by Zane Grey
Lonesome chuckled over that, very sincere in his own opinion that it went wide of the mark. They came abreast of an open lighted door whence issued strains of music. A young woman, bare-necked and bare-armed, with a pretty painted face and eyes of a hawk, about to enter the hall, gaily hailed Lonesome:
“Hello, sweetheart!”
A yoke of oxen could not have checked Lonesome more effectively. There was a dash of gallantry in the manner with which he doffed his sombrero.
“Howdy. Where’d I ever meet you?” he replied.
“It was on the boat from Kansas City to New Orleans. Come in and dance.”
Laramie felt the urge in the lad and held on to him.
“Sorry. I — I got an important job on hand,” floundered Lonesome.
“Who’s your gun-packing pard?” queried the girl as she backed into the doorway, with her hawk eyes on Laramie. “I’ve seen him somewhere.”
“I’m his dad an’ he’s a bad boy,” drawled Laramie.
She trilled a mirthless laugh. “I thought his mother didn’t know he was out.”
Lonesome flounced out of Laramie’s grip and lunged on down the street.
“Smart Alec of a girl! I never rode on no boat to New Orleans.”
“Reckon yu don’t know her kind, Lonesome. Boy, yu’d be a lamb among wolves in this heah town. Let’s rustle to dig Williams out an’ then hit the road.”
As they strode off the lighted street into the dark one Laramie decided the best plan would be to saddle the three horses and lead them out to a clump of cottonwoods at the edge of town, then return with their implements to free Williams. All was dark and quiet in the vicinity of the corral. They lost no time saddling up. Then they set out, with Laramie leading the horses and Lonesome following with the tools. They proceeded cautiously and kept to the back road which soon led out into the open country.
Laramie halted. “Lonesome, this heah is haidin’ east. We want to strike west.”
“Sure we do. An’ we’ll ride straight back through this here Dodge town,” asserted Lonesome.
“Suits me, unless we get surprised breakin’ open the jail. Now let’s work down to the main road an’ find thet bunch of cottonwoods.”
Soon these were located and the horses haltered. Whereupon the rescuers hurried into town again. Lonesome was excited, hard to hold back and keep still. Fortunately there was not a light in one of the several houses they passed before reaching the jail. It too was dark. Laramie had forgotten that the small window was high off the ground. After peering through the darkness up and down the road, listening the while, Laramie lifted Lonesome up to a level of the window. The inmates were not by any means silent, but Lonesome’s sibilant whisper brought instant results.
“All right, pard. Coast’s clear. Got any tools?”
“Sure. Crowbar an’ pick,” replied Lonesome, in his shrill whisper.
“Pass the bar in. Then you keep watch outside. Tap on the wall if any one comes.”
Laramie had to let Lonesome down to get the crowbar, then hoist him aloft again. The implement was easy to hand in, but not so with the pick. Dull thuds sounded on the inside of the wall. Crumbling sounds were soon deadened by rough jolly songs of the cow-camps. Williams had coached his accomplices in this jail-breaking. Laramie could not have heard any approaching footsteps. It was all a matter of luck. Suddenly the crowbar split through the outside planking. Lonesome then attacked the place with his pick, and in less than two minutes there was a hole as large as the mouth of a barrel.
“Pile out, yu jailbirds,” called Laramie, low-voiced and grim. If they were discovered it meant gun-play.
A dark form crawled out to leap erect. In the starlight Laramie recognized the pale face and black head of Williams. The next instant Lonesome was hugging him.
“Pard! — My Gawd — I’m glad!”
“Dear old Lonesome! To think it had to be you!”
Other forms crawled out of the hole, like rats out of a broken trap. Laramie lingered as Lonesome hurried Williams down the road. Nine men emerged, all of whom except the last, scuttled away in the darkness. This fellow was burly of shoulder, bushy of head and beard. He loomed over Laramie, peering with big gleaming eyes.
“I don’t forgit a good turn. Who air you, stranger?” he said, gruffly.
“Laramie, for short.”
“Steve Elkins is mine. Put her thar.”
They shook hands.
“Anyone left inside?”
“Hell yes. Some drunk an’ some asleep. Don’t risk wakin’ them. Thet new Dodge sheriff shore goes off half-cocked.”
