Claim Number One

by George W. Ogden

  CHAPTER V

  SKULKERS

  There remained but one day until chance should settle the aspirations ofthe dusty thousands who waited in Comanche; one day more would see ClaimNumber One allotted for selection to some more or less worthy Americancitizen.

  The young man, Walker, had been received on a footing of fellowship intothe commune of the circus-tent. He said that he had concluded happilythe arrangements for the purchase of the sheep-ranch, and that heintended to go and take possession of it in a few days. Meantime, heappeared to be considerably shot up over June. In spite of Mrs. Reed'sfrowns, he hung around her like a hornet after a soft pear.

  There was considerable excitement in the camp of the communists thatmorning, owing to preparations which were going forward for an excursionover the land where somebody's Number One lay shrouded in greengreasewood and gray sage. For this important occasion Walker had engagedthe most notable stage-driver in that part of the country, whose turn itwas that day to lie over from the run between Comanche and Meander.

  The party was to use his stage also, and carry lunch along, and make agrand day of it along the river, trying for trout if conditions heldfavorable. Smith was the name of the driver.

  Smith was smiling like a baker as he drove up, for Smith could notbehold ladies without blushing and smiling. Smith had the reputation ofbeing a terror to holdup men. Also, the story was current in Comanchethat he had, in a bare-handed, single encounter with a bear, choked theanimal to death. There was some variance over the particulars as to thebreed of bear, its color, age, size, and weight. Some--and they were theunromantic, such as habitually lived in Wyoming and kept saloons--heldthat it was a black cub with a broken back; others that it was acinnamon bear with claws seven inches long; while the extremists wouldbe satisfied with nothing short of a grizzly which stood five feet fourat the shoulders and weighed eighteen hundred pounds!

  But, no matter what romance had done for Smith, it could not overdo hisancient, green vehicle, with the lettering,

  BIG HORN VALLEY

  along its side near the roof. It was a Concord stage, its bodyswinging on creaking straps. It had many a wound of arrowhead in itstough oak, and many a bullet-hole, all of which had been plugged withputty and painted over long years ago for the assurance and comfortof nervous passengers, to whom the evidence of conflict might have beendisturbing.

  Now that there was no longer any reason for concealment, the owners hadallowed the paint to crumble and the putty to fall away, baring theveteran's scars. These were so thick that it seemed a marvel thatanybody who took passage in it in those perilous days escaped. In asun-cracked and time-curled leather holster tacked to the seat atSmith's right hand, a large revolver with a prodigious black handle hungready for the disciplining of bandits or bears, as they might comeacross Smith's way.

  Smith rounded up before the tent with a curve like a skater, bringinghis four horses to a stop in fine style. No matter how Smith's partsmight be exaggerated by rumor or humor in other ways, as a teamster hestood without a peer between Cody and Green River. He leaped to theground with surprising agility and set himself about arranging theinterior of the coach for the accommodation of his passengers. He waschewing on something which might have been bear-meat or buckskin, fromits apparent tenacious and unyielding nature.

  Agnes Horton was to ride on the box with Smith, for she had a camera andwanted to catch some views. Smith grew so red over handing her up thatDr. Slavens began to fear lest he might take fire from internal heat andleave them with only the ashes of a driver on their hands. But they allgot placed without any such melancholy tragedy, with a great many criesof "Oh, Mr. Smith!" here, and "Oh, Mr. Smith!" there, and manyhead-puttings-out on the part of the ladies inside, and gallantries fromMr. Walker and Mr. Horace Bentley, the lawyer.

  William Bentley, the toolmaker, with the basket of lunch upon his knees,showered the blessing of his kindly smile upon them all, as if he heldthem to be only children. Mrs. Mann, her black bag on her arm, squeakeda little when the coach lurched on the start, knocking her head andthrowing her hat awry.

  Smith, proud of his load, and perhaps a little vain on account of somuch unusual loveliness at his side, swung down the main street with itsearly morning crowds. People waved at them the friendly signals of thehighroad of adventure, and June, in defiance of terrible eyebrows andadmonishing pokes, waved back at them, her wild hair running over hercheeks. So they set out in the bright morning to view the promisedland.

  They struck off down the Meander stage-road, which ran for the greaterpart of its way through the lands awaiting the disposition of chance.Mainly it followed the survey of the railroad, which was to be extendedto Meander, and along which men and teams were busy even then, throwingup the roadbed.

