A HORSE DEAL.
After having been at work for a week Hugh and Luscombe found it come
comparatively easy to them. Their hands had hardened, and their back
and legs no longer ached with the exertion of stooping and lifting
planks and beams. They had now got the yard into order: the various
lengths and thicknesses of planks piled together, and also the various
sized timber for the framework of the houses. Their work was now more
varied. The dray had, of course, to be unloaded on its arrival from
the mills and its contents stowed away, and as soon as James Pawson
found that his new hands could be trusted to see after things he
left them pretty much to themselves, going up himself to the mill, of
which he was part owner. It now fell to them to keep an account of the
out-goings, to see that the planks they handed over to purchasers were
of the right lengths and thicknesses, and also to saw the wood-work of
the frames for the houses into their required lengths.
All this afforded a change, and gave them an interest in their work,
and they came to know a good many, not only of those living in the
town, but men who were taking up ground in the neighbourhood, and who
came in with their teams for planks and shingles to construct the rough
houses which were to shelter them until, at any rate, they got their
land under cultivation and things began to prosper. Three months after
their arrival Luscombe began to show signs of getting wearied of the
work. Hugh was quick to notice it.
"I can see you are getting tired of it," he said one Sunday as they
started for a walk to a small ranche three miles away, whose owner had
been buying wood for a cow-house, and had asked them to come over for
dinner. "You didn't mean me to see it, but I know that it is so."
"I don't know that I am tired, Hugh; but I feel a restless sort of
feeling."
"Well, my dear Luscombe, I don't want you to feel that you are in any
way bound here on my account. We agreed that from the first, you know.
It was a great thing our being together at first; but now the ice is
broken we have fallen into the groove, and can either of us shoulder
our kits and go where we like in search of a job. We are no longer
fresh from the other side of the Atlantic."
"I shall carry out my idea of enlisting," Luscombe said. "There is a
military post at Fort M'Kayett. I can strike down by road to Meridian.
I can get waggons as far as that, pick up a horse for a few dollars
there, and then make my way down until I strike the Colorado River,
and, crossing that, bear west, stopping at cattle ranches until I get
to the fort. I shall be happier as a trooper than at any other work. Of
course the pay is not high, but that does not matter a rap to me; it
goes further here than it does at home, and there is not much use for
money out on the plains. They say the Indians are very troublesome, and
there will be some excitement in the life, while here there is none. I
don't like leaving you, Hugh. That is the only drawback."
"Don't let that stop you," Hugh said. "Of course I shall be very sorry
when you go; but as you have your plans and I have none, it would come
at any rate before long; and, as I have said, now that I have got over
the feeling of strangeness, I don't suppose that I shall stay here long
after you have left."
The following day Luscombe told his employer that he should leave at
the end of the week.
"I am sorry you are going," he said; "but I expected that you would
be on the move before long. That is the worst of it out here--nobody
sticks to a job. However, I cannot blame you; you have stopped a good
bit longer than they generally do. And are you going too?" he asked,
turning to Hugh.
"Not just yet," Hugh replied; "but I do think of going in another week
or two. You see, boss, one is not learning anything here."
"That's so. Say, would you like to go up to the mill for a bit? That
is different sort of work, and, as you say, you would be learning
something. One of the men jammed his hand on Saturday, and won't be fit
for that kind of work for some time, so as your mate is going off at
the end of the week you can go up there if you like."
Hugh gladly accepted the offer. He would have felt it very dull without
Luscombe, but by going to a different sort of work he would feel his
companion's departure less hardly. He would have much to learn, and be
among new companions, and have much to attend to. So at the end of the
week Luscombe set out upon his long journey to Fort M'Kayett, and on
Monday morning Hugh started for the saw-mill at daybreak in a waggon
that had come in on Saturday afternoon with timber. James Pawson had
told him that he had spoken to the foreman about him, and the latter
would know what to do with him. The team consisted of two fine mules in
the shafts and two horses ahead.
"Climb up," the driver said. "We shall go a goodish pace till we get to
the hills. That is right--hold on!"
As he cracked his whip the animals started at a trot, and presently
broke into a gallop. The road was nothing but a track across the
country, and Hugh held on to the seat, expecting every moment to be
jerked off. The track was as hard as iron, but the passages of the
waggons in wet weather had worn deep holes and ruts in it, and Hugh
thought it was a miracle that the waggon did not upset and smash to
pieces, as the wheels went down first on one side and then on the
other, and the whole framework creaked and quivered with the shock.
