Overland Red: A Romance of the Moonstone Cañon Trail
by Henry Herbert Knibbs · English · Gutenberg #19763 · 425,854 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Overland Red: A Romance of the Moonstone Cañon Trail
Author: Henry Herbert Knibbs
Illustrator: Anton Otto Fischer
Release date: November 11, 2006 [eBook #19763]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19763
Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVERLAND RED: A ROMANCE OF THE MOONSTONE CAÑON TRAIL ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: (page 123) OVERLAND LIMITED!]
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OVERLAND RED
A ROMANCE OF THE MOONSTONE CAÑON TRAIL
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANTON FISCHER
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
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COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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To I. J. K.
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CONTENTS
THE ROAD xi
I. THE PROSPECTOR 3
II. WATER 10
III. RAGGED ROMANCE 14
IV. "ANY ROAD, AT ANY TIME, FOR ANYWHERE" 25
V. "CAN HE RIDE?" 39
VI. ADVOCATE EXTRAORDINARY 48
VII. THE GIRL WHO GLANCED BACK 60
VIII. THE TEST 72
IX. A CELESTIAL ENTERPRISE 88
X. "PERFECTLY HARMLESS LITTLE OLE TENDERFOOT" 98
XI. DESERT LAW 110
XII. "FOOL'S LUCK" 125
XIII. THE RETURN 132
XIV. "CALL IT THE 'ROSE GIRL'" 141
XV. SILENT SAUNDERS 157
XVI. BLUNDER 163
XVII. GUESTS 177
XVIII. A RED EPISODE 185
XIX. "TO CUT MY TRAIL LIKE THAT" 202
XX. THE LED HORSE 211
XXI. BORROWED PLUMES 223
XXII. THE YUMA COLT 231
XXIII. SILENT SAUNDERS SPEAKS 247
XXIV. "LIKE SUNSHINE" 254
XXV. IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS 262
XXVI. SPECIAL 273
XXVII. THE RIDERS 278
XXVIII. GOPHERTOWN 288
XXIX. TOLL 299
XXX. TWO ROSES 305
XXXI. NIGHT 320
XXXII. MORNING 332
XXXIII. A SPEECH 345
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ILLUSTRATIONS
OVERLAND LIMITED! (page 123) Frontispiece
THE GIRL'S LEVEL GRAY EYES STUDIED THE TRAMP'S FACE 16
"IT'S A CLEAN-UP" 296
"CAN'T I HAVE ANOTHER ONE, ROSE GIRL?" 340
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The Road
Through the San Fernando Valley, toward the hills of Calabasas runs that
old road, El Camino Real of the early Mission days.
And now replicas of old Mission bells, each suspended in solitary
dignity from a rusted iron rod, mark intervals along the dusty way, once
a narrow trail worn by the patient feet of that gentle and great padre,
Junípero Serra,--a trail from the San Gabriel Valley to the shores of
Monterey. A narrow trail then, but, even then, to him it was broad in
its potential significance of the dawn of Grace upon the mountain shores
of Heaven's lost garden, California.
Not far from one iron-posted bell in the valley, El Camino Real falters,
to find, eventually, a lazy way round the low foothills, as though
reluctant to lift its winding length over the sharp pitch of the Canajo
Pass, beyond.
Near this lone bell another road, an offspring of old El Camino Real,
runs quickly from its gray and patient sire. Branching south in hurried
turns and multiple windings it climbs the rolling hills, ever dodging
the rude-piled masses of rock, with scattered brush between, but forever
aspiring courageously through the mountain sage and sunshine toward its
ultimate green rest in the shadowy hills.
In the sweet sage is the drone of bees, like the hum of a far city. The
thinning, acrid air is tinged with the faint fragrance of sunburnt
shrubs and grasses.
With the sinuous avoidings of a baffled snake the road turns and turns
upon itself until its earlier promise of high adventuring seems
doubtful. As often as not it climbs a semi-barren dun stretch of
sunbaked earth dotted with stubby cacti--passes these dwarfed
grotesques, and attempts the narrowing crest of the cañon-wall, to swing
abruptly back to the cacti again, gaining but little in its upward
trend.
Impatient, it finally plunges dizzily round a sharp, outstanding angle
of rock and down into the unexpected enchantment of Moonstone Cañon.
Here the gaunt cliffs rise to great wild gardens, draped with soft rose
and poignant red amid drowsy undertones of gray and green and gold. Dots
of vivid colors flame and fade and pass to ledges of dank, vineclad rock
and drifts of shale, as the road climbs again.
At the next turn are the indistinct voices of water, commingling in a
monotone--and the road ceases to be, as the cool silver of a mountain
stream cuts through it, with seemingly inconsequential meanderings, but
with the soft arrogance of a power too great to be denied. And the
indistinct voices, left behind, fade to unimaginable sounds as the
stream patters down its gravelly course, contented beyond measure with
its own adventuring.
Patiently the road takes up its way, moving in easier sweeps through a
widening valley, but forever climbing.
Again and again, fetlock deep across it runs the stream, gently
persistent and forever murmuring its happy soliloquies.
Here and there the road passes quickly through a blot of shade,--a group
of wide-spreading live-oaks,--and reappears, gray-white and hot in the
sun.
And then, its high ambition fulfilled, the road recovers from its last
climbing sweep round the base of a shouldering hill and runs straight
and smooth to its ultimate green rest in the shade of the sycamores.
Beyond these two huge-limbed warders of the mountain ranch gate, there
is a flower-bordered _way_, but it is the road no longer.
The mountain ranch takes its name from the cañon below. It is the
Moonstone Ranch, the home of Louise, whose ancestors, the Lacharmes,
grew roses in old France.
Among the many riders to and from the ranch, there is one, a great,
two-fisted, high-complexioned man, whose genial presence is ever
welcome. He answers to many names. To the youngsters he is "Uncle
Jack,"--usually with an exclamation. To some of the older folk he is
"Mr. Summers," or "Jack." Again, the foreman of the Moonstone Ranch
seldom calls him anything more dignified than "Red." Louise does
sometimes call him--quite affectionately--"Overland."
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OVERLAND RED
CHAPTER I
THE PROSPECTOR
For five years he had journeyed back and forth between the little desert
station on the Mojave and the range to the north. The townspeople paid
scant attention to him. He was simply another "desert rat" obsessed with
the idea that gold was to be found in those northern hills. He bought
supplies and paid grudgingly. No one knew his name.
The prospector was much younger than he appeared to be. The desert sun
had dried his sinews and warped his shoulders. The desert wind had
scrawled thin lines of age upon his face. The desert solitude had
stooped him with its awesome burden of brooding silence.
Slowly his mind had been squeezed dry of all human interest save the
recurrent memory of a child's face--that, and the poignant memory of the
child's mother. For ten years he had been trying to forget. The last
five years on the desert had dimmed the woman's visioned face as the
child came more often between him and the memory of the mother, in his
dreams.
Then there were voices, the voices of strange spirits that winged
through the dusk of the outlands and hovered round his fire at night.
One voice, soft, insistent, ravished his imagination with visions of
illimitable power and peace and rest. "Gold! Lost gold!" it would
whisper as he sat by the meager flame. Then he would tremble and draw
nearer the warmth. "Where?" he would ask, tempting the darkness as a
child, fearfully certain of a reply.
Then another voice, cadenced like the soft rush of waves up the sand,
would murmur, "Somewhere away! Somewhere away! Somewhere away!" And in
the indefiniteness of that answer he found an inexplicable joy. The
vagueness of "Somewhere away" was as vast with pregnant possibilities as
his desert. His was the eternity of hope, boundless and splendid in its
extravagant promises. Drunk with the wine of dreams, he knew himself to
be a monarch, a monarch uncrowned and unattended, yet always with his
feet upon the wide threshold of his kingdom.
Then would come the biting chill of night, the manifold rays of stars
and silence, silence reft of winds, yet alive with the tense immobility
of the crouching beast, waiting ... waiting....
The desert, impassively withering him to the shell of a man, or wracking
him terribly in heat or in storm and cold, still cajoled him day and
night with promises, whispered, vague and intoxicating as the perfume of
a woman's hair.
Finally the desert flung wide the secret portals of her treasure-house
and gave royally like a courtesan of kings.
The man, his dream all but fulfilled, found the taste of awakening
bitter on his lips. He counted his years of toil and cursed as he viewed
his shrunken hands, claw-like, scarred, crippled.
He felt the weight of his years and dreaded their accumulated burdens.
He realized that the dream was all--its fulfillment nothing. He knew
himself to be a thing to be pointed at; yet he longed for the sound of
human voices, for the touch of human hands, for the living sweetness of
his child's face. The sirens of the invisible night no longer whispered
to him. He was utterly alone. He had entered his kingdom. Viewed from
afar it had seemed a vast pleasure-dome of infinite enchantment. He
found Success, as it ever shall be, a veritable desert, grudging man
foothold, yet luring him from one aspiration to another, only to consume
his years in dust.
A narrow cañon held his secret. He had wandered into it, panned a little
black sand, and found color. Finally he discovered the fountainhead of
the hoarded yellow particles that spell Power. There in the fastness of
those steep, purgatorial walls was the hermitage of the two
voices--voices that no longer whispered of hope, but left him in the
utter loneliness of possession and its birthright, Fear.
He cried aloud for the companionship of men--and glanced fearfully round
lest man had heard him call.
He again journeyed to the town beside the railroad, bought supplies and
vanished, a ragged wraith, on the horizon.
Back in the cañon he set about his labors, finding a numbing solace in
toil.
But at night he would think of the child's face. He had said to those
with whom he had left the child that he would return with a fortune.
They knew he went away to forget. They did not expect him to return.
That had been ten years ago. He had written twice. Then he had drifted,
always promising the inner voice that urged him that he would find gold
for her, his child, that she might ever think kindly of him. So he tried
to buy himself--with promises. Once he had been a man of his hands, a
man who stood straight and faced the sun. Now the people of the desert
town eyed him askance. He heard them say he was mad--that the desert had
"got him." They were wrong. The desert and its secret was his--a sullen
paramour, but _his_ nevertheless. Had she not given him of her very
heart?
He viewed his shrunken body, knew that he stooped and shuffled, realized
that he had paid the inevitable, the inexorable price for the secret.
His wine of dreams had evaporated.... He sifted the coarse gold between
his fingers, letting it fall back into the pan. Was it for _this_ that
he had wasted his soul?
* * * * *
In the desert town men began to notice the regularity of his comings and
goings. Two or three of them foregathered in the saloon and commented on
it.
"He packed some dynamite last trip," asserted one.
There was a silence. The round clock behind the bar ticked loudly,
ominously.
"Then he's struck it at last," said another.
"Mebby," commented the first speaker.
The third man nodded. Then came silence again and the absolute ticking
of the clock. Presently from outside in the white heat of the road came
the rush of hoofs and an abrupt stop. A spurred and booted rider, his
swarthy face gray with dust, strode in, nodded to the group and called
for whiskey.
"Which way did he go, Saunders?" asked one.
"North, as usual," said the rider.
"Let's set down," suggested the third man.
They shuffled to a table. The bartender brought glasses and a bottle.
Then, uninvited, he pulled up a chair and sat with them. The rider
looked at him pointedly.
"Oh, I'm in on this," asserted the bartender. "Daugherty is the
Wells-Fargo man here. He won't talk to nobody but me--about _business_."
"What's that got to do with it?" queried the rider.
"Just what you'd notice, Saunders. Listen! The rat left a bag of dust in
the Company's safe last trip. Daugherty says its worth mebby five
hundred. He says the rat's goin' to bring in some more. Do I come in?"
"You're on," said the rider. "Now, see here, boys, we got to find out if
he's filed on it yet, and what his name is, and then--"
"Mebby we'd better find out _where_ it is first," suggested one.
"And then jump him?" queried the rider over his glass.
"And then jump him," chorused the group. "He's out there alone. It's
easy." And each poured himself a drink, for which, strangely enough, no
one offered to pay, and for which the bartender evidently forgot to
collect.
Meanwhile the prospector toiled through the drought of that summer
hoarding the little yellow flakes that he washed from the gravel in the
cañon.
CHAPTER II
WATER
All round him for miles each way the water-holes had gone dry. The
little cañon stream still wound down its shaded course, disappearing in
a patch of sand at the cañon's mouth, so the prospector felt secure.
None had ridden out to look for him through that furnace of burning sand
that stretched between the hills and the desert town.
The stream dwindled slowly, imperceptibly.
One morning the prospector noticed it, and immediately explored the
creek clear to its source--a spurt of water springing from the roof of a
grotto in the cliff. Such a supply, evidently from the rocky heart of
the range itself, would be inexhaustible.
A week later he awoke to find the creek-bed dry save in a few
depressions among the rocks. He again visited the grotto. The place was
damp and cool, glistening with beads of moisture, but the flow from the
roof-crevice had ceased. Still he thought there must be plenty of water
beneath the rocks of the stream-bed. He would dig for it.
Another week, and he became uneasy. The stream had disappeared as though
poured into a colossal crevice. A few feet below the gravel he struck
solid rock. He tried dynamite unsuccessfully. Then he hoarded the
drippings from the grotto crevice till he had filled his canteen.
Carefully he stowed his gold in a chamois pouch and prepared to leave
the cañon. His burro had strayed during the week of drought--was
probably dead beside some dry water-hole.
The prospector set out to cross the range in the light of the stars.
Fearful that he might be seen, panic warped his reasoning. He planned to
journey south along the foothills, until opposite the desert town and
then cross over to it. If he approached from such a direction, no one
would guess his original starting-place. He knew of an unfailing
water-hole two days' journey from the cañon. This water-hole was far out
of his way, but his canteen supply would more than last till he reached
it.
Then Fate, the fate that had dogged his every step since first he
ventured into the solitudes, closed up and crept at his heels. He became
more morose and strangely fearful. His vision, refined by the wasting of
his body, created shadows that lay about his feet like stagnant pools,
shadows where no shadows should be.
Ominous was his fall as he crossed an arroyo. The canteen, slung over
his shoulder, struck a sharp point of rock that started one of the
seams. The leak was infinitesimal. The felt cover of the canteen
absorbed the drip, which evaporated. When he arrived at the water-hole,
_that_ was dry. His canteen felt strangely light. He could not remember
having used so much water. He changed his plan. He struck straight from
the hills toward the railroad. He knew that eventually he would, as he
journeyed west, cross it, perhaps near a water-tank.
Toward the blinding afternoon of that day he saw strange lakes and pools
spread out upon the distant sand and inverted mountain ranges stretching
to the horizon.
Fate crept closer to his heels, waiting with the dumb patience of the
desert to claim the struggling, impotent puppet whose little day was all
but spent.
He stumbled across the blazing bars of steel that marked the railroad.
His empty canteen clattered on the ties as he fell. He got to his knees
and dragged himself from the track. He laughed, for he had thwarted Fate
this once; he would not be run over by the train. He lay limp, wasted,
scarcely breathing.
Serenely Fate crouched near him, patient, impassive....
He heard a man speak and another answer. He felt an arm beneath his
head, and water.... Water!
He drank, and all at once his strength flamed up. It was not water they
gave him; it was merely the taste of it--a mockery. He wanted more ...
all!
He lurched to his feet, struggling with a bearded giant that held him
from his desire--to drink until he could drink no more--to die drinking
the water they had taken from him even as they gave it. He fought
blindly. Fate, disdaining further patience, arose and flung itself about
his feet. He stumbled. A flash wiped all things from his vision and the
long night came swiftly.
CHAPTER III
RAGGED ROMANCE
At the wide gate of the mountain ranch stood the girl. Her black
saddle-pony Boyar fretted to be away. Glancing back through the
cavernous shade of the live-oaks, the girl hesitated before opening the
gate. A little breeze, wayfaring through Moonstone Cañon and on up to
the mountain ranch, touched the girl's cheek and she breathed deeply of
its cool fragrance.
The wide gate swung open, and Louise Lacharme, curbing Black Boyar, rode
out of the shadows into the hot light of the morning, singing as she
rode.
Against the soft gray of the cañon wall flamed a crimson flower like a
pomegranate bud. Across the road ran the cool mountain stream. Away and
away toward the empty sky the ragged edges of the cliffs were etched
sharply upon the blue.
The road ran swiftly round the eastern wall of the cañon. Louise, as
fragrantly bright as morning sunshine on golden flowers, laughed as the
pony's lithe bound tore the silver of the ford to swirling beads and
blade-like flashes.
On the rise beyond, the girl drew rein at the beginning of the Old
Meadow Trail, a hidden trail that led to a mountain meadow of ripe
grasses, groups of trees, and the enchantment of seclusion.
The pony shouldered through the breast-high greasewood and picked his
steps along the edge of the hill. The twigs and branches lisped and
clattered against the carved leather tapaderos that hooded the stirrups.
The warm sun awoke the wild fragrance of sage and mountain soil. Little
lizards of the stones raced from Black Boyar's tread, becoming rigid on
the sides of rocks, clinging at odd angles with heads slanted, like
delicate Orient carvings in dull brass.
The girl's eyes, the color of sea-water in the sun, were leveled toward
the distant hills across the San Fernando Valley. From her fingers
dangled the long bridle-reins. Her lips were gently parted. Her gaze was
the gaze of one who dreams in the daylight. And close in the hidden
meadow crouched Romance, Romance ragged, unkempt, jocular....
Boyar first scented the wood-smoke. Louise noticed his forward-standing
ears and his fidgeting. Immediately before her was the low rounded rock,
a throne of dreams that she had graced before. From down the slope and
almost hidden by the bulk of the rock, a little wand of smoke stood up
in the windless air, to break at last into tiny shreds and curls of
nothingness.
"It can't be much of a fire yet!" exclaimed Louise, forever watchful, as
are all the hill-folk, for that dread, ungovernable red monster of
destruction, a mountain fire. "It can't be much of a fire _yet_."
The pony Boyar, delicately scenting something more than wood-smoke,
snorted and swerved. Louise dismounted and stepped hurriedly round the
shoulder of the rock. A bristle-bearded face confronted her. "No, it
ain't much of a fire yet, but our hired girl she joined a movin'-picture
outfit, so us two he-things are doin' the best we can chasin' a
breakfast." And the tramp, Overland Red, ragged, unkempt, jocular, rose
from his knees beside a tiny blaze. He pulled a bleak flop of felt from
his tangled hair in an over-accentuated bow of welcome.
"We offer you the freedom of the city, ma'am. Welcome to our midst, and
kindly excuse appearances this morning. Our trunks got delayed in New
York."
Unsmilingly the girl's level gray eyes studied the tramp's face. Then
her glance swept him swiftly from bared head to rundown heel. "I was
just making up my mind whether I'd stay and talk with you, or ask you to
put out your fire and go somewhere else. But I think you are all right.
Please put on your hat."
[Illustration: THE GIRL'S LEVEL GRAY EYES STUDIED THE TRAMP'S FACE]
Overland Red's self-assurance shrunk a little. The girl's eyes were
direct and fearless, yet not altogether unfriendly. He thought that deep
within them dwelt a smile.
"You got my map all right," he said, a trifle more respectfully.
"'Course we'll douse the fire when we duck out of here. But what do you
think of Collie here, my pal? Is he all right?"
"Oh, he's only a boy," said Louise, glancing casually at the youth
crouched above the fire.
The boy, a slim lad of sixteen or thereabout, flushed beneath the
battered brim of his black felt hat. He watched the tomato-can
coffee-pot intently. Louise could not see his face.
"Yes, Miss. _I'm_ all right and so is he." And a humorous wistfulness
crept into the tramp's eyes. "He's what you might call a changeling."
"Changeling?"
"Uhuh! Always changin' around from place to place--when you're young.
Ain't that it?"
"Oh! And when you are older?" she queried, smiling.
Overland Red frowned. "Oh, then you're just a tramp, a Willie, a Bo, a
Hobo."
He saw the girl's eyes harden a little. He spoke quickly, and, she
imagined, truthfully. "I worked ten years for one outfit once, without
a change. And I never knowed what it was to do a day's work out of the
saddle. You know what that means."
"Cattle? Mexico?"
Overland Red grinned. "Say! You was born in California, wasn't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"'Cause Mexico has been about the only place a puncher could work that
long without doin' day labor on foot half the year. Yes, I been there.
'Course, now, I'm doin' high finance, and givin' advice to the young,
and livin' on my income. And say, when it comes to real brain work, I'm
the Most Exhausted Baked High Potentate, but I wouldn't do no mineral
labor for nobody. If I can't work in the saddle, I don't work--that's
all."
"Mineral labor? What, mining?" asked Louise.
"No, not mining. Jest mineral labor like Japs, or section-hands, or
coachmen with bugs on their hats. Ain't the papers always speakin' of
that kind as minerals?"
"Don't you mean menials?"
"Well, yes. It's all the same, anyway. I never do no hair-splittin' on
words. Bein' a pote myself, it ain't necessary."
"A--a poet! Really?"
"Really and truly, and carry one and add five. I've roped a lot of
po'try in my time, Miss. Say, are we campin' on your land?"
"No. This is government land, from here to our line up above--the
Moonstone Rancho."
"The Moonstone Rancho?" queried Overland Red, breaking a twig and
feeding the fire.
"Yes. It's named after the cañon. But don't let me keep you from
breakfast."
"Breakfast, eh? That's right! I almost forgot it, talkin' to you.
Collie's got the coffee to boilin'. No, _you_ ain't keepin' us from our
breakfast any that you'd notice. It would take a whole reg'ment of
Rurales to keep us from a breakfast if we seen one runnin' around loose
without its pa or ma."
Louise Lacharme did not smile. This was too real. Here was adventure
with no raconteur's glamour, no bookish gloss. Here was Romance. Romance
unshaven, illiterate, with its coat off making coffee in a
smoke-blackened tomato-can, but Romance nevertheless. That this romance
should touch her life, Louise had not the faintest dream. She was
alone ... but, pshaw! Boyar was grazing near, and besides, she was not
really afraid of the men. She thought she rather liked them, or, more
particularly, the boisterous one who had said his name was Overland Red.
The tramp gazed at her a moment before he lifted the tomato-can from the
embers. "We know you won't join us, but we're goin' to give you the
invite just the same. And we mean it. Ma'am, if you'll be so kind as to
draw up your chair, us gents'll eat."
"Thank you!" said Louise, and Overland's face brightened at the
good-fellowship in her voice. "Thank you both, but I've had breakfast."
