CHAPTER 8. Pink in a Threatening Mood.
Eagle Creek Smith had at last reached the point where he must face new conditions and change established customs. He could no longer ignore the barrenness of the range, or close his eyes to the grim fact that his cattle were facing starvation—and that in June, when they should be taking on flesh.
When he finally did confess to himself that things couldn't go on like that, others had been before him in leasing and buying land, until only the dry benches were left to him and his hungry herds.
But Eagle Creek was a man of resource. When the round-up pulled in and Wooden Shoes reported to him the general state of the cattle, and told of the water-holes newly fenced and of creek bottoms gobbled by men more farseeing than he, Eagle Creek took twenty-four hours to adjust himself to the situation and to meet the crisis before him. His own land, as compared to his twenty thousand cattle, was too pitifully inadequate for a second thought.
He must look elsewhere for the correct answer to his problem.
When Rowdy rode apathetically up to the stable, Pink came out of the bunk-house to meet him, big with news. “Oh, doctor! We're up against it a-plenty now,” he greeted, with his dimples at their deepest.
“Huh!” grunted Rowdy crossly. “What's hurting you, Pink?”
“Forecasting the future,” Pink retorted. “Eagle Creek has come alive, and has wised up sudden to the fact that this ain't going t' be any Noah's flood brand uh summer, and that his cattle look like the tailings of a wash-board factory. He's got busy—and we're sure going to. We're due t' hit the grit out uh here in the first beams uh rosy morn, and do a record stunt at gathering cattle.”
“Well, we were going to, anyhow,” Rowdy cut in.
“But that's only the prelude, old-timer. We've got t' take 'em across country to the Belknap reservation. Eagle Creek went t' town and telegraphed, and got the refusal of it for pasturage; he ain't so slow, oncet he gets started. But if you've ever rode over them dried-up benches, you savvy the merry party we'll be when we git there. I've saw jack-rabbits packing their lunch along over there.”
“Belknap”—Rowdy dropped his saddle spitefully to the ground—“is where our friend Conroy has just gone to fill a splendid position.”
Pink thoughtfully blew the ashes from his cigarette. “Harry Conroy would fill one position fine. So one uh these days I'll offer it to him. I don't know anybody that'd look nicer in a coffin than that jasper—and if he's gone t' Belknap, that's likely the position he'll fill, all right.”
Rowdy said nothing, but his very silence told Pink much.
“How'd yuh make out with Jessie?” Pink asked frankly, though he was not supposed to know where Rowdy had been.
Rowdy knew from experience that it was useless trying to keep anything from Pink that Pink wanted to know; besides, there was a certain comfort in telling his troubles to so stanch a friend. “Harry got his work in there, too,” he said bitterly. “He beat me to her and queered me for good, by the looks.”
“Huh!” said Pink. “I wouldn't waste much time worrying over her, if she's that easy turned.”
“She's all right,” defended Rowdy quickly. “I don't know as I blame her; she takes the stand any sister would take. She wants to know all about the trouble—hear both sides, she said, so she could judge which was to blame. I guess she's got her heart set on being peacemaker. I know one thing: she—likes me, all right.”
“I don't see how he queered yuh any, then,” puzzled Pink. “She sure couldn't take his part after you'd told her all he done.”
Rowdy turned on him savagely. “You little fool, do you think I told her? Right there's the trouble. He told his story; and when she asked for mine, I couldn't say anything. She's his sister.”
“You—didn't—tell!” Pink leaned against the stable and stared. “Rowdy Vaughan, there's times when even your friend can't disguise the fact that yuh act plumb batty. Yuh let Harry do yuh dirt that any other man'd 'a' killed him on bare suspicion uh doing; and yuh never told her when she asked yuh to! How yuh lent him money, and let him steal some right out uh your pocket—”
“I couldn't prove that,” Rowdy objected.
“And yuh never told her about his cutting your latigo—”
“Oh, cut it out!” Rowdy glowered down at him. “I guess I don't need to be reminded of all those things. But are they the things a man can tell a girl about her brother? Pink, you're about as unfeeling a little devil as I ever run across. Maybe you'd have told her; but I couldn't. So it's all off.”
He turned away and stared unseeingly at the rim of hills that hid the place where she lived. She seemed very far away from him just then—and very, very desirable. He thought then that he had never before realized just how much he cared.
“You can jest bet I'd 'a' told her!” gritted Pink, watching furtively Rowdy's averted face. “She ain't goin' t' be bowed down by no load of ignorance much longer, either. If she don't get Harry Conroy's pedigree straight out, without the varnish, it'll be because I ain't next to all his past.”
But Rowdy, glooming among the debris of certain pet air-castles, neither heard nor wanted to hear Pink's wrathful mutterings. As a matter of fact, it was not till Pink clattered out of the yard on Mascot that he remembered where he was. Even then it did not occur to him to wonder where Pink was going.
CHAPTER 9. Moving the Herd.
Four thousand weary cattle crawled up the long ridge which divides Chin Coulee from Quitter Creek. Pink, riding point, opposite the Silent One, twisted round in his saddle and looked back at the slow-moving river of horns and backs veiled in a gray dust-cloud. Down the line at intervals rode the others, humped listlessly in their saddles, their hat brims pulled low over tired eyes that smarted with dust and wind and burning heat.
