The Range Dwellers Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  The Quarrel Renewed.

  That night, by a close scratch, we made a little place Frosty said was oneof the Bay State line-camps. I didn't know what a line-camp was, and itwasn't much for style, but it looked good to me, after riding nearly allday in a snow-storm. Frosty cooked dinner and I made the coffee, and wedidn't have such a bad time of it, although the storm held us there fortwo days.

  We sat by the little cook-stove and told yarns, and I pumped Frosty justabout dry of all he'd ever heard about dad.

  I hadn't intended to write to dad, but, after hearing all I did, Icouldn't help handing out a gentle hint that I was on. When I'd been atthe Bay State Ranch for a week, I wrote him a letter that, I felt, squaredmy account with him. It was so short that I can repeat every word now.I said:

  DEAR DAD: I am here. Though you sent me out here to reform me, I find the opportunities for unadulterated deviltry away ahead of Frisco. I saw our old neighbor, King, whom you may possibly remember. He still walks with a limp. By the way, dad, it seems to me that when you were about twenty-five you "indulged in some damned poor pastimes," yourself. Your dutiful son, ELLIS.

  Dad never answered that letter.

  Montana, as viewed from the Bay State Ranch in March, struck me as beingan unholy mixture of brown, sodden hills and valleys, chill winds thatnever condescended to blow less than a gale, and dull, scurrying clouds,with sometimes a day of sunshine that was bright as our own sun at home.(You can't make me believe that our California sun bothers with any othercountry.)

  I'd been used to a green world; I never would go to New York in thewinter, because I hate the cold--and here I was, with the cold of New Yorkand with none of the ameliorations in the way of clubs and theaters andthe like. There were the hills along Midas River shutting off the East,and hills to the south that Frosty told me went on for miles and miles,and on the north stretched White Divide--only it was brown, and bleak, andseveral other undesirable things. When I looked at it, I used to wonder atmen fighting over it. I did a heap of wondering, those first few days.

  Taken in a lump, it wasn't my style, and I wasn't particular to keep myopinions a secret. For the ranch itself, it looked to me like a village ofcorrals and sheds and stables, evidently built with an eye to usefulness,and with the idea that harmony of outline is a sin and not to betolerated. The house was put up on the same plan, gave shelter to PerryPotter and the cook, had a big, bare dining-room where the men all atetogether without napkins or other accessories of civilization, and acouple of bedrooms that were colder, if I remember correctly, thanoutdoors. I know that the water froze in my pitcher the first night, andthat afterward I performed my ablutions in the kitchen, and dipped hotwater out of a tank with a blue dipper.

  That first week I spent adjusting myself to the simple life, and trying toform an unprejudiced opinion of my companions in exile. As for the saidcompanions, they sort of stood back and sized up my points, good andbad--and I've a notion they laid heavy odds against me, and had me down inthe Also Ran bunch. I overheard one of them remark, when I was coming upfrom the stables: "Here's the son and heir--come, let's kill him!" Anotherone drawled: "What's the use? The bounty's run out."

  I was convinced that they regarded me as a frost.

  The same with Perry Potter, a grizzled little man with long, ragged beardand gray eyes that looked through you and away beyond. I had a feelingthat dad had told him to keep an eye on me and report any incipient growthof horse-sense. I may have wronged him and dad, but that is how I felt,and I didn't like him any better for it. He left me alone, and I raisedthe bet and left him alone so hard that I scarcely exchanged threesentences with him in a week. The first night he asked after dad's health,and I told him the doctor wasn't making regular calls at the house. A dayor so after he said: "How do you like the country?" I said: "Damn thecountry!" and closed _that_ conversation. I don't remember that we had anymore for awhile.

  The cowboys were breaking horses to the saddle most of the time, for itwas too early for round-up, I gathered. When I sat on the corral fence andwatched the fun, I observed that I usually had my rail all to myself andthat the rest of the audience roosted somewhere else. Frosty Miller talkedwith me sometimes, without appearing to suffer any great pain, but Frostywas always the star actor when the curtain rose on a bronco-breaking act.As for the rest, they made it plain that I did _not_ belong to their set,and I wasn't sending them my At Home cards, either. We were as haughtywith each other as two society matrons when each aspires to be calledleader.

