The Orphan gives Blake Shields’ note. (See page213.)
The Orphan gives Blake Shields’ note. (See page213.)
The newcomer was a stranger to Blake and appeared to be a young man, which was of no consequence. But the thing which attracted more than a casual glance from the foreman was a certain jaunty, reckless air about the man which spoke well for the condition of his nerves and liver.
The stranger approached to within a rod of Blake before he spoke, and then he slowed down and nodded, but with wide-eyed alertness.
“Howdy,” he said. “Are you the foreman of the Star C?”
“Howdy. I am,” replied the foreman.
“Then I reckon this is yours,” said the stranger, holding out a bit of straw-colored paper.
The foreman took it and slowly read it. When he had finished reading he turned it over to see if there was anything on the back, and then stuck it in his pocket and looked up casually.
“Are you The Orphan?” he asked, with no more interest than he would have displayed if he had asked about the weather.
“Yes,” replied The Orphan, nonchalantly rolling another cigarette.
“How is the sheriff?” Blake asked.
“Shore well enough, but a little mad about the Cross Bar-8,” answered the other as he inhaled deeply and with much satisfaction. “He said there was some good coffee waiting for you to-night if you wanted it,” he added.
“Did he?” asked Blake, grinning his delight.
“Yes, and some–apricot pie,” added The Orphan wistfully.
Blake laughed: “Well, I reckon I’ve got some business over in town to-night, so you keep on going ’til you get to the bunk house. Tell Lee Lung to rustle the grub lively–I’ll be there right after you. Apricot pie!” he chuckled as he pushed on at a lope.
Jim Carter was washing for supper, being urged to show more speed by Bud Taylor, when the latter looked up and saw The Orphan dismount. His mouth opened a trifle, but he continued his urging without a break. He had seen The Orphan atAce High the year before, when the outlaw had ridden in for a supply of cartridges, and he instantly recalled the face. But Bud was not only easy-going, but also very hungry at the time, and he didn’t care if the devil himself called as long as the devil respected the etiquette of the range. Besides, if there was to be trouble it would rest more comfortably on a full stomach.
“Give me a quit-claim to that pan, yu coyote,” he said pleasantly to Jim. “Yu ain’t taking no bath!”
“Blub–no I ain’t–blub blub–but you will be–blub–if yu don’t lemme alone,” came from the pan. “Hand me that towel!”
“Don’t wallow in it, yu!” admonished Bud as he refilled the basin. “Leave some dry spots for me, this time.”
Jim carefully hung the towel on a peg in the wall of the house and then noticed the stranger, who was removing his saddle.
“Howdy, stranger!” he said heartily. “Just in time to feed. Coax some of that water from Bud, but get holt of the towel first, for there won’t be none left soon.”
The Orphan laughed and dusted his chaps.
“Where’ll I find Lee Lung?” he asked. “Blake wants him to rustle the grub lively.”
“He’s in the cook shack behind the house a-doing it and trying to sing,” replied Jim. “He’s always trying to sing; it goes something like this: Hop-lee, low-hop yum-see,” he hummed in a monotonous wail as he combed his hair before a broken bit of mirror stuck in a crack. “Hi-dee, hee-hee, chop-chop––”
“Gimme that comb, yu heathen Chinee,” cried Bud, “and don’t make that noise.”
“Anything else yu wants?” asked Jim, deliberately putting the comb away in the box.
“I want to be in Kansas City with a million dollars and a whopper of a thirst,” replied Bud as he filled the basin for the stranger. “It’s all yourn, stranger. Grub’s waiting for yu inside when yore ready.”
“Do yu know who that feller is?” Bud asked in a whisper as they made their way to the table, from which came much laughter. “That’s The Orphant,” he added.
“Th’ h–l it is!” said Jim. “Him? Him Th’ Orphant? Tell another! I’m more than six years old, even if yu ain’t.”
“That’s straight, fellers!” said Bud to the assembled outfit in a low voice. “I ain’t kidding yu none, honest. I saw him up to Ace High last year. That’s him, all right. Wait ’til he comes in and see!”
“Well, I don’t care if he’s Jonah,” responded Jim. “Only I reckons you’re plumb loco, all the same. But I’m too hungry to care if Gabriel blows if I can fill up before these Oliver Twists eats it all up,” he said, revealing his last reading matter.
“He shore enough wears his gun plumb low–and the holster is tied to his chaps, too,” muttered Jim as he seated himself at the table. “So would I, too, if I was him. Pass them murphys, Humble,” he ordered.
“You has got to bust that piebald pet what you’ve been keeping around the house to-morrow, Humble,” exulted the man nearest to him. “And it’ll shore be a circus watching you do it, too!”
The blankets which divided the bunk house into two rooms were pushed aside and The Orphan entered, carrying his saddle and bridle, which he placed beside the others on the floor. Then he unbuckled his belts and hung them, Colts and all,over the pommel, which was etiquette and which gave assurance that the guest was not hunting anyone. Then he seated himself at the table in a chair which Humble pushed back for him. His entry in no degree caused a lull in the conversation.
“Well, you hasn’t got no kick coming, has you?” asked Humble. “Hey, Cookie!” he shouted into the dark gallery which led to the cook shack. “Rustle in some more fixings for another place, and bring in the slush!” Then he turned to his tormentor: “You has allus got something to say about my business, ain’t you, hey?”
“Sic ’em, Humble!” said Silent Allen. “Go for him!”
From the gallery came sounds of calamity and then a mongrel dog shot out and collided with the table, glancing off it and under the curtain in his haste to gain the outside world. A second later the cook, his face fiendish, grasping a huge knife, followed the dog out on the plain. Those eating sprang to their feet and streamed after the cook, yelling encouragement to their favorite.
“Go it, Old Woman!” “’Ray for Cookie!” “Beat him out, Lightning!” and other expressions met Blake as he came up from the corral.
“Cook got ’em again?” he asked, elbowing his way into the house. “I told you to keep liquor away from him.”
“’Tain’t liquor this time; it’s th’ kioodle,” replied Docile Thomas as he led the way back to the table. “Him an’ th’ dog don’t mix extra well.”
Blake swept aside the blanket and saw The Orphan standing by the window and laughing. Turning, he disappeared into the gallery and soon returned with a tin plate, a steel knife, a tin cup and the coffee pot.