She gazed at the solitary, bubbling, tomato-can coffee-pot of
"second-edition" coffee. There was nothing else to grace the board, or
rather rock. "I'll be right back," she said. "I'll just take off Boyar's
bridle. Here, Boy!" she called. "You'll be able to eat better."
And she ran to the pony. From a saddle-pocket she took her own lunch of
sandwiches and ripe olives wrapped in oiled paper. She delayed her
return to loosen the forward cincha of the saddle and to find the little
stock of cigarette-papers and tobacco that she carried for any chance
rider of the Moonstone who might be without them.
Collie, the boy tramp, glanced up at Overland Red. "I guess she's gone,"
he said regretfully.
"You're nutty, Collie. She ain't the kind to sneak off after sayin'
she's comin' back. I know a hoss and a real woman when I see 'em. I was
raised in the West, myself."
The boy Collie was young, sensitive, and he had not been "raised in the
West." He frowned. "Yes, you was raised in the West, and what you got to
show for it?"
"Well, hear the kid!" exclaimed Overland. "Out of the mouth of babes and
saplings! What have I got to show? What have I--! Wha--? Oh, you go
chase a snake! I know a good hoss and a good woman when I see 'em, and I
seen both together this morning."
"But what do _she_ want with us bos?" asked the boy.
"S-s-h-h! Why, she's interested in me romantic past, of course. Ain't I
the 'cute little gopher when it comes to the ladies? Fan me, Collie, and
slow music and a beer for one. I'm some lady's-man, sister!"
"You're a bo, the same as me," said the boy.
"S-s-h-h! For the love of Pete, don't you handle that word 'bo' so
careless. It's loaded. It has a jarrin' effect on ears
unattenuated--er--meanin' ears that ain't keyed up to it, as the pote
says. She's comin' back. Fold your napkin. Don't look so blame hungry!
Ain't you got any style?"
"She's the prettiest girl I ever seen," said the boy, hastily swallowing
his share of the hot, insipid coffee.
"Pretty?" whispered Overland, as Louise approached. "She's thoroughbred.
Did you see them eyes? Afraid of nothin', and smilin' at what might dast
to scare her. Not foolish, either. She's wise. And she's kind and
laughin', and not ashamed to talk to us. That's thoroughbred."
Round the rock came Louise, the neat package of sandwiches in one hand.
In the other was the tobacco and cigarette-papers. "I'm going to have my
luncheon," she said. "If you won't object, I'll take a sandwich. There,
I have mine. The rest are for you."
"We had our breakfast," said Overland quickly, "when you was talkin' to
your pony."
Louise glanced at the empty tomato-can. "Well, I'll excuse you for not
waiting for me, but I shall not excuse you from having luncheon with me.
I made these sandwiches myself. Have one. They're really good."
"Oh!" groaned Overland, grimacing. "If I could curry up my language
smooth, like that, I--I guess I'd get deaf listenin' to myself talk. You
said that speech like takin' two turns round the bandstand tryin' to
catch yourself, and then climbin' a post and steppin' on your own
shoulders so you could see the parade down the street. Do you get that?"
And he sighed heavily. "Say! These here sandwiches is great!"
"Will you have one?" asked Louise, gracefully proffering the olives.
"Seein' it's you. Thanks. I always take two. The second one for a chaser
to kill the taste of the first. It's the only way to eat 'em--if you
know where to stop. They do taste like somethin' you done and are sorry
for afterwards, don't they?"
"Were you ever sorry for anything?" asked the boy, feeling a little
piqued that he had been left out of the conversation.
"I was raised in the West, myself," growled the tramp, scowling. "But
that's a good pony you got, Miss. That your saddle too?"
"Yes."
"You rope any?"
"A little. How did you know?"
"Rawhide cover to the saddle-horn is wore with a rope," said Overland,
helping himself to a second sandwich.
Then the tramp and the girl, oblivious to everything else, discussed
rawhide riatas as compared with the regular three-strand stock rope, or
lariat,--center-fire, three quarter, and double rigs, swell forks and
old Visalia trees, spade bits and "U" curbs,--neither willing, even
lightly, to admit the other's superiority of chosen rig.
The boy Collie listened intently and a trifle jealously. Overland Red
and the girl had found a common ground of interest that excluded him
utterly. The boy itched for an excuse to make the girl speak to him,
even look at him.
The sandwiches gone, Louise proffered Overland tobacco and papers.
Actual tears stood in the ex-cowboy's eyes. "Smoke! Me?" he exclaimed.
"I was dyin' for it. I'd do time for you!"
Then in that boyish spirit that never quite leaves the range-rider,
Overland Red took the tobacco and papers and cleverly rolled a cigarette
with one hand. In the other he held his battered felt hat. His eyes had
a far-away look as he reached forward and lighted his cigarette at the
fire. "I was settin' on a crazy bronc', holdin' his head up so he
couldn't go to buckin'--outside a little old adobe down in Yuma,
Arizona, then," he explained, glancing at the girl. "Did you ever drift
away complete, like that, jest from some little old trick to make you
dream?"
CHAPTER IV
"ANY ROAD, AT ANY TIME, FOR ANYWHERE"
The boy Collie took the empty tomato-can and went for water with which
to put out the fire.
Louise and Overland Red gazed silently at the youthful figure crossing
the meadow. The same thought was in both their hearts--that the boy's
chance in life was still ahead of him. Something of this was in the
girl's level gray eyes as she asked, "Why did you come up here, so far
from the town and the railroad?"
"We generally don't," replied Overland Red. "We ain't broke. Collie's
got some money. We got out of grub from comin' up here. We come up to
see the scenery. I ain't kiddin'; we sure did! 'Course, speakin' in
general, a free lunch looks better to me any day than the Yosemite--but
that's because I need the lunch. You got to be fed up to it to enjoy
scenery. Now, on the road we're lookin' at lots of it every day, but we
ain't seein' much. But give me a good feed and turn me loose in the Big
Show Pasture where the Bridal Veil is weepin' jealous of the Cathedral
Spires, and the Big Trees is too big to be jealous of anything, where
Adam would 'a' felt old the day he was born--jest take off my hobbles
and turn me out to graze _there_, and _feed_, and say, lady, I scorn the
idea of doin' _any_thing but decomposin' my feelin's and smokin' and
writin' po'try. I been there! There's where I writ the song called 'Beat
It, Bo.' Mebby you heard of it."
"No, I should like to hear it."
The fire steamed and spluttered as Collie extinguished it. Overland Red
handed the tobacco and papers to him.
"About comin' up this here trail?" he resumed as the boy stretched
beside them on the warm earth. "Well, Miss, it was four years ago that I
picked up Collie here at Albuquerque. His pa died sudden and left the
kid to find out what a hard map this ole world is. We been across, from
Frisco to New York, twice since then, and from Seattle to San Diego on
the side, and 'most everywhere in California, it bein' my native State
and the best of the lot. You see, Collie, he's gettin' what you might
call a liberated education, full of big ideas--no dinky stuff. Yes, I
picked him up at Albuquerque, a half-starved, skinny little cuss that
was cryin' and beggin' me to get him out of there."
"Albuquerque?" queried Louise.
"Uhuh. Later, comin' acrost the Mojave, we got thrun off a freight by
mistake for a couple of sewin'-machines that we was ridin' with to
Barstow, so the tickets on the crates said. That was near Daggett, by a
water-tank. It was hotter than settin' on a stove in Death Valley at 12
o'clock Sunday noon. We beat it for the next town, afoot. Collie
commenced to give out. He was pretty tender and not strong. I lugged him
some and he walked some. He was talkin' of green grass and cucumbers in
the ice-box and ice-cream and home and the Maumee River, and a whole lot
of things you can't find in the desert. Well, I got him to his feet next
mornin'. We had some trouble, and was detained a spell in Barstow after
that. They couldn't prove nothin', so they let us go. Then Collie got to
talkin' again about a California road that wiggled up a hill and through
a cañon, and had one of these here ole Mission bells where it lit off
for the sky-ranch. Funny, for he was never in California then. Mebby it
was the old post-card he got at Albuquerque. You see his pa bought it
for him 'cause he wanted it. He was only a kid then. Collie, he says
it's the only thing his pa ever did buy for him, and so he kept it till
it was about wore out from lookin' at it. But considerin' how his pa
acted, I guess that was about all Collie needed to remember him by.
Anyhow, he dreamed of that road, and told me so much about it that I
got to lookin' for it too. I knowed of the old El Camino Real and the
bells, so we kept our eye peeled for that particular dream road, kind of
for fun. We found her yesterday."
"What, this? The road to our ranch?"
"Uhuh. Collie, he said so the minute we got in that cañon, Moonstone
Cañon, you said. We're restin' up and enjoyin' the scenery. We need the
rest, for only last week we resigned from doin' a stunt in a
movin'-picture outfit. They wanted somebody to do native sons. We said
we didn't have them kind of clothes, but the foreman of the outfit says
we'd do fine jest as we was. It was fierce--and, believe me, lady, I
been through some! I been through some!
"They was two others in checker clothes and dip-lid caps, and they
_wasn't_ native sons. They acted like sons of--I'd hate to tell you
what, Miss--to the chief dollie in the show. They stole her beau and
tied him to the S. P. tracks; kind of loose, though. She didn't seem to
care. She jest stood around chewin' gum and rollin' her lamps at the
head guy. Then the movin'-picture express, which was a retired
switch-engine hooked onto a Swede observation car, backs down on
Adolphus, and we was to rush up like--pretty fast, and save his life.
"She was a sassy little chicken with blond feathers and a three-quarter
rig skirt. She had a regular strawberry-ice-cream-soda complexion, and
her eyes looked like a couple of glass alleys with electric lights in
'em. I wondered if she took 'em out at night to go to sleep or only
switched off the current. Anyhow, up she rides in a big reddish kind of
automobile and twists her hands round her wrists and looks up the track
and down the track and sees us and says, 'Oh, w'ich way has he went?
W'ich way did Disgustus Adolphus beat it to?' And chewin' gum right on
top of that, too. It was tough on us, Miss, but we needed the money.
"'Bout the eighteenth time she comes coughin' up in that old one-lung
machine,--to get her expression right, so the boss kept hollerin',--why,
I gets sick and tired. If there's anything _doin_', why, I'm game, but
such monkeyin'! There was that picture-machine idiot workin' the crank
as if he was shellin' a thicket-full of Injuns with a Gatling, and his
fool cap turned round with the lid down the back of his neck, and me and
Collie, the only sensible-actin' ones of the lot, because we was actin'
natural, jest restin'. I got sick and tired. The next time up coughs
that crippled-up automobile with the mumps on its front tire, and she
says, 'Where, oh, where has he went?' I ups and says, 'Crazy, Miss, and
can you blame him?'
"She didn't see no joke in that, so the boss he fired us. He wasn't
goin' to pay us at that, but I picks up the little picture-machine box
and I swings her up over the track kind of suggestive like. 'One!' said
I. 'Do we get our money?'
"'Drop that machine!' says he, rushin' up to me.
"'I'm a-goin' to,' says I, 'good and hard. Think again, while I count.
Do we get our money?'
"'You get pinched!' says he.
"'Two,' says I, and I swings the box up by the legs.
"'Hole on!' yells the boss. 'Pay the mutt, Jimmy, and, for Gord sake,
get that machine before he ruins the best reel we made yet!'
"We got paid."
"But the bell and Moonstone Cañon?" questioned Louise, glancing back at
Boyar grazing down the meadow.
"Sure! Well, we flopped near here that night--"
"Flopped?"
"Uhuh. Let's see, you ain't hep to that, are you? Why, we crawled to the
hay, hit the feathers, pounded our ear--er--went to bed! That's what it
used to be. Well, in the morning, me and Collie got some sardines and
crackers to the store and a little coffee. It was goin' over there that
we seen the bell and the road and the whole works. I got kind of
interested myself in that cañon. I never saw so many moonstones layin'
right on top the gravel, and I been in Mex., too. We liked it and we
stayed over last night, expectin' to be gone by now."
"And when you leave here?" queried Louise.
"Same old thing," replied Overland cheerfully. "I know the ropes. Collie
works by spells. Oh, we're livin', and that's all you need to do in
California."
"And that is all--now that you have found the road?"
"Oh, the road is like all of them dreams," said Overland. "Such things
are good for keepin' people interested in somethin' till it's done,
that's all. It was fun at first, lookin' up every arroyo and slit in the
hills, till we found it. Same as them marriages on the desert, after
that."
"Marriages?"
"Uhuh. Seein' water what ain't there, like."
"Oh, mirages!" And Louise laughed joyfully.
"I don't see no joke," said Overland, aggrieved.
"I really beg your pardon."
"That's all right, Miss. But what would you call it?"
"Oh, an illusion, a mirage, something that seems to be, but that is
not."
"I don't see where it's got anything on marriages, then, do you? But I
ain't generally peppermistic. I believe in folks and things, although
I'm old enough to know better."
"I'm glad you believe in folks," said Louise. "So do I."
"It's account of bein' a pote, I guess," sighed the tramp. "'Course I
ain't a professional. They got to have a license. I never took out one,
not havin' the money. Anyway, if I did have enough money for a regular
license, I'd start a saloon and live respectable."
"Won't you quote something?" And the girl smiled bewitchingly. "Boyar
and I must go soon. It's getting hot."
"I'm mighty sorry you're goin', Miss. You're real California stock.
Knowed it the minute I set eyes on you. Besides, you passed us the
smokes."
"Red, you shut up!"
Overland turned a blue, astonished eye on Collie. "Why, kiddo, what's
bitin' _you_?"
"Because the lady give us the makings don't say _she_ smokes, does it?"
Overland grunted. "Because you're foolish with the heat, don't say I am,
does it? Them sandwiches has gone to your head, Chico. Who said she did
smoke?"
Louise, grave-eyed, watched the two men, Overland sullen and scowling,
Collie fierce and flaming.
"We ain't used to--to real ladies," apologized Overland. "We could do
better if we practiced up."
"Of course!" said Louise, smiling. "But the poetry."
"U-m-m, yes. The po'try. What'll I give her, Collie?"
"I don't care," replied the boy. "You might try 'Casey Jones.' It's
better'n anything _you_ ever wrote."
"That? I guess not! That ain't her style. I mean one of my
_own_--somethin' _good_."
"Oh, I don't know. 'Toledo Blake,'" mumbled Collie.
"Nope! But I guess the 'Grand Old Privilege' will do for a starter."
"Oh, good!" And Louise clapped her hands. "The title is splendid. Is the
poem original?"
The tramp bowed a trifle haughtily. "Original? Me life's work, lady."
And he awkwardly essayed to button a buttonless coat, coughed, waved his
half-consumed cigarette toward the skies, and began:--
"Folks say we got no morals--that they all fell in the soup;
And no conscience--so the would-be goodies say;
And I guess our good intentions _did_ jest up and flew the coop,
While we stood around and watched 'em fade away.
"But there's one thing that we're lovin' more than money, grub, or booze,
Or even decent folks that speaks us fair;
And that's the Grand Old Privilege to chuck our luck and choose,
_Any_ road at _any_ time for _any_ where."
And Overland, his hand above his heart, bowed effusively.
"I like 'would-be goodies,'" said Louise. "Sounds just like a mussy,
sticky cookie that's too sweet. And 'Any road at any time for any
where--' I think that is real."
Overland puffed his chest and cleared his throat. "I can't help it,
Miss. Born that way. Cut my first tooth on a book of pomes ma got for a
premium with Mustang Liniment."
"Well, thank you." And Louise nodded gayly. "Keep the tobacco and papers
to remember me by. I must go."
"We don't need them to remember you by," said Overland gallantly. Then
the smile suddenly left his face.
Down the Old Meadow Trail, unseen by the girl and the boy, rode a single
horseman, and something at his hip glinted in the sun. Overland's hand
went to his own hip. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and slowly
recovered himself. "What's the use?" he muttered.
But there was that in his tone which brought Collie's head up. The lad
pushed back his battered felt hat and ran his fingers through his wavy
black hair, perplexedly. "What's the matter, Red? What's the matter?"
"Nothin'. Jest thinkin'." Yet the tramp's eyes narrowed as he glanced
furtively past the girl to where Boyar, the black pony, grazed in the
meadow.
Louise, puzzled by something familiar in the boy's upturned, questioning
face, raised one gauntleted hand to her lips. "Why, you're the boy I
saw, out on the desert, two years ago. Weren't you lying by a water-tank
when our train stopped and a man was kneeling beside you pouring water
on your face? Aren't you that boy?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Collie, getting to his feet. "Red told me about _you_,
too."
"Yes, it's her," muttered Overland, nodding to himself.
"And you chucked a rose out of the window to us?" said the boy.
"Overland said _she_ did."
"Yes. It's her, the Rose-Lady Girl," said Overland. "Some of the folks
in the train laughed when I picked up the rose. I remember. Some one
else says, 'They're only tramps.' I recollect that, too."
"But those men were arrested at Barstow, for murder, Uncle Walter said."
Again Overland Red nodded. "They was, Miss. But they couldn't prove
nothin', so they let us go."
"We always was goin' to say thanks to the girl with the rose if we ever
seen her," said the boy Collie. "We ain't had such a lot of roses give
to us."
"So we says it now," said Overland quickly. "Or mebby we wouldn't never
have another chance." Then he slowly rolled another cigarette.
Just then the black pony Boyar nickered. He recognized a friend entering
the meadow.
Overland lighted his cigarette. As he straightened up, Louise was
surprised to see him thrust both hands above his head while he continued
smoking placidly. "Excuse me, Miss," he said, turning the cigarette
round with his lips; "but the gent behind you with the gun has got the
drop on me. I guess he's waitin' for you to step out of range."
Louise turned swiftly. Dick Tenlow, deputy sheriff, nodded good-morning
to her, but kept his gun trained on the tramp.
"Just step out from behind that rock," said Tenlow, addressing
Overland.
"Don't know as I will," replied the tramp. "You're no gentleman; you
didn't say 'please.'"
"Come on! No bluff like that goes here," said the deputy.
"Can't you see I ain't finished smokin' yet?" queried Overland.
"Come on! Step along!"
"No way to address a gent, you Johnny. Say, I'll tell you _now_ before
you fall down and shoot yourself. Do you think you got me because you
rode up while I was talkin' to a lady, and butted into polite
conversation like a drunk Swede at a dance? Say, you think I'd 'a' ever
let you got this far if there hadn't been a lady present? Why, you
little nickle-plated, rubber-eared policeman, I was doin' the double
roll with a pair of Colts .45's when you was learnin' the taste of
milk!"
"That'll be about all for _you_," said the sheriff, grinning.
"No, it ain't. You ain't takin' me serious, and there's where you're
makin' your mistake. I'm touchy about some things, Mr. Pussy-foot. I
could 'a' got you three times while you was ridin' down that trail, and
I wouldn't 'a' had to stop talkin' to do it. And you with that little
old gun out before you even seen me!"
"Why didn't you, then?" asked Tenlow, restraining his anger; for Louise,
in spite of herself, had smiled at Overland's somewhat picturesque
resentment. "Why didn't you, then?"
"Huh!" snorted Overland scornfully. "Do you suppose I'd start anything
with a _lady_ around? That ain't my style. You're a kid. You'll get hurt
some day."
Deputy Tenlow scowled. He was a big man, slow of tongue, ordinarily
genial, and proverbially stupid. He knew the tramp was endeavoring to
anger him. The deputy turned to Louise. "Sorry, Miss Lacharme, but I got
to take him."
"There's really nothing to hinder, is there?" Louise asked sweetly.
CHAPTER V
"CAN HE RIDE?"
The tramp glanced up, addressing the deputy. "Yes, even now there is
something to hinder, if I was to get busy." Then he coolly dropped his
arms and leaned against the rock with one leg crossed before the other
in a manner sometimes supposed to reflect social ease and elegance. "But
I'm game to take what's comin'. If you'll just stick me up and extract
the .38 automatic I'm packin' on my hip,--and, believe me, she's a bad
Gat. when she's in action,--why, I'll feel lots better. The little gun
might get to shootin' by herself, and then somebody would get hurt sure.
You see, I'm givin' you all the chance you want to take me without
gettin' mussed up. I'm nervous about firearms, anyhow."
Deputy Dick Tenlow advanced and secured the gun.
"Now," said Overland Red, heaving a sigh; "now, I ain't ashamed to look
a gun in the face. You see, Miss," he added, turning to address the
girl, "I was sheriff of Abilene once, in the ole red-eye, rumpus days. I
have planted some citizens in my time. You see, I kind of owe the ones
I did plant a silent apology for lettin' this here chicken-rancher get
me so easy."
"You talk big," said Tenlow, laughing. "Who was you when you was sheriff
of Abilene, eh?"
"Jack Summers, sometimes called Red Jack Summers," replied Overland
quietly, and he looked the deputy in the eye.
"Jack Summers!"
Overland nodded. "Take it or leave it. You'll find out some day. And now
you got some excuse for packin' a gun round these here peaceful hills
and valleys the rest of your life. You took Jack Summers, and there
ain't goin' to be a funeral."
Something about the tramp's manner inclined the deputy to believe that
he had spoken truth. "All right," said Tenlow; "just step ahead. Don't
try the brush or I'll drop you."
"'Course you would," said Overland, stepping ahead of the deputy's pony.
"But the bunch you're takin' orders from don't want me dead; they want
me alive. I ain't no good all shot up. You ought to know that."
"I know there's a thousand dollars reward for you. I need the money."
Overland Red grinned. "It's against me morals to bet--with kids. But
I'll put up that little automatic you frisked off me, against the
thousand you expect to get, that you don't even get a long-range smell
of that money. Are you on?"
Tenlow motioned the other to step ahead.
"I'm bettin' my little gun to a thousand dollars less than nothin'.
Ain't you game? I'm givin' you the long end."
"Never mind," growled Tenlow. "You can talk later."
The boy Collie, recovering from his surprise at the arrest, stepped up
to the sheriff. "Where do I come in?" he asked. "You can't pinch Red
without me. I was with him that time the guy croaked out on the Mojave.
Red didn't kill him. They let us go once. What you doin' pinchin' us
again? How do _you_ know--"
"Hold on, Collie; don't get careless," said Overland. "He don't know
nothin'. He's followin' orders. The game's up."
Louise whistled Boyar to her and bridled him. The little group ahead
seemed to be waiting for her. She led the pony toward the trail. "Did he
do it?" she asked as she caught up with Collie.
