agony he suffered. Somehow they had got him upon the horse of Jack
Bates, but they had felt like torturers while they did it, and the
perspiration on their faces was not all caused by heat.
"My God, I'd rather be hung than go through this again," muttered Cal,
white under the tan. "I--"
"I'll tackle--it now," gasped Andy, with a pitiful attempt to sit
straight in the saddle. "Get on--boys--"
Reluctantly they started to obey, when the horse of Jack Bates gave a
sudden leap ahead. Many hands reached out to grasp him by the bridle,
but they were a shade too late, and he started to run, with Andy
swaying in the saddle. While they gazed horrified, he straightened
convulsively, turned his face toward them and raised a hand; caught
his hat by the brim and swung it high above his head.
"Much obliged, boys," he yelled derisively. "I sure do appreciate
being packed up that hill; it was too blamed hot to walk. Say! if
you'd gone around that bend, you'd uh found a good trail down. Yuh
struck about the worst place there is. So-long--I ain't all in yet!"
He galloped away, while the Happy Family stared after him with bulging
eyes.
"The son-of-a-gun!" gasped Weary weakly, and started for his horse.
"Darn yuh, you'll _be_ all in when we get hold of yuh!" screamed Jack
Bates, and gave chase.
It was when they were tearing headlong after him down the coulee's rim
and into a shallow gully which seamed unexpectedly the level, that
they saw his horse swerve suddenly and go bounding along the edge of
the slope with Andy "sawing" energetically upon the bit.
"What trick's he up to now?" cried Cal Emmett resentfully, feeling
that, in the light of what had gone before, Andy could not possibly
make a single motion in good faith.
Andy brought his horse under control and turned back to meet them, and
the Happy Family watched him guardedly until they reached the gulley
and their own horses took fright at a dark, shambling object that
scuttled away down toward the coulee-head. Andy was almost upon them
before they could give him any attention.
"Did you see it?" he called excitedly. "It was a bear, and he was
digging at something under that shelving rock. Come on and let's take
a look."
"Aw, gwan!" Happy Jack adjured crossly. He was thinking of all the
water he had carried painstakingly in his hat, for the relief of this
conscienceless young reprobate, and he was patently suspicious of some
new trick.
"Well, by gracious!" Andy rode quite close--dangerously close,
considering the mood they were in--and eyed them queerly. "I sure must
have a horrible rep, when yuh won't believe your own eyes just because
I happen to remark that a bear is a bear. I'll call it a pinto hog, if
it'll make yuh feel any better. And I'll say it wasn't doing any
digging; only, I'm going down there and take a look. There's an
odor--"
There was, and they could not deny it, even though Andy did make the
assertion. And though they had threatened much that was exceedingly
unpleasant, and what they would surely do to Andy if they ever got him
within reach, they followed him quite peaceably.
They saw him get off his horse and stand looking down at
something--and there was that in his attitude which made them jab
spurs against their horses' flanks. A moment later they, too, were
looking down at something, and they were not saying a word.
"It's Dan, all right," said Andy at last, and his tone was hushed. "I
hunted the coulee over--every foot of it--and looked up some of the
little draws, and went along the river; but I couldn't find any trace
of him. I never thought about coming up here.
"Look there. His head was smashed in with a rock or something--ugh!
Here, let me away, boys. This thing--" He walked uncertainly away and
sat down upon a rock with his face in his hands, and what they could
see of his face was as white as the tan would permit. Somehow, not a
man of them doubted him then. And not a man of them but felt much the
same. They backed away and stood close to where Andy was sitting.
"You wouldn't believe me when I told yuh," he reproached, when the
sickness had passed and he could lift his head and look at them. "You
thought I was lying, and yuh made yourselves pretty blamed obnoxious
to me--but I got even for _that_." There was much satisfaction in his
tone, and the Happy Family squirmed. "Yuh see, I was telling the
truth, all right--and now I'm going to get even some more. I'm going
to take--er--Pink along for a witness, and notify the outfit that yuh
won't be back for a day or two, and send word to the sheriff. And you
jaspers can have the pleasure uh standing guard over--_that_." He
shivered a little and turned his glance quickly away. "And I hope," he
added maliciously, as he mounted his own horse, "you'll make Jack
Bates stand an all-night guard by his high lonesome. He's sure got it
coming to him!"
