A SURPRISE
It was early morning, and the Bar O Ranch slept, heedless of the keen
late-autumn air that had in it just a faint, brisk hint of the fall
frosts to come. Whitey came out of the ranch house and moved toward the
stable. Sitting Bull trudged after him.
The dog was entirely rested, having slept the better part of two days
and nights. He seemed to know that Whitey was his new owner. Dogs have
an instinct for that sort of thing. And though Bull was civil and
friendly enough with every one else on the ranch, he took to Whitey by
selection.
At six o'clock each night Bull sat near the ranch-house front door as
though waiting for some one. He waited a long time. Bill Jordan, who
prided himself on what he knew about dogs, and men, said that Bull's
former owner probably was a city man, and was in the habit of coming
home at six; that the dog was waiting for him to appear. Be that as it
may, in the days to come Bull gave up this custom. No one knew what he
felt about the loss of his old master. He became a Montana dog. The city
was to know him no more.
Now he waddled along after Whitey, who was making for a straw stack,
near the stable. Among the field mice, gophers, rabbits, and such that
thought this stack was a pretty nice place to hang around, were two hens
that were of the same opinion. At least they made their nests in the
stack and laid their eggs there. And they were the only hens that the
Bar O boasted, for hens were scarce in Montana in those days--as Buck
said, "almost as scarce as hen's teeth, an' every one knows there ain't
no such thing."
It was Whitey's particular business to gather the eggs of those hens,
which they saw fit to lay early in the morning. So Whitey came to the
stack early, to be ahead of any weasels or ferrets, who had an uncommon
fondness for eggs. This morning as he moved around the stack he didn't
find any eggs, but he saw something black and pointed sticking out of
the straw. Whitey took hold of the object and pulled, and the thing
lengthened out in his hands.
And right there a sort of shivery feeling attacked Whitey's spine and
moved up until it reached his hair, which straightway began to stand on
end, for the object was a boot and in it was a man's leg. The boot came,
followed by the leg, followed by a man. From what might be called the
twin straw beds, another man emerged. Both sat upright in the straw and
rubbed their eyes. Whitey didn't wait to see if any more were coming, or
even to think of where he was going. He fled.
Instinct took him toward the ranch house, and good fortune brought Bill
Jordan out of the door at the same moment.
"Bill!" yelled Whitey, "there's two men in the straw stack!"
Bill did not appear unduly excited. "They ain't eatin' the straw, are
they?" he inquired.
"No, but they look awfully tough, and they nearly gave me
heart-disease," Whitey panted.
"If tough-lookin' folks could give me heart-disease, I'd of bin dead
long ago," Bill responded. "Let's go an' size 'em up."
Bill strolled to the stack with Whitey. The two men, now thoroughly
awake, were still sitting upright in the straw. In front of them stood
Sitting Bull. His lower jaw was sticking out farther than usual, and he
was watching the men and awaiting events.
[Illustration: IN FRONT OF THEM STOOD SITTING BULL]
"Hey! Call off yer dog, will ye?" requested one of the men.
"He ain't mine," Bill answered calmly, indicating Whitey. "He's his."
"Well, get him to call him off," said the man. "Every time we move he
makes a noise like sudden death."
Whitey summoned Bull, who came to him obediently enough, and the men
rose to their feet, and stretched themselves and brushed off some of the
straw that clung to their not over-neat attire. They were not as
bad-looking as they might have been, neither were they as good-looking.
One was tall and slim and wore a dark beard. The other was almost as
tall, but, being very fat, did not look his height. He was
clean-shaven, or would have been had it not been for about three days'
stubbly growth. Their clothes were well-worn, and they wore no collars,
but their boots were good.
"What you fellers doin' here?" demanded Bill. "Ain't the bunk house good
enough for you?"
"We got in late, an' ev'body was in bed," said the taller of the two.
"We're walkin' through for th' thrashin'."
"Well, yer late for that too," said Bill.
The threshing in the early days of Montana was an affair in which many
people of all sorts took part, as will be seen later. Bill questioned
the men, and their story was brought out. It seemed that they had come
from Billings, in search of work at threshing. The taller, thin one was
named Hank, but was usually called "String Beans," on account of his
scissors-like appearance. He had formerly been a cowpuncher. The other
had been a waiter, until he got too fat, then he had become a cook.
Originally named Albert, after he had waited in a restaurant for a
while he had been dubbed "Ham And," which, you may know, is a short way
of ordering ham and eggs. And this name in time was reduced to "Ham."
Bill Jordan did not seem to take the men seriously. Their names may have
had something to do with his attitude, and the early West was not
over-suspicious, anyway. It had been said that "out here we take every
man to be honest, until he is proven to be a thief, and in the East they
take every man to be a thief, until he is proven to be honest." You can
believe that or not, as you happen to live in the West or in the East.
Besides, Bill could make use of the talents of String Beans and Ham. He
needed "hands" to work on the ranch.
When Whitey found that his supposed tragedy was turning into a comedy,
he felt rather bad about it, especially as Bill was inclined to guy him.
"Lucky you didn't shoot up them two fellers what's named after food,"
Bill said, when the strangers had retired to the bunk house. "Or knock
'em out with some of them upper-cuts you're so handy in passin'
'round." For a boy, Whitey was an expert boxer.
"What was I to think, finding them that way?" Whitey retorted. "And they
don't look very good to me yet."
"Clothin' is only skin deep," said Bill.
Whitey felt called on to justify his alarm. "It's not only their
clothes," he said, "but their looks. You noticed that Bull didn't like
them, and you know dogs have true instinct about judging people."
