Falcon, of Squawtooth

IN the “borrow pit” to the left of the long dirt fill that was slowly creeping across the desert one Phinehas Daisy was at work with his snap team. The expert skinners in dirt work drive either the snap team or the plow team. Halfaman’s three white Percherons were beauties, willing workers, and it was a pleasure and an honor to handle them. To see their great muscles at work when he had hooked the trio to the pole of a loaded wheeler, to help out the two mules already pulling to the limit of their strength, was a pleasing sight.

The long line of wheelers and slips moved through the borrow pit, were loaded, and traveled on to the evergrowing fill and the dump—an endless chain. Mr. Daisy rested while a wheeler team was working up to the snap with the earth, previously loosened by the plow, billowing into the pan. During these brief intervals he was thoughtful. Then nonchalantly he would swing the heavy eveners by their chain, hook on to the wheeler pole, and drawl: “Le’s go!”

Then the five animals, with the three proud Percherons abreast in the lead, would heave into their collars and make life hugely enjoyable for Mr. Daisy. “High!” would come the yell of the wheeler holders. The five would stop in their tracks, and Halfaman would quickly disconnect the snap. Then, swinging sharply to one side, the mule skinner with his loaded wheeler would laze away toward the fill. Behind him another wheeler would be moving up to the wheeler holders, and again for a brief interval Halfaman would rest, an elbow on the expansive rump of one of his whites, and grow pensive.

From Squawtooth Ranch came a big tank wagon, drawn by six mules that labored ploddingly in the desert sand. Demijohn drove the tank-wagon team. The work was not difficult, but monotonous, consisting as it did of trip after trip between the pipe that spouted artesian water at Squawtooth and the Mangan-Hatton camp. Demijohn was an active man and loved to be moving about. Furthermore, he was considered an excellent snap driver, and he cast a look of envy at Mr. Daisy and his magnificent three white Percherons. Demijohn was a horse lover; he merely tolerated mules. Again, six mules required more “cuffing” and harnessing and collar scraping than did three horses—a child might figure that! Also the snap team got through work fifteen minutes earlier than the other teams, and at times the water wagon was out so late that the driver was obliged to eat alone, after everybody else had finished. And above all, Demijohn was human; and what human does not wish that he had the other fellow’s job and that the other fellow had his?

Just what was running through Mr. Daisy’s thoughts which caused him to wish that he were driving the tank wagon, and that Demijohn had the snap, would require more space to depict than in the case of the tank-wagon skinner. But if the statement he made that the Mangan-Hatton water wagon was now supplying the comparatively slight wants of the tiny camp of Jeddo the Crow, Jeddo having lost his own tank wagon by reason of careless chocking on the gondola which was to have brought it west, and not being financially able to buy a new one.

“Hey, Demi, how’ll you trade jobs?”

“Nuttin’ doin’, ol’-timer! Dis suits me.”

Demijohn lolled on the high seat to show just how thoroughly it did suit him and how comfortable were the accommodations of the water wagon.

“I ain’t talkin’ through me hat, ol’ settler!”

“Me neider, Jack. Kinda doity in dat borry pit, ain’t she? Dat looks like doity doit to me.”

“You oughta know. You got half o’ Squawtooth on yer face. This here’s the same dirt.”

“Wot’ll youse gi’me to trade jobs?”

“What’ll I give you! Say, this is gonta be good!”

“Gi’me ten?”

“Ten swift kicks!”

“Hejup, Ned!”

“Le’s go, white folks!”

But for half an hour that night in their bunk tent each dwelt at length on the superior advantages of his particular job and scorned the task of the other. Then they traded.

Halfaman Daisy sang as he drove from camp next morning with the empty tank wagon—sang thusly, out of one corner of his drooping mouth:

He did not pass near the camp of Jeddo the Crow on his first trip; but from a distance he saw that the small, ragged, dirty tents were up, saw the familiar van backed to the cook-tent door, saw the teamsters already at work at moving dirt. He made out the well-known figure of Abishua Jeddo, but he saw nothing of his daughter.

“Some speed! She’s cleanin’ up after breakfast, I guess. ‘The sons of Levi; Jershon and Kohath and Murari. And the sons of Kohath; Amram, Ishar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. And the children of Amram——’

“Ho-hum! ‘The sons also af Aaron; Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. Eleazar begat Phinehas; Phinehas begat Abishua.’ Hejup, Ned! Hejup, Jack!

“Huh! Nothin’ doin’! Still washin’ dishes, I guess. It was pay day down in Tennessee! Hejupah!”

Two hours later Mr. Daisy dexterously backed to the watering trough at the stable tent of the Mangan-Hatton camp and emptied his tank. Then he made another trip to Squawtooth Ranch, and on the return stopped his wagon abreast a small galvanized tank beside the cook-tent door of Jeddo the Crow.

“Hey, in there! In the cook tent! Wake up and hear the horned toads sing! Ship ahoy! Want water in this ole tin can this mornin’?

“Oh! Why, howdy do, Miss Wing o’ the Crow Jeddo! This is a surprise, as the fella says. Welcome to our city! Nice mornin’, I’ll say!”

