Flying U Ranch
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B. M. Bower >> Flying U Ranch
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"Git busy with that bresh!" he yelled authoritatively, when a
glance showed him that the Happy Family was hesitating and eyeing
him uncertainly. "Git a fire goin' quick's yuh kin--I'll do the
rest. Down in Coconino county we used to have a way uh fixin'
sheepherders--"
"Aw, gwan! We don't want no torture business!" remonstrated Happy
Jack uneasily, edging away.
"Yuh don't, hey?" Big Medicine turned in the saddle wrathfully
and glared. When he had succeeded in catching Andy Green's eye he
winked, and that young man's face kindled understandingly. "Well,
now, you hain't runnin' this here show. Honest to grandma, I've
saw the time when a little foot-warmin' done a sheepherder a
whole lot uh good; and, it looks to me, by cripes, as if this
here feller needed a dose to gentle him down. You git the fire
started. That's all I want you t' do, Happy. Some uh you boys
help me rope him--like him and that other jasper over there done
to Andy. C'me on, Andy--it ain't goin' to take long!"
"You bet your sweet life I'll come on!" exclaimed Andy,
dismounting eagerly. "Let me take your rope, Weary. Too bad we
haven't got a branding iron--"
"Aw, we don't need no irons." Big Medicine was also on the ground
by then, and untying his rope. "Lemme git his shoes off once, and
I'll show yuh."
The bug-killer lifted his stick, snarling like a mongrel dog when
a stranger tries to drive it out of the house; hurled the stick
hysterically, as Big Medicine, rope in hand, advanced implacably,
and, with a squawk of horror, turned suddenly and ran. After him,
bellowing terribly, lunged Big Medicine, straight through the
band like a snowplow, leaving behind them a wide, open trail.
"Say, we kinda overplayed that bet, by gracious," Andy commented
to Weary, while he watched the chase. "That gazabo's scared
silly; let's try the other one. That torture talk works fine."
In his enthusiasm Andy remounted and was about to lead the way to
the other herder when Big Medicine returned puffing, the
bug-killer squirming in his grasp. "Tell him what yuh want him to
do, Weary," he panted, with some difficulty holding his limp
victim upright by a greasy coat-collar. "And if he don't fall
over himself doin' it, why--by cripes--we'll take off his shoes!"
Whereupon the bug-killer gave another howl and professed himself
eager to drive the sheep--well, what he said was that he would
drive them to that place which ladies dislike to hear mentioned,
if the Happy Family wanted him to.
"That's all right, then. Start 'em south, and don't quit till
somebody tells you to." Weary carefully let down the hammer of
his six-shooter and shoved it thankfully into his scabbard.
"Now, you don't want to pile it on quite so thick, next time,"
Irish admonished Big Medicine, when they turned away from
watching the bug-killer set his dogs to work by gestures and a
shouted word or two. "You like to have sent this one plumb
nutty."
"I betche Bud gets us all pinched for that," grumbled Happy Jack.
"Torturing folks is purty darned serious business. You might as
well shoot 'em up decent and be done with it."
"Haw-haw-haw-w-w!" Big Medicine ogled the group mirthfully.
"Nobody can't swear I done a thing, or said a thing. All I said
definite was that I'd take off his shoes. Any jury in the
country'd know that would be hull lot worse fer us than it would
fer him, by cripes. Haw-haw-haw-w-w!"
"Say, that's right; yuh didn't say nothin', ner do nothin'. By
golly, that was purty slick work, all right!" Slim forgot his
sore leg until he clapped his hand enthusiastically down upon the
place as comprehension of Bud's finesse dawned upon him. He
yelped, and the Happy Family laughed unfeelingly.
"You want to be careful and don't try to see through any jokes,
Slim, till that leg uh yours gets well," Irish bantered, and they
laughed the louder.
All this was mere byplay; a momentary swinging of their mood to
pleasantry, because they were a temperamentally cheerful lot, and
laughter came to them easily, as it always does to youth and
perfect mental and physical health. Their brief hilarity over
Slim's misfortune did not swerve them from their purpose, nor
soften the mood of them toward their adversaries. They were
unsmiling and unfriendly when they reached the man from Wyoming;
and, if they ever behaved like boys let out of school, they did
not show it then.
