THE FIGHT IN THE COULEE
When, a few days later, Wilbur found himself standing on the platform of
the little station at Sumber, with the cactus-clad Mohave desert about
him and the slopes of the Sierra Nevada beyond, he first truly realized
that his new life was beginning. His journey out from Washington had
been full of interest because the District Forester had accompanied him
the greater part of the way, and had taken the opportunity to explain
how varied were the conditions that he would find in the Sequoia forest
to which he had been assigned. In large measure the District Forester's
especial interest, Wilbur realized, was due to the fact that Masseth had
told him of the boy's intention to go to college and thence through the
Yale Forestry School, having had beforehand training as Guard, and
possibly later as Ranger.
But, as the train pulled out of the station, and Wilbur looked over the
sage-brush and sparse grass, seeming to dance under the shimmering
heat-waves of the afternoon sun, he suddenly became conscious that the
world seemed very large and that everything he knew was very far away.
The strange sense of doubt as to whether he were really himself, a
curious feeling that the desert often induces, swept over him, and he
was only too ready to enter into conversation when a small, wiry man,
with black hair and quick, alert eyes, came up to him with the rolling
walk that betokens a life spent in the saddle, and said easily:
"Howdy, pard!"
The boy returned a friendly "Good-afternoon," and waited for the
stranger to continue.
"She looks some as if you was the whole pack on this deal," was the next
remark.
"Well," replied Wilbur, looking at him quizzically, "I wasn't conscious
of being crowded here."
The range-rider followed the boy's glance around the immediate
neighborhood, noting the station agent and the two or three figures in
front of the general store, who formed the sum of the visible
population, and nodded.
"Bein' the star performer, then," he went on, "it might be a safe bet
that you was sort of prospectin' for the Double Bar J."
"That was the name of the ranch," said the boy. "I was told to go there
and get a couple of ponies."
"An' how was you figurin' on gettin' to the ranch? Walkin'?"
"Not if I could help it. And that," he added, pointing to the desert, "I
should think would be mean stuff to walk on."
"Mean she is," commented Wilbur's new acquaintance, "but even s'posin'
that you did scare up a pony, how did you dope it out that you would hit
up the right trail? This here country is plumb tricky. And the trail
sort of takes a nap every once in a while and forgets to show up."
"I didn't expect to find my way alone," said the boy. "If nobody had
been here, I'd have found somebody to show me--"
"Hold hard," said the cowboy, interrupting, "till I look over that
layout. If you hadn't ha' found anybody, you'd ha' found somebody?
Shuffle 'em up a bit, pard, and try a new deal."
"But," continued Wilbur, not paying any attention to the interruption,
"I fully expected that some one from the ranch would be here to meet
me."
"If all your conjectoors comes as near bein' accurate as that same,"
said the other, "you c'd set up as a prophet and never call the turn
wrong. Which I'm some attached to the ranch myself."
"I thought you were, probably," said Wilbur, "and I'm much obliged to
you, if you came to meet me."
"That's all right! But if you're ready, maybe we'd better start
interviewin' the scenery on the trail. How about chuck?"
"Thanks," said the boy, "I had dinner on the car."
"An' you're thirsty none?"
"Not especially. But," he added, not wishing to offend his companion,
"if you are, go ahead."
"Well, if you don't mind," began the other, then he checked himself. "I
guess I c'n keep from dyin' of a cracked throat until we get there," he
added. "C'n you ride?"
"Yes!" said Wilbur decisively.
The cowboy turned half round to look at him with a dubious smile.
"You surely answers that a heap sudden," he said. "An' I opine that's
some risky as a general play."
"Why?" asked the boy.
"Bein' too sure in three-card Monte has been a most disappointin'
experience to many a gent, an' has been most condoocive to transfers of
ready cash."
"But that's just guessing," said Wilbur. "I'm talking of what I know."
"Like enough you never heard about Quick-Finger Joe?" queried the
cowboy. "Over-confidence hastens his exit quite some."
"No," answered Wilbur quickly, scenting a story, "I never even heard of
him. Who was he?"
