by Various
"'Mr. Bear,' says I, 'I 'd hate to have to spile your hide, but I 'll do it if you don't get out o' this trail. I 've killed eighty bear in these mountains, and I won't take no sass from you. The climate in this trail ain't what you need, an' I advise you to git out of it. Off into the bushes with you! Whoop! Git!' An' off he went, just as if I owned that trail an' he was trespassin'.
[Illustration: "I 'd hate to have to spile your hide, but I 'll do it if you don't get out o' this trail."]
"That bear was as reasonable as any I ever see, but I had more trouble with a big feller up toward Crescent Lake. I got sleepy that afternoon, for I 'd been settin' up watchin' fer bear the night before. So I put my gun an' a snack I had on a stump and went to sleep. When I waked up there was a big brown bear nosin' my lunch and tryin' to open the bundle with his paw. I picked up some pine cones--_Pinus pondyrosy_ it was I was sleepin' under" (he rolled this out with the slyest glance at a professor from an Eastern college who had joined his little audience)--"an' begun peltin' 'em at him just so's to tip his ears and his tail. Sunday, he 'd travelled off somewhere and missed this fun. Then I started in to abusin' that bear. My! I called him everything I could lay my tongue to. He 'd stop an' listen a minute, cock up one ear and wink, and then he 'd go to work at that lunch passel ag'in. I jest kept on swearin' harder and harder at him till I could taste brimstone. And at last it got too much for 'im. He took his paws down off 'n that stump an' marched off as dignified as a woman who 's heard you say somethin' you did n't mean her to.
"But the cheekiest thing I ever did with a bear was one night over in Devil's Gulch. A big storm come up just about dark an' I found a sort o' cave to crawl into. A big tree, a Pinus Lamberteeny" (another sly glance at the professor), "had fell alongside o' some rocks an' made a fine dry den. A lot of dry leaves was made into a bed, an' I says to Sunday: 'Reckon we 'll have company before long. Wonder whether it 'll be a brown or a grizzly.' Sunday, he curled up an' went to sleep, an' I was settin' down at the mouth of the den lookin' out into the dark when up come a big, black thing. I knew 't was the bear, an' it was too dark to see if it was a grizzly. But it just made me mad to think of that bear comin' to turn me out into the rain, an' I up with my fist an' give 'im a cuff. 'Git out o' this, you ole tramp,' says I. 'I was here first, an' there ain't no room fer you.' An' I belted him on the other ear. That bear jest turned tail an' walked off as meek as Moses, an' me an' Sunday had the den to ourselves all night.
"Yes, sir," and he shook his head and chuckled in delighted remembrance of his waggishness, "that was jest about the cheekiest joke I ever played on a bear!"
Posey's mirthful spirits make him always a welcome visitor in the cabins that, tucked away among trees and bowlders, shelter the lone mountaineers. But of all those who live within the circuit of his peregrinations his particular chum is Win Davis--"J. Winthrop Davis" is the name painted in big, black letters on a pine board nailed to his cabin door, although nobody ever takes the trouble to call him anything but "Win." After seeing that doorplate, you will hardly need to hear his nasal intonation to know that he came from the land of the tutelary codfish.
That was nearly half a century ago and ever since he has been the child of the mines, the forests, and the mountains. And Nature, as if in gratitude for his loving allegiance, seems to have taken him under her protection and stayed the progress of years over his head. For, although he has almost reached the allotted three score and ten, his big frame, his ruddy face, his shock of hair, his auburn beard that flows to his waist, his actions, and his apparent feelings do not indicate a day over forty.
When our buckboard stopped at his cabin door he rushed out, shouting hospitable welcome in a tremendous voice. If he ever spoke in anything less than a roar he would make his Herculean body and Jovian head ridiculous. As he never does, he is grand.
