The cowboy's day begins early, no matter how he spends his night. It was four o'clock in the morning and Bowles was dead with sleep when suddenly the light of a lantern was thrown in his eyes and he heard the cook's voice rousing up the horse wranglers.
"Wranglers!" he rasped, shaking Brigham by the shoulder. "Git up, Brig; it's almost day!"
"All right, Gus!" answered Brigham, cuddling down for another nap; but Gloomy Gus had awakened too many generations of cowboys to be deceived by a play like that, and on his way out to finish breakfast he stumbled over Brigham's boots and woke him up to give them to him. So, with many a yawn and sigh, poor Brigham and his fellow wrangler stamped on their boots and went out to round up the horse pasture, and shortly afterward a shrill yell from the cook gave notice that breakfast was ready. Five minutes later he yelled again and beat harshly on a dishpan; then, as the rumble of the horse herd was heard, he came and kicked open the door.
"Hey, git up, boys!" he shouted. "Breakfast's waitin' and the remuda is in the c'rell! The old man will be down hollerin' 'Hawses!' before you git yore coffee!"
The bite of the cold morning air swept in as he stood there and roused them at last to action. Swiftly Buck and Bill and Happy Jack rolled out and hustled into their clothes; other men not yet known by name hurried forth to wash for breakfast; and at last Bowles stepped out, to find the sky full of stars. A cold wind breathed in from the east, where the deceitful radiance of the false dawn set a halo on the distant ridges; and the cowboy's life, for the moment, seemed to offer very little to an errant lover. Around the cook's fire, with their coat collars turned up to their ears, a group of punchers was hovering in a half-circle, leaving the other half for Gloomy Gus. Their teeth chattered in the frosty silence, and one by one they washed their faces in hot water from the cook's can and waited for the signal to eat. Then the wranglers came in, half frozen from their long ride in the open pasture, and as Brigham poured out a cup of coffee, regardless, old Gus raised the lid from a Dutch oven, glanced in at the nicely browned biscuits and hollered:
"Fly at it!"
A general scramble for plates and cups followed; then a raid on the ovens and coffee-pots and kettles; and inside of three minutes twenty men were crouching on the ground, each one supplied with beans, biscuits and beef—the finest the range produced. They ate and came back for more, and Bowles tried to follow their example; but breakfast at home had been served at a later hour, and it had not been served on the ground, either. However, he ate what he could and drank a pint of coffee that made him as brave as a lion. It was real range coffee, that had set on the grounds over night and been boiled for an hour in the morning. It was strong, and made him forget the cold; but just as he was beginning to feel like a man again silence fell on the crowd, and Henry Lee appeared.
In his riding boots, and with a wooden-handled old Colt's in his shaps, Mr. Lee was a different creature from the little man that Bowles had whipsawed on the previous evening. He was a dominating man, and as he stood by the fire for a minute and waited for enough light to rope by, Mr. Bowles began to have his regrets. It is one thing to bully-rag a man on his front steps, and quite another to ride bronks on a cold morning. The memory of a man named Dunbar came over him, and he wondered if he had died in the morning, when his bones were brittle and cold. He remembered other things, including Dixie Lee, but without any positive inspiration; and he took a sneaking pleasure at last in the fact that Mr. Lee appeared to have forgotten all about him.
But Henry Lee was not the man to let an Eastern tenderfoot run it over him, and just as he called for horses and started over toward the corral he said to Hardy Atkins:
"Oh, Hardy, catch up that Dunbar horse and put this gentleman's saddle on him, will you?"
He waved his hand toward Bowles, whose heart had just missed a beat, and pulled on a trim little glove.
"What—Dunbar?" gasped the bronco-twister, startled out of his calm.
"Yes," returned Lee quietly. "The gentleman claims he can ride."
"Who—him?" demanded Atkins, pointing incredulously at the willowy Bowles.
"Yes—him!" answered the cattleman firmly. "And after what he said to me last evening he's either got to ride Dunbar or own himself a coward—that's all."
"Oh," responded the twister, relieved by the alternative; and with a wink at Buck and the rest of the crowd he went rollicking out to the corral. By the usual sort of telepathy Hardy Atkins had come to hate and despise Bowles quite as heartily as Bowles had learned to hate him, and the prospect of putting the Easterner up against Dunbar made his feet bounce off the ground. First he roped out his own mount and saddled him by the gate; then, as the slower men caught their horses and prepared for the work of the day, he leaned against the bars and pointed out the man-killer to Bowles, meanwhile edging in his little talk.
"See that brown over there?" he queried, as Bowles stared breathlessly out over the sea of tossing heads. "No, here he is now—that wall-eyed devil with his hip knocked down—he got that when he rared over and killed Dunbar. Can't you see 'im? Right over that bald-faced sorrel! Yes, that hawse that limps behind!"
At that moment some impetuous cowboy roped at his mount and the round corral became a raging maelstrom of rushing horses, thundering about in a circle and throwing the dirt twenty feet high; but as a counter movement checked the charge and the wind blew the dust away, the lanky form of the horse that killed Dunbar loomed up on the edge of the herd. He was a big, raw-boned brute, colored a sunburned, dusty brown, and a limp in his off hind leg gave him a slinking, stealthy air; but what impressed Bowles the most was the sinister look in his eyes. If ever a horse was a congenital criminal, Dunbar was the animal. His head was long and bony and bulging around the ears, and his eyes were sunk deep, like a rattlesnake's, and with a rattlesnake's baleful glare. But there was more than a snaky wildness in them: the wicked creature seemed to be meditating upon his awful past, and scheming greater crimes, until his haggard, watchful eyes were set in a fixed, brooding stare. He was a bad horse, old Dunbar, and Atkins was there to play him up.
"You want to be careful not to hurt that hawse," he warned, as Bowles caught his breath and started. "The boss expects to git a thousand dollars fer him at the Cheyenne Rough-Riding Contest next summer. Now that old Steamboat is rode, and Teddy Roosevelt is busted, they's big money hangin' up fer a bad hawse. Got to have one, you know. It's fer the championship of the world, and if they don't git another man-killer they can't have no contest. I would've tried him myself, but he's too valuable. How do you ride—with yore stirrups tied? No? Well, I reckon you're right—likely to get caught and killed if he throws himself over back. You ain't down here fer a Wild West Show, are ye? Uh-huh, jest thought you might be—knowed you wasn't a puncher. Well, we'll saddle him up fer you now—if you say so!"
He lingered significantly on the last words, and Henry Lee, who was standing near, half smiled; but there must have been some sporting blood back in the Bowles family somewhere, for Mr. Bowles merely murmured:
"If you will, please!" and got his saddle.
So there was nothing for Atkins to do but go in and try to catch Dunbar. The bronco-twister shook out his rope, glanced at the boss, glanced at him again, and dropped reluctantly into the corral. Hardy Atkins would rather have taken a whipping than put a saddle on Dunbar; but he was up against it now, so he lashed his loop out on the ground and advanced to make his throw. One by one the horses that had gathered about Dunbar ran off to the right or left, and as the old man-killer made his dash to escape the long rope shot out with a lightning swiftness and settled around his neck. The twister passed the rope behind him, sat back on it and dug his high heels into the ground; but the jerk was too much for his hand-grip, and before anyone could tail on behind he let go and turned the horse loose.
