Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  In the meantime, the work went forward in spite of all difficulties. The stations of relay were located and built, and the pasture lands fenced in near them, and hardy men were gathered. A ticket agent at either end of the line, and eight skillful, daring men who were willing to risk their lives driving the stages, and twenty men to man the relay stations. And, in addition to all of these matters, a thousand little details which no one but Sammy himself could supervise. He was flying back and forward between Munson and the Crumbock Mines nearly every day. He had to keep a string of horses in both towns, and all those nags were worn almost to a shadow.

  One pleasant discovery was made almost at the beginning of the affair. The men of Crumbock were disposed to smile at the slender little thin-faced man who declared that he was going to put a stage line through from Crumbock to the outer world, but when word came up from Munson that this same little man was already known there and that he had been as good as his word in at least one other large transaction, Crumbock came instantly out of its smiling humor and began to pat Sammy on the back.

  For Crumbock was being stifled, fairly stifled, for the lack of proper transportation between its mines and the town beyond the rough, inner core of the highest mountains.

  The lode needed man power for its development, for one thing, and whoever wanted to cross the mountains had to pack up three days’ provisions, bought at famine prices in Chadwick City or in Munson, and thence plod wearily on a five or a seven-day trip to the mines. And men bound for mines do not like to have a week’s walk put in at some point on the journey.

  But man power was the least of the troubles at the Crumbock mines. All that was needed for the mines, from ironwork to powder, had to be delayed to the speed of the wagons which crawled wearily across the mountains. A small thing could delay a teamster for a week. A broken axle might stall him indefinitely, and broken axles were common commodities on the road from Munson to Crumbock.

  So that the mines were throttled for the lack of rapid and certain delivery of supplies which were so vitally needed. The slow freight could be handled, after their manner, by the wagons, but when a man needed, say, a set of new drills and needed them in a rush, could he sit twiddling his thumbs while the wagons slowly moiled away to Munson, and there waited for the goods, and then slowly, slowly struggled back to the upper peaks where the lode was? No, for by that time that necessary bit of drilling might be a month out of date!

  In short, Crumbock was a place where the necessities of existence were growing more numerous every instant, as the ground was broken deeper and deeper and the mining problem became more abstruse. And there was no artery of supply. There was even no sure way of getting letters through to Munson or Chadwick City! And a dozen of the larger concerns were each maintaining their own mail service, at enormous expense and uncertainty, dispatching riders into the wilderness.

  What wonder then, that a dozen hearts were broken when the Chadwick City line failed them? And what wonder that a great pulse of joy ran through the big camp when it was learned that another line would try the shorter but more difficult passage from Munson to the lode?

  Little Sammy Gregg found himself received like a most important personage at the camp. And everyone had time enough to talk business with him.

  Then Mexican Gonzalez arrived at Munson with the first half of the horse herd, a hundred and fifty head of fire-eyed mustangs with a faraway look in their eyes, and ears that quivered backward and forward to betoken danger. However, they were all broken, after a fashion.

  Sammy might have his doubt of that. Whatever lessons might have been taught, they seemed to have lapsed back into their native wildness quickly enough on the northward drive to Munson. But at any rate, he accepted the mustangs — he could do nothing else — scattered them in groups along the route at the relay stations, and prepared to make the first trip across the mountains in his stage line, while Gonzalez returned to hurry up the second installment of the horses which were already on the way.

  It was an anxious time for Sammy Gregg. He had invested his seventy-five hundred dollars in horses alone. He had paid out fifteen hundred dollars in wages for the building of his relay shacks and sleeping houses. He had spent another twenty-five hundred for harness alone! It was strong harness, but the price was lifeblood from Sammy Gregg! And beyond all that, he had invested a thousand in the odds and ends of the necessities, such as coaches themselves!

  Before the first coach ran, he had spent close to thirteen thousand dollars, and he had not yet received a single penny in return. Oh, well for Sammy Gregg that he had already been through that Western “school of investment!”

