The Coming of Cassidy, Clarence E. Mulford [best free novels .txt] 📗

nodded and smiled again. “That’s right, Kid,” he answered, thoughtfully. “I come down to make him get out of th’ country. You let him go after we get out of this. I reckon I got yore share of the reward right here in my pocket; purty near that much, anyhow. You take it an’ let him vamoose. What you say?”

Sammy rose, angry and disgusted. His anger spoke first. “You go to h—l with yore money! I don’t want it!” Then, slowly and wonderingly spoke his disgust. “He’s yourn; do what you want. But I here remarks, frank an’ candid, open an’ so all may hear, that yo’re a large, puzzlin’ d—d fool. Now lay back on that blanket an’ go to sleep afore I changes my mind!”

Sammy drifted past the prisoner and looked down at him. “Hear that?” he demanded. There was no answer and he grunted. “Huh! You heard it, all right; an’ it plumb stunned you.” Passing on he grabbed the last blanket in sight, it was on the foreman’s horse, and rolled up in it, feet to the fire. His gun he placed under the saddle he had leaned against, which now made his pillow. As he squirmed into the most comfortable position he could find under the circumstances he raised his head and glanced across at his friend. “Huh!” he growled softly. “That’s th’ worst of them sentimental fellers. That gal shore wrapped him ‘round her li’l finger all right. Oh, well,” he sighed. “Tain’t none of my doin’s, thank the Lord; I got sense!” And with the satisfaction of this thought still warm upon him he closed his eyes and went to sleep, confident that the slightest sound would awaken him; and fully justified in his confidence.

XIII HIS CODE

MR. “YOUBET” SOMES, erstwhile foreman of the Two-X-Two ranch, in Arizona, and now out of a job, rode gloomily toward Kit, a town between him and his destination.

Needless to say, he was a cowman through and through. More than that, he was so saturated with cowmen’s traditions as to resent pugnaciously anything which flouted them.

He was of the old school, and would not submit quietly to two things, among others, which an old-school cowman hated wire fences and sheep. To this he owed his present ride, for he hated wire fences cordially. They meant the passing of the free, open range, of straight trails across country; they meant a great change, an intolerable condition.

“Yessir, bronch! Things are gettin’ damn-abler every year, with th’ railroads, tourists, nesters, barb’ wire, an’ sheep. Last year, it was a windmill, that screeched till our hair riz up. It wouldn’t work when we wanted it to, an’ we couldn’t stop it when it once got started.

“It gave us no sleep, no peace; an’ it killed Bob Cousins swung round with th’ wind an’ knocked him off ‘n th’ platform, sixty feet, to th’ ground. Bob allus did like to monkey with th’ buzz saw. I shore told him not to go up there, because th’ cussed thing was loaded; but, bein’ mule-headed, he knowed more ‘n me.

“But this year! Lord but that was an awful pile of wire, bronch! Three strands high, an’ over a hundred an’ fifty miles round that pasture. That was a’ insult, bronch; an’ I never swaller ‘em. That’s what put me an’ you out here, in th’ middle of nowhere, tryin’ to find a way out. G’wan, now! You ain’t goin’ to rest till I gets off you. G’wan, I told you!”

Mr. Somes was riding east, bound for the Bar-20, where he had friends. For a year or two, he had heard persistent rumors to the effect that Buck Peters had more cows than he knew what to do with; and he argued rightly that the Bar-20 foreman could find a place for an old friend, whose ability was unquestioned. Of one thing he was certain there were no wire fences, down there.

It was dusk when he dismounted in front of Logan’s, in Kit, and went inside. The bartender glanced up, reaching for a bottle on the shelf beside him.

Youbet nodded. “You got it first pop. Have one with me. I’m countin’ on staying over in town tonight. Got a place for me?”

“Shore have upstairs in th’ attic. Want grub, too?”

“Well, I sorter hope to have somethin’ to eat afore I pull out. Here’s how!” And when Mr. Somes placed his empty glass on the bar, he smiled good-naturedly. “That’s good stuff. Much goin’ on in town?”

“Reckon you can get a game most anywhere.”

“Where do I get that grub? Here?”

“No down th’ street. Ridin’ far?”

“Yes a little. Coin’ down to th’ Bar-20 for a job punchin’. I hear Peters has got more cows than he can handle. Know anybody down there you wants to send any word to?”

“I’ll be hanged if I know,” laughed the bartender. “I know a lot of fellers, but they shift so I can’t keep track of ‘em, nohow.”

A man in a far corner pushed back his chair, and approached the bar, scowling as he glanced at Youbet. “Gimme another,” he ordered.

“Why, hullo, stranger!” exclaimed Youbet. “I didn’t see you before. Have one with me.”

The other looked him squarely in the eyes. “Ex-cuse me, stranger I’m a sheepman, an’ I don’t drink with cowmen.”

“Well, ex-cuse me!” retorted Youbet, like a flash. “If I’d ‘a’ knowed you was a sheepman, I wouldn’t ‘a’ asked you!”

The sheepman drank his liquor and, returning to his corner, placed his elbows on the table, and his chin in his hands, apparently paying no further attention to the others.

“If I can’t get a job with Peters, I can try th’ C-80 or Double Arrow,” continued Youbet, as he toyed with his glass. “If I can’t get on with one of them, I reckons Waffles, of th’ O-Bar-O, will find a place for me, though I don’t like that country a whole lot.”

