It was magnificent, and Harold was happy. True, it was not all play.
There were muddy roads to plod through and treacherous sloughs to cross.
There were nights when camp had to be pitched in rain, and mornings when he was obliged to rise stiff and sore to find the cattle strayed away and everything wet and grimy. But the sunshine soon warmed his back and dried up the mud under his feet. Each day the way grew drier and the flowers more abundant. Each day signs of the wild life thickened.
Antlers of elk, horns of the buffalo, crates of bones set around shallow water holes, and especially the ever-thickening game trails furrowing the hills filled the boy"s heart with delight. This was the kind of life he wished to see. They were now beyond towns, and only occasionally small settlements relieved the houseless rolling plains. Soon the Missouri, that storied and muddy old stream, would offer itself to view.
"Mose" was now indispensable to the Pratt "outfit." He built fires, shot game, herded the cattle, greased the wagons, curried horses, and mended harness. He never complained and never grew sullen. Although he talked but little, the family were fond of him, but considered him a "singular critter." He had lost his pallor. His skin was a clear brown, and being dressed in rough clothing, wide hat, and gauntlet gloves, he made a bold and dashing herder, showing just the right kind of wear and tear.
Occasionally, when a chance to earn a few dollars offered, Pratt camped and took a job, and Harold shared in the wages.
He spent a great deal of his pocket money in buying cartridges for his revolver. He shot at everything which offered a taking mark, and became so expert that Dan bowed down before him, and Mrs. Pratt considered him dangerous.
"It ain"t natural fer to be so durned sure-pop on game," she said one day. "Doggone it, I"d want "o miss "em once in a while just fer to be aigged on fer to try again. First you know, you"ll be obliged fer to shoot standin" on your haid like these yere champin" shooters that go "round the kentry givin" shows, you sh.o.r.ely will, Mose."
Mose only laughed. "I want to be just as good a shot as anybody," he said, turning to Pratt.
"You"ll be it ef you don"t wear out your gun a-doin" of it," replied the boss.
These were splendid days. Each sundown they camped nearer to the land of the buffalo, and when the work was done and the supper eaten, Mose took his pipe and his gun and walked away to some ridge, there to sit while the yellow light faded out of the sky. He was as happy as one of his restless nature could properly hope to be, but sometimes when he thought of Mary his heart ached a little; he forgot her only when his imagination set wing into the sunset sky.
One other thing troubled him a little. Rude, plain Jennie was in love with him. Daily intercourse with a youngster half as attractive as Mose would have had the same effect upon her, for she was at that age when propinquity makes sentiment inevitable. She could scarcely keep her eyes from him during hours in camp, and on the drive she rode with him four times as long as he wished for. She bothered him, and yet she was so good and generous he could not rebuff her; he could only endure.
She had one accomplishment: she could ride like a Sioux, either astride or womanwise, with a saddle or without, and many a race they had as the roads grew firm and dry. She was scrawny and flat-chested, but agile as a boy when occasion demanded. She was fearless, too, of man or beast, and once when her father became crazy with liquor (which was his weakness) she went with Mose to bring him from a saloon, where he stood boasting of his powers as a fighter with the bowie knife.
As they entered Jennie walked straight up to him: "Dad, you come home.
Come right out o" yere."
He looked at her for a moment until his benumbed brain took in her words and all their meaning; then he said: "All right, Jinnie, just wait a second till I have another horn with these yer gents----"
"Horn nawthin," she said in reply, and seized him by the arm. "You come along."
He submitted without a struggle, and on the way out grew plaintive.
"Jinnie, gal," he kept saying, "I"m liable to get dry before mornin", I sh.o.r.e am; ef you"d only jest let me had one more gill----"
"Oh, shet up, Dad. Ef you git dry I"ll bring the hull crick in fer ye to drink," was her scornful reply.
After he was safe in bed Jennie came over to the wagon where Mose was smoking.
"Men are the blamedest fools," she began abruptly; ""pears like they ain"t got the sense of a grayback louse, leastways some of "em. Now, there"s dad, filled up on stuff they call whisky out yer, and consequence is he can"t eat any grub for two days or more. Doggone it, it makes me huffy, it plum does. Mam has put up with it fer twenty years, which is just twenty more than I"d stand it, and don"t you forget it. When I marry a man it will be a man with sense "nough not to pizen hisself on rot-gut whisky."
Without waiting for a reply she turned away and went to bed in the bottom of the hinder wagon. Mose smoked his pipe out and rolled himself in his blanket near the smoldering camp fire.
Pratt was feeble and very long faced and repentant at breakfast. His appet.i.te was gone. Mrs. Pratt said nothing, but pressed him to eat.
"Come, Paw, a gill or two o" cawfee will do ye good," she said. "Cawfee is a great heatoner," she said to Mose. "When I"m so misorified of a moarnin" I can"t eat a mossel o" bacon or pork, I kin take a gill o"
cawfee an" it sh.o.r.e helps me much."
Pratt looked around sheepishly. "I do reckon I made a plum ejot of myself last night."
"As ush"ll," snapped Jennie. "You wanted to go slicin" every man in sight up, just fer to show you could swing a bowie knife when you was on airth the first time."
"Now that"s the quare thing, Mose; a peacebbler man than me don"t live; Jinnie says I couldn"t lick a hearty bedbug, but when I git red liquor into my insides I"m a terror to near neighbours, so they say. I can"t well remember just what do take place "long towards the fo"th drink."