Then, as the great whirlpool of frightened horses went charging around the corral, Buck Buchanan, the man with the bull-moose voice, hopped down and rushed to the center. Some one threw an extra rope to Hardy Atkins, and once more they closed in on the outlaw. But the horse that killed Dunbar was better than the two of them, and soon he had a second rope to trail. A third and a fourth man leaped in to join the conflict; and as they roped and ran and fought with Dunbar the remuda went crazy with excitement and threatened to break down the fence.
"Put up them bars!" yelled Hardy Atkins, as a beautiful, dappled black made a balk to leap over the gate. "Now all on this rope, boys—snub him to that post—oh, hell!" The pistol-like report of a grass rope parting filled out the rest of the sentence. Then the bronco-twister came limping over to the gate where Bowles and Henry Lee were sitting, shaking the blood from a freshly barked knuckle.
"We can't hold the blinkety-blank," he announced, gazing defiantly at the boss. "And what's the use, anyhow?" he demanded, petulantly. "They ain't a bronk in the remuda that can't throw this Englishman a mile! Of course, if you want us to take a day to it——"
"Well, catch Wa-ha-lote, then!" snapped Mr. Lee. "And be quick about it! I've got something else to do, Mr. Bowles," he observed tartly, "besides saddle up man-killers for a man that can't sit a trotting-horse!"
This was evidently an allusion to Mr. Bowles' way of putting the English on a jog-trot; but Bowles was too much interested to resent it. He was watching Hardy Atkins advancing on the dappled black that had tried to jump the bars.
"Oh," he cried enthusiastically, "is that the horse you mean? Oh, isn't he a beautiful creature! It's so kind of you to make the change!"
"Ye-es!" drawled Mr. Lee; and all the cowboys smiled. Next to Dunbar, Wa-ha-lote was the champion scrapper of the Bat Wing. There had been a day when he was gentle, but ever since a drunken Texas cowboy had ridden him with the spurs his views of life had changed. He had decided that no decent, self-respecting horse would stand for such treatment and, after piling a few adventurous bronco-busters, had settled down to a life of ease and plenty. The finest looking horse in the remuda, by all odds, was old Wa-ha-lote, the Water-dog. He was fat and shiny, and carried his tail straight up, like a banner; the yellow dapples, like the spots on a salamander's black hide—whence his Mexican name, Wa-ha-lote—were bright and plain in the sunlight; and he held his head up high as he ramped around the corral.
The sun had come up over the San Ramon Mountains while Hardy Atkins was wrestling with Dunbar; it soared still higher while the boys caught Wa-ha-lote. But caught he was, and saddled, for the horse never lived that a bunch of Texas punchers cannot tie. It was hot work, with skinned knuckles and rope-burned hands to pay for it; but the hour of revenge was at hand, and they called for Bowles. A wild look was in every eye, and heaven only knows what would have happened had he refused; but the hot sun and the excitement had aroused Mr. Bowles from his calm, and he answered like a bridegroom. Perhaps a flash of white up by the big house added impetus to his feet; but, be that as it may, he slipped blithely through the bars and hurried out to his mount.
"Oh, what a beautiful horse!" he cried, standing back to admire his lines. "Do you need that blinder on his eyes?"
"What I say!" commented Atkins, ambiguously. "Now you pile on him and take this quirt, and when I push the blind up you holler and throw it into 'im. Are you ready?"
"Just a moment!" murmured Bowles, and for the space of half a minute he stood patting old Water-dog's neck where he stood there, grim and waiting, his iron legs set like posts and every muscle aquiver. Then, with unexpected quickness, he swung lightly into the saddle and settled himself in the stirrups.
"All right," he said. "Release him!"
"Release him it is!" shouted Atkins, with brutal exulting. "Let 'im go, boys; and—yee-pah!"
He raised the blind with a single jerk, leaped back, and warped Wa-ha-lote over the rump with a coil of rope. Other men did as much, or more; and Bowles did not forget to holler.
"Get up, old fellow!" he shouted.
As the lashes fell, Wa-ha-lote made one mighty plunge—and stopped. Then, as the crowd scattered, he shook out his mane and charged straight at the high, pole gate. A shout went up, and a cry of warning, and as the cowboys who draped the bars scrambled down to escape the crash Bowles was seen to lean forward; he struck with his quirt, and Wa-ha-lote vaulted the bars like a hunter. But even then he was not satisfied. Two panel gates stood between him and the open, and he took them both like a bird; then the dust rose up in his wake and the Bat Wing outfit stood goggle-eyed and blasphemous.
"W'y, the blankety-blank!" crooned Hardy Atkins.
"Too skeered to pitch!" lamented Buck.
"You hit 'im too hard!" shouted Happy Jack.
"But that feller kin ride!" put in Brigham stoutly.
"Aw, listen to the Mormon-faced dastard!" raved Hardy Atkins; and as the conversation rose mountain high, the white dresses up on the hill fluttered back inside the house. But when Bowles came riding back on Wa-ha-lote not even the outraged Hardy could deny that the Bat Wing had a new hand.
It is an old saying that there is no combination or percentage known that can beat bull luck. Bowles was lucky; but he didn't know how lucky he was, never having seen a real bronk pitch. After Wa-ha-lote had had his run he changed his mind again and decided to be good, and when Bowles galloped him back to the ranch he was as gentle as a dog, and the top horse in the remuda. Even when Bowles started to rise to the trot the Water-dog was no more than badly puzzled.
By this time the outfit was pouring out the gate on their way to the belated round-up, and all except the principals had decided to take it as a joke. To be sure, they had lost an hour's daylight, and broken a few throw-ropes; but the time was not absolutely lost. Bowles would soon draw a bronk thatwouldpitch, and then—oh, you English dude! They greeted him kindly, then, with the rough good-nature you read so much about, and as Bowles loosened up they saw he was an easy mark.
"Say, pardner," said one, "you sure can jump the fences! Where'd you learn that—back at Coney Island?"
"Coney Island nothin'!" retorted another. "W'y, Joe, you show your ignorance! This gentleman is from England—can't you see him ride?"
"Well, I knowed all along he was goin' to ride Wa-ha-lote," observed a third, oracularly. "I could tell by the way he walked up to him. How's he goin', stranger—make a pretty good buggy-horse, wouldn't he?"
"Yes, indeed!" beamed Bowles. "That is, I presume he would. He is one of the best gaited animals I ever rode. A perfect riding horse! Really, I can't remember when I've enjoyed such a glorious gallop!"
They crowded around him then, in an anxious, attentive cluster, still jabbing their horses with the spurs to keep up with Henry Lee but salting away his naive remarks for future reference.
Henry Lee was just making some little gathers near the home ranch while he waited for his neighbors to send in their stray men for the big round-up, and as the conversation rattled on in the rear he headed straight for a range of hills to the south. An hour of hard riding followed, and then, as they began to encounter cattle, he told off men by ones and twos to drive them in to the cutting ground. Hardy Atkins took another bunch of men and rode for a distant point, and soon the whole outfit was strung out in a great circle that closed in slowly upon a lonely windmill that stood at the base of the hills.
As no one gave him orders, Bowles tagged along for a while and then threw in with Brigham, hoping to imbibe some much-needed information about the cow business from him; but a slow, brooding silence had come over that son of the desert and he confined his remarks to few words.
"Don't crowd the cattle," he said; "and don't chase 'em. They's nothin' to it—jest watch the other hands."
