CHAPTER XIITHE WATER WITCH
In former days Wallie had wished for a yacht, his own stables, and such luxuries, but now he wanted a well with far greater intensity than he had desired those extravagances.
The all-important question had been whether he could at present afford it, with his money vanishing like a belated snowbank. Then, while he had been debating, Rufus Reed appeared at such a timely moment that it had seemed providential.
Mr. Reed, lately arrived from Illinois, was now sitting with his feet on the stove-hearth and so close to the coals that the cabin was strong with the odour of frying rubber, and declaring modestly:
"I may say, without braggin', that I have made an enormous success since I gave up my flour and feed store and took to well-diggin' as a perfession. By acci-dent I discovered that I was peculiarly gifted."
Watching the smoke rising from Rufus's arctics and speculating as to what might be the composition of his soles that he could endure so much heat without discomfort, Wallie inquired politely:
"In what way, may I ask?"
Mr. Reed's tone became impressive:
"I am—a water witch."
Wallie looked puzzled.
"Some call it magic, but the fact is, I am able to locate water with a forked willer and you can call it anything you want to."
Wallie regarded the worker of miracles with fresh attention. His belief in his own powers was evidently so sincere that even a skeptic could not fail to be impressed by him.
He continued:
"With my divinin' rod I have flew in the faces of the biggest geologists in the country and found water where they said there wasn't any."
"Will the divining rod tell you how far you must dig for it?"
"Pretty close to it. I count a foot to every bob of the willer."
"In a state like Illinois where there is a great deal of moisture I presume it would be possible to get water anywhere if one went deep enough, but in Wyoming—frankly, I should not like to rely on the divining rod in Wyoming, Mr. Reed."
Mr. Reed looked somewhat offended and declared with spirit:
"I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll make you a sportin' proposition. I'll test the ground with the willer and if it says we'll get water at a certain depth and we don't strike it, I'll dig till we do, for nothin', if we have to go till we hear the Chinamen gibber. That's fair, ain't it?"
Wallie could not gainsay it.
"I got a willer on my saddle and it won't cost nothin' for a demonstration. Say the word," persuasively, "and you've good as got a fine, flowing well of water."
It would do no harm to let the water witch make his test, Wallie decided, so he followed sheepishly in the wake of Rufus and his willow as he walked over the greater part of the one hundred and sixty acres.
"'Tain't nowise plentiful," the latter admitted, as with each hand gripping a prong of the willow he kept his eyes fixed upon it. "But if it's here I'm bound to find it, so don't get discouraged."
Expecting nothing, Wallie was not disappointed.
At the top of a draw some hundred and fifty yards from the cabin Rufus suddenly halted.
"I felt somethin'," he said, hopefully.
"Where?" Wallie asked, interested.
"In my arm—like pins and needles—it's a symptom. She's goin' to bob!" Excitedly. "You watch and count along of me."
The willow bobbed unmistakably.
"Sixty-eight!" They finished together.
"I told you!" Rufus cried, triumphantly. He stamped his foot: "Right here is where you'll strike it." His tone was as positive as if he saw it flowing beneath the surface.
Impressed in spite of himself, Wallie endeavoured to be conservative.
"Could it have been your subconscious mind?" he asked, doubtfully.
"I ain't any. Rufus Reed is right out in the open. I'll stake my reputation there's plenty of water if you'll go after it."
"It's rather far from the house for convenience," he objected.
"Water in Wyoming is like whiskey, you have to take it where you can get it and not be particular."
It was a temptation, and the cost at three dollars a foot was not excessive. Wallie pondered it and said finally:
"You will agree in writing to dig without remuneration until you get water if you do not strike it at sixty-eight feet?"
"An iron-clad contract will suit yours truly," Mr. Reed declared, emphatically. He added: "I'll bring two men to work the h'ist and empty the bucket. Of course you'd aim to board us?"
"Why, yes, I can," Wallie said a little uncertainly. He had not thought of that feature, but he realized it would be necessary.
He had figured that with strict economy he had provisions enough to last him well toward summer. Three men eating three meals daily might make some difference in his calculations, but nothing serious probably.
So the contract was drawn up and signed and Rufus departed, eminently satisfied, as was Wallie, who was so eager to see his well started that he could hardly wait until the following Monday.
In the interim he dreamed of his well of cold, pure water, and every time he made use of his "toe-holts"he told himself that that inconvenience would soon be eliminated. He meant to have a windmill as soon as he could afford it, for whatever else the country might lack there was no dearth of wind for motive power.