Pink sighed, and wished lonesomely that it was Rowdy riding point with him, instead of the Silent One, who grew even more silent as the day dragged leadenly to mid-afternoon; Pink could endure anything better than being left to his thoughts and to the complaining herd for company.
He took off his hat, pushed back his curls—dripping wet they were and flattened unbecomingly in pasty, yellow rings on his forehead—and eyed with disfavor a line-backed, dry cow, with one horn tipped rakishly toward her speckled nose; she blinked silently at wind and heat, and forged steadily ahead, up-hill and down coulee, always in the lead, always walking, walking, like an automaton. Her energy, in the face of all the dry, dreary days, rasped Pink's nerves unbearably. For nearly a week he had ridden left point, and always that line-backed cow with the down-crumpled horn walked and walked and walked, a length ahead of her most intrepid followers.
He leaned from his saddle, picked up a rock from the barren, yellow hillside, and threw it at the cow spitefully. The rock bounced off her lean rump; she blinked and broke into a shuffling trot, her dragging hoofs kicking up an extra amount of dust, which blew straight into Pink's face.
“Aw, cut it out!” he shouted petulantly. “You're sure the limit, without doing any stunts at sprinting up-hill. Ain't yuh got any nerves, yuh blamed old skate? Yuh act like it was milkin'-time, and yuh was headed straight for the bars and a bran mash. Can't yuh realize the kind uh deal you're up against? Here's cattle that's got you skinned for looks, old girl, and they know it's coming blamed tough; and you just bat your eyes and peg along like yuh enjoyed it. Bawl, or something, can't yuh? Drop back a foot and act human!”
The Silent One looked across at him with a tired smile. “Let her go, Pink, and pray for more like her,” he called amusedly. “There'll be enough of them dropping back presently.”
Pink threw one leg over the horn and rode sidewise, made him a cigarette, and tried to forget the cow—or, at least, to forgive her for not acting as dog-tired as he felt.
They were on the very peak of the ridge now, and the hill sloped smoothly down before them to the bluff which bounded Quitter Creek. Far down, a tiny black speck in the coulee-bottom, they could see Wooden Shoes riding along the creek-bank, scouting for water. From the way he rode, and from the fact that camp was nowhere in sight, Pink guessed shrewdly that his quest was in vain. He shrugged his shoulders at what that meant, and gave his attention to the herd.
The marching line split at the brow of the bluff. The line-backed cow lowered her head a bit and went unfaltering down the parched, gravel-coated hill, followed by a few hundred of the freshest. Then the stream stopped flowing, and Pink and the Silent One rode back up the bluff to where the bulk of the footsore herd, their senses dulled by hunger and weariness and choking thirst, sniffed at the gravel that promised agony to their bruised feet, and balked at the ordeal. Others straggled up, bunched against the rebels, and stood stolidly where they were.
Pink galloped on down the crawling line. “Forward, the Standard Oil Brigade!” he yelled whimsically as he went.
The cowboys heard—and understood. They left their places and went forward at a lope, and Pink rode back to the coulee edge, untying his slicker as he went. The Silent One was already off his horse and shouting hoarsely as he whacked with his slicker at the sulky mass. Pink rode in and did the same. It was not the first time this thing had happened, and from a diversion it was verging closely on the monotonous. Presently, even a rank tenderfoot must have caught the significance of Pink's military expression. The Standard Oil Brigade was at the front in force.
Cowboys, swinging five-gallon oil-cans, picked up from scattered sheep camps and carried many a weary mile for just such an emergency, were charging the bunch intrepidly. Others made shift with flat sirup-cans with pebbles inside. A few, like Pink and the Silent One, flapped their slickers till their arms ached. Anything, everything that would make a din and startle the cattle out of their lethargy, was pressed into service.
But they might have been raised in a barnyard and fed cabbage leaves from back door-steps, for all the excitement they showed. Cattle that three months ago—or a month—would run, head and tail high in air, at sight of a man on foot, backed away from a rattling, banging cube of gleaming tin, turned and faced the thing dull-eyed and apathetic.
In time, however, they gave way dogedly before the onslaught. A few were forced shrinkingly down the hill; others followed gingerly, until the line lengthened and flowed, a sluggish, brown-red stream, into the coulee and across to Quitter Creek.
Here the leaders were browsing greedily along the banks. They had emptied the few holes that had still held a meager store of brackish water and so the mutinous bulk of the herd snuffed at the trampled, muddy spots and bellowed their disappointment.
Wooden Shoes rode up and surveyed the half maddened animals gloomily. “Push 'em on, boys,” he said. “They's nothings for 'em here. I've sent the wagons on to Red Willow; we'll try that next. Push 'em along all yuh can, while I go on ahead and see.”
With tin-cans, slickers, and much vituperation, they forced the herd up the coulee side and strung them out again on trail. The line-backed cow walked and walked in the lead before Pink's querulous gaze, and the others plodded listlessly after. The gray dust-cloud formed anew over their slowmoving backs, and the cowboys humped over in their saddles and rode and rode, with the hot sun beating aslant in their dirt-grimed faces, and with the wind blowing and blowing.
If this had been the first herd to make that dreary trip, things would not have been quite so disheartening. But it was the third. Seven thousand lean kine had passed that way before them, eating the scant grass growth and drinking what water they could find among those barren, sun-baked coulees.
