by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER 11. A MOVING CHAPTER IN EVENTS
Having nothing more than a general warning of trouble ahead to disturbhim, Andy rode blithely back down the coulee and met the herd just aftersunrise. Dreams of Miss Allen had left a pleasant mood behind them,though the dreams themselves withdrew behind the veil of forgetfulnesswhen he awoke. He wondered what her first name was. He wondered how farIrish's acquaintance with her had progressed, but he did not worry muchabout Irish. Having represented himself to be an exceedingly dangerousman, and having permitted himself to be persuaded into promisingreform and a calm demeanor--for her sake--he felt tolerably sure of herinterest in him. He had heard that a woman loves best the taming of adangerous man, and he whistled and sang and smiled until the dust of thecoming herd met him full. Since he felt perfectly sure of the result, hehoped that Florence Grace Hallman would start something, just so that hemight show Miss Allen how potent was her influence over a bad, bad manwho still has virtues worth nurturing carefully.
Weary, riding point on the loitering herd, grinned a wordless greeting.Andy passed with a casual wave of his hand and took his place on theleft flank. From his face Weary guessed that all was well with theclaims, and the assurance served to lighten his spirits. Soon he heardAndy singing at the top of his voice, and his own thoughts fell intoaccord with the words of the ditty. He began to sing also, wheneverhe knew the words. Farther back, Pink took it up, and then the othersjoined in, until all unconsciously they had turned the monotonous driveinto a triumphal march.
"They're a little bit rough I must confess, the most of them at least,"prompted Andy, starting on the second verse alone because the othersdidn't know the song as well as he. He waited a second for them to joinhim, and went on extolling the valor of all true cowboys:
"But long's you do not cross their trail you can live with them at peace.
"But if you do they're sure to rule, the day you come to their land,
"For they'll follow you up and shoot it out, and do it man to man."
"Say, Weary! They tell me Florence Grace is sure hittin' the warpost!Ain't yuh scared?"
Weary shook his head and rode forward to ease the leaders into a narrowgulch that would cut off a mile or so of the journey.
"Taking 'em up One Man?" called Pink, and got a nod for answer. Therewas a lull in the singing while they shouted and swore at these stubborncows who would have tried to break back on the way to a clover patch,until the gulch broadened into an arm of One Man Coulee itself. It wasall peaceful and easy and just as they had planned. The morning was cooland the cattle contented. They were nearing their claims, and all thatwould remain for them to do was the holding of their herd upon theappointed grazing ground. So would the requirements of the law befulfilled and the machinations of the Syndicate be thwarted and the landsaved to the Flying U, all in one.
And then the leaders, climbing the hill at a point half a mile belowAndy's cabin, balked, snorted and swung back. Weary spurred up to pushthem forward, and so did Andy and Pink. They rode up over the ridgeshouting and urging the reluctant cattle ahead, and came plump into thevery dooryard of a brand new shack. A man was standing in the doorwaywatching the disturbance his presence had created; when he saw the threeriders come bulging up over the crest of the bluff, his eyes widened.
The three came to a stop before him, too astonished to do more thanstare. Once past the fancied menace of the new building and the man, thecattle went trotting awkwardly across the level, their calves gallopingalongside.
"Hello," said Weary at last, "what do you think you're doing here?"
"Me? I'm holding down a claim. What are you doing?" The man did not seemantagonistic or friendly or even neutral toward them. He seemed to bewaiting. He eyed the cattle that kept coming, urged on by those whoshouted at them in the coulee below. He watched them spread out and gotrotting away after the leaders.
"Say, when did yuh take this claim?" Andy leaned negligently forward andlooked at him curiously.
"Oh, a week or so ago. Why?"
"I just wondered. I took it up myself, four weeks ago. Four forties I'vegot, strung out in a line that runs from here to yonder. You've got overon my land--by mistake, of course. I just thought I'd tell yuh," he addedcasually, straightening up, "because I didn't think you knew it before."
"Thanks." The man smiled one-sidedly and began filling a pipe while hewatched them.