There was something permanent-looking about a well and he chuckled as he speculated as to what Canby would say when he heard of it, and he wished with all his heart that he might be around when Helene Spenceley learned that he was sinking a well on his place for household and stock purposes.
He had taken advantage of the opportunity which the gift of the cake presented to send her a note of thanks and appreciation. In reply he had received an invitation which had stung him worse than if she had written that she never wanted to see him cross her threshold.
His eyes gleamed every time he read it, which was so often that it was worn through the creases from being folded and unfolded:
Dear "Gentle Annie":Won't you stop at the ranch on your way out and pay us a visit? I presume the middle of the summer at latest will see the last of you as I have no idea that you will be able to go through the discouragements and hardships attendant upon proving up on a homestead.My brother also will enjoy meeting you as he has heard so much of you.Looking for you soon, I amSincerely,Helene Spenceley.P.S. I have a new sweater pattern that I am sure will please you.
Dear "Gentle Annie":
Won't you stop at the ranch on your way out and pay us a visit? I presume the middle of the summer at latest will see the last of you as I have no idea that you will be able to go through the discouragements and hardships attendant upon proving up on a homestead.
My brother also will enjoy meeting you as he has heard so much of you.
Looking for you soon, I am
Sincerely,
Helene Spenceley.
P.S. I have a new sweater pattern that I am sure will please you.
Every word had a nettle in it, a taunt that made him tingle. It seemed to Wallie he had never known such a "catty" woman, and he meant to tell her so, some day, when he was rich and successful and had proved how wrong she was in her estimate of him.
He was tempted to send her word, on a postal, anonymously, of the well he was digging if he had not feared she would suspect him. It seemed so long to wait for Pinkey to convey the tidings.
Rufus arrived on Monday morning, and the "crew" to which he had referred proved to be members of his own family—John and Will—whales as to size, and clownish.
It came to Wallie's mind that if they did not move any faster when they worked than when they were at leisure, the well-digging would be a long process, and his heart sank when he saw them feeding their horses so liberally from the hay which had cost $20 a ton, delivered.
The first intimation Wallie had of what he had let himself in for was when Rufus asked in a confidential tone, as if he were imparting something for Wallie's ear only:
"I wonder if we could get a bite to eat before we start in? We eat so early this morning that I don't feel as if I had had anything."
Wallie had a pan of biscuit which he had intended for dinner but he concealed his reluctance and managed to say with a show of hospitality:
"Come right in; I'll get you something."
"First rate!" declared Mr. Reed with dishearteningenthusiasm as Wallie placed the biscuit, butter, and molasses before him and his helpers.
Wallie hoped never again to see food—his, at least—disappear with such rapidity and in such quantities. When they had finished there was not a crumb left in the pan to tell what had been, and Rufus added to Wallie's feeling of apprehension by declaring gaily as he polished his mouth on the bandanna which he drew from his hip pocket with a flourish:
"Us Reeds are all hearty eaters. We can eat a sheep at a settin' when we're all together."
Biscuit-making was Wallie's special antipathy, and he now solaced himself with the thought that since they had eaten so many, they would eat less for dinner and he would have plenty of the fresh ones left for supper.
But disappointment was again his portion. Any hope that he might have cherished that once they were well filled up their appetites would diminish was dissipated by their performance at supper which surpassed that of dinner. The manner in which the biscuits vanished was nothing less than appalling. In addition to which, he fried ham twice for them when they hinted that they were still hungry after devouring everything before them.
He thought grimly that if their capacity for work was commensurate with their appetites, the well would be dug in twenty-four hours. But after observing them in "action" through the window he had a notion that he would have considerable more than that of their society.
As they all sprawled on his bunk in a torpor while he washed their supper dishes, he felt not only consternation but a dislike for the Reed family growing within him. Long after they were snoring in their blankets, he lay awake calculating how long his provisions would last at such a rate of depletion.
It did not sound so much of a "sporting proposition" as when Rufus had made his proposal, and Wallie sighed in the darkness as he thought that there seemed a million ways of making mistakes in Wyoming and this already had the earmarks of being one of them.
If they found water at the depth indicated by the divining rod, it might not so much matter, but there was the other contingency confronting him—feeding the Reeds indefinitely! There was nothing to do in the circumstances but await developments, so Wallie slept finally to dream that he had discarded the table for a trough to which the Reeds came when he went to the door and called: "Soo-ee! Soo-ee!"
