Cottonwoods and quaking aspens along the creeks flaunted leaves of
golden yellow to prove that fall had come, and Ranger O’Neill whistled
a love tune under his breath as he rode down to Bad Cañon post office
for his mail. Strange as it may seem, he was at peace with his
neighbors—or so he would have told you, with a twinkle in his eye
which might mean more than he would care to explain.
No mother of the Stillwater has yet been overheard in lauding the
saintliness of Patrick O’Neill, it is true. But neither had he skinned
his knuckles to enforce the rules and regulations of the forest
service, and Isabelle Boyce thought well of his efforts and was still
quite willing to ride out on a Thursday afternoon and give him
encouragement and advice.
“But I’ll have a matter or two to tell her next Thursday, I’m
thinking,” he broke off his whistling to mutter, speaking to his horse
for want of other companionship, as is the way of men who live much
alone. “I’ve the small triumph of being asked to sit down with the
boss of the Seven L to dinner when I rode up last Saturday to his
house. The first ranger who ever did that, I’m sure. It’s something I
can boast of to Queen Isabelle.
“Also I held my temper in the matter of the sheep I found trespassing
on the Trout Creek Range, and if I told the owner I’d hold the band
for damages next time he drove them on, and charge him a full season’s
grazing fee to boot, I did it politely and only once called him spawn
of the devil and let it go at that.
“Then there’s the timber sale on Blind Bridger Creek—I handled that
thief of a Blanding like a diplomat, which same I shall point out to
Queen Isabelle. He’d broken his contract with deliberate intent,
piling the logs this way and that in the yard, instead of all tops in
one direction, according to agreement. I could have quarreled with the
man and made a great talk and stir, but I did not. I calmly—and I
shall describe how calmly it was done!—I very calmly scaled butts and
tops as they came, and let Blanding splutter at the loss and be damned
to him. He’ll yard his logs according to contract next time, I’m
thinking!
“Pat, me lad, you’ve much to be proud of, and I shall tell her so. I
shall likewise point out the fact that I’m aware her respected father,
and others as well, are running far more cattle on the forest than
their permits call for, but that I am shutting one eye to that, since
the season is nearly over anyway, and I’ve no mind to fight the entire
Stillwater at this time. But when next the permits are issued,
there’ll be no violations without the penalty attached. And for these
good deeds perhaps the queen will reward me by consenting to a little
fishing trip next Thursday!”
Whereupon Patrick O’Neill resumed his whispered whistling of the love
tune he liked best, and rode contentedly into the tiny settlement that
was called Bad Cañon post office to distinguish it from the cañon
itself, and into an event which spoiled whatever vanity he may have
indulged in because of his saintliness.
A small group of rangemen sat dangling spurred heels from the narrow
platform in front of the store, smoking and gossiping of this thing
and that, when Patrick O’Neill rode jauntily up to the hitch rail and
dismounted, still whistling the love tune under his breath. From the
tail of his eye he saw them jerk thumbs in his direction, exchange a
muttered sentence or two and laugh. Young Patrick O’Neill did not like
that—being Irish; but being a saint for the moment as well, he let it
pass.
* * * * *
As he approached the store, he nodded casually toward a man or two
whom he disliked the least, and would have walked inside quite
inoffensively had not Gus Peterson, the owner of the Box S brand,
reached out a hairy paw and caught O’Neill by the arm.
“Aw, don’t be in such a damn hurry!” he arrogantly commanded. “I’d
like to know what you let them sheep do with my grass. I think you’re
one hell of a ranger! You can’t tell cows from sheeps! I paid good
money for that grass. And I don’t stand for no damn ranger lettin’
sheep come and eat my grass!”
“Take your dirty claw off me!” snapped the saintly Patrick O’Neill, as
he threw off Peterson’s hand. “No sheep are on your grazing ground,
and you know it. And I think,” he added meaningly, “if you’d count
your cattle, you’d find you were getting your money’s worth of grass,
all right!”
“Yes, my cows ate grass before you come here an’, by damn, they eat
grass when you go! Maybe you charge money for breathin’ air! Maybe——”
“And if I did, I’d collect the same, remember that! I’m running this
proposition, my fine bully, as you’ll find out if you stick around a
while. You’re going to pay for the grass your cows eat on the national
forest—and you’ll pay for the cows on the range, mind you! As for the
sheep—— Well, I’m running that end of it, too.”
“Yes, you’ll be runnin’ out of this country!” Peterson bellowed
truculently, his red face thrust close to the blazing eyes of Ranger
O’Neill. “We don’t need no damn forest ranger in here as a boss. We
can run our cows without help from the government, and we’ll run you
out just like we ran out the other damn rangers!”
“And when,” grated Patrick O’Neill, no longer wishing to be counted a
saint, “do you expect to start running me out?”
“I’ll start now!” bawled Peterson, as he dived forward with
outstretched arms for the grappling hold which was his pet way of
crushing an enemy.
