While it is possible to approach the foreman of a cattle outfit on foot and apply for work, it is—as a certain Ulysses of the outlands once said—not considered good form in the best families in Arizona. Pete was only too keenly conscious of this. There is a prestige recognized by both employer and tentative employee in riding in, swinging to the ground in that deliberate and easy fashion of the Western rider, and sauntering up as though on a friendly visit wherein the weather and grazing furnish themes for introduction, discussion, and the eventual wedge that may open up the way to employment. The foreman knows by the way you sit your horse, dismount, and generally handle yourself, just where you stand in the scale of ability. He does not need to be told. Nor does he care what you have been. Your saddle-tree is much more significant than your family tree. Still, if you have graduated in some Far Eastern riding academy, and are, perchance, ambitious to learn the gentle art of roping, riding them as they come, and incidentally preserving your anatomy as an undislocated whole, it is not a bad idea to approach the foreman on foot and clothed in unpretentious garb. For, as this same Ulysses of the outlands said:
"Rub grease on your chaps and look wise if you will,But the odor of tan-bark will cling round you still."
This information alone is worth considerably more than twenty cents.
Young Pete, who had not slept much, arose and prepared breakfast, making the coffee extra strong. Montoya liked strong coffee. After breakfast Pete made a diagonal approach to the subject of leaving. Could he go to Concho? Montoya nodded. Would it be all right if he made a visit to the Concho outfit over on the mesa? It would be all right. This was too easy. Pete squirmed internally. If Montoya would only ask why he wanted to go. Did Montoya think he could get another boy to help with the sheep? The old herder, who had a quiet sense of humor, said he didn't need another boy: that Pete did very well. Young Pete felt, as he expressed it to himself, "jest plumb mean." Metaphorically he had thrown his rope three times and missed each time. This time he made a wider loop.
"What I'm gittin' at is, Roth over to Concho said last night if I was to go over to Bailey—he's the fo'man of the Concho outfit—and ask him for a job, I could mebby land one. Roth, he said he'd outfit me and leave me to pay for it from my wages. Andy White, he's pluggin' for me over to the ranch. I ain't said nothin' to you, for I wa'n't sure—but Roth he says mebby I could git a job. I reckon I'm gettin' kind ofoldto herd sheep."
Montoya smiled. "Si; I am sixty years old."
"I know—but—doggone it! I want to ride a hoss and go somewhere!"
"I will pay you three dollars a week," said Montoya, and his eyes twinkled. He was enjoying Pete's embarrassment.
"It ain't the money. You sure been square. It ain't that. I reckon I jest got to go."
"Then it is that you go. I will find another to help. You have been a good boy. You do not like the sheep—but the horses. I know that you have been saving the money. You have not bought cartridges. I would give you—"
"Hold on—you give me my money day before yesterday."
"Then you have a little till you get your wages from the Concho. It is good."
"Oh, I'm broke all right," said Pete. "But that don't bother me none. I paid Roth for that gun I swiped—"
"You steal the gun?"
"Well, it wa'n't jeststealin'it. Roth he never paid me no wages, so when I lit out I took her along and writ him it was for wages."
"Then why did you pay him?"
Pete frowned. "I dunno."
Montoya nodded. He stooped and fumbled in a pack. Pete wondered what the old man was hunting for.
Presently, Montoya drew out the hand-carved belt and holster, held it up, and inspected it critically. He felt of it with his calloused hands, and finally gestured to Pete. "It is for you, muchacho. I made it. Stand so. There, it should hang this way." Montoya buckled the belt around Pete and stepped back. "A little to the front. Bueno! Tie the thong round your leg—so. That is well! It is the present from José Montoya. Sometimes you will remember—"
Montoya glanced at Pete's face. Pete was frowning prodigiously.
"Hah!" laughed Montoya. "You do not like it, eh?"
Pete scowled and blinked. "It's the best doggone holster in the world! I—I'm goin' to keep that there holster as long as I live! I—"
Montoya patted Pete's shoulder. "With the sheep it is quiet, so!"—and Montoya gestured to the band that grazed near by. "Where you will go there will be the hard riding and the fighting, perhaps. It is not good to kill a man. But it is not good to be killed. The hot word—the quarrel—and some day a man will try to kill you. See! I have left the holster open at the end. I have taught you that trick—but do not tie the holster down if you would shoot that way. There is no more to say."
Pete thought so, so far as he was concerned. He was angry with himself for having felt emotion and yet happy in that his break with Montoya had terminated so pleasantly withal. "I'm goin' to town," he said, "and git a boy to come out here. If I can't git a boy, I'll come back and stay till you git one."