  He had a scant three thousand dollars in his pocket when he saw the team picked for the first run from Munson into the wilds. And he saw the first return on his labor and his capital, too. Ten men, he estimated, would be in each load, and men were willing to pay twenty-five dollars a throw to be whirled across those mountains in a single day and a half. Two hundred and fifty dollars for each trip for human passengers alone, to say nothing of what would be paid for the other freight, perhaps another two hundred and fifty! Five hundred dollars, then, for every journey.

  As a matter of fact, six hundred and fifty dollars was paid into the hands of Sammy’s Munson ticket agent for the first loaded coach.

  So, with the four stages all in operation, Sammy saw himself clearing seven or eight hundred dollars at least. Perhaps much, much more. And those were days, be it remembered, when money meant from three to five times what it means to the giddy twentieth century!

  Oh, Sammy Gregg, those were moments of golden anticipation more thrilling than any reality. Those were the days to build dreams in the millions! Granted that the high prices could not be maintained indefinitely and that he must reduce his rates before a competing line entered, now that he had shown that the trick could be turned, granted all of that, still he would have a sweet harvest. In a fortnight, all his capital would be returned to his pocket and he would have a handsome profit besides.

  Such were the stakes for which men gambled in those days.

  However, this was the prospect. Now he was to make the trial of the fact. He had ten passengers, and all the luggage and freight that his coach could groan under. And the day for the trial came. Nine men and one woman advanced to enter the coach. And upon the driver’s seat sat the gray-headed driver and Sammy, the Great!

  Nine men and one woman, by whom there hung a story told in a letter which Sammy at that moment had in his pocket. It read thus:

  Dear Mr. Gregg:

  I am making reservations in your coach, which leaves Munson on Tuesday, for my daughter, Miss Anne Cosden, who arrives from the East on that day.

  She is a headstrong young person who refuses to wait until I can come to Munson to escort her over the mountains in person. She has formed a mad scheme for riding ,alone, the trail from Munson to the lode.

  I have managed to dissuade her from that by suggesting a compromise. That compromise is your stage line. Forgive me for saying that I look forward to her ride over those backbreaking mountains in an unproved stage line with hardly less apprehension than if she were really riding a pony alone through that wilderness.

  Nothing but the pressure of the most vastly important business and the interests of my stockholders prevents me from coming to Munson to act as her escort. As it is, I must leave her in your hands, knowing that she will receive the best of treatment from you.

  That was the important part of the letter. And Sammy, seeing himself with an only child, a headstrong but nonetheless precious darling of a millionaire miner’s heart put into his hands, had even done his best to select the remaining nine passengers from among the least rough of the applicants.

  Then he besought his driver, a bewhiskered buccaneer named Alec, to select from the herd at Munson the gentlest of the lot for the first trip. Alec gave him his oath that he would do so.

  “But,” said Alec, “when it comes to goin’ over a pack of powder and pickin’ out
the grains that are not gunna explode, it’s a sort of a hard job, even with a microscope, Mr. Gregg. But I’m gunna go over that lot of broncos with a microscope and see which I can pick out.”

  So Alec had done his best. For a whole day he had mingled with the Munson herd to pick out the gentlest horses of the lot, and now he was prepared to venture them in the harness where the lives of ten persons or more would be dangled at their flying heels.

  In the meantime, the day before the starting time, the only child of Hubert Cosden, miner and millionaire extraordinary, arrived in Munson. And Sammy, introducing himself to this perishable creature for whom her father worried, was struck with dismay.

  “Into his hands,” the charge had been given. And what a charge!

  She stood not half an inch shorter than Sammy. Her pompadoured hair and a woman’s carriage made her look a great deal larger than he. She had, besides, a certain manner which made Sammy shrink in self-esteem and importance.