"No," he muttered. "Red's the squarest pal on earth. Red tried to save
the guy--out there on the desert. Gave him all the water we had, pretty
near. He dassent to give him all, for because he was afraid it would
kill him. The guy fell and hit his head on the rail. Red said he was
dyin' on his feet, anyway. Then Red lugged me clean to that tank where
you seen us from the train. I was all in. I guess Red saved my life. He
didn't tell you that."
"Is he--was he really a cowboy? Can he ride?" asked Louise.
"Can he ride? Say, I seen him ride Cyclone once and get first money for
ridin' the worst buckin' bronc' at the rodeo, over to Tucson. Well, I
guess!"
"Boyar, my pony, is the fastest pony in the hills," said Louise
pensively.
"What you givin' us?" said the boy, glancing at her sharply.
"Nothing. I was merely imagining something."
"Red's square," asserted the boy.
"Sheriff Tenlow is a splendid shot," murmured Louise, with apparent
irrelevance.
They had crossed the meadow. Ahead of the sheriff walked Overland, his
slouch gone, his head carried high. Collie noted this unusual alertness
of poise and wondered.
"Don't try the brush," cautioned Tenlow, also aware of Overland's
alertness.
"When I leave here, I'll ride. Sabe?" And Overland stepped briskly to
the trail, turning his back squarely on the alert and puzzled sheriff.
"He's been raised in these hills," muttered the tramp. "He knows the
trails. I don't. But--I'd like to show that little Rose-Lady Girl some
real ridin' once. She's a sport. I'd ride into hell and rake out the
fire for her.... I hate to--to do it--but I guess I got to."
"Step up there," said Tenlow. "What you talkin' about, anyhow?"
"Angels," replied Overland. "I see 'em once in a while." And he glanced
back. He saw Collie talking to the girl, who stood by her pony, the
reins dangling lightly from her outstretched hand.
"Snake!" screamed Overland Red, leaping backward and flinging up his
arms, directly in the face of the deputy's pony. The horse reared.
Overland, crouching, sprang under its belly, striking it as he went.
Again the pony reared, nearly throwing the deputy.
"Overland Limited!" shouted the tramp, dashing toward Boyar. With a
spring he was in the saddle and had slipped the quirt from the
saddle-horn to his wrist. He would need that quirt, as he had no spurs.
Round swung Tenlow, cursing. Black Boyar shot across the meadow, the
quirt falling at each jump. The tramp glanced back. Tenlow's right hand
went up and his gun roared once, twice....
The boy Collie, white and gasping, threw himself in front of Tenlow's
horse. The deputy spurred the pony over him and swept down the meadow.
Louise, angered in that the boy had snatched Boyar's reins from her as
Overland shouted, relented as she saw the instant bravery in the lad's
endeavor to stop Tenlow's horse. She stooped over him. He rose stiffly.
"Oh! I thought you were hurt!" she exclaimed.
"Nope! I guess not. I was scared, I guess. Let's watch 'em, Miss!" And
forgetful of his bruised and shaken body, he limped to the edge of the
meadow, followed by Louise. "There they go!" he cried. "Red's 'way
ahead. The sheriff gent can't shoot again--he's too busy ridin'."
"Boyar! Boyar! Good horse! Good horse!" cried the girl as the black pony
flashed across the steep slope of the ragged mountain side like a winged
thing. "Boyar! Boy!"
She shivered as the loose shale, ploughed by the pony's flying hoofs,
slithered down the slope at every plunge.
"Can he ride?" shouted Collie, wild tears of joy in his eyes.
Suddenly Overland, glancing back, saw Tenlow stop and raise his arm. The
tramp cowboy swung Black Boyar half-round, and driving his unspurred
heels into the pony's ribs, put him straight down the terrific slope of
the mountain at a run.
Tenlow's gun cracked. A spray of dust rose instantly ahead of Boyar.
"Look! Look!" cried Louise. The deputy, angered out of his usual
judgment, spurred his horse directly down the footless shale that the
tramp had ridden across diagonally. "Look! He can't--The horse--! Oh!"
she groaned as Tenlow's pony stumbled and all but pitched headlong. "The
other man--knew better than that--" she gasped, turning to the boy. "He
waited--till he struck rock and brush before he turned Boyar."
"Can he ride?" shouted Collie, grinning. But the grin died to a gasp. A
burst of shale and dust shot up from the hillside. They saw the flash of
the cinchas on the belly of Tenlow's horse as the dauntless pony
stumbled and dove headlong down the slope, rolling over and over, to
stop finally--a patch of brown, shapeless, quivering.
Below, Overland Red had curbed Boyar and was gazing up at a spot of
black on the hillside--Dick Tenlow, motionless, silent. His sombrero lay
several yards down the slope.
"Oh! The horse!" cried Louise, chokingly, with her hand to her breast.
As for Dick Tenlow, lying halfway down the hillside, stunned and
shattered, she had but a secondary sympathy. He had sacrificed a gallant
and willing beast to his anger. The tramp, riding a strange pony over
desperately perilous and unfamiliar ground, had used judgment. "Your
friend is a man!" she said, turning to the boy. "But Dick Tenlow is
hurt--perhaps killed. He went under the horse when it fell."
"I guess it's up to us to see if the sheriff gent is done for, at that,"
said the boy. "Mebby we can do something."
"You'll get arrested, now," said the girl. "If Dick Tenlow is alive,
you'll have to go for help. If he isn't...."
"I'll go, all right. I ain't afraid. I didn't do anything. I guess I'll
stick around till Red shows up again, anyhow."
"You're a stranger here. I should go as soon as you have sent help,"
said the girl.
"Mebby I better. I'll help get him up the hill and in the shade. Then
I'll beat it for the doc. If I don't come back after that," he said
slowly, flushing, "it ain't because I'm scared of anything I done."
* * * * *
Far down in the valley Boyar's sweating sides glistened in the sun. An
arm was raised in a gesture of farewell as the tramp swung the pony
toward the town. Much to her surprise, Louise found herself waving a
vigorous adieu to the distant figure.
The tramp Overland, realizing that the deputy was badly injured, told
the first person he met about the accident, advising him to get help at
once for the deputy. Then he turned the pony toward the foothills. In a
clump of greasewood he dismounted, and, leaving the reins hanging to the
saddle-horn, struck Black Boyar on the flank. The horse leaped toward
the Moonstone Trail. The tramp disappeared in the brush.
CHAPTER VI
ADVOCATE EXTRAORDINARY
Louise Lacharme, more beautiful than roses, strolled across the
vine-shadowed porch of the big ranch-house and sat on the porch rail
opposite her uncle. His clear blue eyes twinkled approval as he gazed at
her.
Walter Stone was fifty, but the fifty of the hard-riding optimist of the
great outdoors. The smooth tan of his cheeks contrasted oddly with the
silver of his close-cropped hair. He appeared as a young man prematurely
gray.
"How is Boyar?" he asked, smiling a little as Louise, sitting sideways
on the porch-rail, swung her foot back and forth quickly.
"Oh, Boy is all right. The tramp turned him loose in the valley. Boy
came home."
"It was a clever bit of riding, to get the best of Tenlow on his own
range. Was Dick very badly hurt?" queried Walter Stone.
"Yes, his collar-bone was broken and he was crushed and terribly
bruised. His horse was killed. When I was down, day before yesterday,
the doctor said Dick would be all right in time."
"How about this boy, the tramp boy they arrested?"
"Oh," said Louise, "that was a shame! He stayed and helped the doctor
put Dick in the buggy and rode with him to town. Mr. Tenlow was
unconscious, and the boy had to go to hold him. Then the boy explained
it all at the store, and they arrested him anyway, as a suspicious
character. I should have let him go. When Mr. Tenlow became conscious
and they told him they had the boy, he said to keep him in the
calaboose; that that was where he belonged."
"And you want me to see what I can do for this boy?"
"I didn't say so." And Louise tilted her chin.
"Now, sweetheart, don't quibble. It isn't like you."
The gray silk-clad ankle flashed back and forth. "Really, Uncle Walter,
you could have done something for the boy without making me say that I
wanted you to. You're always doing something nice--helping people that
are in trouble. You don't usually have to be asked."
"Perhaps I like to be asked--by--Louise."
"You're just flattering me, I know! But uncle, if you had seen the boy
jump in front of Mr. Tenlow's horse when Dick shot at the tramp,--and
afterwards when the boy helped me with Dick and stuck right to him clear
to his house,--why, you couldn't help but admire him. Then they
arrested him--for what? It's a shame! I told him to run when I saw the
doctor's buggy coming."
"Yes, Louise; the boy may be brave and likable enough, but how are we to
know what he really is? I don't like to take the risk. I don't like to
meddle in such affairs."
"Uncle Walter! Risk! And the risks you used to take when you were a
young man. Oh, Aunty Eleanor has told me all about your riding bronchos
and the Panamint--and lots of things. I won't tell you all, for you'd be
flattered to pieces, and I want you in one whole lump to-day."
"Only for to-day, Louise?"
"Oh, maybe for to-morrow, and to-morrow and to-morrow. But, uncle, only
last week you said at breakfast that the present system of arrest and
imprisonment was all wrong. That was because they arrested that editor
who was a friend of yours. But now, when you have a chance to prove that
you were in earnest, you don't seem a bit interested."
"Did I really say all that, sweetness?"
"Now _you_ are quibbling. And does 'sweetness,' mean me, or what you
said at breakfast? Because you said 'the whole damn system'; and there
were two ladies at the table. Of course, that was before breakfast.
After breakfast you picked a rose for aunty, and kissed me."
Walter Stone laughed heartily. "But I do take a great deal of interest
in anything that interests you."
Louise slipped lithely from the porch-rail and swung up on the broad arm
of his chair, snuggling against him impetuously. "I know you do, uncle.
I just love you! I'll stop teasing."
"I surrender. I'm a pretty fair soldier at long range, but this"--and
his arm went round her affectionately--"this is utter defeat. I strike
my colors. Then, you always give in so gracefully."
"To you, perhaps, Uncle Walter. But I haven't given in this time. I'm
just as interested as ever."
"And you think they are the men we saw out on the Mojave by the
water-tank?"
"Oh, I know it! They remembered the rose. They spoke of it right away,
before I did."
"Yes, Louise. And you remember, too, that they were arrested at
Barstow--for murder, the conductor said?"
"That's just it! The boy Collie says the tramp Overland Red didn't kill
the man. He was trying to save him and gave him water. If you could only
hear what the boy says about it--"
"I don't suppose it would do any harm," said the rancher. "I dislike to
use my influence. You know, I practically control Dick Tenlow's place at
the elections."
"That's just why he should be willing to let the boy go," said Louise
quickly.
"No, sweetheart. That's just why I shouldn't ask Dick to do anything of
the kind. But I see I'm in for it. You have already interested your Aunt
Eleanor. She spoke to me about the boy last night."
"Aunty Eleanor is a dear. I didn't really ask her to speak to you."
"No," he said, laughing. "Of course not. You're too clever for that. You
simply sow your poppy-seed and leave it alone. The poppies come up fast
enough."
Louise laughed softly. "You're pretending to criticize and you're really
flattering,--deliberately,--aren't you, Uncle Walter?"
"Flattering? And you?"
"Because Aunt Eleanor said you could be simply irresistible when you
wanted to be. I think so, too. Especially when you are on a horse."
"Naturally. I always did feel more confident in the saddle. I could, if
need arose, ride away like the chap in Bobby Burns's verse, you
remember--
"He gave his bridle-rein a shake,
And turned him on the shore,
With, 'Farewell, forever more, my dear,
Farewell, forever more.'"
"But you didn't, uncle. Aunty said she used to be almost afraid that
you'd ride away with her, like Lochinvar."
"Yes." And Walter Stone sighed deeply.
"Oh, Uncle Walter! That sounded full of regrets and things."
"It was. It is. I'm fifty."
"It isn't fifty. It's a lack of exercise. And you wouldn't be half so
fine-looking if you were fat. I _always_ sigh when I don't know what to
do. Then I just saddle Boy and ride. And I'll _never_ let myself get
fat."
"A vow is a vow--at sixteen."
"Now I _know_ you need exercise. You're getting reminiscent, and that's
a sign of torpid liver."
Walter Stone laughed till the tears came. "Exercise!" he exclaimed. "Ah!
I begin to divine a subtle method in your doctrine of health. Ah, ha! I
look well on a horse! I need exercise! It's a very satisfactory ride
from here to town and back. Incidentally, Louise, I smell a rat. I used
to be able to hold my own."
"It isn't my fault if you don't now," said Louise, snuggling in his
arm.
"That's unworthy of you!" he growled, his arm tightening round her slim
young figure. "Tell me, sweetheart; how is it that you can be so
thoroughly practical and so unfathomably romantic in the same breath?
You have deliberately shattered me to bits that you might mould me
nearer to your heart's desire. And your heart's desire, just now, is to
help an unknown, a tramp, out of jail."
Louise pouted. "You say 'just now' as though my heart's desires weren't
very serious matters as a rule. You _know_ you wouldn't be half so happy
if I didn't tease you for something at least once a week. I remember
once I didn't ask you for anything for a whole week, and you went and
asked Aunty Eleanor if I were ill. Besides, the boy _needs_ help,
whether he did anything wrong or not. Can't you understand?"
"That's utopian, Louise, but it isn't generally practicable."
"Then make it individually practicable, uncle--just this time. Pshaw! I
don't believe you're half-trying to argue. Why, when Boyar bucked you
off that time and ran into the barb-wire, then _he_ didn't need
doctoring for that awful cut on his shoulder, because he had done
wrong."
"That is no parallel, Louise. Boyar didn't know any better. And this boy
is not sick or injured."
"How do you know that? He's down in that terribly hot, smelly jail. If
he did get sick, who would know it?"
"And Boyar isn't a human being. He can't reason."
"Oh, Uncle Walter! I thought you knew horses better than that. Boyar can
reason much better than most people."
"The proof being that he prefers you to any one else?"
"No," replied Louise, smiling mischievously. "That isn't Boyar's
_reason_; it's his affection. That's different."
"Yes, quite different," said Walter Stone. "Is this boy good-looking?"
And the rancher fumbled in his pocket for a cigar.
Louise slipped from the arm of his chair and stood opposite him, her
lips pouted teasingly, the young face glowing with mischief and fun. "Am
I?" she asked, curtsying and twinkling. "'Cause if you're going to ride
down to the valley to see the boy just because Beautiful asked you,
Beautiful will go alone. But if you come because _I_ want you,"--and
Louise smiled bewitchingly,--"why, Beautiful will come too, and sing for
you--perhaps."
"My heart, my service, and my future are at your feet, Señorita Louisa,
my mouse. Are your eyes gray or green this morning?"
"Both," replied Louise quickly. "Green for spunk and gray for love.
That's what Aunty Eleanor says."
"Come a little nearer. Let me see. No, they are quite gray now."
"'Cause why?" she cooed, and stooping, kissed him with warm, careless
affection. "You always ask me about my eyes when you want me to kiss
you. Of course, when you want to kiss _me_, why, you just come and take
'em."
"My esteemed privilege, sweetheart. I am your caballero."
"Did Aunty Eleanor?" said Louise.
But Walter Stone rose and straightened his shoulders. "That will do,
mouse. I can't have any jealousy between my sweethearts."
"Never! And, Uncle Walter, do you want to ride Major or Rally? Rally and
Boyar get along better together. I'll saddle Boy in a jiffy."
* * * * *
To ride some ten miles in the blazing sun of midsummer requires a kind
of anticipatory fortitude, at fifty, especially when one's own vine and
fig tree is cool and fragrant, embowered in blue flowers and graced by,
let us say, Louise. And a cigar is always at its best when half-smoked.
But when Louise came blithely leading the two saddle-ponies, Black Boyar
and the big pinto Rally, Walter Stone shook an odd twenty years from
his broad shoulders and swung into the saddle briskly.
From the shade of the great sycamore warders of the wide gate, he waved
a gauntleted salute to Aunt Eleanor, who stood on the porch, drawing a
leaf of the graceful moon-vine through her slender fingers. She nodded a
smiling farewell.
Louise and her uncle rode as two lovers, their ponies close together.
The girl swayed to Boyar's quick, swinging walk. Walter Stone sat the
strong, tireless Rally with solid ease.
The girl, laughing happily at her triumph, leaned toward her escort
teasingly, singing fragments of old Spanish love-songs, or talking with
eager lips and sparkling eyes. Of a sudden she would assume a
demureness, utterly bewitching in its veiled and perfect mimicry. Quite
seriously he would set about to overcome this delightful mood of hers
with extravagant vows of lifelong love and servitude, as though he were
in truth her chosen caballero and she his Señorita of the Rose.
And as they played at love-making, hidden graces of the girl's sweet
nature unfolded to him, and deep in his heart he wondered, and found
life good, and Youth still unspoiled by the years, and Louise a
veritable enchantress of infinite moods, each one adorable.
Golden-haired, gray-eyed, quick with sympathy, sweetly subtle and subtly
sweet was Louise.... And one must worship Youth and Beauty and Love,
even with their passing bitter on one's lips.
But to Walter Stone no such bitterness had come, this soldierly, wise
caballero escorting his adorable señorita on an errand of mercy. His was
the heart of Youth, eternal and undaunted Youth. And Beauty was hers, of
the spirit as well as of the flesh. And Love....
"Why, Louise! There are tears on your lashes, my colleen!"
"But I am singing, uncle." And she smiled through her tears.
"Sweetheart?"
"Yes, Uncle Walter?"
"What is it? Tell me."
"I wish I could. I don't know. I think I'm getting to be grown up--just
like a woman. It--it makes me--think of lots of things. Let's ride." And
her silver spurs flashed.
Boyar, taken quite by surprise, grunted as he leaped down the Moonstone
Trail. He resented this undeserved punishment by plunging sideways
across the road. Again came the flash of the silver spurs, and Walter
Stone heard Louise disciplining the pony.
"Just a woman. Just like a woman," murmured the rancher. "Now, Boyar,
and some others of us, will never quite understand what that means." And
with rein and voice he lifted the pinto Rally to a lope.
CHAPTER VII
THE GIRL WHO GLANCED BACK
At the crossroads in the valley stood the local jail, or "coop," as it
was more descriptively called. Unpainted, isolated, its solitary
ugliness lacked even the squalid dignity commonly associated with the
word "jail." The sun pelted down upon its bleached, unshaded roof and
sides. The burning air ran over its warped shingles like a kind of
colorless fire.
The boy Collie, half-dreaming in the suffocating heat of the place,
started to his feet as the door swung open. He had heard horses coming.
They had stopped. He could hardly realize that the sunlight was swimming
through the close dusk of the place. But the girl of Moonstone Cañon,
reining Boyar round, was real, and she smiled and nodded a greeting.
"This is Mr. Stone, my uncle," she said. "He wants to talk with you."
With a glance that noted each unlovely detail of the place, the broken
iron bed, the cracked pitcher, and the unspeakable blankets, Louise
touched her pony and was gone.
Collie rubbed his eyes, blinking in the sun as he stood gazing after
her.
Walter Stone, standing near the doorway, noted the lad's clear, healthy
skin, his well-shaped head with its tumble of wavy black hair, and the
luminous dark eyes. He felt an instant sympathy for the boy, a sympathy
that he masked with a business-like brusqueness. "Well, young man?"
"Yes, sir."
"Come outside. It's vile in there."
Stone led his pony to the north side of the "coop."
Collie followed.
Away to the west he saw the hazy peaks. A lake of burning air pulsed
above the flat, hot floor of the valley. Over there lay the hills and
the shade and the road.... Somewhere beyond was Overland, his friend,
penniless, hunted, hungry....
"She brung you?" queried the boy.
"Yes. I have seen Tenlow, the sheriff. He is willing to let you go at my
request. What do you intend doing, now that you are free?"
"I don' know. Find Red, I guess."
Walter Stone nodded. "What then?"
"Oh, stick it out with Red. They'll be after him sure now. Red's my
pal."
"What has he done to get the police after him?"
"Nothin'. It's the bunch."
"The bunch?"
"Uhuh. Them guys out on the Mojave. But say, are you workin' me to get
next to Red and get him pinched again?"
"No. You don't have to answer me. This man Red is nothing to me, one way
or the other. He took Miss Lacharme's pony, but she has overlooked that.
I thought, perhaps, you might care to explain your position. Perhaps you
had rather not. You may go now if you wish."
"Is that straight?"
"Yes."
For several tense seconds the lad gazed at his questioner. Finally his
gaze shifted to the hills. "I guess you're straight," he said presently.
"I guess she wouldn't have you for a relation if you wasn't straight."
The elder man laughed. "That's right--she wouldn't, young man."
"How's the sheriff guy?" asked the boy.
"He's getting along well enough. What made you ask?"
"Oh, nothin'. I hate to see any guy get hurt."
"I'm glad to hear you say that. I begin to think you are a bigger man
than he is."
"Me?" And Collie flushed, misunderstanding the other's drift. "I guess
you're kiddin'."
"No, I mean it. Mr. Tenlow still seemed pretty hot about your share in
this--er--enterprise. You seem to have no hard feelings against him."
"Huh! He shouldn't to be sore at _me_. I didn't spur no horse onto him
and ride him down like a dog. I guess Red would 'a' killed him if he'd
seen it. Say, nobody got Red, did they?"
"I haven't heard of it. How did this man Red come to pick you up? You're
pretty young to be tramping."
"Cross your heart you ain't tryin' to queer Red? You ain't tryin' to put
the Injun sign on us, are you?"
"No. I have heard all about the Mojave affair--the prospector that died
on the track--and the arrest of Overland Red at Barstow. You told my
niece that this Overland Red was 'square.' How did you come to be mixed
up in it?"
"I guess I'll have to tell you the whole thing, straight. Red always
said that to tell the truth was just as good as lyin', because nobody
would believe us, anyway. And if a fella gets caught tellin' the truth,
why, he's that much to the good."
"Well, I shall try and believe you this time," said Stone. "Miss
Lacharme thinks you're honest."
"A guy couldn't lie to her!" said the boy.
"Then just consider me her representative," said Stone, smiling.
Collie squatted in the meager shade of the "coop."
Walter Stone, dropping the pony's reins, came and sat beside the lad.
There was something in the older man's presence, an unspoken assurance
of comradeship and sincerity that annulled the boy's tendency to
reticence about himself. He began hesitatingly, "My dad was a drinkin'
man. Ma died, and he got worse at it. I was a kid and didn't care, for
he never done nothin' to me. We lived back East, over a pawnbroker's on
Main Street. One day pa come home with a timetable. He sat up 'most all
night readin' it. Every time I woke up, he was readin' it and talkin' to
himself. That was after ma died.
