CHAPTER IV
TEX GRANDSTANDS
Clint Wadley, massive and powerful, slouched back in his chair with oneleg thrown over an arm of it. He puffed at a corncob pipe, and throughthe smoke watched narrowly with keen eyes from under heavy grizzledbrows a young man standing on the porch steps.
"So now you know what I expect, young fellow," he said brusquely. "Takeit or leave it; but if you take it, go through."
Arthur Ridley smiled. "Thanks, I'll take it."
The boy was not so much at ease as his manner suggested. He knew thatthe owner of the A T O was an exacting master. The old cattleman wasgame himself. Even now he would fight at the drop of the hat ifnecessary. In the phrase which he had just used, he would "go through"anything he undertook. Men who had bucked blizzards with him in the olddays admitted that Clint would do to take along. But Ridley's awe of himwas due less to his roughness and to the big place he filled in the lifeof the Panhandle than to the fact that he was the father of hisdaughter. It was essential to Arthur's plans that he stand well with theold-timer.
Though he did not happen to know it, young Ridley was a favorite of thecattle king. He had been wished on him by an old friend, but there wassomething friendly and genial about the boy that won a place for him.His smile was modest and disarming, and his frank face was better thanany letter of recommendation.
But though Wadley was prepared to like him, his mind held itsreservations. The boy had come from the East, and the standards of thatsection are not those of the West. The East asks of a man good family,pleasant manners, a decent reputation, and energy enough to carry a manto success along conventional lines. In those days the frontier Westdemanded first that a man be game, and second that he be one to tie to.He might be good or bad, but whichever he was, he, must be efficient tomake any mark in the turbulent country of the border. Was there a hintof slackness in the jaw of this good-looking boy? Wadley was not sure,but he intended to find out.
"You'll start Saturday. I'll meet you at Tascosa two weeks from to-day.Understand?" The cattleman knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose. Theinterview was at an end.
Young Ridley nodded. "I'll be there, sir--with the six thousand dollarssafe as if they were in a vault."
"H'm! I see you carry a six-shooter. Can you shoot?" Wadley flung at himabruptly.
Arthur Ridley had always fancied himself as a shot. He had belonged to agun-club at home, and since coming to the Southwest he had practiced agood deal with the revolver.
"Pretty well, sir."
"Would you--if it was up to you?"
The youngster looked into the steel-gray eyes roofed by the heavy thatchof brow. "I think so. I never have had to yet. In the East--"
Wadley waved the East back to where it belonged. "Yes, I know. But we'retalkin' about Texas. Still, I reckon you ought not to have any troubleon this trip. Don't let anybody know why you are at the fort. Don'tgamble or drink. Get the money from Major Ponsford and melt awayinconspicuous into the brush. Hit the trail hard. A day and a nightought to bring you to Tascosa."
The cattleman was leading the way with long strides into an open spaceback of the house. A pile of empty cans, symbol of the arid lands, laybeside the path. He picked up one and put it on a post. Then he steppedoff fifteen paces.
"Ventilate it," he ordered.
The boy drew his revolver, took a long, steady aim, and fired. Thebullet whistled past across the prairie. His second shot scored a cleanhit. With pardonable pride he turned to the cattleman.
"Set up another can," commanded Wadley.
From the pile of empties the young man picked another and put it on thepost. Wadley, known in Texas as a two-gun man, flashed into sight a pairof revolvers almost quicker than the eye could follow. Both shots cameinstantly and together. The cattleman had fired from the hips. Beforethe can had reached the ground the weapons barked again.
Ridley ran forward and picked up the can. It was torn and twisted withjagged holes, but the evidence was written there that all four bulletshad pierced the tin. The Easterner could hardly believe his eyes. Suchshooting was almost beyond human skill.
The owner of the A T O thrust into place his two forty-fives.
"If you're goin' to wear six-shooters, learn to use 'em, son. If youdon't, some bad-man is liable to bump you off for practice."
As the two men stepped around the corner of the house a girl came downthe steps of the porch. She was dressed in summer white, but she herselfwas spring. Slim and lissome, the dew of childhood was still on herlips, and the mist of it in her eyes. But when she slanted her longlashes toward Arthur Ridley, it was not the child that peeped shyly andeagerly out from beneath them. Her heart was answering the world-oldcall of youth to youth.
