THE CHANT OF THE NEW MOON
That first day at the ranch seemed the longest of the stay, when the
girls looked back to it afterwards. There were so many things to see and
talk about, so much ground to cover.
“It is sure to be like this for the first few days,” Mrs. Murray told
them, smilingly. “It is the same with my own bairns when they come home
for the summer vacation. They are like a lot of sheep for a while,
following me around, and dodging at their father’s heels the same way.
You must not try to do too much at first, or you’ll do nothing at all.”
“If I learn how to saddle a pony to-day, I’ll feel I’ve done well,”
sighed Sue. “I’ve tried to do it four times so far, and Don laughs at
me. When I tried to put the halter around his neck, I got hold of the
wrong end of the rope, and it was upside down. But I’m going right back,
and try it over.”
The girls laughed as she sped back to the corral. They were sitting out
of doors after supper, some on the broad low stoop, some in the hammock.
Mr. Murray had arrived from Deercroft about sunset with his two big
boys, as he called them. Two stalwart Westerners they were, with their
mother’s steady gray eyes, and the close-lipped smile of their father.
“I thought they were just boys from the way Miss Jean talked of them,”
protested Polly, as she looked after the two striding away to the house
with their suit-cases. “They’re grown up.”
“Archie is twenty-three, and Neil a year older,” explained Jean. “But
still they seem like boys, don’t they, mother dear?”
“They’re growing fast, Jeanie,” was all Mrs. Murray would say.
“We won’t see them much after to-morrow,” went on Jean. “Help is scarce
out here, and they have to help father with his haying. Ours is not a
big ranch, you know, girls. We’re only a home ranch, so we hardly depend
on the range at all for feed. It used to be a case of everybody turn out
the cattle to graze, and then have the two big round-ups, spring and
fall, but now everything has gone into sheep, as the cow-men say. Father
sold off his stock about seven years ago, and went in for sheep, as soon
as the trouble had quieted down.”
“What trouble?” asked Polly. “I didn’t know there was any trouble out
West here excepting from Indians long ago.”
“Didn’t you?” Jean smiled. “You should have lived here during the range
trouble. The range used to be free for all, girls, but the cattlemen
said when the sheep grazed on it, they didn’t leave enough for a
grasshopper to perch on. So they tried to drive them out. And you know
the old riddle. When an irresistible body meets an immovable body, what
is the result?”
“General and inevitable smash-up,” Ted said.
“Exactly. In this case, after thousands of sheep had been killed and
many men too; after the wells had been poisoned, and all the State
turned into a boiling kettle of trouble; all at once, Uncle Sam stepped
in, and homesteaded the land. That meant the loss of the range in a way,
although up here in our corner, we haven’t had much trouble, have we,
mother?”
“It’s a blessing we haven’t,” declared Mrs. Murray fervently. “Between
the Indians, the long winters, the range troubles, and the loneliness
out here, I’m thinking we’re as much pioneers and good pilgrims as those
that landed on the rock at Cape Cod. If it hadn’t been for the children,
I’d have grieved, but there’s no time for grieving with a brood of
bairns growing up around you.”
“It must be nice to belong to a large family,” Polly said, wistfully.
“Especially if they looked alike like yours do, Mrs. Murray. It must be
like having a lot of little selves around you.”
“Isn’t that just like Polly,” cried Ted. “Now, I’ve got two brothers,
and they’re not a bit like me. Mother says I am a good deal more like
the one boy in the family. Oh, look, girls!”
“It’s only Don,” Jean said, rising to get a better view. “He’s riding
Scamp. That’s his own pony. He broke him himself, and taught him tricks.
They say he’d make a good polo pony, but Don wouldn’t sell him for any
price.”
The girls rose to get a good look as Don flashed by on the calico pony.
Down went his hat on the earth, and he swung round in an oval, leaned
far over sideways, and caught up the hat. Then once again, and this
time, it was the handkerchief from his throat that went fluttering into
the dust, and as he came back, he seemed to almost slip out of the
saddle, as he caught it up.
Then he took the rope that hung at the saddle-bow, and sent it twirling
far out in ever widening circles and ovals.
“Don’t catch me, Don,” Peggie called merrily, as she ran up from the
corral.
“I could if I wanted to,” Don shouted back.
“Eh, lad,” his father said. “Hold up a bit, and to-morrow Archie and
Neil will help you show off.”
“It must be splendid to watch you roping cattle,” Polly said. “I’d like
to see that.”