The developments, however, were not of an encouraging nature. In addition to a capacity for food which placed the Reeds among the world's marvels they were of a slowness of movement Wallie never had seen equalled. Whenever he looked through the window, it was to see one or the other resting from the exertion of emptying a bucket of dirt or turning the windlass.
The well deepened by inches rather than feet while Wallie sweated, and his suspicion gradually became a conviction as he watched them that they were prolongingthe work purposely. It seemed to be in the nature of a vacation for them with just enough exercise to keep them in condition.
His antipathy had become aversion, and Wallie sometimes caught himself with his fork poised in mid air, stopping to hate John, who munched and smacked beside him, or Will, who gobbled at the end of the table, or Rufus, shovelling opposite him. Again, as they came at a trot in response to his dinner call, he visualized himself braining them with the axe as they entered, and found pleasure in the picture.
If hatred generated a poison in the system as asserted, Wallie had a notion that his bite would have been as fatal as a cobra's.
His feeling reached a point where the well became of secondary importance. To find a way to rid himself of the Reed family was in his thoughts constantly, but there seemed nothing to do but endure them somehow until they had sunk the sixty-eight feet, according to the contract, so he went on suffering and cooking with all the grace he could muster.
Yet as the hole deepened he could not help a certain feeling of pride in it. The sense of possession was a strong trait in him, and this washiswell onhishomestead. He always felt the same pleasant glow of ownership when he looked at his cabin and his fence, even at his dry cow and his locoed horses, and once he had a well with a curb over it! Wallie always expanded his chest a little as he thought of it.
He made frequent pilgrimages to the well, and as he hung over the edge and called down, Rufus always replied to his inquiry:
"I don't see any indications yet but I look for it to come with a gush when we do strike it."
When they reached sixty-eight feet and there was still no sign of moisture Wallie told Reed that he was willing to abrogate the contract.
"No, sir!" Rufus declared, vigorously. "I've staked my reputation on this well and I'm goin' to keep on diggin'."
At seventy-two feet Wallie was desperate. The hole was still as dry as punk, and boarding the Reeds was nothing less than ruinous; besides, he was nauseated with cooking for three persons whom he detested. They could not be insulted, he discovered, and were determined to make him abide by his contract to board them.
A solution of his problem came in the night with such force and suddenness that he rolled to and fro in his bunk, hugging himself in ecstasy. He longed for morning to put his idea into execution and when it came, for the first time since their arrival, he was delighted to see the Reeds seating themselves at the table.
There were potatoes, bacon, and pancakes, with coffee, for breakfast.
John dubiously eyed the transparent fluid in his cup which might as easily have been tea, and commented:
"You musta left out somethin'."
Will made a wry face after filling it with half a pancake:
"Gosh! But you throwed in the sody. They ain't fit fer a dog to eat. I can't go 'em."
With the intention of taking the taste of soda out of his mouth he filled it with potato, and immediately afterward he and John jammed in the doorway as they tried to get through it simultaneously.
Wiping their streaming eyes and gulping water, they said accusingly:
"There's a can of cayenne if there's a pinch in them pertaters!"
"And the bacon's burned to a cracklin'," observed Rufus.
"Perhaps you're getting tired of my cooking?" Wallie suggested, artlessly.
"I'm tired now if this is a spec'min of what you aim to feed us," John declared, suspiciously. "I bleeve you done it on purpose."
Wallie did not deny it.
"I'm holler to the toes and I can't work on an empty stummick," said Will, disgustedly.
Only Rufus went on eating as if it took more than a can of soda and a box of pepper to spoil his food for him and he explained as they wondered at it:
"I ain't no taste sence I had scarlet fever so it don't bother me."
"Ain't you goin' to git us somethin'?" John demanded, finally, seeing Wallie made no move to cook fresh food for them.
"No," Wallie answered, bluntly. "There's nothingin the contract which specifies the manner in which I shall prepare your food for you or the amount of it. Dinner will be worse than breakfast if you want the truth from me."
"I'm quittin'!" the two declared together.
"Now, look here, boys!" the old man expostulated. "We got to finish this job and you know the reason."
"Reason or no reason, I ain't starvin' myself to oblige nobody," John declared, vigorously, "and he's got the drop on us about the eatin'."
"Then go—the two of you!" Reed cried, angrily, "I'm goin' to stay—I ain't nothin' to complain of. Him and me," he nodded at Wallie, "can dig that well without ye."
