“There’s where you’re wrong, Mister McVey, sir. I ain’t rode_The Untamed: Range Life in the Southwest

The Untamed

[Illustration: “_So much had three days with the wild linked up the

slack chain of her blood tie._”--_Shiela_]

The Untamed

Range Life in the Southwest

George Pattullo

[Illustration]

Toronto

McLeod & Allen

1911

FRANK B. MOSON

and the boys of the O R, R O, and Turkey Track

My coffee I boil without being ground.

The fire I kindle with chips gathered round.

My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones;

My parson’s a wolf on pulpit of bones.

The sky is my ceiling; my carpet’s the grass;

My music’s the lowing of herds as they pass.

--_Ballad of The Trail Boss._

Acknowledgment is made to _The Saturday Evening Post_,

_McClure’s Magazine_, and _The American Magazine_ for permission

to republish these stories.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I OL’ SAM A mule 13

II THE MARAUDER A coyote 51

III CORAZÓN A roping horse 83

IV THE OUTLAW A steer 112

V SHIELA A wolfhound 142

VI MOLLY A range cow 173

VII THE BABY AND THE Mountain lion 202

PUMA

VIII THE MANKILLER A jack 230

IX NEUTRIA A mountain cowhorse 257

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“So much had three days with the _Frontispiece_

wild linked up the slack chain of

her blood tie”

_Facing Page_

“What you mean by running off this 48

a-way?”

“The wolf drove away a couple of 60

buzzards and fell upon this

savagely”

“Leaping, with legs stiff, straight 100

off the ground”

“On his hind legs, his worn fangs 170

gleaming, he received her”

“The lonely hut was untenanted” 240

OL’ SAM

“Git your nose out’n that pot. Hi, you flop-eared--I swan, that ol’ mule

makes me mad sometimes. He’d jist as leave snake your whole batch right

from under your nose as look at you. Git, you long-legged rascal!

Whoopee!”

The cook dashed at the offender, swinging a bit of firewood. It struck

the hybrid upon the hindquarter and he countered instantaneously by

lashing out with his heels. Then he turned to smell of the projectile,

but finding it unfit for consumption, trotted off up a neighboring rise

and presently disappeared from view.

Certain coarse men of the Lazy L outfit called him Hell-on-Wheels, among

other things, but his real name was Sam, and he made one of the

four-mule team that hauled the chuck-wagon during round-up. Between him

and Dave was a personal feud; they were most loving enemies. In the

beginning the cook had pampered him by feeding bread to the big

creature, taking no heed, and now this artificial appetite he had

created made of Dave’s waking hours a perpetual vigil and conjured up

nightmares in place of refreshing sleep.

For whenever Sam wasn’t doing the major share of hauling some four

thousand odd pounds of wagon, bedding and provisions from one round-up

ground to another, he was loafing on the confines of camp, awaiting a

favorable opportunity to go in surreptitiously and nose among the pots

or at the back of the wagon for the buns Dave made so cunningly. What

time he lost this way from grazing he made up easily by his pillage;

bread is very fattening, and then, of course, the chuck-wagon team

received regular rations of corn.

Yet Dave was a watchful scoundrel, and day by day it was being borne in

upon Sam that in these attempts at pilfering he received blows and abuse

more often than huns. But at night, when the punchers lay asleep on the

ground and he could hear the cook slumbering stertorously beneath the

wagon-fly, it was different: then Sam would wander into camp and make

his way on soundless feet to the dead fire. Beside its ashes he knew

there would be scraps of bread, perhaps some of them sweetened with

molasses, and for these his whole being craved. On one such excursion,

as he munched happily on a wet crust, he inadvertently put his foot into

Dave’s face, and, because Hell-on-Wheels weighed about thirteen hundred

pounds, the cook awoke very peevish.

“If it wasn’t,” he remarked next morning as he hitched up--“if it wasn’t

that you could haul more’n them other three put together, I’d skin you

alive. Oh, you needn’t go for to pretend you didn’t do it a-purpose. You

seen me there, all right. Look at that lip! Don’t it look as if I’d fell

off’n a mountain?”

The cook always knew what to expect of Sam. When putting the mules in

the wagon he was cognizant of the precise moment that Sam would kick,

and could judge to a hair’s breadth at what angle the smashing blow

would be delivered. On his part, Sam knew that the cook was prepared;

otherwise it is doubtful whether he would have let go some of the

vicious side-sweeps of his left leg that he did. On occasions when the

attacks were especially wicked, or when Dave calculated the margin of

safety with too fine nicety, he would possess himself of a stout club

and hammer Hell-on-Wheels until he was weak. In this way were bred

mutual respect and a thorough understanding.

It was when the wagon was miring down, or when they were climbing a

rocky trail in the mountains, that Sam and the cook gloried one in the

other. Once Dave’s judgment went wrong by three inches in fording a

stream--he may have been careless with a splendid contempt, as was his

habit--and one hind wheel sank oozily into quicksand. The cook stood up

and whirled his long whip and adjured his team by all that was holy to

pull, pull, pull.

“Now, you, Hell-on-Wheels! Good ol’ boy! You, Sam! You!”

He lashed three of the team with stinging force, but Sam he did not

touch. The great mule laid his shoulders into the collar and

heaved,--heaved again--and with a wrench and a sucking sound they

floundered out to hard sand, to safety. Whenever Sam came to a

realization that the job required something extra, and stretched himself

out accordingly, either the wagon followed where he wanted to go or the

mule went through his harness.

