THE WISDOM OF THE FROGS
For two weeks Johnny rode range with the outfit and got familiar with
the ranch. There was one discovery which puzzled him and seemed to
offer an explanation for the shot on the trail: He had found the ruins
of a burned homestead on the northern end of the ranch and he guessed
that it had been used by "nesters;" and the evicted squatters might
have mistaken him for Logan. His thoughts constantly turned to the man
who had shot at him, and to the country around Twin Buttes; and often
he sat for minutes, stiffly erect in his saddle, staring at the two
great buttes, eager to explore the country surrounding them and to pay
his debt.
From where he rode, facing westward, he could see the Deepwater, cold
at all seasons of the year. Flowing swiftly, it gurgled and swished
around bowlders of lava and granite and could be forded in but one
place in thirty miles, where it spread out over a rocky, submerged
plateau on the trail between the CL and Hastings, and where it grew
turbulent and frothy with wrath as it poured over the up-thrust ledges.
Along its eastern bank lay the ranch, in the valley of the Deepwater,
and beyond it a short distance stood the Barrier, following it mile
after mile and curving as it curved.
The Barrier, well named, was a great ledge of limestone, up-flung
like a wall, sheer, smooth and only occasionally broken by narrow
crevices which ran far back and sloped gradually upward, rock-strewn,
damp, cool, and wild. It stretched for miles to Johnny's right and
left, a wall between the wild tumble of the buttes and the smooth,
gently rolling, fertile plain, which, beginning at the river, swept
far to the eastward behind him, where it eventually became lost in the
desert wastes. On one side of the rampart lay the scurrying river and
the valley of the Deepwater, rolling, sparsely timbered and heavily
grassed, placid, peaceful, restful; on the other, seeming to leap
against the horizon, lay the grandeur of chaos, wild and forbidding.
Highest above all that jagged western skyline, shouldering up above
all other buttes and plateaus, Twin Buttes peremptorily challenged
attention. Remarkably alike from all sides, when viewed from the CL
ranch-house they seemed to have been cast in the same mold; and the two
towering, steep-sided masses with their different colored strata stood
high above the Barrier and the chaos behind it like concrete examples
of eternity.
Twin Buttes were the lords of their realm, and what a realm it was!
Around them for miles great buttes rose solidly upward, naked on their
abrupt sides except for an occasional, straggling bush or dwarfed pine
or fir which here and there held precarious footholds in cracks and
crevices or on the more secure placement of a ledge. Deep draws choked
with brush lay between the more rolling hills along the eastern edge
of the watershed where the Barrier stood on guard, and rich patches of
heavy grass found the needed moisture in them. On the slopes of the
hills were great forests of yellow pine, a straggling growth of fir
crowning their tops. Farther west, where the massive buttes reared
aloft, the deep canyons were of two kinds. The first, wide, with
sloping banks of detritus, were covered with pine forests and torn with
draws; the second, steep-walled, were great, narrow chasms of wind-
and water-swept rock, bare and awe inspiring. They sloped upward to
the backbone of the watershed and had humble beginnings in shallow,
basin-like arroyos, which gradually became boxes in the rock formation
as the level sloped downward.
But the chaos stopped at the Barrier, which marked the breaking of
stratum upon stratum of the earth's crust. Ages ago there had been a
mighty struggle here between titanic forces. To the west the earth's
crust, battered into buttes, canyons, draws, and great plateaus,
had held out with a granite stubbornness and strength defying the
seething powers below it; but the limestone and the sandstone, weaker
brothers, betrayed by the treachery of the shales, had given under the
great strain and parted. The western portion had held its own; but the
eastern section had dropped down into the heaving turmoil and formed
the floor of the valley of the Deepwater. And as if in compensation,
the winds of the ages, still battling with the stubborn buttes, had
robbed them of soil and deposited it in the valley.
One evening, when Johnny rode in for supper, Logan met him at the
corral and held out his hand.
