[Ill.u.s.tration: Out on the plain we saw the Kid yelling like a wild man, with Dynamite at his highest speed, chasing a jackrabbit.]
For by that time he had become, in her eyes, the exemplar of all that is inspiringly bold and daring, and he felt it necessary to keep up his reputation. For her he was a knight of prowess who could do anything he wished and against whom nothing could prevail. So he told her wonderful tales of what he had seen and done and been through, and of his daily adventures, and brought to her the occasional results of his single-handed combats with birds and beasts. He offered to dig up a tarantula"s nest for her and to catch and tame for her pleasure a side-winder rattlesnake, or, if she preferred, a golden oriole or a mocking-bird. It did n"t make any difference to him whether she chose a rattlesnake or an oriole; whatever she wanted him to do, he was ready to attempt. And Madge looked and listened and worshipped; and Kid, basking in the warmth of her adoration, swaggered about in ever increasing pride and importance.
One day, just after he had returned from a two days" trip out on the range, I heard him telling her a blood-curdling tale of an adventure with a mysterious and villainous looking Mexican, who, he said, had shot off the end of one of his fingers. Then, the Kid declared, he had made Dynamite rear and strike the Mexican to the ground with his forefeet and then trample him until he was so dead that he "d never shoot anybody else"s finger off.
Madge was filled with horror and admiration and pity, and begged to be allowed to see and bind up the mutilated finger. But he refused with superior indifference, clinched his bleeding finger in his fist and said it was n"t anything and did n"t hurt, anyway. Madge"s mother called her away, and straightway there appeared at my door a boy with pale face, quivering lips, and tear-filled eyes, holding up a b.l.o.o.d.y hand. I bound up the wound, which was a clean cut chipping off the end of one finger, and he buried his face in my lap and cried. Soothing and cuddling him, for somehow I felt that was what the child needed, I asked:
"How did you hurt yourself, Kid?"
"I was making a peg to hang my saddle on, and I chopped my finger with the hatchet."
I said nothing, but soothed and cuddled him the more, and he sobbed at my knee in sheer enjoyment of the luxury of being babied. After that I think he took occasion to hurt himself upon every possible opportunity in order that he might come to my room to be taken care of and petted and comforted. He left all his swagger and bl.u.s.ter and bravado outside, and I babied him to his heart"s content, feeling sure that it was the first time in all his dozen years that this child"s right had come to him. But he did not allow these private seasons of relaxation, which he trusted me not to betray, to interfere with his double character of knight of prowess with Madge, and of Broncho Bob with the men.
Excitement did not lack at the ranch-house whenever Kid was at home.
If he was sent to help with the milking, one of the cows was sure to kick over a full milk-pail, knock him over with her hoof, or break loose from her restraining ropes, charge around the corral like a wild beast, and crash through one of the house windows or plunge in at an open door. If he was told to house the geese and chickens for the night, such a commotion ensued as brought the whole household to see if coyotes had broken into the chicken yard. At sight of him the pet Angora goats fled on their swiftest legs, with a running leap mounted one of the corral sheds, and then sped to what they had learned was the only place of safety, the roof of the house. And when he was not stirring up the animals, he was playing jokes on the cowboys. Holy John, a middle-aged, thick-witted fellow, who never knew what had happened to him until the rest were roaring with laughter, was the special b.u.t.t of his tricks.
One evening the boys were sitting around the kitchen door talking quietly, for Kid was off with Madge, helping her to bury a dead kitten.
Holy John sat in a slouching att.i.tude on the doorsteps, his new sombrero, with a stiff, curled brim, tipped far back on his head. Kid came in through the corral and stood in the kitchen for a few minutes.
Then he seized the mola.s.ses jug and, tiptoeing very softly behind Holy John, filled the brim of his brand-new sombrero with the sticky liquid.
It flowed out over his back and down into his trousers, and Holy John lifted a wondering and bewildered face to see his companions breaking into uproarious mirth. Then his long-enduring patience was smothered in wrath, and he laid violent hands upon Kid and spanked him before Madge"s eyes.
This was too much for a knight of prowess tamely to endure, and the boy bl.u.s.tered around in his most vigorous impersonation of the character of Broncho Bob.
"This ranch ain"t big enough to hold Holy John and me too. Him or me, one or the other, has sure got to ask for his time, and it won"t be me either, you hear me shout. I "ll get him sure buffaloed, and if he don"t pull his freight before he "s a day older, there "ll be the biggest killing here that Apache Teju ever heard of."
It was very quiet the next day at the ranch. Mr. and Mrs. Williams and Madge had driven to Silver City, the cowboys were all on the range, and I kept in my room with some work. After a time I heard a noise at the end of the house, just outside my room, and I went to see what it was.
Kid was there with a pick and shovel, toilsomely digging a hole in the hard adobe soil.
"What are you doing, Kid?"
"Nothing much. Just digging a hole."
"Isn"t that where the old Apache chief is buried?"
He looked up with interest. "Is this the place? Do you know right where it is?"
