on yet, that's certain," but he looked as if he'd swallowed a stroke of
lightning the wrong way. Never see a man--particular a man with Aggy's
nerve--look so much like two cents on the dollar. I didn't have to be
cautious in my approach; our friends were too busy to notice me.
"What the devil's loose, Ag?" says I.
"Oh, nothing!" says he. "Nothing much! They're taking it out by the
hatful, that's all. Look!"
I looked, and sure enough! There was the pan with a small-sized
shovelful of yaller-boys in it--pieces that would weigh up to $10 some
of them. I couldn't believe my eyes.
"Where'd they get it?" says I.
"Out of the claim," says Aggy.
I nearly fell dead. "Out of the claim!" I yelled in a whisper. "Go
on! Your whiskers are growing in!"
"Straight goods," says Ag, "and I had to stand here and see them do it!
The Golden Queen is all my fancy painted her. The second pass that
ice-pick-faced mut made he brought up a chunk as big as a biscuit. 'Is
that gold?' says he. 'Oh, yes!' says I. 'That's gold!' The truth
come out of me before I thought--it knocked me to see that chunk.
First time I ever made such a break--well--well. Why didn't it occur
to me to try the taste of that piece of ground before I put in my
flavouring? I was so d--d sure there wasn't $13 worth of metal in the
whole twenty acres! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! To sprinkle a pocket that's
near half gold with a little old pinch of dust, is one of them
ridiculous and extravagant excesses my friend Shakespeare mentions! If
there was a lily around here, I'd paint it, so's to go the whole hog."
"What in the name of all the Mormon gods are we going to do?" says I.
"Leave me think," he answers. And again he pulls his whiskers and
whistles through his teeth.
There came a horrible yell from the hole. Daggett held up what seemed
like a yaller potato. "Hooray!" says he. "Ain't that a humming bird?"
"You want to think quick," says I. "I feel something like murder
rising in my veins."
"By gosh!" says Ag, snapping his fingers. "I've got her! Come to, you
son-of-a-gun. Come to!"
"How's that?" I asked, not just tumbling exactly.
"Come to!" says Ag. "Regain your scattered intelligence! How in
blazes can I sell, then, without your consent?"
"Right you are! I'm off!" says I. And with that I cut loose.
"Help!" howls Aggy; "help!"
The two fellers were too busy to want to stop, but after I sent a brace
of rocks in their direction, they concluded it might be as well to
quiet me first. Lord! How I did carry on! I gave Ag the wink and
pulled for the creek, and it was not long before, with Aggy's help, in
we all three went, kersock.
They pulled me out and laid me on the bank, insensible.
"He's dead, I reckon," says Daggett.
"No," says Aggy, "I can feel his pulse beat, but it does seem to me
there's a different look in his face somehow."
Then I opened my eyes.
"Why, Agamemnon," says I, "what am I doing here?"
"Hush!" says he, "you ain't been well."
"Dear me! You don't say!" And I rubbed my forehead with my hand.
"But I feel all right now--have I been this way long?"
"Nigh on to six months, Hy, old horse; ever since we hit it so rich on
our claim--don't you remember about that?"
"Certainly," says I. "It seems like yesterday; it's as clear--but who
are these people?"
Ag let on to be very much embarrassed. "Well," says he,
"why--hunh--why--to tell you the truth, I thought I ought to get you
out of the country, to where you could see an expensive doctor, and
these are some folks I brought down to buy the claim--you being sick,
you know!"
"Buy the claim!" I hollers, jumping up. "Buy the claim? What's this
you're giving me? After all my toils and hardships and one thing and
another, to sell the Golden Queen? Well, I want you to understand that
nobody buys this claim, except across my dead body," says I.
Aggy, he looks completely dumfounded. "My! This puts me in an awkward
fix," he says. "Gentlemen, you see how I'm up against it? I can't
sell without my partner's consent, now he's in his right mind; and, as
far as that goes, the only reason I wanted to sell is removed. The
dicker's off, that's the long and short of it."
Oh, how pleased that tinhorn looked! He swallowed three times and got
red in the face before he answered a word.
"This may be all right, but it looks mighty queer to me," he growls.
"The ways of Providence is past understanding," says Aggy, taking off
his hat. "To our poor human minds it does seem queer, no doubt. Now,
Mr. Daggett," he continued, waving his arm in that broad-minded style
he had, "I'm sorry things has come out this way for your sake, although
a man that has such a sympathising nature as you will soon forget his
own disappointment in the general joy that envelopes this camp. And to
show you there's nothing small about me, you can have any one of those
chunks you dug out this afternoon that don't weigh over two dollars."
