AMBITIONS REALIZED
UP in their chaparral cloister the runaways sat disconsolate over the
camp fire. Another noon had come and gone, and this time no signal
whatever had fluttered in the tall cottonwood down at Squawtooth.
Manzanita fried the last of the bacon and poured cold water into the
coffee to settle it.
“It’s bacon straight,” she announced with an attempt at a laugh. “Next
meal it’ll be coffee straight. We dare not even go out to pot a rabbit
now, with them hunting as close as they are. If we were to shoot they’d
locate us in no time at all. With them mounted and us afoot, we’d never
get away.”
Falcon the Flunky nibbled at a strip of bacon that had refused to
crisp, then dropped it. It was the last remnant of the side, and it was
rancid and fat.
Presently Manzanita did the same with her portion.
“It’s simply unfit to eat,” she said mournfully. “I don’t think I’ll
ever be able to eat bacon again after this. Ugh! I hate it! Honestly,
I’d rather go hungry.”
The Falcon set down his coffee cup. “Dearest,” he said, “we’ve got to
get out of here. I’m innocent; I refuse longer to subject you to such
needless discomfort. It’s getting serious.”
“We can’t get out,” she protested. “We could never make it across the
range; it’s fifty miles, I guess.”
“We’ll go to Squawtooth, and I’ll give myself up.”
“You won’t! I won’t let you. Besides, I refuse to give up. The Canbys
always finish whatever they start. I’ll get a signal of complete
surrender, or we’ll stay right here and starve.”
“Oh, no, we’ll not!” he assured her.
“But we will. I say we will! You wouldn’t desert me and go alone, Tom?”
“Hardly.”
“Then if I refuse to budge, how are you going to accomplish it?”
“I’ll carry you.”
“Huh! Just try it!”
“Are we going to quarrel, dear?”
Her hazel eyes filled suddenly, and then his arms went around her.
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to me!” she said tearfully. “I’m so
hu-hungry I’m all nerves. What shall we do, Tom? What on earth can we
do?”
“There, there!” and he attempted to sooth her. “We’ll not talk any more
about it now. It’s nearly noon. Let’s be getting up on the rock to
watch the ranch. Maybe we’ll get the signal to-day. If not--well, then
we’ll talk over the situation and try to do whatever is wisest.”
A few minutes later they were on their masthead rock, where the girl
sat and trained the binoculars on Squawtooth.
“Quiet as a church,” she gloomily reported. “Can’t see a moving
thing--not even a cat. But that big car is there again. Wait a minute!
There go a bunch of men riding toward the ranch. Say, they’re riding,
too! Look at ’em go! What’s up?”
Falcon the Flunky took the glasses.
Sure enough, perhaps a dozen horsemen were galloping swiftly toward the
old adobe. They raced up to the corrals, and one of them threw himself
from the saddle and ran toward the house.
“Something’s up,” he decided, his hand shaking just a little. “I
wouldn’t wonder if---- Here, you take the glasses. This is your war.”
She squirmed to one knee and placed her elbow on the other, steadying
the binoculars on the ranch.
“They’re holding a conference,” she detailed. “Now they’re all trooping
into the house.”
For five minutes then she was silent, and he sat gazing in admiration
at her trim, tense little figure.
“They’re coming out!” finally. Then suddenly she burst forth:
“Tom! Tom! There’s a man climbing the cottonwood! The others are
all at the foot of it, looking up. Oh, I believe--I almost _know_!
Tom, there’s something red! It’s tied to the fellow that’s climbing.
Now--he’s up! Out on a branch! There! Look! See it? The red blanket
again--and---- Oh! Oh! Oh! There goes the podhead on the gray colt.
It’s all right! All right! The double signal. Good old Rattle-pod!
Look at that gray cold buck! He’s tying himself in a bow knot! The
corkscrew! And look at the old kid ride ’im! Hi-yi! Ride ’im, cowboy!
Stay with ’im, old kid!” She was on her feet now, jumping up and down,
till her companion reached for her, fearing she might tumble off the
rock in her excitement. She doubled up with laughter and slapped her
chaps; then she glued her eyes to the glasses once more, but could not
keep her feet still.
“Ride ’im, Mart!” she screamed piercingly. “Ride ’im, boy! Don’t pull
leather! Ride ’im, _hermano_! Fan ’im, Rattle-pod!”
