“Ed, I’m through!” Ranger Cushman tossed his hat onto the pine table
where Pat O’Neill had whistled softly over the making of his maps, and
where he whistled no more now that the job was beautifully finished.
O’Neill was now waiting around the office with an expectant, eager
look in his eyes which Murray had studiously ignored while he pondered
the problem of keeping the happy Irishman busy.
“Huh! What’s the trouble now? Cushman, I want you to meet Pat O’Neill;
been making maps; part of the office force now. Well, what’s wrong
with the Stillwater District this time?”
“Ain’t this time, Ed. It’s _all_ the time, and I’m darned good and
tired of it. Man was not born to stand the grief I’ve stood with them
wild cats. I’m goin’ back to the peaceful life of roughin’ broncs for
a livin’. Why, them coyotes over on the Stillwater are so poison mean
they won’t even speak to each other, except when they call a
convention to devise ways and means of dealin’ me misery, and old
Boyce is chairman of the committee.
“They’ve cut the wires on my pasture fence every night for a month, so
every time I want a horse I got to wrangle him afoot. They steal my
grub. I ride day an’ night, hazin’ cattle off the reserve, and they
drive ’em on faster than I can drive ’em off. Why, even the sheepmen
are gettin’ gay! Found two bands of sheep on the reserve, last week,
over Trout Creek way. Killed a few sheep and took a shot at the
herder, but that won’t stop ’em. They’ll keep a-comin’, now they’ve
started.
“Another thing: Them darn timber pirates on Blind Bridger Creek are
cuttin’ everything they come to, regardless. Ed, it’d take a hull
regiment of rangers with a Gatlin’ gun apiece to keep that country
straight! Why, damn it, some of the cowmen even went so far as to hint
I was in on the rustlin’ that’s goin’ on over there. If there’s any
brand of cussedness they ain’t been up to, they’ll think it up while
I’m gone. You can save your breath, Ed. This time you can’t talk me
into goin’ back. I’m through! Ab-so-lutely, eternally through!”
“Huh! Guess I’ll have to take your word for it, Cushman. This makes
the third time you’ve come in here bellerin’ that you’ve quit the
Stillwater.” He whirled his chair around and glared hard at Pat
O’Neill, who was making a map case of his own invention. “Now, what’re
_you_ lickin’ your chops for, like a dog watchin’ a Christmas dinner?
Think there’s a turkey leg comin’ to you outa this?”
“Oh, doctor, but it listens sweet to my fightin’ Irish ears, Mr.
Murray!” Pat O’Neill retorted, with the faintest hint of a brogue in
his voice.
“Huh! Think I’d give you the best ranger station in the Northwest?
Good, three-room log house, good barn, plenty of corrals, thirty acres
of alfalfa under ditch and over two hundred acres of good pasture land
fenced with a four-wire fence——”
“Cut in two or three places every night,” Ranger Cushman dourly
interjected.
“Well, yes, cut occasionally, but a fine pasture for all that. Most
important district in the Absarokee Division; settled clear up to the
base of the mountains with nesters, cow outfits, sheep ranches, all
dead set against the forest service——”
“Puttin’ it mild!” again from Ranger Cushman.
“Well, I admit they’re prejudiced some. Think I’d give that district
to a devil-may-care Irishman just because he happened to know how to
make up a batch of maps? Huh! What d’you expect me to do, O’Neill?
Give you the best and biggest—also the meanest and
fightin’est—district I’ve got in my division?”
* * * * *
For answer, Patrick O’Neill with the West Point figure and mien
facetiously pantomimed his emotions in a manner that sent the blond
secretary into shoulder-heaving convulsions of mirth. That is, he
tilted his head to one side, licked his tongue out over one corner of
his mouth and waggled a hand behind him like a tail.
Ranger Cushman gave a great snort of laughter. Ed Murray roared and
lifted a boot toward the impudent mimic.
“Sick ’em!” he chuckled. “Dog-gone yuh! I was going to send you over
to Stillwater to help Cushman whip that district into shape, but now
you’ll have to tackle it alone.” He eyed O’Neill thoughtfully, his
face gradually settling to a sober look. “I dunno about it, though.
Can you ride?”
“Yes, sir.” O’Neill smelled serious business in the air and quit his
foolery.
“Huh! That’s what you said when I asked you if you could make maps,
but—this is out West, remember. By riding, I mean—well, _riding_.”
“They ride down in the Black Mesa country, sir.” O’Neill paused, with
the twinkle in his eyes. “I mean—they _ride_.”
“Black Mesa—yeah, that’s right, you’re from that country. Wel-l—you’ll
be on your own, so to speak, once you get up there. You heard what
Ranger Cushman said about it. On the square, do you think you can
handle it?”
“I’d like to try it, Mr. Murray.”
Murray cocked a suspicious eye at him, probably wondering just what
lay back of that sudden modesty—coupled with the Irish tone and the
twinkle. He glanced at Cushman, caught the pitying smile on his
saturnine face and swung back to the desk, perhaps to hide a grin.
“All right, O’Neill, you’ll take over the Stillwater District. You
will have charge of the grazing permits and the timber sales, of
course. You will find that the stockmen are inclined to resent the
grazing fee of thirty-five cents a head for their stock, and if it is
possible I should like to see a better feeling between the ranchers
and the forest service. The service is really a protection to the
stockmen, but as yet they look upon us as oppressors who delight in
interfering with their inalienable rights. Boyce, of the Bar B
Ranch—which is nearest the Stillwater station—is apparently the
bitterest enemy we have.”
“He’s a devil!” growled Cushman.
“He came from Boston, but that don’t make him any the less a cowman.
Do the best you can with him and all the rest, and I’ll back you up as
far as Washington will let me.”
“That won’t mean a thing to yuh,” Ranger Cushman told O’Neill, with
the emphasis born of his late tribulations. “This absent treatment for
protection don’t go; not when you’ve got to fight them wild cats over
on the Stillwater. I had Washington and Ed Murray to back me up,
too—but my fences was cut just the same, I noticed!”
“All in the day’s work!” O’Neill laughed, happy over the prospect. “I
learned to mend reserve fences down on the Black Mesa. They cut them
there, too—for a while.”
“Meanin’, I reckon, that you tamed ’em down. But I notice you changed
your range just the same—and I’m changin’ mine. I ain’t goin’ to Black
Mesa, either.”