ON THE WING
When Harold arose the next morning his cheeks were still red with the
touch of the wind and sun and he looked like a college student just
entering upon a vacation. His grace and dignity of bearing set him apart
from the rough workmen with whom he ate, and he did not exchange a
single word with anyone but the landlord. As soon as breakfast was over
he went out into the town.
Roseville had only one street, and it was not difficult to learn that
Pratt had not yet appeared upon the scene. It was essentially a prairie
village; no tree broke the smooth horizon line. A great many emigrants
were in motion, and their white-topped wagons suggested the sails of
minute craft on the broad ocean as they came slowly up the curve to the
East and fell away down the slope to the West. To all of these Harold
applied during the days that followed, but received no offer which
seemed to promise so well as that of Mr. Pratt, so he waited. At last
he came, a tall, sandy-bearded fellow, who walked beside a four-horse
team drawing two covered wagons tandem. Behind him straggled a bunch of
bony cattle and some horses, herded by a girl and a small boy. The girl
rode a mettlesome little pony, sitting sidewise on a man's saddle.
"Wal--I d'n know," the old man replied in answer to Harold's question.
"I did 'low fer to get some help, but Jinnie she said she'd bring 'em
along fer fifty cents a day, an' she's boss, stranger. If she's sick o'
the job, why, I'll make out with ye. Jinnie, come here."
Jinnie rode up, eyeing the stranger sharply. "What's up, Dad?"
"Here's another young fellow after your job."
"Well, if he'll work cheap he can have it," replied the girl promptly.
"I don't admire to ride in this mud any longer."
Pratt smiled. "I reckon that lets you in, stranger, ef we can come to
terms. We ain't got any money to throw away, but we'll do the best we
kin."
"I'll tell you what you do. You turn that pony and saddle over to me
when we get through, and I'll call it square."
"Well, I reckon you won't," said the girl, throwing back her sunbonnet
as if in challenge. "That's my pony, and nobody gets him without blood,
and don't you forget it, sonny."
She was a large-featured girl, so blonde as to be straw-colored, even to
the lashes of her eyes, but her teeth were very white, and her lips a
vivid pink. She had her father's humorous smile, and though her words
were bluff, her eyes betrayed that she liked Harold at once.
Harold smiled back at her. "Well, I'll take the next best, that roan
there."
The boy burst into wild clamor: "Not by a darn sight, you don't. That's
my horse, an' no sucker like you ain't goin' to ride him, nuther."
"Why don't _you_ ride him?" asked Harold.
The boy looked foolish. "I'm goin' to, some day."
"He can't," said the girl, "and I don't think you can."
Pratt grinned. "Wal, you see how it is, youngster, you an' me has got to
get down to a money basis. Them young uns claim all my stawk."
Harold said: "Pay me what you can," and Pratt replied: "Wal, throw your
duds into that hind wagon. We've got to camp somewhere 'fore them durn
critters eat up all the fences."
As Harold was helping to unhitch the team the girl came around and
studied him with care.
"Say, what's your name?"
"Moses," he instantly replied.
"Moses what?"
"Oh, let it go at Mose."
"Hain't you got no other name?"
"I did have but the wind blew it away."
"What was it?"
"Moses N. Hardluck."
"You're terrible cute, ain't you?"
"Not so very, or I wouldn't be working for my board."
"You hain't never killed yourself with hard work, by the looks o' them
hands."
"Oh, I've been going to school."
"A'huh! I thought you had. You talk pretty hifalutin' fer a real workin'
man. I tell ye what I think--you're a rich man's son, and you've run
away."
"Come, gal, get that coffee bilin'," called the mother. Mrs. Pratt was a
wizened little woman, so humped by labor and chills and fever that she
seemed deformed. Her querulousness was not so much ill-natured as
plaintive.
"He _says_ his name is Mose Hardluck," Harold heard the girl say, and
that ended all further inquiry. He became simply "Mose" to them.
There was a satisfying charm to the business of camping out which now
came to be the regular order of living to him. By day the cattle, thin
and poor, crawled along patiently, waiting for feeding time to come,
catching at such bunches of dry grass as came within their reach, and at
their heels rode Harold on an old black mare, his clear voice urging the
herd forward. At noon and again at night Pratt halted the wagons beside
the road and while the women got supper or dinner Harold helped Pratt
take care of the stock, which he was obliged to feed. "I started a
little airly," he said at least a score of times in the first week. "But
I wanted to get a good start agin grass come."
