"That's all right, Pete; I ain't worryin'."
"Well—I be, some," said Pete. "Lemme see—fifty for the saddle, seven for the bridle—-and she's some bridle!—and eighteen for the chaps—fifteen for the boots—that's ninety dollars. Gee whizz! Then there's four for that blanket and ten for them spurs. That's a hundred and four. 'Course I could git along without a new lid. Rope is three-fifty, and lid is ten. One hundred and seventeen dollars for four bits. Guess I'll make it a hundred and twenty. No use botherin' about small change. Gimme that pair of gloves."
Roth had no hesitation in outfitting Pete. The Concho cattlemen traded at his store. He had extended credit to many a rider whom he trusted less than he did Pete. Moreover, he was fond of the boy and wanted to see him placed where he could better himself. "I've got you on the books for a hundred and twenty," he told Pete, and Pete felt very proud and important. "Now, if I could borrow a hoss for a spell, I'd jest fork him and ride over to see Bailey," he asserted. "I sure can't pack this outfit over there."
Roth grinned. "Well, we might as well let the tail go with the hide. There's old Rowdy. He ain't much of a horse, but he's got three good legs yet. He starched a little forward, but he'll make the trip over and back. You can take him."
"Honest?"
"Go ahead."
Pete tingled with joyful anticipation as he strode from the store, his new rope in his hand. He would rope that cayuse and just about burn the ground for the Concho! Maybe he wouldn't make young Andy White sit up! The Ridin' Kid from Powder River was walking on air when—
"Thought you was goin' over to see Montoya!" he challenged as he saw the Mexican youth, whom he had tentatively hired, sitting placidly on the store veranda, employed solely in gazing at the road as though it were a most interesting spectacle. "Oh, mañana," drawled the Mexican.
"Mañana, nothin'!" volleyed Pete. "You're goin' now! Git a-movin'—if you have to take your hands and lift your doggone feet off the ground. Git a-goin'!"
"Oh, maybe I go mañana."
"You're dreamin', hombre." Pete was desperate. Again he saw his chance of an immediate job go glimmering down the vague vistas of many to-morrows.
"See here! What kind of a guy are you, anyhow? I come in here yesterday and offered you a job and you promised you'd git to work right away. You—"
"It was to-day you speak of Montoya," corrected the Mexican.
"You're dreamin'," reiterated Pete. "It was yesterday you said you would go mañana. Well, it's to-morrow, ain't it? You been asleep an' don't know it."
An expression of childish wonder crossed the Mexican youth's stolid face. Of a certainty it was but this very morning that Montoya's boy had spoken to him! Or was it yesterday morning? Montoya's boy had said it was yesterday morning. It must be so. The youth rose and gazed about him. Pete stood aggressively potent, frowning down on the other's hesitation.
"I go," said the Mexican.
Pete heaved a sigh of relief. "A fella's got to know how to handle 'em," he told the immediate vicinity. And because Pete knew something about "handlin' 'em," he did not at once go for the horse, but stood staring after the Mexican, who had paused to glance back. Pete waved his hand in a gesture which meant, "Keep goin'." The Mexican youth kept going.
"I ain't wishin' old José any hard luck," muttered Pete, "but I said I'd send a boy—and that there walkin' dream looks like one, anyhow. 'Oh, mañana!'" he snorted. "Mexicans is mostly figurin' out to-day what they 're goin' to do to-morrow, and they never git through figurin'. I dunno who my father and mother was, but I know one thing—they wa'n't Mexicans."
CHAPTER IX
ROWDY—AND BLUE SMOKE
It has been said that Necessity is the mother of Invention—well, it goes without saying that the cowboy is the father, and Pete was closely related to these progenitors of that most necessary adjunct of success. Moreover, he could have boasted a coat of arms had he been at all familiar with heraldry and obliged to declare himself.
[Illustration: Pete.]
A pinto cayuse rampant; a longhorn steer regardant; two sad-eyed, unbranded calves couchant—one in each corner of the shield to kind of balance her up; gules, several clumps of something representing sagebrush; and possibly a rattlesnake coiled beneath the sagebrush and described as "repellent" and holding in his open jaws a streaming motto reading, "I'm a-comin'."
