The Flying U's Last Stand

by Bower, B M

  "Shut up now or I'll spank you!" Chip was saying desperately when his wife appeared. "I wish you'd take that Kid and tie him up, Dell," he added snappishly. "Here he's been riding all the horses in the little pasture—and taking a chance on breaking his neck! And he ain't satisfied with Stubby—he thinks he's entitled to Silver!"

  "Well, why not? There, there, honey—men don't cry when things go wrong—"

  "No—because they can take it out in cussing!" wailed the Kid. "I wouldn't cry either, if you'd let me swear all I want to!"

  Chip turned his back precipitately and his shoulders were seen to shake. The Little Doctor looked shocked.

  "I want Silver for my string!" cried the Kid, artfully transferring his appeal to the higher court. "I can ride him—'cause I have rode him, in the pasture; and he never bucked once or kicked or anything. Doggone it, he likes to have me ride him! He comes a-runnin' up to me when I go down there, and I give him sugar. And then he waits till I climb on his back, and then we chase the other horses and play ride circle. He wants to be my string!" Something in the feel of his mother's arm around his shoulder whispered hope to the Kid. He looked up at her with his most endearing smile. "You come down there and I'll show you," he wheedled. "We're pals. And I guess YOU wouldn't like to have the boys call you Tom Thumb, a-ridin' Stubby. He's nothing but a five-cent sample of a horse. Big Medicine says so. I—I'd rather walk than ride Stubby. And I'm going on roundup. The boys said I could go when I get a real horse under me—and I want Silver. Daddy Chip said 'yes' I could have him. And now he's Injun-giver. Can't I have him, Doctor Dell?"

  The gray-blue eyes clashed with the brown. "It wouldn't hurt anything to let the poor little tad show us what he can do," said the gray-blue eyes.

  "Oh—all right," yielded the brown, and their owner threw the iron bar upon the cooling forge and began to turn down his sleeves. "Why don't you make him wear a hat?" he asked reprovingly. "A little more and he won't pay any attention to anything you tell him. I'd carry out that sunbonnet bluff, anyway, if I were you."

  "Now, Daddy Chip! I 'splained to you how I lost my hat," reproached the Kid, clinging fast to the Little Doctor's hand.

  "Yes—and you 'splained that you'd have gone into that deep hole and drowned—with nobody there to pull you out—if you hadn't been scared of a water snake," Chip pointed out relentlessly.

  "I wasn't 'zactly scared," amended the Kid gravely. "He was havin' such a good time, and he was swimmin' around so—comf'table—and it wasn't polite to 'sturb him. Can't I have Silver?"

  "We'll go down and ask Silver what he thinks about it," said the Little Doctor, anxious to make peace between her two idols. "And we'll see if Daddy Chip can get the hat. You must wear a hat, honey; you know what mother told you—and you know mother keeps her word."

  "I wish dad did," the Kid commented, passing over the hat question. "He said I could have Silver, and keep him in a box stall and feed him my own self and water him my own self and nobody's to touch him but me."

  "Well, if daddy said all that—we'll have to think it over, and consult Silver and see what he has to say about it."

  Silver, when consulted, professed at least a willingness to own the Kid for his master. He did indeed come trotting up for sugar; and when he had eaten two grimy lumps from the Kid's grimier hand, he permitted the Kid to entice him up to a high rock, and stood there while the Kid clambered upon the rock and from there to his sleek back. He even waited until the Kid gathered a handful of silky mane and kicked him on the ribs; then he started off at a lope, while the Kid risked his balance to cast a triumphant grin—that had a gap in the middle—back at his astonished parents.

  "Look how the little devil guides him!" exclaimed Chip surrenderingly. "I guess he's safe enough, old Silver seems to sabe he's got a kid to take care of. He sure would strike a different gait with me! Lord how the time slides by; I can't seem to get it through me that the Kid's growing up."

  The Little Doctor sighed a bit. And the Kid, circling grandly on the far side of the little pasture, came galloping back to hear the verdict. It pleased him—though he was inclined to mistake a great privilege for a right that must not be denied. He commanded his Daddy Chip to open the gate for him so he could ride Silver to the stable and put him in the box stall; which was a superfluous kindness, as Chip tried to point out and failed to make convincing.

