by Max Brand
“Because I have friends, Dad, who can make a quick turn and scrape up quite a lot of money without hurting themselves any. They would scrape it up for me, I think. Any sum in reason, I mean to say.”
Mr. Hale considered this for a gloomy moment, and then a bit of life entered his voice. “I’ve still got near onto three weeks. Then the bank drops on me, Peter.”
“For how much?”
“I’m pretty near ashamed to say. You know how many acres we got here?”
“Six hundred and some odd.”
“Six hundred!” cried his father.
“That’s what it is, I believe.”
“Six hundred! I’d almost forgot that we ever had that much land, Peter. No, I’ve had to give up a bite here and a mite there. We haven’t two hundred and fifty left.”
“Two hundred and fifty! Who got the rest of it?”
“Your Uncle Andy, mostly. The Swains got a couple of corners, but Andy come in for most of it.”
“By the way, how much land does Uncle Andy own, just now?”
“How much? Well, he’s growed and growed. Got about three hundred acres out of me in the last ten years. But he got more than that in other directions. He knows how to make things count, Andy does. Let me see. He got eight hundred from the Cumberwells last year. And the biggest section that he ever took in was the whole Grant place, about six months ago.”
“There used to be two thousand acres in the Grant place.”
“There still were when Andy bought it in, Pete. Altogether, I suppose that Andy has got about ten thousand acres of prime range land. He could sell off the whole shebang for not a cent under twenty-five dollars an acre, they tell me.”
“And you have only two hundred and fifty left... and that with a mortgage. A heavy mortgage?”
“Dog-gone me, Peter, but I’m ashamed to mention how big it is. Forty-eight hundred dollars, and the bank will have to scramble to sell the old place and bring in that much.”
“There’s only a shoe string left, then?”
“Only a shoe string.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Peter. “I’ll go to town and wire in the morning. I’ll guarantee to get you more than five thousand by night.”
He heard a faint gasp through the darkness. “You ain’t joking, Peter?”
“I’m dead serious. Dead serious. I have some very good friends. Leave the whole business to me.”
There was another breath of silence, and then Ross Hale murmured: “Awe, Peter, don’t I see how the thing is? They’re the gents that have seen you in your prime, ragin’ and tearin’ on a football field and making the mud fly and raking in touchdowns quicker than most boys can wink. They’ve seen you swingin’ into action, and they’ve never stopped being your friends, ever since that time, eh? Oh, Peter, what a lot of good it would’ve done me to see a thing like that. What a lot of good it would’ve done me.” And he fell into another silence.
Peter could see that even this boon that was suddenly offered to his father could hardly do more than to make him grieve for the things that might have been. However, he felt that he had struck the first blow, and that, thereafter, the load of gloom would be somewhat lifted from the ranch house and the people in it.
Peter slept that night lightly — a broken sleep. And when the first gray of the dawn was beginning, he left the ranch, harnessed the team to the buckboard, and drove hastily down the main road and then a mile down the twisting lane that led to the Vincent place.
It was just the same. Old Tucker Vincent was dead, and now Tucker’s son looked just as old and as white-haired and as dignified as the original Tucker had always appeared. The county would not have been the county, if it had not been for the Vincents, because they were a veritable pool, out of which good blooded cattle and horses were constantly drawn. They were always raising, and they were always buying. And they never produced and they never bought anything but the most perfect stock for the range.
In an hour Peter had done the thing for which he came. He had selected fifty head of stock, and, in the place of the two broken-down mustangs, there were two sound young horses before him; four more would be driven over with the stock. All these things were paid for in crisp, new banknotes, taken from a sheaf of a comfortable size. Then Peter turned the heads of his team toward town. He made his new steppers streak down the highway till they reached Sumnertown, where he made his brief rounds of the stores. Filling his buckboard with all that it would carry in the way of provisions, he turned back toward the ranch.
As he came up the road past his father’s house, he saw Ross Hale on the front porch, smoking his eternal pipe and looking forth at the world through eyes that were misted with weariness. He came running out and shouting when he saw Peter.
