"You fellows drive me plumb weary," remarked the rider, slowly dismounting. "A little bit of a calf like that! What you all need is a n.i.g.g.e.r to cut up your food for you!"
Then he would spit on his hands and go at it alone. If luck attended his first effort, his sarcasm was profound.
"There"s yore little calf," said he. "Would you like to have me tote it to you, or do you reckon you could toddle this far with yore little old iron?"
But if the calf gave much trouble, then all work ceased while the unfortunate puncher wrestled it down.
Toward noon the work slacked. Unbranded calves were scarce. Sometimes the men rode here and there for a minute or so before their eyes fell on a pair of uncropped ears. Finally Homer rode over to the Cattleman and reported the branding finished. The latter counted the marks in his tally-book.
"One hundred and seventy-six," he announced.
The markers, squatted on their heels, told over the bits of ears they had saved. The total amounted to but an hundred and seventy-five.
Everybody went to searching for the missing bit. It was not forth-coming. Finally Wooden discovered it in his hip pocket.
"Felt her thar all the time," said he, "but thought it must sh.o.r.ely be a chaw of tobacco."
This matter satisfactorily adjusted, the men all ran for their ponies.
They had been doing a wrestler"s heavy work all the morning, but did not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical culture periodical that a cowboy"s life was physically ill-balanced, like an oarsman"s, in that it exercised only certain muscles of the body. The writer should be turned loose in a branding corral.
Through the wide gates the cattle were urged out to the open plain.
There they were held for over an hour while the cows wandered about looking for their lost progeny. A cow knows her calf by scent and sound, not by sight. Therefore the noise was deafening, and the motion incessant.
Finally the last and most foolish cow found the last and most foolish calf. We turned the herd loose to hunt water and gra.s.s at its own pleasure, and went slowly back to chuck.
[3] For the benefit of the squeamish it might be well to note that the fragments of the ears were cartilaginous, and therefore not b.l.o.o.d.y.
CHAPTER NINE
THE OLD TIMER
About a week later, in the course of the round-up, we reached the valley of the Box Springs, where we camped for some days at the dilapidated and abandoned adobe structure that had once been a ranch house of some importance.
Just at dusk one afternoon we finished cutting the herd which our morning"s drive had collected. The stray-herd, with its new additions from the day"s work, we pushed rapidly into one big stock corral. The cows and unbranded calves we urged into another. Fifty head of beef steers found asylum from dust, heat, and racing to and fro, in the mile square wire enclosure called the pasture. All the remainder, for which we had no further use we drove out of the flat into the brush and toward the distant mountains. Then we let them go as best pleased them.
By now the desert bad turned slate-coloured, and the brush was olive green with evening. The hard, uncompromising ranges, twenty miles to eastward, had softened behind a wonderful veil of purple and pink, vivid as the chiffon of a girl"s gown. To the south and southwest the Chiricahuas and Dragoons were lost in thunderclouds which flashed and rumbled.
We jogged homewards, our cutting ponies, tired with the quick, sharp work, shuffling knee deep in a dusk that seemed to disengage itself and rise upwards from the surface of the desert. Everybody was hungry and tired. At the chuck wagon we threw off our saddles and turned the mounts into the remuda. Some of the wisest of us, remembering the thunderclouds, stacked our gear under the veranda roof of the old ranch house.
Supper was ready. We seized the tin battery, filled the plates with the meat, bread, and canned corn, and squatted on our heels. The food was good, and we ate hugely in silence. When we could hold no more we lit pipes. Then we had leisure to notice that the storm cloud was mounting in a portentous silence to the zenith, quenching the brilliant desert stars.
"Rolls" were scattered everywhere. A roll includes a cowboy"s bed and all of his personal belongings. When the outfit includes a bed-wagon, the roll a.s.sumes bulky proportions.
As soon as we had come to a definite conclusion that it was going to rain, we deserted the camp fire and went rustling for our blankets. At the end of ten minutes every bed was safe within the doors of the abandoned adobe ranch house, each owner rec.u.mbent on the floor claim he had pre-empted, and every man hoping fervently that he had guessed right as to the location of leaks.
Ordinarily we had depended on the light of camp fires, so now artificial illumination lacked. Each man was indicated by the alternately glowing and waning lozenge of his cigarette fire.
Occasionally someone struck a match, revealing for a moment high-lights on bronzed countenances, and the silhouette of a shading hand. Voices spoke disembodied. As the conversation developed, we gradually recognised the membership of our own roomful. I had forgotten to state that the ranch house included four chambers. Outside, the rain roared with Arizona ferocity. Inside, men congratulated themselves, or swore as leaks developed and localised.
Naturally we talked first of stampedes. Cows and bears are the two great cattle-country topics. Then we had a mouth-organ solo or two, which naturally led on to songs. My turn came. I struck up the first verse of a sailor chantey as possessing at least the interest of novelty:
Oh, once we were a-sailing, a-sailing were we, Blow high, blow low, what care we; And we were a-sailing to see what we could see, Down on the coast of the High Barbaree.
I had just gone so far when I was brought up short by a tremendous oath behind me. At the same instant a match flared. I turned to face a stranger holding the little light above his head, and peering with fiery intentness over the group sprawled about the floor.
He was evidently just in from the storm. His dripping hat lay at his feet. A shock of straight, close-clipped vigorous hair stood up grey above his seamed forehead. Bushy iron-grey eyebrows drawn close together thatched a pair of burning, unquenchable eyes. A square, deep jaw, lightly stubbled with grey, was clamped so tight that the cheek muscles above it stood out in knots and welts.
Then the match burned his thick, square fingers, and he dropped it into the darkness that ascended to swallow it.
"Who was singing that song?" he cried harshly. n.o.body answered.
"Who was that singing?" he demanded again.
By this time I had recovered from my first astonishment.
"I was singing," said I.
Another match was instantly lit and thrust into my very face. I underwent the fierce scrutiny of an instant, then the taper was thrown away half consumed.
"Where did you learn it?" the stranger asked in an altered voice.
"I don"t remember," I replied; "it is a common enough deep-sea chantey."
A heavy pause fell. Finally the stranger sighed.
"Quite like," he said; "I never heard but one man sing it."
"Who in h.e.l.l are you?" someone demanded out of the darkness.
Before replying, the newcomer lit a third match, searching for a place to sit down. As he bent forward, his strong, harsh face once more came clearly into view.
"He"s Colorado Rogers," the Cattleman answered for him; "I know him."
"Well," insisted the first voice, "what in h.e.l.l does Colorado Rogers mean by bustin" in on our song fiesta that way?"
"Tell them, Rogers," advised the Cattleman, "tell them--just as you told it down on the Gila ten years ago next month."
"What?" inquired Rogers. "Who are you?"
"You don"t know me," replied the Cattleman, "but I was with Buck Johnson"s outfit then. Give us the yarn."
"Well," agreed Rogers, "pa.s.s over the "makings" and I will."
He rolled and lit a cigarette, while I revelled in the memory of his rich, great voice. It was of the sort made to declaim against the sea or the rush of rivers or, as here, the fall of waters and the thunder--full, from the chest, with the caressing throat vibration that gives colour to the most ordinary statements. After ten words we sank back oblivious of the storm, forgetful of the leaky roof and the dirty floor, lost in the story told us by the Old Timer.