Once upon a time, as the old tales used to begin, a young man came
riding down the main street of Fort Worth in the sovereign State of
Texas. He was mounted on a bright sorrel horse, which stepped daintily
in the dust of the thoroughfare, for Fort Worth had not yet come to the
high estate of asphalt paving and such civic ornamentation as followed
in the wake of petroleum and cotton. The longhorn was still king of the
plains, a source of wealth in his unnumbered thousands. The cattle
kings and their followers were like the ancient Romans; they made their
own roads--made them into far places, in a spirit of high emprise. They
did not mind a little dust here and there.
This rider, who looked out from under a gray Stetson hat, holding his
reins in a buckskin-gloved hand, while he scanned the windows of the
various establishments that fronted on the street, was plainly of the
range. He was young and deeply tanned. He was armed, as men commonly
were in those times. His saddle, bridle, and spurs were beautifully
made, and the silver-inlaid steel clinked faintly, as his horse moved.
The coiled-rawhide reata at his saddle fork was limber with much use.
He might have been considered picturesque. That idea would never have
occurred to him or his fellows. The seed of romance indubitably lay in
the stout hearts of Rock Holloway and his like, living and moving and
having their being on the fringes of an encroaching civilization, but
they were practical in their activities, which had to do with a major
industry, wherein there was doubtless romance, but also a considerable
portion of hard work and long chances which the range man accepted as
incidental to his calling. This long-limbed youth, with the keen eyes
and pleasant face, could probably have told why he preferred the range
to a university campus; but he was merely the occasional exception. And
he may have had glimpses of the future, apart from cattle and trail
herds and the wide pastures that were in process of reclamation from
the bison and the Indian. But he would never have embodied such dreams
in words. And he was not steeping his soul in the color and aspect of a
little cow town when he rode along that street. He was looking for a
certain place. Presently, and without very much trouble, he found it.
He pulled up before a one-story adobe building. On the paneled door,
across the plate-glass windows, ran a legend in gilt lettering:
“The Trinity Bank.”
Rock dismounted and left his sorrel standing on dropped bridle reins,
as securely anchored in the utilitarian fashion of the plains as if he
had been tied to a post. He paused a moment at the door to grin. On
this piece of plain oak some wag had lately scrawled in red chalk the
word “Holy” between “The” and “Trinity.” It was not inappropriate, Rock
knew. The Trinity Bank of Fort Worth was owned and operated by three
men who were old and wise and upright, as near to a state of holiness
as bankers in the cow country ever got. That is to say, “Uncle Bill”
Sayre, who was president, manager, and chief stockholder, and Marcus
Proud, and Abel Stewart were square men, whose word was as good and,
indeed, sometimes went farther than an explicit bond.
Rock thrust his face at the first wicket in a low grille along a
counter.
“Is Mr. Sayre in?”
“Did you want to see him?” The teller looked up from his work.
“If he isn’t too busy. Tell him it’s Rock Holloway.”
The man walked back a few steps and put his head inside a doorway. He
beckoned Rock and indicated an opening in the counter through which
Rock could enter.
When Rock reached the inner office, a tall, thin-faced man of sixty
rose to greet him, shook hands, shoved forward a chair, and closed the
door. Then he seated himself, smiling benignantly.
“Well, well,” said he. “Yo’ young fellows change fast. Le’s see. It’s
nigh two years since I saw yo’, Rock. Yo’ favor yo’ ol’ dad mo’ and mo’
all the time. How’s yo’ mammy and Cecilia?”
“Fine,” Rock replied. “Mother says Austin suits her right down to the
ground to live in. Cissy’s going to be married this fall.”
“Yo’ don’t say! Why, she ain’t but seventeen. Who to?”
“Nobody I know personally,” Rock answered. “But I know of his family.
He’s a Brett. Son of the Brett that runs the B X over toward El Paso.
Mother says he’s a nice boy.”
