“He gets stuck on them cows, like an Irishman with his pig,” observed Creede, as the old man turned back a prime four-year-old. “He’d rather be barbecued by the Apaches than part with that big white-faced boy. If I owned ’em I’d send down a lot of them big fat brutes and buy doggies; but Bill spends all the money he gits fer booze anyhow, so I reckon it’s all right. He generally sends out about twenty runts and roughs, and lets it go at that. Say! You’ll have to git a move on, Bill,” he shouted, “we want to send that beef cut on ahead!”
The old man reined in his mare and surveyed the big herd critically.
“Waal,” he drawled, “I reckon that’ll do fer this trip, then. Take ’em along. And the fust one of you punchers that hits one of them critters over the tail with his hondu,” he shouted, as the eager horsemen trotted over to start them, “will hev me to lick!”
He placed an order for provisions with Creede, asked him to keep the supplies at Hidden Water until he came over for them with the burros, and turned away contentedly as the cowboys went upon their way.
Down by the branding pen the mother cows licked the blood from their offsprings’ mangled ears and mooed resentfully, but the big white-faced steer stood 132 in brutish content on the salting grounds and gazed after the town herd thoughtfully.
A bunch of burros gathered about the doorway of the cabin, snooping for bacon rinds; the hounds leaned their heavy jowls upon his knees and gazed up worshipfully into their master’s face; and as the sun dipped down toward the rim of the mighty cliffs that shut him in, the lord of Hell’s Hip Pocket broke into the chorus of an ancient song:
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“Oh, o-ver the prairies, and o-ver the mountains, |
The beef herd was safely delivered at Bender, the feeders disposed of at Moroni, and the checks sent on to the absentee owner, who did not know a steer from a stag; the rodéo hands were paid off and successfully launched upon their big drunk; bills were paid and the Summer’s supplies ordered in, and then at last the superintendent and rodéo boss settled down to a little domesticity.
Since the day that Hardy had declined to drink with him Creede had quietly taken to water, and he planted a bag of his accumulated wages in a corner of the mud floor, to see, as he facetiously expressed it, if it would grow. Mr. Bill Johnson had also saved his “cow money” from Black Tex and banked it with Hardy, who had a little cache of his own, as well. With their finances thus nicely disposed of the two partners swept the floor, cleaned up the cooking dishes, farmed out their laundry to a squaw, and set their house in order generally. They were just greasing up their reatas for a run after the wild horses of Bronco Mesa when Rafael pulled in with 134 a wagon-load of supplies and destroyed their peaceful life.
It was late when the grinding and hammering of wheels upon the boulders of the creek-bed announced his near approach and Creede went out to help unload the provisions. A few minutes later he stepped into the room where Hardy was busily cooking and stood across the table from him with his hands behind his back, grinning mischievously.
“Rufe,” he said, “you’ve got a girl.”
Hardy looked up quickly and caught the significance of his pose, but he did not smile. He did not even show an interest in the play.
“How do you figure that out?” he asked, indifferently.
“Oh, I know,” drawled Creede. “Got a letter from her.”
A single hawk-like glance was the only answer to this sally.
“She says: ‘Why the hell don’t you write!’” volunteered the cowboy.
“’S that so!” commented Hardy, and then he went on with his cooking.
For a minute Creede stood watching him, his eyes keen to detect the slightest quaver, but the little man seemed suddenly to have forgotten him; he moved 135 about absently, mechanically, dropping nothing, burning nothing, yet far away, as in a dream.
“Huh!” exclaimed Creede, disgusted with his own make-believe, “you don’t seem to care whether school keeps or not. I’ll excuse you from any further work this evenin’––here’s your mail.”
He drew a bundle of letters from behind his back and dropped it heavily upon the table, but even then Hardy did not rise.
“Guess the Old Man must’ve forwarded my mail,” he remarked, smiling at the size of the pack. “I’ve been knocking around so, I haven’t received a letter in a year. Chuck ’em on my desk, will ye?”
“Sure,” responded Creede, and stepping across the broad living-room he threw the bundle carelessly on the bed.
“You’re like me,” he remarked, drawing his chair up sociably to supper, “I ain’t got a letter fer so long I never go near the dam’ post office.”
He sighed, and filled his plate with beans.
“Ever been in St. Louis?” he inquired casually. “No? They say it’s a fine burg. Think I’ll save up my dinero and try it a whirl some day.”
The supper table was cleared and Creede had lit his second cigarette before Hardy reverted to the matter of his mail.
“Well,” he said, “I might as well look over those letters––may be a thousand-dollar check amongst them.”