"In the mornin', when I was gettin' dressed, he come over and says to
take the needle he had and stick it through the timetable anywhere. I
was scared he was goin' to have the jimmies. But I took the needle--it
had black thread in it--and stuck it through the timetable. He opened
the page and laughed awful loud and queer. Albuquerque was where the
needle went in. He couldn't say the name right, but he kept lookin' at
it.
"Then he went out and was gone all day and all night. When he come back
he showed me a whole wad of money. I says, 'Where did you get it?' He
got mad and tells me to shut up.
"That day we got on a train. I says, 'Where are we goin'?' and he says
to never mind, and did I want some peanuts.
"We kept ridin' and ridin' in the same car, and eatin' bananas and
san'wiches and sleepin' settin' up at nights. I was just about sick when
we come to Albuquerque. You see, that was where the needle went through
the timetable, and dad said we would get off there. He got awful drunk
that night.
"Next day he said he was goin' to quit liquor and make a fresh start. I
knowed he wouldn't, 'cause he always said that next mornin'. But I guess
he tried to quit. I don't know.
"One night he didn't come back to the room where we was stayin' upstairs
over the saloon. They found him 'way down the track next day, all cut to
pieces by the train."
The boy paused, reached forward, and plucked a withered stem of grass
which he wound round and round his finger.
Walter Stone sat looking across the valley.
"I guess his money was all gone," resumed the boy. "Anyhow, 'bout a year
after, Overland Red comes along. He comes to the saloon where I was
stayin',--they give me a job cleanin' out every day,--and he got to
talkin' a lot of stuff about scenery and livin' the simple life, and all
that guff. The bartender got to jawin' with him, and I laughed, and the
bartender hits me a lick side the head. Red, he hits the bartender a
lick side of _his_ head--and the bartender don't get up right away.
'I'll learn him to hit kids,' said Red. 'If you learn him to hit 'em as
hard as that,' I says to Red, 'then it will be all off with me the next
time.'
"Does he hit you very often?' said Red.
"Whenever he feels like it,' I told him.
"Red laughed and said to come on. I was sick of there, so I run away
with Red. We tried it on a freight and got put off. Red had some water
in a canteen he swiped. It was lucky for us he did. We kept walkin' and
goin' nights, and mebby ridin' on freights in the daytime if we could.
One day, a long time after that, we was crossin' the desert again. We
got put off a freight that time, too. We was walkin' along when we found
a guy layin' beside the track. Red said he wasn't dead, but was dyin'.
We give him some water. Then he kind of come to and wanted to drink it
all. Red said, 'No.' Then the guy got kind of crazy. He got up and
grabbed Red. I was scared.
"Red, he passed me the canteen and told me to keep it away from the guy
because more water would kill him. Then the guy went for Red. 'He's
dyin' on his feet,' said Red. 'It's his last flash.' And he tried to
hold the guy quiet, talkin' decent to him all the time. They was
staggerin' around when the guy tripped backwards over the rail. His head
hit on the other rail and Red fell on top of him. Anyway, the guy was
dead."
Walter Stone shifted his position, turning to gaze at the boy's white
face. "Yes--go on," he said quietly.
"Red was for searchin' the guy, but I says to come on before we got
caught. Red, he laughed kind of queer, and asked me, 'Caught at what?'
Then I said, 'I dunno,' but I was scared.
"Anyway, he went through the dead guy's clothes and found some papers
and old letters and a little leather bag with a whole lot of gold-dust
in it. Red said mebby five hundred dollars!"
"Gold-dust?"
"Uhuh! Then Red _was_ scared. He buried the bag and the papers 'way out
in the sand and made a mark on the ties to find it by."
"Did you find out the dead man's name?" asked Stone, glancing curiously
at the boy.
"Nope. We just beat it for the next station. I was feelin' sick. I give
out, and Red, he lugged me to the next water-tank. He was pourin' water
on me when the Limited come along and stopped, and _she_ throwed the
rose to us. Red told me about it after. You wouldn't go back on a pal
like that, would you?"
"No, I don't know that I should."
"That's me!" said the boy. "Then they went to work and pinched us at
Barstow. Said we killed the guy because his head was smashed in where he
hit the rails. They tried to make Red say that he robbed the guy after
killin' him. But Red told everything, except he didn't tell about the
letters and the gold-dust. They tried to make me say it, but I dassent.
I knowed they would fix Red sure if I did, and he told me not to tell
about the gold if they did pinch us."
"They let you go--after the police examination. Then how is it that the
authorities are after you again?"
"It's the bunch," replied the boy. "Them guys out there knowed the dead
guy had a mine or a ledge or somethin' where he got the gold. Nobody was
wise to where. They told at the jail how he used to come in once in a
while and send his dust to Los Angeles by the express company. All them
guys like the sheriff and the station agent and all the people in that
town are workin' tryin' to find out where the gold come from. They think
because Red and me is tramps that they can make us tell and arrest us
whenever they like. But even Red don't know, unless it's in the papers
he hid in the sand."
"That sounds like a pretty straight story," said Stone. "So you intend
to stick to this man Red?"
"Sure! Would you quit him now, when they're after him worst?"
"They will get him finally."
"Mebby. But Red's pretty slick at a getaway. If they do pinch him again,
that's where I come in. I'm the only witness and the only friend he's
got."
"Of course. But don't you see, my boy, that your way of living is so
much against you that you couldn't really help him? A man's naked word
is worth just what his friends and neighbors will allow him for it, and
no more."
"But ain't a guy got no rights in this country?"
"Certainly he has. But he has to prove that he is entitled to them, by
his way of living."
"Then he's got to go to church, and work, and live decent, or he don't
get a square deal, hey?"
"But why shouldn't he do that much?"
Collie did not answer. Instead, he inspected his questioner critically
from head to foot. "I guess you're right," he said finally. "I've heard
folks talk like that before, but I never took no stock. They kind of
said it because they knowed it. I guess you say it because you mean it."
"Of course I do," said Stone heartily. "Well, here comes my niece with
the mail. See! Over there is El Camino Real, running north. My ranch is
up _there_, in the hills. My foreman's name is Williams. If you should
ask him for work, I believe he might give you something to do. I heard
him say he needed a man, not long ago."
Walter Stone cinched up the saddle and mounted his pony. The boy's eyes
shone as he gazed at the strong, soldierly figure. Ah, to look like
that, and ride a horse like that!
Boyar, the black pony, clattered up and stopped. "Hello, folks!" said
Louise, purposely including the boy in her greeting.
Collie flushed happily. Then a bitterness grew in his heart as he
thought of his friend Overland, hunted from town to town by the same law
that protected these people--an unjust law that they observed and
fostered.
"Well?" said Stone.
Collie's gaze was on the ground. "I don' know," he muttered. "I don'
know."
"Well, good luck to you!" And the ponies swung into that philosophical
lope of the Western horse who knows his journey's length.
The figures of the riders grew smaller. Still the boy stood in the road,
watching them. Undecided, he gazed. Then came an answer to his stubborn
self-questioning. Louise glanced back--glanced back for an instant in
mute sympathy with his loneliness.
Slowly the boy turned and entered the jail. He folded his coat over his
arm, stepped outside, and closed the door.
Before him stretched the hot gray level of El Camino Real, the road to
the beyond. From it branched a narrower road, reaching up into the
southern hills,--on, up to the mysterious Moonstone Cañon with its
singing stream and its gracious shade. Somewhere beyond, higher, and in
the shadowy fastness of the great ranges lay the Moonstone Ranch ... her
home.
"I guess, steppin' up smart, I'll be there just about in time for
supper," said the boy. And whistling cheerily, he set his feet toward
the south and the Moonstone Trail.
CHAPTER VIII
THE TEST
After a week of weeding in the vegetable garden, Collie was put to work
repairing fence. There were many miles of it, inclosing some twenty
thousand acres of grazing-land, and the cross-fencing of the oat,
alfalfa, fruit, and vegetable acreage. The fence was forever in need of
repair. The heavy winter rains, torrential in the mountains, often
washed away entire hillsides, leaving a dozen or so staggering posts
held together by the wires, tangled and sagging. Cattle frequently
pulled loosened posts from the earth by kneeling under the wire and
working through, oblivious to the barbs. Again, "stock gone a little
loco" would often charge straight through the rigid and ripping wire
barriers as though their strands were of thread. Posts would split in
the sun, and staples would drop out, leaving sagging spaces which cattle
never failed to find and take advantage of. Trees uprooted by the rain
and wind would often fall across the fence.
Altogether, the maintaining of a serviceable fence-line on a
well-ordered ranch necessitates eternal vigilance.
The Moonstone Rancho was well ordered under the direct supervision of
Walter Stone's foreman, "Brand" Williams. Williams was a Wyoming cowman
of the old school; taciturn, lean, sinewy.
Some ten years before, Williams, seeking employment, had ridden over the
range with Stone. Returning, the cowman remarked disconsolately, "I like
your stock, and I'll tie to you. But, say, it's only playin' at ranchin'
on twenty thousand fenced. I was raised in Wyoming."
"All right," Stone had replied. "Play hard and we'll get along
first-rate."
Every inch of Brand Williams's six feet was steeped in the astringent of
experience. He played hard and prospered, as did his employer.
Collie stood awaiting the foreman's instructions.
"Ever mend fence?" asked Williams.
"Nope."
"Good. Then you can learn right. Go rope a cayuse--get some staples and
that leetle axe in my office, and go to it. There's plenty fence."
The "Go rope a cayuse" momentarily staggered the boy, but he went
silently to the corral, secured a riata, and by puzzling the playful
ponies by his amateur tactics he finally entangled "Baldy," a
white-faced cow-pony of peaceful mien but uncertain disposition.
Williams, watching the performance, lazily rolled a straw-paper
cigarette.
Snubbed to the post, bridled and saddled awkwardly, Baldy gave no
outward sign of his malignant inward intent of getting rid of the lad
the minute he mounted.
Williams slowly drew a match across his sleeve from elbow to wrist,
ending with a flame that was extremely convenient to his cigarette. He
wasted no effort at anything. He was a man who never met a yawn halfway,
but only gave in to it when actually obliged to. Collie climbed into the
saddle and started for the corral gate. He arrived there far ahead of
the horse. He got to his feet and brushed his knees. The pony was
humping round the corral with marvelous agility for so old a horse.
"He never did like a left-handed man," said Williams gravely. "Next time
get on him from the _other_ side, and see if he don't behave. Hold on;
don't be in a hurry. Let him throw a few more jumps, then he'll quit for
to-day most likely. And say, son, if he does take to buckin' with you
again, don't choke that saddle to death hangin' on to the horn. Set up
straight, lean a little back, and clinch your knees. You'll get piled,
anyhow, but you might as well start right."
The boy approached the horse again, secured the dangling reins, and
again mounted. Baldy was as demure as a spinster in church. He actually
looked pious.
Collie urged the pony toward the gate. Baldy reared.
"A spade bit ain't made to pull teeth with, although you can," said
Williams. "Baldy's old, but his teeth are all good yet. Just easy now.
Ride in your saddle, not on your reins. That's it! And say, kid, I would
'a' got them staples and that axe before crawlin' the hoss, eh?"
Collie flushed. He dismounted and walked to the foreman's office. When
he returned to the corral, the horse was gone. Williams still sat on the
corral bars smoking and gazing earnestly at nothing.
Round the corner of the stable Collie saw the pony, his nose peacefully
submerged in the water-trough, but his eye wide and vigilant. The boy
ran toward him. Baldy snorted and, wheeling, ran back into the corral,
circled it with an expression which said plainly, "Let us play a little
game of tag, in which, my young friend, you shall always be 'It.'"
Again Collie tried to rope the pony.
"Want any help?" asked Williams, as he slid from the corral bars to the
ground.
"Nope." And Collie disentangled his legs from an amazing contortion of
the riata and tried to whirl the loop as he had seen the cowmen whirl
it.
"Hold on, son!" said Williams. "You mean right, but don't go to rope him
with the saddle on. If you looped that horn, he, like as not, would yank
you clean to Calabasas before you got your feet out of that mess of rope
you're standin' in. Anyway, you ain't goin' to Calabasas; you're due up
the other way."
Collie was learning things rapidly, and, better still, he was learning
in a way that would cause him to remember.
Williams spoke sharply to the pony. Baldy stopped and eyed the foreman
with vapid inquisitiveness. "Now, son, I got three things to tell you,"
and the foreman gathered up the reins. "First--keep on keepin' your
mouth shut and tendin' to business. It pays. Second--always drop your
reins over a hoss's head when you get off, whether he's trained that way
or not. And last--always figure a hoss thinks he knows more than you do.
Sometimes he does. Sometimes he don't. Then he won't fool you so
frequent, for you'll be watchin' him. I wouldn't 'a' said that much,
only you're a tenderfoot from the East, I hear. If you was a tenderfoot
from the West, you would 'a' had to take your own medicine."
Collie's shoulder was lame from his fall and was becoming stiff, but he
grinned cheerfully, and said nothing, which pleased Williams.
The foreman leveled his slow, keen eyes at him for a minute. "You'll
find a spring under the live-oaks by the third cross-fence north. Reckon
you'll get there about noon. Keep your eye peeled for fire. I thought I
seen somebody up there as I come across from the corral early this
mornin'. We come close to burnin' out here once, account of a hobo's
fire. Understand, if you ketch anybody cantelopin' around _a-foot_, you
just ride 'em off the range pronto. That's all."
As Collie rode away through the morning sunshine, Williams loafed across
the corral, roped and saddled a white-eyed pinto, and, spurring up a
narrow cañon west of the ranch buildings, disappeared round a turn of
the shady trail. As the foreman rode, he alternately talked to the pony
and himself.
"Tramp, eh?" he said, addressing the pony. "What do you say, Sarko?
Nothin', eh? Same as me.... Overland Red's kid pal, eh? Huh! I knowed
Jack Summers, Red Jack Summers, down in Sonora in '83. Mexico was some
open country then. Jack was a white pardner, too. Went to the bad,
account of that Chola girl that he was courtin' goin' wrong.... Funny
how the boss come to pick up that kid. Thinks there's somethin' in him.
O' course they is. But what? Eh, Sarko, what? You say nothin', same as
me.... Here, you! That's a lizard, you fool hoss. Never seen one before,
so you're try in' to catch it by jumpin' through your bridle after it,
eh? Never seen one before, oh, no! Don't like that, eh? Well, you quit,
and I will. Exactly. It's me, and my ole Spanish spurs. I'm
listenin'.... Nothin' to say?... Uhuh! I reckon little Louise had
somethin' to do with gettin' the kid the job. Well, if _she_ likes him,
I got to. Guess I'd love a snake if she said to. Yes, I'm listenin' to
myself ..." And the taciturn foreman's hard, weathered face wrinkled in
a smile. "I'm listenin' ... None of the boys know Red's camped up by the
spring. I do. Red used to be a damn white Injun in the old days. I'll
give the kid a chance to put him wise for old times. And I'll find out
if the kid means business or not ... which is some help to know how to
handle him later."
Williams picketed his pony in the meadow above the third cross-fence.
Loafing down the slope toward the spring, he noticed the faint smoke of
a fire. Farther down the line fence, he could see Collie in the
distance, riding slowly toward the three live-oaks. The foreman found a
convenient seat on a ledge, rolled another of his eternal cigarettes,
and watched the boy approach from below.
Collie had already dismounted three times that morning; twice to mend
fence, and once more involuntarily. He determined, with a mighty vow to
the bow-legged god of all horseflesh, to learn to stay on a broncho or
die learning.
The boy had a native fondness for animals, and he had already thought of
buying a pony with his first few months' wages. But the vision of his
erstwhile companion Overland, perhaps imprisoned and hopeless in the
grip of the "bunch," annulled that desire. He would save every cent for
that emergency.
Arrived at the spring, both boy and horse drank gratefully, for the day
was hot. Then Collie noticed the thin smoke coming through the trees and
strode toward it.
"It ain't much of a fire yet," said Overland. "Our hired girl--" and he
grinned through a two-weeks' tangle of red beard. "Oh, but ain't he the
'cute little workin'-man with his little ole hoss and his garments of
toil."
"Oh, Red!" exclaimed the boy.
"Me sure! I been hidin' in my whiskers so long I didn't know if you'd
know me."
"I been thinking about you every day."
"Uhuh. So have I. I reckon some others has, too. Say, what you been
doin' lately, studyin' law or learnin' the piano? I been lookin' for
you for a week. It's the first day I seen you out on the range."
"I was working in the garden first. Then they put me at this, this
mornin'."
"Uhuh. Well, Col, that there getaway of mine is in all the papers.
'Tramp Cowboy Steals Horse and Escapes.' Say, did she yip about my
borrowin' the cayuse?"
"She was mad at first. But your fancy ridin' kind of made her forget. I
told her you was square, Red."
"Huh! I guess she could tell that herself."
"But, Red, I'm not kidding. I told her uncle about the bunch and the guy
on the desert."
"Did he believe it?"
"I guess so. He ain't said much. But he gives me the chance to make
good. He must have believed somethin'."
"Well, stick to it, Collie. You never was cut out for a genuine towerist
like me, anyhow. It ain't in your blood."
"What you goin' to do now, Red?"
"Me? Listen! There's gold out there, somewhere. I'm broke now. I need
some dough. I got ideas. Ten dollars does it. I get a new set of clothes
and get shaved and me hair trimmed close. Then I commence me good work
in Main Street, in Los. Down on North Main is where I catch the gent
from the East who will fall for anything that wears a Stetson and some
outdoors complexion. I tell all about my ledge in the Mojave and get
staked to go out and prospect. It's bein' done every day--it and the
other fella."
"But, Red--"
"Hold on, kid. I ain't goin' to bunk nobody. This here's square. I need
financin'--a burro and a grubstake and me for the big dry spot. Ship the
outfit to the desert town, and then hit it along the rails to where we
hid it. If the papers we hid is any good, me to locate the ledge.
Anyhow, there's a good five hundred in the poke, and that's better than
a kick in the pants."
"You'll get pinched sure, Red."
"Nix, kiddo. Not out there. Money talks. 'Course it ain't makin' any
distressin' sounds around here jest now, but, say, got the makin's?"
"I ain't smoked since I been here, Red."
"Excuse me, Miss Collie. What denomination did you say?"
"Straight, Red. I'm savin' my money."
"What do they pay you for settin' on that cayuse?"
"Fifteen a month, and board, and the horse to ride."
"Don't mention the hoss, pal. Jest make motions with your hands when you
mean him. Talkin' is apt to wake him up."
"He pitched me twice."
"Just havin' bad dreams, that's all," said Overland, grinning. "Fifteen
a month and found ain't bad for a bum, is it?"
"Cut that out, Red. I ain't no bum."
"Ex-cuse me. There I gone and laminated your feelin's again. Why in hell
don't you blush, or drop your little ole lace handkerchief, or fix your
back hair, so I can remember I'm talkin' to a lady? It ain't manners,
this here impersonatin' you're a boy like that."
"Quit your kiddin', Red. Mebby you think it was easy to cut out the old
stuff, and everybody on the ranch on to what I used to be. I was cryin'
the first night. I was lonesome for you."
Overland's eyelids flickered. He grinned. "Uhuh! I could hear you clean
over in the Simi Valley. I was thinkin' of comin' right back, only--"
"Oh, if you think I'm lyin to you--"
Overland thrust up a soiled palm. "Nix; you never did yet. How much coin
can you rustle?"
"I got that eight-and-a-half I had when we was pinched. It's down to the
bunk-house."
"Well, bring it up here to-morrow mornin'. And, say, swipe a sogun for
me. I near froze last night."
Collie's brows drew together. "I'll bring the money, sure! but I can't
swipe no blanket, even for you. The boss thinks I'm square, and so does
she. I'll bring tobacco and papers. Got any grub?"
"Well, some. I ain't exactly livin' on sagebrush and scenery yet. I been
trainin' some chickens to do the Texas Tommy. Every one that learns to
do it in one lesson gets presented with a large hot fryin'-pan.
Surprisin' how them chickens is fond of dancin'. I reckon I learned six
of 'em since I seen you last. But don't forget the eight rollers and
four bits. I need ten, but eight-fifty will do. I'll have to leave out
the silk pejammies and the rosewater this trip. But kickie pants is good
enough for me to sleep in. How's that sheriff gent?"
"Busted his collar-bone and killed his horse."
"I'm sad for the hoss. How do you like livin' decent?"
"Fine, Red! I wish you would--"
"Hold on, Collie, not me! I'm gettin' too old, too plumb old and
disgusted with this vale of steers to change and tie down to short
grass. Now you're near enough to the age of that little Louise girl to
make life interestin'."
"Who said anything about her?"
"Whoa, Chico! Back up. You're steppin' on your bridle. Don't go 'way
mad. Why, I said somethin' about her, that's who. You got any idea of
hobblin' my talk?"
"No. But--"
"Oh, you can't flim your ole pal, nohow. You're just commencin' life on
what that little Louise lady thinks you ought to be. And you will be it
some day, if you keep straight. So will I."
"You?" Collie was unable to associate a reconstructive idea with
Overland's mode of life.
"Say! Just as if I never knowed a good woman. Say, I could actooly give
up smokin' for her, if I had to hire some guy to do it for me. That's
what I think of her. When I get me plush rags and the dizzy lid, I'll
call around in me private caboose and take you both for a little ride."
For a moment the boy gazed away to where the silver of the Southern
Pacific rails glinted in the valley. Overland Red's presence brought
back poignantly the long, lazy days of loafing and the wide, starry
nights of wayside fire, tobacco, and talk. There was a charm in the free
life of the road--that long gray road that never ended--never ended in
the quiet shade of a mountain ranch or in the rose-bordered pathway to a
valley cottage. The long gray road held out no promise of rest for worn
and aged folk. After all, its only freedom was the freedom of eternal
wandering ... until one could adventure no longer ... and then? Better
to tread the harder path of duty.
The boy's black eyes were lifted pleadingly. "Red," he said
hesitatingly. "Red, I got to tell you to camp the other side of that
line fence till I come to-morrow."
Overland understood instantly that the lad was but following general
instructions. He loved the boy, and so, perversely, worked upon his
feelings. "Oh, the _other_ side? Ex-cuse me, chief, for intrudin' on
this here resavation. Sorry I'm crowdin' you so."
