CHAPTER VI
THE CROSSING
From lonely ranches along the Salagua and Verde, from the Sunflowerand up the Alamo, from all the sheeped-out and desolate Four Peakscountry the cowboys drifted in to Hidden Water for the round-up,driving their extra mounts before them. Beneath the brush _ramada_ ofthe ranch house they threw off their canvas-covered beds and turnedtheir pack horses out to roll, strapping bells and hobbles on the badones, and in a day the deserted valley of Agua Escondida became alivewith great preparations. A posse of men on fresh mounts rode out onBronco Mesa, following with unerring instinct the trail of the Dos Shorses, balking their wild breaks for freedom and rushing themheadlong into the fenced pasture across the creek. As the hired handsof the Dos S outfit caught up their mounts and endeavored to put thefear of God into their hearts, the mountain boys got out the keg ofhorseshoes and began to shoe--every man his own blacksmith.
It was rough work, all around, whether blinding and topping off thehalf-wild ponies or throwing them and tacking cold-wrought "cowboy"shoes to their flint-like feet, and more than one enthusiast came awaylimping or picking the loose skin from a bruised hand. Yet through itall the dominant note of dare-devil hilarity never failed. Thesolitude of the ranch, long endured, had left its ugly mark on all ofthem. They were starved for company and excitement; obsessed bystrange ideas which they had evolved out of the tumuli of their pastexperience and clung to with dogged tenacity; warped with egotism;stubborn, boastful, or silent, as their humor took them, but now alleager to break the shell and mingle in the rush of life.
In this riot of individuals Jefferson Creede, the round-up boss,strode about like a king, untrammelled and unafraid. There was not aridge or valley in all the Four Peaks country that he did not know,yet it was not for this that he was boss; there was not a virtue orweakness in all that crowd that he was not cognizant of, in the backof his scheming brain. The men that could rope, the men that couldride, the quitters, the blowhards, the rattleheads, the lazy, thecrooked, the slow-witted--all were on his map of the country; and as,when he rode the ridges, he memorized each gulch and tree and oddrock, so about camp he tried out his puppets, one by one, to keep hismap complete.
As they gathered about the fire that evening it was Bill Lightfoot whoengaged his portentous interest. He listened to Bill's boastfulremarks critically, cocking his head to one side and smiling wheneverhe mentioned his horse.
"Yes, sir," asserted Bill belligerently, "I mean it--that gray of minecan skin anything in the country, for a hundred yards or a mile. I'vegot money that says so!"
"Aw, bull!" exclaimed Creede scornfully.
"Bull, nothin'," retorted Lightfoot hotly. "I bet ye--I bet ye athousand dollars they ain't a horse in Arizona that can keep out of mydust for a quarter!"
"Well, I know you ain't got no thousand dollars--ner ten," sneeredCreede. "Why don't you bet yearlings? If you'd blow some of that hotair through a tube it'd melt rocks, I reckon. But talk cow, man; wecan all savvy that!"
"Well, where's the horse that can beat me?" demanded Lightfoot,bristling.
"That little sorrel out in the pasture," answered Creede laconically.
"I'll bet ye!" blustered Lightfoot. "Aw, rats! He ain't even brokeyet!"
"He can run, all right. I'll go you for a yearling heifer. Put up orshut up."
And so the race was run. Early in the morning the whole _rodeo_ outfitadjourned to the _parada_ ground out by the pole corrals, the openspot where they work over the cattle. Hardy danced his sorrel up tothe line where the gray was waiting, there was a scamper of feet, astreak of dust, and Bill Lightfoot was out one yearling heifer. Ahowling mob of cowboys pursued them from the scratch, racing eachother to the finish, and then in a yell of laughter at Bill Lightfootthey capered up the canyon and spread out over The Rolls--the _rodeo_had begun.
