by B. M. Bower
In town, the Old man had been quite as eager to come close to Florence Grace Hallman—but he was not so lucky. Florence Grace had heard the news of the fire a good half hour before the train left for Great Falls.
She would have preferred a train going the other way, but she decided not to wait. She watched the sick woman put aboard the one Pullman coach, and then she herself went into the stuffy day-coach. Florence Grace Hallman was not in the habit of riding in day-coaches in the night-time when there was a Pullman sleeper attached to the train. She did not stop at Great Falls; she went on to Butte—and from there I do not know where she went. Certainly she never came back.
That, of course, simplified matters considerably for Florence Grace—and for the Happy Family as well. For at the preliminary hearing of H. J. Owens for the high crime of kidnapping, that gentleman proceeded to unburden his soul in a way that would have horrified Florence Grace, had she been there to hear. Remember, I told you that his eyes were the wrong shade of blue.
A man of whom you have never heard tried to slip out of the court room during the unburdening process, and was stopped by Andy Green, who had been keeping an eye on him for the simple reason that the fellow had been much in the company of H. J. Owens during the week preceding the fire and the luring away of the Kid. The sheriff led him off somewhere—and so they had the man who had set the prairie afire.
As is the habit of those who confess easily the crimes of others, H. J. Owens professed himself as innocent as he consistently could in the face of the Happy Family and of the Kid’s loud-whispered remarks when he saw him there. He knew absolutely nothing about the fire, he said, and had nothing to do with the setting of it. He was two miles away at the time it started.
And then Miss Rosemary Allen took the witness stand and told about the man on the hilltop and the bit of mirror that had flashed sun-signals toward the west.
H.J. Owens crimpled down visibly in his chair. Imagine for yourself the trouble he would have in convincing men of his innocence after that.
Just to satisfy your curiosity, at the trial a month later he failed absolutely to convince the jury that he was anything but what he was—a criminal without the strength to stand by his own friends. He was sentenced to ten years in Deer Lodge, and the judge informed him that he had been dealt with leniently at that, because after all he was only a tool in the hands of the real instigator of the crime. That real instigator, by the way, was never apprehended.
The other man—he who had set fire to the prairie—got six years, and cursed the judge and threatened the whole Happy Family with death when the sentence was passed upon him—as so many guilty men do.
To go back to that preliminary, trial: The Happy Family, when H. J. Owens was committed safely to the county jail, along with the fire-bug, took the next train to Great Falls with witnesses and the Honorable Blake. They filed their answers to the contests two days before the time-limit had expired. You may call that shaving too close the margin of safety. But the Happy family did not worry over that—seeing there was a margin of safety. Nor did they worry over the outcome of the matter. With the Homeseekers’ Syndicate in extremely bad repute, and with fully half of the colonists homeless and disgusted, why should they worry over their own ultimate success?
They planned great things with their irrigation scheme.… I am not going to tell any more about them just now. Some of you will complain, and want to know a good many things that have not been told in detail. But if I should try to satisfy you, there would be no more meetings between you and the Happy Family—since there would be no more to tell.
So I am not even going to tell you whether Andy succeeded in persuading Miss Rosemary Allen to go with him to the parson. Nor whether the Happy Family really did settle down to raise families and alfalfa and beards. Not another thing shall you know about them now.
You may take a look at them as they go trailing contentedly away from the land-office, with their hats tilted at various characteristic angles and their well-known voices mingled in more or less joyful converse, and their toes pointed toward Central Avenue and certain liquid refreshments. You need not worry over that bunch, surely. You may safely leave them to meet future problems and emergencies as they have always met them in the past—on their feet, with eyes that do not wave or flinch, shoulder to shoulder, ready alike far grin fate or a frolic.
