Chapter III: Part 3

“All right. Now I’m going to tell you the God’s truth. Holtzer’d been making his cracks about how he only had to speak and you’d fall on his neck, until he had me so sore I ached wherever m’ clothes touched me. So, when I see him coasting down the roof, the one thing in my mind was that he’d go feeling sure that he was the star with you. I couldn’t stand that. No, sir! I couldn’t; so down I goes after him. When I snaked him up on the roof I tells him, ‘Cuss your thanks! I want this much out of you, you flappy-footed slob--you go to Mary Ellen to-day and see whether she’ll take you or not--I’ll bet you three months’ pay agin a cigaroot you get turned down.’ Now, I was within my rights there--but”--Fireman Carter stopped, wiped his hands on his handkerchief, wiped his forehead, blew his nose and swallowed hard. “But,” he continued bravely, “if all the yawp that pup of a newspaper kid got rid of has had anything to do with changing results, I don’t care for any of the pie. There wasn’t no ‘laying down his life for another’ nor anything of the kind in the whole play. It was just like I’m telling you. Well, that’s all. I--I thought you might like to hear about it.”

There was a lamentable change in the strong voice at the last words. The speaker stared at the door and drummed on his cap until the silence became unendurable, then he raised his eyes slowly, as a condemned man might to the gallows.

There sat Mary Ellen, drinking him in, still beatified. The meekest man who ever esteemed himself poor relation to the worm that squirmeth could not have mistaken the meaning of that glance. It was simply adoration.

He straightened up and stared at her open-mouthed.

“I’ll be durned if I believe she’s heard one word I said!” thought Fireman Carter.

VI

TEN MINUTES OF ETERNITY

A REVOLVER, A RATTLER AND THE BOWL OF A PIPE

The warm June sunshine flooded the prairie with light. A little frisky breeze made silky noises in the grasses. From the other end of the plowed ground came the clank of harness and the thud of hoof-beats, as the four-horse team drew the sulky-plow, squeaking and complaining.

The monotonous work and soft air acted on the driver like a sleeping potion, and he nodded and drowsed on the seat, with the stem of a pipe clenched between his teeth.

This man, Tommy, was for ever losing the bowl of his pipe, and it was a great treat for me, a boy of fourteen, to tell him of the loss and hear him inveigh against the offending member with all the wealth of his Irish-Western vocabulary. Tommy was full of strange oaths and more bearded than any of his pards.

I giggled in anticipation as the plow drew near--sure enough! The bowl was gone.

“Tommy!” I hailed.

“Hay-oh! lad!” said he, snapping his eyes open. “Whoa, there!--have yer come out with ther grub call?”

“No, Tommy--but the bowl of your pipe is gone.”

“What, again?” and he removed the stem, regarding it sideways. “Now, ther curses of the Mormon gods be on that bowl!” and from that beginning followed an oration, lurid and marvelous.

When he had eased his mind he said: “We went down a hole over thayre, an’ I’ll bet it was thin it jounced out. Let’s go and take a bit of a look.”

We were both busily turning over the sod and searching, with our faces bent toward the ground, when a voice said:

“Well, Murphy?”

No sound had heralded any one’s approach. The question came so entirely unexpected we both started and looked up.

There, seated in graceful ease upon a mound of grass, was a lean, dark man, with a revolver in his hand.

At this sight Tommy stopped rigid, still half stooped. His broad, good-natured face went gray in an instant. His eyes glittered with fear. Twice he opened his mouth to speak, and twice no sound came; but the next time the words poured out in a torrent of frantic haste.

“Stephens! I didn’t mane it! Lord God, man! I take it back! Sure yer wouldn’t hold it aginst me! I was wild drunk at th’ time--Fur the love of Heaven, don’t shoot me! I’ve got a wife an’ two childer.”

The stranger’s mouth went sideways in an evil smile.

“You should have thought of that before, Murphy,” he said slowly.

“Yer wouldn’t kill me before the lad, would yer?” the other went on, his lips so dry now that the words were no more than a whisper.

Stephens bent toward him with savage quietness, and with the same set, twisted smile.

“I told you that I would kill you on sight,” he said, “wherever and whenever that might be, and I am here to do it.”

He raised the revolver as he spoke. A great sob stuck in my throat. Through my head went a roaring noise.

I looked from the one man to the other in such a sickening ague of fear, that I could not have uttered a sound to save my life. I waited in this suspense for the report that would shut out the cheerful quiet of the day, like a black blot. In that second of deathly silence between the men, the whispering of the breeze and the clanking of the harness of the distant horses seemed loud sounds.

Already I saw poor, honest, drunken Tommy lying still upon the ground, looking with dead eyes at the blue above.

But I saw a change come over his face, and before I had time to wonder at it he spoke:

“Stephens!” he said, “don’t move fur yer life! There’s a rattler widin’ a foot of yer lift elbow!”

A contemptuous smile parted Stephens’ lips at what he considered a silly ruse, and then it stopped frozen, leaving him with a face like a mask, and sitting as rigidly motionless as Tommy had stood but a moment ago, for at that instant the devil of the prairie sounded his whirring warning of sudden death at hand.

For a while all three of us were paralyzed--then,

“Oh, thayre he comes! He’s comin’ in front of yer! Oh Lordy! Lordy! what’ll I do!” shrieked Tommy.

“Keep perfectly still,” said Stephens, scarcely moving a muscle of his face. “Where is he now?”

“Howly Mary! His head’s a’most touchin’ yer hand!”