Surly, and without speaking, the boys took their departure.
"They got bad dispositions—they take after their mother," Rufus remarked, looking after them. "With you to work the windlass and empty the bucket we'll make out without them till I pick up another crew somewhere."
"I am willing to accept my loss and quit," Wallie pleaded.
"Well, I ain't!" declared Rufus, unnecessarily bellicose. "A contract is a contract and I got you in writin'."
Wallie could not deny it and subsided meekly, putting a ham on to boil with a cabbage while Rufus smoked until he was ready to assist him.
"If they's anything I like it's a good mess of ham and cabbage," he observed.
"I am glad to have found something to stimulate your appetite—it's worried me," replied Wallie. But his sarcasm was wasted on Rufus who arose, yawning, when Wallie indicated that he was ready.
Turning the windlass according to instructions, Wallie deposited Rufus in the bottom. Then at intervals he hoisted the bucket which Rufus filled in leisurely fashion, and emptied it, performing the two men's work easily.
Wallie went down occasionally to stoke the fire, and upon his return reported so favourably upon the ham and cabbage that Rufus took to consulting his watch rather frequently after ten-thirty.
"I'll quit at 'leven," he informed Wallie, "and that'll give you plenty of time to make a batch of biscuit and get dinner."
Wallie agreed with him that it was an excellent idea and promptly at eleven pulled up the bucket of dirt which was to be the last one.
When it did not come down immediately, Rufus called to him:
"Hi! I'm ready! Get a move on, for I'm starvin'."
There was no response at the opening.
"What's the matter with you?" he demanded, impatiently.
The echo of his own voice answered him. Slightly alarmed he called louder:
"Macpherson! What's happened to ye?"
Still no answer.
Distinctly nervous, Rufus shouted at the top of hislungs for Wallie and the bucket, breaking into a perspiration at the continued silence.
Was he sick? Fainted? Dead? Many things that could occur came to Reed as he halloed futilely.
When one o'clock came he was hoarse from yelling and sick with fear at his predicament. His imagination painted gruesome pictures as he sweated. He saw himself weak and emaciated, dying slowly of starvation, collapsing, finally to lie undiscovered for days, weeks maybe. The memory of a field mouse that had fallen into a pit haunted him, its futile, frantic struggles to scale the steep sides, and he remembered that when he had passed that way again he had looked and found it dead in the bottom. He wished now that he had rescued it.
His suffering would be worse than that of the field mouse, for he had the intelligence to know that it was useless to struggle, that there was no hope for him unless someone came to his assistance. And merciful heavens, how hungry he was at only an hour past his dinner time; what would his sensations be at an hour past his supper time or at one o'clock to-morrow? He made a sound like someone groaning in a rain barrel as he thought of the ham and cabbage boiling dry in the cabin.
It made the back of his neck ache to watch the opening of his prison and the patch of blue sky, from which he prayed, vaguely, that a rope ladder might descend to rescue him. So he sat down finally with his back against the side of the well, his knees to his chin, and his head bowed, to await the inevitable.
When three o'clock came he could no longer doubt but that some accident had befallen Wallie. He had given up hope and endeavoured to resign himself to the fate awaiting him. Remorse mingled with the pangs of hunger and the cold fear of dying which was upon him. He wondered if this torturing end was a judgment sent upon him. He could scarcely doubt it.
But if by some miracle he got out—if the Lord saw fit to save him—he would be a different man. The Almighty had his word for it. Still sitting with his back against the wall and his cramped legs extended in front of him, Rufus rolled his eyes in supplication to the circular blue space above him and registered this vow with all the fervour and sincerity of which he was capable.
He moved uneasily. He was vaguely conscious of a dampness. He felt mechanically of that section of his overalls upon which he was sitting. He sprang to his feet with an exclamation and looked at the spot he had occupied. Moisture! A seepage! Water! His eyes grew big with horror. Even as he looked with dilating pupils he could see the earth darken with the spreading moisture. He had sunk too many wells not to know what it portended. Not only his days but his hours perhaps were numbered. If it was alkali, it would seep in slowly and prolong his agony, if it were not, it would come faster. He would die literally in a grave of his own digging.
He sat down again because his shaking legs refused to support him, and leaned his head against the sidefor the same reason. Rufus was no hero and there was no need to pretend to be, drowning by himself like a rat in a bucket.
