Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
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[Illustration: "THAT LOOK IN YOUR EYES--THAT LOOK AS IF YOU HADN'T
NOTHIN' TO HIDE--IS IT TRUE?" Page 59]
"ME-SMITH"
BY
CAROLINE LOCKHART
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GAYLE HOSKINS
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1911
By J. B. Lippincott Company
Published February 15, 1911
Second printing, February 25, 1911
Third printing, March 5, 1911
Fourth printing, March 20, 1911
Fifth Printing, June 5, 1911
Sixth Printing, July 1, 1911
Seventh Printing, August 17, 1911
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "Me--Smith" 11
II. On the Alkali Hill 18
III. The Empty Chair 29
IV. A Swap in Saddle Blankets 48
V. Smith Makes Medicine with the Schoolmarm 58
VI. The Great Secret 79
VII. Cupid "Wings" a Deputy Sheriff 95
VIII. The Bug-hunter Elucidates 110
IX. Speaking Of Grasshoppers---- 123
X. Mother Love and Savage Passion Conflict 130
XI. The Best Horse 142
XII. Smith Gets "Hunks" 156
XIII. Susie's Indian Blood 162
XIV. The Slayer of Mastodons 169
XV. Where a Man Gets a Thirst 190
XVI. Tinhorn Frank Smells Money 205
XVII. Susie Humbles Herself to Smith 213
XVIII. A Bad "Hombre" 228
XIX. When The Clouds Played Wolf 240
XX. The Love Medicine of the Sioux 248
XXI. The Murderer of White Antelope 272
XXII. A Mongolian Cupid 293
XXIII. In Their Own Way 303
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"That Look in Your Eyes--That Look as if You
Hadn't Nothin' to Hide--is it True?" Frontispiece
"She's a Game Kid, All Right," Said Smith
to Himself at the Top of the Hill. 22
It Meant Death--but it was Wet!--it was Water! 196
Smith Reached for the Trailing Rope and They
Were Gone! 284
They Quirted Their Horses at Breakneck Speed
In the Direction of the Bad Lands. 308
"ME--SMITH"
I
"ME--SMITH"
A man on a tired gray horse reined in where a dim cattle-trail dropped
into a gulch, and looked behind him. Nothing was in sight. He half closed
his eyes and searched the horizon. No, there was nothing--just the same
old sand and sage-brush, hills, more sand and sage-brush, and then to the
west and north the spur of the Rockies, whose jagged peaks were white with
a fresh fall of snow. The wind was chill. He shivered, and looked to the
eastward. For the last few hours he had felt snow in the air, and now he
could see it in the dim, gray mist--still far off, but creeping toward
him.
For the thousandth time, he wondered where he was. He knew vaguely that he
was "over the line"--that Montana was behind him--but he was riding an
unfamiliar range, and the peaks and hills which are the guide-boards of
the West meant nothing to him. So far as he knew, he was the only human
being within a hundred miles. His lips drew back in a half-grin and
exposed a row of upper teeth unusually white and slightly protruding. He
was thinking of the meeting with the last person to whom he had spoken
within twenty-four hours. He closed one eye and looked up at the sun. Yes,
it was just about the same time yesterday that a dude from the English
ranch, a dude in knee breeches and shiny-topped riding boots, had galloped
confidently toward him. He had dismounted and pretended to be cinching his
saddle. When the dude was close enough Smith had thrown down on him with
his gun.
"Feller," he had said, "I guess I'll have to trade horses with you. And
fall off quick, for I'm in kind of a hurry."
The grin widened as he thought of the dude's surprised eyes and the dude's
face as he dropped out of the saddle without a word. Smith had stood his
victim with his hands above his head while he pulled the saddle from his
horse and threw it upon his own. The dude rode a saddle with a double
cinch, and the fact had awakened in the Westerner a kind of interest. He
had even felt a certain friendliness for the man he was robbing.
"Feller," he had asked, "do you come from the Mañana country?"
"From Chepstow, Monmouth County, Wales," the dude had replied, in a
shaking voice.
"Where did you get that double-rigged saddle, then?"
"Texas."
The answer had pleased Smith.
"You ain't losin' none on this deal," he had then volunteered. "This horse
that you just traded for is a looker when he is rested, and he can run
like hell. You can go your pile on him. Just burn out that lazy S brand
and run on your own. You can hold him easy, then. I like a feller that
rides a double-rigged saddle in a single-rigged country. S'long, and keep
your hands up till I'm out of range."
"Thank you," the dude had replied feebly.
When Smith had ridden for a half a mile he had turned to look behind him.
The dude was still standing with his hands high above his head.
"I wonder if he's there yet?" The man on horseback grinned.
He reached in the pocket of his mackinaw coat and took out a handful of
sugar.
"You can travel longer on it nor anything," he muttered.
He congratulated himself that he had filled his pocket from the
booze-clerk's sugar-bowl before the mix came. The act was characteristic
of him, as was the forethought which had sent him to the door to pick the
best saddle-horse at the hitching-post, before the lead began to fly.
The man suddenly realized that the mist in the east was denser, and
spreading. He jabbed the spurs into his horse and sent the jaded animal
sliding on its fetlocks down the steep and rocky trail that led into the
dry bed of a creek which in the spring flowed bank high. In the bottom he
pulled his horse to its haunches and leaned from his saddle to look at a
foot-print in a little patch of smooth sand no larger than his two hands.
The print had been made by a moccasined foot, and recently; otherwise the
wind would have wiped it out.