Stephens’ face turned to a green pallor as the blood forsook the tan, but his expression of calm self-possession never changed a jot. There was a certain similarity that struck me even at that instant between the finely modeled evil head of the serpent and the man’s clean-cut features.

They might have been a group in bronze, those two, for the rattlesnake had stopped, motionless, with his head raised in poise; and not the tremor of a muscle showed the man was living.

“Oh damn! damn this country!” whispered Tommy in an agony, “with never a stick nor stone in it! What’ll I do, Stephens? What’ll I do?”

“There’s a whip on your plow; send the boy for it,” breathed he.

I backed carefully away from the horrible spot, fearful the least sudden movement would bring the man’s fate upon him.

Then I flew for the whip.

Returning, I placed it in Tommy’s hands.

“Now, kid,” whispered Stephens, “step back and wave your coat. Hit, Murphy, at your first chance.”

I did as directed, and the little fiery eyes turned toward me. Tommy brought down the whip-stock with such fury it shivered into splinters. At the same moment Stephens made a cat-like jump to the side.

The rattler lay coiling and writhing in his death agony.

We three humans stood staring at each other without speaking. A great deal had happened within ten minutes, and speech is for commonplaces--not for crises.

At last Stephens broke the silence. He stretched his long arms, and yawned.

“I feel stiff--sitting still so long,” he said.

Without warning, my nerves gave way; I burst into a strangled sobbing.

Immediately the two men began to pat and comfort me.

“Why, kid,” said Stephens, “you stood the rest of it like a thoroughbred; you mustn’t cry now--there--there, brace up, old man!”

Between them they managed to quiet me, and then Tommy turned timidly to Stephens.

“How about the trouble between us?” he asked.

“Don’t mention it,” said the other, with a wave of his hand. “I don’t feel just as I did a few minutes ago.” He glanced down at the still squirming snake. “If there is a God,” he began, then stopped and shrugged his shoulders.--“Well, so long. I must be going. See you later.”

Tommy and I watched the slim, athletic figure until it had swung down on to the coulée out of sight.

“He’s a turrible man,” said Tommy, “but not a bad one after all. Well, look! will ye? I’ll be damned if thayre ain’t the bowl of that pipe!”

And picking it up we returned to the plow team.

VII

THE PUNISHMENT AND THE CRIME

THE TOO HUMOROUS PROPENSITIES OF BURT MOSSMAN AND OTHERS

When he gets a tenderfoot he ain’t afraid to rig,
Stand him on a chuck-box and make him dance a jig;
With his re-a-loading cutter he’ll make ’em sing and shout.
He’s a regular Ben Thompson--when the boss ain’t about!

--The Expert Cow-man (expurgated).

Ten thousand head of steers were waiting for cars at Dundee. There was the Bar Cross, the VV, the California outfit, the Double Ess Bar, the 7 T X, the Bar A Bar, the Sacramento Pool outfit and the Tinnin-Slaughter wagon, all the way from Toyah. This last named had bought six hundred steers on Crow Flat, road branded with two big Y’s, and drove. When they got to Dundee they were just a few shy of nine hundred head. This is by the way, and inserted only as a tribute to New Mexico’s unequaled climate.

The herds were camped in a circle around the lake, keeping an interval of about two miles from each other. Each herd had three watches of three to five men each for night-guard. But four or five men were ample for day herding; so the men took turns at that, day about, the unoccupied riding to Dundee in search of diversions. Forty or more saddle-ponies stood patiently unhitched, with dangling reins, in the plaza.

The hotel did a rushing business, Mrs. Stanley’s output making a pleasant contrast to camp-cooking. Norah, the bright-eyed, was besieged in form by relays of admirers, the more favored ones being allowed to help cook or wash dishes. Perhaps it should be stated in this connection that Norah was the only girl in a section fifty miles square. All the same, she was a jolly, pretty girl.

Now, when steer-shipping time comes the season’s hard work is over, and all except the “old hands” get their time. And while most men of the cow countries drink colored fluids on occasion, the superfluent ones, who consider the putting down of liquor the first duty of man, are not the stuff of which old hands are made, the law of survival obtaining on the free range as elsewhere.

So, after the first few days, drinking at Jim Gale’s place became perfunctory, though, as Dundee consisted of one hotel, one saloon, one depot, one store, the section house and two other buildings, the saloon was necessarily the prime center. The boys would not be paid until the cattle were sold, so gambling was barred by etiquette, “jaw-bone” games being viewed with disfavor as tending to unseemly contention. Similarly the code forbade more than two or three persecuting Miss Norah at once, and time ticked slowly.

Sun in the east at morning--
Sun in the west at night,

a cloudless sky, and a daily statement by a badgered agent that the cars would be in at once.

Given seventy-five full-blooded, vigorous, healthy cow-boys, twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week, and no work, and the Purveyor of Mischief may be depended upon to uphold their idle hands.

Inhospitality is mortal sin in all thinly-settled countries, but all things have their limit. For ten days a plague of tramps had overrun the chuck-wagons, feasting on steaks, hot biscuits and the like, getting a meal at one wagon and on to the next. And when one left he spread the glad tidings up and down, sending back seven others worse than the first, making hospitality act like a camel.

It was Johnny Patton, cook for the Pool wagon, that spoke unto Cornelius Brown and Tinnin, of the Toyah crowd, suggesting the advisability of slaying a tramp or so.

“Too harsh,” remarked Burt Mossman. “I speak for a Kangaroo Court.”