At the end of about three miles the animals slackened their pace, to
Hugh's intense relief.
"That's just their little play," the driver said. "They know they won't
get a chance again to-day, and they generally lay themselves down for
a gallop where it is good going."
"Do you call that good going?" Hugh asked in astonishment.
"Sartin. Why, it is level ground, and not a water-course to go over!
You don't expect a railway track, graded and levelled, do yer?"
Hugh hastened to say that he entertained no such extravagant ideas.
"This road ain't nowhere, so to speak, real bad," the driver went on;
"that is, not for a hill road. I don't say as there ain't some baddish
places, but nothing to what I have driven teams over."
The animals had now dropped down into a walk, although, so far as
Hugh could see, the track was no worse than that which they had been
hitherto following.
"The critters are just getting their breath," the driver said as he
proceeded to light his pipe. "They have had their fling, and now they
are settling down to the day's work. They know as well as I do what
they have got before them. Don't you, Pete?"
The mule addressed lifted one of its long ears and partly turned his
head round.
"They are fine mules," Hugh remarked.
"You will see bigger than them. Them's Mexicans, and they have
wonderful big mules in Northern Mexico. I have seen them standing a
hand higher than these. But Pete and Bob are good mules. They would
be better if they were a bit heavier when it comes to a dead pull, but
except for that I would as lief have them as the biggest."
"Are they better than horses?"
"Better'n horses? You bet! Why, I would rather have a pair of mules
than three pair of horses. Why, for steady work and for stay and for
strength there ain't no comparison between a mule and a horse. Why,
that pair of mules is worth twice as much as the best pair of horses
you could find in Texas, except, of course, picked horses for riding.
If you pay a hundred dollars for a horse you have paid a long price
in this country, but that pair of mules wouldn't be dear at eight
hundred for the two of them. There is no trouble with mules: they won't
stray far when you turn them out; they won't stampede--not if they are
properly trained. Why, there is as much sense in a mule as there is
in a score of horses, and the horses know it themselves. If there is
a mule turned out among a troop of horses he takes the lead natural,
and they will follow him wherever he goes, knowing right well that he
has got more sense than they have. Besides, mules seem to get fond of
each other, and you don't see horses do that. In a round-up the team
horses will just mix up with the others. You don't see two of them keep
together or have any sort of friendship; but if there are a pair of
mules among the lot you will see them keep together."
"I had an idea that mules were obstinate beasts."
"I won't deny as they have their tempers sometimes, but in most cases
it comes from their getting into bad hands. But treat a mule well and
he will, in general, do his best. When they once find they have got a
job beyond them they ain't going to break their hearts by trying to do
it; and if they are treated bad when there is no call for it then they
puts up their backs and won't stir another foot, and when they makes up
their minds to that you may kill them and they won't do it then; but
treat a mule fair and kind and there is no better beast in the world.
You know all about it, Pete, don't you?" and he gave the animal a
slight flick on the neck with his whip, to which it replied by throwing
up its hind-quarters and giving a playful kick, which caused Hugh,
whose legs were hanging down over the front of the waggon, to withdraw
them hastily. "You are a rascal, Pete," the driver said. "Come, now,
you have all got your winds. Just sharpen up a bit till you get among
the hills."
As if they understood what he said, the mules threw their weight on
the traces, broke into a slow trot, and the crack of the driver's whip
woke the leaders into activity. This pace was not kept up long, for the
ground had now begun to rise. They presently entered a valley between
two spurs of the hills, and soon began to mount by a rough road. This
became steeper and steeper, and Hugh was glad to get off and walk in
front. At times the track they had to cross was bare rock, so smooth
and slippery that the animals could scarcely keep their feet and drag
up the waggon. Then they wound along on the side of a hill, the ground
on one side being so much higher than on the other that it seemed to
Hugh that a loaded waggon would infallibly topple over and go rolling
down into the valley below. Sometimes they descended sharply into some
lateral ravine cut by a stream, and climbed up the other side. The
hills now were covered with a growth of small trees and brushwood--the
larger timber had already been felled. At last the waggon turned up the
bed of a stream running through a rocky gorge.