“I know the Bretts. Pretty good people, take ’em all around. Still,
pretty young, pretty young, for marryin’. Kinda sudden after yo’-all
fixin’ it so she could get whatever advantages lie in an education.”
“Pshaw, Uncle Bill,” Rock said. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t give up
anything. There was only so much money to go around, and I’m certainly
able to rustle for myself. I had all the show I needed, when I needed
it. I don’t know as I would have stayed back East long enough to take a
degree, anyhow, only to please the old man. It’s lots of fun to make a
hand on the range, and I don’t figure to be a cow hand forever, nohow.
But, say, how did you know I was passing this way? Of course I would
have come in to say hello, anyhow, but you beat me to it, sending out
word you wanted to see me.”
“Oh, I keep tab on lots of things, son.” Old Sayre’s eyes twinkled.
“There’s a lot of cowmen an’ cow business passes through this bank.
Su’prise yo’, how well they keep me posted on who’s who, and what’s
what. Now, I didn’t send fo’ yo’, Rock, just to ask after yo’ health,
this time. Yo’ goin’ No’th with a Seventy Seven trail herd?”
“Right through to Montana,” Rock nodded.
“What do yo’-all aim to do after yo’ get there?” Sayre inquired. “Stay
on with the Seventy Seven?”
“Don’t think so.” Rock frowned slightly. “I’d as soon work right along,
but I don’t know as I like this outfit well enough to tie to.”
“Yo’ mean yo’ don’t cotton much to yo’ boss?” the old man supplied.
“Well, perhaps. Know him?”
“A Duffy, ain’t he?”
Rock nodded.
“I know the tribe. They’s four boys--all big--all inclined to be
high-handed. Le’s see. There’s Joe, Elmer, Ed, an’ Mark. Elmer’s
handlin’ this herd yo’-all are with?”
Again Rock nodded.
“Elmer ain’t bad. Joe’s noisy, but harmless. Ed is real tough. Mark’s
both noisy and mean. He always aimed to be bad, unless he’s changed a
heap lately. He’s big as a house. Overbearin’ accordin’ to his size.”
“Mark’s trail hand with this Seventy Seven herd,” Rock said.
“Huh? If Elmer’s startin’ No’th with _that_ handicap, he’ll have
trouble on the trail, I reckon. Ought to have more sense than have that
disturber in his outfit. I don’t expect yo’ and Mark love each other,
eh? No, I shouldn’t imagine yo’d want to stay with the Seventy Seven
after the drive’s over, not if yo’ got to rub elbows with Mark. He sure
is the wrong kind.”
“Maybe not even all the way,” Rock said casually. “Mark’s inclined to
ride me. No particular reason. Just don’t like me, I expect.”
“Better quit the Seventy Seven, son,” Sayre counseled after a moment’s
silence. “There’s other herds drivin’ No’th that need good men.”
Rock shook his head. A little smile flitted across his face.
“Would you?” he challenged. “Just to get away from a man that don’t
like the shape of your head, or something? Would you, Uncle Bill, after
you’d promised a trail boss you’d go?”
“Well, no, I reckon I wouldn’t, come to think it over,” the old man
answered dryly. “At least, when I was twenty-five I sho’ wouldn’t. At
my age, now, I c’n see the wisdom of side-steppin’ trouble. Still, yo’
better quit the Seventy Seven soon as yo’ get to yo’ destination,
providin’ yo’ and Mark both do _get_ there all right.”
“I certainly aim to do both.” Rock smiled. “Mark’s welcome to flourish,
so long as he don’t step on my corns too frequent. I want to get into
this North country. I hear there’s chances there for a fellow with a
little money. Time I’ve worked another year I’ll have a couple of
thousand dollars. I might find a place where I could start in with a
hundred cows or so, and grow up with the country.”
“When yo’ get around to that, let me know,” the banker said. “I hear
good reports of that Montana country. I might put in some money if yo’
locate a range. Texas is full up. She’ll spill a heap of stock and men
into the Northwest in the next five years. Cattle grow into money
tol’able fast.”