“A word to the Y’s is sufficient,” said Tinnin. Thus the pit was digged and thus the net contrived, the three collaborators appropriating the leading parts unto themselves. A particularly “gall-y” and tenacious tramp, who had adopted the V V wagon, was cast for the star. He was to be “It.” Minor places were filled and drilled; the rest of us were Roman populace. The curtain rose promptly after dinner. Brown and Tinnin began to bicker.

Tinnin alleged that Brown had ridden to the wagon for water and stayed for the whole forenoon. Furthermore, he sang a few stanzas from his favorite ditty, _The Expert Cow-man_, as bearing on the subject in hand:

“Put him on day herd, he’s sleepin’ all day,
First thing that starts out is sure to get away;
Comes home in the evenin’, he’ll blame it on the screws,
And swear the lazy devils were trying to take a snooze.”

Brown, highly indignant, demanded his time. To this Tinnin demurred, saying that Brown knew very well that he, Tinnin, would have no money till the steers were sold. They squabbled, L. C., until the others pacified them and proposed town and a drink to drown unkindness, which they did, inviting the tramp to go with them. To this he acceded joyously, not having learned to dread the gifts of the Greeks.

They took several sniffs at the peace-pipeline. Then Brown launched into an interminable yarn of hairbreadth ’scapes and ventures dire. Every time he named a new man he gave that man’s ancestry, biography, acts and connections, with any collateral information at hand. And the more he talked the further he got from the latter end of his tale.

Tinnin got unsteadily to his feet. “Hol’ on!” he said. “Hol’ on! That ’minds me of a song--

“He’ll tell you of a certain trip he made up the trail;
Taking half of Kansas to finish up his tale;
He’s handled lots of cattle, and this is what he says:
He’s getting sixty dollars the balance of his days.”

At this insult Brown stood on his tiptoes. “What!” says he, and jumped forward. Ward and John Henry Boucher caught him. There was a terrific scuffle, yells, howls: “Leggo, there!” “Look out! He’s goin’ to shoot!” etc. Same business for Tinnin, worked up most spiritedly. Those who had to giggle left the room.

We got Brown out and hustled him to camp, calling on the tramp (his name was Harris) to assist.

Brown raged: “I’ve had good and plenty of that song the last month! I’ve got a plumb full of his slurs! If that (past-participled) old blowhard throws any more of that (modified) song my way, he’ll get it, and get it hard! He’s been picking at me long enough.”

After the cattle were bedded down and the first guard put on, there were four at the Toyah wagon besides the tramp. Brown had finished supper and was standing with his back to the fire, smoking, when Tinnin rode up. He dismounted and came staggering out of the dark into the firelight. Pausing a moment, he began hilariously:

“To show you that he’s blooded and doesn’t mind expense,
He stands around a-scorchin’ of his eight-dollar pants!”

Brown whirled. “Have ye got a gun?” he snarled savagely.

“Betcher. Always!” said Tinnin; “and I know how to use it.”

Crack! Bang! Bang! Bang!

They emptied their guns over the fire. Harris was sitting directly between them. They were using blank cartridges, but of course Harris didn’t know that, so he went right away.

When he came back Tinnin was stretched out, all bloody (beef’s blood) over his breast and face; the conspirators were huddled, whispering.

Harris came up scared, white and shaking. Ward and Brown grabbed him. Says Ward, gritting his teeth:

“My bucko, you’ll swing for this!”

It flashed on the tramp that they meant to lay the “murder” on him. He begged awful as they took him in, leaving the corpse and the cook to watch the wagon. It was great sport from our point of view--and in that light.

In town Brown told the boys the tramp had killed poor Jeff; and turned him over to Mossman, the “appointed” sheriff.

“Judge” Charlie Slaughter called court in Gale’s saloon. All the boys were there, and most of the tramps--(they were _not_ in on the joke). The station-agent was made counsel for the defense, and the trial began, with all the formalities that anybody could remember or invent.

A weird vision blew over from the hotel--a frock-coated, high-hatted, gold-eye-glassed, bold-faced man with an elbow crooked in latest fashion. He would have been a spectacle, ordinarily, but now we accepted him as a man and brother. We explained the situation to him, and that all the boys had blank cartridges.

McClusky and Jones testified to the killing. They made it wanton and deliberate murder. Ominous growls arose from Roman populace. Prisoner’s counsel cross-examined unmercifully, but they stuck.

The prisoner told his side--told it straight, too. He broke down, cried, and begged for mercy, said his life was sworn away, that Brown was the guilty man. Some of the fun departed.

The judge said witnesses for the prosecution were trustworthy men of high standing, and committed the prisoner to jail at Hillsboro to await action of the grand jury.

“Lynch him! Lynch him!” shouted Boucher, jumping up. The judge promptly fined him fifty dollars for contempt of court, which was as promptly paid, Boucher borrowing the money of Gale. Every one was as solemn as an owl.

“Any further advocacy of lynchin’ in this court,” said Slaughter sternly, “will get the offending man or men three months in jail. There is no doubt in my mind as to the prisoner’s guilt, but if he’s executed it will be by due process of law. Mr. Sheriff, swear in deputies to guard this prisoner. Take him to Hillsboro on the midnight train.”

So Mossman appointed his brother Dana, Kim Ki Rogers, Pink Murray, Frank Calhoun and Henry Street. Then Slaughter adjourned.

Mossman and his posse were about half-way to the depot when the whole crowd overtook him.

