PERILS IN THE NIGHT
Red Jack and Jose Gonzalez joined the forces of the Socorro Springs
ranch while the cattle of the morning's round-up were being driven to
the watering-place near the ranch house. Across the road from the house
stood a large grove of cottonwoods; a little beyond that, in the valley,
a deep pond had been dug, into which flowed the outlets from the several
springs. The cattle from a score of miles roundabout were accustomed to
come to this pond, with its circling belt of trees, for water and for
midday rest in the shade.
Here the round-up was in progress, and Conrad galloped out to meet the
new hand and give him instructions. As he rode off toward the hills
after a bunch of straggling cattle Curtis looked after him with an
approving eye. "He knows how to fork a horse, at least," he thought. In
the afternoon Jose was set to work cutting out and bunching the two-
and three-year-old steers and later at helping with the branding. Conrad
watched his handling of the branding irons, and he and all the rest
stopped their work to follow his movements with critical eyes as he
roped and brought to the ground a belligerent steer. The superintendent
was well satisfied. "At last I've got a man who knows the business and
has some _sabe_," he thought. "If he goes on as well as he begins I'll
keep him after the shipping is done."
The next day the round-up crept slowly southward, accompanied by
the chuck-wagon and a drove of fresh horses. At noon the cattle
gathered during the morning were bunched at Adobe Springs, the next
watering-place toward the Mexican border. Gonzalez was the only Mexican
among the cowboys, the rest being Americans of one sort or another--from
Texas, Colorado, the Northwest, and the Middle West. All felt toward
him the contemptuous scorn born of difference in race and consequent
conviction of superior merit. They had no scruples about making known
their prejudice, and more than once his face flushed and his hand darted
toward the knife hidden in his bosom. Yet, as the day wore on and they
saw that he excelled the best of them in handling the lasso and in the
cunning of his movements when cutting out the steers from the herd, they
began to show him the respect that skill of any sort inspires in those
who know with what effort it is acquired.
After supper, when they gathered about the campfire, smoking, and
scoffing good-naturedly at one another's tales of wondrous experiences,
and talking over the events of the day just gone, they received him upon
an equality with themselves which was only slightly grudged. He told
them, in English more precise than any of them could speak, of Conrad's
encounter with Rutherford Jenkins in the Blue Front, and their
appreciation of the tale completed the work which his skill as a cowboy
had begun. Thereafter they looked upon Jose as a comrade and a good
fellow.
Three small adobe houses, of one room each, with flat roofs and earthen
floors, had been built here, as the large and never-failing springs made
the spot a sure rendezvous for every round-up. The locality was infested
by skunks, and the cowboys, who greatly feared midnight bites from the
prowling animals, believing hydrophobia a sure consequence, usually
preferred to sleep inside the houses, on bunks filled with alfalfa hay.
If they ventured to sleep out-of-doors, they kept small cans of coal oil
ready and, whenever a wakeful man saw one of the small creatures near, a
quick turn of the wrist drenched its fur with the fluid and a brand from
the smouldering campfire tossed after it sent a squealing pillar of
flame flying up the hill and saved them from further disturbance that
night.
A board nailed across a corner of the largest house served Conrad as a
desk. He kept there a lamp, writing materials, and a few books. While
the men sprawled around the campfire and the last gleams of dusky red
faded from the west and the moon bounded up from behind the eastern
hills, he made his memoranda, wrote a letter to be sent to the
post-office by the first chance comer, and lost himself for an hour in a
volume of Shakespeare. When he went outside the men were walking about,
yawning and stretching, ready for sleep. Curtis's imagination was still
astir from his reading, and the presence of any other human being seemed
an impertinence. But he said, genially:
"Well, boys, you begin to look as if you wanted to turn in. Take
whatever bunks you like, if you want to go inside. I'm going to sleep
out here."
"Better have a tin of ile handy," said Red Jack. "The polecats are sure
likely to nibble your toes if you don't. The night I slept here last
week I never saw the cusses so bad; durned if one of the critters didn't
get inside and wake me up smellin' of my ear. I was some skeered of him
stinkin' up the place so it couldn't be slept in for a year, so I jest
had to lay low and wait for him to go outside, and then I doused him
good with ile and throwed the candle at him. I sure reckon he's holed up
somewhere now, waitin' till he can afford a new sealskin sacque before
he shows hisself in good sassiety ag'in."
