I've stood a lot from Patsy, off and on, and I've took just about all
I'm going to. It's got so yuh can't get nothing to eat, hardly, when
yuh ride in late, unless yuh fight for it. Why, by golly, I caught him
just as he was going to empty out the coffee-boiler--and he knew
blamed well I hadn't eat. He'd left everything go cold, and he was
packing away the grub like he was late breaking camp and had a forty
mile drive before dinner, by golly! I just did save myself some
coffee, and that was all--but it was cold as that creek, and--" Habit
impelled him to stop there long enough to run his tongue along the
edge of a half-rolled cigarette, and accident caused his eyes to catch
the amused quirk on the lips of Pink and Irish, and the laughing
glance they exchanged. Possibly if he could have looked in all
directions at the same time he would have been able to detect signs of
mirth on the faces of the others as well; for Slim's grievances never
seemed to be taken seriously by his companions--which is the price
which one must pay for having a body shaped like Santa Claus and a
face copied after our old friend in the moon.
"Well, by golly, maybe it's funny--but I took notice yuh done some
yowling, both uh yuh, the other day when yuh didn't get no pie," he
snorted, lighting his cigarette with unsteady fingers.
"We wasn't laughing at that," lied Pink pacifically.
"And then, by golly, the old devil lied to me and said there wasn't no
pie left," went on Slim complainingly, his memory stirred by the taunt
he had himself given. "But I wouldn't take his word for a thing if I
knew it was so; I went on a still-hunt around that tent on my own
hook, and I found a pie--a _whole pie_, by golly!--cached away under
an empty flour-sack behind the stove! That," he added, staring,
round-eyed, at the group, "that there was right where me and Patsy
mixed. The lying old devil said he never knew a thing about it being
there at all."
Pink turned his head cautiously so that his eyes met the eyes of Andy
Green. The two had been at some pains to place that pie in a safe
place so that they might be sure of something appetizing when they
came in from standing guard that night, but neither seemed to think it
necessary to proclaim the fact and clear Patsy.
"I'll bet yuh didn't do a thing to the pie when yuh did find it?" Pink
half questioned, more anxious than he would have owned.
"By golly, I eat the whole thing and I cussed Patsy between every
mouthful!" boasted Slim, almost in a good-humor again. "I sure got the
old boy stirred up; I left him swearin' Dutch cuss-words that sounded
like he was peevish. But I'll betche he won't throw out the coffee
till I've had what I want after this, by golly!"
"Happy Jack is out yet," Weary observed after a sympathetic silence.
"You oughtn't to have put Patsy on the fight till everybody was filled
up, Slim. Happy's liable to go to bed with an empty tummy, if yuh
don't ride out and warn him to approach easy. Listen over there!"
From where they lay, so still was the air and so incensed was Patsy,
they could hear plainly the rumbling of his wrath while he talked to
himself over the dishwashing. When he appeared at the corner of the
tent or plodded out toward the front of the wagon, his heavy tread and
stiff neck proclaimed eloquently the mood he was in. They watched and
listened and were secretly rather glad they were fed and so need not
face the storm which Slim had raised; for Patsy thoroughly roused was
very much like an angry bull: till his rage cooled he would charge
whoever approached him, absolutely blind to consequences.
"Well, I ain't going to put nobody next," Slim asserted. "Happy's got
to take chances, same as I did. And while we're on the subject, Patsy
was on the prod before I struck camp, or he wouldn't uh acted the way
he done. Somebody else riled him up, by golly--I never."
"Well, you sure did put the finishing touches to him," contended
Irish, guiltily aware that he himself was originally responsible; for
Patsy never had liked Irish very well because of certain incidents
connected with his introduction to Weary's double. Patsy never could
quite forget, though he might forgive, and resentment lay always close
to the surface of his mood when Irish was near.
Happy Jack, hungry and quite unconscious that he was riding straight
into the trail of trouble, galloped around a ragged point of
service-berry bushes, stopped with a lurch at the prostrate corral and
unsaddled hastily. Those in the shade of the willow watched him, their
very silence proclaiming loudly their interest. They might have warned
him by a word, but they did not; for Happy Jack was never eager to
heed warnings or to take advice, preferring always to abide by the
rule of opposites. Stiff-legged from long riding, the knees of his
old, leather chaps bulging out in transient simulation of bowed limbs,
he came clanking down upon the cook-tent with no thought but to ease
his hunger.
