by Bower, B M
"Mamma! You sure are a rambunctious person when you feel that way," Weary made querulous comment; but he rode over with Pink to where the bug-killer was standing with his long stick held in a somewhat menacing manner, and once more he held Pink's horse for him.
Pink was gone longer this time, and he came back with a cut lip and a large lump on his forehead; the bug-killer had thrown a small rock with the precision which comes of much practice—such as stoning disobedient dogs, and the like—and, when Pink rushed at him furiously, the herder caught him very neatly alongside the head with his stick. These little amenities serving merely to whet Pink's appetite for battle, he stopped long enough to thrash that particular herder very thoroughly and to his own complete satisfaction.
"Well, I guess I'm ready to go on now," he observed, dimpling rather one-sidedly as he got back on his horse.
"I thought maybe you'd want to whip the dogs, too," Weary told him dryly; which was the nearest he came to expressing any disapproval of the incident. Weary was a peace-loving soul, whenever peace was compatible with self-respect; and it would never have occurred to him to punish strange men as summarily as Pink had done.
"I would, if the dogs were half as ornery as the men," Pink retorted. "Say, they hang together like bull snakes and rattlers, don't they? If they was human, they'd have helped each other out—but nothing doing! Do you reckon a man could ride up to a couple of our bunch, and thrash one at a time without the other fellow having something to say about it?" He turned in the saddle and looked back. "So help me, Josephine, I've got a good mind to go back and lick them again, for not hanging together like they ought to." But the threat was an idle one, and they went on to Denson's, Weary still with that anxious look in his eyes, and Pink quite complacent over his exploit.
In Denson coulee was an unwonted atmosphere of activity; heretofore the place had been animated chiefly by young Densons engaged in the pursuit of pleasure, but now a covered buggy, evidently just arrived, bore mute witness to the new order of things. There were more horses about the place, a covered wagon or two, three or four men working upon the corral, and, lastly, there was one whom Weary recognized the moment he caught sight of him.
"Looks like a sheep outfit, all right," he said somberly. "And, if that ain't old Dunk himself, it's the devil, and that's next thing to him."
Dunk, they judged, had just arrived with another man whom they did not know: a tall man with light hair that hung lank to his collar, a thin, sharp-nosed face and a wide mouth, which stretched easily into a smile, but which was none the pleasanter for that. When he turned inquiringly toward them they saw that he was stoop-shouldered; though not from any deformity, but from sheer, slouching lankness. Dunk gave them a swift, sour look from under his eyebrows and went on.
Weary rode straight past the lank man, whom he judged to be Oleson, and overtook Dunk Whittaker himself.
"Hello, Dunk," he said cheerfully, sliding over in the saddle so that a foot hung free of the stirrup, as men who ride much have learned to do when they stop for a chat, thereby resting while they may. "Back on the old stamping ground, are you?"
"Since you see me here, I suppose I am," Dunk made churlish response.
"Do you happen to own those Dot sheep, back there on the hill?" Weary tilted his head toward home.
"I happen to own half of them." By then they had reached the gate and Dunk passed through and started on to the house.
"Oh, don't be in a rush—come on back and be sociable," Weary called out, in the mildest of tones, twisting the reins around his saddle-horn so that he might roll a cigarette at ease.
Dunk remembered, perhaps, certain things he had learned when he was J. G. Whitmore's partner, and had more or less to do with the charter members of the Happy Family. He came back and stood by the gate, ungraciously enough, to be sure; still, he came back. Weary smiled under cover of lighting his cigarette. Dunk, by that reluctant compliance, betrayed something which Weary had been rather anxious to know.
"We've been having a little trouble with those sheep of yours," Weary remarked between puffs. "You've got some poor excuses for humans herding them. They drove the bunch across our coulee just exactly three times. There ain't enough grass left in our lower field to graze a prairie dog." He glanced back to see where Pink was, saw that he was close behind, as was the lank man, and spoke in a tone that included them all.
"The Flying U ain't pasturing sheep, this spring," he informed them pleasantly. "But, seeing the grass is eat up, we'll let yuh pay for it. Why didn't you bring them in along the trail, anyway?"
