A remarkable series of accidents happened to Bat Wing Bowles immediately after his discourtesy to the lady—accidents which seemed to indicate that he had lost his horseshoe as well as the good-will of his associates. For while Bowles had been a raw hand from the start it had early been remarked that horses would not pitch with him—but now, on the very morning after his contretemps, his mount took a fit of bucking which all but landed him in the dirt. A term of years in a military academy, as well as a considerable experience in riding to hounds, had left Bowles a little vain of his horsemanship; but in this emergency he had been compelled to reach down and frankly grab the horn. Otherwise he would have been "piled" before he could recover from the surprise. As it was, he was badly jarred, not only by the shock of the buck-jumps but also by the caustic comments of the cowboys.
"Oh, mamma!" shouted one. "See 'im choke that horn!"
"Let go of the noodle, Sam!" advised another; and then, in a kind of chant, they recited those classic lines that are supposed to drive Englishmen mad:
"Hit's not the 'unting that 'urts the 'orse's 'oofs; hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway!"
Time and again Bowles had explained that he was not English, that all gentlemen rose to the trot in the East, and that his people had never dropped an "h" in their lives. Like an old and groundless scandal that lives on denial alone, the tradition still clung to him; and now, as some vagrant fancy turned their will against him, they voiced their disapproval in this ancient gibe.
"It's Hinglish, you know!" they shouted; and once more Bowles was branded as an alien. And all for refusing a letter and speaking saucily to a lady.
As for the lady, she stayed at a ranch over night and went out early in the morning, taking a short-cut through the nesters' lanes for Chula Vista. A telegram must be sent to the receiving company that the cattle would be delivered on the twentieth, the cattle-cars must be ordered from the railroad, and the cattle inspector notified of the change; for the grass was eaten down to the rocks at Chula Vista, and a wait at the pens would be fatal. All these details Henry Lee trusted to his daughter, and, forgetting the frivolous nothings of yesterday, she rode past the Bat Wing outfit without stopping or waving her hand. Then somebody put something on Bowles' horse and they started the day with a circus.
A second day, full of excitement and rough riding, followed, and then the gang took pity on the poor tenderfoot and left him to think it over. But Bowles was not broken in spirit; far from it, for he had been secretly longing for a horse that would buck. He was rapidly becoming so wise that deception was no longer practicable. When a man has an old staid cow-pony rise up under him and try to paw the white out of the moon, he is liable to look over his rigging rather carefully to see what it was all about; and if he should find a yellow spot on the flap of his saddle-blanket, a tender place on his horse's rump, and a suspicious odor of carbon bisulphide in the air, he is likely to shy away from unfriendly horsemen, even if he never heard of "high-lifing" a bronk. Those were eventful days for Samuel Bowles, and he found himself learning fast, when Henry Lee suddenly called him aside and told him to go with Brigham.
Brigham was taking a bunch of dogies back to the home ranch and he needed a man to help him—also the boss was getting a little tired of these sudden accidents to Bowles. He was not conducting a circus or a Wild West Show but a serious and precarious business, and a touch of "high-life" at the wrong time might stampede his whole herd of cattle. So he told the tenderfoot to go on the drive with Brigham.
There is a good deal left unsaid in a cow camp—so much, in fact, that a stranger never knows what is going on; and Brigham had been as silent as the rest while Bowles was taking his medicine. Even on the drive he was strangely quiet, chewing away soberly at his tobacco and looking out from under his hat with squinting and cynical eyes. They were friends now, as far as a tenderfoot can expect to have a friend, but Brigham said nothing about stringing the cattle, and asked no questions about gay New York—he had something on his mind. And when the time came he spoke it out.
"Say, stranger," he said, still calling him by that cold name which marked him as a man apart, "did you see Dixie Lee back in New York last winter?"
It was a bolt out of the blue sky; but Bowles was trained to evasions—he had lived in polite society and tried to keep friends with Truth.
"Miss Lee?" he repeated in tones of wonderment.
"W'y, sure," answered Brigham; "she was back there all winter."
"So I hear," observed Bowles; "but there were about four million other people there too, Brig; so I can't say for sure. Why? What made you ask?"
"Oh—nothin'," mumbled Brig, playing with the rowel on his spur as he watched the cattle graze; "only it seemed like, the way she spoke to you the other day, you'd mebbe met before. Some of the boys said they reckoned you knowed her back there—she talked so kinder friendly-like."
A thrill went over Bowles at those kind words, but he hastened to cover up his tracks. Once let the boys know that he had followed her from the East, and there would be a dramatic end to all his hopes and dreams.
"I'll tell you, Brig," he said, speaking confidentially; "I did meet Miss Lee down at Chula Vista the morning she came home, and that probably gave them the idea. But, say, now—about that letter. She didn't even know my name—now, why should she do a thing like that? My name isn't Houghton, and she knew I couldn't take the letter. It's against the law! What was she trying to do—play a joke on me?"
He made his voice as boyish and pleading as possible; but it takes a good actor to deceive the simple-hearted, and Brigham only looked at him curiously.
"What did you say yore name was?" he inquired at last; and when Bowles told him he chewed upon it ruminatively. "Some of the boys thought mebbe you was an English lord, or somethin'," he observed, glancing up quickly to see how Mr. Bowles would take it. "Course I knowed you wasn't," he admitted as Bowles wound up his protest; "but you certainly ain't no puncher."
Bowles could read the jealousy and distrust in his voice, and he saw it was time to speak up.
"Say, Brig," he said, trying as far as possible to speak in the new vernacular, "I've always been friendly to you, haven't I? I know I've tried to be, and I want to keep your friendship. Now, I don't care what Hardy Atkins and his gang think, because they're nothing to me anyway, but I want you to know that I am on the square. Of course, I'm under an assumed name, and I guess you've noticed I don't get any letters; but that's no crime, is it?"
There was a genuine ring to his appeal now, and Brigham was quick to answer it.
"Aw, that's all right, pardner," he said. "I don't care what you did. Kinder hidin' out myself."
"Well, but I want to tell you, anyway," protested Bowles. "A man's got to have a friend somewhere, and I know you won't give me away. I didn't commit any crime—it isn't the sheriff I'm afraid of—but there must have been somebody down in Chula Vista that was following me, because I came away from New York on a ticket that was signed Sam Houghton. That isn't my name, you understand—but I signed it for a blind. Then I left the train at Albuquerque and came quietly off down here. But it looks as if somebody is searching for me."
"Umm!" murmured Brigham, nodding his head and squinting wisely. "I got into a little racket down on the river one time, and thesheriffwas lookin' fer me. Made no difference—the feller got well anyhow—but you bet I was ridin' light fer a while.
