BEN'S NEW HOME
Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled
rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was
putting things in readiness for breakfast. Beside the sheet-iron heater
in the front room, her husband, carefully swaddled in a big checked
apron with the strings tied in a bow under his left ear, was busily
engaged in dressing the half-dozen prairie chickens he had trapped that
day. As fast as he removed the feathers he thrust them into the stove,
and the pungent odor mingled with the suggestive tang of the bacon that
had been the foundation of the past supper, and with the odor of
cigarettes with which the other four men were permeating the place.
Graham critically held up to the light the bird upon which he had just
been operating, removed a few scattered feathers, and, with practised
hand, attacked its successor.
"If I were doing this job for myself," he commented, "I'd skin the
beasts. Life is too blamed short to waste it in pulling out feathers!"
Grannis, the new-comer from no one knew where, smiled.
"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to
ask for information, who is if you ain't?"
The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in
sympathy.
"My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?"
Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer.
A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued.
"I reckon you've never been, though," Graham went on, "else you'd never
ask that question."
During the remainder of the evening, Grannis sought no further
information; and to Ma Graham's narrow life a new interest was added.
Ordinarily the cowboys went to their bunks in an adjoining shed almost
directly after supper, but this evening, without giving a reason, they
lingered. The housekeeper finished her work, and, coming into the main
room, took a chair and sat down, her hands folded in her lap. The grouse
dressed, Graham ranged them in a row upon the lean-to table, removed the
apron, and lit his pipe in silence. The cowboys rolled fresh cigarettes
and puffed at them steadily, the four stumps close together glowing in
the dimness of the room. As everywhere upon the prairie, the quiet was
almost a thing to feel.
At last, when the silence had become oppressive, the foreman took the
pipe from his mouth and blew a short puff of smoke.
"Seems like the boss ought to've got back before this," he said with a
sidelong glance at his wife.
Ma Graham nodded corroboration.
"Yes; must have found something wrong, I guess." She refolded her
hands, and once more relapsed into silence.
It was the breaking of the ice, however.
"Where d'ye suppose the trouble could have been, Graham?" It was another
late-comer, Bud Buck, young and narrow of hips, who spoke.
"At Blair's," was the answer. "The Big B is the closest."
"Blair?" The questioner puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. "Guess I
never heard of him."
"Must be a stranger in these parts, then," said Marcom. "Most everybody
knows Tom Blair." He paused to give an all-including glance. "At least
well enough to get a slice of his dough," he finished with a sarcastic
laugh.
"Does he handle the pasteboards?" asked Buck, with interest.
"Tries to," contemptuously.
The curiosity of the youthful Bud was now thoroughly aroused.
"What kind of a fellow is he, anyway?" he went on. "Does he go it alone
up at his ranch?"
At the last question Bill Marcom, discreetly silent, shifted his eyes in
the direction of the foreman, and, following them, Bud surprised a
covert glance between Graham and his wife. It was the latter who finally
answered.
"Not _exactly_."
Buck was not without intuition, and he shifted to safer ground.
"Got much of a herd, has he?"
Marcom rolled a fresh cigarette skilfully, and drew the string of the
tobacco pouch taut with his teeth.
"He did have, one time, but I don't believe he's got many left now.
There's been a bunch lost there every storm I can remember. He don't
keep any punchers to look after 'em, and he's never on hand himself. The
woman and the kid," with a peculiar glance at the stout housekeeper,
"saved 'em part of the time, but mostly they just drifted." The speaker
blew a great cloud of smoke, and the veins at his temples swelled. "It's
a shame, the way he neglects his stock and lets 'em starve and freeze!"
The blood coursed hot in the veins of Bud Buck.
"Why don't somebody step in?"
There was a meaning silence, broken at last by Graham.
"We would've--with a rope--if it hadn't been for the boss. He tried to
help the fellow; went over there lots of times himself--weather colder
than the devil, too, and with the wind and sleet so bad you couldn't see
the team ahead of you--until one time last Winter Blair came home full,
and caught him there." The narrative paused, and the black pipe puffed
reminiscently. "The boss never said much, but I guess they must have had
quite a session. Anyway, Rankin never went again, and from the way he
looked when he got back here, half froze, and the mustangs beat out, I
reckon Blair never knew how close he come to a necktie party that day."