Then, stepping into his room, he picked up the package, examined it curiously, and cut the cords with his knife.
A sheaf of twenty or more letters spilled out and, sitting on the edge of the bed, he shuffled them over in the uncertain light of the fire, noting each inscription with a quick glance; and as he gathered up the last he quietly tucked three of them beneath the folds of his blankets––two in the same hand, bold and dashing yet stamped with a certain feminine delicacy and grace, and each envelope of a pale blue; the third also feminine, but inscribed in black and white, a crooked little hand that strayed across the page, yet modestly shrank from trespassing on the stamp.
With the remainder of his mail Hardy blundered over to the table, dumping the loose handful in a great pile before the weak glimmer of the lamp.
“There,” he said, as Creede blinked at the heap, “I reckon that’s mail enough for both of us. You can read the advertisements and I’ll see what the judge has to say for himself. Pitch in, now.” He waved his hand towards a lot of business envelopes, but Creede shook his head and continued to smoke dreamily.
“Nope,” he said briefly, “don’t interest me.”
He reached out and thumbed the letters over dumbly, spelling out a long word here and there or scrutinizing some obscure handwriting curiously, as if it were Chinese, or an Indian sign on a rock. Then, shoving back his chair, he watched Hardy’s face as he skimmed rapidly through the first letter.
“Good news in the first part of it and bad in the last,” he remarked, as Hardy put it down.
“That’s right,” admitted Hardy, “but how’d you know?”
He gazed up at his complacent partner with a look of innocent wonder, and Creede laughed.
“W’y, hell boy,” he said, “I can read you like a book. Your face tells the whole story as you go along. After you’ve been down here in Arizona a few seasons and got them big eyes of yourn squinched down a little––well, I may have to ast you a few questions, then.”
He waved his hand in a large gesture and blew out a cloud of smoke, while a twinkle of amusement crept into Hardy’s unsquinched eyes.
“Maybe I’m smoother than I look,” he suggested dryly. “You big, fat fellows get so self-satisfied sometimes that you let lots of things go by you.”
“Well, I’ll take my chances on you,” answered Creede placidly. “What did the old judge say?”
“He says you did fine with the cattle,” said Hardy, “and sold ’em just in time––the market fell off within a week after we shipped.”
“Um-huh,” grunted Creede. “And what’s the bad bunch of news at the end?”
The bad bunch of news was really of a personal nature, stirring up unpleasant memories, but Hardy passed it off by a little benevolent dissimulation.
“He says he’s mighty glad I steered the sheep away, but there is something funny going on back in Washington; some combine of the sheep and lumber interests has got in and blocked the whole Forest Reserve business and there won’t be any Salagua Forest Reserve this year. So I guess my job of sheep-wrangler is going to hold; at least the judge asked me to stay with it until Fall.”
“Well, you stay then, Rufe,” said Creede earnestly, “because I’ve kinder got stuck on you––I like your style,” he added half apologetically.
“All right, Jeff,” said Hardy. “Here’s another letter––from my father. See if you can guess what it is like.”
He set his face rigidly and read the short letter through without a quaver.
“You and the Old Man have had a fallin’-out,” observed Creede, with a shrewd grin, “and he says 139 when you git good and tired of bein’ a dam’ fool you might as well come home.”
“Well, that’s about the size of it,” admitted Hardy. “I never told you much about my father, did I?”
“Never knew you had one,” said Creede, “until Bill Johnson began to blow about what an Injun-fighter he was. I reckon that’s where you git your sportin’ blood, ain’t it?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” began Hardy. “The Old Man and I never did get along together. He’s used to commanding soldiers and all that, and I’m kind of quiet, but he always took a sneaking pride in me when I was a boy, I guess. Anyway, every time I’d get into a fight around the post and lick two or three Mexican kids, or do some good work riding or shooting, he’d say I’d be a man before my mother, or something like that––but that was as far as he got. And all the time, on the quiet, he was educating me for the Army. His father was a captain, and he’s a colonel, and I can see now he was lotting on my doing as well or better––but hell, that only made matters worse.”
He slid down in his chair and gazed into the fire gloomily. It was the first time Creede had heard his partner use even the mildest of the range expletives, for in that particular he was still a tenderfoot, and the 140 word suddenly conveyed to him the depths of the little man’s abandonment and despair.
“Why––what was the matter?” he inquired sympathetically. “Couldn’t you git no appointment?”
“Huh!” growled Hardy. “I guess you know, all right. Look at me!” he exclaimed, in a sudden gust of passion and resentment. “Why, damn it, man, I’m an inch too short!”