Posey was there, and, while Win bustled about in the lean-to kitchen making hot biscuits and coffee, he began to tell us entrancing yarns of the adventures and successes they had enjoyed hunting and trapping together during the previous winter. Apparently neither had felt it any hardship that for months they had been shut off entirely from all companionship with their kind. Nature is good to these lone men of the mountains. She gives them happiness and serenity in her arms, steeps them in lore of all manner of wild things, and makes them simple and honest of heart as a child. But for what she gives she exacts an awful price, for she cuts from their hearts the dearest ties of the race. In all those little cabins scattered along the slopes and through the gorges of the Sierras there is scarcely one in which you will find wife or child, or regret that there is none, or wish that such might yet be.
The talk drifted from one thing to another, and finally one of our party told Mark Twain's yarn about "the meanest man on earth." Our host listened at the kitchen door, a streak of flour shining white athwart the cataract of his auburn beard, and testified his amusement by a delighted roar that was like unto the rejoicings of a bull of Bashan.
"Posey," he exclaimed, "tell 'em about that stingy friend o' yours!"
Posey chuckled and pushed his old slouch hat to the back of his head.
"Well," he said, "I reckon that feller was jest about as stingy as the feller you 've been tellin' about, and mebby stingier, 'cause he 'd take more risks. Anyway, he was as ornery stingy as he could be an' live. If he 'd been any wuss he 'd of died to save grub an' shoe leather. W'y, him and me was out huntin' together oncet, over toward Mono. But I oughter tell you fust it was a long time ago, 'way back in the days when everybody had to carry powder-flasks, an' each of us had one on a string 'round his neck.
"Well, 'long about noon we come to a clear, purty little lake and set down to eat a snack. I was stoopin' over the edge of the lake to get some water in my hat an' my powder-flask slipped off an' went, kersplash, down to the bottom! The water was so clear I could see it layin' down there, as plain as could be, fifty feet down, I reckon, fer them mountain lakes is prodeejus deep. Well, the other feller, he could dive better 'n I could--he was a great one fer divin'--an' he said he 'd go down after it. So he stripped, but kep' his powder-flask 'round his neck. That kinder riled me, fer it looked as if he was afeared I 'd run off with it while he was gone. I did n't say nothin', though, an' down he went.
"Well, I set there an' waited, an' finished eatin' my snack, an' waited an' waited for him to come up agin. I reckon I must a' set there about fifteen minutes, anyhow, and at last I begun to git so curious about what he could be doin' all that time, that I up an' went over to the edge of the bank an' peeked down into the water. An' consarn my soul!"--here Posey bristled up with as much excited interest in voice and manner as if he were at that moment peering down into the depths of the lake--"What do you s'pose he was a-doin' down there?"
"Drowning?" suggested one of our party in a tone that Posey must have thought too flippant for the occasion, for he turned upon the speaker with an indignation that could not all have been inspired by the memory of his stingy friend's deed.
"Drownin'! Him! An' leave his duds up on the ground fer somebody else to git the good of? Huh! Not much! No, sir! There he was, down there at the bottom of the lake--an' I 'm a-tellin' you the Gospel truth, an' you may take me out an' drown me in that there very lake if I ain't--there was that ornery, stingy cuss down there takin' his time to empty the powder out o' my flask into his'n! I was so mad I felt like heavin' a rock down on 'im!"
Like many a man in far less humble station, Posey has but to repeat an idea or a statement a few times to convince himself of its absolute truth, no matter how reckless may have been its first enunciation. As we talked, the sound and savor of frying venison came appetizingly from the kitchen. Posey sniffed it and straightened up, with childlike, pleased expectancy.
"Venison 's a mighty healthy meat, ain't it, Doc?" he said, addressing a physician who was with us. The doctor gave assent, and Posey swelled and beamed with pleasure that his opinion had won scientific approval.
"Yes, sir," he went on enthusia
stically, "it's the healthiest meat there is! Wy, if a man would jest eat venison all the time, he 'd never be sick, an'--an' he'd never die, neither!" He paused a moment, the least mite taken aback by the sweepingness of his proposition, then glanced belligerently around his little circle of listeners and repeated with emphasis: "No, sir! he'd never die!" He stopped again, but this time with triumph shining in his face, as who would say. Dispute it if you dare! Evidently he was quite convinced by that time of the truth of his statement, but still felt the need of making his hearers believe. He brought his fist down upon the table with a blow that made the dishes Win Davis was placing thereon jump and rattle, and exclaimed in tones of the most serious and heartfelt conviction:
"No, sir! He'd live forever, he would! He 'd never, never die!"