With Pink following close at his heels he rode away up the ridge.
"Say, there's grub enough on old Buck to do yuh to-night," he called
down to them, "in case Chip don't send yuh any till to-morrow." He
waved a subdued farewell and turned his face again up the ridge, and
before they had quite decided what to do about it, he was gone.
* * * * *
"WOLF! WOLF!"
Andy Green, of the Flying U, loped over the grassy level and hummed a
tune as he rode. The sun shone just warm enough to make a man feel
that the world was good enough for him, and the wind was just a lazy,
whispering element to keep the air from growing absolutely still and
stagnant. There was blue sky with white, fluffy bits of cloud like
torn cotton drifting as lazily as the wind, and there were
meadow-larks singing and swaying, and slow-moving range cattle with
their calves midway to weaning time. Not often may one ride leisurely
afar on so perfect a day, and while Andy was a sunny-natured fellow at
all times, on such a day he owned not a care.
A mile farther, and he rode over a low shoulder of the butte he was
passing, ambled down the long slope on the far side, crossed another
rounded hill, followed down a dry creek-bed at the foot of it, sought
with his eye for a practicable crossing and went headlong down a
steep, twenty-foot bank; rattled the loose rocks in the dry, narrow
channel and went forging up a bank steeper than the first, with
creaking saddle-leather and grunting horse, and struck again easy
going.
"She slipped on me," he murmured easily, meaning the saddle. "I'm
riding on your tail, just about; but I guess we can stand it the rest
uh the why, all right." If he had not been so lazy and self-satisfied
he would have stopped right there and reset the saddle. But if he had,
he might have missed something which he liked to live over o' nights.
He went up a gentle rise, riding slowly because of the saddle, passed
over the ridge and went down another short slope. At the foot of the
slope, cuddled against another hill, stood a low, sod-roofed cabin
with rusty stove-pipe rising aslant from one corner. This was the spot
he had been aiming for, and he neared it slowly.
It was like a dozen other log cabins tucked away here and there among
the foothills of the Bear Paws. It had an air of rakish hominess, as
if it would be a fine, snuggy place in winter, when the snow and the
wind swept the barren land around. In the summer, it stood open-doored
and open-windowed, with all the litter of bachelor belongings
scattered about or hanging from pegs on the wall outside. There was a
faint trail of smoke from the rusty pipe, and it brought a grunt of
satisfaction from Andy.
"He's home, all right. And if he don't throw together some uh them
sour-dough biscuits uh his, there'll be something happen! Hope the
bean-pot's full. G'wan, yuh lazy old skate." He slapped the rein-ends
lightly down the flanks of his horse and went at a trot around the end
of the cabin. And there he was so utterly taken by surprise that he
almost pulled his mount into a sitting posture.
A young woman was stooping before the open door, and she was pouring
something from a white earthen bowl into a battered tin pan. Two
waggle-tailed lambs--a black one and a white--were standing on their
knees in their absorption, and were noisily drinking of the stuff as
fast as it came within reach.
Andy had half a minute in which to gaze before the young woman looked
up, said "Oh!" in a breathless sort of way and retreated to the
doorstep, where she stood regarding him inquiringly.
Andy, feeling his face go unreasonably red, lifted his hat. He knew
that she was waiting for him to speak, but he could not well say any
of the things he thought, and blurted out an utterly idiotic question.
"What are yuh feeding 'em?"
The girl looked down at the bowl in her hands and laughed a little.
"Rolled oats," she answered, "boiled very thin and with condensed
cream added to taste. Good morning." She seemed about to disappear,
and that brought Andy to his senses. He was not, as a rule, a bashful
young man.
"Good morning. Is--er--Mr. Johnson at home?" He came near saying
"Take-Notice," but caught himself in time. Take-Notice Johnson was
what men called the man whom Andy had ridden over to see upon a more
or less trivial matter.
"He isn't, but he will be back--if you care to wait." She spoke with a
certain preciseness which might be natural or artificial, and she
stood in the doorway with no symptoms of immediate disappearance.
Andy slid over a bit in the saddle, readjusted his hat so that its
brim would shield his eyes from the sunlight, and prepared to be
friendly. "Oh, I'll wait," he said easily. "I've got all the time
there is. Would you mind if I smoked a cigarette?"
