“DE KING O’ PROOSHIA ON DE JOB”
To Reed came his foreman Lon Forbes with a story of three tramps
camping down by Willow Creek close to the lower meadow wheatfield.
The ranchman made no comment, unless it was one to say, “Get out the
car.” He was a tight-lipped man of few words, sometimes grim. His
manner gave an effect of quiet strength.
Presently the two were following the winding road through the pasture.
A field of golden wheat lay below them undulating with the roll of the
land. Through it swept the faintest ripple of quivering grain. The crop
was a heavy one, ripe for the reaper. Dry as tinder, a spark might set
a blaze running across the meadow like wildfire.
Forbes pointed the finger of a gnarled hand toward a veil of smoke
drifting lazily from the wash. “Down there, looks like.”
His employer nodded. They descended from the car and walked along the
edge of the bank above the creek bed. Three men sat near a camp-fire.
One glance was enough to show that they were hoboes. Coffee in an old
tomato can was bubbling over some live coals set between two flat
stones.
The big man with the bloated face was talking. The others were sulkily
silent, not so much listening as offering an annoyed refusal to be
impressed. The boaster looked up, and the vaporings died within him.
“What you doing here?” demanded Reed. His voice was curt and hostile.
York, true to type, became at once obsequious. “No offense, boss. If
these here are private grounds--”
“They are,” the owner cut in sharply.
“Well, we’ll hit the grit right away. No harm done, mister.” The voice
of the blanket stiff had become a whine, sullen and yet fawning.
His manner irritated both of his companions. Cig spoke first, out of
the corner of his mouth, slanting an insolent look up at the ranchman.
“Youse de traffic cop on dis block, mister?”
Lon Forbes answered. “We know your sort an’ don’t want ’em here. Shack!
Hit the trail pronto! No back talk about it either.”
Cig looked at the big foreman. “Gawd!” he jeered. “Wotcha know about
that? De king o’ Prooshia on de job again.”
The bluff tanned Westerner took a step or two toward the ferret-faced
man from the slums. Hurriedly York spoke up. He did not want anything
“started.” There were stories current on the road of what ranchmen had
done to hoboes who had made trouble. He knew of one who had insulted a
woman and had been roped and dragged at a horse’s heels till half dead.
“We ain’t doin’ no harm, boss. But we’ll beat it ’f you say so. Gotta
roll up our war bags.”
Reed did not discuss the question of the harm they were doing. He knew
that a spark might ignite the wheat, but he did not care to plant the
suggestion in their minds. “Put out the fire and move on,” he said
harshly.
“De king o’ Prooshia an’ de clown prince,” Cig retorted with a lift of
his lip.
But he shuffled forward and began to kick dirt over the fire with the
toe of his shoe.
Reed turned to the youngest tramp. “Get water in that can,” he ordered.
“I don’ know about that.” Up till now the tramp called Tug had not
said a word. “I’m not your slave. Get water yourself if you want to.
Able-bodied, ain’t you?”
The rancher looked steadily at him, and the longer he looked, the less
he liked what he saw. A stiff beard bristled on the sullen face of the
tramp. He was ragged and disreputable from head to heel. In the dogged
eyes, in straddling legs, in the half-clenched fist resting on one
hip, Reed read defiance. The gorge of the Westerner rose. The country
was calling for men to get in its harvests. His own crops were ripe
and he was short of hands. Yet this husky young fellow was a loafer.
He probably would not do a day’s work if it were offered him. He was
a parasite, the kind of ne’er-do-well who declines to saw wood for a
breakfast, metaphorically speaking.
“Don’t talk back to me. Do as I say. Then get out of here.”
Reed did not lift his voice. It was not necessary. As he stood on the
bank above the sand bed he conveyed an impression of strength in every
line of his solid body. Even the corduroy trousers he wore folded
into the short laced boots seemed to have fallen into wrinkles that
expressed power. Close to fifty, the sap of virile energy still flowed
in his veins.
The fist on Tug’s hip clenched. He flushed angrily. “Kind of a local
God Almighty on tin wheels,” he said with a sneer.
York was rolling up his pack. Cig, grumbling, had begun to gather his
belongings. But the youngest tramp gave no evidence of an intention
to leave. Nor did he make a move to get water to put out the still
smoldering fire.
The rancher came down from the bank. Forbes was at his elbow. The
foreman knew the signs of old. Reed was angry. Naturally imperious, he
did not allow any discussion when clearly within his rights. He would
not waste his force on such a spineless creature as York, but the
youngest tramp was of a different sort. He needed a lesson, and Lon
judged he was about to get one.
“Hear me? Get water and douse that fire,” the ranchman said.
His steel-gray eyes were fastened to those of Tug. The tramp faced him
steadily. Forbes had a momentary surprise. This young fellow with the
pallid dead skin looked as though he would not ask for anything better
than a fight.
“Get it yourself,” the hobo flung back.
