TWO DOT TOWNSEND
The great trans-continental train that bore Connie Morgan eastward
from Seattle to his destination in Montana ground to a protesting
stop before the little station of Red Bank, and Connie stepped from
the vestibule to a rubber-topped stool ostentatiously placed for him
by the obsequious porter, and from the stool to the cinder platform.
Up ahead he saw his big tarpaulin-covered bed roll, which served also
as a trunk, tossed from the door of the baggage car. A blue-clad arm
waved the "high-ball," the vestibule door slammed shut, and the heavy
train moved smoothly along the rails, gaining momentum with every
revolution of the wheels. The boy watched it for a moment, and
turned to survey his immediate surroundings.
The town of Red Bank, Montana, may be surveyed from advantage from
almost any point within its precincts. Nestled close against the
railroad in the broad valley of the Milk River, its single street,
flanked on either side by wooden sidewalks, runs between two rows of
story-and-a-half frame buildings whose square false fronts serve as
an advertising medium for the emblazoning of the wares within. The
street continued for perhaps two hundred yards parallel with the
railway track and terminated abruptly in a broad flat whereon were
located the shipping corrals, with their system of alleys and chutes
and pens enclosed by board fences eight feet high and supported by
posts a foot thick. The wooden stores, the shipping corrals,
together with the station, the water tank, and the section house, the
last three painted red, composed the entire commercial aspect of Red
Bank. Of course, there were dwelling houses--not many, for most of
the merchants of Red Bank were domiciled above their stores, and when
the merchants were disposed of there were not many other residents of
the little town to be housed. For Red Bank was a "cow town," a very
busy, lively, and roistering town in the fall when the beef from
thousands of square miles of range was being rounded up and loaded
from its shipping corrals, and at all other times a very quiet and
unassuming little town, indeed.
A bronzed man with a grizzled beard who had been leaning against the
little building in conversation with the station agent, stepped
forward with a peculiar hitching gait. Connie's glance took in the
details, of bowed legs, roll brimmed Stetson, and keen gray eyes.
"Was you lookin' for someone in particular?" the man asked.
"Why, yes," answered the boy. "I wired Bob Harmon, the foreman of
the Round Seven Bar ranch, to meet me here."
"Gosh all fishhooks!" exclaimed the man. "Then you are the new owner
of the Round Seven!"
"One of them," grinned the boy. "Were you expecting me? You aren't
Bob Harmon, are you?'
"No, I ain't Bob. Townsend's my name--Charlie Townsend--Two Dot
Townsend they call me on account of my brand, which I'm the owner of
the Circle Two Dot outfit over on People's Creek, about thirty miles
northeast of the Round Seven."
"Glad to know you," acknowledged Connie, extending his hand. "My
name's Morgan--Connie Morgan. But I wonder where Harmon is? Maybe
he didn't get my wire."
"Yes, he got it all right," answered the other. "He was headin' for
town yesterday afternoon an' got to my place jest as I was pullin'
out myself. I had business here an' they wasn't no use putting two
teams over the road, special when they're heavy as they are now with
the snow meltin', so I told him if he'd stay there an' help the boys
finish up the new horse corral, I'd fetch you out an' he could take
you on from there. But I wasn't sort of expectin' no--that is, I
figured, the new owner of the Round Seven would be an older man,
somehow. Not that it ain't a fine thing," he hastened to add, "for a
youngster to be goin' into business for himself, but, somehow the
Round Seven--" The man did not finish the sentence, and Connie noted
that his brow was slightly puckered.
"What's the matter with the Round Seven!" he asked.
"I wish I owned it," answered the man, evasively. "She'd ort to be a
blame good outfit. But, we c'n talk while we drive. We better pull
out soon as we get a bite to eat or we won't be home in time fer
supper--it'll crowd them cayuses the way it is, with the trail heavy
in spots. I told them barn dogs to have the harness on agin the
train pulled out."
Connie reached for his suit case, but Two Dot shook his head: "Leave
yer war bag an' bed roll here an' we'll swing around an' pick 'em
up," he advised, "an' then we'll hit the trail."
Together they made their way across a muddy, deep-rutted flat and
gained the wooden sidewalk. As they passed along the street Connie
took in the details of the little cow town; four or five general
stores, a bank, two pool rooms, a barber shop, a harness and saddle
store, a wide-doored building whose sign proclaimed "LIVERY,
BOARDING, AND FEED," two restaurants, a hotel, and a miscellaneous
assortment of buildings of lesser importance. Past the hotel Two Dot
led, and turned in a couple of doors farther on where the sign read
"HOP WING, RESTAURANT & LAUNDRY."