"Now, Red, wait--"
"Wait? What, for you to insult your ole pal again by tellin' him he
might drink all the water in this here spring, mebby, or inflooence the
morals of the cattle, or steal the wire off the fence? Huh! I thought I
was your _pal_?"
"Oh, Red, quit kiddin'. Don't you see I got orders? I got orders."
"You're gettin' civilized fast, all right. The first thing civilization
does is to projooce hobos and bums. Then she turns up her nose because
hobos and bums ain't civilized. Did you ever see a ma cat get mad
because one of her kittens was born with sore eyes? I guess not. Cats
has got sense. Now, what if I don't indignify myself to the extent of
crawlin' under that line fence?"
"'Course I'll bring you the coin in the mornin'. But if you don't go
now, why, I got to quit this job. I got to play square to him."
"So it's orders or me, eh?"
"Yes, Red, and I want to use you right, and be square, too."
Overland Red's beard hid the quiver of his lips as he asked huskily:
"And you would be comin' back on the road with your ole pal again? You
would give up the job and the chance of a smile from that little
Rose-Lady Girl and flew the coop with me again if I said the word?"
"Sure I would. You come first and the job comes second; but--but I want
to keep the job."
Overland's keen blue eyes filled with instant emotion. "Oh, you go chase
a snake up your sleeve. Do you think I'd bust your chances of makin'
good here? Do you reckon I'd let a line fence stand between me and you,
speakin' poetical? Say, I'll go camp in that sheriff gent's front yard
if it'll do any good to you, or before I'll see you in bad with the
little Rose Girl!"
"Please, Red; I mean it."
"So do I. I'll fade quicker than spit on a hot stove. Don't forget
to-morrow mornin'. Some day I'll put you hep to how to ride. You better
get to your fence job."
Brand Williams watched the man and the boy as they walked along the
line-fence trail together. Collie leading the pony, the man talking and
gesticulating earnestly. Finally they shook hands. The tramp crawled
under the fence. The boy mounted Baldy and rode away.
Williams, catching up his own horse, spurred quickly across the ridge
above the spring that the boy might not see him.
CHAPTER IX
A CELESTIAL ENTERPRISE
Broad avenues of feathery pepper trees, long driveways between shadowy
rows of the soldierly eucalyptus, wide lawns and gigantic palms of the
southern isles, weaving pampas grass, gay as the plumes of romance,
jasmine, orange-bloom, and roses everywhere. Over all is the eternal
sunshine and noon breeze of the sea, graciously cooling. Roundabout is a
girdle of far hills.
Some old Spanish padre named it "Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles,"
making melody that still lures with its ancient charm. A city for
angels, verily. A city of angels? Verily; some fallen, indeed, for there
is much nefarious trafficking in real estate, but all in all the
majority of souls in Los Angeles are celestial bound, treading upon
sunbeams in their pilgrimage.
The plaza, round which the new town roars from dawn to dusk, is still
haunted by a crumbling old adobe, while near it droop dusty pepper trees
that seem to whisper to each other endlessly--"Mañana! Mañana!" Whisper
as did those swarthy vaqueros and the young, lithe, low-voiced
señoritas who strolled across the plaza in the dusk of by-gone days.
"Mañana! Mañana!--To-morrow! To-morrow!"
And the to-morrows have come and gone as did those Spanish lovers,
riding up through the sunshine on their silver-bitted pinto ponies and
riding out at dusk with tinkling spur-chains into that long to-morrow
that has shrouded the ancient plaza in listless dreams. Mexicans in
black sombreros and blue overalls still prowl from cantina to cantina,
but the gay vaquero and his señorita are no more.
Overland Red, a harsh note in the somnolence of the place, stepped
buoyantly across the square. And here, if ever, Overland was at home.
A swarthy, fat Mexican shaved him while a lean old rurale of Overland's
earlier acquaintance obligingly accepted some pesos with which to drink
the señor's health, and other pesos with which to purchase certain
clothing for the señor.
The retired rurale drove a relentless bargain with a countryman,
returning with certain picturesque garments that Overland donned in the
back room of the little circus-blue barber shop.
The tramp had worthily determined to hold wise and remunerative converse
with the first Easterner that "looked good to him." He would make
half-truths do double duty. He needed money to purchase a burro, packs,
canteen, pick, shovel, dynamite, and provisions. He intended to repay
the investor by money-order from some desert town as soon as he found
the hidden gold. This unusual and worthy intention lent Overland added
assurance, and he needed it. Fortune, goddess evanishing and coy, was
with him for once. If he could but dodge the plain-clothes men long
enough to outfit and get away....
The "Mojave Bar," on North Main Street of the City of Angels was all but
empty. Upon it the lassitude of early afternoon lay heavily. The
spider-legged music-racks of the Mexican string orchestra, the empty
platform chairs, the deserted side-tables along the pictured wall, the
huge cactus scrawled over with pin-etched initials,--all the impedimenta
of the saloon seemed to slumber.
The white-coated proprietor, with elbows on the bar, gazed listlessly at
a Remington night-scene--a desert nocturne with a shadowy adobe against
the blue-black night, a glimmer of lamplight through a doorway, and in
the golden pathway a pony and rider and the red flash of pistol shots.
Opposite the bartender, at a table against the wall, sat a young man,
clad in cool gray. He smoked a cigarette, and occasionally sipped from a
tall glass. He was slender, clean-cut, high-colored, an undeniable
patrician. In his mild gray eyes, deep down, gleamed a latent humor, an
interior twinkling not apparent to the multitude.
Sweeney Orcutt, the saloon-keeper, noticed this reserve characteristic
now for the first time, as the young man turned toward him. Sweeney was
a retired plain-clothes man with a record, and a bank account. It was
said that he knew every crook from Los Angeles to New York. Be it added,
to his credit, that he kept his own counsel--attending to his own
business on both sides of the bar.
"Do they ever do those things now?" queried the young man, nodding
toward the picture.
Sweeney Orcutt smiled a thin-lipped smile. "Not much. Sometimes in Texas
or Mexico. I seen the day when they did."
The young man lazily crossed his legs. "Nice and cool here," he remarked
presently.
"Been in town long?" asked Sweeney.
"No, only a few days."
"I was goin' to say there's a good show over on Spring
Street--movin'-pictures of the best ridin' and buckin' and ropin' I seen
yet."
"Yes? Is there any one in town who is not working for the movies?"
Again Sweeney Orcutt smiled his thin-lipped smile. "Yes, I guess there
is. I might scare up one or two I used to know who is workin' the
transients, which ain't exactly workin' _for_ the movies."
"I should like to meet some character who is really doing something in
earnest; that is, some cowboy, miner, prospector, teamster,--one of
those twenty-mule-team kind, you know,--or any such chap. Why, even the
real estate men that have been up to my hotel seem to be acting a part.
One expects every minute to see one of them pull a gun and hold up a
fellow. No doubt they mean business."
"Bank on that," said Orcutt dryly.
"You see," continued the young man, "I have too much time on my hands
just now. The doctors tell me to rest, and I've been doing nothing else
all my life. It's pretty monotonous. I've tried to get interested in
some of the chaps on North Main Street, and around the plaza. I've
offered to buy them drinks and all that, but they seem to shy off. I
suppose they think I'm a detective or something of that kind."
"More like, a newspaper man after a story. Hello, there! Now, what's
doin'?"
Outside near the curb a crowd had collected. A traffic officer was
talking to the driver of an automobile. As Sweeney Orcutt strolled
toward the doorway, Overland Red, clean-shaven, clothed in new corduroys
and high lace boots, and a sombrero aslant on his stiff red hair, dove
into the saloon and called for a "bucket of suds."
"Close--shave--Red--" whispered Orcutt.
"Had me Orcutt, likewise," replied the tramp. "Say, Sweeney, stall off
the Dick out there. I think he piped me as I blew in, but I ain't sure.
He'll be pokin' in here in a minute. If he sees me talkin',--to the guy
there, for instance,--and you give him a steer, he won't look too close.
Sabe?" And Overland drank, observing the Easterner at the table over the
top of his glass.
"They got that guy Overland Red mugged in every station from here to
Chicago," whispered Orcutt. "Paper says he put it over a desert rat up
near Barstow. Did you hear about it?"
"Some," replied Overland sententiously.
"And did you hear about his last get-away on one of the Moonstone Rancho
ponies? Some class to that!"
"I read somethin' about it," replied Overland.
"Well, Red, if you won't tumble, all I got to say is, beat it. You're
worth a thousand bucks to any fly-cop that nips you in this town. I'm
handin' you a little dope that you can slide out on and not get stuck."
"Thanks, Sweeney. Well, I'll ring you up from Kalamazoo."
"Kalamazoo? In them clothes?"
"Sure. There's a law against travelin' naked in some States. Where you
been grazin' lately?"
"In the bull-pasture; and say, Red, it's gettin' warm there, for some."
"Well, I guess I'll beat it," said Overland.
"Take a slant at the door first."
Overland turned leisurely. In the doorway stood the traffic officer. He
glanced from Orcutt to the two men near the table. "Hello, Sweeney!" he
called, glancing a second time at Overland.
"Hello!" answered Sweeney, strolling to the end of the bar. "Somebody
speedin'?"
"Yes. Say, who's the guy, the big one?"
"Him? Oh, that's Billy Sample, the fella that does the desert stuff for
the General Film Company. The kid is his pardner who acts the
tenderfoot. They 're waitin' for the machine now to take 'em out to
Glendale. Got some stunt to pull off this afternoon, so Billy was
tellin' me. They're about half-stewed now. They make me sick."
"Thought I saw the big guy out on the street a minute ago," said the
officer, hesitating. "There's a card out for a fella that looks like
him. I guess--"
"He thought it was his machine comin'," said Orcutt. "He run out to see.
It's a wonder how them movie actors can make up to look like most
anybody. Why, I been in your line of business, as you know, and I been
fooled lots of times. Makes a fella feel like he don't know where he's
at with the town full of them movin'-picture actors."
"Well, so long, Sweeney." And the traffic officer, a little afraid of
being laughed at by the famous ex-officer, Sweeney Orcutt, departed,
just a thousand dollars poorer than he might have been had he had the
courage of his convictions.
Overland and Orcutt exchanged glances. Orcutt's glance rested meaningly,
for an instant, on the Easterner at the table. Overland grinned. Orcutt
spoke to the young Easterner, who immediately rose to his feet and
bowed.
"You was lookin' for somebody that's the real thing, you said. This
here's my friend Jack Summers. He used to be sheriff of Abilene once. He
ain't workin' for a movin'-picture outfit and he won't borrow your
watch. Mebby he has a little business deal to put up to you and mebby
not. Take my word for it, he's straight."
"I'm William Winthrop, back East. 'Billy' will do here. I'm a
tenderfoot, but I'm not exactly a fool. I observed the delicacy with
which you engineered the recent exodus of the policeman. I'm
interested."
"Sounds like plush to me," said Overland. "I got a little time--not
much. You're correct about the cop. I got a pretty good thing out in
the Mojave--gold--"
Winthrop laughed. "You aren't losing any time, are you?"
"You wouldn't neither if you was in my boots," said Overland, grinning
cheerfully.
"Oh, Red's all right," said Orcutt. "What'll you gents have?"
"Seein' I'm all right, Sweeney, I'll take five dollars in small change.
I need the coin for entertainin' purposes, I'll pay you in the mornin'."
"You got me that time," said Orcutt. "Here's the coin."
"Shall we sit down here?" asked Winthrop, indicating one of the tables.
"Sure! Now this ain't no frame-up. No, I'll set where I can watch
Sweeney. He's like to steal his own cash-register if you don't watch
him." And Winthrop noticed that his companion faced the door. He also
noticed, as the man's coat brushed against a chair as he sat down, that
that same coat covered a shiny black shoulder holster in which gleamed
the worn butt of an automatic pistol.
"My real name is Jack Summers," began Overland Red. "Some folks took to
callin' me 'Overland Red,' seein' as I been some towerist in my time."
"Great!" murmured the Easterner. "'Overland Red!' That name has me
hypnotized."
"You was sayin'?" queried Overland.
"Beg your pardon. Nothing worth while. I haven't been so happy for a
year. Let me explain. I have a little money, pretty well invested. I
also have lungs, I believe. The doctors don't quite agree about that,
however. The last one gave me six months to live. That was a year ago. I
owe him an apology and six months. I'm not afraid, exactly, and I'm
certainly not glad. But I want to forget it. That's all. Go ahead about
that desert and the gold. I'm listening."
CHAPTER X
"PERFECTLY HARMLESS LITTLE OLE TENDERFOOT"
William Stanley Winthrop woke next morning with a vague impression of
having lost something. He gazed indolently at the sunlight filtering
through the curtains of his sleeping-room. Beyond the archway to the
adjoining room of his suite, a ray of sunshine lay like living gold upon
the soft, rich-hued fabric of the carpet.
"Gold!" he murmured. "Mojave Desert! Overland Red! Lost gold! No, it
isn't the two hundred dollars I invested in the rascal's story, for it
was worth the money. I never spent four happier hours in my life, at
fifty dollars an hour. The best of it is he actually made me believe
him. I think he believed himself."
Winthrop sat up in bed, yawning. "I think black coffee will be about
all, this morning," he murmured, as he dressed leisurely.
He was tying a fastidiously correct bow on his tan oxford when he
happened to glance out of the window. It was early, altogether too
early, he reflected, to appear in the breakfast-room of the hotel.
Winthrop's indefinite soliloquy melted into the rapt silence of
imagination. Below on the smooth black pavement pattered two laden
burros. On their packs hung dusty, weatherworn canteens, a pick and
shovel, and a rifle in its soiled and frayed scabbard. The sturdy,
shaggy burros followed a little, lean old man, whose flop-brimmed hat,
faded shirt, and battered boots told a tale of the outlands, whispered
of sun-swept immensities, of sage and cacti, sand and silence. Winthrop
drew a long breath. Such an adventurer was the Overland Red he had
talked with the evening previous. The tramp had mentioned a town far out
on the desert. Winthrop sauntered down to the deserted office and
secured a timetable.
When the east-bound express left Los Angeles the following morning,
Winthrop was aboard, uncomfortably installed in the private drawing-room
of a sleeper. He had cheerfully paid the double fare that he might have
the entire space to himself, and he needed it. Around him, on the floor,
in the seats, in the racks, and on the hooks were innumerable packages,
bags, and bundles.
"Very eccentric. He must be rich," whispered the wife of a dry-goods
merchant from Keokuk, as her husband pushed her ahead of him past the
door of the drawing-room.
"Just plain hog!" said the dry-goods merchant. "A man that'll pay
double fare to have the whole earth to himself when other folks has to
be packed into a berth and suffocate! The conductor said he paid double
to Chicago to get that compartment, and he's only goin' out in the
desert a little ways. I'd 'a' took it myself."
"Well, we could hardly afford it, anyway," said the woman pleasantly.
"We've had such a good time I don't mind sleeping in a berth, Hiram."
They crowded on and finally found their seats.
Winthrop smiled to himself. He liked the woman's voice.
He lighted a cigarette and gazed wistfully, even despairingly, at the
"outfit" which surrounded him. He sighed. "Awful accumulation of
plunder. Wonder what I'll do with it?"
As the train climbed the grade beyond San Bernardino, he grew restless.
Flinging down his cigarette, he began unwrapping his belongings. Out
came blankets, extra clothing, a rifle, canteens of several patterns,
two pack-saddles, a coil of rope, a pair of high lace boots,--hobnailed,
heavy, and unserviceable,--a pocket compass, a hunting-knife, a patent
filter, two halters, two galvanized pails, a small, compact, silk tent,
an axe, a fishing-rod, a rubber cup, a box of cigars, a bottle of
brandy, several neckerchiefs, a cartridge-belt, a Colts revolver of
large and aggressive caliber, cartridges, a prospector's pick, a shovel,
a medicine-case, a new safety razor, a looking-glass, a clinic
thermometer, and a copy of "Robinson Crusoe."
He pondered over the agglomeration of articles pensively. "He was a good
salesman," he said, smiling. "I'll be either a juggler or a strong man
before I'm through with these things. I think I'll begin now and
re-pack. I'll make one glorious bundle of it. That's the ticket!"
Winthrop went to work, whistling cheerfully. He spread the blanket and
rearranged his possessions, finally rolling them up into an uncertain
bundle which he roped with the weird skill of the amateur packer. He
tried to lift the bundle to the opposite seat. He decided to leave it on
the floor.
Over the grade and on the level of the desert the train gathered speed.
The shimmering spaces revolved slowly, to meet the rushing track ahead.
Hour after hour sat Winthrop, reading and occasionally glancing out
across the desert. His was the wildest of wild-goose chases. A stranger
had told him of a mysterious ledge of gold somewhere out on the desert,
and the stranger had named a desert town--the town toward which Winthrop
was journeying. Would the eccentric Overland Red be there? Winthrop
hoped so. He wanted to believe that this Ulysses of the outlands had
spoken truth. He imagined vividly Overland Red's surprise when one
William Stanley Winthrop, late of New York, should appear, equipped to
the chin and eager to participate in the hunt for the lost gold. Then
again, the prospector might not care to be burdened with the
companionship of a tenderfoot. Still, the uncertainty of his welcome
lent zest to Winthrop's enterprise. He closed the door of his
drawing-room and wound through a mahogany maze toward the dining-car.
* * * * *
Next morning, as the train slowed down for the desert town, Winthrop was
in the vestibule, peering out anxiously. It did not occur to him that
Overland Red knew nothing of his coming, or that the other would be
waiting on the station platform if he did. The tramp had not the
faintest desire to make himself conspicuous. Some of Winthrop's
enthusiasm had evaporated during the hot night in the sleeper.
"Thank you very much," called the lady from Keokuk, Iowa.
"Don't mention it," said Winthrop, disembarking behind the porter with
his "plunder." Then, as the Pullman slid away, Winthrop deliberately and
gracefully threw a kiss to the dry-goods merchant's wife. "Nice little
woman," he reflected. "Too nice to associate with that grampus. Well, I
hope they'll enjoy the rest of the trip in the drawing-room. I'm glad I
was able to arrange it."
He watched the train crawl down the track. He wondered how long he would
be able to distinguish the pattern of the brasswork on the observation
car-rail.
Out of the empty distance came the _click_, _clink_, _clank_ of hammers
and shovels as the section-men, a mile down the track, stepped into work
behind the train.
"Prospectin'?" queried a lank individual, slouching up to Winthrop.
"A little," said Winthrop. "It's pretty dry work."
"Uhuh. It's goin' to be hot about noon."
"I suppose so. Will you kindly give me a hand with this monstrosity,"
said Winthrop, indicating the pack. "The agent seems to be busy."
"Sure! She ain't roped very tight."
Which proved to be true. The bundle, with a kind of animate
indifference, slowly sagged, opened, and things began to trickle from it
in its journey across the platform. Among the things was the bottle of
brandy. The lank individual picked this up tenderly and set it to one
side. Winthrop noticed his solicitude, and smiled.
"We can rope 'em up again," said the lank one, suddenly becoming
enthusiastic. "My name's Jim Hicks. I'm constable here."
"I see. Well, I'm William Winthrop, from Los Angeles. I'm a naturalist.
Will you accept a cigar?"
"Thanks. You want to pack this here bottle, too?"
"Not right away. Whew! It is getting hot."
"Goin' up to the hotel?" queried the constable.
Winthrop glanced along the street. The hotel did not look inviting. "I
don't know. I'd like to get in the shade somewhere."
"There's old Fernando's 'dobe down the track under them pepper trees.
He's a friend of mine. He ain't to home to-day. Mebby you'd like to set
down there and wait for your friend."
"My friend?"
"Why, ain't you waitin' for anybody? You ain't goin' to tackle that
bug-huntin' trip alone, be you? It's dangerous out there for a
tenderfoot. Now I have took folks out, and brought 'em back all
right,--gone as far as them hills over there, and that's a good jag from
here,--and I only charge four dollars a day and grub."
"I thought you said you were constable?"
"So I be. Takin' parties across the desert is on the side. How far you
figurin' on goin'?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet. Say we go down as far as the adobe you
spoke about, as a beginning. Perhaps we can arrange terms."
"I'm on, pard," said the constable.
* * * * *
Under the pepper trees shading Fernando's adobe sat Winthrop and the
constable. The brandy-bottle was half empty and a box of cigars was open
beside it on the bench. The afternoon shadows were lengthening. The
constable had been discursive, voluminous, in his entertaining. Time was
as nothing. He borrowed generously of to-morrow and even the next day.
He became suddenly quite fond of this quiet, gentlemanly chap opposite
him, who said little, but seemed to be a prince of good fellows.
"'S this way," said the constable, leaning forward and waving his cigar.
"You're fren' of mine--sure thing. 'S af'ernoon now, but I was plumb
fooled this mornin'. Y' know i's af'ernoon now. Thought you was the guy
I'm lookin' for. H'overlan' Red--bum--tram'. Wire from Loshangeles to
upperan' him if he shows up here. See?"
"You're not quite clear to me," replied Winthrop. "But never mind about
apprehending any one. Let's talk about this glorious prospect of sand,
silence, and solitude. I feel like a fallen angel. Never mind about
arresting anybody. Life is too short. Let's talk of roses."
"Roshes! Huh!" sniggered the constable. "You're kin' of sof, ain't you?
Roshes nothin'! I'm goin' talk 'bout business. It's business, my
business to talk 'bout it, see? 'T ain't your business. You c'n lissen,
an' when I get through, then you c'n talk roshes."
"But what is your business?" asked Winthrop, with an indifference that
he did not feel.
"S-s-s-h-h! I'm cons'able. Tha's on the quiet. Thousand dollars rewar'
f'r th' appr'enshun of 'Verlan' Red. Thought you was him--hic--hee!
hee!"
"Please don't laugh like that. It hurts my feelings," said Winthrop. "It
is bad enough to be taken for a--er--tramp."
"Nobody's feelin's--pologishe. '_Course_ you ain' him! You're jus' a
li'l' ole ten'erfoot--perfec'ly harmless li'l' ole ten'erfoot."
"Thanks. May I ask you to have another?"
"Nope. 'Nough's 'nough. 'S time f'r dinner."
"Nearly. Well, if you flatly refuse to drink my health, I'll have to
drink it alone, and that's rather egotistical, isn't it?"
"Never. B' Gosh! You're sport. Funny li'l' ole ten'erfoot--perf'ly
harmless. Sure, I'll drink all th' health you got, 'n then go
home--dinner."