The Cross L boys, on this third trip, were become a jaded lot of hollow-eyed men, whose nerves were rasped raw with long hours and longer days in the saddle. Pink's cheeks no longer made his name appropriate, and he was not the only one who grew fretful over small things. Rowdy had been heard, more than once lately, to anathematize viciously the prairie-dogs for standing on their tails and chipchip-chipping at them as they went by. And though the Silent One did not swear, he carried rocks in his pockets, and threw them with venomous precision at every “dog” that showed his impertinent nose out of a burrow within range. For Pink, he vented his spleen on the line-backed cow.
So they walked and walked and walked.
The cattle balked at another hill, and all the tincans and slickers in the crowd could scarcely move them. The wind dropped with the sun, and the clouds glowed gorgeously above them, getting scant notice, except that they told eloquently of the coming night; and there were yet miles—long, rough, heartbreaking miles—to put behind them before they could hope for the things their tired bodies craved: supper and dreamless sleep.
When the last of the herd had sidled, under protest, down the long hill to the flat, dusk was pushing the horizon closer upon them, mile by mile. When they crawled sinuously out upon the welcome level, the hill loomed ghostly and black behind them. A mile out, Wooden Shoes rode out of the gloom and met the point. He turned and rode beside Pink.
“Yuh'll have t' swing 'em north,” he greeted.
“Red Willow's dry as hell—all but in the Rockin' R field. No use askin' ole Mullen to let us in there; we'll just go. I sent the wagons through the fence, an' yuh'll find camp about a mile up from the mouth uh the big coulee. You swing 'em round the end uh this bench, an' hit that big coulee at the head. When you come t' the fence, tear it down. They's awful good grass in that field!”
“All right,” said Pink cheerfully. It was in open defiance of range etiquette; but their need was desperate. The only thing about it Pink did not like was the long detour they must make. He called the news across to the Silent One, after Wooden Shoes had gone on down the line, and they swung the point gradually to the left.
Before that drive was over, Pink had vowed many times to leave the range forever and never to turn another cow—besides a good many other foolish things which would be forgotten, once he had a good sleep. And Rowdy, plodding half-way down the herd, had grown exceedingly pessimistic regarding Jessie Conroy, and decided that there was no sense in thinking about her all the time, the way he had been doing. Also, he told himself savagely that if Harry ever crossed his trail again, there would be something doing. This thing of letting a cur like that run roughshod over a man on account of a girl that didn't care was plumb idiotic. And beside him the cattle walked and walked and walked, a dim, moving mass in the quiet July night.
CHAPTER 10. Harry Conroy at Home.
It was late next morning when they got under way; for they had not reached camp until long after midnight, and Wooden Shoes was determined the cattle should have one good feed, and all the water they wanted, to requite them for the hard drive of the day before.
Pink rode out with Rowdy to the herd—a heavylidded, gloomy Rowdy he was, and not amiably inclined toward the small talk of the range. But Pink had slept five whole hours and was almost his normal self; which means that speech was not to be denied him.
“What yuh mourning over?” he bantered. “Mad 'cause the reservation's so close?”
“Sure,” assented Rowdy, with deep sarcasm.
“That's what I thought. Studying up the nicest way uh giving brother-in-law the glad hand, ain't yuh?”
“He's no relation uh mine—and never will be,” said Rowdy curtly. “And I'll thank you, Pink, to drop that subject for good and all.”
“Down she goes,” assented Pink, quite unperturbed. “But the cards ain't all turned yet, yuh want to remember, I wouldn't pass on no hand like you've got. If I wanted a girl right bad, Rowdy, I'd wait till I got refused before I'd quit.”
“Seems to me you've changed your politics lately,” Rowdy retorted. “A while back you was cussing the whole business; and now you're worse than an old maid aunt. Pink, you may not be wise to the fact, but you sure are an inconsistent little devil.”
“Are yuh going t' hunt Harry up and—”
“I thought I told you to drop that.”
“Did yuh? All right, then—only I hope yuh didn't leave your gun packed away in your bed,” he insinuated.
“You can take a look to-night, if you want to.”
Pink laughed in a particularly infectious way he had, and, before he quite knew it, Rowdy was laughing, also. After that the world did not look quite so forlorn as it had, nor the day's work so distasteful. So Pink, having accomplished his purpose, was content to turn the subject.
“There's old Liney”—he pointed her out to Rowdy—“fresh as a meadow-lark. I had a big grouch against her yesterday, just because she batted her eyes and kept putting one foot ahead uh the other. I could 'a' killed her. But she's all right, that old girl. The way she led out down that black coulee last night wasn't slow! Say, she's an ambitious old party. I wish you was riding point with me, Rowdy. The Silent One talks just about as much as that old cow. He sure loves to live up to his rep.”
“Oh, go on to work,” Rowdy admonished. “You make me think of a magpie.” All the same, he looked after him with smiling lips, and eyes that forgot their gloom. He even whistled while he helped round up the scattered herd, ready for that last day's drive.
Every man in the outfit comforted himself with the thought that it was the last day's drive. After long weeks of trailing lean herds over barren, windbrushed hills, the last day meant much to them. Even the Silent One sang something they had never heard before, about “If Only I Knew You Were True.”
