Lonesome Pete dragged from the buckboard a couple of much-worn quilts,
a careful examination of which hinted that they had once upon a time
been gay and gaudy with brilliant red and green patterns. Now they
were an astonishing congregation of lumps where the cotton had
succeeded in getting itself rolled into balls and of depressions where
the cotton had fled. Light and air had little difficulty in passing
through. Lonesome Pete jerked off the piece of rope which had held
them in a roll and flung them to the ground, directing toward Hapgood
a glance which was an invitation. And Hapgood, the fastidious, lay
down.
The red-headed man dumped a strange mess out of a square pasteboard
box into his frying-pan and set it upon some coals which he had
scraped out of his little fire. There was dried beef in that mess, and
onions and carrots and potatoes, and they had all been cooked up
together, needing only to be warmed over now. The odor of them went
abroad over the land and assailed Hapgood's nostrils. And Hapgood did
not frown, nor yet did he sneer. He lifted himself upon an elbow and
watched with something of real interest in his eyes. And when black
coffee was made in a blacker, spoutless, battered, dirty-looking
coffee-pot Roger Hapgood put out a hand, uninvited, for the tin cup.
Conniston, his appetite being a shade further removed from starvation
than his friend's, divided his interest equally between the meal and
the man preparing it. He found his host an anomaly. In spite of the
fiery coloring of mustache and hair he was one of the meekest-looking
individuals Conniston had ever seen, and certainly the most
soft-spoken. His eyes had a way of losing their brightness as he fell
to staring away into vacancy, his lips working as though he were
repeating a prayer over and over to himself. The growth upon his upper
lip had at first given him the air of a man of thirty, and now when
one looked at him it was certain he could not be a day over twenty.
And about his hips, dragging so low and fitting so loosely that
Conniston had always the uncomfortable sensation that it was going to
slip down about his feet, he wore a cartridge-belt and two heavy
forty-five revolvers. He gave one the feeling of a cherub with a
war-club.
During the scanty meal Lonesome Pete ate noisily and rapidly and spoke
little, contenting himself with short answers to the few questions
which were put to him, for the most part staring away into the
gathering night with an expression of great mildness upon his face.
Finishing some little time before his guests, he rolled a cigarette,
left them to polish out the frying-pan with the last morsels of bread,
and, going back to the buckboard, fumbled a moment in a second
soap-box under the seat. It was growing so dark now that, while they
could see him take two or three articles from his box and thrust them
under his arm, they could not make out what the things were. But in
another moment he had lighted the lantern which had swung under the
buckboard and was squatting cross-legged in the sand, the lantern on
the ground at his side. And then, as he bent low over the things in
his hand, they saw that they were three books and that Lonesome Pete
was applying himself diligently to them.
He opened them all, one after the other, turned many pages, stopping
now and then to bend closer to look at a picture and decipher
painstakingly the legend inscribed under it. Finally, after perhaps
ten minutes of this kind of examination, he laid two of them beside
him, grasped the other firmly with both awkward hands and began to
read. They knew that he was reading, for now and again his droning
voice came to them as he struggled with a word of some difficulty.
Hapgood smoked his last cigarette; Conniston puffed at his pipe. At
the end of ten minutes Lonesome Pete had turned a page, the rustling
of the leaves accompanied by a deep sigh. Then he laid his book, open,
across his knee, made another cigarette, lighted it, and, after a
glance toward Conniston and Hapgood, spoke softly.
"You gents reads, I reckon? Huh?"
"Yes. A little," Conniston told him; while Hapgood, being somewhat
strengthened by his rest and his meal, grunted.
"After a man gets the swing of it, sorta, it ain't always such hard
work?"
"No, it isn't such hard work after a while."
Lonesome Pete nodded slowly and many times.
"It's jest like anything else, ain't it, when you get used to it? Jest
as easy as ropin' a cow brute or ridin' a bronco hoss?"
Conniston told him that he was right.