"Indeed, I was wishing you would," she told him, with surprising
frankness. "I've so longed to see a dashing young cowboy roll a
cigarette with deft, white fingers."
Andy, glancing at her startled, spilled much tobacco down the front of
him, stopped to brush it away and let the lazy breeze snatch the tiny
oblong of paper from between his unwatchful fingers. Of course, she
was joshing him, he thought uneasily, as he separated the leaves of
his cigarette book by blowing gently upon them, and singled out
another paper. "Are yuh so new to the country that it's anything of a
treat?" he asked guardedly.
"Yes, I'm new. I'm what you people call a pilgrim. Don't you do it
with one hand? I thought--oh, yes! You hold the reins between your
firm, white teeth while you roll--"
"Lady, I never travelled with no show," Andy protested mildly and
untruthfully. _Was_ she just joshing? Or didn't she know any better?
She looked sober as anything, but somehow her eyes kind of--
"You see, I know some things about you. Those are chaps" (Heavens! She
called them the way they are spelled, without the soft sound of s!)
"That you're wearing for--trousers" (Andy blushed modestly. He was not
wearing them "for trousers".), "and you've got jingling rowels at your
heels, and those are taps--"
"You're going to be shy a yard or two of calico if that black
lamb-critter has his say-so," Andy cut in remorselessly, and hastily
made and lighted his cigarette while she was rescuing her blue calico
skirt from the jaws of the black lamb and puckering her eyebrows over
the chewed place. When her attention was once more given to him, he
was smoking as unobtrusively as possible, and he was gazing at her
with a good deal of speculative admiration. He looked hastily down at
the lambs. "Mary had _two_ little lambs," he murmured inanely.
"They're not mine," she informed him, taking him seriously--or seeming
to do so. Andy had some trouble deciding just how much of her was
sincere. "They were here when I came, and I can't take them back with
me, so there's no use in claiming them. They'd be such a nuisance on
the train--"
"I reckon they would," Andy agreed, "if yuh had far to go."
"Well, you can't call San Jose _close_," she observed, meditatively.
"It takes four days to come."
"You're a long way from home. Does it--are yuh homesick, ever?" Andy
was playing for information without asking directly how long she
intended to stay--a question which had suddenly seemed quite
important. Also, why was she stopping here with Take-Notice Johnson,
away off from everybody?
"Seeing I've only been here four days, the novelty hasn't worn off
yet," she replied. "But it does seem more like four weeks; and how
I'll ever stand two months of it, not ever seeing a soul but father--"
Andy looked reproachful, and also glad. Didn't she consider him a
soul? And Take-Notice was her dad! To be sure, Take-Notice had never
mentioned having a daughter, but then, in the range-land, men don't go
around yawping their personal affairs.
Before Take-Notice returned, Andy felt that he had accomplished much.
He had learned that the young woman's name really was Mary, and that
she was a stenographer in a real-estate office in San Jose, where her
mother lived; that the confinement of office-work had threatened her
with pulmonary tuberculosis (Andy failed, at the moment, to recognize
the disease which had once threatened him also, and wondered vaguely)
and that the doctor had advised her coming to Montana for a couple of
months; that she had written to her father (it seemed queer to have
anyone speak of old Take-Notice as "father") and that he had told her
to "come a-running."
She told Andy that she had not seen her father for five years (Andy
knew that Take-Notice had disappeared for a whole winter, about that
long ago, and that no one had discovered where he went) because he and
her mother were "not congenial."
He had dismounted, at her invitation, and had gone clanking to the
doorstep and sat down--giving a furtive kick now and then at the black
lamb, which developed a fondness for the leathern fringe on his
chaps--and had eaten an orange which she had brought in her trunk all
the way from San Jose, and which she had picked from a tree which
stood by her mother's front gate. He had nibbled a ripe olive--eating
it with what Andy himself would term "long teeth"--and had tried hard
not to show how vile he found it. He had inspected two star-fishes
which she had found last Fourth-of-July at Monterey and had dried; and
had crumpled a withered leaf of bay in his hands and had smelled and
nearly sneezed his head off; and had cracked and eaten four
walnuts--also gathered from her mother's yard--and three almonds from
the same source, and had stared admiringly at a note-book filled with
funny marks which she called shorthand.