"I didn't bring them in. I just came down from Butte to-day. I suppose the herders brought them out where the feed was best; they did if they're worth their wages."
"They happened to strike some feed that was pretty expensive. And," he smiled down at Whittaker misleadingly, "you ought to keep an eye on those herders, or they might let you in for another grass bill. The Flying U has got quite a lot of range, right around here, you recollect. And we've got plenty of cattle to eat it. We don't need any help to keep the grass down so we can ride through it."
"Now, look here," began the lank man with that sort of persuasiveness which can turn instantly into bluster, "all this is pure foolishness, you know. We're here to stay. We've bought this place, and some other land to go with it, and we expect to stay right here and make a living. It happens that we expect to make a living off of sheep. Now, we don't want to start in by quarreling with our neighbors, and we don't want our neighbors to start any quarrel with us. All we want—"
"Mamma! You're taking a fine way to make us love yuh," Weary cut in ironically. "I know what you want. You want the same as every other meek and lovely sheepman wants. You want it all—core, seeds and peeling. Dunk," he said with a more impatient disgust than he was in the habit of showing for his fellowmen, "this man's a stranger; but I should think you'd know better than to come in here with sheep."
"I don't know why a sheep outfit isn't exactly as good as a cow outfit, and I don't know why they haven't as much right here. You're welcome to what land you own, but it always seemed to me that public land is open to the use of the public. Now, as Oleson says, we expect to raise sheep here, and we expect your outfit to leave us alone. As far as our sheep crossing your coulee is concerned—I don't know that they did. But, if they did, and, if they did any damage, let J. G. do the talking about that. I deal with the owners—not with the hired men."
Weary, you must understand, was never a bellicose young man. But, for all that, he leaned over and gave Dunk a slap on the jaw which must have stung considerably—and the full reason for his violence lay four years behind the two, when Dunk was part owner of the Flying U, and when his sneering arrogance had been very hard to endure.
"Are you going to swallow that—from a hired man?" Weary inquired, after a minute during which nothing whatever occurred beyond the slow reddening of Dunk's face.
"I'm not going to fight, if that's what you mean," Dunk sneered. "I decline to bring myself down to your level. One doesn't expect anything from a jackass but a bray, you know—and one doesn't feel compelled to bray because the jackass does." He smiled that supercilious smile which Weary had hated of old, and which, he knew, was well used to covering much treachery and small meannesses of various sorts.
"As I said, if the Flying U has any claim against us, let the owner present it in the usual way." Dunk drew down his black brows, lifted a corner of his lip and turned his back deliberately upon them.
Oleson let himself through the gate, which he closed somewhat hastily behind him. "I'm sorry you fellows seem to want to make trouble," he said, without looking up from the latch, which seemed somewhat out of repair, like the rest of the Denson property. "That's a poor way to start in with new neighbors." He lifted his hat with what Pink considered insulting politeness, and followed Dunk into the house.
Weary waited there until they had gone in and closed the door, then turned and rode back home again, frowning thoughtfully at the trail
ahead of them all the way, and making no reply to Pink's importunings for war.
"I'd hate to say you've lost your nerve, Weary," Pink cried at last, in sheer desperation. "But why the devil didn't you get down and thump the daylights out of that black son-of-a-gun? I came pretty near walking into him myself, only I hate to butt into another fellow's scrap. But, if I'd known you were going to set there and let him walk off with that sneer on his face—"
"I can't fight a man that won't hit back," Weary protested. "You couldn't either, Cadwalloper. You'd have done just what I did; you'd have let him go."
"He will hit back, all right enough," Pink retorted passionately. "He'll do it when you ain't looking, though. He—"
"I know it," Weary sighed. "I'm kinda sorry, now, I slapped him. He'll hit back—but he won't hit me; he'll aim at the outfit. If the Old Man was here, or Chip, I'd feel a whole lot easier in my mind."