The bartender hesitated for a moment. “Do you know Waffles?” he asked.

“Shore know ‘em all. Why? Do you know him, too?”

“No; but I’ve heard of him.”

““That so? He’s a good feller, he is. I’ve punched with both him an’Peters.”

“I heard he wasn’t,” replied the bartender, slowly but carelessly.

“Then you heard wrong, all right,” rejoined Youbet. “He’s one of us old fellers hates sheep, barb’ wire, an’ nesters as bad as I do; an’ sonny,” he continued, warming as he went on. “Th’ cow country ain’t what it used to be not no way. I can remember when there warn’t no wire, no nesters, an’ no sheep. An’, between you and me, I don’t know which is th’ worst. Every time I runs up agin’ one of ‘em, I says it’s th’ worst; but I guesi it’s juit about a even break.”

“I heard about yore friend Waffles through sheep,” replied the bartender. “He chased a sheep outfit out of a hill range near his ranch, an’ killed a couple of ‘em, a-doin’ it.”

“Served ‘em right served ‘em right,” responded Youbet, turning and walking toward the door. “They ain’t got no business on ft cattle range not nohow.”

The man in the corner started to follow, half raising his hand, as though to emphasize something he was about to say; but changed his mind, and sullenly resumed his brooding attitude.

“Reckon I’ll put my cayuse in yore corral, an’ look th’ town over,” Youbet remarked, over his shoulder. “Remember, yo’re savin’ a bed for me.”

As he stepped to the street, the man in the corner lazily arose and looked out of the window, swearing softly while he watched the man who hated sheep.

“Well, there’s another friend of yore business,” laughed the bartender, leaning back to enjoy the other’s discomfiture. * c He don’t like ‘em, neither.”

“He’s a fool of a mossback, so far behind th’ times he don’t know who’s President,” retorted the other, still staring down the street.

“Well, he don’t know that this has got to be a purty fair sheep town that’s shore.”

“He’ll find out, if he makes many more talks like that an’ that ain’t no dream, neither!” snapped the sheepman. He wheeled, and frowned at the man behind the bar. “You see what he gets, if he opens his cow mouth in here tonight. Th’ boys hate this kind real fervent; an’ when they finds out that he’s a side pardner of that coyote Waffles, they won’t need much excuse. You wait that’s all!”

“Oh, what’s th’ use of gettin’ all riled up about it?” demanded the bartender easily. “He didn’t know you was a sheepman, when he made his first break. An’ lemme tell you somethin’ you want to remember them oldtime cowmen can use a short gun somethin’ slick. They’ve got ‘em trained. Bet he can work th’ double roll without shootin’ hisself full of lead.” The speaker grinned exasperatingly.

“Yes!” exploded the sheepman, who had tried to roll two guns at once, and had spent ten days in bed as a result of it.

The bartender laughed softly as he recalled the incident. “Have you tried it since?” he inquired.

“Go to th’ devil!” grinned the other, heading for the door. “But he’ll get in trouble, if he spouts about hatin’ sheep, when th’ boys come in. You better get him drunk an’ lock him in th’ attic, before then.”

“G’wan! I ain’t playin’ guardian to nobody,” rejoined the bartender. “But remember what I said them old fellers can use ‘em slick an’ rapid.”

The sheepman went out as Youbet returned; and the latter seated himself, crossing his legs and drawing out his pipe.

The bartender perfunctorily drew a cloth across the bar, and smiled. “So you don’t like wire, sheep, or nesters,” he remarked.

Mr. Somes looked up, in surprise, forgetting that he held a lighted match between thumb and finger. “Like ‘em! Huh, I reckon not. I’m lookin’ for a job because of wire. H 1!” he exclaimed, dropping the match, and rubbing his finger. “That’s twice I did that fool thing in a week,” he remarked, in apology and self-condemnation, and struck another match.

“I was foreman of my ranch for nigh onto ten years. It was a good ranch, an’ I was satisfied till last year, when they made me put up a windmill that didn’t mill, but screeched awful. I stood for that because I could get away from it in th’ daytime.

“But this year! One day, not very long ago, I got a letter from th’ owners, an’ it says for me to build a wire fence around our range. It went on to say that there was two carloads of barb’ wire at Mesquite. We was to tote that wire home, an’ start in. If two carloads wasn’t enough, they’d send us more. We had one busted-down grub waggin, an’ Mesquite shore was fifty miles away which meant a whoppin’ long job totin’.

“When I saw th’ boys, that night, I told ‘em that I’d got orders to raise their pay five dollars a month which made ‘em cheer. Then I told ‘em that was so providin’ they helped me build a barf)’ wire fence around th’ range which didn’t make ‘em cheer.

“Th’ boundary lines of th’ range we was usin’ was close onto a hundred an’ fifty miles long, an’ three strands of wire along a trail like that is some job. We was to put th’ posts twelve feet apart, an’ they was to be five feet outen th’ ground an’ four feet in it which makes ‘em nine feet over all.

“There wasn’t no posts at Mesquite. Them posts was supposed to be growin’ freelike on th’ range, just waitin’ for us to cut ‘em, skin ‘em, tote an’ drop ‘em every twelve feet along a line a hundred