The Texan, James B. Hendryx [ebook and pdf reader TXT] 📗

in his way—never run off no horses except from outfits that could afford to lose 'em. Why, they say, he could have got plumb away if he'd shot the posse man that run onto him over by the Mission. But he knew the man was a nester with a wife an' two kids, so he took a chance—an' the nester got him."

"How could he?" cried the girl, "after——"

The Texan regarded her gravely. "It was tough. An' he probably hated to do it. But he was a sworn-in posse man, an' the other was a horse-thief. It was just one of those things a man's got to do. Like Jim Larkin, when he was sheriff, havin' to shoot his own brother, an' him hardly more'n a kid that Jim had raised. But he'd gone plumb bad an' swore never to be taken alive, so Jim killed him—an' then he resigned. There ain't a man that knows Jim, that don't know he'd rather a thousan' times over had the killin' happen the other way 'round. But he was a man. He had it to do—an' he done it."

Alice shuddered: "And then—what became of him, then?"

"Why, then, he went back to ranchin'. He owns the Bar X horse outfit over on the White Mud. This here, Owen—that was his brother's name—was just like a son to him. Jim tried to steer him straight, but the kid was just naturally a bad egg. Feelin' it the way he does, a lesser man might of squinted down the muzzle of his own gun, or gone the whiskey route. But not him. To all appearances he's the same as he always was. But some of us that know him best—we can see that he ain't quite the same as before—an' he never will be."

There were tears in the girl's eyes as the man finished.

"Oh, it's all wrong! It's cruel, and hard, and brutal, and wrong!"

"No. It ain't wrong. It's hard, an' it's cruel, maybe, an' brutal. But it's right. It ain't a country for weaklings—the cow country ain't. It's a country where, every now an' then, a man comes square up against something that he's got to do. An' that something is apt as not to be just what he don't want to do. If he does it, he's a man, an' the cow country needs him. If he don't do it, he passes on to where there's room for his kind—an' the cow country don't miss him. A man earns his place here, it ain't made for him—often he earns the name by which he's called. I reckon it's the same all over—only this is rawer."

"Here's the water! And it is cold and sweet," called Endicott who had been busily removing the loose rock fragments beneath which the spring lay concealed.

The Texan's interest centred on matters at hand: "You Bat, you make a fire when you've finished with the horses." He turned again to the girl: "If you'll be the cook, Win an' I'll mud up a catch-basin an' rustle some firewood while Bat makes camp. We got to do all our cookin' at night up here. A fire won't show above the rim yonder, but in the daytime someone might see the smoke from ten mile off."

"Of course, I'll do the cooking!" assented the girl, and began to carry the camp utensils from the pack that the half-breed had thrown upon the ground. "The dough-gods are all gone!" she exclaimed in dismay, peering into a canvas bag.

"Mix up some bakin'-powder ones. There's flour an' stuff in that brown sack."

"But—I don't know how!"

"All right. Wait 'til I get Win strung out on this job, an' I'll make up a batch."

He watched Endicott arrange some stones: "Hey, you got to fit those rocks in better'n that. Mud ain't goin' to hold without a good backin'."

The cowboy washed his hands in the overflow trickle and wiped them upon his handkerchief. "I don't know what folks does all their lives back East," he grinned; "Win, there, ain't barbered none to speak of, an' the Lord knows he ain't no stone-mason."

Alice did not return the smile, and the Texan noticed that her face was grave in the pale starlight. For the first time in her life the girl felt ashamed of her own incompetence.

"And I can't cook, and——"

"Well, that's so," drawled Tex, "but it won't be so tomorrow. No one but a fool would blame any one for not doin' a thing they've never learnt to do. They might wonder a little how-come they never learnt, but they wouldn't hold it against 'em—not 'til they've had the chance." Bat was still busy with the horses and the cowboy collected sticks and lighted a small fire, talking, as he worked with swift movements that accomplished much without the least show of haste. "It generally don't take long in the cow country for folks to get their chance. Take Win, there. Day before yesterday he was about the greenest pilgrim that ever straddled a horse. Not only he didn't know anything worth while knowin', but he was prejudiced. The first time I looked at him I sized him up—almost. 'There's a specimen,' I says to myself—while you an' Purdy was gossipin' about the handkerchief, an' the dance, an' what a beautiful rider he was—'that's gone on gatherin' refinement 'til it's crusted onto him so thick it's probably struck through.' But just as I was losin' interest in him, he slanted a glance at Purdy that made me look him over again. There he stood, just the same as before—only different." The Texan poured some flour into a pan and threw in a couple of liberal pinches of baking-powder.

Alice's eyes followed his every movement, and she glanced toward the spring that Endicott had churned into a mud hole. The cowboy noted her glance. "It would be riled too much even if we strained it," he smiled, "so we'll just use what's left in that flask. It don't take much water an' the spring will clear in time for the coffee."