"I'll tell you what we'll do!" he cried, carried away by some sudden enthusiasm. "I'm gittin' tired of this Teehanno outfit—let's call fer our time and hit the trail! Was you ever up in the White Mountains? Well, pardner, we'll head fer them—that's the prettiest country in God's world! Deer and bear and wild turkeys everywhere—and fish! Say, them cricks is so full of trout they ain't hardly room fer the water. The Apaches never eat 'em—nor turkeys neither, fer that matter—and all you have to have is a little flour and bacon, and a man can live like a king. They's some big cow outfits up there, too—Double Circles, an' Wine Glass an' Cherrycow. Come on! What d'ye say? Let's quit! This ain't the only outfit in America!"
For the moment Bowles was almost carried away by this sudden rush of enthusiasm, and even after a second thought it still appealed to him strongly.
"Are there many bears up there?" he inquired, as if wavering upon a decision.
"Believe me!" observed Brigham, swaggering at the thought. "And mountain lions, too! A man has to watch his horses in that country, or he'll find himself afoot."
"And the Indians?"
"Well," admitted Brigham, "of course them Apaches are bad—but they keep 'em around the Fort most of the time, and don't let 'em carry guns when they go out—nothin' but bows and arrows. Come on—they won't make us no trouble!"
"Well, by Jove, Brig," sighed Bowles, drawing a long breath, "I'm awfully tempted to do it!"
"Sure," nodded Brigham, "finest trip in the world—an' I know that country like a book!"
"But let's finish the round-up first," suggested Bowles. "And, besides, I want to find out who it is that's searching for me. I guess I didn't tell you what I'm hiding for?"
"No," shrugged Brigham; "that's all right. Then if anybody should ask me, I'll tell 'em I don't know nothin'."
"Well, I'm going to tell you, anyhow!" cried Bowles impulsively. "I've got an aunt back East, and she's an awfully nice woman—does everything for me—but I have to do what she says. She doesn'tmakeme do it, you know—she justexpectsme to do it! Maybe you never had any one like that? Well, I've always tried to do what she liked—she's my father's sister, you know—but this spring I just had to run away."
"Too much fer you, eh?" commented Brigham, grinning.
"No, it wasn't that so much, but she—she told me I ought to get married!"
"Well, what's the matter?" inquired Brigham, his grin wreathing back to his ears. "What's the matter with that?"
Bowles blushed and blinked with embarrassment.
"Well, the fact is, Brigham," he said, "she picked out the girl herself!"
"No! Never asked you, nor nothin'? What did the girl say?"
"Oh, Christabel? Why, she never knew, of course. I came out West immediately."
A puzzled look came over Brigham's honest face.
"Say, lemme git the straight of this," he said. "I'm a kind of Mormon myself, you know, and these fellers are always throwin' it into me about the way Mormons marry off their gals—did yore aunt make some trade with her folks?"
"Who—Christabel?" gasped Bowles, now breaking into a sweat. "Why, bless your soul, no! You don't understand how things are done in New York, Brig. Nothing was evensaid, you know, it was just understood! My aunt didn't even tell me whom she had in mind—she just told me I ought to be married, and threw me into Christabel's society. But I knew it—I knew it from the first day—and rather than hurt Christabel's feelings I just picked up and ran away!"
"Well, I'll be durned!" observed Brigham, gazing upon him with wonder. "And we thought you was tryin' to git Dix!"
To the hard-riding cowboy of the plains, the subtleties of emotion and romance are a closed book—just as the hand that whirls the rope is too crabbed to play the violin. Some of us in this world must do the heavy work. Some hands must be knotted, some backs bent with labor, some brows furrowed with wind and weather and the hard realities of life; but in return the laborers gain the strength of the wind-tossed oak and the patience of the ages. There are others whose lot it is to write the poetry and paint the pictures and reach out into the great unknown for a thousand haunting chords and harmonies; but they are a people apart. Their very sensitiveness makes them unequal to the stress of life; their slender hands cannot perform hard labor, and their hearts cannot endure the monotony and anguish of unremitting toil—yet they have their place in the world.
The time may come when the tasks and rewards will be divided again and each of us be given a more equal share, but until that day men will fall into classes—and neither will understand the other. Samuel Bowles had lived the protected life, but Brigham had buffeted his way. At the story of the Lady Christabel he stood agape, marveling at the man who could perceive such subtle advances, wondering at the nature that would flee for such a cause; but in the end he gazed upon him pityingly, and accepted him for his friend.
"I'll tell you, pardner," he said, as they drifted their cattle along; "I'm up ag'inst it, too. They's a gal over on the river—don't make no difference about her name—but I used to think a lot of her. Wasn't skeered of her none, the way I am with Dix. She was an awful good girl, too—no fly ways or nothin'—an' I was kinder fixin' to marry her when I had this racket with the bishop. My folks are all Mormons, of course, and so are hers, and I like 'em well enough in certain ways, but I can't stand them dang priests. As long as I'm free I can pull out and go where I please, but the minute I marry and settle down I'm up ag'inst it proper."
"Why, what's the matter?" inquired Bowles, thinking of all the awful things he had heard about the Saints, but discreetly holding his peace. "Will they punish you for running away?"
"No," answered Brigham, shaking his head dolefully, "it ain't that—it's the things they make you do. I'm a renegade now—I don't pay tithes or nothin'—but if I settled down on the river I'd have to come in ag'in. Mebbe jist about the time I'm married they summon me fer a mission. Two years to some foreign country to bring in converts to the church—an' who's goin' to take care of my wife?"
"Oh!" breathed Bowles sympathetically. "Thatisbad! Why don't you get married and live somewhere else, then?"
"That's jest it," frowned Brigham. "Gal's a Mormon too, and she won't come. So there I am!"
"Ah!" said Bowles; and they rode a long time in silence.
"That letter was from her," volunteered Brigham, jerking his head back toward the place where they had been camped, and after that he said no more. The old cynical look came into his squinted eyes, and he strung out the cattle methodically until they came to the home ranch. It was four o'clock in the afternoon then, and they lay over until the next day.
The Bat Wing bunk-house was hardly a cheery lounging place. Outside of the illustrated magazine literature with which the walls were papered, the library consisted of three books—a boot, spur and saddle catalogue, "Lin McLean," and that classic of the cow camps, "Three Weeks." When the entire outfit was at "the home," Happy Jack was in the habit of reading choice passages of "Three Weeks" to his friends, he being the scholar of the bunch, and closing each selection with the remark: "Well, I reckon that's plain enough for you, ain't it?" And the boys would generally agree that it was.