That was an indubitable fact. Sayre, as Rock knew, was a cattle owner
as well as a banker. And Texas _was_ getting crowded. That was why the
longhorns were swarming North and West to free grass and plentiful
water, like droves of horned locusts. They were grazing year by year
farther afield into regions dotted by the bones of the buffalo,
bleaching where they but lately fell before the rifles of the hide
hunters. Rock promised that he would remember the suggestion. They
talked a while longer desultorily. Then a clerk asked if Mr. Sayre was
busy. A man wanted to see him. Rock rose to his feet.
“Sit still,” Sayre told him. To the clerk he said: “Tell him to come
back in half an hour, and I’ll see him.”
And when the door closed again he put both feet up on his desk, looked
Rock over with an appraising eye, and said:
“Fact is, young man, I sent fo’ yo’ because I want yo’-all to do
something fo’ me when yo’ hit Montana. The question is, will yo’? Yo’
the man I want fo’ the job. Yo’-all will be well paid, and yo’ sho’
will be doing yo’ Uncle Bill Sayre a favor.”
“Name your poison,” Rock said lightly. “What is it you’d have me do?
I’m open to any kind of engagement, Uncle Bill. So long as you don’t
aim to have me bushwhack some enemy for you and mail you his scalp.”
Sayre grinned. Then he grew sober.
“This is strictly confidential, son,” said he. “First off, do yo’ know
the Maltese Cross? Dave Snell’s outfit. Used to range on the west fork
of the Trinity.”
* * * * *
From where he sat, Rock could see the silver of the Trinity River
looping by the town. He knew the upper Trinity only by hearsay. Texas
is an empire, and its cattle kings were many, not all with honor and
fame beyond their own little kingdoms. He shook his head.
“Don’t matter. Dave Snell was a friend of mine. Yo’ dad knew him, too.
He owned a lot of range. Ran about thirty thousand cattle. More’n a
year ago he started to move all his stock to Montana. Took two herds up
that season. There’s three more on trail now. Meantime Dave ups and
dies. He leaves all he has to two children. A girl just come
twenty-one, a boy sixteen. Said estate to be carried on as a going
concern until the boy’s twenty-five. The income from this is to be paid
to each annually, as he or she comes of age, and finally equally
divided in the end. I’m an executor of this document. The other
executor is a man named Walters-- ‘Buck’ Walters. Know him by name?”
“No.”
“Thought yo’ might. Don’t matter. He was once in that Pecos country
yo’ve frequented lately. I’ll get down to cases pretty soon. This Buck
Walters was range boss for old Dave for quite a spell before he died.
Dave thought a heap of him. I don’t.”
Uncle Bill stopped to roll a cigarette.
“No, suh, I sho’ don’t think a heap of my fellow executor,” he resumed.
“Dave Snell was pretty specific in his will. He had a couple of months
to think up all the details. I have a free hand with the business end,
and all money is checked in and out of this bank. Buck Walters has a
free hand with the cattle. The outfit’s pretty well moved into Montana.
It was Buck’s notion in the first place. He says there’s no room to
range the Maltese Cross on the Trinity no mo’. He says no sense havin’
ten thousand cattle in Montana and another ten thousand in Texas.”
“May be right, at that,” Rock commented.
“Maybe so, maybe so,” Sayre agreed. “But I’d a heap rather the Maltese
Cross stock wasn’t on a range two thousand miles from Fort Worth, even
if it is a mite better range. To cut it short, Rock, I don’t know
what’s goin’ on up there, an’ I got ideas that make me uneasy. I want
to know how he handles this outfit, and how he handles himself. I sent
for yo’ specifically to ask if yo’-all would consider going up there
and keep cases on the Maltese Cross fo’ me, Bill Sayre, personally.
Will you?”
“I’d do most anything you wanted me to do, Uncle Bill,” Rock said
promptly. “But I’m no detective.”
