"All the same, I wasn"t!" denied Brigham boldly. "I reckon you"d look kind of bug-eyed if you"d been standin" guard all night!"
"Well, what"s the matter with your face then?" she demanded. "Did the ground rise up and hit you?"
"No, but an old cow did, over in the shippin" chute!" And Brigham drew himself up and grinned defiantly. It was not often that he had a chance to a.s.sume this high moral pose, and he decided to make the most of it.
"That"s right," interposed Henry Lee, who so far had let his daughter do all the talking. "Brig and Bowles stood guard all night and brought up the remuda in the morning. I won"t forget that, Brig," he added significantly. "I"m looking for men I can trust."
"Well, good for you, Brig!" commented Dixie May, smiling with sudden approval; and at that the other suitors fell into a black rage of jealousy and distrust. There was silence for a while, and then Happy Jack spoke up.
"Mr. Lee," he said, "I know I was drunk last night--my own fault, of course--but here"s the proposition. You got to take on somebody to do yore work; what"s the use of hirin" these town b.u.ms when you can git yore old hands back? That"s the way we stand, and I hope you"ll give us a chance."
This was a long speech for Jack, and he wiped the sweat from his brow as he waited for the answer. The rest of the unemployed rumbled their acquiescence to the statement and watched for some sign of weakening; but Henry Lee did not change his frown.
"I"m looking for men I can trust," he said at last. "These boys here stayed in camp and were on hand to help with the shipping. Maybe some of them ain"t quite as good cowboys as you are, but I can depend on them not to turn my remuda loose the first night I leave "em alone, and I"m going to make them top hands. You fellows get the top mounts and forty-five a month," he added, glancing briefly at Brig and the faithful few, most of whom were nesters boys, and married men working for a stake; "and I want some more just like you."
"But how about us?" inquired Happy Jack after a silence. "I"ll take on for a green hand, myse"f--forty dollars--and ride bronks, too. And I know that upper range like a book!"
"Sure!" murmured the rest; and once more they waited on Henry Lee.
He sat for a while studying on the matter, and then he exchanged glances with his daughter.
"If he takes you back, are you going to run it over these other hands and make a lot of trouble?" she inquired shrewdly. "Because if you are----"
A chorus of indignant denials answered this unjust accusation, and Dixie Lee"s face became clear.
"Then I"d take "em back," she said.
"No, I won"t do it," rapped out Henry Lee. "But I"ll tell you what I will do," he went on, as the gang lopped down despondently. "You boys have got your time checks. All right, you go up town and cash them in, and if you can pay your saloon debts and get out of town sober, I"ll take you on. But if any man takes a drink, or brings out a bottle, he"ll never ride for Henry Lee again--I"ve lost enough horses through drunken punchers. Brig, I"ll leave you in charge of the outfit."
He swung up on his horse as he spoke, and Dixie rode away after him, followed by the admiring gaze of all hands and the cook. Henry Lee was a good boss, but the average Texas cow-puncher is not weak-kneed enough to court the favor of any man. Once he is fired, he takes his money and spends it philosophically; but in this case Dixie May had intervened, and rather than lose their chance with her the whole gang had taken lessons in humility.
"She"s all right," observed Happy Jack, wagging his head and smiling as he watched her off. "She wraps him around her little finger."
"Wonder how she come to be down here?" inquired a new hand; and Jack answered him, with a laugh.
"Ridin" herd on the old man, of course!" he said.
"Sure!" grumbled Hardy Atkins. "The old lady is up there, too. That"s the one thing I got ag"inst Henry Lee--he"s been a booze-fighter and quit. That"s what makes him so doggoned onreasonable!"
"They say John B. Gough and Sam Jones was reformed drunks, too,"
commented Poker Bill sagely; but there was one member present who did not take even a philosophical interest in the discussion. It was Brigham Clark, the new straw-boss. Through a chain of circ.u.mstances a little hard to trace, he had refrained from his customary periodical, and, behold, of a sudden he was elevated above all his fellows, and placed in a position of authority.
"Well," he broke in sharply, "it"s gittin" dark--who"s goin" to relieve that horse wrangler? Bill? Buck? Well, I"ll put you on the first guard, anyhow--only way to save you from yorese"ves!"
"Aw, listen to the big fat stiff!" commented Buck Buchanan, who felt the need of a nap; but Brig paid no attention to his remarks.
"You boys bring them in to the pen fer a drink," he ordered, with pompous circ.u.mstance, "and hold them out on yon flat. Who wants to stand second guard? Jim? Hank?" He craned his neck about as Hardy Atkins had done the night before; and Hardy, who had been thinking about other things, sat up with a sudden scowl.
