FIRE WATER
The Bar B ranch was roused that morning by a rowdy, half-tipsy band of
cowboys, who dashed up to the old shack just as the sun pushed his
blazing face above the eastern peaks.
Dan and Fred were up and had breakfast well under way; for they knew
that Pat would not be in any fettle to do the cooking that day.
“Foine gintlemen ye are, may hiven bless ye fer givin’ a helpin’ hand,”
Pat called out as he tumbled off his horse.
“Bully boys,” echoed Jim, “to stay at home and have breakfast a smokin’
fer the fellers that’s had the fun. That’s just what my good old mother
used to do for this rattle-brain boy of hers.”
“Gee, but I’m sleepy!” said Dick, throwing his head on the saddle he had
just jerked from his pony.
“No wonder at all, at all,” returned Jim, “but brighten up, Dickie, and
take your rations; you can’t doze off and dream of fancy girls about
here to-day.”
Dick was asleep before the sermon was finished. Seeing this, Jim filled
a cup with cold water and dashed it in the sleeper’s face. Dick jumped
up, sputtering and grumbling sleepily, “Oh, cheese it, Jimmie! Let a
feller snooze a little.”
“No snooze for the wicked,” returned Jim, while they all laughed at
Dick’s discomfiture; “and you’ve been mighty wicked to flirt with pretty
Alta, and shoot poor Bud in the toes. What do you say, boys, first
fellow that goes to sleep again to-day gets soused in the creek?”
“Good enough,” shouted the boys.
That settled it. The crowd had to keep awake all day, though it was a
sore trial to most of them. But cowboys must get used to that sort of
thing, especially during the roundup days, when it often happens that
the work means riding all day and herding all night.
To-day, however, it was not the roundup, but a “barn-raising” that
called for the help of all hands and the cook. Captain Hanks was anxious
to get the big barn up before haying time came, and it took a great deal
of muscle to raise the heavy timber.
“Now, all together--yo-hee!” the foreman would shout to the boys ranged
along the great logs, and with much straining and puffing they slowly
lifted them into place, one on top of the other.
Between lifts the sleepy ones would tumble back on the grass, amusing
themselves with poking fun at one another. The dance gave them enough to
talk about. But the one thing that touched them off again and again into
spasms of laughter was the suggestion of Uncle Toby’s tumble from his
fiddler’s perch, and Bud’s yell and flight.
“Now all together, yo-hee!” Captain Hanks shouted for the twentieth time
that day. The log was beginning slowly to rise when Jim suddenly let go
his hold and yelled, “Now, altogether--whoopee!”
The crowd collapsed, sinking to the ground with the big log on top of
them.
“You fellows must have had a high time last night,” said Fred, “the fuss
you make about it.”
“Bully time it was, Teddy,” returned Jim; “why didn’t you turn up and
help swing the ranch lassies off their feet?”
“Oh, the kid’s not of our kind,” sneered Dick; “you wouldn’t catch him
swinging the girls.”
“Don’t be too sure about that, Dick,” retorted Fred; “I’ll just take in
the next dance to show you how.”
“Good fer you, me boy,” said Pat, “and we’ll leave Dick home to do the
cookin’, next toime.”
“You’ll go damned hungry if you do,” snapped Dick.
“Oh, well, me boy, oh well,” Pat broke out singing:
It’s divil a rap do I care,
It’s divil a rap do I care,
As long as a drap is left, is left,
In the old demijohn next mornin’.
“That reminds me,” said Cap Hanks, “there’s a demijohn under my bunk,
Pat; go get it. The boys need a drop to keep ’em awake to-day.”
“I’m off,” said Pat, jogging away to the old shack. He found a gallon
jug of choice old rye where the foreman had said, and was soon back to
the barn.
“Now do the honors, cook,” said Hanks, “the treat’s on me.”
“You’re a gintleman!” said Pat, pouring out and passing round the
whisky. When his turn came he took a long drink, rubbing his stomach
with his free hand the while, then smacking his lips, he raised his eyes
and said solemnly, “Hiven at last.”
When the laughter that greeted Pat’s performance subsided, Jim said,
“You’d better watch out, Dicky, or Teddy here will be leadin’ you a
merry chase after your ranch lassie.”
“Yes,” added Pat; “you know that the loikes of ye can’t talk poetry, and
Teddy can.”
“Oh, I’ll risk it; he’s harmless,” returned Dick.
“Don’t you be too sure; you can’t tell how far a toad can jump by his
looks,” said Jim dryly; “and remember you promised to make me boss when
old Morgan deeds the ranch to you.”
“Hip, hooray!” broke in Pat, “what bloomin’ circus is this a-comin’?”
Everybody looked up.
“A bunch of Injuns, by ginger!” said Cap Hanks; “I hope they won’t pitch
their wickiups about here. They’ll beg the boots off our feet.”
“They’re heading this way,” said Dan.
“Holy mither, defind us poor sinners,” said Pat in mock fright. “Me head
is bald as a button already; it’s no ither scalp I have to spare.”
“Hike to the shack with that whisky, Pat,” said the foreman, “and put it
out of sight.”
“Right ye are, Captain”; Pat grabbed up the demijohn and dashed off.