Laramie stole away in the gloom and presently broke into a light trot. Soon he espied two dark forms in the middle of the road.
“Thet you, Laramie?” called Lonesome, eagerly.
“Shore. All safe,” panted Laramie.
“Meet my pard, Ted Williams. . . . Tracks, this is my new pard. Calls himself Laramie. Salt of the earth! An’ by Gawd! I’m a lucky an’ a reformed man.”
That ceremony over, the three hurried down the road to the clump of cottonwoods, to find all well with their horses.
“Lonesome, I’ve changed my mind about ridin’ through town,” said Laramie. “We’ll circle an’ hit the road somewhere west.”
“Dog-gone! I’d liked to have had a peep at thet girl who called me sweetheart,” complained Lonesome.
They mounted and rode out into the starlight, where each instinctively halted. It was a fresh start — new and different life for each. Laramie heard Lonesome choke up. But it was Williams who broke the pregnant silence.
“Two’s company. Three’s a crowd. Hadn’t I better go my own way?”
Laramie sensed loyalty to others in Williams’ terse query. He belonged to the best of that fire-spirited breed who rode the ranges of the West, though perhaps, like so many others, had a name or a deed to hide.
“Not on my account,” replied Laramie.
“Ted, it’d kill me to lose you now — an’ Laramie — how could I ever split from you?” cried Lonesome, poignantly.
“Wal, I reckon three’s as good a combination as two,” rejoined Laramie.
“Thanks for putting it up to me,” said Williams, his voice ringing. “We’ll stick together. . . . Three for one and one for three!”
Months afterward a rancher over on the Platte wanting to keep Laramie and Tracks, but to discharge Lonesome, called them The Three Range Riders. And that name, augmented by gossip from cow-camp to cow-camp, traveled over the prairie ranges. Laramie’s fame with a gun, Williams’ as a tracker, Lonesome’s irresistible attraction and weakness for women, preceded them in many instances, and in all soon discovered them. Cattle thronged the immense area of western Kansas and jobs were easy to be had. Keeping them, however, was a different matter. Trouble gravitated to the three range-riders. If it was not one thing it was another. If a cattleman wanted one of them he had to hire all: if he wished to get rid of one he lost the three. They rode a grub-line from camp to camp, from range to range; and they got on at this ranch and then at that. At Tellson’s Diamond Bar an irate and jealous cow-puncher made an illuminating remark: “Them three flash range-riders never spend a dollar!”
This was almost true and Laramie was the genius. He bound his two comrades to an oath agreement that they turn over their earnings for him to save. Lonesome and Tracks kept their word, but not without wailings and implorings. Laramie was inexorable. The three wore clothes so ragged that they resembled the scarecrows of eastern Kansas fields, and they made a pouch of tobacco go a very long way. No drinks! No candy! No new gloves or other accoutrements! Laramie had become obsessed with a great idea and was relentless in its fulfillment. When the three had earned enough money they would find a good lonely range over in Colorado or New Mexico and buy cattle enough to start ranching on their own account. All three were heart and soul in the hope, but it was Laramie’s will that might make it possible.
In the little town of Pecord, upon which they happened one hot
summer day, they halted long enough to eat a much-needed meal. Tracks begged for ice cream and Lonesome begged for apple pie. But Laramie was obdurate.
“Yu galoots can starve for dainties,” declared their chief, scornfully. “Do yu heah me shoutin’ for blackberry jam when I love it better than my life?”
Tracks restrained his longings, but when, once more riding along the road, Lonesome produced a sadly mashed piece of apple pie from inside his open shirt, then Tracks exploded, “Where in hell did you get that pie?”
“Um-yum-yum,” was all the satisfaction he got from the ravenous rider.
“Wal, yu ugly little bow-legged toad!” exploded Laramie, when he saw the pie. “Yu approperated thet!”
“Give me a bite, you hawg!” importuned Tracks.
All to no avail were his importunities. Lonesome gobbled all the pie and even went to lengths of picking bits of crust off his chaps to devour them also.
“Tracks, he stole thet pie,” declared Laramie, in an awful voice. “Shore as the Lord made little apples, Lonesome will ruin us yet.”
