by B. M. Bower
“You’re a blamed pessimist,” I told him, “and you can’t give me cold feet that easy. If you knew how I ache to get a good horse under me—”
“Thought they had horses out your way,” Frosty cut in.
“A range-horse, you idiot, and a range-saddle. I did ride some on a fancy-gaited steed with a saddle that resembled a porus plaster and stirrups like a lady’s bracelet; it didn’t fill the aching void a little bit.”
“Well, maybe yuh won’t feel any aching void out here,” he said, “but if yuh follow round-up this season you’ll sure have plenty of other brands of ache.”
I told him I’d be right with them at the finish, and he needn’t to worry any about me. Pretty soon I’ll show you how well I kept my word. We rode and rode, and handed out our experiences to each other, and got to Pochette’s that night. I couldn’t help remembering the last time I’d been over that trail, and how rocky I felt about things. Frosty said he wasn’t worried about that walk of his into Pochette’s growing dim in his memory, either.
Well, then, we got to Pochette’s—I think I have remarked the fact. And at Pochette’s, just unharnessing his team, limped my friend of White Divide, old King. Funny how a man’s view-point will change when there’s a girl cached somewhere in the background. Not even the memory of Shylock’s stiffening limbs could bring me to a mood for war. On the contrary, I felt more like rushing up and asking him how were all the folks, and when did Beryl expect to come home. But not Frosty; he drove phlegmatically up so that there was just comfortable space for a man to squeeze between our rig and King’s, hopped out, and began unhooking the traces as if there wasn’t a soul but us around. King was looping up the lines of his team, and he glared at us across the backs of his horses as if we were—well, caterpillars at a picnic and he was a girl with nice clothes and a fellow and a set of nerves. His next logical move would be to let out a squawk and faint, I thought; in which case I should have started in to do the comforting, with a dipper of water from the pump. He didn’t faint, though.
I walked around and let down the neck-yoke, and his eyes followed me with suspicion. “Hello, Mr. King,” I sang out in a brazen attempt to hypnotize him into the belief we were friends. “How’s the world using you, these days?”
“Huh!” grunted the unhypnotized one, deep in his chest.
Frosty straightened up and looked at me queerly; he said afterward that he couldn’t make out whether I was trying to pull off a gun fight, or had gone dippy.
But I was only in the last throes of exuberance at being in the country at all, and I didn’t give a damn what King thought; I’d made up my mind to be sociable, and that settled it.
“Range is looking fine,” I remarked, snapping the inside checks back into the hame-rings. “Stock come through the winter in good shape?” Oh, I had my nerve right along with me.
“You go to hell,” advised King, bringing out each word fresh-coined and shiny with feeling.
“I was headed that way,” I smiled across at him, “but at the last minute I gave Montana first choice; I knew you were still here, you see.”
He let go the bridle of the horse he was about to lead away to the stable, and limped around so that he stood within two feet of me. “Yuh want to—” he began, and then his mouth stayed open and silent.
I had reached out and got him by the hand, and gave him a grip—the grip that made all the fellows quit offering their paws to me in Frisco.
“Put it there, King!” I cried idiotically and as heartily as I knew how. “Glad to see you. Dad’s well and busy as usual, and sends regards. How’s your good health?”
He was squirming good and plenty, by that time, and I let him go. I acted the fool, all right, and I don’t tell it to have any one think I was a smart young sprig; I’m just putting it out straight as it happened.
Frosty stood back, and I noticed, out of the tail of my eye, that he was ready for trouble and expecting it to come in bunches; and I didn’t know, myself, but what I was due for new ventilators in my system.
But King never did a thing but stand and hold his hand and look at me. I couldn’t even guess at what he thought. In half a minute or less he got his horse by the bridle again—with his left hand—and went limping off ahead of us to the stable, saying things in his collar.
“You blasted fool,” Frosty muttered to me. “You’ve done it real pretty, this time. That old Siwash’ll cut your throat, like as not, to pay for all those insulting remarks and that hand-shake.”