"Shake, Nelson," he smiled. "Crosby went to town today and brought me a
letter from th' Tin Cup. After you have fed up, come around to my room
an' see me. I want to hold a right lively pow-wow with you."
"Shore enough!" laughed Johnny, an expectant grin on his face. "Bet he
laid me out from soda to hock, tail to bit, th' old pirate!"
"Well, you've got a terrible reputation, young man. Go an' feed."
Johnny was the first at the table that night, and the first away from
it by a wide margin. Rolling a cigarette, he lit it and hastened to
Logan's quarters, where he found the foreman contentedly smoking.
"Come in an' set down," invited the foreman. "We're goin' to do a lot
of talkin'; it's due to be a long session. There's th' letter."
Johnny read it:
"Mr. John C. Logan. Dear Sir: I take my pen in hand to answer your
letter of recent date. Pete paid Red the 8 dollars to even up for
the pants, but nobody paid me for the shirt, ask him why he took
the best one. William, Junior, hates tobacco. We was scared hed
die. He swears most suspicious like Johnny Nelson. I hid the gun
in the storeroom. It cost me $12 damages the first week, besides
a calf. Can you use Pete Wilson? I'll pay 1/2 his wages the first
6 months. I'd ruther have boils than him. He's worse since Johnny
left. Don't let Johnny come north again, and God have mercy on your
soul. He's easy worth $70, if you are in trouble. If you ain't
in trouble he'll get you there. Excuse pensil. Yours truly, Wm.
Cassidy, Senior. P. S. His old job is waiting for him and he can
have the shirt. It must be near wore out anyhow. Tell him it only
costs 2 cents to write me a letter, but I bet hell freezes before I
get one. William, Junior, raised the devil when he missed Johnny.
Yes, he worked on the Bar-20. If he sends the kid a shotgun, I'll
come down and bust his neck. Excuse pensil."
Johnny looked steadily out of the door, ashamed to let Logan see his
face, for homesickness is no respecter of age. He gulped and felt like
a sick calf. Logan smiled at him through the gloom and chuckled, and at
the sound the puncher stiffened and turned around with a fine attempt
at indifference.
The foreman nodded at the letter. "Keep it if you wants. They must be
a purty fine bunch, them fellers. I never knowed any of 'em, but I've
heard a lot about 'em. 'Youbet' Somes used to drop in here once in a
while, an' he knowed 'em all. I ain't seen Youbet for quite a spell
now."
Johnny managed to relax his throat. "Finest outfit that ever
wore pants," he blurted. "Youbet's dead. Went out fightin' seven
sheep-herders in a saloon, but he got three of 'em. Hoppy met up with
two of th' others th' next summer an' had words with 'em. Th' other
two are still livin', I reckon." He thought for a moment and growled:
"It's th' wimmin that done it. You wouldn't believe how that crowd has
changed! D--n it, why can't a man keep his friends?"
The foreman puffed slowly and made no answer beyond a grunt of
understanding. Johnny folded the letter carefully and put it in his
pocket. "What's th' cow business comin' to, anyhow?" he demanded.
"Wimmin, railroads, towns, sheep, wire--" he despaired of words and
glared at the inoffensive corral.
"An' rustlers," added Logan.
"They're only an incident," retorted Johnny. "They can be licked, like
a disease; but th' others--oh, what's th' use!"
"Yo're right," replied Logan; "but it's the rustlers that have got me
worried. I ain't thinkin' about th' others very much, yet."
Johnny turned like a flash. He wanted action, action that would take
his thoughts into other channels. The times were out of joint and he
wanted something upon which to vent his spleen. He had been waiting for
that word to come from Logan, waiting for days. And he had a score of
his own to pay, as well.
"Rustlers!" he exulted. "I knowed it! I've knowed it for a week, an'
I'm tired of ridin' around like a cussed fool. I know th' job _I_ want!
What about 'em?"