As he leaned there, nauseated, he caught a sound, or thought so, which increased the sinking sensation, the feeling of collapse that overwhelmed him. He took off his hat and laid his ear against the wall to be sure of it. He had not been mistaken. His time on earth was shorter even than he had imagined. The sound he had heard was the rumble of a subterranean current that would soon break through, flowing faster and faster as the opening enlarged until it came with a gush, finally. He could visualize it because he had seen it happen. It would rise to his ankles, his knees, his armpits, then cover him, and he would go to his final punishment by the last route he ever had pictured!
Rufus got on his knees in an attitude of prayer and supplication. The cracked remnants of his stentorian voice he used to the utmost advantage. No Methodist exhorter ever prayed with more passionate fervour, and he could not in a lifetime have kept the promises he made to his Maker if only He would release him from the trap into which he had gotten himself through his own evil doing.
"Lord, it was wrong for me to take that $150, but Canby tempted me. I needed the money or I don't know as I would have done it. If You'll jest get me out of this, Lord, all the rest of my life I'll do what I can for You! I'll go to church—I'll give to the heathen—I'll stop takin' Your name in vain, and saymy prayers reg'lar! Oh, Lord! Once I stole a halter and I ask Your forgiveness. And I left a neighbour's gate open on purpose so the stock got into his cornfield, but I ain't a bad man naturally, and this is the first real crookedness I ever done intentionally. Lord," he pleaded, "hear my humble prayer and send somebody!"
At the top of the well Wallie had his suspicions verified. So Canby had laid one more straw on the camel's back to break it!
Any compunctions of conscience he might have had for putting Rufus through such mental anguish vanished.
Leaning over the edge of the well, he called down cheerily:
"How you making it?"
Wallie's voice sounded like the voice of an angel to the prisoner. Relief and joy beyond description filled him. Hoarse as a bullfrog, he quavered:
"In Mercy's name let me out of here, Macpherson!"
"You're all right where you are, Rufus," Wallie answered. "When you're down there you are out of mischief."
"I'm hungry—I'm starvin'——"
"I don't know when I've eaten such a ham, tender, a delicious flavour, and just enough fat on it—I thought of you all through dinner, Rufus."
"We've struck water—a big flow—I can hear it—it'll break through any minute!"
"That's fine! Splendid!"
"You don't understand!" Rufus cried, desperately. "I'm liable to be drowned before you can h'ist me out of here. I can heard it roar—like a cloudburst!"
"Tell me about that deal between you and Canby," Wallie suggested.
"Let down the bucket!" Rufus chattered.
"Couldn't think of it. My eyeteeth are coming through and I don't like to interrupt 'em."
"I'll make a clean breast of it."
"I don't want to pollute my well unless I have to, but that's the only way you'll get out of there," Wallie told him, grimly.
"Canby's out to break you in one way and another. He thought there was no water over here and he paid me to talk you into diggin' for it. He seen me and my boys eat one day in the mess house and he said 'twould break the Bank of England to board us, so he wanted that clause in the contract, and after sixty-eight feet he paid us, besides a hundred and fifty dollars bonus. I done wrong, Mr. Macpherson, and I freely admit it!"
"And you like my cooking, Rufus? You like your food highly seasoned with plenty of soda in the pancakes and dough-goods?"
"Yes, Mr. Macpherson," whined Rufus. "I never complained about your cookin', I've nothin' against you personal, and I'll knock off somethin' on the bill for bringin' in water if you'll jest let down that——" A screech finished the sentence. Then:
"C-r-rr-ripes! She's busted through! She's comin' like a river!"
He jumped and clawed at the sides in his frenzy, and Wallie could see that Rufus well might do so, for even as Wallie looked the water rushed in and rose to Rufus's ankles, and before he could get the bucket over the edge and started downward it was well to his knees, bubbling faster with every second as the opening widened.
It was indeed time for action, and Wallie himself felt relief when the windlass spun and he heard the splash of the bucket in the bottom.
Rufus's shrieks urged haste as he began to wind laboriously, and with reason, for Rufus was heavy and though Wallie put forth all his strength it was no easy task single-handed, and Rufus rose so slowly that the water gained rapidly.
It became a race between Wallie and the subterranean stream that had been tapped, and he was panting and all but exhausted when Rufus rose to the surface. As he stepped from the bucket the water reached the top, poured over the edge, and rushed down the "draw" to Skull Creek.
Wallie looked with bulging eyes for a moment and when he had recovered from his astonishment, he turned joyfully, his grudge forgotten, and shook Rufus's hand in congratulation.