“Sit down–good Lord, they would let a man starve,” he said, roughly clearing a place at the table for the new arrival. “I don’t know how you feel,” he continued, “but I’m so all-fired hungry that I don’t know whether it’s my back or stomach that hurts. Take some beef and throw those potatoes down this way. Here, have some slush,” filling The Orphan’s cup with coffee. “This ain’t like the coffee the sheriff drinks, but it is just a little bit better than nothing. You see, Cook’s all right, only he can’t cook, never could and never will. But he’s a whole lot better than a sailor I once suffered under.”
“What’s the matter between you and Lightning,Lee?” asked Bud as the cook passed by the table on his way to the shack.
“Wouldn’t he drink yore slush? I allus said some dogs was smart,” laughed Jack Lawson.
Lee’s smile was bland. “Scalpee th’ dlog,” he asserted as he disappeared. “No dlamn good!” wafted from the gallery.
“Say, Humble,” said Silent Allen in an aggrieved tone, “the beef will wag its tail some night if you don’t shoot that cur!”
“That’s right!” endorsed Jack. “I’ll shoot him for a dollar,” he added hopefully. “The boys will all chip in to make up the purse and it won’t cost you a cent, not even a cartridge.”
“Anybody that don’t like that setter can move,” responded Humble with decision. “He’s a O. K. dog, that’s what he is,” he added loyally.
“Well, he’s a setter, all right,” laughed Silent. “He ain’t good for nothing else but to set around all day in the shade and chew hisself up.”
“He ain’t, ain’t he?” cried Humble, delaying the morsel on his fork in mid-air. “You ought to see him a-chasing coyotes!”
“I did see him chasing coyotes, and that’s why I want you to have him killed,” replied Silent,grinning. “His feet are too big. Every time he shoves his hind feet between the front ones he throws hisself.”
“What did he ever catch except fleas and the mange?” asked Blake, winking at The Orphan, who was extremely busy burying his hunger.
“What did he ever catch!” indignantly cried Humble, dropping his fork. “You saw him catch that gray wolf over near the timber, and you can’t deny it, neither!”
“By George, he did!” exclaimed Blake seriously. “You’re right this time, Humble, he did. But he let go awful sudden. Besides, that gray wolf you’re talking about was a coyote, and he would have died of old age in another week if you hadn’t shot him to save the dog. And, what’s more, I never saw him chase anything since, not even rabbits.”
“He caught my boot one night,” remarked Charley Bailey, reflectively, “right plumb on his near eye. Oh, he’s a catcher, all right.”
“He’s so good he ought to be stuffed, then he could sit without having to move around catching boots and things,” said Jim. “Why don’t you have him stuffed, Humble?”
“Oh, yore a whole lot smart, now ain’t you?” blazed the persecuted puncher, glaring at his tormentors.
“He can’t catch his tail, Silent,” offered Bud. “I once saw him trying to do it for ten minutes–he looked like a pinwheel what we used to have when we were kids. Missed it every time, and all he got was a cheap drunk.”
Humble said a few things which came out so fast that they jammed up, and he left the room to hunt for his dog.
“Any particular reason why you call him Lightning, or is it just irony?” asked The Orphan as he helped himself to the beef for the third time. “I never heard that name used before.”
“Oh, it ain’t irony at all!” hastily denied the foreman. “That’s a real good name, fits him all right,” he assured. Then he explained: “You see, lightning don’t hit twice in the same place, and neither can the dog when he scratches himself. And, besides, he can dodge awful quick. You have to figure which way he’ll jump when you want him to catch anything.”
“But you don’t have to remember his name at all, Stranger,” interposed Silent, who was not atall silent. “Any handle will do, if you only yells. Every time anybody yells he makes a crow line for the plain and howls at every jump. He’s got a regular, shore enough trail worn where he makes his get-away.”
Silence descended over the table, and for a quarter of an hour only the click of eating utensils could be heard. At the end of that time Blake pushed back his chair and arose. He glanced around the table and then spoke very distinctly: “Well, Orphan, get acquainted with your outfit.” A head or two raised at the name, but that seemed to be all the effect of his words. “The boys will put you onto the game in the morning, and Bud will show you where to begin in case I don’t show up in time. Better take a fresh cayuse and let yours rest up some. Don’t hurt Humble’s ki-yi and he’ll be plumb nice to you; and if Silent wants to know how you likes his singing and banjo playing, lie and say it’s fine.”
The laugh went around and all was serene with the good fellowship which is so often found in good outfits.
“Joe, I’ll bring the mail out with me, so you needn’t go after it,” continued the foreman as hestrode towards the door. “That’s what I’m going over for,” he laughed.
“Lord, I’d go, too, if pie and cake and good coffee was on the card,” laughed Silent.
“We’ll shore have to go over in a gang some night and raid that pantry,” remarked Bud. “It would be a circus, all right.”
“The sheriff would get some good target practice, that’s shore,” responded Blake. “But I’ve got something better than that, and since you brought the subject up I’ll tell you now, so you’ll be good.
“Mrs. Shields has promised to get up a fine feed for you fellows as soon as Jim’s sisters are on hand to help her, and as they are here now I wouldn’t be a whole lot surprised if I brought the invitation back with me. How’s that for a change, eh?” he asked.
“Glory be!” cried Silent. “Hurry up and get home!”
“Say, she’s all right, ain’t she!” shouted Jack, executing a jig to show how glad he was.
“Pinch me, Humble, pinch me!” begged Bud. “I may be asleep and dreaming–here!What the devil do you think I am, you wart-headed coyote!”he yelled, dancing in pain and rubbing his leg frantically. “You blamed doodle bug, yu!”
“Well, I pinched you, didn’t I?” indignantly cried Humble. “What’s eating you? Didn’t you ask me to, you chump?”
“Hurry up and get that mail, Tom,” cried Jim. “It might spoil–and say, if she leads at you with that invite, clinch!”
Blake laughed and went off toward the corral. As he found the horse he wished to ride he heard a riot in the bunk-house and he laughed silently. A Virginia reel was in full swing and the noise was terrible. Riding past the window, he saw Silent working like a madman at his banjo; and assiduously playing a harmonica was The Orphan, all smiles and puffed-out cheeks.
“Well, The Orphan is all right now,” the foreman muttered as he swung out on the trail to Ford’s Station. “I reckon he’s found himself.”
