Pecos Bill

by James Cloyd Bowman

  The stampede down the mountainside

  “But by the time I found them, they was too far gone to save even their skins—just a total loss, that’s what.

  “After I’d doped it all out I rode back to the ranch house faster than my pony’d ever gotten me there before and yelled, ‘Fire! Murder!’ and everythin’ else that came into my mind. The men tumbled out of the shack quicker’n it takes to tell it. It’s always that way of course: you close the gate after the steer is stolen.

  “But this wasn’t the worst. When the steers that happened at the time to be on the opposite side of the mountain found the fence down they made for the tall timber and the sagebrush without losin’ a minute.

  “If it hadn’t been for one thing we’d have lost every last steer of the entire herd. The cows, you see, couldn’t go, for they couldn’t take their calves along. The calves themselves couldn’t go because they had all been born with a short pair of legs on the side next the mountain. This all came about through their mothers lookin’ at the mountainside menagerie day after day—at the dodo birds and the rabbits with two short legs next the mountain, and the rest of ’em. Somewhere or other I heard tell how a man set up before the cattle of his father-in-law, rods of green poplar which he had made ring-streaked, spotted, and speckled, and before you knew it the father-in-law had nothing but ring-streaked, spotted, and speckled calves. It’s funny about cattle that way, but it’s true, all right.

  “We was glad to see that a good many steers had stayed behind with the cows and their slim-legged calves. And soon we was scoutin’ about everywhere lookin’ for our lost cattle. We rounded up all the stragglers we could find, until we had on Pinnacle Mountain about an even thousand head of steers.

  “Bein’ without your knack of carryin’ on a talk with the prairie dogs, Pecos, we hadn’t any way of gettin’ over to ’em the idea that we wanted ’em to dig a fresh supply of postholes. Nothing for it but to do it ourselves anyway. So we slaved and sweat over that fence for six weeks. We sure was mad with ourselves, not mentionin’ bein’ fed up with Pinnacle Mountain, for we was findin’ out there ain’t no such thing as a perpetual motion ranch. If you’d been here, Pecos, to boss the work on the new fence it would’ve been all right.

  “At last when we was all through, and had what was left of the herd back on their range again, we set down and argued for a week as to which is the biggest fool: the steer that allows itself to be stampeded over nothin’, or the steer that allows itself to go crazy over the taste of the locoweed.

  “We was just in the middle of the hottest debate we’d ever staged with no hint at an agreement, when we was stopped by two of these eyeglass dude Englishmen. They said they’d heard we owned a very wonderful ranch, don’t ye know, don’t ye know! And they screwed their monocles this way and that, and they played with their watch fobs, and they played with their ‘aitches.’ They said they’d come a thousand miles through wild country to find us.

  “Yes, we told ’em they hadn’t heard the half of the wonders of our ranch. We let them know that ours was the only successful perpetual motion ranch that had ever been invented in all the history of cowmen. The thing ran itself. All you needed to do was to set down and whittle and swap yarns—the bigger the yarns were, the better—and all the while the cattle was takin’ perfect care of themselves.

  “All the work had already been done by God. For a fact. We told ’em so. He’d furnished every sort of climate that any kind of bovine critter could ever desire. He had planted enough grass to last until the day after the last steer would eat his fill. We praised Old Pinnacle up one side and down the other. And I don’t know how many times we said this was the only ranch of its kind in the world and that there never could be no other ranch like it, since there wasn’t no other mountain like Pinnacle. Why, we proved that we could raise beef here for an average of less than one-sixteenth cent a pound. By marketin’ the steers for five cents a pound, we was makin’ a clear profit of eight thousand percent.

  “So, you see, you can’t exactly blame those eyeglass dude Englishmen for askin’ if our Pinnacle Ranch was for sale.

  “You can’t blame us either if we hemmed and hawed for half a day, tellin’ them the thought of sellin’ was entirely contrary to our wishes. Old Pinnacle was such a wonderful gold mine that we couldn’t think seriously of givin’ it up.