"Whar"s that feller that refused a drink this evenin"?" demanded Brigham, imitating with roguish accuracy the broad Texas accent of his predecessor. "He"s the boy fer second guard--good and reliable--comes from Texas, too. Mr. Atkins, I"ll ask you and yore cotton-picker friend, Happy Jack, to kindly stand second guard. Bud and Bill third, and Sam and Slim fourth. I"m boss now, and I don"t stand no guard!"
CHAPTER XVII
AND HIS SQUIRREL STORY
The upper range of the Bat Wing was a country by itself. To reach it they rode due north from Chula Vista, following an old road that had been fenced so many times that Gloomy Gus became discouraged. Twisting and turning, driving around through new-made lanes, or jerking a world of staples and laying the wire on the ground, he toiled on in the wake of the outfit, which was rounding up spare corners of the unfenced range. Behind him came the horse wrangler and his helper, doing their best to keep the remuda out of the barbed-wire, and jerking up more fence with their ropes than Gus laid down with his nail-puller.
Certainly in that wide, windmill-dotted valley, the open range was a thing of the past. It was only thirty feet to water, and the nesters were settling everywhere.
"One more day like that," observed Gloomy Gus as he threw together a late supper, "and I quit!"
"Me too!" chimed in the wrangler; and the punchers felt much the same.
"A few more years like this last," remarked Henry Lee, gazing gloomily out across his former estate, "and we"ll all quit. But, thank G.o.d, they can"t farm the Black Mesa."
On the second day they turned east, crossing the boggy river and mounting up on a great plateau, and then Bowles saw why Henry Lee"s remark was true. The Black Mesa was high and level, with a wealth of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s on the flats and wooded hills behind; but hills and flats alike were covered with a layer of loose rocks that made the land a wilderness. Even the wagon road on which they traveled was a mere rut across the rock patch, and from a distance it looked like a ruined stone wall where the rocks had been thrown to both sides. And the rocks were black, a scorched, volcanic black, with square corners and uneroded edges that gashed at the horses" ankles. Deep-cut canons wound tortuously across the level mesa, their existence unsuspected until the rider stopped at their brink; and, hidden in their sullen depths, the scant supply of water was lost to all but the birds.
Yet to the cowboys the landscape was cheering, for there was bunch-gra.s.s between the rocks and not a house in sight. It is hard to please everybody in this world, but cowboys are easily pleased. All they want is a good horse and plenty of swing room, and a landscape gardener couldn"t make it better. To Bowles the lower valley had been a wild and unsettled country, but he found that even the Black Mesa was tame to these seasoned nomads.
"Jest wait till I take you to the White Mountains," said Brig, as he rode by his side. "This country has all been fed off till they"s nothin"
much left but the rocks--no game nor nothin". But the Sierra Blancas are different--that"s them over that far ridge."
He pointed at a filmy point of white, half lost between the blue of the pine-clad mountains and the blue of the sky beyond, and Bowles" heart leaped up at the sight. At last he was in the Far West--that strange, elusive country of which so many speak and which is yet so hard to find--and the untrod wilderness lay before him. The Sierra Blancas, home of the deer and the bear and the wolf and the savage Apache Indians!
Even in his age and time, there was still a wilderness to conquer and the terrors of the old frontier to stir the blood.
"How far is it?" he inquired, his eyes questing out the way; and when Brig told him he reached over and clutched his hand. "Brig," he cried, "I want to go there. I"d like to go right now!"
He looked across at his partner, but Brigham did not answer, and Bowles knew what was in his mind.
"Of course, now that you"re made foreman----" he began; but Brig smiled a cynical smile.
"Don"t you let that worry you none," he growled. "The way these Texicans is takin" on, I don"t reckon I"ll last very long. Hardy Atkins is the leader of this bunch, and he"s bound to git his job back--I"m jest holdin" on fer spite."
"But how can he get it back?" protested Bowles. "Mr. Lee told me you were one of the best cowmen he ever knew, and you certainly know the range all right----"
"Yes, but that ain"t it," put in Brig. "Here"s the proposition. Henry Lee is gittin" old--he can"t be his own wagon-boss forever, and he"s lookin" round for a man. The man that gits the job will git more than that--he"ll marry Dixie Lee."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried Bowles. "Why should he?"
"Don"t know why," answered Brigham doggedly. "Only that"s the way it always goes--and Hardy, he wants Dixie."
"But surely, after the way he conducted himself down at Chula Vista----"
"Oh, that"s nothin"," a.s.serted Brigham.
"You think she would marry him?"