With the memory of Happy Jack still in mind, Bowles took shame to himself and read Owen Wister's "Lin McLean" instead, finding there a tenderfoot on another range who was worse even than himself. As things were coming now, Bowles hardly considered himself a tenderfoot any more. To be sure, he could not rope in the corral; but there were several local punchers in the same fix; and when it came to riding, he still had Wa-ha-lote in his string as a tribute to his skill as a fence jumper. He had also sat out a bucking fit or two when the boys put high-life on his horse; and, taken all in all he was not the worst rider in the outfit, by any means. As a branding hand, also, he was able to do his share; he had learned some of the rudiments of handling cattle; and his face had peeled off and tanned again, leaving him with a complexion in no wise different from that of his bronzed companions. And then, to top it all, he had won the friendship of Brigham, who was so good that he passed for a cowman.
Poor old Brigham! He never said what was in that letter from his girl, but Bowles knew he was wrestling with his problem. His carefree laugh was silenced for the time and, after cooking up a little food in the kitchen that stood next to the bunk-house, he had caught up a fresh mount and ridden off alone. The windmill man and the fence mender were out on their rounds, and Bowles was reading "The Winning of the Biscuit-shooter" and wondering if it was true, when a horse trotted into the yard. Presently he heard a saddle hit the ground, and the pasture gate swing to, and then there was a clank of spurs on the stoop. The door swung open, and as he glanced up from where he lay he saw Dixie Lee looking in at him.
The instincts of a lifetime prompted Bowles to rise to his feet and bow, but other instincts were crowding in on him now, and he only nodded his head. The memory, perhaps, of a fake letter to Samuel Houghton gave color to his indifference, and for the first time in his life he gazed at her with a shadow of disapproval. She was glorious indeed to look upon; but it is the heart that counts, and Dixie had seemed a little unkind. So he lay there with the book before him, and waited for her to speak. It was the first time they had been alone together since he had left her at Chula Vista, and it was not his part to make advances after what she had told him then.
As for Dixie, she seemed suddenly embarrassed and ill at ease, though she carried it off with her usual frontier recklessness.
"Hello there, cowboy!" she said, dropping down on the steps. "Where'd you come from?"
"I came from the upper water with Brig," answered Bowles, speaking for his part with decorous politeness. "We brought down a bunch of twos."
A smile swept over Dixie Lee's face at this lapse into the vernacular, but she brushed it away as he frowned.
"Bunch of twos, eh?" she repeated. "Say, you're getting to be a regular cowboy now, ain't you?
"Where's Brig?" she inquired, when she saw that her remark displeased him; and once more he answered and fell silent.
"He's a great fellow, old Brig," she went on, settling herself comfortably against the door-sill and indicating that the conversation was on; "you seem to be pretty thick with him!"
"Yes," agreed Bowles, sitting up and laying his book aside; "I like Brigham very much."
"He's a great fellow to tell stories," continued Dixie; "always talking and laughing, too—I never did see such a good-natured man."
"Yes," assented Bowles a little doubtfully; "I guess he's awfully good-natured—but even fat folks have their troubles, you know."
"Why, what's the matter with Brig? Has he run out of chewing tobacco?"
"Well, no," said Bowles; "it's not that. I guess it's that letter you gave him."
"Letter!" repeated Dixie incredulously. "What, from his girl? Oh, he'll be all right in a day or so—who ever heard of a cowboy going into a decline? And say, talking about letters, why didn't you take that one I wrote you the other day? I had something mighty special to communicate to you in that, but you'll never get it now! I hope the boys did something to you!"
"Yes," answered Bowles serenely; "they hazed me for a day or two. You seem to have a great many admirers out here, Miss Lee."
Dixie May's eyes flashed at the evident implication, and she had a retort on her lips, but something in his manner restrained her.
"How can I help it if the boys get foolish?" she demanded severely. "And you don't want to let your Eastern ideas deceive you—it's the custom of the country out here."
"Yes, indeed," purled Bowles; "and a very pretty custom, too. Have you just come back from Chula Vista?"
"Yes, I have!" snapped Dixie. "But you don't need to get so superior about it! I guess I can do what I please, can't I?"
"Why, certainly," assented Bowles.
"Well, then, what do you want to get so supercilious for?" raged Dixie. "I don't know, there's something about the way you talk that fairly maddens me! I've a good mind to tell the boys who you are, and have them run you out of the country! Why didn't you take that letter I wrote you?"
She was angry now, and her voice was pitched high for a scolding, but Bowles showed no signs of fear.
"The letter you wrote was addressed to Samuel Houghton," he said; "and that is not my name."
"Well, what is your name, then?" demanded Dixie. "Bowles?"
For a moment Bowles gazed at her, and there was a pained look in his eyes—what if his beloved should turn out to be a scold?
"Why do you ask?" he inquired; and so gently did he say it that she faltered, as if ashamed.
"Well," she said, "I guess it isn't any of my business,isit? I don't know what I'm doing here, anyway. If there's any one thing that makes Mother furious, it's to see me hanging around the bunk-house. She thinks I——"
She rose suddenly, and shook out her skirt, but Bowles did not protest.
"You don't seem to care whether I go or not?" she pouted.
"Quite the contrary, I assure you, Miss Lee," declared Bowles earnestly. "But I'm not on my own ground now, and—well, I don't wish to take advantage of your hospitality."
"No," said Dixie with gentle irony, "nothing like that! You want to be careful how you treat these Arizona girls—they're liable to misunderstand your motives!"
Bowles' eyes lighted up with a merry twinkle, but he preserved his poker face.
"Oh, I hope not!" he said; and then both of them smiled very knowingly.
"The reason I wanted to get your name," observed Dixie, sitting down and smoothing out her skirt again, "was in case you got hurt or killed. Who am I going to write to in case you go out like Dunbar? Houghton? Bowles? Or who-all? You know, I feel kind of responsible for you, considering the way you got out here, and——"
"Oh, don't think of that!" protested Bowles, coming over and sitting near her. "If I get hurt, the boys will take care of me; and if I get killed—well, it won't matter then what you do."
"Well, don't get killed," urged Dixie kindly. "And if you get hurt, Mother and I will nurse you back to health and strength."
"Oh, will you?" cried Bowles. "I'll remember that, you may be sure! But, speaking of names, has there been any one in Chula Vista inquiring for Samuel Houghton?"
"Now, you see!" exclaimed Dixie Lee triumphantly. "If you'd opened that letter I had for you, you'd have found out about it. As it is, you'll just have to keep on guessing—I'm mad!"
"I'm sorry," said Bowles. "The reason I asked was, Brig and I are planning to make a little trip somewhere, and if I thought there was any one searching for me I'd——"
"Oh, you don't need to run away!" explained Dixie hurriedly. "I'll tell you when to skip—but you don't know what you missed by not reading that letter I wrote you!"
