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The Golden West Boys
INJUN AND WHITEY TO THE RESCUE
by
WILLIAM S. HART
Author of Injun and Whitey and Injun and Whitey Strike Out for
Themselves, etc.
Illustrated by Harold Cue
[Illustration: THEY COULDN'T SHOOT HIM--HE WAS GOING TOO FAST (_page 272_)]
Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1922, by William S. Hart
All Rights Reserved
Printed In The U.S.A.
PREFACE
_In the Boys' Golden West Series I have done my best to present to its
readers the West that I knew as a boy._
_Frontier days were made up of many different kinds of humans. There
were men who were muddy-bellied coyotes, so low that they hugged the
ground like a snake. There were girls whose cheeks were so toughened by
shame as to be hardly knowable from squaws. There were stoic Indians
with red-raw, liquor-dilated eyes, peaceable and just when sober,
boastful and intolerant when drunk. And then there were those White Men,
those moulders, those makers of the great, big open-hearted West, that
had not yet been denatured by nesters and wire fences, men to whom a
Colt gun was the court of last appeal and who did not carry a warrant in
their pockets until it was worn out, men who faced staggering odds and
danger single-handed and alone, men who created and worked out and made
an Ideal Civilization,--a country where doors were left unlocked at
night and the windows of the mind were always open,--men who were
always kind to the weak and unprotected, even if they did have hoofs and
horns, men like William B. (Bat) Masterson and Wyatt Earp. They and
their kind made the frontier, that Great West which we can now look back
upon as the most romantic era of our American History._
_I love it; I love all that was ever connected with it; and to all those
who are in sympathy with my crude efforts to set forth what little I
know, to each and every boy who feels a choke in his throat when he
reads the closing lines of "In Memory," I say, I have a choke in my
throat too, and I am silently clutching your hand, for that red boy has
crossed the Big Divide and gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds and the
white boy is saying Farewell._
The Author
CONTENTS
I. An Arrival 1
II. A Surprise 13
III. Mystery 26
IV. Solution 39
V. Bunk-House Talk 51
VI. Boots 66
VII. Education and Other Things 77
VIII. Injun Talks 87
IX. Fish-Hooks and Hooky 115
X. A Hard Job 129
XI. The T Up and Down 139
XII. Felix the Faithless 150
XIII. A Fool's Errand 160
XIV. The Stampede 170
XV. The Cattle-Sheep War 185
XVI. "Medicine" 206
XVII. "The Pride of the West" 218
XVIII. Wonders 229
XIX. Threshing-Time 235
XX. The Story of the Custer Fight 247
XXI. Unrest 263
XXII. The New Order 271
XXIII. Pioneer Days 290
XXIV. "In Memory" 299
ILLUSTRATIONS
They couldn't shoot him--he was going
too fast _Frontispiece_
In Front of Them Stood Sitting Bull 16
Advancing into the Road with both Front
Paws Extended 120
The Man's Figure disappeared through
the Opening, the Bucket falling from
his Hands 202
INJUN AND WHITEY TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER I
AN ARRIVAL
There was no doubt that affairs were rather dull on the Bar O Ranch; at
least they seemed so to "Whitey," otherwise Alan Sherwood. Since he and
his pal, "Injun," had had the adventures incidental to the finding of
the gold in the mountains, there had been nothing doing. So life seemed
tame to Whitey, to whom so many exciting things had happened since he
had come West that he now had a taste for excitement.
It was Saturday, so there were no lessons, and it was a relief to be
free from the teachings of John Big Moose, the educated Dakota, who
acted as tutor for Injun and Whitey. Not that John was impatient with
his pupils. He was too patient, if anything, his own boyhood not being
so far behind him that he had forgotten that outdoors, in the Golden
West, is apt to prove more interesting to fifteen-year-old youth than
printed books--especially when one half the class is of Indian blood.
As Whitey stood near the bunk house and thought of these things, his eye
was attracted by a speck moving toward him across the prairie. He
watched it with the interest one might have in a ship at sea; as one
watches in a place in which few moving things are seen. The speck was
small, and was coming toward Whitey slowly.
From around the corner of the bunk house Injun approached. It will be
remembered by those who have read of Injun that he was very fond of pink
pajamas. As garments, pink pajamas seemed to Injun to be the real thing.