  To the north there was a rise of land, running up in benched gradationsto white and barren distant heights; behind them were brown hills. Faraway in the blue southwest--Smith said it was more than eightymiles--there stood the mountains with their clean robes of snow, whilescattered here and there about the vast plain through which they drove,were buttes of blue shale and red ledges, as symmetrical of side andsmooth of top as if they had been raised by the architects ofTenochtitlan for sacrifice to their ugly gods.

  "Old as Adam," said Smith, pointing to one gray monument whose summithad been pared smooth by the slow knife of some old glacier. The sidesof the butte looked almost gay in the morning light in their soft tonesof blue and red.

  "From appearances it might very well be," agreed Agnes.

  She looked at Smith and smiled. There was the glory of untrammeled spacein her clear eyes, a yearning as of the desert-born on the far bounds ofhome. Smith drove on, his back very straight.

  "Older," said he with laconic finality after holding his peace for aquarter of a mile.

  Smith spoke as if he had known both Adam and the butte for a long time,and so was an unquestionable authority. Agnes was not disposed todispute him, so they lurched on in silence along the dust-cushionedroad.

  "That ain't the one the Indian girl jumped off of, though," said Smith,meditatively.

  "Isn't it?"

  She turned to him quickly, ready for a story from the picturesquestrangler of bears. Smith was looking between the ears of theoff-leader. He volunteered no more.

  "Well, where is the one she jumped from?" she pressed.

  "Nowhere," said Smith.

  "Oh!" she said, a bit disappointed.

  "Everywhere I've went," said he, "they've got some high place where theIndian girl jumped off of. In Mezoury they've got one, and even inKansas. They've got one in Minnesota and Illinoy and Idaho, and bend myeyebrows if I know all the places they ain't got 'em! But don't younever let 'em take you in on no such yarns. Them yarns is for suckers."

  Somehow Agnes felt grateful toward Smith, whose charitable purposedoubtless was to prevent her being taken in. But she was sorry for thefine tradition and hated to give it up.

  "But _didn't_ one ever jump off a cliff or--anything?" she asked.

  Smith struck out with a free-arm swing and cracked his whip so loudlythat three female heads were at once protruded from the windows below.

  "What I want to know," said he argumentatively, "is, who seen 'emjump?"

  "I don't know," she admitted; "but I suppose they found their bodies."

  "Don't you believe it!" depreciated Smith. "Indian maidens ain't thejumpin' kind. I never seen one of 'em in my day that wouldn't throw downthe best feller she ever had for a red umbreller and a dime's worth ofstick candy."

  "I'm sorry for the nice stories your knowledge of the Indian characterspoils," she laughed.

  "The thing of it in this country is, miss, not to let 'em take you in,"Smith continued. "That's what they're out for--to take in suckers. Nomatter how wise you may be in some other place, right here in this spotyou may be a sucker. Do you git my words?"

  "I think so," she responded, "and thank you. I'll try to keep my eyesopen."

  "T
hey's places in this country," Smith went on, for he liked to talk aswell as the next one, once he got under way, "where you could put yourpocketbook down at the fork of the road with your card on top of it andgo back there next week and find it O. K. But they's other places whereif you had your money inside of three safes they'd git at it somehow.This is one of that kind of places."

  They had been dropping down a slope scattered with gray lava chunks andset with spiked soapweed, which let them to the river level. Ahead ofthem, twisted cottonwoods and red willows marked the brink of thestream.

  "This is the first bench," said Smith, "and it's mainly good land.Before the books was opened for registration the gover'ment give theIndians choice of a homestead apiece, and they picked off all this landdown here. Oh, well, on up the river they's a little left, and if I drawa low number I know where to put my hand on a piece."

  "It looks nice and green here," said she, admiring the featheryvegetation, which grew as tall as the stage along the roadway.

  "Yes, but you want to watch out for greasewood," advised Smith, "whenyou come to pick land in this country. It's a sign of alkali. Pick thatgray, dusty-lookin' stuff. That's sage, and where it grows big,anything'll grow when you git the water on it."

  "But how _do_ you get the water on this hilly land?" she asked.

  The question had been troubling her ever since she had taken her firstlook at the country, and nobody had come forward with a satisfactoryexplanation.

  "You got to go up the river till you strike your level," explainedSmith, "and then you tap it and take the water to your land."

  "But if you're on the 'third bench' that I hear them talking about somuch--then what do you do up there, a thousand or two feet above theriver?"

  "You go back where you come from if you're wise," said Smith.