Contents
THE KID OF APACHE TEJU
By Florence Finch Kelly
Baby, my babe, What waits you yonder, Out in the world? Dear little feet, There must they wander, Out in the world? Soft little hands, What shall they do there, Out in the world? Baby, my babe, What fate must you dare, Out in the world?
All around Apache Teju for miles and miles lies the gray, cactus-dotted, heat-devoured plain, weird and fascinating, with its placid, tree-fringed lakes, that are not; its barren, jagged, turquoise-tinted mountain-peaks, born here and there of the horizon and the desert; its whirling, dancing columns of sand, which mount to mid-sky; its lying distances and deceiving levels; its silence and its fierce, white, unclouded sunshine.
And when you draw rein under the cottonwoods at Apache Teju, uncurl the wrinkles of your eyelids in the welcome shade, and cool your eyes in the vivid green of the alfalfa field, it suddenly comes to you that never before did you understand what blessedness there is in a bit of shadow and a patch of green things growing.
From the spring at the top of the slope behind the house a line of noble old cottonwoods files along the acequia halfway down the hill, and there, where the ditch divides, forks into a spreading double row, which incloses the house and stables and comes together again in a little grove beyond the road, where the two ditches empty into a pond. The house lies there in this circlet of trees, a low, whitewashed, flat-roofed adobe, rambling along in apparent aimlessness from cosey rooms through sheds and stables, until the whole connecting structure incloses a large corral.
In front of the house is a tiny square of blue-grass, bordered by beds of geraniums and larkspurs and hollyhocks, inclosed by a low adobe wall, and shaded by a young cottonwood growing in the centre. Beyond, on the slope of the hill below the ditch, where its waters can be spread over all the surface, is the rich, velvety emerald of the alfalfa field. And the fame of that little square of grass and of that little field of alfalfa fills all the land from Deming to Silver City, and from Separ to the Mimbres.
And that is Apache Teju, headquarters for the northern half of a ranch that spreads over seven thousand square miles of the arid hills and plains of southern New Mexico, where for hours and hours you may travel toward a horizon swimming in heat, across the gray, hot, quivering levels, broken only by clumps of gay-flowered cactus and the blanching bones and sun-dried hides of cattle, dead of starvation and thirst.
The superintendent's wife and I sat in the tiny grass plat enjoying the balmy breath that in the late afternoon steals over and cools this strange, hot land. Texas Bill had just galloped home from the nearest railroad station with a big package of Eastern mail; and the combined attractions of letters, late magazines, and a box of New York candy so engrossed us that we did not see the Kid until the gate clicked and he stood before us, asking,
"Is this the double A, quart circ., bar H outfit?"
"The what?" I gasped, looking at the queer little figure in astonishment. He was perhaps a dozen years old, though the slender, childish figure and the experienced face belied each other and made guessing difficult. He wore a man's sombrero, old and dirty, which came down to his ears and flopped a wide, unstiffened brim around his face. With tardy recollection of his manners,--learned who knows where,--he doffed his head-gear after he had spoken, and stood with serious face, but unable to repress a smile that twinkled in his great blue child's eyes at my astonishment. A big rent across one shoulder of his shirt showed a strip of sunburned flesh beneath and sent one sleeve dangling over his hand. His baggy trousers--no, that is not the word, they were "pants"--were held in place by a halter strap buckled tightly about his waist, and his feet were concealed in shoes so much too large for him that his toes were not visible in the mouths gaping at their front ends. And on one foot clanked and jingled the pride and glory of his attire--a huge spur, three inches long, silver-plated and highly polished, and so heavy that that foot dragged as he walked.
He repeated his question, and the superintendent's wife leaned forward, with a laughing aside to me:
"You tenderfoot! Haven't you learned our brand yet?" And to the boy: "Yes, this is Apache Teju. Do you want to see any one?"
"Boss home yet from Deming?"
"Mr. Williams? I expect him this evening."
