BY MAC A'RONY.
I'll say of it
It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
--_Timon of Athens._
Pod was always looking for trouble. The fellow who courts trouble
finds it sooner or later. I brayed myself hoarse trying to
persuade my reckless master to give Rangely a wide berth. He
couldn't think of it. He was anxious to meet real wild-and-woolly-west
cowboys of the old-time style; he didn't fear the worst of 'em.
"Hit the trail, there, Mac," he said, spurring me
toward the hotbed of cowboy rascality. Arriving at the
house-saloon-store-city-hall-business-headquarters of Rangely, the dozen
rough-looking men lounging about swaggered toward us, pleased-like and
curious.
"Prospectin'?" one inquired.
"N-o-o-o," Pod drawled; "just traveling." That was the time in
Pod's life when he ought to have lied. Then he explained where he
was from, and where he was bound, but did not say that he was a
darn fool. The cowboys grunted, or nodded, or smiled, some winked
to each other, and one of 'em nudged another in the ribs;
everything they did had a deep meaning. I began to tremble for
Pod. Would they shoot at his heels and make him dance? Or make him
ride a bucking bronco? Or what?
"Better feed yer jacks, Mister," said one; "ye'll find grain in
th' shed yender." Pod seemed to be as delighted as we donks.
"The Prof is going to catch it soon," Cheese observed.
"Serve him right," added Damfino.
Coonskin left us to feed and walked to the house with Pod. Soon
afterward they returned with a cowboy, who said I had a good
shape, asked my weight, and inquired if I was sound in body and
mind; then he questioned Coonskin.
"What did you do fer yer salt 'fore ye jined th' outfit?"
"I was night porter in a hotel," was the reply.
"What was ye doin' 'fore that?"
"Railroading some."
"And 'fore that?"
"Painting."
"Paintin' what?"
"Church steeples."
"Golly! yer jest th' man we're lookin' fer."
Coonskin didn't quite understand them, but he did later.
"Bridle this 'ere jack," said the cowboy, meaning me. Coonskin
bridled me and rode to the joint. I didn't think anything would
happen to me. Several more cowboys had just come in from the
range, and soon every man of the gang was busy. I now noticed one
fellow mixing red paint; three or four were making two ladders;
another one appeared with an armful of blankets; and another with
ropes, and presently a cowboy climbed one of the ladders to the
roof. Something was doing, sure. Pod seemed interested, but didn't
say anything. Coonskin looked as if he saw his finish. I giggled.
Suddenly came a surprise. One cowboy wrapped the blankets round my
body, while another bound them on with lariats; another trimmed
my tail with a pair of sheepshears. Then ropes were fastened to my
body and the other ends thrown to the men on the roof. Next the
ropes were slung round the two chimneys at both ends of the roof,
and thrown to the gang below. At once the cowboys grabbed hold and
pulled, and I rose in the air, until my head bunked against the
eaves. There I dangled and swung and kicked and brayed. Never was
so scared in all my life. Splinters flew as I kicked holes in the
house, and knocked off a section of the eaves. The cowboys howled,
they thought it so funny. But the real circus began when Pod was
commanded to mount a ladder with a pail of red paint, and using my
tail for a brush, paint the name "R A N G E L Y" on that house.
Coonskin was made to climb the other ladder with another pail of
paint, and, he being a professional painter, with a real paint
brush go over Pod's lettering to make a decent job of it.
Well, I had seen Pod mad, but never as mad as he was then. He
grabbed my tail and started to paint a big letter R, when I up and
kicked the pail out of his hands and sent red paint flying all
over half the cowboys; not satisfied with this, I put a few more
holes in the house, and finally hit the ladder and spilled Pod on
the ground. The cowboys thought that was fun, too; some were so
tickled they fired off their revolvers. Here Coonskin was told to
divide his paint with Pod, and the painting was continued on the
letter A.
The Prof worked as well as he could with such a nervous paint
brush, now and then dodging my heels. I admit I didn't know what I
was doing, when suddenly I struck my master in the stomach, and
made him get down from the ladder. But the sign had to be
finished. Up the ladder again Pod climbed like a man, the cowboys
pulled on the ropes, dragging me along so that my tail could be
brought to where the next letter should be. Then Pod started on
the fourth letter, G. By this time the men were tugging on the
ropes to keep me in position for the painter's convenience.
Finally the men backed from the house and pulled me away from its
side, and Pod turned me about till I hung the other end to, and
began the fifth letter, E.