Montoya nodded and strode out to where the sheep had drifted. The dogs jumped up and welcomed him. It was not customary for their master to leave them for so long alone with the flock. Their wagging tails and general attitude expressed relief.
Pete, topping the rise that hides the town of Concho from the northern vistas, turned and looked back. Far below, on a slightly rounded knoll stood the old herder, a solitary figure in the wide expanse of mesa and morning sunlight. Pete swung his hat. Montoya raised his arm in a gesture of good-will and farewell. Pete might have to come back, but Montoya doubted it. He knew Pete. If there was anything that looked like a boy available in Concho, Pete would induce that boy to take his place with Montoya, if he had to resort to force to do so.
Youth on the hilltop! Youth pausing to gaze back for a moment on a pleasant vista of sunshine and long, lazy days—Pete brushed his arm across his eyes. One of the dogs had left the sheep, and came frisking toward the hill where Pete stood. Pete had never paid much attention to the dogs, and was surprised that either of them should note his going, at this time. "Mebby the doggone cuss knows that I'm quittin' for good," he thought. The dog circled Pete and barked ingratiatingly. Pete, touched by unexpected interest, squatted down and called the dog to him. The sharp-muzzled, keen-eyed animal trotted up and nosed Pete's hand. "You 're sure wise!" said Pete affectionately. Pete was even more astonished to realize that it was the dog he had roped recently. "Knowed I was only foolin'," said Pete, patting the dog's head. The sheep-dog gazed up into Pete's face with bright, unblinking eyes that questioned, "Why was Pete leaving camp early in the morning—and without the burros?"
"I'm quittin' for good," said Pete.
The dog's waving tail grew still.
"That's right—honest!"—and Pete rose.
The sheep-dog's quivering joy ceased at the word. His alertness vanished. A veritable statue of dejection he stood as though pondering the situation. Then he lifted his head and howled—the long, lugubrious howl of the wolf that hungers.
"You said it all," muttered Pete, turning swiftly and trudging down the road. He would have liked to howl himself. Montoya's kindliness at parting—and his gift—had touched Pete deeply, but he had fought his emotion then, too proud to show it. Now he felt a hot something spatter on his hand. His mouth quivered. "Doggone the dog!" he exclaimed. "Doggone the whole doggone outfit!" And to cheat his emotion he began to sing, in a ludicrous, choked way, that sprightly and inimitable range ballad;
"'Way high up in the Mokiones, among the mountain-tops,A lion cleaned a yearlin's bones and licked his thankful chops,When who upon the scene should ride, a-trippin' down the slope,"
"Doggone the slope!" blurted Pete as he stubbed his toe on a rock.
But when he reached Concho his eyes had cleared. Like all good Americans he "turned a keen, untroubled face home to the instant need of things," and after visiting Roth at the store, and though sorely tempted to loiter and inspect saddlery, he set out to hunt up a boy—for Montoya.
None of the Mexican boys he approached cared to leave home. Things looked pretty blue for Pete. The finding of the right boy meant his own freedom. His contempt for the youth of Concho grew apace. The Mexicans were a lazy lot, who either did not want to work or were loath to leave home and follow the sheep. "Jest kids!" he remarked contemptuously as his fifth attempt failed. "I could lick the whole bunch!"
Finally he located a half-grown youth who said he was willing to go. Pete told him where to find Montoya and exacted a promise from the youth to go at once and apply for the place. Pete hastened to the store and immediately forgot time, place, and even the fact that he had yet to get a job riding for the Concho outfit, in the eager joy of choosing a saddle, bridle, blanket, spurs, boots and chaps, to say nothing of a new Stetson and rope. The sum total of these unpaid-for purchases rather staggered him. His eighteen-odd dollars was as a fly-speck on the credit side of the ledger. He had chosen the best of everything that Roth had in stock. A little figuring convinced him that he would have to work several months before his outfit was paid for. "If I git a job I'll give you an order for my wages," he told Roth.
"That's all right, Pete; I ain't worryin'."
"Well—I be, some," said Pete. "Lemme see—fifty for the saddle, seven for the bridle—-and she's some bridle!—and eighteen for the chaps—fifteen for the boots—that's ninety dollars. Gee whizz! Then there's four for that blanket and ten for them spurs. That's a hundred and four. 'Course Icouldgit along without a new lid. Rope is three-fifty, and lid is ten. One hundred and seventeen dollars for four bits. Guess I'll make it a hundred and twenty. No use botherin' about small change. Gimme that pair of gloves."
Roth had no hesitation in outfitting Pete. The Concho cattlemen traded at his store. He had extended credit to many a rider whom he trusted less than he did Pete. Moreover, he was fond of the boy and wanted to see him placed where he could better himself. "I've got you on the books for a hundred and twenty," he told Pete, and Pete felt very proud and important. "Now, if I could borrow a hoss for a spell, I'd jest fork him and ride over to see Bailey," he asserted. "I sure can't pack this outfit over there."