“Beat hell out of him first!” quoth the fiery Williams.
So they rode on to the next cow-camp, where they worked for three weeks and were elated, feeling that their luck had changed. Yet not so! Vast as the Great Plains were, they constituted only a small world. Who should ride in with a herd of steers but Herb Price, two hundred miles and more from the range where he had aimed to hang Lonesome! Laramie was for calling Price out, saying he would be sure to bob up again. But Lonesome would not hear of that. “Fork yore hosses, pards. We’re on our way,” he said, and without word to the kindly rancher and with wages due they rode away into the melancholy autumn night.
They drifted west and at the approach of winter were glad to accept poor pay from a trail-driver boss on the way back to Texas to fetch up another herd. Down the Pecos to the Braseda they rode, and on to the gulf part where the big cattle herds formed. They lost that job to find a better, and drove stock with vaqueros during the winter months, to start north in the spring over the old Chisholm Trail. That was a tough trip, and when they ended up at Abilene they were a tough trio, though still motivated by their cherished dream. And their savings had mounted to almost incredible proportions.
Out of Abilene one night the three rangers made camp on the river, where they were joined by several self-styled cowmen riding home. They were jovial fellows. That night, despite the fact that Laramie slept on his precious wallet, it was stolen from him. In the morning the home-riding strangers were gone. But they could not shake a tracker like Tracks Williams. A hound on a trail, he tracked them to Hays City. Laramie cornered them in a gambling-hall, killed the leader, crippled the second, and held up the third, who confessed and swore that the money had been gambled away.
It proved a terrible blow to the three range-riders. They let down. Lonesome got drunk and Tracks picked a fight. Laramie, almost too discouraged to begin all over again, looked upon red liquor himself. Yet when destruction threatened he pulled out, got his partners away, and faced the long trail once more.
* * * * *
Vicissitudes common to range-riders of the period dogged their tracks for a year, at the end of which they were as badly off as ever. What they did not experience in life on the ranges was certainly inconsequential. All the mean and hard jobs around cow-camps fell to their lot. Beggars could not be choosers. Laramie recaptured his spirit and clung to it unquenchably because he realized Lonesome and Tracks were slipping down the broad and easy trail. They had come to be more than brothers to him. He fought them with subtle cunning, with brawn and actual threat. But the frontier was changing from the bloody Indian wars and buffalo massacres a few years back to the cattle regime and the development of the rustler. For young men the life grew harder, for not only did the peril to existence increase, but also the peril of moral ruin. The gambler, the prostitute, the rustler, the desperado, the notoriety-seeking, as well as the real gunman, followed hard on the advent of the stock-raising.
Laramie had his work cut out for him to save his young fire-brands from going the way of the many. And the worst of it was he realized that another backset or two would break his shattered hopes. Something extraordinary had to happen soon or he would flunk the job and that would be the end of Lonesome and Tracks. Laramie prayed for a miracle.
* * * * *
One weary day in the spring the inseparable three rode into a growing prosperous town. Laramie did not know it or that it was on the railroad. Both Lonesome and Tracks balked when they discovered it.
“I’m gun-shy,” said the aloof Williams, growing harder and harder to reach.
“An’ I’m girl-shy,” added Lonesome, doggedly.
“Wal, I’ve done my best for yu both,” replied Laramie, with bitter finality. “If yu don’t brace an’ come on I’ll be drunk in half an hour.”
That dire threat fetched them. The idea of Laramie getting drunk was insupportable.
“Tracks, we got to stick to Laramie,” swore Lonesome.
“We’re a couple of measly quitters,” replied Tracks, with remorse. “But, Laramie, old man, it’s not that we don’t love you and swear by you. It’s that we’re hopeless, hungry, ragged, and sick. We’re for holding up a stagecoach.”
“Wal, let’s try once more,” entreated Laramie, for the hundredth time in less than that many days. They rode into the town and dismounted at a livery stable.
“Boy, what place is this heah?” asked Laramie, of the lad who came to take their horses.
“Garden City.”
Laramie turned to his comrades. “Shore it’s a new town for us. Heah our luck will change.”
“Ahuh. What’s the idee?” queried the glum Lonesome.