"A-course it won't be much trouble to move your shack," Andy continuedwith neighborly interest. "A wheelbarrow will take it, easy. Back hereon the bench a mile or so, yuh may find a patch of ground that nobodyclaims."
"Thanks." The man picked a match from his pocket and striking it on thenew yellow door-casing lighted his pipe.
Andy moved uneasily. He did not like that man, for all he appeared sothankful for information. The fellow had a narrow forehead and broad,high cheek bones and a predatory nose. His eyes were the wrong shade ofblue and the lids drooped too much at the outer corners. Andy studiedhim curiously. Did the man know what he was up against, or did he not?Was he sincere in his ready thanks, or was he sarcastic? The man lookedup at him then. His eyes were clean of any hidden meaning, but theywere the wrong shade of blue--the shade that is opaque and that you feelhides much that should be revealed to you.
"Seems like there's been quite a crop of shacks grown up since I rodeover this way," Weary announced suddenly, returning from a brief scurryafter the leaders, that inclined too much toward the south in theirtravel.
"Yes, the country's settling up pretty fast," conceded the man in thedoorway.
"Well, by golly!" bellowed Slim, popping up from below on a heavinghorse. Slim was getting fatter every year, and his horses alwayspuffed when they climbed a hill under his weight. His round eyes glaredresentfully at the man and the shack and at the three who were sittingthere so quietly on their horses--just as if they had ridden up for afriendly call. "Ain't this shack on your land?" he spluttered to Andy.
"Why, yes. It is, just right at present." Andy admitted, following theman's example in the matter of a smoke, except that Andy rolled andlighted a cigarette. "He's going to move it, though."
"Oh. Thanks." With the one-sided smile.
"Say, you needn't thank ME," Andy protested in his polite tone. "YOU'REgoing to move it, you know."
"You may know, but I don't," corrected the other.
"Oh, that's all right. You may not know right now, but don't let thatworry yuh. This is sure a great country for pilgrims to wise up in."
Big Medicine came up over the hill a hundred feet or so from them;goggled a minute at the bold trespass and came loping across theintervening space. "Say, by cripes, what's this mean?" he bawled."Claim-jumper, hey? Say, young feller, do you realize what you'redoing--squattin' down on another man's land. Don't yuh knowclaim-jumpers git shot, out here? Or lynched?"
"Oh, cut out all that rough stuff!" advised the man wearily. "I know whoyou are, and what your bluff is worth. I know you can't held a foot ofland if anybody is a mind to contest your claims. I've filed a conteston this eighty, here, and I'm going to hold it. Let that soak into yourminds. I don't want any trouble--I'm even willing to take a good dealin the way of bluster, rather than have trouble. But I'm going to stay.See?" He waved his pipe in a gesture of finality and continued tosmoke and to watch them impersonally, leaning against the door in thatlounging negligence which is so irritating to a disputant.
"Oh, all right--if that's the way you feel about it," Andy repliedindifferently, and turned away. "Come on, boys--no use trying to bluffthat gazabo. He's wise."
He rode away with his face turned over his shoulder to see if the otherswere going to follow. When he was past the corner and therefore out ofthe man's sight, he raised his arm and beckoned to them imperatively,with a jerk of his head to add insistence. The four of them looked afterhim uncertainly. Weary kicked his horse and started, then Pink didthe same. Andy beckoned again, more emphatically than before, and BigMedicine, who loved a fight as he loved to win a jackpot,
turnedand glared at the man in the doorway as he passed. Slim was rumblingby-golly ultimatums in his fat chest when he came up.
"Pink, you go on back and put the boys next, when they come up with thedrag they won't do anything much but hand out a few remarks and rideon." Andy said, in the tone of one who knows exactly what he meansto do. "This is my claim-jumper. Chances are I've got three more tohandle--or will have. Nothing like starting off right. Tell the boysjust rag the fellow a little and ride on, like we did. Get the cattle uphere and set Happy and Slim day-herding and the rest of us'll get busy."
"You wouldn't tell for a dollar, would yuh?" Pi asked him with hisdimples showing.
"I've got to think it out first," Andy evaded, "feel all the symptoms ofan idea. You let me alone a while."
"Say, yuh going to tell him he's been found out and yuh know his past,"began Slim, "like yuh done Dunk? I'll bet, by golly--"
"Go on off and lay down!" Andy retorted pettishly. "I never worked thesame one off on you twice, did I? Think I'm getting feeble-minded? Itain't hard to put his nibs on the run--that's dead easy. Trouble is Iwent and hobbled myself. I promised a lady I'd be mild."
"Mamma!" muttered Weary, his sunny eyes taking in the shack-dottedhorizon. "Mild!--and all these jumpers on our hands!"
"Oh, well--there's more'n one way to kill a cat," Andy reminded themcheerfully. "You go on back and post the boys, Pink, not to get tooriled."
He galloped off and left them to say and think what they pleased. He wasnot uneasy over their following his advice or waiting for his plan. ForAndy Green had risen rapidly to a tacit leadership, since first hetold them of the coming colony. From being the official Ananias of theoutfit, king of all joke-makers, chief irritator of the bunch, whoselightest word was suspected of hiding some deep meaning and whosemost innocent action was analysed, he had come to the point wherethey listened to him and depended upon him to see a way out ofevery difficulty. They would depend upon him now; of that he wassure--therefore they would wait for his plan.
Strange as it may seem, the Happy Family had not seriously consideredthe possibility of having their claims "jumped" so long as they keptvalid their legal residence. They had thought that they would be watchedand accused of collusion with the Flying U, and they intended to beextremely careful. They meant to stay upon their claims at least sevenmonths in the year, which the law required. They meant to have everyblade of grass eaten by their own cattle, which would be counted asimproving their claims. They meant to give a homelike air of permanencyto their dwellings. They had already talked over a tentative planof bringing water to their desert claims, and had ridden over thebench-land for two days, with the plat at hand for reference, that theymight be sure of choosing their claims wisely. They had prepared forevery contingency save the one that had arisen--which is a commonexperience with us all. They had not expected that their claims wouldbe jumped and contests filed so early in the game, as long as theymaintained their residence.
However, Andy was not dismayed at the turn of events. It was stimulatingto the imagination to be brought face to face with an emergency such asthis, and to feel that one must handle it with strength and diplomacyand a mildness of procedure that would find favor in the eyes of a girl.
He looked across the waving grass to where the four roomed shack wasbuilt upon the four corners of four "eighties" so that four women mightlive together and yet be said to live upon their own claims. That wasdrawing the line pretty fine, of course; finer than the Happy Familywould have dared to draw it. But no one would raise any objection, onaccount of their being women and timid about living alone. Andy smiledsympathetically because the four conjunctive corners of the four claimshappened to lie upon a bald pinnacle bare of grass or shelter or water,even. The shack stood bleakly revealed to the four winds--but also itover looked the benchland and the rolling, half-barren land to thewest, which comprised Antelope Coulee and Dry Coulee and several othergood-for-nothing coulees capable of supporting nothing but coyotes andprairie dogs and gophers.
A mile that way Andy rode, and stopped upon the steep side of a gulchwhich was an arm of Antelope Coulee. He looked down into the gulch,searched with his eyes for the stake that marked the southeast corner ofthe eighty lying off in this direction from the shack, and finally sawit fifty yards away on a bald patch of adobe.
He resisted the temptation to ride over and call upon Miss Allen--theresistance made easier by the hour, which was eight o'clock orthereabouts--and rode back to the others very well satisfied withhimself and his plan.
He found the whole Happy Family gathered upon the level land justover his west line, extolling resentment while they waited his coming.Grinning, he told them his plan, and set them grinning also. He gavethem certain work to be done, and watched them scatter to do hisbidding. Then he turned and rode away upon business of his own.
The claim-jumper, watching the bench land through a pair of fieldglasses, saw a herd of cows and calves scattered and feeding contentedlyupon the young grass a mile or so away. Two men on horseback loiteredupon the outer fringe of the herd. From a distance hilltop came thestaccato sound of hammers where an other shack was going up. Cloudshadows slid silently over the land, with bright sunlight chasing after.Of the other horsemen who had come up the bluff with the cattle, he sawnot a sign. So the man yawned and went in to his breakfast.
Many times that day he stood at the corner of his shack with the glassessweeping the bench-land. Toward noon the cattle drifted into a couleewhere there was water. In a couple of hours they drifted leisurelyback upon high ground and scattered to their feeding, still watched andtended by the two horsemen who looked the most harmless of individuals.One was fat and red-faced and spent at least half of his time lyingprone upon some slope in the shade of his horse. The other was thinand awkward, and slouched in the saddle or sat upon the ground with hisknees drawn up and his arms clasped loosely around them, a cigarettedangling upon his lower lip, himself the picture of boredom.
There was nothing whatever to indicate that events were breeding in thatpeaceful scene, and that adventure was creeping close upon the watcher.He went in from his fourth or fifth inspection, and took a nap.
That night he was awakened by a pounding on the side of the shack wherewas his window. By the time he had reached the middle of the floor--andyou could count the time in seconds--a similar pounding was at the door.He tried to open the door and couldn't. He went to the window and couldsee nothing, although the night had not been dark when he went tobed. He shouted, and there was no reply; nor could he hear any talkingwithout. His name, by the way, was H. J. Owens, though his name does notmatter except for convenience in mentioning him. Owens, then, lighted alamp, and almost instantly was forced to reach out quickly and save itfrom toppling, because one corner of the shack was lifting, lifting...
Outside, the Happy Family worked in silence. Before they had left OneMan Coulee they had known exactly what they were to do, and how to doit. They knew who was to nail the hastily constructed shutter over thewindow. They knew who was to fasten the door so that it could not beopened from within. They knew also who were to use the crow-bars, whowere to roll the skids under the shack.
There were twelve of them--because Bert Rogers had insisted uponhelping. In not many more minutes than there were men, they were intheir saddles, ready to start. The shack lurched forward after thestraining horses. Once it was fairly started it moved more easily thanyou might think it could do, upon crude runners made of cottonwood logseight inches or so in diameter and long enough for cross pieces boltedin front and rear. The horses pulled it easily with the ropes tied tothe saddle-horns, just as they had many times pulled the roundup wagonsacross mirey creeks or up steep slopes; just as they had many timespulled stubborn cattle or dead cattle--just as they had been trainedto pull anything and everything their masters chose to attach to theirropes.
Within, Owens called to them and cursed them. When they had just gainedan even pace, he emptied his revolver through the four sides of theshack. But
he did not know where they were, exactly, so that he wascompelled to shoot at random. And since the five shots seemed to haveno effect whatever upon the steady progress of the shack, he decided towait until he could see where to aim. There was no use, he reflected,in wasting good ammunition when there was a strong probability that hewould need it later.
After a half hour or more of continuous travel, the shack tilted on asteep descent. H. J. Owens blew out his lamp and swore when a box camesliding against his shins in the dark. The descent continued until itwas stopped with a jolt that made him bite his tongue painfully, so thattears came into the eyes that were the wrong shade of blue to pleaseAndy Green. He heard a laugh cut short and a muttered command, and thatwas all. The shack heaved, toppled, righted itself and went on down, anddown, and down; jerked sidewise to the left, went forward and then swungjoltingly the other way. When finally it came to a permanent stand itwas sitting with an almost level floor.
Then the four corners heaved upward, two at a time, and settled with afinal squeal of twisted boards and nails. There was a sound of confusedtrampling, and after that the lessening sounds of departure. Mr. Owenstried the door again, and found it still fast. He relighted the lamp,carried it to the window and looked upon rough boards outside the glass.He meditated anxiously and decided to remain quiet until daylight.
The Happy Family worked hard, that night. Before daylight they were intheir beds and snoring except the two who guarded the cattle. Each wasin his own cabin. His horse was in his corral, smooth-coated and dry.There was nothing to tell of the night's happenings,--nothing except thesatisfied grins on their faces when they woke and remembered.