Between-whiles Andy had told her his name and the name of the outfit
he worked for; had explained what he meant by "outfit," and had drawn
a large U in the dirt to show her what a Flying U was, and had wanted
to murder the black lamb which kept getting in his way and trying to
eat the stick Andy used for a pencil; had confessed that he did
sometimes play cards for money, as do the cowboys in Western stories,
but assured her that he had never killed off any of his friends during
any little disagreement. He had owned to drinking a glass of whisky
now and then, but declared that it was only for snake bite and did not
happen oftener than once in six months or so. Yes, he had often had
rattlers in his bed, but not to hurt. This is where he began to
inspect the star-fishes, and so turned the conversation safely back to
California and himself away from the temptation to revel in fiction.
All of which took time, so that Take-Notice came before they quite
felt a longing for his presence; and though the sun shone straight in
the cabin door and so proved that it was full noon, there was no fire
left in the stove and nothing in sight that was eatable save another
ripe olive--which Andy had politely declined--and two more almonds and
an orange.
A stenographer, with a fluffy pompadour that dipped distractingly at
one side, and a gold watch suspended around the neck like a locket,
and with sleeves that came no farther than the elbow and heels higher
than any riding boot Andy ever owned in his life, and with teeth that
were very white and showed a glint of gold here and there, and eyes
that looked at one with insincere gravity, and fingers with nails that
shone--fingers that pinched red lips together meditatively--a
stenographer who has all these entrancing attributes, Andy discovered,
may yet lack those housewifely accomplishments that make a man dream
of a little home for two. So far as Andy could see, her knowledge of
cookery extended no farther than rolled oat porridge for the two
lambs.
Take-Notice it was who whittled shavings and started the fire without
any comment upon the hour or his appetite; who went to the spring and
brought water, half-filled the enameled teakettle which had large,
bare patches where the enamel had been chipped off in the stress of
baching, and sliced the bacon and mixed the "sour-dough" biscuits. To
be sure, he had done those things for years and thought nothing of it;
Andy, also, had done those things, many's the time, and had thought
nothing of it, either. But to do them while a young woman sits calmly
by and makes no offer of help, but talks of many things, unconscious
even of her world-old, feminine duties and privileges, that struck
Andy with a cold breath of disillusionment.
He watched her unobtrusively while she talked. She never once seemed
to feel that cooking belonged to woman, and as far as he could see
Take-Notice did not feel so either. So Andy mentally adjusted himself
to the novelty and joyed in her presence.
To show how successful was his mental adjustment, it is necessary
merely to state one fact: Where he had intended to stop an hour or so,
he stayed the afternoon; ate supper there and rode home at sundown,
his mind a jumble of sunny Californian days where one may gather
star-fishes and oranges, bay leaves and ripe olives at will, and of
black and white lambs which always obtrude themselves at the wrong
moment and break off little, intimate confidences about life in a
real-estate office, perhaps; and of polished finger-nails that never
dip themselves in dishwater--Andy had come to believe that it would be
neither right or just to expect them to do so common a thing.
The season was what the range calls "between roundups," so that Andy
went straight to the ranch and found the Happy Family in or around the
bunk-house, peacefully enjoying their before-bedtime smoke. Andy,
among other positive faults and virtues, did not lack a certain degree
of guile. Men there were at the Flying U who would ride in haste if
they guessed that a pompadoured young woman from California was at the
end of the trail, and Andy, knowing well the reputation he bore among
them, set that reputation at work to keep the trail empty of all
riders save himself. When someone asked him idly what had kept him so
long, he gazed around at them with his big, innocent gray eyes.
"Why, I was just getting acquainted with the new girl," he answered
simply and truthfully.
Truth being something which the Happy Family was unaccustomed to from
the lips of Andy Green, they sniffed scornfully.
"What girl?" demanded Irish bluntly.
"Why, Take-Notice's girl. His young lady daughter that is visiting
him. She's mighty nice, and she's got style about her, and she was
feeding two lambs. Her name," he added softly, "is Mary."
Since no one had ever heard that Take-Notice had a daughter, the Happy
Family could not be blamed for doubting Andy. They did doubt,
profanely and volubly.