The wagon boss esteemed Sam and valued him at his worth, but it cannot

be said that he was fond of the beast. There was much in his personality

Uncle Henry did not like. Nor did the horse-wrangler. Had anybody

requested Maclovio for a frank opinion of Sam, the Mexican would have

spat with contempt and exhausted the resources of his patois. That

nerveless limb of the devil? Don’t try to tell him the mule stampeded

the staked horses by accident; Maclovio knew better; Sam had planned the

whole turmoil from the start of the round-up. The wrangler had to herd

the mules with the remuda, and the uncanny sagacity the drag-mule

displayed in following out his own plans of grazing and enjoyment filled

the Mexican with superstitious dread.

The ropers hated him with an active, abiding hatred they made no effort

to conceal. He was the only member of the wagon team that would not

submit to be caught without roping. The other mules would trot in with

the horses from pasture and walk quietly to the wagon to be bridled,

under the lure of grain; but not so with the big fellow. Sam never

crowded away among the horses in foolish panic when a roper walked

through the remuda toward him: that was the way the cow-ponies did,

struggling blindly to get beyond range, and so the noose fell about

their necks with ridiculous ease. That was not Sam’s method, he being

temperamentally opposed to panic. He waited until the roper approached,

waited until the coil sped toward him; and then only did he dodge. As a

result, he eluded the noose time after time. In fact, it always took

longer to rope Sam than any five of the hundred horses.

One day the hawk-eyed autocrat of the Lazy L range spurred into camp in

hot haste while the outfit was partaking of dinner. Heatedly he urged:

“Watch your horses Uncle Henry.” Then he went to the fire, filled a tin

plate with beef and beans, and a cup with coffee, and speared a bun.

“Shore. But what for special? They’re doing well and we ain’t lost one,”

replied the wagon boss, making room for his chief on the shady spot

where he squatted.

“Then you’re in luck. That band of mustangs has roamed down here from

the Flying W. They passed within two miles of the ranch yesterday and,

by Jupiter, if ol’ Pete didn’t join ’em. The ol’ fool! Eleven years that

horse has been a cowhorse and now he runs off from the home pasture with

a bunch of wild ones.”

“Where’re they heading?”

“You know as much as I do. I reckon the pasture is poor on the Flying W,

don’t you? They ain’t had much rain and probably this bunch’ll make for

the mountains. Better watch out,” the manager admonished.

Dave toiled with his team next afternoon through a waste of sand and

mesquite. It was very hot--had there been such a thing as a thermometer

on the wagon it would have registered better than 112--and he sat

hunched on the seat, occasionally throwing an encouraging word to the

straining mules. Behind came Al with the hoodlum wagon, which, being

much lighter, made easy work for a pair of stout horses, so that Al

dozed with his hat well down over his eyes and dreamed of a dress-maker

in Doghole. It was growing towards sunset and they would pitch camp in

the foothills and have supper ready for the boys before darkness fell.

Without warning the mule team stopped and stood at gaze, rousing Dave

abruptly. A dense cloud of dust was bearing down on them from the right

and out of that swirl came the muffled pounding of many hoofs.

“The remuda’s stompeded,” yelled Al.

“No, they ain’t. No, they ain’t. It’s them wild horses. Git your gun,

Al, quick!”

By the time Al had reached behind him with one hand to fumble for the

rifle, the band had swept by and was disappearing. Probably there were

thirty horses in it, but that was only a guess, because Dave obtained

nothing more than a glimpse of streaming manes and tails. They ran

compactly, a noble buckskin in the lead, and tailing the band was a

white horse; it was evident that he held the furious pace only by a

supreme effort.

“There goes ol’ Pete. Blast him, if he ain’t hitting only the high

spots,” Dave bawled.

At this moment his attention was called to Sam. The mule’s head was

thrown high, the usually slouching ears were rigid and pricked forward,

and he was sniffing the air restlessly. Once he made an abrupt lurch

sideways as though to follow the free rovers, but the bit sawed his

mouth, the collar and traces bound him and he could only champ

impatiently. If a mule really knows how to tremble, Sam was trembling

then--it was more a twitching of the muscles. The band was lost to sight

and sound. Dave called a raucous command and once more they settled to

work. Again Sam became listless and applied himself lethargically to

pulling.

A cool breeze whipped among the scrub-cedar of the foothills and went

whining down the valley. Above the black rim of El Toro rose a rich,

golden disc. Its pale light softened the outlines of the forms asleep

upon the ground; in that kindly radiance the chuck-wagon and the

unsightly confusion of camp merged into blurs that harmonized with the

giant shadow of the mountain. The night was full of murmurings, tense

with the suggestion of strange other worlds. Surely the plaintive

wailing the breeze bore to Sam from El Toro’s pines was a message.

He stood with his nose up wind and drew in the scents of the wilds. His

forelegs were hobbled, the rope twisted about them so tightly that he

could barely shuffle when he grazed, and near at hand twelve horses were

staked out. One of them, hopelessly entangled in his rope, was fighting

it in terror; already he was on his knees unable to do aught but cut

himself. In a draw a half-mile away the remuda cropped the grass under

the eyes of a triple guard, for Uncle Henry was mindful of the manager’s

warning, and upon Dave’s report he took no chances.