“Well––I’ll––be––dogged!” breathed Creede. “I never thought of that!”
“No,” rejoined Hardy bitterly, “nor the Old Man, either––not until I stopped growing! Well, he hasn’t had a bit of use for me since. That’s the size of it. And he didn’t take any pains to conceal the fact––most army men don’t. There’s only one man in the world to them, and that’s a soldier; and if you’re not a soldier, you’re nothing.”
He waved a hand as if dismissing himself from the universe, and sank moodily into his seat, while Creede looked him over in silence.
“Rufe,” he said quietly, “d’ye remember that time when I picked you to be boss sheep-wrangler, down at Bender? Well, I might as well tell you about that now––’t won’t do no harm. The old judge couldn’t figure out what it was I see in you to recommend you for the job. Like’s not you don’t know yourself. He thought I was pickin’ you 141 because you was a peaceful guy, and wouldn’t fight Black Tex; but that’s where he got fooled, and fooled bad! I picked you because I knew dam’ well you would fight!”
He leaned far over across the table and his eyes glowed with a fierce light.
“D’ye think I want some little suckin’ mamma’s-joy of a diplomat on my hands when it comes to a show-down with them sheepmen?” he cried. “No, by God, I want a man, and you’re the boy, Rufe; so shake!”
He rose and held out his hand. Hardy took it.
“I wouldn’t have sprung this on you, pardner,” he continued apologetically, “if I didn’t see you so kinder down in the mouth about your old man. But I jest want you to know that they’s one man that appreciates you for a plain scrapper. And I’ll tell you another thing; when the time comes you’ll look jest as big over the top of a six-shooter as I do, and stand only half the chanst to git hit. W’y, shucks!” he exclaimed magnanimously, “my size is agin’ me at every turn; my horse can’t hardly pack me, I eat such a hell of a lot, and, well, I never can git a pair of pants to fit me. What’s this here letter?”
He picked one up at random, and Hardy ascertained that his tailor some six months previously had moved to a new and more central location, where he 142 would be pleased to welcome all his old customers. But the subject of diminutive size was effectually dismissed and, having cheered up his little friend as best he could, Creede seized the occasion to retire. Lying upon his broad back in his blankets, with Tommy purring comfortably in the hollow of his arm, he smoked out his cigarette in speculative silence, gazing up at the familiar stars whose wheelings mark off the cowboy’s night, and then dropped quietly to sleep, leaving his partner to brood over his letters alone.
For a long time he sat there, opening them one by one––the vague and indifferent letters which drift in while one is gone; and at last he stole silently across the dirt floor and brought out the three letters from his bed. There in a moment, if he had been present, Creede might have read him like a book; his lips drawn tight, his eyes big and staring, as he tore open one of the pale blue envelopes with trembling hands. The fragments of a violet, shattered by the long journey, fell before him as he plucked out the note, and its delicate fragrance rose up like incense as he read. He hurried through the missive, as if seeking something which was not there, then his hungry eyes left the unprofitable page and wandered about the empty room, only to come back to those last words: “Always your Friend, Kitty Bonnair.”
“Always your friend,” he repeated 143 bitterly––“always your friend. Ah, God!” He sighed wearily and shook his head. For a moment he lapsed into dreams; then, reaching out, he picked up the second letter, postmarked over a year before, and examined it idly. The very hour of its collection was recorded––“Ferry Sta. 1.30 A. M.”––and the date he could never forget. Written on that very same day, and yet its message had never reached him!
He could see as in a vision the shrouded form of Kitty Bonnair slipping from her door at midnight to fling a final word after him, not knowing how far he would flee; he could see the lonely mail collector, half obscured in the San Francisco fog, as he scooped the letter from the box with many others and boarded the car for the ferry. It was a last retort, and likely bitter, for he had spoken in anger himself, and Kitty was not a woman to be denied. There was an exaggerated quirk to the square corners of her letters, a brusque shading of the down strokes––undoubtedly Kitty was angry. But for once he had disarmed her––it was a year after, now, and he had read her forgiveness first! Yet it was with a strange sinking of the heart that he opened the blue envelope and stared at the scribbled words:
Dear Friend That Was: My heart is very sore to-night––I had trusted you so––I had depended upon you so––and now you have deliberately broken all your faith and promises. 144 Rufus, I had thought you different from other men––more gentle, more considerate, more capable of a true friendship which I fondly hoped would last forever––but now, oh, I can never forgive you! Just when life was heaviest with disappointments, just when I was leaning upon you most as a true friend and comrade––then you must needs spoil it all. And after I had told you I could never love any one! Have you forgotten all that I told you in the balcony? Have you forgotten all that I have risked for the friendship I held so dear? And then to spoil it all! Oh, I hate you––I hate you!
