E-text prepared by K. Nordquist, Alexander Bauer, Sigal Alon, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
PRAIRIE FLOWERS
by
JAMES B. HENDRYX
Author of
_"The Gun Brand," "The Promise," "The Texan,"_
_"The Gold Girl," etc._
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons
Copyright, 1920
by
James B. Hendryx
Made in the United States of America
BY JAMES B. HENDRYX
The Promise The Gun Brand
The Texan The Gold Girl
Prairie Flowers Snowdrift
Connie Morgan in Alaska Connie Morgan with the Mounted
Connie Morgan in the Lumber Camps Connie Morgan in the Fur Country
This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
A PROLOGUE 1
I.--AN ANNIVERSARY 9
II.--KANGAROO COURT 18
III.--THE STAGE ARRIVES 29
IV.--Y BAR COLSTON TALKS 38
V.--ALICE TAKES A RIDE 50
VI.--AT THE RED FRONT 60
VII.--THE TEXAN "COMES A-SHOOTIN'" 68
VIII.--THE ESCAPE 81
IX.--ON THE RIVER 93
X.--JANET MCWHORTER 107
XI.--AT THE MOUTH OF THE COULEE 120
XII.--IN TIMBER CITY 130
XIII.--A MAN ALL BAD 143
XIV.--THE INSURGENT 156
XV.--PURDY MAKES A RIDE 163
XVI.--BIRDS OF A FEATHER 171
XVII.--IN THE SCRUB 182
XVIII.--THE TEXAN TAKES THE TRAIL 188
XIX.--AT MCWHORTER'S RANCH 197
XX.--AT CINNABAR JOE'S 209
XXI.--THE PASSING OF LONG BILL KEARNEY 219
XXII.--CASS GRIMSHAW--HORSE-THIEF 229
XXIII.--CINNABAR JOE TELLS A STORY 239
XXIV.--"ALL FRIENDS TOGETHER" 253
XXV.--JANET PAYS A CALL 267
XXVI.--THE OTHER WOMAN 276
XXVII.--SOME SHOOTING 288
XXVIII.--BACK ON RED SAND 304
AN EPILOGUE 314
Prairie Flowers
A PROLOGUE
The grey roadster purred up the driveway, and Alice Endicott thrust the
"home edition" aside and hurried out onto the porch to greet her husband
as he stepped around from the garage.
"Did the deal go through?" she asked, as her eyes eagerly sought the
eyes of the man who ascended the steps.
"Yes, dear," laughed Endicott, "the deal went through. You see before
you a gentleman of elegant leisure--foot-loose, and unfettered--free to
roam where the gods will."
"Or will not," laughed his wife, giving him a playful hug. "But, oh,
Win, aren't you glad! Isn't it just grand to feel that you don't have to
go to the horrible, smoky old city every morning? And don't the soft
air, and the young leaves, and the green grass, and the nesting birds
make you _crazy_ to get out into the big open places? To get into a
saddle and just ride, and ride, and ride? Remember how the sun looked as
it rose like a great ball of fire beyond the miles and miles of open
bench?"
Endicott grinned: "And how it beat down on us along about noon until we
could fairly feel ourselves shrivel----"
"And how it sank to rest behind the mountains. And the long twilight
glow. And how the stars came out one by one. And the night came
deliciously cool--and how good the blankets felt."
The man's glance rested upon the close-cropped lawn where the grackles
and robins were industriously picking up their evening meal. "You love
the country out there--you must love it, to remember only the sunrises,
and the sunsets, and the stars; and forget the torture of long hours in
the saddle and that terrific downpour of rain that burst the reservoir
and so nearly cost us our lives, and the dust storm in the bad lands,
and that night of horrible thirst. Why those few days we spent in
Montana, between the time of the wreck at Wolf River and our wedding at
Timber City, were the most tumultuously adventurous days of our lives!"
His wife's eyes were shining: "Wasn't it awful--the suspense and the
excitement! And, yet, wasn't it just grand? We'll never forget it as
long as we live----"
Endicott smiled grimly: "We never will," he agreed, with emphasis. "A
man isn't likely to forget--things like that."