  Then a blizzard that lasted five days came ripping down over thatdesolation, and everybody stuck close to shelter, and amused themselves asthey could. The cowboys played cards most of the time--seven-up, orpitch, or poker; they didn't ask me to take a hand, though; I fancy theywere under the impression that I didn't know how to play.

  I never was much for reading; it's too slow and tame. I'd much rather getout and _live_ the story I like best. And there was nothing to read,anyway. I went rummaging in my trunks, and in the bottom of one I cameacross a punching-bag and a set of gloves. Right there I took off my hatto Rankin, and begged his pardon for the unflattering names he'd been inthe habit of hearing from me. I carried the things down and put up the bagin an empty room at one end of the bunk-house, and got busy.

  Frosty Miller came first to see what was up, and I got him to put on thegloves for awhile; he knew something of the manly art, I discovered, andwe went at it fast and furious. I think I broke up a game in the nextroom. The boys came to the door, one by one, and stood watching, until wehad the full dozen for audience. Before any one realized what washappening, we were playing together real pretty, with the chilly shoulderbarred and the social ice gone the way of a dew-drop in the sun.

  We boxed and wrestled, with much scientific discussion of "full Nelsons"and the like, and even fenced with sticks. I had them going there, andcould teach them things; and they were the willingest pupils a man everhad--docile and filled with a deep respect for their teacher who knew allthere was to know--or, if he didn't, he never let on. Before night we hadsmashed three window-panes, trimmed several faces down considerably, andgot pretty well acquainted. I found out that they weren't so far behindthe old gang at home for wanting all there is in the way of fun, and Ibelieve they discovered that I was harmless. Before that storm let up theywere dealing cards to me, and allowing me to get rid of the rest of theforty dollars Rankin had overlooked. I got some of it back.

  I went down and bunked with them, because they had a stove and I didn't,and it was more sociable; Perry Potter and the cook were welcome to thehouse, I told them, except at meal-times. And, more than all the rest, Icould keep out of range of Perry Potter's eyes. I never could get used tothat watch-Willie-grow way he had, or rid myself of the notion that he wassending dad a daily report of my behavior.

  The next thing, when the weather quit sifting snow and turned on the balmybreezes and the sunshine, I was down in the corrals in my chaps and spurs,learning things about horses that I never suspected before. When I didsomething unusually foolish, the boys were good enough to remember myboxing and fencing and such little accomplishments, and did not withdrawtheir favor; so I went on, butting into every new game that came up, andtaking all bets regardless, and actually began to wise up a little and toforget a few of my grievances.

  I was down in the corral one day, saddling Shylock--so named because hetried to exact a pound of flesh every time I turned my back or in otherways seemed off my guard--and when I was looping up the latigo Idiscovered that the alliterative Mr. Potter was roosting on the fence,watching me with those needle-pointed eyes of his. I wondered if he wasabout to prepare another report for dad.

  "Do yuh want to be put on the pay-roll?" he asked, without any preamble,when he caught my glance.

  "Yes, if I'm _earning_ wages. 'The laborer is worthy of his hire,' Ibelieve," I retorted loftily. The fact was, I was strapped again--and,though one did not need money on the Bay State Ranch, it's a g
ood thing tohave around.

  He grinned into his collar. "Well," he said, "you've been pretty busy thelast three weeks, but I ain't had any orders to hire a boxing-master forthe boys. I don't know as that'd rightly come under the head of legitimateexpenses; boxing-masters come high, I've heard. Are yuh going onround-up?"

  "Sure!" I answered, in an exact copy--as near as I could make it--ofFrosty Miller's intonation. I was making Frosty my model those days.

  He said: "All right--your pay starts on the fifteenth of nextmonth"--which was April. Then he got down from the fence and went off, andI mounted Shylock and rode away to Laurel, after the mail. Not that Iexpected any, for no one but dad knew where I was, and I hadn't heard aword from him, though I knew he wrote to Perry Potter--or his secretarydid--every week or so. Really, I don't think a father ought to be sochesty with the only son he's got, even if the son is a no-account youngcub.