In the bunk-house there was much hilarity, and laughter roared continually at the grotesque gymnastics of the reel and at the sharp wit which cut right and left, respecting no one save the new member of the outfit, and eventually he came in for his share, which he repaid with interest. SuddenlyJim, catching his spurs in a bear-skin rug which lay near a bunk, threw out his arms to save himself and then went sprawling to the floor. The uproar increased suddenly, and as it died down Jim could be heard complaining.
“––––!” he cried as he nursed his knee. “I’ve had that pelt for nigh onto three years and regularly I go and get tangled up with it. It shore beats all how I plumb forget its habit of wrapping itself around them rowels, what are too big, anyhow. And it ain’t a big one at that, only about half as big as the one I got for a tenderfoot up in Montanny,” he deprecated in disgust.
The outfit scented a story and became suddenly quiet.
“Dod-blasted postage stamp of a pelt,” he grumbled as he threw it into his bunk.
“The other skin couldn’t ’a’ been much bigger than that one,” said Bud, leading him on. “How big was it, anyhow, Jim?”
“It couldn’t, hey? It came off a nine-foot grizzly, that’s how big it was,” retorted Jim, sitting down and filling his pipe. “Nine whole feet from stub of tail to snoot, plumb full of cussedness, too.”
“How’d you get it–Sharps?” queried Charley.
“No, Colt,” responded Jim. “Luckiest shotIever made, all right. I shore had visions of wearing wings when I pulled the trigger. Just one of them lucky shots a man will make sometimes.”
“Give us the story, Jim,” suggested Silent, settling himself easily in his bunk. “Then we’ll have another smoke and go right to bed. I’m some sleepy.”
“Well,” began Jim after his pipe was going well, “I was sort of second foreman for the Tadpole, up in Montanny, about six years ago. I had a good foreman, a good ranch and about a dozen white punchers to look after. And we had a real cook, no mistake about that, all right.
“The Old Man hibernated in New York during the winter and came out every spring right after the calf round-up was over to see how we was fixed and to eat some of the cook’s flapjacks. That cook wasn’t no yaller-skinned post for a hair clothes line, like this grinning monkey what we’ve got here. The Old Man was a fine old cuss–one of the boys, and a darn good one, too–and we was always plumb glad to see him. He minded his own business, didn’t tell us how we ought to punch cows anddidn’t bother anybody what didn’t want to be bothered, which we most of us did like.
“Well, one day Jed Thompson, who rustled our mail for us twice a month, handed me a letter for the foreman, who was down South and wouldn’t be back for some time. His mother had died and he went back home for a spell. I saw that the letter was from the Old Man, and wondered what it would say. I sort of figured that it would tell us when to hitch up to the buckboard and go after him. Fearing that he might land before the foreman got back, I went and opened it up.
“It was from the Old Man, all right, but it was no go for him that spring. He was sick abed in New York, and said as how he was plumb sorry he couldn’t get out to see his boys, and so was we sorry. But he said as how he was sending us a friend of his’n who wanted to go hunting, and would we see that he didn’t shoot no cows. We said we would, and then I went on and found out when this hunter was due to land.
“When the unfortunate day rolled around I straddled the buckboard and lit out for Whisky Crossing, twenty miles to the east, it being thenearest burg on the stage line. And as I pulled in I saw Frank, who drove the stage, and he was grinning from ear to ear.
“‘I reckon that’s your’n,’ he said, pointing to a circus clown what had got loose and was sizing up the town.
“‘The drinks are on me when I sees you again, Frank,’ I said, for somehow I felt that he was right.
“Then I sized up my present, and blamed if he wasn’t all rigged out to kill Indians. While my mouth was closing he ambled up to me and stared at my gun, which must ’a’ been purty big to him.
“‘Are you Mr. Fisher’s hired man?’ he asked, giving me a real tolerating look.
“Frank followed his grin into the saloon, leaving the door open so he could hear everything. That made me plumb sore at Frank, him a-doing a thing like that, and I glared.
“‘I ain’t nobody’s hired man, and never was,’ I said, sort of riled. ‘We ain’t had no hired man since we lynched the last one, but I’m next door to the foreman. Won’t I do, or do you insist on talking to a hired man? If you do, he’s in the saloon.’
“‘Oh, yes, you’ll do!’ he said, quick-like, and then he ups and climbs aboard and we pulled out for home, Frank waving his sombrero at me and laughing fit to kill.
“We hadn’t no more than got started when the hunter ups and grabs at the lines, which he shore missed by a foot. I was driving them cayuses, not him, and I told him so, too.
“‘But ain’t you going to take my luggage?’ he asked.
“‘Luggage! What luggage?’ I answers, surprised-like.
“Then he pointed behind him, and blamed if he didn’t have two trunks, a gripsack and three gun cases. I didn’t say a word, being too full of cuss words to let any of ’em loose, until Frank wobbled up and asked me if I’d forgot something. Then I shore said a few, after which I busted my back a-hoisting his freight cars aboard, and we started out again, Frank acting like a d––n fool.
“The cayuses raised their ears, wondering what we was taking the saloon for, and I reckoned we would make them twenty miles in about eight hours if nothing busted and we rustled real hard.
“Well, about every twenty minutes I had to getoff and hoist some of his furniture aboard, it being jolted off, for the prairie wasn’t paved a whole lot, and us going cross-country. Considering my back, and the fact that he kept calling me ‘My man,’ and Frank’s grin, I wasn’t in no frame of mind to lead a religion round-up when I got home and dumped Davy Crockett’s war-duds overboard for Jed to rustle in. I was still sore at Jed for bringing that letter.
“Davy Crockett dusted for the house and ordered Sammy Johns to oil his guns and put them together, after which he went off a-poking his nose into everything in sight, and mostly everything that wasn’t in sight. When he got back to the house from his tour of inspection he found his guns just like he’d left them, and that was in their cases. Then he ambled out to me and registered his howl.
“‘My man,’ he said, ‘My man, that hired man what I told to put my guns together ain’t done it!’
“‘Oh, he didn’t?’ I said, hanging on to my cuss words, for I was some surprised and couldn’t say a whole lot.
“‘No, he hasn’t, and so I’ve come out to report him,’ he said, looking mad.