The Wyoming man was wiser than his fellow. He had been given
several minutes grace in which to meditate upon the unwisdom of
defiance; and he had seen the bug-killer change abruptly from
sullenness to terror, and afterward to abject obedience. He did
not know what they had said to him, or what they had done; but he
knew the bug-killer was a hard man to stampede. And he was one
man, and they were many; also he judged that, being human, and
this being the third offense of the Dot sheep under his care, it
would be extremely unsafe to trust that their indignation would
vent itself in mere words.
Therefore, when Weary told him to get the stragglers back through
the fence and up on the level, he stopped only long enough for a
good look at their faces. After that he called his dogs and
crawled through the fence.
It really did not require the entire Family to force those sheep
south that morning. But Weary's jaw was set, as was his heart,
upon a thorough cleaning of that particular bit of range; and,
since he did not definitely request any man to turn back, and
every fellow there was minded to see the thing to a finish, they
straggled out behind the trailing two thousand--and never had one
bunch of sheep so efficient a convoy.
After the first few miles the way grew rough. Sheep lagged, and
the blatting increased to an uproar. Old ewes and yearlings these
were mostly, and there were few to suffer more than hunger and
thirst, perhaps. So Weary was merciless, and drove them forward
without a stop until the first jumble of hills and deep-worn
gullies held them back from easy traveling.
But the Happy Family had not ridden those breaks for cattle, all
these years, to be hindered by rough going. Weary, when the band
stopped and huddled, blatting incessantly against a sheer wall of
sandstone and gravel, got the herders together and told them what
he wanted.
"You take 'em down that slope till you come to the second little
coulee. Don't go up the first one--that's a blind pocket. In the
second coulee, up a mile or so, there's a spring creek. You can
hold 'em there on water for half an hour. That's more than any of
yuh deserve. Haze 'em down there."
The herders did not know it, but that second coulee was the rude
gateway to an intricate system of high ridges and winding
waterways that would later be dry as a bleached bone--the real
beginning of the bad lands which border the Missouri river for
long, terrible miles. Down there, it is possible for two men to
reach places where they may converse quite easily across a chasm,
and yet be compelled to ride fifteen or twenty miles, perhaps, in
order to shake hands. Yet, even in that scrap-heap of Nature
there are ways of passing deep into the heart of the upheaval.
The Happy Family knew those ways as they knew the most
complicated figures of the quadrilles they danced so
lightfootedly with the girls of the Bear Paw country. When they
forced the sheep and their herders out of the coulee Weary had
indicated he sent Irish and Pink ahead to point the way, and he
told them to head for the Wash Bowl; which they did with
praiseworthy zeal and scant pity for the sheep.
When at last, after a slow, heartbreaking climb up a long, bare
ridge, Pink and Irish paused upon the brow of a slope and let the
trail-weary band spill itself reluctantly down the steep slope
beyond, the sun stood high in the blue above them and their
stomachs clamored for food; by which signs they knew that it must
be near noon.
When the last sheep had passed, blatting discordantly, down the
bluff, Weary halted the sweating herders for a parting
admonition.
"We don't aim to deal you any more misery, for a while, if you
stay where you're at. You're only working for a living, like the
rest of us--but I must say I don't admire your trade none.
Anyway, I'll send some of your bunch down here with grub and
beds. This is good enough range for sheep. You keep away from the
Flying U and nobody'll bother you. Over there in them trees," he
added, pointing a gloved finger toward a little grove on the far
side of the basin, "you'll find a cabin, and water. And, farther
down the river there's pretty good grass, in the little bottoms.
Now, git."
The herders looked as if they would enjoy murdering them all, but
they did not say a word. With their dogs at heel they scrambled
down the bluff in the wake of their sheep, and the Happy Family,
rolling cigarettes while they watched them depart, told one
another that this settled that bunch; they wouldn't bed down in
the Flying U door-yard that night, anyway.
CHAPTER XI. Weary Unburdens
Hungry with the sharp, gnawing hunger of healthy stomachs
accustomed to regular and generous feeding; tired with the
weariness of healthy muscles pushed past their accustomed limit
of action; and hot with the unaccustomed heat of a blazing day
shunted unaccountably into the midst of soft spring weather, the
Happy Family rode out of the embrace of the last barren coulee
and up on the wide level where the breeze swept gratefully up
from the west, and where every day brought with it a deeper tinge
of green into its grassy carpet.
Only for this harassment of the Dot sheep, the roundup wagons
would be loaded and ready to rattle abroad over the land. Meadow
larks and curlews and little, pert-eyed ground sparrows called
out to them that roundup time was come. They passed a bunch of
feeding Flying U cattle, and flat-ribbed, bandy-legged calves
galloped in brief panic to their mothers and from the sanctuary
of grass-filled paunches watched the riders with wide,
inquisitive eyes.