He stopped and stiffened in his chair, and his eyes turned wild with horror; then he gathered his letters together blindly and crept away to bed. In the morning he arose and went about his work with mouse-like quietness, performing all things thoroughly and well, talking, even laughing, yet with a droop like that of a wounded creature that seeks only to hide and escape.
Creede watched him furtively, hung around the house for a while, then strode out to the pasture and caught up his horse.
“Be back this aft,” he said, and rode majestically away up the cañon, where he would be out of the way. For men, too, have their instincts and intuitions, and they are even willing to leave alone that which they cannot remedy and do not understand.
As Creede galloped off, leaving the ranch of a sudden lonely and quiet, Tommy poked his head anxiously out through a slit in the canvas bottom of 145 the screen door and began to cry––his poor cracked voice, all broken from calling for help from the coyotes, quavering dismally. In his most raucous tones he continued this lament for his master until at last Hardy gathered him up and held him to his breast.
“Ah, Kitty, Kitty,” he said, and at the caressing note in his voice the black cat began to purr hoarsely, raising his scrawny head in the ecstasy of being loved. Thief and reprobate though he was, and sadly given to leaping upon the table and flying spitefully at dogs, even that rough creature felt the need of love; how much more the sensitive and high-bred man, once poet and scholar, now cowboy and sheep-wrangler, but always the unhappy slave of Kitty Bonnair.
The two letters lay charred to ashes among the glowing coals, but their words, even the kindest meant, were seared deep in his heart, fresh hurts upon older scars, and as he sat staring at the gaunt sahuaros on the hilltops he meditated gloomily upon his reply. Then, depositing Tommy on the bed, he sat down at his desk before the iron-barred window and began to write.
DEAR FRIEND THAT WAS: Your two letters came together––the one that you have just sent, and the one written on that same night, which I hope I may some day forget. It was not a very kind letter––I am sorry that I should ever have 146 offended you, but it was not gently done. No friend could ever speak so to another, I am sure. As for the cause, I am a human being, a man like other men, and I am not ashamed. Yet that I should so fail to read your mind I am ashamed. Perhaps it was my egotism, which made me over-bold, thinking that any woman could love me. But if what I offered was nothing to you, if even for a moment you hated me, it is enough. Now for all this talk of friendship––I am not your friend and never will be; and if, after what has passed, you are my friend, I ask but one thing––let me forget. For I will never come back, I will never write, I will never submit. Surely, with all that life offers you, you can spare me the humiliation of being angry with you.
I am now engaged in work which, out of consideration for Judge Ware, I cannot leave; otherwise I would not ask you not to write to me.
Trusting that you will remember me kindly to your mother, I remain, sincerely,
Rufus Hardy.
He signed his name at the bottom, folded the sheet carefully, and thrust the sealed envelope into an inner pocket. Then for the first time, he drew out the third letter and spread its pages before him––a long letter, full of news, yet asking no questions. The tense lines about his lips relaxed as he read, he smiled whimsically as he heard of the queer doings of his old-time friends; how these two had run away and got married in order to escape a church wedding, how Tupper Browne had painted a likeness of Mather in Hades––after the “Dante” of Doré––and had been 147 detected in the act; and then this little note, cued in casually near the end:
Kitty Bonnair has given up art for the present on account of her eyes, and has gone in for physical culture and riding lessons in the park. She dropped in at the last meeting of The Circle, and I told her how curiously father had encountered you at Bender. We all miss you very much at The Circle––in fact, it is not doing so well of late. Kitty has not attended a meeting in months, and I often wonder where we may look for another Poet, Philosopher, and Friend––unless you will come back! Father did not tell me where you had been or what you intended to do, but I hope you have not given up the Muse. To encourage you I will send down a book, now and then, and you may send me a poem. Is it a bargain? Then good-bye.
With best wishes,
Lucy Ware.P. S.––I met your father on the street the other day, and he seemed very much pleased to hear how well you were getting along.
Hardy put the letter down and sighed.
“Now there’s a thoroughly nice girl,” he said. “I wonder why she doesn’t get married.” Then, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper, he began to write, describing the beauty of the country; the noble qualities of his horse, Chapuli, the Grasshopper; the march of the vast army of sheep; Creede, Tommy, and whatnot, with all the pent-up enthusiasm of a year’s loneliness. When it was ended he looked at the letter 148 with a smile, wondering whether to send it by freight or express. Six cents in stamps was the final solution of the problem, and as his pocketbook contained only four he stuck them on and awaited his partner’s return.