  “When we’d worked them up to just the right pitch of bein’ crazy to buy it, we told ’em we might take five dollars apiece for each steer in the herd, and throw in Old Pinnacle as a sort of donation.

  “Well, the dudes thought this a great bargain till they come to ask us how many head of steers we had in the herd. We showed them the books to prove that we had fifteen hundred calves. And then we proved to them that a herd contained five times as many cattle as there was calves. That would make our ranch number seven thousand five hundred.

  “The dude Englishmen twisted their monocles and their watch fobs and did some rapid figurin’. Then the oldest and the most dudish of the two said, ‘Before we’ll pay you thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars, don’t you know, we’ll have to count your cattle to make sure we’re gettin’ what we pay for.’

  “We told them as politely as possible that this wasn’t exactly the way things was done in this neck of the woods, that whenever anybody wanted to buy a ranch he took the books as proof that the cattle were all there.

  “But accordin’ to English methods of doin’ business, don’t you know, by Jove, they’d have to take a count of our steers.

  “So, you see, there the matter hung for a whole long day. Then Chuck whispered somethin’ in my ear while the English dudes was admirin’ the landscape, and I smiled and told them, while they screwed their monocles some more, that we was willin’ that they should make the count. We was, of course, put out that they should doubt our word, but since they was not used to the laws of the range country, and since it was purely a matter of business, we’d concede a point and let the sale go through.

  “Of course, we started in with the calves, as we was sure we could make them believe we had the number that our books showed. So we set the English dudes at a certain station and told them we’d drive our calves past.

  “The oldest dude stood and counted and the other marked little lines and crosses in his book with a lady’s gold-mounted pencil. We scattered the calves in a line reachin’ all the way ’round the mountain, and then we started the procession revolvin’ till they’d counted fifteen hundred. The calves with their short legs next the mountain walked so downright elegant the dudes never suspected they had to lean against a tree to sleep at night. Once they laid down, they couldn’t for the life of them get up again.

  “After the calves was counted, we took the dudes a lot higher up where the distance around was a great deal shorter, and strung our herd out until the steers, too, formed a circle as complete as one of the rings of Saturn. We was all puffin’ and wheezin’, and holdin’ our breaths for fear somethin’ would happen. For all these English dudes is so green, they might possibly find out what we was doin’, if everythin’ didn’t move like clockwork.

  “Well, everythin’ went OK the first two or three hours. The steers marched past like tin soldiers. I stood beside the old eyeglass dude to make sure he didn’t miss his count.

  “Everythin’ would’ve been as smooth as silk if it hadn’t been for one old roan steer with a big, sprawly patch of white down his rump. He was so old there was frost on his beard and his face was wrinkled like a dried apple peel. He was lop-horned and bobtailed. He had a terrible limp in his front pastern. He was a critter any cattleman could have picked out of a herd of a million steers a mile away. We’d nicknamed him Old Jonah, and we would’ve shot him if we hadn’t been so sorry for him.

  “Well, about the tenth time Old Jonah come limpin’ past in his turn, my lord gentleman squinted a little harder through his monocle and said, ‘There are more no account, blarsted lop-horned, crippled roan brutes in this herd than anythin’ el
se, don’t you know.’

  “‘But, my lord,’ replied the other dude as he kept right on markin’ the numbers without lookin’ up from his book, ‘this sort of cow’ll do very fine for tinned devil’d ham to feed the soldiers.’

  “The oldest dude raised his chest and growled somethin’ about the woeful ignorance of the younger generation when it come to any practical knowledge of cattle and swine, of bully beef and tinned ham, and then went on with his countin’ like he was wound up.

  “I signaled to Chuck, when the dudes wasn’t lookin’, to cut out Old Jonah from the line of march before he’d the chance to come around again. On the other side of Old Pinnacle the men tried every way to stop the doggoned brute without startin’ a stampede, but in spite of all they could do, Old Jonah kept right on with his march.

  “About the fifteenth time around the old dude turned and said to me, ‘By the way, Boss, how many of these old roan lop-horns does your herd contain?’

