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

him, and Miguel led the way, rope in hand across the corral

and into the little pasture where fed a horse he meant to ride.

He did not say anything until he had turned to close the gate,

and to make sure that they were alone and that their departure

had not carried to the Happy Family any betraying air of

significance.

 

“You remember when you blew in here, a few weeks or so ago?” the

Native Son asked abruptly, a twinkle in his fathomless eyes. “You

put up a good one on the boys, that time, you remember. Bluffed

them into thinking I was a hero in disguise, and that you’d seen

me pull off a big stunt of bull-fighting and bull-dogging down

in Mexico. It was a fine josh. They believe it yet.”

 

Andy glanced at him perplexedly. “Yes—but when it turned out to

be true,” he amended, “the josh was on me, I guess; I thought I

was just lying, when I wasn’t. I’ve wondered a good deal about

that. By gracious, it makes a man feel funny to frame up a yarn

out of his own think-machine, and then find out he’s been telling

the truth all the while. It’s like a fellow handing out a

twenty-four karat gold bar to a rube by mistake, under the

impression it only looks like one. Of course they believe it!

Only they don’t know I just merely hit the truth by accident.”

 

The Native Son smiled his slow, amused smile, that somehow never

failed to be impressive. “That’s the funny part of it,” he

drawled. “You didn’t. I just piled another little josh on top of

yours, that’s all. I never throwed a bull in my life, except with

my lariat. I’d heard a good deal about you, and—well, I thought

I’d see if I could go you one better. And you put that Mexico

yarn across so smooth and easy, I just simply couldn’t resist the

temptation to make you think it was all straight goods. Sabe?”

 

Andy Green did not say a word, but he looked exceedingly foolish.

 

“So I think we can both safely consider ourselves top-hands when

it comes to lying,” the Native Son went on shamelessly. “And if

you’re willing to go in with me on it and help put Dunk on the

run—” He glanced over his shoulder, saw that Happy Jack, on

horseback, was coming out to haze in the saddle bunch, and turned

to stroll back as lazily as he had come. He continued to speak

smoothly and swiftly, in a voice that would not carry ten paces.

While Andy Green, with brown head bent attentively, listened

eagerly and added a sentence or two on his own account now and

then, and smiled—which he had not been in the habit of doing

lately.

 

“Say, you fellers are gittin’ awful energetic, ain’t

yuh?—wranglin’ horses afoot!” Happy Jack bantered at the top of

his voice when he passed them by. “Better save up your strength

while you kin. Weary’s goin’ to set us herdin’ sheep agin—and I

betche there’s goin’ to be something more’n herdin’ on our hands

before we git through.”

 

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there was,” sang out Andy, as

cheerfully as if he had been invited to dance “Ladies’ choice”

with the prettiest girl in the crowd. “Wonder what hole he’s

going to dump this bunch into,” he added to the Native Son. “By

gracious, he ought to send ‘em just as far north as he can drive

‘em without paying duty! I’d sure take ‘em over into Canada, if

it was me running the show.”

 

“It was a mistake,” the Native Son volunteered, “for the whole

bunch to go off like we did to-day. They had those sheep up here

on the hill just for a bait. They knew we’d go straight up in the

air and come down on those two freaks herding ‘em, and that gave

them the chance to cross the other bunch. I thought so all along,

but I didn’t like to butt in.”

 

“Well Weary’s mad enough now to do things that will leave a dent,

anyway,” Andy commented under his breath when, from the corral

gate, he got a good look at Weary’s profile, which showed the set

of his mouth and chin. “See that mouth? It’s hunt the top rail,

and do it quick, when old Weary straightens out his lips like

that.”

 

Behind them, Happy Jack bellowed for an open gate and no

obstructions, and they drew hastily to one side to let the saddle

horses gallop past with a great upflinging of dust. Pink, with a

quite obtrusive facetiousness, began lustily chanting that it

looked to him like a big night tonight—with occasional, furtive

glances at Weary’s face; for he, also, had been quick to read

those close-pressed lips, which did not soften in response to the

ditty. Usually he laughed at Pink’s drollery.

 

They rode rather quietly upon the hill again, to where fed the

sheep. During the hour or so that they had been absent the sheep

had not moved appreciably; they still grazed close enough to the

boundary to make their position seem a direct insult to the

Flying U, a virtual slap in the face. And these young men who

worked for the Flying U, and who made its interests right loyally

their own, were growing very, very tired of turning the other

cheek. With them, the time for profanity and for horseplay

bluffing and judicious temporizing was past. There were other

lips besides Weary’s that were drawn tight and thin when they

approached that particular band of sheep. More than one pair of

eyes turned inquiringly toward him and away again when they met

no answering look.

 

They topped a rise of ground, and in the shallow wrinkle which

had hidden him until now they came full upon Dunk Whittaker,

riding a chunky black which stepped restlessly about while he

conferred in low tones with a couple of the herders. The Happy

Family recognized them as two of the fellows in whose safe

keeping they had left their ropes the night before. Dunk looked

around quickly when the group appeared over the little ridge,

scowled, hesitated and then came straight up to them.

