THE NIGHT CLERK GETS BUSY PRONTO
The stars were out long before Dave's train drew into the suburbs of
Denver. It crawled interminably through squalid residence sections,
warehouses, and small manufactories, coming to a halt at last in a
wilderness of tracks on the border of a small, narrow stream flowing
sluggishly between wide banks cut in the clay.
Dave swung down from the caboose and looked round in the dim light for
the stockyards engine that was to pick up his cars and run them to the
unloading pens. He moved forward through the mud, searching the
semi-darkness for the switch engine. It was nowhere to be seen.
He returned to the caboose. The conductor and brakemen were just leaving.
"My engine's not here. Some one must 'a' slipped up on his job, looks
like. Where are the stockyards?" Sanders asked.
The conductor was a small, middle-aged man who made it his business to
get along with everybody he could. He had distinctly refused to pick up
his predecessor's quarrel with Dave. Now he stopped and scratched his
head.
"Too bad. Can't you go uptown and 'phone out to the stockyards? Or if you
want to take a street-car out there you'll have time to hop one at Stout
Street. Last one goes about midnight."
In those days the telephone was not a universal necessity. Dave had never
used one and did not know how to get his connection. He spent several
minutes ringing up, shouting at the operator, and trying to understand
what she told him. He did not shout at the girl because he was annoyed.
His idea was that he would have to speak loud to have his voice carry.
At last he gave up, hot and perspiring from the mental exertion.
Outside the drug-store he just had time to catch the last stockyards car.
His watch told him that it was two minutes past twelve.
He stepped forty-five minutes later into an office in which sat two men
with their feet on a desk. The one in his shirt-sleeves was a smug,
baldish young man with clothes cut in the latest mode. He was rather
heavy-set and looked flabby. The other man appeared to be a visitor.
"This the office of the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company?" asked Dave.
The clerk looked the raw Arizonan over from head to foot and back again.
The judgment that he passed was indicated by the tone of his voice.
"Name's on the door, ain't it?" he asked superciliously.
"You in charge here?"
The clerk was amused, or at least took the trouble to seem so. "You might
think so, mightn't you?"
"Are you in charge?" asked Dave evenly.
"Maybeso. What you want?"
"I asked you if you was runnin' this office."
"Hell, yes! What're your eyes for?"
The clerk's visitor sniggered.
"I've got a train of cattle on the edge of town," explained Dave. "The
stockyards engine didn't show up."
"Consigned to us?"
"To the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company."
"Name of shipper?"
"West Cattle Company and Henry B. West."
"All right. I'll take care of 'em." The clerk turned back to his friend.
His manner dismissed the cowpuncher. "And she says to me, 'I'd love to go
with you, Mr. Edmonds; you dance like an angel.' Then I says--"
"When?" interrupted Dave calmly, but those who knew him might have
guessed his voice was a little too gentle.
"I says, 'You're some little kidder,' and--"
"When?"
The man who danced like an angel turned halfway round, and looked at the
cowboy over his shoulder. He was irritated.
"When what?" he snapped.
"When you goin' to onload my stock?"
"In the morning."
"No, sir. You'll have it done right now. That stock has been more'n two
days without water."
"I'm not responsible for that."
"No, but you'll be responsible if the train ain't onloaded now," said
Dave.
"It won't hurt 'em to wait till morning."
"That's where you're wrong. They're sufferin'. All of 'em are alive now,
but they won't all be by mo'nin' if they ain't 'tended to."
"Guess I'll take a chance on that, since you say it's my responsibility,"
replied the clerk impudently.
"Not none," announced the man from Arizona. "You'll get busy pronto."
"Say, is this my business or yours?"
"Mine and yours both."
"I guess I can run it. If I need any help from you I'll ask for it. Watch
me worry about your old cows. I have guys coming in here every day with
hurry-up tales about how their cattle won't live unless I get a wiggle on
me. I notice they all are able to take a little nourishment next day all
right, all right."
Dave caught at the gate of the railing which was between him and the
night clerk. He could not find the combination to open it and therefore
vaulted over. He caught the clerk back of the neck by the collar and
jounced him up and down hard in his chair.
"You're asleep," he explained. "I got to waken you up before you can sabe
plain talk."
The clerk looked up out of a white, frightened face. "Say, don't do that.
I got heart trouble," he said in a voice dry as a whisper.
"What about that onloadin' proposition?" asked the Arizonan.
"I'll see to it right away."
Presently the clerk, with a lantern in his hand, was going across to the
railroad tracks in front of Dave. He had quite got over the idea that
this lank youth was a safe person to make sport of.
They found the switch crew in the engine of the cab playing seven-up.
"Got a job for you. Train of cattle out at the junction," the clerk said,
swinging up to the cab.
The men finished the hand and settled up, but within a few minutes the
engine was running out to the freight train.
Day was breaking before Dave tumbled into bed. He had left a call with
the clerk to be wakened at noon. When the bell rang, it seemed to him
that he had not been asleep five minutes.
After he had eaten at the stockyards hotel he went out to have a look at
his stock. He found that on the whole the cattle had stood the trip well.
While he was still inspecting them a voice boomed at him a question.
"Well, young fellow, are you satisfied with all the trouble you've made
me?"
He turned, to see standing before him the owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter
Circle brand. The boy's surprise fairly leaped from his eyes.
"Didn't expect to see me here, I reckon," the cattleman went on. "Well,
I hopped a train soon as I got yore first wire. Spill yore story, young
man."
Dave told his tale, while the ranchman listened in grim silence. When
Sanders had finished, the owner of the stock brought a heavy hand down on
his shoulder approvingly.
"You can ship cattle for me long as you've a mind to, boy. You fought for
that stock like as if it had been yore own. You'll do to take along."
Dave flushed with boyish pleasure. He had not known whether the cattleman
would approve what he had done, and after the long strain of the trip
this endorsement of his actions was more to him than food or drink.
"They say I'm kinda stubborn. I didn't aim to lie down and let those guys
run one over me," he said.
"Yore stubbornness is money in my pocket. Do you want to go back and ride
for the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle?"
"Maybe, after a while, Mr. West. I got business in Denver for a few
days."
The cattleman smiled. "Most of my boys have when they hit town, I
notice."
"Mine ain't that kind. I reckon it's some more stubbornness," explained
Dave.
"All right. When you've finished that business I can use you."
If Dave could have looked into the future he would have known that the
days would stretch into months and the months to years before his face
would turn toward ranch life again.