Again silence fell, and remained unbroken until Graham suddenly sprang
to his feet, and with "That's him now! I could tell that old buckboard
if I was in my grave!" hurried on coat and hat and disappeared into the
night. A minute more and the door through which he had passed opened
slowly, and the figure of a small boy, wrapped like an Indian in a big
blanket, stepped timidly inside and stood blinking in the light.
In anticipation of a very different arrival the housekeeper had risen to
her feet, and now in surprise, arms akimbo, she stood looking curiously
at the stranger. In this land at this time the young of every other
animal native thereto was common, but a child, a white child, was a
novelty indeed. Many a cow-puncher, bachelor among bachelors, could
testify that it had been years since he had seen the like. But Ma Graham
was not a bachelor, and in her the maternal instinct, though repressed,
was strong. It was barely an instant before she was at the little lad's
side, unwinding the blanket with deft hands.
"Who be you, anyway, and where'd you come from?" she exclaimed.
The child observed her gravely.
"Benjamin Blair's my name. I came with the man."
The husk was off the lad ere this, and the woman was rubbing his small
hands vigorously.
"Cold, ain't you? Come right over to the fire!" herself leading the way.
"And hungry--I'll bet you're hungrier than a wolf!"
The lad nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
The woman straightened up and looked down at her charge.
"Of course you are. All little boys are hungry." She cast a challenging
glance around the group of interested spectators.
"Fix the fire, one of you, while I get something hot for the kid," she
said, and ambled toward the lean-to.
If the men thought to have their curiosity concerning the youngster
satisfied by word of mouth, however, they were doomed to be
disappointed; for when Rankin himself entered it was as though nothing
out of the ordinary had happened. He hung up his coat methodically, and,
with the boy by his side, partook of the hastily prepared meal
impassively, as was his wont. It could not have escaped him that the
small Benjamin ate and ate until it seemed marvellous that one stomach
could accommodate so much food; but he made no comment, and when at last
the boy succumbed to a final plateful, he tilted back against the wall
for his last smoke for the day. This was the usual signal of dismissal,
and the hands put on their hats and filed silently out.
Without more words the foreman and his wife prepared for the night. The
dishes were cleared away and piled in the lean-to. From either end of
the room bunks, broad as beds, were let down from the wall, and the
blankets that formed their linings were carefully smoothed out. Along
the pole extending across the middle of the room, another set was drawn,
dividing the room in two. Then the two disappeared with a simple
"Good-night."
Rankin and the boy sat alone looking at each other. From across the
blanket partition there came the muffled sound of movement, the impact
of Graham's heavy boots, as they dropped to the floor, and then
silence.
"Better go to bed, Ben," suggested Rankin, with a nod toward the bunk.
The boy at once went through the process of disrobing, and, crawling in
between the blankets, pulled them up about his chin. But the blue eyes
did not close. Instead, they rested steadily upon the man's face. Rankin
returned the look, and then the stubby pipe left his mouth.
"What is it, Ben?"
The boy hesitated. "Am I to--to stay with you?" he asked at last.
"Yes."
For an instant the questioner seemed satisfied; then the peculiar
inquiring look returned.
"Anything else, son?"
The lad hesitated longer than before. Beneath the coverings his body
moved restlessly.
"Yes, sir, I want to know why nobody would come to help my mamma if
she'd sent for them. She said they wouldn't."
The pipe left Rankin's mouth, his great jaws closing with an audible
click.
"You wish to know--what did you say, Ben?"
The boy repeated the question.
For a minute, and then another, Rankin said nothing; then he knocked the
ashes from the bowl of his brier and laid it upon the table.
"Never mind now why they wouldn't, son." He arose heavily and drew off
his coat. "You'll find out for yourself quickly enough--too quickly, my
boy. Now go to sleep."