"This same Joe," began the range-rider, "is a tow-haired specimen whose
manly form decorates the streets of this here metropolis of Sumber that
you've been admirin'. He has the name of bein' the most agile
proposition on a trigger that ever shot the spots off a ten o' clubs. He
makes good his reputation a couple of times, and then gets severely left
alone. To him, one day, while he is standin' takin' a little
refreshment, comes up a peaceful and inoffensive-lookin' stranger, who
has drifted into town promiscuous-like in the course of the afternoon.
He addresses Joe some like this:
"'Which I hears with profound admiration that you're some frolicsome
and speedy on gun-play?'
"Joe, tryin' to hide his blushes, admits that his hand can amble for his
hip right smart. Whereupon the amiable-appearin' gent makes some sort of
comment, just what no one ever knew, but it seems tolerable superfluous
an' sarcastic, an' instantaneous there's two shots. When the smoke
clears away a little, Joe is observed to be occupyin' a horizontal
position on the floor and showin' a pronounced indisposition to move.
The stranger casually remarks:
"'Gents, this round's on me. I shore hates to disturb your peaceful
converse on a balmy evenin' like this yere in a manner so abrupt an'
sudden-like. But he had to get his, some time, an' somebody's
meditations would hev to be disturbed. This hyar varmint, gents, what is
now an unopposed candidate for a funeral pow-wow, was a little too
previous with his gun agin my younger brother. It's a case of plain
justice, gents; my brother was without weapons, and he--' pointing to
the figure on the floor, 'he knew it. Line up, gents, and give it a
name!'"
"What did they do to the stranger?" asked Wilbur eagerly, divided
between admiration of the quickness of the action and consternation at
the gravity of the result.
"They compliments him some on the celerity of his shootin', and feels a
heap relieved by Joe's perpetual absence. An' the moral o' this little
tale is that you're hittin' a fast clip for trouble when you go around
prompt and aggressive to announce your own virtoos. I'm not advancin'
any criticism as to your shinin' talents in the way of ridin', pard, but
you haven't been long enough in this here vale of tears to be what you
might call experienced."
"I've ridden a whole lot," said Wilbur, who was touchy on the point and
proud of his horsemanship, "and while I don't say that there isn't a
horse I can't ride, I can say that I've never seen one yet. I started in
to ride pretty nearly as soon as I started to walk."
"I don't want to mar your confidence none," replied the cowboy, "an' I
likes a game sport who'll bet his hand to the limit, though I generally
drops my stake on the other side. But if some mornin' you sh'd find the
ground rearin' up and hittin' you mighty sudden, don't forget that I
gave you a plain steer. Here's your cayuse."
Wilbur had been a little disappointed that the cowboy should not have
shown up as ornamentally as he had expected, not wearing goatskin
"chaps" or rattlesnake hatbands, and not even having a gorgeous
saddle-blanket on his pony, but the boy felt partly rewarded when he saw
him just put his toe in the stirrup and seem to float into the saddle.
The pony commenced dancing about in the most erratic way, but Wilbur
noted that his companion seemed entirely unaware that the horse was not
standing still, although his antics would have unseated any rider that
the boy previously had seen. He was conscious, moreover, that his climb
into his own saddle was very different from that which he had witnessed,
but he really was a good rider for a boy, and felt quite at home as soon
as they broke into the loping canter of the cow-pony.
"I understood," said Wilbur as they rode along, "that I should meet the
Ranger at the ranch. His name was given to me as Rifle-Eye Bill, because
I was told he had been a famous hunter before he joined the Service. I
thought at first you might be the Ranger, but he was described to me as
being very tall."
"Which he does look some like a Sahaura cactus on the Arizona deserts,"
said the range-rider, "an' I surely favor him none. But that mistake of
yours naterally brings it to me that I haven't what you might say
introdooced myself. Which my baptismal handle is more interestin' than
useful, an' I lays it by. So I'll just hand you the title under which I
usually trots, bein' 'Bob-Cat Bob,' ridin' for the Double Bar J."
"Not having risen to any later title," said Wilbur good-humoredly, "I've
got to be satisfied with the one I started with. I'm generally called
Wilbur."
"Which is sure unfamiliar to me. I opine it's a new brand on the range."
He flourished his sombrero in salute, so that his pony bucked twice and
then tried to bolt. Wilbur watched and envied him the absolute ease with
which he brought down the broncho to a quiet lope again.