Daggett sent the chunk to a place where it would melt quick, and
expressed a hope we'd follow it. With that he hopped into his go-cart
and pulled for town, larruping the poor horse sinful. We had the
pleasure of seeing the animile turn the outfit into the gully in return
for the compliment. They scrambled in again and disappeared from view.
Then Aggy reached out his hand to me.
"Don't tell me nothing but the plain truth, old man," says he; "I can't
bear nothing except the plainest kind of truth, but on your sacred word
of honour, ain't your uncle Ag a corker?"
"Aggy," says I, "I ain't up to the occasion. There ain't a man on
earth could do credit to your qualities but yourself."
Then we shook hands mighty hearty.
Where the Horse is Fate
One thing's certain, you can't run a sheep ranch, nor no other kind of
ranch, without hired men. They're the most important thing, next to
the sheep. I may have stated, absent-mindedly, that the Big Bend was
organised on scientific principles: none of your
gol-darned-heads-or-tails--who's-it--what-makes-the-ante-shy, about it.
Napoleon Buonaparte in person, in his most complex minute, couldn't
have got at this end of it better than I did. It looked a little
roundabout, but that's the way with your Morgan strain of idees.
Here's how I secured the first man--he didn't look like good material
to the careless eye.
Burton and me had just turned the top of that queer hill, that
overlooks the Southwest road into the Bad Lands, when I see a parcel of
riders coming out. Somehow, they jarred me.
"Easy," says I, and grabs Burton's bridle.
"What the devil now?" he groans. "Injuns? Road-agents?"
"Nope," says I, getting out my field glass. I had guessed it: there
was the bunch, riding close and looking ugly, with the white-faced man
in the middle. If you should ask me how I knew that for a lynching,
when all I could make out with my eyes was that they weren't cattle, I
give it up. Seems like something passed from them to me that wasn't
sight. And also if you ask why, when through the glass I got a better
view of the poor devil about to be strung, I felt kind towards him, you
have me speechless again. I couldn't make out his face, but there was
something----
[Illustration: Through the glass I got a better view of the poor devil
about to be strung]
"See here, Burton," says I. "There's your peaceful prairie hanging, in
its early stage."
"What!" says he, sick and hot at the same time. "How can you speak of
the death of a human being so heartlessly? Let me go!"
"Hold!" says I. "You haven't heard me through. Perhaps you can be
more use than to run away and hide your eyes. I ain't got a' word to
say against quick law. I've seen her work, and she works to a point.
She beats having the lawyers sieving all the justice out of it. All
the same, they've been too careless around here--that, and a small bad
boy's desire to get their names up. I know one case where they hung a
perfectly innocent man, for fun, and to brag about it."
He looked at me steady. I had suspected him of being no coward, when
it comes to cases.
"Now," I says, "I don't know what that is down there. Perhaps it's all
right; then you and me has got to stand by. If not--well, by the
sacred photograph of Mary Ann, here's one roping that won't be an
undiluted pleasure. Now listen. I'm something of a high private, when
it comes to war, but no man is much more than one man, if the other
side's blood is bad. Give 'em to me cold, and I can throw a crimp into
'em, for I don't care a hoot at any stage of the game, and they do.
But when they're warm--why, a hole between the eyes will stop me just
as quick as though I wasn't Chantay Seeche Red. Are you with me? You
never took longer chances in your life."
He wet his lips, and didn't speak very loud nor steady, but he says:
"You lead."
"Well, hooray, Boston!" says I. "Beans is good food. Now don't take
it too serious till you have to. Perhaps there ain't more'n a laugh in
it. But--it's like smooth ice. How deep she is, you know when she
cracks, or don't. Be as easy as you can when we get up to 'em.
Nothing gained by bulling the ring. We must be prepared to look
pleasant and act very different. Turn your back and see that your toy
pistol is working."
Well, poor Burton! Wisht you seen him fumble his gun.
"I can't _see_ the thing," says he, kind of sniffling. "I'd give
something to be a man."
"You'll do for an imitation," I says. "Remember, I was born with red
hair; comes trouble, this hair of mine sheds a red light over the
landscape; I get happy-crazy; it's summer, and I can smell the flowers;
there's music a long ways off--why, I could sing this minute, but
there's no use in making matters worse. Honest, trouble makes me just
drunk enough to be limber and--talk too much. Come on."