  The Kid wanted Silver in the box stall, where he could feed him and water him his own self. So into the box stall Silver reluctantly went, and spent a greater part of the day with his head stuck out through the window, staring enviously at his mates in the pasture.

  For several days Chip watched the Kid covertly whenever his small feet strayed stableward; watched and was full of secret pride at the manner in which the Kid rose to his new responsibility. Never did a "string" receive the care which Silver got, and never did rider sit more proudly upon his steed than did the Kid sit upon Silver. There seemed to be practically no risk—Chip was amazed at the Kid's ability to ride. Besides, Silver was growing old—fourteen years being considered ripe old age in a horse. He was more given to taking life with a placid optimism that did not startle easily. He carried the Kid's light weight easily, and he had not lost all his springiness of muscle. The Little Doctor rode him sometimes, and loved his smooth gallop and his even temper; now she loved him more when she saw how careful he was of the Kid. She besought the Kid to be careful of Silver also, and was most manfully snubbed for her solicitude.

  The Kid had owned Silver for a week, and considered that he was qualified to give advice to the Happy Family, including his Daddy Chip, concerning the proper care of horses. He stood with his hands upon his hips and his feet far apart, and spat into the corral dust and told Big Medicine that nobody but a pilgrim ever handled a horse the way Big Medicine was handling Deuce. Whereat Big Medicine gave a bellowing haw-haw-haw and choked it suddenly when he saw that the Kid desired him to take the criticism seriously.

  "All right, Buck," he acceded humbly, winking openly at the Native Son. "I'll try m'best, old-timer. Trouble with me is, I never had nobody to learn me how to handle a hoss."

  "Well, you've got me, now," Buck returned calmly. "I don't ride MY string without brushing the hay out of his tail. There's a big long hay stuck in your horse's tail." He pointed an accusing finger, and Big Medicine silently edged close to Douce's rump and very carefully removed the big, long hay. He took a fine chance of getting himself kicked, but he did not tell the Kid that.

  "That all right now, Buck?" Big Medicine wanted to know, when he had accomplished the thing without accident.

  "Oh, it'll do," was the frugal praise he got. "I've got to go and feed my string, now. And after a while I'll water him. You want to feed your horse always before you water him, 'cause eatin' makes him firsty. You 'member that, now."

  "I'll sure try to, Buck," Big Medicine promised soberly, and watched the Kid go striding away with his hat tilted at the approved Happy-Family angle and his small hands in his pockets. Big Medicine was thinking of his own kid, and wondering what he was like, and if he remembered his dad. He waved his hand in cordial farewell when the Kid looked back and wrinkled his nose in the adorable, Little-Doctor smile he had, and turned his attention to Deuce.

  The Kid made straight for the box stall and told Silver hello over the half door. Silver turned from gazing out of the window, and came forward expectantly, and the Kid told him to wait a minute and not be so impatience Then he climbed upon a box, got down a heavy canvas nose-bag with leather bottom, and from a secret receptacle behind the oats box he brought a paper bag of sugar and poured about a teacupful into the bag. Daddy Chip had impressed upon him what would be the tragic consequences if he fed oats to Silver five times a day. Silver would die, and it would be the Kid that killed him. Daddy Chip had not said anything about sugar being fatal, however, and the Countess could not always stand guard over the sugar sack. So Silver had a sweet taste in his mouth twelve hours of the twenty-four, and was getting a habit of lickin
g his lips reminiscently during the other twelve.

  The Kid had watched the boys adjust nose bags ever since he could toddle. He lugged it into the stall, set it artfully upon the floor and let Silver thrust in his head to the eyes: then he pulled the strap over Silver's neck and managed to buckle it very securely. He slapped the sleek neck afterward as his Daddy Chip did, hugged it the way Doctor Dell did, and stood back to watch Silver revel in the bag.

  "'S good lickums?" he asked gravely, because he had once heard his mother ask Silver that very question, in almost that very tone.