"One will be sufficient, I think," said Winthrop.
"Sufficen' wha'?" And the constable leered cunningly.
"To drown all pangs. Well, here's pleasant dreams."
Far down the line came the faint thrill of wheels and the distant,
clear-cut blast of a locomotive. The local freight from Los Angeles was
whistling for the "block."
Winthrop glanced at his watch, then at the constable. "What train is
that?" asked the Easterner.
The constable's eyelids drooped, then opened languidly. "Railro' train,
'f course." And he slid forward to his elbow and thence to the bench.
Presently he snored.
Winthrop strolled toward the approaching train. "Pretty stiff session,"
he commented. "Now if happy chance should bring Overland Red on this
freight, with his burro and outfit; I'll have one reason to offer for
wanting to go with him. I've probably saved him some annoyance,
indirectly, but rather effectively, I think."
The great oil-burning locomotive roared in, casting heat-waves that
smelled of steam, iron, and mechanical energy. The hot air sickened
Winthrop.
A car was cut out and shunted to a siding. Then the engine, pausing to
drink a gargantuan draught at the tank, simmered away in the dusk,
clanking across the switch-points. A figure leaped from the freight-car
to the ground. Then out came a burro and several bundles. The figure
strode to the station and filled two canteens. Winthrop walked toward
the burro. When he of the burro and canteens returned, he found Winthrop
stroking the little animal's nose.
"What the--! How the--! Who lost you out here?" asked Overland.
Winthrop spoke rapidly and to the point. "Express this morning. Lonesome
again. Thought I'd make a change. My outfit is over at the station.
Don't say 'No' before you hear me. You're going to need me--tenderfeet
and all."
"But you can't--"
"Wait. The local constable has a wire from the Los Angeles police to
look out for you. Perhaps you got this far because you're traveling in a
freight-car. No doubt all the passenger trains have been watched all
along the line. The constable has been my--er--my guest since morning.
He is asleep now. I had to do it. He told me, after either the sixth or
seventh glass, I forget which, that he was looking for you. Come on over
to the station and inspect my outfit, please. I think we had better
vanish."
Overland breathed once, deeply. "Lead me to it!" he exclaimed. "You got
my number. I guess you're some lame chicken, eh? No? I'll never call you
a tenderfoot as long as I live. Shake!"
The inspection of the outfit was brief. "Take the Colts and the
cartridges, and the blankets and the rope. T' hell with the rest."
CHAPTER XI
DESERT LAW
Away out in the night of stars and silence plodded the patient burro,
and beside him shuffled Overland Red and Billy Winthrop.
"We'll fool 'em," said Overland. "Keep joggin'. We'll be over the range
before mornin'. Then let 'em find us."
Winthrop, staggering along, felt his moral stamina crumbling within him.
"I don't know--about that. Perhaps I'll be a drag to the expedition. I'm
pretty tired."
Overland, experienced in the remorse that follows liquor on an empty
stomach, swore vigorously and picturesquely. "You'll stick! Do you
suppose I'd shake you now after you overcomin' a genuine nickel-plated
desert constable? Nix. That ain't my style. You believed me when I said
I was comin' to this particular town. It's worth somethin' to have a
fella around that believes a fella once in a while. But what I want to
know is, why you done up the constable so offhand like, not knowin'
whether I'd show up here or not?"
"Why?" And Winthrop smiled wanly. "Because I'm a perfectly harmless
little old tenderfoot." And his voice caught as he tried to laugh.
An hour of plodding through the dusk, two hours, and they were at a
water-hole near the northern hills. Overland unroped one of the packs,
made a fire, and presently had some hot coffee for his companion, who
was pretty well used up. Nature was taking inexorable toll for his
conquest of the constable.
"You take it easy and don't worry," said Overland.
Winthrop raised on his elbow and gazed at the tiny fire. "Tiger, tiger
burning bright!" he quoted.
"This here coffee'll fix you right," responded Overland Red, grinning.
"Didn't know I was a pote, did you? Now if I was a doc, I'd give you a
shot in the arm that would put you to sleep. Seein' I ain't, it's coffee
for yours."
"Do you think they will follow us?" Winthrop asked presently.
"As sure as snakes," said Overland. "And this here water-hole is the
first place they'll strike for. They'll wait till mornin' to find our
trail."
"When they do find it?"
"I'll show 'em a Mexican trick with a hole in it. You go to sleep,
pardner."
* * * * *
The moon rolled down to the rim of the world. The infinitesimal
mountain peaks rose slowly along the lower edge of the flat silver
shield, black and growing bolder in outline and size as they blotted
half, three quarters, finally all of the burnished radiance. Then along
the edge of the far range ran an instant delicate light, a light that
melted into space and was gone, leaving a palpitating glory of myriad
summer stars.
The little fire died down. The barren outland wastes slumbered in the
charitable dusk of night.
Overland, cross-legged on his blanket, smoked moodily. His thoughts
drifted out on the tide of silence to Moonstone Cañon and Collie and the
Rose Girl, Louise Lacharme. For them he planned impossibly. Of them he
dreamed absurd dreams.
Out of the flotsam of his pondering came memories of other nights such
as this, desert nights on the border ranges of old Mexico--that lost
world of his adventurous youth. Mingled with his waking dreams were the
sounds of many familiar names--Sonora, Trevino, Nueva Laredo, Nava, San
José, Las Cruces, Nogales, Yuma, San Antonio,--each a burning ember of
memory that glowed and faded while the music of silver strings and
singing girls pulsed rhythmically in the stillness--to break at last
into the querulous wailing of a lone coyote. Winthrop stirred restlessly
and muttered.
All at once the tramp realized that this easygoing young Easterner,
wealthy, unused to hardship, delicate of health, had his battle to
fight, as well. "I've knowed 'em to get over it," reflected Overland.
"She's high and dry up here on the desert, and I reckon to go where it's
higher. He's game, but he's desp'rate. He's tryin' to dodge the verdict,
which can't be did. Well, if excitement will help any, I guess he's
ridin' the right range. If he's got to pass over, he might as well go
quick. Mebby he's the best kind of a pal for this deal, after all."
Overland looked across at the muffled form. "Pardner!" he called.
Winthrop did not answer.
"Well, it saves explainin'," muttered the tramp, and he rose quietly. He
gathered the few camp-utensils together, rolled his blankets, brushed
sand over the embers of the fire, and groped stealthily toward the
burro. He roped the pack, glancing back toward the water-hole
occasionally. Winthrop slept heavily.
"Guess I'll go back and get that gun," muttered Overland. "I might need
two; anyway, he might wake up and plug his old friend the constable
before he knowed it. I ain't givin' a whoop for the constable, but I
don't want to see the kid get in wrong."
Then Overland, wily and resourceful in border tactics, led the burro
round the camp in a wide circle, from which he branched toward the hills
to the north. For two hours he journeyed across the starlit emptiness.
Arriving at a narrow cañon in the foothills, he picketed the burro. Then
he sat down. Why not continue with his pack and provisions? He could
camp in the fastness of the mountain country and explore it alone. He
would run less risk of capture. Winthrop was not strong. The Easterner
meant well enough, but this was the desert.
The blue of the eastern horizon grew shallower, changing to a cold thin
gray which warmed slowly to the straw color of tempering steel. The
tramp, watching the sky, shook his clenched fist at the dawn. "You, up
there!" he growled. "You didn't give me a square deal when I was down
and out that time--in Sonora. I had to crawl to it alone. But I'll show
you that I'm bigger than you. I'm goin' back to the tenderfoot and see
him through if I swing pole-high for it."
It was light when the tramp had arrived at the water-hole. He crept
behind a sharp dip in the hummocks. The crest of his hiding-place was
covered with brush. It was a natural rifle-pit affording him seclusion
and shelter.
With the sun came the faint thud of hoofs as two riders came warily up
to the water-hole. One dismounted and stooped over Winthrop. The other
sat his horse, silent, vigilant, saturnine.
"Say, where's your pal, that there Overland Red guy?" asked the
constable, shaking Winthrop awake and glaring at him with a bleared and
baleful eye.
The man on the horse frowned, considering, in the light of his
experience as a successful and still living two-gun man, that such
tactics were rather crude.
The Easterner sat up, coughed and blinked in the dawn. "Where is what?
Why, good-morning! You're up early." And his eye swept the empty camp.
So Overland Red had deserted him, after all. He might have expected as
much. "I haven't any 'pal,' as you can see. I'm out here studying insect
life, as I told you I would be, yesterday. You needn't shake me any
more. I'm awake. I can't say that I'm exactly pleased with my first
specimen."
"Oh! I'm a specimen, am I? I'm a insect, hey? Well, you're crooked, and
you just talk up quick or the calaboose for yours!"
"No. I beg your pardon--but, no. You are in no condition, this morning,
to talk with a gentleman. However, you are my guest. Have a cigar?"
The horseman's eyes twinkled. He admired the young Easterner's
coolness. Not so the constable.
"See here, you swindlin' tin-horn shell-shover, you cough up where
Overland Red is or there'll be somethin' doin'. You doped that booze
yesterday, but you can't throw no bluff like that to-day."
"I did what? Please talk slowly."
"You doped that booze you--"
Much to the constable's surprise he found himself sitting on Winthrop's
blankets and one of his eyes felt as though some one had begun to stitch
it up quickly with coarse thread.
Winthrop, smiling serenely, nodded. "Sorry to have to do it. I know I
don't look like that kind, and I'm not, but I happen to know how."
The constable got to his feet.
"I didn't doctor the brandy, as you intimated," said Winthrop. "And you
needn't finger that belt of yours. I haven't a gun with me, and I
believe it is not the thing for one man to use a gun on another when
the--er--victim happens to be unarmed."
The horseman, who had courage, admired Winthrop's attitude. He rode
between them. "Cut it out, Hicks," he said. "You're actin' locoed. Guess
you're carryin' your load yet. I'll talk to the kid. We 're losing time.
See here, stranger...."
Overland, watching and listening from his hiding-place, grinned as the
constable sullenly mounted his horse.
Winthrop politely but firmly declined to acknowledge that he had had a
companion. Overland was pleased and the riders were baffled by the young
man's subtle evasion of answering them directly.
"Size of it is, you're stung," said the man who had questioned Winthrop
last. "He's lit out, now he's done you."
To this the Easterner made no reply.
The horsemen rode away, following the circle of burro tracks toward the
hills. Winthrop watched them, wondering what had become of his
companion. He could hardly believe that the tramp had deserted him, yet
the evidence was pretty plain. Even his revolver was gone, and his belt
and cartridges. Winthrop yawned. He was hungry. There was no food. But
there was water. He walked toward the water-hole.
"Stand still--and listen," said a voice.
Winthrop jumped back, startled and trembling. The voice seemed to come
from the water-hole at his feet.
"Over here--this way," the voice said.
Winthrop smiled. If it were a disembodied spirit talking, it was no
other than the spirit of Overland Red. The accent was unmistakable. The
Easterner glanced round and observed a peculiar something behind the
brush edging the rise beyond the water-hole.
"It's me," said Overland, still concealed. "Thought I quit you, eh? Are
them fellas out of sight yet?"
"No. They're still in sight. They are too far to see anything, though."
"And you can see them all right, son? That don't figure out correct."
Winthrop laughed. "That's so. Where's the burro?"
"He's hid--right in plain sight up a little arroyo."
"Won't they find him, and confiscate him and the things?"
"Not on your life! 'T ain't exactly healthy, even for constables, to go
round confiscatin' outfits they don't know who's connected with. They
can't say for sure that burro and stuff is mine. They'll look it over
and leave it right there."
"But why did you come all the way back here?" asked Winthrop.
"Seein' they's lots of time, I'll explain. If I had kep' on goin', they
would 'a' trailed me, and mebby got a crack at me in them hills. They
are two to one, and they could get me at night. Now they'll either give
it up, or spot my back tracks and find me here. That's all."
"Perhaps that won't be all," ventured Winthrop, walking toward the ridge
where Overland lay concealed.
The tramp grinned up at him. "Mebby not, pardner. You was tellin'
Sweeney Orcutt back in Los Angeles that you wanted to get up against the
real thing. I reckon you bought the right ticket this trip."
"Will they--will there be any shooting?" asked the Easterner.
"Not if I can help it," replied Overland. "I borrowed your gun on the
chance of it. 'Course, if they get sassy, why, they's no tellin' what
will happen. I'm mighty touchy about some things. But listen! I'm actin'
as your travelin' insurance agent, pro temperly, as the pote says, which
means keepin' your temper. If they do spot me, and get foolish enough to
think that I got time to listen to any arguments against my rights as a
free and unbranded citizen of the big range, why, you drop and roll
behind the first sand-hill that is a foot high. After the smoke blows
away, I'll be dee-lighted to accept your congratulations."
"I guess you mean business," said Winthrop, becoming serious. "I'm game,
but isn't there any other way out of it?"
"Not for me, son. What chance would I have with the whole desert town to
swear against me? They're after the gold, and they reckon to scare me
into tellin' where it is. I'm after that same gold, and I don't reckon
to be bluffed off by a couple of pikers like them."
"The dark one, the man on the bay horse, seemed to be a pretty
capable-looking individual," said Winthrop.
"Glad you noticed that. You're improvin'. He is a capable gent. He's a
old two-gun man. Did you see how he had his guns tied down low so they
would pull quick. Nothin' fancy about him, but he's good leather. The
other one don't count."
"What shall I do when they come back?"
"You jest go to studyin' bugs or rattlesnakes or tarantulas or
somethin'. Make a bluff at it. If they ask you anything, answer 'em nice
and polite, _and so I can hear_. A whole pile depends on my keepin' up
with the talk. I'll figure from what they say, or don't say."
"They seem to be turning. They've stopped. One of them is down on the
ground looking at something. Now he's up again. They're riding back,"
said Winthrop.
"They cut my back trail," said Overland, snuggling down behind the
brush. "You go and set down by the water-hole and find a bug to study."
"Are you going to fight?"
"Not if it can be helped. Otherwise--till me wires are down and me lamps
are out. She's desert law out here. They seems to be some chance for a
argument about who's goin' to be judge. I'm out for the job myself. I
reckon to throw about fifteen votes--they's six in your gun and nine in
the automatic. The election is like to be interestin' and close."
"I wish I could help," said the Easterner.
"You can--by keepin' your nerve," replied Overland. Then he rolled a
cigarette and lay smoking and gazing at the sky. Winthrop watched the
approaching horsemen. Presently he got up and sauntered to the
water-hole.
The tramp lay curled like a snake behind the mound. He drew Winthrop's
gun from its holster and inspected it, shaking his head as he slid it
back again. "She's new and will pull stiff. That means she'll throw to
the right. Well, I got the little Gat. to open up the show with."
William Stanley Winthrop, despite his resolution, found that his hands
trembled and that his heart beat chokingly. He wanted to shout, to run
out toward the horsemen, to do anything rather than sit stupidly silent
by the water-hole.
The two riders loped up. The constable dismounted. "Nothin' doin'," he
said, stooping to drink.
"No. Nothing doing," echoed the man on horseback.
"That," muttered Overland Red, squirming a little higher behind the
bushes, "was intended for me. I know that tone. It means there's a hell
of a lot doin'. Well, I'm good and ready." And he lifted both of his
red, hairy hands to the edge of the hole and both his hands were
"filled."
About then the man on the pony began to ride out from the water-hole in
a wide circle. The constable came from the spring. Overland noticed that
he kept Winthrop between himself and the sage on the ridge. "That
settles it," Overland swiftly concluded. "They're on. I'm right sad to
have to do it."
The heavy, space-blunted report of the circling horseman's gun--and
Overland calmly spat out the sand that flitted across his lips. The
rider had ventured a shot and had ridden behind a ridge instantly.
Winthrop exclaimed at these strange tactics.
"He seen a jack run in there," explained the constable, leering.
"This here's gettin' interestin'," mumbled Overland as the constable
unholstered his gun and sauntered toward the ridge. "I got to get the
gent on the cayuse. The other one don't count."
The rider had appeared from behind the ridge. Slowly Overland raised
his right hand. Then the old fighting soul of Jack Summers, sheriff of
Abilene, rebelled. "No! Dam' if I'll ambush any white man." And he
leaped to his feet. "Overland Limited!" he shouted, and with his
battle-cry came the quick tattoo of shots. The horseman wavered, doubled
up, and pitched forward to the sand.
Overland Red dropped and rolled to one side as the constable's gun
boomed ineffectually. The tramp lay still.
A clatter of empty stirrups, the swish of a horse galloping past, and
silence.
Slowly the constable approached Overland's prostrate figure. "Time's up
for you!" he said, covering the tramp with his gun.
"Water!" groaned Overland.
"Water, eh? Well, crawl to it, you rat!"
Winthrop, his heart thumping wildly, followed the constable. So this was
desert law? No word of warning or inquiry, but a hail of shots, a
riderless horse,--two men stretched upon the sand and the burning sun
swinging in a cloudless circle above the desolate silence.
"You seem to kind of recognize your friend now," sneered the constable.
That was too much for Winthrop's overstrung nerves. His pulses roared in
his ears. With a leap he seized the constable's gun and twisted at it
with both hands. There was an explosion, and Winthrop grinned savagely,
still struggling. With insane strength he finally tore the gun from the
other's grasp. "You're the only coward in this affair," he gasped, as he
levelled the gun at the constable. That officer, reading danger in
Winthrop's eye, discreetly threw up his hands.
"Good!" exclaimed Overland, sitting up suddenly. "That was risky, but it
worked out all right. I had a better plan. You go set down, Billy. I'll
see this gent safe toward home."
Winthrop laughed hysterically. "Why, you--you--you're a joke!" he cried.
"I thought--"
"So did the little man with the pie-pan pinned on his shirt," said
Overland. "You keep his gun. I got to see how bad the other gent's hit."
An hour later the constable of the desert town led his pony toward the
railroad. On the pony was his companion, with both arms bandaged. He
leaned forward brokenly, swaying and cursing. "I'll--get him, if it
takes--a thousand years," he muttered.
"I reckon it'll take all of that," growled the constable. "You can have
all you want of his game, Saunders,--I'm through."
Out by the water-hole, Overland turned to Winthrop. "I'm glad you
enjoyed the performance," he said, grinning. "We've opened the pot and
the best man rakes her down. She's desert law from now to the finish."
CHAPTER XII
"FOOL'S LUCK"
Gaunt, unshaven, weary, Winthrop rested on the crest of the northern
range. Overland, looking for water, toiled on down the slope with the
little burro. Winthrop rose stiffly and shuffled down the rocks. Near
the foot of the range he saw the burro just disappearing round a bend in
a cañon. When he came up with Overland, the tramp had a fire going and
had pitched the tent. The cañon opened out to a level green meadow,
through which ran a small stream. They had come a long day's journey
from the water-hole on the other side of the range. They were safe from
ordinary pursuit. That evening beside the fire, Overland Red told again
the story of the dead prospector, the gold, and the buried papers. In
his troubled slumbers the Easterner dreamed of pacing along the track
counting the ties, and eventually digging in the sand, digging until his
very soul ached with the futility of his labor. Waking, he never lost
faith in the certainty of finding the place. He now knew the tramp well
enough to appreciate that the other had not risked his own life and
nearly killed one of his pursuers through sheer bravado, or fear, or
personal hatred. Something more potent was beneath the tramp's
motives--some incentive that was almost a religion. So far, Winthrop was
correct. He erred, however, in supposing Overland to be obsessed with a
mania for gold for its own sake. The erstwhile sheriff of Abilene had
dreamed a dream about an adopted waif and a beautiful young girl. The
dream was big. Its fulfillment would require much money. There was more
of the poet in Overland Red than his best friend had ever imagined.
Three days they rested in the wild seclusion of the cañon. The silence,
the solemnity of the place, fascinated Winthrop. The tiny stream, cold
and clear, the vegetation, in a region otherwise barren-gray and
burning,--the arid Mojave with its blistering heat, the trees, the
painted rocks,--ochre, copper, bronze, red, gray, and dim lilac in the
distances,--the gracious shade, the little burro, half ludicrous, half
pathetic in its stolid acceptance of circumstances,--all had a charm for
him that soothed and satisfied his restlessness.
Meanwhile the indefatigable Overland spun yarn after yarn of the road
and range, and rolled innumerable cigarettes with one hand, much to
Winthrop's amusement.
The third morning Winthrop had awakened feeling so completely refreshed
that he begged Overland to allow him to make an attempt to find the
hidden papers and the little bag of gold. Overland demurred at first,
fearing that the Easterner would become lost or stricken with the heat.
Throughout the day Winthrop argued stubbornly that he ran no risk of
capture, while Overland did. He asserted that he could easily find the
water-hole, which was no difficult task, and from there he could go by
compass straight out to the tracks. Overland had told him that somewhere
near a little culvert beneath the track was the marked tie indicating
the hiding-place of the dead prospector's things. It would mean a
journey of a day and a night, traveling pretty continuously.
Finally Overland agreed to Winthrop's plan to make the attempt the
following day.
* * * * *
At the foot of the range Overland gave his companion a canteen and a
piece of gunnysack wrapped round some hardtack and jerked beef.
"Don't I need my gun this time?" queried Winthrop.
"Nope, Billy. 'Cause why? You don't generally kill a little gopher or a
little owl that's settin' up tendin' to his business, because you ain't
scared of them. But you will go off of the trail to kill a rattler, a
side-winder, because he's able to kill you if he takes a notion.
Correct. Now a tenderfoot totin' a gun is dangerouser than any rattler
that ever hugged hisself to sleep in the sun--and most fellas travelin'
the desert knows it. Why, I'm plumb scared of a gun-totin' tenderfoot,
myself. Not havin' a gun will be your best recommend, generally
speakin'. Stick to the bugs, Billy; stick to the bugs."
"Well, you ought to know."
"I got seven puckers in my hide to prove what I say. Six of 'em were put
there by plumb amachoors in the gun line; fellas I never took pains to
draw on quick, never suspectin' nothin'. The other, number seven, was
put there by a gent that meant business. He died of a kind of lead
poisonin' right immediate."
They shook hands, the battered, sunburned adventurer, rough-bearded,
broad-chested, genial with robust health, and the slender, almost
delicately fashioned Easterner, who had forgotten that there were such
things as lungs, or doctors,--for the time being.
"Say, Billy, you need a shave," commented Overland, as the other turned
to begin his journey across the desert.