Alice seated herself upon the porch lounge where her husband joined
her, and for several minutes they watched a robin divide a fat worm
between the scrawny necked fledglings that thrust their ugly mouths
above the edge of the nest in the honeysuckle vine close beside them.
"It was nearly a year ago, Win," the girl breathed, softly; "our
anniversary is just thirteen days away."
"And you still want to spend it in Timber City?"
"Indeed I do! Why it would just break my heart not to be right there in
that ugly little wooden town on that day."
"And you really--seriously--want to live out there?"
"Of course I do! Why wouldn't anyone want to live there? That's real
living--with the wonderful air, and the mountains, and the boundless
unfenced range! Not right in Timber City, or any of the other towns, but
on a ranch, somewhere. We could stay there till we got tired of it, and
then go to California, or New York, or Florida for a change. But we
could call the ranch home, and live there most of the time. Now that you
have closed out your business, there is no earthly reason why we should
live in this place--it's neither east nor west, nor north, nor
south--it's just half way between everything. I wish we would hear from
that Mr. Carlson, or whatever his name is so we could go and look over
his ranch the day after our anniversary."
"His name is Colston, and we have heard," smiled Endicott. "I got word
this morning."
"Oh, what did he say?"
"He said to come and look the property over. That he was willing to
sell, and that he thought there was no doubt about our being able to
arrange satisfactory terms."
"Oh, Win, aren't you glad! You must sit right down after dinner and
write him. Tell him we'll----"
"I wired him this afternoon to meet us in Timber City."
"Let's see," Alice chattered, excitedly, "it will take--one night to
Chicago, and a day to St. Paul, and another day and night, and part of
the next day--how many days is that? One, two nights, and two days and a
half--that will give us ten days to sell the house and pack the
furniture and ship it----"
"Ship it!" exclaimed the man. "We better not do any shipping till we buy
the ranch. The deal may not go through----"
"Well, Mr. What's-his-name don't own the only ranch in Montana. If we
don't buy his, we'll buy another one. You better see that Mr.
Schwabheimer tomorrow--he's wanted this place ever since we bought it,
and he's offered more than we paid."
"Oh, it won't be any trouble to sell the house. But, about shipping the
furniture until we're sure----"
Alice interrupted impetuously: "We'll ship it right straight
away--because when we get it out there we'll just have to buy a ranch to
put it in!"
Endicott surrendered with a gesture of mock despair: "If that's the way
you feel about it, I guess we'll have to buy. But, I'll give you fair
warning--it will be up to you to help run the outfit. I don't know
anything about the cattle business----"
"We'll find Tex! And we'll make him foreman--and then, when we get all
settled I'll invite Margery Demming out for a long visit--I've picked
out Margery for Tex--and we can put them up a nice house right near
ours, and Margery and I can----"
"Holy Mackerel!" laughed Endicott. "Just like that! Little things don't
matter at all--like the fact that we haven't any ranch yet to invite her
to, and that she might not come if you did invite her, and if she did
come she might not like the country or Tex, or he might not like her.
And last of all, we may never find Tex. We've both written him a half a
dozen times--and all the letters have been returned. If we had some ham,
we'd have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs!"
"There you go, with your old practicability! Anyhow, that's what we'll
do--and if Tex don't like her I'll invite someone else, and keep on
inviting until I find someone he does like--and as for her--no one could
help loving the country, and no one could help loving Tex--so there!"
"I hope the course of their true love will run less tempestuously than
ours did for those few days we were under the chaperonage of the Texan,"
grinned the man.
"Of course it will! It's probably very prosaic out there, the same as it
is anywhere, most of the time. It was a peculiar combination of
circumstances that plunged us into such a maelstrom of adventure. And
yet--I don't see why you should hope for such a placid courtship for
them. It took just that ordeal to bring out your really fine points.
