TEX DOES SOME SCOUTING
The moon hung low over the peaks to the westward when the Texan opened
his eyes. For some moments he stared about him in bewilderment, his
gaze travelling slowly from the slicker-clad form of the girl, who sat
close beside him with her face buried in her arms, to the little group
of horses that stood huddled dejectedly together. With an effort he
struggled to his elbow, and at the movement, the girl raised her head
and turned a very white face toward him.
Shivering with cold, the Texan raised himself to a sitting posture.
"Where's Bat?" he asked. "An' why ain't he onsaddled those horses, an'
built a fire? I'm froze stiff."
"Bat has gone to--to find Winthrop," answered the girl, with a painful
catch in her voice. "He wouldn't wait, and I had no matches, and yours
were all wet, and I couldn't loosen the cinches."
Tex passed his hand over his forehead, as if trying to remember, and
his fingers prodded tenderly at his jaw. "I recollect bein' in the
water, an' the pilgrim was there, an' we were scrappin' an' he punched
me in the jaw. He carries a whallop up his sleeve like the kick of a
mule. But what we was scrappin' about, an' where he is now, an' how I
come here, is somethin' I don't savvy."
Step by step the girl detailed what had happened while the Texan
listened in silence. "And now," she concluded, "he's gone. Just
when--" her voice broke and once more she buried her face in her arms.
Tex saw that she was sobbing silently. He felt for his "makings" and
drew from his pocket a little sack of soggy tobacco and some wet
papers. He returned them to his pocket and rose to his feet.
"You're cold," he said softly. "There's dry matches in the pack. I'll
make a fire an' get those wet saddles off the horses."
Alice did not look up and the man busied himself with the pack. A few
minutes later she felt his fingers upon her shoulder. He pointed
toward a fire that crackled cheerfully from the depths of a bull pine
thicket. "I fixed you up a shelter tent and spread your blankets. The
tarp kep' 'em tolerable dry. Go over there an' get off those clothes.
You must be wet through--nothin' short of a divin' suit would have kep'
that rain out!"
"But----"
He forestalled the objection. "There won't be any one to bother you.
I'm goin' down the creek."
The girl noticed that his horse, saddled with Endicott's saddle stood
close behind her.
"I didn't mean that!" she exclaimed. "But you are cold--chilled to the
bone. You need the fire more than I do."
The man shook his head: "I'll be goin' now," he said. "You'd better
make you some coffee."
"You're going to--to----"
Tex nodded: "Yes. To find the pilgrim. If he's alive I'll find him.
An' if he ain't I'll find him. An' when I do, I'll bring him back to
you." He turned abruptly, swung onto his horse, and Alice watched him
as he disappeared down the valley, keeping to the higher ground. Not
until she was alone did the girl realize how miserably cold and
uncomfortable she was. She rose stiffly, and walking slowly to the
edge of the bank, looked out over the little valley. The great
reservoir had run out in that first wild rush of water and now the last
rays of moonlight showed only wide, glistening pools, and the creek
subsided to nearly its normal proportions. With a shudder she turned
toward the fire. Its warmth felt grateful. She removed the slicker
and riding costume and, wrapping herself, squaw-like, in a blanket, sat
down in the little shelter tent. She found that the Texan had filled
the coffee pot and, throwing in some coffee, she set it to boil.
"He's so thoughtful, and self-reliant, and--and competent," she
murmured. "And he's brave, and--and picturesque. Winthrop is brave,
too--just as brave as he is, but--he isn't a bit picturesque." She
relapsed into silence as she rummaged in the bag for a cup, and the
sugar, and a can of milk. The moon sank behind the ridge and the girl
replenished her fire from the pile of wood the Texan had left within
reach of her hand. She drank her coffee and her eyes sought to
penetrate the blackness beyond the firelight. Somewhere out there in
the dark--she shuddered as she attempted to visualize _what_ was
somewhere out there in the dark. And then a flash of memory brought
with it a ray of hope that cheered her immeasurably. "Why, he was a
champion swimmer in college," she said aloud. "He was always winning
cups and things. And he's strong, and brave--and yet----" Vividly to
her mind came the picture of the wildly rushing flood with its burden
of tossing trees, and the man being swept straight into the gurge of
it. "I'll tell him he's brave--and he'll spoil it all by saying that
it was the only _practical_ thing to do." "Oh," she cried aloud, "I
could love him if it were not for his deadly practicability--even if I
should have to live in Cincinnati." And straightway fell to comparing
the two men. "Tex is absurdly unconventional in speech and actions,
and he has an adorable disregard for laws and things. He's just a big,
irresponsible boy--and yet, he makes you feel as if he always knew
exactly what to do and how to do it. And he is brave, too, with a
reckless, devil-may-care sort of bravery that takes no thought of cost
or consequences. He knew, when he let go his bridle reins, that he
couldn't swim a stroke--and he smiled and didn't care. And he's gentle
and considerate, too." She remembered the look in his eyes when he
said: "You are cold," and blushed furiously.