"Well, direct the next one to Bowles, then!" he pleaded. "But, no joking, I wish you wouldn't call attention to that other name—it's likely to get me into difficulties."
"What kind of difficulties?" inquired Dixie Lee demurely; but Bowles only shook his head.
"I'm very sorry I can't tell you," he said; "but it means a great deal to me."
"Maybe I can help you," she suggested.
"Yes, indeed, you can!" assured Bowles, drawing nearer and smiling his naive smile. "Just don't tell anybody what you know, and let me have a chance. I've always been shut off from the world, you know—I've never had a chance. Just let me fight my way and see if I'm not a man. I know I'm new, and there are lots of things that come hard for me; but give me a chance to stay and maybe I'll win out. You don't know, Miss Lee, how much I treasure those stories you told me—when we were coming West on the train, you know. Don't you know, I think you have more of the feeling, more of the fine spirit of the West, than any one I have met. These cowboys seem so barren, some way; they seem to take it as a matter of course. And they all stay away from me—except Brigham. I don't get many stories now."
He paused and Dixie May eyed him curiously. He was not the same man who had traveled with her on the train. A month had made a difference with him. But there was still the boyish innocence that she liked.
"You mean stories about outlaws and Indians?" she said. "Hunting and trapping, and all that?"
"Yes!" nodded Bowles, glancing over at her appealingly. "Where does that old trapper, Bill Jump, live? You know—the one you were telling about!"
"Oh, Bill? He lives up here on the Black Mesa—anywhere between here and the New Mexico line—and he sure is one of the grandest liars that ever breathed, too. I remember one time——"
Bowles settled himself inside the doorway and drank in the magical tale. It was as if the Old West rose up before him, blotting out the barbed-wire fences and the lonely homes of the nesters and bringing back the age of romance that he sought. He questioned her eagerly, still watching her with his boyish, admiring eyes, and Dixie plunged into another. The sun, which was getting low, swung lower and a door slammed up at the big house. Then a reproachful voice came floating down, and Dixie jumped up from her seat.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "There's Maw—seems like I never get any peace! But, anyway, this old bear with the trap on his foot picked up Bill's gun and threw the chamber open, then he looked up into the tree where Bill was hanging and crooked his finger—like that! And Bill Jump said he knowed it jest as if that ol' b'ar spoke—he was signaling him to throw him down a cartridge, so he could put Bill out of his misery! Or that was what Bill said. But, say, I've got to be running—come up to the house to-night and let me tell you the rest of it! Oh, pshaw, we know what your motives are! Come along anyhow! And bring Brig with you! All right—good-by!"
She gave him a dizzy smile over her shoulder as she fled, and Bowles blinked his eyes to find the world so fair.
It is the philosophy of the poseurs in pessimism that for every happy moment we have in life we pay at a later date a greater price. Of course, any one who ever took a kid to the circus knows better, but there are times when the doctrine seems to hold. When Bowles returned to the round-up, the news of his perfidy had preceded him—he had taken advantage of his position and spent the evening at the big house! Thereupon the hotheads lowered upon him malignantly, and Hardy Atkins hunted up his high-life bottle.
The accepted function of carbon bisulphide in the great Southwest is to kill off prairie-dogs. A tablespoonful poured on a cow-chip and rolled down a dog hole will asphyxiate the entire family. The same amount poured on a man's horse will make the man think he has been shot with a pack-saddle, and that was what happened to Bowles. When he became too wary for the bottle, they resorted to other means, and finally he detected the bronco-twister with a loaded syringe in his hand.
"Now, that will do, Mr. Atkins," he observed with some asperity. "It's all right for you boys to haze me a little, but my horses are getting spoiled and I'll have to ask you to stop."
"Oho!" shouted Bar Seven and the stray men, who had sweethearts in other parts and dearly loved excitement. "He caught you at it, Hardy! Now what you goin' to do?"
"I ain't goin' to do nothin'," declared Hardy Atkins, carefully stowing his squirt-gun away. "No Hinglishman looks bad to me, and I'll high-life him whenever I like!"
"You will not!" said Henry Lee, coming up as he heard the words. "I've had enough of this foolishness, and I want you to quit right now. First thing you know that hawse will pitch into the herd and we'll have a stampede on our hands. Now, come ahead and clean out this pasture, we'll start the drive for town."
They rounded up the pastures then, one after the other, and soon the great herd of dogies was strung out on the road. At regular distances along the flanks the swing men plodded along; toward the front the two point men directed the head of the herd; and, behind, the remainder of the men brought up the drag. They traveled slowly, sometimes swinging out into the hills and letting the cattle feed, and as they drifted along over the rock-patches theclack, clack, clackof splay-toed hoofs made a noise like rain on the roof. At intervals some stubborn two-year-old would break from the tail of the herd, some fresh-branded calf fall by the wayside, to be left for another drive; but the day of the steer is past on the lower ranges of the great Southwest, and feeders are easier to handle. So they dragged on, drifting over to the river for water and back onto the plains for the night, and many a nester's fence was laid flat as they jerked it to turn out the strays. Then, at the end of the third day, they came within sight of Chula Vista and Henry Lee rode on ahead.
"Hardy," he said as he turned his horse toward town, "I'll leave you in charge of the herd. Put them into the pens for the night, and hold the remuda out on the flats. I'll be down as soon as I find my men. And, remember, no drinking!"
He looked very hard at his straw-boss as he spoke, and Hardy Atkins answered him dutifully; but when the boss was gone he turned and winked at his partners.
"You hear me now, boys," he said. "No drinkin'! You know the rule—you cain't drink whisky and work fer Henry Lee! Umph-umm! But I hope to Gawd some of them town boys come out with a bottle!"
He smacked his lips as he spoke, and made up a funny face.
"I got three months' pay comin' to me," he remarked, and went spurring up to the front.
"I never seen the time yet," observed Buck Buchanan, as he loafed philosophically along with the drag, "that I couldn't git another job somewhere. When I've got money comin' to me, I want to spend it, by Joe!"
"Sure!" agreed Happy Jack, who had been singing songs all day. "What's the use of workin', anyway?"
"That's me!" chimed in Poker Bill. "Let's quit and draw our pay!"
"Put these cows in the pen first," said Jack, snapping his fingers and waltzing airily in his saddle.
"Whoopee tee, yi, yo, git along, little dogies,It's all yore misfortune and none of my own.Whoopee tee, yi, yo, git along, little dogies,'Cause you know my whistle is dry as a bone."
"Whoopee tee, yi, yo, git along, little dogies,It's all yore misfortune and none of my own.Whoopee tee, yi, yo, git along, little dogies,'Cause you know my whistle is dry as a bone."