“Yo’ a practical cowman,” Sayre countered. “Yo’ know all the tricks of
the trade. I don’t want no detective. What I want up there is a man
that can size up what’s going on on a cattle range--a man that can’t be
bought and is not easy fooled. I picked on yo’-all, for that reason.”
“Thanks. Just what would you aim for me to do?” Rock asked.
“Well, it’s easy to keep tab on what a man does with thirty thousand
cattle if yo’ circulate in his vicinity,” Sayre observed. “_You_ ain’t
no fool, Rock. I don’t care how yo’ manage it--whether yo’ work for
another outfit or get a job with the Maltese Cross. Don’t care whether
yo’ work at all; yo’ll be paid direct by me. What I want is fo’ yo’ to
linger around in that territory and use yo’ eyes and ears. Yo’ll know
in one season whether the outfit is going up or down, and whether Buck
is shootin’ straight.”
“You think maybe he isn’t?”
“Buck Walters is young, ambitious, high-handed with men, and powerful
fond of women,” Sayre said frowningly. “He dresses flash. He’s mighty
fond of stiff poker. He’s a smart cowman, I’ll admit. But he’s been
drawin’ big wages fo’ ten years and never held onto a dollar. Yo’ put a
man like that in complete control of three hundred thousand dollars’
worth of live stock, with nobody to check up on him----”
Sayre threw out his hands in an eloquent gesture.
“He had old Dave hypnotized,” he went on. “I think Dave was a damn fool
to give him such a swing. I may be wrong about Walters. If I am, so
much the better fo’ him. But I aim to play my hunch. I mean to see that
the Snell estate don’t get the worst of it, no way. I feel more than
ordinary responsibility in this. Dave was my friend. I can’t leave my
business here to go up into Montana every few weeks to keep tab on Buck
Walters. Next best thing is to send a man I can trust.”
“I’m young and ambitious,” Rock mused. “I don’t shy none from poker
games; in fact, I horn into ’em deliberate because I frequently beat
’em. I’ve held down good jobs, too, in the last three years, without
savin’ much of my wages. Gosh, Uncle Bill, are you sure I’m to be
trusted?”
The old man gazed at him affectionately.
“I know yo’,” he said, “and I know yo’r breed. Will yo’ do this for me,
Rock?”
“Why, sure,” Rock agreed. “I don’t suppose it would be very difficult
for me to get a pretty good idea of how this Buck Walters is handling
the Maltese Cross.”
“That’ll be good enough,” Sayre nodded. “If yo’re on the ground takin’
notice, I’ll be satisfied. Le’s see,” he stopped to reflect, “yo’ll be
into Montana about September. I don’t issue no orders, son. Use your
own judgment. Barrin’ a hard season, nothing much ever happens on a cow
range in the winter.”
“Don’t you fool yourself,” Rock said seriously. Then he stopped. Old
Uncle Bill was grinning at him understandingly.
“I ain’t going to prime yo’ with no false ideas, Rock,” he declared.
“Yo’ just circulate around in that vicinity as it suits yo’ and let me
know how she stacks up.”
“Whereabouts in Montana is the Maltese Cross located?” Rock inquired.
“Marias River. Their post office is Fort Benton--no’thern part of the
territory. You’re bound for the Marias with the Seventy Seven. Course,
she’s a long stream. The Maltese Cross is on the lower end, near where
the Marias joins the upper Missouri.”
“I understood the Seventy Seven was headed for the Musselshell,” Rock
observed.
“Maybe yo’-all understood that, son, but that herd’ll be turned loose
on the Marias,” Sayre said positively. “I get that info’mation from the
men that’s backin’ the Duffys. Joe Duffy is on trail with a herd in the
same brand, too, from the Panhandle.”
“I didn’t know. Don’t matter to me, nohow,” Rock said, “so long as I
get to Montana. I’m bound North, like the bear that went over the
mountain, to see what I can see. And I won’t be on the Seventy Seven
pay roll after I get there. I sort of feel that in my bones.”