It seemed hours she sat there staring into the little fire and
listening for sounds from the dark. But the only sounds that came to
her were the sounds of the feeding horses, and in utter weariness she
lay back with her head upon a folded blanket, and slept.
When the Texan swung onto his horse after having made the girl
comfortable for her long vigil, a scant half-hour of moonlight was left
to him. He gave the horse his head and the animal picked his way among
the loose rocks and scrub timber that capped the ridge. When darkness
overtook him he dismounted, unsaddled, and groped about for firewood.
Despite its recent soaking the resinous bull pine flared up at the
touch of a match, and with his back to a rock-wall, the cowboy sat and
watched the little flames shoot upward. Once more he felt for his
"makings" and with infinite pains dried out his papers and tobacco.
"It's the chance I be'n aimin' to make for myself," he mused, as he
drew the grey smoke of a cigarette deep into his lungs, "to get Bat an'
the pilgrim away--an' I ride off and leave it." The cigarette was
consumed and he rolled another. "Takin' a slant at himself from the
inside, a man kind of gets a line on how damned ornery folks can get.
Purdy got shot, an' everyone said he got just what was comin' to
him---- Me, an' everyone else--an' he did. But when you get down to
cases, he wasn't no hell of a lot worse'n me, at that. We was both
after the same thing--only his work was coarser." For hours the man
sat staring into his fire, the while he rolled and smoked many
cigarettes.
"Oh, hell!" he exclaimed, aloud. "I can't turn nester, an' even if I
did, she couldn't live out in no mud-roof shack in the bottom of some
coulee! Still, she---- There I go again, over the same old trail.
This here little girl has sure gone to my head--like a couple of jolts
of hundred-proof on an empty stummick. Anyhow, she's a damn sight
safer'n ever she was before, an'--I'll bet the old man _would_ let me
take that Eagle Creek ranch off his hands, an' stake me to a little
bunch of stock besides, if I went at him right. If it wasn't for that
damn pilgrim! Bat was right. He holds the edge on me--but he's a
man." The cowboy glanced anxiously toward the east where the sky was
beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn. He rose, trampled
out his fire, and threw the saddle onto his horse. "I've got to find
him," he muttered, "if Bat ain't found him already. I don't know much
about this swimmin' business but if he could have got holt of a tree or
somethin' he might have made her through."
Now riding, now dismounting to lead his horse over some particularly
rough outcropping of rocks, or through an almost impenetrable tangle of
scrub, the man made his way over the divide and came down into the
valley amid a shower of loose rock and gravel, at a point some distance
below the lower end of the canyon.
The mountains were behind him. Only an occasional butte reared its
head above the sea of low foothills that stretched away into the bad
lands to the southward. The sides of the valley flattened and became
ill-defined. Low ridges and sage-topped foothills broke up its
continuity, so that the little creek that started so bravely from the
mountains ended nowhere, its waters being sucked in by the parched and
thirsting alkali soil long before it reached the bad lands.
As his horse toiled ankle-deep in the soft whitish mud, Tex's eyes
roved over the broadened expanse of the valley. Everywhere were
evidences of the destructive force of the flood. Uprooted trees
scattered singly and in groups, high-flung masses of brush, hay, and
inextricably tangled barbed-wire from which dangled fence-posts marked
every bend of the creek bed. And on every hand the bodies of drowned
cattle dotted the valley.