“Now, Burt,” said Boucher, “we don’t want any trouble with you--but we want that man, and we’re going to have him.”

“Hang him! Hang him!” howled the mob, the guns click-clicking through the little stillnesses. If there’s a worse sound than a mob’s howl, Hell’s kept it for a surprise. I don’t wonder the hobo turned into a bag of skin, even at the imitation.

“You can’t have him!” Burt’s voice sounded dead earnest. He was a good actor. He handed the prisoner a gun. “Here--defend yourself. Get out of the way, you bums, or take what’s coming!”

That was our cue. A fusillade of blank cartridges covered our rush. The officers made a game fight.

Curses and screams showed where their unerring aim mowed down the Romans, but they were outnumbered. One by one they bit the dust. Mossman, the last one down, gallantly raised himself on elbow, fired a last defiant shot, groaned and died. Then all was still; a ghastly silence which Boucher broke. “This is bad business--but they would have it. Is the killer hurt?”

He had miraculously escaped. So we took him to a telegraph pole and put a rope around his neck.

“Let me say a word,” he gasped.

I like to remember that even a tramp can stand up and look at the Big Dark. He didn’t cry now; he’d lost sight of himself.

“Boys,” he said, quiet, “I ain’t begging. If I’d ’a’ done what they said it would put you straight. I’m only sorry so many better men was killed over me. You are doin’ what you think is right. But that man yonder--that Brown--killed Mr. Tinnin. Him and them three men lied. Tinnin’s blood and my blood and all the other boys’ blood is on their souls. I wouldn’t swap with them. I wouldn’t want to live and be them. But you’ll find out some day I told the truth. That’s about all.”

“Any word to your folks?” asked Boucher. “Want to pray?”

“I ain’t got no folks--and no notion how to pray,” he answered, catching at the nearest man to keep from falling. Then he steadied himself and looked up and around as if searching among the reeling stars for the Heavenly Help of whom he’d heard so much.

It was as ghastly as those waxwork figure murders. I sweat plenty. It was worse than if we’d been in earnest, by the whole dum multiplication table.

I reckon Brown and the rest got worrying, too, for Brown forced his part. “Let me speak to him for a minute,” says he. Under pretense of talk he unlocked the handcuffs.

“I can’t stand this,” he whispered. “Horses is all over yonder, and guns mostly empty--cut. Quit the railroad and slide across the Jornada. If you make the bushes maybe you can break clean.”

People are curious. Harris had been braced to die, but the minute he saw a chance he flew. I think I’d acted in that curious way myself, maybe.

We took after him, yelling “Catch him!” and “Get your horses!” and firing scattering shots. We run him a half-mile, then we came back, laughing and screeching.

But when we got together--a houseful of us--and begun to talk about that poor cuss hiding and trembling in the dark, Neighbor Jones blew a smoke-ring in the air and stuck his finger through it. The ring disappeared. “Where’s _that_ joke gone?” says he. And we all looked cross-eyed at our drinks.

But there wasn’t a hobo on the Jornada the next morning.

A lot of us felt mean next day. But a good half was too young to have sense; the men that had been on guard hadn’t seen it, and a lot more were used to being part of a crowd; otherwise the first night of the Dundee comedy would have ended its run.

Probably it would have been that way, anyhow, if “Aforesaid” Smith hadn’t got too many aboard. For a week after our hanging-bee tramps passed Dundee--probably warned by their underground telegraph. Then hobos straggled in. The young--and therefore hard-hearted--wanted another court at once. Wiser counsel prevailed, however, until the tenth day.

The sidings were full of cars, the buyers had cut the herds, and a few train-loads had pulled out. All the “culls” were thrown together, to be cut again when shipping was done, and driven back to their respective ranches. And--all of the boys had been paid.

At this juncture “Aforesaid” fell by the wayside, and went to sleep under a spreading soapwood tree. That was an old chestnut of his.

Now, Will Borland, suffering from remorse, had protected and kindly entreated a new tramp at the 7 T X wagon. Will was afflicted with a nasty conscience that never got to working in time to keep him out of meanness, and then dealt him misery after it was everlastingly too late.

Well, this hobo of Borland’s came along and went right through “Aforesaid’s” clothes to the tune of ninety dollars. But Neighbor Jones saw him.

They rounded up the hobo when he got to town, found the money on him, woke “Aforesaid,” and compared profit and loss. So, after supper, they desired to give another reading of the “Kangaroo Court.” There was considerable opposition to this, and several stayed away, to their everlasting joy. But most of the remonstrants joined the majority, as this lad needed punishment.

The cast was different this trip, Kim Ki being sheriff and Hopewell judge. All went merry as a marriage bell--with a few variations--until just after the holler of “Lynch him!” smote the air. Then that frock-coated, weird and unknowable stranger, who had boarded at the hotel all this while, addressed the court with diffidence and timidity.

“Your Honor, may I have permission to say a few words?” he asked.

“Oh--I suppose so,” said his Honor. “Only be short.”

The stranger removed his eye-glasses and polished them while he looked over the crowd with a benignant smile.

“Pardon me, gentlemen, if I detain you a moment. Let us forget this bum and your monkey business. I have been much pained to overhear the comments of some of your number upon myself. You boys are so frank and fearless and free”--another oily smile--“and are careless, perhaps, of giving another pain.”