He mogged along glumly then, spitting tobacco and looking wise whenever Bowles made effusive remarks; and soon the spirit of the wide places took hold of the impressionable Easterner and taught him to be still. The sun was shining gloriously now, and the air was like new wine; he had conquered Wa-ha-lote, and won a job on the ranch; yet, even as the hot blood coursed in his veins and his heart leaped for joy, the solemn silence of burly Brigham exhorted him to peace. Nay, more than that, it set up uneasy questionings in his mind and made him ponder upon what he had said. Perhaps he had spoken foolishly in the first flush of his victory; he might even have laid himself open to future gibes and jests, branding himself for a tenderfoot with every word he said.
Yes, indeed; perhaps he had. At any rate, the first words he heard as they neared the cutting-grounds were indicative of the fact.
"Hey, Bill!" roared Buck Buchanan, wafting his bull voice across the herd. "Release that Bar X cow!"
"Beg pahdon?" replied Bill, holding his hand behind his ear; and then there was a rumble of Homeric laughter that left Bowles hot with shame.
"Hey, Buck!" echoed Happy Jack, reining his horse out to turn back an ambling steer; and while all hands watched him eagerly he struck into a rough trot across the plain. Then, holding out his elbows in a manner that he supposed to be English, he bobbed higher and higher at every jump until he fell face forward on his horse's neck, and the cowboys whooped for joy. Bowles was able to laugh at this joke, and he tried to do it graciously; but the sudden wave of good manners and faultless grammar which swept over the crowd left him heated and mad clear through. Any dreams he might have cherished of becoming the little tin hero of the cow country were shattered beyond repair, and he saw the American cowboy as he really is—a very frail and human creature, who scorns all things new and foreign, and particularly objects to Eastern tenderfeet who try to beat him at his own game.
If Bowles had been piled in the dirt by his first mount and come limping forth with a grin, he would have won a corralful of friends by his grit; as it was, he had ridden Wa-ha-lote, a horse supposed to be a rank outlaw, and the cowboys were quick to resent it. Even the loyal Brigham had turned against him, looking on with a cynical smile as he saw him mocked; and as for Henry Lee, he could not even get near him. Scorn and anger and a patrician aloofness swept over Bowles' countenance by turns, and then he took Brigham's unspoken counsel and let the heathen rage. It was hard on his pride, but he schooled himself to endure it; and as cant phrase after cant phrase came back at him and he realized how loosely he had talked he decided in the future to keep his mouth shut. So far, at least, he had caught the great spirit of the West.
But now for the first time there was spread out before his eyes the shifting drama of the cow country, and he could not resist its appeal. On the edge of a great plain and within sight of jagged rock-ribbed mountains he beheld the herd of lowing cattle, the remuda of spare horses, the dashing cowboys, the fire with its heating irons, and all the changing scenes that go to make up a Western branding. For a spell the herd stood still while mothers sought out their calves and restless bulls plowed in and out; then when the clamor and blatting had lulled, and all hands had got a drink and made a change of horses, a pair of ropers rode into the herd, marking down each cow and calf and making sure they were mother and offspring. At last, when Henry Lee and his neighbors' stray men were satisfied, the ropers shook out their loops, crowded in on some unbranded calf and flipped the noose over its head. Like automatons, the quick-stepping little cutting ponies whirled and started for the fire, dragging the calves behind them by neck or legs or feet. Any way the rope fell was good enough for the cowboys, and the ponies came in on the lope.
Behind the calf pranced its frantic mother, head down and smelling its hide, and a pair of cowboys stationed for that purpose rode in and turned her back. Then the flankers rushed out and caught the rope, and the strong member seized the calf by its neck and flank and with an upward boost of the knees raised its feet from the ground and threw it flat on its side. One held up its head, the other the hind legs, and in a flash the ear-markers and hot-iron men were upon it, to give it a brand for life.
"Bat Wing!" called the dragger-up, giving the mother's brand. There was a blat, a puff of white smoke, and the calf was turned back to his "Mammy." That was the process, very simple to the cowboy and entirely devoid of any suggestion of pain; but to Bowles it seemed rather brutal, and he went back to help hold the herd.
As one roper after the other pursued his calf through the throng, or chased it over the plain while he made wild and ineffectual throws, the great herd milled and moved and shifted like a thing of life. At a distance of a hundred feet or more apart a circle of careless punchers sat their mounts, nominally engaged in holding the herd but mostly loafing on the job or talking it over in pairs. To Bowles it seemed that they were very negligent indeed, letting cows walk out which could have been turned back by the flip of a rope, and then spurring furiously after them as they made a break for the hills. If a calf which the ropers had failed to catch came dashing by, one guard, or even two, might leave his place to join in a mad pursuit, meanwhile leaving Bowles and Wa-ha-lote to patrol the entire flank of the herd. To be sure, he liked to do it; but their system seemed very poor to him, though he did not venture to say so.
Meanwhile, with futile pursuits and monotonous waits, the branding dragged slowly along, and suddenly Bowles realized he was hungry. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly noon, but he could perceive no symptoms of dinner. He regretted now the insufficient breakfast which he had eaten, remembering with a shade of envy the primitive appetite which had enabled the others to bolt beefsteaks like ravening wolves; also, he resolved to put a biscuit in his pocket the next time he rode out on the circle. But this availed him nothing in his extremity, and as the others sought to assuage their pangs with brown-paper cigarettes he almost regretted the freak of nicety which had kept him from learning to smoke. It was noon now—seven hours since breakfast—and just as he was about to make some guarded inquiries of Brigham the work of branding ceased. The branders, their faces grimed and sweaty and their hands caked with blood, pulled on their heavy shaps and came riding up to the herd; but not to cry: "Release them!"
Odious as these words had become to Bowles, they would have sounded good under the circumstances; but there was more work yet to come. Driving a bunch of old cows to one side for a "hold-up," Henry Lee and his strenuous assistants began cutting out dogie calves. Everything over a year old was fated to become a feeder and, while mothers bellowed and their offspring protested, Hardy Atkins and the best of the cowhands hazed the calves into the hold-up herd. It was a long and tedious operation, involving numerous wearisome chases after calves that wanted their mothers; and when at last it was done and the main herd was released, behold, a lot of cows and undesirables had to be cut back from the hold-up herd. Then the dogies had to be separated into yearlings and "twos"; and when Bowles was about ready to drop off his horse from weakness Henry Lee detailed a bunch of unfortunates to drive up the calves, and turned his pony toward home. To him it was just a little gather while the neighbors were sending in their men; but to Bowles it combined the extreme hardships of a round-up with the rigors of a forty days' fast.
In a way it was all Bowles' fault, too, for he had kept the whole outfit waiting while he made a bluff at riding Dunbar. His resolution to keep his mouth shut stood him in good stead now, for a hungry man is a wolf and will fight if you say a word. There were no gay quips and gags now, no English riding and classic quotations; every man threw the spurs into his horse and started on a run for camp. Wa-ha-lote pulled at the bit a time or two at this, and Bowles did not try to restrain him; he broke into a gallop, free and sweeping as the wind, and the tired cutting horses fell behind; then as the ranch showed up in the distance he settled down to a tireless lope, eating up the hurrying miles until Bowles could have hugged him for joy.
Here was a horse of a thousand—this black, named in an alien tongue Wa-ha-lote—and he longed as he rode into the ranch to give him some token of friendship—a lump of sugar, or whatever these desert horses liked best to eat—in order to hold his regard. So he trotted over to the cook's wagon, being extremely careful not to bob, and asked Gloomy Gus for a lump of sugar. Now Gus, as it happened, was in another bad humor, due to the boys' being an hour or so late, and to a second matter of which Bowles knew nothing; and he did not even so much as vouchsafe an answer to his request.
