The Flying U Ranch, B. M. Bower [diy ebook reader .txt] 📗

boys would hang onto yourselves when you hear a

sheep blatting under your window,” he summed up his unburdening

whimsically. “As Bud said this morning, you can’t hang a man for

telling a sheepherder you’ll take off his shoes. And they can’t

send us over the road for moving that band of sheep onto new

range to-day. Last night you all were kinda disorderly, maybe,

but you didn’t hurt anybody, or destroy any property. You see

what I mean. Our only show is to stop with our toes on the right

side of the dead line.”

 

“If Andy, here, would jest git his think-wheels greased and going

good,” Big Medicine suggested loudly, “he ought to frame up

something that would put them Dots on the run permanent. I d’no,

by cripes, why it is a feller can always think uh lies and joshes

by the dozens, and put ‘em over O. K. when there ain’t nothing to

be made out of it except hard feelin’s; and then when a deal like

this here sheep deal comes up, he’s got about as many idees, by

cripes, as that there line-back calf over there. Honest to

grandma, Andy makes me feel kinda faint. Only time he did have a

chanc’t, he let them—” It occurred to Big Medicine at that point

that perhaps his remarks might be construed by the object of them

as being offensively personal. He turned his head and grinned

good-naturedly in Andy’s direction, and refrained from finishing

what he was going to say. “I sure do like them wind-flowers

scattered all over the ground,” he observed with such deliberate

and ostentatious irrelevance that the Happy Family laughed, even

to Andy Green, who had at first been inclined toward anger.

 

“Everything,” declared Andy in the tone of a paid instructor,

“has its proper time and place, boys; I’ve told you that before.

For instance, I wouldn’t try to kill a skunk by talking it to

death; and I wouldn’t be hopeful of putting the run on this Dunk

person by telling him ghost stories. As to ideas—I’m plumb full

of them. But they’re all about grub, just right at present.”

 

That started Slim and Happy Jack to complaining because no one

had had sense enough to go back after some lunch before taking

that long trail south; the longer because it was a slow one, with

sheep to set the pace. And by the time they had presented their

arguments against the Happy Family’s having enough brains to last

them overnight, and the Happy Family had indignantly pointed out

just where the mental deficiency was most noticeable, they were

upon that last, broad stretch of “bench” land beyond which lay

Flying U coulee and Patsy and dinner; a belated dinner, to be

sure, but for that the more welcome.

 

And when they reached the point where they could look away to the

very rim of the coulee, they saw sheep—sheep to the skyline,

feeding scattered and at ease, making the prairie look, in the

distance, as if it were covered with a thin growth of gray

sage-brush. Four herders moved slowly upon the outskirts, and the

dogs were little, scurrying, black dots which stopped

occasionally to wait thankfully until the master-minds again

urged them to endeavor.

 

The Happy Family drew up and stared in silence.

 

“Do I see sheep?” Pink inquired plaintively at last. “Tell me,

somebody.”

 

“It’s that bunch you fellows tackled last night,” said Weary

miserably. “I ought to have had sense enough to leave somebody on

the ranch to look out for this.”

 

“They’ve got their nerve,” stated Irish, “after the deal they got

last night. I’d have bet good money that you couldn’t drag them

herders across Flying U coulee with a log chain.”

 

“Say, by golly, do we have to drive this here bunch anywheres

before we git anything to eat?” Slim wanted to know

distressfully.

 

Weary considered briefly. “No, I guess we’ll pass ‘em up for the

present. An hour or so won’t make much difference in the long

run, and our horses are about all in, right now—”

 

“So’m I, by cripes!” Big Medicine attested, grinning mirthlessly.

“This here sheep business is plumb wearin’ on a man. ‘Specially,”

he added with a fretful note, “when you’ve got to handle ‘em

gentle. The things I’d like to do to them Dots is all ruled outa

the game, seems like. Honest to grandma, a little gore would look

better to me right now than a Dutch picnic before the foam’s all

blowed off the refreshments. Lemme kill off jest one herder,

Weary?” he pleaded. “The one that took a shot at me las’ night.

Purty, please!”

 

“If you killed one,” Weary told him glumly. “you might as well

make a clean sweep and take in the whole bunch.”

 

“Well, I won’t charge nothin’ extra fer that, either,” Bud

assured him generously. “I’m willin’ to throw in the other three

—and the dawgs, too, by cripes!” He goggled the Happy Family

quizzically. “Nobody can’t say there’s anything small about me.

Why, down in the Coconino country they used to set half a dozen

greasers diggin’ graves, by cripes, soon as I started in to argy

with a man. It was a safe bet they’d need three or four, anyways,

if old Bud cut loose oncet. Sheepherders? Why, they jest

natcherly couldn’t keep enough on hand, securely, to run their

sheep. They used to order sheepherders like they did woolsacks,

by cripes! You could always tell when I was in the country, by

the number uh extra herders them sheep outfits always kep’ in

reserve. Honest to grandma, I’ve knowed two or three outfits to

club together and ship in a carload at a time, when they heard I

was headed their way. And so when it comes to killin’ off four,

why that ain’t skurcely enough to make it worth m’while to dirty

up m’gun!”