  At that moment an uproar outside caught his youthful attention. He listened a minute, heard Pink's voice and a shout of laughter, and ran to see what was going on; for where was excitement, there the Kid was also, as nearly in the middle of it as he could manage. His going would not have mattered to Silver, had he remembered to close the half-door of the stall behind him; even that would not have mattered, had he not left the outer door of the stable open also.

  The cause of the uproar does not greatly matter, except that the Kid became so rapturously engaged in watching the foolery of the Happy Family that he forgot all about Silver. And since sugar produces thirst, and Silver had not smelled water since morning, he licked the last sweet grain from the inside of the nose bag and then walked out of the stall and the stable and made for the creek—and a horse cannot drink with a nose bag fastened over his face. All he can do, if he succeeds in getting his nose into the water, is to drown himself most expeditiously and completely.

  Silver reached the creek unseen, sought the deepest hole and tried to drink. Since his nose was covered with the bag he could not do so but he fussed and splashed and thrust his head deeper until the water ran into the bag from the top. He backed and snorted and strangled, and in a minute he fell. Fortunately he struggled a little, and in doing so he slid backward down the bank so that his head was up the slope a and the water ran out of the bag, which was all that saved him.

  He was a dead horse, to all appearances at least, when Slim spied him and gave a yell to bring every human being on the ranch at a run. The Kid came with the rest, gave one scream and hid his face in the Little Doctor's skirts, and trembled so that his mother was more frightened for him than for the horse, and had Chip carry him to the house where he could not watch the first-aid efforts of the Happy Family.

  They did not say anything, much. By their united strength they pulled Silver up the bank so that his limp head hung downward. Then they began to work over him exactly as if he had been a drowned man, except that they did not, of course, roll him over a barrel. They moved his legs backward and forward, they kneaded his paunch, they blew into his nostrils, they felt anxiously for heart-beats. They sweated and gave up the fight, saying that it was no use. They saw a quiver of the muscles over the chest and redoubled their efforts, telling one another hopefully that he was alive, all right. They saw finally a quiver of the nostrils as well, and one after another they laid palms upon his heart, felt there a steady beating and proclaimed the fact profanely.

  They pulled him then into a more comfortable position where the sun shone warmly and stood around him in a crude circle and watched for more pronounced symptoms of recovery, and sent word to the Kid that his string was going to be all right in a little while.

  The information was lost upon the Kid, who wept hysterically in his Daddy Chip's arms listen to anything they told him. He had seen Silver stretched out dead, with his back in the edge of the creek and his feet sprawled at horrible angles, and the sight obsessed him and forbade comfort. He had killed his string; nothing was clear in his mind save that, and he screamed with his face hidden from his little world.

  The Little Doctor, with anxious eyes and puckered eyebrows, poured something into a teaspoon and helped Chip fight to get it down the Kid's throat. And the Kid shrieked and struggled and strangled, as is the way of kids the world over, and tried to spit out the stuff and couldn't, so he screamed the louder and held his breath until he was purple, and his parents were scared stiff. The Old Man hobbled to the door in the midst of the uproar and asked them acrimoniously why they didn't make that doggoned Kid stop his howling; and when Chip, his nerves already strained to the snapping point, told him bluntly to get out and mind his own business, he hobbled away again muttering anathemas against the whole outfit.

  The Countess rushed in from out of doors and wanted to know what under the shinin' sun was the matter with that kid, and advised his frantic parents to throw water in his face. Chip told her exactly what he had told the Old Man, in exactly the same tone; so the Countess retreated, declaring that he wouldn't be let to act that way if he was her kid, and that he was plumb everlastingly spoiled.

  The Happy Family heard the disturbance and thought the Kid was being spanked for the accident, which put every man of them in a fighting humor toward Chip, the Little Doctor, the Old Man and the whole world. Pink even meditated going up to the White House to lick Chip—or at least tell him what he thought of him—and he had plenty of sympathizers; though they advised him half-heartedly not to buy in to any family mixup.

  It was into this storm centre that Andy Green rode headlong with his own burden of threatened disaster.

