Cow Country

B >> B. M. Bower >> Cow Country

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Marian turned her head, and listened to the piano, and
glanced up at him.

"I also like things clean and natural and wholesome," she
said quietly. "That's why I tried to put you on your guard.
You don't seem to fit in, somehow, with--the surroundings. I
happen to know that the races held here every Sunday are just
thinly veiled attempts to cheat the unwary out of every cent
they have. I should advise you, Mr. Birnie, to be very
careful how you bet on any horses."

"I shall," Bud smiled. "Pop gave me some good advice, too,
about running horses. He says, "It's every fellow for
himself, and mercy toward none. I'm playing by their rule,
and Pop expects to make a few dollars, too. He said he'd
stand by me."

"Oh! He did?" Marian's voice puzzled Bud. She kneaded the
bread vigorously for a minute. "Don't depend too much on Pop.
He's--variable. And don't go around with a dollar in your
pocket--unless you don't mind losing that dollar. There are
men in this country who would willingly dispense with the
formality of racing a horse in order to get your money."

"Yes--I've discovered one informal method already. I wish I
knew how I could help YOU."

"Help me--in what way?" Marian glanced out of the window
again as if that were a habit she had formed.

"I don't know. I wish I did. I thought perhaps you had some
trouble that--My mother had the same look in her eyes when we
came back to the ranch after some Indian trouble, and found
the house burned and everything destroyed but the ground
itself. She didn't say anything much. She just began helping
father plan how we'd manage until we could get material and
build another cabin, and make our supplies hold out. She
didn't complain. But her eyes had the same look I've seen in
yours, Mrs. Morris. So I feel as if I ought to help you, just
as I'd help mother." Bud's face had been red and embarrassed
when he began, but his earnestness served to erase his
selfconsciousness.

"You're different--just like mother," he went on when Marian
did not answer. "You don't belong here drudging in this
kitchen. I never saw a woman doing a man's work before. They
ought to have a man cooking for all these hulking men."

"Oh, the kitchen!" Marian exclaimed impatiently. "I don't
mind the cooking. That's the least--"

"It isn't right, just the same. I--I don't suppose that's it
altogether. I'm not trying to find out what the trouble is--
but I wish you'd remember that I'm ready to do anything in
the world that I can. You won't misunderstand that, I'm
sure."

"No-o," said Marian slowly. "But you see, there's nothing
that you can do--except, perhaps, make things worse for me."
Then , to lighten that statement, she smiled at him. "Just
now you can help me very much if you will go in and play
something besides the Blue Danube Waltz. I've had to listen
to that ever since Honora sent away for the music with the
winter's grocery order, last October. Tell Honora you got her
some mushrooms. And don't trust anyone. If you must bet on
the horses, do so with your eyes open. They're cheats--and
worse, some of them."

Bud's glance followed hers through the window that overlooked
the corrals and the outbuildings. Lew was coming up to the
house with a slicker over his head to keep off the drizzle.

"Well, remember I'd do anything for you that I'd do for my
mother or my sister Dulcie. And I wish you'd call on me just
as they would, if you get in a pinch and need me. If I know
you'll do that I'll feel a lot better satisfied."

"If I need you be sure that I shall let you know. And I'll
say that "It's a comfort to have met one white man," Marian
assured him hurriedly, her anxious eyes on her approaching
husband.

She need not have worried over his coming, so far as Bud was
concerned. For Bud was in the sitting-room and had picked
Honey off the piano stool, had given her a playful shake and
was playing the Blue Danube as its composer intended that it
should be played, when Lew entered the kitchen and kicked the
door shut behind him.

Bud spent the forenoon conscientiously trying to teach Honey
that the rests are quite as important to the tempo of a waltz
measure as are the notes. Honey's talent for music did not
measure up to her talent for coquetry; she received about
five dollars' worth of instruction and no blandishments
whatever, and although she no doubt profited thereby, at last
she balked and put her lazy white hands over her ears and
refused to listen to Bud's inexorable "One, two, three, one,
two, three-and one, two, three." Whereupon Bud laughed and
returned to the bunk-house.

He arrived in the middle of a heated argument over Jeff
Hall's tactics in racing Skeeter, and immediately was called
upon for his private, personal opinion of Sunday's race.
Bud's private, personal opinion being exceedingly private and
personal, he threw out a skirmish line of banter.

