[Illustration: "A man's plumb crazy to go round blatting all he
knows"]
The Happy Family
BY
B.M. BOWER
(B.M. SINCLAIR)
AUTHOR OF
"Chip of the Flying U," "The Range Dwellers," "Her Prairie
Knight," "The Lure of the Dim Trails," "The Lonesome Trail,"
"The Long Shadow," Etc.
G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
_1907, 1909, 1910, by_ STREET & SMITH.
_1910, by_ G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY.
_The Happy Family_.
To B.W.V.
_"... met the Ananias of the cow camp. I have knocked about cow
camps, mining camps, railroad and telegraph camps, and kicked
up alkali dust for many a weary mile on the desert. Yet
wherever I went I never failed to meet him. He is part and
parcel of every outfit.... He is indispensable, irresistible,
and incorrigible; and while in but few cases can he be held a
thing of beauty, he is certainly a joy forever--at least to
those who have known his type with some degree of
understanding...."_
From a letter.
CONTENTS.
ANANIAS GREEN 7
BLINK 35
MISS MARTIN'S MISSION 61
HAPPY JACK, WILD MAN 90
A TAMER OF WILD ONES 118
ANDY, THE LIAR 178
"WOLF! WOLF!" 210
FOOL'S GOLD 241
LORDS OF THE POTS AND PANS 269
* * * * *
THE HAPPY FAMILY
* * * * *
ANANIAS GREEN
Pink, because he knew well the country and because Irish, who also
knew it well, refused pointblank to go into it again even as a rep,
rode alone except for his horses down into the range of the Rocking R.
General roundup was about to start, down that way, and there was stock
bought by the Flying U which ranged north of the Bear Paws.
It so happened that the owner of the Rocking R was entertaining a
party of friends at the ranch; it also happened that the friends were
quite new to the West and its ways, and they were intensely interested
in all pertaining thereto. Pink gathered that much from the crew,
besides observing much for himself. Hence what follows after.
Sherwood Branciforte was down in the blacksmith shop at the Rocking R,
watching one Andy Green hammer a spur-shank straight. Andy was what he
himself called a tamer of wild ones, and he was hard upon his riding
gear. Sherwood had that morning watched with much admiration the
bending of that same spur-shank, and his respect for Andy was
beautiful to behold.
"Lord, but this is a big, wild country," he was saying
enthusiastically, "and the people in it are big and--"
"Wild," supplied Andy. "Yes, you've just about got us sized up
correct." He went on hammering, and humming under his breath, and
thinking that, while admiration is all right in its time and place, it
is sometimes a bit wearisome.
"Oh, but I didn't mean that," the young man protested. "What I meant
was breezy and picturesque. Things can happen, out here. Life and men
don't run in grooves."
"No, nor horses," assented Andy. "Leastways, not in oiled ones." He
was remembering how that spur-shank had become bent.
"You did some magnificent riding, this morning. By Jove! I've never
seen anything like it. Strange that one can come out here into a part
of the country absolutely new and raw, and see things--"
"Oh, it ain't so raw as you might think," Andy defended jealously,
"nor yet new."
"Of course it is new! A commonwealth in the making. You can't," he
asserted triumphantly, "point to anything man-made that existed a
hundred years ago; scarcely fifty, either. Your civilization is yet in
the cradle--a lusty infant, and a--er--vociferous one, but still an
infant in swaddling clothes." Sherwood Branciforte had given lectures
before the Y.M.C.A. of his home town, and young ladies had spoken of
him as "gifted," and he had come to hear of it, and to believe.
Andy Green squinted at the shank before he made reply. Andy, also, was
"gifted," in his modest Western way.
"A country that can now and then show the papers for a civilization
old as the Phenixes of Egypt," he said, in a drawling tone that was
absolutely convincing, "ain't what I'd call raw." He decided that a
little more hammering right next the rowel was necessary, and bent
over the anvil solicitously. Even the self-complacency of Sherwood
Branciforte could not fail to note his utter indifference to the
presence and opinions of his companion. Branciforte was accustomed to
disputation at times--even to enmity; but not to indifference. He
blinked. "My dear fellow, do you realize what it is that statement
might seem to imply?" he queried haughtily.
Andy, being a cowpuncher of the brand known as a "real," objected
strongly both to the term and the tone. He stood up and stared down at
the other disapprovingly. "I don't as a general thing find myself
guilty of talking in my sleep," he retorted, "and I'm prepared to let
anything I say stand till the next throw. We may be some vociferous,
out here twixt the Mississippi and the Rockies, but we ain't no
infant-in-the-cradle, Mister. We had civilization here when the
Pilgrim Fathers' rock wasn't nothing but a pebble to let fly at the
birds!"
"Indeed!" fleered Sherwood Branciforte, in a voice which gave much
intangible insult to one's intelligence.
Andy clicked his teeth together, which was a symptom it were well for
the other to recognize but did not. Then Andy smiled, which was
another symptom. He fingered the spur absently, laid it down and
reached, with the gesture that betrays the act as having become second
nature, for his papers and tobacco sack.
"Uh course, you mean all right, and you ain't none to blame for what
you don't know, but you're talking wild and scattering. When you stand
up and tell me I can't point to nothing man-made that's fifty years
old, or a hundred, you make me feel sorry for yuh. I can take you to
something--or I've seen something--that's older than swearing; and I
reckon that art goes back to when men wore their hair long and a
sheep-pelt was called ample for dress occasions."