"If I was Johnson," he mused, as his eyes swept the valley, "I'd head a
right smart of ranch hands down here heeled with a spade an' a sexton's
commission. These here late lamented dogies'll cost him somethin' in
damages." From force of habit the man read the brands of the dead
cattle as he rode slowly down the valley. "D bar C, that's old Dave
Cromley's steer. An' there's a T U, an' an I X cow, an' there's one of
Charlie Green's, an' a yearlin' of Jerry Keerful's, an' a
quarter-circle M,--that belongs over the other side, they don't need to
bother with that one, an' there's a----"
Suddenly he drew himself erect, and rising to stand in the stirrups,
gazed long and intently toward a spot a quarter of a mile below, where
a thin column of smoke curled over the crest of a low ridge. Abruptly
he lost interest in the brands of dead cattle and headed his horse at a
run toward a coulee, that gave between two sage covered foothills only
a short distance from the faint column of smoke. "That might be Bat,
an' then again it mightn't," he muttered. "It can't be the pilgrim
without Bat's along, 'cause he wouldn't have no dry matches. An' if
it's any one else--" he drew up sharply in the shelter of a thicket,
dismounted, and made his way on foot to the summit of the ridge.
Removing his hat, he thrust his head through a narrow opening between
two sage bushes, and peered into the hollow beyond. Beside a little
fire sat Bat and the pilgrim, the latter arrayed in a suit of underwear
much abbreviated as to arms and legs, while from the branches of a
broken tree-top drawn close beside the blaze depended a pair of
mud-caked trousers and a disreputably dirty silk shirt. The Texan
picked his way down the hill, slipping and sliding in the soft mud.
"Breakfast about ready?" he asked, with a grin.
"Breakfas'! _Voila_! A'm lak' A'm got som' breakfas', you bet!
Me--A'm gon' for cut de chonk of meat out de dead steer but de pilgrim
say: '_Non_, dat bes' we don' eat de damn drownded cattle--dat better
we sta've firs'!"
Tex laughed: "Can't stand for the drownded ones, eh? Well I don't know
as I blame you none, they might be some soggy." Reaching into his
shirt-front he produced a salt bag which he tossed to Endicott.
"Here's some sinkers I fetched along. Divide 'em up. I've et. It
ain't no great ways back to camp----"
"How is she--Miss Marcum? Did she suffer from the shock?"
"Nary suffer. I fixed her up a camp last night back in the timber
where we all landed, an' then came away."
"She spent the night alone in the timber!" cried Endicott.
The Texan nodded. "Yes. There ain't nothin' will bother her. I
judged it to be the best way." Endicott's hand shot out and the
cowboy's met it in a firm grip. "I reckon we're fifty-fifty on that,"
he said gravely. "How's the swimmin'?"
Endicott laughed: "Fine--only I didn't have to do a great deal of it.
I staged a little riding contest all my own, part of the way on a dead
cow, and the rest of it on this tree-trunk. I didn't mind that part of
it--that was fun, but it didn't last over twenty minutes. After the
tree grounded, I had to tramp up and down through this ankle-deep mud
to keep from freezing. I didn't dare to go any place for fear of
getting lost. I thought at first, when the water went down I would
follow back up the valley, but I couldn't find the sides and after one
or two false starts I gave it up. Then Bat showed up at daylight and
we managed to build a fire." Endicott divided the biscuits and
proceeded to devour his share.
Tex rolled a cigarette. "Say," he drawled, when he had lighted it with
a twig from the fire, "what the hell did you whallop me in the jaw for?
I seen it comin' but I couldn't dodge, an' when she hit--it seemed like
I was all tucked away in my little crib, an' somewhere, sweet voices
was singin'."
"I had to do it," laughed Endicott. "It was that, or both of us going
to the bottom. You were grabbing for my arms and legs."
"I ain't holdin' it against you," grinned Tex. "The arms an' legs is
yours, an' you're welcome to 'em. Also I'm obliged to you for
permittin' me to tarry a spell longer on this mundane spear, as the
fellow says, even if I can't chew nothin' harder'n soup."