“First time I ever insulted a man by shaking hands and telling him I was glad to see him,” I retorted. “And I don’t think it will be necessary for you to stand guard over my jugular tonight, either. That old boy will take a lot of time to study out the situation, if I’m any judge. You won’t hear a peep out of him, and I’ll bet money on it.”
“All right,” said Frosty, and his tone sounded dubious. “But you’re the first Ragged H man that has ever walked up and shook hands with the old devil. Perry Potter himself wouldn’t have the nerve.”
Now, that was a compliment, but I don’t believe I took it just the way Frosty meant I should. I was proud as thunder to have him call me a “Ragged H man” so unconsciously. It showed that he really thought of me simply as one of the boys; that the “son and heir” view-point—oh, that had always rankled, deep down where we bury unpleasant things in our memory—had been utterly forgotten. So the tribute to my nerve didn’t go for anything beside that. I was a “Ragged H man,” on the same footing as the rest of them. It’s silly owning it, but it gave me a little tingle of pleasure to have one of dad’s men call dad’s son and heir “a blasted fool.” I don’t believe the Lord made me an aristocrat.
We didn’t see anything more of King till supper was called. At Pochette’s you sit down to a long table covered with dark-red mottled oilcloth and sprinkled with things to eat, and watch that your elbow doesn’t cause your nearest neighbor to do the sword-swallowing act involuntarily and disastrously with his knife, or—you don’t eat. Frosty and I had walked down to the ferry-crossing while we waited, and then were late getting into the game when we heard the summons.
We went in and sat down just as the Chinaman was handing thick cups of coffee around rather sloppily. From force of habit I looked for my napkin, remembered that I was in a napkinless region, and glanced up to see if any one had noticed.
Just across from me old King was pushing back his chair and getting stiffly upon his feet. He met my eyes squarely—friend or enemy, I like a man to do that—and scowled.
“Through already?” I reached for the sugar-bowl.
“What’s it to you, damn yuh?” he snapped, but we could see at a glance that King had not begun his meal.
I looked at Frosty, and he seemed waiting for me to say something. So I said: “Too bad—we Ragged H men are such mighty slow eaters. If it’s on my account, sit right down and make yourself comfortable. I don’t mind; I dare say I’ve eaten in worse company.”
He went off growling, and I leaned back and stirred my coffee as leisurely as if I were killing time over a bit of crab in the Palace, waiting for my order to come. Frosty, I observed, had also slowed down perceptibly; and so we “toyed with the viands” just like a girl in a story—in real life, I’ve noticed, girls develop full-grown appetites and aren’t ashamed of them. King went outside to wait, and I’m sure I hope he enjoyed it; I know we did. We drank three cups of coffee apiece, ate a platter of fried fish, and took plenty of time over the bones, got into an argument over who was Lazarus with the fellow at the end of the table, and were too engrossed to eat a mouthful while it lasted. We had the bad manners to pick our teeth thoroughly with the wooden toothpicks, and Frosty showed me how to balance a knife and fork on a toothpick—or, perhaps, it was two—on the edge of his cup. I tried it several times, but couldn’t make it work.
The others had finished long ago and were sitting around next the wall watching us while they smoked. About that time King put his head in at the door, and l
ooked at us.
“Just a minute,” I cheered him. Frosty began cracking his prune-pits and eating the meats, and I went at it, too. I don’t like prune-pits a little bit.
The pits finished, Frosty looked anxiously around the table. There was nothing more except some butter that we hadn’t the nerve to tackle single-handed, and some salt and a bottle of ketchup and the toothpicks. We went at the toothpicks again; until Frosty got a splinter stuck between his teeth, and had a deuce of a time getting it out.
“I’ve heard,” he sighed, when the splinter lay in his palm, “that some state dinners last three or four hours; blamed if I see how they work it. I’m through. I lay down my hand right here—unless you’re willing to tackle the ketchup. If you are, I stay with you, and I’ll eat half.” He sighed again when he promised.
