A NEW HAT--A NEW TRAIL
The day before Pete left Sanborn he strolled over to the sheriff's
office and returned the old and battered copy of "Robinson Crusoe,"
which he had finished reading the night previous. "I read her, clean
through," asserted Pete, "but I'd never made the grade if you hadn't
put me wise to that there dictionary. Gosh! I never knowed there was
so many ornery words bedded down in that there book."
"What do you think of the story?" queried the sheriff.
"If that Robinson Crusoe guy had only had a hoss instead of a bunch of
goats, he sure could have made them natives ramble. And he sure took a
whole lot of time blamin' himself for his hard luck--always a-settin'
back, kind o' waitin' for somethin'--instead of layin' out in the brush
and poppin' at them niggers. He wa'n't any too handy at readin' a
trail, neither. But he made the grade--and that there Friday was sure
one white nigger."
"Want to tackle another story?" queried Owen, as he put the book back
on the shelf.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd jest as soon read this one over
ag'in. I was trailin' that old Crusoe hombre so clost I didn't git
time to set up and take in the scenery."
In his eagerness to re-read the story Pete had forgotten about the
wager. Owen's eyes twinkled as he studied Pete's face. "We had a
bet--" said Owen.
"That's right! I plumb forgot about that. You said you bet me a new
hat that I'd ask you for another book. Well--what you grinnin' at,
anyhow? 'Cause you done stuck me for a new lid? Oh, I git you! You
said _another_ book, and I'm wantin' to read the same one over again.
Shucks! I ain't goin' to fore-foot you jest because you rid into a
loop layin' in the tall grass where neither of us seen it."
"I lose on a technicality. I ought to lose. Now if I had bet you a
new hat that you would want to keep on reading instead of that you'd
ask for _another_ book--"
"But this ain't no law court, Jim. It was what you was meanin' that
counts."
"Serves me right. I was preaching to you about education--and I'm game
to back up the idea--even if I did let my foot slip. Come on over to
Jennings's with me and I'll get that hat."
"All right!" And Pete rolled a smoke as the sheriff picked up several
addressed letters and tucked them in his pocket. "I was goin' over to
the post-office, anyway."
They crossed to the shady side of the street, the short, ruddy little
sheriff and the tall, dark cowboy, each more noticeable by contrast,
yet neither consciously aware of the curious glances cast at them by
occasional townsfolk, some of whom were small enough to suspect that
Pete and the sheriff had collaborated in presenting the evidence which
had made Pete a free man; and that they were still collaborating, as
they seemed very friendly toward each other.
Pete tried on several hats and finally selected one. "Let's see how it
looks on you," he said, handing it to the sheriff. "I don't know how
she looks."
Owen tried the hat on, turning to look into the mirror at the end of
the counter. Pete casually picked up the sheriff's old hat and glanced
at the size.
"Reckon I'll take it," said Pete, as Owen returned it. "This here one
of mine never did fit too good. It was Andy's hat."
Certain male gossips who infested the groceries, pool-halls, and
post-office of Sanborn, shook their heads and talked gravely about
bribery and corruption and politics and what not, when they learned
that the sheriff had actually bought a hat for that young outlaw that
he was so mighty thick with. "And it weren't no fairy-story neither.
Bill Jennings sold the hat hisself, and the sheriff paid for it, and
that young Annersley walked out of the store with said hat on his
_head_. Yes, sir! Things looked mighty queer."
"Things would 'a' looked a mighty sight queerer if he'd 'a' walked out
with it on his foot," suggested a friend of Owen's who had been
buttonholed and told the alarming news.
Meanwhile Pete attended to his own business, which was to get his few
things together, pay his hotel-bill, settle his account with the
sheriff--which included cab-hire in El Paso--and write a letter to
Doris Gray--the latter about the most difficult task he had ever faced.
He thought of making her some kind of present--but his innate good
sense cautioned him to forego that pleasure for a while, for in making
her a present he might also make a mistake--and Pete was becoming a bit
cautious about making mistakes, even though he did think that that
green velvet hat with a yellow feather, in the millinery store in
Sanborn, was about the most high-toned ladies' sky-piece that he had
ever beheld. Pete contented himself with buying a new Stetson for
Sheriff Owen--to be delivered after Pete had left town.
Next morning, long before the inhabitants of Sanborn had thrown back
their blankets, Pete was saddling Blue Smoke, frankly amazed that the
pony had shown no evidence of his erstwhile early-morning activities.
He wondered if the horse were sick. Blue Smoke looked a bit fat, and
his eye was dull--but it was the dullness of resentment rather than of
poor physical condition. Well fed, and without exercise, Blue Smoke
had become more or less logy, and he looked decidedly disinterested in
life as Pete cautiously pulled up the front cinch.
"He's too doggone quiet to suit me," Pete told the stable-man.
"He's thinkin'," suggested that worthy facetiously.
"So am I," asserted Pete, not at all facetiously.