As the shadow of the great red butte to the west, around which thewagon road toiled for so many weary miles, reached out and touched thevalley, they came back in a body, hustling a bunch of cattle alongbefore them. And such cattle! After his year with the Chiricahuaoutfit in that blessed eastern valley where no sheep as yet had everstrayed Hardy was startled by their appearance. Gaunt, rough, stunted,with sharp hips and hollow flanks and bellies swollen from eating theunprofitable browse of cactus and bitter shrubs, they neverthelesssprinted along on their wiry legs like mountain bucks; and a peculiarwild, haggard stare, stamped upon the faces of the old cows, showedits replica even in the twos and yearlings. Yet he forbore to askCreede the question which arose involuntarily to his lips, for heknew the inevitable answer.
Day after day, as they hurriedly combed The Rolls for what few cattleremained on the lower range, the cowmen turned their eyes to the riverand to the canyons and towering cliffs beyond, for the sheep; until atlast as they sat by the evening fire Creede pointed silently to thelambent flame of a camp fire, glowing like a torch against thesouthern sky.
"There's your friends, Rufe," he said, and the cowmen glanced at Hardyinquiringly.
"I might as well tell you fellers," Creede continued, "that one reasonRufe come up here was to see if he couldn't do somethin' with thesesheepmen."
He paused and looked at the circle of faces with a smile that wasalmost a sneer.
"You fellers wouldn't back me up when it come to fightin'--none exceptBen Reavis and the Clark boys--so I told the old judge we might aswell lay down, and to send up some smooth _hombre_ to try and jockey'em a little. Well, Hardy's the _hombre_; and bein' as you fellerswon't fight, you might as well look pleasant about it. What's that yousay, Bill?"
He turned with a sardonic grin to Lightfoot, who had already beenreduced to a state of silence by the relentless persecutions of the_rodeo_ boss.
"I never said nawthin'," replied Lightfoot sullenly. "But if you'd'vegone at 'em the way we wanted to," he blurted out, as the grinbroadened, "instead of tryin' to move the whole outfit by daylight,I'd've stayed with you till hell froze over. I don't want to git sentup fer ten years."
"No," said Creede coolly, "ner you never will."
"Well, I don't see what you're pickin' on me fer," bellowed Lightfoot,"the other fellers was there too. Why don't you sass Ensign or Pete awhile?"
"For a durned good reason," replied Creede steadily. "They never _was_for fightin', but you, with that yawp of yours, was always a-hollerin'and ribbin' me on to fight, and then, when the time come, you neversaid 'Boo!' at 'em. Tucked your young cannon into the seat of yourpants and flew, dam' ye, and that's all there was to it. But that'sall right," he added resignedly. "If you fellers don't want to fightyou don't have to. But, dam' it, keep shut about it now, until youmean business."
As to just who this man Hardy was and what he proposed to do with thesheep the members of the Four Peaks round-up were still in ignorance.All they knew was that he could ride, even when it came to driftinghis horse over the rocky ridges, and that Jeff Creede took him as amatter of course. But, for a superintendent, he never seemed to havemuch to say for himself. It was only when he walked up to his sorrelpony in that gentle, precise way he had, and went through the familiarmotions of climbing a "bad one" that they sensed, dimly, a past notwithout experience and excitement. Even in the preoccupation of theirown affairs and doings they could not fail to notice a supple strengthin his white hands, a military precision in his movements, and aboveall a look in his eyes when he became excited--the steady resolutestare with which his militant father had subdued outlaw horses, bucksoldiers, and Apaches, even his own son, when all had not gone well.It was this which had inspired Bill Lightfoot to restrain his tonguewhen he was sore over his defeat; and even though Hardy confessed tobeing a rider, somehow no one ever thought of sawing off SpikeKennedy's "side winder" on him. The quiet, brooding reserve which camefrom his soldier life protected him from such familiar jests, andwithout knowing why, the men of the Four Peaks looked up to him.