"But what gits me," Lonesome Pete went on, closing his book and
marking the place with a big thumb, "is knowin' words that comes
stampedin' in on you onexpected like. When a man sees a cow brute or
a hoss or a mule as he ain't never clapped his peepers on he knows the
brute right away. He says, 'That's a Half Moon,' or, 'It's a Bar
Circle,' or 'It's a U Seven.' 'Cause why? 'Cause she's got a bran' as
a man can make out. But these here words"--he shook his head as he
opened his book and peered into it--"they ain't got no bran'. Ain't it
hell, stranger?"
"What's the word, Pete," smiled Conniston.
"She ain't so big an' long as bothers me," Lonesome Pete answered.
"It's jest she's so darn peculiar-lookin'. It soun's like it might be
_izzles_, but what's _izzles_? You spell it i-s-l-e-s. Did you ever
happen to run acrost that there word, stranger?"
Conniston told him what the word was, and Lonesome Pete's softly
breathed curse was eloquent of gratitude, amazement, and a certain
deep admiration that those five letters could spell a little island.
"The nex' line is clean over my head, though," he went on, after a
moment of frowning concentration.
Conniston got to his feet and went to where the reader sat, stooping
to look over his shoulder. The book was "Macbeth." He picked up the
two volumes upon the ground. They were old, much worn, much torn,
their backs long ago lost in some second-hand book-store. One of them
was a copy of Lamb's _Essays_, the other a state series second reader.
"Quite an assortment," was the only thing he could think to say.
Lonesome Pete nodded complacently. "I got 'em off'n ol' Sam Bristow.
You don't happen to know Sam, do you, stranger?"
Conniston shook his head. Lonesome Pete went on to enlighten him.
"Sam Bristow is about the eddicatedest man this side San Francisco, I
reckon. He's got a store over to Rocky Bend. Ever been there?"
Again Conniston shook his head, and again Lonesome Pete explained:
"Rocky Bend is a right smart city, more'n four times as big as Injun
Creek. It's a hundred mile t'other side Injun Creek, makin' it a
hundred an' fifty mile from here. In his store he's got a lot of
books. I went over there to make my buy, an' I don't mind tellin' you,
stranger, I sure hit a bargain. I got them three books an nine more as
is in that box under the seat, makin' an even dozen, an' ol' Sam let
the bunch go for fourteen dollars. I reckon he was short of cash,
huh?"
Since the books at a second-hand store should have been worth about
ninety cents, Conniston made no answer. Instead he picked up the
dog-eared volume of "Macbeth."
"How did you happen to pick out this?" he asked, curiously.
"I knowed the jasper as wrote it."
Conniston gasped. Lonesome Pete evidently taking the gasp as prompted
by a deep awe that he should know a man who wrote books, smiled
broadly and went on:
"Yes, suh. I'm real sure I knowed him. You see, I was workin' a couple
er years ago for the Triangle Bar outfit. Young Jeff Comstock, the ol'
man's son, he used to hang out in the East. An' he had a feller
visitin' him. That feller's name was Bill, an' he was out here to git
the dope so's he could write books about the cattle country. I reckon
his las' name was the same as the Bill as wrote this. I don't know no
other Bills as writes books, do you, stranger?"
Conniston evaded. "Are you sure it's about the cattle country?"
"It sorta sounds like it, an' then it don't. You see it begins in a
desert place. That goes all right. But I ain't sure I git jest what
this here firs' page is drivin' at. It's about three witches, an' they
don't say much as a man can tie to. I jest got to where there's
something about a fight, an' I guess he jest throwed the witches in,
extry. Here it says as they wear chaps. That oughta settle it, huh?"
There was the line, half hidden by Lonesome Pete's horny forefinger.
"_He unseamed him from the nave to the chaps!_" That certainly settled
it as far as Lonesome Pete was concerned. Macbeth was a cattle-king,
and Bill Shakespeare was the young fellow who had visited the Triangle
Bar.
Thoughtfully he put his books away in the box, which he covered with a
sack and which he pushed back under the seat. Then he looked to his
horses, saw that they had plenty of grass within the radius of
tie-rope, and after that came back to where Hapgood lay.