  CHAPTER 4. ANDY TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME

  Andy Green was a day late in arriving at the Flying U. First he lost time by leaving the train thirty miles short of the destination marked on his ticket, and when he did resume his journey on the next train, he traveled eighty-four miles beyond Dry Lake, which landed him in Great Falls in the early morning. There, with the caution of a criminal carefully avoiding a meeting with Miss Hallman, he spent an hour in poring over a plat of a certain section of Chouteau County, and in copying certain description of unoccupied land.

  He had not slept very well the night before and he looked it. He had cogitated upon the subject of land speculations and the welfare of his outfit until his head was one great, dull ache; but he stuck to his determination to do something to block the game of the Homeseekers' Syndicate. Just what that something would be he had not yet decided. But on general principles it seemed wise to learn all he could concerning the particular tract of land about which Florence Grace Hallman had talked.

  The day was past when range rights might be defended honorably with rifles and six-shooters and iron nerved men to use them—and I fear that Andy Green sighed because it was so. Give him the "bunch" and free swing, and he thought the Homeseekers would lose their enthusiasm before even the first hot wind blew up from the southwest to wither their crops. But such measures were not to be thought of; if they fought at all they must fight with the law behind them—and even Andy's optimism did not see much hope from the law; none, in fact, since both the law and the moneyed powers were eager for the coming of homebuilders into that wide land. All up along the Marias they had built their board shacks, and back over the benches as far as one could see. There was nothing to stop them, everything to make their coming easy.

  Andy scowled at the plat he was studying, and admitted to himself that it looked as though the Home Seekers' Syndicate were going to have things their own way; unless—There he stuck. There must be some way out; never in his life had he faced a situation which had been absolutely hopeless; always there had been some chance to win, if a man only saw it in time and took it. In this case it was the clerk in the office who pointed the way with an idle remark.

  "Going to take up a claim, are you?"

  Andy looked up at him with the blank stare of preoccupation, and changed expression as the question filtered into his brain and fitted somehow into the puzzle. He grinned, said maybe he would, folded the sheet of paper filled with what looked like a meaningless jumble of letters and figures, bought a plat of that township and begged some government pamphlets, and went out humming a little tune just above a whisper. At the door he tilted his hat down at an angle over his right eye and took long, eager steps toward an obscure hotel and his meagre baggage.

  There was no train going east until midni
ght, and he caught that train. This time he actually got off at Dry Lake, ate a hurried breakfast, got his horse out of the livery stable and dug up the dust of the lane with rapid hoof-beats so that he rode all the way to the first hill followed by a rolling, gray cloud that never quite caught him.

  When he rode down the Hog's Back he saw the Happy Family bunched around some object on the creek-bank, and he heard the hysterical screaming of the Kid up in the house, and saw the Old Man limping excitedly up and down the porch. A man less astute than Andy Green would have known that some thing had happened. He hurried down the last slope, galloped along the creek-bottom, crossed the ford in a couple of leaps and pulled up beside the group that surrounded Silver.

  "What's been taking place here?" he demanded curiously, skipping the usual greetings.

  "Hell," said the Native Son succinctly, glancing up at him.

  "Old Silver looked over the fence into Kingdom Come," Weary enlarged the statement a little. "Tried to take a drink with a nose bag on. I guess he'll come through all right."

  "What ails the Kid?" Andy demanded, glancing toward the house whence issued a fresh outburst of shrieks.

  The Happy Family looked at one another and then at the White House.

  "Aw, some folks hain't got a lick of sense when it comes to kids," Big Medicine accused gruffly.

  "The Kid," Weary explained, "put the nose bag on Silver and then left the stable door open."

  "They ain't—spanking him for it, are they?" Andy demanded belligerently. "By gracious, how'd a kid know any better? Little bit of a tad like that—"

  "Aw, they don't never spank the Kid!" Slim defended the parents loyally. "By golly, they's been times when I would-a spanked him, if it'd been me. Countess says it's plumb ridiculous the way that Kid runs over 'em—rough shod. If he's gittin' spanked now, it's the first time."