"Here we are," the driver said; and fifty yards further they came
upon the saw-mill--a roughly-built structure, with a water-wheel. A
low log-hut stood beside it. Beyond, the valley opened out. At the
upper end its sides far up the hills were covered with trees, but the
woodman's axe had already stripped the lower part of the valley of all
its timber trees. A dam had been built across the stream and a leat cut
to the water-wheel, which was sunk five or six feet below the level of
the ground around it, and the tail-race continued nearly down to the
mouth of the gorge, where the water fell again into the old bed of the
stream. The wheel was revolving, and the sound of the machinery inside
the mill deadened that of the mules and waggon, but a shrill whistle
from the driver brought a man to the door. He nodded to Hugh. "You are
the new hand the boss spoke of, I suppose? Well, Clarkson, have you
brought the things we wanted?"
"Yes, I think the list is complete. I gave it to the old man, and
he had all the things on board the first thing this morning. Here
they are: six pounds of tea, a barrel of pork, sack of flour, keg of
molasses, twenty pounds of sugar. Here is a box of dried apples, and
the two cross-cut saws. He will see about a grindstone. He thinks you
might make that one last a bit longer."
"It was pretty well worn out when it was put up," the foreman grumbled.
"It ain't fit to grind axes on. I told the boss the other day that it
had cost him ten times its vally already, because the men couldn't keep
a sharp edge on their tools with it."
"Well, you know, Ben, grindstones don't grow down in M'Kinney, and he
has got to get them sent out from Missouri."
"If he had to get them from China he might have had one here by this
time," the foreman grumbled. "Have you got that bag of iron dogs I
wanted?"
"No. There warn't one to be had in M'Kinney. The old man told me to
tell you he wrote off on Saturday to Little Rock and told them to
express them on."
A negro now came out from the hut and began to carry the provisions
in, and Hugh followed the foreman into the mill. There was another man
there. One side of the mill was open to a yard behind, in which lay the
logs as brought down by the team. These were placed on rollers, and so
run into the mill. One end of the log was then lifted by a screw-jack
until level with the saw-bench. Here it was packed up, and the jack
then taken to the other end. The machinery consisted solely of one
large circular saw and of another of smaller size. The water-power
would not have been sufficient to drive frame-saws, and the whole work
had to be done with the circular saws. The mill was not large, but
it sufficed for the wants of M'Kinney and the neighbourhood, and two
waggon-loads of planks were sent down daily. Three axemen, who felled
and squared the trees, and a teamster with four horses to drag the
balks down to the mill completed the establishment.
Hugh soon found that the work was far more interesting than it had been
in the woodyard. It needed a good deal of skill to handle the heavy
pieces of timber and get them upon the saw-bench, although they were
cross-cut by the woodmen into lengths suitable for planks. Then the
great saw cut the balks into planks three inches wide. These were taken
to the smaller saw, which ran them down into half, three-quarter, or
inch planks, as required. The benches were of a primitive description,
the balks being laid on fixed rollers, and the necessary movement given
to them by a rope passed through blocks and taken round a shaft, which,
as it revolved, wound up the rope and brought the logs forward against
the saw.
The noise at first of the saws and of the water-wheel and its machinery
almost deafened Hugh, but he soon ceased to notice it. He found that
his duties were of a general kind. He assisted in raising the logs to
their place and in getting them properly placed on the rollers, and
then he helped to fix the blocks and pulleys, to remove the planks as
they were cut off, and to work the log back to its place in readiness
for another plank to be cut from it. The small saw required one man's
constant attention, as the three-inch planks were simply pushed forward
by hand against it, being kept in their true position by guides.
"You have got to be careful when you get near the end," the foreman
said to him, "or you will find yourself without a finger or two in no
time. When you get to within a foot of the end you must not push the
plank any further, but go to the other end of the saw and pull it to
you. It is a pretty rough business altogether, but it will only last
another few months. There are not enough trees to supply it longer than
that. Pawson has bought up another place a bit further among the hills,
and he has ordered a better plant than this, and reckons it will be up
and ready to run by the time we are done here. This place ain't fit for
carrying on much trade. When it was put up two years ago there were but
few people about on the plain, and a waggon-load a week was about the
outside Pawson could get rid of. I have been here from the first. In
those days we used to work with our rifles handy, for there was always
a chance of an attack by Indians, but the country has grown so much
since then that the Indians moved further north, and don't bother us.
Ah! there is Joe's dinner-bell."