They crossed the Rocking R field, took down four panels of fence, passed out, and carefully put them up again behind them. Before them stretched level plain for two miles; beyond that a high, rocky ridge that promised some trouble with the herd, and after that more plain and a couleee or two, and then, on a far slope—the reservation.
The cattle were rested and fed, and walked out briskly; the ridge neared perceptibly. Pink's shrill whistle carried far back down the line and mingled pleasantly with voices calling to one another across the herd. Not a man was humped listlessly in his saddle; instead, they rode with shoulders back and hats at divers jaunty angles to keep the sun from shining in eyes that faced the future cheerfully.
The herd steadily climbed the ridge, choosing the smoothest path and the easiest slope. Pink assured the line-backed cow that she was a peach, and told her to “go to it, old girl.” The Silent One's pockets were quite empty of rocks, and the prairiedogs chipped and flirted their funny little tails unassailed. And Rowdy, from wondering what had made Pink change his attitude so abruptly, began to plan industriously the next meeting with Jessie Conroy, and to build a new castle that was higher and airier than any he had ever before attempted—and perhaps had a more flimsy foundation; for it rested precariously on Pink's idle remarks.
The point gained the top of the ridge, and Pink turned and swung his hat jubilantly at the others. The reservation was in sight, though it lay several miles distant. But in that clear air one could distinguish the line fence—if one had the eye of faith and knew just where to look. Presently he observed a familiar horseman climbing the ridge to meet them.
“Eagle Creek's coming,” he shouted to the man behind. “Come alive, there, and don't let 'em roam all over the map. Git some style on yuh!”
Those who heard laughed; no one ever dreamed of being offended at what Pink said. Those who had not heard had the news passed on to them, in various forms. Wooden Shoes, who had been loitering in the rear gossiping with the men, rode on to meet Smith.
Eagle Creek urged his horse up the last steep place, right in the face of the leaders, which halted and tried to turn back. Pink, swearing in a whisper, began to force them forward.
“Let 'em alone,” Eagle Creek bellowed harshly. “They ain't goin' no farther.”
“W-what?” Pink stopped short and eyed him critically. Eagle Creek could not justly be called a teetotaler; but Pink had never known him to get worse than a bit wobbly in his legs; his mind had never fogged perceptibly. Still, something was wrong with him, that was certain. Pink glanced dubiously across at the Silent One and saw him shrug his shoulders expressively.
Eagle Creek rode up and stopped within ten feet of the line-backed cow; she seemed hurt at being held up in this manner, Pink thought.
“Yuh'll have t' turn this herd back,” Eagle Creek announced bluntly.
“Where to?” Pink asked, too stunned to take in the meaning of it.
“T' hell, I guess. It's the only place I know of where everybody's welcome.” Eagle Creek's tone was not pleasant.
“We just came from there,” Pink said simply, thinking of the horrors of that drive.
“Where's Wooden Shoes?” snapped the old man; and the foreman's hat-crown appeared at that instant over the ridge.
“Well, we're up against it,” Eagle Creek greeted. “That damn' agent—or the fellow he had workin' for him—reported his renting us pasture. Made the report read about twice as many as we're puttin' on. He's got orders now t' turn out every hoof but what b'longs there.”
“My Lord!” Wooden Shoes gasped at the catastrophe which faced the Cross L.
“That's Harry Conroy's work,” Pink cut in sharply' “He'd hurt the Cross L if he could, t' spite me and Rowdy. He—”
“Don't matter—seein' it's done. Yuh might as well turn the herd loose right here, an' let 'em go t' the devil. I don't know what else t' do with 'em.”
“Anything gone wrong?” It was Rowdy, who had left his place and ridden forward to see what was holding the herd back.
“Naw. We're fired off the reservation, is all. We got orders to take the herd to hell. Eagle Creek's leased it. Mr. Satan is going to keep house here in Montana; he says it's better for his trade,” Pink informed him, in his girlish treble.
Eagle Creek turned on him fiercely, then thought better of it and grinned. “Them arrangements wouldn't make us any worse off'n what we are,” he commented. “Turn 'em loose, boys.”
“Man, if yuh turn 'em loose here, the first storm that hits 'em, they all die,” Wooden Shoes interposed excitedly. “They ain't nothings for 'em. We had t' turn 'em into the Rockin' R field last night, t' git water an' feed. Red Willow's gone dry outside dat field. They ain't—nothings. They'll die!”
Eagle Creek looked at him dully. For the first time in his life he faced utter ruin. “Damn 'em, let 'em die, then!” he said.
“That's what they'll sure do,” Wooden Shoes reiterated stubbornly. “If they don't git feed and water now, yuh needn't start no round-up next spring.”
Pink's eyes went down over the close-huddled backs and the thicket of polished horns, and his eyelids stung. Would all of them die, he wondered! Four thousand! He hoped not. There must be some way out. Down the hill, he knew the cowboys were making cigarettes while they waited and wondered mightily what it was all about If they only knew, he thought, there would be more than one rope ready for Harry Conroy.
“How about the Peck reservation? Couldn't you get them on there?” Rowdy ventured.
“Not a hoof!” growled Eagle Creek, with his chin sunk against his chest. “There's thirty thousand Valley County cattle on there now.” He looked down at the cattle, as Pink had done. “God! It's bad enough t' go broke,” he groaned; “but t' think uh them poor brutes dyin' off in bunches, for want uh grass an' water! I've run that brand fer over thirty year.”