He lowered his voice confidentially. “Now this pained me more, as you hit very close to fact. I _was_ once an abandoned and ungodly man--but I have been shown the error of my ways, and now it is my firm intention to become a missionary.” He put the glasses in his breast-pocket, slow, thrust the handkerchief under his coat-tails, slow--and produced two cannon too quick for eye-sight--nothing but a flash.

“Don’t be rash,” he said in kindly tones. “His Honor will tell you my colleague is standing at the back door. Is it not so, Judge?”

“Yes-es!” stammered the judge.

There was a silence thick as custard.

“I will not insist on the formality of putting up your hands, gentlemen; as the poet hath it:

“‘If the red slayer think he slays
Or the slain think he is slain,
They little know my subtle ways.’...”

“Now, _I_ know _your_ subtle ways, being aware your guns are loaded with blanks. I offer in evidence that no one should try to reload. My colleague will proceed to testify. Doc,” he called across us, “try the clock hanging over my head--hold its little hands as they lay!”

“Ker-bang--two shots.” A bullet-hole appeared neatly in the center of the III and another just inside and over the IX. The time was 9:15.

“Fair--fair!” said the missionary, gently chiding. “My brother’s left hand can’t do just what his right doeth. Still, I’m satisfied with my pupil.”

His voice was rich and unctuous, and one eye rolled upward sanctimoniously--the other kept strictly to business.

We listened, fascinated--some one snickered.

Our friend cleared his throat and continued:

“We realize we could rake a tidy sum out of this bunch if we were grasping. But if we get exacting there’s three possible bad results. First, it would entail considerable hardships on you, and on all those to whom you are indebted. Secondly, it would arouse evil passions in your hearts.

“Lastly, and most important to us, you would probably make us try high jumping over the hills and far away.

“So we make you a proposition which will strike you as being eminently reasonable. You are a playful crowd, fond of your little joke--Ah! speaking of jokes, pardon me one moment. Prisoner, you are discharged. Let this be a lesson to you, my dear brother, to be honest and upright in all your dealings in the future. Do you know, if I were you, I would not stay here? Going? _Good_-by! God bless you!--To resume: We could take your money, your guns and all your saddled cattle, and quite probably break away safely. But we would be sorry to cause you more than a temporary inconvenience, and we freely admit that you would give us the chase of the century. If we should be unfortunate enough to be captured you might prove vindictive.

“In view of these considerations, we would like to have the matter go off like a little pack of firecrackers among gentlemen; especially as we do not think you will take strenuous measures to pursue us--our capture would put the monumental kibosh on you for ever.

“You could hang us, but the way we stuck you up would be told for years to come. If you see fit to keep the matter private, we will not mention it.

“This is our moderate proposition: Let each of the foremen throw one hundred plunks in the plate, and each of the range-riders fifty. The owners shall contribute one dollar a head on each of their steers. That is less than the biblical tithe, as they have sold for fourteen dollars a head.

“We regret that two owners were unable to see the humor of your festivities, and that three foremen and some twenty of the boys thought your fun too one-sided. Still, over seven thousand head of cattle are represented here, besides five foremen, and fifty of the boys at fifty dollars each, making, say, ten thousand dollars altogether. Come up! The center table looks lonesome.

“Voluntarily donate so much to the good cause, and pledge your words to give us an hour’s start before Uncle Tomming us. Sixty minutes you hold your dogs.” He stopped and set himself. Says he, through a thin and tight mouth: “Otherwise we take all and risk all. Let her come quick.”

Dana Mossman spoke up: “Your proposition is all right with me, Parson. I am much interested in mission work myself. But I want to call your attention to Frank Dodds here. He wasn’t in on our little witticism the other day, and only came along to keep us from going too far to-night. He swore he’d tell the hobo we was only fooling before we got the rope around his neck.”

“The point is well taken,” said the Parson pleasantly. “Your attitude is sportsmanlike to a degree, and does you great credit. Mr. Dodds may pass. Now, has any other gentleman any suggestion to make?”

“A nice point arises in my mind as to what would happen if we resisted,” said Tinnin. “You couldn’t kill all of us, you know--and when we did get hold of you you would find it a matter for subsequent regret.”

“Very true--ve-ry true,” said the Parson musingly. “Yet not one of you knows but _he_ might be the one to have bad luck. We count on that--and you must count that, expecting no mercy, we should show none.”

“Yes--that’s so, too. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Leave out the horse-wranglers--they’re just boys and don’t know no better than to follow us--and I’m with you.”

“Well, I don’t know about the horse-wranglers. It might be a valuable lesson in the future. They can not learn too early to avoid pleasure which gives others pain. What do you say, Doc?” This to the silent one.

“Boys free,” said that vigilant person. “Cut it short! You talk too damn much!” And that was his only remark that evening.

“All right. We had set our hearts on clearing up an even ten thousand, though. I see some steer buyers of a facetious turn here. Perhaps they will be good enough to make up the deficiency.”

The Colonel spoke up deprecatingly: “Now I do not for a moment desire any bloodshed. But as to taking all our money, remember that ninety per cent. of it is in checks. You couldn’t use them, you know. And I certainly do not carry a thousand dollars with me in cash. I’m willing to give you what money I have--but I can’t pay you one dollar a head.”

“Vent slips,” said the Parson. “Your quota is twelve hundred head, Colonel. Don’t try to fudge. It would be difficult to realize on all of it--as you justly observe. Still, much can be done by two resolute men. We might take a few of you out in the brush and shoot you some if the checks were not paid. I fancy you would see that they were. ‘Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.’ Really, you tempt me. One hundred thousand dollars is a big stake, worthy of a bold throw. But let us not be covetous, my brothers.