We single-footed it down the hillside. The party stopped and drawed
together, four men quietly making a rank in front. That crowd had
walked barefoot.
We come to twenty yards of 'em in silence; then a tall lad swung out
towards us.
"How, Kola!" says I, wavin' my hand pleasant.
"How do you do!" says he, as if it wouldn't break his heart, no matter
what the answer was.
"Why, nicely, thank you to hell," says I. "What's doin'? Horse race?"
"Probably," says he; then kind of yawning: "We're not expectin' company
this morning."
"Well," I answered, "it's the unexpected always happens, except the
exceptions. You talk like a man that's got something on his mind."
Don't think I'd lost my wits and was pickin' a row to no advantage.
I'll admit the gent riled me some, but the point I had in view was what
old Judge Hinky used to call "shifting the issue." I wanted to make
one stab at just one man--not the whole party--on grounds that the rest
of the crowd, who was plainly all good two-handed punchers, would see
was perfectly fair. And I intended to land that stab so's they'd see I
was no trifler. It was my bad luck that not a soul in the crowd knew
me--even by reputation, or my hair would have made it easy for me. So
I put a little ginger in the tone of my voice.
"My friend," says the tall lad, "I wouldn't advise you to get gay with
us. I would advise you to move right on--or I'll move you."
He played to me, you see. If he'd said, "_We_'ll move you," I'd had to
chaw with him some more. Now I had him. Right under the harmless
bundle of old clothes dangling from the saddle horn was the gun I'd
borrowed from Ike--Mary Ann's twin sister, full of cartridges loaded by
Ike himself--no miss-fire government issue. The next second that gun
had its cold, hard eye upon Long Jim in front of me.
Whilst my hands seemed carelessly crossed on the horn, my right was
really closed on the gun.
"I like to see a man back his advice," says I. "It's your move. Don't
any other gentleman get restless with his hands, or I'll make our
Christian brother into a collection of holes. Now, you ill-mannered
brute," I says, "I don't care what your business is: it's my business
to see that you give me civil answers to civil questions."
He shrunk some. He was too durned important, anyhow, that feller.
"Quick!" says I. "Lord of the Mormon hosts! Do you think I'm going to
yappee with you all day? Nice morning, ain't it? Say 'yes.'"
"Yes," says he.
"I thought so," says I. "It's a raw deal when a man that's sat a horse
as long as me can't say howdy on the open, without havin' a pup like
you bark at him."
"Why," says he, feelin' distressed, "I didn't mean to make no bad play
at you." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the prisoner,
who sat like a white stone. "That's it. Misplaced horse. Got him
with the goods."
"Oh!" says I. "Well, 'twouldn't have done no harm to mention that
first place. I wasn't noticing you particular, till you got too much
alive for any man of my size to stand." I dropped my gun. "Excuse
haste and a bad pen," says I; "but why don't I draw cards? Both
parents were light complected and I've voted several times. How is it,
boys?"
"Sure!" says they. "Take a stack, brick-top."
"Gentlemen," I says; "one word more and I am done. The question as to
whether my hair is any particular colour or not, is discussed in
private, by familiar friends only--savvy the burro, how he kickee with
hees hin' leg?"
They laughed.
"All right, Colonel!" says they. "Come with us!"
I had that crowd. You see, they was all under twenty-five, and if
there's anything a young man likes--a good, hearty boy--it's to see a
brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns
shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in
general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't
so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a
streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," evident
to the practised vision.
I'd gained two points. Made myself pretty solid with the boys, for
one, and give 'em something besides hanging their fellow-man to think
of for another: distracted their attention, which you got to do with
children.
"I speak for my friend," says I, pointing to Burton.
"We hear you talk, Colonel," says the joker. "He's with us." So we
trotted on towards the cotton-woods.
The line of work was marked out for me. I put on a grim look and sized
the prisoner up from time to time as though he was nothing but an
obstruction to my sight, although the face of the poor devil bit my
heart. He glanced neither way, mouth set, face green-white, the slow
sweat glassy all over him. Not a bad man, by a mile, I knew. It don't
take me a week to size a man up, and I've seen 'em in so many
conditions, red and pale, sick, dead, and well, that outside symptoms
don't count for much.
I noticed another thing, that I expected. Out of the corner of my eye
I see them boys nudgin' each other and talkin' about me. And the more
I rode along so quiet, the more scart of me they got.
