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Plato - "Ion"

Charles Dickens - "The Chimes"

Rex Stout - "Under the Andes"

Elizabeth - "Elizabeth and her German Garden*"

Cow Country

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




They showed up, all right, within two minutes of the
unlocking of the bank and the rolling up of the shades. Jeff
Hall was the first man to walk in, and he stopped short when
he saw Bud lounging before the teller's window and the
cashier busy within. Other men were straggling up on the
porch, and two of them entered. Jeff walked over to Bud, who
shifted his position enough to bring him facing Jeff, whom he
did not trust at all.

"Mr. Lawton," Jeff began hurriedly, "I want to stop payment
on a check this young feller got from me by fraud. It's for
five thousand eight hundred dollars, and I notify you--"

"Too late, Mr. Hall. I have already accepted the checks.
Where did the fraud come in? You can bring suit, of course,
to recover."

"I'll tell you, Jimmy. He bet that my horse couldn't beat
Dave Truman's Boise. A good many bet on the same thing. But
my horse proved to have more speed, so a lot of them are
sore." Bud chuckled as other Sunday losers came straggling
in.

"Well, it's too late. I have honored the checks," Jimmy said
crisply, and turned to hand a sealed manila envelope to the
bookkeeper with whispered instructions. The bookkeeper, who
had just entered from the rear of the office, turned on his
heel and left again.

Jeff muttered something to his friends and went outside as if
their business were done for the day.

"I gave you five thousand in currency and the balance in a
cashier's check," Jimmy whispered through he wicket. "Sent it
to the house, We don't keep a great deal--ten thousand's our
limit in cash, and I don't think you want to pack gold or
silver--"

"No, I didn't. I'd rather--"

Two men came in, one going over to the desk where he
apparently wrote a check, the other came straight to the
window. Bud looked into the heavily bearded face of a man who
had the eyes of Lew Morris. He shifted his position a little
so that he faced the man's right side. The one at the desk
was glancing slyly over his shoulder at the bookkeeper, who
had just returned to his work.

"Can you change this twenty so I can get seven dollars and a
quarter out of it?" asked the man at he window. As he slid
the bill through the wicket he started to sneeze, and reached
backward--for his handkerchief, apparently.

"Here's one," said Bud. "Don't sneeze too hard, old-timer, or
you're liable to sneeze your whiskers all off. It's happened
before."

Someone outside fired a shot in at Bud, clipping his hatband
in front. At the sound of the shot the whiskered one snatched
his gun out, and the cashier shot him. Bud had sent a shot
through the outside window and hit somebody--whom, he did not
know, for he had no time to look. The young fellow at the
desk had whirled, and was pointing a gun shakily, first at he
cashier and then at Bud. Bud fired and knocked he gun out of
his hand, then stepped over the man he suspected was Lew and
caught the young fellow by the wrist.

"You're Ed Collier--by your eyes and your mouth," Bud said in
a rapid undertone. "I'm going to get you out of this, if
you'll do what I say. Will you?"

"He got me in here, honest," the young fellow quaked. He
couldn't be more than nineteen, Bud guessed swiftly.

"Let me through, Jimmy," Bud ordered hurriedly. "You got the
man that put up this job. I'll take the kid out the back way,
if you don't mind."

Jimmy opened the steel-grilled door and let them through.

"Ed Collier," he said in a tone of recognition. "I heard he
was trailing--"

"Forget it, Jimmy. If the sheriff asks about him, say he got
out. Now, Ed, I'm going to take you over to Mrs. Hanson's.
She'll keep an eye on you for a while."

Eddie was looking at the dead man on the floor, and trembling
so that he did not attempt to reply; and by way of Jimmy's
back fence and the widow Hanson's barn and corral, Bud got
Eddie safe into the kitchen just as that determined lady was
leaving home with a shotgun to help defend the honor of the
town.

Bud took her by the shoulder and told her what he wanted her
to do. "He's Marian's brother, and too young to be with that
gang. So keep him here, safe and out of sight, until I come.
Then I'll want to borrow your horse. Shall I tie the kid?"

"And me an able-bodied woman that could turn him acrost my
knee?" Mrs. Hanson's eyes snapped.

"It's more likely the boy needs his breakfast. Get along with
ye!"

Bud got along, slipping into the bank by the rear door and
taking a hand in the desultory firing in the street. The
sheriff had a couple of men ironed and one man down and the
landlord of the hotel was doing a great deal of explaining
that he had never seen the bandits before. Just by way of
stimulating his memory Bud threw a bullet close to his heels,
and the landlord thereupon grovelled and wept while he
protested his innocence.

