GOOD EYE, THE MAVERICK KING
Angevine Thorne was still talking mean about his boss when the cowboys
came stringing back from their day's riding, hungry as wolves. At the
first dust sign in the northern pass the round-up cook had piled wood
on the fire to make coals and as the iron-faced punchers rode up he
hammered on a tin plate and yelled:—
"Grub pile! Come a-runnin'!"
They came, with the dirt of the branding still on their faces and
beards and their hands smeared with blood. Each in turn glanced
furtively at Pecos Dalhart, who sat off at one side contemplating the
landscape, grabbed a plate and coffee cup and fell to without a word.
Last of all came Isaac Crittenden, the Boss, tall, gaunt, and stooping,
his head canted back to make up for the crook in his back and his one
good eye roving about restlessly. As he rode in, Pecos glanced up and
nodded and then continued his industry of drawing brands in the dust.
The Boss, on his part, was no more cordial; but after the meal was
finished he took another look at the newcomer, spoke a few words with
the cook, and strolled over for a talk.
"Howdy, stranger," he began, with a quick glance at the brands in the
sand; "travellin' far?"
"Nope," responded Pecos, "jest up the trail a piece."
A shadow crossed the Boss's face—Upton's was "up the trail a piece"—but
he did not follow that lead.
"Know any of them irons?" he inquired, pointing to the sand-drawings,
which represented half the big brands between the Panhandle and the
Gila.
"Sure thing," replied the cowboy, "I've run 'em."
"And burnt 'em, too, eh?" put in Crittenden, shrewdly; but Pecos
Dalhart was not as young as he looked.
"Not on your life," he countered, warily, "that don't go where I come
from."
"Of course not, of course not," assented the cowman, instantly
affecting a bluff honesty, "and it don't go here, neither, if any one
should inquire. A man's brand is his property and he's got a right
to it under the law. I've got a few cows here myself—brand IC on the
ribs—and I'd like to see the blankety-blank that would burn it. I'd
throw 'em in the pen, if it was the last act. Where you travellin'?"
He jerked this out as a sort of challenge, and the cowboy rose to his
feet.
"Upton's," he said briefly.
"Upton's!" repeated Crittenden, "and what do you figure on doin' up
there?"
"Well, I heard he was a good feller to work for—thought I'd take on for
a cow hand."
Pecos stated the proposition judicially, but as he spoke he met the
glowering glance of Crittenden with a cold and calculating eye.
The cattle-stealing war between John Upton of Tonto Basin and Old
Crit of Verde Crossing was no secret in Arizona, though the bloody
Tewkesbury-Graham feud to the north took away from its spectacular
interest and reduced it to the sordid level of commercialism. It
was, in fact, a contest as to which could hire the nerviest cowboys
and run off the most cattle, and Pecos Dalhart knew this as well as
Isaac Crittenden. They stood and glared at each other for a minute,
therefore, and then Old Crit broke loose.
"Whoever told you that John Upton is a good feller is a liar!" he
stormed, bringing his fist down into his hand. "He's jest a common,
low-down cow-thief, as I've told him to his face; and a man that will
steal from his friends will do anything. Now, young man, before we go
any farther I want to tell you what kind of a reptile John Upton is.