“‘My man!’ said I, mad some myself, andlooking him plumb in the eyes. ‘My man, if he had I’d shore think he was off his feed or loco. He ain’t no hired man, but he is a all-fired good cow-puncher, and I’m a heap scared about him not filling you full of holes, you asking him to do a thing like that! He must be real sick.’
“He didn’t have no come-back to that, but just looked sort of funny, and then he trotted off to put his guns together hisself. I hustled around and saw that some work was done right and then went in to supper. After it was over my present got up and handed me a gun, and I near fell over. It was a purty little Winchester, and I don’t blame him a whole lot for being tickled over it, for it shore was a beauty, but it oozed out a ball about the size of a pea, and the makers would ’a’ been some scared if they had known it was running around loose in a grizzly-bear country.
“‘I reckon that’ll stop him,’ he said, happy-like.
“‘Stop what?’ I asked him.
“‘Why, game–bears, of course,’ he said, shocked at my appalling ignorance.
“‘Yes,’ said I, slow-like, ‘I reckon Ephraim may turn around and scratch hisself, if you hits him.’
“‘Why, won’t that stop a bear?’
“‘Yes, if it’s a stuffed bear,’ I said.
“‘Why, that’s a blamed good rifle!’
“‘It shore is; it’s as fine a gun as I ever laid my eyes on,’ I replied, ‘for prairie dogs and such.’
“Then I felt plumb sorry for him, he being so ignorant, and so when he hands me a peach of a shotgun to shoot coyotes with I laid it down and got my breach-loading Sharps, .50 caliber, which I handed to him.
“‘There,’ I said, ‘that’s the only gun in the room what any self-respecting bear will give a d––n for.’
“He looked at it, felt its heft, sized up the bunghole and then squinted along the sights.
“‘Why, this gun will kick like the very deuce!’ he said.
“‘Kick!’ said I. ’Kick! She’ll kick like a army mule if you holds her far enough from your shoulder. But I’d a whole lot ruther get kicked by a mule than hugged by a grizzly, and so’ll you when you sees him a-heading your way.’
“‘But what’ll you use?’ says he, ‘I don’t want to take your gun.’
“Well, when he said that I reckoned that hehad some good stuff in him after all, and somehow I felt better. There he was, away from his mother and sisters, among a bunch of gamboling cow-punchers, and right in the middle of a good bear country. I sort of wondered if he was to blame, and managed to lay all the fault on his city bringing-up.
“‘That’s all right,’ says I, ‘I’ll take an old muzzle-loading Bridesburg what’s been laying around the house ever since I came here. It heaves enough lead at one crack to sink a man-of-war, being a .60 caliber.’
“Well, bright and early the next morning we started out for bear, and I knowed just where to look, too. You see, there was a thicket of berry bushes about three miles from the ranch house and I had seen plenty of tracks there, and there was a grizzly among them, too, and as big as a house, judging from the signs. The boys had wanted to ride out in a gang and rope him, but I said as how I was saving him for a dude hunter to practice on, so they left him alone.
“We footed it through the brush, and finally Davy Crockett, who simply would go ahead of me, yelled out that he had found tracks.
“I rustled over, and sure enough he had, only they wasn’t made by no bear, and I said so.
“‘Then what are they?’ he asked, sort of disappointed.
“‘Cow tracks,’ said I. ‘When you see bear tracks you’ll know it right away,’ and we went on a-hunting.
“We had just got down in a little hollow, where the green flies were purty bad, when I saw tracks, and they was bear tracks this time, and whoppers. It had rained a little during the night and the ground was just soft enough to show them nice. I called Davy Crockett and he came up, and when he saw them tracks he was plumb tickled, and some scairt.
“‘Where is he?’ he asked, looking around sort of anxious.
“‘At the front end of these tracks, making more,’ said I.
“‘And what are we going to do now?’ he asked, cocking the Sharps.
“‘We’re going to trail him,’ said I, ‘and if we finds him and has any accidents, you wants to telegraph yourself up a tree, and be sure that it ain’t a big tree, too.’
“’”Be sure it ain’t a big tree!“’ he repeated, looking at me like he thought I wanted him to get killed.
“‘Exactly,’ said I, and then I explained: ‘The bigger the tree, the sooner you’ll be a meal, for he climbs by hugging the trunk and pushing hisself up. A little tree’ll slide through his legs, and he can’t get a holt.’
“‘I hope I don’t forget that!’ he exclaimed, looking dubious.
“‘The less you forgets when bear hunting,’ said I, ‘the longer you’ll remember.’
“We took up the trail and purty soon we saw the bear, and he was so big he didn’t hardly know how to act. He was pawing berries into his mouth for breakfast, and he turned his head and slowly sized us up. He dropped on all fours and then got up again, and Davy Crockett, not listening to me telling him where to shoot, lets drive and busted an ear. Ephraim preferred all fours again and started coming straight at us, and Moses and all his bullrushers couldn’t have stopped him. He was due to arrive near Davy Crockett in about four and a half seconds, and that person dropped his gun and hot-footed it for a whopping big tree. Iyelled at him and told him to take a little one, but he was too blamed busy hunting bear to listen to a no-account hired man like me, so he kept on a-going for the big tree.
“I figured, and figured blamed quick, that the bear would tag him just about the time he tagged the tree, and so, hoping to create a diversion, I whanged away at the bear’s tail, him running plumb away from me. I was real successful, for I created it all right. When he felt that carload of lead slide up under his skin he braced hisself, slid and wheeled, looking for the son-of-a-gun what done it, and he saw me pouring powder hell-bent down my gun. He must ’a’ knowed that I was the real business end of the partnership, and that he’d have trouble a-plenty if he let me finish my job, for he came at me like a bullet.
“‘Climb alittletree! Climb alittletree!’ yelled Davy Crockett from his perch in his two-foot-through oak.
“I wasn’t in no joyous frame of mind when a nine-foot grizzly was due in the next mail, but I just had to laugh at his advice when I sized up his layout. As I jumped to one side the bear slid past, trying awful hard to stop, and he was doing realwell, too. As he turned I slipped on some of that green grass, and thought as how the Old Man would have to get another puncher.
“‘I ain’t never going to peter out with a tenderfoot looking on if I can help it!’ I said to myself, and I jerked loose my six-shooter, shooting offhand and some hasty. It was just a last hope, the kick of a dying man’s foot, but it fetched him, blamed if it didn’t! He went down in a heap and clawed about for a spell, but I put five more in him, and then sat down. Did you ever notice how long it takes a grizzly to die? I loaded my gun in a hurry, the sweat pouring down my face, for that was one of the times it ain’t no disgrace to be some scared, which I was.