Even after his mission was announced, Hardy made no change in hismanner of life. He rode out each day on the round-up, conning the lay
of the land; at the corral he sat on the fence and kept tally,frankly admitting that he could neither rope nor brand; in camp he didhis share of the cooking and said little, listening attentively to therandom talk. Only when sheep were mentioned did he show a markedinterest, and even then it was noticed that he made no comment,whatever his thoughts were. But if he told no one what he was going todo, it was not entirely due to an overrated reticence, for he did notknow himself. Not a man there but had run the gamut of human emotionsin trying to protect his ranch; they had driven herders off with guns;they had cut their huddled bands at night and scattered them for thecoyotes; they had caught unwary Mexican _borregueros_ in forbiddenpastures and administered "shap lessons," stretching them overbowlders and spanking them with their leather leggings; they had"talked reason" to the bosses in forceful terms; they had requestedthem politely to move; they had implored them with tears in theireyes--and still like a wave of the sea, like a wind, like a scourge ofgrasshoppers which cannot be withstood, the sheep had come on, alwayshungry, always fat, always more.
Nor was there any new thing in hospitality. The last bacon and breadhad been set upon the table; baled hay and grain, hauled in by day'sworks from the alfalfa fields of Moroni and the Salagua, had been fedto the famished horses of the very men who had sheeped off the grass;the same blanket had been shared, sometimes, alas, with men who were"crumby." And it was equally true that, in return, the beans and meatof chance herders had been as ravenously devoured, the water casks ofpatient "camp-rustlers" had been drained midway between the river andcamp, and stray wethers had showed up in the round-up fry-pans in theshape of mutton. Ponder as he would upon the problem no solutionoffered itself to Hardy. He had no policy, even, beyond that of commonpoliteness; and as the menacing clamor of the sheep drifted up to themfrom the river the diplomat who was to negotiate the great truce beganto wonder whether, after all, he was the man of the hour or merelyanother college graduate gone wrong.
On the opposite side of the river in bands of two and three thousandthe cohorts of the sheep gathered to make the crossing--gathered andwaited, for the Salagua was still high. At the foot of the highcliffs, from the cleft canyon of which water flowed forth as if somerod had called it from the rock, the leaders of the sheepmen weresitting in council, gazing at the powerful sweep of the level river,and then at the distant sand bar where their charges must win theshore or be swept into the whirlpool below. Ah, that whirlpool! Many afrightened ewe and weakling lamb in years past had drifted helplesslyinto its swirl and been sucked down, to come up below the point awater-logged carcass. And for each stinking corpse that littered thelower bar the boss sheep owner subtracted five dollars from the sum ofhis hard-earned wealth. Already on the flats below them the willowsand burro bushes were trembling as eager teeth trimmed them of theirleaves--in a day, or two days, the river bottom would be fed bare; andbehind and behind, clear to the broad floor of the desert, band afterband was pressing on to the upper crossing of the Salagua.
As Hardy rode up over the rocky point against which the river threwits full strength and then, flung inexorably back, turned upon itselfin a sullen whirlpool, he could see the sheep among the willows, theherders standing impassive, leaning upon their guns as more rusticshepherds lean upon their staves, and above, at the head of thecrossing, the group of men, sitting within the circle of their horsesin anxious conference. If any of them saw him, outlined like asentinel against the sky, they made no sign; but suddenly a man in ahigh Texas hat leaped up from the group, sprang astride his mule andspurred him into the cold water. For the first twenty feet the mulewaded, shaking his ears; then he slumped off the edge of a submergedbench into deeper water and swam, heading across the stream butdrifting diagonally with the current until, striking bottom once more,he struggled out upon the sand spit. The rider looked eagerly about,glanced up casually at the man on the point below, and then plungedback into the water, shouting out hoarse orders to his Mexicans, whowere smoking idly in the shade of overhanging rocks. Immediately theyscrambled to their feet and scattered along the hillside. The strokeof axes echoed from the crags above, and soon men came staggering downto the river, dragging the thorny limbs of _palo verdes_ behind them.With these they quickly constructed a brush fence in the form of awing, running parallel to the cliff and making a chute which openedinto the river.