  But generalizations about Anne Cosden could never give more than the vaguest idea about her. She had lived nineteen years and a few months as the daughter of one of the rich and important men in the country. She weighed a hundred and forty-five solid pounds. Her foot took a woman’s size number eight, made large in every dimension. Her hand took a glove equally ample.

  The hair of Anne Cosden was not of the kind which could be softened with any pretty name. It was red — plain, unadulterated red. It was flaring, flaming red. Brick red! And it could not be disguised. There were silken tides and misty oceans of it.

  Beneath a low, broad brow, the brow of philosophers and prize fighters, was set a pair of eyes to match the hair. Blue eyes, that is to say. For all who have seen Irish red hair will know that Irish blue eyes are needed. No, not Irish blue, for that is dark and rich. But the blue of the eyes of Anne Cosden was pale, and liable to take fire, just as her hair would take fire in the sunlight.

  She had a good square chin that would have taken a considerable pounding without complaint. And there was a faint cleft in the center of it. I do not know what a cleft in the chin is supposed to mean. But the cleft in the chin of Anne Cosden meant something ominous.

  She was as straight as an arrow. And that is always a little disconcerting in a woman, especially for a small man, like Sammy. When he met her he tried to make the most of his inches. But he felt that he was just about half a foot short of making any sort of an impression on her.

  She had an uncertain voice. That is to say, it was a voice with one of those large, large ranges. And one never knew just what section of her range she would choose to use. She had a gruff tone, for instance, that was almost as deep as the voice of a man. And she had a mellow midway tone in which she could talk and laugh and sing, when she felt so inclined. And she had a higher register as snarling and thin and edgy as the blast of a bugle. And she had, also, a roar, a lion’s roar. Or a lioness’, if you please!

  Yet she remained a girl. She was as distinctly feminine as she was distinctly a “person.” On the side of that leonine head there was set an ear made of the most exquisite pale shell-pink and ivory. Her hand had size enough and there were calluses on the inside from driving and riding lunging thoroughbreds, but still it was a long hand, made with consummate grace. And though she wore a flat-heeled, blunt-nosed shoe, not even a blind man would have taken that for a man’s shoe.

  The first thing that Anne Cosden did when she got to Munson was to ask for a horse, because she wanted to have a look at the country round, having been, as she said, entombed in a train longer than she had ever been shut off from fresh air before. But when she asked the hotel proprietor where she could get a horse, he rubbed the stubble on his chin and announced that there were no ladies’ horses in that section of the country.

  “Heavens, man,” said Anne Cosden. “I’ve never ridden a lady’s horse in my life. Get me a man’s horse. A man-sized horse, too!”

  The proprietor was a fellow with a mean disposition, and though it is most generally understood that no Westerner will take advantage of a lady, you can’t count hotel proprietors as typical of the land. He had a big rangy black, wild-caught, at four years of age on the range. And as everybody knows, a horse which has run wild on a Western range for four years is the devil’s twin brother, if not the devil himself!

  However, the proprietor introduced her to the horse, and she liked the looks of it so well that she bought it on the spot. And the hotel man charged her a hundred dollars which, considering that it had to be broken over again every day of its life, was robbery. Five minutes later Anne Cosden was on the back of the black horse, Charlie.

  “I don’t care what kind of saddle,” she had said.

  Five seconds later, Anne lay on her back in the dust of the corral. And Charlie would have prepared her for her grave then and there had she not recovered her wits soon enough to roll under the lowest bar of the fence.

  She picked herself up in sections, so to speak, and shook some of the dust out of her hair, her hat was reposing in the corral, and Charlie was busy doing to the hat the things he would have liked to do to the mistress thereof.

  But, a little later, Anne was in the saddle again. Three times she mounted with some pain. Three times she was deposited in the thick dust, but each time Charlie found the task of shedding her a little harder. And, the fourth time, while half a dozen men stood by in gaping wonder, Anne Cosden fairly rode the black out of his bad graces and into his good ones.