"I beg your pardon," began Bowles again, when it was evident he was not going to get the sugar. "Perhaps you will give me a biscuit, then. You see," he explained rather shamefacedly, "I am riding this horse for the first time, and he has been so gentle I wanted to give him something. Any little thing, you know, and I shall be glad to pay for it——"
"I am not cookin' fer hawses!" observed Gloomy Gus; but at the same time he glanced apprehensively toward a long pile of cord-wood which flanked his fire to the south; and as if to verify his suspicions a summer hat appeared from behind the tiers of crooked juniper and a lady stepped into view. She was a very beautiful lady, middle-aged and with haunting brown eyes; and the moment she turned them upon Bowles he knew she was Dixie Lee's mother. Not that she looked so much like the elusive Dixie May, but she had the same way with her eyes—and, besides that, she was very contained and quiet, and looked as if she came from the East. She gazed at him for a moment with a kind, motherly air—as if she had heard all he said—and addressed herself to the cook.
"Well, really, Gus," she began, speaking in the low-pitched tones of the drawing-room, "I can't imagine what happens to those eggs. I have over forty hens, and surely they lay more than seven eggs a day. There's one nest, away in there, but——"
"Well,Iain't took none," grumbled Gus, turning sulkily to his pots and kettles; "that's all I got to say."
"Pardon me," broke in Bowles, swinging lightly down from his horse and standing hat in hand, "perhaps I could creep in and——" He smiled as he had smiled at the ladies who attended the Wordsworth Society, and Mrs. Lee glanced at him approvingly.
"Oh, don't trouble yourself," she said politely. "If it were humanly possible to reach them, I am sure they would be gone by now. I didn't mean to blame you at all, Mr. Mosby,"—this to the cook—"but, really, I was trying to save enough eggs to make the boys a cake."
A wave of indignation swept over Bowles. He remembered those graceless "boys" roasting eggs by the fire at night, and he thought how little they deserved her kindness; but all he did was to murmur his appreciation. At this the lady looked at him again, like one who knows her own kind, and her voice was very pleasant as she said:
"Oh, you are the young man that rode Wa-ha-lote this morning, aren't you? Ah, he is such a beautiful horse!" She came over and stroked his neck thoughtfully while Bowles stood by his head and smiled. "Don't you know," she said, "I have always claimed that a horse could be conquered by kindness. And I'm so glad!" she murmured, with a confidential touch of the hand. "Won't you come up to the house, and I'll give you that lump of sugar."
The Bat Wing ranch, with its big white house on the hill, its whirling windmill, its tank that spread out like a lake and gleamed like liquid silver, its pole corrals, its adobe houses half shaded by wind-tossed cottonwoods, was one of the most sightly in Arizona. The yellow-white sheen of the bunch grass made the distance seem fair and inviting; at sunset the saw-toothed summits of the Tortugas changed to blues and purples and mysterious, cañon-deep black; the heavy bunches of sacaton out in the horse pasture gleamed white in the evening glow. Many riders passed by that way, rigged out in the finery of their kind, and most of them took it all in—and yet, at times, the place looked kind of bare and tame.
Bowles was a stranger to those parts and he admired the landscape mightily; but to him too it seemed a little bare. It needed a dash of color, a vigorous girlish figure in the foreground, to give it the last vivid touch. But the queen, of course, must be humored—let the picture wait! So Bowles waited, along with the rest of the bunch, and in the evening while they were at their supper the Queen of the Bat Wing came. At the Wordsworth Society she had been stunningly gowned in a creation which Bowles would not soon forget; on the train she had worn a tailored traveling dress, very severe and becoming, the only note of defiance being in the hat, which was her Western sombrero with a veil to take off the curse. But now the trimming was gone, and a silver-buckled, horsehair band took its place. Dixie May was back on her own range and she wore what clothes she pleased!
First there was the hat, a trim, fifteen-dollar Stetson held on by a strap that lapped behind; then a white shirt-waist to supply the touch of color; a divided skirt of golden-brown corduroy; and high-heeled cowboy boots, very tiny, and supplied with silver-mounted spurs, ornate with Mexican conchos. She wore a quirt on her wrist, and her hair in Indian braids, and a fine coat of newly acquired tan on her cheeks.
A silence fell on the squatting punchers as she ran lightly down from the house; one or two of them ducked out of sight as she passed through the gate, but the rest sat motionless, stoically feeding themselves with their knives, and waiting for the queen to pass. Only Bowles, the man from the East, rose up and took off his hat; but Dixie Lee remembered her promise, and never so much as looked at him.
"Hello, Brig," she said, singling out the blushing Brigham for a teasing grin. "'Evening, Mr. Mosby. Say, Maw sent me down to look for some eggs—she wants to make a cake for these worthless punchers before she invites 'em up to hear the phonograph."
"Well, well, Miss Dix," responded the cook, shuffling and ill at ease. "I'm afraid yore maw is goin' to be disapp'inted. If you can find any eggs around here, you're welcome to 'em.Iain't got none hid out—that's all I'll say."
"Oh, I know where they go to, Mr. Mosby," replied Dixie Lee, showing her white teeth in a knowing smile. "If a man will suck eggs, he'll steal—you know that saying yourself—and I can tell by the shells around the fire here what's going on o' nights."
"Oh, that's that big fat Brigham Clark!" spoke up Hardy Atkins. "You don't want to judge the whole outfit byhim!"
At this bare-faced libel Bowles cleared his throat to speak. He had noticed particularly on the evening before that the eggs were brought in by Happy Jack and Hardy Atkins himself; but before he could enter a protest a general rumble of laughter set him back to a thinking part.
"Yes, sir!" observed Buck Buchanan, speaking to the world at large. "That feller sucks aigs worse'n a setter pup."
"An' he don't deny it none, neither," commented Happy Jack, as poor Brigham blushed deeper and hung his head.
"Jest born that way, I reckon," remarked Poker-face in a tone of pity; and then the whole outfit broke into a whoop of laughter. It was a new form of jesting to Bowles, and he retired to the shelter of the wood-pile. A sudden gloom had come over his soul, and it even affected his appetite, whetted keen by the cold, thin air. Of course, Dixie Lee had told him she would do so, but it seemed rather heartless not to look at him. He sat down with his back against the jagged juniper stubs and listened sullenly, while the punchers chuckled in front of him and continued to eat with their knives.
"Aw, Brig's jest bashful, that's all," explained some simple-minded joker, after every one else had had his say; and as his hollow laughter rose up, Bowles wondered dimly why Brigham did not retort. The evening before, when he was telling stories around the fire, he had returned a Roland for an Oliver until even Hardy Atkins had been content to quit; but now he confined himself to self-conscious mutterings and exhortations to shut up. Perhaps the simple-minded joker was right—poor Brigham was bashful.
But Dixie Lee had come down to get some eggs and she did not allow camp persiflage to divert her from her purpose.
"Well, say," she said, getting up from the cook's private seat, "I came down to hunt for eggs—who wants to help me?"
"That's where I shine!" cried Hardy Atkins, throwing his tin plate into the washtub with a great clatter. "They's a nest around hyer in the wood-pile!"
He capered around the end of the wood-pile, and soon Bowles could hear him panting as he forced his way in between the crooked sticks.
"Hyer they are!" he shouted at last. "I got a whole hatful—somebody pull me out by the laig!"
There was a ripple of high-pitched laughter from Dixie Lee, an interval in which Bowles cursed his fate most heartily, and then a frantic outcry from Hardy:
"Hey, there, don't pull so fast! You Dix, you'll break my aigs! Well, laugh, then, doggone it! Now see what you went and done!"