“‘Is he dead?’ called Davy Crockett from his tree, hopeful-like and some anxious.
“‘He is,’ I said, ‘or, leastawise, he was.’
“Davy was a sight. He was all skinned up from his clinch with the tree, though how he used his face getting up is more than I can tell. And he was some white and unsteady. He had all the hunting he wanted, and he managed to say that he was glad he hadn’t come out alone, and that he reckoned I was right about his guns after all. Sowe took a last look at the bear and lit out for the ranch, where I told the boys to go out and drag our game home.”
Jim knocked the ashes from his pipe and began to fill it anew, acting as though the story was finished, but Bud knew him well, and he spoke up:
“Well, what then?” he asked.
“Oh, the hunter left for New York the very next day, and I skinned the bear and sent the pelt after him as a present. When I wrote out my quarterly report, the foreman not being back yet, I told the Old Man that if he had any more friends what wanted to go hunting to send them up to Frenchy McAllister on the Tin Cup. I was some sore at Frenchy for the way he had cleaned me out at poker.”
He threw the skin to the floor and began to undress.
“Come on, now, lights out,” he said. “I’m tired.”
THE foreman of the Star C impatiently tossed his bridle reins over the post which stood near the sheriff’s door and knocked heavily, brushing the dust of his ride from him. Quick, heavy steps approached within the house and the door suddenly flew open.
“Hullo, Tom!” Shields cried, shaking hands with his friend. “Come right in–I knew you would come if we coaxed you a little.”
“You don’t have to do much coaxing–I can’t stay away, Jim,” replied Blake with a laugh. “How do you do, Mrs. Shields?”
“Very well, Tom,” she answered. “Miss Ritchie, Helen, Mary, this is Tom Blake; Tom, Miss Ritchie and James’ sisters. They are to stay with us just as long as they can, and I’ll see that it is a good, long time, too.”
“How do you do?” he cried heartily, acknowledging the introduction. “I am glad to meet you,for I’ve heard a whole lot about you. I hope you’ll like this country–greatest country under the sky! You stay out here a month and I’ll bet you’ll be just like lots of people, and not want to go back East again.”
“It seems as though we have always known Mr. Blake, for James has written about you so much,” replied Helen, and then she laughed: “But I am not so sure about liking this country, although very unusual things seem to take place in it. The journey was very trying, and it seemed to get worse as we neared our destination.”
“Well, I’ll have to confess that the stage-ride part of it is a drawback, and also that Apaches don’t make good reception committees. They are a little too pressing at times.”
“But, speaking seriously,” responded Helen, “I have had a really delightful time. James has managed to get me a very tame horse after quite a long search, and I have taken many rides about the country.”
“Wait ’til you see that horse, Tom,” laughed the sheriff. “It’s warranted not to raise any devilment, but it can’t, for it has all it can do to stand up alone, and can’t very well run away.”
“I see that The Orphan delivered my message, contrary to the habits of men,” remarked the sheriff’s wife as she took the guest’s hat and offered him a seat. “I spoke to James about it several days ago, and asked him to send you word when he could, for you have not been here for a long time. And the wonderful thing about it is that he remembered to tell The Orphan.”
“Thank you,” he replied, seating himself. “Yes, he delivered it all right, it was about the second thing he said. But I just couldn’t get here any sooner, Mrs. Shields. And I was just wondering if I could get over to-night when he told me. When he said ‘apricot pie’ he looked sort of sad.”
“Poor boy!” she exclaimed. “You must take him one–it was a shame to send such a message by him, poor, lonesome boy!”
“Well, he ain’t so lonesome now,” laughed Blake.
Helen had looked up quickly at the mention of The Orphan’s name, and the sheriff replied to her look of inquiry.
“I sent him out to punch for Blake, Helen,” he said quickly. “If he has the right spirit in him he’ll get along with the Star C outfit; if he hasn’t,why, he won’t get on with anybody. But I reckon Tom will bring out all the good in him; he’ll have a fair show, anyhow.”
“And you never told us about it!” cried Helen reproachfully.
“Oh, I was saving it up,” laughed the sheriff. “What do you think of him, Tom?” he asked, turning to the foreman.
“Why, he’s a clean-looking boy,” answered Blake. “I like his looks. He seems to be a fellow what can be depended on in a pinch, and after all I had heard about him he sort of took me by surprise. I thought he would be a tough-looking killer, and there he was only a overgrown, mischievous kid. But there is a look in his eyes that says there is a limit. But he surprised me, all right.”
“You want to appreciate that, Miss Ritchie,” remarked the sheriff, smiling broadly. “Anything that takes Tom Blake by surprise must have merit of some kind. And he is a good judge of men, too.”
“I do so hope he gets on well,” she replied earnestly. “He was a perfect gentleman when he was here, and his wit was sharp, too. And outthere on that awful plain, when he stood swaying with weakness, he looked just splendid!”
“Pure grit, pure grit!” cried the sheriff in reply. “That’s why I’m banking on him,” he added, his eyes warming as he remembered. “Any fellow who could turn a trick like that, and who has so much clean-cut courage, must be worth looking after. He’s got a bad reputation, but he’s plumb white and square with me, and I’m going to be square with him. And when you know all that I know about him you’ll take his reputation as a natural result of hard luck, spunk, and other people’s devilment and foolishness. But he’s going to have a show now, all right.”
“What did your men say when they saw him? Do they know who he is?” asked Mrs. Shields anxiously.
Blake laughed: “Oh, yes, they know who he is. They ain’t the talking kind in a case like that; they won’t say a word to him about what he has done. Besides, he was under their roof, eating their food, and that’s enough for them. Of course, they were a little surprised, but not half as much as I thought they would be. He is a man who gives a good first impression, and the boys are all fine fellows,big-hearted, square, clean-living and peaceful. Reputations don’t count for much with them, for they know that reputations are gossip-made in most cases. I asked him to stay, and they haven’t got no reason to object, and they won’t waste no time looking for reasons, neither. If there is any trouble at all, it will be his own fault. Then again, they know that he is all sand and that his gunplay is real and sudden; not that they are afraid of him, or anybody else, for that matter, but he is the kind of a man they like–somebody who can stand up on his own legs and give better than he gets.”
