Chapter IV: Part 4

And the little calves! Many a toddling new-born, strayed from its mother and solicitous of protection, staggered out to sniff at the kindly disposed creature that nosed it so tenderly from the other side of a four-strand barrier. All night the trampling of sleepless thousands and the bawling of steers and worried cows came to disturb Molly’s slumbers. The bed-ground for the herds was not four hundred yards distant from the pasture fence. She could see tiny intermittent lights move slowly about them in a wide circle, where the men on guard smoked as they rode their rounds.

Next day her heart was filled with forebodings and uneasiness. Hundreds of cattle were driven into an extensive corral within the confines of her pasture, and thence, in small groups, they went into a chute, propelled by the whoops and outcries of sundry reckless horsemen who crowded their rear. Molly watched and wondered. She saw these cattle forced singly into a narrow runway; she saw them caught fast in a squeezer, heard their bellows of consternation and fright; and then there reached her the stinging odor of burned hair, when the branding irons seared the flesh. Upon which Molly would flip her tail in the air and lope away. But she always returned; much as she feared it, she could not leave this anguished assemblage.

It was Uncle Henry who discovered that the arrival of the herds was demoralizing our faithful benefactor. She no longer grazed sedately; even the succulent grama-grass of the creek-bottom failed to hold her, and she walked the barb-wire ceaselessly day and night. Her weight fell off in alarming fashion, and when, on the third evening, Uncle Henry approached with outstretched hand and honeyed speech, and the milk-pail cunningly concealed, she shook her big, patient head and moved off. He followed, and she quickened her pace.

“Consarn your fat haid!” roared Uncle Henry, never a patient man. “Hold still or I’ll take the hide off’n you.”

He tore after Molly, threatening dire visitations. Now, it takes an extremely clever person to circumvent a determined cow, when he is on foot and she has five thousand acres in which to manœuver, and Uncle Henry returned to headquarters, howling for somebody to lend him a horse and he would drag that old fool clear to Texas. We went without milk that night, and grumbled and swore precisely as if we had had nothing else all our lives.

* * * * *

“Hi-yi! Bear down on him, cowboys. More frijoles here!”

With a yell, Big John sprang to the lever of the squeezer and threw all his strength on it, gripping a plunging steer about the middle as he strove to win through the chute.

“Hot iron! Hot iron!” the wagon boss shrieked. “Somebody build that fire up. All right. That’s got him, Cas.”

Molly hung about near the corral, gazing on these frenzied activities in consternation. It was early morning and low-hanging mists were shredding before the sun.

Some calves passed through the chute by inadvertence. Being too small for the squeezer to hold, they were noosed as they came out, and branded on the ground. One was so tiny that the men at work beside the runway, idly rolling cigarettes during a halt in the operations, failed altogether to perceive him above the heavy lower boarding. As a result, he sauntered into the open, and there was no noose ready to snare. His ears were twitching with curiosity, and he moved his legs as if they were stiff and his feet hurt, as indeed they did, because he had come many weary miles and he was not three days old.

“Hi-yi! There goes a calf!” yelled the punchers. “Go to him, John. He’s just your size.”

Big John grinned, spat on his hands, and made a dive for the fugitive. “The li’l’ rascal,” he chuckled, grabbing for its tail. Instead of taking to the open and falling a prey to a roper, the calf lunged sideways and went under the horse-pasture fence. He was so short that he easily bowed his back and slid beneath the wire. The outfit sent up a shout of laughter, and exhorted John to stay with him; but the giant remained where he was, gazing fixedly at the fugitive. Molly was on the other side of the fence.

To her side the white-face bolted, confident of sanctuary. For a cow, Molly was terribly agitated. She turned about and about, trying to obtain a really good look at this forward baby who greeted her as his mother. The calf, on his part, kept close in an endeavor to secure his supper, being very hungry and properly careless as to where he got it. Molly smelled and sniffed at him, and edged off in intense nervousness. Evidently quite positive in his own mind that he had found what he had been seeking, the calf gave over all useless fuss and set himself resolutely to obtain a meal.

“Let him go, John,” the boss called. “We lost his mother over on the Magayan. Molly’ll look after him. Look out! Bear down on him, cowboys! It’s that big ol’ bull.”

Molly was thrilling to long-pent yearnings, and the vapors of self-delusion welled up to befog her instincts. After five minutes of nosing, the Jersey came to the conclusion that this must be her son, and yielded to his hungry importunities. With a deep murmur of content, she walked away, followed by her adopted baby. And behind a sage-brush, safe from interference, she fed him. The outfit watched them go in amazement, prophesying many things.

One of the few things they did not foretell came to pass next morning. Molly had hidden the calf behind some soapweed while she went to graze a few rods off, and, the dawn being still gray and the air stinging cold, we picked that particular bunch of weed for a bonfire to provide warmth while the wrangler was bringing up the horses. When the match flared, the calf on the other side of the shooting sparks staggered to his feet.

Ba-a-a-a-aw!

“It’s the little ’un,” John whooped.

He said no more, because at that moment came the dull pounding of hoofs on grass, and there was Molly, her head held high, turning her gaze jerkily from one to another, after the manner of cows when preparing to charge. We forgot about the fire for the moment and headed for the corral fence, streaming across country twenty strong, with Molly in hot pursuit. Big John eluded her by dodging dexterously behind a bush, leaving a portion of his overalls with the cow, and she abandoned the chase at once, returning to her charge. Him she licked and caressed with many mumbled endearments, making sure that he was unhurt. The calf took all this stoically and as a matter of course, considering it his due, and fell to breakfast. Molly gazed across at her late friends sitting spectrally astride the fence, and all the anger was gone from her eyes. They were large and melting with tenderness.