A general shout of laughter followed, and Hardy Atkins, his lips pouted out to play the fool, and his eyes rolling to catch their laughter, came ambling around the wood-pile with a hat that looked like an amateur conjurer's after the celebrated egg trick. But there were enough whole ones left to make a cake, and Happy Jack came galloping in with a hatful from his own private cache; so everybody laughed, though Brigham looked on sourly enough. A rapid fire of barbed jests followed; then, with her two admirers behind her and the others gazing dumbly on, Dixie Lee ran lightly back to the house, and Bowles had had his first lookin on ranch society. It did not look so good to him, either, and yet—well, just as Dixie May turned away she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. To be sure, it was one of Hardy Atkins' raw jokes at which she was laughing, but somehow a golden glow crept into the sunset, and ranch society did not seem so bad.
Five minutes later Dixie Lee was down at the corral bridling a white-faced roan, and soon, with Happy Jack for an escort, she was galloping away to the east where, like glowworms in the dusk, the scattered lights of settlers' houses showed the first beginnings of a neighborhood. The phonograph was going to play in the big house that evening, and all the "nesters" were invited.
No one had been more outraged than Henry Lee when the first nesters came in on his range; but latterly he had come to regard them tolerantly as poor, misguided creatures, slightly touched in the head on the subject of high-and-dry farming. Having seen a few hundred of them starve out and move on, he had accepted them as a necessary evil, and deemed it no more than right, if the women-folks wanted to invite them, to ask the few nearest ones to the house and help them forget their misery. So the whole-souled Dixie May was off to call in the company while the cowboys were scraping their beards off and dolling up for the dance.
It was Saturday night, as a matter of fact, and though all days are alike to a puncher his evenings are his own around the ranch. One by one the socially backward and inept caught the fever and began to search their war-bags for silk handkerchiefs and clean shirts. Only Brigham remained recalcitrant, and no argument could induce him to shave.
"I was on the wrangle last night," he complained, as the forehanded ones came back to argue the matter, "and I'm short on my sleep. Say, lemme be, can't ye—what difference does it make to you fellers, anyway? They won't be girls enough to go around, nohow!"
"Well, come up and hear the music," urged the Bar Seven stray man, who wanted him for company.
"Mrs. Lee invited you, Brig," reminded Gloomy Gus, who believed that every man should do his duty.
"Aw, it's too late to do anything now," grumbled Brigham, beginning at last to weaken. "And my beard is a fright, too!"
"Soak it in hot water, then!" cried Bar Seven enthusiastically. "Come on, fellers; let's make 'im do it! It ain't right—a nice lady like Mrs. Lee! She'll think you're 'shamed because you done stole them aigs!"
"I did not!" denied Brigham hotly.
"Well, come along, then!" countered Bar Seven triumphantly, "or the boys will be tellin' everybody!"
So the last unwilling victim was cajoled into going, and at a cheery summons from Dixie May they marched up the hill in a body. It was too early yet for the nester girls to appear, and while they were waiting for the dance to begin the twenty or more punchers wedged into the big front room and settled down to hear the phonograph. A cattle ranch without a phonograph nowadays is as rare as a cow outfit without a mouth-organ; but the Lees had a fine one, that would play for dances on a scratch, and a rack piled high with classic records. Mrs. Lee sat beside it, and after welcoming the self-conscious cowboys she asked them what they would have.
"The barnyard one!" somebody called; and as the cow mooed, the pig squealed, and the hired girl called the chickens, the cowboys laughed and forgot their feet. Then Caruso sang a high one, caught his breath and expired, and the company shifted in their seats. That was not exactly their style.
"What's the matter with the dog fight?" cried a voice from the corner; and Mrs. Lee, who had dreams of elevating their taste, sat undecided, with the sextet fromLuciain her hand.
"Perhaps you would like theAnvil Chorus," she suggested by way of a concession.
"No, the dog fight!" clamored Hardy Atkins from the same corner. Then, quoting from the well-known favorite, he inquired in up-stage Irish: "'Will some sport kindly let Mr. Ho-ogan, the time-keeper, hold his watch?'"
"'Faith,'" broke in Happy Jack, continuing the selection, "'an' who will hold Ho-ogan, then—har, har, har, har, har!'"
So contagious was the spell of this laughter that there was nothing for it but to put on the record, which gave a dog fight in Harlem from the time the bets were made till the spotted dog licked and the place was raided by the police. Not very elevating, to be sure, but awfully popular, and calling for more of the same. Mrs. Lee sighed wearily and laid the sextet aside; then, with quick decision, she resigned her place to Dixie May and retired to a seat by the door—and, as luck would have it, she sat down next to Bowles.
"Won't you take my chair?" he said, rising with all the gallantry of his kind. "I enjoyed thatDonna e Mobileof Caruso's so much!"
"Oh," said Mrs. Lee, beaming with pleasure, "you know it, then! And do you care for it, too?"
"Very much!" replied Bowles, falling back into the familiar formula of polite conversation; and by the time the phonograph had started up on "Casey Jones" they were deep in a discussion of classic music. As often happens in good society, they discovered a wonderful similarity in their likes and dislikes; and by the time the nester girls began to arrive and the dance started up on the gallery, Bowles was very popular in the big house—that is, as far as the hostess was concerned.
But the climax of the evening came at the close of the dance, just as Mr. Bowles was taking his leave.
"Well, good-night, Mrs. Lee," he murmured as he stood in the half light of the porch. "It was so kind of you to invite us up."
He paused then with the rest of his politenesses unsaid, for Dixie Lee was coming down the hall.
"I can't say how much I have enjoyed talking with you, Mr. Bowles," returned the lady, offering him her hand. "It takes me back to my girlhood days, when music was the breath of my life. Perhaps——Oh, Dixie, have you met Mr. Bowles?"
There was silence for a moment as their eyes met across the abyss, hers stern and forbidding, his smiling and conciliatory; and then Dixie bowed very stiffly.
"Why, not that I remember," she replied, with a militant toss of the head.
"How do you do, Miss Lee," observed Mr. Bowles, bowing formally as he received his congé. "So glad to make your acquaintance!" And, murmuring other maddening phrases, he bowed himself out the door, leaving Dixie Lee to explain the feud in any way she chose.
As the name of the Deity, to a cowboy, means little more than a word to swear by, so the holy Sabbath is forgotten as a day of rest. Not that the hard-riding puncher would not rest if he got the chance, but the traditions of the cow business make no allowances for godliness and ease. For forty dollars and found, the round-up hand is expected to work every day in the month, and take all his Sundays in a bunch when the boss writes out his time. From daylight to dark are his hours of labor, with horse wrangling and night-guard to boot; and yet there are men of elegance and leisure who try to crush in on the job.
Mr. Bowles rolled into bed a perfect gentleman, and something of a knight-errant as well; but when Gloomy Gus gave vent to his shrill morning call he turned in his blankets and muttered. As the dishpan yammered and clashed discordantly he shuddered like a craven; and when Gus finally kicked open the door he could have cursed like any cow-puncher. It was a dreary life he had elected to follow, a life of drudgery, hardship, and discomfort, and with no compensating element but the danger of getting killed. And all for the sake of a girl who never had met him before!
