David Lannarck-Midget

by Harney, George S

  Unpacking suited Davy. While Landy brought in some pine knots and lighted a fire against the charred backlog, Davy wrestled the dufflebag open and began to take out the contents. It was a hodge-podge of parts of every old costume he had ever used. The trunks and suitcases yielded good property. "There," he pointed to a separate pile, "there is my notion of where I was going, without seeing the place. That's a sleeping bag and these are a pair of Hudson Bay blankets. You see, I didn't know if I was to sleep out of doors or sleep in a barn—surely, I didn't plan that it was a place like this! Here's my mackinaw, boots, and mittens, and here's my hardware." He produced a small rifle that had been packed between the blankets and handed it to Landy for his inspection. "She's a thirty caliber, carries two hundred yards at point blank and won't kick over a little fellow like me.

  "And this is what I want you to see in particular." Davy fumbled in the keyster and brought out a small saddle with a fair leather bridle, to match. It was not a pad saddle such as jockey's ride, nor yet a civilian outfit without horn and only one web. It was a genuine western, with high horn and high cantle and two cinches, but much reduced in every dimension. "Will that fit the pony you saw over at the B-line?"

  Landy looked the saddle over carefully. "Hit's made by a saddle-maker all right, and will fit that hoss to a tee. They used to have some fancy saddles back in the early days. I've seen 'em that cost a thousand—Chauchaua—made and covered with silver do dads, en maybe they'd have 'em flung on a hoss that wasn't wuth his feed. I mind the time when ole Lem Hawks made a right smart lot of change, a-sellin' ole saddles that he swore come out'n the Custer massacre. Lem finally got to believin' that he was a survivor of that carnage.

  "They finally caught up with Lem however. He had sold more saddles than Custer had men, and the old cow saddles with their big horns and high cantles didn't look like an army saddle nohow. But Lem kept right on a-bein' a survivor—him en about a thousand others. Hit's like Lincoln's bodyguards—thar's been more of them folks died than Grant had in his whole army. Yer saddle is all right, son, and we shore ort to talk the B-line folks outa that little hoss."

  "I want to take the saddle over when we go," said Davy enthusiastically. "They could see how it fit, and that might influence their decision. I could put it on one of the burros and ride it over."

  Landy laughed uproarously. "Why son, ye wouldn't git thar by Febwary. A burro ain't geared to ride en go places. He will foller ye right up the side of a glacier, but he ain't mentally constructed to take the lead. Why, if ye was on one of 'em, backward, en paddlin' him with a clapboard, he'd back right up agin hit."

  "Well, what do they keep them for? Who do they belong to, anyhow?"

  "Them two a-roamin' around here, belong to ole Maddy, the ole miner gent. He left 'em here while he went romancin' around up Ripple Creek. He goes up thar, and has got a way out to the top. He goes in North Park, cl'ar over to Granby and Grand Lake. He swings 'round by Steamboat Springs and Hahns Peak, and comes a-driftin' back, mebbe from the north. He left 'em here three months ago. He'll git 'em when he gits 'em, en he won't lose much if he don't.

  "Ole Maddy has been in the hills—so hit's told—since the days of Jim Beck with and Bridger. Some say he was in Virginia Vale when Slade rubbed out Jules, the Frenchman. They say too, that he knew Carson, but that ain't so! Yit I do know that he pardnered with Will Drannon, the boy that ole Kit raised, because I heard Maddy tell a lot about Drannon, and later I read Drannon's book en right in the book, was ole Maddy. Oh, he's an oldster all right. He jist projects around in the hills, pans a little gold en rambles around by himse'f. He's not 'gold mad,' he jist likes to roam. He's clean, don't talk much, en anybody will keep him until he gits ready to pull out."

  "Well, I am sure disappointed about that burro thing," said Davy regretfully. "I wanted to ride that saddle over there and maybe they could see that the saddle, the hoss, and the midget ought not be separated."

  "Don't worry. We'll lengthen the girths, en I'll put ye on ole Frosty. When they see ye, way up thar', they'll know by every law of mathematics en justice, that the boy and the saddle belong on the colt."