Harold was naturally handy at camping, and his ready and skillful hands
became very valuable around the camp fire. He was quick and cheerful,
and apparently tireless, and before the end of the week Jennie said:
"Say, Mose, you can ride my horse if you want to."
"Much obliged, but I guess I'll hang on to the black mare."
At this point Dannie, not to be outdone, chirped shrilly: "You can break
my horse if you want to."
So a few days later Harold, with intent to check the girl in her growing
friendliness, as well as to please himself, replied: "I guess I'll break
Dan's colt."
He began by caressing the horse at every opportunity, leaning against
him, or putting one arm over his back, to let him feel the weight of his
body. At last he leaped softly up and hung partly over his back.
Naturally the colt shied and reared, but Harold dropped off instantly
and renewed his petting and soothing. It was not long before the pony
allowed him to mount, and nothing remained but to teach him to endure
the saddle and the bridle. This was done by belting him and checking him
to a pad strapped upon his back. He struggled fiercely to rid himself of
these fetters. He leaped in the air, fell, rolled over, backing and
wheeling around and around till Dan grew dizzy watching him.
A bystander once said: "Why don't you climb onto him and stay with him
till he gets sick o' pitchin'; that's what a broncho buster would do."
"Because I don't want him 'busted'; I want him taught that I'm his
friend," said Harold.
In the end "Jack," as Harold called the roan, walked up to his master
and rubbed his nose against his shoulder. Harold then stripped away the
bridle and pad at once, and when he put them on next day Jack winced,
but did not plunge, and Harold mounted him. A day or two later the colt
worked under the saddle like an old horse. Thereafter it was a matter
of making him a horse of finished education. He was taught not to trot,
but to go directly from the walk to the "lope." He acquired a swift walk
and a sort of running trot--that is, he trotted behind and rose in front
with a wolflike action of the fore feet. He was guided by the touch of
the rein on the neck or by the pressure of his rider's knee on his
shoulder.
He was taught to stand without hitching and to allow his rider to mount
on either side. This was a trick which Harold learned of a man who had
been with the Indians. "You see," he said, "an Injun can't afford to
have a horse that will only let him climb on from the nigh side, he has
to get there in a hurry sometimes, and any side at all will do him."
It was well that Jack was trained early, for as they drew out on the
open prairie and the feed became better the horses and cattle were less
easy to drive. Each day the interest grew. The land became wilder and
the sky brighter. The grass came on swiftly, and crocuses and dandelions
broke from the sod on the sunny side of smooth hills. The cranes, with
their splendid challenging cries, swept in wide circles through the sky.
Ducks and geese moved by in myriads, straight on, delaying not. Foxes
barked on the hills at sunset, and the splendid chorus of the prairie
chickens thickened day by day.
It was magnificent, and Harold was happy. True, it was not all play.
There were muddy roads to plod through and treacherous sloughs to cross.
There were nights when camp had to be pitched in rain, and mornings when
he was obliged to rise stiff and sore to find the cattle strayed away
and everything wet and grimy. But the sunshine soon warmed his back and
dried up the mud under his feet. Each day the way grew drier and the
flowers more abundant. Each day signs of the wild life thickened.
Antlers of elk, horns of the buffalo, crates of bones set around shallow
water holes, and especially the ever-thickening game trails furrowing
the hills filled the boy's heart with delight. This was the kind of life
he wished to see. They were now beyond towns, and only occasionally
small settlements relieved the houseless rolling plains. Soon the
Missouri, that storied and muddy old stream, would offer itself to view.
"Mose" was now indispensable to the Pratt "outfit." He built fires, shot
game, herded the cattle, greased the wagons, curried horses, and mended
harness. He never complained and never grew sullen. Although he talked
but little, the family were fond of him, but considered him a "singular
critter." He had lost his pallor. His skin was a clear brown, and being
dressed in rough clothing, wide hat, and gauntlet gloves, he made a bold
and dashing herder, showing just the right kind of wear and tear.
Occasionally, when a chance to earn a few dollars offered, Pratt camped
and took a job, and Harold shared in the wages.
He spent a great deal of his pocket money in buying cartridges for his
revolver. He shot at everything which offered a taking mark, and became
so expert that Dan bowed down before him, and Mrs. Pratt considered him
dangerous.
"It ain't natural fer to be so durned sure-pop on game," she said one
day. "Doggone it, I'd want 'o miss 'em once in a while just fer to be
aigged on fer to try again. First you know, you'll be obliged fer to
shoot standin' on your haid like these yere champin' shooters that go
'round the kentry givin' shows, you shorely will, Mose."
Mose only laughed. "I want to be just as good a shot as anybody," he
said, turning to Pratt.