  Then she brought him up standing on the curb. She parted her lips and the lion’s voice roared forth: “Yank open that gate. I’m going to give this little lamb some air!”

  Five hours later she returned to Munson. When she dismounted it was noticed that she walked with a limp; but so did Charlie.

  “I had a bully ride, and it’s a great country,” said Anne Cosden. “Did you know that Charlie could jump? Yes, a regular fencer. I’m going to take him home and hunt him this fall. I don’t think he’ll buck any more!”

  And he didn’t — never again!

  Such was the Anne Cosden whom Sammy Gregg handed to a place in the stage on this historic day, while the horses were being harnessed in their places.

  “I hope,” said Anne Cosden, “that there are enough level places for the horses to take a gallop now and then. This hot air needs to be churned up a little!”

  And a little dried-up man with far-away eyes murmured: “I don’t know that they’ll wait for the level going, exactly!”

  CHAPTER XVII. THE FIRST TRIP

  IN FACT, THOSE horses did not look to be the waiting type as they were produced from the corral.

  “Produced” is the word. They were not led forth, neither were they driven. But, since men were plentiful in Munson, the wise old driver distributed three or four men to every horse. And three or four more or less expert wranglers can usually make the worst of horses behave. Also, a half hitch taken in the long upper lip of a mustang is apt to make him mind his manners for the time being. So, pushed, dragged, and beaten into place, the horses were lined up — the six safest horses in the possession of Sammy Gregg.

  The traces were hooked to the chains, and the chains to the singletrees. The horses were straightened out. The leaders took up the slack of the fifth chain. The swing pair leaned into the collar to straighten the tongue of the wagon.

  Alec gathered the six stout reins in his hands. He loosened the long brake with his foot. He shook out the deadly length of his whip, with which he could cut a horsefly off the hip of a leader without touching the skin of the animal. “All right,” said Alec. “Yank off them blinds!” And the blindfolds were removed.

  “Steady, boys!” said Alec gently. “Lean into them collars, pets. Hey, you, Blackie! Git back onto your own feet. Now!”

  The rest of Alec’s language soared from the earth and took wings to fiery regions. For the off leader saw something about the make-up of the near leader which he did not like and at once he proceeded, literally, to “climb his frame.” He gathered himself and
tried to leap on top of his harness mate and bite the top of his neck off at the same time.

  The near leader, objecting, backed up to get out of the way and jammed his rump into the nose of the near swing horse. And the near swing horse, being a cannon that shot in one direction only, resented this freedom by kicking the near wheeler in the nose.

  Whereat the near wheeler jumped over the tongue and bit the shoulder of the off wheeler, who planted his heels in the body of the coach and then tried to jump through his collar. Which disturbed the off swing, which, like a jack rabbit, turned end for end in his harness to find out what the trouble was all about.

  That was only the beginning of the affair! Little Sammy Gregg, seeing six horses and his hopes of a fortune going to wrack, uttered a shout which was almost a scream. And a stern voice behind him rumbled:

  “Keep quiet, little man. You’ll scare the horses!”

  He turned his head and had a vague glimpse of Anne Cosden. The face of the millionaire’s daughter was a study in contempt! But Sammy, at that instant, did not care. He was merely thinking that he had paid thirteen thousand dollars for the privilege of seeing six mustangs kick a daydream into atoms and make a frontier town dissolve in laughter.

  However, they did not laugh themselves to helplessness. Before the six mustangs had smashed each other to a pulp, a crowd of staggering, shouting wranglers leaped at their heads. There was a wild uproar. Presently six horses lay on the ground with their heads pinned down under the weight of men.

  In the tremulous silence which followed, Sammy announced in a voice that fitted in with the pause: “I’m afraid we can’t make the start today, gentlemen.”

  “Nonsense!” said the strong voice of Anne Cosden. “The fun is barely starting, and none of us would miss the ride for a thousand dollars!”