Out from the shadow cast by a mesquite bush a coyote skulked, and Sam

snorted and shook his head in anger. The beast’s scent offended him, but

he was not afraid. Somewhere in the dark a wildcat cried and the mule

cocked his ears to listen. Next moment he jumped awkwardly aside as a

polecat scurried by on a hunt for food.

The mule was growing restive. It was not nervousness--a mule is rarely

nervous or frightened. When he runs away or pitches or balks, it is

seldom because something has put fear into him; it is refined

cussedness. Anyone who ever succeeded in owning a mule longer than a

month will tell you that.

Of a sudden Sam sank his head and his powerful teeth met and rasped on

the rope that chafed his legs. One of the strands parted and he strained

to break the hobble, but too impatient to direct his gnawing to one

spot, he was unsuccessful and finally desisted.

Was that the call of a horse? It did not come from the direction in

which the remuda had been driven off, and his ears tingled for a

repetition of the sound. Twice he humped himself and struck out with his

heels in the fury of impotence, and paused breathlessly with his eyes

fixed on the yellow ball above El Toro’s summit. He took one step

forward and became immovable as his glance fell to the wide lane of

light it cast.

Down this silver-shimmering path a horse came proudly. None but a free

rover ever trod earth as he did. Sam could see the fiery eyes flashing

suspicion, the regal head thrown back, the nostrils a-quiver to divine

danger. He came like a phantom, lightly as one, silently as one, and a

dozen yards away he halted, and there in the light of the moon surveyed

the camp, the staked mounts, the sleeping men. It was the king of the

wild horses. Far back of him a blotch on a hillside shifted with gleam

of color.

A madness was come upon Sam. From out the night countless voices called

to him appealingly; away out there in the illusive sheen must be liberty

and delight. His sluggish blood was racing wildly, his body and limbs

were a-quake with eagerness to respond to that appeal, to be gone into

that alluring gloom. One of the staked animals whinnied and tugged

fiercely on his rope.

At once the buckskin stallion blared a challenge, and he was away. The

shadows swallowed him up. From over the hill came a rolling thunder, the

noise of scores of flying hoofs, and Sam got the hobble between his

teeth a second time, gave one ferocious upward rend, and the strands

parted and dropped from him. He was free, and the wilderness was

calling, calling.

“Ol’ Hell-on-Wheels has done gone,” observed Dave.

“Done gone?” the wagon boss echoed. “Gone where? He must be round

somewheres. He cain’t git through the day without bread, Sam cain’t.”

“He done run off with them mustangs!” In Dave’s tone was depressed

conviction. “You hearn ’em last night the same as me. Nobody seen him

go, but look here. I jist found his hobble all bit in two.”

“And we’ve got to move camp this morning,” the wagon boss raved.

“P’raps he’ll come back. I shouldn’t think they’d want Sam with ’em,

Uncle Henery. He’d smash ’em all up, that bunch, he would!”

“He shore would.” Uncle Henry could not suppress a snigger of

satisfaction.

He dispatched two of the boys to scour the country for the fugitive, and

Dave hitched a two-mule team, falling a prey to melancholy as he moved

about them in absolute security. How he missed that ol’ son-of-a-gun

with his sly nibbles and his kicking and sublime obstinacy. These

creatures pull? The cook grew hot with disdain and had two men told off

to help haul the wagon with ropes in bad spots. In the days that

followed he would often stop in his work and wonder what sense there was

in going through life, anyway.

Meanwhile, Sam flourished like unto the green bay tree. When the band

sped away into the hills the night of his temptation and fall, the mule

summoned up unguessed reserves of speed and trailed behind. The

tumultuous joy of liberty fired him; his muscles responded to this new

throbbing life like steel springs, so that Sam not only caught up with

the mustangs, but ran well within himself in holding with them. The

renegade Pete galloped in rear and, knowing Sam these many years,

nickered him breathless welcome.

A recruit to the ranks was not a novelty, and though Sam was a mule,

they accepted him readily enough, and for several days they roamed the

cañons of El Toro. Rains had been frequent in this region and they

obtained their fill of grass. As is the way of horses, the band paid

scant attention to the mule; he grazed with them, and when any alarm or

mere exuberance of spirits prompted a run, he could show his heels to

all but the buckskin leader and a bay mare which seemed to carry wings

on her feet.

And on the fifth day occasion arose for him to prove his prowess. In the

band were a dozen mares, seven colts of various ages and fifteen horses,

all under the leadership of the buckskin. Now, Sam was a mule of

considerable common-sense; he never disputed the sovereignty of the

stallion, but at the same time he was fully sensible of his own strength

and fighting ability, having had occasion to test the same frequently,

and he had not the remotest intention of allowing any horse on the range

or other quadruped, to take undue liberties.

As they came up from watering at a mountain spring at high noon, the

mustangs were compelled to thread a narrow defile, and much crowding

resulted. A colt ricochetted from the mule and lost his feet, whereupon

the mother made at Sam with her teeth. This attack he ignored

dexterously by bursting through the press and imposing the bodies of

several horses between him and the indignant mare; but when a youthful

black took it into his head that Sam was a recreant and could be bullied

with impunity, various things happened. By now, they were out in the

open. Trumpeting defiance, the black ran at him.

The combat did not last three minutes. It is probable that the mule

would have killed his assailant when he lay prone after the third

onslaught, had not the leader trotted up in royal wrath to quell the

disorder in his following. Should he go for him too, and reduce him to

pulp? Sam’s eyes were glittering evilly, and the mulish, enduring rage

was alive, but his habitual discretion cooled the impulse and he gave

ground, his ears laid back, his retreat reluctant. The stallion wisely

let him go.