  A roar reverberated out of the canyon. "Well, that's that," said Landy, "en now the next big job is to git Welborn out of the coulee fer dinner. If you leave him alone, he'd stay right thar messin' around till dark. I git provoked at his ways, but after I heard them decorators tell how he beat the gunman to the draw and busted him on the jaw en kicked him till he squawked like an ole hen, then I grew more tolerant. Welborn's all right, but he works too hard."

  Presently Welborn and Jim came up from the coulee. The auto was started and headed for the Gillis place. The original Gillis cabin had been augmented by the addition of two rooms on the south, a porch on the west, and another and better cabin on the north. It was sufficient for the family needs. The farm was fenced for the most part, and the neighboring range was alloted by the grazing master to Gillis, Landy, and their co-homesteaders at the far limits of the tract. Except for a small forty-acre tract, the Gillis land was dry farmed. The forty was irrigated from a spring developed on the premises. It was in alfalfa. Other meadows raised timothy mixed with alsike. Even in unfavorable years, the ranch yielded more than a hundred and fifty tons of hay. Besides hay, a lot of oats and barley was produced.

  "But thar's Jim's patent," Landy was showing Davy over the premises. "Jim keeps everything offen that big medder, en the grass comes on, en cures itse'f. Then hit snows, and the grass lays down like a carpet. Then hit blows the snow off en around, en stock can graze thar until near Christmas. Hit's a great savin' on hay. En a great saving on the hay feeder," Landy added with a grin.

  Besides three score cows with their calves, a dozen horses and colts, turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese galore, the Gillis ranch had three dogs, two collies, and a short-tailed sheep dog. The dogs followed Davy around like they had found a friend.

  "They think I am a kid," Davy said. "Dogs sure like children."

  After another sumptuous meal, Welborn went out to tinker with the Ford. Mrs. Gillis called Davy to the kitchen. "I want you to speak to Welborn," she said. "He works too hard. From daylight to dark, he does two men's work at that old mine. He'll kill himself before he gets the money out of it. You can talk to him—he likes you. Why, he sat up all night, the night before he went to Cheyenne after you, pressing his pants, making your chair, tying his tie, tinkering on the Ford. He cautioned all of us not to talk about your being smaller than common, being a midget. He said you were coming out here to get away from "the mob," the people who stared and commented. He wanted everything here to be different. He likes you, would do anything for you, but he's got something pushing him, driving him, faster and harder than one man can stand. He'll break if he don't stop and take things easier. If you get a chance, talk to him, tame him down, make him rest, change his mind to something different. He's a fine man, big and rugged and a gentleman. He never hints at what's eating his life out, and we don't know. But it ought to stop."

  "I think you are right, Mrs. Gillis. Sam does work too hard and too long. I know nothing about his past, and I'll never ask him until he gets ready to tell it all. This I know, he's well educated, has trained in big business and is used to good society. I think he is rather hot-headed and maybe stubborn, if he thinks he's right. It will be a delicate thing to do, to try to switch him off from what he's doing and the way he's doing it, but I'll try, because I think it ought to be done."

  Landy did not go in the return trip to "Pinnacle P'int" as he termed the mine and its environments. He had some "cipherin' around" to do. "With that pump a-goin' and the water a-flowin', hit don't resemble a place of rest to me," he said.

  Mrs. Gillis brought a loaf of bread out to the car. "There's enough for your supper and breakfast, and you folks come back here for dinner tomorrow."

  "En say, Jim, you bring the kid's little saddle back with yer," called Landy. "I want to lengthen the cinches to fit old Frosty. Me en the kid are aimin' to do a lot of romanc
in' eround—mebbe tomorry."

  Arriving at the cabin, Welborn took a can of gasoline through the opening out to the pump. He tinkered with the engine and presently a steady "chug-chug-chug" reverberated down the valley. Mechanical mining was on at the Silver Falls Project.

  Welborn laid the hose at a favorable place on a gravel-bar and scooped up a pan of dirt and sand that he held under the stream while he whirled it around in the pan. The contents took up the motion and spilled over the pan-brim until there was little left. The miner examined the remainder and then gave it more water and more swirling around in the pan. This process he repeated several times. Presently he held the pan where Davy and Jim could see a fifth of a thimble full of tiny flakes and two small dots not much larger than pinheads. "That's the object of the meeting, gentlemen," Welborn said grimly. "That's gold.... Tomorrow," he added, "we will get the old rocker going, but just now, I want to 'sample around' for good locations."