He threw his leg over the cantle of the saddle and stepped softly to the
ground. Dropping the reins, he looked up and down the gulch. Then he drew
his rifle from the scabbard and began to hunt for more tracks. As he
searched, his movements were no longer those of a white man. His
pantomime, stealthy, cautious, was the pantomime of the Indian. He crept
up the gulch to a point where it turned sharply. His stealth became the
stealth of the coyote. In spite of the leather soles and exaggerated high
heels of the boots he wore his movements were absolutely noiseless.
An Indian of middle age, in blue overalls, moccasins, a limp felt hat
coming far down over his braided hair, a gaily striped blanket drawn about
his shoulders, stood in an attitude of listening, carelessly holding a
cheap, single-barrelled shotgun. He had heard the horse sliding down the
trail and was waiting for it to appear on the bench above.
The stranger took in the details of the Indian's costume, but his eye
rested longest upon the gay blanket. He might need a blanket with that
snow in the air. It looked like a good blanket. It seemed to be thick and
was undoubtedly warm.
The Indian saw him the instant he rose from his hiding-place behind a huge
sage-brush. Startled, the red man instinctively half raised his gun. The
stranger gave the sign of attention, then, touching his breast and lifting
his hand slightly, told him in the sign language used by all tribes that
"his heart was right"--he was a friend.
The Indian hesitated and lowered his gun, but did not advance. The
stranger then asked him where he would find the nearest house, and whether
it was that of a white or a red man. In swift pantomime, the Indian told
him that the nearest house was the home of a "full-blood," a woman, a fat
woman, who lived five miles to the southeast, in a log cabin, on running
water.
Before he turned to go, the stranger again touched his breast and raised
his hand above his heart to reiterate his friendship. He took a half-dozen
steps, then whirled on his heel. As he did so, he brought his rifle on a
line with the Indian's back, which was toward him. Simultaneously with the
report, the Indian fell on his back on the side of the gulch. He drew up
his leg, and the stranger, thinking he had raised it for a gun-rest,
riddled him with bullets.
The white man's bright blue eyes gleamed; the pupils were like pin-points.
The grin which disclosed his protruding teeth was like the snarl of a dog
before it snaps. The expression of the man's face was that of animal
ferocity, pure and simple. He edged up cautiously, but there was no
further movement from the Indian. He had been dead when he fell. The white
man gave a short laugh when he realized that the raising of the leg had
been only a muscular contraction. To save the blanket from the blood which
was soiling it, he tore it from the limp, unresisting shoulders, and
rubbed it in the dirt to obliterate the stain. He cursed when he saw that
a bullet had torn in it two jagged, tell-tale holes.
He glanced at the Indian's moccasins, then, stooping, ripped one off. He
examined it with interest. It was a Cree moccasin. The Indian was far from
home. He examined the centre seam: yes, it was sewed with deer-sinew.
"The Crees can tan to beat the world," he muttered, "but I hates the shape
of the Cree moccasin. The Piegans make better." He tossed it from him
contemptuously and picked up the shotgun.
"No good." He threw it down and straightened the Indian's head with the
toe of his boot. "I despises to lie cramped up, myself."
Returning to his horse, he removed his saddle, and folded the Indian's
blanket inside of his own. Then he recinched his saddle, and turned his
horse's head to the southeast, where "the full-blood--the woman, the fat
woman--lived in a log cabin by running water."
He glanced over his shoulder as he spurred his horse to a gallop.
"I'm a killer, me--Smith," he said, and grinned.
II
ON THE ALKALI HILL
There was at least an hour and a half of daylight left when Smith struck a
wagon-road. He looked each way doubtfully. The woman's house was quite as
likely to be to the right as to the left; there was no way of telling.
While he hesitated, his horse lifted its ears. Smith also thought he heard
voices. Swinging his horse to the right, he rode to the edge of the bench
where the road made a steep and sudden drop.
At the bottom of the hill he saw a driver on the spring-seat of a round-up
wagon urging two lean-necked and narrow-chested horses up the hill. They
were smooth-shod, and, the weight of the wagon being out of all proportion
to their strength, they fell often in their futile struggles. At the side
of the road near the top of the hill the water oozed from an alkali
spring, which kept the road perpetually muddy. The horses were straining
every nerve and muscle, their eyes bulging and nostrils distended, and
still the driver, loudmouthed and vacuously profane, lashed them
mercilessly with the stinging thongs of his leather whip. Smith, from the
top of the hill, watched him with a sneer on his face.
"He drives like a Missourian," he muttered.
He could have helped the troubled driver, knowing perfectly well what to
do, but it would have entailed an effort which he did not care to make. It
was nothing to him whether the round-up wagon got up the hill that
night--or never.
Smith thought the driver was alone until he began to back the team to rush
the hill once more. Then he heard angry exclamations coming from the rear
of the wagon--exclamations which sounded not unlike the buzzing of an
enraged bumble-bee. He stretched his neck and saw that which suggested an
overgrown hoop-snake rolling down the hill. At the bottom a little
mud-coated man stood up. The part of his face that was visible above his
beard was pale with anger. His brown eyes gleamed behind mud-splashed
spectacles.
"Oscar Tubbs," he demanded, "why did you not tell me that you were about
to back the wagon?"
"I would have did it if I had knowed myself that the team were goin' to
back," replied Tubbs, in the conciliatory tone of one who addresses the
man who pays him his wages.
The man in spectacles groaned. "Three inexcusable errors in one sentence.
Oscar Tubbs, you are hopeless!"
"Yep," replied that person resignedly; "nobody never could learn me
nothin'. Onct I knowed----"
"Stop! We have no time for a reminiscence. Have you any reason to believe
that we can get up this hill to-night?"