Soon he attained to a species of leadership, a vice-royalty under the

reigning buckskin. For one thing, his caution was tempered by almost

human powers of discrimination; for another, he was never subject to the

nervous tremors to which even the stallion fell victim and which were

the inspiration of many stampedes. Sam could sense peril as far as any

and was dubious, in a calm way, of everything he saw until he had

investigated; but sudden noises, or a strange scent brought abruptly to

his nostrils, did not send him flying over the country, shrilling

warnings. He made reasonably sure of the possibility of danger before

giving the alarm. Of his old masters, he was peculiarly wary, and twice

at night, when they passed within a mile of the round-up camp, the

mule’s nose acquainted him of its proximity, and he led them far to the

west.

When the outfit had almost completed the round-up, Sam wandered off from

the band on a morning’s jaunt and came unexpectedly upon the remuda in a

draw. The wrangler espied that unmistakable gait from afar and spurred

desperately to catch him, but the mule was fleet as a greyhound and

could not be headed. Two of the horses followed the fallen one. They

knew Sam and respected him, and what was good enough for him would suit

them admirably. Maclovio did not see their departure; madly scurrying

from point to point to herd the restless horses, he failed to perceive

the flight toward the gap, and it was only when the roping began after

dinner that the loss was discovered. The Mexican prayed inwardly that

Sam would break a leg and die by inches; if he would only break his

neck, he would buy a dozen candles for the altar at Tucalari.

Old Pete McVey, the manager, sat on the stoop of the bunkhouse at

headquarters and made a solemn vow to the skies.

“I’ll hunt down every last one of that bunch and hang Sam’s hide to the

saddle-shed. We’ve had two breakdowns with the wagon since he left--that

ol’ mule we got from Doghole ain’t no good, Mit--and now two horses have

run off.”

“I done told Uncle Henery and Dave that I felt shore it was Sam or some

of them mustangs that stompeded those steers last week.”

“When I get him, the ol’ fool!” burst out the manager.

He organized a hunt, and with three men and four staghounds set out

cheerily to wipe the wild horses from the face of the earth. The band

winded them two miles away and carried the hunt to another range, but at

last they crept within striking distance, and the chase was on.

Sam knew the dogs and had seen them run in sport about headquarters.

Therefore, he let himself out and led the band beside the buckskin

stallion, and for mile after mile they raced. A laggard was pulled down,

the ancient sinner Pete--a hound leaped for his nose and Pete turned a

somersault. McVey himself shot the injured animal, and they camped in

the neighborhood and took up the pursuit next morning.

It was a famous hunt. The dogs brought down four animals, and the Lazy L

men, tiring in the chase, fired after the fugitives, killing three; but

Sam remained ever in the van, unhurt. McVey led his men back, satisfied

that the mustangs would seek new haunts, swearing vengefully at Sam and

rejoicing in his heart that the giant mule had won to safety.

The band wintered in the mountains, and more than once during those

terrible months the emaciated Hell-on-Wheels had to paw down through

three inches of snow to get at the grass, and he obtained little more

than enough to sustain life. Several of the colts succumbed to a

three-days’ storm, and when spring was ushered in, with a soft wind that

whispered tender promises to a stricken land, at least a dozen of the

horses and mares were sickly. As for Sam, he was only hungry. A mule

seems immune from disease, and hunger and thirst cannot wreak the havoc

on his iron constitution that they create among the more sensitive

horses. The mustangs ranged widely in a quest for good pasture and at

last worked down to the Lazy L.

Dave had put in the cold months in dispirited fashion, there being

little to do. He moped around headquarters, and whenever the wagon boss

ventured to consult him on preparations for the spring round-up, the

cook maintained a glum silence. It would be a bad year, he was sure of

that; they needn’t expect much of the calf crop. Far be it from him to

discourage any man, least of all McVey and Uncle Henery, but he felt in

his bones that ill luck would attend them. What could be expected of a

wagon team that would let him mire down in Coyote Creek? The round-up

would be a farce.

“Them mustangs is back,” Reb announced, riding in from a winter camp. “I

seen ’em topping a mesa over near Lone Pine Spring.”

“I’ll give twenty dollars a head for ’em,” declared the manager, slowly

removing the pipe from his lips.

Nearly a score of punchers equipped themselves to earn the reward. Some

failed even to get trace of the band; others trailed them for days, but

never came in sight; Dick, Bob Saunders and Maclovio got within half a

mile and with relays of horses applied themselves to capture in a

scientific way. They would run those mustangs off their legs. In four

days they were back, with their mounts used up and McVey to welcome

them.

“That ol’ mule kin smell us a mile,” Dick reported. “He always gives the

alarm first. And run? Jim-in-ee, the way that rascal kin run!”

Dave listened and gloomed and finally took a great resolution. He might

just as well be honest with himself--the round-up would never be the

same without Sam. The cook had been a cowhand in his time and he hadn’t

trailed cattle up through the Panhandle for nothing. Therefore he would

not match his speed against the wild horses.

“Say, Mister McVey, I want to git a month off.”

“Where’re you going now? This isn’t another trip to Doghole?”

“I hoped you’d done forgot that,” Dave answered severely. “No, sir, I

want to go and git Hell-on-Wheels.”

“How could you catch him? I’ve tried; all the boys have tried. And you

haven’t ridden in ten years.”