The right fist of the ranchman lifted swiftly. It did not move far, but
it carried great power back of it. The tramp’s head snapped backward.
His shoulders hit the sand. He had been caught on the point of the jaw
by a knock-out punch.
Tug came back to consciousness under the impression that he was
drowning in deep waters. Cig was dipping a can in the creek and sousing
its contents over his head. He sat up dizzily. His uncertain gaze fell
on some one who had arrived since his exit from activity.
She was a young woman on horseback. He noticed that she was slender and
had a good seat. Her dark eyes watched him.
Who was she? What the dickens was she doing here? Where was he anyhow?
His glance swept the scene. York was stamping out the last embers
of the fire. There was a bruise on Cig’s cheek and one of his eyes
was rapidly closing. From the fact that Forbes was examining abraded
knuckles it was an easy guess that he had been in action.
The rancher, hands in coat pockets, relieved his mind in regard to the
youth he had knocked out. “You’re a good-for-nothing loafer, not fit to
live in a country that treats you too well. If I had charge of wastrels
like you, I’d put you on the rock-pile and work you to a frazzle. What
use are you, to yourself or any one else? When you were needed to fill
a uniform, I’ll bet a dollar you were a slacker. You still are. A
worthless, rotten-to-the-core hobo. Now get up and get off my land or
I’ll give you that thrashing you need.”
Tug got up, swayed unsteadily on his feet, and lurched forward. In
his eyes, still dull and glazed from the shock his nervous system had
endured, a gleam of anger came to life. He was a slacker, was he? All
right. He would show this arrogant slave-driver that he could stand up
and take all he had to give.
His rush was a poor leaden-footed shuffle, for he was shaky at the
knees and weights dragged at his feet. The blow he aimed at Reed
missed the brown face half a foot. It was badly timed and placed. The
ranchman’s counter caught him flush on the cheekbone and flung him back.
Again he gathered himself and plunged forward. Clinton Reed belonged to
the old fighting West. He had passed through the rip-roaring days of
Leadville’s prime and later had been a part of Cripple Creek’s turbid
life. Always he had been a man of his hands. He punished his dazed
opponent with clean hard blows, most of them started at short range to
save his own fists from the chance of broken or dislocated bones.
The tramp fell into a clinch to get time for recovery. Reed jolted him
out of it with a short arm left below the chin and followed with two
slashing rights to the face.
The hobo was in a bad way. In ring parlance, he was what is known as
groggy. His arms moved slowly and without force back of the blows. His
knees sagged. There was a ringing in his head. He did not seem able to
think clearly.
But the will in him functioned to push him to more punishment. He
attacked feebly. Through a weak defense the ranchman’s driving arms
tore cruelly.
Tug went down again. He tried to rise, but in spite of the best he
could do was unable to get up. The muscles of the legs would not
coöperate with the will.
Some one in khaki riding-breeches flashed past him. “That’s enough,
Dad. I don’t care if he was impudent. You’ve hurt him enough. Let him
go now.”
The figure was the boyish one of the equestrienne, but the high
indignant voice was feminine enough.
“S’pose you try minding your own business, Bess,” her father said
quietly.
“Now, Dad,” she expostulated. “We don’t want any trouble, do we? Make
’em move on, and that’s enough.”
“Tha’s what we’re doin’, Betty,” explained the foreman. “It ain’t our
fault if there’s a rookus. We told ’em to light out, an’ they got
sassy.”
Tug rose with difficulty. He was a badly hammered hobo. Out of swollen
and discolored eyes he looked at the ranchman.
“You quite through with me?” he snarled.
It was a last growl of defiance. His companions were already clambering
with their packs out of the wash to the bank above.
“Not quite.” Clint Reed took his daughter by the shoulders and spun her
out of the way when she tried to stop him. “Be fresh if you want to, my
young wobbly. I reckon I can stand it if you can.” He whirled the tramp
round and kicked him away.
“Oh, Dad! Fighting with a tramp,” the girl wailed.
Tug swung round unsteadily, eyes blazing. He took a step toward the
rancher. His glance fell on the girl who had just called him a tramp,
and in saying it had chosen the last word of scorn. Her troubled,
disdainful gaze met his fully. The effect on him was odd. It paralyzed
action. He stopped, breathing hard.
She had called him a tramp, as one who belongs to another world might
do--a world that holds to self-respect and decency. He had read in her
voice utter and complete contempt for the thing he was. It was a bitter
moment. For him it stamped the low-water mark of his degradation. He
felt beneath her eyes a thing unclean.
What she had said was true. He was a tramp. He had ridden the rods,
asked for hand-outs, rough-housed with hoboes, slept with them. He had
just been thoroughly thrashed and kicked before her. What was the use
of resenting it? He had become declassed. Why should he not be kicked
and beaten? That was the customary way to treat his kind of cattle.
Tug swung heavily on a heel and followed his companions into the
willows.