"Are you crazy, man?" Sherwood Branciforte exclaimed incredulously.
"Not what you can notice. You wait whilst I explain. Once last fall I
was riding by my high lonesome away down next the river, when my horse
went lame on me from slipping on a shale bank, and I was set afoot. Uh
course, you being plumb ignorant of our picturesque life, you don't
half know all that might signify to _imply_." This last in open
imitation of Branciforte. "It implies that I was in one hell of a fix,
to put it elegant. I was sixty miles from anywhere, and them sixty
half the time standing on end and lapping over on themselves. That
there is down where old mama Nature gave full swing to a morbid
hankering after doing things unconventional. Result is, that it's
about as ungodly a mixture of nightmare scenery as this old world can
show up; and I've ambled around considerable and am in a position to
pass judgment.
"So there I was, and I wasn't in no mood to view the beauties uh
nature to speak of; for instance, I didn't admire the clouds sailing
around promiscous in the sky, nor anything like that. I was high and
dry and the walking was about as poor as I ever seen; and my boots was
high-heel and rubbed blisters before I'd covered a mile of that
acrobatic territory. I wanted water, and I wanted it bad. Before I got
it I wanted it a heap worse." He stopped, cupped his slim fingers
around a match-blaze, and Branciforte sat closer. He did not know what
was coming, but the manner of the indifferent narrator was compelling.
He almost forgot the point at issue in the adventure.
"Along about dark, I camped for the night under a big, bare-faced
cliff that was about as homelike and inviting as a charitable
institution, and made a bluff at sleeping and cussed my bum luck in a
way that wasn't any bluff. At sun-up I rose and mooched on." His
cigarette needed another match and he searched his pockets for one.
"What about the--whatever it was you started to tell me?" urged
Branciforte, grown impatient.
Andy looked him over calmly. "You've lived in ignorance for about
thirty years or so--giving a rough guess at your age; I reckon you can
stand another five minutes. As I was saying, I wandered around like a
dogy when it's first turned loose on the range and is trying to find
the old, familiar barn-yard and the skim-milk bucket. And like the
dogy, I didn't run across anything that looked natural or inviting.
All that day I perambulated over them hills, and I will say I wasn't
enjoying the stroll none. You're right when you say things can happen,
out here. There's some things it's just as well they don't happen too
frequent, and getting lost and afoot in the Bad-lands is one.
"That afternoon I dragged myself up to the edge of a deep coulee and
looked over to see if there was any way of getting down. There was a
bright green streak down there that couldn't mean nothing but water,
at that time of year; this was last fall. And over beyond, I could see
the river that I'd went and lost. I looked and looked, but the walls
looked straight as a Boston's man's pedigree. And then the sun come
out from behind a cloud and lit up a spot that made me forget for a
minute that I was thirsty as a dog and near starved besides.
"I was looking down on the ruins--and yet it was near perfect--of an
old castle. Every stone stood out that clear and distinct I could have
counted 'em. There was a tower at one end, partly fell to pieces but
yet enough left to easy tell what it was. I could see it had kinda
loop-holes in it. There was an open place where I took it the main
entrance had used to be; what I'd call the official entrance. But
there was other entrances besides, and some of 'em was made by time
and hard weather. There was what looked like awhat-you-may-call-'em--
a ditch thing, yuh mind, running around my side of it, and a bridge
business. Uh course, it was all needing repairs bad, and part of it
yuh needed to use your imagination on. I laid there for quite a spell
looking it over and wondering how the dickens it come to be way down
there. It didn't look to me like it ought to be there at all, but in a
school geography or a history where the chapter is on historic and
prehistoric hangouts uh the heathen."
"The deuce! A castle in the Bad-lands!" ejaculated Branciforte.
"That's what it was, all right. I found a trail it would make a
mountain sheep seasick to follow, and I got down into the coulee. It
was lonesome as sin, and spooky; but there was a spring close by, and
a creek running from it; and what is a treat in that part uh the
country, it was good drinking and didn't have neither alkali nor
sulphur nor mineral in it. It was just straight water, and you can
gamble I filled up on it a-plenty. Then I shot a rabbit or two that
was hanging out around the ruins, and camped there till next day, when
I found a pass out, and got my bearings by the river and come on into
camp. So when you throw slurs on our plumb newness and shininess, I've
got the cards to call yuh. That castle wasn't built last summer,
Mister. And whoever did build it was some civilized. So there yuh
are."
Andy took a last, lingering pull at the cigarette stub, flung it into
the backened forge, and picked up the spur. He settled his hat on his
head at its accustomed don't-give-a-darn tilt, and started for the
door and the sunlight.
"Oh, but say! didn't you find out anything about it afterwards? There
must have been something--"
"If it's relics uh the dim and musty past yuh mean, there was; relics
to burn. I kicked up specimens of ancient dishes, and truck like that,
while I was prowling around for fire-wood. And inside the castle, in
what I reckon was used for the main hall, I run acrost a skeleton.
That is, part of one. I don't believe it was all there, though."
"But, man alive, why haven't you made use of a discovery like that?"
Branciforte followed him out, lighting his pipe with fingers that
trembled. "Don't you realize what a thing like that means?"