Winthrop grinned. "You need--er--decapitating," he retorted, glancing
back. Then he faced the south and strode away.
Overland, ascending the range, paused halfway up. "Decap-itating," he
muttered. "Huh! That's a new one on me. De-cap--Let's see! Somethin' to
do with a fella's hat, I reckon. It's easy to run a word down and hole
it if you got brains. Mebby Billy meant for me to get a new one. Well,
the constable's friend only put one hole in her--she's a pretty good hat
yet."
* * * * *
Overland found his slow way back to the hidden cañon. He felt a little
lonely as he thought of Collie. He gave the burro some scraps of camp
bread, knowing that the little animal would not stray so long as he was
fed, even a little, each day.
It was while he was scouring the fry-pan that he noticed the black sand
across the stream. Leisurely he rose and scooped a panful of the sand
and gravel and began washing it, more as a pastime than with an idea of
finding gold. Slowly he oscillated the whispering sand, slopping the
water out until he had panned the lot. He spread his bandanna on a
smooth rock and gently emptied the residue of the washing on it.
"Color--but thin," he said. "Let's try her again."
He moved farther upstream--this time with one of his regular pans. He
became absorbed in his experiment. He washed panful after panful,
slowly, carefully, collectedly. Suddenly he stood up, swore softly, and
flung the half-washed dirt of the last pan on the rocks. "I'm a nut!"
he exclaimed. "This livin' in civilization has been puttin' my intellec'
to the bad. Too much Eastern sassiety." And with this inexplicable
self-arraignment he stooped at the tent-door, buckled on his gun, and
started upstream. He glanced from side to side of the steep and
narrowing walls as he advanced slowly. He passed places where the stream
disappeared in the sand to find some subterranean channel and reappear
below again. Rounding an angle of the cliff, he dropped to his knees and
examined some tiny parallel scratches on a rounded rock--the marks made
by a boot-heel that had slipped. For an hour he toiled over the rocks on
up the diminishing stream. "Gettin' thin," he muttered, gazing at the
silver thread of water rippling over the pebbles. A few feet ahead the
cliffs met at the bottom in a sharp-edged "V," not over a foot apart in
the stream-bed, but widening above. Overland scrambled through. On the
other side of the opening he straightened up, breathing hard. His hand
crept to his hip. On a sandy level a few yards ahead of him stood a
ragged and faded canvas tent, its flap wavering idly in a breath of
wind. In front of the tent was the rain-washed charcoal of an old fire.
A rusted pan, a pick, and the worn stub of a shovel lay near the stream.
A box marked "Dynamite" was half-filled with odds and ends of empty
tins, cooking-utensils, and among the things was a glass fruit-jar half
filled with matches.
Slowly Overland's hand dropped to his side. He stepped forward, stooped,
and peered into the tent. "Thought so," he said laughing queerly. Save
for a pair of old quilts and an old corduroy coat, the place was empty.
"Fool's luck," muttered Overland. "Wonder the Gophertown outfit didn't
find him and fix him. But come to think of it, they ain't so anxious to
cross over to this side of the range and get too clost to a real town,
and get run in or shot up. Fool's luck," he reiterated, coolly rolling a
cigarette and gazing about with a critical eye. "They's another trail
into this cañon that the prospector knowed. I got to find it. Billy'll
be some interested."
CHAPTER XIII
THE RETURN
Overland Red lay concealed in an arroyo at the foot of the range. He
could overlook the desert without being seen. It was the afternoon of
the day following Winthrop's departure.
Since discovering the dead prospector's camp and all that it meant, the
tramp was doubly vigilant. He tried to believe that his anxiety was for
his own safety rather than for Winthrop's. He finally gave up that idea,
grumbling something about becoming "plumb soft in his feelin's since he
took to associatin' with sassiety folks." However, had Winthrop been of
the West and seasoned in its more rugged ways, Overland would have
thought little of the young man's share in recent events. While he knew
that Winthrop looked upon their venture as nothing more than a rather
keenly exciting game, Overland realized also that the Easterner had
played the game royally. Perhaps the fact that Winthrop's health was not
of the best appealed to some hidden sentiment in the tramp's peculiar
nature. In any event, Overland Red found himself strangely solicitous
for his companion's return.
Far in the south a speck moved, almost imperceptibly. The tramp's keen
eyes told him that this was no horseman. He rolled a cigarette and lay
back in the shade of a boulder. "He's a couple of points off his course,
but he can't miss the range," he reflected.
Desiring to assure himself that no horseman followed Winthrop, Overland
Red made no sign that might help the other to find the trail over the
range. The rim of Winthrop's hat became distinguishable; then the white
lacing of his boots. Nearer, Overland saw that his face was drawn and
set with lines of fatigue.
No riders appeared on the horizon. Overland stepped out from behind the
rock. "Well, how did you make it?" he called.
Winthrop came forward wearily "No luck at all."
"Couldn't find it, eh?"
"I counted every tie between the tank and that little ditch under the
track. The entire stretch has been relaid with new ties."
Overland whistled. Then he grinned. "You had a good healthy walk,
anyhow," he observed.
"It doesn't seem to worry you much," said Winthrop.
"Nope. Now you're back, it don't. I reckon you done your dam'dest as
the song says. Angels can do no less. Buck up, Billy! You 're limper'n a
second-hand porous-plaster. Here, take a shot at this. That will stiffen
your knees some. Did you meet up with anybody?"
"Not a soul. I thought I should freeze last night, though. I didn't
imagine the desert could get so cold."
"Livin' out here on the old dry spot will either kill you or cure you.
That's one reason I let you go look for them things. The harder you hit
the trail, and can stand it, the quicker you'll get built up." Then
Overland, realizing that his companion was worse than tired, that he was
dispirited, became as wily as the proverbial serpent. His method,
however, could hardly be compared with the dove's conciliatory cooing.
"You sure are a bum scout," he began.
Winthrop flushed, but was silent.
"Bet a banana you didn't even leave the track and look for it."
"No, I didn't. Where could I have begun?"
Overland ignored the question. "I'm hungrier than a gorilla. Just send a
wireless to them feet of your'n. We got some climbin' to do afore dark."
"I'd just as soon camp here. Go up to-morrow," said Winthrop.
"So'd I if it wasn't for bein' scared some of the hills would mosey off
before I got back." And Overland set a brisk pace up the mountain,
talking as he climbed. Winthrop could do nothing but listen. He was
breathless.
"Or that cañon," continued Overland. "She might not be there if we
stayed away all night. Besides, I'm scared to leave _it_ alone by
itself."
"Leave what?" gasped Winthrop.
"It. The find I made while you was out surveyin' the Santa Fé. I was
feared you'd get nervous prosecution if I told you all to once, so I
breaks it easy like."
"What was it?"
"Nothin' but a tent in the cañon we're campin' in. But, Billy, when you
find a tent and some minin' tools and other signs of trouble 'way up
some lonesome old slot in the hills, you want to get ready for a
surprise. Mebby it'll be nothin' but some old clothes and bones. Mebby
it'll be them and somethin' else. I didn't find the bones, but I found
the somethin' else, coarse, and fair dribblin' thick in the dirt. It's
there and rich, Billy, rich!"
Overland Red turned and paused as Winthrop leaned against a rock.
"It's the--the real thing?" queried the Easterner.
"The real thing, pardner. Now what do you think of that for highbrow
stuff?"
"Meaning that you stumbled on the secret?"
"If you want to say it that way, yes. Just like fallin' into a sewer and
findin' a gold watch where you lit."
"Then it's all true? We've found the gold? You really believed we
should, and for that matter, so did I. I can't say why. I rather felt
that we should."
"I guess I'm some class when it comes to findin' the incubator that
hatches them little yella babies with the come-and-find-me eyes."
Winthrop straightened his tired shoulders. "You seem to think that
you're pretty clever," he said, laughing. "But in the elegant and
expressive diction of the late--the late Overland Red Summers, 'I think
you're a bum scout.'" And they shook hands, laughing as they turned to
climb the trail.
Near the crest, Overland again paused. "Say, Billy, you said the 'late'
Overland Red Summers. You took particular noise to make me hear that
word 'late.' Have you got any objections to explainin' that there idea?
I been examinin' the works of that word 'late,' and it don't tick right
to me. 'Late' means 'planted,' don't it?"
"Sometimes. It may also mean behind time. Do you remember that I said, a
day or two ago, that I shouldn't be surprised if the lost gold were in
the very cañon where we camped? I claim precedence of divination,
auto-suggestion, and right of eminent domain. I shall not waive my
prerogative."
"I never owned one," said Overland. "But afore I'll let you come any
style over me, I'll have one made with a silk linin' and di'monds in the
buttons, jest as soon as the claim gets to payin' good. Say, pardner,
it's _free_ gold, and _coarse_. I wisht Collie was here--the little
cuss."
"Collie?"
"Uhuh. The kid I was tellin' you about, that I adopted back in
Albuquerque. He's got a share in this here deal, by rights. He invested
his eight rollers and four bits in the chances of my findin' the stuff.
It was all the coin he had at the time. You see, I was campin' up on the
Moonstone for a change of air, and Collie and me had a meetin' of the
board of dissectors. The board votes unanimous to invest the paid-in
capital in a suit of new jeans for the president, which was me. I got
'em on now. You see, I had to be dollied up to look the part so I could
catch a come-on and get me grubstake."
"I see," said Winthrop, his gray eyes twinkling. "And I was the
come-on?"
"Well," said Overland, scratching his head, "mebby you _was_, but you
ain't no more. If she pans out anything like I expect, you'll be
standin' up so clost to bein' rich that if she was a bronc' you'd get
kicked sure."
They rested for a few minutes, both gazing down on the evening desert.
The reflected light, strong and clear, drew abrupt, keen-edged contrasts
between the black, triangular shadows of the peaks and the gray of the
range. Something elusive, awesome, unreal was in the air about them. The
rugged mountain-side with its chaos of riven boulders, its forest of
splintered rocky spires, silver cold in the twilight, its impassive bulk
looming so large, yet a mere segment in the circling range, was as a
day-dream of some ancient Valhalla, clothed in the mystic glory of
ever-changing light, and crowned with slumbering clouds.
Winthrop sighed as he again faced the range. Overland heard and smiled.
"You said it all," he muttered. "You said it all then."
"You're something of a poet, aren't you?" queried Winthrop.
"You bet! I'm some artist, too. A lady I was figurin' on acceptin' a
invite to dinner with, once,--one of them rich kind that always wants to
get their money's worth out of anything they do for a poor
guy,--happened to come out on the back steps where I was holdin' kind of
a coroner's request over a lettuce san'wich. 'My man,' she says, 'I have
always been interested to know if you--er--tramps ever think of
anything else but food and lodging and loafing. Nothing personal, I
assure you. Merely a general interest in social conditions which you
seem so well fitted to explode from experience. For instance, now, what
are your favorite colors?'
"I couldn't see what that had to do with it, and I got kind of mad. A
lettuce san'wich ain't encouragin' to confidence, so I up and says,
'What are me favorite colors, lady? Well, speakin' from experience, they
is _ham_ and _eggs_.'
"She took a tumble to herself and sent me out some of the best--and a
bottle of Red Cross beer with it."
On up the slope they toiled, Winthrop half-forgetting his weariness in
thinking of Overland's sprightly experiences with what he termed "the
hard ole map--this here world."
At the summit they paused again to rest.
"That was the time," began Overland, "when I writ that there pome called
'Heart Throbs of a Hobo.' Listen!"
"Oh, my stummick is jest akein'
For a little bite of bacon,
A slice of bread, a little mug of brew.
I'm tired of seein' scenery,
Jest lead me to a beanery,
Where there's something more than only air to chew."
"The last line sounds like a sneeze," said Winthrop, laughing.
"Speakin' of sneeze," said Overland, "makes me think you ain't coughed
so much lately, Billy."
"I had a pretty bad time yesterday morning," replied Winthrop.
"Well, you'll get cured and stay cured, up here," said Overland, hugely
optimistic.
"Of course," rejoined Winthrop, smiling. "It's such hard work to breathe
up here that I have to keep alive to attend to it."
"That's her! Them little old bellowsus of your'n 'll get exercise--not
pumpin' off the effects of booze an' cigarettes, neither, but from
pumpin' in clean thin air with a edge to it. Them little old germs will
all get dizzy and lose their holt."
"That's getting rather deep into personalities," said Winthrop. "But I
think you're correct. I could eat a whole side of bacon, raw."
And he followed Overland silently across the range and down into the
cool depths of the hidden cañon, where the tramp, ever watchful of the
younger man's health, slipped from his coat and made Winthrop put it on,
despite the latter's protest that he was hot and sweating.
CHAPTER XIV
"CALL IT THE 'ROSE GIRL'"
"What are you going to do with those things?" asked Winthrop. "Not burn
them?"
"Yep; every strap and tie-string," replied Overland, gathering together
the dead prospector's few effects. "Cause why? Well, Billy, if this
claim ain't filed on,--and I reckon it ain't,--why, we files on her as
the original locators. Nobody gets wise to anything and it saves the
chance of gettin' jumped. The bunch over there would make it interestin'
for us if they knowed we was goin' to file on it. They'd put up a fight
by law, and mebby one not by law. Sabe?"
"I think so. Going to burn that little--er--cradle arrangement, too?"
"Yep. Sorry, 'cause it's wood, and wood is wood here. That little rocker
is a cradle all right for rockin' them yella babies in and then out. The
hand that rocks that cradle hard enough rules the world, as the pote
says."
"So this is how gold is mined?" queried Winthrop, examining the crude
rocker and the few rusted tools.
"One way. Pan, cradle, or sluice for free gold. They's about four other
ways. This here's our way."
"Is it a rich claim?"
"Tolerable. I panned some up the branch. She runs about two dollars a
pan."
"Is that all?"
Overland smiled as he poked a smouldering corner of blanket into the
fire. "It is and it ain't. I reckon you could pan fifty pans a day.
That's a hundred dollars. Then I could do that much and the cookin',
too. That's another hundred. Two hundred dollars a day ain't bad wages
for two guys. It ought to keep us in grub and postage stamps and some
chewin'-gum once in a while."
"Two hundred a day!" And Winthrop whistled. "That doesn't seem much in
New York--on the street, but out here--right out of the ground. Why,
that's twelve hundred a week."
"Nope--not exactly. She's a rich one, and bein' so rich at the start
she'll peter out fast, I take it. I know these here kind. When we come
to the end of the cañon we're at the end, that's all. Besides, she's so
rich we won't work six days every week. If she was half as good, mebby
we would. You never done much fancy pick-handle exercise, did you?"
"No, but I'm going to. This beats signing checks all to pieces."
"Never got cramps that way myself," grunted Overland. "But I have from
swingin' a pick. Your back'll be so blame stiff in about three days that
you'll wish you never seen a pan or a shovel. Then you'll get over the
fever and settle down sensible. Three of us could do a heap better than
two. I wish Collie was on the job."
"I'm willing," said Winthrop.
"'Course you are, but you get your half of this as agreed. Collie's
share comes out of my half. I'm playin' this hand over the table, in
plain sight."
Winthrop glanced quickly at Overland's inscrutable face. "Suppose I
should tell you that my income, each week, is about equal to what we
expect to get from this claim?"
"Makes no difference," growled Overland. "It wasn't your money that
stood off the constable--and later out in the desert. It was _you_.
They's some places left on this old map yet where a man is jest what his
two fists and his head is worth. This here Mojave is one of 'em. Are you
squeak to that?"
"I understand," said Winthrop.
* * * * *
They worked steadily until evening. They staked out their respective and
adjoining claims, dropped the rusted tools in a bottomless crevice, and
removed the last shred and vestige of a previous occupancy.
"This here's been too easy," said Overland, as he sliced bacon for the
evening meal. "When things comes as easy as this, you want to watch out
for a change in the weather. We ain't through with the bunch yet."
The Easterner, making the evening fire, nodded. "How are we to get
provisions?" he asked.
"First, I was thinkin' of packin' 'em in from Gophertown, over yonder.
She's about thirty miles from here, across the alkali. 'T aint a regular
town, but they got grub. But if we got to comin' in regular, they'd
smell gold quicker than bees findin' orange-blossoms. They got my
number, likewise."
"How's that?"
"They know I been standin' out on the edge ever since I had a little
fuss with some folks over at Yuma, quite a spell ago."
"Won't you tell me about it?"
"Sure! They was three parties interested--me and another gent and a
hoss. I guess the hoss is still alive."
Winthrop laughed. "That's a pretty brief epic," he said.
"Uhuh. It was. But I reckon we got to hit the breeze out of here right
soon. Here, le' me take that fry-pan a minute. It's this way. Me and
you's located this claim. Now we go and file. But first we got to get
some dough. I got a scheme. I'm thinkin' of gettin' a dude
outfit--long-tailed coat and checker pants and a elevated lid with a
shine to it. Then you and me to the State House and file on this here
claim. You stay right in them kickie clothes and that puncher hat. We
file, see? The gents supportin' the bars and store corners will be so
interested in seein' me do you for your pile that they'll forget to
remember who I am, like I would be in me natural jeans. They'll size me
for a phoney promoter excavatin' your pocketbook. It's a chance--but we
got to take it."
"That's all very weird and wonderful," said Winthrop, "and not so very
flattering to me, but I am game. I'll furnish the expense money."
After the evening meal they drew nearer the fire and smoked in the chill
silence. The flames threw strange dancing shadows on the opposite cliff.
Winthrop, mindful of Overland's advice, slipped on his coat as the night
deepened. "About your adopting a disguise," he began; "I should think
you would look well enough clean-shaven and dressed in some stylish,
rough tweed. You have fine shoulders and--"
"Hold on, Billy! I'm a livin' statoo, I know. But listen! I got to go
the limit to look the part. You can't iron the hoof-marks of hell and
Texas out of my mug in a hundred years. The old desert and the border
towns and the bottle burned 'em in to stay. Them kind of looks don't go
with business clothes. I got to look fly--jest like I didn't know no
better."
"Perhaps you are right. You seem to make a go of everything you tackle."
"Yep! Some things I made go so fast I ain't caught up with 'em yet. You
know I used to wonder if a fella's face would ever come smooth again in
heaven. That was a spell ago. I ain't been worryin' about it none
lately."
"How old are you?"
"Me? I'm huggin' thirty-five clost. But not so clost I can't hear
thirty-six lopin' up right smart."
"Only thirty-five!" exclaimed Winthrop. Then quickly, "Oh, I beg your
pardon."
"That's nothin'", said Overland genially. "It ain't the 'thirty-five'
that makes me feel sore--it's the 'only.' You said it all then. But
believe me, pardner, the thirty-five have been all red chips."
"Well, you have _lived_," sighed Winthrop.
"And come clost to forgettin' to, once or twice. Anyhow,--speakin' of
heaven,--I'd jest as soon take my chances with this here mug of mine,
what shows I earned all I got, as with one of them there dead-fish faces
I seen on some guys that never done nothin' better or worse than get up
for breakfast."
Winthrop smiled. "Yes. And you believe in a heaven, then?"
"From mornin' till night. And then more than ever. Not your kind of a
heaven, or mebby any other guy's. But as sure as you're goin' to crease
them new boots by settin' too clost to the fire, there's somethin' up
there windin' up the works regular and seein' that she ticks right, and
once in a while chuckin' out old wheels and puttin' in new ones. Jest
take a look at them stars! Do you reckon they're runnin' right on time
and not jumpin' the track and dodgin' each other that slick--jest
because they was throwed out of a star-factory promiscus like a shovel
of gravel? No, sir! Each one is doin' its stunt because the other one
is--same as folks. Sure, there's somethin' runnin the big works; but
whether me or you is goin' to get a look-in,--goin' to be let in on
it,--why, that's different."
Winthrop drew back from the fire and crossed his legs. He leaned
forward, gazing at the flames. From the viewless distance came the howl
of coyotes.
"They're tryin' to figure it out--same as us," said Overland, poking a
half-burned root into the fire. "And they're gettin' about as far along
at it, too. Like most folks does in a crowd--jest howlin' all together.
Mebby it sounds good to 'em. I don' know."
"I'm somewhat of a scoffer, I think," said Winthrop presently.
"Most lungers is," was Overland's cheerful comment. "They're sore on
their luck. They ain't really sore at the big works. They only think so.
I've knowed lots of 'em that way."
"To-night,--here in this cañon,--with the stars and the desert so near,
you almost persuade me that there is something."
"Hold on, Billy! You're grazin' on the wrong side of the range if you
think I'm preachin'. My God! I hate preachin' worse than I could hate
hell if I thought they was one. My little old ideas is mine. I roped 'em
and branded 'em and I'm breakin' 'em in to ride to suit me. I ain't
askin' nobody to risk gettin' throwed ridin' any of my stock. Sabe?"
"But a chap may peek through the fence and watch, mayn't he?"
"Sure! Mebby you're breakin' some stock of your own like that. If you
are, any little old rig I got is yours."
"Thank you. And I'm not joking. Perhaps I'll get the right grip on
things later. I've been used to town and the pace. I've always had
money, but I never felt really clean, inside and out, until now. I
never before burned my bridges and went it under my own flag."
Overland nodded sagely. "Uhuh. It's the air. Your feelin' clean and
religious-like is nacheral up here. Don't worry if it feels queer to you
at first--you'll get used to it. Why, I quit cussin', myself, when
everything seems so dum' quiet. Sounds like the whole works had stopped
to listen to a fella. Swearin' ain't so hefty then. Sort of outdoor
stage fright, I reckon. Say, do you believe preachin' ever did much
good?"
"Sometimes I've thought it did."
"I seen a case once," began Overland reminiscently. "It was Toledo
Blake. He was a kind of bum middleweight scrapper when he was workin' at
it. When he wasn't trainin' he was a kind of locoed heavyweight--stewed
most of the time. It was one winter night in Toledo. Me and him went
into one of them 'Come-In-Stranger' rescue joints. 'Course, they was
singin' hymns and prayin' in there, but it was warmer than outside, so
we stayed.
"After a while up jumps the foreman of that gospel outfit. His foretop
was long, and he wore it over one ear like a hoss's when the wind is
blowin'.
"He commenced wrong, I guess. He points down the room to where me and
Toledo was settin', and he hollers, 'Go to the ant, you slugger!
Consider her game and get hep to it,' or somethin' similar.
"That word 'slugger' kind of jarred Toledo. He jumps up kind of mad.