BLINK
The range-land was at its unpicturesque worst. For two days the wind had raged and ranted over the hilltops, and whooped up the long coulees, so that tears stood in the eyes of the Happy Family when they faced it; impersonal tears blown into being by the very force of the wind. Also, when they faced it they rode with bodies aslant over their saddle-horns and hats pulled low over their streaming eyes, and with coats fastened jealously close. If there were buttons enough, well and good; if not, a strap cinched tightly about the middle was considered pretty lucky and not to be despised. Though it was early September, “sour-dough” coats were much in evidence, for the wind had a chill way of searching to the very marrow—and even a good, sheepskin-lined “sour-dough” was not always protection sufficient.
When the third day dawned bleakly, literally blown piecemeal from out darkness as bleak, the Happy Family rose shiveringly and with sombre disapproval of whatever met their blood-shot eyes; dressed hurriedly in the chill of flapping tent and went out to stagger drunkenly over to where Patsy, in the mess-tent, was trying vainly to keep the biscuits from becoming dust-sprinkled, and sundry pans and tins from taking jingling little excursions on their own account. Over the brow of the next ridge straggled the cavvy, tails and manes whipping in the gale, the nighthawk swearing so that his voice came booming down to camp. Truly, the day opened inauspiciously enough for almost any dire ending.
As further evidence, saddling horses for circle resolved itself, as Weary remarked at the top of his voice to Pink, at his elbow, into “a free-for-all broncho busting tournament.” For horses have nerves, and nothing so rasps the nerves of man or beast as a wind that never stops blowing; which means swaying ropes and popping saddle leather, and coat-tails flapping like wet sheets on a clothes line. Horses do not like these things, and they are prone to eloquent manifestations of their disapproval.
Over by the bed-wagon, a man they called Blink, for want of a better name, was fighting his big sorrel silently, with that dogged determination which may easily grow malevolent. The sorrel was at best a high-tempered, nervous beast, and what with the wind and the flapping of everything in sight, and the pitching of half-a-dozen horses around him, he was nearly crazed with fear in the abstract.
Blink was trying to bridle him, and he was not saying a word—which, in the general uproar, was strange. But Blink seldom did say anything. He was one of the aliens who had drifted into the Flying U outfit that spring, looking for work. Chip had taken him on, and he had stayed. He could ride anything in his string, and he was always just where he was wanted. He never went to town when the others clattered off for a few hours’ celebration more or less mild, he never took part in any of the camp fun, and he never offended any man. If any offended him they did not know it unless they were observant; if they were, they would see his pale lashes wink fast for a minute, and they might read aright the sign and refrain from further banter. So Blink, though he was counted a good man on roundup, was left pretty much alone when in camp.
Andy Green, well and none too favorably known down Rocking R way, and lately adopted into the Happy Family on the recommendation of Pink and his own pleasing personality, looped the latigo into the holder, gave his own dancing steed a slap of the don’t-try-to-run-any-whizzers-on-me variety, and went over to help out Blink.
Blink eyed his approach with much the same expression with which he eyed the horse. “I never hollered for assistance,” he remarked grudgingly when Andy was at his elbow. “When I can’t handle any of the skates in my string, I’ll quit riding and take to sheep-herding.” Whereupon he turned his back as squarely as he might upon Andy and made anot
her stealthy grab for the sorrel’s ears. (There is such a thing in the range-land as jealousy among riders, and the fame of Andy Green had gone afar.)
“All right. Just as you say, and not as I care a darn,” Andy retorted, and went back to where his own mount stood tail to the wind. He did not in the least mind the rebuff; he really felt all the indifference his manner portrayed—perhaps even more. He had offered help where help was needed, and that ended it for him. It never occurred to him that Blink might feel jealous over Andy’s hard-earned reputation as a “tamer of wild ones,” or mistake his good nature for patronage.
Five minutes later, when Chip looked around comprehensively at the lot of them in various degrees of readiness; saw that Blink was still fighting silently for mastery of the sorrel and told Andy to go over and help him get saddled, Andy said nothing of having had his services refused, but went. This time, Blink also said nothing, but accepted in ungracious surrender the assistance thus thrust upon him. For on the range-land, unless one is in a mind to roll his bed and ride away, one does not question when the leader commands. Andy’s attitude was still that of indifference; he really thought very little about Blink or his opinions, and the rapid blinking of the pale lashes was quite lost upon him.