"We ought to be starting out, by now," Weary observed a bit
gloomily to Andy and Pink, who rode upon either side of him. "The
calf crop is going to be good, if this weather holds on another
two weeks or so. But--" he waved his cigarette disgustedly
"--that darned Dot outfit would be all over the place, if we
pulled out on roundup and left 'em the run of things." He smoked
moodily for a minute. "My religion has changed a lot in the last
few days," he observed whimsically. "My idea of hell is a place
where there ain't anything but sheep and sheepherders; and
cowpunchers have got to spend thousands uh years right in the
middle of the corrals."
"If that's the case, I'm going to quit cussing, and say my
prayers every night," Andy Green asserted emphatically.
"What worries me," Weary confided, obeying the impulse to talk
over his troubles with those who sympathized, "is how I'm going
to keep the work going along like it ought to, and at the same
time keep them Dot sheep outa the house. Dunk's wise, all right.
He knows enough about the cow business to know we ye got to get
out on the range pretty quick, now. And he's so mean that every
day or every half day he can feed his sheep on Flying U grass, he
calls that much to the good. And he knows we won't go to opening
up any real gun-fights if we can get out of it; he counts on our
faunching around and kicking up a lot of dust, maybe--but we
won't do anything like what he'd do, in our places. He knows the
Old Man and Chip are gone, and he knows we've just naturally got
to sit back and swallow our tongues because we haven't any
authority. Mamma! It comes pretty tough, when a low-down skunk
like that just banks on your doing the square thing. He wouldn't
do it, but he knows we will; and so he takes advantage of white
men and gets the best of 'em. And if we should happen to break
out and do something, he knows the herders would be the ones to
get it in the neck; and he'd wait till the dust settled, and bob
up with the sheriff--" He waved his hand again with a hopeless
gesture. "It may not look that way on the face of it," he added
gloomily, "but Dunk has got us right where he wants us. From the
way they've been letting sheep on our land, time and time again,
I'd gamble he's just trying to make us so mad we'll break out.
He's got it in for the whole outfit, from the Old Man and the
Little Doctor down to Slim. If any of us boys got into trouble,
the Old Man would spend his last cent to clear us; and Dunk knows
that just as well as he knows the way from the house to the
stable. He'd see to it that it would just about take the Old
Man's last cent, too. And he's using these Dot sheep like you'd
use a red flag on a bull, to make us so crazy mad we'll kill off
somebody.
"That's why," he said to them all when he saw that they had
ridden up close that they might hear what he was saying, "I've
been hollering so loud for the meek-and-mild stunt. When I
slapped him on the jaw, and he stood there and took it, I saw his
game. He had a witness to swear I hit him and he didn't hit back.
And when I saw them Dots in our field again, I knew, just as well
as if Dunk had told me, that he was kinda hoping we'd kill a
herder or two so he could cinch us good and plenty. I don't say,"
he qualified with a rueful grin, "that Dunk went into the sheep
business just to get r-re-venge, as they say in shows. But if he
can make money running sheep--and he can, all right, because
there's more money in them right now than there is in cattle--and
at the same time get a good whack at the Flying U, he's the lad
that will sure make a running jump at the chance." He spat upon
the burnt end of his cigarette stub from force of the habit that
fear of range fires had built, and cast it petulantly from him;
as if he would like to have been able to throw Dunk and his sheep
problem as easily out of his path.
"So I wish you boys would hang onto yourselves when you hear a
sheep blatting under your window," he summed up his unburdening
whimsically. "As Bud said this morning, you can't hang a man for
telling a sheepherder you'll take off his shoes. And they can't
send us over the road for moving that band of sheep onto new
range to-day. Last night you all were kinda disorderly, maybe,
but you didn't hurt anybody, or destroy any property. You see
what I mean. Our only show is to stop with our toes on the right
side of the dead line."
"If Andy, here, would jest git his think-wheels greased and going
good," Big Medicine suggested loudly, "he ought to frame up
something that would put them Dots on the run permanent. I d'no,
by cripes, why it is a feller can always think uh lies and joshes
by the dozens, and put 'em over O. K. when there ain't nothing to
be made out of it except hard feelin's; and then when a deal like
this here sheep deal comes up, he's got about as many idees, by
cripes, as that there line-back calf over there. Honest to
grandma, Andy makes me feel kinda faint. Only time he did have a
chanc't, he let them--" It occurred to Big Medicine at that point
that perhaps his remarks might be construed by the object of them
as being offensively personal. He turned his head and grinned
good-naturedly in Andy's direction, and refrained from finishing
what he was going to say. "I sure do like them wind- flowers
scattered all over the ground," he observed with such deliberate
and ostentatious irrelevance that the Happy Family laughed, even
to Andy Green, who had at first been inclined toward anger.