"I'm going downtown, Dad," she announced.
Ridley stepped forward and lifted his hat. "May I walk with you, MissRamona?"
"Stop at the post-office and see if the buckboard driver is in with themail, 'Mona," her father said.
The boy and the girl made a couple to catch and hold the eye.
They went down the street together chattering gayly. One of the thingsyoung Ridley knew how to do well was to make himself agreeable to girls.He could talk nonsense charmingly and could hold his own in the jollygive-and-take of repartee. His good looks were a help. So too was thelittle touch of affectionate deference he used. He had the gift of beingbold without being too bold.
It was a beautiful morning and life sang in the blood of Ramona. Itseemed to her companion that the warm sun caressed the little curls ather temples as she moved down the street light as a deer. Little jets oflaughter bubbled from her round, birdlike throat. In her freshlystarched white dress, with its broad waistband of red and purple ribbon,the girl was sweet and lovely and full of mystery to Ridley.
A little man with a goatee, hawk-nosed and hawk-eyed, came down thestreet with jingling spurs to meet them. At sight of Ramona his eyeslighted. From his well-shaped gray head he swept in a bow a jaunty,broad-brimmed white hat.
The young girl smiled, because there were still a million unspent smilesin her warm and friendly heart.
"Good-morning, Captain Ellison," she called.
"Don't know you a-tall, ma'am." He shook his head with decision. "Nevermet up with you before."
"Good gracious, Captain, and you've fed me candy ever since I was asticky little kid."
He burlesqued a business of recognizing her with much astonishment. "Youain't little 'Mona Wadley. No! Why, you are a young lady all dressed upin go-to-meet-him clothes. I reckon my little side-partner has goneforever."
"No, she hasn't, Uncle Jim," the girl cried. "And I want you to know Istill like candy."
He laughed with delight and slapped his thigh with his broad-brimmedranger hat. "By dog, you get it, 'Mona, sure as I'm a foot high."
Chuckling, he passed down the street.
"Captain Jim Ellison of the Rangers," explained Ramona to her companion."He isn't really my uncle, but I've known him always. He's a good oldthing and we're great friends."
Her soft, smiling eyes met those of Arthur. He thought that it was nomerit in Ellison to be fond of her. How could he help it?
"He's in luck," was all the boy said.
A little flag of color fluttered in her cheek. She liked hiscompliments, but they embarrassed her a little.
"Did you fix it all up with Dad?" she asked, by way of changing thesubject.
"Yes. I'm to go to Fort Winston to get the money for the beeves, and ifI fall down on the job I'll never get another from him."
"I believe you're afraid of Dad," she teased.
"Don't you believe it--know it. I sure enough am," he admitted promptly.
"Why? I can twist him round my little finger," she boasted.
"Yes, but I'm not his only daughter and the prettiest thing in WestTexas."
She laughed shyly. "Are you sure you're taking in enough territory?"
"I'll say south of Mason and Dixon's line, if you like."
"Really, he lik
es you. I can tell when Dad is for any one."
A sound had for some minutes been disturbing the calm peace of themorning. It was the bawling of thirsty cattle. The young people turned acorner into the main street of the town. Down it was moving toward thema cloud of yellow dust stirred up by a bunch of Texas longhorns. Thecall of the cattle for drink was insistent. Above it rose an occasionalsharp "Yip yip!" of a cowboy.
Ramona stopped, aghast. The cattle blocked the road, their moving backslike the waves of a sea. The dust would irreparably soil the cleanfrock fresh from the hands of her black mammy. She made as if to turn,and knew with a flash of horror that it was too late.
Perhaps it was the gleam of scarlet in her sash that caught the eye ofthe bull leading the van. It gave a bellow of rage, lowered its head,and dashed at her.
Ramona gave a horror-stricken little cry of fear and stood motionless.She could not run. The fascination of terror held her paralyzed. Herheart died away in her while the great brute thundered toward her.