  All this was nothing to Davy. He watched the men awhile and went back to the cabin to arrange his personal belongings. Pinnacle Point was a place of sudden sunsets and prolonged twilights. At near five o'clock, Davy built a fire in the little cook-stove and put several slices of bacon on to fry. He "set the table" as best he could and broke several eggs in the bacon grease. He set out a jar of jam, sliced the bread. Then he went to the tunnel and called: "Supper."

  "Say, Laddie, I don't want you to do this," said Welborn as he surveyed the supper. "You are my guest, you know, and I'll do what cooking there's to be done. We'll eat our dinners at Gillis', we'll sleep here, and I will get breakfast and supper. The fine dinners will offset my poor cooking, and besides you ought to stay outdoors and look around as much as you can, before we get snowed in for the whole winter."

  "Well, I do plan to go with Landy over to see about that colt," said Davy, "and I thought maybe you would want to go along."

  Welborn laughed. "Not for me! If you and Landy can't skin those B-line people out of one little horse, you are no traders. I've got to get that rocker going tomorrow. Look what we did today!" Welborn showed a little canvas bag that he took out of his pocket. "There is fully an ounce of dust in there, and we didn't try, just sampled around. With the rocker going, I can take out ten ounces a day by myself. It's fairly well distributed all over the tract, but better if you can hit the potholes right in the old stream bed."

  "And when you get it all out, then what?"

  Welborn looked rather perplexed. He studied a moment. "Then what?" he asked slowly, "Why we'll stock that ranch, lay out a flying field, and visit a lot of places. Truly, I had never planned so far ahead as to get to the place where I wouldn't be doing anything excepting clipping coupons."

  "Yes, the mine is a fine thing," Davy said earnestly. "Why, there is enough gold there to make a great fortune. But what's the use in taking it all out at once? It will keep. You can work awhile, rest awhile, play awhile, and still be just as rich as if you had worked yourself to death. You are young, strong, and healthy, just right to enjoy life. Why work so hard now?"

  "Yes, I am healthy, feel pretty strong, but not so young. Right now, I would like to take a few thousand dollars out of that gulch before snow flies, for we are going to have a lot of enforced loafing. We are in good shape to loaf however, all bills are paid and I still have thirty-five dollars of your money!"

  "That's fine. I have been wondering how I would pay for the colt, in the event we bought him. The B-line folks might not want to take my check, and it might take more cash than I have on me."

  "Mrs. Gillis will take care of that, she has money, plenty of it. She will tell Landy what to do, and Landy's word is like a bond. They do a lot of trading with the B-line. Buy cows, sell calves, and trade paper back and forth. Mrs. Gillis is better than a bank. Since the banking situation went bad, she has been accumulating government bonds. She hardly ever comes back from town without at least a hundred-dollar bond. She's a wonder, that woman. She's not an isolated hill billy that goes to town on Saturdays and anchors herself in the doorway of the five-and-ten-cent store to visit and gawk around. She's full of business. Sells her stuff, buys what she needs, and hits the trail for home. I expect Mrs. Gillis has seven or eight thousand dollars in bonds and cash stowed around in their cabin."

  "Now that's my notion of living," cried Davy as he edged his chair back from the cracking sticks that Welborn had added to the smouldering embers in the fireplace. "Own a fine little ranch, a decent run of livestock and poultry, raise plenty of feed, and have something to sell right along. They don't have to meet a daily schedule, don't have to spread canvas in the rain or look at a mob tittering yokels all the time. That's the life for me and the Gillis outfit is my pattern."

  "They are fine people," said Welborn. "We will keep in close contact with them. We need them now. The time may come when they will need us."

  * * *

  5ToC

  "Jim stayed to milk the cows," Landy explained as he rode up to Pinnacle Point the next morning leading Frosty, a rangy bay with a diminutive new saddle on his back. "Alice don't like my milkin' methods. I jist turn the calves in with the cows and let nature take her course, so she lets Jim do the milkin'. Put on yer jacket, son, hit's crimpy around the edges, and let's git goin'."

