The next day the gates of a new world opened for Greek Conniston. And
it was a world which he liked little enough. The cook, rattling his
pots and pans and stove-lids, woke him long before it was four
o'clock. One by one the men tumbled out, dressed swiftly, washed and
combed their hair at the low bench by the door, and then sat about
smoking or wandered away to the stable to attend to their horses. At
four o'clock the table was set, coffee and biscuits and steaks sending
out their odors to float together upon the morning air. Conniston got
up with the others and washed at the common basin, contenting himself
with running his fingers through his hair rather than to use the one
broken-toothed comb. One or two of the boys said a short "Mornin'" to
him, but the most of them seemed to see him no more than they had when
he had entered the bunk-house last evening. Lonesome Pete nodded to
him and, when they all sat down, indicated a chair at his side for him
to sit in.
There was a great bruise upon his forehead and a cut where the muzzle
of Brayley's gun had struck him, but he was surprised to find that
both dizziness and faintness had passed entirely and that he was
feeling little inconvenience from the blow which last night had
stretched him out unconscious.
He ate with the others in silence, making no reference to Brayley,
noting that they gave no evidence of remembering the trouble of last
night. The fare was coarse, and he was not used to such dishes for
breakfast any more than he was used to getting up at four o'clock to
eat them. But he was hungry, and the coffee and the biscuits were
good. After breakfast he found himself outside of the bunk-house with
Lonesome Pete.
"When Brayley's away," the cowboy was saying, over his
cigarette-making, "Rawhide Jones takes his place. An' Rawhide says
you're to come with me an' give me a hand over to the cross-fence. I
guess we'd better be makin' a start, huh?"
Conniston went with him to the stable. "We ain't brought in any extry
hosses," Pete was explaining, as they came into one of the corrals.
"You'll ride your own to-day?"
In one of the stalls Conniston found the horse he had ridden from
Indian Creek, with his saddle, bridle, spurs, and chaps hanging upon
wooden pegs. And in the next stall he saw the horse Hapgood had
ridden.
"Hasn't Hapgood gone yet?" he asked of Pete.
"I don't reckon he has. He had supper with the Ol' Man up to the house
las' night. An' I guess he's stayed over to res' up."
They swung to their horses' backs and rode through the trees and on
eastward across a long grassy slope from which the shadows of the
night were just beginning to lift. As day came on Conniston saw that
ahead of them for miles ran a barren-looking, treeless country, rising
on the one hand to the foot of the mountains, falling away gradually
on the other to the Big Flat. They rode swiftly, side by side, for
five miles, passing through many grazing herds of cattle, many smaller
bands of horses. And finally, when they came to a wire fence running
north and south, Lonesome Pete swung down from his saddle.
On the ground near the fence were hammers, a pick, a shovel, and a
crowbar. The old barley-sack at the foot of one of the posts gave out
the jingle of nails as Pete's boot struck against it. And Conniston,
dismounting and tying his horse, began his first lesson in
fence-repairing.
The loose wires they tightened with the short iron bar, in the end of
which a V-shaped cut had been made. While Pete caught the slack wire
with this bar, and, using the post as a fulcrum, the bar as a lever,
drew it taut, Conniston with hammer and staples made it secure. Now
and again they found a rotten post which must be taken out, while a
new one from a row which had been dumped from a wagon yesterday was
put into its place.
It was easy work, and Conniston found, that he rather enjoyed the
novelty of it. But as hour after hour dragged by with the same
unceasing monotony, as the sun crept burning into the hot sky, and the
wires, the crowbar, even the pick-handle blistered his hands, he began
to feel the cramp of fatigue in his stooping shoulders and in his
forearms and back. Noon came at last, and he and Lonesome Pete ate the
cold lunch which the latter had brought, drank from the bottle of
water, and lay down for a smoke. Conniston had left his pipe at the
bunk-house, and accepted from his fellow-worker his coarse, cheap
tobacco and brown papers.
The morning had been endlessly long. The afternoon was an eternity. It
was hotter now that the sun had rolled past the zenith, now that the
sand had drunk deep of its fiery rays. The air shimmered and danced
above the gray monotone of flat country, Conniston's eyeballs were
burning with it. And back and arms and shoulders ached together. He
had hoped that they would quit work at five o'clock. Five o'clock came
and went, and the red-headed man said no word of stopping. Half-past
five, six o'clock. And still they tightened wires, hammered burning
staples, dug endless post-holes. Conniston's hands were torn with the
sharp staples, blistered with the work. Half-past six, and he was
ready to throw down his tools and quit. But a glance at his
companion's face, sweat-covered but showing nothing of the fatigue of
the day, and Conniston held doggedly to his work, ashamed to stop.