“As to the other matter, I happen to know that Mr. Gale had ten thousand dollars sent down to cash checks with. You owners either give him your checks for your contribution, to cash, pledging your words as gentlemen and cow-men to redeem them, or we will clean out the crowd, safe and all, and take you check-men out to herd, till we have a friend negotiate the paper.

“If Mr. Gale will cash the checks for you we will let him go free. I am sure he will--for if he don’t I’ll draw a check for it all, and I know he’ll cash that! Speak up. All or part! The time has passed pleasantly, but I must go. You have indulged in Terpsichorean recreation and you are now under obligation to remunerate the violinist.”

Neighbor gasped. “How was that again? I only speak English and Spanish.”

“Ante up!” quoth the Parson.

“Oh!”

“Copper your jaw and take what you want,” said Slaughter. “None of us is looking for getting killed. And _I’m_ not going to push a foot after you, for one. It serves us right. Come on, boys. Hurry up--I want to go to bed.”

So said we all of us. Kim Ki and Neighbor passed the hat. The cow-men drew checks. Gale cashed them. The Parson counted up. It was a little over nine thousand six hundred dollars, and they made the buyers draw checks then to make up the even ten thousand.

“Far be it from me to doubt your integrity,” says he with the hand-on-the-chest act. “But, as a precaution against carelessness, the Colonel, Mr. Tinnin, his Honor and Mr. Mossman will accompany us for an hour or so. Good night, and pleasant dreams! Try and control your humorous propensities. Charmed to have met you, I’m sure--and I hope to meet you Hereafter (with a capital H)--boys--not before! Good night!”

And they went out the door with their hostages.

VIII

CAMP CUNNINGHAM

THE STORY OF A DAKOTA STORM

The population of Dakota in the early days was miscellaneous, to say the least of it. Men from every part of the world, from every station in life, and for many reasons, hobnobbed together in terms of free and equal intercourse. All social rules were turned topsy-turvy--or rather, ceased to exist. You could get a German baron to plow your garden for you, if you wanted style, and were not particular about the aim and scope of the furrows, and perhaps while the baron was plugging away, desperately struggling to keep the plow from emulating the exasperated worm of the old story, Jimmy O’Brien would come sailing by behind his team of 2:30 trotters on his way to deposit the money obtained by wise government contracts, and sing out a jovial greeting of “Stick to ’um, Bar’n, old man rocks! Thot’s th’ road t’ wealth--but ye’ll be a toird man when you land there!” And the baron would wave his hand in acknowledgment of the greeting, and smile grimly to himself in acknowledgment of the statement.

All manner of younger sons inhabited the country, making nonsense of the occupations they took up under the disguise of earning an honest living, and for which, as a rule, they showed a superb incapacity.

One of these scions of a noble house was James Cecil R. DeG. Cunningham--often known as Slim Jim or Pelican Cunningham--sometimes as just plain Cunny. He had a tent on a homestead on the banks of the Chantay Seeche River. It was a very clean, white tent. All the empty tin cans were piled up outside, like cannon-balls in a fort, and every morning the estate was carefully “policed.” No scraps and odds and ends littered the courtyard of Camp Cunningham.

“Like master, like man,” says the saw, and in this case truly, for the man Cunningham was exactly like the master Cunningham-sur-le-Chantay Seeche. No matter what his work was, he always managed to look as if he had just come from the wash--not that he was beautiful, but he was so chalky clean. His hair was clean, a peculiar no-color-at-all-cleanliness; his teeth were clean, and almost the size of piano-keys, when disclosed by his wide, good-natured smile; his eyes were pure white and pale blue. They showed behind the powerful lenses that corrected their myopia, like specimens of old china in a cabinet. They also had something of the trustfulness and instant claim for sympathy in their short-sighted stare that one often sees in children’s eyes.

Cunningham was full six feet two in stature, bony and loosely put together. His legs were of such length that Billy Wykam’s remark, that, “if it wasn’t for his necktie, Cunny would be twins,” had more foundation in fact than most hyperbole. But his walking gait was the most remarkable thing about him physically. He took immense strides, swinging his arms to their full extent, in unison, while his head had a continuous pecking motion. Paul Falk, our intellectual giant, said that Cunningham in action looked like a demonstration of a transverse vibration, and at rest like Cunningham, and nothing else on this or any other planet. He was one mortally homely man, if ever there lived one, yet there was something high and striking in his long, big-nosed face, and a genial quality in his perfect manner that would win you to liking him at the first meeting and for ever after. His was the style of the true nobleman, and gained for him the respect of the hilarious crew among whom he lived, despite his oddities.

Many a quiet kindly turn, so carefully contrived that he never guessed it was a kindness, he received from his neighbors; and for his part no man could have been more willing or useless. With an ax in his hand he was the most dangerous companion imaginable. He nearly brained two of the boys before they could think of an excuse to part him and his weapon without hurting his feelings, and when he started to help in an undertaking, not the least of the troubles of the others was to render him harmless. On one occasion Billy Wykam had a matter of twenty or thirty calves he wished to brand. Cunningham was in the corral, armed with a rope, intensely serious and businesslike. He tripped up almost everybody with the ropes; he “shooed” the wrong “critters” out of the corral, so that somebody had to take horses and chase them for miles over the prairie until they could be secured again; he roped Antelope Pete by mistake when the latter was flying down the corral towed by a powerful yearling, and gave Pete a fall that it would take years to blot out of the spectator’s memory; then in his zeal he hauled away on the rope, dragging his victim quite a distance before he could be stopped.