A moment later his enthusiasm was tempered somewhat by the discovery that he had brought to the surface the strongest flow of salt water in the country!
CHAPTER XIIIWIPED OUT
"It's shore wicked the way you curse, Old Timer," said Pinkey, reprovingly, as Wallie came up from the corral carrying an empty milk bucket in one hand and testing the other for broken bones. "I could hear you talkin' to Rastus from whur I'm settin'."
Wallie exhibited a row of bruised knuckles and replied fiercely:
"If ever I had an immortal soul I've lost it since that calf came! Between his bunting on one side and me milking on the other, the cow kicked the pail over."
"Quirl you a brownie and blow it threw your hackamore and forgit it," said Pinkey, soothingly, as he handed him a book of cigarette papers, with a sack of tobacco and made room for him on the door-sill. "I ain't used to cow milk anyhow; air-tight is better."
Wallie took the offering but remained standing, rolling it dextrously as he looked off at his eighty acres of spring wheat showing emerald green in the light of a July sunset.
Pinkey eyed him critically—the tufts of hair whichstood out like brushes through the cracks in what had once been a fine Panama hat, his ragged shirt, the faded overalls, the riding boots with heels so run over that he walked on the side of them.
Unconscious of the scrutiny, Wallie continued to gaze in a kind of holy ecstasy at his wheat-field until Pinkey ejaculated:
"My, but you've changed horrible!"
"How, changed?" Wallie asked, absently.
"You're so danged dirty! I should think you'd have to sand that shirt before you could hold it to git into it."
"I hardly ever take it off," said Wallie. "I've been so busy I haven't had time to think how I looked, but I hope now to have more leisure. Pinkey," impressively, "I believe my troubles are about over."
"Don't you think it!" replied Pinkey, bluntly. "A dry-farmer kin have six months of hard luck three times a year for four and five years, hand-runnin'. In fact, they ain't no limit to the time and the kind of things that kin happen to a dry-farmer."
"But whatcouldhappen now?" Wallie asked, startled.
"It's too clost to bed-time fer me to start in tellin' you," said Pinkey, drily.
"You're too pessimistic, Pinkey. I've prepared the soil and seed according to the instructions in the Farmers' Bulletins from Washington, and as a result I've got the finest stand of wheat around here—even Boise Bill said so when he rode by yesterday."
"Rave on!" Pinkey looked at him mockingly. "It's pitiful to hear you. You read them bulletins awhile and you won't know nothin'. I seen a feller plant some corn his Congressman sent him and the ears was so hard the pigs used to stand and squeal in front of 'em. But of course I'm glad you're feelin' so lucky; I'm scairt of the feelin' myself for it makes me take chances and I always git a jolt for it."
Wallie's face was sober as he confided:
"If anything went wrong I'd be done for. I'm so near broke that I count my nickels like some old woman with her butter-and-egg money."
"I guessed it," said Pinkey, calmly, "from the rabbit fur I see layin' around the dooryard."
"Nearly everything has cost double what I thought it would, but if I get a good crop and the price of wheat holds up I'll come out a-flying."
"If nothin' happens," Pinkey supplemented.
"I want to show you one of those bulletins."
"I've seen plenty of 'em. You can't stop 'em once you git 'em started. Them, and pamphlets tellin' us why we went to war, has killed off many a mail-carrier that had to fight his way through blizzards, or be fined fer not deliverin' 'em on schedule. I ain't strong fer gover'mint literature."
Wallie stepped inside the cabin and brought out a pamphlet with an illustration of twelve horses hitched to a combined harvester and thresher, standing in a wheat-field of boundless acreage.
"There," he said, proudly, "you see my ambition!"
Pinkey regarded it, unexcited.
"That's a real nice picture," he said, finally, "but I thought you aimed to go in for cattle?"
"I did. But I've soured on them since that calf came and I've been milking."
Pinkey agreed heartily:
"I'd ruther 'swamp' fer a livin' than do low-down work like milkin'."
"When I come in at night, dog-tired and discouraged, I get out this picture and look at it and tell myself that some day I'll be driving twelve horses on a thresher. A chap thinks and does curious things when he has nobody but himself for company."
"That's me, too," said Pinkey, understandingly. "When I'm off alone huntin' stock, I ride fer hours wonderin' if it's so that you kin make booze out of a raisin."
"Let's walk out and look at the wheat," Wallie suggested.
Pinkey complied obligingly, though farming was an industry in which he took no interest.
