Cow-Country, B. M. Bower [beach read book txt] 📗
- Author: B. M. Bower
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An Indian on a horse presently appeared cautiously from cover, and Buddy, trembling with excitement, shot wild; but not so wild that the Indian could afford to scoff and ride closer. After another ineffectual shot at Buddy, he whipped his horse down the ridge, and made for Bannock creek.
Buddy at thirteen knew more of the wiles of Indians than does the hardiest Indian fighter on the screen to-day. Father had warned him never to chase an Indian into cover, where others would probably be waiting for him. So he stayed where he was, pretty well hidden in the rocks, and let the bullets he himself had “run” in father's bullet-mold follow the enemy to the fringe of bushes. His last shot knocked the Indian off his horse—or so it looked to Buddy. He waited for a long time, watching the brush and thinking what a fool that Indian was to imagine Buddy would follow him down there. After a while he saw the Indian's horse climbing the slope across the creek. There was no rider.
Buddy rode home without the missing horses, and did not tell anyone about the Indian, though his thoughts would not leave the subject.
He wondered what mother would think of it. Mother's interests seemed mostly confined to teaching Buddy and Dulcie what they were deprived of learning in schools, and to play the piano—a wonderful old square piano that had come all the way from Scotland to the Tomahawk ranch, the very frontier of the West.
Mother was a wonderful woman, with a soft voice and a slight Scotch accent, and wit; and a knowledge of things which were little known in the wilderness. Buddy never dreamed then how strangely culture was mixed with pure savagery in his life. To him the secret regret that he had not dared ride into the bushes to scalp the Indian he believed he had shot, and the fact that his hands were straining at the full chords of the ANVIL CHORUS on that very evening, was not even to be considered unusual. Still, certain strains of that classic were always afterward associated in his mind with the shooting of the Indian—if he had really shot him.
While he counted the time with a conscientious regard for the rests, he debated the wisdom of telling mother, and decided that perhaps he had better keep that matter to himself, like a man.
CHAPTER FOUR: BUDDY GIVES WARNING
Buddy swung down from his horse, unsaddled it and went staggering to the stable wall with the burden of a stock-saddle much too big for him. He had to stand on his boot-toes to reach and pull the bridle down over the ears of Whitefoot, which turned with an air of immense relief into the corral gate and the hay piled at the further end. Buddy gave him one preoccupied glance and started for the cabin, walking with the cowpuncher's peculiar, bowlegged gait which comes of wearing chaps and throwing out the knees to overcome the stiffness of the leather. At thirteen Buddy was a cowboy from hat-crown to spurs-and at thirteen Buddy gloried in the fact. To-day, however, his mind was weighted with matters of more importance than himself.
“The Utes are having a war-dance, mother,” he announced when he had closed the stout door of the kitchen behind him. “They mean it this time. I lay in the brush and watched them last night.” He stood looking at his mother speculatively, a little grin on his face. “I told you, you can't change an Injun by learning him to eat with a knife and fork,” he added. “Colorou ain't any whiter than he was before you set out to learn him manners. He was hoppin' higher than any of 'em.”
“Teach, Buddy, not learn. You know better than to say 'learn him manners.'”
“Teach him manners,” Buddy corrected himself obediently. “I was thinking more about what I saw than about grammar. Where's father? I guess I'd better tell him. He'll want to get the stock out of the mountains, I should think.”
“Colorou will send me word before they take the warpath,” mother observed reassuringly. “He always has. I gave him a whole pound of tea and a blue ribbon the last time he was here.”
“Yes, and the last time they broke out they got away with more 'n a hundred head of cattle. You got to Laramie, all right, but he didn't tell father in time to make a roundup back in the foothills. They're DANCING, mother!”
“Well, I suppose We're due for an outbreak,” sighed mother. “Colorou says he can't hold his young men off when some of the tribe have been killed. He himself doesn't countenance the stealing and the occasional killing of white men. There are bad Indians and good ones.”
“I know a couple of good ones,” Buddy murmured as he made for the wash basin. “It's the bad ones that were doing the dancing, mother,” he flung over his shoulder. “And if I was you I'd take Dulcie and the cats and hit for Laramie. Colorou might get busy and forget to send word!”
“If I WAS you?” Mother came up and nipped his ear between thumb and finger. “Robert, I am discouraged over you. All that I teach you in the winter seems to evaporate from your mind during the summer when you go out riding with the boys.”
Buddy wiped his face with an up-and-down motion on the roller towel and clanked across to the cupboard which he opened investigatively. “Any pie?” he questioned as he peered into the corners. “Say, if I had the handling of those Utes, mother, I'd fix 'em so they wouldn't be breaking out every few months and making folks leave their homes to be pawed over and burnt, maybe.” He found a jar of fresh doughnuts and took three.
“They'll tromp around on your flower-beds—it just makes me SICK when I think how they'll muss things up around here! I wish now,” He blurted unthinkingly, “that I hadn't killed the Injun that stole Rattler.”
“Buddy! Not YOU.” His mother made a swift little run across the kitchen and caught him on his lean, hard-muscled young shoulders. “You—you baby! What did you do? You didn't harm an Indian, did you, laddie?”
Buddy tilted his head downward so that she could not look into his eyes. “I dunno as I harmed him—much,” he said, wiping doughnut crumbs from his mouth with one hasty sweep of his forearm. “But his horse came outa the brush, and he never. I guess I killed him, all right. Anyway, mother, I had to. He took a shot at me first. It was the day we lost Rattler and the bronks,” He added accurately.
Mother did not say anything for a minute, and Buddy hung his head lower, dreading to see the hurt look which he felt was in her eyes.
“I have to pack a gun when I ride anywhere,” he reminded her defensively. “It ain't to balance me on the horse, either. If Injuns take in after me,
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