ROWDY--AND BLUE SMOKE
It has been said that Necessity is the mother of Invention--well, it
goes without saying that the cowboy is the father, and Pete was closely
related to these progenitors of that most necessary adjunct of success.
Moreover, he could have boasted a coat of arms had he been at all
familiar with heraldry and obliged to declare himself.
[Illustration: Pete.]
A pinto cayuse rampant; a longhorn steer regardant; two sad-eyed,
unbranded calves couchant--one in each corner of the shield to kind of
balance her up; gules, several clumps of something representing
sagebrush; and possibly a rattlesnake coiled beneath the sagebrush and
described as "repellent" and holding in his open jaws a streaming motto
reading, "I'm a-comin'."
Had it been essential that Pete's escutcheon should bear the bar
sinister, doubtless he would have explained its presence with the easy
assertion that the dark diagonal represented the vague ancestry of the
two sad-eyed calves couchant. Anybody could see that the calves were
part longhorn and part Hereford!
Pete rode out of Concho glittering in his new-found glory of shining
bit and spur, wide-brimmed Stetson, and chaps studded with
nickel-plated conchas. The creak of the stiff saddle-leather was music
to him. His brand-new and really good equipment almost made up for the
horse--an ancient pensioner that never seemed to be just certain when
he would take his next step and seemed a trifle surprised when he had
taken it. He was old, amiable, and willing, internally, but his legs,
somewhat of the Chippendale order, had seen better days. Ease and good
feeding had failed to fill him out. He was past taking on flesh. Roth
kept him about the place for short trips. Roth's lively team of pintos
were at the time grazing in a distant summer pasture.
Rowdy--the horse--seemed to feel that the occasion demanded something
of him. He pricked his ears as they crossed the cañon bottom and
breasted the ascent as bravely as his three good legs would let him.
At the top he puffed hard. Despite Pete's urging, he stood stolidly
until he had gathered enough ozone to propel him farther. "Git along,
you doggone ole cockroach!" said Pete. But Rowdy was firm. He turned
his head and gazed sadly at his rider with one mournful eye that said
plainly, "I'm doing my level best." Pete realized that the ground just
traveled was anything but level, and curbed his impatience. "I'll jest
kind o' save him for the finish," he told himself. "Then I'll hook the
spurs into him and ride in a-boilin'. Don't care what he does after
that. He can set down and rest if he wants to. Git along, old
soap-foot," he cried--"soap-foot" possibly because Rowdy occasionally
slipped. His antique legs didn't always do just what he wanted them to
do.
Topping the mesa edge, Pete saw the distant green that fringed the
Concho home-ranch, topped by a curl of smoke that drifted lazily across
the gold of the morning. Without urging, Rowdy broke into a stiff
trot, that sounded Pete's inmost depths, despite his natural good seat
in the saddle. "Quit it!" cried Pete presently. "You'll be goin' on
crutches afore night if you keep that up.--And so'll I," he added.
Rowdy immediately stopped and turned his mournful eye on Pete.
If the trot had been the rhythmic _one, two, three, four_, Pete could
have ridden and rolled cigarettes without spilling a flake of tobacco;
but the trot was a sort of _one, two--almost three_, then, whump!
_three_ and a quick _four_, and so on, a decidedly irregular meter in
Pete's lyrical journey toward new fields and fairer fortune. "I'll
sure make Andy sit up!" he declared as the Concho buildings loomed
beneath the cool, dark-green outline of the trees. He dismounted to
open and close a gate. A half-mile farther he again dismounted to open
and close another gate. From there on was a straightaway road to the
ranch-buildings. Pete gathered himself together, pushed his hat down
firmly--it was new and stiff--and put Rowdy to a high lope. This was
something like it! Possibly Rowdy anticipated a good rest, and hay.
In any event, he did his best, rounding into the yard and up to the
house like a true cow-pony. All would have been well, as Pete realized
later, had it not been for the pup. The pup saw in Rowdy a new
playfellow, and charged from the door-step just as that good steed was
mentally preparing to come to a stop. The pup was not mentally
prepared in any way, and in his excitement he overshot the mark. He
caromed into Rowdy's one recalcitrant leg--it usually happens that
way--and Rowdy stepped on him. Pete was also not mentally prepared to
dismount at the moment, but he did so as Rowdy crashed down in a cloud
of dust. The pup, who imagined himself killed, shrieked shrilly and
ran as hard as he could to the distant stables to find out if it were
not so.
Pete picked up his hat. Rowdy scrambled up and shook himself. Pete
was mad. Over on the edge of the bunk-house veranda sat four or five
of the Concho boys. They rocked back and forth and slapped their legs
and shouted. It was a trying situation.
The foreman, Bailey, rose as Pete limped up. "We're livin' over here,"
said Bailey. "Did you want to see some one?"
Pete wet his lips. "The fo'man. I--I--jest rid over to see how you
was makin' it."
"Why, we 're doin' right fair. How you makin' it yourself?"
"I'm here," said Pete succinctly and without a smile.
"So we noticed," said the foreman mildly, too mildly, for one of the
punchers began to laugh, and the rest joined in.
"Wisht I had a hoss like that," said a cowboy. "Always did hate to
climb offen a hoss. I like to have 'em set down and kind o' let me
step off easy-like."