 

“Aw, I betche yuh never killed a man in your life!” Happy Jack

grumbled in his characteristic tone of disparagement; but such

was his respect for Big Medicine’s prowess that he took care not

to speak loud enough to be overheard by that modest gentleman,

who continued with certain fearsome details of alleged murderous

exploits of his own, down in Coconino County, Arizona.

 

But as they passed the detested animals, thankful that the trail

permitted them to ride by at a distance sufficient to blur the

most unsavory details, even Big Medicine gave over his deliberate

boastings and relapsed into silence.

 

He had begun his fantastic vauntings from an instinctive impulse

to leaven with humor a situation which, at the moment, could not

be bettered. Just as they had, when came the news of the Old

Man’s dire plight, sought to push the tragedy of it into the

background and cling to their creed of optimism, they had avoided

openly facing the sheep complication squarely with mutual

admissions of all it might mean to the Flying U.

 

Until Weary had unburdened his heart of worry on the ride home

that day, they had not said much about it, beyond a general

vilification of the sheep industry as a whole, of Dunk as the

chief of the encroaching Dots, and of the herders personally.

 

But there were times when they could not well avoid thinking

rather deeply upon the subject, even if they did refuse to put

their forebodings into speech. They were not children; neither

were they to any degree lacking in intelligence. Swearing, about

herders and at them, was all very well; bluffing, threatening,

pummeling even with willing fists, tearing down tents and binding

men with ropes might serve to relieve the emotions upon occasion.

But there was the grim economic problem which faced squarely the

Flying U as a “cow outfit”—the problem of range and water; the

Happy Family did not call it by name, but they realized to the

full what it meant to the Old Man to have sheep just over his

boundary line always. They realized, too, what it meant to have

the Old Man absent at this time—worse, to have him lying in a

hospital, likely to die at any moment; what it meant to have the

whole responsibility shifted to their shoulders, willing though

they might be to bear the burden; what it meant to have the

general of an army gone when the enemy was approaching in

overwhelming numbers.

 

Pink, when they were descending the first slope of the bluff

which was the southern rim of Flying U coulee, turned and glared

vindictively back at the wavering, gray blanket out there to the

west. When he faced to the front his face had the look it wore

when he was fighting.

 

“So help me, Josephine!” he gritted desperately, “we’ve got to

clean the range of them Dots before the Old Man comes back, or—”

He snapped his jaws shut viciously.

 

Weary turned haggard eyes toward him.

 

“How?” he asked simply. And Pink had no answer for him.

 

CHAPTER XII. Two of a Kind

 

Patsy, staunch old partisan that he was, placed before them much

food which he had tried his best to keep hot without burning

everything to a crisp, and while they ate with ravenous haste he

told, with German epithets and a trembling lower jaw, of his

troubles that day.

 

“Dem sheeps, dey coom by der leetle pasture,” he lamented while

he poured coffee muddy from long boiling. “Looks like dey know so

soon you ride away, und dey cooms cheeky as you pleece, und eats

der grass und crawls under der fence and leafs der vool sthicking

by der vires. I goes out mit a club, py cosh, und der sheeps

chust looks und valks by some better place alreatty, und I throw

rocks and yells till mine neck iss sore.

 

“Und’ dose herders, dey sets dem by der rock and laugh till I

felt like I could kill der whole punch, by cosh! Und von yells,

‘Hey, dutchy, pring me some pie, alreatty!’ Und he laughs some

more pecause der sheeps dey don’t go avay; dey chust run around

und eat more grass and baa-aa!” He turned and went heavily back

to the greasy range with the depleted coffee pot, lifted the lid

of a kettle and looked in upon the contents with a purely

mechanical glance; gave a perfunctory prod or two with a long-handled fork, and came back to stand uneasily behind Weary.

 

“If you poys are goin’ to shtand fer dot,” he began querulously,

“Py cosh I von’t! Py myself I vill go and tell dot Dunk W’ittaker

vot lowdown skunk I t’ink he iss. Sheep’s vool shtickin’ by der

fences efferwhere on der ranch, py cosh! Dot vould sure kill der

Old Man quick if he see it. Shtinkin’ off sheeps py our noses all

der time, till I can’t eat no more mit der shmell of dem. Neffer

pefore did I see vool on der Flying U fences, py cosh, und sheeps

baa-aain’ in der coulee!”

 

Never had they seen Patsy take so to heart a matter of mere

business importance. They did not say much to him; there was not

much that they could say. They ate their fill and went out

disconsolately to discuss the thing among themselves, away from

Patsy’s throaty complainings. They hated it as badly as did he;

with Weary’s urgent plea for no violence holding them in leash,

they hated it more, if that were possible.

 

The Native Son tilted his head unobtrusively stableward when he

caught Andy’s eye, and as unobtrusively wandered away from the

group. Andy stopped long enough to roll and light a cigarette and

then strolled after him with apparent aimlessness, secretly

curious over the summons. He found Miguel in the stable waiting

for