"Would you mind rolling me a cigarette," grinned Endicott, as he
finished the last of the biscuits. "I never tried it, and I am afraid
I would bungle the job." Without hesitation the Texan complied, deftly
interposing his body so that the pilgrim could not see that the tobacco
he poured into the paper was the last in his sack. He extended the
little cylinder. "When you get that lit, you better crawl into them
clothes of yours an' we'll be hittin' the back-trail. Out here in the
open ain't no place for us to be."
Endicott surveyed his sorry outfit with disfavour. "I would rather
stick to the B.V.D.'s, if it were practical."
"B.V.D., B.V.D.," repeated the Texan. "There ain't no such brand on
this range. Must be some outfit south of here--what did you say about
it?"
"I said my B.V.D.'s," he indicated his under-garments; "these would be
preferable to those muddy trousers and that shirt."
"Oh, that's the brand of your longerie. Don't wear none myself, except
in winter, an' then thick ones. I've scrutinized them kind, though,
more or less thorough--hangin' on lines around nesters' places an' home
ranches, when I'd be ridin' through. Never noticed none with B.V.D. on
'em, though. The brand most favoured around here has got XXXX FLOUR
printed acrost the broad of 'em, an' I've always judged 'em as
belongin' to the opposin' sect."
Endicott chuckled as he gingerly arrayed himself in the damp garments
and when he was dressed, Tex regarded him quizzically: "Them belongin's
of yourn sure do show neglect, Win." Endicott started at the word. It
was the first time any one had abbreviated his name, and instantly he
remembered the words of Alice Marcum: "If you keep on improving some
day somebody is going to call you Win." He smiled grimly. "I must be
improving," he muttered, under his breath, "I would pass anywhere for a
tramp." From beyond the fire Tex continued his scrutiny, the while he
communed with himself: "Everything's fair, et cetry, as the fellow
says, an' it's a cinch there ain't no girl goin' to fall no hell of a
ways for any one rigged out like a last year's sheepherder. But, damn
it! he done me a good turn--an' one that took guts to do. 'Tain't no
use in chasin' the devil around the stump---- If I can get that girl
I'm a-goin' to get her! If I do I'll wire in some creek an' turn
nester or do any other damned thing that's likewise mean an' debasin'
that she wants me to--except run sheep. But if the pilgrim's got the
edge, accordin' to Bat's surmise, he's got it fair an' square. The
cards is on the table. It's him or me for it--but from now on the
game's on the level."
Aloud he said: "Hope you don't mind havin' your name took in vain like
I done, but it's a habit of mine to get names down to a workin' basis
when I've got to use 'em frequent. Bat, there, his folks started him
off with a name that sounded like the Nicene Creed, but we bobbed her
down for handy reference, an' likewise I ain't be'n called Horatio
since the paternal roof-tree quit sproutin' the punitive switch. But,
to get down to cases, you fellows have got to hike back to the camp an'
hole up 'til dark. There's bound to be someone ridin' this here coulee
an' you got to keep out of sight. I'm goin' to do a little scoutin',
an' I'll join you later. It ain't only a couple of miles or so an' you
better hit for the high ground an' cross the divide. Don't risk goin'
through the canyon."
Endicott glanced apprehensively at his mud encased silk socks, the feet
of which were already worn through in a dozen places.
"Where's your slippers!" asked Tex, catching the glance.
"My shoes? I threw them away last night before I took to the water."
"It's just as well. They wasn't any good anyhow. The ground's soft
with the rain, all you got to watch out for is prickly pears an'
rattlesnakes. You'll be close to camp before the rocks get bad an'
then Bat can go hunt up your slippers an' fetch 'em out to you." The
Texan started for his horse. At the top of the ridge he turned: "I'll
stop an' tell her that you'll be along in a little bit," he called, and
swinging into the saddle, struck off up the creek.
The habitual cynical smile that curled his lips broadened as he rode.
"This here Johnson, now, he likes me like he likes a saddle-galded
boil, ever since I maintained that a rider was hired to ride, an' not
to moil, an' quit his post-hole-diggin', hay-pitchin', tea-drinkin'
outfit, short-handed. I ain't had no chance to aggravate him real
good, outside of askin' him how his post-holes was winterin' through,
when I'd meet up with him on the trail, an' invitin' him to go over to
the Long Horn to have a snort of tea, a time or two, down to Wolf
River."