Breast heaving, Wing o’ the Crow stood in the cook-tent door, black eyes wide but narrowing. Dough and flour covered her brown bare arms.

“Well, for Heaven’s sake! Was all the jails full in Nebrasky?”

Halfaman clambered lightly down over the wide-tired wheels. A painful grin creased his freckled face as he sidled toward the door.

“Hello, honey,” he said. “How’s every little insignificant item?”

“Well, you got a nerve!” said Wing o’ the Crow. “Who put you on that water wagon?”

“I did, Wing-o. And I rode the rods all the way here from that little State called Nebrasky to get on ’er and haul water to you. Slip us a kiss, Wing-o!”

“I’ll slip you a poke in that rubber jaw! Go kiss Lil o’ the Lobbies!”

“Now, lissen here, sweetheart! Ain’t you ever gonta ferget that? Here I rambled over four States to say hello to you, and you slip me a line o’ begone-sir patter like that! Didn’t I say I was sorry? I ain’t seen Lil for six months.”

“Ain’t she here?”

“Search me! I ain’t been to Stlingbloke once.”

“Tell it to the marines, Halfaman!”

He pulled forth a roll of bills. “There’s me pay day,” he said. “Every cent, ’ceptin’ for a shirt and tobacco and things. I’m off that stuff. I just slipped that time, anyway.”

“I heard you was drivin’ snap.”

“I was—till last night. Then I traded with Demijohn and got the water wagon. I’m on it, too.”

“Why’d you want the tank? Snap’s better.”

“D’ye really wanta to know, now?”

“Uh-huh! Why’d ye s’pose I ast?”

“Well, now maybe I heard Mangan-Hatton’s tank was supplyin’ Jeddo the Crow. What would you say if I was to tell you that, Wing-o?”

“I’d say you was a nut!”

“That’s the right answer. Nuts about you, kiddo. Say, I’m savin’ me jack these days. Everything’s gonta be jake with me. No more booze—no more slips. Now what d’ye say you an’ me——”

“Tell it to Lil o’ the Lobbies—she’d like to hear it, I guess.”

“Aw, cut that old stuff! Be reasonable, now. Slip us a kiss. Wing-o, and le’s ferget the bitter past. Le’s you an’ me get married whether The Crow cares or not. Then I c’n get in here and help move things along. I c’n get some stiffs, I’ll bet. You an’ me c’n keep yer dad away from the booze—and we’ll make some jack. Leave it to us, kid, hey?”

She looked him over. “I’m sore on you, I’ll admit,” she said at last. “I liked you a little—once, but now it’s all off. That’s all’s to it. You might jes’ as well trade back with Demijohn and drive snap. ’Cause I ain’t gonta see you any more. I can’t trust you. If you keep on haulin’ water, you c’n find out fer yerself if the tank’s empty. I won’t come out. So you better go back to yer snap. I’m off you for life!”

“Now, lissen, honey—lissen——”

“On yer way! I’m busy. I’m gettin’ dinner. You deceived me once, and you got my goat. Find Lil o’ the Lobbies; she’ll listen to you!”

“Now, lissen—lissen!”

But the flaps of the tent had dropped, and from inside came a hummed tune as Wing o’ the Crow went on with her work.

Mr. Daisy sighed wearily, examined the galvanized tank and filled it, then drove to the watering trough at the stable tent, all unaware that a black eye was peering at him through a tiny hole in the cook tent.

“Can you beat it! I rambles across four States, eatin’ once every two days whether I felt it or not, and trades the best snap job on the line for—what I got! ‘I’m off you fer life,’ she says—just like that. Slipped once—just once! Good night! Hejupah, ole Ned!—can’t keep a good man down!

“Now, you hold both handles tight, and kinda jiggle the slip up an’ down, see? You gotta hold ’er jest right, er you’ll take on too much dirt to begin with. Not too straight up and down at first, and not too slow. Now try it.”

Miss Manzanita Canby, with a line in each hand and also the handle of a scraper in each hand, looked doubtfully at the two scrawny mules before her.

“Start ’em up,” urged Wing o’ the Crow.

Manzanita flipped the lines and started the mules, stooping over the slip, following it in the attitude of a sprinter who starts with fingers touching the ground.

“Now set yer slip.”

Manzanita lifted the handles slightly and set the point of the pan in the ground. The fine dirt began entering.

“Now keep liftin’ it—a little higher—a leetle higher—but not too high, or——”

Bam!

The mules, suddenly relieved of their load lurched forward. The pan of the slip had flopped over, the handles striking the doubletrees with force almost enough to snap them off. Manzanita lay sprawled on the ground, her mouth full of sand.

“You let ’em go too fast, and you raised the pan too high,” said Wing o’ the Crow gravely. “Did it hurt you?”

“I never get hurt much,” Manzanita said cheerfully. “I’m down half the time, for one reason or another. Don’t mind me.”

“Now watch me,” suggested Wing o’ the Crow.

She picked up the lines, and with a deft flip righted the slip. She laid hold of the handles.

“Hehup, Ned!” she chirruped.