A crippled horse was shot that day,--the broncho-buster threw him too hard, breaking a leg,--and to the carcass a coyote skulked when night shut down. About eleven o’clock Molly got to her knees, in which position she remained a few seconds, meditating; then rose to walk about, nibbling at the grass. All cattle get up in this manner between eleven o’clock and midnight to graze for a few minutes and then lie down on the other side. This may be the basis of an old superstition that “good cows say their prayers.”

Molly, with the warmth of the snuggling calf still on her side, wandered farther than she intended. Abruptly she thrust her nose into the wind and sniffed. It was a stale, penetrating stench, and inherited knowledge warned her there was danger. Back ran Molly in a tremor of anxiety, her head wagging from side to side in her efforts to glimpse the marauder. Behind a clump of bear-grass crouched a coyote, his foxlike nose pointed toward the spot where snoozed her unprotected son. Inch by inch he slunk forward; now his muscles grew taut for the leap.

Whoo-oo-oo-huh! snorted Molly, smashing down upon him.

The wolf straightened and wheeled with a flash of gray, and sprang, all in one movement. So marvelously quick was he that escape would have been certain ninety-nine times in a hundred. A bull would have borne down on him with lowered head and eyes shut, like a runaway freight train; a cow charges with eyes open, and Molly, consumed with mother-wrath, ripped sideways with her sharp horns as the hunter swerved. A shapeless bundle of brown-gray fur was tossed into the air, and when it struck the ground and rebounded, Molly went at it again. This time she caught him full with her horns, and, quite by chance, followed stumblingly on his ribs with her forefeet. The coyote squirmed away from this terrible avenger, snapping futilely at her muzzle, and a cry from the calf distracted the Jersey from a burning desire to complete the good work. When she abandoned him to run to her adopted son, the wolf made as if to flee; but he was hurt unto death, and sank down miserably under a mesquite, his glinting eyes searching the brush for foes. And through the long night he panted out his life, until at dawn the last spark flickered.

“It’s a big ol’ ki-yote”--John stirred the carcass with his boot--“A bull done ripped him.”

“There aren’t any bulls in the horse pasture,” the boss retorted. “Only Molly.”

By one impulse the outfit turned in their saddles to look for her. There stood the Jersey a hundred paces off, feeding tranquilly on mesquite pods. Toddling at her heels was a red, white-faced calf of sturdy frame and curly coat. Molly was behaving as if she had never done anything more exciting in her life than eat bran mash.

“Good ol’ Molly,” they called back, as they rode to the bunk-house for dinner. Molly, hearing the familiar name, lifted her head to regard the cavalcade soberly.

We went without milk cheerfully enough now and speculated at every meal as to the probable course Molly would pursue as the calf grew. There was little else to talk about. Some vowed she would get over her hallucination quickly and abandon the youngster. Uncle Henry thought differently.

“She’s a better mother to him than his own would have been. I never done saw a range cow look after her calf like Molly does that rascal. And ain’t he fat!” he exclaimed.

The wagon boss conceived it to be in the line of his duty to brand the calf. A man was despatched to rope him. He returned presently to say that Molly would not permit him to get near. “She went on the peck and gored my horse.” He exhibited a red wale along his mount’s flank.

“You can’t rope a calf away from its mother?” the boss exclaimed, dumbfounded. “Pshaw! You’d better go back to cotton-pickin’, Cas.”

He spurred away to bring in the culprit himself. What were cowboys coming to nowadays? He would show them! We mounted the corral fence the better to view proceedings, and waxed merry of spirit when Molly chased the boss six separate times. Molly would not be frightened or enticed away from her son, but turned to confront this unexpected enemy when he galloped at her. As for the calf, he glued himself to Molly’s side and would not budge therefrom.

“Will we stretch her out, Pink?” we shouted.

“No,” the boss roared.

He made another try and almost got his rope over the calf; but the Jersey went at him just then and gave him something else to do. So the boss ambled back, grinning sheepishly behind his sandy mustache.

“I reckon”--he cleared his throat--“I reckon that’s one on me, boys. Let him go just now. We’ll get him in the spring.”

Uncle Henry was the only human being that the Jersey would permit within five yards of her baby. He entertained a sort of proprietary affection for the cow, and she reciprocated save when such cordial relationship clashed with her love for the adopted one. At such moments Uncle Henry was not to be considered, of course, and she was as ready to put him on the fence or speed him round a bush as any other member of the Tumbling K outfit.

Upon a day in September, he was on his way back from patching the line fence, when he espied Molly trotting distractedly about a narrow draw. She stopped to stare as he approached, then resumed her agitated run. From time to time she dashed to the brink of an arroyo to gaze down. Uncle Henry watched her, surmising from the stores of his experience what had happened.

“She’ll jist about go on the prod and rip me if I try to git him out.”

Molly took a few steps toward him, lowed pitifully, and returned to look down at the unfortunate calf. He advanced with caution, anticipating a rush; but Molly only lowed again and made way for him.