Wallie's pride in his wheat was inordinate. He never could get over a feeling of astonishment that the bright green grain had come from seeds of his planting—that it was his—and he would reap the benefit. Nature was more wonderful than he had realized and he never before had appreciated her. He always forgot the heart-breaking and back-breaking labour when he stood as now, surveying with glowing face the even green carpet stretching out before him. In such moments he found his compensation for all he had gone through since he arrivedin Wyoming, and he smiled pityingly as he thought of the people at The Colonial, rocking placidly on the veranda.
"Did you ever see anything prettier?" Wallie demanded, his eyes shining.
"It's all right," Pinkey murmured, absently.
"You're not looking," Wallie said, sharply.
"I was watchin' them cattle."
"I don't see any."
Pinkey pointed, but Wallie could see nothing.
"If they got cows on Mars, I'll bet I could read the bran's," Pinkey boasted. "Can't you see them specks movin' off yonder?"
Wallie admitted he could not.
"It's cattle, and they act like somebody's drivin' 'em," Pinkey declared, positively. "Looks like it's too early to be movin' 'em to the mountain."
His curiosity satisfied, he gave the wheat his attention.
"It looks fine, Wallie," he said with sincerity.
Wallie could not resist crowing:
"You didn't think I'd last, did you? Miss Spenceley didn't, either. She'll be disappointed very likely when she hears I've succeeded."
"Don't cackle till you've laid your aig, Gentle Annie. When you've thrashed and sold your grain and got your money in the bank, then I'll help you. We'll git drunk if I have to rob a drug-store."
"You're always putting a damper on me. It was you who advised me to go in for dry-farming," Wallie reminded him.
"I figgered that if you lived through a year of it," Pinkey replied, candidly, "then almost anything else would look like a snap to you."
It was plain that in spite of his prospects Pinkey was not sanguine, but in this moment of his exultation failure seemed impossible to Wallie.
In various small ways Canby had tried to break him and had not succeeded. Boise Bill had prophesied that he would not "winter"—yet here he was with every reason to believe that he would also "summer." Wallie felt rather invincible as he reflected upon it, and the aurora borealis did not exceed in colour the outlook his fancy painted that evening.
"It's eight-thirty," Pinkey hinted. "When I set up till all hours I over-sleep in the morning."
Wallie came to earth reluctantly, and as he returned to the cabin he again permitted himself the luxury of pitying the folk of The Colonial who knew nothing of such rapturous moments in that stale, uneventful world which was so remote and different from the present that it was beginning to seem like a dream to him.
They had been asleep for an hour, more possibly, when Pinkey nudged Wallie violently.
"What's that huffin', do you reckon?"
Wallie awoke with a start and listened.
"Huffing" was the right word. Lying next to the logs, some large animal was breathing so heavily in Wallie's ear that it sounded like a bellows. He peered through a crack and saw something thatlooked like a mastodon in the darkness tugging at a sack he had used for chinking. It was not a horse and was too large for his Jersey. It flashed through his mind that it might be a roaming silvertip from the mountain.
Pinkey was out of the bunk at a bound and around the corner of the cabin, where his suspicions were instantly verified.
"It's a bull!" he shouted. "I thought it. Looks like a thousand head of cattle tramplin' down your wheat-field!"
Wallie turned sick. He could not move for a moment. His air-castles fell so hard he could almost hear them.
"Do you think they've been in long?" he asked, weakly.
"Can't tell till daylight." Pinkey was getting into his clothes hurriedly.
Wallie was now in the doorway and he could make out innumerable dark shapes browsing contentedly in his grain-field.
"What'll we do?" he asked, despairingly.
"Do?" replied Pinkey, savagely, tugging at his boot straps. "I'll send one whur the dogs won't bite him with every ca'tridge. We'll run a thousand dollars' worth of taller off the rest of 'em. Git into your clothes, Gentle Annie, and we'll smoke 'em up proper."
"I don't see how it could happen," said Wallie, his voice trembling. "The fence was good!"
"If it had been twenty feet high 'twould 'a' beenall the same," Pinkey answered. "Them cattle wasdrovein."
"You mean——" Wallie's mouth opened.
"Shore—Canby! It come to my mind last night when I seen that bunch movin'. Pretty coarse work I call it, but he thought you was alone and wouldn't ketch on to it."
"He'll pay for this!" cried Wallie, chokingly.