They were there all the time, dear, but I might never have known they
were there. Why, I've lived over those few days, step by step, a hundred
times! The wreck, the celebration at Wolf River--" she paused and
shuddered, and her husband took up the sequence, mercilessly:
"And your ride with Purdy, and Old Bat thrusting the gun into my hand
and urging me to follow--and when I looked up and saw you both on the
rim of the bench and saw him drag you from your horse--then the mad dash
up the steep trail, and the quick shot as he raised above the sage
brush--and then, the fake lynching bee--only it was very real to me as I
stood there in the moonlight under that cottonwood limb with a noose
about my neck. And then the long ride through the night, and the meeting
with you at the ford where you were waiting with Old Bat----"
"And the terrible thunder storm, and the bursting reservoir, and the
dust storm in the bad lands," continued the girl. "Oh, it was all so--so
horrible, and yet--as long as I live I will be glad to have lived those
few short days. I learned to know men--big, strong men in action--what
they will do--and what they will not do. The Texan with his
devil-may-care ways that masked the real character of him. And you,
darling--the real you--who had always remained hidden beneath the veneer
of your culture and refinement. Then suddenly the veneer was knocked off
and for the first time in your life the fine fibre of you--the real
_stuff_ you are made of, got the chance to assert itself. You stood the
test, dear--stood it as not one man in a hundred who had lived your
prosaic well-ordered life would have stood it----"
"Nonsense!" laughed the man. "You're grossly prejudiced. You were in
love with me anyway--you know you were. You would have married me in
time."
"I was not! I wasn't a bit in love with you--and I wouldn't have married
you ever, if it hadn't been for the test." She paused suddenly, and her
eyes became serious, "But Win, Tex stood the test too--and he really did
love me. Do you know that my heart just aches for that boy, out there
all alone in the country he loves--for he _is_ of different stuff than
the rest of them. He likes the men--he is one of them--but he would
never choose a wife from among their women, and his big heart is just
yearning for a woman's love. I shall never forget the last time I saw
him--in that little open glade in the timber. He had lost, and he knew
it--and he stood there with his arm thrown over the neck of his horse,
staring out over the broad bench toward the mountains that showed
hazy-blue in the distance. He was game to the last fibre of him. He
tried to conceal his hurt, but he could not conceal it. He spoke highly
of you--said you were a _man_--and that I had made no mistake in my
choice--and then he spoke the words that filled my cup of happiness to
the brim--he told me that you had not killed Purdy--that there was no
blood on your hands--and that you were not a fugitive from the law.
"Win, dear--we must find him--we've got to find him!"
"We'll find him--little girl," answered her husband as his arm stole
about her shoulders; "I'm just as anxious to find him as you are--_and
in ten days we will start_!"
CHAPTER I
AN ANNIVERSARY
The Texan drew up in the centre of a tiny glade that formed an opening
in the bull pine woods. Haze purpled the distant mountains of cow-land,
and the cowpuncher's gaze strayed slowly from the serried peaks of the
Bear Paws to rest upon the broad expanse of the barren, mica-studded bad
lands with their dazzling white alkali beds, and their brilliant red and
black mosaic of lava rock that trembled and danced and shimmered in the
crinkly waves of heat. For a long time he stared at the Missouri whose
yellow-brown waters rolled wide and deep from recent rains. From the
silver and gold of the flashing waters his eyes strayed to the
smoke-grey sage flats that intervened, and then to the cool dark green
of the pines.
Very deliberately he slipped from the saddle, letting the reins fall to
the ground. He took off his Stetson and removed its thin powdering of
white alkali dust by slapping it noisily against his leather chaps. A
light breeze fanned his face and involuntarily his eyes sought the base
of a huge rock fragment that jutted boldly into the glade, and as he
looked, he was conscious that the air was heavy with the scent of the
little blue and white prairie flowers that carpeted the ground at his
feet. His thin lips twisted into a cynical smile--a smile that added an
unpleasant touch to the clean-cut weather-tanned features. In the space
of a second he seemed to have aged ten years--not physically, but--he
had aged.