Now I could see the sign. It was up hill. I knew it wouldn't suit
those cowboys, and I expected it would have to be painted over. It
wasn't Pod's fault, it wasn't mine. As I was gradually pulled
along the eaves the higher I was raised, because there was no
pulley on the rope. But now that I was turned about, I was swung
back some, and the E had to be painted below the level of the
first four letters. L and Y followed each other up hill, until,
just as the job was finished, I hit the pail a crack with my right
foot and sprinkled two more cowboys. The crowd made sport of them,
and I think, after all, those cowboys fared worse than we three
painters. Then I was lowered to the earth.
To my surprise, the cowboys liked the sign immensely. One
pronounced it artistic, another said it was odd and people would
notice it, and several agreed that it was the best job of its kind
they ever saw. Pod didn't seem to be tickled over this flattery,
but Coonskin was puffed up with pride, and when one fellow told
him he ought to have stuck to painting, he acknowledged that he
should have done so.
When the two started down the ladders the cowboys called: "Hold on
there, we want a speech." So the Prof made a speech. Both men were
then escorted indoors and the barkeeper mixed a high-ball in a
pail and sent it out to me. I was "loony" for hours afterwards.
I never want another experience like that. Pod said afterward it
was his first and last painting. He thought the cowboys might have
shot a pipe out of his mouth, but he hadn't thought they could
condescend to such a low trick as to make him paint a sign with
his donkey's tail. The cowboys wanted us to spend the night with
them, but Pod replied that he couldn't tarry, but he said he was
much obliged for all their courtesies. About dark we said
good-bye, and pretending we would travel ten miles that evening,
pitched camp near a bridge crossing White River, one or two miles
from Rangely. At dawn the men were out after sage hens. They saw
several, but couldn't get a shot at the shy creatures.
We started early and traveled over a desolate wilderness of sage
and greasewood in a torturing sun, and were unpacked at one
o'clock for an hour's rest. Sometimes the trail led through deep
channels in the hard-baked sand for several hundred yards, where
we were obscured from view. These channels wound about through the
desert and mesa, as if they might be the beds of dried-up rivers;
and they were often so narrow that had we met a wagon either our
outfit or the vehicle would have had to turn back. We came across
quantities of skeletons and skulls of horses and cattle and wild
animals, but I failed to see any donkey's bones. Don was glad when
in these cuts, for he managed there to keep in the shade, while
trailing in the open he was ever trotting ahead to hide under a
bush where three-fourths of him was exposed to the sun.
Toward the middle of the afternoon we crossed the backbone of the
plateau, at an altitude of seven thousand feet, and met a wagon
with four horses, bound for Leadville with honey. The driver said
he was from Vernal, some sixty miles to the west. Pod thought
honey would go well with hot cakes for supper, and after some
coaxing got the freighter to break a case and sell him a half
dozen boxes. Then the question arose, how could he safely carry
the honey?
"Good idee not to put all your eggs in one basket," Coonskin
remarked. Pod said he wouldn't. He tucked one box in a saddle-bag,
another in a roll of blankets strapped behind his valet's saddle,
another in a bag of supplies on Skates, and the last two he packed
carefully in the canvas awning. The men conversed and smoked
awhile, when the stranger happened to mention that he sometimes
dealt in hides. Here was the chance the men were waiting for. The
bearskin Skates had carried from Turkey Creek belonged to the
poker-player, but he promised half what he should get for it to
Pod, if he would let the donks carry it till disposed of. The man
said he was willing to give $60 for a fine silvertip skin, so
Coonskin unpacked. The stranger was more pleased with it than he
would admit, and hemmed and hawed some about the price, but
finally paid the $60, and we moved on.
It was six o'clock, and the sun was sinking behind the distant
plain when the buildings of the K ranch loomed in the distance.
The sound of galloping horses approaching us from behind caused me
to look around, and I beheld two Indians with guns in hand,
yelling and gesticulating wildly as they leaned over their ponies'
necks, spurring hard to catch up with us. When Pod and Coonskin
saw the Indians after them, they got ready to throw up their
hands. Their faces were as chalky as an alkali desert.
"Have you seen any cattle branded U. S.?" one of the wild men
inquired. Pod said he hadn't.
"Where you from?" questioned the half-breed. Pod said: "White
River country."
"Ah, we just from there--been hunting up stolen cattle," the
half-breed replied. "Found them, but fellows wouldn't give them
up. We've done our duty; the fort must deal with them now."
Pod asked what fort, and was told Fort Duchesne, some seventy
miles away. We learned that two companies of colored troops of the
U. S. army were stationed there. The Indians never touched us.