“I swan, she wants me to pull him out,” said Uncle Henry in a reverent tone. “If that don’t beat every--”

He alighted and walked to the arroyo’s rim. Ten feet below, on the sandy bottom of a hole whose precipitous sides prevented him climbing out, lay the white-face. Uncle Henry deftly dropped a noose over its head, and dragged the kicking youngster to safety. When he went to remove the rope, Molly suffered him to handle her son, though she glared in swift suspicion when Uncle Henry threw him to the ground and knelt on his body to free the loop from his neck.

“Boys,” said the boss at supper one night, “Molly has got to go.”

“Oh-ho! Ho, indeed!” Uncle Henry retorted with fine sarcasm. “Oh, yes,” he added, unable to think of anything better to say.

The boss shook his head sadly over the clamor that ensued. He spoke of the matter as a man of feeling would acquaint a wife of her husband’s taking-off; but it had to be. An order had come to deliver Molly to Bockus, the butcher at Blackwater.

What! Lose Molly? The boss was locoed, or worse. Had he by any chance secured a bottle, of whose whereabouts we were in ignorance? We would buy the cow ourselves first.

It was an off-day. The branding was done, and the Tumbling K outfit was awaiting the arrival of a purchase of four thousand steers from the South. Thus it came about that twelve of us rode into Blackwater, and Big John was spokesman. John was not much of a speaker, being given to profanity when a congestion of language threatened, but he had a grand theme, and talked about Molly in a way that made us cough.

“Bless my heart,” cried the owner of the Tumbling K, when the nub of the matter was revealed. “Bless my heart!”

He gaped, then squeezed the mighty muscles of Big John’s shoulder and laughed. All this fuss about a cow--one forlorn dun cow. The puncher grinned in his turn, shuffling his feet; for they knew and understood each other, these two, having been associated for eighteen years. That is why Bockus received the strange explanation he did when he called to protest against the delay in delivering Molly.

“It’s just this way,” the cattleman observed, slipping an elastic band about his tally-book. “If I let you have that cow for thirty, I lose precisely nine hundred and thirty-seven dollars. No; Molly stays.”

“Nine hundred and--Why, man, you’re crazy! How’s that?”

“Ask those strikers of mine,” came the answer, accompanied by a chuckle. “Great weather, isn’t it? How is veal selling to-day?”

“But look a-here, Vance, let me have the calf, anyway. You owe me that much,” the fat Bockus protested.

“All right. Send out for him, though,” said the cattleman.

It happened that Bockus despatched a youth with a pair of mules hitched to a wagon, for the calf. He was a wily urchin, and a glance satisfied him that Molly’s son could be taken from her only by craft. Accordingly he loafed all of one forenoon in the horse pasture with his wagon close at hand, and when the unsuspecting Jersey strayed off some hundreds of yards to secure better grazing, he made a sudden descent upon the white-face, locked his fingers about its nose so that the calf could not utter a sound, threw and tied him, then heaved the outraged victim into the wagon and made off. Molly returned shortly, and missing the apple of her eye, set out on a search of the immediate vicinity. In the distance a wagon raised the dust of the Blackwater trail, going rapidly. The boy did not feel any too secure even with a fence between them, and lashed his mules, shrilling oaths at the gawky beasts.

The cow brought up at the fence, every sense on the alert to detect the presence of the calf in the fast-disappearing vehicle. Some subtle intuition told Molly he was there, and she retreated a few steps. Then, with a crash, she went through the four strands of wire, and, with a long gash in her left shoulder dripping blood, started after them at a swinging trot.

Brother Ducey was conducting an open-air revival service among the mining population of Blackwater. He was a powerful exhorter, was the brother, and, as most of his congregation were women, with a sprinkling of men who would presently go on the night shift six hundred feet into the bowels of the earth, his picture of a lurid, living perdition had them swaying and rocking on the benches. Their groans and lamentations rolled up the street.

“You’re all a-going to hell!” he shouted. “Your feet are on the hot bricks now. Hell is--” And, again-- “Hell--”

Brother Ducey broke off and glared wrathfully at an imp of a boy who drove a clanking wagon at top speed completely around the meeting-place, making for the slaughter-house beyond.

Then Molly arrived and took no such devious route. She went straight through the congregation, overturning the mourners’ bench, and, unable to differentiate between friends and foes, headed for the rostrum. Brother Ducey waved his arms wildly and squalled “Shoo!” But, as Molly would not “shoo,” he scaled a tree with the speed of a lizard, from which vantage-point he besought somebody to shoot the animal.

The Jersey did not pause to trifle with these hysterical worshipers. Her business was to find her baby, and she was almost up with him. In truth, the cow was an awesome sight as she charged anew after the wagon, the blood trailing from her shoulder, froth flaking her muzzle. Evidently the butcher’s assistant found her so.

“I can’t beat her to the gate!” he gasped, with a glance backward.

Whereupon he wheeled again and galloped his team in front of Bockus’ store. There he abandoned them, springing through the door just as Molly swept down the road. The calf bawled a greeting and the Jersey began to circle the wagon, occasionally prodding at the mules just to be on the safe side in the event of their having had anything to do with this theft. They kicked at her in return, but did not offer to run away.

“Somebody rope her! Somebody rope her!” Bockus cried, dancing up and down in his shop. “No, don’t shoot. Them locoed Tumbling K’s will wipe out the town if you do.”