“I reckon he fills that bill, all right,” laughed the sheriff. “Hecanstand up on his own legs, and when he does he makes good. And as for gunplay, good Lord, he’s a shore wizard! I reckoned I could do things with a gun, but he can beat me. He ain’t no Boston pet, and he ain’t no city tough, not nohow. And I’d rather have him with me in a mix-up than against me. He’s the coolest proposition loose in this part of the country at any game, and I know what I’m talking about, too.”
“You promised to tell us everything about him, all you knew,” reproached Helen. “And I am sure that it will be well worth hearing.”
“Well, I was saving it up ’til I could tell it all at once and when you would all be together,” he replied. “There wasn’t any use of telling it twice,” he explained as he brought out a box of cigars. “These are the same brand you sampled last time you were here,” he assured his friend as he extended the box.
“By George, that’s fine!” cried the foreman, picking out the blackest cigar he could see. “I could taste them cigars for a whole week, they was so good. There’s nothing like a good Perfecto to make a fellow feel like he’s too lucky to live.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Shields. “Then you won’t care for the coffee and pie and gingerbread,” she sighed. “I’m very sorry.”
Blake jumped: “Lord, Ma’am,” he cried hastily, “I meant in the smoking line! Why, I’ve been losing sleep a-dreaming of your cooking. Every time the cook fills my cup with his insult to coffee I feel so lonesome that it hurts!”
“You want to look out, Tom!” laughingly warned the sheriff, “or you’ll get yourself disliked! When I don’t care for Margaret’s cooking I ain’t fool enough to say so, not a bit of it.”
“You’re a nice one to talk like that!” cried hiswife. “You are just like a little boy on baking day–I can hardly keep you out of the kitchen. You bother me to death, and it is all I can do to cook enough for you!”
After the laugh had subsided and a steaming cup of coffee had been placed at the foreman’s elbow, Helen impatiently urged her brother to begin his story.
He lighted his cigar with exasperating deliberateness and then laughed softly: “Gosh! I’m getting to be a second fiddle around here. From morning to night all I hear is The Orphan. The first thing that hits me when I come home is, ‘Have you seen The Orphan?’ or, ‘Have you heard anything about him?’ The worst offenders are Miss Ritchie and Helen. They pester me nigh to death about him. But here goes:
“I reckon I’d better begin with Old John Taylor,” he slowly began. “I’ve been doing some quiet hunting lately, and in the course of it I ran across Old John down in Crockettsville. You remember him, don’t you, Tom? Yes, I reckoned you wouldn’t forget the man who got us out of that Apache scrape. Well, I had a good talk with him, and this is what I learned:
“About twenty years ago a family named Gordon moved into northwestern Texas and put up a shack in one of the valleys. There was three of them, father, mother, and a bright little five-year-old boy, and they brought about two hundred head of cattle, a few horses and a whole raft of books. Gordon bought up quite a bit of land from a ranch nearby at almost a song, and he never thought of asking for a deed–who would, down there in those days? There wasn’t a rancher who owned more than a quarter section; you know the game, Tom–take up a hundred and sixty acres on a stream and then claim about a million, and fight like the very devil to hold it. We’ve all done it, I reckon, but there is plenty of land for everybody, and so there is no kick. Well, he was shore lucky, for his boundary on two sides was a fair-sized stream that never went dry, and you know how scarce that is–a whole lot better than a gold mine to a cattleman.
“They got along all right for a while, had a tenderfoot’s luck with their cattle, which soon began to be more than a few specks on the plain, and he was very well satisfied with everything, except that there wasn’t no school. Old man Gordonwas daffy on education, which is a good thing to be daffy over, and he was some strong in that line himself, having been a school teacher back East. But he took his boy in hand and taught him all he knew, which must have been a whole lot, judging from things in general, and the kid was a smart, quick youngster. He was plumb crazy about two things–books and guns. He read and re-read all the books he could borrow, and got so he could handle a gun with any man on the range.
“About five years after he had located, the ranchman from whom he bought his range and water rights went and died. Some of the heirs, who were not what you would call square, began to get an itching for Gordon’s land, which was improved by the first irrigation ditch in Texas. There was a garden and a purty good orchard, which was just beginning to bear fruit. It was pure, cussed hoggishness, for there was more land than anybody had any use for, but they must grab everything in sight, no matter what the cost. Trouble was the rule after that, and the old man was up against it all the time. But he managed to hold his own, even though he did lose a lot of cattle.
“His brand was a gridiron, which wasn’t much different from the gridiron circle brand of the big ranch. It ain’t much trouble to use a running iron through a wet blanket and change a brand like that when you know how, and the Gridiron Circle gang shore enough knew how. Their expertness with a running iron would have caused questions to be asked, and probably a lynching bee, in other parts of the country, but down there they were purty well alone. They let Gordon know that he had jumped the range, which was just what they had done, that he didn’t own it, and that the sooner he left the country the better it would be for his health. But he had peculiar ideas about justice, and he shore was plumb full of grit and obstinacy. He knew he was right, that he had paid for the land, and that he had improved it. And he had a lot of faith in the law, not realizing that he hadn’t anything to show the law. And he didn’t know that law and justice don’t always mean the same thing, not by a long shot.
“Well, one day he went out looking for a vein of coal, which he thought ought to be thereabouts, according to his books, and it ought to be close to the surface of a fissure. He reckoned that coal ofany quality would be some better than chips and the little wood he owned, so he got busy. But he didn’t find coal, but something that made him hotfoot it to his books. When the report came back from the assay office he knew that he had hit on a vein of native silver, which was some better than coal.
“It didn’t take long for the news to get around, though God Himself only knows how it did, unless the storekeeper told that a package had gone through his hands addressed to the assay office, and things began to happen in chunks. He caught three Gridiron Circle punchers shooting his cows, and he was naturally mad about it and just shot up the bunch before they knew he was around. He killed one and spoiled the health of the other two for some time to come, which naturally spelled war with a big W. Then about this time his wife went and died, which was a purty big addition to his troubles. As he stood above her grave, all broken up, and about ready to give up the fight and go back East, he was shot at from cover. He didn’t much care if he was killed or not, until he remembered that he had a boy to take care of. Then he got fighting mad all at once, all of his troublescoming up before him in a bunch, and he got his gun and went hunting, which was only right and proper under the circumstances.”