Then with a great braying and bleating a huddle of sheep movedunwillingly along it, led by bold goats with crooked horns andresolute beards, and pushed forward by that same reckless rider on hisblack mule, assisted by a horde of shouting Mexicans. But at the touchof the cold water, two days from the snow beds of the White Mountains,even the hardy bucks stepped back and shook their heads defiantly. Invain with showers of rocks and flapping tarpaulins the herders stormedthe rear of the press--every foot was set against them and the sheeponly rushed about along the edge of the herd or crowded inclose-wedged masses against the bluff. At last a line of men leapedinto the enclosure, holding up a long canvas wagon-cover and,encircling the first section of the leaders, shoved them by main forceinto the river.
Instantly the goats took water, swimming free, and below them the manon the black mule shouted and waved his broad Texas hat, heading themacross the stream. But the timid sheep turned back behind him, landingbelow the fence against all opposition, and the babel of their brayingrose higher and higher, as if in protest against their unlucky fate.Again and again the herders, stripped to their underclothes, pushedthe unwilling sheep into the current, wading out to their chins tokeep them headed across; each time the sodden creatures evaded themand, drifting with the current, landed far below on the same side,whence they rushed back to join their fellows.
Upon the opposite shore the goats stood shivering, watching thestruggle with yellow, staring eyes which showed no trace of fear. Likebrave generals of a craven band they were alone in their hardihoodand, with their feet upon the promised land, were doomed either toproceed alone or return to their companions. So at last they did,plunging in suddenly, while the man on the mule spurred in below in avain effort to turn them back.
That night by the camp fire Hardy mentioned the man on a black mule.
"My old friend, Jasp Swope," explained Creede suavely, "brother ofJim, the feller I introduced you to. Sure, Jasp and I have had lo-ongtalks together--but he don't like me any more." He twisted his noseand made a face, as if to intimate that it was merely a childishsquabble, and Hardy said no more. He was growing wise.
The next morning, and the next, Jasper Swope made other attempts atthe crossing; and then, as the snow water from the high mountainsslipped by and the warm weather dried up by so much each littlestream, he was able at last to ford the diminished river. But first,with that indomitable energy which marked him at every move, hecleared a passage along the base of the cliff to a place where theearth-covered moraine broke off at the edge of the water. Here a broadledge shot down to the river like a toboggan slide, with a six-footjump off at the bottom.
Once on this chute, with the strong tug of the canvas wagon-coversbehind, there was nothing for the sheep to do but to take the plunge,and as his brawny herders tumbled them head over heels into the deepcurrent Swope and his helpers waded out in a line below, shunting eachewe and wading toward the farther shore. There on the edge of thesand spit they huddled in a bunch, gathering about the hardier bucksand serving as a lure for those that followed. As cut after cut wasforced into the stream a long row of bobbing heads stretched clearacross the river, each animal striving desperately to gain theopposite bank and landing, spent and puffing, far below. A Mexican boyat intervals drove these strays up the shore to the big bunch and thenconcealed himself in the bushes lest by his presence he turn sometimid swimmer back and the whirlpool increase its toll. So theycrossed them in two herds, the wethers first, and then the ewes andlambs--and all the little lambs that could not stem the stream werefloated across in broad pieces of tarpaulin whose edges were held upby wading men.
From Lookout Point it was a majestic spectacle, the high c
liffs, thesilvery river gliding noiselessly out from its black canyon, the whitemasses of sheep, clustering on either side of the water--and as thework went ahead merrily the Mexicans, their naked bodies gleaming likepolished bronze in the ardent sun, broke into a wild refrain, a lovesong, perhaps, or a _cancion_ of old Mexico. Working side by side withhis men Jasper Swope joined in the song himself, and as they returnedempty-handed he seized the tallest and strongest of them and duckedhim in the water while his retainers roared with laughter. And Hardy,sitting unnoticed upon his horse, began to understand why theselow-browed barbarians from Mexico were willing to fight, and if needbe to die, for their masters. The age of feudalism had returned--thelords of the sheep went forth like barons, sharing every hardship andleading the way in danger, and their men followed with the sameunthinking devotion that the Myrmidons showed for noble Achilles orthe Crusaders for their white-crossed knights.