Bowles crawled out very slowly and stood shivering by the fire, marveling at the iron endurance of Gloomy Gus, and understanding his gloom. Never again, he resolved, as he drank a pint of hot coffee, never again would he address Mr. Mosby in aught but terms of respect. A man who could stand his life and still wear the mantle of self-restraint was worthy of a place among the stoics. And to get up alone—alone and of his own volition—at three-thirty and four of the morning! It was a task to give a Spartan pause and win an enduring fame among the gods. A large humility came over Bowles as he contemplated the rough men about him and observed how uncomplainingly they accepted their lot. And they had been at the work for months and years—it was the second day for him!
The cook beat on his pan, and at the thought of the long ride before him Bowles did his best to eat—to eat heartily, ravenously, to gorge himself full of meat against the hours of hunger to come; and, passing up the three-tined steel fork, he went to it with his knife and spoon.
"You make the finest biscuits I have ever eaten, Mr. Mosby," he observed by way of apology as he slipped one into his pocket; and the sleep-weary eyes of the cook lighted up for a moment before he summoned his cynical smile.
"That's what they all say—when they're hungry," he remarked. "Then when they've et a plenty they throw 'em in the dirt."
He waved his hand at a circle of white spots that lay just outside the firelight, and turned to begin his dishwashing. Then, seeing that Mr. Bowles was still interested, he dilated on his troubles.
"Yes, sir," he said; "a cowboy is jest naturally wasteful—if he wasn't, he wouldn't be a cowboy. He'll take a whole biscuit and eat half of it and throw the other half away. There you see 'em out there, jest like I been seein' 'em fer forty years and more. It's in the blood. A cowboy wastes his grub, he wastes his terbakker, he wastes his money. He wastes cows, and hawses—an' he wastes his life. I got my opinion of a man that will work like a dog fer forty dollars a month. These hyer boys know what I think of 'em."
The cowboys grinned sheepishly and backed up nearer the fire. It was still too dark to rope, and they were waiting for Henry Lee; and the cold starlight made them solemn. When the sun came up and they got a horse between their knees they would laugh old Gus to scorn; now they listened to him soberly in lieu of sprightlier conversation.
"And me," continued Gloomy Gus, as he sensed the heavy silence, "I work harder than any of 'em. The mornin' star don't catch me in bed—no, sir! Not after half-past three. I got to git up then and mix my bread. And come night time, after my long day's work, I got to set my dough. But I git paid fer it—eighty dollars a month—and you can have the job to-morrer."
He paused again, as if to emphasize the lack of bidders, and then went deftly about his task.
"No, sir," he said; "you don't see no one strikin' fer the job of cook. That's hard work, that is. These boys all want to sit on a hawse and see the world go by."
Once more the heavy silence fell upon them, and Brigham picked up a towel and began to wipe the dishes.
"Goin' out to-day?" he inquired, as the boys began to straggle toward the corral.
"That's the word!" returned the cook. "Dinner at the north well, and back ag'in fer supper. Pack up and unpack, and pack ag'in at the well. Then cook a dinner and hook up the hawses, and cook some more at the home. Ef Henry Lee don't git me a flunky pretty soon I'm shore goin' to up and quit."
He glanced significantly at Bowles as he finished this last remark, but Brigham shook his head.
"I seen that Pringle kid come in yisterday," he said. "Mebbe you could git to have him."
That closed the conversation, and Bowles moved away. He was sorry for Mr. Mosby, very sorry; but not sorry enough to take a job as official dishwasher. Somehow all the world seemed to be in a conspiracy to make him flunky to the cook.
He hurried over to the corral, where the roping was going on, and as he neared the gate he met the boss coming out. On the previous day Mr. Lee had seemed a little under the dominance of his feelings, but this morning he was strictly business.
"Mr. Bowles," he said, "I'll keep my word with you and take you on for a puncher. Do your work and keep off Dunbar, and I'll try to get along with you—otherwise you get your time. Now come on back and I'll cut you out a mount."
He tied his own horse to a post, and swung up on the corral fence.
"You get two gentle horses and five bronks," he continued; "and I'll call Wa-ha-lote a bronk."
"Oh, thank you!" began Bowles; but the boss checked him right there.
"You've got nothing to thank me for, young man," he said. "I'd rather lose a top hand any time than take on a tenderfoot, so don't think for a minute that I'm stuck on you. Passed my word, that's all—and Wa-ha-lote forgot to buck. Now you see that gray over there—the one with the saddle-marks on his back—that's one of 'em—he's gentle. See this little sorrel, right close—that's Scrambled Eggs—he's a bronk. Then you can have that red roan over there for a night horse, and I'll cut you out some more bronks bymeby. You ride old Gray and the roan for a while—understand? And I employ a twister to break my wild stock, so keep off of them bronks—if—you—please."
He added this last as if he really meant it, and left Bowles to wonder at his emphasis—but not for long. The times called for action. He was a puncher now, and it was necessary for him to lasso his mount. So, shaking out his new rope, which snarled and crawled in a most disconcerting fashion, the new cowboy dropped down into the corral, while everybody who could conveniently do so stepped up and looked over the fence. But Bowles had had a few days' training at the hands of Jim Scrimsher, the livery-stable keeper and all-round horse trader and confidence man at Chula Vista, and he shook out a fairly good loop. Then, swinging it above his head, he advanced upon the gray, who promptly put the whole herd between them, and raced along next the fence. The roan came along just then and Bowles made a cast at him and caught two others, who instantly made away with his rope.
A yell went up from along the top of the fence; and with many shouts of encouragement and veiled derision, they threw him a new rope. This was a worn one and capable of dexterous handling, and, with a set smile on his face, Bowles shook out a big loop and advanced cautiously upon the roan. By this time he, too, had read the hypnotic message of the eye, and had crowded well in behind the main herd, which was dashing around the corral with ever-increasing speed. The slashing rope-work of the old hands had already left the horse herd nervous and flighty, and something about the way Bowles whirled his wide-flung loop seemed to drive them into a frenzy. A shout of warning went up, and then another, and then, as Wa-ha-lote made another balk at the gate, Hardy Atkins rushed out through the cloud of dirt and signaled him to stop.
"What do you want to do?" he yelled. "Break down the fence?"
He edged in on the leaders as he spoke and soon brought them to a halt; then, with his eyes on another horse, he stepped in close, dragging his loop, until suddenly he whipped it over the old gray's head and jerked him out of the herd.
"Here's yore hawse," he said, handing him over the rope's end. "And, say, if you can't rope without swingin' a Mother Hubbard, jest let me ketch yore hawse!"
"Why, what's the matter?" inquired Bowles.
"Oh, nawthin'," sneered the bronco-twister, "only it skeers 'em to death—that's all. Old Henry generally gives a man his time fer swingin' his loop in the corral."
Bowles followed along after him, flushed and downcast over his mistake; and as the others saddled their prancing bronks and went pitching and plunging around the horse lot he threw his saddle on the old, moss-backed gray and watched them with a wholesome awe. Horse after horse, as his rider hooked the stirrup, flew back or kicked like a flash. Some bucked the saddles off and had to be mastered by brute force. Here it was that the green-eyed Hardy Atkins, that long and lissom twister whom he so heartily despised, stood out like a riding king among the men. If a horse would not stand, he held it by the ears; if it bucked its saddle off, he seized an ear in his teeth, and hung on like a bulldog until the girths were cinched; and then, if the rider but said the word, he topped it off in his place. And all with such a tigerish swing, such a wild and masterful certitude, that even Bowles could not but secretly admire him.