"And some people never do learn?" Alice wanted to hear more from this man's lips concerning the pilgrim. But the Texan mustn't know that she wanted to hear.

"Yes, some don't learn, some only half learn, an' some learn in a way that carries 'em along 'til it comes to a pinch—they're the worst. But, speakin' of Win, after I caught that look, the only surprise I got when I heard he'd killed Purdy was that he could do it—not that he would. Then later, under certain circumstances that come to pass in a coulee where there was cottonwoods, him an' I got better acquainted yet. An' then in the matter of the reservoir—but you know more about that than I do. You see what I'm gettin' at is this: Win can saddle his own horse, now, an' he climbs onto him from the left side. The next time he tackles it he'll shave, an' the next time he muds up a catch-basin he'll mud it right. Day before yesterday he was about as useless a lookin' piece of bric-a-brac as ever draw'd breath—an' look at him now! There ain't been any real change. The man was there all the time, only he was so well disguised that no one ever know'd it—himself least of all. Yesterday I saw him take a chew off Bat's plug—an' Bat don't offer his plug promiscuous. He'll go back East, an' the refinement will cover him up again—an' that's a damned shame. But he won't be just the same. It won't crust over no more, because the prejudice is gone. He's chewed the meat of the cow country—an' he's found it good."

Later, long after the others had gone to sleep, Alice lay between her blankets in the little shelter tent, thinking.

CHAPTER XV THE TEXAN HEARS SOME NEWS

Bat had pitched the tent upon a little knoll, screened by a jutting shoulder of rock from the sleeping place of the others. When Alice awoke it was broad daylight. She lay for a few moments enjoying the delicious luxury of her blankets which the half-breed had spread upon a foot-thick layer of boughs. The sun beat down upon the white canvas and she realized that it was hot in the tent. The others must have been up for hours and she resented their not having awakened her. She listened for sounds, but outside all was silence and she dressed hurriedly. Stepping from the tent, she saw the dead ashes of the little fire and the contents of the packs apparently undisturbed, covered with the tarp. She glanced at her watch. It was half past nine. Suddenly she remembered that dawn had already began to grey the east when they retired. She was the first one up! She would let the others sleep. They needed it. She remembered the Texan had not slept the day before, but had ridden away to return later with the clothing for Endicott—and the whiskey.

"I don't see why he has to drink!" she muttered, and making her way to the spring, dipped some water from the catch-basin and splashed it over her face and arms. The cold water dispelled the last vestige of sleepiness and she stood erect and breathed deeply of the crystal air. At the farther side of the bowl-like plateau the horses grazed contentedly, and a tiny black and white woodpecker flew from tree to tree pecking busily at the bark. Above the edge of the rim-rocks the high-flung peaks of the Bear Paws belied the half-night's ride that separated them from the isolated Antelope Butte.

"What a view one should get from the edge!" she exclaimed, and turning from the spring, made her way through the scraggly timber to the rock wall beyond. It was not a long climb and five minutes later she stood panting with exertion and leaned against an upstanding pinnacle of jagged rock. For a long time she stood wonder-bound by the mighty grandeur of the panorama that swept before her to lose itself somewhere upon the dim horizon. Her brain grasped for details. It was all too big—too unreal—too unlike the world she had known. In sheer desperation, for sight of some familiar thing, her eyes turned toward the camp. There was the little white tent, and the horses grazing beyond. Her elevation carried her range of vision over the jutting shoulder of rock, and she saw the Texan sitting beside his blankets drawing on his boots. The blankets were mounded over the forms of the others, and without disturbing them, the cowboy put on his hat and started toward the spring. At the sight of the little tent he paused and Alice saw him stand staring at the little patch of white canvas. For a long time he stood unmoving, and then, impulsively, his two arms stretched toward it. The arms were as quickly withdrawn. The Stetson was lifted from his head and once more it seemed a long time that he stood looking at the little tent with the soft brim of his Stetson crushed tightly in his hand.

Evidently, for fear of waking her, the man did not go to the spring, but retraced his steps and Alice saw him stoop and withdraw something from his war-bag. Thrusting the object beneath his shirt, he rose slowly and made his way toward the rim-rock, choosing for his ascent a steep incline which, with the aid of some rock ledges, would bring him to the top at a point not ten yards from where she stood.

It was with a sense of guilt that she realized she had spied upon this man, and her cheeks flushed as she cast about desperately for a means to escape unseen. But no such avenue presented itself, and she drew back into a deep crevice of her rock pinnacle lest he see her.

A grubby, stunted pine somehow managed to gain sustenance from the stray earth among the rock cracks and screened her hiding-place. The man was very close, now. She could hear his heavy breathing and the click of his boot heels upon the