The sheriff flecked the ashes of his cigar into a blue flower pot which was gay with white ribbons, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I hate to think that it is possible to find a whole ranch of hellions from the owner down,” he continued, “but the nature of the owner picks a dirty foreman, and a dirty foreman needs dirty men, and there you are. That fits the case of the Gridiron Circle to a T. There was not one white man in the whole gang,” and he sat in silence for a space.
“Well, the boy, who was about fifteen years old by this time, took his gun and went out to find his daddy, and he succeeded. He cut him down and buried him and then went home. That night the shack burned to the ground, the orchard was ruined and the boy disappeared. Some people said that the kid took what he wanted and burned the house rather than to have it profaned as a range house by the curs who murdered his dad; and some said the other thing, but from what I know of the kid, I reckon he did it himself.
“Right there and then things began to happenthat hurt the ease and safety of the Gridiron Circle. Cows were found dead all over the range–juglars cut in every case. Three of their punchers were found dead in one week–a .5O-caliber Sharps had done it. A regular reign of terror began and kept the outfit on the nervous jump all the time. They searched and trailed and searched and swore, and if one of them went off by himself he was usually ready to be buried. Ten experienced, old-time cowmen were made fools of by a fifteen-year-old kid, who was never seen by anybody that lived long enough to tell about it. When he got hungry, he just killed another cow and had a porterhouse steak cooked between two others over a good fire. He ate the middle steak, which had all the juices of the two burned ones, and threw the others away. Three meals a day for six months, and one cow to a meal, was the order of things on the ranges of the Gridiron Circle. He had plenty of ammunition, because every dead puncher was minus his belt when found and his guns were broken or gone; and early in the game the boy had made a master stroke: he raided the storehouse of the ranch one night and lugged away about five hundred rounds of ammunition in his saddle bags, with a couple of spareColts and a repeating Winchester of the latest pattern, and he spoiled all the rest of the guns he could lay his hands on. Humorous kid, wasn’t he, shooting up the ranch with its own guns and cartridges?
“Finally, however, after the news had spread, which it did real quick, a regular lynching party was arranged, and the U-B, which lay about sixty miles to the east, sent over half a dozen men to take a hand. Then the Gridiron Circle had a rest, but while the gang was hunting for him and laying all sorts of elaborate traps to catch him, the boy was over on the U-B, showing it how foolish it had been to take up another man’s quarrel. By this time the whole country knew about it, and even some Eastern papers began to give it much attention. One of the punchers of the Gridiron Circle, when he found a friend dead and saw the tracks of the kid in the sand, swore and cried that it was ‘that d––n Orphan’ who had done it, and the name stuck. He had become an outlaw and was legitimate prey for any man who had the chance and grit to turn the trick. For ten years he has been wandering all over the range like a hunted gray wolf, fighting for his life at every turn againstall kinds of odds, both human and natural. And I reckon that explains why he is accused of doing so much killing. He has been hunted and forced to shoot to save his own life, and a gray wolf is a fighter when cornered. I know that I wouldn’t give up the ghost if I could help it, and neither would anybody else.”
“Oh, it is a shame, an awful shame!” cried Helen, tears of sympathy in her eyes. “How could they do it? I don’t blame him, not a bit! He did right, terrible as it was! And only a boy when they began, too! Oh, it is awful, almost unbelievable!”
“Yes, it is, Sis,” replied Shields earnestly. “It ain’t his fault, not by any manner or means–he was warped.” And then he added slowly: “But Tom and I will straighten him out, and if some folks hereabouts don’t like it, they can shore lump it, or fight.”
“Tell me how you met him, Jim,” requested Blake in the interval of silence. “I’ve heard some of it, second-handed, or third-handed, but I’d like to have it straight.”
“Well,” the sheriff continued, “when he came to these parts I didn’t know anything about himexcept what I had heard, which was only bad. He had a nasty way of handling his gun, a hair-trigger and a nervous finger on his gun, and he had a distressing way of using one cow to a meal, so I got busy. I didn’t expect much trouble in getting him. I knew that he was only a youngster and I counted on my fifty years, and most of them of experience, getting him. Being young, I reckoned he would be foolhardy and hasty and uncertain in his wisdom; but, Lord! it was just like trying to catch a flea in the dark. He was here, there and everywhere. While I was down south hunting along his trail he would be up north objecting to the sheep industry in ingenious ways and varying his bill of fare with choice cuts of lamb and mutton. And by the time I got down south he would be–God only knows where, I didn’t. I could only guess, and I guessed wrong until the last one. And then it was the toss of a coin that decided it.
“After a while he began to get more daring, and when I say more daring I mean an open game with no limit. He began to prove my ideas about his age making him reckless, though he was cautious enough, to be sure. One day, not long ago,he had a run-in with two sheepmen out by the U bend of the creek, who had driven their herds up on Cross Bar-8 land and over the dead-line established by the ranch. They must have taken him for some Cross Bar-8 puncher and thought he was going to kick up a fuss about the trespass, or else they recognized him. Anyway, when I got on the scene they were ready to be planted, which I did for them. Then I went after him on a plain trail north–and almost too plain to suit me, because it looked like it had been made plain as an invitation. He had picked out the softest ground and left plenty of good tracks. But I was some mad and didn’t care much what I run into. I thought he had driven the whole blasted herd of baa-baas over that high bank and into the creek, for the number of dead sheep was shore scandalous.
“I followed that cussed trail north, east, south, west and then all over the whole United States, it seemed to me. And it was always growing older, because I had to waste time in dodging chaparrals and things like that that might hold him and his gun. I went picking my way on a roundabout course past thickets of honey mesquite and cactusgardens, over alkali flats and everything else, and the more I fooled about the madder I got. I ain’t no real, genuine fool, and I’ve had some experience at trailing, but I had to confess that I was just a plain, ordinary monkey-on-a-stick when stacked up against a kid that was only about half my age, because suddenly the plainness of the trail disappeared and I was left out on the middle of a burning desert to guess the answer as best I could. I knew what he had done, all right, but that didn’t help me a whole lot. Did you ever trail anybody that used padded-leather footpads on his cayuse’s feet, and that went on a walk, picking out the hardest ground? No? Well, I have, and it’s no cinch.