"I'm going to join the Forest Service," the boy explained, knowing that
according to the etiquette of the West no question would be asked about
his business, but that he would be expected to volunteer some statement,
"and my idea in coming to the ranch was to pick up a couple of horses
and go on to the forest with the Ranger. I understand the Supervisor,
Mr. Merritt, is very busy with some timber sales, and I didn't know
whether the Ranger would be able to get away."
"I kind o' thought you might be headed for the Forest Service, since you
was goin' along with Rifle-Eye," said the cowboy. "An' if you're goin'
with him, you'll be all right."
"The Service looks pretty good to me," said Wilbur.
"I've no kick comin' agin the National Forests," said Bob-Cat, "we've
always been treated white enough. Of course, there's always some
soreheads who want to stampede the range and gets peevish when they're
balked, but I guess the Service is a good thing all round. It don't
appeal none to me, o' course. If I held all the cards, I'd rip down
every piece of barbed wire west of the Mississippi, let the sheepmen go
to the ranges beside the canals o' Mars or some other ekally distant
region, an' git back to the good old days o' the Jones 'n' Plummer
trail. But then, I sure enough realize that I'm not the only strikin'
feature o' the landscape an' there's others that might have a say."
"I guess the present way is the best in the long run at that, for all I
hear," said Wilbur, "because every one now has a fair show. You can't
have cattle and sheep overrunning everywhere without absolutely ruining
the forests. Especially sheep. They can destroy a forest and make it as
though it had never existed."
"I'm huggin' love of sheep none," said the cowboy, "an' my mental picter
of the lower regions is a place what smells strong of sheep. But I sure
miss my throw on any idee as to how they could do up a forest of big
trees."
"They do, just the same."
"How? Open her up, pard, an' explain. I'm listenin' mighty attentive."
"This way," began the boy, remembering some of the talks he had heard at
the Ranger School. "When a dry year comes, if the sheep are allowed into
the forest, the grass, which is poor because of the dryness, soon gets
eaten down. Then the sheep begin to browse on the young shoots and
seedlings, and even will eat the leaves off the young saplings that they
can reach, thus destroying all the baby trees and checking the growth of
those that are a little more advanced. When this goes on for two or
three seasons all the young growth is gone. Since there are no saplings,
no young shoots, and no seedlings, the forest never recovers, but
becomes more like a park with stretches of grass between clumps of
trees. Then, when these trees die, there are no others to take their
place and the forest is at an end."
"How about cattle?"
"They're not nearly as bad. Cattle won't eat leaves unless they have to.
And they don't browse so close, nor pack down the ground as hard with
their hoofs. If there's grass enough to go round, cattle won't injure a
forest much, but, of course, the grazing has got to be restricted or
else the same sort of thing will happen that goes on when sheep are let
in."
"Never knew before," said the boy's companion, "why I ought ter hate
sheep. Jest naterally they're pizen to me, but I never rightly figured
out why I allers threw them in the discard. Now I know. There's a heap
of satisfaction in that. It's like findin' that a man you sure disagreed
with in an argyment is a thunderin' sight more useful to the community
dead than he was alive. It don't alter your feelin's none, but it helps
out strong on the ensooin' explanations."
"Are there many sheep out here?"
"There's a tidy few. But it's nothin' like Montana. You ought ter get
Rifle-Eye Bill to tell you of the old days o' the sheep an' cattle
war. The debates were considerable fervent an' plenty frequent, an' a
Winchester or two made it seem emphatic a whole lot."
"Was Rifle-Eye mixed up in it?"
"Which he's allers been a sort of Florence Nightingale of the Rockies,
has old Rifle-Eye," was the reply. "I don't mean in looks--but if a
feller's shot up or hurt, or anythin' of that kind, it isn't long before
the old hunter turns up, takes him to some shack near by and persuades
somebody to look after him till he gets around again. An' we've got a
little lady that rides a white mare in these here Sierras who's a sure
enough angel. I don't want to know her pedigree, but when it comes to
angels, she's It. An' when she an' Rifle-Eye hitches up to do the
ministerin' act, you'd better believe the job's done right. I never
heard but of one man that ever said 'No' to Rifle-Eye, no matter what
fool thing he asked."
"How was that?" asked Wilbur.