Hugh, following the example of the others, went down to the mill-stream
and gave his hands a rinse, dried them on a towel hanging from a nail
on the door of a hut, and then went in. In five minutes the whole party
were assembled, and took their seats on benches beside a long narrow
table. The negro cook brought in bowls of pea-soup. This was followed
by boiled pork and potatoes, and then came a great dish of dried
apples, boiled, with molasses poured over them.
"We get our board up here," the foreman, who had placed Hugh beside
him, said. "I suppose the boss told you?"
"Yes, he said I should get forty dollars a month, and my grub."
"That's it. It is better pay than you can get on a farm below, but it
is harder work, and lonesome; besides, unless you are careful, you run
a pretty good risk of an accident. There have been eight or ten fellows
hurt here since we began. It is healthy among the hills, and we don't
get fevers, and it is cool enough to sleep comfortably at night even in
summer, but in winter it is cold, I can tell you. The old man feeds us
pretty well, I must say that for him, and he is as good a boss as there
is about here."
Hugh liked the life, the keen mountain air braced him up, and every day
he found it more and more easy to do his share of the work of moving
the heavy balks. The men as a whole were pleasant fellows, and of an
evening Hugh listened with great interest to the stories they told as
they smoked their pipes. It was wonderful how many occupations most
of them had followed. Two of them had been mining in California before
they came down to Texas; one of them had been working with teams across
the Santa Fé route; another, named Bill Royce, had been a sailor, had
deserted his ship at Galveston, had enlisted and served for three years
at a cavalry post west, had deserted again, had worked for two years
as a cow-boy on one of the Texan ranches, had gone down into Mexico and
worked at a ranche there, had come up by sea to Galveston, working his
passage, had served as a farm hand for a few months, and then, after
various experiences, had come to M'Kinney when there were only three or
four houses there.
Another of the men had also worked as a cow-boy, but his experience had
been but a short one.
"I stopped just a week at it," he said, "and what with being thrown
off a horse twenty times a day, and what with the work, and what with
the goings-on of the boys, I had enough of it by that time. I had been
in one or two Indian fights, and I didn't feel scared then, but those
cow-boys scared me pretty nigh to death. The way they let off their
pistols was a caution. Four or five times, when I was sitting quiet,
smoking, bang! and a revolver bullet would knock my pipe into chips,
and then they laughed fit to kill themselves when I got up and swore.
Then without the least reason, someone, as we were all sitting round
the fire, would take it into his head to hit a little bit of flaming
wood, then half a dozen others would go at it, and the bits of fire
would be sent flying in all directions, and how it was that none of
them got killed was more than I could make out. I stood it for the
week, and then I weakened. I had got that nervous that I would jump if
a fellow moved suddenly, and I concluded that I was not made the same
way as the cow-boys, and had better quit and take to some other job."
"I reckon you were about right there," Bill Royce said. "Anyone as
is thinking of going for a cow-boy, had best know how to ride, how to
throw a rope, and how to draw his pistol as quick as lightning, before
he begins."
The next day Hugh asked the teamster to bring him up from the town a
rope, such as the cow-herders used.
"This will do," Bill Royce said, as he examined it. "The cow-boys
and Mexicans both use ropes sometimes, but they chiefly make them
themselves from strips of raw hide, which they work and grease until
they run almost as easy as if they were made of silk. Yes, this is the
right length, forty feet. Some men will use fifty, and I have known
Mexicans who would throw a sixty-foot length with certainty; but that
is quite out of the way; forty feet is the right length. I will splice
one end into an eye for you, the other goes through it, and makes
a running noose. When you throw it, the loop is three or four feet
across. Of course, the better you can throw, the smaller you can have
the loop, and the smaller it is the better, for the jerk comes all
the quicker before the horse or steer is prepared for it. Now, you see
that stump of a young tree sticking up two feet above the ground. Well,
you form your loop, and you gather the rest in coils in your hand like
this, and you stand, to begin with, twenty feet away, and you cast the
loop over the stump--so."