Those who watched saw him stoop and thrust his head into the tent,
heard a bellow and saw him back out hastily. They chuckled unfeelingly
and strained ears to miss no word of what would follow.
"Aw, gwan!" Happy Jack expostulated, not yet angry. "I got here quick
as I could--and _I_ ain't heard nothing about no new laws uh getting
here when the whistle blows. Gimme what there is, anyhow."
Some sentences followed which, because of guttural tones and German
accent emphasized by excitement, were not quite coherent to the
listeners. However, they did not feel at all mystified as to his
meaning--knowing Patsy as they did.
"Aw, come off! Somebody must uh slipped yuh a two-gallon jug uh
something. I've rode the range about as long as you've cooked on it,
and I never knowed a man to go without his supper yet, just because he
come in late. I betche yuh dassent stand and say that before Chip, yuh
blamed old Dutch--" Just there, Happy Jack dodged and escaped getting
more than a third of the basin of water which came splashing out of
the tent.
The group under the willows could no longer lie at ease while they
listened; they jumped up and moved closer, just as a crowd always does
surge nearer and nearer to an exciting centre. They did not, however,
interfere by word or deed.
"If yuh wasn't just about ready t' die of old age and general
cussedness," stormed Happy Jack, "I'd just about kill yuh for that."
This, however, is a revised version and not intended to be exact. "I
want my supper, and I want it blame quick, too, or there'll be a dead
Dutchman in camp. No, yuh don't! You git out uh that tent and lemme
git in, or--" Happy Jack had the axe in his hand by then, and he swung
it fearsomely and permitted the gesture to round out his sentence.
Perhaps there would have been something more than words between them,
for even a Happy Jack may be goaded too far when he is hungry; but
Chip, who had been washing out some handkerchiefs down by the creek,
heard the row and came up, squeezing a ball of wet muslin on the way.
He did not say much when he arrived, and he did not do anything more
threatening than hang the handkerchiefs over the guy-ropes to dry,
tying the corners to keep the wind from whipping them away up the
coulee, but the result was satisfying--to Happy Jack, at least. He ate
and was filled, and Patsy retired from the fray, sullenly owning
defeat for that time at least. He went up the creek out of sight from
camp, and he stayed there until the dusk was so thick that his big,
white-aproned form was barely distinguishable in the gloom when he
returned.
At daylight he was his old self, except that he was perhaps a trifle
gruff when he spoke and a good deal inclined to silence, and harmony
came and abode for a season with the Flying U.
Patsy had for years cooked for Jim Whitmore and his "outfit"; so many
years it was that memory of the number was never exact, and even the
Old Man would have been compelled to preface the number with a few
minutes of meditation and a "Lemme see, now; Patsy's been cooking for
me--eighty-six was that hard winter, and he come the spring--no, the
fall before that. I know because he like to froze before we got the
mess-house chinked up good--I'll be doggoned if Patsy ain't gitting
_old_!" That was it, perhaps: Patsy was getting old. And old age does
not often sweeten one's temper, if you notice. Those angelic old men
and old ladies have nearly all been immortalized in stories and songs,
and the unsung remainder have nerves and notions and rheumatism and
tongues sharpened by all the disappointments and sorrows of their long
lives.
Patsy never had been angelic; he had always been the victim of more or
less ill-timed humor on the part of the Happy Family, and the victim
of hunger-sharpened tempers as well. He had always grumbled and
rumbled Dutch profanity when they goaded him too hard, and his
amiability had ever expressed itself in juicy pies and puddings rather
than in words. On this roundup, however, he was not often amiable and
he was nearly always rumbling to himself. More than that, he was
becoming resentful of extra work and bother and he sometimes permitted
his resentment to carry him farther than was wise.
To quarrel with Patsy was rapidly becoming the fashion, and to gossip
about him and his faults was already a habit; a habit indulged in too
freely, perhaps, for the good of the camp. Isolation from the world
brings small things into greater prominence than is normally their
due, and large troubles are born of very small irritations.
For two days there was peace of a sort, and then Big Medicine, having
eaten no dinner because of a headache, rode into camp about three
o'clock and headed straight for the mess-wagon, quite as if he had a
right that must not be questioned. Custom did indeed warrant him in
lunching without the ceremony of asking leave of the cook, for Patsy
even in his most unpleasant moods had never until lately tried to stop
anyone from eating when he was hungry.