CHAPTER 11. Rowdy Promoted.
Rowdy rode closer. “If you don't mind paying duty,” he began tentatively, “I can put you next to a range over the line, where I'll guarantee feed and water the year round for every hoof you own.”
Eagle Creek lifted his head and looked at him “Whereabouts?” he demanded skeptically.
“Up in the Red Deer country. Pink knows the place. There's range a-plenty, and creeks running through that never go dry; and the country isn't stocked and fenced to death, like this is.”
“And would we be ordered off soon as we got there?”
“Sure not—if you paid duty, which would only be about double what you were going to pay for one year's pasture.”
Eagle Creek breathed deeply, like a man who has narrowly escaped suffocation. “Young man, I b'lieve you're a square dealer, and that yuh savvy the cow business. I've thought it ever since yuh started t' work.” His keen old eyes twinkled at the memory of Rowdy's arrival, and Rowdy grinned. “I take yuh at your word, and yuh can consider yourself in charge uh this herd as it stands. Take it t' that cow heaven yuh tell about—and damn it, yuh won't be none the worse for it!”
“We'll pass that up,” said Rowdy quietly. “I'll take the herd through, though; and I'd advise you to get the rest on the road as soon as they can be gathered. It's a three-hundred-mile drive.”
“All right. From now on it's up to you,” Eagle Creek told him briskly. “Take 'em back t' the Rockin' R field, and I'll send the wagons back t' you. Old Mullen'll likely make a roar—but that's most all gove'ment land he's got fenced, so I guess I can calm him down. Will yuh go near the ranch?”
“I think so,” said Rowdy. “It will be the shortest way.”
“Well, I'll give yuh some blank checks, an' you can load up with grub and anything else yuh need. I'll be over there by the time you are, and fix up that duty business. Wooden Shoes'll have t' get another outfit together, and get another bunch on the trail. One good thing—I got thirty days t' get off what cattle is on there; and thirty days uh grass and water'll put 'em in good shape for the trip. Wish this bunch was as well fixed.”
“That's what,” Rowdy assented. “But I think they'll make it, all right.”
“I'll likely want yuh to stay up there and keep cases on 'em. Any objections?”
“Sure not!” laughed Rowdy. “Only I'll want Pink and the Silent One to stay with me.”
“Keep what men yuh want. Anything else?”
“I don't think of anything,” said Rowdy. “Only I'd like to have a—talk—with Conroy.” Creek eyed him sharply. “Yuh won't be apt t' meet him. Old Bill Brown, up home, would like to see him, too. Bill's a perseverin' old cuss, and wants to see Conroy so bad he's got the sheriff out lookin' for him. It's about a bunch uh horses that was run off, three years ago. Yuh brought one of 'em back into the country last spring, yuh mind.”
Rowdy and Pink looked at one another, but said nothing.
“Old Bill, he follered your back trail and found out some things he wanted t' know. Conroy got wind of it, though, and he left the agency kind-a suddint. No use yuh lookin' for him.”
“Then we're ready to hit the grit, I guess.” Rowdy glanced again at Pink who nodded.
“Well, I ain't stoppin' yuh,” Eagle Creek drawled laconically. “S'-long, and good luck t' yuh.”
He waited while Pink and the Silent One swung the point back down the hill, with Rowdy helping them, quite unmoved by his sudden promotion. When the herd was fairly started on the backward march, Eagle Creek nodded satisfaction the while he pried off a corner of plug-tobacco.
“He's all right,” he asserted emphatically. “That boy suits me, from the ground up. If he don't put that deal through in good shape, it'll be becaus' it can't be did.”
Wooden Shoes, with whom Rowdy had always been a prime favorite, agreed with Dutch heartiness. Then, leaving the herd to its new guardian they rode swiftly to overtake and turn back the wagons.
“Three hundred miles! And part of it across howling desert!” Rowdy drew his brows together. “It's a big thing for me, all right, Pink; but it's sure a big contract to take this herd through, if anybody should happen to ask yuh.”
“Oh, buck up! You'll make good, all right—if only these creeks wasn't so bone dry!”
“Well, there's water enough in the Rocking R field for to-day; we'll throw 'em in there till tomorrow. And I've a notion I can find a better trail across to North Fork than the way we came. I'm going to strike out this afternoon and see, anyway, if Quitter Creek hasn't got water farther up. Once we get up north uh the home ranch, I can see my way clear.”
“Go to it, boss,” Pink cried heartily. “I don't see how I'm goin t' keep from sassing yuh, once in a while, though. That's what bothers me. What'll happen if I turn loose on yuh, some time?”
“You'll get fired, I expect,” laughed Rowdy, and rode off to announce the news to the rest of the outfit, who were very unhappy in their mystification.
If their reception of the change of plans and foreman was a bit profane, and their manner toward him a bit familiar, Rowdy didn't mind. He knew that they did not grudge him his good luck, even while they hated the long drive. He also knew that they watched him furtively; for nothing—not even misfortune—is as sure a test of a man's character as success. They liked Rowdy, and they did not believe this would spoil him; still, every man of them was secretly a bit anxious.
On the trail, he rode in his accustomed place, and, so far as appearances went, the party had no foreman. He went forward and helped Pink take down the fence that had been so carefully put up a few hours before, and he whistled while he put it in place again, just as if he had no responsibility in the world. Then the cattle were left to themselves, and the men rode down to their old campground, marked by empty tin-cans and a trodden place where had been the horse corral.