[Illustration: As they passed along the street Connie took in the
details of the little Cow Town]
The two hung their hats upon pegs provided for the purpose, and
washed their hands at a little built-in sink in a rear corner of the
room. Then they seated themselves at a small wooden table as the
proprietor shuffled noiselessly in. "Mo'nin', Missa Two Dot, what
you goin' eat?"
"Hello, Hop! Beefsteak, an' I want it rar', an' fried spuds----"
"Dinna no leady yet--on'y sho't o'da, now."
"Fry up a half dozen aigs an' a slab of ham, then, an' a cup of
coffee, an' a couple of pieces of pie, an' hurry up about it. What's
yourn?" The last to Connie.
"The same," answered the boy, and the Chinaman shuffled into the
kitchen at the rear from whence presently came a great sizzling and
the odor of frying ham.
"I always eat to the Chinee's place," explained Two Dot. "It's
cleaner than what the hotel is, though the women claims he squirts
water out of his mouth to wet down the clothes when he's ironin' 'em.
But I don't wear no b'iled shirts myself, so let him squirt all he
wants to, jest so he keeps it out of the vittles."
Connie was about to reopen the question of the Round Seven, when the
Chinaman appeared bearing two plates heaped high with ham and eggs.
Two cups of steaming coffee followed, and then two plates containing
two pieces of pie each. Two Dot glanced at the pie, and swallowing a
huge mouthful of fried egg, he pointed to the plate in disgust:
"Since when you begun to cut a pie five ways?" he asked. "I didn't
order no shavin' of pie. What I want is two _pieces_! The way to
cut a pie is straight acrost the middle both ways. You c'n lay off
yer pie with a pair of dividers fer shorthorns an' pilgrims if you
want to, but me--I want two four-piece cuts--sabe?"
The Chink smiled broadly. "Alle light, Missa Two Dot. Loo ol'
customa. Loo alle light." He removed the offending pieces and
returned a moment later with the plates upon each of which reposed
the half of a pie.
From the restaurant, the two picked their way through the mud to the
feeding stable across the street, and a moment later the hostlers
were hooking up a team of rangy sorrels to a light spring wagon. Two
Dot climbed in and gathered up the reins, and Connie seated himself
beside him. The horses, fresh from a long night's rest, danced and
chafed at the bit, as the wagon rolled down the wooden apron that led
to the street. It was but the work of a moment for the boy to swing
the suit case and bed roll into the back of the vehicle, and with a
word from Two Dot to the team they were off. The wheels sank to the
hubs in the mud as they traversed the length of the street. It was
not quite so bad as they emerged onto the flats in front of the
shipping corrals, for there Two Dot swung them from the trail and
pulled out onto the sodden grass. Here the trail itself was almost
obliterated, for every one else who had traveled the road since
spring had set in had done the same thing, with the result that the
flat had all the appearance of a plowed field. All tracks narrowed
into the trail again at the farther side of the flat, and for a mile
or more, until the red iron bridge that spanned Milk River was
crossed, the boy found himself holding on for dear life as the wheels
would drop suddenly into a bottomless chuck hole and emerge dropping
huge chunks of gray alkali mud from spokes and felloes. A short
distance beyond the river the trail slanted upward to the bench whose
rims formed a skyline three or four hundred feet higher than the
floor of the valley. The trail followed the windings of a deep
coulee, dry normally, but now a rushing torrent of snow water,
through which the horses floundered once or twice to their bellies.
The bench gained, the trail became almost dry, and the sorrels struck
into a brisk trot that sent volleys of mud from the whirling wheels.
"She'll be good goin' now, till we hit the mountains," opined Two
Dot, "an' then we won't have no mud to speak of, only soggy snow, but
we'll waller through all right. How do you like the looks of the
country?"
Connie's eyes swept the level bench which terminated nearly fifty
miles away in three small ranges of mountains. Except on the
mountain slopes only an occasional patch of snow was visible, and the
bench stretched away brown and bare and ugly.
"Where are the ranches? And where are the cattle?" inquired the boy.
"Isn't this cattle range? And Kobuk said the nesters were building
cabins and fencing all the creeks."
"They ain't many cattle between the Bear Paws an' Milk River,"
explained Two Dot. "They're mostly sheep, an' this here is summer
range. They winter 'em in the mountains. There's ranches enough,
though. You can't see 'em because they are all down in the coulees.