It was nearing the first of April, when the wagon went out on the round-up, and the boys were topping off their mounts in order to gentle them for the spring work. Shrill yells and whoops went up as man after man uncocked his bronk; and then, as the procession filed out the gate, Hardy Atkins swung up on his own and went whipping and plunging after them. This was the big event of the day, and all hands craned their necks to view it; but the real spectators were up by the big white house, where Dixie Lee and her mother stood watching.
"Good boy, Hardy!" cried Dixie May, waving her hat to flag him. "Stay with him, Hardy!" And while the wild brute bucked and grunted beneath the steady jab of the spurs his rider raised a slender hand and waved it in salute. Bowles came dragging after him, sitting up very straight on old Gray; but nobody gave him a gay salute or so much as noticed him pass. Big Snake, the outlaw, was sun-fishing and doing buck-jumps, and every eye was upon the gallant rider who sat him so limber and free—Hardy Atkins, bronco-twister, and top cowboy at the Bat Wing.
"Pitch, then, you bastard," he was shouting. "Buck, you wild, woolly wolf—I'll put a hat on you!"
Bowles did not know what a "hat" was as he rode along out the gate, but when the cattle were thrown together and the wrangler brought up the spare horses, he knew. Walking across the brushy flat came Hardy Atkins, leading the worn and whip-marked Snake at a slow walk; and as he drew near, Bowles saw the "hat," a great, puffed-up swelling, raw and bloody, where the spur had jabbed his side. And there was a look in the outlaw's haggard eye that reminded him of old Dunbar—a wild, homicidal stare, yet tragic with fear and pain. As he reached the horse herd the twister looked back and regarded his mount intently; then very cautiously he worked up to his head and caught him by the cheek-strap.
"Don't you bite me, you devil," he threatened as the Snake showed all his teeth, "or I'll beat yore brains out with this quirt!"
The Big Snake winced and crooked his neck sullenly; then, as the twister snapped up the stirrup and uncinched the saddle with his free hand, he sighed and hung his head. With a deft jerk the puncher stripped off saddle and blanket; he reached up between his ears and laid hold of the headstall, then with a heave he tore off the bridle and landed his boot in the Snake's ribs.
"Git, you owl-headed old skate!" he yelled; and the Snake cow-kicked at him like a flash of light.
"Hah!" laughed the twister, stepping dexterously aside; and, swinging the bridle as he ducked, he brought the heavy reins down across his mount's rump. Again there was a flash of light as the Snake lashed out from behind; and then he limped off to one side, his eyes glowing with impotent rage and hate. Bowles looked at him as he lay wearily down in the sand, and then at the man who had conquered him, and a glow crept into his own eyes—a glow very much like the Big Snake's. He had entered a new world, with a different standard of courage and hardihood, and the first look at it frightened and awed him. But though he knew he could not meet its standards nor measure up to its tests, he scorned the man who could, and hated him for his rude strength—and his sympathy went out to Big Snake, the outlaw.
The last place in the world for a humanitarian is around a cow camp, for everything there seems to savor of cruelty and blood. The only anti-cruelty-to-animals man who ever made a winning in the cattle business was good old Dr. Maverick, of Texas, who, when they made up the first brand book, swore he could not bring himself to cut an ear or burn a brand and craved the privilege of letting his cattle run unmarked. So, when it came to the round-up, the old doctor received his reward, for he claimed every maverick in the bunch and took them home for his own. This was a long time ago, in the age of myth and fable, and the doctor's herd has been sadly decimated since by rustlers and ruthless brand blotchers. A brand that can't be burned over is more precious than rubies now; and the bigger it is, the better.
The Bat Wing was an old brand, dating back to some Mexican Manuel Ortega, or Mariano Ortiz, who had writ his initials large on the left hip of his steers, M above O, connected. With years the O had shrunk and the M spraddled out until it looked like a winged disk—and had taken on different names: Money-bug, from its resemblance to a dollar on the wing; Bat-out-o'-hell, from a similar frontier fancy; until finally it settled down to plain Bat Wing. But whatever else happened to the Bat Wing brand, the iron never got any smaller; in fact, the reason the M grew so big that it flew away with the O was because a calf's hip widens out at the top and if the whole space is securely covered there will be no room left for illicit alterations.
This is all very interesting and romantic, of course, when taken by itself; but nobody stopped to explain it to Bowles, the humanitarian cowboy. When the cattle were on the cutting-grounds and the branding was about to begin, Henry Lee cast a contemptuous glance at his new hand and decided to put him to work.
"Bowles," he said, "you help with the flanking."
So when the first little calf came gamboling in on the line, Bowles rushed out and seized the rope. Working down to the calf, he caught it by its neck and flank and finally wrestled it to the ground. He was casting loose the rope when Buck Buchanan grabbed the calf by the upper hind leg, braced his boot against the lower leg, and sat comfortably down behind. Then Happy Jack came ramping out with a red-hot stamp-iron and slapped it against the tender hide.
"Baaa!" blatted the little calf, rolling its eyes until they showed the whites. "Baaa!" And then, before it knew what was happening, Hardy Atkins knelt roughly on its neck, grabbed its left ear, and cut away half of it at a single stroke of the knife. "Baaa!" bellowed the calf, curling up its tail; and as the blood trickled forth Bowles felt himself grow sick and faint.
"Hold his head up!" directed Atkins; and then, with an impatient yank, he twitched up the second ear and cut a swallow-fork. The calf writhed and struggled to escape, and as he fought against it Bowles caught the stench of burning hair. Turning, he discovered Happy Jack still bearing down on the hot iron and searing it deep into the flesh. That finished Bowles, and he sank back on the ground, turning his victim loose.
"You want to hold their heads up," remarked Buck Buchanan, and Bowles nodded and answered faintly. What he really wanted was a chance to guard the herd; but orders were orders with Henry Lee, and if he failed to do his work he was fired. Another calf came in—a big, lusty yearling—and Buck made a motion with his hand.
"Ketch that one," he directed in a fatherly tone of voice, and Bowles staggered out to do or die. But a yearling calf can be a very obstreperous brute on occasion, and this one was hot from his run. Within a minute after he had grappled with it all thought of pity had died out in Bowles' breast. First he caught the bull calf by the neck and flank and tried to pull it over; then, as it fought against him and trampled on his feet, he seized its further legs and tried to lift them up; failing in this, he laid hold of it in a frenzy and tried to throw it by main strength.
"Git yore knees under him," suggested Buck from the middle distance. Then, after another period of waiting, he slouched ponderously out and shoved him aside.
"Let me at 'im," he said. "You're keepin' Bill waitin' for his rope."
He felt of the calf for a minute and pushed him to make him change his feet; then, as the yearling started to step, he boosted him with his knees, heaved him into the air, and slammed him down on his side. It was a man's job, and difficult for the best of them, but Bowles didn't know that. All he knew was that the boss was watching him, over there by the fire where he was keeping tally on the brands, and thinking what a tenderfoot he was. And he was right—Bowles conceded it. He could not catch his horse, he could not ride a bronk, he could not even throw a calf or lift it off the ground. And his back ached, awfully.
It was a long morning for Mr. Bowles, packed with misery and hopeless struggling, like a nightmare without end. They say that in the short time between the instant a man starts falling out of bed and the moment he hits the floor, he can pass through a very inferno of dreams, passed down from our tree-living ancestors and striking terror to the heart—and yet he generally wakes up before he lands. If he did not, so the old nurses say, he would surely, surely die. The jagged rocks that threatened him in his dream would pierce his quivering body and he would be found dead on the floor. The coroner would call it heart-failure, of course; and that was what threatened Bowles.