I tell you how I'd test a brave man. I'd line the competitors up, and
then spring a fright behind them. Last man to cross the mark is the
bravest man--still, he might only be the poorest runner. With fellers
like me, it ain't courage at all. It's lunacy. I ain't in my right
mind when a sharp turn comes. Why, I've gone cold a year after,
thinking of things I laughed my way through when they happened. But
I'm not quarrelling with fate--I thank the good Lord I'm built as I am,
and don't feel scornful of a man that keeps his sense and acts scart
and reasonable.
In one way, poor old Burton, lugging himself into the game by the
scruff of his pants, showed more real man than I did. Yet, he couldn't
accomplish anything; so there you are, if you know where that is.
I said nothing until we slid off beneath the first tree. Then I walked
up to the three leaders and says, whilst the rest gathered around and
listened:
"Has this critter been tried?"
"Why, no!" says one man. "We caught him on the horse."
"Yes, yes, yes," says I, raising my voice. "That's all right. But
lend me your ears till I bray a thought or two. I'm that kind of a man
that wouldn't string the meanest mistake the devil ever made without
givin' him a trial."
"You give me a lot of trial this morning," says Long Jim.
I wasn't bringing up any argument; I was pulling them along with a
mother's kind but firm hand, so I says to him: "Ah! I wasn't talking
about _gentlemen_; I'd shoot a gentleman if he did or didn't look
cross-eyed at me, just as I happened to feel. I'm talking about a man
that's suspected of dirty work."
Now, when a man that's held you stiff at the end of a gun calls you a
gentleman, you don't get very mad--just please remember my audience,
when I tell you what I talked. Boys is boys, at any age; otherwise
there wouldn't be no Knights Templars with tin swords nor a good many
other things. I spoke grand, but they had it chalked down in their
little books I was ready and willing to act grander. Had I struck any
one or all of 'em, on the range, thinking of nothing special, and
Fourth-o'-July'd to 'em like that, they would have give me the hee-hee.
Howsomever, they was at present engaged in tryin' to hang a man; a job
one-half of which they didn't like, and would dispose of the balance
cheap, for cash. And I'd run over their little attempt to be pompous
like a 'Gul engine. Position is everything, you bet your neck.
So up speaks Mr. Long Jim, that I've called a gentleman, loud and clear.
"You're _right_," says he, and bangs his fist into his other hand.
"You're dead right, old horse," says he; "and we'll try this
son-of-a-gun now and here."
"Sure!" says everybody, which didn't surprise me so much. I told you I
was used to handling sheep.
After a little talk with his friend, Long Jim comes up and says: "Will
you preside, Colonel?"
"I have a friend here who is a lawyer," I suggested, waving my hand
toward Burton.
The speaker rubbed his chin.
"I guess this isn't a case for a lawyer," he says. "The gentleman
might give us a point or two, but we'd prefer you took charge. You
see," he says to Burton and me earnestly; "there's been a heap of
skul-duggery around here lately--horse-stealin', maimin' cattle, and
the like--till we're dead sick of it. This bucco made the most
bare-faced try you ever heard of--'twas like stealin' the whiskers
right off your face--and us fellers in my neighbourhood, old man and
all, have saw fit to copper the deal from the soda-card. We ain't for
doin' this man; we're for breaking up the play--'tain't a case of law;
it's a case of livin'--so if you'll oblige, Colonel?"
"All right, sir; I'll do the best I can. Who accuses this man?"
"I," says a straightforward-looking young man of about twenty odd.
"Step up, please, and tell us."
"Why, it's like this," he says. "I'm ranchin' lone-hand down on
Badger. There's the wife and two kiddies, and a job for a circus-man
to make both ends meet--piecin' out a few cattle and a dozen hogs with
a garden patch. All I got between me and a show-down is my team.
Well, this feller comes along, played out, and asks for a drink of
water. My wife's laid up--too darn much hard work for any woman--and
I've got Jerry saddled by the fence, to ride for the doctor. Other
horse is snake bit and weavin' in the stable with a leg like a barrel.
I goes in to get the water, and when I comes out there's this sucker
dustin' off with the horse. Then I run over to C-bar-nine and routs
the boys out. We took out after him, corrallin' him in a draw near the
Grindstones. That's about all."
"Make any fight?" I asked.
"Naw!" says the man, disgusted. "I was wanting to put my hands on him,
but he comes in like a sick cow--seemed foolish."
"How foolish?"
"Oh, just stared at us. We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind
of grinned at us and says: 'Hello!' I'd a 'hello'd' him if the boys
hadn't stopped me."
[Illustration: We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of
grinned at us and says: "Hello!"]