Alas, there was nobody in Blackwater competent to do it. They were a peaceful, industrious mining folk, and a cow was a dubious thing to them, to be handled respectfully in the best of moods. And an enraged animal like Molly! Blackwater suspended business, shut up shop, and hid indoors or took refuge on the roof.

From time to time Molly abandoned the wagon temporarily to seek revenge where it might be given to her. In this way she made forays over half the town, and put Bill Terry, the postmaster, through a new plate-glass window that Tom Zeigler had imported at enormous expense. Tom swore that Vance would have to pay for it.

“Send for one of them fool cowboys!” Bockus screamed, after an hour of this.

His boy stole forth on an emaciated pony, and, eluding the cow by a burst of speed, brought Blackwater’s prayerful appeal to the Tumbling K headquarters.

We rode in and roped Molly. Then certain of us did some trafficking with Bockus, Big John laying down the terms, with the result that the cord around the calf’s legs was loosed and he was restored to his mother.

All the blind savagery was departed from Molly now. She sauntered over to a patch of grass and began to eat, with the calf at her heels, and the stare she turned on the citizens of Blackwater was noncommittal, even kindly.

Her departure took on something of the character of a pageant. Brother Ducey was induced to make an oration--or he could not be restrained--at any rate, Brother Ducey delivered a speech setting forth the extraordinary qualities of the cow. It was really a remarkable tribute, but all the notice Molly took was to flick one ear as she masticated a bunch of grass.

“And, brethern and sisters, what does this brave creature teach us? Hey?” he demanded, in conclusion.

“I dunno,” mumbled a gentleman at whom he was staring, in a hopeless tone.

“I ask you-all ag’in, what she done taught us when she come a-seeking of her young in the very heart of our meetin’? Why, it’s plain as the mole on Lon Rainey’s face,” cried Brother Ducey. “I forgive her a-chasing of me up that cottonwood,--it’s a right good thing it was so handy,--and Miz Ducey kin sew the pants. But what did this noble animal show? Jist what I was praying of you-all to reveal, brethern and sisters. She showed love and devotion, and a generous sacrifice for somebody else besides her own self. That’s what she done showed. You-all do likewise. Brother Perry will now pass the hat.”

We took Molly back to the Tumbling K and turned her into the horse pasture. She came peaceably enough, six of us acting as escort of honor. She is there now, followed everywhere she goes by a husky red calf with a white face. Molly is firmly persuaded that he is her son and the pride of the range.

VII
THE BABY AND THE PUMA

The wagon jolted and whined over rough ground, winding among giant pines. Off to the right followed a tawny shape, flitting from blotch of shadow to screening bush, blending with the blurred outlines of tree and rock. The moon was hidden and Brother Schoonover drove with circumspection, lest his ark and all his possessions be wrecked in the wilderness.

“Doggone that moon. It ain’t never working when you need it right bad,” cried Brother Schoonover, cracking his whip. “That limb was like to blind me. Stead-ay, Glossy. Now, girl--now.”

The puma crouched flat on hearing the voice. Then the wagon drew out of sight beyond a tope of trees and he sprang to the shelter of a mesquite. There he peered again at the nester’s outfit going down the valley through the dark. It labored heavily; Brother Schoonover’s tones reached him, raised in sharp rebuke of the mare; and presently he slunk in pursuit.

Don’t imagine that Bowallopus--such was he dubbed from that night of adventure--was stalking prey. Nothing was farther removed from his purpose. He was dreadfully afraid, but curiosity overrode fear! Time and again he halted to abandon the game and go about the serious things of life, but could not. The wagon and its inmates had him fast.

Bowallopus was not even hungry, but he trailed along in rear. Perhaps there lurked a sneaking hope far back in that hard skull of his that something might transpire toward the further easement of his stomach, but it never for a moment dulled his caution.

The nester whistled at the mare and urged her forward, and twice the harsh scream of the brakes stayed Bowallopus rigid in his tracks. It should not be held against Brother Schoonover that he forgot on three occasions the Biblical limitations as regards profane words, because the night was deceptive and he was far from water. All he had on earth was with him there in the wagon, and he could descry no suitable place to camp. The family spring-bed was slung from ropes off the floor under the arched canvas top, and on it his wife slept. Curled warmly in the hollow of her arm was the baby. Sometimes the lurchings of their home rolled him quite away from her side, to return him on the rebound. He slept placidly, being a seasoned traveler.

Just before descending a gulch to cross a dried creek-bed, Brother Schoonover drove slap against a large rock, being now far off any trails. The wagon careened to the point of overturning and the baby slid from his mother’s arms. Mrs. Schoonover had raised the canvas for purposes of ventilation--she suffered from an affection of the lungs--and he shot downward through the hole. Being utterly helpless, he was unhurt. He hit the ground lightly and the wheel missed him a full half-inch.

Of course the shock woke the baby, but he was so astonished for a minute that he could only hold his breath ready for what might befall. When he did let out a yell, the wagon was thumping over the stones, with the driver standing up to beat the mare, and the couple in it could not have heard a steam calliope ten yards off.

Bowallopus vanished when the brown bundle dropped. A hundred paces and he halted in a thicket, arrested by a gurgling treble cry. The puma had seen children before, playing near the shack of a Mexican woodchopper, and he knew that note of distress. Very cautiously he crept back and began to circle.