"No chanst of it. These buzzard-heads has drawed every poun' they kin
pull. But I has some reason to believe that if you don't hist your hoofs
out'n that mud-hole, you'll bog down. You're up to your pant-leg now. Onct
I knowed----"
The little man threw out his hand in a restraining gesture, and Tubbs,
foiled again, closed his lips and watched his employer stand back on one
leg while he pulled the other out of the mud with a long, sucking sound.
"What for an outfit is that, anyhow?" mused Smith, watching the
proceedings with some interest. "He looks like one of them bug-hunters.
He's got a pair of shoulders on him like a drink of water, and his legs
look like the runnin'-gears of a katydid."
So intently were they all engaged in watching the man's struggles that no
one observed a girl on a galloping horse until she was almost upon them.
She sat her sturdy, spirited pony like a cowboy. She was about sixteen,
with a suggestion of boyishness in her appearance. Her brown hair, worn in
a single braid, was bleached to a lighter shade on top, as if she rode
always with bared head. Her eyes were gray, in curious contrast to a tawny
skin. She was slight to scrawniness, and, one might have thought,
insufficiently clad for the time of year.
"Bogged down, pardner?" she inquired in a friendly voice, as she rode up
behind and drew rein. "I've been in that soap-hole myself. Here, ketch to
my pommel, and I'll snake you out."
Smiling dubiously he gripped the pommel. The pony had sunk to its knees,
and as it leaped to free itself the little man's legs fairly snapped in
the air.
"I thank you, Miss," he said, removing his plaid travelling cap as he
dropped on solid ground. "That was really quite an adventure."
"This mud is like grease," said the girl.
"Onct I knowed some mud----" began the driver, but the little man,
ignoring him, said:
"We are in a dilemma, Miss. Our horses seem unable to pull our wagon up
the hill. Night is almost upon us, and our next camping spot is several
miles beyond."
"This is the worst grade in the country," replied the girl. "A team that
can haul a load up here can go anywhere. What's the matter with that
fellow up there? Why don't he help?"--pointing to Smith.
"He has made no offer of assistance."
"He must be some Scissor-Bill from Missouri. They all act like that when
they first come out."
"Onct some Missourians I knowed----"
"Oscar Tubbs, if you attempt to relate another reminiscence while in my
employ, I shall make a deduction from your wages. I warn you--I warn you
in the presence of this witness. My overwrought nerves can endure no more.
Between your inexpiable English and your inopportune reminiscences, I am a
nervous wreck!" The little man's voice ended on high C.
"All right, Doc, suit yourself," replied Tubbs, temporarily subdued.
"And in Heaven's name, I entreat, I implore, do not call me 'Doc'!"
"Sorry I spoke, Cap."
The little man threw up both hands in exasperation.
"Say, Mister," said the girl curtly to Tubbs, "if you'll take that hundred
and seventy pounds of yourn off the wagon and get some rocks and block the
wheels, I guess my cayuse can help some." As she spoke, she began
uncoiling the rawhide riata which was tied to her saddle.
"I appreciate the kindness of your intentions, Miss, but I cannot permit
you to put yourself in peril." The little man was watching her
preparations with troubled eyes.
"No peril at all. It's easy. Croppy can pull like the devil. Wait till you
see him lay down on the rope. That yap up there at the top of the hill
could have done this for you long ago. Here, Windy"--addressing
Tubbs--"tie this rope to the X, and make a knot that will hold."
[Illustration: "SHE'S A GAME KID, ALL RIGHT," SAID SMITH TO HIMSELF AT
THE TOP OF THE HILL.]
The girl's words and manner inspired confidence. Interest and relief were
in the face of the little man standing at the side of the road.
"Now, Windy, hand me the rope. I'll take three turns around my
saddle-horn, and when I say 'go' you see that your team get down in their
collars."
"She's a game kid, all right," said Smith to himself at the top of the
hill.
When the sorrel pony at the head of the team felt the rope grow taut on
the saddle-horn, it lay down to its work. The grit and muscle of a dozen
horses seemed concentrated in the little cayuse. It pulled until every
vein and cord in its body appeared to stand out beneath its skin. It lay
down on the rope until its chest almost touched the ground. There was a
look of determination that was almost human in its bright, excited eyes as
it strained and struggled on the slippery hillside with no word of urging
from the girl. She was standing in one stirrup, one hand on the cantle,
the other on the pommel, watching everything with keen eyes. She issued
orders to Tubbs like a general, telling him when to block the wheels, when
to urge the exhausted team to greater efforts, when to relax. Nothing
escaped her. She and the little sorrel knew their work. As the man at the
roadside watched the gallant little brute struggle, literally inch by
inch, up the terrible grade he felt himself choking with excitement and
making inarticulate sounds. At last the rear wheels of the wagon lurched
over the hill and stood on level ground, while the horses, with spreading
legs and heaving sides, gasped for breath.
"Awful tired, ain't you, Mister?" the girl asked dryly, of the stranger on
horseback, as she recoiled her rope with supple wrist and tied it again to
the saddle by the buckskin thongs.
"Plumb worn to a frazzle," Smith replied with cool impudence, as he looked
her over in much the same manner as he would have eyed a heifer on the
range. "I was whipped for working when I was a boy, and I've always
remembered."
"It must be quite a ride--from the brush back there in Missouri where you
was drug up."
"I ranges on the Sundown slope," he replied shortly.
"They have sheep-camps over there, then?"
Again the slurring insinuation pricked him.
"Oh, I can twist a rope and ride a horse fast enough to keep warm."