And, together with the breathless heat of the still afternoon, the
ache and dizziness returned to his head where Brayley's gun had struck
him; a new and growing nausea told him that a man is not knocked
unconscious one day to forget all about it the next. As he
straightened up from bending over the lowest wire, nausea and
faintness together threatened to make him throw up his hands and
acknowledge himself unfit for the new sort of existence into which he
had rushed carelessly. He was not certain why, in spite of all that he
felt, he held on. He knew only that as the son of William Conniston he
must be the superior in all things to the man who worked at his side
like a machine; he knew that in spite of his liking for Lonesome Pete
he held the cowboy in a mild contempt, and that he must not be outdone
by him.
When at length the sun had sunk out of sight through the flaming
colors of its own weaving in the flat lands to the west, and Lonesome
Pete threw down his tools at the foot of the last post which they had
planted in the sandy soil, Conniston was too tired to greatly care
that the day was done. He refused the proffered cigarette, and slowly
walked away to where his horse was waiting for him. He did not know
that the other man was looking at him curiously, that there was much
amusement and a hint of surprise in the bright-blue eyes. He knew only
that he had toiled from before sunrise until after sunset; that the
waking hours to which he had been long accustomed had been turned
topsy-turvy; that instead of spending money he had been making money;
that he had earned his board and lodging and one dollar! And even
while he ached and throbbed throughout his whole weary body he was
vaguely amused at that.
When finally they came again into the Half Moon corrals Lonesome Pete
carelessly offered to unsaddle for Conniston and water and feed his
horse. And Conniston, while not ungrateful, answered with short
doggedness that he could do his own part of the work.
They came to the bunk-house to find that several of the boys had eaten
before them, that two or three of them were already in bed. The cook,
however, had supper waiting for them, kept hot in the oven of his big
stove. Conniston knew that he was hungry; during the ride in he had
thought longingly of a hot meal and bed. But now he learned what it
was to be hungry and at the same time too tired to eat. He drank some
coffee, ate a little bread and butter, and, pushing his plate away,
climbed into his bunk.
He thought longingly of silk pajamas and a hot bath--and started up
finding himself half asleep, dreaming of miles of wire fence, of
hammering staples and tightening wires, of laboring with breaking
back over holes which, as fast as he dug them, filled with the
shifting sand. And then--it seemed to him that he had been in bed ten
minutes--he heard the cook rattling his pots and pans and stove-lids,
and knew that the night had gone and that the second day of his new
life had come.
The first day had been purgatory. The second was hell. His raw,
blistered fingers shrank from his hammer-handle, from the sun-heated
iron bar. The muscles which through long idleness had grown soft, and
which had been taxed all day yesterday, cried out with sharp pains as
to-day they were called upon. He had thought that the night would have
rested him; instead it had but made his arms and hands and back stiff
and unfit. When ten o'clock came he felt as tired as he had been last
night at quitting-time. The heat was more intense, the day sultry,
with a thin film of clouds across the gray sky allowing the sun's rays
to scorch the earth, refusing to let the sand radiate the heat which
clung to it like a bank of heavy steam. Their water-bottle, although
they kept it always in the shade of some scorched tree or bush, grew
as warm as the air about it. Still Conniston drank great quantities of
the warm water until even it warred against him and made him sick. All
morning long he fought against a dull, throbbing headache. At noontime
he ate little, but sat still, with his bursting temples between his
hands.
Again the afternoon dragged on, unbearably long, each tortuous second
a slow period of agony. Lonesome Pete's stories of the range country
he heard, while he did not attempt to grasp their significance. They
no longer amused him. His own position, his own condition, no longer
amused him. He felt that he could not laugh; he knew that he would
not. He told himself over and over that he was a fool for attempting
drudgery like this. He vowed that when at last the day's work was done
he would go to Mr. Crawford and say, "I have worked off what I owe
you. I am going to quit." They could think what they chose. They could
laugh if it pleased them. His was a finer nature than theirs; he was a
gentleman, thank God, and no day-laborer.
And night came, and he ate what he could and dragged himself into his
bunk in silence. He saw the glances which were directed toward him
when he came into the bunk-house; he knew what the men were thinking.
He knew what they would say. And while it had been pride until now,
now it was nothing in the world but lack of moral courage which made
him stick to the thing which he hated.