It had been hard to convince him that they were not proper for everyday
wear, but when he was half convinced of this fact, he had done the next
best thing, and taken to a very pink shirt. This, tucked in a large pair
of men's trousers, below which were beaded moccasins, was Injun's
costume, which he wore with quiet dignity.
"What do you s'pose that is?" asked Whitey, pointing at the speck.
"Dog," Injun answered briefly.
"A dog!" cried Whitey, who, though he had never ceased to wonder at
Injun's keenness of sight, was inclined to question it now. "What can a
dog be doing out there?"
"Dunno," Injun replied. "Him dog." Injun's education had not as yet sunk
in deep enough to affect his speech.
Whitey again turned his eyes toward the object, which certainly was
moving slowly, as though tired, and, as the boys watched, sure enough,
began to resolve itself into the shape of a dog. Here at last was
something happening to break the dullness of the day. A strange dog
twenty-five miles from any place in which a dog would naturally be.
Furthermore, when the animal was near enough to be seen distinctly, he
furnished another surprise. He was entirely unlike any of the dogs of
that neighborhood--the hounds, collies, or terriers. He was white,
short, chunky. His head was very large for his size, his jaw undershot,
his mouth enormous, and his lower lip drooped carelessly over a couple
of fangs on each side. Under small ears his eyes popped almost out of
his head, and his snub nose could scarcely be said to be a nose at all.
From a wide chest his body narrowed until it joined a short, twisted
tail, and his front legs were bowed, as though he had been in the habit
of riding a horse all his life.
Injun gazed at this strange being with something as near surprise as he
ever allowed himself. "Him look like frog," he declared.
"Why, it's a bulldog, an English bulldog!" exclaimed Whitey, who had
seen many of this breed in the East.
"More like bullfrog," Injun maintained solemnly. "What him do--eat
bulls?"
The brute's appearance surely was forbidding enough, and if Injun had
been subject to fear, which he wasn't, he would have felt it now. He did
not know, as many better informed people do not, that beneath this
breed's fierce appearance lies the deepest of dog love for a
master--and that's a pretty deep love--and that no other "friend of man"
holds gentler, kinder feeling for the human race than this queerly
shaped animal. And this in spite of the fact that he owes the very
queerness of his appearance to man, who has had him bred in that shape,
through countless generations, to the end that the poor, faithful beast
may do brutal deeds in the bull ring and the dog pit.
Whitey did not know all this--that the wide jaws were designed for a
grip on the enemy, the snub nose to permit breathing while that grip was
held, the widespread legs to secure a firm ground hold; in short, that
he was looking at an animal built for conflict, which had the courage of
a lion where his enemies were concerned, and the love of a wild thing
for its young where its human friends were concerned.
But Whitey knew the latter part of it--that bulldogs were friendly, and
usually misunderstood, and he proceeded to let Injun in on his
knowledge. "You needn't be afraid of him," he said.
"No 'fraid, but no go too close," replied the cautious Injun.
Now that this dog was in reach of humans he sat down, opened his
cave-like mouth, allowing a few inches of tongue to loll out, panted,
and looked amiably at the boys. He certainly was tired.
"He's not only tired, he's thirsty," said Whitey, and ran to the stable
for water.
And while he was gone the bulldog and Injun looked at each other--Injun
with his bronze skin, his long, straight hair, his calm face, and his
steady, dark eyes. This descendant of thousands of fighting men regarded
that descendant of thousands of fighting dogs. And what they thought of
each other the dog couldn't tell, and Injun didn't, but ever after they
were friends.
Presently Whitey returned from the stable with a pan of water, and with
Bill Jordan, foreman of the Bar O, Charlie Bassett, Buck Higgins, and
Shorty Palmer, all the cowpunchers who happened to be on the place. They
all knew bulldogs, and they regarded the newcomer with awe and respect.
Whitey put the water before the dog, who, after favoring him with a
grateful glance and a quiver of his stub tail, went to it.
"He's sure awful dry," Bill said. "Ought t' take him up to Moose Lake.
Looks like that pan o' water won't even moisten him."
"Where d'ye reck'n he come from?" asked Shorty.
"Dunno."
"Mebbe he was follerin' a wagon, an' got lost," Buck Higgins suggested
hopefully.
"Wagon nothin'!" snorted Bill. "Nobody in these parts'd have a dog like
that, an' if they did, what would he be doin' follerin' a wagon? He
ain't built to run, he's built to fight."
Where the dog had come from was something of a mystery. Neighbors were
not near by, in those days, in Montana, the nearest being fourteen miles
off, and the railway twenty-two, and nothing there but a water tank.