She ceased suddenly, lowered the glasses, and looked seriously into her
companion’s eyes, her own wet with glad tears.
“It’s all over,” she said in a tired little voice. “They’ve
surrendered, and the kid turned a double flip-flap in the air and
landed sitting up. Oh, Tom! It’s all over! We’re going home!”
She half closed her eyes. Hunger and excitement had worn her out. Her
knees crumpled under her. With a bound he caught her as she began to
sink, and with a long sigh she dropped her head on his shoulder and
became a dead weight in his arms.
* * * * *
“Toddlebike” Todd, gentleman of the saddle, had been the one to find
the tumbleweed caught on a greasewood bush, with a piece of yellow
paper wound about an inside branch and tied there with a strip of white
cloth. Of an investigating nature, Toddlebike had swung his cow horse
close to the greasewood, leaned his fat body from the saddle, and
picked up the weed. A moment and he was firing his six-shooter in air
and waving his Stetson frantically.
Soon an eager company was gathered around him, and Squawtooth Canby was
reading the messages aloud.
His blue eyes filled as he finished, and his voice was husky as he
spoke.
“She’s all over, boys,” he said. “It’s pretty near noon now. We’ll cut
dust to the house and send the signal. Don’t need to write or phone
this Winston. Anything goes now. I want my girl.”
They galloped swiftly toward Squawtooth, Mart at his father’s side,
begging to see the note. At last Squawtooth handed it to him. Mart said
nothing more until they had reached the ranch, then he remarked:
“Pa, they’s a secret message on that fer me.”
“What’re ye talkin’ about, son?”
Mart grew greatly embarrassed, with so many grown men staring at him.
“They’s a secret message,” he maintained. “Me and Little Apple used ta
send lots of ’em to each other. We wrote with milk. That little jigger
in the corner says for me to heat the paper and bring out the secret
message, pa.”
From the house came Demarest and Hunter Mangan, and Demarest overheard
the last of Mart’s remarks.
“Let ’im heat it, Canby,” he advised. “He knows what he’s talkin’
about. You never can tell what these kids’ll be up to. Secret message,
eh? Say, this is gonta be good!”
Accordingly the curious party followed Mart into the kitchen, where,
not oblivious to his new importance and always aided and abetted by the
youthful-hearted main contractor, the young vaquero made use of Mrs.
Ehrhart’s range.
After a few minutes’ heating letters and words in reddish-brown
began to appear between the lines of Manzanita’s portion of the
communication. Squawtooth thoughtfully stroked his long beard and eyed
his young son with new and speculative interest.
When the message was complete Mart read it aloud.
“You see,” he said, “if I hadn’t read this they wouldn’t be smoked outa
their hole, ’cause Nita says they won’t pay no attention to the red
blanket unless I ride the gray colt out east o’ the house.”
“Canby, you’re the victim of desperate characters!” cried Demarest,
laughing. “There’s intrigue and plotting going on all around you.
Somebody sent a red signal yesterday, didn’t they? The girl and this
flunky saw it, no doubt, but they didn’t show up, did they? This young
pirate is right! There’s no tellin’ what him and that young savage you
call your daughter have been puttin’ over on all these years! I’ll have
to take you back to Minneapolis with me when I go and wise you up a
little. You’re too slow. Put the boy on the colt and hoist your flag of
surrender. I want to see the kid ride the bucker, anyway.”
“How about sending word to Winston?” Mangan put in.
“No need to do that now,” Demarest answered for Squawtooth. “Ain’t he
forgiven ’em? Said he had. And the sheriff says the pot-walloper ain’t
guilty. This fella’d never had the crust to refer you to Winston,
Canby, if he wasn’t all right. But how in thunder comes it that he
knows Winston--one o’ the biggest engineers railroadin’?”
The rollicking Mr. Demarest wheeled on Mangan. “What’s the idea, Mr.
Mangan?” he said quizzically. “You fellows been pulling off somethin’
funny out here, so that the company sent an engineer to spy on you? By
golly, I believe it!”
“I thought much the same thing,” admitted Hunt. “I don’t know. There’s
nothing crooked in any camp’s work, so far as I know. I’m as much
mystified over this Falcon the Flunky as any of you. One thing I
believe, though--he’s all man.”
“Piffle!” retorted Demarest. “Canby and I are goin’ to kick ’im into
the middle o’ next week when the girl’s safe. But hurry up, you folks;
it’s almost noon. Don’t stand here spillin’ words. Darndest country I
ever saw! Everybody sits around and waits for the wind to stop blowin’
or somethin’ like that.”
