THRESHING-TIME
Injun was a being who ran more to feelings, or instincts, than to
reasons, and like many persons of that kind his instincts often ran
truer to form than the reasons of others. While Dorgan was not a likable
man, he was not one whom everybody would distrust; he did not have the
word "villain" printed on his face. Yet Injun thought he was one, and if
asked for his reasons probably could not have told them.
You know that Injun suspected Dorgan of taking Whitey's pony, and now
Whitey learned for the first time that Injun had seen Dorgan stealing
away from the sheep ranch on the night of the war. Whitey wondered why
Injun had not told him this before, but it was not Injun's way to tell
everything he knew, even to Whitey. That was one of Injun's charms.
No one ever had suspected Dorgan of being a sheepman. He might have been
at that ranch as a mere visitor. Injun thought he went there on foot,
after Monty had been taken away from him. It is well known that in the
Old West horse-stealing was considered about the worst crime a man could
commit, not only because of the value of the horse, and a man's being so
dependent on it, but because the horse helped to steal itself, as all
one had to do was to get on it and ride away. It never would do to
accuse Dorgan of the crime without pretty good proof.
Of course, it made Whitey wild to think of any one's stealing Monty, and
as he and Injun stood in a corner of the barn, and talked the matter
over, they decided on the following course: they would stay at the
Hanley Ranch for a while; Dorgan had not seen them. If he ran away when
he did see them, that would be an indication of guilt, but no proof. But
if Dorgan stayed on, the boys might be able to get some proof of his
guilt. He was a dangerous man to deal with; that made it all the more
interesting. If they had known how dangerous Dorgan really was, they
might have considered the matter more seriously.
The next morning the Mildini Troupe went on its way across the lonely
prairie, and Whitey watched the departure with regret. He would have
liked to travel farther with that troupe.
The owner of the Hanley Ranch seldom came there. He lived in the East,
leaving the affairs of the place entirely in the hands of a manager
named Gilbert Steele. It was a common saying in that part of the country
that "Gil Steele was as hard as his name." He was an ambitious and an
active man, and regarded every dollar wrung out of the ranch for its
owner as a sort of triumph for himself.
There are men who are successful only when working for others; whose
every independent effort is a failure. Steele was such a man, and that
made him bitter, but none the less energetic. He acted not only as
manager, but as foreman of the ranch, which included two sections,
twelve hundred and eighty acres. And he had many enemies.
Perhaps you have wondered at that queer audience in the barn, and why
threshing-time should bring it together. In those days in the West
threshing-time was an era of prosperity, and twenty-five or thirty men
would band together and buy a threshing-machine. They owned plenty of
horses, and they would go from ranch to ranch with this machine, and
thresh the grain. Now, this threshing-time being of short duration, it
drew into it men whose occupations were entirely different at other
times of the year. Hence, the bartenders, hold-up men, cowpunchers--whom
it would be fatal to ask where they came from--the blacksmiths, and the
store-keepers.
Gil Steele had been at the Bar O, so Whitey was known to him, and he
supposed that the boy had come merely to see the show. So Gil was rather
surprised, the next morning, when Whitey asked for a job for himself and
for Injun.
"What do you want to work for?" Steele demanded. "Your father's got
plenty o' money."
Whitey's real reason was that he wanted to be among the men to watch
Dorgan, but he equivocated--which is a pretty way of saying that he told
a white lie.
"Bill Jordan thinks I'm a softy," Whitey replied. "He's trying to make
it so hard for me that I'll be glad to go back to school. And I want to
show Bill that I'm not afraid of work." You see, there was enough truth
in this to keep Whitey's conscience from aching.
"All right," said Steele. "More hands mean quicker work and more money.
But I never heard of an Injun wanting to work before."
"Tame Injun," Injun said solemnly, which was as near a joke as he ever
came in the years Whitey knew him.
This work came under the head of what a fellow doesn't really have to
do, and everybody knows the difference between that and labor that a
fellow does have to do--about the same difference that there is between
work and fun. The threshing-machine was run by horse power. You remember
Felix, the jack that Whitey rode across the prairie, and Felix's job of
turning the little grinding-mill? The horses had the same sort of job,
except that there were teams of them, revolving around a central pivot,
that furnished the power that worked the great machine in whose maw
sheaves of wheat were fed, to come out as grain.
Injun and Whitey's jobs were to hold the sacks into which the grain
fell. And there they worked, from sunup to sundown, in the heat, and the
dust from the chaff, with never a murmur. They were happy because it
_wasn't_ work, it was an adventure, with expectancy and danger in it.
And Gil Steele was happy, because he was practically getting the work of
two men for the pay of two boys.
The sleeping quarters in the Hanley Ranch were altogether taken up by
the extra help required to feed the threshers. So the threshers
themselves occupied tents, and it was in one of these that Whitey and
Injun were bedded, much to their joy. It fitted in with their plans to
watch Dorgan, and see if they could learn something that would confirm
their suspicions of him.