It was a new experience to Bowles, this riding into a cow town, and he viewed with wide-eyed alarm the evidences of dissolution and revolt. Even Brigham was licking his lips and gazing at the town; and when the first bottle came out he took a long drink with the rest. Bowles excused himself, and wondered what would happen; but the half-drunken cowboy who brought out the life-saver never gave him a second look. It was not so hard to dispose of whisky in those parts.
As the herd neared town, the idle and curious came riding out to see it, and Bowles was pained to notice certain painted women, who seemed to know the boys by their first names. They rode along the herd, waving handkerchiefs and shouting greetings, and a sudden distrust of frontier morality came over him as he observed the shameless response. The shipping pens were below the town about a mile—a barren square of whitewashed fencing, backed up to a side-track full of empty stock-cars—and as the weary cattle dragged along across the flats Hardy Atkins and a bunch of punchers cut off the leaders and whooped them on ahead. There was a jam at the gates, a break or two, and then the first timid dogie stepped fearfully into the enclosure. The smell of water in the troughs lured him on, the rest followed, and when the main herd came up it was artfully tailed on to the drag.
At last! The high gate swung to on the harvest of the long round-up, and the punchers raced their horses to be first at the waiting chuck-wagon. In an angle of the fence Gloomy Gus had unpacked his ovens and set up his fire irons, and now as they flew at their supper he surveyed them with cynical calm.
"Whar's Henry Lee?" he inquired at length; and Hardy Atkins pointed back to town with his knife.
"He's over lookin' up his buyer," he said. "I'm the boss now, Cusi; what can I do fer you?"
"Oh, you're boss now, are you?" repeated Gus, with heavy scorn. "Well, then, why don't you send some one out to relieve thet hawse wrangler? He'll be turnin' the remuda loose pretty soon, from the way he's been makin' signs."
"Aw, he'll keep!" laughed the straw-boss. "Hey, fellers, who wants the first guard to-night?"
Nobody spoke.
"Somebody's got to stand guard," he observed, running his eyes over the crowd. "First guard's the best—eight to half-past ten. Bill? Jim? Hank? Well, I'll make it Jim and Hank, anyhow—only way to keep 'em in camp. You boys know Mr. Lee's orders—no drinkin' now—I don't want to find you downtown!"
"Aw-haw-haw!" roared the crowd. That was a good one—he didn't want to find them downtown! Well, what wouldhebe doing down there?
"Well, who's goin' to relieve us?" inquired Hank plaintively. "Last time we was down I had to stand guard all night!"
The bronco-twister ran his eyes over the crowd again, as if searching for some one.
"Where's that feller that refused a drink this evenin'?" he demanded facetiously. "He's the boy fer second guard—good and reliable—and Hinglish, too. Hinglish, I'll ask you and yore Mormon friend, Mr. Clark, to kindly stand the second guard. Bud and Bill third, and Jack and Buck fourth. I'm boss now, and I don't stand guard."
"Oh, thunder!" grumbled Brig, as he threw himself down on his bed. "I wish the boss would come back. Them rounders will stay in town all night. Let's take a little flier ourselves," he urged as Bowles lay down beside him. "We can git back in time!"
But a sudden sense of responsibility had come over Bowles as he observed how the crowd faded away, and he held Brigham to his post. At ten-thirty, in response to a hurried summons, they took a spare blanket for warmth and rode out to stand their guard.
The stars wheeled round in their courses and sank down in the west; the horses shifted about on the barren plain and made their customary efforts to escape; and when the first cold light of dawn crept in, it showed "Hinglish" and his Mormon friend still standing their lonely vigil.
But for once in a lifetime self-sacrificing virtue got its reward, for Henry Lee came riding out with his buyer at daylight and discovered them at their post. He did not say much—in fact he did not say anything—and Brigham and Bowles did the same; but there was a difference in the air. At last Bowles had justified his existence—he had stayed with his job to the end.
There was a hurried searching of the town for Bat Wing cowboys, a straggling return of drunken and mutinous punchers, and then, with barely men enough to man the gates, the work of shipping began. By twos and threes the dogies were driven down a lane; the cattle inspector read the brands and made his tally, and the buyer passed them on or cut them back. Then, as the cutting and re-cutting was finished, the cattle were punched up the chutes and crowded into the cars. As the day wore on, more and more of the hands returned and took up the prod pole; but Henry Lee made no remarks. Even when his trusted straw-boss showed up late, he made no comment; but once back in camp he pulled his book like a pistol, and began to write out checks.
"Well, boys," he said, "you were drunk last night; I'll have to give you your time. Hardy, you're a good cow-hand, but I'll have to let you go, too. So here's your time checks; and turn your horses out. I've got to have men I can trust."
There was a heavy silence at this, for all the outfits in the country were full-handed now, and no one was looking for men. And Henry Lee was a good man to work for—he treated his hands white, fed them well, and paid the top price to boot. He also kept the best of them over winter, while others were riding the chuck-line or hanging around livery-stables in town. But nobody said a word, for they knew it would do no good; and, after he had paid them off and gone back to town, the luckless ones who had been fired drew off by themselves and talked the matter over. To be sure, they had the price of a drunk in their clothes; but they were fired and put afoot now, and town has no allurements to a cowboy unless he can ride in on a horse. So Hardy Atkins and his Texas followers lolled sulkily around the camp, sleeping fitfully in their blankets and glowering at Brigham Clark and the few careful spirits who had escaped their employer's wrath. And in particular they glowered at Bowles, the virtuous and dutiful, and hated him above all the rest for his air of conscious rectitude.
Supper that evening offered no appeal to the drink-shaken carousers, but they stayed for it all the same, hoping against hope that the boss would come back and give them another chance. But they knew him too well to think it—Henry Lee would let his whole calf crop grow up to be mavericks before he would take back his word. Still they waited, and along toward sundown, as luck would have it, he came out; and with him, riding like a queen on her spirited horse, came Dixie May. She looked them over coldly, returning short answers to their shamefaced greetings and saving a smile for the cook.
"Good-evening, Mr. Mosby," she said, pouring out a little coffee for politeness' sake. "And so these boys had to go on a drunk and get fired, did they? Well, you won't have so many to cook for now—that'll be one consolation."
"Yes, Miss Dix," agreed the cook, "but mighty little, believe me! One cowboy is jest about as ornery an' no 'count as the other—and whisky gits 'em all. They're all alike—I been cookin' for 'em fer thirty years, off an' on, and they ain't one of 'em is worth the powder to blow 'im to—excuse me, Miss Dix. But, as I was sayin', take 'em as they come, and keep 'em out of town, and these boys is pretty fair—pretty fair; I'm sorry to see 'em go."
At this kindly word of intercession, a new light came into the eyes of the unemployed; but Dixie Lee had come on a mission, and it was not her policy to yield in a minute.