  When they reached the section which, according to Smith, had not allbeen taken up by the Indians already, the party got out occasionally forcloser inspection of the land. The men gravely trickled the soil throughtheir fingers, while the women grabbed at the sweet-smelling herbs whichgrew in abundance everywhere, and tore their sleeves reaching for theclusters of bullberries, then turning red.

  Dr. Slavens and William Bentley tried for fish, with a total catchbetween them of one small trout, which was carried in triumph to theplace picked upon by Smith for the noonday camp. Smith would not trustthe coffee to any hand but his own, and he blackened up the potshamefully, Mrs. Reed declared.

  But what did Smith care for the criticism of Mrs. Reed when he wasmaking coffee for Agnes? What did he care, indeed, for the judgment ofthe whole world when he was laying out his best efforts to please thefinest woman who ever sat beside him on the box, and one for whom he wasready to go any distance, and do any endeavors, to save her from beingmade a sucker of and taken in and skinned?

  It was pleasant there by the river; so pleasant that there was not oneof them but voted Wyoming the finest and most congenial spot in theworld, with the kindest skies, the softest summer winds, and the oneplace of all places for a home.

  "Yes," Smith remarked, tossing pebbles into the river from the placewhere he sat cross-legged on the ground with his pipe, "it takes a holdof you that way. It goes to twenty below in the winter, sometimes, andthe wind blows like the plug had popped out of the North Pole, and thesnow covers up the sheep on the range and smothers 'em, and you lose allyou got down to the last chaw of t'backer. But you stick, some way, andyou forgit you ever had a home back in Indiana, where strawberriesgrow."

  "Why, don't they grow here?" asked the miller's wife, holding a bunch ofred bullberries caressingly against her cheek.

  "I ain't seen a natural strawberry in fourteen years," said Smith, moreproud than regretful, as if such a long abstinence were a virtue.

  "Natural?" repeated Mrs. Reed. "Surely you don't mean that theymanufacture them here?"

  "They send 'em here in cans," explained Smith, "pale, with sour water on'em, no more like real, ma'am, than a cigarette's like a smoke."

  The men with pipes chuckled their appreciation of the comparison. HoraceBentley, with a fresh cigarette--which he had taken out of a silvercase--in his fingers, turned it, quizzically smiling as he struck amatch.

  "It's an imitation," said he; "but it's good enough for me."

  The sun was slanting near the rough hills beyond the river when theystarted back to Comanche.

  "You've seen the best of the reservation," explained Smith, "and theyain't no earthly use in seein' the worst of it."

  They were well along on the way, passing through a rough and outcaststretch of country, where upheaved ledges stood on edge, and greatblocks of stone poised menacingly on the brows of shattered cliffs, whenSmith, who had been looking sharply ahead, pulled in suddenly and turnedto Agnes with apologetic questioning in his eyes. It seemed to her thathe had something on his mind which he was afraid to put into words.

  "What is it, Mr. Smith?" she asked.

  "I was just goin' to say, would you mind goin' inside and lettin' thatdoctor man take your place for a while?"

  Smith doubtless had his reason, she thought, although it hurt her pridethat he should withhold his confidence. But she yielded her placewithout further questioning, with a great amount of blushing over thestocking which a protruding screwhead was responsible for her showing toDr. Slavens as he assisted her to the ground.

  The sudden stop, the excitement incident to changing places, threw thewomen within the coach into a cackle.

  "Is it robbers?" demanded Mrs. Reed, getting hold of June's hand andclinging to it protectingly as she put her head out and peered up atSmith, who was sitting there stolidly, his eyes on the winding trailahead, his foot on the brake.

  "No, ma'am," answered Smith, not looking in her direction at all.

  "What is it, then?" quavered Mrs. Mann from the other side of thestage.

  She could not see Smith, and the desolation of their surroundings sether fancy at work stationing dusty cowboy bandits behind each riven,lowering stone.

  "Oh, I _hope_ it's robbers!" said June, bouncing up and down in herseat. "That would be just fine!"

  "Hush, hush!" commanded her mother, shaking her correctively. "Such awicked wish!"

  Milo Strong, the teacher from Iowa, had grown very pale. He buttoned hiscoat and kept one hand in the region of his belt. One second he peeredwildly out of the windows on his side, the next he strained to see ifdevastation and ruin were approaching from the other.

  "Smith doubtless had some very commonplace reason for making thechange," said William Bentley, making room for Agnes beside him. "Iexpect Miss Horton talked too much."

  With that the stage started and their fears subsided somewhat. On thebox Smith was looking sharply at the doctor. Then he asked:

  "Can you drive better than you can shoot, or shoot better than you candrive?"