On this day, however, Big Medicine unthinkingly cut into a fresh-baked
pie set out to cool. There were other pies, and in cutting one Big
Medicine was supported by precedent; but Patsy chose to consider it an
affront and snatched the pie from under Big Medicine's very nose.
"You fellers vot iss always gobbling yet, you iss quit it alreatty!"
rumbled Patsy, bearing the pie into the tent with Big Medicine's knife
still lying buried in the lately released juice. "I vork und vork mine
head off keeping you fellers filled oop tree times a day alreatty; I
not vork und vork to feed you effery hour, py cosh. You go mitout till
supper iss reaty for you yet."
Big Medicine, his frog-like eyes standing out from his sun-reddened
face, stared agape. "Well, by cripes!" He hesitated, looking about
him; but whether his search was for more pie or for moral support he
did not say. Truth to tell, there was plenty of both. He reached for
another pie and another knife, and he grinned his wide grin at Irish,
who had just come up. "Dutchy's trying to run a whizzer," he remarked,
cutting a defiant gash clean across the second pie. "What do yuh know
about that?"
"He's often took that way," said Irish soothingly. "You don't want all
that pie--give me about half of it."
Big Medicine, his mouth too full for coherent utterance, waved his
hand and his knife toward the shelf at the back of the mess-wagon
where three more pies sat steaming in the shade. "Help yourself," he
invited juicily when he could speak.
Those familiar with camp life in the summer have perhaps observed the
miraculous manner in which a million or so "yellow-jackets" will come
swarming around when one opens a can of fruit or uncovers the sugar
jar. It was like that. Irish helped himself without any hesitation
whatever, and he had not taken a mouthful before Happy Jack, Weary and
Pink were buzzing around for all the world like the "yellow-jackets"
mentioned before. Patsy buzzed also, but no one paid the slightest
attention until the last mouthful of the last pie was placed in
retirement where it would be most appreciated. Then Weary became aware
of Patsy and his wrath, and turned to him pacifically.
"Oh, yuh don't want to worry none about the pie," he smiled winningly
at him. "Mamma! How do you expect to keep pies around this camp when
yuh go right on making such good ones? Yuh hadn't ought to be such a
crackajack of a cook, Patsy, if you don't want folks to eat themselves
sick."
If any man among them could have soothed Patsy, Weary would certainly
have been the man; for next to Chip he was Patsy's favorite. To say
that he failed is only one way of making plain how great was Patsy's
indignation.
"Aw, yuh made 'em to be eat, didn't yuh?" argued Happy Jack. "What
difference does it make whether we eat 'em now or two hours from now?"
Patsy tried to tell them the difference. He called his hands and his
head to help his rage-tangled tongue and he managed to make himself
very well understood. They did not argue the fine point of gastronomic
ethics which he raised, though they felt that his position was not
unassailable and his ultimate victory not assured.
Instead, they peered into boxes and cans which were covered, gleaned a
whole box of seeded raisins and some shredded cocoanut just to tease
him and retired to wrangle ostentatiously over their treasure trove in
the shade of the bed-tent, leaving Patsy to his anger and his empty
tins.
Other men straggled in, drifted with the tide of their appetites to
the cook-tent, hovered there briefly and retired vanquished and still
hungry. They invariably came over to the little group which was
munching raisins and cocoanut and asked accusing questions. What was
the matter with Patsy? Who had put him on the fight like that? and
other inquiries upon the same subject.
Just because they were all lying around camp with nothing to do but
eat, Patsy was late with his supper that night. It would seem that he
dallied purposely and revengefully, and though the Happy Family flung
at him taunts and hurry-up orders, it is significant that they shouted
from a distance and avoided coming to close quarters.
Just how and when they began their foolish little game of imitation
broncho-fighting does not matter. When work did not press and red
blood bubbled they frequently indulged in "rough-riding" one another
to the tune of much taunting and many a "Bet yuh can't pitch _me_
off!" Before supper was called they were hard at it and they quite
forgot Patsy.
"I'll give any man a dollar that can ride me straight up, by cripes!"
bellowed Big Medicine, going down upon all fours by way of invitation.
"Easy money, and mine from the start!" retorted Irish and immediately
straddled Big Medicine's back. Horses and riders pantingly gave over
their own exertions and got out of the way, for Big Medicine played
bronk as he did everything else: with all his heart and soul and
muscles, and since he was strong as a bull, riding him promised much
in the way of excitement.