Rowdy swung down and faced the men gravely. Instinctively they stood at attention, waiting for what he had to say; they felt that the situation was so far out of the ordinary that a few remarks pertaining to their new relations would not be out of place.
He looked them over appraisingly, and met glances as grave as his own. Straight, capable fellows they were, every man of them.
“Boys,” he began impressively, “you all know that from to-day on you're working under my orders. I never was boss of anything but the cayuse I happened to have under me, and I'm going to extract all the honey there is in the situation. Maybe I'll never be boss again—but at present I'm it. I want you fellows to remember that important fact, and treat me with proper respect. From now on you can call me Mr. Vaughan; 'Rowdy' doesn't go, except on a legal holiday.
“Furthermore, I'm not going to get out at daylight and catch up my own horse; I'll let yuh take turns being flunky, and I'll expect yuh to saddle my horse every morning and noon, and bring him to the cook-tent—and hold my stirrup for me. Also, you are expected, at all times and places, to anticipate my wants and fall over yourselves waiting on me. You're just common, ordinary, forty-dollar cow-punchers, and if I treat yuh white, it's because I pity yuh for not being up where I am. Remember, vassals, that I'm your superior, mentally, morally, socially—”
“Chap him!” yelled Pink, and made for him “I'll stand for a lot, but don't yuh ever think I'm a vassal!”
“Mutiny is strictly prohibited!” he thundered. “Villains, beware! Gadzooks—er—let's have a swim before the wagons come!”
They laughed and made for the creek, feeling rather crestfallen and a bit puzzled.
“If I had an outfit like this to run, and a three hundred-mile drive to make,” Bob Nevin remarked to the Silent One, “blessed if I'd make a josh of it! I'd cultivate the corrugated brow and the stiff spine—me!”
“My friend,” the Silent One responded, “don't be too hasty in your judgment. It's because the corrugated brow will come later that he laughs now. You'll presently find yourself accomplishing the impossible in obedience to the flicker of Rowdy Vaughan's eyelids. Man, did you never observe the set of his head, and the look of his eye? Rowdy Vaughan will get more out of this crowd than any man ever did; and if he fails, he'll fail with the band playing 'Hot Time.'”
“Maybe so,” Bob admitted, not quite convinced; “but I wonder if he realizes what he's up against.” At which the Silent One only smiled queerly as he splashed into the water.
After dinner Rowdy caught up the blue roan, which was his favorite for a hard ride—he seemed to have forgotten his speech concerning “flunkies”—and rode away up the coulee which had brought them into the field the night before. The boys watched him go, speculated a lot, and went to sleep as the best way of putting in the afternoon.
Pink, who knew quite well what was in Rowdy's mind, said nothing at all; it is possible that he was several degrees more jealous of the dignity of Rowdy's position than was Rowdy himself, who had no time to think of anything but the best way of getting the herd to Canada. He would like to have gone along, only that Rowdy did not ask him to. Pink assured himself that it was best for Rowdy not to start playing any favorites, and curled down in the bed-tent with the others and went to sleep.
It was late that night when Rowdy crept silently into his corner of the tent; but Pink was awake, and whispered to know if he found water. Rowdy's “Yes” was a mere breath, but it was enough.
At sunrise the herd trailed up the Rocking R coulee, and Pink and the Silent One pointed them north of the old trail.
CHAPTER 12. “You Can Tell Jessie.”
In the days that followed Rowdy was much alone. There was water to hunt, far ahead of the herd, together with the most practicable way of reaching it. He did not take the shortest way across that arid country and leave the next day's camping-place to chance—as Wooden Shoes had done. He felt that there was too much at stake, and the cattle were too thin for any more dry drives; long drives there were, but such was his generalship that there was always water at the end.
He rode miles and miles that he might have shirked, and he never slept until the next day's move, at least, was clearly defined in his mind and he felt sure that he could do no better by going another route.
These lonely rides gave him over to the clutch of thoughts he had never before harbored in his sunny nature. Grim, ugly thoughts they were, and not nice to remember afterward. They swung persistently around a central subject, as the earth revolves around the sun; and, like the earth, they turned and turned on the axis of his love for a woman.
In particularly ugly moods he thought that if Harry Conroy were caught and convicted of horsestealing, Jessie must perforce admit his guilt and general unworthiness—Rowdy called it general cussedness—and Rowdy be vindicated in her eyes. Then she would marry him, and go with him to the Red Deer country and—air-castles for miles! When he awoke to the argument again, he would tell himself savagely that if he could, by any means, bring about Conroy's speedy conviction, he would do so.
This was unlike Rowdy, whose generous charity toward his enemies came near being a fault. He might feel any amount of resentment for wrong done, but cold-blooded revenge was not in him; that he had suffered so much at Conroy's hands was due largely to the fact that Conroy was astute enough to read Rowdy aright, and unscrupulous enough to take advantage. Add to that a smallminded jealousy of Rowdy's popularity and horsemanship, one can easily imagine him doing some rather nasty things. Perhaps the meanest, and the one which rankled most in Rowdy's memory, was the cutting of Rowdy's latigo just before a riding contest, in which the purse and the glory of a championship-belt seemed in danger of going to Rowdy.