"They couldn't do anything you can't do," Pink assured him loyally, forgetting his petulance when he saw the careworn look in Weary's face. "All they can do is gobble all the range around here—and I guess there's a few of us that will have a word or two to say about that."
"What makes me sore," Weary confided, "is knowing that Dunk isn't thinking altogether of the dollar end of it. He's tickled to death to get a whack at the outfit. And I hate to see him get away with it; but I guess we'll have to stand for it."
That sentiment did not please Pink; nor, when Weary repeated it later that evening in the bunk-house, did it please the Happy Family. The less pleasing it was because it was perfectly true and every man of them knew it. Beyond keeping the sheep off Flying U land, there was nothing they could do without stepping over the line into lawlessness—and, while they were not in any sense a meek Happy Family, they were far more law-abiding than their conversation that night made them appear.
CHAPTER IX. More Sheep
The next week was a time of harassment for the Flying U; a week filled to overflowing with petty irritations, traceable, directly or indirectly, to their new neighbors, the Dot sheepmen. The band in charge of the bug-chaser and that other unlovable man from Wyoming fed just as close to the Flying U boundary as their guardians dared let them feed; a great deal closer than was good for the tempers of the Happy Family, who rode fretfully here and there upon their own business and at the same time tried to keep an eye upon their unsavory neighbors—a proceeding as nerve-racking as it was futile.
The Native Son, riding home in jingling haste from Dry Lake, whither he had hurried one afternoon in the hope of cheering news from Chicago, reported another trainload of Dots on the wide level beyond Antelope coulee. There were, he said, four men in charge of the band, and he believed they carried guns, though he was not positive of that. They were moving slowly, and he thought they would not attempt to cross Flying U coulee before the next day; though, from the course they were taking, he was sure they meant to cross.
Coupled with that bit of ill-tidings, the brief note from Chip, saying very little about the Old Man, but implying a good deal by its very omissions, would have been enough to send the Happy Family to sleepless beds that night if they had been the kind to endure with silent fortitude their troubles.
"If you fellers would back me up," brooded Big Medicine down by the corral after supper, "I'd see to it them sheep never gits across the coulee, by cripes! I'd send 'em so far the other way they'd git plumb turned around and forgit they ever wanted to go south."
"It's all Dunk's devilishness," Jack Bates declared. "He could take them in the other way, even if the feed ain't so good along the trail. It's most all prairie-dog towns—but that's good enough for sheep." Jack, in his intense partisanship, spoke as if sheep were not entitled to decent grass at any time or under any circumstances.
"Them herders packin' guns looks to me like they're goin' to make trouble if they kin," gloomed Happy Jack. "I betche they'll kill somebody before they're through. When sheepmen gits mean—"
Pink picked up his rope and started for the large corral, where a few saddle horses had been driven in just before supper and had not yet been turned out.
"You fellows can stand around and chew the rag, if you want to," he said caustically, "and wait for Weary to make a war-talk. But I'm going to keep cases on them Dots, if I have to stand an all-night guard on 'em. I don't blame Weary; he's looking out for the law-and-order business—and that's all right. But I'm not in charge of the outfit. I'm going to do as I darn please, and, if they don't like my style, they can give me my time."
"Good for you, Little One!" Big Medicine hurried to overtake him so that he might slap him on the shoulder with his favorite, sledge-hammer method of signifying his approval of a man's sentiments. "Honest to grandma, I was just b'ginnin' to think this bunch was gitting all streaked up with yeller. 'Course, we ain't goin' to wait for no official orders, by cripes! I'd ruther lock Weary up in the blacksmith shop than let him tell us to go ahead. Go awn and tell him a good, stiff lie, Andy—just to keep him interested while us fellers make a gitaway. He ain't in on this; we don't want him in on it."