Of an evening, when supper was over, Hugh went out and practised with
the rope, and at the end of a month found that he could throw it at
a distance of thirty feet with a fair certainty of dropping the loop
over the stump. He also took Royce's advice as to the pistol. He had
laid it by since arriving at M'Kinney; but he now got a belt similar
to those worn by the cow-boys, and took to carrying the pistol in it,
but unloaded, and at odd moments practised drawing from the belt,
levelling it, and pulling the trigger with the greatest possible
speed. The action seemed simple enough, but he was surprised to find
how, with practice, the time taken in doing it diminished, and his
fingers came to close upon the handle in exactly the right position
almost instantaneously, and as his hand shot out, his thumb drew back
the hammer, and his forefinger closed on the trigger. All this he had
practised before, more or less, when he had learned to use the weapon
in the conservatory at Byrneside, but at that time it had not appeared
probable the accomplishment would be of any use. Now he knew that his
life might depend upon it, and he came in time to be able to perform
it, with, as Royce had said, something of the sleight of hand of a
conjurer.
He devoted the whole of his spare time to practising with the pistol
and rope, and by the time that summer had gone Hugh was able to throw
the rope with certainty over any fixed object within reach, and to draw
his revolver with a quickness that astounded Bill Royce.
"I have seen a lot of pistol shooting," the latter said, "since I came
out west--cow-boys and Mexicans, and horse-thieves and such like, but
I have never seen one draw as quick as you do, and there are many as
draws quick. You shoot fair, but nothing out of the way. There's many
a cow-boy kin shoot a sight straighter, but for quick drawing you are
wonderful, and that is the great thing. When one fellow gets his pistol
out, the other has got to cave in."
The valley was now pretty well cleared of its trees, and the party
prepared to go down to M'Kinney for the winter. The wood-cutters were
to move at once to the new location, and to begin to fell trees, and as
soon as the snow fell deep the teams would go up and drag them down to
the new saw-mill, for the timber is hauled down much more easily over
the snow than over the rough ground in summer. Thus there would be a
big stock in readiness when the thaw came, and the mill began to work
in the spring.
Hugh was not sorry when the work of the mill came to an end. He had
determined to remain until the season closed, and he was glad he had
done so. The time had been by no means lost. He had learned a good
deal as to the ways and character of the men with whom he should have
to associate. He had from one or other of them picked up a great deal
of knowledge about the country, and knew the best places for making
a start, the towns from which most of the teams started, and the
localities that were best to make for in order to gain the heart of the
cattle country. He had learned to throw a rope with enough dexterity
to aid him materially in any work he might undertake among cattle
or horses, and his constant practice with his revolver gave him a
confidence in himself, and in his ability to hold his own in the wild
life of the plains and mountains.
In the nine months which had elapsed since he left England he had
gained strength, had become manly and self-reliant, and felt that his
apprenticeship had been of great value to him. The first thing to do
after he came down to M'Kinney, was to look out for a horse. He had
been put up to a useful wrinkle in this respect by Bill Royce. "You
be careful about any horse trade you make. Bet your boots that any
horse that is offered to you here is stolen, and you would get into
one of the awkwardest of scrapes if you chanced to go into a district
where that horse is known. They don't trouble themselves to ask many
questions over a stolen horse. If you buy a horse, the best thing to
do is to go before a justice, or the sheriff will do: pay your money
before him, and get him to sign his name as a witness to the bargain.
His fee will be one or two dollars, and you could not lay out the
money better. Men ain't altogether unreasonable even where a horse is
concerned, and a paper issued from a sheriff's office certifying that
you had bought the horse, and paid a fair price for it, might save your
neck from a noose. You may ride a stolen horse all your life, and never
happen to light on the place he was taken from; but if you do happen to
light on it, you may find yourself in a tight corner."
Hugh put up at the hotel, and having told the landlord that he was
on the look-out for a horse, the latter told him one evening, when he
returned from a visit to some friends at a farm, that two men had come
in an hour before, and had said they had a good horse to dispose of.
Bill Royce was sitting in the saloon when Hugh went in.
"I dropped in to see you, Hugh. I saw two fellows come in an hour ago
on two likely-looking horses and they were leading two others, one of
which seemed to me as good a bit of horse flesh as I have seen fur a
long time. I expect they are on for a trade. The horse is a mustang; I
don't expect they come by it honest, but that ain't your business, and
you will get it cheaper than if they had. Go slow in bargaining; don't
you let out you really want him."
Presently two men came in. They were dressed in broad hats, red shirts,
over which they wore jackets with silver buttons, breeches made of a
soft leather, and high boots. They wore bright-coloured sashes round
the waist.