"I reckon you can git along with one of them blankets, stranger. You
two fellers can have it, an' I'll make out with the other."
Hapgood moved and groaned as he put his weight on a sore muscle.
"The ground will be d----d hard with just one blanket," he growled.
Lonesome Pete, his two hands upon his hips, stood looking down at him,
the far-away look stealing back into his eyes.
"I hadn't thought of that. But I reckon I can make one do, all right."
Whereupon without more ado and with the same abstracted gleam in his
eyes he stooped swiftly and jerked one of the quilts out from under
the astonished Hapgood.
The man who had traveled from the Half Moon one hundred and ninety
miles to spend fourteen dollars for a soap-box half full of books was
awake the next morning before sunrise. Conniston and Hapgood didn't
open an eye until he called to them. Then they looked up from their
quilt to see him standing over them pulling thoughtfully at the ends
of his red mustache, his face devoid of expression.
"I'll have some chuck ready in about three minutes," he told them,
quietly. "An' we'll be gittin' a start."
"In the middle of the night!" expostulated Hapgood, his words all but
lost in a yawn.
"I ain't got my clock along this trip, stranger. But I reckon if we
want to git acrost them hills before it gits hot we'll be travelin'
real soon. Leastways," as he turned and went back to squat over the
little fire he had blazing merrily near the watering-trough, "I'm
goin' to dig out in about twenty minutes."
Hapgood, remembering the ride of yesterday, scrambled to his feet even
before Conniston. And the two young men, having washed their faces and
hands at the pipe which discharged its cold stream into the trough,
joined the Half Moon man.
He had already fried bacon, and now was cooking some flapjacks in the
grease which he had carefully saved. The coffee was bubbling away
gaily, sending its aroma far and wide upon the whispering morning
breeze. The skies were still dark, their stars not yet gone from them.
Only the faintest of dim, uncertain lights in the horizon told where
the east was and where before long the sun would roll up above the
floor of the desert. The horses, already hitched to the buckboard,
were vague blots in the darkness about them.
They ate in silence, the two Easterners too tired and sleepy to talk,
Lonesome Pete evidently too abstracted. And when the short meal was
over it was Lonesome Pete who cleaned out the few cooking-utensils and
stored them away in the buckboard while Conniston and Hapgood smoked
their pipes. It was Lonesome Pete who got his two quilts, rolled,
tied, and put them with the box of utensils. And then, making a
cigarette, he climbed to his seat.
"An' now if one of you gents figgers on ridin' along with me--"
"I do!" cried Hapgood, quickly. And he hastened to the buckboard,
taking his seat at the other's side.
"I thought you had a hoss somewheres! An' your saddle?" continued
Lonesome Pete.
"I thought that while you were getting your horses--Didn't you saddle
him?"
For a moment Lonesome Pete made no answer. He drew a deep breath as he
gathered in his reins tightly. And then he spoke very softly.
"Now, ain't I sure a forgetful ol' son of a gun! I did manage to
rec'lec' to make a fire an' git breakfas' an' hitch up my hosses an'
clean up after breakfas' an' put the beddin' in--but would you believe
I clean forgot to saddle up for you!"
He laughed as softly as he had spoken. Hapgood glanced at him quickly,
but the cowboy's face was lost in the black shadow of his low-drawn
hat. Hapgood got down and saddled his own horse, and it was Hapgood
who, riding with Lonesome Pete, led a stubborn animal that jerked back
until both of Hapgood's arms were sore in their sockets. Lonesome
Pete, the forgetful, remembered after an hour or two of quiet
enjoyment to tell the tenderfoot that he could tie the rope to the
buckboard instead of holding it. For the first hour Hapgood was,
consequently, altogether too busy even to try to see the country about
him, and Conniston, riding behind, could make out little in the
darkness. The one thing of which he could be sure was that they were
leaving the floor of the desert behind, that they were climbing a
steep, narrow road which wound ever higher and higher in the hills.