“You let me try and you’ll see.” Dave tried to draw in his waist and

appear athletic as the manager ran his eye over his two hundred and

fourteen pounds.

“You couldn’t get that mule in a thousand years. Unless”--as an

afterthought--“you spread breadpans all over the range and set traps.”

“There’s where you’re wrong, Mister McVey, sir. I ain’t rode much since

I took to cookin’, but I’m pretty active. You gimme that month and

you’ll see.”

“Go ahead. I’d just as soon pay the reward to you as to anybody

else--sooner.”

Sam was the first of the band to sight the enemy trudging through the

sand of the plain toward them. Far behind a burro followed, led by

another man on foot. This truly was interesting. The mule advanced for a

closer inspection and the others awaited his verdict, having implicit

confidence in him as a sentinel. Thus it happened that Dave gained to

within three hundred yards before Sam flagged his tail and departed. The

horses massed swiftly into a compact body and followed, but they did not

run as they would have run from mounted men. Instinctively they knew

that this thing on two legs could not catch them, so it was at a

swinging trot that they breasted a hill.

On its crest the mustangs slowed down; they dropped to a walk and turned

to look back at what pursued. There plodded old Dave, apparently paying

them no special attention, but nevertheless coming in their direction.

Once more Sam waited until the cook came within shouting distance, then,

the buckskin raising the alarm, they cantered off.

So it went all the afternoon. Dave made no attempt to get close up with

them; he did not conceal his approach; he did not stalk them; and he was

especially cautious not to alarm to an extent that would send them

fleeing for miles. Instead, he was satisfied merely to keep them in

sight. Sometimes he paused to wipe the sweat from his face and neck, but

he betrayed no impatience. Far behind a burro followed, led by another

man on foot, and when the cook changed his course so did the burro,

still maintaining its distance.

Sam was sorely puzzled. That stout figure possessed a peculiar

attraction for him. When he had put a considerable tract between himself

and it, he could not forbear to stop and watch what it would do. Still

it came on--yet it was not threatening. The mule’s sense of danger was

lulled. And he was not the only perplexed member of the band: curiosity

had the stallion in its grip, too. There was not a horse among the free

rovers but would slacken gait to ascertain where the foolish pursuer

walked now.

By the time the sun died behind a fringe of hills, Sam and the others

were horribly thirsty. They swung around in a wide semicircle and struck

for a lake six miles distant. Dave followed. Hardly had they drunk half

their fill, standing waist-deep in the cooling water, when the expectant

mule warned them of the approach of that shadowing figure. They waded

out and made off reluctantly.

The cook arrived two minutes later and stretched out on his back on the

edge of the lake and thought with sweet sorrow of the days when he

weighed one hundred and sixty. Presently the man with the burro joined

him, and they took down their bedding, staked out the tireless

pack-animal, built a fire of dried broomweed, and ate.

“They won’t go far from here to-night. It jist happens there ain’t any

water nearer than twenty miles. No-oo, I reckon they’ll hang round

somewheres near,” Dave observed, rolling a cigarette.

He divined correctly. Sam and his companions discovered that they were

hungry, very hungry. While they did not realize it, they had eaten

little that afternoon, for no sooner would they shake off the pursuer

and fall to nibbling nervously at the dried grass than he would

reappear, persistent as their own shadows, and they would continue their

flight. Now he followed no more, and they must eat. Eat they did to some

extent, but a burning curiosity and a vague uneasiness had seized upon

them. They felt irresistibly attracted by the campfire that sparkled in

the darkness down by the water they craved; time after time they would

near it fearfully. Without turning his head Dave knew that dozens of

wondering eyes surveyed him from the outer rim of dark fifty yards away.

Before dawn the cook and his assistant had made fast the burro’s burden

with the “diamond hitch,” and hard upon the coming of light Dave started

out alone. In an hour he was in sight of the mustangs. Sam shook his

head in irritation and the band moved off slowly. Dave followed. Far

behind came a burro, led by a man on foot.

He camped at noon in a stretch of alkali, and because there was no water

near they partook sparingly of some the cook carried in tins slung over

the burro’s load. As for the beast, he must wait till nightfall, which

did not worry the burro in the least. Well Dave knew that the mustangs

must make for water.

A dozen times in a day the cook would be out of view of the fugitives

and a dozen times he would catch up with them, disturbing their

intermittent grazing. It is doubtful if he averaged more than twenty

miles in twenty-four hours; it is certain that the wild horses covered

nearly three times that distance in their outbursts of panic and their

doublings back on the pursuer. The chase led in a triangle that took in

all the water-holes within a radius of ninety miles, and almost always

Dave contrived to arrive before the band had got quite their fill.

Sam had lost at least a hundred pounds by the end of a week and was

become gaunt and savage. Several of the colts, only a few months old,

gave up the flight and their mothers forsook the band in safety, the

pursuers ignoring them. The others kept on. Sam’s contempt for the slow

crawling thing behind them was changing to a haunting dread, and he

became subject to petty fits of irritation. Why couldn’t the enemy come

on boldly? Why couldn’t he match his speed with theirs in one grand

rush? But no, there he was, patiently legging it through the sand,

through grass, over foothills, up mountain trails, through gorges, down

into valleys. A horrible fascination took possession of the mule. Had

Dave turned about to retrace his steps, it is probable that Sam would

have followed out of curiosity to see where he was going; but Dave still

came on.