When inside the shack he took another drink, then placing the jug in the
cupboard, returned to see the Indians, who were trailing along slowly
toward the waiting cowboys.
“Looks like old Copperhead’s band,” said Dan. “Dave Johnson told me they
were in the valley.”
“Yes, and they hev been slaughterin’ game; the warden’s watchin’ ’em,”
added one of the boys.
“Them Redskins’ll stir up trouble in this country yet,” said Cap Hanks;
“they’ll get mean when the new game laws are pulled on ’em. But Dave
says he’s going to do it.”
The Indians by this time were filing past the ranch gate a few rods from
the barn. A frowsled, straggly band it was, but picturesque withal, with
its rough herd of vari-colored ponies, ragged, wolfish dogs, towsled,
half-clad papooses, squaws in bright but tattered calicoes, and sober
bucks, decked in spangled and fringed buckskins, with gay blankets.
The cowboys, out of curiosity, had dropped their work and gone to the
gate to get a closer look at the dusky travelers.
“Hullo! Where now?” called Cap Hanks to the leader.
“Maybe so over there,” returned the chief, lifting his head and looking
upward across the eastern mountains.
“Maybe so catchum elk, huh?” Hanks suggested in a significant tone of
voice.
The chief scowled, but said nothing.
“Maybe so game man catchum Injun,” Dick put in smartly.
“Huh!” snapped the chief angrily; “maybe so white man put elk here,
huh?”
“Oh, hold on, Chief, don’t get mad,” said Cap Hanks. “White man no
stingy; let Injun kill all he needs to eat, but no heap kill ’em for
buckskin.”
Old Copperhead’s eyes flashed. “What white man kill ’em for? Not meat,
not buckskin. Heap fun. White man let Injun be, Injun let white man be.
You savey?” With an angry jerk of the rein, he whirled his pony and
started off when Dick, full of mischief, broke out again by jerking a
flask from his pocket and saying, “Here, big Injun, maybe this cool ’em
down; you likem whisky, huh?”
“You smart fool!” Dan rebuked him, “put that stuff up. They’re chuck
full of the devil all ready. Hell only knows what they’d do if they got
whisky down their black throats.”
Dick took the cut without a word, and put the bottle back, but not
before the Indian had caught sight of it.
The suggestion was enough to wake their thirst; but they filed away
sulkily behind their chief, and pitched their tepees across the ford on
the flat near an aspen grove.
Later in the day several of the bucks came back, ostensibly to swap
things with the cowboys, who were gathered about the old shack, Hanks
having let them quit work somewhat earlier than usual. Pat was getting
things ready for supper when they rode up. The Indians began to beg for
tea, sugar, and everything else in sight, but they didn’t make much
headway with Pat.
Finally one of them caught sight of a flask projecting from the
Irishman’s hip pocket and said, “Gimme fire water.”
“Go way wid ye!” snapped Pat.
“Injun give gloves for bottle,” the buck went on, reaching out a gaudily
beaded pair.
“Not a bloomin’ drap,” returned Pat in decided tones.
“Give shirt and gloves,” persisted the buck.
“Go long wid ye!” Pat grew stubborn.
“Give pony!”
“Not a drap, ye spalpeen! Didn’t I tell ye?”
“Oh, let the poor devil have a swig to quench his thirst,” said Jim;
“why don’t ye?”
“Why don’t I?” echoed Pat. “Why, the likes of it! And can’t ye see it’s
the last swig in me bottle? D’ye think I’d let that red devil have it
when me own throat’s a-parchin’?” He had uncorked and raised the bottle
while he spoke and now he drained it before the thirsty eyes of the
Indians. Then tossing the bottle to the begging buck, who caught it
eagerly, he said, “There! I’ll not be stingy wid ye. Take the last swate
smell.”
But while the boys were roaring over Pat’s actions, another act was
being performed with no audience to watch. One of the bucks, unnoticed,
had slipped into and out of the shack. His blanket might have appeared
bulgy, if one had looked closely, but the boys paid no attention to it.
After the Redskins had gone, however, Cap Hanks went to the cupboard for
a good-night toddy and found his gallon jug of choice old rye gone.
Immediately there was an uproar of swearing and accusation, which
resulted in rightly placing the blame on the Indians.
But a greater roar followed shortly after dusk, when the drunken bucks
began to make night hideous over among the wickiups. The yelling and
screaming of the bucks, the frightened squaws and papooses, shocked the
silent valley.
“It’s the devil’s own fun that’s up,” said Cap Hanks as he half rose
from his bunk to listen.
“Let’s go over and see the circus,” said Dick.
“Not for me,” returned Cap Hanks. “You need some of the smartness taken
out of you, so you’d better try it. The thing I’m going to do is to get
my breeches on and load my gun. There’s no tellin’ what might happen.”
The other boys followed the suggestion. Then they lay down again to
listen rather nervously to the yelling and shrieking that cut fitfully
through the murmur of the trees and the sound of the stream. It was only
a faint suggestion of the savage orgie that was being enacted around the
wigwam fires by the whisky crazed bucks and terrified squaws and little
ones. The suggestion of what might come to them sobered the crowd of
cowboys. They had little to say as they lay listening till things grew
calm again. It was nearly daybreak, however, before they had all quieted
into sleep.