Had it been essential that Pete's escutcheon should bear the bar sinister, doubtless he would have explained its presence with the easy assertion that the dark diagonal represented the vague ancestry of the two sad-eyed calves couchant. Anybody could see that the calves were part longhorn and part Hereford!
Pete rode out of Concho glittering in his new-found glory of shining bit and spur, wide-brimmed Stetson, and chaps studded with nickel-plated conchas. The creak of the stiff saddle-leather was music to him. His brand-new and really good equipment almost made up for the horse—an ancient pensioner that never seemed to be just certain when he would take his next step and seemed a trifle surprised when he had taken it. He was old, amiable, and willing, internally, but his legs, somewhat of the Chippendale order, had seen better days. Ease and good feeding had failed to fill him out. He was past taking on flesh. Roth kept him about the place for short trips. Roth's lively team of pintos were at the time grazing in a distant summer pasture.
Rowdy—the horse—seemed to feel that the occasion demanded something of him. He pricked his ears as they crossed the cañon bottom and breasted the ascent as bravely as his three good legs would let him. At the top he puffed hard. Despite Pete's urging, he stood stolidly until he had gathered enough ozone to propel him farther. "Git along, you doggone ole cockroach!" said Pete. But Rowdy was firm. He turned his head and gazed sadly at his rider with one mournful eye that said plainly, "I'm doing my level best." Pete realized that the ground just traveled was anything but level, and curbed his impatience. "I'll jest kind o' save him for the finish," he told himself. "Then I'll hook the spurs into him and ride in a-boilin'. Don't care what he does after that. He can set down and rest if he wants to. Git along, old soap-foot," he cried—"soap-foot" possibly because Rowdy occasionally slipped. His antique legs didn't always do just what he wanted them to do.
Topping the mesa edge, Pete saw the distant green that fringed the Concho home-ranch, topped by a curl of smoke that drifted lazily across the gold of the morning. Without urging, Rowdy broke into a stiff trot, that sounded Pete's inmost depths, despite his natural good seat in the saddle. "Quit it!" cried Pete presently. "You'll be goin' on crutches afore night if you keep that up.—And so'll I," he added. Rowdy immediately stopped and turned his mournful eye on Pete.
If the trot had been the rhythmic one, two, three, four, Pete could have ridden and rolled cigarettes without spilling a flake of tobacco; but the trot was a sort of one, two—almost three, then, whump! three and a quick four, and so on, a decidedly irregular meter in Pete's lyrical journey toward new fields and fairer fortune. "I'll sure make Andy sit up!" he declared as the Concho buildings loomed beneath the cool, dark-green outline of the trees. He dismounted to open and close a gate. A half-mile farther he again dismounted to open and close another gate. From there on was a straightaway road to the ranch-buildings. Pete gathered himself together, pushed his hat down firmly—it was new and stiff—and put Rowdy to a high lope. This was something like it! Possibly Rowdy anticipated a good rest, and hay. In any event, he did his best, rounding into the yard and up to the house like a true cow-pony. All would have been well, as Pete realized later, had it not been for the pup. The pup saw in Rowdy a new playfellow, and charged from the door-step just as that good steed was mentally preparing to come to a stop. The pup was not mentally prepared in any way, and in his excitement he overshot the mark. He caromed into Rowdy's one recalcitrant leg—it usually happens that way—and Rowdy stepped on him. Pete was also not mentally prepared to dismount at the moment, but he did so as Rowdy crashed down in a cloud of dust. The pup, who imagined himself killed, shrieked shrilly and ran as h
ard as he could to the distant stables to find out if it were not so.
Pete picked up his hat. Rowdy scrambled up and shook himself. Pete was mad. Over on the edge of the bunk-house veranda sat four or five of the Concho boys. They rocked back and forth and slapped their legs and shouted. It was a trying situation.
The foreman, Bailey, rose as Pete limped up. "We're livin' over here," said Bailey. "Did you want to see some one?"
Pete wet his lips. "The fo'man. I—I—jest rid over to see how you was makin' it."
"Why, we 're doin' right fair. How you makin' it yourself?"
"I'm here," said Pete succinctly and without a smile.