The felidae steal upon their prey noiselessly, treading on the
soft elastic pads of the soles of the feet, without risk of
betrayal from the rustle caused by non-retractile claws. When
within a short distance, they crouch and spring, bounding many
times their length upon their unsuspecting victims, which, borne
down by the descending weight of the fierce foe, are at once
fastened upon by the deadly grip of the well-armed jaw and by
the united action of eighteen fully-extended piercing claws.

So says an old school book--or it may be an ancient natural history--and it is very illuminating and authoritative. But it happens that Bowallopus belonged to a class of felidae which does not prey upon man or the children of men, and he did none of these things. He waited until the groaning of the wagon died away, his head up, keen for sound or sight of danger. A puma relies more on his ears and eyes than on his nose to apprise him of enemy or victim. Then he went forward stealthily, moving in a wide semicircle.

The baby threshed about with his chubby arms and howled, whereat Bowallopus shrank back, hissing like an enraged gander, his tail lashing from side to side. Perhaps the threatening noise chilled the boy to silence; at any rate he broke off in his wail and lay quiet. The lion went nearer. He stood above the brown bundle, his muscles ready for combat or instant flight, and eyed it suspiciously. Much as a house cat would pick up a questionable bit of loot from the floor, Bowallopus seized the dress in his teeth and lifted the baby. Schoonover, Jr., waved a pudgy hand in lively terror and slapped the beast on the nose. Horribly surprised, Bowallopus dropped him and sprang back. Then he gathered himself to leap.

“Hi!” yelled Brother Schoonover.

The lion snarled as he turned to flee, but the nester had stopped in his run and was down on one knee. Bowallopus cleared the distance between him and some brush with a magnificent, sinuous jump, but as he went, a crashing sound smote his ears and sharp burning pains ripped along loins and back. Brother Schoonover had loaded his old smooth-bore with bird-shot that day to the end that he might pot a dog-rabbit or a brace of wild doves for supper, and Bowallopus received the entire charge.

Without paying the slightest heed to the fleeing puma, the nester threw down his weapon and clasped his son. Instantly the baby shrieked his loudest, and “God, he ain’t hurt a bit,” cried Brother Schoonover in a great voice. He was shaking like a cottonwood leaf and his fright impelled the child to further outcry, so contagious is fear. And now Mrs. Schoonover came running, unable to remain longer in the wagon with bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh lying helpless somewhere in the dark along the trail--she could see him dead. She prayed audibly as she ran.

“Give him to me,” she said, snatching the baby from his sire as though he had been much to blame.

“It weren’t my fault, Sally Jo,” he protested.

“You drive most awful reckless, Brother Schoonover,” returned his wife, and hugged her son closer.

“He ain’t hurt a mite. Just scared,” she announced, after a wondrous inspection by touch of hand. “Something done tore his dress.”

“A big ol’ line had him, Sally Jo,” the nester exclaimed. “I swan he was a monster. He went a-smashing up among the bushes and rocks.”

“You didn’t kill him? You done let him go and he most had eat our child?” shrilled Mrs. Schoonover.

“I reckon I done missed, Sally Jo. There, there, girl--it’s all right now. You cain’t hurt a line with birdshot. It won’t even tickle him. This here shot would bounce off’n a kitten’s hide, this here would.”

They went back to the wagon, Mrs. Schoonover carrying the baby. The nester opined that he had had enough of driving for one night and they would camp here.

“It’s hard on Glossy, but I’ll go find her water first thing in the morning”--he poked a finger playfully among his son’s ribs--“So that ol’ line was like to git you, boy? Ol’ Bowallopus was a-looking you over for a meal?”

Brother Schoonover hobbled the mare and they went to rest.

Bowallopus lay on a flat rock amid the lower ridges next day, sunning himself. He was not far from home and felt perfectly secure. In a gulch, washed out by floods numberless generations ago, was a large hole that led into a shallow cave. There was in front a sandstone ledge much to the beast’s liking, and here the puma resided, as a stinging odor proclaimed.

He was very handsome, was Bowallopus. On his side, he measured eight feet ten inches from the tip of his nose to tip of tail, and his weight could not have been less than two hundred and forty pounds. Just now the superb richness of his reddish brown coat was marred by unsightly clots in the region of his rump, and he was constantly reminded thereof by a gnawing and itching of innumerable tiny spots. The irritation meant that the wounds were healing, but Bowallopus’s temper was very bad nevertheless. He licked his sores tenderly and settled himself to bask in the glare, lids drooping.

Five miles away, Brother Schoonover was digging with might and main into the side of a low hill, for he had found a spring bubbling from the rock and was now engaged in fashioning a dugout for a home.

Bowallopus went up the valley early that evening, being minded to kill. And before darkness closed down he arrived at a butte about three miles from his lair.

The huge cat crawled warily to a ledge and composed himself to wait. At the other side of the butte vague figures were moving, and Bowallopus could hear plainly the crisp munching of grass. These were the range mares wearing the Anvil brand, and he had taken toll of their young many times before. In the position he had selected they could not wind him; and along the base of the butte ran a trail down which the mares went to drink.

The sun sank back of the mountains. A big roan stallion which ruled the band gave over eating and lay down to roll. Invigorated by this exercise, he whinnied joyously and started for the pool. One mare, with her colt, followed at his heels. The others began to close in, slowly, then in groups, until they were moving in loose array towards water. The leader picked the butte trail, paused to pull a tempting tuft, and rounded a bend. Then he snorted an alarm and swerved outward.