"They look pretty hard," Bill Royce said quietly; "they may be
anything. They are not regular cow-boys, but they may have been working
on a ranche; they may have been prospecting; they may be horse-thieves;
they may be regular border ruffians; anyhow, they have got a horse to
sell. Maybe they have stole it from a ranche; maybe they have got it
from the Indians; maybe they have wiped out its owner. You will be able
to tell pretty well by the price they want for it. He would be cheap at
two hundred dollars if he is anything like as good as he looks. If they
will take anything under that it is because they daren't keep him."
After standing at the bar and talking for some time to the landlord,
one of the men came across to Hugh.
"I hear you are looking for a horse."
"Yes, I am wanting to buy one if I find one to suit me at my price."
"I have a horse to trade that would suit anyone, and as to its price,
I am ready to let him go a bargain."
"I should like to have a look at him," Hugh said.
"Well, he is in the stable now."
"Yes; but I should want to see him by daylight, get on his back, and
try him."
"Look here," the man said. "Me and my mate are pressed for time.
Perhaps we have got an appointment with the president, perhaps we
haven't; anyhow, we want to go on. We have got two spare horses, and we
don't wish to bother with them no further."
"Well, I will look at the horse now," Hugh said, and, accompanied
by Bill Royce, he followed the man to the stables. Two horses were
standing, ready saddled and bridled, hitched to hooks outside the shed.
Inside were two others. One was an ordinary-looking horse, bony and
angular. A pack-saddle hung on a beam close by. He had evidently been
used for carrying baggage. The other was a handsome roan, which snorted
angrily as they approached with lanterns.
"That is something like a horse," the man said. "Five years old,
strong, and up to anything, clean-limbed, full of courage, and fast."
"He has got a temper," Hugh said as the horse laid back his ears and
made a sudden and vicious snap at the man's hand.
"He is a bit playful," the man said.
"Well, I don't like buying him without trying him," Hugh said. "He may
be up to all sorts of tricks, and may kick his saddle over his head.
What do you want for him?"
"I tell you what," the man said. "That horse would be dirt cheap at two
hundred and fifty dollars, but as I have told you we want to be moving
on, and I will sell him for a hundred and fifty. I would rather put a
bullet through his head than let him go for less than that."
"Well, let us go back into the saloon and talk it over," Hugh said. "It
is a rum way to buy a horse, but I like his looks."
The other man was still standing at the bar when they entered. Hugh,
knowing that it would be an unheard-of thing to buy a horse without the
ceremony of taking drinks being performed, went to the bar and ordered
them for the four. "If I buy that horse," he said, "it will be on one
condition. You see I don't know where he has come from. The man you
got him from may have stolen him, and I might happen to come across
the former owner, and I haven't any fancy for being strung up as a
horse-thief."
"You don't mean, stranger, to say as we have stolen him?" one of the
men said angrily.
"Not at all. It may have gone through half a dozen hands before it came
into yours, and yet it may have been stolen. Of course, if you know
anyone here who can guarantee that you raised the horse, or have owned
him for a couple of years, I shall be quite content; but if you don't,
you can hardly expect me to take your word any more than I should
expect them to take my word if a party were to ride up to me and accuse
me of stealing it. That is right enough, isn't it, landlord?"
"I don't see as there is anything to be said against that," the
landlord said. "It is a mighty unpleasant thing in this country to be
found riding on the back of a horse that has mayhap been stolen."
"What I propose is this," Hugh went on. "Seeing that these gentlemen
are strangers here, I propose that I should call in the sheriff and
James Pawson, who is a justice, and that they should witness the sale
and give me a signed paper saying that they know me as a resident here,
and that I have in their presence bought this horse. I don't think
there is anything unreasonable in that. If at any time I am held up for
stealing it I can show this paper, and if they doubt it they can write
to the sheriff here, and find that it is genuine."
The two men exchanged a few words together in a low voice, and then the
one who had shown the horse said, "Well, I reckon that is a fair enough
offer. We know we came by the horse honestly, but as we are strangers
it is right enough you should be cautious. Bring your sheriff along,
and let's be done with it."
"I will fetch the sheriff across," Royce said, "if you go over to
Pawson's, Hugh."
In five minutes they returned with the two men. The sheriff looked
sharply at the two horse-dealers. They were unknown to him.
"Will you give me my belt, landlord?" Hugh said.
The landlord went out, and returned with Hugh's belt, which had been
locked up in his chest since Hugh arrived in the town. The latter
counted out 150 dollars in gold.
"Wait a moment," the sheriff said. "I must see the horse first, and see
what brand is on him. I cannot describe the horse unless I see him."