"Say, did any of you fellows ever eat a ripe olive?" Andy broke in,
when he could make himself heard. "Well," he explained mildly, when
came another rift of silence in the storm-cloud of words, "When yuh
ride over there, she'll likely give yuh one to try; but yuh take my
advice and pass it up. I went up against one, and I ain't got the
taste out uh my mouth yet. It's sure fierce."
More words, from which Andy gathered that they did not believe
anything he said; that he was wasting time and breath, and that his
imagination was weak and his lies idiotic. He'd better not let
Take-Notice hear how he was taking his name in vain and giving him a
daughter--and so on.
"Say, did yuh ever see a star-fish? Funniest thing yuh ever saw, all
pimply, and pink, and with five points to 'em. She's got two. When yuh
go over, you ask her to let yuh see 'em." Andy was in bed, then, and
he spoke through the dusk toward the voices. What those voices had
just then been saying seemed to have absolutely no effect upon him.
"Oh, dry up!" Irish commanded impatiently. "Nobody's thinking uh
riding over there, yuh chump. What kind of easy marks do yuh think we
are?"
Andy laughed audibly in his corner next the window. "Say, you fellows
do amuse me a lot. By gracious, I'll bet five dollars some of yuh take
the trail over there, soon or late. I--I'll bet five dollars to _one_
that yuh do! The bet to hold good for--well, say six weeks. But yuh
better not take me up, boys--especially Irish, that ain't got a girl
at present. Yes, or _any_ of yuh, by gracious! It'll be a case for
breach-uh-promise for any one uh yuh. Say, she's a bird! Got goldy
hair, and a dimple in her chin and eyes that'd make a man--"
With much reviling they accepted the wager, and after that Andy went
peacefully to sleep, quite satisfied for the time with the effect
produced by his absolute truthfulness; it did not matter much, he told
himself complacently, what a man's reputation might be, so long as he
recognized its possibilities and shaped his actions properly.
It is true that when he returned from Dry Lake, not many days after,
with a package containing four new ties and a large, lustrous silk
handkerchief of the proper, creamy tint, the Happy Family seemed to
waver a bit. When he took to shaving every other day, and became
extremely fastidious about his finger-nails and his boots and the knot
in his tie, and when he polished the rowels of his spurs with Patsy's
scouring brick (which Patsy never used) and was careful to dent his
hat-crown into four mathematically correct dimples before ever he
would ride away from the ranch, the Happy Family looked thoughtful and
discussed him privately in low tones.
But when Andy smilingly assured them that he was going over to call on
Take-Notice's girl, and asked them if they wouldn't like to come along
and be introduced, and taste a ripe olive, and look at the
star-fishes, and smell a crumpled leaf of bay, they backed
figuratively from the wiles of him and asserted more or less
emphatically he couldn't work _them_. Then Andy would grin and ride
gaily away, and Flying U Coulee would see him no more for several
hours. It was mere good fortune--from Andy's viewpoint--that duty did
not immediately call the Happy Family, singly or as a whole, to ride
across the hills toward the cabin of Take-Notice Johnson. Without a
legitimate excuse, he felt sure of their absence from the place, and
he also counted optimistically upon their refusing to ask any one whom
they might meet, if Take-Notice Johnson had a daughter visiting him.
Four weeks do not take much space in a calendar, nor much time to
live; yet in the four that came just after Andy's discovery, he
accomplished much, even in his own modest reckoning. He had taught the
girl to watch for his coming and to stand pensively in the door with
many good-bye messages when he said he must hit the trail. He had
formed definite plans for the future and had promised her quite
seriously that he would cut out gambling, and never touch liquor in
any form--unless the snake was a _very_ big one and sunk his fangs in
a vital spot, in which dire contingency Mary absolved him from his
vow. He had learned the funny marks that meant his name and hers in
shorthand and had watched with inner satisfaction her efforts to learn
how to fry canned corn in bacon grease, and to mix sour-dough biscuits
that were neither yellow with too much soda nor distressfully "soggy"
with too little, and had sat a whole, blissful afternoon in his
shirtsleeves, while Mary bent her blond pompadour domestically over
his coat, sewing in the sleeve-linings that are prone to come loose
and torment a man. To go back to the first statement, which includes
all these things and much more, Andy had, in those four weeks,
accomplished much.