CHAPTER IV
"MAGGOT"
An hour prior to this little episode, Jim Munson had sauntered up to theticket window only to find that the train from the East was fortyminutes late. He turned away with a little shrug of relief. It was aforeign role he was playing,--this assumption of the duties of a knightin dancing attendance on strange ladies. Secretly, he chafed under it;outwardly, he was magnificently indifferent. He had a reputation tosustain, a reputation of having yet to meet that which would lower hisproud boast that he was afraid of nothing under the sun, neither man nordevil. But he doubted his ability so to direct the point of view of theBoss or the Scribe or the rest of the boys of the Three Bars ranch, whowere on a still hunt for his spot of vulnerability.
The waiting-room was hot,--unbearably so to a man who practically livedin the open. He strolled outside and down the tracks. He found himselfwishing the train had been on time. Had it been so, it--the impendingmeeting--would now have been a thing of the forgotten past. He must needsfortify himself all over again. But sauntering down the track toward thestockyards, he filled his cob pipe, lighted it, and was comforted. Hehad a forty-minute reprieve.
The boys had tried most valiantly to persuade him to "fix up" for thisevent. He had scorned them indignantly. If he was good enough as hewas--black woollen shirt, red neckerchief and all--for men, just so was hegood enough for any female that ever lived. So he assumed a littleswagger as he stepped over the ties, and tried to make himself believethat he was glad he had not allowed himself to be corrupted by proffersof blue shirts and white neckerchiefs.
He was approaching the stockyards. There was movement there. Sounds ofcommands, blows, profane epithets, and worried bawlings changed theplacid evening calm into noisy strife. It is always a place interestingto cowmen. Jim relegated thoughts of the coming meeting to thebackground while he leaned on the fence, and, with idle absorption,watched the loading of cattle into a stock car. A switch engine,steaming and spluttering, stood ready to make way for another car sosoon as the present one should be laden. He was not the only spectator.Others were before him. Two men strolled up to the side opposite as hesettled down to musing interest.
"Gee!" he swore gently under his breath, "ef that ain't Bill Brown! Yep.It is, for a fac'. Wonder what he's a shippin' now for!" He scrambledlightly over the high fence of the pen.
"Hullo, there, Bill Brown!" he yelled, genially, making his way as oneaccustomed through the bunch of reluctant, excited cattle.
"Hullo yourself, Jim! What you doin' in town?" responded the manaddressed, pausing in his labor to wipe the streaming moisture from hisface. He fanned himself vigorously with his drooping hat while hetalked.
"Gal huntin'," answered Jim, soberly and despondently.
"Hell!" Brown surveyed him with astonished but sympathetic approbation."Hell!" he repeated. "You don't mean it, do you, Jim, honest? Come, now,honest? So you've come to it, at last, have you? Well, well! What'scomin' over the Three Bars? What'll the boys say?"
He came nearer and lowered his voice to a confidential tone. "Say, Jim,how did it come about? And who's the lady? Lord, Jim, you of allpeople!" He laughed uproariously.
"Aw, come off!" growled Jim, in petulant scorn. "You make me tired!You're plumb luney, that's what you are. I'm after the new gal reporter.She's due on that low-down, ornery train. Wish--it--was in Kingdom Come.Yep, I do, for a fac'."
"Oh, well, never mind! I didn't mean anything," laughed Brown,good-naturedly. "But it does beat the band, Jim, now doesn't it, how youpeople scare at petticoats. They ain't pizen--honest."
Jim looked on idly. Occasionally, he condescended to head a rebellioussteer shute-wards. Out beyond, it was still and sweet and peaceful, andthe late afternoon had put on that thin veil of coolness which is aGod-given refreshment after the heat of the day. But here in the pen allwas confusion. The raucous cattle-calls of the cowboys smote the eveningair startlingly.
"Here, Bill Brown!" he exclaimed suddenly, "where did you run acrossthat critter?" He slapped the shoulder of a big, raw-boned, long-earedsteer as he spoke. The animal was on the point of being driven up theshute.
"What you want to know for?" asked Brown in surprise.
"Reason 'nough. That critter belongs to us, that's why; and I want toknow where you got him, that's what I want to know."
"You're crazy, Jim! Why, I bought that fellow from Jesse Black t' otherday. I've got a bill-of-sale for him. I'm shippin' a couple of cars toSioux City and bought him to send along. That's on the square."
"I don't doubt it--s' far as you're concerned, Bill Brown," said Jim,"but that's our critter jest the same, and I'll jest tote 'im along 'fyou've no objections."
