THE MAN OF DRY BOTTOM
A young man rode around the corner of the cabin and halted his pony
beside the porch, sitting quietly in the saddle and gazing inquiringly
at the two. He was about Ferguson's age and, like the latter, he wore
two heavy guns. There was about him, as he sat there sweeping a slow
glance over the girl and the man, a certain atmosphere of deliberate
certainty and quiet coldness that gave an impression of readiness for
whatever might occur.
Ferguson's eyes lighted with satisfaction. The girl might be an
Easterner, but the young man was plainly at home in this country.
Nowhere, except in the West, could he have acquired the serene calm
that shone out of his eyes; in no other part of the world could he have
caught the easy assurance, the unstudied nonchalance, that seems the
inherent birthright of the cowpuncher.
"Ben," said the girl, answering the young man's glance, "this man was
bitten by a rattler. He came here, and I treated him. He says he was
on his way over to the Two Diamond, for a job."
The young man opened his lips slightly. "Stafford hire you?" he asked.
"I'm hopin' he does," returned Ferguson.
The young man's lips drooped sneeringly. "I reckon you're wantin' a
job mighty bad," he said.
Ferguson smiled. "Takin' your talk, you an' Stafford ain't very good
friends," he returned.
The young man did not answer. He dismounted and led his pony to a
small corral and then returned to the porch, carrying his saddle.
For an instant after the young man had left the porch to turn his pony
into the corral Ferguson had kept his seat on the porch. But something
in the young man's tone had brought him out of the chair, determined to
accept no more of his hospitality. If the young man was no friend of
Stafford, it followed that he could not feel well disposed to a puncher
who had avowed that his purpose was to work for the Two Diamond manager.
Ferguson was on his feet, clinging to one of the slender porch posts,
preparatory to stepping down to go to his pony, when the young woman
came out. Her sharp exclamation halted him.
"You're not going now!" she said. "You have got to remain perfectly
quiet until morning!"
The brother dropped his saddle to the porch floor, grinning mildly at
Ferguson, "You don't need to be in a hurry," he said. "I was intending
to run your horse into the corral. What I meant about Stafford don't
apply to you." He looked up at his sister, still grinning. "I reckon
he ain't got nothing to do with it?"
The young woman blushed. "I hope not," she said in a low voice.
"We're goin' to eat pretty soon," said the young man. "I reckon that
rattler didn't take your appetite?"
Ferguson flushed. "It was plum rediculous, me bein' hooked by a
rattler," he said. "An' I've lived among them so long."
"I reckon you let him get away?" questioned the young man evenly.
"If he's got away," returned Ferguson, his lips straightening with
satisfaction, "he's a right smart snake."
He related the incident of the attack, ending with praises of the young
woman's skill.
The young man smiled at the reference to his sister. "She's studied
medicine--back East. Lately she's turned her hand to writin'. Come
out here to get experience--local color, she calls it."
Ferguson sat back in his chair, quietly digesting this bit of
information. Medicine and writing. What did she write? Love stories?
Fairy tales? Romances? He had read several of these. Mostly they
were absurd and impossible. Love stories, he thought, would be easy
for her. For--he said, mentally estimating her--a woman ought to know
more about love than a man. And as for anything being impossible in a
love story. Why most anything could happen to people who are in love.
"Supper is ready," he heard her announce from within.
Ferguson preceded the young man at the tin wash basin, taking a fresh
towel that the young woman offered him from the doorway. Then he
followed the young man inside. The three took places at the table, and
Ferguson was helped to a frugal, though wholesome meal.
The dusk had begun to fall while they were yet at the table, and the
young woman arose, lighting a kerosene lamp and placing it on the
table. By the time they had finished semi-darkness had settled.
Ferguson followed the young man out to the chairs on the porch for a
smoke.
They were scarcely seated when there was a clatter of hoofs, and a pony
and rider came out of the shadow of the nearby cottonwood, approaching
the cabin and halting beside the porch. The newcomer was a man of
about thirty-five. The light of the kerosene lamp shone fairly in his
face as he sat in the saddle, showing a pair of cold, steady eyes and
thin, straight lips that were wreathed in a smile.
"I thought I'd ride over for a smoke an' a talk before goin' down the
crick to where the outfit's workin'," he said to the young man. And
now his eyes swept Ferguson's lank figure with a searching glance.
"But I didn't know you was havin' company," he added. The second
glance that he threw toward Ferguson was not friendly.
Ferguson's lips curled slightly under it. Each man had been measured
by the other, and neither had found in the other anything to admire.
Ferguson's thoughts went rapidly back to Dry Bottom. He saw a man in
the street, putting five bullets through a can that he had thrown into
the air. He saw again the man's face as he had completed his
exhibition--insolent, filled with a sneering triumph. He heard again
this man's voice, as he himself had offered to eclipse his feat:--
"You runnin' sheep, stranger?"
The voice and face of the man who stood before him now were the voice
and face of the man who had preceded him in the shooting match in Dry
Bottom. His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of his host,
explaining his presence.
"This here man was bit by a rattler this afternoon," the young man was
saying. "He's layin' up here for to-night. Says he's reckonin' on
gettin' a job over at the Two Diamond."
The man on the horse sneered. "Hell!" he said; "bit by a rattler!" He
laughed insolently, pulling his pony's head around. "I reckon I'll be
goin'," he said. "You'll nurse him so's he won't die?" He had struck
the pony's flanks with the spurs and was gone into the shadows before
either man on the porch could move. There was a short silence, while
the two men listened to the beat of his pony's hoofs. Then Ferguson
turned and spoke to the young man.
"You know him?" he questioned.
The young man smiled coldly. "Yep," he said; "he's range boss for the
Two Diamond!"