Roth grinned. "Well, we might as well let the tail go with the hide. There's old Rowdy. He ain't much of a horse, but he's got three good legs yet. He starched a little forward, but he'll make the trip over and back. You can take him."
"Honest?"
"Go ahead."
Pete tingled with joyful anticipation as he strode from the store, his new rope in his hand. He would rope that cayuse and just about burn the ground for the Concho! Maybe he wouldn't make young Andy White sit up! The Ridin' Kid from Powder River was walking on air when—
"Thought you was goin' over to see Montoya!" he challenged as he saw the Mexican youth, whom he had tentatively hired, sitting placidly on the store veranda, employed solely in gazing at the road as though it were a most interesting spectacle. "Oh, mañana," drawled the Mexican.
"Mañana, nothin'!" volleyed Pete. "You're goin' now! Git a-movin'—if you have to take your hands and lift your doggone feet off the ground. Git a-goin'!"
"Oh, maybe I go mañana."
"You're dreamin', hombre." Pete was desperate. Again he saw his chance of an immediate job go glimmering down the vague vistas of many to-morrows.
"See here! What kind of a guy are you, anyhow? I come in here yesterday and offered you a job and you promised you'd git to work right away. You—"
"It wasto-dayyou speak of Montoya," corrected the Mexican.
"You're dreamin'," reiterated Pete. "It wasyesterdayyou said you would go mañana. Well, it's to-morrow, ain't it? You been asleep an' don't know it."
An expression of childish wonder crossed the Mexican youth's stolid face. Of a certainty it was but this very morning that Montoya's boy had spoken to him! Or was it yesterday morning? Montoya's boy had said it was yesterday morning. It must be so. The youth rose and gazed about him. Pete stood aggressively potent, frowning down on the other's hesitation.
"I go," said the Mexican.
Pete heaved a sigh of relief. "A fella's got to know how to handle 'em," he told the immediate vicinity. And because Pete knew something about "handlin' 'em," he did not at once go for the horse, but stood staring after the Mexican, who had paused to glance back. Pete waved his hand in a gesture which meant, "Keep goin'." The Mexican youth kept going.
"I ain't wishin' old José any hard luck," muttered Pete, "but I said I'd send a boy—and that there walkin' dreamlookslike one, anyhow. 'Oh, mañana!'" he snorted. "Mexicans is mostly figurin' out to-day what they 're goin' to do to-morrow, and they never git through figurin'. I dunno who my father and mother was, but I know one thing—they wa'n't Mexicans."
It has been said that Necessity is the mother of Invention—well, it goes without saying that the cowboy is the father, and Pete was closely related to these progenitors of that most necessary adjunct of success. Moreover, he could have boasted a coat of arms had he been at all familiar with heraldry and obliged to declare himself.
Pete.[Illustration: Pete.]
Pete.[Illustration: Pete.]
A pinto cayuse rampant; a longhorn steer regardant; two sad-eyed, unbranded calves couchant—one in each corner of the shield to kind of balance her up; gules, several clumps of something representing sagebrush; and possibly a rattlesnake coiled beneath the sagebrush and described as "repellent" and holding in his open jaws a streaming motto reading, "I'm a-comin'."
Had it been essential that Pete's escutcheon should bear the bar sinister, doubtless he would have explained its presence with the easy assertion that the dark diagonal represented the vague ancestry of the two sad-eyed calves couchant. Anybody could see that the calves were part longhorn and part Hereford!
Pete rode out of Concho glittering in his new-found glory of shining bit and spur, wide-brimmed Stetson, and chaps studded with nickel-plated conchas. The creak of the stiff saddle-leather was music to him. His brand-new and really good equipment almost made up for the horse—an ancient pensioner that never seemed to be just certain when he would take his next step and seemed a trifle surprised when he had taken it. He was old, amiable, and willing, internally, but his legs, somewhat of the Chippendale order, had seen better days. Ease and good feeding had failed to fill him out. He was past taking on flesh. Roth kept him about the place for short trips. Roth's lively team of pintos were at the time grazing in a distant summer pasture.