This day again he had seen Roger Hapgood's horse in the stable. He had
heard one of the men say that Hapgood was still resting up at the
house as a guest. He himself had not had a fleeting glimpse of Argyl
Crawford, and he knew that Hapgood was seeing her constantly. A quick
bitterness made up of resentment and a kind of jealousy sprang up
within him. He knew that at least the girl was blameless, and yet he
blamed her. He told himself, knowing that he was wrong, that she was
unfair, unjust, even unkind.
The third day came. It was longer, drearier, wearier than the other
two had been. He began to fear that soon he should have to give up.
His body, instead of becoming gradually inured to the long hours of
toil, seemed to be gradually succumbing to them. He felt that he was
wearing out, breaking down. He did not know if Hapgood were still on
the Half Moon or if he had gone. He did not greatly care.
Brayley was back from the Lone Dog. He saw him at night when he came
into the bunk-house. He and Brayley looked at each other, saying no
word. Brayley turned with a casual remark to one of the men; Conniston
took his place at the table. Still they said nothing to each other,
each man knowing without words that what had passed between them was
passed until some new incident should arise to settle matters for
them. Brayley, being quick of eye, saw that Conniston had adopted at
least one of the customs of the range, and that he carried a revolver
at his belt.
The third day was Friday. Conniston determined to work Saturday. Then
he would have Sunday for rest. And when Sunday afternoon came he could
quit if he felt that his aching body had not recuperated enough to
make the following week bearable. But he had yet to learn that in the
rush of busy days on the range there is no Sunday. For Sunday morning
came and brought no opportunity to sleep until noon. Breakfast was
ready at the usual dim hour, and the men went to work as they had on
every day since he came to the Half Moon. They knew what he did not,
that for many weeks to come they might have no single day off. And
they understood, and did not complain.
Brayley stopped him that morning as he was going out of the bunk-house
door with Lonesome Pete.
"We got something else to do besides tinker with ol' fences," he said,
roughly. "Pete, you got to git along alone to-day. I'll give you a man
to-morrow if I can spare one. Conniston, you git your hoss an' go with
Rawhide an' Toothy."
Not stopping for an answer, Brayley lurched away toward the
range-house. Lonesome Pete, nodding his red head to show that he had
heard, filled his water-bottle and got the lunch the cook had ready
for him. And Conniston, wondering vaguely what work the Sunday was to
bring for him, turned silently and followed Rawhide and the man whom
they called Toothy to the stables.
Toothy was a little man, so stubborn, they said, that he even refused
to let the sun brown his skin. Instead of being the coppery hue of his
companions, the parchment-like stuff drawn tight over his high
cheek-bones was a dirty yellow. His eyes were small, set close
together, and squinted eternally in a sort of mirthless grin. His
teeth, which had given him his name, were the most conspicuous of his
odd features. The two front incisors of his upper jaw protruded
outward so as to close when his mouth was shut--and generally it
wasn't--over his lower lip. He was the smallest man on the range and
by long odds the ugliest. But he could ride!
Conniston was sorry to be separated from Lonesome Pete, the only man
of the outfit with whom he spoke a dozen words a day, the only man who
did not treat him as a rank outsider and an alien. But, on the other
hand, he was glad that he was to be given a respite from the
blistering wires of the cross-fence, that he was to be given change of
work. And when he learned what the work was he was doubly glad. The
three men were to ride twenty miles from the bunk-house to the lower
corrals of the Lone Dog to gather up a herd of steers there and drive
them across to the Sunk Hole. It would mean long hours in the saddle,
but Conniston told himself that riding, urging on lagging cattle,
would be almost rest after the drudgery of the last four days. And in
some elusive way, not clear to himself, he felt that this work
carried with it a bit less humiliation than the sort of "hired man's
work" which he had been doing with Lonesome Pete.
Like many men who know of the range only what they have read in books,
only what they have seen in breezy pictures, it seemed to Conniston
that there could be no life so lazy as that of the cowboy who has
nothing to do but ride a spirited horse, day in and day out to drive
sluggish-blooded cows from one pasture to another or to a
market-place, to watch over them as they grazed, or to ride along the
outskirts of a scattering herd to see that they did not stray beyond a
set boundary-line. That life, as he saw it, was an existence without
responsibility, without fatigue, even tinged with something of
exhilaration as one galloped up and down over wide grassy meadows.
To-day he began to learn that a gay-colored picture may hide quite as
much as it shows.