"So we noticed," said the foreman mildly, too mildly, for one of the punchers began to laugh, and the rest joined in.
"Wisht I had a hoss like that," said a cowboy. "Always did hate to climb offen a hoss. I like to have 'em set down and kind o' let me step off easy-like."
Pete sorely wanted to make a sharp retort, but he had learned the wisdom of silence. He knew that he had made himself ridiculous before these men. It would be hard to live down this thing. He deemed himself sadly out of luck, but he never lost sight of the main chance for an instant.
Bailey, through young Andy White, knew of Pete and was studying him. The boy had self-possession, and he had not cursed the horse for stumbling. He saw that Pete was making a fight to keep his temper.
"You lookin' for work?" he said kindly.
"I was headed that way," replied Pete.
"Can you rope?"
"Oh, some. I kin keep from tanglin' my feet in a rope when it's hangin' on the horn and I'm standin' off a piece."
"Well, things are slack right now. Don't know as I could use you. What's your name, anyhow?"
"I'm Pete Annersley. I reckon you know who my pop was."
Bailey nodded. "The T-Bar-T," he said, turning toward the men. They shook their heads and were silent, gazing curiously at the boy, of whom it was said that he had "bumped off" two T-Bar-T boys in a raid some years ago. Young Pete felt his ground firmer beneath him. The men had ceased laughing. If it had not been for that unfortunate stumble…
"You're sportin' a right good rig," said the foreman.
"I aim to," said Pete quickly. "If I hadn't gone broke buyin' it, I'd ride up here on a real hoss."
"Things are pretty slack right now," said Bailey. "Glad to see you—but they won't be nothin' doin' till fall. Won't you set down? We're goin' to eat right soon."
"Thanks. I ain't a-missin' a chanct to eat. And I reckon ole Rowdy there could do somethin' in that line hisself."
Bailey smiled. "Turn your horse into the corral. Better pack your saddle over here. That pup will chew them new latigos if he gets near it."
"That doggone pup come mighty nigh bustin' me,"—and Pete smiled for the first time since arriving. "But the pup was havin' a good time, anyhow."
"Say, I want to shake with you!" said a big puncher, rising and sticking out a strong, hairy hand.
Pete's face expressed surprise. "Why—sure!" he stammered, not realizing that his smiling reference to the pup had won him a friend.
"He's sure a hard-boiled kid," said one of the men as Pete unsaddled and led Rowdy to the corral. "Did you catch his eye? Black—and shinin'; plumb full of deviltry—down in deep. That kid's had to hit some hard spots afore he growed to where he is."
"And he can take his medicine," asserted another cowboy. "He was mad enough to kill that hoss and the bunch of us—but he held her down and bellied up to us like a real one. Looks like he had kind of a Injun streak in him."
Bailey nodded. "Wish I had a job for the kid. He would make good. He's been driftin' round the country with old man Montoya for a couple of years. Old man Annersley picked him up down to Concho. The kid was with a horse-trader. He would have been all right with Annersley, but you boys know what happened. This ain't no orphan asylum, but—well, anyhow—did you size up the rig he's sportin'?"
"Some rig."
"And he says he went broke to buy her."
"Some kid."
"Goin' to string him along?" queried another cowboy.
"Nope," replied Bailey. "The pup strung him plenty. Mebby we'll give him a whirl at a real horse after dinner. He's itchin' to climb a real one and show us, and likewise to break in that new rig."
"Or git busted," suggested one of the men.
"By his eye, I'd say he'll stick," said Bailey. "Don't you boys go to raggin' him too strong about ridin', for I ain't aimin' to kill the kid. If he can stick on Blue Smoke, I've a good mind to give him a job. I told Andy to tell him there wa'n't no chanct up here—but the kid comes to look-see for hisself. I kind o' like that."
"You 're gettin' soft in your haid, Bud," said a cowboy affectionately.
"Mebby, but I don't have to put cotton in my ears to keep my brains in," Bailey retorted mildly.
The cowboy who had spoken was suffering from earache and had an ear plugged with cotton.
Pete swaggered up and sat down. "Who's ridin' that blue out there?" he queried, gesturing toward the corral.
"He's a pet," said Bailey. Nobody rides him."