  "I guess it's about a stand-off," replied the doctor without a ripple ofexcitement; "but I was brought up with four mules."

  Without another word Smith stood on the footboard, and Dr. Slavens slidalong to his place. Smith handed the physician the lines and took thebig revolver from its pocket by the seat.

  "Two fellers on horseback," said he, keeping his eyes sharply on theboulder-hedged road, "has been dodgin' along the top of that ridge kindof suspicious. No reason why any honest man would want to ride along upthere among the rocks when he could ride down here where it's smooth.They may be straight or they may be crooked. I don't know. But you meetall kinds along this road."

  The doctor nodded. Smith said no more, but stood, one knee on the seat,with his pistol held in readiness for instant action. When they reachedthe top of the ridge nobody was in sight, but there were bouldersenough, and big enough, on every hand to conceal an army. Smith nodded;the doctor pulled up.

  The stage had no sooner stopped than Walker was out, his pistol in hand,ready to show June and all her female relatives so dear that he wasthere to stand between them and danger as long as their peril mightlast.

  Smi
th looked around carefully.

  "Funny about them two fellers!" he muttered.

  From the inside of the stage came June's voice, raised in admiration ofMr. Walker's intrepidity, and her mother's voice, commanding her to besilent, and not draw down upon them the fury of the bandits, who eventhen might be taking aim at them from behind a rock.

  Nobody appearing, between whom and June he might precipitate himself,Walker mounted a rock for a look around. He had no more than reached thetop when the two horsemen who had caused the flurry rode from behind thehouse-size boulder which had hidden them, turned their backs, crouchingin their saddles as if to hide their identity, and galloped off.

  "Huh! Old Hun Shanklin's one of 'em," sniffed Smith, plainly disgustedthat the affair had turned out so poorly.

  He put his weapon back in its place and took the lines.

  "And that feller, he don't have to go around holdin' people up with agun in his hand," he added. "He's got a safer and surer game of it thanthat."

  "And that's no cross-eyed view of it, either," Dr. Slavens agreed.

  Walker came over and stood beside the near wheel.

  "One of them was Hun Shanklin!" said he, whispering up loudly for thedoctor's ear, a look of deep concern on his youthful face.

  Slavens nodded with what show of unconcern he could assume. For, knowingwhat he knew, he wondered what the gambler was there for, and why heseemed so anxious to keep the matter of his identity to himself.

  When they arrived at Comanche the sun was down. Mrs. Reed hurried Juneindoors, all exclamations and shudders over what she believed to havebeen a very narrow escape. Vowing that she never would go exploringaround in that wild land again, she whisked off without a word forSmith.

  The others shook hands with the driver, Agnes coming last. He took offhis hat when it came her turn.

  "Keep your eyes skinned," he advised her, "and don't let 'em play youfor a sucker. Any time you need advice, or any help that I can give you,if I'm not here I'm on the road between here and Meander. You can git meover there by telephone."

  "Thank you, Mr. Smith," said she warmly and genuinely, wondering why heshould take such an unaccountable interest in her.

  The others had gone about their business, thinking strongly of supper,leaving Smith and her alone beside the old green stage.

  "But don't ask for Smith if you call me up," said he, "for that's onlymy first name, and they's a horse-wrangler over there with that for hislast. They might think you wanted him."

  "Oh, I didn't know!" she stammered, all confusion over the familiaritythat she had been taking all day. "I didn't know your other name--nobodyever told me."

  "No; not many of 'em down here knows it," he responded. "But up atMeander, at the barn, they know it. It's Phogenphole."

  "Oh!"

  "But if you don't like it," added Smith, speaking with great fervor, andleaning toward her a little eagerly and earnestly, "I'll have a bill putthrough the Legislature down at Cheyenne and change it!"

  They ate supper that evening by lantern-light, with the night noise ofComanche beginning to rise around them earlier than usual. Those whowere there for the reaping realized that it would be their last bignight, for on the morrow the drawing would fall. After the first day'snumbers had been taken from the wheel at Meander, which would run upinto the thousands, the waiting crowds would melt away from Comanche asfast as trains could carry them. So those who were on the make had bothhands out in Comanche that night.

  They all wondered how it would turn out for them, the lumberman and theinsurance agent--who had not been of the party that day in Smith'scoach--offering to lay bets that nobody in the mess would draw a numberbelow five hundred. There were no takers. Then they offered to bet thatall in the mess would draw under five hundred. Mrs. Reed rebuked themfor their gambling spirit, which, she said, was rampant in Comanche,like a plague.