"He's a damn liar, sheriff," Bud called across the hoof-
scarred road. "He was talking to them about eleven o'clock
last night. There were three that chased me into town, and
they got him up out of bed to find out whether I'd stopped
there. I hadn't, luckily for me. If I had he'd have showed
them the way to my room, and he'd have had a dead boarder
this morning. Keep right on shedding tears, you old cut-
throat! I was sitting on the court-house porch, last night,
and I heard every word that passed between you and the
Catrockers!"

"I've been suspicioning here was where they got their
information right along," the sheriff commented, and slipped
the handcuffs on the landlord. Investigation proved that Jeff
Hall and his friends had suddenly decided that they had no
business with the bank that day, and had mounted and galloped
out of town when the first shot was fired. Which simplified
matters a bit for Bud.

In Jimmy Lawton's kitchen he received his money, and when the
prisoners were locked up he saved himself some trouble with
the sheriff by hunting him up and explaining just why he had
taken the Collier boy into custody.

"You know yourself he's just a kid, and if you send him over
the road he's a criminal for life. I believe I can make a
decent man of him. I want to try, anyway. So you just leave
me this deputy's badge, and make my commission regular and
permanent, and I'll keep an eye on him. Give me a paper so I
can get a requisition and bring him back to stand trial, any
time he breaks out. I'll be responsible for him, sheriff."

"And who in blazes are you?" the sheriff inquired, with a
grin to remove the sting of suspicion. "Name sounded
familiar, too!"

"Bud Birnie of the Tomahawk, down near Laramie; Telegraph
Laramie if you like and find out about me.

"Good Lord! I know the Tomahawk like a book!" cried the
sheriff. "And you're Bob Birnie's boy! Say! D'you remember
dragging into camp on the summit one time when you was about
twelve years old--been hidin' out from Injuns about three
days? Well, say! I'm the feller that packed you into the
tent, and fed yuh when yuh come to. Remember the time I rode
down and stayed over night at yore place, the time Bill Nye
come down from his prospect hole up in the Snowies, bringin'
word the Injuns was up again?" The sheriff grabbed Bud's hand
and held it, shaking it up and down now and then to emphasize
his words.

"Folks called you Buddy, then. I remember yuh, helpin' your
mother cook 'n' wash dishes for us fellers. I kinda felt like
I had a claim on yuh, Buddy.

"Say, Bill Nye, he's famous now. Writin' books full of jokes,
and all that. He always was a comical cuss. Don't you
remember how the bunch of us laughed at him when he drifted
in about dark, him and four burros--that one he called
Boomerang, that he named his paper after in Laramie? I've
told lots of times what he said when he come stoopin' into
the kitchen--how Colorou had sent him word that he'd give
Bill just four sleeps to get outa there. An, 'Hell!' says
Bill. 'I didn't need any sleeps!' An' we all turned to and
cooked a hull beef yore dad had butchered that day--and Bill
loaded up with the first chunks we had ready, and pulled his
freight. He sure didn't need any sleeps--"

"Yes, you bet I remember. Jesse Cummings is your name. I sure
ought to remember you, for you and your partner saved my
life, I expect. I thought I'd seen you before, when you made
me deputy. How about the kid? Can I have him? Lew Morris, the
man that kept him on the wrong side of the law, is dead, I
heard the doctor say. Jimmy got him when he pulled his gun."

"Why, yes--if the town don't git onto me turnin' him loose, I
guess you can have the kid for all I care. He didn't take any
part in the holdup, did he Buddy?"

"He was over by the customers' desk when Lew started, to hold
up the cashier."

"Well I got enough prisoners so I guess he won't be missed.
But you look out how yuh git him outa town. Better wait til
kinda late to-night. I sure would like to see him git a show.
Them two Collier kids never did have a square deal, far as
I've heard.

But be careful, youngster. I want another term off this
county if I can get it. Don't go get me in bad."

"I won't," Bud promised and hurried back to Mrs. Hanson's
house.

That estimable lady was patting butter in a wooden bowl when
Bud went in. She turned and brushed a wisp of gray hair from
her face with her fore arm and sh-shed him into silent
stepping, motioning toward an inner room. Bud tiptoed and
looked, saw Ed Collier fast asleep, swaddled in a blanket,
and grinned his approval.

He made sure that the sleep was genuine, also that the
blanket swaddling was efficient. Moreover, he discovered that
Mrs. Hanson had very prudently attached a thin wire to the
foot of the blanket cocoon, had passed the wire through a
knot hole in a cupboard set into the partition, and to a
sheep bell which she no doubt expected to ring upon
provocation--such as a prisoner struggling to release his
feet from a gray blanket fastened with many large safety
pins.