"What yuh goin' to do?" Happy Jack inquired suspiciously. "Yuh can't go and monkey with them sheep, er them herders. They ain't on our land. And, if you don't git killed, old Dunk'll fix yuh like he fixed the Gordon boys—I know him—to a fare-you-well. It'd tickle him to death to git something on us fellers. I betche that's what he's aiming t'do. Git us to fightin' his outfit so's't—"
"Oh, go off and lie down!" Andy implored him contemptuously. "We're going to hang those herders, and drive the sheep all over a cut-back somewhere, like Jesus done to the hogs, and then we're going over and murder old Dunk, if he's at home, and burn the house to hide the guilty deed. And, if the sheriff comes snooping around, asking disagreeable questions, we'll all swear you done it. So now you know our plans; shut your face and go on to bed. And be sure," he added witheringly, "you pull the soogans over your head, so you won't hear the dying shriek of our victims. We're liable to get kinda excited and torture 'em a while before we kill 'em."
"Aw, gwan!" gulped Happy Jack mechanically. "You make me sick! If yuh think I'm goin' to swaller all that, you're away off! You wouldn't dast do nothing of the kind; and, if yuh did, you'd sure have a sweet time layin' it onto me!"
"Oh, I don't know," drawled the Native Son, with a slow, velvet-eyed glance, "any jury in the country would hang you on your looks, Happy. I knew a man down in the lower part of California, who was arrested, tried and hanged for murder. And all the evidence there was against him was the fact that he was seen within five miles of the place on the same day the murder was committed; and his face. They had an expert physiognomist there, and he swore that the fellow had the face of a murderer; the poor devil looked like a criminal—and, though he had one of the best lawyers on the Coast, it was adios for him."
"I s'pose you mean I got the face of a criminal!" sputtered Happy Jack. "It ain't always the purty fellers that wins out—like you 'n' Pink. I never seen the purty man yit that was worth the powder it'd take to blow him up! Aw, you fellers make me sick!" He went off, muttering his opinion of them all, and particularly of the Native Son, who smiled while he listened. "You go awn and start something—and you'll wisht you hadn't," they heard him croak from the big gate, and chuckled over his wrath.
As a matter of fact, the Happy Family, as a whole, or as individuals, had no intention of committing any great violence that evening. Pink wanted to see just where this new band of sheep was spending the night, and to find out, if possible, what were the herders' intentions. Since the boys were all restless under their worry, and, since there is a contagious element in seeking a trouble-zone, none save Happy Jack, who was "sore" at them, and Weary stayed behind in the coulee with old Patsy while the others rode away up the grade and out toward Antelope coulee beyond.
They meant only to reconnoiter, and to warn the herders against attempting to cross Flying U coulee; though they were not exactly sure that they would be perfectly polite, or that they would confine
themselves rigidly to the language they were wont to employ at dances. Andy Green, in particular, seemed rather to look forward with pleasure to the meeting. Andy, by the way, had remained heartbrokenly passive during that whole week, because Weary had extracted from him a promise which Andy, mendacious though he had the name of being, felt constrained to keep intact. Though of a truth it irked him much to think of two sheepherders walking abroad unpunished for their outrage upon his person.
Weary, as he had made plain to them all, wanted to avoid trouble if it were possible to do so. And, though they grinned together in secret over his own affair with Dunk—which was not, in their opinion, exactly pacific—they meant to respect his wishes as far as human nature was able to do so. So that the Happy Family, galloping toward the red sunset and the great, gray blot on the prairie, just where the glory of the west tinged the grass blades with red, were not one-half as blood-thirsty as they had proclaimed themselves to be.
While they were yet afar off they could see two men walking slowly in the immediate vicinity of the huddled band. A hundred yards away was a small tent, with a couple of horses picketed near by and feeding placidly. The men turned, gazed long at their approach, and walked to the tent, which they entered somewhat hastily.
"Look at 'em dodge outa sight, will you!" cried Cal Emmett, and lifted up his voice in the yell which sometimes announced the Happy Family's arrival in Dry Lake after a long, thirsty absence on roundup. Other voices joined in after that first, shrill "Ow-ow-ow-eee!" of Cal's; so that presently the whole lot of them were emitting nerve-crimping yells and spurring their horses into a thunder of hoofbeats, as they bore down upon the tent. Between howls they laughed, picturing to themselves four terrified sheepherders cowering within those frail, canvas walls.