  “‘I don’t know exactly,’ says I, gingerly, ‘but they don’t run higher than one to every four or five hundred at the very most. Of that I’m absolutely sure.’

  “‘You can hardly expect a business man of my standin’ to pay you five dollars apiece for such critters, don’t you know.’

  “‘Suit yourself,’ I answers as sweet as a canary bird. ‘We’ll throw in all the lop-horned roans for good measure. You needn’t include them in your count.’

  “When I said that, you should’ve seen the old dude’s chest raise. It went up at least six inches to think of the hard bargain he was drivin’ with a poor ignorant, woolly Wild West American cowpuncher.

  ‘“That’s very white of you, don’t you know,’ he says, screwing in his monocle. Then without movin’ a muscle, he sings out over his shoulder to that other dude: ‘Strike out twenty-seven for an overcount.’

  “Well, our steers kept on a-marchin’ round and round until they was so tired and footsore they couldn’t hardly lift a leg. I begun to lose hope that we’d ever be able to keep ’em going long enough to make out the count we’d promised. But Old Jonah was faithful to the last. Round and round, round and round, round and round. He never missed a count.

  “After we’d sweat blood for three or four hours longer, we finally made our count to satisfy the dudes. And we was singin’ hallelujahs under our breath. No mistake about it.

  “Then just as we was leavin’ the place and all the other steers had laid down to rest, here come Old Jonah round again all by himself.

  “‘That old lop-horn looks strangely familiar,’ sings out the old dude.

  ‘“Yes, these steers of the older generation all were given the same kind of schoolin’,’ I explained in schoolbook language imported for the occasion. ‘The lessons life teaches them are all alike, don’t you know. And so, by Jove, you can’t exactly blame them for all lookin’ as alike as jackrabbits, or prairie dogs, or mockin’ birds.’

  “‘But just the same,’ replied my lord with another twist of his monocle, ‘these old brutes somewhat offend my artistic sense of the fitness of things. Here amidst all this beauty comes ugliness. It’s all deucedly grotesque, and out of place, don’t you know.’

  “‘But, my lord,’ sings out the young dude, ‘these very ancient ones are the first we shall put into tin. When they’re shipped back to Old England, the sailors will think this the best of American—what the deuce do you call it—devil’d—er—bully beef!’

  “Well, that night after we’d closed our deal with the great and glorious Old World businessmen and had given them a liberal discount of five percent for cash, we was nervous wrecks. I was so worked up that I couldn’t sleep. All I could see was a procession of lop-horned roan steers with white rumps, goin’ past me in a single file—round and round, round and round.

  “Wasn’t any use tryin’ to sleep, so I got up and wandered out across the slope of Pinnacle Mountain. And would you believe it, there Old Jonah was still a-pacin’ round and round the mountain. He’d got started and had got the habit and couldn’t stop. I watched him go by a dozen times and then come back to bed.

  “Believe it or not, next day Old Jonah was still goin’ round and round. His eyes was set and his feet seemed to be movin’ without him knowin’ it.

  “Pecos, I’m tellin’ you God’s truth, Old Jonah kept right on millin’ round and round for a full week. If you don’t believe it, I can take you up and show you the path he wore doin’ it. Then the next thing we knowed, Old Jonah dropped dead in his tracks.

  “Now the boys is all afraid to go out-of-doors after dark. Moon Hennessey and Chuck has both reported seein’ Old Jonah’s ghost still pacin’ round and round, round and round, with the same doggone motion and the same stare in his eyes.”

  When Gun Smith had finished, Pecos Bill laughed loud and long, “It serves the smarties right! The conceited monkeys! And to think they can come out here and beat us at our own game, don’t you know!”

  “Them one-eyed eastern dudes don’t know a woodpecker from a blue jay, nor a prairie dog from a porcupine,” added Moon Hennessey in disgust.

  “But where are these dudes now?” asked Pecos Bill, curiously.

  “Oh, they’ve gone off somewhere to fetch their bags and baggage. They’re due to be back here day after tomorrow. Then’s when we give ’em possession of Pinnacle and of Old Jonah’s ghost!” chirped Gun Smith.