“You’ll see that over at Sandy’s,” Mr. Murray promised. “Sandy’s the
only one of us old timers who sticks to tradition. His place is the same
to-day as it was twenty years ago. He has the only long-horned Texan
steers in the county, I think. When I put sheep in here at the Crossbar,
Sandy said he wouldn’t depend for a living on any herd of huckle-backed
lambies for all the country east of the Mississippi. He’s very set in
his opinions and habits, Sandy is.”
“Father,” interrupted Jean. “Do you remember the day the timber fire got
in the Pine Ridge stretch, and the cattle stampeded?”
“I didn’t know you had timber fires up here,” Ruth exclaimed seriously.
“There doesn’t seem to be much timber to burn.”
“Which makes what there is more precious, child,” laughed Mr. Murray.
“Anyhow, it’s true. We don’t have them as a usual thing, but now and
then they’ll start in spring and fall when the dry leaves and underbrush
are like excelsior for blazing up over nothing. This one on Pine Ridge
happened about eight or nine years ago. The lads were home then, but our
Jeanie was at school down at Laramie, taking her Normal course. Somehow
a fire started off yonder on the Pine Ridge range, southwest of here,
just behind old Topnotch Mountain. Archie saw the smoke pouring up, and
called out to me. I had the herd grazing around the shoulder of
Topnotch. The leader was a fine old chap. He knew more about herding
than any steer I ever saw, but he didn’t know a thing about timber
fires. This one was jumping from dry brush and grass straight for spruce
clumps, and scrub pine, and while the ranch wasn’t in danger, the herd
was, because that leader stampeded the wrong way, and all the rest after
him. Instead of making for the valley and home, he went on a dead run
straight for a line of buttes, and a drop of two hundred feet down over
the rocks.”
“Like enough you and Archie would have gone over with the cattle, too,
father,” interposed Mrs. Murray, placidly.
“Oh, how did you stop them?” broke in Ted, anxiously.
“Archie did the neatest bit of rope play I ever saw. He raced alongside
on his pony, and slung the rope fair around the old lad’s horns, and
turned him. Stop him? Indeed, and he never stopped till he reached the
home valley, but it turned him in the right direction. Sandy always
reminds me that is a rare bit of telling, but I saw it happen. Now,
girls, early to bed with you all, if it’s trolling you’ll be to-morrow
early.”
“What’s trolling?” asked Polly. “A troll’s a kind of gnome, isn’t it?”
“Not in Wyoming. Up here you troll for trout.”
“I thought you trailed for them,” said Sue. “Don’t you trail the bait
along on the top of the water, and kind of skip it?”
“There was a boy used to come and play with Stoney,” Polly added. “A
little colored boy from down the river, and he said he knew how to lie
down on the bank, and reach under, and grab the trout.”
“Now, Polly, if you develop into a teller of trout tales, you’ll be
worse than Don. Listen.” Jean rose from the hammock. “First of all, you
must fish up-stream. No standing still, and waiting for the fish to
bite. You must learn how to hunt the best spots, and then to cast well.
Trout lie with heads pointed up-stream, and hunt the shadowy nooks.
Peggie and Don are our best catchers.”
“It’s all in the way you cast and troll,” spoke up Peggie, half shyly.
“You mustn’t throw out heavily, or you scare them away, and you must
draw the fly very, very lightly along. Don’s caught them with worms, but
I like the flies best. We’ll go fishing to-morrow.”
“Not so soon,” protested Jean. “They want to get up early, and take a
ride before breakfast to-morrow, and you’ll need a good misty morning
for successful fishing. Did you ride all the way over to Sandy’s, Peg?”
Peggie nodded happily, and smiled.
“Mrs. Sandy says she’s glad they got here all safe and sound, and she
wants us all to ride over as soon as we can.”
“Next week we will ride over,” Jean said. “I want you to be accustomed
to the saddle, girls, first. We will ride every day, somewhere around
home here, and there are a good many interesting things to see. There
are Indian graves up in the hills, and the Picture Rocks down the river;
plenty to keep you busy.”
“We’d better go to bed,” cried Polly, rising. “We want to be up with the
chickens to-morrow, and make the most of every day we’re here.”
“If you rise early, you will be in time for a dip with Peggie and me. We
go in about five. Did you bring your suits?”
“Yes, they did, but if I hadn’t told them to do so, not one would have
remembered,” Ruth said, soberly.