"Yuh can hold on by my collar, but if yuh choke me down I'll murder
yuh in cold blood," he warned Irish before he started. "And don't yuh
dig your heels in my ribs neither, or I'm liable to bust every bone
yuh got to your name. I'm ticklish, by cripes!"
"I'll ride yuh with my arms folded if yuh say so," Irish offered
generously. "Move, you snail!" He struck Big Medicine spectacularly
with his hat, yelled at the top of his voice and the riding began
immediately and tumultuously.
It is very difficult to describe accurately and effectively the
evolutions of a horse when he "pitches" his worst and hardest. It is
still more difficult to set down in words the gyrations of a man when
he is playing that he is a broncho and is trying to dislodge the
fellow upon his back. Big Medicine reared and kicked and bellowed and
snorted. He came down upon a small "pin-cushion" cactus and was
obliged to call a recess while he extracted three cactus spines from
his knee with his smallest knife-blade and some profanity.
He rolled down his trousers' leg, closed his knife and tossed it to
Pink for fear he might lose it, examined critically a patch of grass
to make sure there were no more cacti hidden there and bawled: "Come
on, now, I'll sure give yuh a run for your money _this_ time, by
cripes!" and began all over again.
How human muscles can bear the strain he put upon his own must be
always something of a mystery. He described curves in the air which
would sound incredible; he "swapped ends" with all the ease of a real
fighting broncho and came near sending Irish off more than once.
Insensibly he neared the cook-tent, where Patsy so far forgot himself
as to stand just without the lifted flap and watch the fun with sour
interest.
"Ah-h _want_ yuh!" yelled Big Medicine, quite purple but far from
surrender, and gave a leap.
"Go _get_ me!" shouted Irish, whipping down the sides of his mount
with his hat.
Big Medicine answered the taunt by a queer, twisted plunge which he
had saved for the last. It brought Irish spread-eagling over his head,
and it landed him fairly in the middle of Patsy's great pan of soft
bread "sponge"--and landed him upon his head into the bargain. Irish
wriggled there a moment and came up absolutely unrecognizable and a
good deal dazed. Big Medicine rolled helplessly in the grass, laughing
his big, bellowing laugh.
It was straight into that laugh and the great mouth from where it
issued, that Patsy, beside himself with rage at the accident,
deposited all the soft dough which was not clinging to the head and
face of Irish. He was not content with that. While the Happy Family
roared appreciation of the spectacle, Patsy returned with a kettle of
meat and tried to land that neatly upon the dough.
"Py cosh, if dat iss der vay you wants your grub, py cosh, dat iss der
vay you gets it alreatty!" he brought the coffee-boiler and threw that
also at the two, and followed it with a big basin of stewed corn.
Irish, all dough as he was, went for him blindly and grappled with
him, and it was upon this turbulent scene which Chip looked first when
he rode up. The Happy Family crowded around him gasping and tried to
explain.
"They were doing some rough-riding--"
"By golly, Patsy no business to set his bread dough on the ground!"
"He's throwed away all the supper there is, and I betche--"
"Mamma! Yuh sure missed it, Chip. You ought--"
"By cripes, if that Dutch--"
"Break away there, Irish!" shouted Chip, dismounting hurriedly. "Has
it got so you must fight an old man like that?"
"Py cosh, _I'll_ fight mit him alreatty! I'll fight mit any mans vat
shpoils mine bread. Maybe I'm old yet but I ain't dead yet und I could
fight--" The words came disjointedly, mere punctuation points to his
wild sparring.
It was plain that Irish, furious though he was, was trying not to hurt
Patsy very much; but it took four men to separate them for all that.
When they had dragged Irish perforce down to the creek by which they
had camped, and had yelled to Big Medicine to come on and feed the
fish, quiet should have been restored--but it was not.
Patsy was, in American parlance, running amuck. He was jumbling three
languages together into an indistinguishable tumult of sound and he
was emptying the cook-tent of everything which his stout, German
muscles could fling from it. Not a thing did he leave that was eatable
and the dishes within his reach he scattered recklessly to all the
winds of heaven. When one venturesome soul after another approached to
calm him, he found it expedient to duck and run to cover. Patsy's aim
was terribly exact.