Bowallopus let him go--he was too formidable for attack--but the mare and her colt were below him. On the stallion’s warning he hurled himself downward, a yellow streak in the gloom, and bore the luckless colt to the ground. The crunch of its broken spine was drowned in the rumble of flying hoofs. Bowallopus gripped his prey by the neck and started homewards. Twice he was compelled to stop to obtain a fresh hold, but he dragged the carcass to the washout.

It happened that he made a foray early one evening to Wolf Creek in quest of a deer.

Sometimes, if he were exceedingly crafty, and wind and bough of tree were right, he could slay when a deer stole timidly to drink. Bowallopus went down the valley, alert and noiseless as was his wont. Suddenly he stiffened, the hairs on neck and back pringling.

Here was a fence. There could be no doubt of that. It was a very crude contrivance of one strand of wire, but he could see the posts standing in a ghostly, wavering line. Bowallopus walked along it, tensely expectant. In the distance a tiny light shone like a fallen star, and Bowallopus paused often to stare. This was the lantern in Brother Schoonover’s house. He had fenced a quarter-section, or had enclosed it sufficiently to conform with the law, and now occupied a one-roomed dugout constructed of logs and earth. The Brother was fully determined to prove up on this claim, and already indulged in dreams of how the place would look when green under Kaffir corn, and a red-roofed house on the hill back of them. He had longed all his life for a house with a red roof, for it could be descried so far and looked so cheery.

The puma made the circuit of the place and watched and listened. Presently the light went out and all was still. He did not tarry long, being seized of a feeling of unrest. All heart for the hunt was gone from him and he struck northward, intent on putting distance between himself and this newest invader of his domain. While the dark was yet young, he scaled a pine tree--a tree bole was to the lion as greensward to the antelope--and sat comfortably on a thick limb. Once he tilted his nose and sent his screech vibrating to the topmost hills. It was a rending cry like the scream of a woman in mortal pain--no animal but a horse in its death agony can produce a sound more terrifying. After a while he descended and went northward once more; but there was no yowling from Bowallopus now. He had to find something to eat, and stealth alone could accomplish that end.

Yet he was back at the fence next night and on many nights succeeding. The dugout and its dwellers recurred again and again to tempt his curiosity, however far he raided. Bowallopus had no desire to forage there, but he simply could not keep away. And gradually the feeling of anxiety over their presence became a fixed dread, an obsession.

Brother Schoonover acquired a dog from a passing Mexican freighter and owned the mongrel for exactly seven days and six nights. Most of that period was spent by the canine back of the shack, tied to a post. Then he was released and ventured too far in the dusk, and Bowallopus gathered him in. When the nester found the remains he forgot all about the spirit of kindly charity for which he had been so strong in a two days’ debate with Brother Ducey in Texas, and railed against all created things save those man had domesticated.

After this episode Bowallopus absented himself from the vicinity of the Schoonover home for a space. He went up into the mountains, where he contrived to get considerable veal and young beef. Winter was coming upon the land and a calf did not hug his mother’s side so closely of a night, being grown and prideful.

In the sheen of a late November gloaming, he dropped from a jutting rock on the rim of The Hatter and padded along a burro trail. This was the way down the big mountain which the woodchoppers took; thence they drove their patient beasts of burden seventy long miles to town. Bowallopus slunk beside the well-worn path, one eye cocked for trouble. He was ferociously hungry; his stomach clamored for food; and at sight of a scurrying jackrabbit, a peculiar pulsating ache started back of his jowl.

Abruptly he drew back and flopped downward behind a thorny bush. Below, on the shoulder of The Hatter, clung a shack of boughs and sod. A man was even then hammering on its roof, while a woman passed him up bits of old tin. Half way between the puma and the hut, a small boy was toiling under a pile of fagots, tied over his back.

All this Bowallopus saw, but what interested him most was an object nearer at hand. Not twenty feet away a Mexican baby played in the dirt, crowing with delight over possession of a captive lizard. The child was perhaps two years old and much too naked for that time of year, but she was hearty and cared naught for that. Her brother had brought her up the trail, leaving her to amuse herself as best she might whilst he gathered firewood. Naturally he forgot all about the toddler, the job not being to his liking.

Bowallopus listened and watched and waited. The baby rolled in the dust. The man and woman were busily engaged and the boy had been sent to fetch a bucket of water. A bull-bat flew over the puma’s head. A hush crept over The Hatter.

It may be that he shut his eyes when he launched himself and struck, though she was so very, very little. There was no cry to betray--only the throaty snarls of the puma, now turned mankiller and more horribly afraid and fearfully daring than he had ever been in his life.

“A big ol’ mountain line done eat a Mexican baby up yonder,” Brother Schoonover reported to his wife.

“You keep buckshot in that gun, Brother Schoonover; do you hear? Oh, my li’l’ lamb! What if that wicked lion had eat you up?” Her son did not appear at all disturbed by the speculation, but thumped on her breast with his fists.

There was a tremendous to-do up and down the country for eighty leagues. The manager of the Anvil offered a hundred dollars reward for the murderer’s hide and the cowboys of the region blazed away at every bobcat that showed a hair within their line of vision. Even Richter’s sheep herders bestirred themselves to set traps, but all to no avail. And the victim being a native child, the killing soon ceased to be a live topic.