Rowdy—the horse—seemed to feel that the occasion demanded something of him. He pricked his ears as they crossed the cañon bottom and breasted the ascent as bravely as his three good legs would let him. At the top he puffed hard. Despite Pete's urging, he stood stolidly until he had gathered enough ozone to propel him farther. "Git along, you doggone ole cockroach!" said Pete. But Rowdy was firm. He turned his head and gazed sadly at his rider with one mournful eye that said plainly, "I'm doing my level best." Pete realized that the ground just traveled was anything but level, and curbed his impatience. "I'll jest kind o' save him for the finish," he told himself. "Then I'll hook the spurs into him and ride in a-boilin'. Don't care what he does after that. He can set down and rest if he wants to. Git along, old soap-foot," he cried—"soap-foot" possibly because Rowdy occasionally slipped. His antique legs didn't always do just what he wanted them to do.
Topping the mesa edge, Pete saw the distant green that fringed the Concho home-ranch, topped by a curl of smoke that drifted lazily across the gold of the morning. Without urging, Rowdy broke into a stiff trot, that sounded Pete's inmost depths, despite his natural good seat in the saddle. "Quit it!" cried Pete presently. "You'll be goin' on crutches afore night if you keep that up.—And so'll I," he added. Rowdy immediately stopped and turned his mournful eye on Pete.
If the trot had been the rhythmicone, two, three, four, Pete could have ridden and rolled cigarettes without spilling a flake of tobacco; but the trot was a sort ofone, two—almost three, then, whump!threeand a quickfour, and so on, a decidedly irregular meter in Pete's lyrical journey toward new fields and fairer fortune. "I'll sure make Andy sit up!" he declared as the Concho buildings loomed beneath the cool, dark-green outline of the trees. He dismounted to open and close a gate. A half-mile farther he again dismounted to open and close another gate. From there on was a straightaway road to the ranch-buildings. Pete gathered himself together, pushed his hat down firmly—it was new and stiff—and put Rowdy to a high lope. This was something like it! Possibly Rowdy anticipated a good rest, and hay. In any event, he did his best, rounding into the yard and up to the house like a true cow-pony. All would have been well, as Pete realized later, had it not been for the pup. The pup saw in Rowdy a new playfellow, and charged from the door-step just as that good steed was mentally preparing to come to a stop. The pup was not mentally prepared in any way, and in his excitement he overshot the mark. He caromed into Rowdy's one recalcitrant leg—it usually happens that way—and Rowdy stepped on him. Pete was also not mentally prepared to dismount at the moment, but he did so as Rowdy crashed down in a cloud of dust. The pup, who imagined himself killed, shrieked shrilly and ran as hard as he could to the distant stables to find out if it were not so.
Pete picked up his hat. Rowdy scrambled up and shook himself. Pete was mad. Over on the edge of the bunk-house veranda sat four or five of the Concho boys. They rocked back and forth and slapped their legs and shouted. It was a trying situation.
The foreman, Bailey, rose as Pete limped up. "We're livin' over here," said Bailey. "Did you want to see some one?"
Pete wet his lips. "The fo'man. I—I—jest rid over to see how you was makin' it."
"Why, we 're doin' right fair. How you makin' it yourself?"
"I'm here," said Pete succinctly and without a smile.
"So we noticed," said the foreman mildly, too mildly, for one of the punchers began to laugh, and the rest joined in.
"Wisht I had a hoss like that," said a cowboy. "Always did hate to climb offen a hoss. I like to have 'em set down and kind o' let me step off easy-like."
Pete sorely wanted to make a sharp retort, but he had learned the wisdom of silence. He knew that he had made himself ridiculous before these men. It would be hard to live down this thing. He deemed himself sadly out of luck, but he never lost sight of the main chance for an instant.
Bailey, through young Andy White, knew of Pete and was studying him. The boy had self-possession, and he had not cursed the horse for stumbling. He saw that Pete was making a fight to keep his temper.
"You lookin' for work?" he said kindly.
"I was headed that way," replied Pete.
"Can you rope?"
"Oh, some. I kin keep from tanglin' my feet in a rope when it's hangin' on the horn and I'm standin' off a piece."
"Well, things are slack right now. Don't know as I could use you. What's your name, anyhow?"
"I'm Pete Annersley. I reckon you know who my pop was."
Bailey nodded. "The T-Bar-T," he said, turning toward the men. They shook their heads and were silent, gazing curiously at the boy, of whom it was said that he had "bumped off" two T-Bar-T boys in a raid some years ago. Young Pete felt his ground firmer beneath him. The men had ceased laughing. If it had not been for that unfortunate stumble…
"You're sportin' a right good rig," said the foreman.
"I aim to," said Pete quickly. "If I hadn't gone broke buyin' it, I'd ride up here on a real hoss."
"Things are pretty slack right now," said Bailey. "Glad to see you—but they won't be nothin' doin' till fall. Won't you set down? We're goin' to eat right soon."
"Thanks. I ain't a-missin' a chanct to eat. And I reckon ole Rowdy there could do somethin' in that line hisself."