Smoky could run circles around that Skeeter horse, he
boasted, and Jeff's manner of riding was absolutely
unimportant, non-essential and immaterial. He was mighty glad
that holdup man had fallen down, last Sunday, before he got
his hands on any money, because that money was going to talk
long and loud to Jeff Hall next Sunday. Now that Bud had
started running his horse for money, working for wages looked
foolish and unprofitable. He was now working merely for
healthful exercise and to pass the time away between Sundays.
His real mission in life, he had discovered, was to teach
Jeff's bunch that gambling is a sin.

The talk was carried enthusiastically to the dinner table,
where Bud ignored the scowling proximity of Lew and repeated
his boasts in a revised form as an indirect means of letting
Marian know that he meant to play the Burroback game in the
Burroback way--or as nearly as he could--and keep his honesty
more or less intact. He did not think she would approve, but
he wanted her to know.

Once, when Buddy was fifteen, four thoroughbred cows and four
calves disappeared mysteriously from the home ranch just
before the calves had reached branding age. Buddy rode the
hills and the valleys every spare minute for two weeks in
search of them, and finally, away over the ridge where an
undesirable neighbor was getting a start in cattle, Buddy
found the calves in a fenced field with eight calves
belonging--perhaps--to the undesirable neighbor.

Buddy did not ride down to the ranch and accuse the neighbor
of stealing the calves. Instead, he painstakingly sought a
weak place in the fence, made a very accidental looking hole
and drove out the twelve calves, took them over the ridge to
Tomahawk and left them in a high, mountain meadow pretty well
surrounded by matted thickets. There, because there was good
grass and running water, the calves seemed quite as happy as
in the field.

Then Buddy hurried home and brought a branding iron and a
fresh horse, and by working very hard and fast, he somehow
managed to plant a deep tomahawk brand on each one of the
twelve calves. He returned home very late and very proud of
himself, and met his father face to face as he was putting
away the iron. Explanations and a broken harness strap
mingled painfully in Buddy's memory for a long time
afterwards, but the full effect of the beating was lost
because Buddy happened to hear Bob Birnie confide to mother
that the lad had served the old cattle-thief right, and that
any man who could start with one thoroughbred cow and in four
years have sufficient increase from that cow to produce eight
calves a season, ought to lose them all.

Buddy had not needed his father's opinion to strengthen his
own conviction that he had performed a worthy deed and one of
which no man need feel ashamed. Indeed, Buddy considered the
painful incident of the buggy strap a parental effort at
official discipline, and held no particular grudge against
his father after the welts had disappeared from his person.

Wherefore Bud, the man, held unswervingly to the ethical
standard of Buddy the boy. If Burroback Valley was scheming
to fleece a stranger at their races and rob him by force if
he happened to win, then Bud felt justified in getting every
dollar possible out of the lot of them. At any rate, he told
himself, he would do his darndest. It was plain enough that
Pop was trying to make an opportunity to talk confidentially,
but with a dozen men on the place it was easy enough to avoid
being alone without arousing the old man's suspicions. Marian
had told him to trust no one; and Bud, with his usual
thoroughness, applied the warning literally.

Sunday morning he caught up Smoky and rode him to the corral.
Smoky had recovered from his lameness, and while Bud groomed
him for the afternoon's running the men of Little Lost
gathered round him and offered advice and encouragement, and
even volunteered to lend him money if he needed it. But Bud
told them to put up their own bets, and never to worry about
him. Their advice and their encouragement, however, he
accepted as cheerfully as they were given.

"Think yuh can beat Skeeter, young feller?" Pop shambled up
to inquire anxiously, his beard brushing Bud's shoulder while
he leaned close. "Remember what I told ye. You stick by me
an' I'll stick by you. You shook on it, don't forgit that,
young feller."

Bud had forgotten, but he made haste to redeem his promise."
Last Sunday, Pop, I had to play it alone. To-day-well, if you
want to make an honest dollar, you know what to do, don't
you?"

"Sho! I'm bettin' on yore horse t'day, an' mind ye, I want to
see my money doubled! But that there lameness in his left
hind ankle--I don't see but what that kinda changes my
opinion a little mite. You shore he won't quit on ye in the
race, now? Don't lie to ole Pop, young feller!"

"Say! He 's the gamest little horse in the state, Pop. He
never has quit, and he never will." Bud stood up and laid a
friendly hand on the old fellow's shoulder. "Pop, I'm running
him to-day to win. That's the truth. I'm going to put all
I've got on him. Is that good enough?"

"Shucks almighty! That's good enough fer me,--plenty good fer
me," Pop cackled, and trotted off to find someone who had
little enough faith in Smoky to wager a two-to-one against
him.