The winter arrived in the wake of a norther. It blustered for a fortnight, then set in to be bitterly cold. Bowallopus fared well, and grew ever more malignant and furtive. One rib was cracked owing to misjudgment of distance, but accidents are likely to occur to the best of hunters. In diving from a tree for the back of a colt, he missed and came down close to the mare. In a flash he gathered himself and leaped again, but the mother’s heels crashed full on his side and she went away at full speed, her son running a good second. On another occasion a young bull caught him with a headlong rush, unprepared on his kill, and would have made short work with so excellent a start, had not Bowallopus sought safety in the fleetness of his legs. He was a sapient animal and knew when he had enough.

Spring came at last, and Bowallopus had a fight. It was a family affair--his wife was not wholly blameless--and it is better for all concerned to say only that he came off the victor. A young puma had wandered into his ridges from the south and west, and he never went back. When a mountain lion does fight, it is worth going many miles to see.

Some years it will rain so hard in this part of the cow country that the nesters can but sit and watch their puny efforts at raising corn seep away; but the cattle rejoice exceedingly. It must be admitted, however, that this happens extremely seldom. Generally the land bakes under cloudless skies from February to June and the earth opens in cracks, as though gasping for breath.

Brother Schoonover broke his ground and planned to raise a bumper crop of corn, the signs being propitious. He made two trips to town, three days each way by wagon, in order to make all ready. Bowallopus used often to see him toiling long after sunset; the puma spent many hours of the dark in sinister vigil beyond the fence, where he could see the light burning steadily in the dugout. Again he would prowl completely around the claim, keeping always off the wire, for that solitary strand was associated with man. Once he topped the hill back of the home in late afternoon, though it was seldom he went abroad in daylight, and hid behind a boulder. The Schoonover baby was crawling near the door, on hands and knees. Bowallopus never once removed his gaze from him in a full hour.

His own domestic affairs had progressed of late. Three sons had been born to his wife, who hid them on a day when she detected a certain glint in her lord’s eyes. Bowallopus discovered their hiding-place and slew the cubs and ate them.

Rain should have fallen in June, but it did not. July passed, and the country quivered under a white ball that was the sun. The cattle gave up the hopeless fight. In the valley the air reeked of carcasses. Brother Schoonover finished a weary day in his waste fields in August, and said to his wife:

“Well, Sally Jo, I reckon we’ll be moving agin.”

“No, no; don’t say so. Have we really got to go, Jed? We’re always moving. This is a right cruel country, ain’t it, Jed? Nowhere for a person to get along nice and quiet.”

He made no reply, but picked his son from the floor and set him on his knee. Then he stared out over his bare acres and began to laugh.

“Don’t,” she entreated. “That’s awful. It ain’t so bad as that, Jed.”

“We’ve done nothing but move for six years, Sally Jo. Or I reckon it’s nearer eight, counting them over in the Nations? And I made certain this place would do and we’d have a home.”

“Jed,” she said, putting a hand awkwardly on his shoulder. “Can’t we stay? Ain’t there no way? Perhaps you could get a job somewhere--with the Anvil boys. Oh, anything, so’s we don’t have to move again. It’ll be so soon now. I’ll never live through it, I know.”

He eyed her anxiously, dandling the baby the while.

“That’s one of the reasons,” he said. “You ought to be near where a doctor can be got handy, Sally Jo. No, we’ll have to give this up. I’ll take you back to my folks for the winter. We ought for to be there anyway. The ol’ man, he’s getting feeble, and first thing we know, he’ll be leaving that farm to Sam instead of me, Sally Jo. Cheer up, girl; we’ll find another place.”

“All right,” she returned hopelessly.

Two nights later they made camp among giant pines in the valley. The mare grazed near, hobbled to prevent her straying. Brother Schoonover lighted the fire and his wife cooked supper of bacon and bread and coffee. That must suffice until they reached town--and afterwards, more of the same diet, for the family treasury was down to eleven dollars.

They washed the pots and tin plates, and put the baby to bed in the wagon. Then the couple knelt down and Brother Schoonover offered up a prayer. He always prayed to his Maker in a loud voice before retiring, invoking benedictions on the entire world and all the dwellers thereon. Only two exceptions did he ever make and he made those religiously--nothing could induce him to intercede for reigning monarchs, and he made special mention of the Republican party only that they might be excluded from the general benefits to accrue.

When they were rising to their feet, Sally Jo clutched her husband’s arm.

“What’s that, Jed? There--back of them mesquite.”

“I cain’t see nothing. Where?”

“Don’t you see? Look along my finger. There, it’s moving again. It looks like a dog, Jed.”

Her husband saw now and sucked in his breath. Off to the right a tawny shape flitted from blotch of shadow to screening bush, blending with the blurred outline of tree and rock.

“Hush,” he cautioned, tiptoeing to the wagon.

The reliable smooth-bore lay on the seat. Brother Schoonover slipped the shell out without a sound and put in another loaded with buckshot. That done, he lay down under the wagon and pretended to be asleep, but the gun protruded through the spokes of a wheel and the Brother occasionally sighted along the barrel. It was dark, but there was a pale glow from the stars, which would suffice for the work in hand.

“When he gits in line with that pine tree,” he murmured.

A mountain lion was circling the camp. He had stumbled upon the nester’s outfit by chance and had no business there, but curiosity beat down doubts and caution. He had glimpsed the baby near the fire and had cringed to earth momentarily. Now, he was the more eager. The sight of the couple on their knees and the man’s harsh tones drove him back a few yards, and he had inadvertently moved from shadow while one might count three; but now all was quiet. He lay in the gloom surveying the camp. The mare cropped the grass noisily on the far side and the puma determined to take a closer look over there.