Then finally the day broke, and he could see that they were already
deep in the brown hills which he had seen from Indian Creek. There was
scant vegetation, a few scattered, twisted, dwarfed trees, with
patches of brush in the ravines and hollows. Nowhere water, nowhere a
sprig of green grass. As in the flat land below here, there was only
barrenness and desolation and solitude.
As had been the case yesterday, so now to-day when the sun shot
suddenly into the sky the heat came with it. But already the three
travelers had climbed to the top of the hills where Pocket Pass led
across the uplands and were once more dropping down toward a gray
level floor. On a narrow bit of bench land, where for a space the
country road ran level, lined with ruts, gouged with uncomfortable
frequency into dust-concealed chuck-holes, Lonesome Pete pulled in his
horses and waited for Conniston to ride up to his side.
"In case you've got a sorta interest in the country we're goin' to
drop down in," he said, as he took advantage of the stop to roll a
cigarette, "you might jest take a look from here. This is what they
call Pocket Pass as we jest rode through. An' from this en' you can
see purty much everything as is worth seein' in this country an' a
whole hell of a lot as ain't." He made a wide sweep with his arm,
pointing southward and downward. "That there's where we're headed
for."
"And that's the Half Moon!" Conniston was eager, as he saw at a glance
how the range got its name.
The hills fell away even more abruptly here than they did in the
north, cut so often into straight, stratified brown cliffs of
crumbling dirt that Conniston wondered how and where the road could
find a way out and down into the lower land. They swept away, both
east and west, in a wide curve, roughly resembling a half moon. Toward
the east, perhaps twenty-five miles from where Conniston sat upon his
horse, the distant mountains sent out two far-reaching spurs of
pine-clad ridges between which lay Rattlesnake Valley. Due south, as
Lonesome Pete's outstretched finger indicated, lay the road which they
were to follow and the headquarters of the Half Moon. There again a
thickly timbered spur of the mountains ran down into the plain on each
side of a deeply cleft cañon from which Lonesome Pete told them that
Indian Creek issued, and in which were the main corrals and the range
house of the Half Moon.
"Which is sure the finest up-an'-down cow-country I ever see," he
added, by way of rounding off his information. "Bein' well watered by
that same crick, an' havin' good feed both in the Big Flat, as folks
calls that country down below us, an' in the foothills. Rattlesnake
Valley, over yonder, ain't never been good for much exceptin' the
finest breed of serpents an' horn-toads a man ever see outside a
circus or the jimjams. There ain't nothin' as 'll grow there outside
them animals. The ol' man's workin' over there now, tryin' to throw
water on it an' make things grow. The ol' man," he ended, shaking his
head dubiously, "has put acrost some big jobs, but I reckon he's sorta
up against it this trip."
"Reclamation work," nodded Conniston.
"That's what some folks calls it. Others calls it plumb foolishness.
Git up, there, Lady! Stan' aroun', you pinto hoss!"
An hour more of winding in and out, back and forth, along the narrow
grade cut into the sides of the hills, just wide enough for one team
at the time, with here and there a wider place where wagons might meet
and pass, and they were down in the Half Moon country. The cowboy let
his horses out into a swinging trot; Conniston followed just far
enough behind to escape their dust; and the miles slipped swiftly
behind them.
They had crossed the floor of the lower Half Moon and were moving up a
gentle slope leading along the spur of the mountains to the right of
Indian Creek when they met one of the Half Moon cowboys driving a
small band of saddle-horses ahead of him. Lonesome Pete stopped for a
word with him, and Conniston, seeing the road plain ahead, rode on
alone. A mile farther and he had entered the forest of pines through
which the road lay, winding and twisting to avoid the boles of the
larger trees or the big scattered boulders which were many upon the
steepening slope. Now he could seldom see more than a hundred yards in
front of him, and now he had left the stifling heat behind him for the
cool shadows which made a dim twilight of midday.
Two miles of this pleasant shade, fragrant with the spicy balsam of
the forest, and the road began to turn to the left, across the spine
of the ridge and into the deep ravine. Presently he heard the bawling
of the stream somewhere through the undergrowth below him, its gurgle
and clatter making merry music with the swish of the stirring
pine-tops. And suddenly, as he made a sharp turn, he drew in his horse
with a little exclamation of surprise.
