CHAPTER XII
FELIX THE FAITHLESS
To Whitey's intense relief the following morning was clear, and herealized, with delight, that at last he would be able to get away fromthe T Up and Down. He had never been so tired of a place in his life. Itwas almost worse than school.
After breakfast Dan Brayton took Whitey into his office, and whileWhitey sat on a saddle, Dan slouched in his saggy chair and talkedbusiness.
"I'm sure glad you bin able t' stay a coupl'a days," he said. "It mustabin a pleasant change for you, an' it's give me a chanst t' think overthis here important business o' your father's. I've writ a letter foryou t' deliver, t' my friend Walt Lampson, o' the Star Circle, downso'east o' here a piece, for you t' take t' him. Y' see, we can't fillall your dad's r'quir'munts, so I'm callin' on Walt t' sort o' help outwith th' balance."
Dan looked impressively at Whitey, who didn't understand much of whathe was talking about, and didn't care about anything he was to do, hewas so glad to get away from the T Up and Down.
"This'll take you out of your way a bit," Dan went on, "but you won'thave t' cross th' Zumbro, an' I'll send back that hoss you borrowed fromCal Smith, by one o' the hands. An' I'll lend you one o' my nags t' takeyou as far as Willer Bend, where you c'n get another mount. LittleThompson'll go that far with you, an' from there on th' goin'sstraight."
So, on the borrowed horse, and with the letter sewed inside his shirt,Whitey set forth with Little Thompson, the tall, thin, solemn cowboy whohad sung the dismal songs. And glad as he was to leave, Whitey regrettedthat he did not have a more cheerful companion. For Little's idea ofentertainment was to talk about funerals.
He seemed to have enjoyed going to them greatly, and described eachindividual one at length. Never before had Whitey known what a subjectfor conversation funerals could make. Little dwelled on the burial ofeach one of his immediate family, then passed on to his distantrelatives, then to his friends, then to his acquaintances. Whitey'snerves were pretty steady, as you know, but after about four hours ofthis, Little got him so fidgety that he thought he would fall off thehorse. Finally he thought Little had changed the subject, and breathed asigh of relief.
"Drink's a awful evil," Little announced solemnly. "They was a friend o'mine, one o' them two-handed drinkers, what was down to Bismarck, an'got in th' c'ndition what liquor perduces, an' this friend o' mine wasstandin' on th' sidewalk, an' 'long comes a funeral."
"Here it is again!" muttered Whitey, with a groan.
"An' this friend o' mine," Little continued, "sees this here funeral,an' bein' in th' c'ndition he's in, he thinks it is a percession, an' hewaves his hat an' cheers, an' he gets urrested."
Little looked sternly at Whitey as though to drive the moral of thisstory home, and to warn him never to drink and cheer a funeral. But atthis moment "Willer Bend" hove in sight, and the talk turned to otherchannels.
The Bend was a relief in more ways than one, for it was a beautiful spoton the sharp turn of a narrow creek, whose banks were overhung byweeping-willows, the green of their leaves made vivid by the recentrain. One Chet Morgan, a nester, lived here. Nesters--or smallfarmers--were not usually popular in the early days of the Westernranges, as they had a way of fencing in the springs, or water-holes, toprovide irrigation for their crops. But there was plenty of water inthat country, so Chet was welcome to all of it he wanted.
While Whitey sat in the doorway of the small shack, Little had a longtalk with Chet, near the stable, and Chet seemed to be nodding his headin agreement to everything the puncher said. They then rested awhile andhad dinner with the nester, and after that Little rode away, leadingWhitey's borrowed horse. There seemed no reason for Whitey's staying anylonger, and Chet again went to the stable, and returned leading what iscalled a jack, "jack" being short for "jackass."
"Here's your mount, son," said Chet, "an' if you'll keep t' th'--"
"Am I to ride _that_?" Whitey demanded, pointing at the jack.
"Sure," Chet replied. "Both of my hosses has glanders, but this jack'sall right. I've rid him offen. You'll find him gentle an' perseverin'an' good comp'ny. Mebbe he does go a mite faster toward home than awayfrom it, but he allus gets somewhere. His name's Felix, after a uncle o'mine what--"
Followed a personal history of Chet's uncle, to which Whitey did notlisten. He was thinking of the figure he would cut arriving at the StarCircle on Felix, and hoped he would get there at night. Chet returned tothe subject of the jack, to whose back a blanket was strapped.