And in almost no time the pan was full and running over, and the team was moving off with it toward the fill.

“It looks so easy when you do it,” Manzanita complained. “Dump it and I’ll try again.”

“You jest watch a little,” advised Wing o’ the Crow.

Manzanita felt humiliated by the words. She thought that her efforts to become a dirt mover were hampering the work. She had tried six times to load a slip, always with the same result, except that now and then she had managed to keep her feet.

Jeddo the Crow was driving the snap team, which is used only in loading the scrapers with wheels. In “sticking pigs” the skinner himself loads and drives and dumps. As Wing o’ the Crow came down the dump with her empty slip Jeddo called to her. Manzanita saw him hurry to camp for something, and while he was away his daughter let her slip team stand and drove the trio on the snap.

Manzanita watched her enviously. She swung the cumbersome eveners as easily as had her one-armed father. Earlier in the afternoon the desert girl had seen her driving six mules hitched to a huge railroad plow. In the saddle Manzanita was at home, but as a railroad builder she had shown many shortcomings. Mart had been driven to the mountains to build drift fence by his father. Manzanita was lonesome. She envied this girl who could do things that really counted. She had forgotten her aversion to the railroad. Suddenly she had grown ambitious to be doing something in life besides riding over the desert on a pinto, wandering aimlessly. She even did not wish to become a moving picture actress now. “Life is real and life is earnest,” she had quoted to Mrs. Ehrhart, apropos of nothing at all, that morning, greatly to the kindly housekeeper’s surprise.

She sighed pensively now; and when Jeddo returned and Wing o’ the Crow drove into the borrow pit with the slip team again, she arose from her seat on a felled yucca.

“I guess I’d better be riding home, Wing-o,” she said. “I’ve lots to do. I’ll see you to-morrow maybe, if I can find the time.”

Whereupon she mounted her mare and galloped toward Squawtooth.

At the ranch she threw off the big saddle and corralled the mare. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. She hurried to the low adobe house and entered the kitchen.

“Mrs. Ehrhart,” she said, “is there anything for me to do toward getting supper?”

The housekeeper turned from her glossy range and gazed at her in consternation.

“Child, are you sick?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” returned Manzanita “I’m quite well, thank you. I just thought if there was nothing I could do here right now, I’d get at that alfalfa.”

“Get at the alfalfa! What alfalfa?”

“Why, our alfalfa. It needs irrigating badly. I heard Pa Squawtooth say so.”

At which she left the kitchen and the speechless housekeeper.

A little later Squawtooth Canby rode in on his big black and found his rubber hip boots walking around and carrying a shovel. So he expressed it, anyway. But in reality the boots had a motive power not their own, for Manzanita, with her skirt tucked into the tops of them, was responsible for their sluggish progress.

Canby stopped his horse and gazed at the apparition.

“Nita, what in th’ name o’ Heaven are you doin’ in them boots?”

“Irrigatin’.”

“Is the water runnin’ on the ’falfy?”

“Yep. I turned her on. It needed it pretty badly, pa.”

“Why, that patch was irrigated only last week, girl!” he cried. “It’s the tent north o’ the house that’s dry.”

“Oh!” said Manzanita. “I didn’t know. I heard you say—— I haven’t hurt anything, have I, pa?”

He dismounted deliberately and walked toward her, chuckling as he thought of the size of the feet within his number eleven boots.

“What’s the matter with ye, daughter?” he asked, kissing her.

“I have awakened,” said Manzanita. “I realize that my life has been wasted. I’ve been a useless creature—a drone—a millstone about the neck of progress.”

“Wait a minute! How’s that?”

“But it’s not too late,” she went on. “It is never too late. From now on I mean to accomplish things before undreamed of. I am not only going to help about the housework, but during my spare moments I mean to work outside and develop this ranch. I’m sorry I got the wrong alfalfa patch. I’ll shut off the water here and start it over there. Go on and do whatever is necessary, pa, and don’t worry about the alfalfa. I feel like a new being already. My coma is over.”

“Your which?”

“My coma. I’ve been asleep—stunned—dazed. But thank goodness I see myself in the true light at last.”

“How d’ye keep them boots on?”

“I don’t. They stick every now and then, and I can’t pull ’em out of the mud. Then I have to step out and lift them free with my hands. I’m barefooted inside the boots.”

“And d’ye wash yer feet before ye put ’em in the boots ag’in?”

“Well—no. I can’t very well. They get all muddy again if I do. I’ll have to have smaller boots.”

“And how d’ye think I’m to get the mud outa the inside o’ them boots? Don’t they hurt yer feet, Nita?”

“Terribly. Little rocks get in. But I can stand it.”

Here her father’s weakening gravity forsook him entirely, and with his long arms he swept up boots, shovel, and girl and carried them to the house.

“I guess we got men enough round here to irrigate the ’falfy,” he said as he set her down on the old Mexican doorstep, a foot thick and a foot high. “Now I’m gonta put up the black, and time I get back here you have them boots off an’ washed out, and yer feet washed and all, and then we’ll find out about this new ambition o’ yours. I’m interested, I’ll admit. Get busy, now!”