He spoke half aloud, with his grey eyes upon the rock: "It--hurts--like
hell. I knew it would hurt, an' I came--rode sixty miles to get to this
spot at this hour of this day. It was here she said 'good-bye,' an' then
she walked slowly around the rock with her flowers held tight, an' the
wind ripplin' that lock of hair, just above her right temple, it
was--an' then--she was gone." The man's eyes dropped to the ground. A
brilliantly striped beetle climbed laboriously to the top of a weed
stem, spread his wings in a clumsy effort, and fell to the ground. The
cowboy laughed: "A hell of a lot of us that would like to fly has to
crawl," he said, and stooping picked a tiny flower, stared at it for a
moment, breathed deeply of its fragrance, and thrust it into the band of
his hat. Reaching for his reins, he swung into the saddle and once more
his eyes sought the painted bad lands with their background of purple
mountains. "Prettiest place in the world, I reckon--to look at. Mica
flashin' like diamonds, red rocks an' pink ones, white alkali patches,
an' black cool-lookin' mud-cracks--an' when you get there--poison water,
rattlesnakes, chokin' hot dust, horse-thieves, an' the white bones of
dead things! Everything's like that. Come on, old top horse, you an'
I'll shove on to Timber City. 'Tain't over a mile, an' when we get
there--! Say boy, little old unsuspectin' Timber City is goin' to stage
an orgy. We don't aim to pull off no common sordid drunk--not us. What
we'll precipitate is goin' to be a classic--a jamboree of sorts, a
bacchanalian cataclysm, aided an' abetted by what local talent an'
trimmin's the scenery affords. Shake a leg, there! An' we'll forget the
bones, an' the poison, an' the dust, an' with the discriminatin'
perception of a beltful of rollickin' ferments, we'll enjoy the pink,
an' the purple, an' the red. Tomorrow, it'll be different but as Old Bat
says 'Wat de hell?'"
Thus adjured, the horse picked his way down the little creek and a few
minutes later swung into the trail that stretched dusty white toward the
ugly little town whose wooden buildings huddled together a mile to the
southward.
Before the door of Red Front saloon the Texan drew up in a swirl of
dust, slid from the saddle, and entered. The bartender flashed an
appraising glance, and greeted him with professional cordiality, the
ritual of which, included the setting out of a bottle and two glasses
upon the bar. "Dry?" he invited as he slid the bottle toward the
newcomer.
"Middlin'," assented the Texan, as he poured a liberal potion. The other
helped himself sparingly and raised his glass.
"Here's how."
"How," responded the Texan, and returning the empty glass to the bar
produced papers and tobacco and rolled a cigarette. Then very
deliberately, he produced a roll of bills, peeled a yellow one from the
outside, and returned the roll to his pocket. Without so much as the
flicker of an eyelash, the bartender noted that the next one also was
yellow. The cowpuncher laid the bill on the bar, and with a jerk of the
thumb, indicated the four engrossed in a game of solo at a table in the
rear of the room.
"Don't yer friends imbibe nothin'?" he asked, casually.
The bartender grinned as he glanced toward the table. "Might try 'em,
now. I didn't see no call to bust into a solo-tout with no trivial
politics like a couple of drinks.
"Gents, what's yourn?"
From across the room came a scraping of chairs, and the four men lined
up beside the Texan and measured their drinks.
"Stranger in these parts?" inquired a tall man with a huge sunburned
moustache.
"Sort of," replied the Texan, "but let's licker before this sinful
decoction evaporates."
"Seems like I've saw you before, somewheres," opined a thick man with
round china blue eyes.
"Maybe you have, because astoundin' as it may seem, this ain't my first
appearance in public--but you might be nature fakin', at that. Where was
it this here episode took place?"
The man shook his head: "I dunno, only it seems like you look sort of
nat'chel, somehow."
"I always did--it's got so's it's almost what you might call a fixed
habit--like swallowin' when I drink. But, speakin' of towns, Timber
City's sure had a boom since I was here last. You've got a new horse
trough in front of the livery barn." The tall man ordered another round
of drinks, and the Texan paused to fill his glass. They drank, and with
an audible suck at his overhanging moustache, the tall man leaned an
elbow on the bar: "It ain't noways safe or advisable," he said slowly,
looking straight at the Texan, "fer no lone cow-hand to ride in here an'
make light of Timber City to our face."
A man with a green vest and white, sleek hands insinuated himself
between the two and smiled affably: "Come on, now, boys, they ain't
nawthin' in quarrelin'. The gent, here, was only kiddin' us a little an'
we ain't got no call to raise the hair on our back for that. What do you
say we start a little game of stud? Solo ain't no summer game,
nohow--too much thinkin'. How about it stranger, d'you play?"
"Only now an' then, by way of recreation. I don't want your money, I got
plenty of my own, an' I never let cards interfere with business. Down in
Texas we----"
"But, you ain't workin' today," interrupted the other.