"Well,I'mnot!" she declared. "If you'd listened to the amount of foolishness that I've suffered from these boys, Mr. Mosby; if you'd heard 'em say how they were going to save their wages and buy a little bunch of cows—and tell about the quarter-section of land they had their eye on—and swear, so help me God, they'd never take another drink of whisky as long as they lived—I believe you'd be glad to get rid of 'em!"
She turned and ran her eye over the crowd, and both the just and the unjust quailed before her.
"And so you were drunk, were you, Mr. Atkins?" she inquired, fixing her gaze upon the deposed straw-boss; and Hardy Atkins shot a look at her which was both confession and appeal.
"And you, Jack?" she continued severely.
"Yes, ma'am," spoke up Happy Jack, upon whom the severity of her manner was lost. "I was drunk, all right."
"Well, you don't need to be proud of it!" she observed cuttingly. "It's no distinction in this bunch. Brig, were you drunk, too?"
"No, ma'am," responded Brigham promptly.
"Oh, what's the use of talking?" scoffed Dixie, glancing at his swollen face and bloodshot eyes.
"All the same, I wasn't!" denied Brigham boldly. "I reckon you'd look kind of bug-eyed if you'd been standin' guard all night!"
"Well, what's the matter with your face then?" she demanded. "Did the ground rise up and hit you?"
"No, but an old cow did, over in the shippin' chute!" And Brigham drew himself up and grinned defiantly. It was not often that he had a chance to assume this high moral pose, and he decided to make the most of it.
"That's right," interposed Henry Lee, who so far had let his daughter do all the talking. "Brig and Bowles stood guard all night and brought up the remuda in the morning. I won't forget that, Brig," he added significantly. "I'm looking for men I can trust."
"Well, good for you, Brig!" commented Dixie May, smiling with sudden approval; and at that the other suitors fell into a black rage of jealousy and distrust. There was silence for a while, and then Happy Jack spoke up.
"Mr. Lee," he said, "I know I was drunk last night—my own fault, of course—but here's the proposition. You got to take on somebody to do yore work; what's the use of hirin' these town bums when you can git yore old hands back? That's the way we stand, and I hope you'll give us a chance."
This was a long speech for Jack, and he wiped the sweat from his brow as he waited for the answer. The rest of the unemployed rumbled their acquiescence to the statement and watched for some sign of weakening; but Henry Lee did not change his frown.
"I'm looking for men I can trust," he said at last. "These boys here stayed in camp and were on hand to help with the shipping. Maybe some of them ain't quite as good cowboys as you are, but I can depend on them not to turn my remuda loose the first night I leave 'em alone, and I'm going to make them top hands. You fellows get the top mounts and forty-five a month," he added, glancing briefly at Brig and the faithful few, most of whom were nesters boys, and married men working for a stake; "and I want some more just like you."
"But how about us?" inquired Happy Jack after a silence. "I'll take on for a green hand, myse'f—forty dollars—and ride bronks, too. And I know that upper range like a book!"
"Sure!" murmured the rest; and once more they waited on Henry Lee.
He sat for a while studying on the matter, and then he exchanged glances with his daughter.
"If he takes you back, are you going to run it over these other hands and make a lot of trouble?" she inquired shrewdly. "Because if you are——"
A chorus of indignant denials answered this unjust accusation, and Dixie Lee's face became clear.
"Then I'd take 'em back," she said.
"No, I won't do it," rapped out Henry Lee. "But I'll tell you what I will do," he went on, as the gang lopped down despondently. "You boys have got your time checks. All right, you go up town and cash them in, and if you can pay your saloon debts and get out of town sober, I'll take you on. But if any man takes a drink, or brings out a bottle, he'll never ride for Henry Lee again—I've lost enough horses through drunken punchers. Brig, I'll leave you in charge of the outfit."
He swung up on his horse as he spoke, and Dixie rode away after him, followed by the admiring gaze of all hands and the cook. Henry Lee was a good boss, but the average Texas cow-puncher is not weak-kneed enough to court the favor of any man. Once he is fired, he takes his money and spends it philosophically; but in this case Dixie May had intervened, and rather than lose their chance with her the whole gang had taken lessons in humility.
"She's all right," observed Happy Jack, wagging his head and smiling as he watched her off. "She wraps him around her little finger."
"Wonder how she come to be down here?" inquired a new hand; and Jack answered him, with a laugh.
"Ridin' herd on the old man, of course!" he said.
"Sure!" grumbled Hardy Atkins. "The old lady is up there, too. That's the one thing I got ag'inst Henry Lee—he's been a booze-fighter and quit. That's what makes him so doggoned onreasonable!"
"They say John B. Gough and Sam Jones was reformed drunks, too," commented Poker Bill sagely; but there was one member present who did not take even a philosophical interest in the discussion. It was Brigham Clark, the new straw-boss. Through a chain of circumstances a little hard to trace, he had refrained from his customary periodical, and, behold, of a sudden he was elevated above all his fellows, and placed in a position of authority.
"Well," he broke in sharply, "it's gittin' dark—who's goin' to relieve that horse wrangler? Bill? Buck? Well, I'll put you on the first guard, anyhow—only way to save you from yorese'ves!"
"Aw, listen to the big fat stiff!" commented Buck Buchanan, who felt the need of a nap; but Brig paid no attention to his remarks.
"You boys bring them in to the pen fer a drink," he ordered, with pompous circumstance, "and hold them out on yon flat. Who wants to stand second guard? Jim? Hank?" He craned his neck about as Hardy Atkins had done the night before; and Hardy, who had been thinking about other things, sat up with a sudden scowl.
"Whar's that feller that refused a drink this evenin'?" demanded Brigham, imitating with roguish accuracy the broad Texas accent of his predecessor. "He's the boy fer second guard—good and reliable—comes from Texas, too. Mr. Atkins, I'll ask you and yore cotton-picker friend, Happy Jack, to kindly stand second guard. Bud and Bill third, and Sam and Slim fourth. I'm boss now, and I don't stand no guard!"
The upper range of the Bat Wing was a country by itself. To reach it they rode due north from Chula Vista, following an old road that had been fenced so many times that Gloomy Gus became discouraged. Twisting and turning, driving around through new-made lanes, or jerking a world of staples and laying the wire on the ground, he toiled on in the wake of the outfit, which was rounding up spare corners of the unfenced range. Behind him came the horse wrangler and his helper, doing their best to keep the remuda out of the barbed-wire, and jerking up more fence with their ropes than Gus laid down with his nail-puller. Certainly in that wide, windmill-dotted valley, the open range was a thing of the past. It was only thirty feet to water, and the nesters were settling everywhere.