"Everything," declared Andy in the tone of a paid instructor,
"has its proper time and place, boys; I've told you that before.
For instance, I wouldn't try to kill a skunk by talking it to
death; and I wouldn't be hopeful of putting the run on this Dunk
person by telling him ghost stories. As to ideas--I'm plumb full
of them. But they're all about grub, just right at present."
That started Slim and Happy Jack to complaining because no one
had had sense enough to go back after some lunch before taking
that long trail south; the longer because it was a slow one, with
sheep to set the pace. And by the time they had presented their
arguments against the Happy Family's having enough brains to last
them overnight, and the Happy Family had indignantly pointed out
just where the mental deficiency was most noticeable, they were
upon that last, broad stretch of "bench" land beyond which lay
Flying U coulee and Patsy and dinner; a belated dinner, to be
sure, but for that the more welcome.
And when they reached the point where they could look away to the
very rim of the coulee, they saw sheep--sheep to the skyline,
feeding scattered and at ease, making the prairie look, in the
distance, as if it were covered with a thin growth of gray
sage-brush. Four herders moved slowly upon the outskirts, and the
dogs were little, scurrying, black dots which stopped
occasionally to wait thankfully until the master-minds again
urged them to endeavor.
The Happy Family drew up and stared in silence.
"Do I see sheep?" Pink inquired plaintively at last. "Tell me,
somebody."
"It's that bunch you fellows tackled last night," said Weary
miserably. "I ought to have had sense enough to leave somebody on
the ranch to look out for this."
"They've got their nerve," stated Irish, "after the deal they got
last night. I'd have bet good money that you couldn't drag them
herders across Flying U coulee with a log chain."
"Say, by golly, do we have to drive this here bunch anywheres
before we git anything to eat?" Slim wanted to know
distressfully.
Weary considered briefly. "No, I guess we'll pass 'em up for the
present. An hour or so won't make much difference in the long
run, and our horses are about all in, right now--"
"So'm I, by cripes!" Big Medicine attested, grinning mirthlessly.
"This here sheep business is plumb wearin' on a man. 'Specially,"
he added with a fretful note, "when you've got to handle 'em
gentle. The things I'd like to do to them Dots is all ruled outa
the game, seems like. Honest to grandma, a little gore would look
better to me right now than a Dutch picnic before the foam's all
blowed off the refreshments. Lemme kill off jest one herder,
Weary?" he pleaded. "The one that took a shot at me las' night.
Purty, please!"
"If you killed one," Weary told him glumly. "you might as well
make a clean sweep and take in the whole bunch."
"Well, I won't charge nothin' extra fer that, either," Bud
assured him generously. "I'm willin' to throw in the other three
--and the dawgs, too, by cripes!" He goggled the Happy Family
quizzically. "Nobody can't say there's anything small about me.
Why, down in the Coconino country they used to set half a dozen
greasers diggin' graves, by cripes, soon as I started in to argy
with a man. It was a safe bet they'd need three or four, anyways,
if old Bud cut loose oncet. Sheepherders? Why, they jest
natcherly couldn't keep enough on hand, securely, to run their
sheep. They used to order sheepherders like they did woolsacks,
by cripes! You could always tell when I was in the country, by
the number uh extra herders them sheep outfits always kep' in
reserve. Honest to grandma, I've knowed two or three outfits to
club together and ship in a carload at a time, when they heard I
was headed their way. And so when it comes to killin' off four,
why that ain't skurcely enough to make it worth m'while to dirty
up m'gun!"
"Aw, I betche yuh never killed a man in your life!" Happy Jack
grumbled in his characteristic tone of disparagement; but such
was his respect for Big Medicine's prowess that he took care not
to speak loud enough to be overheard by that modest gentleman,
who continued with certain fearsome details of alleged murderous
exploits of his own, down in Coconino County, Arizona.
But as they passed the detested animals, thankful that the trail
permitted them to ride by at a distance sufficient to blur the
most unsavory details, even Big Medicine gave over his deliberate
boastings and relapsed into silence.