It seemed to Bud that the crowd was larger than that of a
week ago, and there was no doubt whatever that the betting
was more feverish, and that Jeff meant that day to retrieve
his losses. Bud passed up a very good chance to win on other
races, and centred all his betting on Smoky. He had been
throughout the week boastful and full of confidence, and now
he swaggered and lifted his voice in arrogant challenge to
all and sundry. His three hundred dollars was on the race,
and incidentally, he never left Smoky from the time he led
him up from pasture until the time came when he and Jeff Hall
rode side by side down to the quarter post.

They came up in a small whirlwind of speed and dust, and
Smoky was under the wire to his ears when Skeeter's nose
showed beyond it. Little Lost was jubilant. Jeff Hall and his
backers were not.

Bud's three hundred dollars had in less than a minute
increased to a little over nine hundred, though all his bets
had been moderate. By the time he had collected, his pockets
were full and his cocksureness had increased to such an
unbearable crowing that Jeff Hall's eyes were venomous as a
snake's. Jeff had been running to win, that day, and he had
taken odds on Skeeter that had seemed to him perfectly safe.

"I'll run yuh horse for horse!" he bellowed and spat out an
epithet that sent Bud at him white-lipped.

"Damn yuh, ride down to the quarter post and I'll show you
some running!" Bud yelled back. "And after you've swallowed
dust all the way up the track, you go with me to where the
women can't see and I'll lick the living tar outa you!"

Jeff swore and wheeled Skeeter toward the starting post,
beckoning Bud to follow. And Bud, hastily tucking in a
flapping bulge of striped shirt, went after him. At that
moment he was not Bud, but Buddy in one of his fighting
moods, with his plans forgotten while he avenged an insult.

Men lined up at the wire to judge for themselves the finish,
and Dave Truman rode alone to start them. No one doubted but
that the start would be fair--Jeff and Bud would see to that!

For the first time in months the rein-ends stung Smoky's
flanks when he was in his third jump. Just once Bud struck,
and was ashamed of the blow as it fell. Smoky did not need
that urge, but he flattened his ears and came down the track
a full length ahead of Skeeter, and held the pace to the wire
and beyond, where he stopped in a swirl of sand and went
prancing back, ready for another race if they asked it of
him.

"Guess Dave'll have to bring out Boise and take the swellin'
outa that singin' kid's pocket," a hardfaced man shouted as
Jeff slid off Skeeter and went over to where his cronies
stood bunched and conferring earnestly together

"Not to-day, he needn't. I've had all the excitement I want;
and I'd like to have time to count my money before I lose
it," Bud retorted. "Next Sunday, if it's a clear day and the
sign is right, I might run against Boise if it's worth my
while. Say, Jeff, seeing you're playing hard luck, I won't
lick you for what you called me. And just to show my heart's
right, I'll lend you Skeeter to ride home. Or if you want to
buy him back, you can have him for sixty dollars or such a
matter. He 's a nice little horse,--if you aren't in a
hurry!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: WHY BUD MISSED A DANCE

"Bud, you're fourteen kinds of a damn fool and I can prove
it," Jerry announced without prelude of any kind save,
perhaps, the viciousness with which he thrust a pitchfork
into a cock of hay. The two were turning over hay-cocks that
had been drenched with another unwelcome storm, and they had
not been talking much. "Forking" soggy hay when the sun is
blistering hot and great, long-billed mosquitoes are boring
indefatigably into the back of one's neck is not a pastime
conducive to polite and animated conversation.

"Fly at it," Bud invited, resting his fork while he scratched
a smarting shoulder. "But you can skip some of the evidence.
I know seven of the kinds, and I plead guilty. Any able-
bodied man who will deliberately make a barbecue of himself
for a gang of blood-thirsty insects ought to be hanged.
What's the rest?"

"You can call that mild," Jerry stated severely. "Bud,
you're playing to lose the shirt off your back. You've got a
hundred dollar forfeit up on next Sunday's running match, so
you'll run if you have to race Boise afoot. That's all right
if you want the risk--but did it ever occur to you that if
all the coin in the neighborhood is collected in one man's
pocket, there'll be about as many fellows as there are
losers, that will lay awake till sun-up figuring how to heel
him and ride off with the roll? I ain't over-stocked with
courage, myself. I'd rather be broke in Burroback Valley than
owner of wealth. It's healthier,"

He thrust his fork into another settled heap, lifted it clear
of the ground with one heave of his muscular shoulders, and
heard within a strident buzzing. He held the hay poised until
a mottled gray snake writhed into view, its ugly jaws open
and its fangs showing malevolently.