"One more day like that," observed Gloomy Gus as he threw together a late supper, "and I quit!"
"Me too!" chimed in the wrangler; and the punchers felt much the same.
"A few more years like this last," remarked Henry Lee, gazing gloomily out across his former estate, "and we'll all quit. But, thank God, they can't farm the Black Mesa."
On the second day they turned east, crossing the boggy river and mounting up on a great plateau, and then Bowles saw why Henry Lee's remark was true. The Black Mesa was high and level, with a wealth of coarse grass on the flats and wooded hills behind; but hills and flats alike were covered with a layer of loose rocks that made the land a wilderness. Even the wagon road on which they traveled was a mere rut across the rock patch, and from a distance it looked like a ruined stone wall where the rocks had been thrown to both sides. And the rocks were black, a scorched, volcanic black, with square corners and uneroded edges that gashed at the horses' ankles. Deep-cut cañons wound tortuously across the level mesa, their existence unsuspected until the rider stopped at their brink; and, hidden in their sullen depths, the scant supply of water was lost to all but the birds.
Yet to the cowboys the landscape was cheering, for there was bunch-grass between the rocks and not a house in sight. It is hard to please everybody in this world, but cowboys are easily pleased. All they want is a good horse and plenty of swing room, and a landscape gardener couldn't make it better. To Bowles the lower valley had been a wild and unsettled country, but he found that even the Black Mesa was tame to these seasoned nomads.
"Jest wait till I take you to the White Mountains," said Brig, as he rode by his side. "This country has all been fed off till they's nothin' much left but the rocks—no game nor nothin'. But the Sierra Blancas are different—that's them over that far ridge."
He pointed at a filmy point of white, half lost between the blue of the pine-clad mountains and the blue of the sky beyond, and Bowles' heart leaped up at the sight. At last he was in the Far West—that strange, elusive country of which so many speak and which is yet so hard to find—and the untrod wilderness lay before him. The Sierra Blancas, home of the deer and the bear and the wolf and the savage Apache Indians! Even in his age and time, there was still a wilderness to conquer and the terrors of the old frontier to stir the blood.
"How far is it?" he inquired, his eyes questing out the way; and when Brig told him he reached over and clutched his hand. "Brig," he cried, "I want to go there. I'd like to go right now!"
He looked across at his partner, but Brigham did not answer, and Bowles knew what was in his mind.
"Of course, now that you're made foreman——" he began; but Brig smiled a cynical smile.
"Don't you let that worry you none," he growled. "The way these Texicans is takin' on, I don't reckon I'll last very long. Hardy Atkins is the leader of this bunch, and he's bound to git his job back—I'm jest holdin' on fer spite."
"But how can he get it back?" protested Bowles. "Mr. Lee told me you were one of the best cowmen he ever knew, and you certainly know the range all right——"
"Yes, but that ain't it," put in Brig. "Here's the proposition. Henry Lee is gittin' old—he can't be his own wagon-boss forever, and he's lookin' round for a man. The man that gits the job will git more than that—he'll marry Dixie Lee."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried Bowles. "Why should he?"
"Don't know why," answered Brigham doggedly. "Only that's the way it always goes—and Hardy, he wants Dixie."
"But surely, after the way he conducted himself down at Chula Vista——"
"Oh, that's nothin'," asserted Brigham.
"You think she would marry him?"
"Don't know," grumbled Brig. "She's got us all a-guessin'. All I know is, I won't last long as a straw-boss. You wait till we git up in the mountains where old Henry can't git no more hands, and then watch the fur begin to fly. Didn't they all eat dirt to git took back fer green hands? Didn't you see 'em talkin' it over? All they got to do now is to gitusfired, and thenthey'llbe the top hands. Huh! That's easy!"
The second-in-command would say no more, but a few days gave token of the coming storm. As they pulled in at the upper ranch, where cowboys and "station-men" did duty all the year, the stray men from other outfits threw in with them again and increased their number to a scant twenty. Bar Seven was there, after a return to his own headquarters, and several of the other men; but the men who dwelt in the hills were of a different breed, with hair long and beards scrubby, and overalls greasy from lonely cooking; and they looked at Bowles askance.
"Who's that feller?" they asked; and the answer was always the same, if they asked it of a Texan.
"Oh, that's a young English dude," they said. "He's got his eye on Dixie."
Strange how these men of the frontier were so quick to read his heart—Bowles had talked with Dixie Lee only twice in a month but they had read him like a book. Or perhaps it was just plain jealousy, since they, too, had their eyes on Dixie—jealousy and a sneaking knowledge that he had a chance to win. They cast appraising glances at his expensive saddle, his silver-mounted spurs and eleven-dollar Stetson, and hated him for his prosperity; they watched him work in the corral, and scoffed at him for his horsemanship; and when he talked, they listened to his broad "a's," his soft "r's" and his purling "er's" with wonder and contempt. Not that they listened very much, for they took pains to break in on him as grown folks do when a child is speaking; but they curled their lips at his coming, and exchanged glances behind his back, and finally, as the work progressed, their hostility began to take form.
For three days the outfit lay at headquarters while fresh horses were caught and shod; and here Hardy Atkins and his followers suffered the humiliation of losing their mounts. As top hands they had taken the pick of the remuda, the fleetest runners, the gentlest night horses, the best-reined cutting horses; but now in the reapportionment they found themselves reduced to "skates and bronks." Three days of shoeing the skates, and especially the bronks, did not tend to sweeten their tempers any, and as they moved up to Warm Springs and began to rake the range the spirit of rebellion broke loose.
Warm Springs lies at the bottom of a gash in the face of the mesa, and the cow-trails lead to it for miles. Above there is no water, below it is shut in by the rim of the cañon, and the cattle file down the long trail day and night. Consequently the nearby grass is fed down to the roots, and the remuda had to be held up on the high mesa. All day the horse wrangler grazed his charges in distant swales, bringing them in for water and the horse-changing morning and noon; and at night the cowboys watched them beneath the cold stars—that is, when they kept awake.
On the second morning three horses were missing, the next day two more, and on the next eight horses more were gone and several men were practically afoot.
"Who let those horses get away?" demanded Henry Lee, as he rounded up his night herders by the corral.
"Not me!" said the members of the first guard.
"We never stopped ridin'," said the second guard.
"They was gone when we come on," said the third guard.
And the fourth guard swore they were innocent.
"Well, somebody's been asleep—that's all I know!" said Henry Lee; and he sent off two mountain men on their best mounts to trail the runaways down and bring them back. Then he listened to the mutual recriminations of the night herders, and guessed shrewdly at who was at fault. For when the night herders get to quarreling among themselves, waking each other up ahead of time, and sleeping on one hand till it slips and wakes them up, that is a sure sign and precursor of greater troubles to come, and it calls for an iron hand. Even as he was listening, a row broke out in the round corral, where the cowboys were roping their mounts.