Andy turned and smiled lazily down at him. "At the time I was there, I
was all took up with the idea uh getting home. I couldn't eat
skeletons, Mister, nor yet the remains uh prehistoric dishes. And I
didn't run acrost no money, nor no plan marked up with crosses where
you're supposed to do your excavating for treasure. It wasn't nothing,
that I could see, for a man to starve to death while he examined it
thorough. And so far as I know there ain't any record of it. I never
heard no one mention building it, anyhow." He stooped and adjusted the
spur to his heel to see if it were quite right, and went off to the
stable humming under his breath.
Branciforte stood at the door of the blacksmith shop and gazed after
him, puffing meditatively at his pipe. "Lord! the ignorance of these
Western folk! To run upon a find like that, and to think it less
important than getting home in time for supper. To let a discovery
like that lie forgotten, a mere incident in a day's travel! That
fellow thinks more, right now, about his horse going lame and himself
raising blisters on his heels, than of--Jove, what ignorance! He--he
couldn't _eat_ the skeleton or the dishes! Jerusalem!" Branciforte
knocked his pipe gently against the door-casing, put in into his coat
pocket and hurried to the house to hunt up the others and tell them
what he had heard.
That night the roundup pulled in to the home ranch.
The visitors, headed by their host, swooped down upon the roundup
wagons just when the boys were gathered together for a cigarette or
two apiece and a little talk before rolling in. There was no
night-guarding to do, and trouble winged afar. Sherwood Branciforte
hunted out Andy Green where he lay at ease with head and shoulders
propped against a wheel of the bed-wagon and gossipped with Pink and a
few others.
"Look here, Green," he said in a voice to arrest the attention of the
whole camp, "I wish you'd tell the others that tale you told me this
afternoon--about that ruined castle down in the hills. Mason, here, is
a newspaper man; he scents a story for his paper. And the rest refuse
to believe a word I say."
"I'd hate to have a rep like that, Mr. Branciforte," Andy said
commiseratingly, and turned his big, honest gray eyes to where stood
the women--two breezy young persons with sleeves rolled to tanned
elbows and cowboy hats of the musical comedy brand. Also they had gay
silk handkerchiefs knotted picturesquely around their throats. There
was another, a giggly, gurgly lady with gray hair fluffed up into a
pompadour. You know the sort. She was the kind who refuses to grow
old, and so merely grows imbecile.
"Do tell us, Mr. Green," this young old lady urged, displaying much
gold by her smile. "It sounds so romantic."
"It's funny you never mentioned it to any of us," put in the "old man"
suspiciously.
Andy pulled himself up into a more decorous position, and turned his
eyes towards his boss. "I never knew yuh took any interest in
relic-hunting," he explained mildly.
"Sherwood says you found a _skeleton!_" said the young old lady,
shuddering pleasurably.
"Yes, I did find one--or part of one," Andy admitted reluctantly.
"What were the relics of pottery like?" demanded one of the
cowboy-hatted girls, as if she meant to test him. "I do some
collecting of that sort of thing."
Andy threw away his cigarette, and with it all compunction. "Well, I
wasn't so much interested in the dishes as in getting something to
eat," he apologized. "I saw several different kinds. One was a big,
awkward looking thing and was pretty heavy, and had straight sides.
Then I come across one or two more that was ornamented some. One had
what looked like a fish on it, and the other I couldn't make out very
well. They didn't look to be worth much, none of 'em."
"Green," said his employer steadily, "_was_ there such a place?"
Andy returned his look honestly. "There was, and there is yet, I
guess," he asserted. "I'll tell you how you can find it and what it's
like--if yuh doubt my words." He glanced around and found every man,
including the cook, listening intently. He picked a blade of new grass
and began splitting it into tiny threads. The host found boxes for the
women to sit upon, and the men sat down upon the grass.
"Before I come here to work, I was riding for the Circle C. One day I
was riding away down in the Bad-lands alone and my horse slipped in
some shale rock and went lame; strained his shoulder so I couldn't
ride him. That put me afoot, and climbing up and down them hills I
lost my bearings and didn't know where I was at for a day or two. I
wandered around aimless, and got into a strip uh country that was new
to me and plumb lonesome and wild.
"That second day is when I happened across this ruin. I was looking
down into a deep, shut-in coulee, hunting water, when the sun come out
and shone straight on to this place. It was right down under me; a
stone ruin, with a tower on one end and kinda tumbled down so it
wasn't so awful high--the tower wasn't. There was a--a--"
"Moat," Branciforte suggested.
"That's the word--a moat around it, and a bridge that was just about
gone to pieces. It had loopholes, like the pictures of castles, and
a--"
"Battlement?" ventured one of the musical-comedy cowgirls.
Andy had not meant to say battlement; of a truth, his conception of
battlements was extremely hazy, but he caught up the word and warmed
to the subject. "Battlement? well I should guess yes! There was about
as elegant a battlement as I'd want to see anywhere. It was sure a
peach. It was--" he hesitated for a fraction of a second. "It was high
as the tower, and it had figures carved all over it; them kind that
looks like kid-drawing in school, with bows and arrows stuck out in
front of 'em, threatening."
"Not the old Greek!" exclaimed one of the girls in a little,
breathless voice.
"I couldn't say as to that," Andy made guarded reply. "I never made no
special study of them things. But they was sure old. And--"
"About how large was the castle?" put in the man who wrote things.
"How many rooms, say?"
"I'd hate to give a guess at the size. I didn't step it off, and I'm a
punk guesser. The rooms I didn't count. I only explored around in the
main hall, like, a little. But it got dark early, down in there, and I
didn't have no matches to waste. And next morning I started right out
at sun-up to find the way home. No, I never counted the rooms, and if
I had, the chances are I'd have likely counted the same one more'n
once; to count them rooms would take an expert, which I ain't--not at
counting. I don't reckon, though, that there was so awful many.