Upon this and many other feats Hardy had ample leisure to meditate,for the sheepmen regarded him no more than if he had been a monumentplaced high upon the point to give witness to their victory. As thesheep crossed they were even allowed to straggle out along the slopesof the forbidden mesa, untended by their shepherds; and if the upperrange was the special reserve of the cowmen the sheep owners showed noknowledge of the fact. For two days the grazing herd crept slowlyalong the mesquite-covered flat toward Lookout Point, and on the thirdmorning they boiled up over the rocks and spewed down into the valleyof the Alamo.
"Well," observed Creede, as he watched the slow creeping of the flock,"here's where I have to quit you, Rufe. In a week this ground aroundhere will be as level as a billiard table and they won't be enoughhorse feed in the valley to keep a burro. The town herd pulls out forBender this mornin' and the rest of us will move up to CarrizoCreek."
He hurried away to oversee the packing, but when all was ready hewaved the boys ahead and returned to the conversation.
"As I was sayin' a while ago, you won't see nothin' but sheep aroundhere now for the next two weeks--and all I want to say is, keep 'emout of the pasture, and f'r God's sake don't let 'em corral in thebrandin' pens! They're dirty enough already, but if you git about sixinches of sheep manure in there and then mill a few hundred head ofcattle around on top of it, the dust would choke a skunk. Our cowsain't so over-particular about that sheep smell, but if we poorcowboys has got to breathe sheep and eat sheep and spit up sheep everytime we brand, it's crowdin' hospitality pretty strong. But if theywant grub or clothes or tabac, go to it--and see if you can't keep 'emoff the upper range."
He paused and gazed at Hardy with eyes which suggested a world ofadvice and warning--then, leaving it all unsaid, he turned wearilyaway.
"I look to find you with a sprained wrist," he drawled, "when I comeback--throwin' flapjacks for them sheepmen!" He made the quick motionof turning a pancake in midair, smiled grimly, and galloped after thelong line of horses and packs that was stringing along up the BroncoMesa trail. And, having a premonition of coming company, Hardy went inby the fireplace and put on a big kettle of beef. He was picking overanother mess of beans when he heard the clatter of hoofs outside andthe next moment the door was kicked violently open.
It was Jasper Swope who stood on the threshold, his high Texas hatthrust far back upon his head--and if he felt any surprise at findingthe house occupied he gave no expression to it.
"Hello, there!" he exclaimed. "I thought you folks was all gone!"
"Nope," replied Hardy, and continued his work in silence.
"Cookin' for the outfit?" queried Swope, edging in at the door.
"Nope," replied Hardy.
"Well, who the hell air ye cookin' fer then?" demanded Swope, drawingnearer. "'Scuse me if I pry into this matter, but I'm gittin'interested." He paused and showed a jagged set of teeth beneath hisbristling red mustache, sneeringly.
"Well, I'll tell you," answered Hardy easily. "I thought some whiteman might come along later and I'd ask him to dinner." He fixed hiseyes upon the sheepman with an instant's disapproval and then resumedhis cookery. As for Swope, his gray eyes flashed sudden fire frombeneath bushy eyebrows, and then a canny smile crept across his lips.
"I used to be a white man, myself," he said, "before I lost my soap.What's the chance to git a bite of that bymeby?" He threw his hand outtoward the pot of beef, which was sending out odors of a rich broth,flavored with onions and chili.
Hardy looked at him again, little shrimp of a man that he was, andstill with disapproval.
"D'ye call that a white man's way of entering another man's house?" heinquired pointedly.