"Well, I guess not!" said Brown, laconically.
"Look here, Bill Brown," Jim was getting hot-headedly angry, "didn't youknow Jesse Black stands trial to-morrow for rustlin' that there verycritter from the Three Bars ranch?"
"No, I didn't," Brown answered, shortly. "Any case?"
"I guess yes! Williston o' the Lazy S saw this very critter on thatisland where Jesse Black holds out." He proceeded to relate minutely thestory to which Williston was going to swear on the morrow. "But," heconcluded, "Jesse's goin' to fight like hell against bein' bound over."
"Well, well," said Brown, perplexedly. "But the brand, Jim, it's notyours or Jesse's either."
"'Quainted with any J R ranch in these parts?" queried Jim, shrewdly. "Iain't."
"Well, neither am I," confessed Brown, "but that's not sayin' thereain't one somewhere. Maybe we can trace it back."
"Shucks!" exploded Jim.
"Maybe you're right, Jim, but I don't propose to lose the price o' thatanimal less'n I have to. You can't blame me for that. I paid good moneyfor it. If it's your'n, why, of course, it's your'n. But I want to besure first. Sure you'd know him, Jim? How could you be so blamed sure?Your boss must range five thousand head."
"Know him? Know Mag? I'd know Mag ef my eyes were full o' soundin'cataracts. He's an old and tried friend o' mine. The meanest critter theLord ever let live and that's a fac'. But the Boss calls 'im his maggot.Seems to actually cherish a kind o' 'fection for the ornery critter, andsays the luck o' the Three Bar would sort o' peak and pine ef he shouldever git rid o' the pesky brute. Maybe he's right. Leastwise, thecritter's his, and when a thing's yours, why, it's yours and that's allthere is about it. By cracky, the Boss is some mad! You'd think him andthat walleyed, cross-grained son-of-a-gun had been kind and lovin' matesthese many years. Well, I ain't met up with this ornery critter for sometime. Hullo there, Mag! Look kind o' sneakin', now, don't you, wearin'that outlandish and unbeknownst J R?"
Bill Brown thoughtfully surveyed the steer whose ownership was thus sounexpectedly disputed.
"You hold him," insisted Jim. "Ef he ain't ours, you can send him alongwith your next shipment, can't you? What you wobblin' about? Ain'tafraid the Boss'll claim what ain't his, are you, Bill Brown?"
"Well, I can't he'p myself, I guess," said Brown, in a tone of voicewhich told plainly of his laudable effort to keep his annoyance insubjection to his good fellowship. "You send Langford down here firstthing in the morning. If he says the critter's his'n, that ends it."
Now that he had convinced his quondam acquaintance, the present shipper,to his entire satisfaction, Jim glanced at his watch with ostentatiousease. His time had come. If all the minutes of all the time to comeshould be as short as those forty had been, how soon he, Jim Munson,cow-puncher, would have ridden them all into the past. But his "getaway" must be clean and dignified.
"Likely bunch you have there," he said, casually, turning away withunassumed reluctance.
"Fair to middlin'," said Brown with pride.
"Shippin' to Sioux City, you said?"
"Yep."
"Well, so long."
"So long. Shippin' any these days, Jim?"
"Nope. Boss never dribbles 'em out. When he ships he ships. Ain't nonegone over the rails since last Fall."
He stepped off briskly and vaulted th
e fence with as lightsome an air asthough he were bent on the one errand his heart would choose, and swungup the track carelessly humming a tune. But he had a vise-like grip onhis cob pipe. His teeth bit through the frail stem. It split. He tossedthe remains away with a gesture of nervous contempt. A whistle sounded.He quickened his pace. If he missed her,--well, the Boss was a goodfellow, took a lot of nonsense from the boys, but there were things hewould not stand for. Jim did not need to be told that this would be oneof them.
The platform was crowded. The yellow sunlight fell slantingly on the gaygroups.
"Aw, Munson, you're bluffin'," jested the mail carrier. "You ain'tlookin' fer nobody; you know you ain't. You ain't got no folks. Don'tbelieve you never had none. Never heard of 'em."
"Lookin' for my uncle," explained Jim, serenely. "Rich old codger fromthe State o' Pennsylvaney some'ers. Ain't got nobody but me left."
"Aw, come off! What you givin' us?"
But Jim only winked and slouched off, prime for more adventures. He wasenjoying himself hugely,--when he was not thinking of petticoats.
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