Anyway, not more than fifteen or twenty. But as I say, I couldn't
rightly make a guess, even; or I'd hate to. Ruins don't interest me
much, though I was kinda surprised to run acrost that one, all right,
and I'm willing to gamble there was warm and exciting times down there
when the place was in running order. I'd kinda like to have been down
there then. Last fall, though, there wasn't nothing to get excited
over, except getting out uh there."
"A castle away out here! Just think, good people, what that means!
Romance, adventure and scientific discoveries! We must go right down
there and explore the place. Why can't we start at once--in the
morning? This gentleman can guide us to the place, and--"
"It ain't easy going," Andy remarked, conscientiously. "It's pretty
rough; some places, you'd have to walk and lead your horses."
They swept aside the discouragement.
"We'd need pick and shovels, and men to dig," cried one enthusiast.
"Uncle Peter can lend us some of his men. There may be treasure to
unearth. There may be _anything_ that is wonderful and mysterious. Get
busy, Uncle Peter, and get your outfit together; you've boasted that a
roundup can beat the army in getting under way quickly, now let us
have a practical demonstration. We want to start by six o'clock--all
of us, with a cook and four or five men to do the excavating. Bring it
to pass!" It was the voice of the girl whom her friends spoke of as
"The life of the party;" the voice of the-girl-who-does-things.
"It's sixty-five miles from here, good and strong--and mostly up and
down," put in Andy.
"'Quoth the raven,'" mocked the-girl-who-does-things. "We are prepared
to face the ups-and-downs. Do we start at six, Uncle Peter?"
Uncle Peter glanced sideways at the roundup boss. To bring it to pass,
he would be obliged to impress the roundup cook and part of the crew.
It was breaking an unwritten law of the rangeland, and worse, it was
doing something unbusiness-like and foolish. But not even the owner of
the Rocking R may withstand the pleading of a pretty woman. Uncle
Peter squirmed, but he promised:
"We start at six; earlier if you say so."
The roundup boss gave his employer a look of disgust and walked away;
the crew took it that he went off to some secluded place to swear.
Thereafter there was much discussion of ways and means, and much
enthusiasm among the visitors from the East--equalled by the
depression of the crew, for cowboys do not, as a rule, take kindly to
pick and shovel, and the excavators had not yet been chosen from among
them. They were uneasy, and they stole frequent, betraying glances at
one another. All of which amused Pink much. Pink would like to have
gone along, and would certainly have offered his services, but for the
fact that his work there was done and he would have to start back to
the Flying U just as soon as one of his best saddle horses, which had
stepped on a broken beer bottle and cut its foot, was able to travel.
That would be in a few days, probably. So Pink sighed and watched the
preparations enviously.
Since he was fairly committed into breaking all precedents, uncle
Peter plunged recklessly. He ordered the mess-wagon to be restocked
and prepared for the trip, and he took the bed-tent and half the crew.
The foreman he wisely left behind with the remnant of his outfit. They
were all to eat at the house while the mess-wagon was away, and they
were to spread their soogans--which is to say beds--where they might,
if the bunk-house proved too small or too hot.
The foreman, outraged beyond words, saddled at daybreak and rode to
the nearest town, and the unchosen half turned out in a body to watch
the departure of the explorers, which speaks eloquently of their
interest; for cowboys off duty are prone to sleep long.
Andy, as guide, bolted ahead of the party that he might open the gate.
Bolted is a good word, for his horse swerved and kept on running,
swerved again, and came down in a heap. Andy did not get up, and the
women screamed. Then Pink and some others hurried out and bore Andy,
groaning, to the bunk-house.
The visitors from the East gathered, perturbed, around the door,
sympathetic and dismayed. It looked very much as if their exploration
must end where it began, and the-girl-who-does-things looked about to
weep, until Andy, still groaning, sent Pink out to comfort them.
"He says you needn't give up the trip on his account," Pink announced
musically from the doorway. "He's drawing a map and marking the coulee
where the ruin is. He says most any of the boys that know the country
at all can find the place for yuh. And he isn't hurt permanent; he
strained his back so he can't ride, is all." Pink dimpled at the young
old lady who was admiring him frankly, and withdrew.
Inside, Andy Green was making pencil marks and giving the chosen half
explicit directions. At last he folded the paper and handed it to one
called Sandy.
"That's the best I can do for yuh," he finished. "I don't see how yuh
can miss it if yuh follow that map close. And if them gay females make
any kick on the trail, you just remind 'em that I said all along it
was rough going. So long, and good luck."
So with high-keyed, feminine laughter and much dust, passed the
exploring party from the Rocking R.
"Say," Pink began two days later to Andy, who was sitting on the shady
side of the bunk-house staring absently at the skyline, "There's a
word uh praise I've been aiming to give yuh. I've seen riding, and
I've done a trifle in that line myself, and learned some uh the
tricks. But I want to say I never did see a man flop his horse any
neater than you done that morning. I'll bet there ain't another man in
the outfit got next your play. I couldn't uh done it better myself.
Where did you learn that? Ever ride in Wyoming?"
Andy turned his eyes, but not his head--which was a way he had--and
regarded Pink slantwise for at least ten seconds. "Yes, I've rode in
Wyoming," he answered quietly. Then: "What's the chance for a job, up
your way? Is the Flying U open for good men and true?"