"They told me it is there where you are digging. Those rocks that you can barely see, outline his grave. Are you going to dig him up?"
"Me? What would I want to dig him up for? I ain"t lost no Injun! I "m just digging a hole--for Madge. She wants to plant a tree. What did they bury him here for? Did they kill him here on the ranch?"
"This was a fort once, before there was any ranch here, and there was a war with the Apaches, and they were getting beaten, and so they sent this old chief down to the fort to make terms for them. The commander received him and put him in a tent and set a guard over him. In the night the guard fell asleep, and when he wakened he was frightened lest the Indian might have escaped. So he punched into the tent with his bayonet to see if he was still there, and hit the chief in the foot.
That made him angry and he came out and killed the guard. The noise roused the soldiers, and they killed the chief, and they buried him here, inside the stockade, so that the Indians would n"t suspect that he was dead until they could get reinforcements."
"The Injun killed the guard, did he? Good enough for him! I wish it had been Holy John!"
He fell to work again with more vigor than ever, but presently he stopped and growled:
"I "d like to run a blaze on that ornery galoot that he "d remember all the rest of his life!"
After a while I chanced to see Kid carrying a bundle done up in a gunny sack down to the _acequia_ and hide it among the currant bushes. I noticed that he had carefully filled up the hole he had been digging, and I asked,
"Aren"t you going to plant the tree?"
"No," he replied carelessly, "it would n"t grow there. The soil"s too hard."
The cowboys spread their beds every night under the cottonwoods beside the lower acequia, and that night we heard them in earnest discussion long after they had gone to bed. Mr. Williams was with them for a short time and came back, saying that they were talking about ghosts, and that Kid had declared emphatically that the old Apache chief walked o" nights and that he had both seen and heard him.
"He gave a vivid description," Mr. Williams went on, "of waking up one night and seeing the Indian"s skeleton rise up out of the ground and pounce on a soldier who stood near and kill him outright. He will have Holy John so terrified that the poor fellow will want his time at once.
For John believes everything that is impossible, and he will see ghosts all night long and be afraid of his own shadow in the daytime."
That night, just as morning broke, the whole household was awakened by a loud, piercing yell, followed by another and another, and all rushed from their beds in time to see Holy John leap over the fence and dart down the road, still shrieking as if fiends were after him. And beside his deserted bed under the cottonwoods lay some grisly thing, shining in the gray light with streaks and patches of white. Kid looked after the flying figure and said, in a tone of extremest satisfaction,
"He"s sure buffaloed!"
Holy John had awakened in the dim, early dawn and found the skeleton of the Apache chief cuddling against him.
That morning, as I sat in the yard reading, the voices of Kid and Madge came to me from around the corner of the house, and I heard a s.n.a.t.c.h of their conversation.
"Madge, I "m going to pull my freight. I won"t work on the same ranch with such a coward as that Holy John."
"Truly, Guy, are you going away?"
"Yes, I am. I ain"t going to stop to ask for my time. I "m going to-day, before the boss comes home."
"Well, then, what am I going to do? You "re not going off to leave me?"
Silence for the s.p.a.ce of ten seconds.
"Jiminy! Tell you what, you come too!"
"I can"t! Mamma wouldn"t let me!"
"Don"t ask her. Come right along with me! We "ll elope! That"s more fun than anything! Girls that is anything always elopes!"
Then they wandered off to the alfalfa field, and soon I saw them throwing stones at the prairie dogs with which it was infested. So I concluded that what I had heard was merely some of the Kid"s braggadocio, and, smiling at the sentimental turn he had taken, I went on with my book and thought no more of it.
But when lunch time came neither Madge nor Kid appeared for the meal.
Much calling failed to bring a response. Then I remembered and gave account of the conversation I had heard. It was found that Dynamite was gone from the corral. Evidently the little scapegrace had meant what he said and had carried Madge off. Mrs. Williams ordered the cart and at once we started after the fugitives.
"He has most probably gone toward Deming," she said. "I will send Red Jack to Whitewater to stop them if they are there, but I think we had better drive toward Deming as fast as possible."
About ten miles out we caught sight of the runaways. They were mounted on Dynamite, Madge holding fast behind. Kid was urging the horse furiously back and forth among a flock of carrion crows, and practising with his la.s.so upon them as they rose and flapped about in short and heavy flight. They seemed to be having great sport, for Kid was shouting and yelling at the birds, and Madge screaming with laughter at their clumsy efforts to escape. So absorbed were they in their play that they did not see us until we were almost beside them. At first Kid made as if he would start Dynamite off on the gallop, but Mrs.
Williams called to him sternly, and he turned and trotted back to us, smiling and looking amazingly innocent.
Madge sat still and stared at us with big, frightened eyes, until Mrs.
Williams had twice spoken to her, and then she slipped quickly down, to be folded in her mother"s arms and sob upon her bosom all the way home.
I persuaded the Kid to sit between us in the cart and drive us back, tying Dynamite behind.