He emerged so eerily from nowhere that Brother Schoonover almost doubted his senses when he saw a head and neck between the sights in line with the tree. There was a flash and a terrific roar. Brother Schoonover was knocked backward by the kick of the gun, and his wife cried out. The baby awoke and squalled in affright.

The puma made a convulsive leap high into the air, hitting out blindly with his mighty paws. He came down with claws tearing into the earth, and whirled about and crouched to meet the unseen enemy. Mrs. Schoonover cowered in the wagon, covering the baby’s head with her apron that he might not hear the uproar.

“I got you, hey?” Brother Schoonover shouted, furiously elated. “Well, here’s another of the same kind.”

He held the gun firmly against his shoulder and sent a charge straight between the eyes glaring at him like two living coals. The puma lurched forward and stretched out. He coughed once, his muscles jerking; then stiffened.

In the morning, a mountain lion lay on the edge of camp, his hide riddled with shot. Still, he was very handsome. He measured eight feet ten inches from the tip of his nose to tip of tail, and his weight could not have been less than two hundred and forty pounds.

While his mother prepared breakfast and his father watered and harnessed the mare, the Schoonover baby inspected the creature. He pulled its ears and kicked it with fine deliberation on the point of the nose.

“Do you aim to leave it here, Brother Schoonover?” his wife asked, when they were ready to set forward.

“Shore. The hide ain’t no good at this season. And he’s shot all to bits. Do you know, Sally Jo, I got a idea this is the same ol’ mountain line what found our son? It’s like he’s the same one that eat the pore li’l’ Mexican, too, don’t you reckon? Ol’ Bowallopus?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me none,” she answered, and shuddered. Her husband spurned the carcass with his boot.

They got under way. High up in the sky appeared two black specks. Brother Schoonover pointed to them.

“They’ll rip him to pieces in no time. But we’ll keep the claws and whiskers and the end of his tail for the baby to play with. Hey, Sally Jo?”

The specks grew larger. Soon they showed as birds, hovering on effortless wings above the camping ground. Brother Schoonover whacked the mare in high glee, and they set out again on their pilgrimage.

Before they had gone half a mile, the buzzards shot from the blue vault to earth.

VIII
THE MANKILLER

All this happened in the Bad Year, which was not so many months ago. The outfit issued daily from their camps--riding bog, skinning cattle and driving in the helpless to the home pastures to be fed on oil-cake and alfalfa. The cows were walking skeletons, wild of eye, ready to wheel in impotent anger on their rescuers; or sinking weakly to the ground at the least urging, never to rise again. Every creek was dry. Springs that were held eternal became slimy mudholes and a trap. A well-grown man could easily step across the San Pedro, oozing sluggishly past mauled carcasses.

Wherever one rode he found bones of hapless creatures, or starved cows stretched flat on their sides, waiting for death to end their sufferings. And the flies settled in sickening, heaving clusters. Each mire held its victim. Wobbly-legged calves wandered over the range, crying for mothers that could never come. And the sun blazed down out of a pale sky.

Even the saving mesquite in the draws and on the ridges was failing as sustenance; of grass there was none. The country lay bleak and gasping from Tombstone to the border. Not even a desert cow, accustomed to slake her water hunger by chewing cactus, could have long survived such blighting months. How we prayed for rain!

Manuel Salazar gave heed to the comet where he lay on his tarp, and crossed himself to avert the death-curse which was come upon the land. This weird luminary portended dire events and Manuel began, like a prudent man, to take thought of his religion. There might be nothing in religion, as Chico contended; but a man never knows, and it is the part of wisdom to be on the safe side.

Then, one evening, when the mountains were taking on their blue sheen and the beauty of these vast stretches smote one with a feeling akin to pain, Archie Smith rode up to headquarters and tossed a human hand on the porch.

“Found it in the far corner of the Zacaton Bottom,” he said.

Jim Floyd recognized it at once by the triangular scar on the palm. The hand had been gnawed off cleanly at the wrist. Floyd wrapped the gruesome thing in a sack, wishful to give it decent interment when opportunity should offer.

“It’s ol’ man Greer’s,” he said. “You remember ol’ man Greer? He used to dig postholes for the Lazy L. Where’s the rest of him, Smith?”

“I aim to go and see. Ki-yotes eat him up, don’t you reckon, Jim?”

“It sure looks that way. Pore ol’ Greer--he could dig postholes right quick,” the boss answered.

What Archie found of the digger of postholes established nothing of the manner of death. Both arms were gone and wolves had dragged the body; hence, there was no real argument against the theory that old man Greer, who indulged a taste for _tequila_, had sustained a fall from his horse and had perished miserably within sight of the ranch. Yet Archie found this hard to believe. Wolves do not crush in the skull of a man, and it was the cowboy’s conviction that anyone could fall off Hardtimes, the digger’s mount, twice or thrice a day with no other injury than the blow to his pride.

Two days later Manuel Salazar brought in Greer’s horse, shockingly gaunt and worried, and swelled as to the head. But what interested the outfit, when the saddle and bridle had been removed from Hardtimes, were long, parallel wales along neck and flank. Archie pronounced them to be the marks of a horse’s teeth.

“That don’t show anything. He wandered off and got into a fight with another horse,” Floyd asserted. “Yes, sir; it’s like that he done just that.”