambeau, seemed likely to win. Angus had seen him and admired
him. Therefore he shook his head.
"You only think you've got a cooley kuitan," he said. "Keep out of that
race, Paul Sam. You'll only lose money."
"Him good," the Indian insisted. "S'pose him get good rider him win.
Injun boy no good to ride. Injun boy all right in Injun race; no good in
white man's race."
"That's true enough," Angus agreed. "Injun boy don't kumtux the game.
Well, what about it?"
"Mebbe-so you catch white boy to ride um?" Paul Sam suggested.
"Do you mean Turkey?" Angus queried.
"Ha-a-lo," Paul Sam negatived. "White boy, all same ride white man's
horse."
"A jockey! Where would I get you a jockey?"
But that detail was none of Paul Sam's business.
"You catch um jock!" he said hopefully.
"But I don't know where to get one. A jockey would cost money, and you
wouldn't win, anyway. You Injuns start a horse every year, and you never
have one that has a lookin. You'd better get the idea out of your head."
But an idea once implanted in an Indian's head is apt to stay. Paul Sam
grinned complacently.
"Me got dam' good cooley kuitan. Me kumtux kuitan."
He told Angus the history of his horse, as he knew it. Stripped of
details, it amounted to this: Some five years before a fine English mare
which had been the property of a deceased remittance man, had been
auctioned off. She was in foal, and the colt in due course had been
sold, and in some obscure and involved cattle deal had become the
property of Paul Sam, who had let him run with his cayuses. When he
broke him to the saddle he found him remarkably fast. Being a real fox,
he said nothing about the colt's turn of speed, but bided his time. Now,
in his opinion, he could make a killing and spoil the Egyptian, alias
the white man, if only the colt were properly trained and ridden. He
applied to Angus for help, as being the son of his tillikum, Adam
Mackay. He invited him out to inspect the horse.
Angus went and took Dave Rennie. The horse which Paul Sam led forth for
inspection was a big, slashing four-year-old, with a good head, an
honest eye, deep chest and clean, flat limbs. Every line of him told of
power and endurance; and to the eye which could translate power into
terms of speed, of the latter as well. Rennie whistled softly.
"He looks to me like he had real blood in him. He's a weight carrier.
English hunting stock, I sh'd say. Some of 'em can run, all right. If
the mare was in foal when she was brought out, I wouldn't wonder if this
boy's sire was real class. He looks it." The big horse reached out a
twitching muzzle to investigate. Rennie stroked the velvet nose. "Kind
as a kitten, too. He seems to have the build, but that don't say he can
run."
"Him run," Paul Sam affirmed. "You ride him."
He cinched an old stock saddle on the chestnut, and Rennie mounted. He
cantered easily across the flat and back.
"He's easy as an old rocker and light as a driftin' cloud," he said.
"The bit worries him, though. He needs rubber. You get on him, and see
what a real horse feels like."
Angus lengthened the stirrups and swung up. As soon as he felt the
motion he knew he was astride a wondrous piece of mechanism. The
undulating lift of the big chestnut was as easy and effortless and
sustained as a smooth, rolling swell. Of his own accord the horse
quickened his pace from the easy sling of the canter to a long,
stretching, hand-gallop, drawing great lungfuls of air, shaking his
head, rejoicing in his own motion, glad to be doing the work he was
fitted for. At the end of the little flat Angus pulled up and turned.
Rennie's distant shout came faintly:
"Let him come!"
Breathing the horse for a moment, Angus loosed him from the canter to
the gallop and then, as he felt the coil and uncoil of the splendid
muscles, and the swell and quiver of the body, and the increasing reach
and stretch of the ever-quickening stride, he let him run.
All his life Angus had ridden ponies, cayuses, but now he had a new
experience. The big chestnut, as he was given his head, made half a
dozen great bounds and then, steadying himself, he stretched his neck,
his body seemed to sink and straighten, and with muzzle almost in line
with his ears he began to put forth the speed that was in him. The rapid
drum of his hoofs quickened to a roar; the wind sang in Angus' ears; the
figures of Paul and Sam and Rennie seemed to come toward him, and he
shot past them and gradually eased the willing horse to canter and
walk.
"Him cooley kuitan, hey?" Paul Sam grinned. "You catch um jock?"
"But I don't know where to get one," Angus replied.
"Well," said Rennie, "I don't know where to get no regular jockey, but I
know an old has-been that used to ride twenty years ago, before he got
smashed up. I dunno 's he'd ride now, in a race, but he could put the
horse in shape. He's got a fruit and chicken ranch somewheres on the
coast. Me and him was kids together, and he might come if I asked him.
Only he wouldn't do it for nothing."
"You catch um," said Paul Sam. "Me pay um. Mebbe-so me win hiyu dolla!"