“Pete!” he cried. “Go into the corral and tell them fools to drive the cows out, will you? They are tryin’ to tell me that you been over at Vincent’s and have ordered fifty whole head, to say nothing of four of the finest-looking hosses that ever... “ He paused here, for his eyes lighted upon the new team in front of the buckboard and the heaped packages that piled the wagon.
A flash of real hope and desire to believe darted like lightning across the features of the rancher.
CHAPTER XII
WHEN MATTERS MOVED for Peter, they moved very fast. It was not many days before the bank had received its money and the little, petty debts with tradesmen around Sumnertown had been cleared away. There then remained nothing between Mr. Ross Hale and a new life except the habit of sorrow that had fallen upon him.
However, he could not be long in being aware of a new existence. For, when he wakened in the morning, he could hear the hammers, big and little, chanting in chorus out beyond the corral, where the carpenters were whacking up a new barn as fast as their hands could raise and put together with spikes of a healthy size. Moreover, he could not fail to take note of the string of ten mules that had been brought into the pasture. Ten well-selected mules, well fitted for dragging the five-share plow through the soil of the farming land in the bottom, the surface of which had not been touched these seven years and more.
There were good tools of all kinds, which Peter had collected at the Leffingwell sale. They had cost nearly nothing, and they could be made to serve as well as new implements. For a true Western farmer will not pay 5¢ on the dollar for rusted implements. He feels that rust may cover up some mysteriously, hidden weakness. Yet, for all his dislike of rust, with the carelessness of the true exploiter of a new country, he scorns to take the small expense and trouble of housing his tools.
But Peter was not proud. He made his offers against the junkman, and he won out at ridiculously low figures. He heard his father itemizing his purchases for the benefit of Andy Hale, when the latter came to call and ask the meaning of the strange signs of life that were being shown on his brother’s ranch. Included among the necessary implements, vehicles, cattle, and horses were the entire fittings of a blacksmith shop — complete, although second- hand — all the other contraptions necessary to make the heart of an ironworker swell with pride. He had even bought a whole young grove of fast-growing poplars and such shade makers to be set up in the yard around the old ranch house, so that it began to look as comfortable as ever. Sundry oaks and fig trees were set out where time would make them thrive and they would eventually displace the rank poplars. A load of second-hand furniture had been secured at the last great sale.
Peter, who had gone to the house on his noiseless crutches, sneaked hastily back into the old shed where he had been renovating the second-hand furniture. Therefore he could not hear the concluding speeches of his proud and bewildered father. But these had to do with the erection of the new barn.
“He went over to the Cumberwell place, where all of those barns and sheds have been standing, half finished, since old man Cumberwell died and his kids went East. He bought the whole shebang. Said that that timber was well seasoned and would do him fine, and, besides, it cost next to nothing. He ripped
those buildings down and carted the stuff over here. And you can see for yourself, Andy, what’s happening!”
Andrew had already seen from a distance, but he went out and examined with a hungry eye for detail. “It’s a sort of a second-hand ranch that you’re turning out here, Ross,” he said gravely.
“It is,” said Ross Hale. “But Pete, he says that he ain’t too proud to use second-hand things, because, in a way of speaking, he’s a second-hand man. But his brains ain’t second-hand, old-timer. You can lay to that.”
“They ain’t.” Andy Hale nodded. He had grown more thoughtful than ever. “Every ten dollars that he’s spent on these old things would cost more than a hundred to replace with new. This here ranch of yours, Ross, was never fixed up like this before. Not that I ever seen it. But what will you use two eight-mule teams for? Expect to work them all on that little strip of bottom land?”
“Pete has rented the rest of the bottom land off of the Cumberwell place, and he’s got an option to keep on with it for five years, if it pays him.”
Andy Hale whistled. “More and more,” he said. “But we’ll see what this dry farming turns out.”