"It won't cost yuh a cent to try," Pink told him. "How's your back?
Think you'll be able to ride by the time Skeeker is able to travel?"
Andy, grinned. "Say," he confided suddenly, "if that hoss don't
improve some speedy, I'll be riding on ahead. I reckon I'll be able to
travel before them explorers get back, my friend."
"Why?" dimpled Pink boldly.
"Why? Well, the going is some rough, down that way. If they get them
wagons half way to the coulee marked with a cross, they'll sure have
to attach wings onto 'em. I've been some worried about that. I don't
much believe uncle Peter is going to enjoy that trip--and he sure does
get irritable by spells. I've got a notion to ride for some other
outfit, this summer."
"Was that the reason you throwed your horse down and got hurt, that
morning?" questioned Pink, and Andy grinned again by way of reply.
"They'll be gone a week, best they can do," he estimated aloud. "We
ought to be able to make our getaway by then, easy."
Pink assured him that a week would see them headed for the Flying U.
It was the evening of the sixth day, and the two were packed and ready
to leave in the morning, when Andy broke off humming and gave a snort
of dismay. "By gracious, there they come. My mother lives in Buffalo,
Pink, in a little drab house with white trimmings. Write and tell her
how her son--Oh, beloved! but they're hitting her up lively. If they
made the whole trip in that there frame uh mind, they could uh gone
clean to Miles City and back. How pretty the birds sing! Pink, you'll
hear words, directly."
Directly Pink did.
"You're the biggest liar on earth," Sherwood Branciforte contributed
to the recriminating wave that near engulfed Andy Green. "You sent us
down there on a wild-goose chase, you brute. You--"
"I never sent nobody," Andy defended. "You was all crazy to go."
"And nothing but an old stone hut some trapper had built!" came an
indignant, female tone. "There never was any castle, nor--"
"A man's home is his castle," argued Andy, standing unabashed before
them. "Putting it that way, it was a castle, all right."
There was babel, out of which--
"And the skeleton! Oh, you--it was a dead _cow!_" This from the young
old lady, who was looking very draggled and not at all young.
"I don't call to mind ever saying it was human," put in Andy, looking
at her with surprised, gray eyes.
"And the battlements!" groaned the-girl-who-does-things.
"You wanted battlements," Andy flung mildly into the uproar. "I always
aim to please." With that he edged away from them and made his escape
to where the cook was profanely mixing biscuits for supper. All-day
moves put an edge to his temper. The cook growled an epithet, and Andy
passed on. Down near the stable he met one of the chosen half, and the
fellow greeted him with a grin. Andy stopped abruptly.
"Say, they don't seem none too agreeable," he began tentatively,
jerking his thumb toward the buzzing group. "How about it, Sandy? Was
they that petulant all the way?"
Sandy, the map-bearer, chuckled. "It's lucky you got hurt at the last
minute! And yet it was worth the trip. Uh course we got stalled with
the wagons, the second day out, but them women was sure ambitious, and
made us go on with a packadero layout. I will say that, going down,
they stood the hardships remarkable. It was coming back that frazzled
the party.
"And when we found the place--say, but it was lucky you wasn't along!
They sure went hog-wild when they seen the ruins. The old party with
the pompadoor displayed temper, and shed tears uh rage. When she
looked into the cabin and seen the remains uh that cow-critter, there
was language it wasn't polite to overhear. She said a lot uh things
about you, Andy. One thing they couldn't seem to get over, and that
was the smallness uh the blamed shack. Them fourteen or fifteen rooms
laid heavy on their minds."
"I didn't say there was fourteen or fifteen rooms. I said I didn't
count the rooms; I didn't either. I never heard of anybody counting
one room. Did you, Pink?"
"No," Pink agreed, "I never did!"
Sandy became suddenly convulsed. "Oh, but the funniest thing was the
ancient pottery," he gasped, the tears standing in his eyes. "That old
Dutch oven was bad enough; but when one uh the girls--that one that
collects old dishes--happened across an old mackerel can and picked it
up and saw the fish on the label, she was the maddest female person I
ever saw in my life, barring none. If you'd been in reach about that
time, she'd just about clawed your eyes out, Andy Green. Oh me, oh
my!" Sandy slapped his thigh and had another spasm.
Sounds indicated that the wave of recrimination was rolling nearer.
Andy turned to find himself within arm's length of Uncle Pete.
"Maybe this is your idea of a practical joke, Green," he said to Andy.
"But anyway, it will cost you your job. I ought to charge you up with
the time my outfit has spent gallivanting around the country on the
strength of your wild yarn. The quicker you hit the trail, the better
it will suit me. By the way, what's your first name?" He asked,
pulling out a check-book.
"Andy," answered the unrepentant one.
"Andy," Uncle Peter paused with a fountain pen between his fingers. He
looked Andy up and down, and the frown left his face. He proceeded to
write out the check, and when it was done he handed it over with a
pleased smile.
"What did you do it for, Green?" he queried in a friendlier tone.
"Self-defence," Andy told him laconically, and turned away.
Half an hour later, Andy and Pink trailed out of the coulee that
sheltered the Rocking R. When they were out and away from the fence,
and Pink's horses, knowing instinctively that they were homeward
bound, were jogging straight west without need of guidance, Andy felt
in his pocket for cigarette material. His fingers came in contact with
the check Uncle Peter had given him, and he drew it forth and looked
it over again.