Rowdy had got a fall that crippled him for weeks, and Harry had won the purse and belt—and the enmity of several men better than he. For though morally sure of his guilt, no one could prove that he had cut the strap, and so he got off unpunished, except that Pink thrashed him—a bit unscientifically, it is true, since he resorted to throwing rocks toward the last, but with a thoroughness worthy even of Pink.
But in moods less ugly he shrank from the hurt that must be Jessie's if she should discover the truth. Jessie's brother a convicted thief serving his sentence in Deer Lodge! The thought was horrible; it was brutal cruelty. If he could only know where to look for that lad, he'd help him out of the country. It was no good shutting him up in jail; that wouldn't help him any, or make him better. He hoped he would get off—go somewhere, where they couldn't find him, and stay there.
He wondered where he was, and if he had money enough to see him through. He might be no good—he sure wasn't!—but he was Jessie's brother, and Jessie believed in him and thought a lot of him. It would be hard lines for that little girl if Harry were caught. Bill Brown, the meddlesome old freak!—he didn't blame Jessie for not wanting to stop there that night. She did just the right thing.
With all this going round and round, monotonously persistent in his brain, and with the care of four thousand lean kine and more than a hundred saddle-horses—to say nothing of a dozen overworked, fretful cow-punchers—Rowdy acquired the “corrugated brow” fast enough without any cultivation.
The men were as the Silent One had predicted. They made drives that lasted far into the night, stood guard, and got along with so little sleep that it was scarce worth mention, and did many things that shaved close the impossible—just because Rowdy looked at them straightly, with half-closed lids, and asked them if they thought they could.
Pink began to speak of their new foreman as “Moses”; and when the curious asked him why, told them soberly that Rowdy could “hit a rock with his quirt and start a creek running bank full.” When Rowdy heard that, he thought of the miles of weary searching, and wished that it were true.
They had left the home ranch a day's drive behind them, and were going north. Rowdy had denied himself the luxury of riding over to see Jessie, and he was repenting the sacrifice in deep gloom and sincerity, when two men rode into camp and dismounted, as if they had a right. The taller one—with brawn and brain a-plenty, by the look of him—announced that he was the sheriff, and would like to stop overnight.
Rowdy gave him welcome half-heartedly, and questioned him craftily. A sheriff is not a detective, and does not mind giving harmless information; so Rowdy learned that they had traced Conroy thus far, and believed that he was ahead of them and making for Canada. He had dodged them cleverly two or three times, but now they had reason to believe that he was not more than half a day's ride before them. They wanted to know if the outfit had seen any one that day, or sign of any one having passed that way.
Rowdy shook his head.
“I bet it was Harry Conroy driving that little bunch uh horses up the creek, just as we come over the ridge,” spoke Pink eagerly.
Rowdy could have choked him. “He wouldn't be driving a lot of horses,” he interposed quickly.
“Well, he might,” argued Pink. “If I was making a quick get-away, and my horse was about played out—like his was apt t' be—I'd sure round up the first bunch I seen, and catch me a fresh one—if I was a horse-thief. I'll bet yuh—”
The sheriff had put down his cup of coffee. “Is there any place where a man could corral a bunch on the quiet?” he asked crisply. It was evident that Pink's theory had impressed him.
“Yes, there is. There's an old corral up at the ford—Drowning Ford, they call it—that I'd use, if it was me. It was an old line camp, and there's a cabin. It's down on the flat by the creek, and it's as God-forsaken a place as a man'd want t' hide in, or t' change mounts.” Pink hitched up his chapbelt and looked across at Rowdy. He was aching for a sight of Harry Conroy in handcuffs, and he was certain that Rowdy felt the same. “If it was me,” he added speculatively, “and I thought I was far enough in the lead, I'd stop there till morning.”
“How far is it from here?” demanded the sheriff, standing up.
Pink told him he guessed it was five miles. Whereupon the sheriff announced his intention of going up there at once, and Pink hinted rather strongly that he would like to go with them. The sheriff did not know Pink; he looked down at his slimness and at the yellow fringe of curls showing under his hat brim, at his pink cheeks and dimples and girlish hands, and threw back his head in a loud ha! ha!
Pink asked him politely, but rather stiffly, what there was funny about it. The sheriff laughed louder and longer; then, being the sort of man who likes a joke now and then, even in the way of business, he solemnly deputized Pink, and patted him on the shoulder and told him gravely that they couldn't possibly do without him.
It looked for a minute as if Pink were going at him with his fists—but he didn't. He reflected that one must not offer violence to an officer of the law, and that, being made a deputy, he would have to go, anyway; so he gritted his teeth and buckled on his gun, and went along sulkily.
They rode silently, for the most part, and swiftly.
Even in the dusk they could see where a band of horses had been driven at a gallop along the creek bank. When they neared the place it was dark. Pink pulled up and spoke for the first time since leaving the tent.
“We better tie up our horses here and walk,” he said, quite unconscious of the fact that he was usurping the leadership, and thinking only of their quest.
But the sheriff was old at the business, and not too jealous of his position. He signed to his deputy proper, and they dismounted.
When they started on, Pink was ahead. The sheriff observed that Pink's gun still swung in its scabbard at his hip, and he grinned—but that was because he didn't know Pink. That the gun swung at his hip would have been quite enough for any one who did know him; it didn't take Pink all day to get into action.