He had begun his fantastic vauntings from an instinctive impulse
to leaven with humor a situation which, at the moment, could not
be bettered. Just as they had, when came the news of the Old
Man's dire plight, sought to push the tragedy of it into the
background and cling to their creed of optimism, they had avoided
openly facing the sheep complication squarely with mutual
admissions of all it might mean to the Flying U.
Until Weary had unburdened his heart of worry on the ride home
that day, they had not said much about it, beyond a general
vilification of the sheep industry as a whole, of Dunk as the
chief of the encroaching Dots, and of the herders personally.
But there were times when they could not well avoid thinking
rather deeply upon the subject, even if they did refuse to put
their forebodings into speech. They were not children; neither
were they to any degree lacking in intelligence. Swearing, about
herders and at them, was all very well; bluffing, threatening,
pummeling even with willing fists, tearing down tents and binding
men with ropes might serve to relieve the emotions upon occasion.
But there was the grim economic problem which faced squarely the
Flying U as a "cow outfit"--the problem of range and water; the
Happy Family did not call it by name, but they realized to the
full what it meant to the Old Man to have sheep just over his
boundary line always. They realized, too, what it meant to have
the Old Man absent at this time--worse, to have him lying in a
hospital, likely to die at any moment; what it meant to have the
whole responsibility shifted to their shoulders, willing though
they might be to bear the burden; what it meant to have the
general of an army gone when the enemy was approaching in
overwhelming numbers.
Pink, when they were descending the first slope of the bluff
which was the southern rim of Flying U coulee, turned and glared
vindictively back at the wavering, gray blanket out there to the
west. When he faced to the front his face had the look it wore
when he was fighting.
"So help me, Josephine!" he gritted desperately, "we've got to
clean the range of them Dots before the Old Man comes back, or--"
He snapped his jaws shut viciously.
Weary turned haggard eyes toward him.
"How?" he asked simply. And Pink had no answer for him.
CHAPTER XII. Two of a Kind
Patsy, staunch old partisan that he was, placed before them much
food which he had tried his best to keep hot without burning
everything to a crisp, and while they ate with ravenous haste he
told, with German epithets and a trembling lower jaw, of his
troubles that day.
"Dem sheeps, dey coom by der leetle pasture," he lamented while
he poured coffee muddy from long boiling. "Looks like dey know so
soon you ride away, und dey cooms cheeky as you pleece, und eats
der grass und crawls under der fence and leafs der vool sthicking
by der vires. I goes out mit a club, py cosh, und der sheeps
chust looks und valks by some better place alreatty, und I throw
rocks and yells till mine neck iss sore.
"Und' dose herders, dey sets dem by der rock and laugh till I
felt like I could kill der whole punch, by cosh! Und von yells,
'Hey, dutchy, pring me some pie, alreatty!' Und he laughs some
more pecause der sheeps dey don't go avay; dey chust run around
und eat more grass and baa-aa!" He turned and went heavily back
to the greasy range with the depleted coffee pot, lifted the lid
of a kettle and looked in upon the contents with a purely
mechanical glance; gave a perfunctory prod or two with a long-
handled fork, and came back to stand uneasily behind Weary.
"If you poys are goin' to shtand fer dot," he began querulously,
"Py cosh I von't! Py myself I vill go and tell dot Dunk W'ittaker
vot lowdown skunk I t'ink he iss. Sheep's vool shtickin' by der
fences efferwhere on der ranch, py cosh! Dot vould sure kill der
Old Man quick if he see it. Shtinkin' off sheeps py our noses all
der time, till I can't eat no more mit der shmell of dem. Neffer
pefore did I see vool on der Flying U fences, py cosh, und sheeps
baa-aain' in der coulee!"
Never had they seen Patsy take so to heart a matter of mere
business importance. They did not say much to him; there was not
much that they could say. They ate their fill and went out
disconsolately to discuss the thing among themselves, away from
Patsy's throaty complainings. They hated it as badly as did he;
with Weary's urgent plea for no violence holding them in leash,
they hated it more, if that were possible.
The Native Son tilted his head unobtrusively stableward when he
caught Andy's eye, and as unobtrusively wandered away from the
group. Andy stopped long enough to roll and light a cigarette and
then strolled after him with apparent aimlessness, secretly
curious over the summons. He found Miguel in the stable waiting
for him, and Miguel led the way, rope in hand across the corral
and into the little pasture where fed a horse he meant to ride.
He did not say anything until he had turned to close the gate,
and to make sure that they were alone and that their departure
had not carried to the Happy Family any betraying air of
significance.
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