"Durn lucky you can"t. You"d never hole up your head again. A plummer fool you never see," said Jennie, determined to drive his shame home to him.
Pratt sighed, understood perfectly the meaning of all this vituperation.
"Well, Mam, we"ll try again. I think I"m doin" pretty good when I go two munce, don"t you?"
"It"s more"n that, Paw," said Mrs. Pratt, eager to encourage him at the right moment. "It"s sixty-four days. You gained four days on it this time."
Pratt straightened up and smiled. "That so, Mam? Wal, that sh.o.r.ely is a big gain."
He took Mose aside after breakfast and solemnly said:
"Wimern-folk is a heap better"n men-folks. Now, me or you couldn"t stand in wimern-folks what they put up with in men-folks. "Pears like they air finer built, someway." After a pause he said with great earnestness: "Don"t you drink red liquor, Mose; it sh.o.r.e makes a man no account."
"Don"t you worry, Cap. I"m not drinkin" liquor of any color."
CHAPTER VIII
THE UPWARD TRAIL
Once across the Missouri the trail began to mount. "Here is the true buffalo country," thought Mose, as they came to the treeless hills of the Great Muddy Water. On these smooth b.u.t.tes Indian sentinels had stood, morning and evening, through a thousand years, to signal the movement of the wild herds, and from other distant hills columns of smoke by day, or the flare of signal fires at night, had warned the chieftains of the approach of enemies. Down these gra.s.sy gulches, around these sugar-loaf mesas, the giant brown cattle of the plains had crawled in long, dark, k.n.o.bby lines. On the green bottoms they had mated and fed and fought in thousands, roaring like lions, their huge hoofs flinging the alkaline earth in showers above their heads, their tongues curling, their tails waving like banners.
Mose was already deeply learned in all these dramas. All that he had ever heard or read of the wild country remained in his mind. He cared nothing about the towns or the fame of cities, but these deep-worn trails of s.h.a.ggy beasts filled him with joy. Their histories were more to him than were the wars of Cyrus and Hannibal. He questioned all the men he met, and their wisdom became his.
Slowly the movers wound their way up the broad, sandy river which came from the wilder s.p.a.ces of the West. The prairie was gone. The tiger lily, the sweet Williams, the pinks, together with the luxuriant meadows and the bobolinks, were left behind. In their stead, a limitless, upward shelving plain outspread, covered with a short, surly, hairlike gra.s.s and certain st.u.r.dy, resinous plants supporting flowers of an unpleasant odor, sticky and weedy. Bristling cacti bulged from the sod; small Quaker-gray sparrows and larks were the only birds. In the swales blue joint grew rank. The only trees were cottonwoods and cutleaf willow, scattered scantily along the elbows in the river.
At last they came to the home of the prairie dog and the antelope--the buffalo could not be far away! So wide was the earth, so all-embracing the sky, they seemed to blend at the horizon line, and lakes of water sprang into view, filling a swale in the sod--mystic and beautiful, only to vanish like cloud shadows.
The cattle country was soon at hand. Cowboys in sombreros and long-heeled boots, with kerchiefs knotted about their necks, careered on swift ponies in and out of the little towns or met the newcomers on the river road. They rode in a fashion new to Mose, with toes pointed straight down, the weight of their bodies a little on one side. They skimmed the ground like swallows, forcing their ponies mercilessly.
Their saddles were very heavy, with high pommels and leather-covered stirrups, and Mose determined to have one at once. Some of them carried rifles under their legs in a long holster.
Realizing that those were the real "cow-punchers," the youth studied their outfits as keenly as a country girl scrutinizes the new gown of a visiting city cousin. He changed his manner of riding (which was more nearly that of the cavalry) to theirs. He slung a red kerchief around his neck, and bought a pair of "chaps," a sort of fringed leather leggings. He had been wearing his pistol at his side, he now slewed it around to his hip. He purchased also a pair of high-heeled boots and a "rope" (no one called it a "lariat"), and began to acquire the technicalities of the range. A horse that reared and leaped to fling its rider was said to "pitch." Any firearm was a "gun," and any bull, steer, or heifer, a "cow." In a few days all these distinctions had been mastered, and only the closest observer was able to "cut out" Mose as a "tenderfoot."
Pratt was bound for his brother"s ranch on the Big Sandy River, and so pushed on steadily, although it was evident that he was not looked upon with favor. He had reached a section of country where the cattlemen eyed his small outfit with contempt and suspicion. He came under the head of a "nester," or "truck farmer," who was likely to fence in the river somewhere and homestead some land. He was another menace to the range, and was to be discouraged. The mutter of war was soon heard.
One day a couple of whisky-heated cowboys rode furiously up behind Mose and called out:
"Where in h--l ye think ye"re goin", you dam cow milker?"
Mose was angry on the instant and sullenly said: "None of your business."
After threatening to blow his liver into bits they rode on and repeated their question to Pratt, who significantly replied: "I"m a-goin" to the mouth o" the Cannon Ball ef I don"t miss it. Any objection?"
"You bet we have, you rowdy baggage puller. You better keep out o" here; the climate"s purty severe."
Pratt smiled grimly. "I"m usen to that, boys," he replied, and the cowboys rode on, cursing him for a fool.