Everything's built in the coulees an' crick bottoms in this country,
for to get shelter from the wind, an' to git the hay land under
ditches. Nothin' grows here except prickly pears, an' sage, an'
buffalo grass without irrigation. Between here an' the mountains, as
wide as you c'n see, you're lookin' right over the top of prob'ly
fifty ranches. Them mountains to the left is the Little Rockies, the
ones straight in front, south, is the Bear Paws, an' them further
ones to the right is the Highwoods. My outfit lays straight ahead
acrost two divides, on People's Crick, an' yourn lies thirty miles
further on an' a little to the right, on Eagle Crick. You're acrost
two or three more divides beyond me--the South Slope of the Bear
Paws, an' Eagle Crick empties into the Mizoo, that's what they call
the Missouri River, fer short, an' People's Crick flows northeast
through the Gros Ventre Reservation [Note: Pronounced Grow Vaun] an'
then swings north an' empties into Milk River. That'll kind of give
you the lay of the land. North of the Bear Paws it's mostly sheep,
an' south an' east of 'em it's mostly cattle an' horses, though the
sheep's beginnin' to crowd in along the South Slope."
Two Dot ceased speaking, and for some time the horses jogged over the
trail to the accompaniment of the rattle of the wagon wheels. Connie
had liked the man from the first, but more than that, he felt
instinctively that if he would he could tell him a whole lot about
the cattle business in general, and about the Round Seven Bar in
particular. He wanted to question him, but didn't know how to begin.
Townsend himself furnished the opening. "I suppose yer pa's pretty
well fixed fer to set you up in business with an outfit like the
Round Seven," he ventured. "It must of set him back quite a figger."
"I haven't any father," the boy replied. "He died several years ago
in Alaska, and he died poor. My partner and I bought this ranch to
help Kobuk Jack out. The ranch broke Kobuk, and a long time ago he
helped Waseche Bill out. Waseche's my partner, and the best
dog-goned man that walks on two legs, so it was up to us to see him
through."
"Who's this here Kobuk Jack?" asked Townsend.
"Why, he's the man that owned the ranch. We bought him out."
"Oh, Wilson--Jack Wilson's the name we knew him by. It's too bad he
couldn't make a go of it. Everyone liked him, but he wasn't no cow
man. He was all fer prospectin'. He'd start out an' nick away at
the hills, an' make long trips into the bad lands huntin' gold, an'
left Harmon to run the outfit."
"Isn't Harmon a good cow man?" asked the boy.
"You bet he is," assented the other, quickly. "A blame good cow man.
An' he's smart, too. But it don't make no difference how good a cow
man anyone is, I don't want no one but me runnin' my own outfit. I
ain't sayin' nothin', mind you, agin' Harmon. Only personal, I don't
want no foreman whatever that owns a brand of his own."
"You mean he would be thinking about his outfit and wouldn't give
time enough to yours?"
"Um-hum, either that, or he'd be thinkin' about his own outfit an'
give too blame much time to mine," Two Dot answered, dryly. Connie
wondered what the man meant, but refrained from questioning him
further.
"I'm goin' to find out what's the matter with the outfit, and put it
on a paying basis," observed the boy.
Two Dot surveyed him quizzically. "Time you get through with it I
judge you'll find you set yerself quite a chore. But the Round Seven
ort to be payin', at that--an' payin' big."
"You call it the 'Round Seven'," said Connie, "and Kobuk called it
the 'Round Seven Bar.'
"That's the brand--Round Seven Bar, left side--goes like this:" With
the butt of his whip, Two Dot produced a running-iron facsimile of
the brand on the muddy dashboard. "Around here we leave off the 'Bar'
in speakin' of it, to save time, same as my outfit is called the Two
Dot, instead of the Circle Two Dot."
"Kobuk said the sheep men were crowding in on him, and that the
rustlers were stealing a lot of his calves," ventured the boy.
"Yup," answered Townsend. "I heard the Round Seven wasn't puttin'
their irons on as many calves as they'd ort. An' there is
considerable nesters along the cricks close around the outfit.
Them's some of the things you've got on yer hands to figger about."
After a moment of silence he observed, "Course it ain't none of my
business, an' speakin' generally, I ain't no hand to horn in on other
folks's, but you must of struck it pretty lucky up there in Alaska to
of made enough money to buy up the Round Seven."
Connie smiled. "Yes, we did strike it lucky. My partner is a
wonderful mining man, and he runs the outfit. It was fun when we
were getting started, when we didn't know whether or not we were
going to make a go of it, and all the odds were against us, but after
things came our way and she got to running smoothly, I got tired of
it. So Waseche stays in Ten Bow and runs things while I'm mostly
chasing off on side issues, like this cattle business. I'd never
make an office miner. I like action."
"Well, by the Belled Buzzard of Bejax!" snorted Two Dot, "you're
goin' to find out you've bought into action enough, time you've got
the Round Seven back to where she belongs! Yer in a rough strip of
country over there on the South Slope; what with the mountains on one
side, an' Bad Lands on the other, she's rough, in more ways than one.
If you keep yer eyes open an' yer mouth shet, an' yer six-gun handy,
you might put it over. But, it's a man's job, an' it's goin' to be
interestin' to see what you do with it."