“Oh, listen a minute,” Peggie cautioned. “Sally is singing the chant of
the new moon.”
In the hush that followed, they heard the old squaw’s low tremulous
tones, over and over, singing the same strange minor notes, quavering
and simple, that seemed to hold the spirit of the night and the spell of
these far reaches of distant hills and mountain ranges, in their melody.
Overhead, the new moon showed in the sky, silver and slender against the
amber afterglow of the sunset. Out on a patch of ground between the
ranch house and the cook-cabin stood the old Indian woman, lifting up
her arms every now and then as she sang, or rather, grunted the chant.
“What does she mean?” whispered Isabel. “I can’t understand a word she
says.”
“Neither does anybody else,” replied Jean. “Mother thinks it is part of
some old invocation to the moon, or a prayer for fair weather.
Sometimes, when she is in the humor, Sally will sit and tell us old
tales that she used to hear when she was a child in the Shoshone camps.
That was before the government compelled the tribe to give up their
roaming life, and settle down on the reservation at Fort Washakie.”
“What a queer name, Miss Jean!”
“It is in honor of the great Chief Washakie, Polly. He was the best
friend the whites had out here, and was always loyal.”
They did not disturb Sally Lost Moon, but called good-night to Mr.
Murray and the boys, and went over to the lodge.
“If you need more blankets, call out,” Jean said as she bade them
good-night.
“All right,” answered Polly. “Let’s not light a lamp, girls. I almost
wish we were in a tent.”
“I wish we were going to sleep right on Council Rock,” Ruth declared.
“I’d like to lie on my back, and look up at the stars and feel the earth
go ’round. Doesn’t this all make you want to fit into the same tune? I
mean, doesn’t it make you want to match the wilds, and be an Indian or a
ranch girl, or anyone who really belongs here. I feel as though Virginia
must be over on some star.”
“You’re sentimental, grandma,” Sue said, happily. “And that’s what
you’re always calling the rest of us. I’m really surprised at you, Ruth,
wanting to lie down and look at the stars and watch the world go ’round.
That’s like Polly. Virginia isn’t on a star. It’s right down back of
Topnotch there.”
“Yes, and what kind of an Indian would you make with pigtails, and
spectacles, goose?” added Polly.
“I don’t care,” sighed Ruth. “I feel that way. I think I’d like to live
out here.”
“There you are! And Peggie said to-day, she thought she’d like to live
down East,” laughed Polly. “It’s like Aunty Welcome tells about flies on
a window. All those on the outside want to get in, and all on the inside
want to get out.”
“But have you seen Peggie’s room yet?” asked Ruth, in self-defense.
“Not yet. Why?”
“Just wait.” Very mysteriously. “I wouldn’t spoil the surprise for you
by telling about it. I only wish I had one like it. She didn’t even
realize how different it was from other girls’ rooms until I told her
about it. It’s full of—no, I won’t tell. You will see it to-morrow.”
“Oh, please, Ruth, please,” they all begged.
“I shall put my shoes right back on,” protested Ted. “I feel put upon.”
“Let’s wait till morning,” Polly decided. “Peggie will be in bed now,
anyway. I don’t believe Ruth got more than a peep at it herself.”
“I didn’t,” said Ruth meekly. “It was through the window too, while
Peggie was in there after something. All I could see were horns and
pelts, and baskets, and that sort of thing, but she says she has ever so
many things she has collected.”
“I like Peggie,” Isabel said suddenly, in her precise way. “She has the
deepest dimples I ever saw.”
“Sally Lost Moon calls them smile holes,” said Polly. “Isn’t that dear,
girls? Smile holes.”
“Oh, listen a minute,” interrupted Sue who was near the open door. Up
from the corral came the Murray boys, singing together. They could not
catch the words, but the swinging, happy lilt carried on the night air.
The last line they heard clearly.
“Will you ride,
Oh, will you ride,
Say, will you ride the trail with me?”
It died away as they went into the main cabin, just as the new moon
slipped behind Topnotch’s shoulder.
“Will you ride,” started up Ted.
“Oh, will you ride,” Sue caught it up, and the rest finished it, Polly
beating time with the heel of her shoe on the side of her cot.
“Say, will you ride the trail with me?”
“Ranch taps, girls,” Ruth reminded them. “Up early for a swim, you
know.”
“Will you ride,” began Ted, gaily, but a well-aimed pillow from Polly
cut off the tantalizing strain, for all the world like a young rooster’s
crow, and they went quietly to sleep.