Out in the street Pete "cheeked" Blue Smoke, and swung up quickly,
expecting the pony to go to it, but Smoke merely turned his head and
gazed at the livery with a sullen eye.
"He's sad to leave his boardin'-house,"--and Pete touched Smoke with
the spur. Smoke further surprised Pete by striking into a mild
cow-trot, as they turned the corner and headed down the long road at
the end of which glimmered the far brown spaces, slowly changing in
color as the morning light ran slanting toward the west.
"Nothin' to do but go," reflected Pete, still a trifle suspicious of
Blue Smoke's gentlemanly behavior. The sun felt warm to Pete's back.
The rein-chains jingled softly. The saddle creaked a rhythmic
complaint of recent disuse.
Pete, who had said good-bye to the sheriff the night before, turned his
face toward the open with a good, an almost too good, horse between his
knees and a new outlook upon the old familiar ranges and their devious
trails.
Past a somber forest of cacti, shot with myriad angling shadows,
desolate and forbidding, despite the open sky and the morning sun, Pete
rode slowly, peering with eyes aslant at the dense growth close to the
road, struggling to ignore the spot. Despite his determination, he
could not pass without glancing fearsomely as though he half-expected
to see something there--something to identify the spot as that shadowy
place where Brent had stood that night . . .
Blue Smoke, hitherto as amiably disposed to take his time as was Pete
himself, shied suddenly. Through habit, Pete jabbed him with the spur,
to straighten him back in the road again. Pete had barely time to
mutter an audible "I thought so!" when Blue Smoke humped himself. Pete
slackened to the first wild lunge, grabbed off his hat and swung it as
Blue Smoke struck at the air with his fore feet, as though trying to
climb an invisible ladder. Pete swayed back as the horse came down in
a mighty leap forward, and hooking his spurs in the cinch, rocked to
each leap and lunge like a leaf caught up in a desert whirlwind. When
Pete saw that Smoke's first fine frenzy had about evaporated, he urged
him to further endeavors with the spurs, but Blue Smoke only grunted
and dropped off into a most becoming and gentlemanly lope. And Pete
was not altogether displeased. His back felt as though it had been
seared with a branding-iron, and the range to the west was heaving most
indecorously, cavorting around the horizon as though strangely excited
by Blue Smoke's sudden and seemingly unaccountable behavior.
"I reckon we're both feelin' better!" Pete told the pony. "I needed
jest that kind of a jolt to feel like I was livin' ag'in. But you
needn't be in such a doggone hurry to go and tell your friends how good
you're feelin'. Jest come down off that lope. We got all day to git
there."
Blue Smoke shook his head as Pete pulled him to a trot. The cactus
forest was behind them. Ahead lay the open, warm brown in the sun, and
across it ran a dwindling grayish line, the road that ran east and west
across the desert,--a good enough road as desert roads go, but Pete,
despite his satisfaction in being out in the open again, grew somewhat
tired of its monotonously even wagon-rutted width, and longed for a
trail--a faint, meandering trail that would swing from the road, dip
into a sand arroyo, edge slanting up the farther bank, wriggle round a
cluster of small hills, shoot out across a mesa, and climb slowly
toward those hills to the west, finally to contort itself into
serpentine switchbacks as it sought the crest--and once on the crest
(which was in reality but the visible edge of another great mesa),
there would be grass for a horse and cedar-wood for a fire, and water
with which to make coffee.
Pete had planned that his first night should be spent in the open, with
no other companions than the friendly stars. As for Blue Smoke, well,
a horse is the best kind of a pal for a man who wishes to be alone, a
pal who takes care of himself, never complains of weariness, and eats
what he finds to eat with soulful satisfaction.
Pete made his first night's camp as he had planned, hobbled Blue Smoke,
and, having eaten, he lay resting, his head on his saddle and his gaze
fixed upon the far glory of the descending sun. The sweet, acrid
fragrance of cedar smoke, the feel of the wind upon his face, the
contented munching of his pony, the white radiance of the stars that
came quickly, and that indescribable sense of being at one with the
silences, awakened memories of many an outland camp-fire, when as a boy
he had journeyed with the horse-trader, or when Pop Annersley and he
had hunted deer in the Blue Range. And it seemed to Pete that that had
been but yesterday--"with a pretty onnery kind of a dream in between,"
he told himself.
As the last faint light faded from the west and the stars grew big,
Pete thanked those same friendly stars that there would be a
To-morrow--with sunlight, silence, and a lone trail to ride. Another
day and he would reach old Flores's place in the cañon--but Boca would
not be there. Then he would ride to Showdown.--Some one would be at
The Spider's place . . . He could get feed for his horse . . . And
the next day he would ride to the Blue and camp at the old cabin.
Another day and he would be at the Concho . . . Andy, and Jim, and Ma
Bailey would be surprised . . . No, he hadn't come back to stay . . .
Just dropped in to say "Hello!" . . .
Pete smiled faintly as a coyote shrilled his eternal plaint. This was
something like it. The trembling Pleiades grew blurred.