There was some discussion regarding the matter which ended in a
deadlock. It was certain that none of the ranchmen in the vicinity owned
such a dog, and even so, or if a visitor owned him, how would he get to
the Bar O? Walk, with "them legs"?
While the discussion went on, the subject of it gulped down large chunks
of beef which Whitey had begged from the cook, and after that he went
with the men and boys to the ranch house, where, with an apologetic
leer, and a wiggle of his tail, he stretched himself on the veranda, and
fell into a deep sleep. He was very grateful, but he was also very
tired.
In a lonely ranch house matters are of concern which would create little
comment in a city. This dog's coming was in the nature of an event at
the Bar O. Bill, the foreman, and all the punchers were ready to neglect
work for a considerable time and talk about it. Even Injun occasionally
looked interested. But all the talk could not solve the problem of the
animal's presence.
The only one who knew lay sleeping on the veranda and couldn't tell. It
isn't likely that he dreamed, but if he did it might have been of being
tied to the handle of a trunk in an overland limited baggage car; of the
train's stopping for water at a lonely tank; of the earthy, wholesome
country smell that came through the door, left open for coolness.
There had been a stirring in the grass near the track. A glimpse of an
animal that looked something like a fox and something like a wolf, and
wasn't either one, a wild animal that was sneaking around the train for
the odd bits of food that were sometimes left in its wake. As the
pungent scent of this beast reached the bulldog's snub nose, the leash
that held him to the trunk became a thing of little worth. With a
violent lurch he broke it, leaped from the door, landed sprawling
alongside the track, and was off in pursuit of the strange animal.
Now, any one who knows how a bulldog is built and how a coyote is built
can imagine how much chance the first has to catch the second. The dog
followed by sight, not by scent. With his head held as high as his short
neck would allow he dashed on. The coyote didn't bother very much. After
getting a good start he doubled on his tracks for a little way, turned
aside, and sat down. And if he wasn't too mean to laugh, he may at
least have smiled as his enemy rushed forward toward nowhere.
Then that bulldog ran and ran until he couldn't run any more. Then he
walked till he couldn't walk any farther. Then he slept all night, while
other coyotes howled dismally near by. And in the morning he started off
again, thinking he was going toward the train and his sorrowful master,
really going in the opposite direction. But there was one thing that man
hadn't taught him to do in all the years, and that was to quit, so he
kept on. And at last, as any one will who keeps going long enough, he
had to arrive somewhere and he reached the Bar O Ranch.
So you and I and the dog know how he got there, but Bill Jordan, the
punchers, and the boys didn't, and presently they gave up trying to
figure it out.
"'Tain't likely his owner'll show up, so he's ours," said Bill Jordan.
"He's Whitey's," Buck Higgins maintained. "He saw him first."
This law was older than any ranch house, or any cowpuncher, so it held
good, and Whitey became the proud owner of the dog. The matter of his
name came next in importance. Of course he had one, and he was awakened,
and asked to respond to as many dog names as the party could think of.
These were many, running from Towser to Nero, but they brought no
response from the sleepy animal.
"Must be somep'n unusual," Buck Higgins decided, and he ventured on
"Alphonse" and "Julius Cæsar," but they didn't fit.
"Well, we jest nachally got t' give him a name," said Shorty Palmer.
Again the list was gone over, but nothing seemed quite right. "Oughta be
somep'n' 'propriate," said Bill Jordan. "How 'bout Moses? He was lost in
th' wilderness."
"Wilderness nothin'!" objected Buck. "In the bullrushes. Them ain't
prairie grass."
"Besides," said Whitey, "he ought to have a fighting name. Napoleon!"
"'Tain't English."
"Wellington."
"Too long."
As he seemed to have no choice in naming his own dog, Whitey turned in
despair to Injun, who had stood solemnly by. "How about you?" Whitey
asked. "Haven't you a name to suggest?"
The dog knew that he was the subject of the talk, and possibly felt that
he ought to keep awake, for he sat on the veranda and blinked at the
humans. Injun gazed at him stolidly.
"Huh!" he grunted. "Sittin' Bull."
"Great!" cried all the others.
This matter settled, the men went away. Sitting Bull stretched himself
out on the veranda and again fell asleep, and Whitey told Injun that the
dog's coming probably was a good omen. That there ought to be something
doing on the ranch now.