They left the Half Moon corrals at a gentle canter, Conniston swinging
along beside the other men, actually enjoying himself. He wondered at
the deliberate slowness with which Rawhide Jones and Toothy began
their errand. For he had heard the few short orders which Brayley had
given, and he knew that to-day was a day of haste, with much to be
done. But before they had cantered more than a mile across the rolling
country to the west he saw that there was going to be no loitering.
They had ridden slowly only until their horses had "warmed up," and
now, shaking out their reins loosely, they swept on at a pace which
allowed of little conversation. They drew away from the Half Moon
corrals at four o'clock. It was not yet six when they pulled in their
panting, sweat-covered horses at the corrals of the Lone Dog.
These corrals were at the lower, eastern end of the Lone Dog, and some
ten miles from the Lone Dog bunk-house. To reach them the three men
had ridden across three spurs of the mountains, across much rough
country, and always at a swinging gallop. Conniston's legs, where they
rubbed against the sweat leathers of his saddle, were already chafed
and raw. With the day's work still ahead of him he was tired and sore.
He was more glad than he was willing to confess even to himself when
he saw the corrals ahead. For now, he assured himself, there could be
little to do but jog along after a slow-moving body of cattle.
The three big corrals were crowded with a bellowing, churning,
restless mass of cattle, big, long-horned steers for the most part,
and vicious-looking. In a much smaller inclosure were a few
saddle-horses--half-broken colts, to look at them--thrusting their
long noses above their fence to stare at the seething jam of cattle,
or, with tails and manes flying, to run here and there snorting. Two
men on horseback were sitting idly near the corrals, seeming to have
nothing in all the world to do but smoke cigarettes and watch the
milling cattle.
Conniston drew rein with his companions as they stopped for a word
with the two men from the Lone Dog. And then he followed them when
they turned and rode to the little corral. The horses in it bunched
up, quick-eyed, alert, at the far side of the inclosure. Rawhide Jones
and Toothy as they rode were taking down the ropes coiled upon their
saddles.
"We're goin' to change hosses here," Rawhide said, shortly. "Pick out
one for yourse'f, Conniston."
They had ridden into the corral, their ropes in their hands, each man
dragging a wide loop at his right side. Toothy rode swiftly into the
knot of horses, scattered them, and, as they shot across the corral,
sent his rope flying out over their heads. The long loop widened into
a circle, hissed through the air, and settled about the neck of a
little pinto mare, tightening as it fell. A quick turn about the horn
of his saddle, and Toothy set up his own horse. The pinto mare,
checked in her headlong flight, swung about, confronting her captor
with quivering nostrils and belligerent, flashing eyes. Almost at the
same instant Rawhide's rope obeyed Rawhide's hand as Toothy's had
done, settling unerringly about the neck of a second horse. And
Conniston, with grave misdoubtings and a thumping heart, took his own
rope into his hand and rode among the untamed brutes, one of which he
was to ride.
Here was another thing which seemed, upon the face of it, so simple
and which was simple--to the range born and bred. He knew that there
were four men watching him as he fumbled awkwardly with his rope. He
knew that in spite of their grave faces they were laughing inwardly.
He found that to hold the coil of rope in his left hand while that
same hand must keep a tight rein upon his mount, to whirl the widening
loop with his right, throwing it at just the right second with just
the right force, was one of the things which in pictures looked to be
so easy and which were not at all easy to accomplish. He grew hot and
red as he became entangled in his own rope.
At last he selected a big roan and threw his rope. He threw awkwardly
and a second too late. The loop fell fifteen paces behind the horse,
who had seen, understood, and shot by in a flash. Again he coiled his
rope, drawing it in to him as he had seen the others do; again he
threw, and again he missed. He heard Rawhide Jones curse softly,
contemptuously.
Now the horse which he was riding began to plunge and rear, frightened
at the rope which now fell upon its back, now struck its flanks in the
unskilled hands of the man who was growing the more awkward as his
anger surged higher within him.
"You blame fool!" yelled Rawhide Jones. "What in hell are you tryin'
to do? Want to throw your own cayuse?"
Conniston glared at him and again coiled his rope. The big roan was
once more surrounded by a crowd of his fellows, his ears erect, his
long neck outstretched, his eyes watchful and distrustful. The man who
was beginning to look upon lassoing as a sheer matter of sleight of
hand made his loop again carefully, slowly, trying to convince himself
that here was an easy matter, and that the next time he should
succeed. And even as he began whirling it above his head, one half of
both mind and muscle given over to restrain his nervous mount, he saw
another rope shoot out from behind him and settle, tightening, about
the roan's neck.