The signal was soon hoisted in the cottonwood, and, to the huge delight
of the big contractor, Mart rode the unbroken colt over the desert.
Demarest roared and shouted, and his face turned from red to purple as
he laughed in his enjoyment of the sport. Even Squawtooth Canby fell a
prey to his jovial spirits and laughed with the others. Then Mart rose
gracefully from the saddle in the shape of a shelf bracket, and in the
interest of the cause alighted unhurt in a bunch of greasewood, while
the colt went on bucking over the desert in an effort to pitch off
the saddle, too. Mart nonchalantly picked himself up, took a chew of
squawtooth, and limped back to the spectators, to become the possessor
of a five-dollar bill donated by the effervescent Mr. Demarest to prove
his appreciation of the entertainment.
Then all afternoon some one remained aloft in the tall cottonwood to
announce the first glimpse of the returning fugitives. Demarest and
Mangan stayed and tried to cheer the anxious cattleman, but hour after
hour went by with no favorable report from the treetop.
Then, as evening drew near, and just as the two contractors were about
to take their leave in disappointment, the lookout shouted down:
“Here they come!”
At once all was excitement. Men sprang into the saddles and loped off
in the direction indicated by the watcher; but before any of them had
progressed very far a big black car rushed past them, caroming from
hummock to hummock with alarming recklessness, with Mangan, Squawtooth
Canby, and Mart in the rolling tonneau, and Demarest seated beside his
driver.
“I see ’em!” Demarest crowed at last “Let ’er out, can’t you, Charlie?
Here they come! The girl’s wavin’ her hat. She’s runnin’ ahead to meet
us! Let ’er out, Charlie! ’Sall right, Canby. Everybody right side up,
and---- Let ’er out, can’t you, Charlie! ’Fraid o’ breakin’ her?”
A minute more and the big car slowed and came to a stop, and Squawtooth
Canby leaped from the tonneau, and, with tears streaming down his
rugged face, smothered his daughter in his arms.
For a long time neither of them spoke. Both sobbed and hugged each
other, and then the girl looked up with pleading, tear-dimmed eyes,
begging forgiveness. Finally Manzanita left her father’s arms and
clasped the grinning Mart. She turned then toward the rest.
Philip Demarest was standing with his short, fat legs wide apart,
nodding his head up and down at Falcon the Flunky, who was approaching
him with a hand outstretched and a glad smile on his lips.
“Tom Demarest!” cried old Demarest “You infernal---- Great heavens to
Betsy!”
“I thought I knew that black car,” said Falcon the Flunky in his quiet
way. “How’s everything, dad?”
Then Manzanita danced from Mart and charged down upon Demarest,
throwing herself upon him and clasping her arms about his neck.
“Hello, main squeeze!” she cried. “Kiss me! I’m going to be your
daughter-in-law!”
Squawtooth Canby pulled his long whiskers till his mouth hung open, and
Mart remarked: “Huh!”
* * * * *
“There’s so little to explain,” said Demarest as the happy party
trooped to the wide veranda at Squawtooth. “If I’d dreamed--why didn’t
I think of it! You see, this young sprout is going to be our general
manager. He’d just finished his engineering course, and before he took
hold of the work he got it into his head that he had no business
managing big camps till he knew the inside lives of the men that would
be workin’ under him.
“‘Well, son,’ I says, ‘there’s only one way to know that, and that’s
to hop to it. Take a month--two months--six months, if you like--and
live the life with ’em from A to Z. ’Tain’t a bad idea, either,’ I
says. You see, folks, I come up from the grade myself. I wasn’t exactly
what we call a stiff, but I’d done everything from skinnin’ mules and
bein’ powder monkey to paymaster before I had an outfit of my own. So I
thought it would do the boy a world o’ good to get a little democracy
into him after college, and before he took hold. And, by golly, if he
didn’t hit the trail like a regular stiff--went broke a-purpose, and
all that, and ended up flunkyin’ in a camp out West. ’Sall right; I
approve. There’s nothin’ dishonorable in service. We oughta all learn
that. Service is what makes the wheels go round. We all want it, but
mighty few of us have learned to give it. But you oughta written, Tom;
you oughta let us know where you were.”