Here the road plunged abruptly downward and across the rocky bed of
Indian Creek. Just above the crossing, so near that a passing vehicle
must be sprinkled with the spray of its headlong leaping waters, was a
waterfall flashing in white and crystal down a cliff of black rock ten
feet high. On either side the stately pine-trees, their lowest limbs
forty feet above the ground, marched in patriarchal dignity to the
edge of the stream. And above the waterfall, farther back between the
jaws of the ravine, Conniston could see the red-tiled roofing and
snow-white towers of such a house as he had never dreamed of finding
lost in the Western wilderness.
He rode on down into the stream and across. Upon the other side the
road again ran on into the cañon, climbing twenty feet up a gradual
slope. And here upon the top of the bank Conniston again drew in his
reins with a jerk, again surprised at what he saw before him.
Here was a long, wide bench of land which had been carefully leveled.
Through the middle of it ran the creek. Feeding the waterfall was a
dam, its banks steep, its floor, seen through the clear water, white
sand. And it was more than a dam; it was a tiny mountain lake. A
drifting armada of spotlessly white ducks turned their round, yellow
eyes upon the trespasser. Over yonder a wide flight of stone steps
led to the water's edge. And the flat table-land, bordered with a
dense wall of pines and firs, was a great lawn, brilliantly green,
thick strewn with roses and geraniums and a riot of bright-hued
flowers Conniston did not know.
He turned his eyes to the house itself. It was a great, two-storied,
wide-verandaed building, with spacious doors, deep-curtained windows,
a tower rising above the red tiles of the roof at each corner,
everywhere the gleam of white columns. Each tower had its balconies,
and each balcony was guessed more than seen through the green and red
and white of clambering roses.
Midway between the broad front steps and the edge of the little toy
lake was a summer-house grown over with vines, its broad doorway
opening toward Conniston. And sitting within its shade, a book in her
lap, her gray eyes raised gravely to meet his, was the girl he had
seen on the Overland Limited. Conniston rode along a graveled walk
toward her, his hat in his hand.
"Good morning," she said, as he drew in his horse near her. "Won't you
get down?"
"Good morning."
He swung to the ground with no further invitation, his horse's reins
over his arm.
His eyes were as grave as hers, and he was glad, glad that he had
ridden here through the desert.
"You came to see my father?"
Conniston colored slightly. Why had he come? What was he going to do
now that he was here? How should he seek to explain? He hesitated a
moment, and then answered, slowly:
"I am afraid that my reasons for coming at all are too complicated to
be told. You see, we just got off the train in Indian Creek out of
idle curiosity to see what the desert country was like. We're from New
York. And then we rode out toward the hills. One of your father's men
overtook us there, and, as he was coming this way and as we were
anxious to see the cattle-country and--" he broke off, smiling. "You
see, it is hard to make it sound sensible. We just came!"
She looked up at him, a little puzzled frown in her eyes.
"You have friends with you?"
"One friend. He was pretty well tuckered out, and the red-headed
gentleman who calls himself Lonesome Pete is bringing him along in his
buckboard."
"And you have no business at all out here?"
"I _had_ none," he retorted.
"You don't know father?"
"I am sorry that I don't."
"You are going on to Crawfordsville?"
"I don't know where Crawfordsville is. Is it the nearest town?"
"Yes."
"Since I don't see how we can stay here, I suppose we'll go on to
Crawfordsville, then. That would be the best way, wouldn't it?"
"Really," she replied, quietly, "I don't see that I am in a position
to advise. If you haven't any business with my father--"
Then the buckboard drove up, and Greek Conniston devoutly wished that
he had left Roger Hapgood behind. And when he saw the radiant smile
which lightened the girl's gray eyes as they rested upon Lonesome
Pete and took notice of the wide, sweeping flourish with which the
cowboy's hat was lifted to her, he wished that the red-headed student
of Shakespeare was with Hapgood on Broadway.