"Grab him with your fork, Bud," Jerry said coolly. "A
rattler--the valley's full of 'em,--some of 'em 's human."

The snake was dispatched and the two went on to the next hay-
cock. Bud was turning over more than the hay, and presently
he spoke more seriously than was his habit with Jerry.

"You're full enough of warnings, Jerry. What do you want me
to do about it?"

"Drift," Jerry advised. "There's moral diseases just as
catching as smallpox. This part of the country has been
settled up by men that came here first because they wanted to
hide out. They've slipped into darn crooked ways, and the
rest has either followed suit or quit. All through this rough
country "It's the same-over in the Black Rim, across Thunder
Mountains, and beyond that to the Sawtooth, a man that's
honest is a man that's off his range. I'd like to see you
pull out--before you're planted."

Bud looked at Jerry, studied him, feature by feature. "Then
what are you doing here?" he demanded bluntly. "Why haven't
you pulled out?"

"Me?" Jerry bit his lip. "Bud, I'm going to take a chance
and tell you the God's-truth. I dassent. I'm protected here
because I keep my mouth shut, and because they know I've got
to or they can hand me over. I had some trouble. I'm on the
dodge, and Little Lost is right handy to the Sinks and--
Catrock Canyon. There ain't a sheriff in Idaho that would
have one chance in a thousand of getting me here. But you--
say!" He faced Bud. "You ain't on the dodge, too, are yuh?"

"Nope," Bud grinned. "Over at the Muleshoe they seemed to
think I was. I just struck out for myself, and I want to show
up at home some day with a stake I made myself. "It's just a
little argument with my dad that I want to settle. And," he
added frankly, "I seem to have struck the right place to make
money quickly. The very fact that they're a bunch of crooks
makes my conscience clear on the point of running my horse.
I'm not cheating them out of a cent. If Jeff's horse is
faster than Smoky, Jeff is privileged to let him out and win
if he can. It isn't my fault if he 's playing to let me win
from the whole bunch in the hope that he can hold me up
afterwards and get the roll "It's straight 'give and take'--
and so far I've been taking."

Jerry worked for a while, moodily silent. "What I'd like is
to see you take the trail; while the takin's good," he said
later. "I've got to keep my mouth shut. But I like yuh, Bud.
I hate like hell to see you walking straight into a trap."

"Say, I'm as easily trapped as a mountain lion," Bud told him
confidently.

Whereat Jerry looked at him pityingly. "You going to that
dance up at Morgan's?"

"Sure! I'm going to take Honey and--I think Mrs. Morris if
she decides to go. Honey mentioned it last night. Why?"

"Oh, nothing." Jerry shouldered his fork and went off to
where a jug of water was buried in the hay beside a certain
boulder which marked the spot. He drank long, stopped for a
short gossip with Charley, who strolled over for a drink, and
went to work on another row.

Bud watched him, and wondered if Jerry had changed rows to
avoid further talk with him; and whether Jerry had merely
been trying to get information from him, and had either
learned what he wanted to know, or had given up the attempt.
Bud reviewed mentally their desultory conversation and
decided that he had accidentally been very discreet. The only
real bit of information he had given Jerry was the fact that
he was not "on the dodge"--a criminal in fear of the law--and
that surely could harm no man.

That he intended to run against Boise on Sunday was common
knowledge; also that he had a hundred dollar forfeit up on
the race. And that he was going to a dance with Honey was of
no consequence that he could see.

Bud was beginning to discount the vague warnings he had
received. Unless something definite came within his knowledge
he would go about his business exactly as if Burroback Valley
were a church-going community. He would not "drift."

But after all he did not go to the dance with Honey, or with
anyone. He came to the supper-table freshly shaved and
dressed for the occasion, ate hungrily and straightway became
a very sick young man. He did not care if there were forty
dances in the Valley that night. His head was splitting, his
stomach was in a turmoil. He told Jerry to go ahead with
Honey, and if he felt better after a while he would follow.
Jerry at first was inclined to scepticism, and accused Bud of
crawfishing at the last minute. But within ten minutes Bud
had convinced him so completely that Jerry insisted upon
staying with him. By then Bud was too sick to care what was
being done, or who did it. So Jerry stayed.

Honey came to the bunk-house in her dance finery, was met in
the doorway by Jerry and was told that this was no place for
a lady, and reluctantly consented to go without her escort.