"So?"--the inflection was tantalizing. "Was that horse gentled for your
grandmother?"
He eyed her angrily, but checked the reply on his tongue.
"Say, girl, can you tell me where I can find that fat Injun woman's tepee
who lives around here?"
"You mean my mother?"
He looked at her with new interest.
"Does she live in a log cabin on a crick?"
"She did about an hour ago."
"Is your mother a widder?"
"Lookin' for widders?"
"I likes widders. It happens frequent that widders are sociable
inclined--especially if they are hard up," he added insolently.
"Oh, you're ridin' the grub-line?" Her insolence equalled his own.
"Not yet;" and he took from his pocket a thick roll of banknotes.
"Blood money? Some sheep-herder's month's pay, I guess."
"You're a good guesser."
"Not very--you're easy."
The girl's dislike for Smith was as unreasoning and violent as was her
liking for the excitable little man whom she had helped up the hill, and
whose wagon was now rumbling close at her horse's heels.
They all travelled together in silence until, after a mile and a half on
the flat, the road sloped gradually toward a creek shadowed by willows. On
the opposite side of the creek were a ranch-house, stables, and corrals,
the extent of which brought a glint of surprise to Smith's eyes.
"That's where the widder lives who might be sociable inclined if she was
hard up," said the girl, with a sneer which made Smith's fingers itch to
choke her. "Couldn't coax you to stop, could I?"
"I aims to stay," Smith replied coolly.
"Sure--it won't cost you nothin'."
The girl waited for the wagon, and, with a change of manner in marked
contrast to her impudent attitude toward Smith, invited the little man to
spend the night at the ranch.
"We should not be intruders?" he asked doubtfully.
"You won't feel lonesome," she answered with a laugh. "We keep a kind of
free hotel."
"Colonel, I cakalate we better lay over here," broke in Tubbs.
His employer winced at this new title, but nodded assent; so they all
forded the shallow stream and entered the dooryard together.
"Mother!" called the girl.
One of the heavy plank doors of the long log-house opened, and a short
woman, large-hipped, full-busted--in appearance a typical blanket
squaw--stood in the doorway. Her thick hair was braided Indian fashion,
her fingers adorned with many rings. The wide girdle about her waist was
studded with brass nail-heads, while gaily-beaded moccasins covered her
short, broad feet. Her eyes were soft and luminous, like an animal's when
it is content; but there was savage passion too in their dark depths.
"This is my mother," said the girl briefly. "I am Susie MacDonald."
"My name is Peter McArthur, madam."
The little man concealed his surprise as best he could, and bowed.
The girl, quick to note his puzzled expression, explained laconically:
"I'm a breed. My father was a white man. You're on the reservation when
you cross the crick."
Recovering himself, the stranger said politely:
"Ah, MacDonald--that good Scotch name is a very familiar one to me. I had
an uncle----"
"I go show dem where to turn de horses," interrupted the Indian woman, to
whom the conversation was uninteresting. So, without ceremony, she padded
away in her moccasins, drawing her blanket squaw-fashion across her face
as she waddled down the path.
At the mission the woman had obtained the rudiments of an education.
There, too, she had learned to cut and make a dress, after a crude,
laborious fashion, and had acquired the ways of the white people's
housekeeping. She was noted for the acumen which she displayed in
disposing of the crop from her extensive hay-ranch to the neighboring
white cattlemen; and MacDonald, the big, silent Scotch MacDonald who had
come down from the north country and married her before the reservation
priest, was given the credit for having instilled into her some of his own
shrewdness and thrift.
In the corral the Indian woman came upon Smith. He turned his head slowly
and looked at her. For a second, two, three seconds, or more, they looked
into each other's eyes. His gaze was confident, masterful, compelling;
hers was wondering, until finally she dropped her eyes in the submissive,
modest, half-shy way of Indian women.
Smith moistened his short upper lip with the tip of his tongue, while the
shadow of a smile lurked at the corner of his mouth. He turned to his
saddle, again, and without speaking, she watched him until he had gone
into the barn. His saddle lay on the ground, half covering his blankets.
Something in this heap caught the woman's eyes and held them. Swooping
forward, she caught a protruding corner between her thumb and finger and
pulled a gay, striped blanket from the rest. Lifting it to her nose, she
smelled it. Smith saw the act as he came out of the door, but there was
neither consternation nor fear in his face. Smith knew Indian women.
III
THE EMPTY CHAIR
Peter McArthur came into the big living-room of the ranch-house bearing
tenderly in his arms a long brown sack. He set it upon a chair, and, as he
patted it affectionately, he said to the Indian woman in explanation:
"These are some specimens which I have been fortunate enough to find in a
limestone formation in the country through which we have just passed. No
doubt you will be amused, madam, but the wealth of Croesus could not buy
from me the contents of this canvas sack."
"I broke a horse for that son-of-a-gun onct. He owes me a dollar and six
bits for the job yet," remarked Tubbs.
The fire of enthusiasm died in McArthur's eyes as they rested upon his
man.
"What for a prospect do you aim to open up in a limestone formation?"
Smith, tipped on the rear legs of his chair, with his head resting
comfortably against the unbleached muslin sheeting which lined the walls,
winked at Tubbs as he asked the question.
"'What for a prospect'?" repeated McArthur.
"Yes, 'prospect'--that's what I said. You say you've got your war-bag full
of spec'mens."
McArthur laughed heartily.
"Ah, my dear sir, I understand. You are referring to mines--to mineral
specimens. These are the specimens of which I am speaking."