The boy threw himself down full length upon the grass and pressed his face against the cool, green blades.
"Well," he exclaimed, "it's pretty fine here, ain't it? That green down there is just out of sight. I heard there was blue-grass and alfalfa here, but who 'd have thought it would look so nice?"
"Do you want to see Mr. Williams?"
"I guess it ain't necessary," and he sat up again, pressing a handful of grass upon each glowing cheek.
I handed him the candy box and he helped himself daintily with the tongs, saying, "Thank you, ma'am," with a sidelong glance which let me know that his heart was won to my service from that moment. He put a piece in his mouth, and his face beamed with pleasure.
"This just strikes my gait! 'T ain't much like Deming candy, is it? I saw the boss last night in Deming," he added, turning to Mrs. Williams. "You're his wife, ain't you? I thought so, soon as I saw you. He was kidding me about coming out here to be a cowboy, and I told him all right, if he wasn't running a blaze, I 'd go him on that. I was to have rode out with him in his buggy, but I was up pretty late last night with the boys, doing the town, and when I got up this morning he was gone. I was n't going to have him think I 'd backed out of the bargain, so I says to the conductor, 'I got a job out at Apache--cowboy--gimme a ride to Whitewater.' And he says, 'All right, jump on. You 're welcome to a ride on my train whenever you want it.' So I walked over from Whitewater, and I 'm ready to go to work to-night if the boss says so. He won't find me no tenderfoot, you hear me."
The naive bravado of the child's speech was irresistible. It won my heart as completely as I had won his, and I straightway emptied my candy box into his hands. "Oh!" he breathed, looking at the heap of dainties with infantile delight. And then he fell upon them with avidity and did not speak another word until the last one had disappeared down his throat.
So that was how the Kid came to live at Apache Teju. He said his name was Guy Silvestre Raymond. But whether a mother's lips had really bestowed that name upon him, or he had appropriated it to himself out of some blood-and-thunder romance, whose hero he had decided to imitate, name and all, is one of the things that nobody but the Kid will ever know. But it did n't matter much anyway, for he had always been called Kid, and that name followed him to the ranch, much to his disgust. For he had decided, as he told me one day, that the ladies of the household should call him Guy, and that among the men his name should be "Broncho Bob."
He was a waif of the railroad. All his life had been spent along its line, blacking boots, selling nuts, candy, papers, on the trains or around the depots of the frontier cities and towns. And he had taken care of himself ever since he could remember. He had reached Deming a few days before in a worse but less picturesque state of dilapidation than that in which he presented himself at Apache Teju. After deciding that he would leave the railroad and become a cowboy, he had scraped together, in Heaven knows what devious ways and by what lucky chanc
es, the apparel of state in which he set forth on his new life.
The next morning there was trouble in the corral. Kid had been directed to mount an old and gentle pony whose meek and humble appearance did not at all agree with his ideas of the sort of steed Broncho Bob should bestride. There was in the corral a black horse called Dynamite, a mettlesome young thing whose one specialty was bucking. And of this it never failed to give a continuous performance from the time a rider mounted its back until he was dislodged. Kid was determined to ride Dynamite. Texas Bill and Red Jack were trying to persuade him out of his notion by telling him how dangerous the horse was, and how he once landed Mr. Williams, the best rider on the whole ranch, on top of the house.
"Suppose he did," blustered the Kid. "He won't land me on top of the house, nor on top of the ground, neither. I tell you, I ain't afraid to fork any horse that ever bucked! I can ride anything that wears hair! You hear me shout? Anything that wears hair!"
"See here, youngster," said Texas Bill, in his longest and most indifferent drawl, "I 've been ridin' horses more years than you 've been born, an' I 've tamed more pitchin' horses than you ever saw any other kind, an' I ain't a little bit afraid of a pitchin' horse. I 'm a whole, big, blazin' lot afraid!"
"What if you are?" retorted Kid. "I don't have to be a coward 'cause you 're one!"
Texas Bill's eye glared, and his hand jerked toward his hip pocket. Then he grunted and walked over to where I was feeding the two Angora goats out of my hands.