"Turn that hawse loose!" roared Brigham, suddenly mounting up on the fence.
"I will not!" retorted the voice of Hardy Atkins from within.
"He belongs to my mount!" protested Brigham with appropriate oaths.
"I don't care whose mount he belongs to!" snarled the ex-straw-boss, dragging the horse out by the neck. "You top hands mash yore ear all night and let my hawses drift—and then expect me to walk. You bet yore boots that don't go—I'll take the best I can find. You can't putmeafoot!"
"I'll put you on yore back," rumbled Brigham, dropping truculently down from his perch, "if you try to git gay with me. You may be from Bitter Crick, Texas, but you got to whip me before you break into my mount!"
"Well, he's got the Bat Wing brand on 'im," sulked Atkins; "that's all I know. And as long as they's a hawse left in the remuda——"
"Here, here!" said Henry Lee, walking in on the squabble. "What's all this about? What are you doing with Brig's hawse, Hardy? Why don't you ride your own?"
"Well, these hyer nester kids and Mormons went to sleep on guard and let my top hawses pull—now I got nothin' but bronks to ride!"
"Well, ride 'em, then!" commanded Henry Lee severely. "And, another thing, Mr. Atkins! Next time you've got a grievance, come to me—don't try to correct it yourself!"
He regarded his former straw-boss with narrowing eyes, and Atkins roped out a bronk; but in the evening he took the first occasion to pick a quarrel with Brigham. They were gathered about the fire in the scant hour between branding and first guard, and Brigham was telling a story. As was his custom, Henry Lee had pitched his tent to one side, for he never mixed with his men; and Brig had the stage to himself.
"Well, you fellers talk about gittin' lost," he was saying; "you ought to be up in that Malapai country. We had a land-sharp along—claimed to know the world by sections—and he——"
"Aw, what do you know about the Malapai country?" broke in Atkins rudely. "You cain't even lead a circle on the Black Mesa and git back to camp the same day! My hawse give out this mornin' tryin' to——"
"Say," interposed Brigham peaceably, "you know what the boss said this mornin'—if you got any grievance, tell it to him. I'm tellin' these gentlemen a story."
"A dam' lie would come nearer to it!" sneered Hardy, curling his lips with spleen; and at the word Brigham rose swiftly to his feet.
"If you're lookin' fer trouble, Mr. Atkins," he said, taking off his hat and laying it carefully to one side, "you don't need to go no further. And if youain't," he cried, suddenly advancing with blood in his eye, "you take back what you said, or I'll slap yore face off!"
The astounding ease with which he got a rise out of his adversary seemed to take all the fight out of Hardy Atkins, and he mumbled some vague words of apology; but Brigham was hard to mollify.
"Well, that's all right," he grumbled. "It ain't my fault if you go on a drunk and lose yore job, and it ain't my fault if the boss makes me straw—but don't you try to crowd me, Hardy Atkins, or I'll make you match yore words. The man never lived that can call me a liar and git away with it, and I'll thank you to let me alone."
He went back and sat down by the fire, puffing and panting with the violence of his emotions; but as he gazed thoughtfully into the fire and no one interrupted his mood he fell into a cynical philosophy.
"Mighty funny about these Tee-hannos," he said, glancing around at the respectful company. "They say, back in Texas, when a man gits where he can count fifty they set him to teachin' school—and when he can count up to a hundred he gits on to himse'f and leaves the cussed country. Ordinary folks kin only count to twenty—ten fingers and ten toes, like an Injun. It's sure a fine country to emigrate from."
He looked about with a superior smile, and Buck Buchanan took up the cudgels for Texas.
"They tell me, Brig," he said, "that them Mormons down on the river cain't talk no mo'—jest kinder git along by signs and a kind of sheep-blat they have."
"Nope," answered Brigham; "they is sech people, but they don't live along the Heely. Them fellers you're thinkin' of is in the goat business—they don't saybaaa, like a sheep; they gomaaalike a goat. I've heard tell of them, too. It seems they don't wear no pants—nothin' but shirts. They live on them goat ranches back in western Texas."
He paused and looked around for appreciation, but only the nester kids smiled.
"I was drivin' a bunch of strays down through that Mormon country one time," explained Buck Buchanan; "that's where I got the idee. That's a great country, ain't it, Brig? Lots of houses, too. I remember I stopped one time at a street crossin' and they was houses on all four corners. They was a lot of kids playin' around, and I asked one of 'em whose houses they were, and he says: 'My father's.'
"'How comes yore father to have so many houses?' I says. 'Does he rent 'em?'
"'No, sir,' the kid says, 'he lives in 'em. Don't you know him? He's the bishop!'"
A roar of laughter followed this brutal innuendo, but Brigham was not set back. His mind had become accustomed to all such jests.
"Aw, you're jealous," he grunted, and let the Gentiles rage until, as the talk ran on, he gradually assumed the lead.
"That's one thing you'll never find around a Mormon town," he began, still speaking with philosophical calm; "you'll never find no Texican. Of course, a Mormon has to work, and that bars most of 'em at the start; but, I dunno, seems like the first settlers took a prejudice ag'inst 'em. I remember my old man tellin' how it come that way—course they must be mistaken, but the Mormons think a Texan ain't got no sense.
"It seems the Mormons was the first folks to settle along the Heely, and my grandpaw was one of the leaders—he killed a lot of Injuns, believe me! But one day when he was gittin' kinder old and feeble-like, he got a notion in his head that he wanted a squirrel-skin, and so he called in my father and said:
"'Son, you take yore rifle and go out and git me a gray squirrel; and be careful not to shoot 'im in the head, because I want the brains to tan the skin with.'
"So my father he went up in the pines and hunted around; but the only squirrel he could find was stickin' his head over the limb, and rather than not git nothin' he shot him anyhow. Well, he brought him back to the old man and he said to 'im:
"'I'm mighty sorry, Dad; the squirrels was awful scarce, and rather than not git any I had to shoot this one through the head.'
"'Oh, that's all right,' the old man says. 'You got a nice skin anyway, and I reckon we can fix it somehow. I tell you what you do. They's a bunch of Texans camped down by the lower water—you go down and kill one of them, and mebbe we can usehisbrains.'"
Brigham paused and looked around with squinched-up, twinkling eyes; and at last Buck Buchanan broke the dramatic silence.
"Well," he demanded roughly, "what's the joke?"
"Well, sir," ran on Brig, "you wouldn't hardly believe it, but my old man had to kill six of them Texicans to git brains enough to tan that squirrel-skin! That's why they won't take 'em into the church."