Opening the sack, McArthur held up for inspection what looked to be a lump
of dried mud.
"This is a magnificent specimen of the crustacean period," he declared.
The Indian woman looked from the prized object to his animated face; then,
with puzzled eyes, she looked at Smith, who touched his forehead with his
finger, making a spiral, upward gesture which in the sign language says
"crazy."
The woman promptly gathered up the rag rug she was braiding and moved to a
bench in the farthermost corner of the room.
"I can get you a wagon-load of chunks like that."
"Oh, my dear sir----"
"Smith's my name."
"But, Mr. Smith----"
"I trusts no man that 'Misters' me," Smith scowled. "Every time I've ever
been beat in a deal, it's been by some feller that's called me 'Mister.'
Jest Smith suits me better."
"Certainly, if you prefer," amicably replied McArthur, although
unenlightened by the explanation.
He replaced his specimen and tied the sack, convinced that it would be
useless to explain to this person that fossils like this were not found
by the wagon-load; that perhaps in the entire world there was not one in
which the branchiocardiac grooves were so clearly defined, in which the
emostigite and the ambulatory legs were so perfectly preserved.
He seemed a singular person, this Smith. McArthur was not sure that he
fancied him.
"Say, Guv'ner, what business do you follow, anyhow?" Tubbs asked the
question in the tone of one who really wanted to get at the bottom of a
matter which had troubled him. "Air you a bug-hunter by trade, or what?
I've hauled you around fer more'n a month now, and ain't figgered it out
what you're after. We've dug up ant-hills and busted open most of the
rocks between here and the North Fork of Powder River, but I've never seen
you git anything yet that anybuddy'd want."
In the beginning of their tour, Tubbs's questions and caustic comment
would have given McArthur offense, but a longer acquaintance had taught
him that none was intended; that his words were merely those of a man
entirely without knowledge upon any subject save those which had come
under his direct observation. While Tubbs frequently exasperated him
beyond expression, he found at the same time a certain fascination in the
man's incredible ignorance. In many respects his mind was like that of a
child, and his horizon as narrow as McArthur's own, though his companion
did not suspect it. The little scientist saw life from the viewpoint of a
small college and a New England village; Tubbs knew only the sage-brush
plains.
McArthur now replied dryly, but without irritation:
"My real trade--'job,' if you prefer--is anthropology. Strictly speaking,
I might, I think, be called an anthropologist."
"Gawd, feller!" ejaculated Smith in mock dismay. "Don't tip your hand like
that. I'm a killer myself, but I plays a lone game. I opens up to no man
or woman livin'."
Tubbs looked slightly ashamed of his employer.
"Pardon me?"
"I say, never give nobody the cinch on you. Many a good man's tongue has
hung him."
McArthur studied Smith's unsmiling face in perplexity, not at all sure
that he was not in earnest.
They sat in silence after this, even Tubbs being too hungry to indulge in
reminiscence.
The odor of frying steak filled the room, and the warmth from the round
sheet-iron stove gave Smith, in particular, a delicious sense of comfort.
He felt as a cat on a comfortable cushion must feel after days and nights
of prowling for food and shelter. The other two men, occupied with their
own thoughts, closed their eyes; but not so Smith. Nothing, to the
smallest detail, escaped him. He appraised everything with as perfect an
appreciation of its value as an auctioneer.
Through the dining-room door which opened into the kitchen, he could see
the kitchen range--a big one--the largest made for private houses. Smith
liked that. He liked things on a big scale. Besides, it denoted
generosity, and he had come to regard a woman's kitchen as an index to her
character. He distinctly approved of the big meat-platter upon which the
Chinese cook was piling steak. He eyed the mongrel dog lying at the Indian
woman's feet, and noted that its sides were distended with food. He was
prejudiced against, suspicious of, a woman who kept lean dogs.
In the same impersonal way in which he eyed her belongings, he looked at
the woman who owned it all. She was far too stout to please his taste, but
he liked her square shoulders and the thickness of them; also her hair,
which was long for an Indian woman's. She was too short in the body. He
wondered if she rode. He had a peculiar aversion for women short in the
body who rode on horseback. This woman could love--all Indian women can do
that, as Smith well knew--love to the end, faithfully, like dogs.
In the general analysis of his surroundings, Smith looked at Tubbs, openly
sneering as he eyed him. He was like a sheep-dog that never had been
trained. And McArthur? Innocent as a yearling calf, and honest as some
sky-pilots.
"Glub's piled!" yelled the cook from the kitchen door. "Come an' git it."
Tubbs all but fell off his chair.
At the back door the cook hammered on a huge iron triangle with a poker,
in response to which sound a motley half-dozen men filed from a nearby
bunk-house at a gait very nearly resembling a trot.
The long dining-table was covered with a red table-cloth, and at each end
piles of bread and fried steak rose like monuments. At each place there
was a platter, and beside it a steel knife, a fork, and a tin spoon.
The bunk-house crowd wasted no time in ceremony. Poising their forks above
the meat-platter in a candid search for the most desirable piece, they
alternately stabbed chunks of steak and bread.
Their platters once loaded with a generous sample of all the food in
sight, they fell upon it with unconcealed relish. Eating, McArthur
observed, was a business; there was no time for the amenities of social
intercourse until the first pangs of hunger were appeased. The Chinese
cook, too, interested him as he watched him shuffling over the hewn plank
floor in his straw sandals. A very different type, this swaggering
Celestial, from the furtive-eyed Chinamen of the east. His tightly coiled
cue was as smooth and shining as a king-snake, his loose blouse was
immaculate, and the flippant voice in which he demanded in each person's
ear, "Coffee? Milk?" was like a challenge. Whatever the individual's
choice might be, he got it in a torrent in his stone-china cup.