They rode, eighteen ill-natured, uncomfortable cowboys, tumultuously away from the camp, where canvas bulged and swayed, and loose corners cracked like pistol shots, over the hill where even the short, prairie grass crouched and flattened itself against the sod; where stray pebbles, loosened by the ungentle tread of pitching hoofs, skidded twice as far as in calm weather. The gray sky bent threateningly above them, wind-torn into flying scud but never showing a hint of blue. Later there might be rain, sleet, snow—or sunshine, as nature might whimsically direct; but for the present she seemed content with only the chill wind that blew the very heart out of a man.
Whenever Chip pulled up to turn off a couple of riders that they might search a bit of rough country, his voice was sharp with the general discomfort. When men rode away at his command, it was with brows drawn together and vengeful heels digging the short-ribs of horses in quite as unlovely a mood as themselves.
Out at the end of the “circle,” Chip divided the remainder of his men into two groups for the homeward drive. One group he himself led. The other owned Weary as temporary commander and galloped off to the left, skirting close to the foothills of the Bear Paws. In that group rode Pink and Happy Jack, Slim, Andy Green and Blink the silent.
“I betche we get a blizzard out uh this,” gloomed Happy Jack, pulling his coat collar up another fraction of an inch. “And the way Chip’s headed us, we got to cross that big flat going back in the thick of it; chances is, we’ll git lost.”
No one made reply to this; it seemed scarcely worth while. Every man of them rode humped away from the wind, his head drawn down as close to his shoulders as might be. Conversation under those conditions was not likely to become brisk.
“A fellow that’ll punch cows for a living,” Happy Jack asserted venomously after a minute, “had ought to be shut up somewheres. He sure ain’t responsible. I betche next summer don’t see me at it.”
“Aw, shut up. We know you’re feeble-minded, without you blatting it by the hour,” snapped Pink, showing never a dimple.
Happy Jack tugged again at his collar and made remarks, to which no one paid the slightest attention. They rode in amongst the hills and narrow ridges dividing “draws” as narrow, where range cattle would seek shelter from the cutting blast that raked the open. Then, just as they began to realize that the wind was not quite such a raging torment, came a new phase of nature’s unpleasant humor.
It was not a blizzard that descended upon them, though when it came rolling down from the hilltops it much resembled one. The wind had changed and brought fog, cold, suffocating, impenetrable. Yet such was the mood of them that no one said anything about it. Weary had been about to turn off a couple of men, but did not. What was the use, since they could not see twenty yards?
For a time they rode aimlessly, Weary in the lead. Then, when it grew no better but worse, he pulled up, just where a high bank shut off the wind and a tangle of brush barred the way in front.
“We may as well camp right here till things loosen up a little,” he said. “There’s no use playing blind-man’s-buff any longer. We’ll have some fire, for a change. Mama! this is sure beautiful weather!”
At that, they brightened a bit and hurriedly dismounted and hunted dry wood. Since they were to have a fire, the general tendency was to have a big one; so that when they squatted before it and held out cold, ungloved fingers to the warmth, the flames were leaping high into the fog and crackling right cheerily. It needed only a few puffs at their cigarettes to chase the gloom from their faces and put them in the mood for talk. Only Blink sat apart and stared moodily into the fire, his hands clasped listlessly around his knees, and to him they gave no attention. He was an alien, and a taciturn one at that. The Happy Family were accustomed to living clannishly, even on roundup, and only when they tacitly adopted a man, as they had adopted Pink and Irish and, last but not least important, Andy Green, did they take note of that man’s mood and demand reasons for any surliness.
“If Slim would perk up and go run down a grouse or two,” Pink observed pointedly, “we’d be all right for the day. How about it, Slim?”
“Run ’em down yourself,” Slim retorted. “By golly, I ain’t no lop-ear bird dog.”
“The law’s out fer chickens,” Happy Jack remarked dolefully.