"He went right to sleep, the minute I'd fed him and tied him
snug," Mrs. Hanson murmured. "He was a sulky divvle and
wouldn't give a decent answer to me till he had his stomach
filled. From the way he waded into the ham and eggs, I guess
a square meal and him has been strangers for a long time."

Sleep and Ed Collier must have been strangers also, for Bud
attended the inquest of Lew Morris, visited afterwards with
Sheriff Cummings, who was full of reminiscence and wanted to
remind Bud of everything that had ever happened within his
knowledge during the time when they had been neighbors with
no more than forty miles or so between them. The sheriff
offered Bud a horse and saddle, which he promised to deliver
to the widow's corral after the citizens of Crater had gone
to bed. And while he did not say that it would be Ed's horse,
Bud guessed shrewdly that it would. After that, Bud carefully
slit the lining of his boots tucked money and checks into the
opening he had made, and did a very neat repair job.

All that while Ed Collier slept. When Bud returned for his
supper Ed had evidently just awakened and was lying on his
back biting his lip while he eyed the wire that ran from his
feet to the parting of a pair of calico curtains. He did not
see Bud, who was watching him through a crack in the door at
the head of the bed. Ed was plainly puzzled at the wire and a
bit resentful. He lifted his feet until the wire was well
slackened, held them poised for a minute and deliberately
brought them down hard on the floor.

The result was all that he could possibly have expected.
Somewhere was a vicious clang, the rattle of a tin pan and
the approaching outcry of a woman. Bud retreated to the
kitchen to view the devastation and discovered that a sheep
bell not too clean had been dislodged from a nail and dragged
through one pan of milk into another, where it was rolling on
its edge, stirring the cream that had risen. As Mrs. Hanson
rushed in from the back yard, Bud returned to the angry
captive's side.

"I've got him safe," he soothed Mrs. Hanson and her shotgun.
"He just had a nightmare. Perhaps that breakfast you fed him
was too hearty. I'll look after him now, Mrs. Hanson. We
won't be bothering you long, anyway."

Mrs. Hanson was talking to herself when she went to her milk
pans, and Bud released Eddie Collier, guessing how
humiliating it must be to be a young fellow pinned into a
blanket with safety pins, and knowing from certain
experiences of his own that humiliation is quite as apt to
breed trouble as any other emotion.

Eddie sat up on the edge of the bed and stared at Bud. His
eyes were like Marian's in shape and color, but their
expression was suspicion, defiance, and watchfulness blended
into one compelling stare that spelled Fear. Or so Bud read
it, having trapped animals of various grades ever since he
had caught the "HAWNTOAD", and seen that look many, many
times in the eyes of his catch.

"How'd you like to take a trip with me--as a kind of a
partner?" Bud began carelessly, pulling a splinter off the
homemade bed for which Mrs. Hanson would not thank him--and
beginning to whittle it to a sharp point aimlessly, as men
have a way of doing when their minds are at work upon a
problem which requires--much constructive thinking.

"Pardner in what?" Eddie countered sullenly.

"Pardner in what I am planning to do to make money. I can
make money, you know--and stay on friendly terms with the
sheriff, too. That's better than your bunch has been able to
do. I don't mind telling you--it's stale news, I guess--that
I cleaned up close to twelve thousand dollars in less than a
month, off a working capital of three thoroughbred horses and
about sixty dollars cash. And I'll add the knowledge that I
was playing against men that would slip a cold deck if they
played solitaire, they were so crooked. And if that doesn't
recommend me sufficiently, I'll say I'm a deputy sheriff of
Crater County, and Jesse Cummings knows my past. I want to
hire you to go with me and make some money, and I'll pay you
forty a month and five per cent bonus on my profits at the
end of two years. The first year may not show any profits,
but the second year will. How does it sound to you?"

He had been rolling a cigarette, and now he offered the
"makings" to Ed, who accepted them mechanically, his eyes
still staring hard at Bud. He glanced toward the door and the
one little window where wild cucumber vines were thickly
matted, and Bud interpreted his glance.

"Lew and another Catrocker--the one that tried to rope me
down in the Sinks--are dead, and three more are in jail.
Business won't be very brisk with the Catrock gang for a
while."

"If you're trying to bribe me into squealing on the rest,
you're a damn fool," said Eddie harshly. "I ain't the
squealing kind. You can lead me over to jail first. I'd
rather take my chances with the others." He was breathing
hard when he finished.

