JOE SCOTT
Just before daybreak Cheyenne turned from the road and picked his way
through the scattered brush to a gulch in the western foothills.
Cheyenne's horses seemed to know the place, when they stopped at a
narrow, pole gate across the upper end of the gulch, for on beyond the
gate the horses again stopped of their own accord. Bartley could barely
discern the outlines of a cabin. Cheyenne hallooed.
A muffled answer from the cabin, then a twinkle of light, then the open
doorway framing a gigantic figure.
"That you, Shy?" queried the figure.
"Me and a friend."
"You're kind of early," rumbled the figure as the riders dismounted.
"Shucks! You'd be gettin' up, anyway, right soon. We come early so as
not to delay your breakfast."
In the cabin, Cheyenne and the big man shook hands. Bartley was
introduced. The man was a miner, named Joe Scott.
"Joe, here, is a minin' man--when he ain't runnin' a all-night
lunch-stand," explained Cheyenne. "He can't work his placer when it's
dark, but he sure can work a skillet and a coffee-mill."
"What you been up to?" queried the giant slowly, as he made a fire in
the stove, and set about getting breakfast.
"Up to Clubfoot Sneed's place, to get a couple of hosses that belonged
to me. He was kind of hostile. Followed us down to San Andreas and done
spoiled our night's rest. But I got the hosses."
"Hosses seems to be his failin'," said the big man.
"So some folks say. I'm one of 'em."
"How are the folks up Antelope way?"
"Kinda permanent, as usual. I hear Panhandle's drifted south again.
Wishful, he shoots craps, reg'lar."
Scott nodded, shifted the coffee-pot and sat down on the edge of his
bunk. "Got any smokin'?" he queried presently.
Bartley offered the miner a cigar. "I'm afraid it's broken," apologized
Bartley.
"That's all right. I was goin' to town this mornin', to get some tobacco
and grub. But this will help." And doubling the cigar Scott thrust it in
his mouth and chewed it with evident satisfaction.
The gray edge of dawn crept into the room. Scott blew out the light and
opened the door.
Bartley felt suddenly sleepy and he drowsed and nodded, realizing that
Scott and Cheyenne were talking, and that the faint aroma of coffee
drifted toward him, mingling with the chill, fresh air of morning. He
pulled himself together and drank the coffee and ate some bacon. From
time to time he glanced at Scott, fascinated by the miner's tremendous
forearms, his mighty chest and shoulders. Even Cheyenne, who was a
fair-sized man, appeared like a boy beside the miner. Bartley wondered
that such tremendous strength should be isolated, hidden back there
behind the foothills. Yet Scott himself, easy-going and dryly humorous,
was evidently content right where he was.
Later the miner showed Bartley about the diggings, quietly proud of his
establishment, and enthusiastic about the unfailing supply of water--in
fact, Scott talked more about water than he did about gold. Bartley
realized that the big miner would have been a misfit in town, that he
belonged in the rugged hills from which he wrested a scant six dollars a
day by herculean toil.
In a past age, Scott would have been a master builder of castles or of
triremes or a maker of armor, but never a fighting man. It was evident
that the miner was, despite his great strength, a man of peace. Bartley
rather regretted, for some romantic reason or other, that the big miner
was not a fighting man.
Yet when they returned to the shack, where Cheyenne sat smoking, Bartley
learned that Big Joe Scott had a reputation in his own country. That was
when Scott suggested that they needed sleep. He spread a blanket-roll on
the cabin floor for Cheyenne and offered Bartley his bunk. Then Scott
picked up his rifle and strode across to a shed. Cheyenne pulled off his
boots, stretched out on the blanket-roll, and sighed comfortably.
Bartley could see the big miner busily twisting something in his hands,
something that looked like a leather bag from which occasional tiny
spurts of silver gleamed and trickled. Bartley wondered what Scott was
doing. He asked Cheyenne.
"He's squeezin' 'quick.'" And Cheyenne explained the process of
squeezing quicksilver through a chamois skin. "And I'm glad it ain't my
neck," added Cheyenne. "Joe killed a man, with his bare hands, onct.
That's why he never gets in a fight, nowadays. He dassn't. 'Course, he
had to kill that man, or get killed."
"I noticed he picked up his rifle," said Bartley.
"Nobody'll disturb our sleep," said Cheyenne drowsily.
* * * * *
The afternoon shadows were long when Bartley awakened. Through the
doorway he could see Cheyenne out in the shed, talking with Joe Scott.
"Hello!" called Bartley, sitting up. "Lost any horses, Cheyenne?"
Presently Scott and Cheyenne came over to the cabin.
"I'm cook, this trip," stated Cheyenne as he bustled about the kitchen.
"I reckon Joe needs a rest. He ain't lookin' right strong."
An early supper, and the three men forgathered outside the cabin and
smoked and talked until long after dark. Cheyenne had told Scott of the
happenings since leaving Antelope, and jokingly he referred to San
Andreas and Bartley's original plan of staying there awhile.
Bartley nodded. "And now that the smoke has blown away, I think I'll go
back and finish my visit," he said.
Cheyenne's face expressed surprise and disappointment. "Honest?" he
queried.
"Why not?" asked Bartley, and it was a hard question to answer.
After all, Bartley had stuck to him when trouble seemed inevitable,
reasoned Cheyenne.
Now the Easterner felt free to do as he pleased. And why shouldn't he?
There had been no definite or even tentative agreement as to when they
would dissolve partnership. And Bartley's evident determination to carry
out his original plan struck Cheyenne as indicative of considerable
spirit. It was plain that Sneed's unexpected presence in San Andreas had
not affected Bartley very much. With a tinge of malice, born of
disappointment, Cheyenne suggested to Bartley that the man he had
knocked out, back of the livery barn, would no doubt be glad to see him
again.
Bartley turned to Joe Scott. "He's trying to 'Out-West' me a bit, isn't
he?"
Scott laughed heartily. "Cheyenne is getting tired of rambling up and
down the country alone. He wants a pardner. Seems he likes your company,
from what he says. But you can't take him serious. He'll be singin' that
everlastin' trail song of his next."
"He hasn't sung much, recently."
Cheyenne bridled and snorted like a colt. "Huh! Just try this on your
piano." And seemingly improvising, he waved his arm toward the burro
corral.
One time I had a right good pal,
Git along, cayuse, git along;
But he quit me cold for a little ranch gal,
Git along, cayuse, git along.
And now he's took to pitchin' hay
On a rancho down San Andreas way;
He's done tied up and he's got to stay;
Git along, cayuse, git along.
"I was just learnin' him the ropes, and he quit me cold," complained
Cheyenne, appealing to Scott.
"He aims to keep out of trouble," suggested Scott.
"I ain't got no friends," said Cheyenne, grinning.
"Thanks for that," said Scott.
Cheyenne reached in his pocket and drew out the dice. His eyes
brightened. He rattled the dice and shot them across the hardpacked
ground near the doorstep. Then he struck a match to see what he had
thrown. "I'm hittin' the road five minutes after six, to-morrow
mornin'," he declared, as he picked up the dice.