Out of the dust-cloud came a horse and rider in the wake of the bull.Frozen in her tracks, Ramona saw with dilated eyes all that followed.The galloping horse gained, was at the heels of the maddened animal,drew up side by side. It seemed to the girl that in another moment shemust be trampled underfoot. Nothing but a miracle from God's blue couldsave her.
For what registered as time without end to the girl's fear-numbed brain,horse and bull raced knee to knee. Then the miracle came. The riderleaned far out from the saddle, loosened his feet from the stirrups, andlaunched himself at the crazed half-ton of charging fury.
His hands gripped the horns of the bull. He was dragged from the saddleinto the dust, but his weight deflected the course of the animal. Withevery ounce of strength given by his rough life in the open the cowboyhung on, dragging the head of the bull down with him toward the ground.Man and beast came to a slithering halt together in a great cloud ofdust not ten feet from Ramona.
Even now terror held her a prisoner. The brute would free itself andstamp the man to death. A haze gathered before her eyes. She swayed,then steadied herself. Man and bull were fighting desperately, one withsheer strength, the other with strength plus brains and skill. Theobject of the animal was to free itself. The bull tossed wildly infrantic rage to shake off this incubus that had fastened itself to itshorns. The man hung on for life. All his power and weight were centeredin an effort to twist the head of the bull sideways and back. Slowly,inch by inch, by the steady, insistent pressure of muscles as wellpacked as any in Texas, the man began to gain. The bull no longer tossedand flung him at will. The big roan head went down, turned backward,yielded to the pressure on the neck-muscles that never relaxed.
The man put at the decisive moment his last ounce of strength into onelast twist. The bull collapsed, went down heavily to its side.
A second cowboy rode up, roped the bull, and deftly hogtied it.
The bulldogger rose and limped forward to the girl leaning whitelyagainst a wall.
"Sorry, Miss Wadley. I hadn't ought to have brought the herd throughtown. We was drivin' to water."
"Are you hurt?" Ramona heard her dry, faint voice ask.
"Me!" he said in surprise. "Why, no, ma'am."
He was a tall, lean youth, sunburned and tough, with a face that lookedsardonic. Ramona recognized him now as her father's new foreman, the manshe had been introduced to a few days before. Hard on that memory cameanother. It was this same Jack Roberts who had taken her brother bysurprise and beaten him so cruelly only yesterday.
"It threw you around so," she murmured.
"Sho! I reckon I can curry a li'l ol' longhorn when I have it to do,ma'am," he answered, a bit embarrassed.
"Are--are you hurt?" another voice quavered.
With a pang of pain Ramona remembered Arthur Ridley. Where had he beenwhen she so desperately needed help?
"No. Mr. Roberts saved me." She did not look at Ridley. A queer feelingof shame for him made her keep her eyes averted.
"I--went to get help for you," the boy explained feebly.
"Thank you," she said.
The girl was miserably unhappy. For the boy to whom she had given thelargesse of her friendship had fled in panic; the one she hated forbullying and mistreating her brother had flung himself in the path ofthe furious bull to save her.
Captain Ellison came running up. He bristled at the trail foreman like abantam. "What do you mean by drivin' these wild critters through town?Ain't you got a lick o' sense a-tall? If anything had happened to thislittle girl--"
The Ranger left his threat suspended in midair. His arms were roundRamona, who was sobbing into his coat.
The red-headed foreman shifted his weight from one foot to another. Hewas acutely uncomfortable at having made this young woman weep. "I ain'tgot a word to say, Captain. It was plumb thoughtless of me," heapologized.
"You come to my office this mo'nin' at twelve o'clock, young fellow.Hear me? I've got a word to say to you."
"Yes," agreed the bulldogger humbly. "I didn't go for to scare the younglady. Will you tell her I'm right sorry, Captain?"
"You eat yore own humble pie. You've got a tongue, I reckon," snortedEllison, dragging at his goatee fiercely.
The complexion of Roberts matched his hair. "I--I--I'm turrible sorry,miss. I'd ought to be rode on a rail."
With which the range-rider turned, swung to the saddle of his ponywithout touching the stirrups, and fairly bolted down the street afterhis retreating herd.
Oh, You Tex! Page 5