LORD BALSHANNON
With all the signs and the signal smokes pointing for war, I reckoned I
could dispense with that Ocean and stay round to see the play. Moreover,
there was this British lord, lost in the desert, wounded some, helpless
as a baby, game as a grizzly bear, ringed round with dead horses and
dead Apaches, and his troubles appealed to me plentiful. I scouted
around until I hit a live trail, then streaked away to find people. I
was doubtful if I had done right in case that lord got massacred, me
being absent, so I rode hard, and at noon saw the smoke of a camp
against the Tres Hermanos Mountains. It proved to be a cow camp with all
the boys at dinner.
They had heard nothing of Apaches out on the war trail, but when I told
what I knew, they came glad, on the dead run, their waggons and pony
herd following. We found the Britisher digging graves for three dead
men, and looking apt to require a fourth for his own use.
"Er--good evening," says he, and I began to wonder why I'd sweated
myself so hot to rescue an iceberg.
"Gentlemen," says he to the boys, "you find some er--coffee ready beside
the fire, and afterwards, if you please, we will bury my dead."
The boys leaned over in their saddles, wondering at him, but the lord's
cool eye looked from face to face, and we had to do what he said. He was
surely a great chief, that Lord Balshannon.
The men who had fallen a prey to the Apaches were two teamsters and a
Mexican, all known to these Bar Y riders, and they were sure sorry. But
more than that they enjoyed this shorthorn, this tenderfoot from the
east who could stand off an outfit of hostile Indians with his lone
rifle. They saw he was wounded, yet he dug graves for his dead, made
coffee for the living, and thought of everything except himself. After
coffee we lined up by the graves to watch the bluff he made at funeral
honours. Lord Balshannon was a colonel in the British Army, and he stood
like an officer on parade reading from a book. His black hair was
touched silver, his face was strong, hard, manful, and his voice
quivered while he read from the little book--
"For I am a stranger with Thee,
And a sojourner as all my fathers were;
O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength
Before I go hence, and am no more seen."
I reckon that there were some of us sniffing as though we had just
caught a cold, while we listened to that man's voice, and saw the
loneliness of him. Afterwards Dick Bryant, the Bar Y foreman, walked
straight up to Balshannon.
"Britisher," said he, "you may be a sojourner, and we hopes you are, a
whole lot, but there's no need to be a stranger. Shake."
So they shook hands, and that was the beginning of a big friendship.
Then Balshannon turned to the crowd, and looked slowly from face to face
of us.
"Gentlemen," he said kind of feeble, and we saw his face go grey while
he spoke, "I'm much obliged to you all for er--for coming. It seems,
indeed, ah--that my little son Jim and I have made friends and
er--neighbours. I'm sorry that you should find my camp in such aw--in
such a beastly mess, but there's some fairly decent whisky in this
nearest waggon, and er--" the man was reeling, and his eyes seemed
blind, "when we get to my new ranche at Holy Cross I--I hope
you'll--friends--aw--and----"
And he dropped in a dead faint.
So long as I stay alive I shall remember that night, the smell of the
dead horses, the silence, the smoke of our fire going up straight to a
white sky of stars, the Bar Y people in pairs lying wrapped in their
blankets around the waggons, the reliefs of riders going out on guard,
the cold towards dawn. The little boy Jim had curled up beside me
because he felt lonesome in the waggon. Balshannon lay by the fire, his
mind straying away off beyond our range. Often he muttered, but I could
not catch the words, and sometimes said something aloud which sounded
like nonsense. It must have been midnight, when all of a sudden he sat
bolt upright, calling out loud enough to waken half the camp--
"Ryan!" he shouted, "don't disturb him, Ryan! He's upstairs dying. If
you fire, the shock will--Ryan! Don't shoot! Ryan!"
Then with a groan he fell back. I moistened his lips with cold tea. "All
right," he whispered, "thanks, Helen."
For a long time he lay muttering while I held his hands. "You see,
Helen," he whispered, "neither you nor the child could be safe in
Ireland. Ryan killed my father."
He seemed to fall asleep after that, and, counting by the stars, an hour
went by. Then he looked straight at me--
"You see, dear? I turned them out of their farms, and Ryan wants his
revenge, so----"
Towards morning I put some sticks on the fire which crackled a lot. "Go
easy, Jim," I heard him say, "don't waste our cartridges. Poor little
chap!"
Day broke at last, the cook was astir, and the men rode in from herd. I
dropped off to sleep.
It was noon before the heat awakened me, and I sat up to find the fire
still burning, but Lord Balshannon gone. I saw his waggons trailing off
across the desert. Dick Bryant was at the fire lighting his pipe with a
coal.
"Wall," said he, "you've been letting out enough sleep through yo' nose
to run an engine. Goin' to make this yo' home?"
"The camp's moved?"
"Sure. I've sent the Britisher's waggons down to Holy Cross. He bought
the place from a Mexican last month."
"Is it far?"
"About twenty mile. I've been down there this morning. I reckon the
people there had smelt Apaches and run. It was empty, and that's why I'm
making this talk to you. I cayn't spare my men after to-day, and I don't
calculate to leave a sick man and a lil' boy thar alone."
"I'll stay with them," said I.
"That's good talk. If you-all need help by day make a big smoke on the
roof, or if it's night just make a flare of fire. I'll keep my outfit
near enough to see."
"You reckon there'll be Indians?"
"None. That was a stray band, and what's left of it ain't feeling good
enough to want scalps. But when I got to Holy Cross this morning I seen
this paper, and some tracks of the man who left it nailed on the door. I
said nothing to my boys, and the Britisher has worries enough already to
keep him interested, but you ought to know what's coming, in case of
trouble. Here's the paper.
"'GRAVE CITY, ARIZONA,
"'_3rd February, 1886_.
"'MY LORD,
"'This is to tell you that in spite of everything you could do to
destroy me, I'm safe in this free country, and doing well. I've
heard of the horrible crime you committed in driving the poor
people from your estate in Ireland, from homes which we and our
fathers have loved for a thousand years. Now I call the holy saints
to witness that I will do to you as you have done to me, and to my
people. The time will come when, driven from this your new home,
without a roof to cover you, or a crust to eat, your wife and boy
turned out to die in the desert, you will plead for even so much as
a drink, and it will be thrown in your face. I shall not die until
I have seen the end of your accursed house.
"'(Sd.) GEORGE RYAN.'
"These Britishers," said Bryant, "is mostly of two breeds--the lords and
the flunkeys; and you kin judge them by the ways they act. This Mr.
Balshannon is a lord, and thish yer Ryan's a flunk. If a real man feels
that his enemy is some superfluous on this earth, he don't make
lamentations and post 'em up on a door. No, he tracks his enemy to a
meeting; he makes his declaration of war, and when the other gentleman
is good and ready, they lets loose with their guns in battle. This Ryan
here has the morals of a snake and the right hand of a coward."
"Do I give this paper," said I, "to Mr. Balshannon?"
"It's his business, lad, not ours. But until this lord is well enough to
fight, you stands on guard."