There was no attempt at conversation, and only the clatter and rattle of
knives, forks, and dishes was heard until a laugh from an adjoining room
broke the silence--a laugh that was mirthless, shrill, and horrible.
McArthur sent a startled glance of inquiry about the table. The laugh was
repeated, and the sound was even more wild and maniacal. The little man
was shocked at the grin which he noted upon each face.
"She ought to take a feather and ile her voice," observed a guest known as
"Meeteetse Ed."
McArthur could not resist saying indignantly:
"The unfortunate are to be pitied, my dear sir."
"This is jest a mild spasm she's havin' now. You ought to hear her when
she's warmed up."
McArthur was about to administer a sharper rebuke when the door opened and
Susie came out.
"How's that for a screech?" she demanded triumphantly.
"You'd sure make a bunch of coyotes take fer home," Meeteetse Ed replied
flatteringly.
"You have come in my way not once or twice, but thrice; and now you die!
Ha! Ha!" Reaching for a spoon, Susie stabbed Meeteetse Ed on the second
china button of his flannel shirt.
"I'd rather die than have you laff in my ear like that," declared
Meeteetse.
"Next time I'm goin' to learn a comical piece."
"Any of 'em's comical enough," replied a husky voice from the far end of
the table. "I broke somethin' inside of me laffin' at that one about your
dyin' child."
"I don't care," Susie answered, unabashed by criticism. "Teacher says I've
got quite a strain of pathos in me."
"You ought to do somethin' for it," suggested a new voice. "Why don't you
bile up some Oregon grape-root? That'll take most anything out of your
blood."
"Or go to Warm Springs and get your head examined." This voice was
Smith's.
"Could they help _you_ any?" The girl's eyes narrowed and there was
nothing of the previous good-natured banter in her shrill tones.
Smith flushed under the shout of mocking laughter which followed. He tried
to join in it, but the glitter of his blue eyes betrayed his anger.
The incident sobered the table-full, and silence fell once more, until
McArthur, feeling that an effort toward conversation was a duty he owed
his hostess, cleared his throat and inquired pleasantly:
"Have any fragments ever been found in that red formation which I observed
to the left of us, which would indicate that this vicinity was once the
home of the mammoth dinosaur?"
Too late he realized that the question was ill-advised. As might be
expected, it was Tubbs who broke the awkward silence.
"Didn't look to me, as I rid along, that it ever were the home of
anybuddy. A homestid's no good if you can't git water on it."
McArthur hesitated, then explained: "The dinosaur was a prehistoric
reptile," adding modestly, "I once had the pleasure of helping to restore
an armored dinosaur."
"If ever I gits a rope on one of them things, I'll box him up and ship him
on to you," said Tubbs generously. Then he inquired as an afterthought:
"Would he snap or chaw me up a-tall?"
"What's a prehysteric reptile?" interrupted Susie.
"This particular reptile was a big snake, with feet, that lived here when
this country was a marsh," McArthur explained simply, for Susie's
benefit.
The guests exchanged incredulous glances, but it was Meeteetse Ed who
laughed explosively and said:
"Why, Mister, they ain't been a sixteenth of an inch of standin' water on
this hull reserve in twenty year."
"Better haul in your horns, feller, when you're talkin' to a real prairie
man." Smith's contemptuous tone nettled McArthur, but Susie retorted for
him.
"Feller," mocked Susie, "looks like you're mixed. You mean when he's
talkin' to a Yellow-back. No real prairie man packs a chip on his shoulder
all the time. That buttermilk you was raised on back there in Missoury has
soured you some."
Again an angry flush betrayed Smith's feeling.
"A Yellow-back," Susie explained with gusto in response to McArthur's
puzzled look, "is one of these ducks that reads books with
buckskin-colored covers, until he gets to thinkin' that he's a Bad Man
himself. This here country is all tunnelled over with the graves of
Yellow-backs what couldn't make their bluffs stick; fellers that just knew
enough to start rows and couldn't see 'em through."
"Generally," said Smith evenly, as he stared unblinkingly into Susie's
eyes, "when I starts rows, I sees 'em through."
"And any time," Susie answered, staring back at him, "that you start a row
on _this_ ranch, you've _got_ to see it through."
The grub-liners raised their eyes in surprise, for there was unmistakable
ill-feeling in her voice. It was unlike her, this antagonistic attitude
toward a stranger, for, as they all knew, her hospitality was unlimited,
and every passer-by whose horse fed at the big hayrack was regarded and
treated as a welcome friend.
There was rarely malice behind the sharp personalities which she flung at
random about the table. Knowing no social distinctions, Susie was no
respecter of persons. She chaffed and flouted the man who wintered a
thousand head of cattle with the same impartiality with which she gibed
his blushing cowpuncher. Her good-nature was a byword, as were her
generosity and boyish daring. Susie MacDonald was a local celebrity in her
way, and on the big hay-ranch her lightest word was law.
But the mere presence of this new-comer seemed to fill her with
resentment, making of her an irrepressible young shrew who gloated openly
in his angry confusion.
"Speakin' of Yellow-backs," said Meeteetse, with the candid intent of
being tactful, "reminds me of a song a pardner of mine wrote up about 'em
once. Comical? _T'--t'--t'--!_" He wagged his head as if he had no words
in which to describe its incomparable humor. "He had another song that was
a reg'lar tear-starter: 'Whar the Silver Colorady Wends Its Way.' Ever
hear it? It's about a feller that buried his wife by the silver Colorady,
and turned outlaw. This pardner of mine used to beller every time he sung
it. He cried like he was a Mormon, and he hadn't no more wife than a jack
rabbit."