"It was the wind-up of one o' these here little differences of opinion
on the sheep question, same as I've been tellin' you of. It happened
somewhar up in Oregon, although I've forgotten the name o' the ranch.
Rifle-Eye could tell you the story better'n I can, but he won't. It was
somethin' like this:
"There was a big coulee among the hills, an', one summer, when there'd
been a prairie fire that wiped out a lot o' feed, a bunch o' cattle was
headed into this coulee. Three cowpunchers and a cook with the chuck
wagon made up the gang. But this yar cook was one o' them fellers what's
not only been roped by bad luck, but hog-tied and branded good and
plenty. He had been the boss of a ranch, a small one, but he'd fallen
foul o' the business end of a blizzard, an' he'd lost every blamed head
o' cattle that he had. He lost his wife, too."
"How did she come in on it?"
"It was this way. She heard, or thought she heard, some one callin'
outside, a little ways from the house. She s'posed, o' course, that it
was the men who had tackled the storm in the hope o' savin' some o' the
cattle, an' she ran out o' the door to give 'em an answerin' hail so as
they could git an idee as to the direction o' the house. But she hadn't
gone but a few steps when the wind caught her--leastways, that was how
they figured it out afterwards--and blew her along a hundred feet or so
before she could catch breath, and then she stumbled and fell. She got
up, sort o' dazed, most like, and tried to run back to the shack. But in
the blindin' snow nothin' o' the house could be seen, an' though she
tried to fight up in that direction against the wind, she must have gone
past it a little distance to the left. They didn't find her until two
days after when the blizzard had blown itself out, an' there she was,
stone dead, not more than a half a mile away from the house.
"The boss was near crazy when they found her, an' he never was fit for
much afterwards. There was a child, only a little shaver then, who was
asleep in the house at the time his mother run out to answer the shout
she reckoned she heard. So, since the rancher wasn't anyways overstocked
on female relations, an' he had the kid to look after, the one-time boss
went out as a camp cook an' took the boy along. He was rustlin' the
chuck for this bunch I'm a-tellin' you about, that goes into the coulee.
"By 'n' by, a week or so afterward, a herd o' sheep comes driftin' into
this same valley, bein' ekally short for feed, an' the herders knocks up
a sort o' corral an' looks to settle down. The cowpunchers pays 'em an
afternoon call, an' suggests that the air outside the coulee is a lot
healthier for sheep--an' sheepmen--an' that onless they makes up their
minds to depart, an' to make that departure a record-breaker for speed,
they'll make their relatives sure a heap mournful. The sheepmen replies
in a vein noways calculated to bring the dove o' peace hoverin' around,
an' volunteers as a friendly suggestion that the cattlemen had best send
to town and order four nice new tombstones before ringin' the curtain up
on any gladiatorial pow-wow. When the cowpunchers rides back, honors is
even, an' each side is one man short.
"Now, this coulee, which is the scene of these here operations, is so
located that there's only one way out. Most things in life there's more,
but in this here particular coulee, the openin' plays a lone hand. As
the cattlemen got there first, and went 'way back to the end o' the
ravine, the sheepmen are nearer to what you might call the valley door.
If the cowpunchers could have made a get-away, it's a cinch that they'd
have headed for the ranch an' brought back enough men with them to make
their persuasion plenty urgent. But the herders ain't takin' any chances
of allowin' the other side to better their hand, an' when, one night, a
cowpuncher tries to rush it, they pots him as pretty as you please. The
cook, who's cuddlin' his Winchester at the time, fires at the flash and
disposes o' the herder, sort o' evenin' matters up. This leaves only one
cowpuncher and the cook. There's still three men at the herders' camp.
"Then the cook, he indooces a bullet to become sufficient intimate with
one o' the herder's anatomy, but gits a hole in the leg himself an' is
laid up. The other cowpuncher runs the gauntlet an' gits out safe. He
hikes back the next day with a bunch o' boys, an' they follows up the
herders an' wipes out that camp for fair, an' stampedes the herd over
the nearest canyon. Then they circles back to the coulee to pick up the
cook.