It was as much as the rest of us could do, so weak were we from laughing, to prevent the angry plainsman from laying violent hands on Cunningham, who, of course, was ignorant of having given offense. In short, Cunningham was so persistently where he ought not to be, and so entirely in everybody’s way, that some of the boys were like to die of suppressed profanity. Billy asked Paul for mercy’s sake to set the man at something where he wouldn’t be playing the old Harry with things all the time. Paul elected him to the position of branding-iron tender, whose duties are to heat the irons, and hand them out when needed. Even here the Englishman distinguished himself, for, peering near-sightedly around with a hot iron in his hand, he touched Billy’s buckskin bronco on the flank with it. The ugly little beast promptly kicked Cunningham into the fire, and then tore around the corral, spreading disaster and confusion. Poor Cunny got several bad burns, for which the rest of us were not as sorry as we should be, inasmuch as they forced him to knock off for the day.

If anything could have added to the absurdity of Cunningham’s performance, it would be that he was the “perfect gentleman” all the while; explaining, apologizing, or hazarding an opinion, it was always with the little graces of the drawing-room. How ludicrous this manner is in a rushing, dusty, hot, swearing cattle-corral is a thing that has to be seen to be appreciated. We always tried to secure Cunningham’s services elsewhere when we had something on hand which we really wished to put through. The man had a modest pride in his tent that it would have been wicked to disturb, yet for his safety’s sake it became a friendly duty to drop him a word of warning. He had landed in the country in the spring, and hitherto the weather had been delightful, without an omen of the furious storms that were sure to come during the summer. It seemed to us that his tent wouldn’t amount to much in the grass of Dakota, but we didn’t like to tell him so. At last we appointed Neighbor Case our commissioner to acquaint Cunningham with some facts we thought he had overlooked. After praising the tent and its surroundings, Neighbor came to the heart of his message.

“It’s mighty nice--mighty nice, Lengthy, he said. “Yet, if you want my advice, I’ll tell you what I’d do; I’d take a half hitch around a boulder with them guy-ropes, if I was you. Even then, you wouldn’t have no sure thing. Wait till you see one of our little breezes come cantering over the prairies, son; you’ll wish you had a cast-iron tent, fastened to the bowels of the earth with bridge-bolts.”

“I’m sure I thank you awfully, old man, for your interest, you know,” replied Cunningham, “but,” inspecting his moorings carefully through his glasses, “I think she’ll stand it. The pressure of the wind on a normal surface is only two pounds to the square foot, for a velocity of twenty miles an hour, and, of course, on oblique surfaces--like the tent-walls--much less, much less. Why, even in the cases of exceptional storms, the pressure does not rise above eighty or ninety pounds, and as I was careful to get only the best of canvas and cordage, she should stand that, don’t you think?”

Neighbor Case was impressed, if not converted. “That’s a great head you have on you, Lengthy,” he said admiringly. “You seem to know old Mr. Wind’s ways as well as if you and he had played in the back yard together when you was boys; but I want to tell you something. He may act like that in books, and only press you for so many pounds as you tell me about when you’re normal and he’s hitting a certain gait, but you can’t tell what he’ll do when he gets you out here all alone on the prairies. He may forget the rules and press you just as hard as he darn pleases; or he may shift the cut and knock you into a cocked hat before you can get the books out to show what he ought to do. No, Lengthy, book-learning is good, and you won’t catch me saying nothing agin it; but if I was you, I’d let it slide on this occasion, and tie her up to a boulder.”

Cunningham, however, had a trait in common with many gentle-natured people--that of mild obstinacy--and he stuck to his tent just as it was.

We could not urge him further, so there the matter dropped--until the day of the storm, then several other things came to earth.

We woke one morning to find the country wrapped in a fury of red light--not the cheery glow of daybreak, but a baleful crimson, as though it were raining blood on a world of fire. In the west a massive heap of storm was rolling, against whose murky blackness the small buttes stood out ruddily. It was a boiling storm; the vapors curled and twisted in a way that meant wind and hail, and plenty of both.

“By the great Hohokus! We’re going to catch it this trip,” said Billy, and the three who composed the household of his ranch began scrambling about in nervous haste, gathering up the things that might be blown away by wind.

In the middle of it he called out to me, “Say, Hank, don’t you think we ought to give old Cunny a lift? Here’s where his shanty comes down, sure!”

This was more than kind of Billy, for about the only thing in the world he feared was thunder and lightning, and this filled him with a dread that neither his strong will nor good sense could in the least abate or control.

Of course, I could not refuse. We started on a run for Camp Cunningham, a mile or so down the river. Yet, though the distance was so small, we had reason to doubt that we could cover it. Half-way, a hailstone the size of a child’s fist went whistling over our heads, ricocheted along the sod in great bounds; then came another and another--the skirmish fire of the storm.

The suggestive “thwuck” of these missiles as they took the ground made me draw in my head as far as possible--like a turtle.

I was just wondering what effect one of them would have on the human body, when a big fellow smashed fairly against the side of Billy’s head--a sounding blow which knocked the sturdy little man staggering.

“We’ve got to get out of this,” he said, grinding his teeth in pain, “or we’ll be slaughtered!”