 

“I want you rowdies to bring back those sheep you took the

trouble to drive off this morning,” he began, with the even,

grating voice and the sneering lift of lip under his little,

black mustache which the older members of the Happy Family

remembered—and hated—so vividly. “I’ve stood just all I’m going

to stand, of these typically Flying U performances you’ve been

indulging in so freely during the past week. It’s all very well

to terrorize a neighborhood of long-haired rubes who don’t know

enough to teach you your places; but interfering with another

man’s property is—”

 

“Interfering with another—what?” Big Medicine, his pale blue

eyes standing out more like a frog’s than ever upon his face,

gave his horse a kick and lunged close that he might lean and

thrust his red face near to Dunk’s. “Another what? I don’t see

nothin’ in your saddle that looks t’me like a man, by cripes! All

I can see is a smooth-skinned, slippery vermin I’d hate to name a

snake after, that crawls around in the dark and lets cheap rough-necks do all his dirty work. I’ve saw dogs sneak up and grab a

man behind, but most always they let out a growl or two first.

And even a rattler is square enough to buzz at yuh and give yuh a

chanc’t to side-step him. Honest to grandma, I don’t hardly know

what kinda reptyle y’are. I hate to insult any of ‘em, by cripes,

by namin’ yuh after ‘em. But don’t, for Lordy’s sake, ever call

yourself a man agin!”

 

Big Medicine turned his head and spat disgustedly into the grass

and looked back slightingly with other annihilating remarks close

behind his wide-apart teeth, but instead of speaking he made an

unbelievably quick motion with his hand. The blow smacked loudly

upon Dunk’s cheek, and so nearly sent him out of the saddle that

he grabbed for the horn to save himself.

 

“Oh, I seert yuh keepin’ yer hand next yer six-gun all the

while,” Big Medicine bawled. “That’s one reason I say yuh ain’t

no man! Yuh wouldn’t dast talk up to a prairie dog if yuh wasn’t

all set to make a quick draw. Yuh got your face slapped oncet

before by a Flyin’ U man, and yuh had it comm’. Now

you’re—gittin’—it—done—right!”

 

If you have ever seen an irate, proletarian mother cuffing her

offspring over an empty wood-box, you may picture perhaps the

present proceeding of Big Medicine. To many a man the thing would

have been unfeasible, after the first blow, because of the

horses. But Big Medicine was very nearly all that he claimed to

be; and one of his pet vanities was his horsemanship; he managed

to keep within a fine slapping distance of Dunk. He stopped when

his hand began to sting through his glove.

 

“Now you keep your hand away from that gun—that you ain’t honest

enough to carry where folks can see it, but ‘ye got it cached in

your pocket!” he thundered. “And go on with what you was goin’

t’say. Only don’t get swell-headed enough to think you’re a man,

agin. You ain’t.”

 

“I’ve got this to say!” Mere type cannot reproduce the

malevolence of Dunk’s spluttering speech. “I’ve sent for the

county sheriff and a dozen deputies to arrest you, and you, and

you, damn you!” He was pointing a shaking finger at the older

members of the Happy Family, whom he recognized not gladly, but

too well. “I’ll have you all in Deer Lodge before that lying,

thieving, cattle-stealing Old Man of yours can lift a finger.

I’ll sheep Flying U coulee to the very doors of the white house.

I’ll skin the range between here and the river—and I’ll have

every one of you hounds put where the dogs won’t bite you!” He

drew a hand across his mouth and smiled as they say Satan himself

can smile upon occasion.

 

“You’ve done enough to send you all over the road; destroying

property and assaulting harmless men—you wait! There are other

and better ways to fight than with the fists, and I haven’t

forgotten any of you fellows—there are a few more rounders among

you—”

 

“Hey! You apologize fer that, by cripes, er I’ll kill yuh the

longest way I know. And that—” Big Medicine again laid violent

hands upon Dunk, “and that way won’t feel good, now I’m tellin’

yuh. Apologize, er—”

 

“Say, all this don’t do any good, Bud,” Weary expostulated. “Let

Dunk froth at the mouth if he wants to; what we want is to get

these sheep off the range. And,” he added recklessly, “so long as

the sheriff is headed for us anyway, we may as well get busy and

make it worth his while. So—” He stopped, silenced by a most

amazing interruption.

 

On the brow of the hill, when first they had sighted Dunk in the

hollow, something had gone wrong with Miguel’s saddle so that he

had stopped behind; and, to keep him company, Andy had stopped

also and waited for him. Later, when Dunk was spluttering

threats, they had galloped up to the edge of the group and pulled

their horses to a stand. Now, Miguel rode abruptly close to Dunk

as rides one with a purpose.

 

He leaned and peered intently into Dunk’s distorted countenance

until every man there, struck by his manner, was watching him

curiously. Then he sat back in the saddle, straightened his legs

in the stirrups and laughed. And like his smile when he would