"Well," temporized Swope, and then he stopped. "A man in my line ofbusiness gits in a hurry once in a while," he said lamely. "But I'mhungry, all right," he remarked, _sotto voce_.
"Yes," said Hardy, "I've noticed it. But here--sit down and eat."
The sheepman accepted the dish of beef, dipped out a spoonful ofbeans, broke off a slab of bread, and began his meal forthwith,meanwhile looking at Hardy curiously.
"What's that you say you've noticed?" he inquired, and a quizzicalsmile lurked beneath his dripping mustache as he reached over andhefted the coffeepot.
"I've noticed," replied Hardy, "that you sheepmen get in a hurry oncein a while. You can't stop to knock on a door so you kick it open;can't stop to go around a ranch, so you go through it, and so on."
"Ah," observed Swope slyly, "so that's what's bitin' you, eh? I reckonyou must be that new superintendent that Jim was tellin' about."
"That's right," admitted Hardy, "and you're Mr. Swope, of course.Well, I'll say this for you, Mr. Swope, you certainly know how to getsheep across a river. But when it comes to getting along with cowmen,"he added, as the sheepman grinned his self-approval, "you don't seemto stack up very high."
"Oh, I don't, hey?" demanded Swope defiantly. "Well, how about thecowmen? Your friend Creede gets along with sheepmen like a houseafire, don't he? Him and a bunch of his punchers jumped on one of myherders last Fall and dam' nigh beat him to death. Did you ever hearof a sheepman jumpin' on a cowboy? No, by Gad, and you never will! Wecarry arms to protect ourselves, but we never make no trouble."
He paused and combed the coffee grounds out of his heavy red mustachewith fingers that were hooked like an eagle's talons from clutching atsheep in the cold water.
"I don't doubt, Mr. Superintendent," he said, with sinisterdirectness, "that these cowmen have filled you up about what bad_hombres_ we are--and of course it ain't no use to say nothin'now--but I jest want to tell you one thing, and I want you to rememberit if any trouble should come up; we sheepmen have never gone beyondour legal rights, and we've got the law behind us. The laws of theUnited States and the statutes of this Territory guarantee us theright to graze our sheep on public lands and to go where we dam'please--and we'll go, too, you can bank on that."
He added this last with an assurance which left no doubt as to hisintentions, and Hardy made no reply. His whole mind seemed centred ona handful of beans from which he was picking out the rocks and littlelumps of clay which help to make up full weight.
"Well!" challenged Swope, after waiting for his answer, "ain't thatstraight?"
"Sure," said Hardy absently.
Swope glared at him for a moment disapprovingly.
"Huh, you're a hell of a cowman," he grunted. "What ye goin' to doabout it?"
"About what?" inquired Hardy innocently.
"Aw, you know," replied Swope impatiently. "How about that upperrange?" He shoved back his chair as he spoke, and his eyes lit up inanticipation of the battle.
"Well," responded Hardy judicially, "if you've got the legal right togo up there, and if you're goin' where you dam' please, anyhow, itdon't look like I could do anything." He paused and smiled patientlyat the sheepman.
"You know very well, Mr. Swope," he said, "that if you want to go upon that mesa and sheep off the feed we haven't got any legal means ofpreventing you. But you know, too, that there isn't more than enoughfeed for what cows the boys have left. If you want
to go up there,that's your privilege--and if you want to go out over The Rolls,that's all right, too."
"Of course you don't give a dam'!" said Swope satirically.
"I guess you know how I feel, all right," returned Hardy, and then helapsed into silence, while Swope picked his teeth and thought.
"Where'd you come from?" he said at last, as if, forgetting all thathad passed, his mind had come back from a far country, unbiassed bythe facts.
"Over the mountains," replied Hardy, jerking his thumb toward theeast.
"Don't have no sheep over there, do they?" inquired Swope.
"Nope, nothing but cattle and horses."
"Ump!" grunted the sheepman, and then, as if the matter was settledthereby, he said: "All right, pardner, bein' as you put it that way, Ireckon I'll go around."
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