"Well, by gracious!" he said to himself. "Uncle Peter thinks we're
even, I guess."
He handed the check to Pink and rolled his cigarette; and Pink, after
one comprehending look at the slip of paper, doubled up over his
saddle-horn and shouted with glee--for the check was written: "Pay to
the order of Ananias Green."
"And I've got to sign myself a liar, or I don't collect no money,"
sighed Andy. "That's what I call tough luck, by gracious!"
* * * * *
BLINK
The range-land was at its unpicturesque worst. For two days the wind
had raged and ranted over the hilltops, and whooped up the long
coulees, so that tears stood in the eyes of the Happy Family when they
faced it; impersonal tears blown into being by the very force of the
wind. Also, when they faced it they rode with bodies aslant over their
saddle-horns and hats pulled low over their streaming eyes, and with
coats fastened jealously close. If there were buttons enough, well and
good; if not, a strap cinched tightly about the middle was considered
pretty lucky and not to be despised. Though it was early September,
"sour-dough" coats were much in evidence, for the wind had a chill way
of searching to the very marrow--and even a good, sheepskin-lined
"sour-dough" was not always protection sufficient.
When the third day dawned bleakly, literally blown piecemeal from out
darkness as bleak, the Happy Family rose shiveringly and with sombre
disapproval of whatever met their blood-shot eyes; dressed hurriedly
in the chill of flapping tent and went out to stagger drunkenly over
to where Patsy, in the mess-tent, was trying vainly to keep the
biscuits from becoming dust-sprinkled, and sundry pans and tins from
taking jingling little excursions on their own account. Over the brow
of the next ridge straggled the cavvy, tails and manes whipping in the
gale, the nighthawk swearing so that his voice came booming down to
camp. Truly, the day opened inauspiciously enough for almost any dire
ending.
As further evidence, saddling horses for circle resolved itself, as
Weary remarked at the top of his voice to Pink, at his elbow, into "a
free-for-all broncho busting tournament." For horses have nerves, and
nothing so rasps the nerves of man or beast as a wind that never stops
blowing; which means swaying ropes and popping saddle leather, and
coat-tails flapping like wet sheets on a clothes line. Horses do not
like these things, and they are prone to eloquent manifestations of
their disapproval.
Over by the bed-wagon, a man they called Blink, for want of a better
name, was fighting his big sorrel silently, with that dogged
determination which may easily grow malevolent. The sorrel was at best
a high-tempered, nervous beast, and what with the wind and the
flapping of everything in sight, and the pitching of half-a-dozen
horses around him, he was nearly crazed with fear in the abstract.
Blink was trying to bridle him, and he was not saying a word--which,
in the general uproar, was strange. But Blink seldom did say anything.
He was one of the aliens who had drifted into the Flying U outfit that
spring, looking for work. Chip had taken him on, and he had stayed. He
could ride anything in his string, and he was always just where he was
wanted. He never went to town when the others clattered off for a few
hours' celebration more or less mild, he never took part in any of the
camp fun, and he never offended any man. If any offended him they did
not know it unless they were observant; if they were, they would see
his pale lashes wink fast for a minute, and they might read aright the
sign and refrain from further banter. So Blink, though he was counted
a good man on roundup, was left pretty much alone when in camp.
Andy Green, well and none too favorably known down Rocking R way, and
lately adopted into the Happy Family on the recommendation of Pink and
his own pleasing personality, looped the latigo into the holder, gave
his own dancing steed a slap of the don't-try-to-run-any-whizzers-on-me
variety, and went over to help out Blink.
Blink eyed his approach with much the same expression with which he
eyed the horse. "I never hollered for assistance," he remarked
grudgingly when Andy was at his elbow. "When I can't handle any of the
skates in my string, I'll quit riding and take to sheep-herding."
Whereupon he turned his back as squarely as he might upon Andy and
made another stealthy grab for the sorrel's ears. (There is such a
thing in the range-land as jealousy among riders, and the fame of Andy
Green had gone afar.)
"All right. Just as you say, and not as I care a darn," Andy retorted,
and went back to where his own mount stood tail to the wind. He did
not in the least mind the rebuff; he really felt all the indifference
his manner portrayed--perhaps even more. He had offered help where
help was needed, and that ended it for him. It never occurred to him
that Blink might feel jealous over Andy's hard-earned reputation as a
"tamer of wild ones," or mistake his good nature for patronage.
Five minutes later, when Chip looked around comprehensively at the lot
of them in various degrees of readiness; saw that Blink was still
fighting silently for mastery of the sorrel and told Andy to go over
and help him get saddled, Andy said nothing of having had his services
refused, but went. This time, Blink also said nothing, but accepted in
ungracious surrender the assistance thus thrust upon him. For on the
range-land, unless one is in a mind to roll his bed and ride away, one
does not question when the leader commands. Andy's attitude was still
that of indifference; he really thought very little about Blink or his
opinions, and the rapid blinking of the pale lashes was quite lost
upon him.
They rode, eighteen ill-natured, uncomfortable cowboys, tumultuously
away from the camp, where canvas bulged and swayed, and loose corners
cracked like pistol shots, over the hill where even the short, prairie
grass crouched and flattened itself against the sod; where stray
pebbles, loosened by the ungentle tread of pitching hoofs, skidded
twice as far as in calm weather. The gray sky bent threateningly above
them, wind-torn into flying scud but never showing a hint of blue.