"You can't do nothin' with him but deal him misery. He's got too much money and pull fer you. Do you know what I think's gnawin' on him?"
"My taking up a homestead——"
"That, too, but mostly because Helene dressed him down for sellin' that locoed team to you. He's jealous."
Even in his despair Wallie felt pleased that any one, especially Canby, should be jealous of him because of Helene Spenceley.
"He aims to marry her," Pinkey added. "I wisht you could beat his time and win yerself a home somehow. I don't think you got any show, but if I was you I'd take another turn around my saddle-horn and hang on. Whenever I kin," kindly, "I'll speak a good word for you. Throw your saddle on your horse and step, young feller. I'm gone!"
The faint hope which Wallie had nursed that the damage might not be so great as he had feared vanished with daylight. Not only was the grain trampled so the field looked like a race course, but panel after panel of the fence was down where the quaking-asp posts had snapped like lead-pencils.
As Pinkey and Wallie surveyed it in the early dawn Wallie's voice had a catch in it when he said finally:
"I guess I'm done farming. They made a good job of it."
"I'm no 'sharp' but it looks to me like some of that wheat would straighten up if it got a good wettin'."
Wallie said grimly:
"The only thing I forgot to buy when I was outfitting in Philadelphia was a rain-making apparatus."
"On the level," Pinkey declared, earnestly, "I bleeve we're goin' to have a shower—the clouds bankin' up over there in the northwest is what made me think of it."
Wallie's short laugh was cynical.
"It might drown somebody half a mile from me but it wouldn't settle the dust in my dooryard."
"I see you're gittin' homesteaditis," Pinkey commented, "but jest the same them clouds look like they meant business."
Wallie felt a glimmer of hope in spite of himself and he scrutinized the clouds closely.
"They do look black," he admitted. "But since it hasn't rained for two months it seems too much to expect that it will rain when I need it so desperately."
"It's liable to do anything. I've seen it snow here in August. A fur-lined linen duster is the only coat fer this country. I'll gamble it's goin' to dosomethin', but only the Big Boss knows what."
During breakfast they got up at intervals to lookthrough the doorway, and while they washed dishes and tidied the cabin they watched the northwest anxiously.
"She's movin' right along," Pinkey reported. "It might be a stiddy rain, and then agin it might be a thunder-shower, though you don't often look for 'em in the morning."
The light grew subdued with the approaching storm and Wallie commented upon the coolness. Then he went out in the dooryard and stood a moment.
"The clouds are black as ink, and how still it is," he said, wonderingly. "There isn't a breath of air stirring."
Pinkey was sitting on the floor oiling his saddle when he tilted his head suddenly, and listened. He got up abruptly and stood in the doorway, concentrating all his faculties upon some sound of which he alone was cognizant, for Wallie was aware of nothing unusual save the uncanny stillness.
"Hear that?" The sharp note in Pinkey's voice filled Wallie with a nameless fear.
"No—what?"
"That roar—can't you hear it?"
Wallie listened intently.
"Yes—like a crashing—what is it?"
"Hail! And a terror! We've got to run the stock in." He was off with Wallie following and together they got the cow and horses under shelter with all the haste possible.
The sound preceded the storm by some little time, but each moment the roar and the crash of it grewlouder and when it finally reached them Wallie gazed open-mouthed.
Accustomed to hail like tapioca, he never had seen anything like the big, jagged chunks of ice which struck the ground with such force that they bounded into the air again. Any one of them would have knocked a man unconscious. It seemed as if they would batter his roof in, and they came so thick that the stable and corral could be seen only indistinctly.
They both stood in the doorway, fascinated and awe-stricken.
"Hear it pound! This is the worst I've seen anywhur. You're licked, Gentle Annie."
"Yes," said Wallie with a white face. "This finishes me."
"You'll have to kiss your wheat good-bye. It'll be beat into the ground too hard ever to straighten." He laid an arm about Wallie's shoulder and there was a sympathy in his voice few had heard there:
"You've put up a good fight, old pardner, and even if you are counted out, it's no shame to you. You've done good fer a Scissor-bill, Gentle Annie."
Wallie clenched his hands and shook himself free of Pinkey's arm while his tense voice rang out above the clatter and crash of the storm:
"I'm not licked! Iwon'tbe licked!I'm going to stick, somehow!And what's more," he turned to Pinkey fiercely, "if you don't stop calling me 'Gentle Annie,' I'll knock your block off!"
Pinkey looked at him with his pale, humorous eyes and beamed approvingly.