“Not dry. Pete has brought in a couple of pumps, and he’s going to pump water up from the creek and get it onto that land.”
At this Andy whistled more loudly than before. “Where’s Ruth and Charlie?” he asked. “They came over with me. Where did they go gadding?”
“There’s Charlie out yonder, looking at the saddle stock.”
“Andy, my boy is gonna give your Charlie a run for his money when Will Nast comes to decide between them.”
“Only,” said Andy, “I’m cursed if I see how Greek and Latin can help a boy to learn how to do these things.”
“It’s the habit of learning that counts, and not the things that are learned,” said Ross. “Why, the Greek and Latin may be nothing useful out here in the mountains, but Pete, he knows how to study things. He listens to everything that everybody has got to say. Take advice from a greaser, Pete would. He sizes up what everybody has to say. Besides, he’s got some books on cows and cow raising and on irrigation. He talks about rotation of crops and such things until you get black in the face, pretty near, listening to him. But come and see him and talk to him yourself. He’ll be asking you questions as fast as you can answer ’em!”
Andy stood for a long moment, lost in thought. “Is this football?” he asked at last.
“I dunno,” said Ross Hale, tamping the tobacco firmly into his pipe bowl. “Pete says that it beats any football that he ever played, and he sure talks as though he meant what he said. Let’s go find him.”
“I want to round up Ruth,” said Andy. “I want to find her and bring her along, because, ever since Peter came back home, she’s been wanting to see him mighty bad. She’s pretty sorry for him, Ross. This’ll let her see that a Hale ain’t the sort of a man that other folks can afford to be sorry for, even when a Hale happens to be crippled a mite. Ross, I take off my hat to your boy... only, tell me where does he get all of his backing?”
“Back East. He’s got friends. Friends that have seen him rip down a football field and make his touchdowns. And they got the confidence that he can make other kinds of games pay. And they’re right. I couldn’t stand a five-thousand- dollar mortgage when Pete come back. But yesterday I sashayed into the bank to see how our credit was standing, and I found out that they would advance us up to ten thousand without no questions asked, right now.”
So the two brothers walked slowly across the corral from the new sheds, where the tools of Peter were now securely housed against the weather.
“But can you run a place with junk?” asked Andy. “I’ve never seen it tried before.”
“Paint and oil is the main things with Pete,” said his brother. “Some of them tools look pretty rusty. But they been cleaned off and oiled, and all of the working parts is sound. The stuff that ain’t any good is weeded out. And what’s housed is all ready for use. It scares me when I think how much money has been sunk in this place. But I tell you that in these here few weeks the boy has spent as much money as I’ve spent in getting him his whole education. And I’ll tell you what... football pays. And so does Greek and Latin!”
“It does, maybe,” Andy Hale admitted. “And you’re right that Will Nast will be mighty interested in hearing about all of these here improvements that your boy has been making. Where’s Pete now?”
“In that shed. There, you can see him now.”
“Aye, and there’s Ruth McNair in the shadow.”
CHAPTER XIII
BOTH ROSS AND Andy Hale advanced a great deal more slowly than they might have done had they wished to avoid overhearing that conversation that was in progress in the shed. But as it was they went on almost on tiptoe. Certainly they heard, for a reward, the most harmless chatter.
The girl did most of the talking. Peter put in only a word now and then. He seemed to be asking her advice. It appeared to be a matter of the greatest moment to Peter to learn what she might be able to advise concerning the manner in which a table, which he was sandpapering, might be repainted. He wanted to know, also, what suggestions she could give him concerning color schemes.
The result was that Ruth McNair drew closer and closer until, in the end, the rasping of the sandpaper ceased, and Peter sat on his crippled legs, with Ruth McNair sitting before him, her knees clasped in her hands and her head thrown back with enthusiasm while she uttered her ideas. It was all extremely innocent, but it made Andy Hale grow black of face. He took his brother by the arm and led him hastily away.
“What’s wrong?” Ross Hale asked blandly.