About this time, too, they got a taste of real summer. From an empty sky

the sun smote the land, browning the hills, crisping the grass in the

valleys until it crackled into dust. First one mountain stream ceased to

run, then another; a creek that used to sweep down in a torrent after

the spring rains now dribbled among scorching boulders. Thus came about

the beginning of the end.

“They cain’t stand more’n another week of this, Charlie,” Dave remarked,

as they camped beside a hatful of water in the foothills.

“I reckon not. Did you notice some of them mares? They’s all in. You got

within fifty yards of ’em once to-day, Dave. The burro here has kep’ up

well. Ain’t you, you greedy devil? She’s looking fine. I’m giving her

corn.”

Never did the mustangs get enough to eat. Another sort of madness than

the madness for liberty was laying hold of Sam. His days consisted of

timid attempts at grazing, from which he would start at the lightest

sound; of enforced pilgrimages from one pasture to another; and it must

have been four hundred hours since he had had his fill of water. More

than once, in a frenzy of revolt, he put five miles between him and his

clinging disturber; but after two hours of uneasy nibbling he would be

interrupted once again--and again must move on. What food he got failed

to nourish as it should, and the rest he snatched was not rest. In the

night, when he might have lost his foe, the mule knew well that he was

near, for there in the blackness his fire sent up its sparks and it drew

him and his companions like a magnet. No matter where they roamed, the

cook managed to spend the dark hours near water, and the band could not

tear themselves from the vicinity.

There came a day when Sam’s ribs showed pitifully through his rough coat

and he shuffled along in desperate dejection, his ears flopping. A heavy

fatigue numbed his limbs, made cruel weights of them, and he was

thirsty, deliriously thirsty; but if his plight was bad, that of the

mustangs was worse. They stumbled coughing through the dust, too tired

to lift their feet. Occasionally one broke into a half-hearted trot

which survived only a few steps. The race was run.

Within six hours the band began to break up. First the mares and colts

dropped out, careless of what might befall. The mothers went weakly to

feeding on the burnt grass, their offspring hovering near in the last

stages of exhaustion; but to these Dave paid no attention. He was after

Hell-on-Wheels, and he did not intend to inject new life into the jaded

survivors by the slaughter of their beaten companions. By his orders

Charlie, too, ignored them, though his fingers itched as his mind dwelt

on the reward.

Four of the horses lagged, staggered forward a few paces and fell

behind, spent, swaying dizzily as they moved aside to let Dave pass.

They were oblivious to everything now, insensible to peril, scarcely

able to discern objects through their glazed eyes; but Sam and the

stallion and some few kept on. Dave followed.

Hot rebellion surged up in the mule more than once, sapping his last

ounce of spirit. Up would go his head in defiance and he would increase

his lead; but the strength was ebbing from the wonderful muscles of him;

he was sick at heart and wanted to lie down. Ahead, perhaps an hour’s

walk, he knew there was water. He must reach that. Would this thing that

hung to their rear never give them respite?

Dave trudged now only twenty yards back. He was footsore, a fearful

weariness was upon him and the heat was awful. Yet no thought of giving

up occurred to his mind; his patience was unfailing. Not once did he do

a hurried thing to alarm the quarry.

[Illustration: “_What you mean by running off this a-way?_”]

It was the twenty-fourth day. All around them stretched a desert of

alkali broken by patches of tree-cactus and clumps of bear-grass, and

through the white, chalky dust Sam toiled dispiritedly a dozen yards in

front of the stallion. Behind the faltering buckskin limped five

skeletons of horses, and ten yards behind the hindermost walked Dave.

There was no need that Charlie remain far in rear. The mustangs did not

notice him, and he followed close with the burro.

The rovers had drunk deep that morning at a spring on the edge of the

desert--this being as Dave would have it--and now all vigor of body and

spirit had departed. Sam’s head swung low to the ground, his knees were

shaking and he saw nothing of what he passed. To his bloodshot eyes

these scorched wastes were a wavering mist, and he knew only that he

must go on.

Suddenly, as though by telepathic agreement, the weird procession

halted. Sam turned. He faced the cook as he came up without hesitation,

rope in hand. Dave slipped the noose about his neck and rubbed the dusty

muzzle sunk against his hip.

“You ol’ fool, you!” he mouthed at him. “What you mean by running off

this a-way? Didn’t you know that team weren’t no good without you? What

did you reckon I was going to do, you pore ol’ son-of-a-gun?”

He ran his eye over the emaciated body; then his glance fell to his own

shrunken outline.

“I reckon we’re both some thinner, Sam. And my feet’s awful sore. What

you need is corn. Here, Charlie, gimme that ‘morale’!”

Staked out with the nosebag over his head, the mule munched dully on the

life-giving grain, while Dave prepared dinner and Charlie moved from

point to point on the plain with a rifle, earning half a month’s pay

every time he got near a horse. Charlie began to figure he would be a

rich cowman some day.

Two hours later the men were smoking in the peace and content of hard

work well done, when Sam walked stiffly to the end of his rope. By

straining on it he could just reach the edge of the campfire. Dave rose

up on his elbow.

“Hi, there! Git your nose out’n that pan, you rascal! I swan, he’s

hunting for bread.”

THE MARAUDER

Six frowsy buzzards sat on a tree and made mock of his hunger. With his

bushy tail drooping dismally between his legs, he zigzagged his way up

the wide, dry bed of Red River, flitting from cover to cover like an

uneasy ghost. Up one steep bank he sidled, to squat on his haunches,

whence he surveyed the camp hungrily.