“Say, Jeff,” he called, as Creede came in from the pasture, “have you got any stamps?”
“Any which?” inquired Creede suspiciously.
“Any postage stamps––to put on letters.”
“Huh!” exclaimed Creede. “You must think I’ve got a girl––or important business in the States. No, I’ll tell you. The only stamp I’ve got is in a glass frame, hung up on the wall––picture of George Washington, you know. Haven’t you never seen it? W’y, it’s right there in the parler––jest above the pianney––and a jim-dandy piece of steel engraving she is, too.” He grinned broadly as he concluded this running fire of jest, but his partner remained serious to the end.
“Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll go down to Moroni in the morning, then.”
“What ye goin’ down there for?” demanded Creede incredulously.
“Why, to buy a stamp, of course,” replied Hardy, “it’s only forty miles, isn’t it?” And early in the morning, true to his word, he saddled up Chapuli and struck out down the river.
From the doorway Creede watched him curiously, his lips parted in a dubious smile.
“There’s something funny goin’ on here, ladies,” he observed sagely, “something funny––and I’m dogged if I savvy what it is.” He stooped and scooped up Tommy in one giant paw. “Well, Tom, Old Socks,” he said, holding him up where he could sniff delicately at the rafters, “you’ve got a pretty good nose, how about it, now––can you smell a rat?” But even Tommy could not explain why a man should ride forty miles in order to buy a stamp.
The Mormon settlement of Moroni proved to belong to that large class of Western “cities” known as “string-towns”––a long line of stores on either side of a main street, brick where fires have swept away the shacks, and wood with false fronts where dynamite or a change of wind has checked the conflagration; a miscellaneous conglomeration of saloons, restaurants, general stores, and livery stables, all very satisfying to the material wants of man, but in the ensemble not over-pleasing to the eye.
At first glance, Moroni might have been Reno, Nevada; or Gilroy, California; or Deming, New Mexico; or even Bender––except for the railroad. A second glance, however, disclosed a smaller number of disconsolate cow ponies standing in front of the saloons and a larger number of family rigs tied to the horse rack in front of Swope’s Store; there was also a tithing house with many doors, a brick church, and women and children galore. And for twenty miles around there was nothing but flowing canals and irrigated fields waving with wheat and alfalfa, all so 151 green and prosperous that a stranger from the back country was likely to develop a strong leaning toward the faith before he reached town and noticed the tithing house.
As for Hardy, his eyes, so long accustomed to the green lawns and trees of Berkeley, turned almost wistful as he gazed away across the rich fields, dotted with cocks of hay or resounding to the whirr of the mower; but for the sweating Latter Day Saints who labored in the fields, he had nothing but the pitying contempt of the cowboy. It was a fine large country, to be sure, and produced a lot of very necessary horse feed, but Chapuli shied when his feet struck the freshly sprinkled street, and somehow his master felt equally ill at ease.
Having purchased his stamp and eaten supper, he was wandering aimlessly up and down the street––that being the only pleasure and recourse of an Arizona town outside the doors of a saloon––when in the medley of heterogeneous sounds he heard a familiar voice boom out and as abruptly stop. It was evening and the stores were closed, but various citizens still sat along the edge of the sidewalk, smoking and talking in the semi-darkness. Hardy paused and listened a moment. The voice which he had heard was that of no ordinary man; it was deep and resonant, with a rough, overbearing note almost military in its brusqueness; 152 but it had ceased and another voice, low and protesting, had taken its place. In the gloom he could just make out the forms of the two men, sitting on their heels against the wall and engaged in a one-sided argument. The man with the Southern drawl was doing all the talking, but as Hardy passed by, the other cut in on him again.
“Well,” he demanded in masterful tones, “what ye goin’ to do about it?” Then, without waiting for an answer, he exclaimed:
“Hello, there, Mr. Hardy!”
“Hello,” responded Hardy. “Who is this, anyway?”
“Jim Swope,” replied the voice, with dignified directness. “What’re you doing in these parts?”
“Came down to buy a postage stamp,” replied Hardy, following a habit he had of telling the truth in details.
“Huh!” grunted Swope. “It’s a wonder you wouldn’t go to Bender for it––that Jew over there might make you a rate!”
“Nope,” responded Hardy, ignoring the too-evident desire of the Moroni storekeeper to draw him into an argument. “He couldn’t do it––they say the Government loses money every time it sells one. Nice town you’ve got down here,” he remarked, by way of 153 a parting compliment; but Swope was not satisfied to let him escape so easily.