Bailey smiled. "Turn your horse into the corral. Better pack your saddle over here. That pup will chew them new latigos if he gets near it."
"That doggone pup come mighty nigh bustin' me,"—and Pete smiled for the first time since arriving. "But the pup was havin' a good time, anyhow."
"Say, I want to shake with you!" said a big puncher, rising and sticking out a strong, hairy hand.
Pete's face expressed surprise. "Why—sure!" he stammered, not realizing that his smiling reference to the pup had won him a friend.
"He's sure a hard-boiled kid," said one of the men as Pete unsaddled and led Rowdy to the corral. "Did you catch his eye? Black—and shinin'; plumb full of deviltry—down in deep. That kid's had to hit some hard spots afore he growed to where he is."
"And he can take his medicine," asserted another cowboy. "He was mad enough to kill that hoss and the bunch of us—but he held her down and bellied up to us like a real one. Looks like he had kind of a Injun streak in him."
Bailey nodded. "Wish I had a job for the kid. He would make good. He's been driftin' round the country with old man Montoya for a couple of years. Old man Annersley picked him up down to Concho. The kid was with a horse-trader. He would have been all right with Annersley, but you boys know what happened. This ain't no orphan asylum, but—well, anyhow—did you size up the rig he's sportin'?"
"Some rig."
"And he says he went broke to buy her."
"Some kid."
"Goin' to string him along?" queried another cowboy.
"Nope," replied Bailey. "The pup strung him plenty. Mebby we'll give him a whirl at a real horse after dinner. He's itchin' to climb a real one and show us, and likewise to break in that new rig."
"Or git busted," suggested one of the men.
"By his eye, I'd say he'll stick," said Bailey. "Don't you boys go to raggin' him too strong about ridin', for I ain't aimin' to kill the kid. If he can stick on Blue Smoke, I've a good mind to give him a job. I told Andy to tell him there wa'n't no chanct up here—but the kid comes to look-see for hisself. I kind o' like that."
"You 're gettin' soft in your haid, Bud," said a cowboy affectionately.
"Mebby, but I don't have to put cotton in my ears to keep my brains in," Bailey retorted mildly.
The cowboy who had spoken was suffering from earache and had an ear plugged with cotton.
Pete swaggered up and sat down. "Who's ridin' that blue out there?" he queried, gesturing toward the corral.
"He's a pet," said Bailey. Nobody rides him."
"Uh-huh. Well, I reckon the man who tries 'll be one of ole Abraham's pets right off soon after," commented Pete. "He don't look good to me."
"You sabe 'em?" queried Bailey and winked at a companion.
"Nope," replied Pete. "I can't tell a hoss from a hitchin'-rail, 'less he kicks me."
"Well, Blue Smoke ain't a hitchin'-rail," asserted Bailey. "What do you say if we go over and tell the missis we're starvin' to death?"
"Send Pete over," suggested a cowboy.
Bailey liked a joke. As he had said, things were dull, just then. "Lope over and tell my missis we're settin' out here starvin' to death," he suggested to Pete.
Pete strode to the house and entered, hat in hand. The foreman's wife, a plump, cheery woman, liked nothing better than to joke with the men. Presently Pete came out bearing the half of a large, thick, juicy pie in his hands. He marched to the bunkhouse and sat down near the men—but not too near. He ate pie and said nothing. When he had finished the pie, he rolled a cigarette and smoked, in huge content. The cowboys glanced at one another and grinned.
"Well," said Bailey presently; "what's the answer?"
Pete grinned. "Misses Bailey says to tell you fellas to keep on starvin' to death. It'll save cookin'."
"I move that we get one square before we cross over," said Bailey, rising. "Come on, boys. I can smell twelve o'clock comin' from the kitchen."
Blue Smoke was one of those unfortunate animals known as an outlaw. He was a blue roan with a black stripe down his back, a tough, strong pony, with a white-rimmed eye as uncompromising as the muzzle of a cocked gun. He was of no special use as a cow-pony and was kept about the ranch merely because he happened to belong to the Concho caviayard. It took a wise horse and two good men to get a saddle on him when some aspiring newcomer intimated that he could ride anything with hair on it. He was the inevitable test of the new man. No one as yet had ridden him to a finish; nor was it expected. The man who could stand a brief ten seconds' punishment astride of the outlaw was considered a pretty fair rider. It was customary to time the performance, as one would time a race, but in the instance of riding Blue Smoke the man was timed rather than the horse. So far, Bailey himself held the record. He had stayed with the outlaw fifteen seconds.