“There’s a big ol’ ki-yote,” said the hoodlum driver. “Git your gun,

Dave.”

The cook abandoned the washpan with alacrity and ransacked the

chuck-wagon for his weapon. When he rejoined Mac the coyote was still in

view, but he seemed farther away.

“He done moved. I cain’t hit him from here,” said the cook.

“I been watching him and he ain’t budged. Yes, he has, too. I’ll swan, I

never seen him do it.”

The prairie wolf now sat a good three hundred yards away, his back to

the camp, as though indifferent and contemptuous of it. Dave knelt on

one heel, took slow, careful aim, and fired. A spurt of sand five yards

short of the coyote was the result. The animal half turned his head, the

sensitive upper lip quivered and curled over the wicked fangs, for all

the world like a sneer, and then he resumed his placid scrutiny of

nothing. Mac forcibly removed the rifle from Dave’s grasp, deaf to his

picturesque explanation of the miss, adjusted the sight and lay down.

“You had it sighted for a hunderd yards,” he rebuked. “I put her up a

few notches.”

“Whee-ee-ee,” whined a snub-nosed leaden pellet. A spurt of sand five

yards beyond the coyote was the result. It aroused the animal to instant

activity. If he was not beyond range, then the wagon had a better gun

than he had ever met with, so he glided away like a shadow.

“There goes two dollars bounty,” sighed the cook regretfully. “That’s

just what I done lost to Jack, shootin’ craps last night.”

“Where’s that nester’s ol’ dog that was smelling round the pots this

morning?” Mac demanded. “There he goes now. Hi-yi, ol’ feller! Go git

him, boy! Go to him!”

A yellow mongrel, half shepherd and a mixture of other breeds, abandoned

his slinking tour of the camp and became at once a respectable, alert

dog, with a job. He sighted the fleeing coyote, and, giving tongue,

followed after.

“He won’t never catch him. Those lil’ ol’ ki-yotes kin outrun a streak

of lightning, and stop to sleep a-doing it,” said Mac.

It was evident that the pursuit did not worry the fugitive greatly. He

loped along easily, with the dog gaining at every frantic leap until a

scant yard separated them, when, still maintaining his careless gait,

the coyote veered to the south; and yet the distance between them did

not diminish. The dog was blowing and puffing throaty threats, while the

wolf watched him out of the corner of one eye. With a mad burst of speed

the cur gained a yard, whereupon something happened. Without appearing

to strain himself at all, the coyote simply disappeared from view over

the next rise. The dog had seen a pepper-and-salt, gray streak flash

over the crest, but that was all. He stopped in a dazed sort of way to

figure the matter out.

While he was figuring, a foxlike head poked itself over a clump of

bear-grass and the coyote yawned in his face. Once more the chase was

on, with redoubled fury.

This was an old game to Scartoe. He had raced all sorts of dogs, from

collie to fox terrier, and only once, when a greyhound ran him, had he

stood in danger. Greatly to his chagrin and alarm on that occasion, he

had been forced to switch the lithe pursuer unexpectedly into a

barb-wire division-fence, to save his hide. As he ran now he was

studying this loud-voiced antagonist of the yellow hair. Whatever he

saw, the result was wholly surprising. He increased his lead by ten

yards, then whirled about and sat down, at which the dog plowed up the

ground for five feet in a panic-stricken effort to put on the brakes,

and promptly changed his course. Still growling, he trotted away toward

a cactus far to the left, as though suddenly made aware of something

extremely interesting to be found there.

The coyote’s lip flickered, and he walked to the sandy sides of a

ravine. With a final look back from its top, he descended leisurely;

then, once in the creek bed, glided at top speed in an opposite

direction. He was bound homeward.

All of which goes to show the delicacy of coyote judgment and the depths

of his knowledge of human and canine nature. For there are dogs which

will close on a coyote and kill him at the first opportunity and with no

hesitation. Pluck does not run exclusively in breeds, and individual

dogs of all kinds have been known to go for the prairie thief at sight,

and even for the redoubtable lobo; but others there are which will shirk

a tussle with this scorned of the wolf tribe, this scavenger and outcast

of the wild. And a coyote, being lowest in the ranks of those obsessed

of fear, is the readiest to detect cowardice in others; moreover, he has

the cunning to profit by it.

Enjoyable as this little breather had been, it had not provided the meal

for which he was searching. Rather it had whetted the gnawing demand for

it and the prospect of obtaining anything seemed more remote than ever,

because he had builded some hopes on scraps from the camp. Scartoe eased

to a walk--not the brisk, firm patter of the dog, but a sneaking,

apologetic, tortuous gait, that was yet swift and wonderfully noiseless.

Prairie dogs there were none, though he scour the length and breadth of

six hundred square miles. Poison had done its work thoroughly and only

the empty holes remained, half grown over with grass and weeds, a

constant menace to horsemen. Of ground squirrel there were a few, and at

certain seasons the sage grouse furnished him succulent meals; but these

were trifles, after all, and it took infinite patience and stealth to

secure them.

Scartoe crept slantwise up a ridge and took a look around. The sun beat

down on a land it had desolated. Where creeks had been were now gorges

of baked clay; a long stretch of sage-grass was white with dust and

crackling; large fissures dumbly voiced the parched ground’s protests;

the bear-grass and cactus showed scrawny and dried; and above this

scorched land rose a canopy of jumbled white clouds, magnificent,

matchless. A score or two of lean cattle were browsing on the slopes,

nibbling the long, yellow bean pods from mesquite trees, but of other

signs of life there were none, save the scurrying green and blue and

golden-brown lizards, which darted from stone to stone at amazing speed.