"Some songs is touchin'," agreed Arkansaw Red.
"This was," declared Meeteetse. "How she faded day by day, till a pale,
white corp' she lay! If I hadn't got this cold on me----"
"I hate to see you sufferin', Meeteetse, but if it keeps you from
warblin'----"
He ignored Susie's implication, and went on serenely:
"Looks like it's settled on me for life, and it all comes of tryin' not to
be a hog."
"I hope it'll be a lesson to you," said Susie soberly.
"That there Bar C cowpuncher, Babe, comes over the other night, and, the
bunk-house bein' full, I offers him half my blankets. I never put in such
a night since I froze to death on South Pass. For fair, I'd ruther sleep
with a two-year-ole steer--couldn't kick no worse than that Babe. Why them
blankets was in the air more'n half the time, with him pullin' his way,
and me snatchin' of 'em back. Finally I gits a corner of a soogan in my
teeth, and that way I manages a little sleep. I vows I'd ruther be a hog
and git a night's rest than take in such a turrible bed-feller as him."
Apropos of the restless Babe, one James Padden observed: "They say he's
licked more'n half the Bar C outfit."
"Lick 'em!" exclaimed Meeteetse, with enthusiasm. "Why, he could eat 'em!
He jest tapped me an easy one and nigh busted my jaw. If he ever reely
hit you with that fist of his'n, it ud sink in up to the elbow. I ast him
once: 'Babe,' I says, 'how big are you anyhow?' 'Big?' he says surprised.
'I ain't big. I'm the runt of the family. Pa was thirty-two inches between
the eyes, and they fed him with a shovel.'"
Susie giggled at some thought, and then inquired:
"Did anybody ever see that horse he's huntin'? He says it's a two-year-old
filly that he thinks the world of. It's brown, with a star in its
forehead, and one hip is knocked down. He never hunts anywhere except on
that road past the school-house, and he stops at the pump each way--goin'
and comin'. I never saw anybody with such a thirst. He looks in the window
while he's drinkin', and swallows a gallon of water at a time, and don't
know it."
"Love is a turrible disease." Tubbs spoke with the emphasis of conviction.
"It's worse'n lump-jaw er blackleg. It's dum nigh as bad as glanders. It's
ketchin', too, and I holds that anybody that's got it bad ought to be
dipped and quarantined. I knowed a feller over in Judith Basin what
suffered agonies with it for two months, then shot hisself. There was
seven of 'em tyin' their horses to the same Schoolmarm's hitchin'-post."
"Take a long-geared Schoolmarm in a woolly Tam-o'-shanter, and she's a
reg'lar storm-centre," vouchsafed the husky voice of "Banjo" Johnson.
"They is! They is!" declared Meeteetse, with more feeling than the
occasion seemed to warrant.
The knob of a door adjoining the dining-room turned, and the grub-liners
straightened in their chairs. Susie's eyes danced with mischief as she
leaned toward Meeteetse and asked innocently:
"They is _what_?"
But with the opening of the door the voluble Meeteetse seemed to be
stricken dumb.
As a young woman came out, Smith stared, and instinctively McArthur half
rose from his chair. Believing his employer contemplated flight, Tubbs
laid a restraining hand upon his coat-tail, while inadvertently he turned
his knife in his mouth with painful results.
The young woman who seated herself in one of the two unoccupied chairs was
not of the far West. Her complexion alone testified to this fact, for the
fineness and whiteness of it were conspicuous in a country where the
winter's wind and burning suns of summer tan the skins of men and women
alike until they resemble leather in color and in texture. Had this young
woman possessed no other good feature, her markedly fine complexion alone
would have saved her from plainness. But her thick brown hair, glossy, and
growing prettily about her temples, was equally attractive to the men who
had been used to seeing only the straight, black hair of the Indian women,
and Susie's sun-bleached pigtail, which, as Meeteetse took frequent
occasion to remind her, looked like a hair-cinch. Her eyes, set rather too
far apart for beauty, were round, with pupils which dilated until they all
but covered the blue iris; the eyes of an emotional nature, an imaginative
mind. Her other features, though delicate, were not exceptional, but the
_tout ensemble_ was such that her looks would have been considered above
the average even in a country where pretty girls were plentiful. In her
present surroundings, and by contrast with the womenfolk about her, she
was regarded as the most beautiful of her sex. Her manner, reserved to the
point of stiffness, and paralyzing, as it did, the glibbest masculine
tongue among them, was also looked upon as the acme of perfection and all
that was desirable in young ladyhood; each individual humbly admitting
that while he never before had met a real lady, he knew one when he saw
her.
The young woman returned McArthur's bow with a friendly smile, his action
having at once placed him as being "different." Noting the fact, the
grub-liners resolved not to be outdone in future in a mere matter of
bows.
While nearly every arm was outstretched with an offer of food, Susie
leaned forward and whispered ostentatiously behind her hand to Smith:
"Don't you make any cracks. That's the Schoolmarm."
"I've been around the world some," Smith replied curtly.
"The south side of Billings ain't the world."
It was only a random shot, as she did not know Billings or any other town
save by hearsay, but it made a bull's-eye. Susie knew it by the startled
look which she surprised from him, and Smith could have throttled her as
she snickered.
"Mister McArthur and Mister Tubbs, I'll make you acquainted with Miss
Marshall."
With elaborate formality of tone and manner, Susie pointed at each
individual with her fork while mentioning them by name.