Pete learned this, and much more, about Blue Smoke's disposition while the men ate and joked with Mrs. Bailey. And Mrs. Bailey, good woman, was no less eloquent than the men in describing the outlaw's unenviable temperament, never dreaming that the men would allow a boy of Pete's years to ride the horse. Pete, a bit embarrassed in this lively company, attended heartily to his plate. He gathered, indirectly, that he was expected to demonstrate his ability as a rider, sooner or later. He hoped that it would be later.
After dinner the men loafed out and gravitated lazily toward the corral, where they stood eying the horses and commenting on this and that pony. Pete had eyes for no horse but Blue Smoke. He admitted to himself that he did not want to ride that horse. He knew that his rise would be sudden and that his fall would be great. Still, he sported the habiliments of a full-fledged buckaroo, and he would have to live up to them. A man who could not sit the hurricane-deck of a pitching horse was of little use to the ranch. In the busy season each man caught up his string of ponies and rode them as he needed them. There was neither time nor disposition to choose.
Pete wished that Blue Smoke had a little more of Rowdy's equable disposition. It was typical of Pete, however, that he absolutely hated to leave an unpleasant task to an indefinite future. Moreover, he rather liked the Concho boys and the foreman. He wanted to ride with them. That was the main thing. Any hesitancy he had in regard to riding the outlaw was the outcome of discretion rather than of fear. Bailey had said there was no work for him. Pete felt that he had rather risk his neck a dozen times than to return to the town of Concho and tell Roth that he had been unsuccessful in getting work. Yet Pete did not forget his shrewdness. He would bargain with the foreman.
"How long kin a fella stick on that there Blue Smoke hoss?" he queried presently.
"Depends on the man," said Bailey, grinning.
"Bailey here stayed with him fifteen seconds onct," said a cowboy.
Pete pushed hack his hat. "Well, I ain't no bronco-twister, but I reckon I could ride him a couple o' jumps. Who's keepin' time on the dog-gone cayuse?"
"Anybody that's got a watch," replied Bailey.
Pete hitched up his chaps. "I got a watch and I'd hate to bust her. If you'll hold her till I git through"—and he handed the watch to the nearest cowboy. "If you'll throw my saddle on 'im, I reckon I'll walk him round a little and see what kind of action he's got."
"Shucks!" exclaimed Bailey; "that hoss would jest nacherally pitch you so high you wouldn't git back in time for the fall round-up, kid. He's bad."
"Well, you said they wa'n't no job till fall, anyhow," said Pete. "Mebby I'd git back in time for a job."
Bailey shook his head. "I was joshin'—this mornin'."
"'Bout my ridin' that hoss? Well, I ain't. I'm kind of a stranger up here, and I reckon you fellas think, because that doggone ole soap-foot fell down with me, that I can't ride 'em."
"Oh, mebby some of 'em," laughed Bailey.
Pete's black eyes flashed. To him the matter was anything but a joke. "You give me a job if I stick on that hoss for fifteen seconds? Why, I'm game to crawl him and see who wins out. If I git pitched, I lose. And I'm taking all the chances."
"Throw a saddle on him and give the kid a chanct," suggested a cowboy.
Bailey turned and looked at Pete, whose eyes were alight with the hope of winning out—not for the sake of any brief glory, Pete's compressed lips denied that, but for the sake of demonstrating his ability to hold down a job on the ranch.
"Rope him, Monte," said Bailey. "Take the sorrel. I'll throw the kid's saddle on him."
"Do I git the job if I stick?" queried Pete nervously.
"Mebby," said Bailey.
Now Pete's watch was a long-suffering dollar watch that went when it wanted to and ceased to go when it felt like resting. At present the watch was on furlough and had been for several days. A good shake would start it going—and once started it seemed anxious to make up for lost time by racing at a delirious pace that ignored the sun, the stars, and all that makes the deliberate progress of the hours. If Pete could arrange it so that his riding could be timed by his own watch, he thought he could win, with something to spare. After a wild battle with the punchers, Blue Smoke was saddled with Pete's saddle. He still fought the men. There was no time for discussion if Pete intended to ride.
"Go to 'im!" cried Bailey.
Pete hitched up his chaps and crawled over the bars. "Jest time him for me," said Pete, turning to the cowboy who held his watch.
The cowboy glanced at the watch, put it to his ear, then glanced at it again. "The durn thing's stopped!" he asserted.
"Shake her," said Pete.
Pete slipped into the saddle. "Turn 'im loose!" he cried.
The men jumped back. Blue Smoke lunged and went at it. Pete gritted his teeth and hung to the rope. The corral revolved and the buildings teetered drunkenly. Blue Smoke was not a running bucker, but did his pitching in a small area—and viciously. Pete's head snapped back and forth. He lost all sense of time, direction, and place. He was jolted and jarred by a grunting cyclone that flung him up and sideways, met him coming down and racked every muscle in his body. Pete dully hoped that it would soon be over. He was bleeding at the nose. His neck felt as though it had been broken. He wanted to let go and fall. Anything was better than this terrible punishment.