And this had been the style of his hunting for weeks, so that he was

gaunt and desperate. Nothing in all the world in the shape of meat,

except creatures so large and strong he dare not attack. Nothing--his

restless eyes became riveted on a bush not fifty yards to his right.

Surely something had stirred there. His nose was thrust forward to give

his extraordinarily strong sense of smell a chance, and it told him what

his eyes were unable wholly to define. There was a calf behind that

bush.

His famished stomach drove him forward, while his natural cowardice

whispered caution. It was plain to him that the calf was very young.

Otherwise he would have wanted the assistance of a brother marauder.

Even now, however, those cattle grazing on the slopes haunted him, but a

fleeting glance over the immediate vicinity assured him the prey was

unguarded. So he stole forward. His advance was a miracle of furtive

effort, and such was the beast’s inherited cunning that, quite

unconsciously, he took advantage of spots where his color blended so

harmoniously with the rough ground that wolf and rock and shrub were

indistinguishable.

The gods of little calves must have been wide-awake that day; else what

could have prompted the youngster to stir and lift his head? He had

heard no sound; no scent had reached his nostrils. The coyote was too

old a hand at stalking for that. A pair of round, fear-distended eyes

were turned toward the terrible thing that shot through space straight

for his neck, and a plaintive bawl was cut short in the middle. That was

because the calf got into action--action quicker than any in his life of

three weeks. He lurched upward and departed, minus the left ear. The

beast snarled and turned to pursue, but a noise diverted him. Like a man

waking from a dream, the coyote caught, too late, the rush of hoofs. He

shrank aside, but not far enough. The mother’s horns caught him above

the shoulder and ripped him to the flank, tossing him five feet into the

air. When he came down he tarried not, but, bloody, torn and mad with

fear, sought the safety of his cañon retreat.

His wife and five babies were awaiting him. He had been out all night on

his prowl for food, and it was now three hours after sunup, the hour

when, ordinarily, he would be stretched out on a sunny knoll, taking a

nap in the content of a full stomach. A score of yards from the den his

nose told him that the family had fed, so he came trotting down the

rocky creek-bed, stiffly expectant. The tiny, furry, broad-headed pups

were snarling and tugging at the remnants of a meal and, hungry though

he was, he paused to watch them with a certain fatherly pride. Then, at

a growl from his mate, he slunk forth again on his quest. His wound

smarted, but did not cripple him, and hunger was a spur.

[Illustration: “_The wolf drove away a couple of buzzards and fell upon

this savagely_”]

He found what his wife had said he would find, the remains of the offal

of a heifer which the outfit had killed the previous day for food.

Luckier in her search, the mother coyote had come upon the abandoned

camp late the previous night, though it was ten miles from home and she

disliked such distant hunting; and, having fed, she had carried a huge

strip of the entrails to her babies. The wolf drove away a couple of

buzzards and fell upon this savagely; and, having gorged, sat down to

lick his cut. In a few minutes he moved painfully on the back trail, for

his hurts were stiffening.

The family home was a simple affair, such as the original families of

human kind might have begun life with. Anything provided with an

olfactor could ascertain its propinquity at a distance of forty yards,

for it gave off the stinging, musty odor of the wolf tribe. There were

also numerous faint trails hard by, some of them blind trails, contrived

cunningly to draw the stupid hunter astray. The genuine paths led into a

broader, clearly-defined one which ended in a hole about two feet square

in the wall of an arroyo, and this entrance was concealed from the

casual observer by a scrub-cedar that clung to a precarious foothold and

subsisted on nothing. No water had come down this channel in generations

and they felt safe on that score.

The hallway of the home was little more than a yard long. It led into a

den whereto no light penetrated--a hollowed space perhaps two and a half

feet high, and large enough for the head of the house to turn around in.

There were also some ramifications to it, four smaller cells dug out in

the same fashion, and out of one of these another passage led upward. It

came out on top of the embankment, twenty feet away; for Scartoe was a

cautious rascal and had no intention of letting his domicile become a

trap. He desired it to be a haven and, therefore, he had selected a

residence with a back door, though most of his tribe contented

themselves with an entrance.

This caution was habitual with him and was the child of experience.

Experience had taught him some bitter lessons and had given him his

name. For, in the spring of the year when he reached his full height and

was filled with conceit of his strength, a famine threatened. The wolf

ranged far and got nothing. Hitherto suspicious of the haunts of men, he

overcame his fears at last and raided the ranch headquarters and came

away with a lusty young rooster. Next night he attempted to repeat this

feat, and while nosing the skeleton of a cow lying close to the home

pasture fence, something snapped over his foot. A numbing pain shot

through him. When he bounded high and backward to clear, he was jerked

to the ground.

Clasped like a vise about his toes was a steel trap, a mercilessly

powerful contraption of chains, weighted with two hundred pounds. It had

him, but fortunately his leg was not caught. In his frenzy of terror,

freedom was worth any sacrifice or pain. He sank his teeth into his own

flesh and gnawed his toes off, and holding the bleeding stump up in

front of him, fled on three legs. Not a sound did he make during his

agony. It was not pluck, but a stoicism begot of fear. Had he whined, a

charge of buckshot would have ended his days; for the cook dozed

fitfully behind a woodpile fifty yards away.