"Prisoner," I says, "this looks bad. I don't know where you come from,
but you must have intelligence enough to see that this man's wife's
life might have depended on that horse. You know we're straggled so
out here that a horse means something more than so much a head. Why
did you do this? Your actions don't seem to hang together."
The poor cuss changed face for the first time. He swallered hard and
turned to his accuser. "Hope your lady didn't come to no harm?" says
he.
"Why, no thankee; she didn't," says the other lad. "'Bliged to you for
inquirin'."
There was a stir in the rest of the crowd. The prisoner had done good
work for himself without knowing it. That question of his proved what
I thought--he was no bad man. Something peculiar in the case.
Swinging an eye on the crowd, I saw I could act. I went forward and
laid my hand on his shoulder, speaking kind and easy.
"Here," says I, "you've done a fool trick, and riled the boys
considerable. You'd been mad, too, if somebody'd made you ride all
day. But now you tell us just what happened. If it was intended to be
comical, we'll kick your pants into one long ache, and let it go at
that; if it was anything else, spit it out."
He stood there, fumblin' with his hands, runnin' the back of one over
his forehead once in a while, tryin' to talk, but unable. You could
see it stick in his throat.
"Take time," says I; "there's lots of it both sides of us."
Then he braced.
"Boys," says he, "I got a wife an' two little roosters too. I feel
sorry for the trouble I made that gentleman. I got split like this.
Come to this town with seven hundred dollars, to make a start. Five
hundred of that's my money, and two hundred m' wife saved up--and she
was that proud and trustin' in me!" He stopped for a full minute,
workin' his teeth together. "Well, I ain't much. I took to boozin'
and tryin' to put the faro games out of business. Well, I went
shy--quick. The five hundred was all right," he says, kind of defiant.
"Man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own money; but . . .
but . . . well, the girl worked hard for that little old two hundred.
God Almighty! I was drunk! You don't s'pose I'd do such a thing
sober?" turning to us, savage. "That ain't no excuse, howsomever," he
goes on, droppin' his crop. "Comes to the point when there's nothin'
left, and then I get a letter." He begun taking things out of his
pockets, dropping 'em from his big tremblin' hands. "It's somewheres
here--ain't that it? My eyes is no good."
He hands me a letter, addressed to Martin Hazel, in a woman's writing.
"Well, that druv me crazy. So help me God, sir, I ain't pleadin' for
no mercy--I'll take my medicine--but I didn't know no more what I was
doin' when I jumped your horse than nothin'. I only wanted to get away
from everybody. I was crazy. You read 'em that letter," says he,
taking hold of me. "See if it wouldn't drive any man crazy."
Now, there's no good repeatin' the letter. It wasn't written for an
audience, and the spellin' was accordin' to the lady's own views, but
it was all about how happy they was going to be when Martin had things
fixed up, and how funny the little boy was, and just like his pa, and,
oh, couldn't he fix it so's they'd be with him soon, for her heart was
near broke with waiting.
There was sand in my eyes before I'd read long, and that crowd of
fierce lynchers was lookin' industriously upon the ground. One man
chawed away on his baccy, like there'd be an earthquake if he stopped,
and another lad, with a match in his mouth, scratched a cigarette on
his leg, shieldin' it careful with his hands, and your Uncle Willy
tried to fill a straight face on a four-card draw, and to talk in a
tone of voice I wasn't ashamed of hearing.
During the last part of the letter the prisoner stood thoughtful, with
the back of his hand to his mouth; you'd never known he was settin' his
teeth into it, if it wasn't for the blood dropping from his thumb.
"The prisoner will retire," says I, with the remnants of my
self-respect, "while the court passes sentence. Go sit down under the
tree yonder." He shambled off. Soon's he was out of hearin' the
feller that lost the horse jumps up into the air with an oath like a
streak of lightning. "Here's a fine play we come near makin' by bein'
so sudden," says he. "I wouldn't have that man's death on my soul for
the whole territory--think of that poor woman! And he's paid the
freight. Colonel, I want to thank you for drawin' things down."
So he come up and shook me by the hand, and up files the rest and does
the same thing.
"Now, friends," says I, "hold on. Court hasn't passed sentence yet. I
pass that this crowd put up to the tune of what it can spare to
buy"--consulting the letter--"to buy Peggy a ticket West, kids
included, exceptin' only the gentleman that lost the horse."
"Why, we ain't broke altogether on Badger!" says he. "You ain't goin'
to bar me, boys?"