For answer I pushed back my chair. Frosty smiled and followed me out. For the satisfaction of the righteous I will say that we both suffered from indigestion that night, which I suppose was just and right.
CHAPTER XI
A Cable Snaps
Our lazy land smiling and dreaming to itself had disappeared; in its stead, the wind howled down the river from the west and lashed the water into what would have looked respectable waves to one who had not been on the ocean and seen the real thing. The new grass lay flat upon the prairies, and chunks of dirt rattled down from the roof of Pochette’s primitive abiding-place. It is true the sun shone, but I really wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the wind had blown it out, ’most any time.
Pochette himself looked worried when we trooped in to breakfast. (By the way, old King never showed up till we were through; then he limped in and sat down to the table without a glance our way.) While we were smoking, over by the fireplace, Pochette came sidling up to us. He was a little skimpy man with crooked legs, a real French cut of beard, and an apologetic manner. I think he rather prided himself upon his familiarity with the English language—especially that part which is censored so severely by editors that only a half-dozen words are permitted to appear in cold type, and sometimes even they must hide their faces behind such flimsy veils as this: d——n. So if I never quote Mr. Pochette verbatim, you’ll know why.
“I theenk you will not wish for cross on the reever, no?” he began ingratiatingly. “The weend she blow lak —— —— ——, and my boat, she zat small, she —— ——.”
I caught King looking at us from under his eyebrows, so I was airily indifferent to wind or water. “Sure, we want to cross,” I said. “Just as soon as we finish our smoke, Pochette.”
“But, mon Dieu!” (Ever hear tell of a Frenchman that didn’t begin his sentences that way? In this case, however, Pochette really said just that.) “The weend, she blow lak ——”
“‘A hurricane; bimeby by she blaw some more,’” I quoted bravely. “It’s all right, Pochette; let her howl. We’re going to cross, just the same. It isn’t likely you’ll have to make the trip for any body else today.” I didn’t mean to, but I looked over toward King, and caught the glint of his unfriendly eyes upon me. Also, the corners of his mouth hunched up for a second in what looked like a sneer. But the Lord knows I wasn’t casting any aspersions on his nerve.
He must have taken it that way, though; for he went out when we did and hooked up, and when we drove down to where the little old scow they called a ferry was bobbing like a decoy-duck in the water, he was just behind us with his team. Pochette looked at him, and at us, and at the river; and his meager little face with its pointed beard looked like a perturbed gnome—if you ever saw one.
“The leetle boat, she not stand for ze beeg load. The weend, she—”
“Aw, what yuh running a ferry for?” Frosty cut in impatiently. “There’s a good, strong current on, today; she’ll go across on a high run.”
Pochette shook his head still more dubiously, till I got down and bolstered up his courage with a small piece of gold. They’re all alike; their courage ebbs and flows on a golden tide, if you’ll let me indulge in a bit of unnecessary hyperbole. He worked the scow around end on to the bank, so that we could drive on. The team wasn’t a bit stuck on going, but Frosty knows how to handle horses, and they steadied when he went to their heads and talked to them.
We were so busy with our own affairs that we didn’t notice what was going on behind us till we heard Pochette declaiming bad profanity in a high soprano. Then I turned, and he was trying to stand off old King. But King wasn’t that sort; he yelled to us to move up and make room, and then took down his whip and started up. Pochette pirouetted out of the way, and stood holding to the low plank railing while he went on saying things that, properly pronounced, must have been very blasphemous.
King paid about as much attention to him as he would to a good-sized prairie-dog chittering beside its burrow. I reckon he knew Pochette pretty well. He got his rig in place and climbed down and went to his horses’ heads.
“Now, shove off, dammit,” he ordered, just as if no one had been near bursting a blood-vessel within ten feet of him.
Pochette gulped, worked the point of his beard up and down like a villain in a second-rate melodrama, and shoved off. The current and the wind caught us in their grip, and we swashed out from shore and got under way.