"Uh-huh. Well, I reckon the man who tries 'll be one of ole Abraham's pets right off soon after," commented Pete. "He don't look good to me."
"You sabe 'em?" queried Bailey and winked at a companion.
"Nope," replied Pete. "I can't tell a hoss from a hitchin'-rail, 'less he kicks me."
"Well, Blue Smoke ain't a hitchin'-rail," asserted Bailey. "What do you say if we go over and tell the missis we're starvin' to death?"
"Send Pete over," suggested a cowboy.
Bailey liked a joke. As he had said, things were dull, just then. "Lope over and tell my missis we're settin' out here starvin' to death," he suggested to Pete.
Pete strode to the house and entered, hat in hand. The foreman's wife, a plump, cheery woman, liked nothing better than to joke with the men. Presently Pete came out bearing the half of a large, thick, juicy pie in his hands. He marched to the bunkhouse and sat down near the men—but not too near. He ate pie and said nothing. When he had finished the pie, he rolled a cigarette and smoked, in huge content. The cowboys glanced at one another and grinned.
"Well," said Bailey presently; "what's the answer?"
Pete grinned. "Misses Bailey says to tell you fellas to keep on starvin' to death. It'll save cookin'."
"I move that we get one square before we cross over," said Bailey, rising. "Come on, boys. I can smell twelve o'clock comin' from the kitchen."
CHAPTER X
"TURN HIM LOOSE!"
Blue Smoke was one of those unfortunate animals known as an outlaw. He was a blue roan with a black stripe down his back, a tough, strong pony, with a white-rimmed eye as uncompromising as the muzzle of a cocked gun. He was of no special use as a cow-pony and was kept about the ranch merely because he happened to belong to the Concho caviayard. It took a wise horse and two good men to get a saddle on him when some aspiring newcomer intimated that he could ride anything with hair on it. He was the inevitable test of the new man. No one as yet had ridden him to a finish; nor was it expected. The man who could stand a brief ten seconds' punishment astride of the outlaw was considered a pretty fair rider. It was customary to time the performance, as one would time a race, but in the instance of riding Blue Smoke the man was timed rather than the horse. So far, Bailey himself held the record. He had stayed with the outlaw fifteen seconds.
Pete learned this, and much more, about Blue Smoke's disposition while the men ate and joked with Mrs. Bailey. And Mrs. Bailey, good woman, was no less eloquent than the men in describing the outlaw's unenviable temperament, never dreaming that the men would allow a boy of Pete's years to ride the horse. Pete, a bit embarrassed in this lively company, attended heartily to his plate. He gathered, indirectly, that he was expected to demonstrate his ability as a rider, sooner or later. He hoped that it would be later.
After dinner the men loafed out and gravitated lazily toward the corral,
where they stood eying the horses and commenting on this and that pony. Pete had eyes for no horse but Blue Smoke. He admitted to himself that he did not want to ride that horse. He knew that his rise would be sudden and that his fall would be great. Still, he sported the habiliments of a full-fledged buckaroo, and he would have to live up to them. A man who could not sit the hurricane-deck of a pitching horse was of little use to the ranch. In the busy season each man caught up his string of ponies and rode them as he needed them. There was neither time nor disposition to choose.
Pete wished that Blue Smoke had a little more of Rowdy's equable disposition. It was typical of Pete, however, that he absolutely hated to leave an unpleasant task to an indefinite future. Moreover, he rather liked the Concho boys and the foreman. He wanted to ride with them. That was the main thing. Any hesitancy he had in regard to riding the outlaw was the outcome of discretion rather than of fear. Bailey had said there was no work for him. Pete felt that he had rather risk his neck a dozen times than to return to the town of Concho and tell Roth that he had been unsuccessful in getting work. Yet Pete did not forget his shrewdness. He would bargain with the foreman.
"How long kin a fella stick on that there Blue Smoke hoss?" he queried presently.
"Depends on the man," said Bailey, grinning.
"Bailey here stayed with him fifteen seconds onct," said a cowboy.
Pete pushed hack his hat. "Well, I ain't no bronco-twister, but I reckon I could ride him a couple o' jumps. Who's keepin' time on the dog-gone cayuse?"
The Ridin Kid from Powder River Page 8