“I got tired of chasing myself back to the same place four times out of five, and I reckons that it wouldn’t be very long before he had made his circle and got me in front of him. It ain’t no church fair to be hunting a mad devil like him under the best conditions, and it’s a whole lot less like one when he gets behind you doing the same thing. I didn’t know whether he had swung to the north or south, so I tossed up a coin and cried heads for north–and it was tails. I cut loose ata lope and had been riding for some time when I saw something through an opening in the chaparrals to the east of me, and it moved. I swung my glasses on it, and I’m blamed if it wasn’t an Apache war party bound north. They were about a mile to the east of me, and if they kept on going straight ahead they would run across my trail in about three hours, for it gradually worked their way. I ducked right then and there and struck west for a time, turning south again until I hit the Cimarron Trail, which I followed east. Well, as I went around one side of the chaparral six mad Apaches went around the other, and they hit my trail too soon to suit me. I heard a hair-raising yell and lit out in the direction of Chattanooga as hard as I could go, with a hungry chorus a mile behind me.
“I had just passed that freak bowlder on the Apache Trail when the man I was looking for turned up, and with the drop, of course. We reckoned that two was needed to stop the war-paints, which we did, him running the game and doing most of the playing. I felt like I was his honored guest whom he had invited to share in the festivities. He had plenty of chances to nailme if he wanted to, and he had chipped in on a game that he didn’t have to take cards in; and to help me out. He could have let them get me and they would have thought that I had done all the injury and that there wasn’t another man on the desert. But he didn’t, and I began to think he wasn’t as bad as he was painted.”
Then he told of the trouble between The Orphan and Jimmy of the Cross Bar-8, and of the rage which blossomed out on the ranch.
“That shore settled it for the Cross Bar-8. They wanted lots of gore, and they got it, all right, when he played five of their punchers against the very war party he had sent north to meet me, while I was chasing him. That war party must have found something to their liking, wandering about the country all that time.”
Blake interrupted him: “War party that he sent north to meet you?” he asked in surprise. “How could he do that?”
“That’s just what I said,” replied Shields, and then he explained about the arrow. “Any man who could stack a deck like that and use one danger to wipe out another ain’t going to get caught by an outfit of lunkheads–by George! if he didn’twork nearly the same trick on the Cross Bar-8 crowd! Oh, it’s great, simply great!”
The foreman slapped his knee enthusiastically: “Fine! Fine!” he exulted. “That fellow has got brains, plenty of them! And he’ll make use of them to the good of this country, too, before we get through with him.”
Shields continued: “After he sic’d the chumps of the Cross Bar-8 on the Apaches he shore raised the devil on the ranch and I was asked to go out and run things, which I did, or rather thought I would do. Charley and I and the two Larkin boys laid out on the plain all night, covered up with sand, waiting for him to show up between us and the windows–and the first thing I saw in the morning was Helen’s flower pot here–it used to be Margaret’s–setting up on top of a pile of sand under my very nose where he had stuck it while I waited for him–and blamed if he hadn’t signed his name in the sand at its base!” He suddenly turned to his sister: “Tell Tom about him calling on you while I was waiting for him out on the ranch, Helen.”
Helen did so and the way she told it caused the women to look keenly at her.
Blake laughed heartily: “Now, don’t that beat all!” he cried.
“It don’t beat this,” responded the sheriff, turning again to Helen. “Tell him about the stage coach, Sis.”
“Well, I don’t know much about the first part of it,” she replied. “All I remember is a terrible ride –oh, it was awful!” she cried, shuddering as she remembered the tortures of the Concord. “But when we stopped and after I managed to get out of the coach I saw the driver carrying a man on his shoulders and coming toward us. He laid his burden down and revived him–and he was a young man, and covered with blood.” Then she paused: “He was real nice and polite and didn’t seem to think that he had done anything out of the ordinary. Then we went on and he left us.”
The sheriff laughed and leveled an accusing finger at her:
“You have left out a whole lot, Sis,” he said affectionately. “Helen acted just like the thoroughbred she is, Tom,” he continued. “I guess Bill told you all about it, for he’s aired it purty well. Why, she even lost her gold pin a-helping him!” and he grinned broadly.
Helen shot him a warning glance, but it was too late; Mary suddenly sat bolt upright, her expression one of shocked surprise.
“Helen Shields!” she cried, “and I never thought of it before! How could you do it! Why, that horrid man will show your pin and boast about it to everybody! The idea! I’m surprised at you!”
“Tut, tut,” exclaimed Shields. “I reckon that pin is all right. He might find it handy some day to return it, it’ll be a good excuse when he gets on his feet. And I’d hate to be the man to laugh at it, or try to take it from him. Now, come, Mary, think of it right; it was the first kind act he had known since he lost his daddy. And that pin is one of my main stand-bys in this game. I believe that he’ll be square as long as he has it.”
“Well, I don’t care, James,” warmly responded Mary. “It wasnota modest thing to do when she had never seen him before, and he her brother’s enemy and an outlaw!”
“How could I have fastened the bandage, sister dear?” asked Helen, her complexion slightly more colored than its natural shade. “It was so very little to do after all he had done for us!”
“Well, Tom and I have some business to talk over, so we’ll leave you to fight the matter out among yourselves,” the sheriff said, arising. “Come to my room, Tom, I want to talk over that ranch scheme with you. You bring the coffee pot and the cigars and I’ll juggle the pie and gingerbread,” he laughed as he led the way.
“Oh, Tom!” hastily called Mrs. Shields after good-nights had been said, and just before the door closed; “I promised you a dinner for your boys when Helen and Mary came, and if you think you can spare them this coming Sunday I will have it then.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Shields,” earnestly responded Blake, turning on the threshold. “It is awful good of you to put yourself out that way, and you can bet that the boys will be your devoted slaves ever after. If you must go to that trouble, why, Sunday or any day you may name will do for us. Gosh, but won’t they be tickled!” he exulted as he pictured them feasting on goodies. “It’ll be better than a circus, it shore will!”
“Why, it’s no trouble at all, Tom,” she replied, smiling at being able to bring cheer to a crowd of men, lonely, as she thought. “And you will arrangeto have The Orphan with them, won’t you?”
“I most certainly will,” he heartily replied. “It’ll do wonders for him.” He glanced quickly at Helen, but she was busily engaged in threading a needle under the lamp shade.
“Good night, all,” he said as he closed the door.