I can’t say that trip looked good to me, from the first rod out. Of course, the river couldn’t rear up and get real savage, like the ocean, but there were choppy little waves that were plenty nasty enough, once you got to bucking them with a blum-nosed old scow fastened to a cable that swayed and sagged in the wind that came howling down on us. And with two rigs on, we filled her from bow to stern; all but about four feet around the edges.
Frosty looked across to the farther shore, then at the sagging cable, and then at me. I gathered that he had his doubts, too, but he wouldn’t say anything. Nobody did, for that matter. Even Pochette wasn’t doing anything but chew his whiskers and watch the cable.
Then she broke, with a snap like a rifle, and a jolt that came near throwing us off our feet. Pochette gave a yell and relapsed into French that I’d hate to translate; it would shock even his own countrymen. The ferry ducked and bobbed, now there was nothing to hold its nose steady to the current, and went careering down river with all hands aboard and looking for trouble.
We didn’t do anything, though; there wasn’t anything to do but stay right where we were and take chances. If she stayed right side up we would probably land eventually. If she flopped over—which she seemed trying to do, we’d get a cold bath and lose our teams, if no worse.
Soon as I thought of that, I began unhooking the traces of the horse nearest. The poor brutes ought at least to have a chance to swim for it. Frosty caught on, and went to work, too, and in half a minute we had them free of the wagon and stripped of everything but their bridles. They would have as good a show as we, and maybe better.
I looked back to see what King was doing. He was having troubles of his own, trying to keep one of his cayuses on all its feet at once. It was scared, poor devil, and it took all his strength on the bit to keep it from rearing and maybe upsetting the whole bunch. Pochette wasn’t doing anything but lament, so I went back and unhooked King’s horses for him, and took off the harness and threw it in the back of his wagon so they wouldn’t tangle their feet in it when it came to a show-down.
I don’t think he was what you could call grateful; he never looked my way at all, but went on cussing the horse he was holding, for acting up just when he should keep his wits. I went back to Frosty, and we stood elbows touching, waiting for whatever was coming.
For what seemed a long while, nothing came but wind and water. But I don’t mind saying that there was plenty of that, and if either one had been suddenly barred out of the game we wouldn’t any of us have called the umpire harsh names. We drifted, slippety-slosh, and the wind ripped holes in the atmosphere and made our eyes water with the bare force of it when we faced the west. And none of us had anything to say, except Pochette; he said a lot, I remember, but never mind
what. I don’t suppose he was mentally responsible at the time.
Then, a long, narrow, yellow tongue of sand-bar seemed to reach right out into the river and lap us up. We landed with a worse jolt than when we broke away from the cable, and the gray-blue river went humping past without us. Frosty and I looked at each other and grinned; after all, we were coming out of the deal better than we had expected, for we were still right side up and on the side of the river toward home. We were a mile or so down river from the trail, but once we were on the bank with our rig, that was nothing.
We had landed head on, with the nose of the scow plowed high and dry. Being at the front, we went at getting our team off, and our wagon. There was a four or five-foot jump to make, and the horses didn’t know how about it, at first. But with one of us pulling, and the other slashing them over the rump, they made it, one at a time. The sand was soft and acted something like quicksand, too, and we hustled them to shore and tied them to some bushes. The bank was steep there, and we didn’t know how we were going to make the climb, but we left that to worry over afterward; we still had our rig to get ashore, and it began to look like quite a contract.
We went back, with our boot tracks going deep, and then filling up and settling back almost level six steps behind us. Frosty looked back at them and scowled.
“For sand that isn’t quicksand,” he said, “this layout will stand about as little monkeying with as any sand I ever met up with. Time we make a few trips over it, she’s going to be pudding without the raisins. And that’s a picnic, with our rig on the main deck, as you might say.”
We went back and sat swinging our legs off the free board end of the ferry boat, and rolled us a smoke apiece and considered the next move. King was somewhere back between our rig and his, cussing Pochette to a fare-you-well for having such a rotten layout and making white men pay good money for the privilege of risking their lives and property upon it.