“Hold on, there!” he exclaimed, rousing up from his place. “What’s your bloody hurry? Come on back here and shake hands with Mr. Thomas––Mr. Thomas is my boss herder up in Apache County. Thinking of bringing him down here next Fall,” he added laconically, and by the subtle change in his voice Hardy realized intuitively that that move had been the subject of their interrupted argument. More than that, he felt vaguely that he himself was somehow involved in the discussion, the more so as Mr. Thomas balked absolutely at shaking hands with him.
“I hope Mr. Thomas will find it convenient to stop at the ranch,” he murmured pleasantly, “but don’t let me interfere with your business.”
“Well, I guess that’s all to-night, Shep,” remarked Swope, taking charge of the situation. “I jest wanted you to meet Hardy while you was together. This is the Mr. Hardy, of the Dos S outfit, you understand,” he continued, “and a white cowman! If you have to go across his range, go quick––and tell your men the same. I want them dam’ tail-twisters up in that Four Peaks country to know that it pays to be decent to a sheepman, and I’m goin’ to show some of ’em, 154 too, before I git through! But any time my sheep happen to git on your range, Mr. Hardy,” he added reassuringly, “you jest order ’em off, and Mr. Thomas here will see to it that they go!”
He turned upon his boss herder with a menacing gesture, as if charging him with silence, and Thomas, whose sole contribution to the conversation had been a grunt at the end, swung about and ambled sullenly off up the street.
“Feelin’ kinder bad to-night,” explained Swope, as his mayordomo butted into the swinging doors of a saloon and disappeared, “but you remember what I said about them sheep. How do things look up your way?” he inquired. “Feed pretty good?”
“It’s getting awfully dry,” replied Hardy noncommittally. “I suppose your sheep are up on the Black Mesa by this time.”
“Ump!” responded the sheepman, and then there was a long pause. “Sit down,” he said at last, squatting upon the edge of the sidewalk, “I want to talk business with you.”
He lit a short black pipe and leaned back comfortably against a post.
“You seem to be a pretty smooth young feller,” he remarked, patronizingly. “How long have you been in these parts? Two months, eh? How’d Judge Ware come to get a-hold of you?”
“Just picked me up down at Bender,” replied Hardy.
“Oh, jest picked you up, hey? I thought mebby you was some kin to him. Ain’t interested in the cattle, are you? Well, I jest thought you might be, being put in over Jeff that way, you know. Nice boy, that, but hot-headed as a goat. He’ll be making hair bridles down in Yuma some day, I reckon. His old man was the same way. So you ain’t no kin to the judge and’ve got no int’rest in the cattle, either, eh? H’m, how long do you figure on holding down that job?”
“Don’t know,” replied Hardy; “might quit to-day or get fired to-morrow. It’s a good place, though.”
“Not the only one, though,” suggested the sheepman shrewdly, “not by a dam’ sight! Ever investigate the sheep business? No? Then you’ve overlooked something! I’ve lived in this country for nigh onto twenty years, and followed most every line of business, but I didn’t make my pile punching cows, nor running a store, neither––I made it raising sheep. Started in with nothing at the time of the big drought in ’92, herding on shares. Sheep did well in them good years that followed, and first thing I knew I was a sheepman. Now I’ve got forty thousand head, and I’m making a hundred per cent on my investment every year. Of course, if there comes a drought 156 I’ll lose half of ’em, but did you ever sit down and figure out a hundred per cent a year? Well, five thousand this year is ten next year, and ten is twenty the next year, and the twenty looks like forty thousand dollars at the end of three years. That’s quite a jag of money, eh? I won’t say what it would be in three years more, but here’s the point. You’re a young man and out to make a stake, I suppose, like the rest of ’em. What’s the use of wasting your time and energy trying to hold that bunch of half-starved cows together? What’s the use of going into a poor business, man, when there’s a better business; and I’ll tell you right now, the sheep business is the coming industry of Arizona. The sheepmen are going to own this country, from Flag to the Mexican line, and you might as well git on the boat, boy, before it’s too late.”
He paused, as if waiting for his points to sink home; then he reached out and tapped his listener confidentially on the knee.
“Hardy,” he said, “I like your style. You’ve got a head, and you know how to keep your mouth shut. More’n that, you don’t drink. A man like you could git to be a boss sheep-herder in six months; you could make a small fortune in three years and never know you was workin’. You don’t need to work, boy; I kin git a hundred men to work––what I want 157 is a man that can think. Now, say, I’m goin’ to need a man pretty soon––come around and see me some time.”