“Go on, Happy, and get us a few. You’ve got your howitzer buckled on,” fleered Andy Green. Andy it was whose fertile imagination had so christened Happy Jack’s formidable weapon.
“Aw, gwan!” protested Happy Jack.
“Happy looks like he was out for a rep,” bantered Pink. “He makes me think uh the Bad Man in a Western play. All he needs is his hat turned up in front and his sleeves rolled up to his elbow, like he was killing hogs. Happy would make a dandy-looking outlaw, with that gun and that face uh his.”
“Say, by golly, I bet that’s what he’s figurin’ on doing. He ain’t going to punch cows no more—I bet he’s thinking about turning out.”
“Well, when I do, you’ll be the first fellow I lay for,” retorted Happy, with labored wit.
“You never’d get a rep shooting at a target the size uh Slim,” dimpled Pink. “Is that toy cannon loaded, Happy?”
“I betche yuh dassen’t walk off ten paces and let me show yuh,” growled Happy.
Pink made as if to rise, then settled back with a sigh. “Ten paces is farther than you could drive me from this fire with a club,” he said. “And you couldn’t see me, in this fog.”
“Say, it is pretty solid,” said Weary, looking around him at the blank, gray wall. “A fellow could sit right here and be a lot ignorant of what’s going on around him. A fellow could—”
“When I was riding down in the San Simon basin,” spoke up Andy, rolling his second cigarette daintily between his finger-tips, “I had a kinda queer experience in a fog, once. It was thick as this one, and it rolled down just about as sudden and unexpected. That’s a plenty wild patch uh country—or it was when I was there. I was riding for a Spanish gent that kept white men as a luxury and let the greasers do about all the rough work—such as killing off superfluous neighbors, and running brands artistic, and the like. Oh, he was a gay mark, all right.
“But about this other deal: I was out riding alone after a little bunch uh hosses, one day in the fall. I packed my gun and a pair uh field glasses, and every time I rode up onto a mesa I’d take a long look at all the lower country to save riding it. I guess I’d prognosticated around like that for two or three hours, when I come out on a little pinnacle that slopes down gradual toward a neighbor’s home ranch—only the ranch itself was quite a ride back up the basin.
“I got off my horse and set down on a rock to build me a smoke, and was gazing off over the country idle, when I seen a rider come up out of
a little draw and gallop along quartering-like, to pass my pinnacle on the left. You know how a man out alone like that will watch anything, from a chicken hawk up in the air to a band uh sheep, without any interest in either one, but just to have your eyes on something that’s alive and moves.
“So I watched him, idle, while I smoked. Pretty soon I seen another fellow ride out into sight where the first one had, and hit her up lively down the trail. I didn’t do no wondering—I just sat and watched ’em both for want uh something better to do.”
“Finding them strays wasn’t important, I s’pose?” Happy Jack insinuated.
“It could wait, and did. So I kept an eye on these gazabos, and pretty soon I saw the hind fellow turn off the trail and go fogging along behind a little rise. He come into sight again, whipping down both sides like he was heading a wild four-year-old; and that was queer, because the only other live thing in sight was man number one, and I didn’t see no reason why he should be hurting himself to get around to windward like that.
“Maybe it was five minutes I watched ’em: number one loping along like there wasn’t nothing urgent and he was just merely going somewhere and taking his time for it, and number two quirting and spurring like seconds was diamonds.”
“I wish they was that valuable to you,” hinted Pink.
“They ain’t, so take it easy. Well, pretty soon they got closer together, and then number two unhooked something on his saddle that caught the light. There’s where I got my field glasses into play. I drew a bead with ’em, and seen right off it was a gun. And I hadn’t no more than got my brain adjusted to grasp his idea, when he puts it back and takes down his rope. That there,” Andy added naïvely, “promised more real interest; guns is commonplace.
“I took down the glasses long enough to size up the layout. Glasses, you know, are mighty deceiving when it comes to relative distances, and a hilltop a mile back looks, through the glass, like just stepping over a ditch. With the naked eye I could see that they were coming together pretty quick, and they done so.