"Bein' as we ain't got all summer to practise up lass'in' bosses,"
Toothy murmured, apologetically.
Conniston tied his rope to his saddle-strings in silence. After all,
there was something to do beyond sit in a saddle. And he soon found
that even that was not always play. For the roan which he had selected
fought at having the saddle thrown upon his back, so that Toothy had
to lend a helping hand. And when the cinch was drawn tight he fought
at being mounted. He had been broken, at least--and at most--as much
broken as the rest of the three and four year olds in the corral. But
he had not been ridden above a dozen times, and certainly had not
known the feel of rope or bridle or saddle for months. When at last
Conniston got his foot into the stirrup and swung up, violating all
range ethics by "pulling leather," the colt shot through the gate of
the corral which Rawhide Jones had thrown open, and across the uneven
plain, determined, since he could not run away from his enemy, to run
away with him.
At home Conniston was accounted an excellent horseman. That meant that
he was used to horses, that he rode gracefully, that he was not afraid
of them. Horses like the maddened, terrified brutes in the corral,
like the quivering, frantic thing he precariously bestrode, he had
never even seen. And still, because he was doggedly determined not to
fail in everything, because he knew that the men who were watching
were enjoying themselves hugely and that they would be greatly
delighted to see him thrown, he at last stopped his horse, and with
spur and quirt urged him back to the corrals. The roan still fought,
still half bucked. But he had not entirely forgotten his past defeats
in encounters like this, and finally allowed himself to be mastered.
Then began the real day's work. There were perhaps fifty cows and
young heifers in the corrals which were to be left behind, as only the
steers were to be driven across country to the Sunk Hole. While
Rawhide Jones and Toothy rode into one of the corrals Conniston was to
sit his horse at the open gate, allowing the steers to run by him into
the open, but heading off any of the smaller cattle. The two Lone Dog
men were together working another corral.
Steer after steer passed by Conniston as he held his horse aside,
keeping a watchful eye for the cows. Rawhide and Toothy were "cutting
them out" as best they could, urging the steers toward the gate,
trying to keep the cows to the far side of the inclosure. But again
and again a quick-footed heifer pressed her slender body against that
of some big, long-horned steer, running with him. That she did not
pass through the gate was Conniston's lookout.
They were not sluggish-blooded brutes. They were as swift as a horse
almost, quick-footed, alert to leap forward or to stop with sharp
hoofs cutting the dry dirt, and swing shortly to the side. In a sudden
onrush toward him Conniston shut off one cow by forcing his horse in
front of her and threatening her with his waving quirt. As she turned
and ran back into the mass behind her he saw two more cows running
toward the gate. He swung his horse and dashed at them. But they had
seen their opportunity, they had grasped it, and they shot through the
gate, mingling with the herd outside.
Again Rawhide cursed him, and Conniston made no answer, having none to
make. He gave over his place silently at Rawhide's surly order and
rode over to aid Toothy. And he marveled at the ease with which
Rawhide did the thing which he himself had found simple from a
distance and impossible near at hand.
At last, behind the scattering herd of running cattle, they left the
corrals and the Lone Dog men behind, and began their drive forty miles
to the Sunk Hole. Now a man must be a hundred places at the same time.
In twenty minutes the three horses were wet and dripping with sweat.
The herd was one which ordinarily, when there was not so much
requiring to be done at once on the ranges, half a dozen men would
have handled. The steers were wild; they were as stubborn as hogs;
there was no narrow, fenced-in road to keep them in the way they
should go. They broke back again and again; they turned off to right
and left by ones and twos, by scores. While Conniston galloped after
one of them that had left the others and broken into a run to the
right the main part of the herd over which he should have been
watching took advantage of the opportunity to lose themselves in the
timbered gulches to the left. Both Rawhide Jones and Toothy had to
ride with him to drive them out of the gulches and back to the herd.
Conniston learned that day how a cattle-man can swear--and why. He
learned that a steer is not the easiest thing in the world to handle,
that sometimes he is not content with fleeing from his natural enemy,
but charges with lowered horns and froth-dripping mouth upon man and
horse. He learned many, many little things that day, and some big
things. And the biggest thing came to him suddenly, and brought a look
into his eyes which had never been there before. He learned that Greek
Conniston, the son of William Conniston, of Wall Street, was the most
inefficient man upon the range.