“You know well enough what’s wrong,” snapped his brother. “You know well enough, Ross. It’s the thing that’s making you grin so broadly just now.”
“Got no idea in the world what you mean,” said Ross.
“Ross,” said Andy, “lemme tell you that you and me have had times when we ain’t been particularly friendly. But that ain’t been because of what I wished. Never wanted anything except to have you for a brother and a friend, Ross. But I’ll tell you this... folks that interfere with my best plans is my enemies, no matter whether they wear the names of brothers... and nephews... or not.”
He said this with such a solemn air of significance that Ross Hale looked sharply askance at him. “That’s free talk and out-and-out talk,” said Ross Hale. “But still I’m cursed if I know just what you mean.”
Andy shook his head. “You know as well as I know. Your boy is making a dead set at the girl that’s engaged to marry my boy Charlie!”
Ross Hale started violently. “It ain’t true, Andy!” he cried.
“It is true. And you jumped when I said it.”
“What in the world could put such an idea into your head, Andy? Peter ain’t ever seen her before today.”
“How many times does a man have to see Ruth McNair before he would want her?” snapped Andy. “Ain’t she got looks enough? Ain’t her father got land and cows and cash enough? Answer me that!”
“Peter ain’t a fool,” his father said rather weakly.
“He ain’t a fool,” answered Andy, “and that’s the main reason why I should like to ask you if he ain’t able to see that Ruth McNair would make a likely wife for any man?”
“He knows,” Ross Hale answered, growing a little husky with excitement, “that she’s engaged to his cousin. Besides, what chance would a cripple like my Peter have against a fine, upstanding boy like your Charlie?”
Andy Hale snarled with anger. “You may talk your boy down, but all the time you’re thinking him up. Now, Ross, I’m the last man in the world to run down your boy. He’s got brains and nerve and plain grit and a head that’s working all of the time. He don’t miss any chances. He’s showed that already by the way that he’s running this ranch for you. But he’s showing another thing, too, that he’ll throw no tricks away. And one of the strongest tricks that he has to play with a girl like that is the fa
ct that he’s a cripple, Ross. You know that. You take a girl like that, and when she thinks what a grand athlete Peter used to be, and when she sees him so broken down now... but so hard-working and so clever and so cheerful... how could she hardly help from wanting to mother him?”
“Andy, you talk through your hat! You listened to one minute’s talk between them, and you come to a lot of fool conclusions that ain’t got nothing to do with the truth at all. I heard nothing out of the way, and I heard everything that you heard.”
“You heard him asking her advice, didn’t you?”
“What of that? About the colors to use on furniture. A woman knows more than a man does about things like that.”
“Does she? I tell you, Ross, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. There ain’t a thing in the world, including color schemes, that Peter Hale needs to learn from a snip of a girl like Ruth McNair. She’s got a pretty face and she’s got money. But you know, and I know, that girls don’t carry around so much brains with them that they can scatter knowledge around them like seed behind a plow. No, Ross, I tell you that Peter is making a dead set at Ruth McNair, and I don’t take it kind of him. You understand me? I don’t take it kind of him. That girl belongs to his cousin!”
What Andy said was true enough, it seemed to Ross Hale. The very truth of it made him swell suddenly with anger, so that he snapped out: “When I was down and miserable and done for, Andy, I never got no help from you!”
“What has that got to do with it?” Andy cried. “What has that got to do with this? And, besides, was there ever a time that you asked for help?”
“Is it for a brother to ask a brother for help?” Ross Hale responded, fairly quivering with a bitter emotion. “You knew that I was down and out. I didn’t have a coat to my back, hardly. I was out of elbow with every shirt that I had. There was many and many a time when I come back from my day’s work and sat down in that kitchen, yonder, and chewed at a stale crust of bread. I tell you, I’ve gone down to the bottom of the bread box and took out an old heel and cut away the moldy part of it and chewed up the rest. I’ve done that. And you knew it. Tell me, didn’t you know it?”