* * * * *
Sayre opened a drawer. His hand came out with a small canvas bag which
clinked gently, as he laid it on the oak desk and slid it across to
Rock.
“There’s five hundred dollars’ advance in gold,” he said abruptly.
“I’ll allow yo’ sixty dollars a month from date, until I notify yo’
this arrangement is canceled. Now”--he lifted a hand to silence Rock’s
protest--“I don’t want yo’ to hesitate about nothing that’s calculated
to protect the Snell interests. When yo’ protect them yo’ protect me.
You’re a smart boy. Yo’ been raised in a cow country and had
considerable Eastern education rammed down yo’ gullet. I don’t need to
tell yo’ what a range boss can do to a cow outfit, if he sets out to do
some good for himself at the outfit’s expense. It’ll be yo’ job to let
me know if Buck Walters shows any such symptoms. If, to make sure of
anything in connection with him, yo’ find it necessary to spend money,
draw on this bank in yo’ own name. There is a railroad and a telegraph
line through the southern part of Montana now. Yo’ can wire me direct
anything important. If yo’-all get into trouble, I’ll back yo’ play.”
“You certainly sound pessimistic, Uncle Bill,” Rock declared.
“I don’t trust that fellow executor of mine no farther than I could
throw him,” Sayre stated bluntly. “He’s a mighty powerful man, so yo’
can reckon how far that is. I feel a powerful sight of responsibility.
I aim to see that Dave Snell’s children inherit this estate unimpaired
by other persons with ambitions to enrich theirselves by methods that
ain’t strictly accordin’ to Hoyle.”
“All right, Uncle Bill,” Rock promised. “I’ll wander around the Maltese
Cross and keep you posted on how she stacks up to my innocent eye. It
won’t be soon. I’ll be six months on the drive. It may take me some
time to learn anything. I can’t saunter onto the Maltese Cross range
and say right off who’s who, and what’s what. So I’d just as soon not
take your money until I start earning it. If you hear from me inside a
year, you’ll be lucky.”
“I’m not expectin’ Buck to try and put thirty thousand cattle in his
hip pocket right off,” Sayre grinned. “He couldn’t. And he’s too
all-fired smart to let his work--if any--be coarse. I’m merely insurin’
against contingencies. I could have picked thirty men to send into
Montana, with a big cow outfit apiece, and never have an uneasy moment
over any one of ’em. As I size up this situation----”
Again that eloquent spread of his hands.
“So,” he went on, “yo’ keep that money, because yo’-all might need it.
That’s like a lawyer’s retaining fee, my son--an earnest of an’
undertakin’ entered into for a duly acknowledged consideration. Yo’ the
man for the job, Rock. Yo’-all are entitled to pay. So don’t get
highfalutin’ about a few measly dollars.”
“Never found ’em measly yet,” Rock said lightly. “Though I’ve known
lots of measly things done in behalf of ’em.”
He slid the bag of gold into his trousers pocket, where it sagged
uncomfortably when he arose.
“Well, Uncle Bill,” said he, “now you’ve got that off your chest,
suppose we go out and have a farewell drink together? The Seventy Seven
is moving. I’ve got quite a ways to ride to catch that herd to take my
regular turn on guard to-night.”
A mile from the last scattered houses of Fort Worth, Rock paused on the
north side of the Trinity. The river flowed beneath him, a lovely,
sparkling stream. Its banks were green with spring growth. Texas wore
an April smile for her sons that were departing into far lands with
many a herd. Rock looked down at the river and back at the town.
“Well, Sangre,” he addressed the twitching ears of his sorrel horse,
“if Uncle Bill Sayre’s hunch about this fellow executor of his happens
to be right, we ought to be able to keep time from hanging heavy on our
hands after we hit Montana, provided we get that far in peace and
quietness.”
Rock frowned slightly, as he muttered this. He had his doubts; not of
the mission he had promised to undertake, however. He was thinking of
something else when he repeated the last sentence. It wasn’t just an
idle phrase.