He was saved by a sound he had cursed that very morning—Gloomy Gus beating on his dishpan! Packing all his kit into the chuck-wagon, and throwing on a few sticks of wood, the cook had struck out through the dog towns and across the brushy flats and set up his fire irons by the side of a man-made lake. There he had gone busily about his task without waiting for the herd to come in; and just as Bowles was dropping dead, the dinner-call saved his life.
It had been a bad dream, but, thank Heaven, he had waked up before he struck. A pint of scalding coffee, black and bitter from much boiling, and he was able to look about; and as he disposed of a couple of beefsteaks and dipped his biscuits in the grease, the weak place in his middle seemed comforted; and by the time he got around to the "fruit" and syrup he felt almost like a man again. Such jests as had been passed upon his condition had fallen upon unhearing ears, but now that he was brought back to health and strength he was able to smile grimly at his appearance as mirrored in the honest lake.
His face, which he had neglected to wash before eating, was crusted with sweat and dirt and spotted with gouts of blood; his hair was matted and dust-powdered; and in the bloodshot and haggard orbs that gazed up at him from the placid depths he saw a look that made him start. It was a cruel, vindictive look, almost inhuman in its intensity; and it came from flanking bull calves. He looked down at his hands, all swollen and crabbed from clutching, and saw that they were caked with blood. His shirt, too, and his trim-fitting trousers were dirty and spattered with gore. In fact—and here was where the grim smile came in—he could hardly be told from a real cowboy!
After dinner the cutting and branding went on as before, but with this important difference—Bowles flanked only his share of the calves. There were two sets of flankers, two hot-iron men, and two ear-markers, and the calves came up as they were caught. A really ambitious flanker, out for experience, could get almost all the calves; but the only ones that Bowles ran after now were the ones that were easy to throw. If a yearling came dancing up on a rope, he stepped on his own foot and let the other man beat him to it—either that or turned him over to Buck. It was quick work; but Bowles had a college education—he had been only six hours a cowboy when he learned to malinger on the job.
As for the rest of the gang, inured as they were to hard labor, the branding was no more than a picnic for them. They found time to take chews of tobacco, tell stories, and watch all the roping; and if any calf turned out to be too big for flanking they grabbed him by the neck and made him run, and bulldogged him, "California fashion." Happy Jack was best at that, and several times in a fit of emulation he shoved some puncher aside and showed him how it ought to be done—but never for Bowles. It was strange how carefully they all avoided him—never looking at him, rarely addressing him, and answering his inquiries with a word. He was an alien, a stranger among them, and—slowly the truth was borne in on him—an inferior.
From the start Bowles had taken it for granted that they were abashed, tongue-tied by his obvious education, and awed by his gentlemanly bearing. But now they would not so much as laugh at him, lest it encourage him to familiarity. Never for a minute did they allow him to presume on their sufferance, and his remarks fell dead and flat. Even Henry Lee, who had the bearing and spoke the language of a gentleman, refused to encourage him by a word; and at last he retired within himself, and saved his breath for flanking and his wits for dodging work.
If a cowboy never soldiered on the job he would be dead before it came pay-day; but there are certain tasks which cannot be slighted, and one of these is bringing home the herd. After the day's branding the calves are cut into "ones" and "twos," and while the rest of the outfit troops gaily homeward somebody must stay behind and bring up the cut. One of them must be a cowman, for trailing is an art in itself, but the others are likely to be dubs. Certainly no boss would penalize his best hands and most willing workers by giving them such a task; and so, when the cutting was over and Henry Lee looked around for a poor hand, or one who had been soldiering on the job, he picked Bowles on both counts.
"Bowles," he said, "you help Brigham bring up those twos!" And that was all there was to it. But to Brigham he spoke differently. It was "Brig," with him; and instead of an order it was a request.
"Brig," he said, "I'll ask you to take charge of the twos. Drive 'em easy and put 'em in the north pasture."
"All right, sir," answered Brigham in a friendly, off-hand way, and then the drive began. Mounted upon a rough-coated bronk that fought his bit constantly yet responded to every touch of rein or spur, the burly puncher rode back and forth, from the rear to the flank, and then up near the point; and when he had them strung out to suit him he traveled along on one side, while Bowles brought up the rear. It was weary work, after the long day of flanking, and as the weaker ones began to get footsore they fell back to the drag and more than doubled his labors. At times Brigham Clark dropped back and strung them out for him again; but he said nothing, chewing placidly on his tobacco and giving all his thought to the cattle. Still the drag increased, and as they began to lag behind, Bowles let down his rope and lashed them with the loop. It was then that Brigham Clark spoke.
"Don't do no good to whip 'em," he remarked, falling back to string them out. "They'll travel as fast as the leaders—jest let 'em go."
So Bowles put up his rope and let them go, and soon they fell farther behind; but about the time he was preparing to whip them anyway, the cowman dropped back from the flank.
"Now, that's the way to handle cattle," he said, nodding at the plodding line. "String 'em out and crowd the leaders—the drag will take care of itself."
At that he was gone again; and for an hour or more he rode tirelessly up and down the side, filling up every hole and gap and shoving the leaders ahead. The cottonwoods of the home ranch showed green against the hills, and the end of their drive was in sight, when suddenly Brigham held up his hand to stop.
"Let 'em feed a while," he said, as Bowles rode up to inquire. "The drag is gittin' weak." Then he sat silent on his rough-haired bronk, his inscrutable eyes gazing dully over the plain to the south, and Bowles dropped wearily off his horse and stretched himself out on the ground. Half an hour afterward he roused up with a start just as Dixie Lee, mounted on a long, rangy bay, came galloping up the road. Her eyes were very bright, and her cheeks were flushed from riding against the wind, and as she reined her horse in with a jerk her hair framed her face like a halo. But she did not see Bowles, though he stood up and took off his hat.
"Hello, Brig," she called. "Watching 'em pick the flowers?"
"Yes'm," answered Brigham, grinning amiably. "Watchin' 'em pluck the blossoms. What's goin' on down below now? Seen you go down there several times."
"Oh, you're still keeping track of me, are you?" queried Dixie Lee gaily. "Well, you want to look out, Brigham—I'm getting awfully interested in a young Texican down there. He's got a nice farm, too—hundred and sixty acres!"
"Sure!" agreed Brigham. "All covered with loco weed and this nice white stuff!"
He nodded at the glistening alkali along the flat, and his eyes twinkled with furtive humor as Dixie Lee raised her quirt.
"Aw, Brigham," she chided, "I believe you're jealous!" She leaned forward as she spoke, and the bay broke into a gallop, while Dixie sent a laugh down the wind.
"Heh, heh, heh," chuckled Brigham, reaching into his vest for a cigarette paper. "That's Dix, all right. Don't you know, stranger," he went on as he rolled himself a smoke, "that's the finest gal in Arizona. Good folks an' all that, but nothin' stuck up about her. Heh, heh, mighty nigh ast her to marry me one time, but couldn't quite cut it—she's been joshin' me ever since. Got 'em all comin' and won't have none of 'em. Oh, hookey, wisht I wasn't a common, ornery cow-punch!"
He paused and smoked a while, still gazing at the streak of dust.
"Good rider, too," he observed; "beat most of the boys. I knowed her four miles away by section lines."
Once more he paused, and Bowles preserved his Sphinx-like silence. He was learning the customs of the country fast.
"Don't have any like her back where you come from, I reckon," suggested Brigham, his eyes shining with local pride; and Bowles sadly shook his head. No, they did not—there was no one like Dixie Lee.