"I'm sorry my saddles won't fit him," said Chet, "but you'll findsittin' on this blanket as comf'tbul as your mother's rockin'-chair, an'you've only sixty mile t' go."
"Sixty miles!" gasped Whitey.
"Thassall. Now you keep t' that road, with them hills t' your right, an'when you get t'--"
Chet described at length Whitey's route to the Star Circle Ranch. SadlyWhitey mounted Felix and set forth. Again the road proved little but agrass-grown wagon track through the rolling plain edged by the grayhills. And soon it seemed to Whitey that Chet had been over-enthusiasticwhen he said that Felix's back was easy as a rocking-chair. At first itmight have seemed so, but after awhile it felt more like a rail fence.
And Whitey discovered peculiar traits in Felix. He constantly wanted toturn to the right, and had to be pulled back, and he was cold-jawed. Andonce in a while he would stop short, and when Whitey urged him on, wouldstart in a despondent way, with his head down and his ears flopping, andwould have to be kicked or whipped to be urged to do anything fasterthan a walk. It was all very discouraging.
Perhaps you never have seen a horse or a jack attached to the end of thepole of one of those old stone grinding-mills, around which he marchesand marches, while the grain is ground between the whirling stones inthe center. That was Felix's regular job, which accounted for many ofhis peculiarities--but Whitey never knew about it.
Among the interesting things about animals is their sense of time. Manyof them seem to be as accurate as clocks and some of them as useful ascalendars. One dog, in particular, comes to my mind, whom his masterused to bathe on Sundays. And when this custom was firmly fixed inhis--the pup's--mind, he would go away on Friday night and stay awaytill Monday morning. He got to be the dirtiest dog in town.
And the easiest time for an animal to tell is the time to stop work andeat. Felix was very clever in that regard. At about six o'clock theunsuspecting Whitey dismounted to stretch himself and ease the strain ofjouncing up and down on that rocking-chair that had come to feel like aridge-pole. Naturally his eyes turned away from Felix, to whom he wasbeginning to take a personal dislike.
Whitey's eyes were brought back with a jerk by the soft thud of littlehoofs on the prairie, for Felix was beating it back toward Willer Bend,with a speed that astonished his late rider. Whitey started after himinstinctively, but he soon realized that that was useless, and he stoodand watched, while Felix became a blurred spot in the distance. Whiteydidn't know that it was time to quit for the day at thegrinding-mill--and it would not have done him any good if he had.
But he knew that it was lonely on the prairie. And that he had come onlyabout a third of the way to the Star Circle Ranch. So he supposed hemust be in for another walk, for he wouldn't go back to Willer Bend forthat Felix, not if he died for it. He started determinedly on hiscourse. He might meet some one who would give him a lift. Anyway, it wasgoing to be a moonlight night, and wouldn't be so bad; and walkingwasn't much slower than riding Felix, and was far more comfortable.
So Whitey trudged and trudged until dusk came. Then he sat down and atesome of the food he had brought with him. Then darkness came, and a bigmoon poked its head up over the eastern horizon, and rode up into thesky, where it began to get smaller and more silvery, and to flood theprairie with its light. And Whitey started, and it wasn't so bad totread the soft road, and to hear the hum of the insects, and to feel thegentle night breeze against his face, and it would be something to tellabout afterwards.
Whitey did not know wha
t time it was when he sat down on a hummock torest. And he must have fallen asleep, for after a while, out of somevague country that seemed like the mountains near the Bar O Ranch, agreat giant came rushing down toward him. And the giant had a head likeFelix's, but on top of it was a big yellow light--like those lampsminers wear on their heads--that grew brighter and brighter, and thegiant roared louder and louder, until he woke Whitey up.
Whitey rubbed his eyes, then pinched himself to make sure he was awake,for the roaring still sounded in his ears, and he looked around and sawtwo little red and green lights disappearing in the distance. And thenhe understood that he must have sat down near the track of therailroad, for those lights were on the end of a train, and the bigyellow light on the giant's head must have been the engine's headlight.
Well, the road followed the railway for a distance, and it couldn't besuch an awful way to the Star Circle Ranch. Should he go on, or shouldhe sleep some more? He might catch cold from the dew, but he could puton his slicker, and--he was awfully tired.
He yawned, he nodded, he was sound asleep before he knew it.
Injun and Whitey to the Rescue Page 13