  “You know,” said Pecos abruptly, “I’ve got to go off on a little jaunt of my own. You men keep right on with your fun and I promise you I’ll be back to see you turn over the property to my lord and his chief Dog Robber.”

  “Seems to me you gad about a lot more’n you should,” commented Gun Smith.

  “But it can’t be helped,” answered Pecos. “I’ve got another ranch waiting for you fellows that’ll make Pinnacle Mountain look like a stunted wart,” he laughed as he took his leave with great speed.

  Then without the men’s even suspecting, Pecos Bill guided Widow Maker across the mesa and through the mesquite woods and along the river valleys, until he had brought together a herd of cattle more than large enough to make up the number the dude Englishmen thought they were buying. He soon had these safely rounded up and inside the corral fence without being seen by a single one of his men. When he had finished, he smiled at Widow Maker, then he said, “It isn’t quite according to my notion of what’s square to cheat even a dupe of a conceited English dude.”

  CHAPTER 12

  ENTER SLUE-FOOT SUE

  An hour before the eyeglass Englishmen were due to take possession of Pinnacle Mountain, Pecos returned. He found Gun Smith and the others squatting on their toes just as he had left them, whittling and exchanging tall talk and arguing.

  “This is my plan for our future,” Pecos began abruptly as soon as he entered and coming at once to the point. “We’re going to start the most tremendous, the biggest and the best ranch ever thought up by the mind of man. The valleys of the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Rio Grande, and the Platte will not begin to hold our millions of steers, after we get rightly going. The fact is, our cattle will pasture all the way from the wild mountain plateaus of central Mexico to the eternal snows of northern Canada.”

  “You don’t say!” gasped Gun Smith.

  “What brand of squirrel whiskey you been drinkin’?” scoffed Moon Hennessey.

  “You yourselves,” continued Pecos rapidly, “still remember when all these valleys were as full of buffalo as the sea is with water. We are now going to fill these same valleys with steer. We are going to produce at least one steer for every buffalo that has been killed.”

  “Are you sure you ain’t been drinkin’ somethin’ stronger than water, or eatin’ the locoweed?” Bean Hole now inquired with a puzzled grin. “You don’t sound quite sober to me.”

  “You cowboys are about to write your names on the deathless scroll of fame,” Pecos added in a hurry. “Men the world over will rise up and call you great and wonderful because you had the foresight to furnish them with delicious
beef. In England and in France and in Germany, yes, and in Italy and Russia, and even in Japan and China, men will soon be living on the food we furnish.”

  “You shouldn’t exactly include England, don’t you know!” laughed Moon Hennessey. “Them two dudes that is takin’ charge of Old Pinnacle later today is goin’ to keep the British Lion so stuffed with tinned beef that he won’t be able to growl.”

  “Ours is a chance that comes to the world only once in a hundred—or better still, a thousand—years,” continued Pecos, unruffled. “You are all coming with me this very afternoon, and together we will work miracles. These valleys of the unpeopled West will be made to blossom as the rose!”

  “Say, Pecos, you don’t sound at all like yourself. Are you perfectly sure somebody hasn’t been treatin’ you to some firewater? Or else that you ain’t been eatin’ locoweed?” Gun Smith asked seriously.

  It was no wonder that the men were all surprised, for this was the first time they had ever heard Pecos Bill use such fancy words. He’d never been so solemn before either. He was talking just as if it was up to him to save the cow country.

  “There are still countless herds of wild cattle roaming about wherever one happens to travel,” added Pecos. “We will collect these and brand them. If there is need for larger numbers, after these are rounded up, we will go out into the open market and buy as many additional steers as we need with the money we are getting from the sale of Pinnacle Mountain.”

  By this time the men were so staggered by Pecos Bill’s scheming they hadn’t a word to say. He was just locoed. He needn’t think he’d get them into any such monkey business.

  “This afternoon, after the present business is settled, we will all go back to our old I. X. L. Ranch, and from that base start our new business,” Pecos continued, quite unaware of the mutiny that was gathering force within the minds of his men.