At the up-slanting bank where they had sought refuge from the valley he
dismounted, wrenched his own saddle out of the mud, and examined the
broken cinch. "If the pilgrim hadn't saved me the trouble, I'd of sure
had to get Purdy for that," he muttered, and looked up to encounter the
eyes of the girl, who was watching him from the top of the bank. Her
face was very white, and the sight stirred a strange discomfort within
him. "I bet she wouldn't turn no such colour for me, if I'd be'n
drowned for a week," he thought, bitterly.
"You--didn't find him?" The words came with an effort.
The Texan forced a smile: "I wouldn't have be'n here if I hadn't. Or
rather Bat did, an' I found the two of 'em. He's all to the mustard
an' none the worse for wear, except his clothes--they won't never look
quite the same, an' his socks need mendin' in sixty or seventy spots.
They'll be along directly. You run along and fix 'em up some breakfast
an' keep out of sight. I'm goin' to do a little scoutin' an', maybe,
won't be back 'til pretty near dark."
"But you! Surely, you must be nearly starved!" The relief that
flashed into her face at the news of Endicott's safety changed to
sincere concern.
"I ain't got time, now."
"Please come. The coffee is all ready and it won't take but a minute
to fry some bacon."
The Texan smiled up at her. "If you insist," he said. The girl
started in surprise at the words, and the man plunged immediately into
the vernacular of the cow-country as he followed her into the timber.
"Yes. A cup of Java wouldn't go bad, but I won't stop long. I want to
kind of circulate along the back-trail a ways to see if we're bein'
followed." He took the cup of coffee from her hand and watched as she
sliced the bacon and threw it into the frying pan. "Did you ever
figure on turnin' nester?" he asked abruptly.
The girl looked at him inquiringly: "Nester?" she asked. "What's a
nester?"
Tex smiled: "Nesters is folks that takes up a claim an' fences off a
creek somewheres, an' then stays with it 'til, by the grace of God,
they either starve to death, or get rich."
Alice laughed: "No, I never thought of being a nester. But it would be
loads of fun. That is, if----"
The Texan interrupted her almost rudely: "Yes, an' if they didn't, it
would just naturally be hell, wouldn't it?" He gulped down the last of
his coffee, and, without waiting for the bacon, strode out of the
timber, mounted his horse, and rode away.
At the reservoir site he drew rein and inspected the ruined
dirt-and-rock dam. Fresh dirt, brush, and rock had already been dumped
into the aperture, and over on the hillside a group of men was busy
loading wagons. He let himself into the ranch enclosure, rode past the
bunk-house and on toward the big house that sat well back from the
other buildings in the centre of a grove of trees. A horse stood
saddled beside the porch, and through the open door Tex could hear a
man's voice raised in anger: "Why in hell ain't it ready? You might of
knowed I'd want it early today, havin' to git out at daylight! You
wouldn't give a damn if I never got nothin' to eat!" The door banged
viciously cutting off a reply in a woman's voice, and a man strode
across the porch, and snatched up the reins of the waiting horse.
"What's the matter, Johnson, your suspenders galdin' you this mornin'?"
The man scowled into the face of the cow-puncher who sat regarding him
with an irritating grin.
"What do you want around here? If you want a job go turn your horse
into the corral an' git out there an' git to work on that resevoy."
"No, Johnson, I don't want a job. I done had one experience with this
outfit, an' I fired you for a boss for keeps."
"Get offen this ranch!" roared the man, shaking a fist, and advancing
one threatening step, "or I'll have you throw'd off!"
Tex laughed: "I don't aim to stick around no great while. Fact is, I'm
in somethin' of a hurry myself. I just stopped in to give you a chanct
to do me a good turn. I happened to be down this way an': 'there's
Johnson,' I says to myself, 'he's so free an' open-handed, a man's
welcome to anything he's got,' so I stopped in."
The ranchman regarded him with an intent scowl: "'Sth' matter with you,
you drunk?"