'Mebby I am a slugger, and mebby I ain't, but you needn't to get
personal about it. Anyhow, I ain't got no aunt.'
"'The text,' says the hoss-faced guy on the platform, 'the text, my
brother, is semaphorical.'
"Toledo couldn't understand that, so I whispers, 'Set down, you mutt!
Semaphore is a sign ain't it? Well, he's givin' you the sign talk. Set
down and listen.'
"Toledo, he hadn't had a drink for a week, and he was naturally feelin'
kind of ugly. 'All right,' he growls at the preacher guy. 'All right. I
pass.'
"'Ah, my brother!' says the hoss-faced guy. 'I see the spirits is at
work.' That kind of got Toledo's goat.
"'Your dope is _bum_,' says Toledo. 'I ain't had a drink for a week.
First you tell a fella to go see his aunt, when she's been planted for
ten years. Then--'
"'Listen, brother!' says the preacher guy. 'I referred to ants--little,
industrious critters that are examples of thrift to the idle, the
indignant, the--'
"'Hold on!' says Toledo. 'Do you mean red ants or black ants?' And I
seen that a spark had touched Toledo's brainbox and that he was
wrastlin' with somethin' that felt like thinkin'.
"'Either, my brother,' says the hoss-faced guy, smilin' clear up to his
back teeth.
"'Well, you're drawin' your dope from the wrong can,' says Toledo,
shufflin' for the door. 'Because,' says he, turnin' in the doorway,
'because, how in hell is a fella goin' to find any ants with two feet of
snow on the ground?'
"And then Toledo and me went out. It was a mighty cold night."
Overland Red rolled a cigarette, pausing in his narrative to see whether
Winthrop, who sat with bowed head, was asleep or not.
Winthrop glanced up. "I'm awake," he said, smiling. "Very much awake. I
can see it all--you two, down on your luck, and the snow freezing and
melting on the bottoms of your trousers. And the stuffy little rescue
mission with a few weary faces and many empty chairs; the 'preacher
guy,' as you call him, earnest, and ignorant, and altogether wrong in
trying to reason with Toledo Blake's empty stomach."
"That's it!" concurred Overland. "A empty stomach is a plumb
unreasonable thing. But the preacher guy done some good, at that. He set
Toledo Blake to thinkin' which was somethin' new and original for
Toledo.
"It was nex' spring Toledo and me was travelin' out this way, inspectin'
the road-bed of the Santa Fé, when we runs onto a big red-ant's nest in
the sand alongside of the track. Toledo, he squats down and looks. The
first thing he sees was a leetle pa ant grab up a piece of crust twice
his size and commence sweatin' and puffin' to drag it home to the kids.
"'The leetle cuss!' says Toledo. 'He's some strong on the lift!' And
Toledo, he takes the piece of crust from the pa ant and sticks it at the
top of the hole, thinkin' to help the pa ant along. But the pa ant, he
hustles right up and grabs the crust and waves her around his head a
couple of times to show how strong he is, and then starts back to where
he found the crust. Down he plumps it--gives it a h'ist or two and then
grabs it up. He waves it around in his mitts and wobbles off toward the
hole again. Independent? Well, mostly!
"Toledo, he said nothin', but his eyes was pokin' out of his head tryin'
to think. You never see a man sweat so tryin' to get both hands onto a
idea at once. His dome was kind of flat, but he could handle one idea,
in single harness, at a time.
"Anyhow, the next town we strikes, Toledo, he quits me and gets a sort
of chambermaid's job tidyin' up around a little old boiler-factory and
machine-shop; pilin' scrap-iron and pig-iron and little things like
that. And he stuck, too.
"A couple of years after that I was beatin' it on a rattler goin' west,
and I drops off at that town. About the first thing I seen was Toledo
comin' down the street. Alongside of him was a woman carry in' a kid in
her arms, and another one grazin' along close behind. And Toledo had a
loaf of bread under his arm.
"'This here is Mrs. Blake,' says Toledo, kind of nervous.
"'I am glad she is,' says I. 'Toledo, you're doin' well. Don't know
nothin' about the leetle colt in the blanket, but the yearlin' is built
right. He's got good hocks and first-class action.'
"Mrs. Toledo, she kind of sniffed superior, but said nothin'. You know
that kind of sayin' nothin' which is waitin' for you to move on.
"'Won't you come up to the shack and have grub?' says Toledo, hopin' I'd
say 'No.'
"'Nope,' says I. 'Obliged jest the same. I see you got hep to the ant
all right.'
"'I'll let you know I'm nobody's aunt!' says Mrs. Toledo, yankin' the
yearlin' off his hoofs and settin' him down again. For a fact, she thunk
I was alludin' to her.
"'Of course not, madam,' says I, polite, and liftin' me lid. 'And I
judge somebody's in luck at that.'
"I guess it was her not used to bein' spoke and acted polite to that got
her goat. Mebby she smelt somethin' sarcastic. I dunno. Anyhow, she was
a longhorn with a bad eye. 'Go on, you chicken-lifter!' she says.
"Bein' no hand to sass a lady, I said nothin' more to _her_. But I hands
Toledo a jolt for bein' ashamed of his old pal.
"'Well, so long,' says I, kind of offhand and easy. 'So long. I'll tell
Lucy when I see her that you was run over by a freight and killed. Then
she can take out them papers and marry Mike Brannigan that's been
waitin' in the hopes you'd pass over. You remember Mike, the cop on
Cherry Street. You oughta. He's pinched you often enough. 'Course you
do. Well, so long. Little Johnny was lookin' fine the last I seen of
him. He's gettin' more like his pa every day. But I got to beat it.'"
Overland Red leaned back and puffed a great cloud of smoke from a fresh
cigarette.
"Who was Lucy?" asked Winthrop.
"Search me!" replied Overland. "They wasn't any Lucy or nobody like
that. But I'd like to 'a' stayed to hear Toledo explain that to Mrs.
Toledo, though. She was a hard map to talk to."
"I suppose there's a moral attached to that, or, more properly, embodied
in that story. But it is good enough in itself without disemboweling it
for the moral."
"You can't always go by ants, neither," said Overland.
Winthrop nodded. His eyes were filled with the awe of great distances
and innumerable stars. "Gold!" he whispered presently, as one whispers
in dreams. "Gold! Everywhere! In the sun--in the starlight--in the
flowers--in the flame. In wine, in a girl's hair.... Gold! Mystery....
Power ... and as impotent as Fate." Winthrop's head lifted suddenly.
"What shall we call the mine?" he asked.
Overland Red started, as though struck from ambush. "How did you guess?"
he queried.
"Guess what?"
"That I was thinkin' about the claim?"
"I didn't guess it. I was dreaming. Suddenly I asked a question,
without knowing that I was speaking."
"Mebby I was bearin' down so hard on the same idea that you kind of felt
the strain."
"Possibly. That's not unusual. What _shall_ we call it?"
"Wha--I was thinkin' of callin' it the 'Rose Girl' after a girl Collie
and me knows up Moonstone Cañon way."
"It's rather a good name," said Winthrop. "Is the girl pretty?"
"Pretty? Gosh! That ain't the word. Her real name is Louise Lacharme,
and, believe me, Billy, she's all that her name sounds like, and then
some."
CHAPTER XV
SILENT SAUNDERS
One after another, in the course of the two years following Collie's
arrival, the old riders of the Moonstone Rancho drifted away. There
remained but Brand Williams the foreman, Collie, and the sturdy,
hard-riding Miguel, a young Spanish vaquero who was devoted to but two
things in life, his splendid pinto pony, and the Moonstone Ranch.
The others had been lured to the new oil-fields up north--to the
excitement of Goldfield, or to Mexico City, where even more excitement
promised. In their stead came new men--Bud Light, Parson Long, Billy
Dime, and one Silent Saunders.
Louise became acquainted with the new men while riding with her uncle.
She was his constant companion in the hills. One by one the new arrivals
became devoted to her. Her sincere interest in the ranch work pleased
them, and naturally, for it was their work. Walter Stone was also
pleased with his niece's interest in the detail of the ranch work. She
was as a daughter to him. Some day the property would be hers.
Fully conscious, from within herself, of her dependence upon her uncle,
Louise managed to be of inestimable service. She performed her
self-allotted tasks without ostentation. She had that rare quality of
stimulating enthusiasm among the men--enthusiasm for their work and
pride in giving faithful and energetic service--pride in accomplishing a
little more each day than was asked or expected of them. Louise's youth,
her beauty, her sincerity, and, above all, her absolute simplicity of
manner commanded admiration and respect among the hard-riding Moonstone
boys. She was, to them, a "lady," yet a lady they could understand. Hers
was a gentle tyranny. A request from her was deemed a great compliment
by its recipient.
All of them, with the exception of Collie, openly praised her
horsemanship, her quiet daring, her uniform kindness. Her beauty had
ceased to be commented upon. It was accepted by them as one accepts the
fragrant beauty of a rose, naturally, silently, gratefully.
Collie had gained in height and breadth of shoulder. He no longer needed
instruction in managing broncho stock. He loved the life of the hills;
the cool, invigorating mornings, the keen wind of the noon peaks, the
placidity of the evening as the stars multiplied in the peaceful sky.
He became that rare quantity among cowmen, a rider who handled and
mastered unbroken horses without brutality. This counted heavily for him
both with Louise and Walter Stone. Men new to the range laughed at his
method of "gentling" horses. Later their laughter stilled to envious
desire. Lacking his invariable patience, his consistent magnetism, they
finally resumed their old methods, and earned dominance by sheer
strength of arm--"main strength and awkwardness," as Williams put it.
"It's easy--for him," commented Brand Williams, discussing Collie's
almost uncanny quelling of a vicious, unbitted mustang. "It's easy. You
fellas expect a boss to buck and bite and kick and buffalo you
generally. _He_ don't. He don't expect anything like that, and he don't
let 'em learn how."
"Can you work it that way?" asked Billy Dime.
"Nope. I learned the other way and the bosses knows it. I always had to
sweat. He's born to it natural, like a good cow-pony is."
And Collie looked upon his work as a game--a game that had to be played
hard and well, but a game, nevertheless. Incidentally he thought often
of Overland Red. He had searched the papers diligently for a year,
before he received the first letter from Overland. The news it contained
set Collie to thinking seriously of leaving the Moonstone Rancho and
joining his old companion in this new venture of gold-digging which, as
Overland took pains to explain, was "paying big." But there was
Louise.... They were great friends. They had even ridden to town
together and attended the little white church in the eucalyptus
grove.... He thought of their ride homeward late that Sunday
afternoon....
* * * * *
Once and once only had Overland's name been mentioned in the bunk-house.
Saunders, discussing horses and riders in general, listened to Collie's
account of Overland's escape from the deputy, Tenlow. Then he spoke
slightingly of the feat, claiming that any man who had ever ridden range
could do as much, with the right pony.
Brand Williams tried to change the subject, for shrewd reasons of his
own, but Collie flamed up instantly. "I got a little saved up," he said;
"mebby eight hundred. She's yours if you dast to walk a horse, comin' or
goin', over that drift that Red took on the jump. Are you game?"
"I'm not on the bet," replied Saunders. "So Overland Red is a friend of
yours, eh?"
"Overland Red could ride where you dassent to walk and drag a halter,"
asserted Collie. Then he relapsed to silence, a little ashamed in that
he had been trapped into showing temper.
Williams the taciturn astonished the bunk-house by adding: "The kid is
right. Red could outride most men. I was his pal once, down in Sonora.
There ain't a better two-gun artist livin'." And the lean foreman looked
pointedly at Saunders.
Saunders smiled evilly. He had reason to believe that Williams had
spoken the truth.
* * * * *
A few weeks later, Williams, returning unexpectedly to the bunk-house,
found Saunders changing his shirt preparatory to a ride to town. The
rest of the boys were already on their way to the Oro Rancho across the
valley. Williams saw two puckered scars, each above the elbow on
Saunders's bared arms.
"That was dam' good shootin'," said the foreman, indicating the other's
scarred arms.
"Fair," said Saunders gruffly.
"Takes a gun-artist to put a man out of business that way and not finish
him," said Williams, smiling.
"Cholo mix-up," said Saunders.
"And shootin' from the ground, at that," continued Williams. "And at a
fella on a horse. Easy to see that, for the both holes are slantin' up.
The shootin' was done from below."
Saunders flushed. He was about to speak when Williams interrupted him.
"Makes me think of some of Overland Red's--that is, old Red Jack
Summers's fancy work. I don' know why," he drawled, and turning he left
the bunk-house.
Collie, returning from a visit to the Oro Rancho that evening, was met
by Williams. The latter was on foot.
"Drop into my shack after dark," said the foreman. Then he stepped back
into the bushes as the other men rode up.
The foreman's interview with Collie that evening was brief. It left a
lot to the imagination. "You said too much about Overland Red the other
night, when you was talkin' to Silent Saunders," said Williams. "He's
tryin' to find out somethin'. I don't know what he's after. Keep your
eye peeled and your teeth on the bit. That's all."
CHAPTER XVI
BLUNDER
"Oh, he's built all right, and he comes of good stock," said Brand
Williams, nodding toward a bay colt that stood steaming in the sun.
It had rained the night before--an unexpected shower and the last of the
winter rains. Now that the snow had left the hills, the young stock,
some thirty-odd year-old colts had been turned into the north range.
Collie and Williams had ridden over to look at the colts; Williams as a
matter of duty, Collie because he was interested and liked Williams's
society.
The colt, shaking itself, turned and nipped at its shoulder and switched
its tail.
"He's stayed fat, too," continued Williams. "But look at him! He's
bitin' and switchin' because he's wet. Thinks it's fly-time a'ready.
He's jest a four-legged horse-hide blunder. I know his kind."
Collie, dismounting and unbuttoning his slicker, rolled it and tied it
to the saddle. "I guess you're right, Brand. Last week I was over this
way. He had his head through the corral bars at the bottom and he
couldn't get loose. He was happy, though. He must have been there quite
a spell, for he ate about half a bale of hay. I got him loose and he
tried his darndest to kick my head off."
"Uhuh," grunted the foreman. "Reckon it's the last rain we'll get this
year. Now would you look at that! He's the limit!"
The colt, sniffing curiously at a crotch in the live-oak against which
he had been rubbing, had stepped into the low fork of the tree. Perhaps
he had some vague notion to rub both his sides at once as an economy of
effort. His front feet had slipped on the wet ground. He went down,
wedged fast. He struggled and kicked. He nickered plaintively, and
rolled his terror-stricken eyes toward the cowmen in wild appeal.
"And like all of his kind, hoss and human," said Williams, dismounting,
"he's askin' for help in a voice that sounds like it was our fault that
he's in trouble. He's the limit!"
With much labor they finally released the colt, who expressed prompt
gratitude by launching a swift and vicious kick at Collie.
"He's feeling good enough," said that youth, coolly picking up his hat
that had dropped as he dodged.
"Yes. All he needs is a couple of punchers and a hoss-doctor and a
policeman to ride round with him and keep him out of trouble. He's no
account; never will be," growled Williams.
"I don't know, Brand. He's a mighty likely-looking and interesting
specimen. He's different. I kind of like him."
"Well, I don't. I ain't got time. He's always goin' to manufacture
trouble, when he don't come by it natural. He's got a kind eye, but no
brains behind it."
They mounted and rode up the hill, looking for breaks in the fences and
counting the colts, some of whom, luxuriously lazy in the heat of the
sun, stood with lowered heads, drowsing. Others, scattered about the
hillsides and in the arroyos, grazed nippingly at the sparse
bunch-grass, moving quickly from clump to clump.
The "blunder" colt seemed to find his own imbecilities sufficiently
entertaining, for he grazed alone.
The foreman's inspection terminated with the repairing of a break in the
fence inclosing the spring-hole, a small area of bog-land dotted with
hummocks of lush grass. Between the hummocks was a slimy, black ooze
that covered the bones of more than one unfortunate animal. The heavy,
ripe grass lent an appearance of stability, of solidity, to the
treacherous footing.
Williams and Collie reinforced the sagging posts with props of fallen
limbs and stones carried from the trail below. They piled brush where
the wire had parted, filling the opening with an almost impassable
barrier of twisted branches. Until the last rain, the spring-hole fence
had appeared solid--but one night of rain in the California hills can
work unimaginable changes in trail, stream-bed, or fence line.
"Get after that fence first thing in the morning," said Williams as he
unsaddled the pinto that afternoon. "I noticed the blunder colt followed
us up to the spring. If there's any way of gettin' bogged, he'll find
it, or invent a new way for himself."
The blunder colt's mischief-making amounted to absolute genius. There
was much of the enterprising puppy in his nature and in his methods. The
impulse which seemed to direct the extremely uneven tenor of his way
would have resolved itself orally into: "Do it--and then see what
happens!" He was not vicious, but brainlessly joyful in his mischief.
As the foreman and Collie disappeared beyond the crest of the hill, the
colt, who had watched them with absurdly stupid intensity, lowered his
head and nibbled indifferently at the grass along the edge of the
spring-hole fence. He approached the break and sniffed at the props and
network of branches. This was interesting! And a very carelessly
constructed piece of fence, indeed! He would investigate. The blunder
colt was never too hungry to cease grazing and turn toward adventure.
He nosed one of the props. He leaned against it heavily, deliberately,
and rubbed himself. Verily "His eye had all the seeming of a demon's
that is dreaming"--of unalloyed mischief.
The prop creaked, finally became loosened, and fell. The colt sprang
back awkwardly, snorting in indignant surprise. "The very idea!" he
would have said, even as he would have chewed gum and have worn a
perpetual tear in his trousers had he been human.
With stiff stealthiness he approached the break again, pretending a
hesitancy that he enjoyed immensely. He reached under the lower wire,
neck outstretched, and nibbled at a bunch of ripe grass. There was
plenty of grass within easier reach, but he wanted the unattainable. A
barb caught in his mane. He jerked his head up. The barb pricked his
neck. He jerked harder. Another prop became loosened. Then he strode
away, this time with calm indifference. He pretended to graze, but his
eye roved back to the break. His attitude expressed a sly
alertness--something of the quiet vigilance a grazing horse betrays when
one approaches with a bridle. He drew nearer the fence again. With head
over the top wire he gazed longingly at the clumps of grass on the
hummocks scattered over the muck of the overflow. His shoulder needed
scratching. With drooping head, eyes half-closed, and lower lip pendant,
he rubbed against the loosened post. The post sagged and wobbled.
Whether it was deliberate intent, or just natural "horse" predominating
his actions, it would be difficult to determine. Finally the post gave
way and fell. The colt drew back and contemplated the opening with a
vacuous eye. It was not interesting now. No, indeed! He wandered away.
But in the dusk of that evening, when a chill dew sparkled along the
edges of the bog, he came, a clumsy shadow and grazed among the
hummocks. Slowly he worked toward the treachery of black ooze that shone
in the starlight. He sank to his fetlocks. He drew his feet up one after
another, still progressing toward the centre of the bog, and sinking
deeper at each step. He became stricken with fear as he sank to his
hocks. He plunged and snorted. The bog held him with a soft, detaining
grip--and drew him slowly down. He nickered, and finally screamed in
absolute terror. Up to his heaving belly the black mud crept. He flung
himself sideways. Exhausted, he lay with neck and head outstretched.
Again he struggled, his eyes wild and protruding with the blood pressure
of his straining. Then the chill of night crept over him. He became
quiet--shivered a little, and nickered faintly.
In the willows a little owl called pensively.
* * * * *
The morning light, streaming across the hills, spread like raw gold over
the bog. Collie whistled as he rode down the trail, and beat his gloved
hands to keep warm. He heard a plaintive whinny and a bubbling gasp. He
leaped from his pony, the coiled riata in his hand as he touched the
ground.
The blunder colt, neck outstretched, was still above the ooze. His eyes
were bloodshot, as their white rims showed. His nose quivered and
twisted with his quick, irregular breathing.
It was a "two-man job," but Collie knew that the colt would probably be
gone before he could ride back and return with help. He swung the riata,
then hesitated. To noose the colt's neck would only result in strangling
it when he pulled. He found a branch large enough to stiffen the brush
near the break. Swiftly he built a shaky footing and crept out toward
the colt. By shoving the riata under the colt's belly with a forked
stick, and fishing the loose end up on the other side, he managed to get
a loop round the animal's hind quarters. He mounted his own horse and
took a turn of the riata round the saddle-horn.
His pony set its feet and leaned to the work. Slowly the colt was drawn
to solid ground.
He was a pitiful object as he lay panting and shivering, plastered with
mud and black slime, and almost dead from shock and chill. Collie spread
his slicker over him and rode up the hill at a trot. The blunder colt
raised its head a little, then dropped it and lay motionless.
* * * * *
When Collie and Billy Dime returned with gunnysacks and an old blanket,
the sun had warmed the air. The mud on the colt's side and neck had
begun to dry.
Billy Dime commented briefly. "He's a goner. He's froze clean to his
heart. Why didn't you leave him where he was?"
Collie spread the gunnysacks on a level beneath a live-oak, beneath
which they dragged the colt and covered him with the blanket. They gave
him whiskey with water that they heated at a little fire of brush. The
colt lifted its head, endeavoring spasmodically to get to its feet.
"He's wearin' hisself out. He ain't got much farther to go," said Billy
Dime, mounting and turning his pony. "Come on, kid. If he's alive
to-morrow mornin'--good enough."
"I think I'll stay awhile," said Collie. "Brand says he isn't worth
saving, but--I kind of like the cuss. He's different."
"Correct, nurse, he is. You can telephone me if the patient shows signs
of bitin' you. Keep tabs on his pulse--give him his whiskey regular, but
don't by no means allow him to set up in bed and smoke. I'll call again
nex' year. So long, sweetness."
"You go plump!" laughed Collie.
And Billy Dime rode over the hill singing a dolefully cheerful ditty
about burying some one on the "lo-o-ne prairee." To him a horse was
merely something useful, so long as it could go. When it couldn't go, he
got another that could.
Collie replenished the smoking fire, scraped some of the mud from the
colt's thick, winter coat, and heated a half-dozen large stones.
His brother cowmen would have laughed at these "tender ministrations,"
and Collie himself smiled as he recalled Billy Dime's parting
directions.
Collie placed the heated stones round the shivering animal, re-dried the
blanket at the fire, and covered the pitifully weak and panting
creature. The colt's restless lifting of its head he overcame by sitting
near it and stroking its muzzle with a soothing hand.
Time and again he rose to re-heat the stones and replenish the fire. The
colt's b
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