Patrick O’Neill stepped backward and waited until the huge arms had
all but embraced him. Then he lifted his right knee sharply, grabbed
Peterson’s head and jerked it down upon that knee. The impact was
terrific. The big rancher staggered back with a roar of pain and
baffled rage, and as he straightened, he got a frightfully direct blow
in his middle and another on the jaw that snapped his head backward. A
second blow found the big jaw, and Peterson of the Box S, bully of the
Stillwater District, crumpled down in a heap and lay there.
“Git him!” yelled a lanky cow-puncher, one of Boyce’s riders, as
Patrick O’Neill knew well. The puncher came in with a sideswipe, two
others at his heels.
Patrick O’Neill grinned and gave him the neatest uppercut West Point
boxers could teach him. A man at his right tried to trip him, while
the Boyce man came in again, and it was right then that the spirit of
all the wild, fighting O’Neills came into its own.
Young Patrick—no more a saint—lost a sleeve from his coat, which was
likewise split up the back to his collar. He barked a knuckle against
a man’s teeth—who thereafter grew a mustache to hide the gap in his
grin—and his lip was cut where a flailing fist found him. But, oh, how
the fighting spirit of all the Irish O’Neills did glory in the fray!
“Cleaned ’em cleaner than a new shotgun!” the postmaster reported the
incident to his wife that night.
Ranger Patrick O’Neill did not whistle a love tune as he rode home
with his mail, but that was chiefly because of his swollen lip, for
the fighting spirit of the O’Neills once aroused was hard to down.
“Pat, me lad, I think you’d better not broach the subject of a fishing
trip, next Thursday,” he reflected, as he climbed the steep trail up
along the west bank of Limestone Creek. “I think you’ll be better
considerin’ how you’re to convince Queen Isabelle that you’re a man of
peace.” And then he sighed, and grinned as well as his stiff and puffy
lip would permit. “But oh, doctor! It sure was one lovely scrimmage
while it lasted, and it did the heart of me good to hear them howl
that they’d had enough!” he murmured unrepentantly, and flexed his
sore muscles in pleasant retrospection.
* * * * *
With the lip still swollen, and standing askew in a sardonic smile of
irony which his twinkling eyes belied, Patrick O’Neill rode with some
secret trepidation next Thursday to make his weekly report to the girl
whom he had now called “Queen Isabelle” to her face.
She listened in silence to his cheerful account of the manner in which
he had taught Blanding a lesson in good pine timber, and when he had
stressed his mild demeanor as much as he dared, she looked at him
coldly and said:
“I’ve heard another story of how you, representing the government,
cheated Mr. Blanding out of more than twenty-five thousand feet of
timber by scaling the butts of his logs instead of the tops. According
to your version, he brought the loss on himself, so I’ll say nothing
about that—except that as a measure of winning the Stillwater to
friendship with the forest service, you seem to have made haste
backward. The timber men are all up in arms over what they call a
government steal, and Blanding says he is going to write to Washington
and have you removed. We can’t very well call that a gain in friendly
confidence, but I suppose it will straighten out in time. What else,
Mr. Ranger?”
Patrick O’Neill thereupon told her of the trespassing sheep and how he
had dealt with the owner.
“That’s better,” she praised him, “though if I know anything about old
Jensen, you aren’t through with him yet by any means. You’ll have to
go carefully there, if you want to avoid trouble. Is that all?” And
she looked very meaningly at the swollen lip. “You’ve hurt yourself, I
see. Did you fall off your horse, Mr. O’Neill?”
“I did not,” Pat returned, in a distressed tone. “A Bar B man—the
long-legged one you call ‘Little Bill’—flung out a hand in his sleep,
as it were, and it chanced to graze my lip. It’s no more than a
scratch, for the man was unconscious—or nearly so—when he made the
gesture. I’m sure he never meant to touch me there, Queen Isabelle.
And now I have to tell you that I had dinner at the Seven L Ranch last
Saturday——”
“Little Bill didn’t mean to strike you in the mouth, I know,” said
Isabelle, disregarding the change of subject. “What he meant to
do—what he still means to do, in fact, is to beat your blinkety-blink,
do-re-mi-sol-dough brains out and spread them thinly over the entire
Stillwater district. Or, at least, that is what I heard him saying as
I rode past the bunk house last evening. I suppose he was dreaming
while he slept!”
“I think he must have been, Queen Isabelle, and others along with
him.”
“I suppose he also dreamed that you swaggered up to him and others at
the post office, and boasted that you would show them who was running
this country, thereupon attacking them with your loaded quirt.”
Patrick O’Neill stared fixedly into her face, his own a bit pale under
his tan. He swung his horse short around in the trail then and started
back the way they had come.
“Where away, Mr. Bad Man?” Isabelle’s voice held a note of panic under
the raillery.
Ranger O’Neill held his horse to a walk while he looked back at her.
