ONE COMES TO SERVE
An hour after midday there came riding over the hills Tim Sullivan and
a stranger. They stopped at the ruins of the sheep-wagon, where Tim
dismounted and nosed around, then came on down the draw, where
Mackenzie was ranging the sheep.
Tim was greatly exercised over the loss of the wagon. He pitched into
Mackenzie about it as soon as he came within speaking distance.
"How did you do it--kick over the lantern?" he inquired, his face
cloudy with ill-held wrath.
Mackenzie explained, gruffly and in few words, how the wagon was
fired, sparing his own perilous adventure and the part that Joan had
borne in it. This slowed Tim down, and set him craning his neck over
the country to see if any further threat of violence impended on the
horizon.
"Them Hall boys ought to be men enough not to do me a trick like that
after the way I've give in to them on this side of the range," he
said. Then to Mackenzie, sharply: "It wouldn't 'a' happened if you
hadn't took Hector's guns away from him that time. A sheepman's got no
right to be fightin' around on the range. If he wants to brawl and
scrap, let him do it when he goes to town, the way the cowboys used
to."
"Maybe you're right; I'm beginning to think you are," Mackenzie
returned.
"Right? Of course I'm right. A sheepman's got to set his head to
business, and watchin' the corners to prevent losses like this that
eats up the profit, and not go around with his sleeves rolled up and
his jaw slewed, lookin' for a fight. And if he starts one he's got to
have the backbone and the gizzard to hold up his end of it, and not
let 'em put a thing like this over on him. Why wasn't you in the wagon
last night watchin' it?"
"Because I've been expecting them to burn it."
"Sure you've been expectin' 'em to burn you out, and you hid in the
brush with your tail between your legs like a kicked pup and let 'em
set my new wagon afire. How did you git your face bunged up that
way?"
"I fell down," Mackenzie said, with a sarcasm meant only for himself,
feeling that he had described his handling of the past situation in a
word.
"Runnin' off, I reckon. Well, I tell you, John, it won't do, that kind
of business won't do. Them Hall boys are mighty rough fellers, too
rough for a boy like you that's been runnin' with school children all
his life. You got some kind of a lucky hitch on Hector when you
stripped that belt and guns off of him--I don't know how you done it;
it's a miracle he didn't nail you down with lead--but that kind of
luck won't play into a man's hands one time in a thousand. You never
ought 'a' started anything with them fellers unless you had the weight
in your hind-quarters to keep it goin'."
"You're right," said Mackenzie, swallowing the rebuke like a bitter
pill.
"Right? You make me tired standin' there and takin' it like a sick
cat! If you was half the man I took you to be when you struck this
range you'd resent a callin' down like I'm givin' you. But you don't
resent it, you take it, like you sneaked and let them fellers burn
that wagon and them supplies of mine. If you was expectin' 'em to turn
that kind of a trick you ought 'a' been right there in that wagon,
watchin' it--there's where you had a right to be."
"I suppose there's where I'd been if I had your nerve, Sullivan,"
Mackenzie said, his slow anger taking place of the humiliation that
had bent him down all morning like a shameful load. "Everybody on this
range knows you're a fighting man--you've fought the wind gettin' away
from this side of the range every time you saw smoke, you've got a
reputation for standing out for your rights like a man with a gizzard
in him as big as a sack of bran! Sure, I know all about the way you've
backed out of here and let Carlson and the Halls bluff you out of the
land you pay rent on, right along. If I had your nerve----"
* * * * *
Tim's face flamed as if he had risen from turning batter-cakes over a
fire. He made a smoothing, adjusting, pacificating gesture with his
hands, looking with something between deep concern and shame over his
shoulder at the man who accompanied him, and who sat off a few feet in
his saddle, a grin over his face.
"Now, John, I don't mean for you to take it that I'm throwin' any slur
over your courage for the way things has turned out--I don't want you
to take it that way at all, lad," said Tim.
"I'm not a fighting man"--Mackenzie was getting hotter as he went
on--"everybody in here knows that by now, I guess. You guessed wrong,
Sullivan, when you took me for one and put me over here to hold this
range for you that this crowd's been backing you off of a little
farther each spring. You're the brave spirit that's needed here--if
somebody could tie you and hold you to face the men that have robbed
you of the best range you've got. I put down my hand; I get out of the
way for you when it comes to the grit to put up a fight."
"Oh, don't take it to heart what I've been sayin', lad. A man's hot
under the collar when he sees a dirty trick like that turned on him,
but it passes off like sweat, John. Let it go, boy, let it pass."
"You sent me in here expecting me to fight, and when I don't always
come out on top you rib me like the devil's own for it. You expected
me to fight to hold this grass, but you didn't expect me to lose
anything at all. Well, I'll hold the range for you, Sullivan; you
don't need to lose any sleep over that. But if I'm willing to risk my
skin to do it, by thunder, you ought to be game enough to stand the
loss of a wagon without a holler that can be heard to Four Corners!"
"You're doin' fine holdin' my range that I pay solid money to Uncle
Sam for, you're doin' elegant fine, lad. I was hasty, my tongue got
out from under the bit, boy. Let it pass; don't you go holdin' it
against an old feller like me that's got the worry of forty-odd
thousand sheep on his mind day and night."
"It's easy enough to say, but it don't let you out. You've got no call
to come here and wade into me without knowing anything about the
circumstances."
"Right you are, John, sound and right. I was hasty, I was too hot.
You've done fine here, you're the first man that's ever stood up to
them fellers and held 'em off my grass. You've done things up like a
man, John. I give it to you--like a man."
"Thanks," said Mackenzie, in dry scorn.