"I don't think they'll bother me to-night," Curtis responded. At that
moment he felt that nothing could disturb him, if only he could be left
alone with the moonlight and the plain. "I'll sleep with my boots on,
and my cheeks are not as fat as yours, Jack, so there'll be no
temptation. Where do you want to bunk, Jose? You can sleep outside or
in, just as you like."
Gonzalez replied respectfully that he would rather go in. But presently
he came out again with his blanket and chose a spot against the wall of
one of the houses. Conrad had gone out to the herd to speak with the man
on patrol and to make sure that all was well. When he returned the men
had disappeared. "Good!" he said to himself. "They've all gone inside
and I've got the universe to myself." He did not see the still form in
its gray blanket close against the wall.
Curtis took the red bandanna from his neck and tied it over his ears, to
keep out the tiny things that crawl o' nights, and couched himself in
his blanket on the gently rising ground with his saddle for a pillow. He
lay down with his face to the east, where the dim and mellow sky,
flooded with moonlight, seemed to recede far back, to the very limits of
space, and leave the huge white globe suspended there in brooding
majesty just above the plain. With long legs outstretched and muscles
relaxed, he lay as still as if asleep, his eyes on its glowing disk. He
knew all that science had discovered or guessed about the moon's
character and history. But it had companioned him on so many a silent
ride across long miles of dimly gleaming plain, and on so many nights
like this as he lay upon the earth it had gathered his thoughts into its
great white bosom, that he could not image it to himself as a mere dead
and barren satellite of the earth. More easily could he understand how
the living Cynthia had once leaped earthward and been welcomed with
belief and love.
Conrad's mind busied itself at first with the play he had just been
reading, but presently wandered to his own affairs and the purpose that
had been the dominant influence of half his life. He chuckled softly as
he remembered the check he had recently received. "I've got him on the
run," he thought, "and I'm bound to lay him out sooner or later. Lord,
but it will be a satisfaction to face him finally! And he'll not get the
drop on me first, either, unless Providence takes as good care of
rascals as they say it does of fools." He recalled himself now and then
to listen to the sounds from the sleeping herd, to the hoof-beats of the
horse as the cowboy on watch rode round and round the bunch, and to his
voice singing in a lulling monotone. But gradually thought and will and
sense sank back toward the verge of that great gulf out of which they
spring.
When next he opened his eyes the moon was dropping toward the western
horizon, but he had turned in his sleep and its light was still upon
his face. Lying motionless, Curtis listened to the sounds from the herd,
his first thought being that something unusual there must have awakened
him. The coyotes were yelping at one another from hill and plain, but
through their barking he could hear the snorting sigh of a steer turning
in its sleep, the tramp of the horse, and the cowboy's lullaby. He
recognized the voice as that of Peters, who was to have the third watch,
and so knew that it must be well on toward morning. He was about to sink
into slumber again when his gaze fell upon a small black and white
animal nosing among some rocks near by. "Poor little devil! If it wakens
any of the boys it will get a taste of hell out of proportion to its
sins," he thought, and decided that he would drive it away before any
one else discovered it. But the languor of sleep still held him and not
a muscle moved as his eyelids began to droop. Then, through his
half-shut eyes, he became conscious that something was moving, over
against one of the houses, among the shadows. His eyelids lifted again
and he saw the Mexican rise out of his blanket, look about, and in a
crouching posture move stealthily toward him. Something in his hand
glittered in the moonlight.
"It's Jose," thought Conrad. "He's coming for the skunk with a can of
oil. Quick, or I'll be too late!" He sprang to a sitting posture and
flung out one arm. As he did so he noticed with sleepy surprise that
Jose was not facing toward the animal but was coming toward him. Then,
before he had time to speak, the Mexican turned, a flying something
shone in the moonlight like an electric flash, and Conrad's eyes,
following the gleam, saw the little creature pinned to the ground with a
long knife through its neck and the gray sand darkening with its blood.
"Why, Jose, that was a wonderful throw!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, senor," the man replied quietly, as he stooped to draw out the
knife and wipe it on the sand, "I am rather good at that sort of thing."