“I was going to bring Little Bill to you and hear him admit how the
tongue of him lied,” he said grimly. “Or you may come with me, if it
pleases you better than to wait.” He looked at her, eyes demanding an
answer.
Isabelle laughed as she rode up to him. “I was only teasing you, Mr.
Ranger Man,” she said pacifically, perhaps because she understood the
look she saw in his eyes. “The postmaster’s wife told me all about it.
She saw the whole thing through the window, and heard what was said. I
can’t blame you for fighting them, and since you did fight, I’m glad
you whipped the bunch. Do please get down off your high horse, you man
of peace, and let’s talk seriously. I don’t blame you for
fighting—they must learn to respect you, I suppose, before they will
ever come to like you, and if you had backed down from Peterson, every
cowboy in the country would despise you for it. Not one of them would
ever have taken you seriously after that, or given you anything but
contempt.
“Little Bill happens to be a great crony of Peterson’s outfit, though
why he doesn’t work for the Box S instead of for father I never could
tell you. He isn’t so awfully popular with our boys. Most of our
riders are pretty good fellows, as you would discover for yourself if
there wasn’t this grudge against the forest reserve which keeps you
seeing their most disagreeable traits.
“One thing I wanted to tell you, ranger man, is that Peterson and his
bunch are going to ‘get’ you, on account of that fight. I heard Little
Bill telling the boys so. He wanted them to go in on the scheme, but
they wouldn’t do it: or, at least, that’s what I understood from what
I overheard.”
“I take it your father would not object to the plan, at any rate.”
Patrick O’Neill was not smiling now.
“Father? He never would have anything to do with it! I—I happen to
know, ranger, that he has a scheme of his own for getting rid of you.”
“Yes? And if I might ask——”
“I shouldn’t tell you, because it isn’t going to work, anyway. He
merely wrote to his brother-in-law—who is my uncle, of course—in
Washington, asking him to see that you are removed from this district
as your conduct is most obnoxious. But that doesn’t mean anything at
all, for I wrote in the very next mail to my uncle, and told him that
father is merely prejudiced against the forest service in general, and
that—that you are the most competent ranger we have ever had here. I
said he must not pay any attention to father. He won’t, either. I
lived with Uncle John and Aunt Martha while I was in school, and they
know just how cranky and unreasonable father can be. So that’s all
right. But Peterson is a different proposition. From what Little Bill
said——”
“I think,” said Ranger O’Neill, turning to his horse, “I had better go
and have a little talk with our friend Peterson.”
“You will not!” Isabelle caught him by the arm. “That’s exactly what
you must _not_ do! I only told you so that you would be on your guard
and refuse to be drawn into any argument, as you were at Bad Cañon the
other day. Can’t you see? If you know how they feel, you can avoid
coming into contact with them until they forget about it. It’s only
because they were licked, and Peterson hates that worse than anything
else.”
“And would you have me stick close to my station, then?” O’Neill’s
eyes held a sparkle it was as well Isabelle did not see. “And what
then, if they come after me there?”
“That,” cried Isabelle, “is beside the point! They would never dare
attack you at the station. What I think they will do is probably start
another quarrel with you, and when you are silly enough to fight, they
mean to—to shoot you, for all I know! Little Bill said: ‘We’re goin’
to get him, next time, and get him _good_! And you’ve got to keep out,
I tell you. All this fighting is exactly what they want.’
“And they’ll get what they’re wantin’ or my name is not Patrick
O’Neill! Leave go my arm, Queen Isabelle, and let me carry the war to
the enemy’s camp—for that’s what they taught me at West Point, and
it’s one thing they taught that I thoroughly approve!”
“Oh,” wailed Isabelle, while tears of anger stood in her eyes, “you’re
such a blithering fool! All you Irish can think of is fighting! You’re
worse than Cushman or Waller or any of the other shoot-’em-up rangers
that had to leave or get killed. You _promised_ me you’d win them to
you with kindness and courtesy, and if you break that promise, I hope
they break your head!”
“And thank you for that same, Miss Boyce,” said Patrick O’Neill, with
icy politeness, as he sprang to the saddle. “It’s a fine example of
kindness and courtesy you’re setting me now—as like your father as one
white bean is like another! So I’ll pass it along to Peterson and
Little Bill, and crack their heads as you so sweetly wish them to do
by me!”
He lifted his hat from his thick brown hair and gave her a courtly bow
that left her furiously stamping her foot and gritting her teeth at
him as he galloped away, headed north to the Box S Range that lay
along Bad Cañon Creek, between Lodgepole Basin and Trout Creek where
the sheep had entered. That the trail led homeward as well never once
occurred to Isabelle, who saw him going foolhardily to place his head
in the jaws of the lion that roared for his bones to crunch; in other
words, to fight on their own ground Peterson and his crowd that had
boasted how they would get him.
“She’ll do me the favor to be thinking of me now,” said Patrick
O’Neill to himself, though he never once looked back.