"I ain't got no kick to make over the loss of my wagon--it's been many
a day since I had one burnt up on me that way. Pass it up, pass up
anything I've said about it, John. That's the lad."
So John passed it up, and unbent to meet the young man who rode with
Tim, whom the sheepman presented as Earl Reid, from Omaha, son of
Malcolm Reid, an old range partner and friend. The young man had come
out to learn the sheep business; Tim had brought him over for
Mackenzie to break in. Dad Frazer was coming along with three thousand
sheep, due to arrive in about a week. When he got there, the
apprentice would split his time between them.
Mackenzie received the apprentice as cordially as he could, but it was
not as ardent a welcome as the young man may have expected, owing to
the gloom of resentment into which Sullivan's outbreak had thrown this
unlucky herder on the frontier of the range.
Reid was rather a sophisticated looking youth of twenty-two or
twenty-three, city broke, city marked. There was a poolroom pallor
about this thin face, a poolroom stoop to his thin shoulders, that
Mackenzie did not like. But he was frank and ingenuous in his
manner, with a ready smile that redeemed his homely face, and a pair
of blue eyes that seemed young in their innocence compared to the
world-knowledge that his face betrayed.
"Take the horses down there to the crick and water 'em," Tim directed
his new herder, "and then you'll ride back with me as far as Joan's
camp and fetch over some grub to hold you two fellers till the wagon
comes. Joan, she'll know what to give you, and I guess you can find
your way back here?"
"Surest thing you know," said Earl, with easy confidence, riding off
to water the horses.
"That kid's no stranger to the range," Mackenzie said, more to himself
than to Tim, as he watched him ride off.
"No, he used to be around with the cowboys on Malcolm's ranch when he
was in the cattle business. He can handle a horse as good as you or
me. Malcolm was the man that set me up in the sheep business; I
started in with him like you're startin' with me, more than thirty
years ago. He was the first sheepman on this range, and he had to
fight to hold his own, I'm here to say!"
"You'd better send the kid over into peaceful territory," Mackenzie
suggested, crabbedly.
"No, the old man wants him to get a taste of what he went through to
make his start--he was tickled to the toes when he heard the way them
Hall boys are rarin' up and you standin' 'em off of this range of
mine. 'Send him over there with that man,' he says; 'that's the kind
of a man I want him to break in under.' The old feller was tickled
clean to his toes."
"Is he over at the ranch?"
"No, he went back home last night. Come down to start the kid right,
and talk it over with me. It was all a surprise to me, I didn't know a
thing about it, but I couldn't turn Malcolm down." Tim winked, looked
cunning, nodded in a knowing way. "Kid's been cuttin' up throwin' away
too much money; gettin' into scrapes like a boy in town will, you
know. Wild oats and a big crop of 'em. The old man's staked him out
with me for three years, and he ain't to draw one cent of pay, or have
one cent to spend, in that time. If he breaks over, it's all off
between them two. And the kid's sole heir to nearly half a million."
Mackenzie turned to look again at the boy, who was coming back with
the horses.
"Do you think he'll stick?" he asked.
"Yes, he promised the old man he would, and if he's anything like
Malcolm, he'll eat fire before he'll break his word. Malcolm and me we
come to terms in ten words. The kid's to work three years for me
without pay; then I'll marry him to my Joan."
Mackenzie felt his blood come up hot, and sink down again, cold; felt
his heart kick in one resentful surge, then fall away to weakness as
if its cords had been cut. Tim laughed, looking down the draw toward
the sheep.
"It's something like that Jacob and Laban deal you spoke about the
other day," said he. "Curious how things come around that way, ain't
it? There I went ridin' off, rakin' up my brains to remember that
story, and laughed when it come to me all of a sudden. Jacob skinned
them willow sticks, and skinned the old man, too. But I don't guess
Earl would turn a trick like that on me, even if he could."
"How about Joan? Does she agree to the terms?" Mackenzie could not
forbear the question, even though his throat was dry, his lips cold,
his voice husky at the first word.
"She'll jump at it," Tim declared, warmly. "She wants to go away from
here and see the world, and this will be her chance. I don't object to
her leavin', either, as long as it don't cost me anything. You go
ahead and stuff her, John; stuff her as full of learnin' as she'll
hold. It'll be cheaper for me than sendin' her off to school and
fittin' her up to be a rich man's wife, and you can do her just as
much good--more, from what she tells me. You go right ahead and stuff
her, John."
"Huh!" said John.
"Earl, he'll look after your sheep while you're teachin' Joan her
books. Stuff her, but don't founder her, John. If any man can fit her
up to prance in high society, I'd bet my last dollar you can. You're a
kind of a gentleman yourself, John."
"Thanks," said John, grinning a dry grin.
"Yes," reminiscently, with great satisfaction, "Malcolm made the
proposition to me, hit me with it so sudden it nearly took my breath.
'Marry him to your Joan when you make a man of him,' he says. I said
maybe he wouldn't want to hitch up with a sheepman's daughter that was
brought up on the range. 'If he don't he can go to work and make his
own way--I'll not leave him a dam' cent!' says Malcolm. We shook hands
on it; he said he'd put it in his will. And that's cinched so it can't
slip."
When Tim mounted to leave he looked round the range again with a
drawing of trouble in his face, as if he searched the peaceful
landscape for the shadow of wings.
"I ain't got another sheep-wagon to give you right now, John; I guess
you'll have to make out with a tent till winter," he said.
"I'd rather have it," Mackenzie replied.
Tim leaned over, hand to one side of his mouth, speaking in low voice,
yet not whispering:
"And remember what I said about that matter, John. Stuff, but don't
founder."
"Stuff," said John, but with an inflection that gave the word a
different meaning, quite.