  I was standing in the post-office, which was a store and saloon as well,when an old fellow with stubby whiskers and a jaw that looked as though ithad been trimmed square with a rule, and a limp that made me know at oncewho he was, came in. He was standing at the little square window, talkingto the postmaster and waving his pipe to emphasize what he said, whena horse went past the door on the dead run, with bridle-reins flying.A fellow rushed out past us--it was his horse--and hit old King's elbowa clip as he went by. The pipe went about ten feet and landed in apickle-keg. I went after it and fished it out for the old fellow--not somuch because I'm filled with a natural courtesy, as because I was curiousto know the man that had got the best of dad.

  He thanked me, and asked me across to the saloon side of the room to drinkwith him. "I don't know as I've met you before, young man," he said, eyingme puzzled. "Your face is familiar, though; been in this country long?"

  "No," I said; "a little over a month is all."

  "Well, if you ever happen around my way--King's Highway, they call myplace--stop and see me. Going to stay long out here?"

  "I think so," I replied, motioning the waiter--"bar-slave," they call themin Montana--to refill our glasses. "And I'll be glad to call some day,when I happen in your neighborhood. And if you ever ride over toward theBay State, be sure you stop."

  Well, say! old King turned the color of a ripe prune; every hair in thatstubble of beard stood straight out from his chin, and he looked as ifmurder would be a pleasant thing. He took the glass and deliberatelyemptied the whisky on the floor. "John Carleton's son, eh? I might 'a'known it--yuh look enough like him. Me drink with a son of John Carleton?That breed uh wolves had better not come howling around _my_ door. I askedyuh to come t' King's Highway, young man, and I don't take it back. Youcan come, but you'll get the same sort uh welcome I'd give that--"

  Right there I got my hand on his throttle. He was an old man,comparatively, and I didn't want to hurt him; but no man under heaven cancall my dad the names he did, and I told him so. "I don't want to dig upthat old quarrel, King," I said, shaking him a bit with one hand, just toemphasize my words, "but you've got to speak civilly of dad, or, by theLord! I'll turn you across my knee and administer a stinging rebuke."

  He tried to squirm loose, and to reach behind him with that suggestivemovement that breeds trouble among men of the plains; but I held his armsso he couldn't move, the while I told him a lot of things about truepoliteness--things that I wasn't living up to worth mentioning. He yelledto the postmaster to grab me, and the fellow tried it. I backed into acorner and held old King in front of me as a bulwark, warranted bulletproof, and wondered what kind of a hornet's-nest I'd got into. The waiterand the postmaster were both looking for an opening, and I remembered thatI was on old King's territory, and that they were after holding theirjobs.

  I don't know how it would have ended--I suppose they'd have got me,eventually--but Perry Potter walked in, and it didn't seem to take him allday to savvy the situation. He whipped out a gun and leveled it at theenemy, and told me to scoot and get on my horse.

  "Scoot nothing!" I yelled back. "What about you in the meantime? Do youthink I'm going to leave them to clean you up?"

  He smiled sourly at me. "I've held my own with this bunch uhtrouble-hunters for thirty years," he said dryly. "I guess yuh ain't gotany reason t' be alarmed. Come out uh that corner and let 'em alone."

  I don't, to this day, know why I did it, but I quit hugging old King, andthe other two fell back and gave me a clear path to the door. "King wasblackguarding dad, and I couldn't stand for it," I explained to PerryPotter as I went by. "If you're not going, I won't."

  "I've got a letter to mail," he said, calm as if he were in his owncorral. "You went off before I got a chance to give it to yuh. I'll be outin a minute."

  He went and slipped the letter into the mail-box, turned his back on thethree, and walked out as if nothing had happened; perhaps he knew that Iwas watching them, in a mood to do things if they offered to touch him.But they didn't, and we mounted our horses and rode away, and Perry Potternever mentioned the affair to me, then or after. I don't think we spoke onthe way to the ranch; I was busy wishing I'd been around in that part ofthe world thirty years before, and thinking what a lot of fun I hadmissed by not being as old as dad. A quarrel thirty years old is eithermighty stale and unprofitable, or else, like wine, it improves with age.I meant to ride over to King's Highway some day, and see how he wouldhave welcomed dad thirty years before.