He heard shouting, and then a woman's shrill voice. Blue Smoke gave a quick pitch and twist. Pete felt something crash up against him. Suddenly it was night. All motion had ceased.
When he came to, Mrs. Bailey was kneeling beside him and ringed around were the curious faces of the cowboys.
"I'm the Ridin' Kid from Powder River," muttered Pete. "Did I make it?"
"That horse liked to killed you," said Mrs. Bailey. "If I'd 'a' knew the boys was up to this … and him just a boy! Jim Bailey, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Ma Bailey wiped Pete's face with her apron and put her motherly arm beneath his head. "If he was my boy, Jim Bailey, I'd—I'd—show you!"
Pete raised on his elbow. "I'm all right, mam. It wa'n't his fault. I said I could ride that hoss. Did I make it?"
"Accordin' to your watch here," said the puncher who held Pete's irresponsible timepiece, "you rid him for four hours and sixteen minutes. The hands was a-fannin' it round like a windmill in a cyclone. But she's quit, now."
"Do I git the job?" queried Pete.
"You get right to bed! It's a wonder every bone in your body ain't broke!" exclaimed Ma Bailey.
"Bed!" snorted Pete. He rose stiffly. His hat was gone and one spur was missing. His legs felt heavy. His neck ached; but his black eyes were bright and blinking.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Bailey. "Why, the boy is comin' to all right!"
"You bet!" said Pete, grinning, although he felt far from all right. He realized that he rather owed Mrs. Bailey something in the way of an expression of gratitude for her interest. "I—you, you sure can make the best pie ever turned loose!" he asserted.
"Pie!" gasped the foreman's wife, "and him almost killed by that blue devil there! You come right in the house, wash your face, and I'll fix you up."
"The kid's all right, mother," said Bailey placatingly.
Mrs. Bailey turned on her husband. "That's not your fault, Jim Bailey. Such goin's-on! You great, lazy hulk, you, to go set a boy to ridin' that hoss that you dassent ride yourself. If he was my boy—"
"Well, I'm willin'," said Pete, who began to realize the power behind the throne.
"Bless his heart!" Mrs. Bailey put her arm about his shoulders. Pete was mightily embarrassed. No woman had ever caressed him, so far as he could remember. The men would sure think him a softy, to allow all this strange mothering; but he could not help himself. Evidently the foreman's wife was a power in the land, for the men had taken her berating silently and respectfully. But before they reached the house Pete was only too glad to feel Mrs. Bailey's arm round his shoulders, for the ground seemed unnecessarily uneven, and the trees had a strange way of rocking back and forth, although there was no wind.
Mrs. Bailey insisted that he lie down, and she spread a blanket on her own white bed. Pete did not want to lie down. But Mrs. Bailey insisted, helping him to unbuckle his chaps and even to pull off his boots. The bed felt soft and comfortable to his aching body. The room was darkened. Mrs. Bailey tiptoed through the doorway. Pete gazed drowsily at a flaming lithograph on the wall; a basket of fruit such as was never known on land or sea, placed on a highly polished table such as was never made by human hands. The colors of the chromo grew dimmer and dimmer. Pete sighed and fell asleep.
Mrs. Bailey, like most folk in that locality, knew something of Pete's earlier life. Rumor had it that Pete was a bad one—a tough kid—that he had even killed two cowboys of the T-Bar-T. Mrs. Bailey had never seen Pete until that morning. Yet she immediately formed her own opinion of him, intuition guiding her aright. Young Pete was simply unfortunate—not vicious. She could see that at a glance. And he was a manly youngster with a quick, direct eye. He had come to the Concho looking for work. The men had played their usual pranks, fortunately with no serious consequences. But Bailey should have known better, and she told him so that afternoon in the kitchen, while Pete slumbered blissfully in the next room. "And he can help around the place, even if it is slack times," she concluded.
That evening was one of the happiest evenings of Pete's life. He had never known the tender solicitude of a woman. Mrs. Bailey treated him as a sort of semi-invalid, waiting on him, silencing the men's good-natured joshing with her sharp tongue, feeding him canned peaches—a rare treat—and finally enthroning him in her own ample rocking-chair, somewhat to Pete's embarrassment, and much to the amusement of the men.
"He sure can ride it!" said a cowboy, indicating the rocking-chair.
"Bill Haskins, you need a shave!" said Mrs. Bailey.
The aforesaid Bill Haskins, unable to see any connection between his remark and the condition of his beard, stared from one to another of his blank-faced companions, grew red, stammered, and felt of his chin.