“All right,” said Hardy, reluctantly, “but I might as well tell you now that I’m satisfied where I am.”
“Satisfied!” ripped out Swope, with an oath. “Satisfied! Why, man alive, you’re jest hanging on by your eyebrows up there at Hidden Water! You haven’t got nothin’; you don’t even own the house you live in. I could go up there to-morrow and file on that land and you couldn’t do a dam’ thing. Judge Ware thought he was pretty smooth when he euchred me out of that place, but I want to tell you, boy––and you can tell him, if you want to––that Old Man Winship never held no title to that place, and it’s public land to-day. That’s all public land up there; there ain’t a foot of land in the Four Peaks country that I can’t run my sheep over if I want to, and keep within my legal rights. So that’s where you’re at, Mr. Hardy, if you want to know!”
He stopped and rammed a cut of tobacco into his pipe, while Hardy tapped his boot meditatively. “Well,” he said at last, “if that’s the way things are, I’m much obliged to you for not sheeping us out this Spring. Of course, I haven’t been in the country long, and I don’t know much about these matters, but I tried to accommodate you all I could, thinking––”
“That ain’t the point,” broke in Swope, smoking fiercely, “I ain’t threatening ye, and I appreciate your hospitality––but here’s the point. What’s the use of your monkeying along up there on a job that is sure to play out, when you can go into a better business? Answer me that, now!”
But Hardy only meditated in silence. It was beyond contemplation that he should hire himself out as a sheep-herder, but if he said so frankly it might call down the wrath of Jim Swope upon both him and the Dos S. So he stood pat and began to fish for information.
“Maybe you just think my job is going to play out,” he suggested, diplomatically. “If I’d go to a cowman, now, or ask Judge Ware, they might tell me I had it cinched for life.”
Swope puffed smoke for a minute in a fulminating, dangerous silence.
“Huh!” he said. “I can dead easy answer for that. Your job, Mr. Hardy, lasts jest as long as I want it to––and no longer. Now, you can figure that out for yourself. But I’d jest like to ask you a question, since you’re so smart; how come all us sheepmen kept off your upper range this year?”
“Why,” said Hardy innocently, “I tried to be friendly and treated you as white as I could, and I suppose––”
“Yes, you suppose,” sneered Swope grimly, “but I’ll jest tell you; we wanted you to hold your job.”
“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” murmured Hardy.
“Yes,” replied the sheepman sardonically, “it is––dam’ kind of us. But now the question is: What ye goin’ to do about it?”
“Why, in what way?”
“Well, now,” began Swope, patiently feeling his way, “suppose, jest for instance, that some fool Mexican herder should accidentally get in on your upper range––would you feel it your duty to put him off?”
“Well,” said Hardy, hedging, “I really hadn’t considered the matter seriously. Of course, if Judge Ware––”
“The judge is in San Francisco,” put in Swope curtly. “Now, suppose that all of us sheepmen should decide that we wanted some of that good feed up on Bronco Mesa, and, suppose, furthermore, that we should all go up there, as we have a perfect legal right to do, what would you do?”
“I don’t know,” replied Hardy politely.
“Well, supposen I dropped a stick of dynamite under you,” burst out Swope hoarsely, “would you jump? Speak up, man, you know what I’m talking about. You don’t think you can stand off the whole Sheepmen’s Protective Association, do you? Well, 160 then, will ye abide by the law and give us our legal rights or will ye fight like a dam’ fool and git sent to Yuma for your pains? That’s what I want to know, and when you talk to me you talk to the whole Sheepmen’s Association, with money enough in its treasury to send up every cowman in the Four Peaks country! What I want to know is this––will you fight?”
“I might,” answered Hardy quietly.
“Oh, you might, hey?” jeered the sheepman, tapping his pipe ominously on the sidewalk. “You might, he-ey? Well, look at Jeff Creede––he fought––and what’s he got to show for it? Look at his old man––he fought––and where is he now? Tell me that!
“But, say, now,” he exclaimed, changing his tone abruptly, “this ain’t what I started to talk about. I want to speak with you, Mr. Hardy, on a matter of business. You jest think them things over until I see you again––and, of course, all this is on the q. t. But now let’s talk business. When you want to buy a postage stamp you come down here to Moroni, don’t you? And why? Why, because it’s near, sure! But when you want a wagon-load of grub––and there ain’t no one sells provisions cheaper than I do, beans four-fifty, bacon sixteen cents, flour a dollar-ninety, everything as reasonable––you haul it clean across the desert from Bender. That easy adds a cent a pound 161 on every ton you pull, to say nothin’ of the time. Well, what I want to know is this: Does Einstein sell you grub that much cheaper? Take flour, for instance––what does that cost you?”