"Not yet. But I got a friend out here in the hills which he's lost his
slippers, an' tore his pants, an' got his shirt all dirty, an' mislaid
his hat; an' knowin' you'd be glad to stake him to an outfit I come
over, him bein' about your size an' build."
The ranchman's face flushed with anger: "What the hell do I care about
you an' your friends. Git offen this ranch, I tell you!"
"Oh, yes, an' while you're gettin' the outfit together just you slip in
a cinch, an' a quart or two of _hooch_, case we might get snake-bit."
Beside himself with rage, the man raised his foot to the stirrup. As
if suddenly remembering something he paused, lowered his foot, and
regarded the cowboy with an evil leer: "Ah-ha, I've got it now!" he
moved a step nearer. "I was at the dance night before last to Wolf
River." He waited to note the effect of the words on his hearer.
"Did you have a good time? Or did the dollar you had to shell out for
the ticket spoil all the fun?"
"Never mind what kind of a _time_ I had. But they's plenty of us knows
you was the head leader of the gang that took an' lynched that pilgrim."
"That's right," smiled the man coolly. "Beats the devil, how things
gets spread around, don't it? An' speakin' of news spreading that
way--I just came up the creek from down below the canyon. You must
have had quite a bit of water in your reservoir when she let go,
Johnson, judgin' by results."
"What do you mean?"
"You ain't be'n down the creek, then?"
"No, I ain't. I'm goin' now. I had to git the men to work fixin' the
dam."
"What I mean is this! There's about fifty head of cattle, more or
less, that's layin' sprinkled around on top of the mud. Amongst which
I seen T U brands, and I X, an' D bar C, an' quite a few nester brands.
When your reservoir let go she sure raised hell with other folks'
property. Of course, bein' away down there where there ain't any
folks, if I hadn't happened along it might have been two or three weeks
before any one would have rode through, an' you could have run a bunch
of ranch hands down an' buried 'em an' no one would have be'n any
wiser----"
"You're lyin'!" There was a look of fear in the man's eyes,
Tex shrugged: "You'll only waste a half a day ridin' down to see for
yourself," he replied indifferently.
Johnson appeared to consider, then stepped close to the Texan's side:
"They say one good turn deserves another. Meanin' that you shet up
about them cattle an' I'll shet up about seein' you."
"That way, it wouldn't cost you nothin' would it, Johnson? Well, it's
a trade, if you throw in the aforementioned articles of outfit I
specified, to boot."
"Not by a damn sight! You got the best end of it the way it is.
Lynchin' is murder!"
"So it is," agreed the Texan. "An' likewise, maintainin' weak
reservoirs that lets go an' drowns other folks' cattle is a public
nuisance, an' a jury's liable to figger up them damages kind of
high--'specially again' you, Johnson, bein' ornery an' rotten-hearted,
an' tight-fisted, that way, folks don't like you."
"It means hangin' fer you!"
"Yes. But it means catchin' first. I can be a thousan' miles away
from here, in a week, but you're different. All they got to do is grab
the ranch, it's good for five or six thousan' in damages, all right.
Still if you don't want to trade, I'll be goin'." He gathered up his
reins.
"Hold on! It's a damned hold-up, but what was it you wanted?"
The Texan checked off the items on his gloved fingers: "One pair of
pants, one shirt, one hat, one pair of boots, same size as yourn, one
pair of spurs, one silk muffler, that one you've got on'll do, one
cinch, half a dozen packages of tobacco, an' one bottle of whiskey.
All to be in good order an' delivered right here within ten minutes.
An' you might fetch a war-bag to pack 'em in. Hurry up now! 'Cause if
you ain't back in ten minutes, I'll be movin' along, an' when I pass
the word to the owners of them cattle it's goin' to raise their
asperity some obnoxious."
With a growl the man disappeared into the house to return a few minutes
later with a sack whose sides bulged.
"Dump 'em out an' we'll look 'em over!" ordered the Texan and the man
complied.
"All right. Throw 'em in again an' hand 'em up."
When he had secured the load by means of his pack strings he turned to
the rancher.
"So long, Johnson, an' if I was you I wouldn't lose no time in
attendin' to the last solemn obsequies of them defunk dogies. I'll
never squeal, but you can't tell how soon someone else might come
a-ridin' along through the foot-hills."