"Miss Marshall," McArthur murmured, again half rising.
"Much obliged to meet you," said Tubbs heartily as, bowing in imitation of
his employer, he caught the edge of his plate on the band of his trousers
and upset it.
Everybody stopped eating during this important ceremony, and now all
looked at Smith to see what form his acknowledgment of the coveted
introduction to the Schoolmarm would take.
Smith in turn looked expectantly at Susie, who met his eyes with a mocking
grin.
"Anything I can reach for you, Mister Smith?" she inquired. "Looks like
you're waitin' for something."
Smith's face and the red table-cloth were much the same shade as he
looked annihilation at the little half-breed imp.
Each time that Dora Marshall raised her eyes, they met those of Smith.
There was nothing of impertinence in his stare; it was more of awe--a kind
of fascinated wonder--and she found herself speculating as to who and what
he was. He was not a regular "grub-liner," she was sure of that, for he
was as different in his way as McArthur. He had a personality, not exactly
pleasant, but unique. Though he was not uncommonly tall, his shoulders
were thick and broad, giving the impression of great strength. His jaw was
square, but it evidenced brutality rather than determination. His nose, in
contrast to the intelligence denoted by his high, broad forehead, was
mediocre, inconsequential, the kind of a nose seldom seen on the person
who achieves. The two features were those of the man who conceives big
things, yet lacks the force to execute them.
His eyes were unpleasantly bloodshot, but whether from drink or the alkali
dust of the desert, it was impossible to determine; and when Susie prodded
him they had in them all the vicious meanness of an outlaw bronco. His
expression then held nothing but sullen vindictiveness, while every trait
of a surly nature was suggested by his voice and manner.
During the Schoolmarm's covert study of him, he laughed unexpectedly at
one of Meeteetse Ed's sallies. The effect was little short of marvellous;
it completely transformed him. An unlooked-for dimple deepened in one
cheek, his eyes sparkled, his entire countenance radiated for a moment a
kind of boyish good-nature which was indescribably winning. In the brief
space, whatever virtues he possessed were as vividly depicted upon his
face as were his unpleasant characteristics when he was displeased. So
marked, indeed, was his changed expression, that Susie burst out with her
usual candor as she eyed him:
"Mister, you ought to laugh all the time."
Contributing but little toward the conversation, and that little chiefly
in the nature of flings at Susie, Smith was yet the dominant figure at the
table. While he antagonized, he interested, and although his insolence was
no match for Susie's self-assured impudence, he still impressed his
individuality upon every person present.
He was studied by other eyes than Dora's and Susie's. Not one of the looks
which he had given the former had escaped the Indian woman. With the
Schoolmarm's coming, she had seen herself ignored, and her face had grown
as sullen as Smith's own, while the smouldering glow in her dark eyes
betrayed jealous resentment.
"Have a cookie?" urged Susie hospitably, thrusting a plate toward Tubbs.
"Ling makes these 'specially for White Antelope."
"No, thanks, I've et hearty," declared Tubbs, while McArthur shuddered.
"I've had thousands."
"Why, where is White Antelope?" Susie looked in surprise at the vacant
chair, and asked the question of her mother.
Involuntarily Smith's eyes and those of the Indian woman met. He read
correctly all that they contained, but he did not remove his own until her
eyelids slowly dropped, and with a peculiar doggedness she drawled:
"He go way for l'il visit; 'bout two, t'ree sleeps maybe."
IV
A SWAP IN SADDLE BLANKETS
"Madam," said McArthur, intercepting the Indian woman the next morning
while she was on her way from the spring with a heavy pail, "I cannot
permit you to carry water when I am here to do it for you."
In spite of her surprised protest, he gently took the bucket from her
hand.
"Look at that dude," said Smith contemptuously, viewing the incident
through the living-room window. "Queerin' hisself right along. No more
_sabe_ than a cotton-tail rabbit. That's the worse thing he could do.
Feller"--turning to Tubbs--"if you want to make a winnin' with a woman,
you never want to fetch and carry for her."
"I knows it," acquiesced Tubbs. "Onct I was a reg'lar doormat fer one, and
I only got stomped on fer it."
"I can wrangle Injuns to a fare-ye-well," Smith continued. "Over on the
Blackfoot I was the most notorious Injun wrangler that ever jumped up;
and, feller, on the square, I never run an errant for one in my life."
"It's wrong," agreed Tubbs.
"There's that dude tryin' to make a stand-in, and spilin' his own game
all the time by talkin'. You can't say he talks, neither; he just opens
his mouth and lets it say what it damn pleases. Is them real words he gets
off, or does he make 'em up as he goes along?"
"Search me."
"I'll tip you off, feller: if ever you want to make a strong play at an
Injun woman, you don't want to shoot off your mouth none. Keep still and
move around just so, and pretty soon she'll throw you the sign. Did you
ever notice a dog trottin' down the street, passin' everybody up till all
to once it takes a sniff, turns around, and follers some feller off?
That's an Injun woman."
"I never had no luck with squaws, and the likes o' that," Tubbs confessed.
"They're turrible hands to git off together and poke fun at you."
As McArthur and the Indian woman came in from the kitchen, he was saying
earnestly to her:
"I feel sure that here, madam, I should entirely recover my health.
Besides, this locality seems to me such a fertile field for research that
if you could possibly accommodate my man and me with board, you may not be
conferring a favor only upon me, but indirectly, perhaps, upon the world
of science. I have with me my own bath-tub and pneumatic mattress."
Tubbs, seeing the Indian woman's puzzled expression, explained: