by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER 13. IRISH WORKS FOR THE CAUSE
Big Medicine with Weary and Chip to bear him company, rode up to theshack nearest his own, which had been hastily built by a raw-boned Danewho might be called truly Americanized. Big Medicine did not waste timein superfluities or in making threats of what he meant to do. He calledthe Dane to the door--claim-jumpers were keeping close to their cabins,these days--and told him that he was on another man's land, and askedhim if he meant to move.
"Sure I don't intend to move!" retorted the Dane with praiseworthypromptness. "I'm going to hold 'er down solid."
"Yuh hear what says, boys." Big Medicine turned to his companions "Heain't going to git off'n my land, he says. Weary, yuh better go tell thebunch I need'em."
Weary immediately departed. He was not gone so very long, and when hereturned the Happy Family was with him, even to Patsy who drove thewagon with all the ease of a veteran of many roundups. The Dane triedbluster, but that did not seem to work. Nothing seemed to work, exceptthe Happy Family.
There in broad daylight, with no more words than were needful, theymoved the Dane, and his shack. When they began to raise the building hewas so unwise as to flourish a gun, and thereby made it perfectly rightand lawful that Big Medicine should take the gun away from him and marchhim ahead of his own forty-five.
They took the shack directly past one of the trespassing signs, and BigMedicine stopped accommodatingly while the Dane was permitted toread the sign three times aloud. That the Dane did not seem trulyappreciative of the privilege was no fault of Big Medicine's, surely.They went on, skidding the little building sledlike over the unevenprairie. They took it down into Antelope Coulee and left it there, rightside up and with not even a pane of glass broken in the window.
"There, darn yuh, live there awhile!" Andy gritted to when the timberswere withdrawn from beneath the cabin and they were ready to leave. "Youcan't say we damaged your property--this time. Come back, and there's notelling what we're liable to do."
Since Big Medicine kept his gun, the Dane could do nothing but swearwhile he watched them ride up the hill and out of sight.
They made straight for the next interloper, remarking frequently that itwas much simpler and easier to do their moving in daylight. There theyhad an audience, for Florence Grace rode furiously up just as they weregetting under way. The Happy Family spoke very nicely to Florence Grace,and when she spoke very sharply to them they were discreetly hard ofhearing and became absorbed in their work.
Several settlers came before that shack was moved, but they only stoodaround and talked among themselves, and were careful not to get in theway or to hinder, and to lower their voices so that the Happy Familyneed not hear unless they chose to listen.
So they slid that shack into the coulee, righted it carefully and leftit there--where it would be exceedingly difficult to get it out, by theway; since it is much easier to drag a building down hill than up, andthe steeper the hill and the higher, the greater the difference.
They loaded the timbers into the wagon and methodically on to the nextshack, their audience increased to a couple of dozen perturbed settlers.The owner of this particular shack, feeling the strength of numbersbehind him, was disposed to argue the point.
"Oh, you'll sweat for this!" he shouted impotently when the Happy Familywas placing the timbers.
"Ah, git outa the way!" said Andy, coming toward him with a crowbar."We're sweating now, if that makes yuh feel any better."
The man got out of the way, and went and stood with the group ofonlookers, and talked vaguely of having the law on them--whatever hemeant by that.
By the time they had placed the third shack in the bottom of the coulee,the sun was setting. They dragged the timbers up the steep bluff withtheir ropes and their saddle-horses, loaded them on to the wagon andthrew the crowbars and rolling timbers in, and turned to look curiouslyand unashamed at their audience. Andy, still tacitly their leader, rodea few steps forward.
"That'll be all today," he announced politely. "Except that load oflumber back here on the bench where it don't belong--we aim to haul thatover the line. Seeing your considerable interest in our affairs, I'lljust say that we filed on our claims according to law, and we're livingon 'em according to law. Till somebody proves in court that we're not,there don't any shack, or any stock, stay on our side the line anylonger than it takes to get them off. There's the signs, folks--read 'emand take 'em to heart. You can go home now. The show's over."
He lifted his hat to the women--and there were several now--and wentaway to join his fellows, who had ridden on slowly till he mightovertake them. He found Happy Jack grumbling and predicting evil, asit was his nature to do, but he merely straightened his aching back andlaughed at the prophecies.
"As I told you before, there's more than one way to kill a cat," heasserted tritely but never the less impressively. "Nobody can saywe wasn't mild; and nobody can say we hadn't a right to get thosechickencoops off our land. If you ask me, Florence Grace will have togo some now if she gets the best of the deal. She overlooked a bet.We haven't been served with any contest notices yet, and so we ain'tobliged to take their say-so. Who's going to stand guard tonight? We'vegot to stand our regular shifts, if we want to keep ahead of the game.I'm willing to be It. I'd like to make sure they don't slip any stockacross before daylight."
"Say, it's lucky we've got a bunch of boneheads like them to handle,"Pink observed thankfully. "Would a bunch of natives have stood aroundlike that with their hands in their pockets and let us get away with themoving job? Not so you could notice!"
"What we'd better do," cut in the Native Son without any misleadingdrawl, "is try and rustle enough money to build that fence."
"That's right," assented Cal. "Maybe the Old Man--"
"We don't go to the Old Man for so much as a bacon rind!" cried theNative Son impatiently. "Get it into your systems, boys, that we'vegot to ride away around the Flying U. We ought to be able to build thatfence, all right, without help from anybody. Till we do we've got tohang and rattle, and keep that nester stock from getting past us. I'llstand guard till midnight."
A little more talk, and some bickering with Slim and Happy Jack, the twochronic kickers, served to knock together a fair working organization.Weary and Andy Green were informally chosen joint leaders, becauseWeary could be depended upon to furnish the mental ballast for Andy'simagination. Patsy was told that he would have to cook for the outfit,since he was too fat to ride. They suggested that he begin at, once, byknocking together some sort of supper. Moving houses, they declared, waswork. They frankly hoped that they would not have to move many more--andthey were very positive that they would not be compelled to move thesame shack twice, at any rate.
"Say, we'll have quite a collection of shacks down in Antelope Coulee ifwe keep on," Jack Bates reminded them. "Wonder where they'll get water?"
"Where's the rest of them going to get water?" Cal Emmett challenged thecrowd. "There's that spring the four women up here pack water from--butthat goes dry in August. And there's the creek--that goes dry too.On the dead, I feel sorry for the women--and so does Irish," he addeddryly.
Irish made an uncivil retort and swung suddenly away from the group."I'm going to ride into town, boys," he announced curtly. "I'll be backin the morning and go on day-herd."
"Maybe you will and maybe you won't," Weary amended somewhatimpatiently. "This is certainly a poor time for Irish to break out," headded, watching his double go galloping toward the town road.
"I betche he comes back full and tries to clean out all them nesters,"Happy Jack predicted. For once no one tried to combat his pessimism--forthat was exactly what every one of them believed would happen.
"He's stayed sober a long while--for him," sighed Weary, who never couldquite shake off a sense of responsibility for the moral defections ofhis kinsman. "Maybe I better go along and ride herd on him." Still, hedid not go, and Irish presently merged into the dusky distance.
As is often the case with a family's black
sheep, his intentions werethe best, even though they might have been considered unorthodox. Whilethe Happy Family took it for granted that he was gone because an oldthirst awoke within him, Irish was thinking only of the welfare ofthe outfit. He did not tell them, because he was the sort who does notprattle of his intentions, one way or the other. If he did what he meantto do there would be time enough to explain; if he failed there wasnothing to be said.
Irish had thought a good deal about the building of that fence, andabout the problem of paying for enough wire and posts to run the fencestraight through from Meeker's south line to the north line of theFlying U. He had figured the price of posts and the price of wire andhad come somewhere near the approximate cost of the undertaking. He wasnot at all sure that the Happy Family had faced the actual figures onthat proposition. They had remarked vaguely that it was going to costsome money. They had made casual remarks about being broke personallyand, so far as they knew, permanently.
Irish was hot-headed and impulsive to a degree. He was given tooccasional tumultuous sprees, during which he was to be handled withextreme care--or, better still, left entirely alone until the spell wasover. He looked almost exactly like Weary, and yet he was almost hisopposite in disposition. Weary was optimistic, peace-loving, steady asthe sun above him except for a little surface-bubbling of fun thatkept him sunny through storm and calm. You could walk all overWeary--figuratively speaking--before he would show resentment. You couldnot step very close to Irish without running the risk of consequences.That he should, under all that, have a streak of calculating,hard-headed business sense, did not occur to them.
They rode on, discussing the present situation and how best to meet it;the contingencies of the future, and how best to circumvent the activeantagonism of Florence Grace Hallman and the colony for which she stoodsponsor. They did not dream that Irish was giving his whole mind tosolving the problem of raising money to build that fence, but that isexactly what he was doing.
Some of you at least are going to object to his method. Some ofyou--those of you who live west of the big river--are going tounderstand his point of view, and you will recognize his method asbeing perfectly logical, simple, and altogether natural to a man of histemperament and manner of life. It is for you that I am going to relatehis experiences. Sheltered readers, readers who have never faced life inthe raw, readers who sit down on Sunday mornings with a mind purged ofworldly thoughts and commit to memory a "golden text" which they forgetbefore another Sunday morning, should skip the rest of this chapter forthe good of their morals. The rest is for you men who have kicked upalkali dust and afterwards washed out the memory in town; who have gonebroke between starlight and sun; who know the ways of punchers the Westover, and can at least sympathize with Irish in what he meant to do thatnight.
Irish had been easing down a corner of the last shack, with his backturned toward three men who stood looking on with the detached interestwhich proved they did not own this particular shack. One was H. J.Owens--I don't think you have met the others. Irish had not. He hadoverheard this scrap of conversation while he worked:
"Going to town tonight?"
"Guess so--I sure ain't going to hang out on this prairie any more thanI have to. You going?"
"Ye-es--I think I will. I hear there's been some pretty swift gamesgoing, the last night or two. A fellow in that last bunch Florencerounded up made quite a clean up last night."
"That so, let's go on in. This claim-holding gets my goat anyway. Idon't see where--"
That was all Irish heard, but that was enough.
Had he turned in time to catch the wink that one speaker gave to theother, and the sardonic grin that answered the lowered eyelid, he wouldhave had the scrap of conversation properly focused in his mind, andwould not have swallowed the bait as greedily as he did. But we all makemistakes. Irish made the mistake of underestimating the cunning of hisenemies.
So here he was, kicking up the dust on the town trail just as thosethree intended that he should do. But that he rode alone instead of inthe midst of his fellows was not what the three had intended; and thathe rode with the interest of his friends foremost in his mind was alsoan unforeseen element in the scheme.
Irish did not see H. J. Owens anywhere in town--nor did he see either ofthe two men who had stood behind him. But there was a poker game runningin Rusty Brown's back room, and Irish immediately sat in without furtherinvestigation. Bert Rogers was standing behind one of the players, andgave Irish a nod and a wink which may have had many meanings. Irishinterpreted it as encouragement to sail in and clean up the bunch.
There was money enough in sight to build that fence when he sat down.Irish pulled his hat farther over his eyebrows, rolled and lighted acigarette while he waited for that particular jackpot to be taken, andcovertly sized up the players.
Every one of them was strange to him. But then, the town was full ofstrangers since Florence Grace and her Syndicate began to reap a harvestoff the open country, so Irish merely studied the faces casually, as amatter of habit They were nesters, of course--real or prospective. Theyseemed to have plenty of money--and it was eminently fitting that theHappy Family's fence should be built with nester money.
Irish had in his pockets exactly eighteen dollars and fifty-cents. Hebought eighteen dollars' worth of chips and began to play. Privately hepreferred stud poker to draw, but he was not going to propose a change;he felt perfectly qualified to beat any three pilgrims that ever cameWest.
Four hands he played and lost four dollars. He drank a glass of beerthen, made himself another cigarette and settled down to business,feeling that he had but just begun. After the fifth hand he lookedup and caught again the eye of Bert Rogers. Bert pulled his eyebrowstogether in a warning look, and Irish thought better of staying thathand. He did not look at Bert after that, but he did watch the otherplayers more closely.
After awhile Bert wandered away, his interest dulling when he sawthat Irish was holding his own and a little better. Irish played on,conservative to such a degree that in two hours he had not won more thanfifteen dollars. The Happy Family would have been surprised to see himlay down kings and refuse to draw to them which he did once, with agesture of disgust that flipped them face up so that all could see.He turned them over immediately, but the three had seen that this tallstranger, who had all the earmarks of a cowpuncher, would not draw tokings but must have something better before he would stay.
So they played until the crowd thinned; until Irish, by betting safelyand sticking to a caution that must have cost him a good deal in the wayof self-restraint, had sixty dollars' worth of chips piled in front ofhim.
Some men, playing for a definite purpose, would have quit at that. Irishdid not quit, however. He wanted a certain sum from these nesters. Hehad come to town expecting to win a certain sum from them. Heintended to play until he got it or went broke. He was not using anytrickery--and he had stopped one man in the middle of a deal, with acertain look in his eye remarking that he'd rather have the top cardthan the bottom one, so that he was satisfied they were not trying tocheat.
There came a deal when Irish looked at his cards, sent a slanting lookat the others and laid down his five cards with a long breath. He raisedthe ante four blue ones and rolled and lit a cigarette while the threehad drawn what cards they thought they needed. The man at Irish'sleft had drawn only one card. Now he hesitated and then bet with someassurance. Irish smoked imperturbably while the other two came in, andthen he raised the bet three stacks of blues. His neighbor raised himone stack, and the next man hesitated and then laid down his cards. Thethird man meditated for a minute and raised the bet ten dollars. Irishblew forth a leisurely smoke wreath and with a sweep of his hand sent inall his chips.
There was a silent minute, wherein Irish smoked and drummed absentlyupon the table with his fingers that were free. His neighbor frowned,grunted and threw down his hand. The third man did the same. Irish madeanother sweep of his hand and raked the table clean of chips.
"That'll do for t
onight," he remarked dryly. "I don't like to be a hog."
Had that ended the incident, sensitive readers might still read andthink well of Irish. But one of the players was not quite sober, and hewas a poor loser and a pugnacious individual anyway, with a squareface and a thick neck that went straight up to the top of his head. Hisunderlip pushed out, and when Irish turned away, to cash in his chips,this pugnacious one reached over and took a look at the cards Irish hadheld.
It certainly was as rotten a hand as a man could hold. Suits all mixed,and not a face card or a pair in the lot. The pugnacious player hadheld a king high straight, and he had stayed until Irish sent in all hischips. He gave a bellow and jumped up and hit Irish a glancing blow backof the ear. Let us not go into details. You know Irish--or you shouldknow him by this time. A man who will get away with a bluff likethat should be left alone or brained in the beginning of thefight--especially when he can look down on the hair of a six-foot man,and has muscles hardened by outdoor living. When the dust settled, twochairs were broken and some glasses swept off the bar by heaving bodies,and two of the three players had forgotten their troubles. The third wastrying to find the knob on the back door, and could not because of thebuzzing in his head and the blood in his eyes. Irish had welts and twobroken knuckles and a clear conscience, and he was so mad he almostwound up by thrashing Rusty, who had stayed behind the bar and takenno hand in the fight. Rusty complained because of the damage to hisproperty, and Irish, being the only one present in a condition tolisten, took the complaint as a personal insult.
He counted his money to make sure he had it all, evened the edges of thepackage of bank notes and thrust the package into his pocket. If Rustyhad kept his face closed about those few glasses and those chairs, hewould have left a "bill" on the bar to pay for them, even though he didneed every cent of that money. He told Rusty this, and he accused him ofstanding in with the nesters and turning down the men who had helped himmake money' all these years.
"Why, darn your soul, I've spent money enough over this bar to buy outthe whole damn joint, and you know it!" he cried indignantly. "If youthink you've got to collect damages, take it outa these blinkety-blinkpilgrims you think so much of. Speak to 'em pleasant, though, or you'reliable to lose the price of a beer, maybe! They'll never bring you themoney we've brought you, you--"
"They won't because you've likely killed 'em both," Rusty retortedangrily. "You want to remember you can't come into town and rip thingsup the back the way you used to, and nobody say a word. You betterdrift, before that feller that went out comes back with an officer. Youcan't--"
"Officer be damned!" retorted Irish, unawed.
He went out while Rusty was deciding to order him out, and started forthe stable. Halfway there he ducked into the shadow of the blacksmithshop and watched two men go up the street to Rusty's place, walkingquickly. He went on then, got his horse hurriedly without waiting tocinch the saddle, led him behind the blacksmith shop where he wouldnot be likely to be found, and tied him there to the wreck of a freightwagon.
Then he went across lots to where Fred Wilson, manager of the generalstore, slept in a two-room shack belonging to the hotel. The door waslocked--Fred being a small man with little trust in Providence or inhis overt physical prowess--and so he rapped cautiously upon the windowuntil Fred awoke and wanted to know who in thunder was there.
Irish told his name, and presently went inside. "I'm pulling outa town,Fred," he explained, "and I don't know when I'll be in again. So I wantyou to take an order for some posts and bob wire and steeples. I--"
"Why didn't you come to the store?" Fred very naturally demanded,peevish at being wakened at three o'clock in the morning. "I saw you intown when I closed up."
"I was busy. Crawl back into bed and cover up, while I give you theorder. I'll want a receipt for the money, too--I'm paying in advance,so you won't have any excuse for holding up the order. Got any thing towrite on?"
Fred found part of an order pad and a pencil, and crept shivering intohis bed. The offer to pay in advance had silenced his grumbling, asIrish expected it would. So Irish gave the order--thirteen hundred cedarposts, I remember--I don't know just how much wire, but all he wouldneed.
"Holy Macintosh! Is this for YOU?" Fred wanted to know as he wrote itdown.
"Some of it. We're fencing our claims. If I don't come after the stuffmyself, let any of the boys have it that shows up. And get it here asquick as you can--what you ain't got on hand--"
Fred was scratching his jaw meditatively with the pencil, and staringat the order. "I can just about fill that order outa stock on hand," hetold Irish. "When all this land rush started I laid in a big supply ofposts and wire. First thing they'd want, after they got their shacks up.How you making it, out there?"
"Fine," said Irish cheerfully, feeling his broken knuckles. "How much isall that going to cost? You oughta make us a rate on it, seeing it's acash sale, and big."
"I will." Fred tore out a sheet and did some mysterious figuring,afterwards crumpling the paper into a little wad and hipping it behindthe bed. "This has got to be on the quiet, Irish. I can't sell wire andposts to those eastern marks at this rate, you know. This is just foryou boys--and the profit for us is trimmed right down to a whisper." Henamed the sum total with the air of one who confers a great favor.
Irish grinned and reached into his pocket. "You musta knocked yourprofit down to fifty percent.," he fleered. "But it's a go with me." Hepeeled off the whole roll, just about. He had two twenties left inhis hand when he stopped. He was very methodical that night. He took areceipt for the money before he left and he looked at it with glisteningeyes before he folded it with the money. "Don't sell any posts and wiretill our order's filled, Fred," he warned. "We'll begin hauling rightaway, and we'll want it all."
He let himself out into the cool starlight, walked in the shadows towhere he had left his horse, mounted and rode whistling away down thelane which ended where the hills began.