"When they gits there, they surely finds themselves up against evidences
of a tragedy. The cook, he's lyin' on the floor of the shack, dead as a
nail, an' near him is the kid, who's still holdin' a table-knife in his
hand, but who's lyin' unconscious from a wound in the head. The way they
dopes it out, there's been a free-for-all fight in the place between the
two remainin' herders an' the wounded cook, an' it looks some as if the
kid had tried to help his dad by jabbin' at the legs o' the herders with
a knife and been booted in the side o' the head to keep him quiet."
"How old was the youngster, then, Bob-Cat?" asked Wilbur.
"Seven or eight, I guess, maybe not so much," replied the other, "a
nice, bright little kid, so I've heard. But there was somethin' broke, I
reckon, by the blow he had, an' he never got over it. The boys took him
back to the ranch an' doctored him the best they knew how, but they was
buckin' fate an' had to quit, lettin' the kid git better or worse as it
might turn out."
"But where does Rifle-Eye come in?"
"This way. Just before round-up, Rifle-Eye comes along, showin' he has
the whole story salted down, though where he larned it gits me, and
proposes that sence it was the sheepmen that injured the lad, it's up to
them to look after him. At first the boys objects, sayin' that the kid
was a cowpuncher's kid, but Rifle-Eye convinces 'em that the youngster's
locoed for fair, that he's likely to stay that way for good an' all, and
sence they agrees they can't ever make anythin' out of him, they lets
him go.
"Then Rifle-Eye, he takes this unfortunate kid to the man that owned
the sheep. He's a big owner, this man, and runs thirty or forty herds.
The old hunter--this was all before he was a Ranger, you know--he puts
it right up to the sheep-owner, who's a half-Indian, by the way, an'
tells him that he's got to look after the boy. The old skinflint says
'No,' and this here, as I was sayin', is the only time that any one ever
turned down old Rifle-Eye."
"And what happened to the boy?" queried Wilbur.
"The old hunter tries to shame this here sheep-owner into doin' the
right thing, but he didn't have any more shame in him than a turkey
buzzard; an' then he tries to bluff him an' says he'll make him keep the
kid, but the old sinner jest whined around an' wouldn't give any sort o'
satisfaction at all. So Rifle-Eye, he shakes the dust o' that house
off'n his feet so good an' hard that he mighty nearly shakes the nails
out of his boot-heels, an' hunts up a legal shark. Then an' there he
adopts this half-witted youngster, an' has kep' him ever sence."
"How long ago was this?"
"Fifteen years an' more, I reckon. The kid's big now, an' strong as a
bull moose, but he's a long way from bein' right in his head. He lives
up in the woods, a piece back here, an' I reckon you'll find Rifle-Eye
there as often as you will at his own cabin further along the range,
although he never sleeps indoors at either place."
"Never sleeps indoors?"
"That's a straight string. He's got a decent enough shack where the boy
is, but as soon as it gits dark, old Rifle-Eye he jest makes a pile o'
cedar boughs, builds up a fire, an' goes to sleep. For fifty years he
ain't slept under a roof summer or winter, an' when once he was in a
town over-night, which was about the boy, as I was tellin' ye, he had to
get up an' go on the roof to sleep. Lucky," added Bob-Cat with a grin,
"it was a flat roof."
"Fifty years is a long time," commented the boy.
"Old Rifle-Eye ain't any spring chicken. He shouldered a musket in the
Civil War, an' durin' the Indian mix-ups was generally found floatin'
around wherever the fun was thickest. He was mighty close friends with
the Pacific scout, old 'Death-on-th'-Trail,' who handed in his time at
Portland not long ago."
"Handed in his time?" questioned Wilbur, then, as the meaning of the
phrase flashed upon him, "oh, yes, I see, you mean he died."
"Sure, pard, died. You ought ter git Rifle-Eye Bill to spin you some
yarns about 'Death-on-th'-Trail.' He'll deny that he's any shakes
himself, but he'll talk about his old campmate forever."
The cowboy pointed with his hand to a long, low group of buildings that
had just come within sight.
"See, Wilbur," he said, "there's the Double Bar J."
[Illustration: HOW YOUNG FORESTS ARE DESTROYED.
Showing the way in which sheep and goats, having cropped the grass
close, will attack undergrowth.
_Photographs by U. S. Forest Service._]
[Illustration: WHERE SHEEP ARE ALLOWED.
Example of meadow stretches in midst of heavily forested mountain
slopes.
_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]