Pete sorely wanted to make a sharp retort, but he had learned the
wisdom of silence. He knew that he had made himself ridiculous before
these men. It would be hard to live down this thing. He deemed
himself sadly out of luck, but he never lost sight of the main chance
for an instant.
Bailey, through young Andy White, knew of Pete and was studying him.
The boy had self-possession, and he had not cursed the horse for
stumbling. He saw that Pete was making a fight to keep his temper.
"You lookin' for work?" he said kindly.
"I was headed that way," replied Pete.
"Can you rope?"
"Oh, some. I kin keep from tanglin' my feet in a rope when it's
hangin' on the horn and I'm standin' off a piece."
"Well, things are slack right now. Don't know as I could use you.
What's your name, anyhow?"
"I'm Pete Annersley. I reckon you know who my pop was."
Bailey nodded. "The T-Bar-T," he said, turning toward the men. They
shook their heads and were silent, gazing curiously at the boy, of whom
it was said that he had "bumped off" two T-Bar-T boys in a raid some
years ago. Young Pete felt his ground firmer beneath him. The men had
ceased laughing. If it had not been for that unfortunate stumble . . .
"You're sportin' a right good rig," said the foreman.
"I aim to," said Pete quickly. "If I hadn't gone broke buyin' it, I'd
ride up here on a real hoss."
"Things are pretty slack right now," said Bailey. "Glad to see
you--but they won't be nothin' doin' till fall. Won't you set down?
We're goin' to eat right soon."
"Thanks. I ain't a-missin' a chanct to eat. And I reckon ole Rowdy
there could do somethin' in that line hisself."
Bailey smiled. "Turn your horse into the corral. Better pack your
saddle over here. That pup will chew them new latigos if he gets near
it."
"That doggone pup come mighty nigh bustin' me,"--and Pete smiled for
the first time since arriving. "But the pup was havin' a good time,
anyhow."
"Say, I want to shake with you!" said a big puncher, rising and
sticking out a strong, hairy hand.
Pete's face expressed surprise. "Why--sure!" he stammered, not
realizing that his smiling reference to the pup had won him a friend.
"He's sure a hard-boiled kid," said one of the men as Pete unsaddled
and led Rowdy to the corral. "Did you catch his eye? Black--and
shinin'; plumb full of deviltry--down in deep. That kid's had to hit
some hard spots afore he growed to where he is."
"And he can take his medicine," asserted another cowboy. "He was mad
enough to kill that hoss and the bunch of us--but he held her down and
bellied up to us like a real one. Looks like he had kind of a Injun
streak in him."
Bailey nodded. "Wish I had a job for the kid. He would make good.
He's been driftin' round the country with old man Montoya for a couple
of years. Old man Annersley picked him up down to Concho. The kid was
with a horse-trader. He would have been all right with Annersley, but
you boys know what happened. This ain't no orphan asylum, but--well,
anyhow--did you size up the rig he's sportin'?"
"Some rig."
"And he says he went broke to buy her."
"Some kid."
"Goin' to string him along?" queried another cowboy.
"Nope," replied Bailey. "The pup strung him plenty. Mebby we'll give
him a whirl at a real horse after dinner. He's itchin' to climb a real
one and show us, and likewise to break in that new rig."
"Or git busted," suggested one of the men.
"By his eye, I'd say he'll stick," said Bailey. "Don't you boys go to
raggin' him too strong about ridin', for I ain't aimin' to kill the
kid. If he can stick on Blue Smoke, I've a good mind to give him a
job. I told Andy to tell him there wa'n't no chanct up here--but the
kid comes to look-see for hisself. I kind o' like that."
"You 're gettin' soft in your haid, Bud," said a cowboy affectionately.
"Mebby, but I don't have to put cotton in my ears to keep my brains
in," Bailey retorted mildly.
The cowboy who had spoken was suffering from earache and had an ear
plugged with cotton.
Pete swaggered up and sat down. "Who's ridin' that blue out there?" he
queried, gesturing toward the corral.
"He's a pet," said Bailey. Nobody rides him."
"Uh-huh. Well, I reckon the man who tries 'll be one of ole Abraham's
pets right off soon after," commented Pete. "He don't look good to me."
"You sabe 'em?" queried Bailey and winked at a companion.
"Nope," replied Pete. "I can't tell a hoss from a hitchin'-rail, 'less
he kicks me."
"Well, Blue Smoke ain't a hitchin'-rail," asserted Bailey. "What do
you say if we go over and tell the missis we're starvin' to death?"
"Send Pete over," suggested a cowboy.
Bailey liked a joke. As he had said, things were dull, just then.
"Lope over and tell my missis we're settin' out here starvin' to
death," he suggested to Pete.
Pete strode to the house and entered, hat in hand. The foreman's wife,
a plump, cheery woman, liked nothing better than to joke with the men.
Presently Pete came out bearing the half of a large, thick, juicy pie
in his hands. He marched to the bunkhouse and sat down near the
men--but not too near. He ate pie and said nothing. When he had
finished the pie, he rolled a cigarette and smoked, in huge content.
The cowboys glanced at one another and grinned.
"Well," said Bailey presently; "what's the answer?"
Pete grinned. "Misses Bailey says to tell you fellas to keep on
starvin' to death. It'll save cookin'."
"I move that we get one square before we cross over," said Bailey,
rising. "Come on, boys. I can smell twelve o'clock comin' from the
kitchen."