Logan closed the door by a push of his foot, refilled and lit his
pipe, and for two hours the only light the room knew was the soft
glow of the pipe and the firey ends of the puncher's cigarettes,
while Logan unfolded his troubles to eager ears. The cook sang in the
kitchen as he wrestled his dishes and pans, and then the noise died
out. Laughter and words and the thumping of knuckles on a card table
came from the bunkroom, and grew silent. A gray coyote slid around the
corral, sniffing suspiciously, and at some faint noise faded into the
twilight, and from a distant rise howled mournfully at the moon. From a
little pond in the corral came the deep-throated warning of the frogs,
endless, insistent, untiring: "Go 'round! Go 'round! Knee deep! Knee
deep! Go 'round! Go 'round! Go 'round!"
The soft murmur of voices in the foreman's room suddenly ceased, and a
chair scraped over the sandy floor. The door creaked a protest as it
swung slowly inward and a gray shape suddenly took form against the
darkness of the room, paused on the threshold and then Logan stepped
out into the moonlight and knocked his pipe against his boot heel. A
second figure emerged and joined him, tossing away a cigarette.
The foreman yawned and shook his head. "I didn't know how to get 'em,
Nelson," he said again. "I wasn't satisfied to stop th' rustlin'. I
wanted to wipe 'em out an' get back my cows; but I didn't have men
enough to go about it right, an' that cussed Barrier spoiled every
plan."
"Yes," said the puncher. "But it's funny that none of th' boys,
watchin' nights, never got a sign of them fellers. They must be slick.
Well, all right; there'll have to be another plan tried, an' that'll be
_my_ job. I told you that I found traces of lead over near Twin Buttes?
Well, I'm goin' prospectin', an' try to earn that seventy dollars a
month. Any time you see a green bush lyin' at th' foot of th' Barrier,
just north of Little Canyon, keep th' boys from ridin' near there that
same night. I may have some business there an' I shore don't want to be
shot at when I can't shoot back. It's too cussed bad Hoppy an' Red are
married."
Logan laughed: "Then don't you make that mistake some day! But what
about that feller Pete Wilson that Cassidy wants to get rid of?"
"Don't you worry about me gettin' married!" snorted Johnny. "I saw too
much of it. An' as for Pete, he's too happy wallerin' in his misery.
Anyhow, he wouldn't leave Hoppy an' th' boys; an' they wouldn't let
him go. You couldn't drag him off the Tin Cup with a rope. Then we've
settled it, huh? I'm to leave you tomorrow, with hard words?"
"Hard words ain't necessary. I know every man that works for me an'
they'll stick, an' keep their mouths shut. Now, I warn you again: I
wouldn't give a dollar, Mex., for yore life if you go through with your
scheme. An' it'll be more dangerous because you look like me, an' have
worked for me. You can give it up right now an' not lose anythin' in my
opinion. Think it over tonight."
Johnny laughed and shook his head.
"Well," said the foreman, "I'm lettin' you into a bad game, with th'
cards stacked against you; but I'll come in after you when you say th'
word; an' th' outfit'll be at my back."
"I know that," smiled Johnny. "I'll be under a handicap, keepin' under
cover an' not doin' any shootin'; but If I make a gun-play they'll
begin to do some figgerin'. Gosh, I'm sleepy. Reckon I'll hunt my bunk.
Good night."
"No gun-play," growled Logan. "You know what I want. How many they are,
where they round up my cows, an' when they will be makin' a raid, so I
can get 'em red-handed. _We_'ll do the fightin'. Good night."
They shook hands and parted, Johnny entering the house, Logan wandering
out to the corral, where he sat on a stump for an hour or more and
slowly smoked his pipe. When he finally arose he found that it was out,
and cold, much to his surprise.
"Go 'round! Go 'round!" said the pond. "Better go 'round! Go 'round!"
Logan turned and sighed with relief at a problem solved. "Yo're a right
smart frog, Big Mouth," he grinned. "'Go 'round' is th' medicine; an'
I've got th' doctor to shove it down their throats! There's a roundup
due in th' Twin Buttes, an' it's started now."