"You'll be it ef you don't wear out your gun a-doin' of it," replied the
boss.
These were splendid days. Each sundown they camped nearer to the land of
the buffalo, and when the work was done and the supper eaten, Mose took
his pipe and his gun and walked away to some ridge, there to sit while
the yellow light faded out of the sky. He was as happy as one of his
restless nature could properly hope to be, but sometimes when he thought
of Mary his heart ached a little; he forgot her only when his
imagination set wing into the sunset sky.
One other thing troubled him a little. Rude, plain Jennie was in love
with him. Daily intercourse with a youngster half as attractive as Mose
would have had the same effect upon her, for she was at that age when
propinquity makes sentiment inevitable. She could scarcely keep her eyes
from him during hours in camp, and on the drive she rode with him four
times as long as he wished for. She bothered him, and yet she was so
good and generous he could not rebuff her; he could only endure.
She had one accomplishment: she could ride like a Sioux, either astride
or womanwise, with a saddle or without, and many a race they had as the
roads grew firm and dry. She was scrawny and flat-chested, but agile as
a boy when occasion demanded. She was fearless, too, of man or beast,
and once when her father became crazy with liquor (which was his
weakness) she went with Mose to bring him from a saloon, where he stood
boasting of his powers as a fighter with the bowie knife.
As they entered Jennie walked straight up to him: "Dad, you come home.
Come right out o' yere."
He looked at her for a moment until his benumbed brain took in her words
and all their meaning; then he said: "All right, Jinnie, just wait a
second till I have another horn with these yer gents----"
"Horn nawthin," she said in reply, and seized him by the arm. "You come
along."
He submitted without a struggle, and on the way out grew plaintive.
"Jinnie, gal," he kept saying, "I'm liable to get dry before mornin', I
shore am; ef you'd only jest let me had one more gill----"
"Oh, shet up, Dad. Ef you git dry I'll bring the hull crick in fer ye to
drink," was her scornful reply.
After he was safe in bed Jennie came over to the wagon where Mose was
smoking.
"Men are the blamedest fools," she began abruptly; "'pears like they
ain't got the sense of a grayback louse, leastways some of 'em. Now,
there's dad, filled up on stuff they call whisky out yer, and
consequence is he can't eat any grub for two days or more. Doggone it,
it makes me huffy, it plum does. Mam has put up with it fer twenty
years, which is just twenty more than I'd stand it, and don't you forget
it. When I marry a man it will be a man with sense 'nough not to pizen
hisself on rot-gut whisky."
Without waiting for a reply she turned away and went to bed in the
bottom of the hinder wagon. Mose smoked his pipe out and rolled himself
in his blanket near the smoldering camp fire.
Pratt was feeble and very long faced and repentant at breakfast. His
appetite was gone. Mrs. Pratt said nothing, but pressed him to eat.
"Come, Paw, a gill or two o' cawfee will do ye good," she said. "Cawfee
is a great heatoner," she said to Mose. "When I'm so misorified of a
moarnin' I can't eat a mossel o' bacon or pork, I kin take a gill o'
cawfee an' it shore helps me much."
Pratt looked around sheepishly. "I do reckon I made a plum ejot of
myself last night."
"As ush'll," snapped Jennie. "You wanted to go slicin' every man in
sight up, just fer to show you could swing a bowie knife when you was on
airth the first time."
"Now that's the quare thing, Mose; a peacebbler man than me don't live;
Jinnie says I couldn't lick a hearty bedbug, but when I git red liquor
into my insides I'm a terror to near neighbours, so they say. I can't
well remember just what do take place 'long towards the fo'th drink."
"Durn lucky you can't. You'd never hole up your head again. A plummer
fool you never see," said Jennie, determined to drive his shame home to
him.
Pratt sighed, understood perfectly the meaning of all this vituperation.
"Well, Mam, we'll try again. I think I'm doin' pretty good when I go two
munce, don't you?"
"It's more'n that, Paw," said Mrs. Pratt, eager to encourage him at the
right moment. "It's sixty-four days. You gained four days on it this
time."
Pratt straightened up and smiled. "That so, Mam? Wal, that shorely is a
big gain."
He took Mose aside after breakfast and solemnly said:
"Wimern-folk is a heap better'n men-folks. Now, me or you couldn't stand
in wimern-folks what they put up with in men-folks. 'Pears like they air
finer built, someway." After a pause he said with great earnestness:
"Don't you drink red liquor, Mose; it shore makes a man no account."
"Don't you worry, Cap. I'm not drinkin' liquor of any color."