"I reckon I do," he said weakly, and rising he plodded to the bunk-house.
"And if you want to smoke," said Mrs. Bailey, indicating another of the boys who had just rolled and lighted a cigarette, "there's all outdoors to do it in."
This puncher also grew red, rose, and sauntered out.
Bailey and the two remaining cowboys shuffled their feet, wondering who would be the next to suffer the slings and arrows of Ma Bailey's indignation.Theyconsidered the Blue Smoke episode closed. Evidently Ma Bailey did not. Bailey himself wisely suggested that they go over to the bunk-house. It would be cooler there. The cowboys rose promptly and departed. But they were cowboys and not to be silenced so easily.
They loved Ma Bailey and they dearly loved to tease her. Strong, rugged, and used to activity, they could not be quiet long. Mrs. Bailey hitched a chair close to Pete and had learned much of his early history—for Pete felt that the least he could do was to answer her kindly questions—and he, in turn, had been feeling quite at home in her evident sympathy, when an unearthly yell shattered the quiet of the summer evening. More yells—and a voice from the darkness stated that some one was hurt bad; to bring a light. Groans, heartrending and hoarse, punctuated the succeeding silence. "It's Jim," the voice asserted. "Guess his leg's bruk."
The groaning continued. Mrs. Bailey rose and seized the lamp. Pete got up stiffly and followed her out. One of the men was down on all fours, jumping about in ludicrous imitation of a bucking horse; and another was astride him, beating him not too gently with a quirt. As Ma Bailey came in sight the other cowboys swung their hats and shouted encouragement to the rider. Bailey was not visible.
"Stay with 'im!" cried one. "Rake 'im! He's gittin' played out! Look out! He's goin' to sunfish! Bust 'im wide open!"
It was a huge parody of the afternoon performance, staged for Ma Bailey's special benefit. Suddenly the cowboy who represented Blue Smoke made an astounding buck and his rider bit the dust.
Ma Bailey held the lamp aloft and gazed sternly at the two sweating, puffing cowboys. "Where's Bailey?" she queried sharply.
One of the men stepped forward and doffing his hat assumed an attitude of profound gravity. "Blue there, he done pitched your husband, mam, and broke his leg. Your husband done loped off on three laigs, to git the doctor to fix it."
"Let me catch sight of him and I'll fix it!" she snorted. "Jim, if you're hidin' in that bunk-house you come out here—and behave yourself. Lord knows you are old enough to know better."
"That's right, mam. Jim is sure old enough to know better 'n to behave hisself. You feed us so plumb good, mam, that we jest can't set still nohow. I reckon it was the pie that done it. Reckon them dried apples kind of turned to cider."
Mrs. Bailey swung around with all the dignity of a liner leaving harbor, and headed for the house.
"Is she gone?" came in a hoarse whisper.
"You come near this house to-night and you'll find out!" Mrs. Bailey advised from the doorway.
"It's the hay for yours, Jim," comforted a cowboy.
Pete hesitated as to which course were better. Finally he decided to "throw in" with the men.
Bailey lighted the hanging lamp in the bunk-house, and the boys shuffled in, grinning sheepishly. "You're sure a he-widder to-night," said Bill Haskins sympathetically.
Bailey grinned. His good wife was used to such pranks. In fact the altogether unexpected and amusing carryings on of the boys did much toward lightening the monotony when times were dull, as they were just then. Had the boys ceased to cut up for any length of time, Ma Bailey would have thought them ill and would have doctored them accordingly.
Pete became interested in watching Bill Haskins endeavor to shave himself with cold water by the light of the hanging lamp.
Presently Pete's attention was diverted to the cowboy whom Mrs. Bailey had sent outdoors to smoke. He had fished up from somewhere a piece of cardboard and a blue pencil. He was diligently lettering a sign which he eventually showed to his companions with no little pride. It read:
"NO SMOKING ALOUD."
Pete did not see the joke, but he laughed heartily with the rest. The laughter had just about subsided when a voice came from across the way: "Jim, you come right straight to bed!"
Bailey indicated a bunk for Pete and stepped from the bunk-house.
Presently the boys heard Mrs. Bailey's voice. "Good-night, boys."
"Good-night, Ma!" they chorused heartily.
And "Good-night, Pete," came from the house.
"Good-night, Ma!" shrilled Pete, blushing.
"I'm plumb sore!" asserted Haskins. "'Good-night, boys,' is good enough for us. But did you hear what come after! I kin see who gits all the extra pie around this here ranch! I've half a mind to quit."
"What—eatin' pie?"
"Nope! Joshin' Ma. She allus gits the best of us."