“We’re three ragamuffins,” declared Tracks, hopelessly. “We’ll be taken for rustlers on the run.”
“Let’s go eat. I’ve got some money left. Then we’ll feel better to tackle this heah place.”
“You son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Lonesome, admiringly.
“He’s a magician,” declared Tracks. “How many times has he had a little money left!”
With a square meal in sight the down-hearted trio brightened, and they forgot their tattered garments, their worn-out boots. Laramie would not enter the first eating-shop, nor the second, though his friends dragged at him.
“Not good enough for us,” he asserted.
“Hell, we’ll get throwed out,” replied Lonesome, giving up.
It was about the noon hour and the broad street did not present numerous pedestrians, though sidewalks on each side were lined with vehicles and horses. Laramie strode on until he came to a pretentious hotel, and was entering the lobby, followed by his reluctant and grumbling partners, when suddenly he was halted by a man.
“Look out, Lonesome! Duck!” called Tracks, who was ahead.
But the Westerner with the broad-brimmed sombrero let out a whoop.
“Laramie! . . . By the Lord Harry, where’d you come from?”
Quick as a flash Laramie recognized the lean, lined, tanned face with its gray eyes of piercing quality.
“Buffalo Jones or I’m a daid sinner! I shore am glad to meet yu heah.”
Their hands met in a grip that bespoke a period in the past which had tried men’s souls.
“You’re older, Laramie, a little peeked an’ drawn, but I wouldn’t have known Old Nigger Horse any better, if he’d come along,” said Jones, heartily.
“Wal, Buff, yu haven’t changed a whit,” declared Laramie.
“I’m fit as a fiddle. . . . You look like we did after that Comanche campaign. . . . Say, man, come to take you in you’re a sight. . . . An’ your pards here — they’re about as tough. What you been fightin’? Wild cats in a thorn thicket?”
“Nope. Greaser hawse-thieves down in the river bottom,” replied Laramie, lying glibly. “Boys, meet Colonel Buffalo Jones. Yu’ve often heahed me speak of him. . . . Buff, meet my pards, Mulhall an’ Williams.”
The pla
insman’s greeting defined Laramie’s status and the regard in which any friends of his must be held. Then Jones turned to a pale, rather handsome man, with whom he had been talking before the interruption and who had stepped back.
“Lindsay, you must meet these boys,” said Jones, drawing the man toward Laramie. “This is Laramie Nelson. He was with me when I had the campaign against Old Nigger Horse, the Comanche chief. You heard me tell the story to your daughters only last night. Laramie was a boy then.”
Laramie quickly responded to the Easterner’s genuine interest and pleasure. Then he introduced Lonesome and Tracks. To do them credit, they acquitted themselves with modest restraint. Laramie was not now afraid of their appearance. That was a recommendation. This meeting augured well.
“Laramie, it’ll interest you to learn Mr. Lindsay is from Ohio,” went on Jones, “and has come West for his health. With his wife, three daughters, and a son! Isn’t that just fine? The West needs Eastern stock, good blood with the pioneer spirit.”
“We’re shore glad to welcome yu,” said Laramie, warmly, and Tracks and Lonesome seconded him.
“Laramie, you know this country like a book. Lindsay has bought a ranch and a big herd of cattle over in Colorado. Pretty high up on the plains. Lester Allen sold out to him. I’m curious about the deal. Maybe you know Allen?”
By the merest chance Laramie was able to connect the name of Lester Allen with Spanish Peaks Ranch, and he said so casually.
“Lindsay, you’re in luck,” declared Jones, with a flash of his wonderful eyes. “You’re an Easterner, a tenderfoot, if you’ll excuse me. You’ve bought a strange ranch from a stranger, without seeing either. It’s an irregular transaction. You must have a man you can trust. Here he is, Laramie Nelson. I vouch for him, stand back of him. He knows the West from Texas up. He knows cattle, and what’s more to the point — the ways of cattlemen, honest and dishonest. Last he had few equals with a gun — and that was years ago.”
“Mr. Nelson, you’re spoken so highly of that I’d want you even if I didn’t need you, and indeed I do,” said Lindsay, earnestly. “My family and I are up a tree, so to speak. Can I persuade you to come along and help us run Spanish Peaks Ranch?”