  Seated on Ole Gravy, a sturdy gray horse, Landy Spencer was like a picture page out of the book of the old west. His stubby, gray mustache, standing out under an aquiline nose and squinting eyes, failed to conceal a mouth much given to smiles and laughter. He had cautioned the little man that it was cool, yet his blue shirt was open at the neck. He wore a slouch hat, dented and battered to unconventional shape, a dingy knitted waistcoat, unbuttoned of course, gray jeans, tucked into high boots with long, pointed heels, and spurs of ancient pattern. Hung to the horn of his old, but generous saddle was a lariat.

  The chuck-chuck-chuck of the gas engine told that Welborn was already on the job at the mine. Davy ran into the house and returned wearing his mackinaw and boots. "My, he's a giraffe," he said, as he looked over Frosty and his equipment.

  Landy dismounted and lifted Davy to his saddle. "Did ye ever ride a hoss, son?"

  "Sure, I've ridden some of the big fat ring-horses, but I either had to lie down or stand up, they were too big around for my legs. Once I was to ride a shetland in the Grand Entry, but they had a monkey on another pony and I walked out on 'em." Davy picked up the reins and Frosty began tiptoeing around and arching his back.

  "Jist turn him loose, son," called Landy. "The old simpleton was expectin' some weight when ye got on, and he's disapp'inted."

  Landy led the way down the hill and Frosty followed like a pack horse. The sun had pushed above the clouds. Frost was flying in the air. It jeweled the grass of the table land and sparkled amid the green of the conifers along Ripple Creek. Farther down the indistinct path they met Jim in the car.

  "Are you fellers goin' to git back in time for dinner," he called to the horsemen.

  "Mebbe not," replied Landy. "We are aimin' to bring back that little hoss, en he may not want to come."

  Landy turned from the path and rode down a coulee that led to Brushy Fork. It was a winding way through brush and stunted hemlocks. Presently they came to the creek. "Thar's Steelheads en Rainbows up in them pools," said the leader. "These streams have been stocked en hit's good fishin', if ye know how."

  They followed down the stream bed for a distance and then Landy turned up a draw on the left bank, that finally led out to level land. At first it was a narrow way between the stream and foothill, but presently the landscape broadened to a meadow similar to that on the right bank of the creek. At one place, where the way was narrow, there was the crumbling remnant of rough walls of rock.

  "That's a relic of them ole wars in here, but I never could git the hang of the tale. Ole Jim Lough knows all about it but he's too shut-mouthed and contrary to tell the tale.

  "Ye see, I'm not a native son," explained Landy, as they rode abreast on the widened road. "I got started in the cattle
game over to the north on Crazy Woman Creek en the range betwixt that en Sun Dance on the Belle Fourche. I was romancin' round when Teddy Roosevelt made camp up thar. Teddy liked to listen in on some of them Paul Bunyans of the cattle game, en they shore told some tall ones. I think he encouraged 'em in their romancin' jist to git a line on their capacity. Ye see, we were located jist betwixt ole Fort Fetterman and the Little Big Horn, sorta betwixt Red Cloud en Sittin' Bull, en one massacre en another. Ours was a period jist follerin' these history-makin' times en every man had a right to tell hit his way as they were all unhampered by airy lick of facts.

  "Therefore, I didn't git up here in the headwaters of the Platte until years after, but from what I ketch they had some right stirrin' time in here, 'twixt cattle rustlin' and sheep crowdin'. Ole Jim knows the whole story, but he don't broadcast none." Topping a swell of the meadow lands another stream basin was encountered. "Hit's a little Ranty," explained Landy. "That's a dam downstream aways en the B-line waters a couple o' hundred acres." In these meadows there were cattle—cows and calves and some scrub yearlings. Crossing the Ranty, the horsemen mounted to the levels again. Here, there were fences. Farther on, stables, sheds, and a cluster of houses. The B-line ranch.

  Landy maneuvered the horses through the gates without dismounting and rode up to the central stable. "Whar's yer reception committee eround here?" he yelled. "Call out the guard en parade them colors," he commanded as he dismounted and assisted Davy down. He threw the reins over the horses' heads. A man came out of the stable-room, two more came from back of a shed.