Ten rods from the corral, which they could distinguish as a black blotch in the sparse willow growth, Pink turned and stopped them. “I know the layout here,” he whispered. “I'll just sneak ahead and rubber around. You Rubes sound like the beginning of a stampede, in this brush.”
The sheriff had never before been called a Rube—to his face, at least. The audacity took his breath; and when he opened his mouth for scathing speech, Pink was not there. He had slipped away, like a slim, elusive shadow, and the sheriff did not even know the exact direction of his going. There was nothing for it but to wait.
In five minutes Pink appeared with a silent suddenness that startled them more than they would like to own.
“He's somewheres around,” he announced, in a murmur that would not carry ten feet. “He's got a horse in the corral, and, from the sound, he's got him all saddled; and the gate's tied shut with a rope.”
“How d'yuh know?” grunted the sheriff crossly.
“Felt of it, yuh chump. He's turned the bunch loose and kept up a fresh one, like I said he would. It's blame dark, but I could see the horse—a big white devil. It's him yuh hear makin' all that racket. If he gits away now—”
“Well, we didn't come for a chin-whackin' bee,” snapped the sheriff. “I come out here t' git him.”
Pink gritted his teeth again, and wished the sheriff was just a man, so he could lick him. He led them forward without a word, thinking that Rowdy wanted Harry Conroy captured.
The sheriff circled warily the corral, peered through the rails at the great white horse that ran here and there, whinnying occasionally for the band, and heard the creak of leather and the rattle of the bit. Pink was right; the horse was saddled, ready for immediate flight.
“Maybe he's in the cabin,” he whispered, coming up where Pink stood listening tensely at all the little night sounds. Pink turned and crept silently to the right, keeping in the deepest shade, while the others followed willingly. They were beginning to see the great advantage of having Pink along, even if he had called them Rubes.
The cabin door yawned wide open, and creaked weirdly as the light wind moved it; the interior was black and silent—suspiciously silent, in the opinion of the sheriff. He waited for some time before venturing in, fearing an ambush. Then he caught the flicker of a shielded match, called out to Conroy to surrender, and leveled his gun at the place.
There was no answer but the faint shuffle of stealthy feet on the board floor. The sheriff called another warning, cocked his gun—and came near shooting Pink, who walked composedly out of the door into the sheriff's astonished face. The sheriff had been sure that Pink was just behind him.
“What the hell,” began the sheriff explosively.
“He ain't here,” said Pink simply. “I crawled in the window and hunted the place over.”
The sheriff glared at him dumbly; he could not reconcile Pink's daredevil behavior with Pink's innocent, girlish appearance.
“I tell yuh the corral's what we want t' keep cases on,” Pink added insistently. “He's sure somewheres around—I'd gamble on it. He saddled that horse t' git away on. That horse is sure the key t' this situation, old-timer. If you fellows'll keep cases on the gate, I'll cover the rear.”
He made his way quietly to the back of the corral, inwardly much amused at the tractability of the sheriff, who took his deputy obediently to watch the gate.
Pink squatted comfortably in the shade of a willow and wished he dared indulge in a cigarette, and wondered what scheme Harry was trying to play.
Fifty feet away the big white horse still circled round and round, rattling his bridle impatiently and shaking the saddle in an occasional access of rage, and whinnying lonesomely out into the gloom.
So they waited and waited, and peered into the shadows, and listened to the trampling horse fretting for freedom and his mates.
The cook had just called breakfast when Pink dashed up to the tent, flung himself from his horse, and confronted Rowdy—a hollow-eyed, haggard Rowdy who had not slept all night, and whose eyes questioned anxiously.
“Well,” Rowdy said, with what passed for composure, “did you get him?”
Pink leaned against his horse, with one hand reaching up and gripping tightly the horn of the saddle. His cheeks held not a trace of color, and his eyes were full of a great horror.
“They're bringin' him t' camp,” he answered huskily. “We found a horse—a big white horse they call the Fern Outlaw”—the Silent One started and came closer, listening intently; evidently he knew the horse—“saddled in the corral, and the gate tied shut. We dubbed around a while, but we didn't find—Harry. So we camped down by the corral and waited. We set there all night—and the horse faunching around inside something fierce. When—it come daybreak—I seen something—by the fence, inside. It was—Harry.” Pink shivered and moistened his dry lips. “That Fern Outlaw—some uh the boys know—is a devil t' mount. He'd got Harry down—hell, Rowdy! it—it was sure—awful. He'd been there all night—and that horse stomping.”
“Shut up!” Rowdy turned all at once deathly sick. He had once seen a man who had been trampled by a maddened, man-killing horse. It had not been a pretty sight. He sat down weakly and covered his face with his shaking hands.
The others stood around horrified, muttering disjointed, shocked sentences.
Pink lifted his head from where it had fallen upon his arm. “One thing, Rowdy—I done. You can tell Jessie. I shot that horse.”
Rowdy dropped his hands and stood up. Yes, he must tell Jessie.
“You'll have to take the herd on,” he told Pink in his masterful way. “I'll catch you to-morrow some time. I've got to go back and tell Jessie. You know the trail I was going to take—straight across to Wild Horse Lake. From there you strike across to North Fork—and if I don't overtake you on the way, I'll hit camp some time in the night. It's all plain sailing.”