"Well, not what you might call work, maybe. I aimed to get drunk, an' I
don't want to get switched off into a card game. Come on, now, an' we'll
have another drink, an' then Jo-Jo an' I'll renew our conversation. An'
while we're at it, Percy, if I was you I'd stand a little to one side
so's I wouldn't get my clothes mussed. Now, Jo-Jo, what was the gist of
that there remark of yours?"
"My name's Stork--Ike Stork, an'----"
"You're a bird all right."
"Yes, I'm a bird--an' Timber City's a bird, too. They can't no other
town in Montany touch us."
"Wolf River's got a bank----"
"Yes," interrupted the bartender, "an' we could of had a bank, too, but
we don't want none. If you want a town to go plumb to hell just you
start up a bank. Then everyone runs an' sticks their money in an' don't
spend none, an' business stops an' the town's gone plumb to hell!"
"I'd hev you to know," Stork cut in importantly, "that Timber City's a
cowtown, an' a sheep town, an' a minin' town, an' a timber town--both of
which Wolf River ain't neither, except cattle. We don't depend on no one
thing like them railroad towns, an' what's more, it tuck a act of
Congress fer to name Timber City----"
"Yes an' it takes an act of God to keep her goin', but He does it
offhand an' casual, same as He makes three-year-old steers out of
two-year-olds."
The bartender grinned affably, his thoughts on the roll of yellow bills
that reposed in the pocket of the Texan. "Don't regard Ike none
serious, pardner, he's settin' a little oneasy on account he got his
claim all surveyed off into buildin' lots, an' they ain't goin' like,
what you might say, hot cakes."
"Oh, I don't know," Stork interrupted, but the bartender ignored him.
"Now, about this here proclamation of yourn to git drunk," continued the
bartender. "Not that it ain't any man's privilege to git drunk whenever
he feels like, an' not that it's any of my business, 'cause it ain't,
an' not that I give a damn one way or the other, 'cause I don't, but
just by way of conversation, as you might say; what's the big idee? It
ain't neither the Thirteenth of June, nor the Fourth of July, nor
Thanksgivin' nor Christmas, nor New Year's, on which dates a man's
supposed to git drunk, the revels that comes in between bein' mostly
accidental, as you might say. But here comes you, without neither rhyme
nor reason, as the feller says in the Bible, just a-honin' to git drunk
out of a clear sky as the sayin' goes. Of course they's one other
occasion which it's every man's duty to git drunk, an' that's his
birthday, so if this is yourn, have another on the house, an' here's
hopin' you live till the last sheep dies."
They drank, and the Texan rolled another cigarette: "As long as we've
decided to git drunk together, it's no more'n right you-all should know
the reason. It ain't my birthday, it's my--my anniversary."
"Married?" asked the man with the china blue eyes.
"Nope."
"Well, no wonder you're celebratin'!"
"Shorty, there, he's married a-plenty," explained the man with the green
vest, during the general guffaw that greeted the sally.
Again Shorty asked a question, and the Texan noted a hopeful look in the
china blue eyes: "Be'n married an'--quit?"
"Nope."
The hopeful look faded, and removing his hat, the man scratched his
head: "Well, if you ain't married, an' ain't be'n married, what's this
here anniversary business? An' how in hell do you figger the date?"
The Texan laughed: "A-many a good man's gone bugs foolin' with higher
mathmatics, Shorty. Just you slip another jolt of this tornado juice in
under your belt, an' by the time you get a couple dozen more with it,
you won't care a damn about anniversaries. What'll be botherin' you'll
be what kind of meat they feed the sun dogs----"
"Yes, an' I'll catch hell when I git home," whimpered Shorty.
"Every man's got his own brand of troubles," philosophized the Texan,
"an' yours sure set light on my shoulders. Come on, barkeep, an' slip us
another round of this here inebriatin' fluid. One whole year on crick
water an' alkali dust has added, roughly speakin', 365 days an' 5 hours,
an' 48 minutes, an' 45-1/2 seconds to my life, an' has whetted my
appetite to razor edge--an' that reminds me--" he paused abruptly and
picking up the yellow-backed bill that still lay before him upon the
bar, crammed it into his pocket.