Later there might be rain, sleet, snow--or sunshine, as nature might
whimsically direct; but for the present she seemed content with only
the chill wind that blew the very heart out of a man.
Whenever Chip pulled up to turn off a couple of riders that they might
search a bit of rough country, his voice was sharp with the general
discomfort. When men rode away at his command, it was with brows drawn
together and vengeful heels digging the short-ribs of horses in quite
as unlovely a mood as themselves.
Out at the end of the "circle," Chip divided the remainder of his men
into two groups for the homeward drive. One group he himself led. The
other owned Weary as temporary commander and galloped off to the left,
skirting close to the foothills of the Bear Paws. In that group rode
Pink and Happy Jack, Slim, Andy Green and Blink the silent.
"I betche we get a blizzard out uh this," gloomed Happy Jack, pulling
his coat collar up another fraction of an inch. "And the way Chip's
headed us, we got to cross that big flat going back in the thick of
it; chances is, we'll git lost."
No one made reply to this; it seemed scarcely worth while. Every man
of them rode humped away from the wind, his head drawn down as close
to his shoulders as might be. Conversation under those conditions was
not likely to become brisk.
"A fellow that'll punch cows for a living," Happy Jack asserted
venomously after a minute, "had ought to be shut up somewheres. He
sure ain't responsible. I betche next summer don't see me at it."
"Aw, shut up. We know you're feeble-minded, without you blatting it by
the hour," snapped Pink, showing never a dimple.
Happy Jack tugged again at his collar and made remarks, to which no
one paid the slightest attention. They rode in amongst the hills and
narrow ridges dividing "draws" as narrow, where range cattle would
seek shelter from the cutting blast that raked the open. Then, just as
they began to realize that the wind was not quite such a raging
torment, came a new phase of nature's unpleasant humor.
It was not a blizzard that descended upon them, though when it came
rolling down from the hilltops it much resembled one. The wind had
changed and brought fog, cold, suffocating, impenetrable. Yet such was
the mood of them that no one said anything about it. Weary had been
about to turn off a couple of men, but did not. What was the use,
since they could not see twenty yards?
For a time they rode aimlessly, Weary in the lead. Then, when it grew
no better but worse, he pulled up, just where a high bank shut off the
wind and a tangle of brush barred the way in front.
"We may as well camp right here till things loosen up a little," he
said. "There's no use playing blind-man's-buff any longer. We'll have
some fire, for a change. Mama! this is sure beautiful weather!"
At that, they brightened a bit and hurriedly dismounted and hunted dry
wood. Since they were to have a fire, the general tendency was to have
a big one; so that when they squatted before it and held out cold,
ungloved fingers to the warmth, the flames were leaping high into the
fog and crackling right cheerily. It needed only a few puffs at their
cigarettes to chase the gloom from their faces and put them in the
mood for talk. Only Blink sat apart and stared moodily into the fire,
his hands clasped listlessly around his knees, and to him they gave no
attention. He was an alien, and a taciturn one at that. The Happy
Family were accustomed to living clannishly, even on roundup, and only
when they tacitly adopted a man, as they had adopted Pink and Irish
and, last but not least important, Andy Green, did they take note of
that man's mood and demand reasons for any surliness.
"If Slim would perk up and go run down a grouse or two," Pink observed
pointedly, "we'd be all right for the day. How about it, Slim?"
"Run 'em down yourself," Slim retorted. "By golly, I ain't no lop-ear
bird dog."
"The law's out fer chickens," Happy Jack remarked dolefully.
"Go on, Happy, and get us a few. You've got your howitzer buckled on,"
fleered Andy Green. Andy it was whose fertile imagination had so
christened Happy Jack's formidable weapon.
"Aw, gwan!" protested Happy Jack.
"Happy looks like he was out for a rep," bantered Pink. "He makes me
think uh the Bad Man in a Western play. All he needs is his hat turned
up in front and his sleeves rolled up to his elbow, like he was
killing hogs. Happy would make a dandy-looking outlaw, with that gun
and that face uh his."
"Say, by golly, I bet that's what he's figurin' on doing. He ain't
going to punch cows no more--I bet he's thinking about turning out."
"Well, when I do, you'll be the first fellow I lay for," retorted
Happy, with labored wit.
"You never'd get a rep shooting at a target the size uh Slim," dimpled
Pink. "Is that toy cannon loaded, Happy?"
"I betche yuh dassen't walk off ten paces and let me show yuh,"
growled Happy.
Pink made as if to rise, then settled back with a sigh. "Ten paces is
farther than you could drive me from this fire with a club," he said.
"And you couldn't see me, in this fog."
"Say, it _is_ pretty solid," said Weary, looking around him at the
blank, gray wall. "A fellow could sit right here and be a lot ignorant
of what's going on around him. A fellow could--"
"When I was riding down in the San Simon basin," spoke up Andy,
rolling his second cigarette daintily between his finger-tips, "I had
a kinda queer experience in a fog, once. It was thick as this one, and
it rolled down just about as sudden and unexpected. That's a plenty
wild patch uh country--or it was when I was there. I was riding for a
Spanish gent that kept white men as a luxury and let the greasers do
about all the rough work--such as killing off superfluous neighbors,
and running brands artistic, and the like. Oh, he was a gay mark, all
right.