"Rather than work for me?" Bud sliced off the sharp point
which he had so carefully whittled, and began to sharpen a
new one. Eddie watched him fascinatedly.

"Rather than squeal on the bunch. There's no other reason in
God's world why you'd make me an offer like that. I ain't a
fool quite, if my head does run up to a peak."

Bud chewed his lip, whittled, and finally threw the splinter
away. When he turned toward Eddie his eyes were shiny.

"Kid, you're breaking your sister's heart, following this
trail. I'd like to see you give her a chance to speak your
name without blinking back tears. I'd like to see her smile
all the way from her dimples to her eyes when she thinks of
you. That's why I made the offer--that and because I think
you'd earn your wages."

Eddie looked at him, looked away, staring vacantly at the
wall. His eyelashes were blinking very fast, his lip began to
tremble. "You--I--I never wanted to--I ain't worth saving--
oh, hell! I never had a chance before--" He dropped sidewise
on the bed, buried his face in his arms and sobbed hoarsely,
like the boy he was.


CHAPTER NINETEEN:BUD RIDES THROUGH CATROCK AND LOSES MARIAN

"You'll have to show me the trail, pardner," said Bud when
they were making their way cautiously out of town by way of
the tin can suburbs. "I could figure out the direction all
right, and make it by morning; but seeing you grew up here,
I'll let you pilot."

"You'll have to tell me where you want to go, first," said
Eddie with a good deal of sullenness still in his voice.

"Little Lost." Without intending to do so, Bud put a good
deal of meaning in his voice.

Eddie did not say anything, but veered to the right, climbing
higher on the slope than Bud would have gone. "We can take
the high trail," he volunteered when they stopped to rest the
horses. "It takes up over the summit and down Burroback
Valley. It's longer, but the stage road edges along the Sinks
and--it might be rough going, after we get down a piece."

"How about the side-hill trail, through Catrock Peak?"

Eddie turned sharply. In the starlight Bud was watching him,
wondering what he was thinking.

"How'd you get next to any side-hill trail?" Eddie asked
after a minute. "You been over it?"

"I surely have. And I expect to go again, to-nigh! A young
fellow about your size is going to act a pilot, and get me to
Little Lost as quick as possibe. It'll be daylight at that."

"If you got another day coming, it better be before daylight
we get there," Eddie retorted glumly. H hesitated, turned his
horse and led the way down the slope, angling down away from
the well-travelled trail over the summit of Gold Gap.

That hesitation told Bud, without words, how tenuous was his
hold upon Eddie. He possessed sufficient imagination to know
that his own carefully discipline past, sheltered from actual
contact with evil, had given him little enough by which to
measure the soul of a youth like Eddie Collier.

How long Eddie had supped and slept with thieves and
murderers, Bud could only guess. From the little that Marian
had told him, Eddie's father had been one of the gang. At
least, she had plainly stated that he and Lew had been
partners--though Collier might have been ranching innocently
enough, and ignorant of Lew's real nature.

At all events, Eddie was a lad well schooled in inequity such
as the wilderness fosters in sturdy fashion. Wide spaces give
room for great virtues and great wickedness. Bud felt that he
was betting large odds on an unknown quantity. He was placing
himself literally in the hands of an acknowledged Catrocker,
because of the clean gaze of a pair of eyes, the fine curve
of the mouth.

For a long time they rode without speech. Eddie in the lead,
Bud following, alert to every little movement in the sage,
every little sound of the night. That was what we rather
naively call "second nature", habit born of Bud's growing
years amongst dangers which every pioneer family knows. Alert
he was, yet deeply dreaming; a tenuous dream too sweet to
come true, he told himself; a dream which he never dared to
dream until the cool stars, and the little night wind began
to whisper to him that Marian was free from the brute that
had owned her. He scarcely dared think of it yet. Shyly he
remembered how he had held her hand to give her courage while
they rode in darkness; her poor work-roughened little hand,
that had been old when he took it first, and had warmed in
his clasp. He remembered how he had pressed her hands
together when they parted--why, surely it was longer ago than
last night!--and had kissed them reverently as he would kiss
the fingers of a queen.

"Hell's too good for Lew Morris," he blurted unexpectedly,
the thought of Marian's bruised cheek coming like a blow.

"Want to go and tell him so? If you don't yuh better shut
up," Eddie whispered fierce warning. "You needn't think all
the Catrockers are dead or in jail. They's a few left and
they'd kill yuh quicker'n they'd take a drink."

Bud, embarrassed at the emotion behind his statement, rather
than ashamed of the remark itself, made no reply.

Much as Eddie desired silence, he himself pulled up and spoke
again when Bud had ridden close.