The Happy Family, under cover or at a safe distance from the hurtling
pans, cans and stove wood, caressed sundry bumps and waited meekly.
Irish and Big Medicine, once more disclosing the features God had
given them, returned by a circuitous route and joined their fellows.
"Look at 'em over there--he's emptying every grain uh rolled oats on
the ground!" Happy Jack was a "mush-fiend." "Somebody better go over
and stop 'im--"
"You ain't tied down," suggested Cal Emmett rather pointedly, and
Happy Jack said no more.
Chip, usually so incisively clear as to his intentions and his duties,
waited irresolutely and dodged missiles along with the rest of them.
When Patsy subsided for the very good reason that there was nothing
else which he could throw out, Chip took the matter up with him and
told him quite plainly some of the duties of a cook, a few of his
privileges and all of his limitations. The result, however, was not
quite what he expected. Patsy would not even listen.
"Py cosh, I not stand for dose poys no more," he declared, wagging his
head with its shiny crown and the fringe of grizzled hair around the
back. "I not cook grub for dat Irish und dat Big Medicine und Happy
Jack und all dose vat cooms und eats mine pies und shpoils mine pread
und makes deirselves fools all der time. If dose fellers shtay on dis
camp I quits him alreatty." To make the bluff convincing he untied his
apron, threw it spitefully upon the ground and stamped upon it
clumsily, like a maddened elephant.
"Well, quit then!" Chip was fast losing his own temper, what with the
heat and his hunger and a general distaste for camp troubles. "This
jangling has got to stop right here. We've had about enough of it in
the last month. If you can't cook for the outfit peaceably--" He did
not finish the sentence, or if he did the distance muffled the words,
for he was leading his horse back to the vicinity of the rope corral
that he might unsaddle and turn him loose.
He heard several voices muttering angrily, but his wrath was ever of
the stiff-necked variety so that he would not look around to see what
was the matter. The tumult grew, however, until when he did turn he
saw Patsy stalking off across the prairie with his hat on and his coat
folded neatly over his arm, and Irish and Big Medicine fighting
wickedly in the open space between the two tents. He finished
unsaddling and then went stalking over to quell this latest
development.
"They're trying to find out who was to blame," Weary informed him when
he was quite close. "Bud hasn't got much tact: he called Irish a
dough-head. Irish didn't think it was true humor, and he hit Bud on
the nose. He claims that Bud pitched him into that dishpan uh dough
with malice aforethought. Better let 'em argue the point to a finish,
now they're started. It's black eyes for the peacemaker--you believe
_me_."
While the dusk folded them close and the nighthawks swooped from afar,
the Happy Family gathered round and watched them fight. Chip and Weary
thoughtfully went into the bed-tent and got the guns which were stowed
away in the beds of the combatants, so that when their anger reached
the killing point they must let it bubble harmlessly until the fires
which fed it went cold. Which was exceeding wise of the two, for Big
Medicine and Irish did get to that very point and raged all over the
camp because they could not shoot each other.
The hottest battle must perforce end sometime, and so the camp of the
Flying U did at last settle into some semblance of calm. Irish rolled
his bed, saddled a horse and rode off toward town, quite as if he were
going for good and all. Big Medicine went down to the creek for the
second time that evening to wash away the marks of strife, and when he
returned he went straight to bed without a word to anyone. Patsy was
gone, no man knew whither, and the cook-tent was as nearly wrecked as
might be.
"Makes me think uh that time we had the ringtailed tiger in camp,"
sighed Andy Green, shaking sand out of the teakettle so that it could
be refilled.
"By golly, I'd ruther have a whole band uh tagers than this fighting
bunch," Slim affirmed earnestly. Slim was laboring sootily with the
stove-pipe which Patsy had struck askew with a stick of wood.
Outside, Happy Jack was protesting in what he believed to be an
undertone against being installed in Patsy's place. "Aw, that's always
the way! Anything comes up, it's 'Happy, you git in and rustle some
chuck.' _I_ ain't no cook--or if I be they might pay me cook's wages.
I betche there ain't another man in camp would stand for it.
Somebody's got to take that bacon down to the creek and wash it off,
if yuh want any meat for supper. There ain't no time to boil beef. If
I'd a been boss uh this outfit, I betche no blame cook on earth would
uh made rough-house like Patsy done." But no one paid the slightest
attention to Happy Jack, having plenty to think of and to do before
they slept.