A light shone dimly in the kitchen after the dancers had
departed, wherefore Jerry guessed that Marian had not gone
with the others, and that he could perhaps get hold of
mustard for an emetic or a plaster--Jerry was not sure which
remedy would be best, and the patient, wanting to die, would
not be finicky. He found Marian measuring something drop by
drop into half a glass of water. She turned, saw who had
entered, and carefully counted three more drops, corked the
bottle tightly and slid it into her apron pocket, and held
out the glass to Jerry.

"Give him this," she said in a soft undertone. "I'm sorry,
but I hadn't a chance to say a word to the boy, and so I
couldn't think of any other way of making sure he would not
go up to Morgan's. I put something into his coffee to make
him sick. You may tell him, Jerry, if you like. I should, if
I had the chance. This will counteract the effects of the
other so that he will be all right in a couple of hours."

Jerry took the glass and stood looking at her steadily. "That
sure was one way to do it," he observed, with a quirk of the
lips. "It's none of my business, and I ain't asking any
questions, but--"

"Very sensible, I'm sure," Marian interrupted him. "I wish
he'd leave the country. Can't you--?"

"No. I told him to pull out, and he just laughed at me. I
knowed they was figuring on ganging together to-night--"

Marian closed her hands together with a gesture of
impatience. "Jerry, I wish I knew just how bad you are!" she
exclaimed. "Do you dare stand by him? Because this thing is
only beginning. I couldn't bear to see him go up there to-
night, absolutely unsuspecting--and so I made him sick. Tell
that to anyone, and you can make me--"

"Say, I ain't a damned skunk!" Jerry muttered. "I'm bad
enough, maybe. At any rate you think so." Then, as usually
happened, Jerry decided to hold his tongue. He turned and
lifted the latch of the screen door. "You sure made a good
job of it," he grinned. "I'll go an' pour this into Bud 'fore
he loses his boots!"

He did so, and saved Bud's boots and half a night's sleep
besides. Moreover, when Bud, fully recovered, searched his
memory of that supper and decided that it was the sliced
cucumbers that had disagreed with him, Jerry gravely assured
him that it undoubtedly was the combination of cucumber and
custard pie, and that Bud was lucky to be alive after such
reckless eating.

Having missed the dance altogether, Bud looked forward with
impatience to Sunday. It is quite possible that others shared
with him that impatience, though we are going to adhere for a
while to Bud's point of view and do no more than guess at the
thoughts hidden behind the fair words of certain men in the
Valley.

Pop's state of mind we are privileged to know, for Pop was
seen making daily pilgrimage to the pasture where he could
watch Smoky limping desultorily here and there with Stopper
and Sunfish. On Saturday afternoon Bud saw Pop trying to get
his hands on Smoky, presumably to examine the lame ankle. But
three legs were all Smoky needed to keep him out of Pop's
reach. Pop forgot his rheumatism and ran pretty fast for a
man his age, and when Bud arrived Pop's vocabulary had
limbered up to a more surprising activity than his legs.

"Want to bet on yourself, Pop?" Bud called out when Pop was
running back and forth, hopefully trying to corner Smoky in a
rocky draw. "I'm willing to risk a dollar on you, anyway."

Pop whirled upon him and hurled sentences not written in the
book of Parlor Entertainment. The gist of it was that he had
been trying all the week to have a talk with Bud, and Bud had
plainly avoided him after promising to act upon Pop's advice
and run so as to make some money.

"Well, I made some," Bud defended. "If you didn't, it's
just because you didn't bet strong enough."

"I want to look at that horse's hind foot," Pop insisted.

"No use. He's too lame to run against Boise. You can see that
yourself."

Pop eyed Bud suspiciously, pulling his beard. "Are you fixin'
to double-cross me, young feller?" he wanted to know. "I
went and made some purty big bets on this race. If you think
yo're goin' to fool ole Pop, you 'll wish you hadn't. You
got enemies already in this valley, lemme tell yuh. The
Muleshoe ain't any bunch to fool with, and I'm willing to say
't they're laying fer yuh. They think," he added shrewdly,
"'t you're a spotter, or something. Air yuh?"

"Of course I am, Pop! I've spotted a way to make money and
have fun while I do it." Bud looked at the old man,
remembered Marian's declaration that Pop was not very
reliable, and groped mentally for a way to hearten the old
man without revealing anything better kept to himself, such
as the immediate effect of a horse hair tied just above a
horse's hoof, also the immediate result of removing that
hair. Wherefore, he could not think of much to say, except
that he would not attempt to run a lame horse against Boise.

"All I can say is, to-morrow morning you keep your eyes open,
Pop, and your tongue between your teeth. And no matter what
comes up, you use your own judgment."

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