“I wanted to go the limit, you see,” explained his son. “I was in
touch with Winston. He’d have let you know if things weren’t all right
with me. I didn’t want to merely play stiff; I wanted to be a stiff--a
floating laborer with no money, no home, no friends to aid him. I
wanted to learn all of the ins and outs of their peculiar life. I
understand stiffs now. I’ve worked with them--studied them--served
them. They’ve helped me. I’ll make a better general manager than if I’d
taken hold fresh from college.”
“I’ll say you will!” proudly replied his father, and it was easy to see
that Philip Demarest thought this boy of his one of the wonders of the
world.
“Besides,” added the son, with an odd little touch of satisfaction,
“they’ll tell you at Mangan-Hatton’s that I am a mighty good flunky.
Eh, Mr. Mangan? Give me my job back, won’t you?”
There was little time for more conversation then, for the reclaimed
derelicts were ravenously hungry, and happy, flustered Mrs. Ehrhart
called them to the table in the midst of the merrymaking.
While they were at the table a telephone message came from the sheriff
to the effect that Blacky Silk and Kid Strickland had been captured
close to Dagget and had cleared up the mystery of the first red-blanket
signal.
“I must see old Halfaman Daisy,” said Tom Demarest as they rose from
the table. “He’s out of jail, of course?”
“Oh, yes!” Mart piped up. “He come in yistiddy.”
“He came in, Martie,” primly corrected Manzanita.
For once Mart rebelled. “I wisht you’d stayed up there in the
mountains, Nita!” he complained. “Then I could talk like I wanta. But
if ye hurry up and get married maybe I’ll get some peace, anyway.”
Manzanita’s face turned scarlet, and to hide her confusion she accused:
“You pulled leather to-day!”
“I didn’t no such thing! Did I, Mr. Demarest? Didn’t I stick till the
gray ditched me? I never pulled, Nita. Honest. Ast anybody!”
It was not yet dark when Tom Demarest and his bride-to-be walked over
the desert toward the old camp of Jeddo the Crow with Hunter Mangan,
returning to his camp.
As they came to the parting of the ways Mangan, who had been noticeably
silent, halted and extended both hands to the happy couple.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I wish you both all success and happiness.”
He dropped their hands and turned away into the desert, and the black,
cold night soon had swallowed his solitary figure.
“Hard hit,” Tom Demarest muttered to himself.
As the two walked on and neared the stable tent of the Jeddo camp
unnoticed, they heard a familiar voice within singing softly, and
stopped to listen.
“I’m the ramblin’ kid; I’m the ramblin’ kind--
Deck or brake beams, rods or blind.
I rides in front or I rides behind,
And the bo that rambles ’round me’s got to ride the wind!
On pay day--oh, ba-bay!
On pay day I’m the ramblin’ kind!
“The sons also of Aaron; Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar! So
ole Falcon he’s outa the mountains! Get over there, Ned--I mean
Amram! Hejupah, Moses! Oh, boy--Jeddo, Daisy, and Hejupah, Moses! Oh,
boy--Jeddo, Daisy & Jeddo, contractors. Good night! Side-step a little,
will you, Ned Ithamar? And Wing o’ the Crow loves her Phinehas. The
world moves on.
“A Jersey gaycat makes the break
He’ll beat me West and no mistake.
He died in Cleveland eatin’ cake,
And his ghost was crossin’ Kansas when I reached Salt Lake!
It was pay day--oh, ba-bay!
It was pay day when I reached Salt Lake!”
“Halfaman,” came Wing o’ the Crow’s voice, “quit fussin’ with them ole
mules and come in to supper. Ever’thing’s gettin’ cold.”
“Why, hello there, Miss Wing o’ the Crow Jeddo! How’s every
inconsequential odd and end? Comin’ right now, Apple Blossoms! Say, by
the way, I got somethin’ to tell you.”
“What?”
“Slip us a little kiss. I thank you kindly, ma’am. It was one large day
when the railroad hit Squawtooth. Was it? The answer is yes. Get yer
head outa that feed box, Abihu!”
Falcon the Flunky slipped his arm about Manzanita’s waist, and together
they started back over the darkening desert toward Squawtooth, a
twinkling light in the blackness.
“They don’t need us; we’ll not disturb them to-night,” said the general
manager of Demarest, Spruce & Tillou. “The begatter is right--good old
pal! It was one large day when the railroad hit Squawtooth.”
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
Incorrect page numbers in the Table of Contents have been corrected.