"Let me tell you somethin' about dogs," began Bill, who usually was
willing to tell Whitey, or anybody else, something about anything. "Dogs
is supposed to be democratic, but they ain't. They don't like shabby
men. I'm purty fond of dogs, but they got one fault--they're snobs. They
don't like shabby men," Bill repeated for emphasis.
As Whitey thought of this he remembered that the dogs he had known had
this failing, if it was a failing. He also tried to think of some reason
for it, so he could prove that Bill was wrong, but he couldn't. That is,
he couldn't think of anything until Bill had gone away and it was too
late. Then it occurred to him that it was only the dogs that belonged to
the well-dressed that disliked the poorly dressed. That a shabby man's
dog loved him just as well as though he wore purple and fine linen,
whatever that was. Whitey looked around for Bill to confound him with
this truth, but Bill had disappeared--a way he had of doing the moment
he got the better of an argument.
If the two men were aching to work, they had not long to suffer; Bill
Jordan soon found occupation for them. Slim, the negro cook, had been
taken with a "misery" in his side, and Ham was installed in his place.
And to do Ham justice he was not such a bad cook. The ranch hands
allowed that he couldn't have been worse than Slim, anyway. String Beans
did not make so much of a hit as a cowpuncher. Bill watched some of his
efforts, and said that though he was a bad puncher he was a good liar
for saying he'd ever seen a cow before. So String Beans was sent to the
mine to work.
This quartz mine, up in the mountains, was the one near which Injun and
Whitey had had so many exciting adventures. Now they owned an interest
in it, as has been told, though Mr. Sherwood and a tribe of Dakota
Indians were the principal shareholders. During the summer the mine had
been undergoing development, and the first shipment of ore was soon to
be made.
With String Beans working at the mine, and Ham improving the men's
digestion as a cook, it began to look as though Whitey's idea that they
were desperate characters was ill-founded. In fact, the thought had
almost passed from his mind, and was quite forgotten on a certain
Saturday. On that day Injun and Whitey were free from the teachings of
John Big Moose, and were out on the plains for antelope. They didn't get
an antelope, didn't even see one. All they got were appetites; though
Whitey's appetite came without calling, as it were, and always excited
the admiration of Bill Jordan. After dinner that evening Whitey went to
the bunk house. Some of the cowpunchers were in from the range, and
Whitey loved to hear the yarns they would spin.
So he lay in a bunk and listened to a number of stories, and wondered
if they were all true--and it is a singular fact that some of them were.
But Whitey's day's hunt had been long, and his dinner had been big, and
his eyes began to droop.
Buck Higgins was in the midst of a tale about being thrown from his
cayuse and breaking his right arm. There was a wild stallion in this
story, which every puncher in seven states or so had tried to capture.
Now, Buck, with his right arm broken, naturally had to throw his rope
with his left, and his manner of doing that took some description. It
was during this that in Whitey's mind he, in a mysterious way, changed
to Buck, or rather Buck changed to Whitey, and the stallion changed to
an antelope, and pretty soon things began to get rather vague generally.
When Whitey awoke, the bunk house was almost dark. How long he had been
lying asleep he did not know. The light came from a candle, and
presently Whitey heard voices. Three men were seated near by, and Whitey
was about to get out of the bunk, when he recognized the voice of
String Beans, and something held him back. It was evident that the men
did not know that he was there.
Whitey felt something warm stir against him, and, startled, put out his
hand and encountered a hairy surface. It was Sitting Bull, who had
crawled into the bunk after Whitey had fallen asleep, and crowded in
between the boy and the wall. At the sound of String Beans' voice Whitey
felt the hair along Bull's neck rise. He remembered the dog's dislike
for the two men, and put his hand over Bull's mouth to keep him from
growling. Whitey was glad he did not snore. He might now have a chance
to learn whether the two were on the level or not.
For the moment Whitey had some qualms about listening, but he soon
dismissed them. If these men were open and aboveboard, why were they
whispering in the dimly lighted bunk house? Whitey had never been able
to overcome the first distrust he had felt for String Beans and Ham. He
also had a feeling that he ought to justify that distrust, that in a way
it was up to him. So he continued to eavesdrop.
String's tones were low, and did not come to Whitey distinctly. This
was unfortunate in one way, but fortunate in another, for had the men
been nearer they probably would have seen the boy. Soon another voice
broke in, and Whitey knew it as that of "Whiff" Gates, a puncher who was
a constant smoker. Then came another voice, that of Ham And.
Whiff Gates did not bear a good reputation, and it was only because of
the scarcity of help that Bill Jordan kept him on. As Whitey reflected
on this, and the "birds of a feather flock together" idea, he kept very
still. His patience was soon rewarded, for as the men grew more earnest
in their talk, their tones became louder, though Whitey could not hear
as distinctly as he would have liked.
However, he gathered that String had returned from the mine on account
of an injury to his foot, caused by a piece of rock falling on it. That
there had been some excitement at the mine, owing to a "bug hole" being
discovered. Whitey learned afterwards this was a sort of pocket caused
by the dripping of water, and containing a small but very rich quantity
of ore. Whitey also heard something about a certain date, on which the
three were to be at a certain place, but here, to his disgust, the
voices were again lowered, as if in caution.
On the whole, though this secret meeting seemed suspicious, the boy did
not learn enough to form a basis for action. Presently the men went
away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the
bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell
Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him
and hand him one of those arguments he couldn't answer.
But the next day he took Injun into his confidence. Injun had no use for
String and Ham, and furthermore was a person who could keep a secret.
And here was something for the boys to keep to themselves--a
mystery,--something to be solved. They would lie low and await events.
It made them feel quite important.