Him and me run our cattle over in Tonto Basin for years, and if we'd
ever have any question about a calf or a _orehanna_ I'd always say,
'Well, take 'im, John,' jest like that, because I didn't want to have
no racket with a friend. But they's some people, the more you give in
to 'em the more they run it over you, and they come a day when I had to
put my foot down and say, 'No, that calf is mine,' and I put my iron on
'im right there. Now that calf was mine, you understand, and I branded
him IC on the ribs, in the corral and before witnesses, accordin' to
law, but about a week afterward when I come across that critter, John
Upton had run a big U after my brand, makin' it ICU. Well, you may
laugh, but that's no kind of a joke to play on a friend and I jest
hopped down off'n my horse and run a figger 2 after it, making it ICU2;
and about the time John Upton gits his funny ICU brand in the book I
goes down and registers ICU2, goin' him one better. Now that's carryin'
a joke pretty far, and I admit it, but Upton wasn't funnin'; that
crooked-nose dastard had set out to steal my cows from the start and,
seein' I'd euchered him on the ICU racket he went ahead and slapped a
big J in front of my IC iron, and began branding my cows into what he
called his Jay-Eye-See brand. Well, that settled it. I'm an honest man,
but when a man steals cows from me I don't know any way to break even
in this country but to steal back, and while he was putting his J's on
my IC critters I jumped in and put IC2's on his U's until he was ready
to quit. He's _afraid_ to burn my brand now—he dassent do it—and so
he's beginnin' to squeal because I've got 'im in the door; but say—" he
beckoned with his head—"come over here by the corral, I want to talk to
you."
Throughout this long tale of woe Pecos Dalhart had shown but scant
interest, having heard it already, with variations, from Babe.
According to that faithless individual Old Crit would steal fleas
from a pet monkey and skin them for the hide and tallow; his favorite
pastime, outside of cattle-rustling, being to take on cowboys and then
hold out their pay, a rumor which caused Pecos Dalhart to regard him
warily.
"Now say," began the Boss of Verde Crossing, as soon as they were out
of hearing, "you don't need to go to that hoss-thief Upton in order
to git a job. I'm always lookin' for the right kind of man, myself.
Have you had any experience at this kind of thing?" He went through
the dexterous pantomime of burning a brand through a blanket, but the
cowboy only turned away scornfully.
"If I had I'd never be dam' fool enough to talk about it," he said.
"Oho!" observed Crit, rubbing the side of his nose slyly, "you're
travelling for your health, are you?"
"No!" snarled the Texan. "The only people that are lookin' for me are
tryin' to keep away from me, so you don't need to work that auger any
deeper. Now, Mr. Crittenden, I'm a man of few words—what can I do for
you?"
"We-ell," began the cowman, and once more he paused to meditate.
"Since you inquire," continued the cowboy, "I don't mind tellin' you
that I'm travellin' for excitement—and to grab some money. If you've
got any proposition that might appeal to me, spit it out—if not, they's
no harm done."
"Well, wait a minute!" cried Old Crit, peevishly.
"My time's valuable," observed Pecos, sententiously. "You can trust me
as good as I can trust you—mebby better. I don't hear nobody accuse you
of being sure pay, but if I take your job I want you to remember that I
draw my money at the end of every month or else I collect and quit. Now
if you can jar that proposition out of your system, I'll listen to it."
"I guess you'll do," said the cowman, as if quieting his own
misgivings. "I've got a little special work that I want done on the
quiet, markin' over some cows and calves. The man that does it will
have to hide out up in that rough country and I'll pay him—forty
dollars."
"Eighty," said the Texan.
"W'y, I'm only payin' my round-up hands thirty," protested Crittenden,
weakly; "I'll give you fifty, though."
"Eighty, cash," said the cowboy. "You'll make that on the first ten
calves."
"Sixty!" pleaded Crit.
"I want my money in my hand at the end of every month," added Pecos,
and then there was a silence.
"All right," grumbled the cowman, at last, "but you understand I expect
something to show for all that money. Now I want you to go around the
corner thar like you was mad, 'n' saddle up and ride on, like you was
goin' to Upton's. Then when it comes night I want you to ride back
and camp out there by that big ironwood over against the mesa. As
soon as me and the boys are out of sight in the mornin' my Mexican,
Joe Garcia, will come out to you with some grub and take you over to
Carrizo Springs, and I want you to _stay_ there as long as I keep
driftin' U cows in over the Peaks. Now look—here's your job—I want you
to burn every one of them Upton cows over into a Wine-glass"—he made
the figure [Illustration: Y [++] Brand in the shape of a wine-glass.]
in the sand—"and run it on the calves. Savvy? Well, git, then, and
remember what I said about lookin' mad—I don't want my punchers to git
onto this!"