Again taking lanterns the party went out to the stable. The horse had
been branded with a circle in which was the letter E. There was no
other mark on him. The sheriff brought across with him some official
paper, and returning to the bar wrote: "I bear witness to the purchase
by"--and he paused--"Hugh Tunstall," Hugh put in,--"who is well known
to me as having been working for six months in and near the town, of a
roan horse branded [brand E] of"--"of Jake Wittingham," the man
said--"and to the passing of payment for the same." The sheriff then
added his name, writing under it, "Sheriff of M'Kinney County," and
James Pawson added his signature with the word "Judge."
"That is right and square," the sheriff said. "Now, hand over the money
and the trade is done."
"I will throw in the other horse for twenty dollars."
"I will take it," Hugh said; and adding this sum to that he had counted
out, handed it over to the men.
"If you will just step over with me, Hugh," the sheriff said, "I will
put my official seal to that paper. I have not a doubt," he went on
as they left the saloon, "that those two fellows have stolen that
horse. They would never have sold him for that money had they come by
him honestly. I should have been glad to buy him myself for anything
like that price. I don't know the men, and I reckon I know most of the
rogues for a hundred miles round here; so that, if it has been stolen,
it has probably been brought a good distance. I shouldn't be surprised
if there has been murder as well as robbery. If I knew the men I
would seize them and have them searched; but as I have never seen them
before, and know nothing against them, I cannot do that. I think it is
a very good idea of yours getting me in to witness the sale. That horse
might get you into serious trouble if you could not prove that you came
by it honestly."
He had now reached his house, and proceeded to stamp the document with
the official seal. "You may as well put your signature to this," he
said, "and I will witness it. Then if there is any question about your
being Hugh Tunstall you would only have to sign your name and they
would see that you are the man mentioned. That is right; my fee is two
dollars."
Hugh gladly paid the money, and putting the document in his pocket
returned to the hotel.
"Those fellows have just ridden off," Royce said when he entered.
"Pretty hard couple that. I wonder where they got that horse. Nowhere
about here, or the sheriff would have known it; a horse like that would
be sure to catch the eye."
The next morning Hugh got up early to inspect his purchase. The horse
again made hostile demonstrations when he approached it; but, talking
to it quietly, Hugh went into the stall, patted and soothed it. When it
had quieted down he took the head-rope and led it out into the yard.
"You are a beauty," he said; "there is no mistake about that," and,
tying it up to a post, he walked round it. "Well put together, plenty
of muscle, fine bone, and splendid quarters. What a hunter you would
make if I had you at home!" The landlord came out as he was admiring
the animal.
"A mustang," he said; "bigger than they usually run a good bit, and
a beauty all over; he is worth double what you gave for him. This is
not much of a horse country; if you had him down south you could get
three hundred for him any day. I expect those fellows were afraid to
take him down there; too well known, I reckon. Look here, I will give
you a paper too; and if I were you I would get another from Pawson,
saying that you have been working for him at his sawmill, and that he
recommends you as a good hand at that work. You can't have too many
certificates as to who you are when you are riding on an animal like
that in this country. If you want a saddle and bridle, Jim Hoskings has
got one to sell; he was speaking to me about it a fortnight ago."
Half an hour later Hugh became the owner of a saddle and bridle. The
former was made in the Texan fashion, which closely resembles the
Mexican, being very heavy, and with high peak and cantle.
"I hardly see how a man can be thrown off a horse with such a saddle as
this," Hugh said as he examined it; "one would be boxed in before and
behind."
"Wait till you get on a bad bucking horse," the man said with a smile.
"You won't wonder about it then."
Carrying it back to the hotel Hugh saddled his horse and mounted.
He felt strange and uncomfortable at first, for the stirrup-leathers
were placed much further back than those to which he was accustomed.
The stirrups were very large and broad, and the position of the
stirrup-leathers rendered it necessary for him to ride almost with
a straight leg, so that his grip was with his thighs instead of his
knees.
"I shall get accustomed to him in time," he said to himself, "but at
present I feel as if I was riding barebacked. Well, I had plenty of
practice at that, so I ought to be able to stick on." He rode at a
quiet pace down the street, and then shook the reins, and the horse
at once started at a hand-gallop. Hugh was delighted with his pace,
which was wonderfully smooth and easy, and returned in an hour fully
satisfied with his purchase.
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