“I don’t know,” answered Hardy, whose anger was rising under this unwarranted commercial badgering. “Same as with you, I suppose––dollar-ninety.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Swope triumphantly, “and the extra freight on a sack would be fifty cents, wouldn’t it––a cent a pound, and a fifty-pound sack! Well, now say, Hardy, we’re good friends, you know, and all that––and Jasp and me steered all them sheep around you, you recollect––what’s the matter with your buying your summer supplies off of me? I’ll guarantee to meet any price that Bender Sheeny can make––and, of course, I’ll do what’s right by you––but, by Joe, I think you owe it to me!”
He paused and waited impatiently for his answer, but once more Hardy balked him.
“I don’t doubt there’s a good deal in what you say, Mr. Swope,” he said, not without a certain weariness, “but you’ll have to take that matter up with Judge Ware.”
“Don’t you have the ordering of the supplies?” demanded Swope sharply.
“Yes, but he pays for them. All I do is to order what I want and O. K. the bills. My credit is good 162 with Einstein, and the rate lies between him and Judge Ware.”
“Well, your credit is good here, too,” replied Swope acidly, “but I see you’d rather trade with a Jew than stand in with your friends, any day.”
“I tell you I haven’t got a thing to do with it,” replied Hardy warmly. “I take my orders from Judge Ware, and if he tells me to trade here I’ll be glad to do so––it’ll save me two days’ freighting––but I’m not the boss by any means.”
“No, nor you ain’t much of a supe, neither,” growled Swope morosely. “In fact, I consider you a dam’ bum supe. Some people, now, after they had been accommodated, would take a little trouble, but I notice you ain’t breaking your back for me. Hell, no, you don’t care if I never make a deal. But that’s all right, Mr. Hardy, I’ll try and do as much for you about that job of yourn.”
“Well, you must think I’m stuck on that job,” cried Hardy hotly, “the way you talk about it! You seem to have an idea that if I get let out it’ll make some difference to me, but I might as well tell you right now, Mr. Swope, that it won’t. I’ve got a good horse and I’ve got money to travel on, and I’m just holding this job to accommodate Judge Ware. So if you have any idea of taking it out on him you can just say the word and I’ll quit!”
“Um-m!” muttered the sheepman, taken aback by this sudden burst of temper, “you’re a hot-headed boy, ain’t you?” He surveyed him critically in the half light, as if appraising his value as a fighter, and then proceeded in a more conciliatory manner. “But you mustn’t let your temper git away with you like that,” he said. “You’re likely to say something you’ll be sorry for later.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” retorted Hardy. “It might relieve my mind some. I’ve only been in this country a few months, but if a sheepman is the only man that has any legal or moral rights I’d like to know about it. You talk about coming in on our upper range, having a right to the whole country, and all that. Now I’d like to ask you whether in your opinion a cowman has got a right to live?”
“Oh, tut, tut, now,” protested Swope, “you’re gettin’ excited.”
“Well, of course I’m getting excited,” replied Hardy, with feeling. “You start in by telling me the sheepmen are going to take the whole country, from Flag to the line; then you ask me what I’d do if a Mexican came in on us; then you say you can sheep us out any time you want to, and what am I going to do about it! Is that the way you talk to a man who has done his best to be your friend?”
“I never said we was going to sheep you out,” 164 retorted the sheepman sullenly. “And if I’d ’a’ thought for a minute you would take on like this about it I’d’ve let you go bust for your postage stamps.”
“I know you didn’t say it,” said Hardy, “but you hinted it good and strong, all right. And when a man comes as near to it as you have I think I’ve got a right to ask him straight out what his intentions are. Now how about it––are you going to sheep us out next Fall or are you going to give us a chance?”
“Oh hell!” burst out Swope, in a mock fury, “I’m never going to talk to you any more! You’re crazy, man! I never said I was going to sheep you out!”
“No,” retorted Hardy dryly, “and you never said you wasn’t, either.”
“Yes, I did, too,” spat back Swope, seizing at a straw. “Didn’t I introduce you to my boss herder and tell him to keep off your range?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Hardy coldly. “Did you?”
For a moment the sheepman sat rigid in the darkness. Then he rose to his feet, cursing.
“Well, you can jest politely go to hell,” he said, with venomous deliberation, and racked off down the street.