So far Dorgan had been an utter disappointment. Not only had he
refrained from beating it, but he had greeted the boys pleasantly when
they met. As far as outward appearances went, Dorgan might have been a
Sunday school superintendent. Had he been one at heart, there would be
no more story for me to tell.
But there were times when Dorgan could be forgotten. With a crowd like
that gathered on the Hanley Ranch, you can imagine the yarns there were
to spin in the long evenings, with nothing to do but spin them. Perhaps
some of the tales those men didn't dare to tell--the secrets hidden
behind their hardened faces, the faults, the crimes, the horrors that
could have been revealed--these might have proved more thrilling than
the stories that came forth; but that is something that neither you, nor
Whitey, nor I will ever know.
The tales that were told there had the proper setting, and if you have
thought much about stories you know what that means. You tell a ghost
story late at night, seated before a fireplace in an old country house.
The only light comes from the flames of the dying fire logs that flicker
as the wind howls down the chimney; the only sounds, the beating of the
rain on the walls and roof, and--during the creepy pauses in the
yarn--the creakings that a lonely house gives out in the night hours.
Tell that same story on a sun-lighted June morning, in the orchard,
when the trees are all in blossom. Oh, boy! you know the difference.
One night when Whitey had been to the ranch house on an errand, he
returned to the tent to find a disturbance going on. Dorgan, who slept
in another tent, was a visitor. Somewhere he had obtained liquor; under
its influence his pleasant manner had fled, and he was picking on Injun.
The dislike that Dorgan concealed during his sober moments had reached
the point at which he demanded that Injun be put out of the tent. It was
a place for white men, not for Injuns. Injun was not afraid of Dorgan,
and had no idea of leaving, so Dorgan was going to put him out. Injun
wasn't going to let Dorgan put him out.
At this moment Whitey arrived. What would have happened to an unarmed
boy against a drunken, armed man or to two unarmed boys, for Whitey
started to interfere, is something else we never shall know, for a
cowboy put in his oar.
You know that a cowboy remains a "boy" until he is old enough to die.
This one was sixty, he wasn't a typical puncher at all. He had a thin,
hawk-like face, steady gray eyes, rather long hair which also was gray
like his moustache and goatee. He had been a soldier and an Indian
fighter, and he looked it. As Dorgan lurched toward the boys, who stood
tense, with flashing eyes, and prepared for resistance, this cowboy
stepped between, and spoke to Dorgan.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you," he said, and he spoke in a sort of
drawl, but there didn't seem to be any drawl in his cool, gray eyes. In
spite of his condition Dorgan appeared to realize this, for he paused
uncertainly. "I don't hold myself up as no defender o' Injuns," the old
puncher went on calmly, "but I've had a bit o' truck with 'em, fer an'
ag'inst, I'm some judge of 'em, an' I reck'n this one c'n stay right
here."
Dorgan began to stiffen a little and his fingers clutched, as one's will
when one thinks of reaching for a gun. The other man had a gun, too, but
he made not the slightest movement toward it, and he spoke even more
quietly than before.
"If I was you," he repeated, "bein' in th' c'ndition you're in, I'd beat
it. You may have objections for t' state, thinkin' this ain't none o'
my business, an' you c'n state 'em now--or f'rever hold your peace."
Dorgan looked around the tent, as if for moral support, but didn't find
any. A singular quiet had fallen on the place; a sort of disconcerting
quiet. A warning ray of sense must have come into Dorgan's fuddled brain
as he looked again at the old puncher, for without a word he stumbled
out into the darkness.
"That was mighty fine of you," Whitey said warmly, but the old man
didn't seem to hear him.
He sat down and built a cigarette, and when it was lighted began to
drawl between puffs. "There's a lot o' folks that don't know nothin'
'bout Injuns, that has a lot o' 'pinions concernin' 'em," he said. "They
say you've got t' live with a feller t' know him, but that ain't so. You
c'n find out a lot by fightin' him. That's how I got my feelin' for
Injuns, an' it's th' kind you have for a good fighter."
The incident with Dorgan seemed to have passed from his mind, though
Whitey had lived long enough in the West to know that tragedy had
lurked near. The old puncher leaned back, his hands behind his head, and
puffed clouds of smoke into the air. He looked at the smoke as though he
saw pictures in it. Then he carefully threw the cigarette down and
ground his heel into it. As the other men had remained silent while he
was talking to Dorgan, they remained silent now.
He was a product of an epic time in the West, a time when the others had
been boys. Naturally a quiet man, he had had little to say. He also was
known as a dangerous man, and when a quiet and dangerous man seems
inclined to talk, it is sometimes worth while to wait. Instead of
speaking, he rolled another cigarette, and again looked into the smoke.
But presently the old puncher awoke from his dream and looked at the
surrounding faces, some coarse, some wicked, but all attentive, all
plainly inviting him to talk.
"Yes, sir, a feller that was in th' Seventh Cavalry, in th' old days,
got a good many lessons 'bout Injuns," he began. "An' if you like, I c'n
tell you some things 'bout th' biggest Injun fight that ever happened
in these parts, 'cause I was there."
So he told the story, and I shall leave out the questions with which it
was interrupted.