"I guess you come through the Gap," he whispered. "They's a
shorter way than that--Sis don't know it. It's one the bunch
uses a lot--if they catch us--I can save my hide by makin'
out I led you into a trap. You'll get yours, anyway. How much
sand you got?"

Bud leaned and spat into the darkness. "Not much. Maybe
enough to get through this scary short-cut of yours."

"You tell the truth when you say scary. It's so darn crazy to
go down Catrock Canyon maybe they won't think we'd tackle it.
And if they catch us, I'll say I led yuh in--and then--say,
I'm kinda bettin' on your luck. The way you cleaned up on
them horses, maybe luck'll stay with you. And I'll help all I
can, honest."

"Fine." Bud reached over and closed his fingers around
Eddie's thin, boyish arm. "You didn't tell me yet why the
other trail isn't good enough."

"I heard a sound in the Gap tunnel, that's why. You maybe
didn't know what it was. I know them echoes to a fare-ye-
well. Somebody's there--likely posted waiting." He was
motionless for a space, listening.

"Get off-easy. Take off your spurs." Eddie was down,
whispering eagerly to Bud. "There's a draft of air from the
blow-holes that comes this way. Sound comes outa there a lot
easier than it goes in. Sis and I found that out. Lead your
horse--if they jump us, give him a lick with the quirt and
hide in the brush."

Like Indians the two made their way down a rambling slope not
far from where Marian had guided Bud. To-night, however,
Eddie led the way to the right instead of the left, which
seemed to Bud a direction that would bring them down Oldman
creek, that dry river bed, and finally, perhaps, to the race
track.

Eddie never did explain just how he made his way through a
maze of water-cut pillars and heaps of sandstone so
bewildering that Bud afterward swore that in spite of the
fact that he was leading Sunfish, he frequently found himself
at that patient animal's tail, where they were doubled around
some freakish pillar. Frequently Eddie stopped and peered
past his horse to make sure that Bud had not lost the trail.
And finally, because he was no doubt worried over that
possibility, he knotted his rope to his saddle horn, brought
back a length that reached a full pace behind the tail of the
horse, and placed the end in Bud's hand.

"If yuh lose me you're a goner," he whispered. "So hang onto
that, no matter what comes. And don't yuh speak to me. This
is hell's corral and we're walking the top trail right now."
He made sure that Bud had the loop in his hand, then slipped
back past his horse and went on, walking more quickly.

Bud admitted afterwards that he was perfectly willing to be
led like a tame squirrel around the top of "hell's corral",
whatever that was. All that Bud saw was an intricate assembly
of those terrific pillars, whose height he did not know,
since he had no time to glance up and estimate the distance.
There was no method, no channel worn through in anything that
could be called a line. Whatever primeval torrent had
honeycombed the ledge had left it so before ever its waters
had formed a straight passage through. How Eddie knew the way
he could only conjecture, remembering how he himself had
ridden devious trails down on the Tomahawk range when he was
a boy. It rather hurt his pride to realize that never had he
seen anything approaching this madman's trail.

Without warning they plunged into darkness again. Darkness so
black that Bud knew they had entered another of those
mysterious, subterranean passages which had created such
names as abounded in the country: the "Sinks", "Little
Lost", and Sunk River itself which disappeared mysteriously.
He was beginning to wonder with a grim kind of humor if he
himself was not about to follow the example of the rivers and
disappear, when the soft padding of their footfalls blurred
under the whistling of wind. Fine particles of sand stung
him, a blast full against him halted him for a second. But
the rope pulled steadily and he went on, half-dragged into
starlight again.

They were in a canyon; deep, sombre in its night shadows, its
width made known to him by the strip of starlight overhead.
Directly before them, not more than a hundred yards, a light
shone through a window.

The rope slackened in his hands, and Eddie slipped back to
him shivering a little as Bud discovered when he laid a hand
on his arm.

"I guess I better tie yuh--but it won't be so yuh can't shoot.
Get on, and let me tie your feet into the stirrups. I--I
guess maybe we can get past, all right--I'll try--I want to
go and take that job you said you'd give me!"

"What's the matter, son? Is that where the Catrockers hang
out?" Bud swung into the saddle. "I trust you, kid. You're
her brother."

"I--I want to live like Sis wants me to. But I've got to tie
yuh, Mr. Birnie, and that looks-- But they'd k--you don't
know how they kill traitors. I saw one--" He leaned against
Bud's leg, one hand reaching up to the saddle horn and
gripping it in a passing frenzy." If you say so," he
whispered rapidly, "we'll sneak up and shoot 'em through the
window before they get a chance--"

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