A trickle of blood from a cut in his head bore witness that this was not a figure of speech. Let any one who doubts the Lethal quality of a Dakota hail-storm stand out in the open while a dozen or so expert ball-pitchers open fire on him with pieces of ice, weighing up to half a pound (the actual conditions of the storms are sometimes a worse matter than this comes to), and I fancy he will soon be changed from a skeptic to a fanatic.

If I had any doubts they were instantly removed by a rap on the arm which numbed it to the finger-tips. For a moment we hesitated, but it was too far back to the ranch, so we broke for the scant cover of some bullberry bushes on the hitherside of Cunningham’s coulée.

As we flattened ourselves behind these the real storm was on us in a breath. We were stunned by the uproar; the all-pervading heavy drumming of rain and hail, and the hiss of their passage; the yelling and booming of the wind, and the thunder that smote the earth, crash upon crash, like the blows of a hammer. We did not think--we held on tight and waited. One could not see ten feet into the gray of falling ice and water, and the rush of it nearly took one’s senses away. It all but turned the level prairie into a seething lake, and the slopes into rapids. Suddenly the downpour ceased almost as abruptly as it began, and nothing remained but the wind. I say “nothing,” because that is our idiom. I do not use the word in a depreciatory sense, for we had full realization of what force there is in mere air in motion that morning. It swept across the prairie in one great tide of power. There was not a flutter nor break in it. It jammed us down in the mud, and then held us there. At first it seemed as if our heads would be whipped off our shoulders if we dared lift them up into the full swing of it. But this acme of energy passed at last, and we turned our eyes down the coulée to see how our friend had fared.

Tent Cunningham had so far fulfilled its architect’s expectations. A swollen yellow river from the coulée washed its edge and it was plastered with mud by the hailstones, but otherwise uninjured.

“He’s--weathered--it!” roared Billy in my ear. “Yes,” I answered, “coulée--bank--protected--him. He’s--all--right--if--”

I was going to say “if the wind doesn’t shift.” But before the words were out the wind had shifted.

Rrrr-oooo-oof! It shrieked down the coulée and with a snapping and a cracking, like a small Fourth of July celebration, away went Tent Cunningham. The canvas rose in the air, flapping tragically; and beneath it, galloping in frantic haste, were the longest and thinnest legs in the world, as poor Cunningham, caught in the folds, was hustled onward. We could see nothing of him but legs, and as the flying tent bore a rude semblance to the human figure, the combination looked like a gigantic ghost, with slender black legs, hurrying off to haunt somebody.

Such leaps and bounds as Cunningham made were never equaled by the winner of any Olympia, ancient or modern; and such another vision never was beheld outside the course of a nightmare. There was a fever of madness in its curvetings, its gesticulations, its wild plunges.

Down into the Chantay Seeche, all a-suds from the recent bombardment, the specter swooped, and then came a mighty struggling and floundering.

Surely no more ignominious death could be furnished the offspring of a noble house than to be held down by a tent and drowned in two feet of water!

We sprang, nay, we flew to his assistance, for once on our feet the wind scurried us ahead whether we would or no. We spaudered and slid over the slippery mud, like novices on skates, and we should have over-shot our quarry but that we grabbed at the tent in passing.

Now, it turned out to be in nowise so easy to get the man out as you might think, for the moment we lifted a fold of the canvas it caught the air like a kite, and down we went, under it, or over it, as the case appeared. In the former instance, it was no small job for us to get ourselves out again, let alone helping Cunningham. The very devil was in the tent, and it began to look as if the man would be drowned right under our hands, when it occurred to me to cut the knot of our complications.

I passed my knife over a bulging place which I judged held some part of the victim, and instantly the head of James Cecil R. DeG. Cunningham popped through the opening--a head from whose mouse-colored whiskers and long nose the water dripped pathetically, and which regarded us with injured but vacant near-sighted eyes.

Poor Cunny! His mind must have been thoroughly addled by the events of the morning, for the first words he spoke--in the tone of one declining an ice--were: “I don’t like this kind of thing at all, y’ know!”

“You don’t, eh?” said Billy. “Well, if it’s the last act, I’m going to laugh.”

He surely did laugh, and I with him. We howled, and splashed, and slapped our legs until we were too weak to stand up, and then we sat right down in the water. Cunny set up a stentorian “haw-haw” out of pure good nature, and the sight of him, with his tent around him like a toga, full of dignity, but willing to oblige, as usual, went near to finish us.

“Don’t look at me, Cunny, don’t!” begged Billy. “If you look at me again like that, I’ll die right here!”

“Very good! Very good, indeed! Haw, haw, haw!” replied Cunningham.

In the middle of the hilarity there came a hail from the river bank in a voice of wonder. It was Antelope Pete, mounted, on his way to Billy’s to compare notes on the morning’s flood.

Now, Antelope is a very serious-minded man for the country, and it wouldn’t be well to repeat all the different things he said might happen him if he ever saw the like of this before.

“Do you fellows always go out in the middle of the river to crack jokes in thunder-storms?” he demanded. “What in blazes is the matter with you, anyhow?”

We tried to explain, but we couldn’t get three words out before we were in roars again, and Pete was perfectly disgusted.

“Well, I’m going to leave,” said he. “I’ve got something else better to do besides sitting here watching the most all-fired, copper-riveted, three-ply, double-backed-action damn fools that it was ever my luck to come acrost.”

We prevailed upon him, however, to throw us his rope, and as Cunningham was so fearfully and wonderfully entangled in the tent that it would have been next to impossible to extricate him, we tied the line to a corner of the tent. Antelope then laid the quirt on his cayuse, and man and mansion were hauled up the bank together.