"But about this other deal: I was out riding alone after a little
bunch uh hosses, one day in the fall. I packed my gun and a pair uh
field glasses, and every time I rode up onto a mesa I'd take a long
look at all the lower country to save riding it. I guess I'd
prognosticated around like that for two or three hours, when I come
out on a little pinnacle that slopes down gradual toward a neighbor's
home ranch--only the ranch itself was quite a ride back up the basin.
"I got off my horse and set down on a rock to build me a smoke, and
was gazing off over the country idle, when I seen a rider come up out
of a little draw and gallop along quartering-like, to pass my pinnacle
on the left. You know how a man out alone like that will watch
anything, from a chicken hawk up in the air to a band uh sheep,
without any interest in either one, but just to have your eyes on
something that's alive and moves.
"So I watched him, idle, while I smoked. Pretty soon I seen another
fellow ride out into sight where the first one had, and hit her up
lively down the trail. I didn't do no wondering--I just sat and
watched 'em both for want uh something better to do."
"Finding them strays wasn't important, I s'pose?" Happy Jack
insinuated.
"It could wait, and did. So I kept an eye on these gazabos, and pretty
soon I saw the hind fellow turn off the trail and go fogging along
behind a little rise. He come into sight again, whipping down both
sides like he was heading a wild four-year-old; and that was queer,
because the only other live thing in sight was man number one, and I
didn't see no reason why he should be hurting himself to get around to
windward like that.
"Maybe it was five minutes I watched 'em: number one loping along like
there wasn't nothing urgent and he was just merely going somewhere and
taking his time for it, and number two quirting and spurring like
seconds was diamonds."
"I wish they was that valuable to you," hinted Pink.
"They ain't, so take it easy. Well, pretty soon they got closer
together, and then number two unhooked something on his saddle that
caught the light. There's where I got my field glasses into play. I
drew a bead with 'em, and seen right off it was a gun. And I hadn't no
more than got my brain adjusted to grasp his idea, when he puts it
back and takes down his rope. That there," Andy added naïvely,
"promised more real interest; guns is commonplace.
"I took down the glasses long enough to size up the layout. Glasses,
you know, are mighty deceiving when it comes to relative distances,
and a hilltop a mile back looks, through the glass, like just stepping
over a ditch. With the naked eye I could see that they were coming
together pretty quick, and they done so.
"Number one looks back, but whether he seen number two I couldn't say;
seemed to me like he just glanced back casual and in the wrong
direction. Be that is it may, number two edged off a little and rode
in behind a bunch uh mesquite--and then I seen that the trail took a
turn, right there. So he pulled up and stood still till the other one
had ambled past, and then he whirled out into the trail and swung his
loop.
"When I'd got the glasses focused on 'em again, he had number one
snared, all right, and had took his turns. The hoss he was riding--it
was a buckskin--set back and yanked number one end over end out uh the
saddle, and number one's hoss stampeded off through the brush. Number
two dug in his spurs and went hell-bent off the trail and across
country dragging the other fellow--and him bouncing over the rough
spots something horrible.
"I don't know what got the matter uh me, then; I couldn't do anything
but sit there on my rock and watch through the glasses. Anyway, while
they looked close enough to hit with a rock, they was off a mile or
more. So while I could see it all I couldn't do nothing to prevent. I
couldn't even hear number one yell--supposing he done any hollering,
which the chances is he did a plenty. It was for all the world like
one uh these moving pictures.
"I thought it was going to be a case uh dragging to death, but it
wasn't; it looked to me a heap worse. Number two dragged his man a
ways--I reckon till he was plumb helpless--and then he pulled up and
rode back to where he laid. The fellow tried to get up, and did get
partly on his knees--and number one standing over him, watching.
"What passed I don't know, not having my hearing magnified like my
sight was. I framed it up that number two was getting his past,
present and future read out to him--what I'd call a free life reading.
The rope was pinning his arms down to his sides, and number two was
taking blamed good care there wasn't any slack, so fast as he tried to
get up he was yanked back. From first to last he never had a ghost of
a show.
"Then number two reaches back deliberate and draws his gun and
commences shooting, and I commences hollering for him to quit it--and
me a mile off and can't do nothing! I tell yuh right now, that was
about the worst deal I ever went up against, to set there on that
pinnacle and watch murder done in cold blood, and me plumb helpless.
"The first shot wasn't none fatal, as I could see plainer than was
pleasant. Looked to me like he wanted to string out the agony. It was
a clear case uh butchery from start to finish; the damnedest,
lowest-down act a white man could be guilty of. He empties his
six-gun--counting the smoke-puffs--and waits a minute, watching like a
cat does a gopher. I was sweating cold, but I kept my eyes glued to
them glasses like a man in a nightmare.
"When he makes sure the fellow's dead, he rides alongside and flips
off the rope, with the buckskin snorting and edging off--at the
blood-smell, I reckon. While he's coiling his rope, calm as if he'd
just merely roped a yearling, the buckskin gets his head, plants it
and turns on the fireworks.
"When that hoss starts in pitching, I come alive and drop the glasses
into their case and make a jump for my own hoss. If the Lord lets me
come up with that devil, I aim to deal out a case uh justice on my own
hook; I was in a right proper humor for doing him like he done the
other fellow, and not ask no questions. Looked to me like he had it
coming, all right.
"I'd just stuck my toe in the stirrup, when down comes the fog like a
wet blanket on everything. I couldn't see twenty feet--" Andy stopped
and reached for a burning twig to relight his cigarette. The Happy
Family was breathing hard with the spell of the story.